So This is Christmas-At Our House-At Goal

Since our house if for sale, we are having Christmas at our house and I really do feel more in the Christmas spirit than normal, the house is decorated for the holidays more than it normally would be.



Living room-This is my pretty tree-The one that I decorate all in green and silver with some white thrown in. I originally bought a variety of green balls but over time have collected crystal prisms, beaded tassels, white bisque angels, green glittery stars and white sparkly stars. There are also some blown glass icicles thrown on for good measure.



My older daughters went together and bought this poinsettia for me. I always say I should buy one but never do. They decided to give me this as my present early enough so I could enjoy it. In each corner of the room I have glass containers from my local discount store (home goods). I bought them for about 6 dollars each and then found paper-white bulbs and amaryllis bulbs at the grocery store for 4 dollars. I found some potting soil in the garage and planted them. They turned out better than I expected. I love seeing the roots growing through the glass.



This is the family room and the family tree. It is decorated with multi-colored lights and a mixture of collected ornaments. I have packaging tags that my mother made. She printed old family pictures of my great grandparents and me as a child. They are labeled on the back. David has a string of hot chili pepper lights. I have a string of bubble lights. There are ornaments made by the girls when they were small as well as hot pink balls from my grandmothers tree when I was a child. There are also several blown glass pine cone ornaments..cause i like them. Oh and champagne corks with quarters in them commemorating significant events from our lives together. There is one from our wedding (the quarter is 2000) and one from Grace was born (2001)



Does anyone want to come over for cookies and drink orange juice and peppermint schnapps? I love love orange juice and peppermint schnapps..in fact I just had one...yum.



No fully decorated house is complete without a Christmas tree in the bathroom right? :)...I did this one a few years ago and it is small enough that I can just pick it up and put it in an old cylindrical box I have from my grandmother complete with decorations and all. It is covered in small shell decorations I made by hot gluing them onto the wires. The tree topper is a small beaded start a friend made for me.



The ghost of Christmas past?...I like it when pictures do this. Yes it is me. I was trying to get the candles lit before David took the pictures.

I got on the scale this morning and it hit 163.0. I am still losing despite the fact that I am sampling cookies, candies, and eating reasonably sized (with my new eye to reasonable) meals. At this point I am feeling a bit better about this whole goal thing. I think I really can maintain this. I am even thinking that I might have a little un-fill to stop the scale from slowly ticking down. I think my threshold is another 4 or 5 pounds. If it hits the bottom I will go get some saline taken out.

I have never really hit goal before on any of my diets so I am not sure if this is different than goal by any other means. It is definitely different than any other diet quitting I did. Whenever I 'gave up' before it was a license to indulge and stop weighing myself. I did it time and time again. That is different this time. Really, I think because i don't really feel like I have had to give anything up-just eat a bite here or there on the hardest things and a small portion on the easier things. I also think it is because I am not hungry really. I will tell you that food seems to be tasting extraordinarily good to me right now. I am not sure if that is my body trying to fight back on the weight-loss thing or if I am just savoring small bits more thoroughly.

Happy Holiday's to all not matter where you are and how far from goal. When you get discouraged dig deep and figure out what needs to be learned from this journey. It is after all a fine balancing act between the physical (fills, and our thermostat) and mental (believing we can and changing life choices). If I can do it (miss never hit a goal on a diet in her life) so can you.

xxxooo