Weigh in Sunday

I am happy to say that I reached the 70 pounds lost goal. I was thrilled when I went to weigh in this morning. I have to say its been a good journey. I am glad I am on the downhill side. I have 30 more pounds to reach my final goal of losing 100 pounds. I would say that I will reach my goal by March of 2009. I hope to encourage some people with my success. I know how hard it is to lose weight. I feel great and have lots of energy and no more stomach troubles.

Black Friday

Thanksgiving day was great. We had great food and a good time with our family. We went to my mother in law's house, my mom joined us as well. We ate, sat around talking and enjoyed each other.
This morning we went to Circuit City and got our new phones from the Verizon store inside the store. We had the best salesmen and he got us in and out with 3 new phones in no time at all. I was tempted to buy a 32 inch flat panel HD Samsung TV....but, it was only a thought. My husband went to work for a couple of hours for basketball practice, my oldest son went to the L. A. auto show, and my youngest is next door playing poker with the neighbor kids. I will pick up the house some, do some laundry and get some sewing in.

My house is flooding...

Well only part of my den is flooded. We had this problem when we had the "el nino" rain about 4 years ago. The problem is that the den used to be a garage a million years ago and the people that owned the house before us added so much to the house that the garage became living space. I love the 3400 square feet of our house all on one floor the best, but..... The den floods when we get really heavy rains. My husband put a sump pump out there a few years ago, and it has been working great. Today however, while I was out and only the boys were home, nobody bothered to check on the pump, in case the gutters were clogged with leaves and such. So the pump couldn't pump fast enough and the den flooded. So now my plans for tonight have changed, I was going to go to a basketball game, but since I can trust none of my children to check on the pump I will stay and do it myself. My dear husband has to work late tonight, so the burden does not fall on him. His turn was during the rain last night. I have spent the last hour and a half, sucking out the water with our carpet cleaner. I have to say it works quite well at sucking water from the rug. I filled the dirty water container on it already once, dumped it out then filled about a quarter more of it. I am tired of the noise and will go back later and vacuum some more. Now it is dinner time.

Wow, it's early

I am waiting for my eldest to get ready for lacrosse practice. The alarm rang at 4:40 this morning. It is very early... So I figured this would be a good time to enter a blog thing. A blog entry, yeah that is what it's called. He goes to high school 20 miles(each way) from our house, so we have several car pools going. I have to drive him to the local Ralph's grocery store so he join his carpool. In January, they will be leaving for practice by 5:20 a.m. everyday. I hope he decides that he can drive himself all the way to school by then. He does have his license and drives, but this early in the morning, I am a little uneasy. I have to learn to let him do it for himself. Got to go now....more later.

Monday Night

Today is the worst day for work. We only have today, Tuesday and half a day on Wednesday. The kids are crazy for the great Thanksgiving vacation. Normally we do a "feast". All of the second grade classes send out notices to the parents asking them to bring in a dish from their culture or a favorite dish of the students' and we lay out about 40 feet worth of tables and have ourselves a spread. At first, it seems there will not be enough food, but it all comes out like crazy once the feast gets started. We have so much food that we feed all 100 kids, the assorted parents that stay, the younger siblings, all the second grade teachers AND all the other teachers that come by to "look". We even have left over food. Unfortunately, this year we have been extra busy, and we have two new second grade magnet teachers, we did not want to overwhelm them. We like them and we want them to stay.... But the gig is on for next year. We have already discussed it, we will also include the 3rd grade magnet classes. We are all in the same general area, class wise. For this year we will just bring in special cookies for desert after lunch. Maybe something turkey or cornucopia shaped. The kids will love the extra sugar...And the best part is that they get to go home early. YEAH!!!

Purse Decision

I was at the mall yesterday and there happens to be a new Coach store that opened. I checked out the two purses that I was debating and found that the aubergine one I really wanted is not so nice in person. So the debate has ended and I will be getting the black one that I had been pondering.

Weigh in ...

I was quite happy when I went to my meeting this morning. I am down another 3 pounds for a grand total of 68.6 pounds. Only 31.4 more to go. I realized that the weeks that I eat all my points, I seem to do better at losing the weight. I was sort of sad before my meeting because I felt I ate a lot last week. What I did do was eat my maximum points for almost everyday of the week. I also ate more vegetables this last week. I guess my body does not like to starve. I asked my husband about this and he said our bodies don't know when our next meal will be if we don't feed it, so it goes into conservation mode. So this week I will try to eat all my points everyday.

I still have not decided about the purse. I am now leaning towards the black one....or maybe the aubergine one. What a lame thing to be debating. I will just decide. There are more important things to worry about than a new purse. Like going to the mall to buy new undergarments because the ones I have now are too big and I look like they have to be slung up with a crane. I will post later about the search for new bras.

Baseball is over...

Today was #2 son's last fall ball game. He did well, he pitched a couple of innings, batted some and walked once. It's sort of sad. We have been going for about 2 months every Saturday and Sunday spending a couple of hours at the park with some good baseball. I will miss it. Now he will be starting practice at school for basketball.
Number 1 son is playing Lacrosse and since it is out of season, he is on a club team. The beauty of this club team is that it is made up only of the kids from his school and they all are on the regular school team. So they get to work together all year long. Last Sunday we spent a beautiful day in the town of Thousand Oaks for some good lacrosse action. He is one of the goalies on the varsity team. He is getting good at blocking those shots. I am proud of them both.

Weigh in Sunday

I was finally able to weigh in at our meeting. It has been a whole 2 weeks. That is torture. So I am down another 3 pounds. I am happy, although the weight loss is slowing down a bit. I am still losing. I only have 34.4 pounds to go!! Yeah!!

Coach Purse Debate

I am having a dilemma, I am going to reward myself for my weight loss with a new purse. I don't ever normally carry a real purse, I carry my totes for my daily purse needs. But, as an adult, I can't take a tote with roses and skulls to a sit down, dress up dinner. I have to do this at least 3 times a year with my husbands work. Then there are his staff dinners, that are a little bit more than tote material. I make my own totes so I really don't need a purse. I have been working my behind off (literally) at this weight riddance, and I would like a non-food reward. I have two that I am interested in. The first on is the black one, it's called the Soho, the second one that I really like, well I really like them both, but both is not an option, is the Zoe in aubergine color (burgundy for the rest of us). They are both almost exactly the same size. The black one is considerably less expensive. But I really love the burgundy one. I can't decide!! Cast your vote and let me know which you prefer. Leave me a comment.

Finally a picture...

So I finally added a picture to my blog of myself. For so long I was so heavy that all the pictures of me were awful. This year when they took the pictures of the kids, they also take pictures of the teachers for our ID card and such. this year my picture came out pretty well. I got the pictures back and did not recognize the person in the picture. I just about cried... I know lame, huh? I have not looked decent in ages. The big picture is of me and the preschool teacher on the last day of school this year in June 2008. The other picture is of me on picture day September 2007. I have to say I do look different.

Dinner and Dentists

I have a huge fear of dentist. I used to wait until the very last minute, when my teeth were about to fall out of my head to go see one. I finally met one that I love, Dr. Chris. He is awesome, we talk about all sorts of things. He is kind (as far as torture of the gums goes), patient and above all a very good dentist especially for my children. It it however impossible to get an appointment with him. He is Mr. popularity. He is worth the wait, he got me to floss on a daily basis. Now I don't have bleeding gum attacks every time he works on me. Enough grossness.

I put on some chicken in the crock for dinner tomorrow, it was great the last time I made it and every one loved it, even the neighbor boy.

I am working on some new totes for the holiday boutique at my son's school. Hope to get the last 10 I have cut out finished.

New Week

Today I slept in. WOOOHOOO!! There was no Weight Watchers meeting today because they had a corporate meeting. I got up, made breakfast for the family and went to the store. I am attempting the roast in the crock pot again as I type. I have it on for 10 hours on low this time. I am sure it will turn out great.
I am sure everyone has heard that Linen and Things is going out of business, well we went shopping there this morning and most of the items were only 20% off. I bought some towels, items for the new bathroom, two travel mugs for coffee, an ice bucket, a meat thermometer, and a new comforter set for our huge California king sized bed. I was not impressed with the sale.
Today I am going to get some sewing done because this Wednesday is the boutique at my younger son's school and I always get a table to sell my wares. I don't make much money, but it keeps me in fabric and yarn. hehehe.

Bad Crock Pot Meal!

What's up with that!!! Have you ever heard of a bad meal in the crock pot? Well I made one today. I tried to take a shortcut to making my pulled beef sandwich meat, but sadly, ended up with a 3 pound piece of boiled leather. I did the usual with the condiments, 1 package of onion soup mix, one cup ketchup, one half cup brown sugar and one quarter cup of apple cider vinegar. EXCEPT that instead of 8 hours on low, I used 4 hours on high. So there you have it.... I can't even cut it up for my dogs its so tough. I wasted that nice pot roast for nothing. Well I guess you live and learn.
Moral of this story..... Plan ahead and don't rush the pot roast.

Dishwasher Death & Halloween

So my entire childhood we had no mechanical dishwasher at my parents house.  When I got married, I became the dishwasher.  This continued for the first 12 years of our marriage.  We move into our new house almost 5 years ago and FINALLY the house has a dishwasher.  The amazement never ceased, what fun it was to load dirty dishes into this lovely door in my cabinets, put in a magic soap pack and low and behold clean dishes!  I was ecstatically happy in the kitchen for the last few years because i did not have to wash a sink-full of dirty dishes.   That happiness came to a screeching halt last Friday, on Halloween to be exact.  My husband loaded the last of the stray glasses from the night before and loaded the magic soap pack and started the washer.   I walked into the kitchen to fix my daily cup of coffee(2 teaspoons of sugar, 3 tablespoons of fat free half and half)  and what do I smell?   The stench of burning stuff mechanical insides.  I opened the door to the washer and there was not a drop of water coming out of the thing.  So I turned it off before it burned my house down and left for work.  

I called my husband and told him the bad news and he could not believe it.  He told me to leave it off and he would check it after work.  

We were having a Halloween party that night and when I got home from work, I had to take out all the disgusting dishes that had not only spent the entire day inside, they had spent the entire night too.  Well needless to say they were ripe!  I started with the glasses and the other top shelf stuff and proceeded to hand wash them.  I carefully laid them out on my counter on a bath towel.  I don't even own a dish drainer! Well I finally finished all the rest of the dishes started on the pasta with meatballs, thank God for Smart and Final meatballs.  I made the garlic bread from scratch, well I melted the butter with garlic, spread it on the rolls, added Parmesan cheese and broiled them to toasty goodness.   My friend brought bagged Caesar salad, my other friend got the sodas.  All the teenagers had a great time, the adults had a great time and all was well with Halloween.

I finally called the home warranty company this afternoon and the nice lady helped me and I should be getting a call from the contractor tomorrow.  I am tired of dishpan hands and wet aprons.  

P.S.  these are NOT my dishes, but I have been feeling like they are!

Weigh in

I went to my awesome meeting and weighed in and I am down another pound. Total to date is 62.8 pounds, since April 27, 2008. I feel great.

Also today I sold my first apron on my etsy site. So I had a great day!