What I have been thinking-What I have been doing in pics.

The fingerless gloves before I threaded the hangy down ends to the inside. I know one pair arrived but have not heard whether the other two have made it to their destinations yet. I am working on a pattern for you.



David bought me a spinning wheel for Christmas. It is fun! I have already spun two tops (looks like unspun but clean and dyed wool). I then knitted the home-made yarn into a large chunky cowl.

On the topic of weight...I am having a bit of a crisis still. I have definitely developed a belly roll. My eating volume is way up. I am starving at night but tight during the day. I can only eat 1/2 cup of food but it goes through my band sometimes quickly sometimes not. I ate quite a bit at night over the weekend and after we got back. I have suffered from four nights of pretty bad reflux. My poor brain is getting mixed messages-I am too tight...no I am too loose. My desire to eat is way up..WAY WAy up...I don't know if I did not deal with my eating problems like I thought I did or if I am getting some sort of a rebound affect after hitting goal. I am doing lots of thinking...This winter rainy/cold weather just does not help any of it.

xxxooo

MAN o MAN I was on a Food Fest Weekend!

We are home and work and drudgery are back in full force. I am extra tight today (good thing) and back on track (finally) after this long run Christmas and beyond eating feast. I ate well over the weekend but got stuck twice. The first was in the car after eating lunch from the local grocery store and the second was after lunch and back in the car on our drive home from Seattle.

Hmm..did you notice a trend and long ago learned (whoops did I forget?) lesson. Do not eat while driving in the CAR!!! yup I didn't learn it and spend a considerable amount of time doubled over a bag unstickifying first a chicken dumpling and some kettle corn and then some lovely cheesy pasta from the Pink Door (yes we followed your recommendation Cozy Coconut and found the place).

So anyway...I just reread the last post and man o man was it all about the food. I did feel like we did a lot of thinking about and eating food this weekend. We did however walk a lot, shop a lot, and look around the Seattle Science Museum. My only purchase was a new coat. it is a ski jacket style sized XL boys! yes..i fit my gained-5-pounds-self into child's clothing. wahhooooo. This is especially sweet given that at my largest weight I wore a size xxl mens. I was greatful for it over the weekend as it had a nice hood when we hit windy and rainy streets along the farmers market.

On the lice front-I have been combing Grace two and three times a day and thought we were in the clear but tonight I found three tiny little suckers with the comb. The comb is so good in fact that David has spent the evening trolling British National Archives using some reference numbers off the comb and is asking them to send him an estimate to get copies of the documents. He is hoping for a set of plans so he can get more made. I am telling you they would be a gold mine in this country as Portland is rampant with lice and the combs available in Oregon are criminal setting up a permanent supply chain of living lice.

so...not my favorite start to a work week but restriction is back on track. Phew...perhaps I can have a visit down in the 160's again.

xxxooo

Seattle Fun

We are having a great time...more fun than I remember having before in Seattle ever before. After getting the combing out of the way (all is clear for two comb through sessions) we drove up with a stop at Caballas (For those unfamiliar a huge outdoors/hunting store). Although in description it seems like a giant man store it is kind of cool with unusual items of interest.

We then drove to our hotel (the cedarbrook lodge). It was not too expensive as hotels go but it is very nice with free snacks, post and beam construction and modern designed rooms. After arriving I asked the desk clerk if it would be difficult to get dinner and he said..no it would be fine. So we go off and drag our stuff to our room and moved the car. We then proceeded to go to dinner only to find out that they had no tables (apparently the desk clerk was clueless). The hostess was nice and set us up with two sofa's and a coffee-like table. We had to order off the bar menu but it was good. I had a mixture of local cheeses, a whole grain piece of bread and two berry chutneys. I had a bit of the cheeses and one of the small pieces of breat (about 1/4 of a piece) plus tastes of the chutney. The free snacks include small containers of Haagan Daz ice cream and malted milk balls. I had one ice cream and some of the candies way too late and paid the consequences with mild acid reflux all night.

This place also serves a free breakfast (a bit better than the old Holiday Inn express type fare but not as good as German or Dutch places. I had Oatmeal with home-made granola and nuts. I only managed 1/4 of a cup and a bit of a not very nice pastry. After breakfast we took off downtown to pick up our Harry Potter tickets and then walked to the Pike Place Market to hang out for the day. We did really well (and did check out the Pink Door but they were closed for lunch). We had coffee at the first Starbucks and then lunch at the Pike Place Bistro (fish and chips for me, crab sand for David and Clam Chowder for Grace). After lunch we did a bit of touristy shopping when strangely a fire broke out in a restaurant at the market. We left (David had visions of tube fires and figured we should steer clear). We walked up to the monorail and went into the Seattle Science Center early, looked around a bit and then went into the Harry Potter exhibit.

The exhibit was quite good. The props were interesting to look at..and the clothes were so small! :). Hagrid's clothes were on the other hand quite big (they were mocked up to look like his 1/2 giant stature. The exhibit was good but not worth the 30 dollar per adult entrance fee. The gift shop was crazy expensive.

IN all we went in at 4:15 and were done by 5. It was not a good value for money. Dinner on the other hand was delicious. We went to a place near the Seattle Center called the Tillicum Place Cafe. I had home-made Pate with toasted baguette slices. Grace and David had duck with cabbage and spitzel. Dinner for both of us felt very German (Good German)..the music was Spanish and then we had a small sample of cookies for desert that were very Italian. It was quite the place and the international dinner tour.

AFter dinner we drove back to our hotel to chill for the rest of the evening. I was supposed to meet an old friend I grew up with but I think he is chickening out (too bad too because I looked good today..goodness knows if I can do that two days in a row :).

We don't have plans tomorrow...who knows :) more shopping probably.

xxxooo

Head Lice AGAIN!

After a very busy week I was looking forward to a nice leisurely weekend away. We are headed to Seattle tomorrow afternoon. Well-Grace was doing a bit more head scratching than normal. I gave her head a check (as any parent of a youngish child has to do these days)...for the umpteenth time the girl has headlice again. I have to be grateful that we have had a year and a half break from the evil beasts.

We don't have any trouble getting rid of them (lots of combing with the magical family heirloom comb from the early 1900's that David's mum gave it to us). I have probably written about this before but the combs they make today are ineffective and have teeth that are too far apart to get the eggs and small bugs properly. This English made hand cut comb works well and we will have to guard it carefully for generations to come (such a state of affairs that I have become a lice comb connoisseur).

We are still going to Seattle as we have booked a hotel that we would pay for regardless. We are attending the Harry Potter show that has gotten good reviews. Poor Grace will have to be combed within an inch of her life tomorrow before we go and then again repeatedly before and after going out in public. My plan is to get her an array of hats and her own pillow with several pillow cases along for the ride.

Hopefully I will get lots of walking in and get shove some of these pounds off.

xxxooo

Is Fungry a Word?

Lets just say I am at this very moment--at 11pm at night--fungry. I will let you figure out what the f means and what it is replacing. Can ya guess? What is wrong here?

The scale read 168.6 this morning. This is down (insert here whatever entity you thank when good things happen).

I will not eat...I will not eat...I will not eat..I will not eat...I think I need a fill...I will not eat...I will not eat.

I uploaded and saw my ticker...now I am back for a quick update.

An added bit of gloom to motivate me away from feeding the fungries. A check with MR Weight tracker informed me that the last time I weighed 168 was the end of AUGUST! Yes you are reading the blog of a girl who undid 4 months of work in 3 weeks. In August, weighing in at 168 I was just about to cycle (my husband says 32 miles and I remember 24-yes we did just have a little discussion about distance inflation) a bunch of miles. I think I can keep the fungries at a distance now and just go to bed.
xxxooo

Goal

I am a critical person-I am sure a read back in time will show this. I don't really think this means I am a negative or mean spirited. It does mean that I look at stuff with a critical detailed eye and try to figure out the effective areas and the room in which improvements can be made. This is probably why I do the job that I do.

All week you have seen the whining and the analyzing as I work through this life I am trying to figure out as 'goal' or above 'goal' or whatever. What follows are, I am sure, the beginning of a few ramblings about living goal.

1. A goal is something you hit..not necessarily someplace you stay. I have decided that my weight has never been stable. Expecting it to hit 264 or 263 and stick there forever is a tad unrealistic. Then the question that follows in my head is..what is realistic? My husband and kids and friends all say that if anything it looks like I have lost weight not gained the five pounds the scale tells me is hanging back on my carcass. Do I care...well I am critical so yes..yes I do care. I can feel a few difference in my clothes. I don't know what realistic is. I do know that going over 170 freaks the heck out of me (I stepped on the scale fully clothes last night and it read 171..I am about lost it. I quickly stripped and it dropped to 169..sigh). So 170 is an upper bound. I imagine 164 is a safe bound but heck...163 was a low point so I am not sure that is realistic.

2. I know exercise is key but Winter is kicking my ass. I have been listening to my body and trying to convince it to exercise and eat better. I am sluggish and craving carbs like crazy...Is this a Winter problem? A fill problem? A lack of vitamin D problem? My body fighting to get fat again? Probably all of the above.

3. I have hooked myself back onto the coffee train..it is time to get off and start drinking the tea set up I have ready to go at work. My little un fill episode over said tea has had the effect of causing me to avoid it (after all it is not really as tasty as the evil caloric coffee I drink).

4. This new phase is more about balancing than pushing to lose. in a way it is just as difficult as losing because although you get the really great aspects of feeling like you look good and buying new clothes all of that comes with change. I had the pushing down the scale game mostly figured out...but maintaining takes finesse and a changed strategy. I obviously don't know what that strategy is and I didn't plan ahead for this.

ON a side note I had a friend invite David and I to a Valentines weekend dance. It will be my first real opportunity to dress up post band. I need a dress! For the first time ever I am kind of looking forward to this shopping trip. I think my first stop will be some new skin holding spanx...After that...well I am not sure if I should go for color or black, long? short? swirly, figure hugging? eek :) I Will keep you posted
xxxooo

aaaaaaaaaarghghghg

I am home early this evening because although I started class this evening the freezing rain started coming down. 3 minutes after I told my students to leave and go home (after giving out homework assignments) the school message system texted me stating that school was immediately closed. After a little bit tense ride home (not too bad but people really are stupid when they drive!!)I have arrived in time to see my sick husband and daughter moaning about how sick they feel.

they are man sick..and child sick. I of course had the very same illness last week but went to work, hauled kids around and functioned with only a little bit of whining :)


My band is still driving me nutty-I was hungry this morning. I was Starving hungry at lunch and then ended up pb-ing part of a coffee in the afternoon. I am now eating some leftover chicken and wine ala Julia Child (translate that French but i cannot spell it so avoided). I have managed about 1/4 cup and am feeling distinctly full. Who knows what is going on. Today's menu:

8:30 am Breakfast: one tall nonfat peppermint mocha no whip, four shortbread cookies (over the course of the morning). 12:30-Lunch: 1/2 turkey reuben and a pickle (I ate the pickle first and it went down fine). I believe I wrote an ode to this Reuben a few months ago). 4:00 midafternoon snack: 1/2 nonfat peppermint mocha and then a return of said peppermint mocha. 7:30 Dinner: 1/4 cup of leftover chicken and wine. I will try and eat more but it is not looking too promising-well that could be a good thing or a bad thing.

xxxooo