Ramblings of a Brain-Dead Lunatic...

Well, I'm finally done with my 2 A&P tests in 2 days. Mr. Bullen does this to punish those who miss tests. The makeup test is always the day before a regular test. I'm tired, and my brain is somewhere near the consistency of scrambled eggs. I'm so happy to not have to worry about anything until the finals on May 12. I have the cat organ test in lab on the 5th, but it's simple so no worries there.

I found an amazing thing this afternoon; uncovered by 8 weeks of Weight Watchers and a lot of hard work, I found a hip bone! Well, the area where I squeeze by the treadmill to get down the hall found it, but hey, I'm happy. I'd completely forgotten I had a pair of those. To think I used to complain about them being too prominent. Grr! I swear this time if I get to a decent weight I won't be down on myself like I was in high school for not being small enough. I think that attitude is why I gained it all back and then some. It's sad, really, to look back at pics from high school and think I used to think I was a whale. I look at some jeans I had back then and all I can say is that I had to be tiny to fit into those. I don't think I could put one leg in the waist of my old jeans.

I need to go hop on the treadmill for a bit. I've lost a lot of motivation in the exercise department over the last couple of weeks due to school, and I'm having a hard time getting back in the swing of things. Part of me wants to just go to bed and start fresh tomorrow, but I've been saying that for a couple of weeks now...

The Girls get sent to their rooms and it's weigh-in time again!

Dean cleaned the junk out of the third bedroom and created a playroom for the girls this past week. They loved it, but it won't be a playroom long. We're putting their beds in separate rooms soon because separate beds just aren't cutting it any longer. Claudia wakes up in the middle of the night (takes after her mom, what can I say?) and hits and yells at Nadine until she wakes her up, too. As a result we have two very upset children in the morning because Nadine's learned to wake Claudia's grumpy butt up a couple hours early in retribution. Aack! They're growing up too fast for me. :(

Jasmine did her first really bad thing since we got her in February: She chewed through a telephone line, 2 network cables, and the power cord for the girls' laptop. Dean built something to keep her out from under the desk in the kitchen, so it shouldn't happen again. She's usually so good about using her chew toys that I don't know what got into her.

I had another weigh-in with Weight Watchers today, and I've lost 3.2 pounds for a total of 16.2 pounds lost in 8 weeks. I'm no longer getting the messages that I'm losing too fast, and I'm still on track to have my 10% goal of 244.6 met by my birthday at the end of June. My goal is to be under 200 pounds by the end of the year. They are conservative goals, but I think I can be happy if all I do is barely meet them, you know?

Things have been chaotic to say the least and I haven't been on my exercise ball once since Dean came home, but I'm still eating right and working the treadmill. With all of the rearranging going on in the house I just don't have the open space for the exercise ball right now. It makes me a bit sad as I really love it, but it just motivates me to get going with the organizing so I can use the ball.

Welcome to the my new home

If you came here looking for my new blog, you found it! I know some of you will be unhappy that I moved my blog from myspace, but I needed a reliable host that didn't lose my posts half the time. Grr! I'll be moving those posts over here as time allows.

For now, make yourself at home and if you'd like subscribe for email notifications of new posts by using the link to the right while I learn a bit more about all the cool new features I have at my disposal. A new post with the latest on family life, my Weight Watchers saga, and the trials and tribulations of trying to figure yourself out will come within a couple of days. Bye for now!

Ramblings on the Girls and More...

Claudia's talking in not just sentences but whole paragraphs. I can't imagine what she's going to be like in a few months. She's my little ball of giggles and fun.

I was joking with the girls and asking them if they wanted me to have another baby. Nadine just laughs and says "no no no silly Mommy", but Claudia's reaction was priceless: "No no no Mommy please promise me no!" She knows she has it made as the baby of the house. Dean says she knows how big of a pain in the butt she is to Nadine and doesn't want the same done to her.

My Weight Watchers weigh-in this week was typical for me. It's my time of the month, and I showed a 1.6-pound gain. It'll disappear next week along with whatever happened underneath the hormones, so it doesn't worry me at all. There's no sense in getting upset over something that's going to happen every month for the next decade or two; I'll just stay on plan and keep shrinking. The only thing better than a good weigh-in is getting into a smaller size pair of jeans while it's your time of the month.

In other news, I'll be vice president of the honor society next year, so yay me! Everything's shaping up much better than I dared dream...as of getting elected vice president of the honor society, I now qualify for scholarships that will more than cover my expenses at UMC.

Nonstop talking, flower beds, and another weigh-in

Claudia's talking up a storm now, but she gets angry if I ask her to repeat anything. She gives the most stern "are you stupid or deaf" look...and just as quickly changes the subject and gives a bright smile that outshines the sun.

Nadine's not wanting to wear anything other than dresses and skirts lately. She says she's a princess and that princesses wear dresses. She's been taking care of a hanging petunia she picked out. She's madly in love with it and asks to pick a purple flower every time we go outside. She also thinks the petunia is scared of the dark and needs to come in at night...

Dean mentioned making a flower bed for her and that's all I've heard for the last week. She's going to have special flowers that the lawnmower can't reach. That's all she'll talk to him about, too.

I weighed-in yesterday and lost 1.4 pounds. I am really proud of that 1.4 pounds because it was done with very little exercise as I have just been exhausted this week. I think I did the ball workout twice and the treadmill once. I also dug into my weekly points for the first time. I was just hungry! To eat what I have this week and still lose, well, that's proof that WW's points system works!

Now, if only I can get my online classes finished up now...I have a paper, a statistics test and final, and some computer stuff I've got to get done. Thankfully Dean will be done Friday as that's his algebra final and I can focus on just getting done with the online stuff and focus solely on A&P for the last couple of weeks of the semester.

I won't be taking summer courses. YAY! I need the break and so do the girls. We're going to take our time getting done and will be here for the next academic year and the fall following that. The timing will be better (Claudia will be old enough to start preschool and Nadine will already be in school) and it will be a lot easier to move and settle in our new place before starting UMC in the summer if I have that spring semester open. Right now, their summer semester starts before Co-Lin's spring semester ends, so that would make it close to impossible for us to move and get things done if I rush just to get in for summer 2009. Taking our time basically means my course load will stay the same instead of vastly increasing next year. I think it's the best decision for our family.

A wayward washcloth undoes a week's work...

So, what do I get for cleaning the bathroom? The unveiling of a washcloth under my scale. That little piece of fabric was taking 4 pounds off of my weight. I haven’t moved my scale in forever, so I have 2 choices: Edit my start weight 4 pounds higher or just eat the 4 pounds and write down a 1.6-pound gain. Ugh! I edited my start weight, BTW, so the ups and downs of my journey was correct and I’d be starting at the *proper* weight this week. Just think: That whole first week I could have eaten an extra point every day!

I’m thinking of going to meetings with Mom; the price of going to the meetings has me hesitant, though. I’m paying $16.95 a month for access to the plan online. If I go to meetings with their cheapest plan, it’s $39.95 a month plus 4 trips to town a month. Part of me wants to go and part of me would rather put that money to use for new shoes...

Oh yeah, curses on my mom for sending not one but TWO bags of Peanut Butter Eggs home with the girls! She’s evil, I tell you. I cannot resist those little turd-shaped balls of peanut butter and chocolate.

Another Day, Another Weigh-in

I lost 2.4 pounds this past week for a total of 13.4 in a month. I got a warning last week and today that if I keep losing over 2 pounds a week I’m going to have to see my doctor and get a note from him to continue with WW. So I ate more this week, all of my activity points (all 25 of them!) and about 10 of my weekly points and still lost more than 2 pounds. I really can’t eat any more than this, so I guess I’ll have to go to Dr. Jeansonne soon. He’ll do backflips; he’s been trying to get me to lose weight for almost 4 years now.

I started a new workout this week using an exercise ball. The workout was only 20 minutes and when I was done I thought it was challenging but there was no burn so I was a little disappointed. I woke up the next morning knowing I had really, really worked the night before. Even when I was in high school and doing 200 crunches a day I never worked my abs like that. I’m now in love.

Claudia has a big Disney princess ball and now she’s always trying to roll over the ball and do the things I do on mine. It’s so cute. I’m going to have to get a pic or video of it somehow.
Those of you who where at the birthday party when Nadine got the Dora 4-wheeler should beware: Claudia rides it now and she truly is hell on wheels. She likes to try to chase me down on it, and she only knows full-throttle.

Birthday Girl

Happy Birthday Claudia!

That’s right, Claudia turned 2 today. The party will be sometime after Dean gets in. It depends on test schedules and online finals and all of that good stuff.

There she goes again...

You know you always have someone who it feels like will always be a part of you. For me it’s someone I met in 3rd grade, but it’s far more complicated than that. She feels like a sister to me, and even though we’ve been through so much together I think I just might have to be done with it all. It’s not that I don’t love her or that I won’t always love her. It’s that she’s just stuck in such a vicious cycle that seems to be repeating again. I can’t go there again, being a friend to someone who’s just a shell of who they really are, who they really could be if they could just give a damn...always giving and giving and giving and rarely receiving. I’ve got too much on me to carry someone else. I had really high hopes of this cycle being broken...

I know I should really give her a chance...maybe things are as stressed and strange as she says. The sad thing is there are several signs coming together all at the same time and I don’t have to be psychic to see where the road is headed. We’ve been there several times and I don’t have it in me to do it again.

How far is too far for someone like that? Do you take the chance and hope the trip isn’t going where your gut says it is (and where it’s been more times than you can count) or do you pass up the trip for your own good?

*sighs*

Daddy Leaves and the Girls Discover the Healing Power of Chocolate

So tonight we sent Dean off; it always sucks, but tonight he left too early to tuck the girls in and boy were they angry after he left. I tried distracting them and nothing worked, so I took them to walmart and bought them chocolate ice cream because that’s what they asked for. Score! They went to bed happily distracted and even talked to Dean on the phone before going to bed without getting upset again. I’m proud of myself because I haven’t dipped into that ice cream even though it’s Breyer’s, my favorite brand. Yay me!

Dean had what he called a nightmare about having a third little girl...one coming along really soon. I laughed it off and told him it was a cosmic April Fool’s joke, but I can see where it would upset him. Another right now would pretty much strand us in Natchez and kill any chance at me becoming a CRNA...

I lost 4.6 pounds this week on Weight Watchers, which is great! A good part of it was water weight from Aunt Flo, but that’s okay too. I found some great low-points recipes this week, too, the best of which was called inside-out cabbage rolls. There was also a really good mexican meatloaf and a vegetable-rice skillet that was also really good. It looks like I’ll have to buy a steamer online; the one in walmart was a cheap piece of garbage that probably won’t last a week. I keep asking myself why
I’m surprised to have to order one online.

Grandma got Claudia and Nadine a basketball goal for their birthdays so we’ve been spending a good amount of time outside. Dean cut the grass this time in and cut down all of the wildflowers. Nadine had been picking flowers every day so she’s a little upset with him; she told me he could cut the grass but not the flowers next time. Just imagine Dean trimming the grass with scissors trying to spare the wildflowers!

Did I mention there are chocolate-covered donuts in the house and I still haven’t given into the junk food? I have so much self-control now that it scares me...