coolbird30

*TWAS THE NIGHT OF THANKSGIVING,
 BUT I JUST COULDN’T SLEEP.
 I TRIED COUNTING BACKWARDS,
 I TRIED COUNTING SHEEP.***
 
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*THE LEFTOVERS BECKONED -
 THE DARK MEAT AND WHITE,
 BUT I FOUGHT THE TEMPTATION
 WITH ALL OF MY MIGHT.***
 
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*TOSSING AND TURNING WITH ANTICIPATION,
 THE THOUGHT OF A SNACK BECAME INFATUATION.
 SO, I RACED TO THE KITCHEN, FLUNG OPEN THE DOOR,
 AND GAZED AT THE FRIDGE, FULL OF GOODIES GALORE.
 GOBBLED UP TURKEY AND BUTTERED POTATOES,
 PICKLES AND CARROTS, BEANS AND TOMATOES.***
 
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*I FELT MYSELF SWELLING SO PLUMP AND SO ROUND,
 ’TIL ALL OF A SUDDEN, I ROSE OFF THE GROUND.
 I CRASHED THROUGH THE CEILING, FLOATING INTO THE SKY,
 WITH A MOUTHFUL OF PUDDING AND A HANDFUL OF PIE.
 BUT, I MANAGED TO YELL AS I SOARED PAST THE TREES….
 HAPPY EATING TO ALL - PASS THE CRANBERRIES, PLEASE.***
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*MAY YOUR STUFFING BE TASTY,
 MAY YOUR TURKEY BE PLUMP.
 MAY YOUR POTATOES ‘N GRAVY HAVE NARY A LUMP.
 MAY YOUR YAMS BE DELICIOUS.
 MAY YOUR PIES TAKE THE PRIZE,
 MAY YOUR THANKSGIVING DINNER STAY OFF OF YOUR THIGHS!!***
 
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*HAPPY   THANKSGIVING   TO  ALL*

Well, I moved.  We are now on the east coast, it’s raining today, but we have not yet had any snow.  I still don’t have a job yet.. :(((  And I, of course, have gained 6 pounds.  Well I have no one to blame on that except me.  I am still under 200, so that, at least, is good news.   I have no more junkfood in the house and I told Chris today to NOT let me buy anymore!  No more!!  I may not follow my Plan D that I was following earlier, but I’m going to follow it as best as I can and eat as healthy and non processed as possible.  One of the regular grocery stores here actually carries Ezekial bread and Odwalla bars, so I’m very happy about that!  There is no Sprout’s so a lot of things I am not being able to find, and it’s quite frustrating.  We do have a Whole Foods a couple of towns over, but it’s not anywhere near as good as Sprout’s, and it’s really quite expensive. 

I haven’t figured out my plan yet for exercise, but Nancy said to me last night, “At least start eating better again.  Keep track and keep accountable in the forums”  So that’s what I’m going to do!  I have a new buddy-up buddy for the next two weeks, so Jenn, you gotta help keep me on the straight and narrow here, k?  :D  

I have a lady coming over today to talk to me about becoming an Avon Representative.  I’ve always liked their products, and figured it can be a nice way to help bring in some extra money, too….   maybe help me meet some people around here.

News of my dad…   he told me yesterday that his doc wants him to go in for surgery.  Ideally they want to try and stretch out his achilles tendon..  if they can’t stretch it, then they will have to remove his leg-just below his knee.  It makes me sad for him, because I know it’s upsetting him, but all I can think is, if he took better care of himself, kept his diabetes under control, stopped smoking..  maybe it wouldn’t have gotten quite this  bad.  But I don’t criticize him.  I love him with all my heart, and he’s the only parent I have left, and Mikayla’s only grandparent.  I just want him as well as he can be.  Doc wanted him in for the surgery yesterday, but dad asked if he could at least have the holiday with us next week.  I asked him how long he’d be in the hospital..  worst case scenario is 3 months, best case is 3 weeks with home health aides…  since Christmas is just around the corner, I’m really hoping for the 3 weeks, but realistically…  it will probably be the 3 months.  :( 

Mikayla handled the move better than her worry-wort father, who has been having psychological stress issue almost since we got here.  Of course it doesn’t help that I don’t have a job yet either.   Mikayla has decided to try and start walking.  She will stand up by herself in the middle of the room, not holding on to anything.  Sometimes she will take a step from there, other times she will just fall back down, then crawl to something to stand up on, then take some steps from there.  She has taken roughly about 5 steps at a time on her own.  She’s probably going to be there by Turkey day.. that’s my prediction!

Ok, well this turned out to be a long blog..  I had been waiting to write it till I had a job.. but alas…  that hasn’t happened.  So I figured I will just write it and get it done, then next time it won’t have to be as long!   Happy Friday everyone!!

I have this friend.  This friend has told me many times that I am one of the most important people in her life, because I can understand this battle of weight loss, the loss of a mother/parent, parenthood in general….  we seemed to have so much in common…  but now, I find that almost everytime I ask her a question about many situations, that this friend feels the need to lie to me.   This friend thinks I hold myself as superior to her - I certainly don’t.  She thinks I’m jumping down her throat, I’m not.  She is constantly mistaking my excitement for her as jumping on her….  I’m not.  Right now I find that it’s very hard to be her friend.  I try to face her, tell her straight out how I feel, how I want to help… and it falls on deaf ears.  :(     I don’t know how much longer I can carry on with this friendship as it is.  Maybe this is one of those friendships that is only supposed to be for a season, and maybe that season is passing.   This friend makes me not want to read emails sometimes, because I just cringe at what might be in it.  Today she asked for a prayer request…  and I just couldn’t lie to her and tell her that I would pray that for her…  because I know deep in my heart it is not what she should be doing, even though she disagrees…  I almost don’t want to even come on BS because I’m afraid of what lie her blog will tell, or her posts in the forums…   I read someone make a comment one time, I think on her blog, but I can’t remember…  saying that this person is two faced.  I thought that was rather harsh…  but I’m starting to see what that person meant.  I’m very sad about this, but am mature enough to understand that not all friendships are meant to last for a lifetime.  I’m sure when she sees this blog it will upset her, I’m sorry.  There just isn’t anything more I can really say.  We don’t need to ‘talk’, we just need to leave it as it is.   

I don’t really know if any of this really makes much sense, but I guess it’s ok if it doesn’t.  This is just something that I needed to say.  If you plan on commenting and being negative, please don’t bother…  this is my blog, my thoughts, my feelings, my heart. 

It’s so very hard, this journey that we are all on.  I have to thank God so much for bringing me to BS, for giving me my Wildcats and my tribe, because if it weren’t for all aspects of these 3, I would surely have given up on this journey long ago.  I have been on BS sine Jan 2008.  Now, granted, I got pregnant in Feb so was sidetracked for a bit, but I’ve been fully doing this since Jan of this year and I’ve only lost 10 pounds!  10 pounds in nearly 9 months!!  That’s not as great as I would like.  Why am I not seeing results?  I have no idea!!  I workout at minimun 5 days a week, plus shopping/walking on the weekends.  I have given up processed foods, sugar, and flour…  so why am I still not seeing the weight come off?  I really wish I knew!  Guess after our big move I’ll have to speak to a doctor about it.  Maybe my thyroid is messed up too.  It just doesn’t make any sense…..

Well yesterday at work our building was evacuated due to a serious deisel fuel leak.  Apparently all our electric/ac/heating is run by deisel, and the tank leaked right down through the building, through the pipes and out onto the upper parking deck.  The fumes started coming into all the offices and hazmat was called.  We had to go out down the stairs and go across the street.  The fireman said there is no way we can go back in the building, but we were ok to go into the parking garages under the building to get our cars…  so we all scooted off to get our cars.  Last night my bossman called and said that the fire dept had cleared the building…  oh well..  back to work!!  

Hope everyone has a great day!!

Believe it or not, he did actually have a paper for us to sign, however even he admitted it was not a binding contract.  It is basically like a little letter that he wrote outlining how he loved my mom “very, very much” (yeah, right, whatever) and then going on to ‘remind’ us of specific things he and mom paid for, such as in my brothers case, repairs to a house owned by my mom that he and his then wife caused and for me the crap car that I traded in months ago and the cell phones that mom got for us… 

He then also went on in the letter saying how he had to cash out part of his IRA to pay for moms care (she was on medicaid, so he wasn’t paying, unless he let the medicaid lapse)and even if he did have to do that..  well guess what idiot - you’re her husband, that’s what you’re supposed to do!!  you’re supposed to take care of your wife!!!  and not complain about it and ask her kids to pay you back for it!!!   and he actually had the nerve to say that he and my mom were paying $52/mo for this life ins policy..  which he later said he found when going thru mom’s things.  So he didn’t know about the policy until then..  and yet he  was paying for?  Yeah, right..  good one.    He goes on to tell us what a financial hardship he’s in and how he has paid out of his pocket $4000 for mom’s funeral..  sorry, but no way did he pay that much for the basic funeral that he did… and addmitted that my Uncle - mom’s brother - and his wife paid for the church…  so what?  he spent $4000 on an urn (box) and crappy cheesy horrible food at the memorial meal following?  I highly doubt it!!!  And if he’s really in a financial hardship, I want to be in one just like him.  Since mom had been taken ill, he has bought a brand new 52″ flat screen HD TV, and laptop so fancy it uses your fingerprint to log in, a Garmin GPS system…  and who knows what else!!

So he wanted us to sign this paper just showing that we read it… not confirming we will give him any money.  So we signed it.  He also asked us straight out, if we plan on paying him back any money..  my brother and I both pretty much gave the same answer..  ‘I’ll have to wait and see whats left after getting my bills paid’..   he he he he….

 Oh yeah, he also told me he found me on Facebook..  and knows I am moving to New England..  I just said that we are thinking about it.  I now have to go on FB and change my settings so only my friends can see my info…  grrrr…  nosy bugger!!!

I got a copy of the death cert..  he’s got mom’s father’s name wrong and her place of birth.  Hopefully that won’t cause problems when filing the ins forms..  I’m going to call the ins co tomorrow to see what they say.  Don’t know what I can do though..  can’t change a death cert.  Dumb ass!! 

It should take them 5 days to process the request and get the checks out from when they receive the paperwork.  So as long as we don’t have a problem with him messing up the place of birth, we chould have the money next week!!  Whooooohooooooo!!!!  

Have a great week everyone!!!

I found on Friday from my brother that apparently mom had not just her life insurance with Ron, but a seperate one naming my brother and I as sole beneficiaries!!  Now of course, I’d rather have mom - that’s pretty much a given, but the amout of this payout is mind boggling.  I’m sure to some people it would be chump change, but for as broke as I’ve been, it’s awesome!  It will help me to replace my computer, my hubbies computer, move to New England, take a trip to see my hubby’s family in England, and of course finally get the greencard sorted out!!  Plus some new home stuff and clothes!

Speaking of clothes…  Ron had me go to the house yesterday and go through mom’s clothes to see if there was anything I wanted.  Mom actually had some things that were mine, so I obvious got them.  Other than that I think I got a few of her Halloween t-shirts, a couple of Christmas shirts, and various others, like Red Sox, London, etc…  Chris asked me if I’d be ok wearing them, and to be truthful..  I don’t know.  I can’t probably fit in a lot of it right now anyway…  so who knows how I’ll feel by the time I can.  The neat thing though was that some of it was size XL, and I imagine I should be able to fit in those.  If I weren’t on this journey to lose weight, then it would have been totally pointless to take any of her stuff, cuz I’d never fit in it.

I was up 3 pounds last week, so I’m gonna try completely cutting out my dark chocolate and see if that makes a difference..   hope so.  Hopefully I’ll get more workouts in this week too.. 

Ok well off to work!!  Have a great Pre-Tuesday everyone!!  Love you!!!

I’ll admit it: There are times when it feels impossible to get my body or mind pumped up to work out. And though the summer weather means you have more outdoor options–including swimming and biking–there are also more distractions to sap your workout resolve (napping in a hammock, for example). To help rev your engines, try these tips. They’ll keep you moving, the calories sizzling and the numbers on the scale inching in the direction you want: down!

Switch up your routine: Changing what you do not only busts motivation-killing monotony, but it also helps you break through any body plateau. Exercisers who alternated moderate- and high-intensity cardio intervals burned nine times more fat than the moderate-only group in a study at Laval University in Quebec. When you’re toning, change the number of reps and the amount of weight you use between strength sessions. Doing bicep curls?  Try this: One day you do 10 reps with 10-pound weights, and then the next 20 reps with 5-pound weights or whatever weight feels right to you.

Know there IS time: Instead of doubting you can squeeze in a sweat session, simply go for a run or hit the gym. A study from the University of Alberta in Edmonton found it’s key for women to just start moving rather than overthink it.

Tune out: Spending more than two hours a day watching TV can increase your risk for obesity by 23 percent, a study from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston indicates. To keep your risk in check, make sure you exercise 30 minutes for every two hours you watch television. If you can’t tear yourself away, tape or TiVo your favorite shows. That way you can fly past the commercials (especially those for food) and get through shows quickly; use the time you save to take a brisk walk around your neighborhood or hop on a stationary bike. Better yet, pop in a workout video (find great ones at Self.com) and make the time you spend in front of the tube really count for something.

Find a friend: Research shows that people with support exercise more regularly. Make a standing date with a pal to help yourself stay on track.

Home is where the heart pumps: People who utilize cardio machines in their abodes were more likely to consistently use them than people without equipment, a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association. No treadmill in your basement? Pop in a workout DVD and get moving.

Keep it up: Going two days without working out is enough to cause the size of fat cells to increase by 25 percent, according to research at the University of Missouri at Columbia. Aim for at least 30 minutes a day (more if you’re attempting to drop pounds), and do a mix of cardio and strength exercises.

Give it time: It takes six weeks to see significant results on a weight loss plan, even though your body experiences positive cellular and molecular changes as soon as you begin to eat better and exercise more. You may only see little changes day to day–but stick with it! It IS working! After roughly 42 days, those incremental losses will add up to a big, motivating drop on the scale. In one study of 300 dieters who exercised 30 minutes daily, those who were overweight or obese lost up to 16 pounds by the six-week mark. The lesson: Don’t be discouraged if you fail to see results quickly–your body is busy adjusting to your changed habits and will produce positive news soon

Today, ok well yesterday, just after 9:30pm my beloved mother and best friend decided she has had enough and went to join God and all His angels in His kingdom.  Mom is now pain free, and free of the horrible shell she’s been stuck with for the past year and a half.  And she’s finally, once and for all, rid of Ron!!  The best part, I think.  

Hospice called me Friday at work to tell me mom had taken a severe down turn.  She had not eaten, drank, or taken any of her medications since Wednesday.  This morning they put her on oxygen.  She could no longer speak with words, but she spoke volumes with her beautiful green eyes and did manage to grace us with several smiles today.  

She got to see Mikayla, Chris and I.  My brother managed to not be a total idiot and came down to see her.  I did have to put up with sitting with Ron all day, but we did manage to keep it pretty neutral.

They took her to the same mortuary that took care of her parents, so I know she will be in good hands.  My worry is that Ron now has the ultimate decision, to bury her proper in a casket, or have her cremated.  Mom and I are Catholic, so she needs to be buried properly…  I fear Ron will do as he wants, as usual.  He will most likely choose the cheapr path of cremation.  This does upset me, because I know it’s not what she would want.  Unfortunatly, as it’s gone this whole time, I will get absolutely no say in the matter.

I had to come on her and blog this.  In a way, it is also a tribute to my mom.  My mom was my best friend.  We did everything together.  Shopping, movies, you name it.  She was the most wonderful, giving person I’ve ever known, and I know she will be truly missed by a large amount of friends as well as our family in New England.

I do wish she had been better during my pregnancy, and that she had had more time with Mikayla.  It truly saddens me that my daughter will never really know her grandmother..  who would have spoiled her rotten and I would have loved it!!  Mom was so excited when I finally got pregnant last year.

Rest forever in peace Mom!  I love you forever and and going to miss you so much!!!

To all my buddies here, and especially my Tribe…  thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here for me.  To support me and love me through this journey.  I will most likely be taking the week off from work, but I don’t know how much I will be on BS.  Will see..  I’ll probably need you guys a lot. 

You know that friend, the one who is always tapping her leg, getting up to straighten the bookshelf, the one who generally just can’t sit still? She’s likely burning an extra 200 to 300 calories a day on top of any workouts she does or the amount of calories she burns just being alive. This process is neatly called NEAT, which stands for “NonExercise Activity Thermogenesis” (say that 5 times fast!), and it’s essential for successful weight loss. Basically, it’s the extra stuff you do, physically, all day long that adds up. Make a point to add more “neat” into your day and you can zap another 500 calories! Here are a few ideas:

Do crunches in bed: You could burn about 20 calories in under 5 minutes just by drawing your knees to your chest 25 to 50 times, plus it strengthens your abs and gets your blood pumping. Check out these 10 ways to boost your calorie burn 

Dance around while getting dressed: Turn up the radio or listen to upbeat music on your iPod (if you can) while doing all your morning rituals—an hour of hip shakin’ can burn about 55 calories. Tired of the belly fat? Dance it off!
  Stand up! Don’t sit when you can be on your feet—you’ll burn about 40% more calories. So just take a stand—when you’re on the phone, watching kids at the playground, making small talk at a party.

Laugh: Watch something that’s consistently funny (like 30 Rock) and you could burn about 40 calories if you guffaw for 10 to 15 minutes straight.2 Minutes to a happier, healthier you!

Walk, pace, jog down the hall: In other words, MOVE! Doing little bits of activity all day—taking the stairs to use the restroom on another floor at work, doing an extra lap around the grocery store—can help you burn an additional 375 calories a day!

Now remember these are ways to burn EXTRA calories and not a substitute for actual workouts!!  You still want to get in your cardio sessions and weight training! 

Have a great day!!

Nothing feels so bad as getting blasted by a friend in a blog.  It hurts deep down into your heart.  A friend asked for ‘help’ and ’suggestions’ on what they were eating, so I offered them.  Well, you know how it goes with emails, the tone doesn’t come across the right way, your joking or teasing gets twisted around.. right?  Easily done.  Well, instead of this friend telling me that what I said upset them, I find out the next day that they have instead completly blasted me in their blog.  Of course they didn’t name names, but as soon as someone showed me a copy of it, I knew it was about me..  so you know what?  When it comes to this friend, I will no longer post or share what i’ve eaten, even if it’s ‘fessing up’ to how bad I may have done on the weekend, which this friend knows how much I struggle with my eating on the weekend anyway..  and I will no longer offer my opinions on what this friend is eating, has eaten, or is planning on eating.  I will just stay out of that conversation.  I’m sure I give off an aura that I’m cold, and have no feelings, but I sure do…  and I have an extremely thin skin to boot.  So if this friend sees my blog, I’m sure they will know it’s about them, and then maybe they will understand how hurt they made me.  and I have to be honest, it’s gonna take me a bit of time to get past this hurt, because it really and truly hurt me - a lot!

For those of you wondering, I did get my tax refund money - finally!  Yeah!!  Now I’m just waiting for the stupid dealership to deposit my check!!  They were supposed to do it Monday, and they still haven’t.  I hope they don’t jerk me around.

On my eating, I am trying to get more into the flourless-sugarless eating of Plan-D: The Amazing Anti Diet (www.plandee.org for those interested).  I’m not selling it or anything, just sharing.  It sounds like a great plan, and Kama and I are going to hear the author speak at Sprout’s on Thursday.  I’m really looking forward to meeting her and asking her a couple questions.  I hope I can successfully do this change over.    I need something to help me start losing again, as I keep getting stuck.  I’ll lose a pound then gain 3, then lose 2 and gain 1 back and forth and it’s really annoying.  Ah well….   such is life, right?

Well I have a busy weekend ahead, and lord knows what’s going to happen food wise.  My worst part will be a baby shower I have tomorrow lunch time.  Other than that I should be good.  Fingers crossed!!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

This one is going to meander all over the place, just warning you now. 

As a lot of you know I had a 4 day weekend.  I had taken Friday and Monday off and the original plan was to go to California, visit and workout with Nancy and see a giant mouse.  Well as a lot of you know..  I still don’t have my tax refund, so that trip got canceled.  I did go into the IRS building last week and was told that the notice for Chris’ ITIN was just mailed out that day, so it was still going to be 4-6 weeks!!!!!  OMG!!!  I have that down payment check that they are going to try and cash just after the 4th of July weekend!!  They cash that without my refund in my account, I’m totally screwed!!!  No money for rent, groceries, or anything!!!!  I asked the guy if he could please put a rush on it, as I was told it was going to be 4-6 weeks 3 months ago!!!  He said he’d “try” it..  gee thanks.  I think he was new cuz he was so freakin slow!!  UG!!!

 Then a friend of mine from work told me about this place that can help you with you greencard..  financially and with the forms.  We go in there on Friday and he gives us a list of all the stuff we need to submit with the forms..  yeah, know all that.  Then he tells us the fees, yep we know that..  we came in because we were told you offer financial assistance for obtaining the card…  goes away from the desk, comes back and says that you can apply for a waiver of the fees, but for the type we need to file, it wounld almost guarentee a denial of the greencard, because I have to be able to afford to keep Chris off welfare!!!!!  Ok, I can afford to keep him off welfare, I just can’t afford the $1500 at one shot to pay all the stupid ass fees!!!  So basically, and sorry if this offends anyone, we are the wrong race!!!  If we were hispanic/Mexican, they would have helped no problem, but because we’re white, nope forget it!!  It really and truly pisses me off!!!

Yesterday we planned to go to the movies, something we haven’t done since November.  We were taking Mikayla, because quite frankly I don’t really have anyone to watch her.  I get people offering all the time, but then they never give me their phone #..  what’s up with that?  Anyway, we were sitting at home before we left and we got a knock on our door…  a lady from the apartment office..  “Did you realize you haven’t signed a new lease yet?”  um..  actually, yeah, but we’ve been waiting for the stupid tax refund to see if we were going to be able to afford to move to a 2 bedroom, less bug infested apartment, closer to work.  So we were talking to her about maybe transferring to a 2 bedroom apt here, and she said she’d look into it.  Turns out they are charging about $90 LESS for the rent on our apartment than what we are paying..  and a 2 bedroom?  We were last told it was $100 more than what we’re paying…  nope!  only about $10-20 more.. ok sign us up!!  Only thing is we have to come up with a $200 transfer fee…  so, not sure when we will have that.  Was thinking I might have it this Friday, but got to thinking about that downpayment check out there and thought maybe we should wait on that…  SUCKS!!!!

Saturday was Chris’ b-day.  We were supposed to go out to a late lunch with some friends..  they canceled and moved it to Sunday, after I’d already declared Saturday my cheat day and had eaten 2 donuts and a blueberry muffin!!!  I was quite mad to say the least!!  Ended up eating almost 3000 calories, because we then ended up getting chinese, and with my allergy to sesame, I’m super limited to what I can eat… (plus still not totally liking all veggies like broccoli) and don’t like seafood…    so Sunday I think I did ok, but I can’t find anything close to what I had on any of the websites to even give me a guesstimite on the calories..  oh well.. 

We saw Star Trek yesterday.  It was really good!!  Mikayla did really well!!  She was a little monkey, climbing all over me and wiggling around, but she only fussed once when her bottle was empty and I had to make another one… in the dark..  LOL  that was fun!!  Chris took her over to the hallway and walked with her there while I made the bottle so she wouldn’t fuss, and he could still watch the movie.    Now I know for Harry Potter to have at least 2 bottles already made up!!  She was totally fascinated with the giant “TV” screen though!!  LOL  She didn’t know where to look!!!

Well off to work, gonna hit the treadmill there today for some cardio.  Didn’t really get a workout in yesterday, just some walking around the mall a bit..  lite cardio..  hehe..  at a snails pace!! 

Hope everyone has a grerat Tuesday!!  Sorry this is sooooo long!!!