Celebrating the Little Things

Us at the CBC party on December 19th:
Dress: my parents bought it
Shoes: DSW $40.00
Nail Polish: $8.50 OPI dark sparkly purple
Purse: $35.00 Limited
Wearing the same dress I wore in 1996 to my first dance with Chris=PRICELESS

:) Right now I'm sitting on the couch, breathing in the scent of pine from our tree, and I decided to blog. I've been up since 7:00, because I'm taking care of my nephew dog Dexter, while Erica and Brian are both out of town. I went over there to feed him and let him out, enjoying a cup of vanilla coffee from our new Keurig coffeemaker. I am officially down 71 pounds now, and out of the 190s! Today was 189 on the scale. What a great place to be! I am going to the mall later on, to brave the holiday crowds...not to finish shopping for someone else, but to buy some new clothes! I really need a new track suit, since my other ones are so big, and since I got a giftcard from Belk from my class, I thought I would take advantage of that today with my coupon.

As I'm sitting here crossing my legs with the laptop actually in my lap, it makes me think of some of the "little things" which have been benefits of my weight loss. At my highest, I never really sat with my legs crossed, and I didn't have much of a lap. It was always hard to have little kids sit in my "lap" because they'd really just be balanced on my knees. So being able to cross my legs comfortably has been wonderful. Also, I noticed yesterday that my shadow has gotten significantly smaller. :) When I was leaving the mall, I looked at my shadow and thought--wow, shadow, you look like you've lost some weight too. ;) I've mentioned being able to shop in the 'non-women's section' of the store is nice, although I've never understood why they call the bigger clothes section "womens" and the regular sized women section "misses". That's always been weird to me...like regular sized women aren't actually women. Chris loves to pick me up now, and he's waiting for the day where he can carry me in his arms. He mentioned to me when we were dancing at the christmas party, that he could wrap his arms all the way around me, like he used to be able to when we were in high school. I've also noticed that several pairs of shoes I used to wear don't fit. I guess my feet have narrowed some, so the "wide fit" is too big. Touching my toes is extremely easy now. So, there are some of the "little benefits" of losing 71 pounds.

My attitude about food has DEFINITELY changed since the surgery. Right afterwards, once I was able to eat solid food again, I found myself obsessing about food, since I could only have liquids for the three weeks. I've noticed a gradual shift of things over the past 4 months, where food is just not important anymore. This week of Christmas used to be a lot about the foods I would enjoy with our family traditions, and now it's actually about spending time with the family. I've had a few treats this week which have gone down fine, but they just aren't as good to me anymore. I still do better with crunchy things, versus breads, pizza crust, etc. I've been able to eat pizza, but usually only a half a slice or so. I did enjoy a half sandwich and soup from Village Deli last week, and since the bread was toasted, and I really took my time to eat it, I was able to eat the majority of the half. I've learned so much since the surgery, although I still have the occasional problem. Yesterday I surprised Chris with Moe's for lunch at his office, for him and the staff who was there. I had one steak taco, and as I was eating my first bite, I noticed that two pieces of steak were stuck together. Not wanting to spit part of it out in front of everyone, I tried to chew it really well before I swallowed the bite. I could feel it going down and it remained a little "stuck" for the remainder of the afternoon. When I ate a little bite of an oreo ball later in the afternoon, I got sick, and I think it was because of the steak. I then felt sick later on that evening, and finally better after that. So, even though I've really come a long way with eating more slowly and chewing well, I know I'm going to have the occasional problem.

Well, that's all for now. I'm going to get ready, and brave the crowds to get some new clothes! I hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas week, and Merry Christmas to all! :) Thanks for reading my blog! :)

"All the single ladies, all the single ladies"...

No...I'm not wanting to be single again :)...that is just the mantra that goes through my head every time I try on my new high heels. ;) That's right--'high' heels. In the past, when I've worn shoes when I dressed up, I would wear short heels-maybe one or one and a half inches high. After wearing them all night, my feet would really hurt. Often too, my feet would slip down too far and it would be really uncomfortable. Last week I bought a new black sweater dress. Chris told me that we were going to go to a Toys for Tots fundraising dinner, where Tom O'Brien was going to speak. I wore the dress to school that day, with my standard clogs-comfortable shoes for school. During the day, I decided, "I want to go buy a pair of high heels to wear with this dress tonight." After school, I went to DSW since they have a big selection. I strolled down the aisle that I normally bypass for the cute, comfortable shoes, and saw exactly what I wanted--a pair of black patent leather high heels, with a pointed front and a skinny heel in the back. The heels are about 2 inches, maybe 2 and a half, not ridiculously "I'm going to break my ankle" high but definitely higher than anything I own. I slid off my comfortable clogs, and stepped into them. I felt instantly so much taller. I walked over to the full length mirror, liking the way they felt on my feet, and admired my new profile. I LOVED them! I tried on about 4 more pairs, but kept coming back to the first pair I tried on. I bought them, brought them home, and was so excited to wear them that night.

At the dinner, I felt confident, sexy, and beautiful, and not to mention that I was also significantly taller--only about a half a foot shorter than Chris rather than my usual foot shorter. :)

I wore them again at our party last Saturday, and even though I had been on my feet all day working, I was able to wear them all night without too much pain. I guess it's amazing to think what 70 less pounds can do for your feet!

Good week

Whew--this weekend has been so busy! It was really nice to just completely relax today, after everything from Friday and yesterday. I'll get into that in a minute, but today I am down 68 pounds. Pretty soon, I'll be in the 180s, and the 190s will be gone forever. I'm really having to buy a lot of new clothes now, especially bottoms. Some things still fit weird, since I need a slimmer leg, but bigger waist. I guess clothing manufacturers think if you have a bigger waist, then your legs are bigger too! I bought two cute sweater dresses from Target, so I can wear those to school and for the holidays coming up. I may break down and get a new coat too--I've been wearing a rain coat, but with the cold temps last week, I don't think it's enough. Plus, it's getting too big...at least it has a belt, so I've been tightening that, but I think I may get a coat from Target. I saw some pea coats for $30, and I'm going to wait until next week to see if they're discounted more before Christmas. If I can wait, I might try to hit the after Christmas sales too.

Yesterday we had the annual Jingle Bulls party at our house. This is the 6th time we've had the party, so it is a fun tradition for all of us. We invite the front office staff from the Bulls and this year we had about 25 people. Friday night I spent doing orders, and wrapping gifts. Saturday I finished wrapping all of the gifts, cleaned the entire upstairs and downstairs, and organized my "craft room" which was about 2 hours itself! Chris helped clean, and really got the yard looking great. By the time the party started at 8:00, we were pooped! Today, despite getting up at 8:30, I have really relaxed. I've worked on some christmas gifts, watched christmas movies on abc family, and I'm still in my pajamas right now, as I type my blog and watch the San Diego Chargers game. :)

I was pretty stressed out last week with everything going on at school, but luckily by staying late I got a lot of work done, so I feel a lot better. We have report cards due by Friday, I wanted to plan for the first few weeks in January, and I've been packing my room since I'm moving out to a trailer when we get back. Since I got almost all of my report cards done, and the plans finished, now I can just focus on enjoying this last week with my kids, and getting them to help me move everyting. It's amazing how much kids like to help doing things like that! I've even had offers from kids to miss their recess to help me. It's crazy! :)

Food-wise everything has been fine. I went to the gym once, and didn't make it the two other times I planned on going because of all of the work I had. I don't know how things will look this week with all of the events after school, but I'm going to take my clothes and try to go. The week of the 21st when I'm off, I should take Spencer every day. He'll enjoy that.

Well, that's all for now. I'll post some pictures of me in my new outfits soon. I need to get another pink camisole and gray shorts for my standard shot, since the old ones are getting too big and it might be hard to see the weight loss. Once I do that, I'll post a new round of comparison pics.

Hope everyone is enjoying this holiday time. Love to all!

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Everything continues to go well. I am down 64 pounds today. In looking at the calendar, I haven't lost many pounds in the last week and a half, but every month I've gone through a small plateau, right around the 3rd/4th week. I'm definitely not worried about this at all, because I continue to follow the rules: get enough protein in my daily diet, take all of my vitamins, drink a lot of water, and get some exercise into my routine. All over I feel wonderful changes--I have more energy, I'm able to sleep without my C-PAP machine and I'm not tired, I'm wearing the smallest sizes I've worn in such a long time, etc. Chris's company Christmas party is coming up on December 19th. Last year, I bought a beautiful new dress, which is too big now, and I was thinking I really didn't want to buy a new dress since I could only wear it this year. So...I thought about some of the dresses in my closet, and I found a 'little black dress' that I wore to the first dance I went to with Chris in 1996--Winterfest at Millbrook. The dress is a size 16, and it is short, black, and has silver sparkles on it. About a month ago, I tried it on, and it was a little snug, but it fit!!! It's still in style, because little black dresses are always in style, so I decided I was going to wear it. I bought some new silver sparkly high heels (which are sooooo high) and I'm going to get a new silver clutch, and voila--a "new" outfit I can wear! I tried it on again last night, and it fits perfectly. I am so excited to wear it. I'll post our professional picture that we order every year. :)

We had a great time in New York!! We were able to walk everywhere, and I could tell that I wasn't nearly as tired, and I could walk more than our previous NY trips. I got a ton of exercise that week we were there. Since we've been back, I've gone to the gym twice, so my goal for next week is to make it at least 3 times, if not 4. Here are some pictures from our trip:


Us in front of the ESPN Zone restaurant in Baltimore


At the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade


We had a great view of the balloons!


Caroline, Anthony, Chris and I after Thanksgiving lunch

Well, I have a TON of things to do today, so I'll have to write more later. Have a great Sunday!