Back to the Real World

Hey, bloggers!

I've missed you all terribly. We got back from vacation (camping with no internet access or phone reception), so now I face the scary task of catching up on all of your blogs. I felt so bad for being away for so long, but I'm excited to see what you've all been up to. I'll do a more exciting post later with pictures from vacation and whatnot.

Unfortunately, I've gained more weight. Not sure if it was due to vacation or the weeks leading up to vacation. Either way, it's bad. Up to 216.4, which is about 8 pounds higher than my lowest. I screwed up really bad and for a really long time. I know that and it sucks. However, with school being out, it's going to be so much easier to be active and to plan my meals. I haven't been logging my food and I need to get back into doing that. It's not an option, it's a must.

Anyway, I'm hoping to get caught up on all your blogs by the end of the week. Sorry in advance if I don't comment much while I play catch-up. Going to go do that now. Hope everyone had a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend!

xoxo

I'm Alive

I've been a terrible blogger, a terrible bandster, and a terrible girlfriend lately, but on the plus side, I've been a fabulous student. That counts for something, right? Just finished my last day of classes and now I just have finals week to get through then I'll have time to really focus on blogging and weight loss and spending time with my wonderful fellow and puppy.

 I haven't been posting my weights for the past couple weeks because I'm embarrassed. I'm back up to about 212ish. It's annoying. Sorry for trying to hide it from you all. I've been eating all the wrong things, plus I think I need to get in to get a fill. I haven't been in since early February because of my school schedule. We leave for a week of camping on May 19 and I'm not sure if I should try to go for a fill before that or just wait until I get back. Either way, I intend to lose weight during camping. I'm sure there will be a s'more or two, but there will also be hiking and canoeing (first time for me for both of those). I'll probably wait until we get back just in case anything were to happen while we were up there. That'd suck.

Anyway, sorry for the absence and the random babbling. Just wanted to check in with everyone and mention I'm not dead. Apparently there have been a lot of absentee bloggers lately though, so I suppose I won't feel too bad. At least I've just gotten caught up on all your blogs. I'll get back into blogging and commenting regularly after vacation.

Hope everyone's well.

xoxo

Week 36 and More Easter Pictures

Week 36 brought a gain of .5 lbs, which I'm totally fine with because TOM has been in town since Sunday. The scale said 209.0 this morning, which is ok. I'm still at more than 55 pounds lost and out of the 210s. Good enough for this week. Unfortunately, my birthday is one week from today and I'm sure I'm not going to be in Onederland by then. Perhaps by the end of the semester on May 11th? I'll aim for that. It's totally doable, I just need to actually do it.

I'm happy to say that I did keep my commitment to myself and did not overeat on Easter. My family has been great and there wasn't even any chocolate around for me to be tempted with. Daddy got me one Cadbury egg per my request. It's just not Easter without a Cadbury egg. I was in charge of dessert for our dinner, like I am every year. I typically make a lamb shaped cake but I knew that if I did that I'd end up making that awesome butter cream that I used for Anna's baby shower cake and that was just entirely unhealthy. Since we have both diabetics and non-diabetics, I made a sugar free dessert and a regular one. The sugar free dessert was pretty yummy. I'm not sure the name of it but it's layers of sugar free chocolate cake cubes with SF chocolate pudding, SF toffee candy pieces, and SF Cool Whip, and then all the layers repeated a second time. It went very well.

Dessert from the top. When I was growing up we used to have some kind of egg dye that you put drops of it on top of the water and swirl it around to create a marble-type effect on the eggs. I tried to recreate that idea with this dessert.

view from the side. yummy!

Our non-sugar free dessert was based on cake pops. I didn't want to put them on sticks so I just made cake egg ball thingies.

My dad's house was full-12 people and 3 dogs, so there wasn't much room to move around and take many pictures, but I got a couple-mostly of Michael :)

Brother and Michael

Brother, sis-in-law and Michael

My Grannie

Easter nails inspired by Miss Kayla Shevonne

Even though it was a very busy weekend, it was a good one.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

xoxo

Tea and Easter Pictures

It's been such a busy week and I'm once again using the blog as a means of procrastination. I have a serious case of senioritis right now. After this week is over, I only have three weeks of class left before summer vacation, then student teaching starts in August! Eek! It's crazy. The advisor is going to review my portfolio on Friday, then I'll get my recommendation for student teaching and I'll be good to go. I can't believe it's almost over. Well, anyway, on to the good stuff...

Last week I went shopping and to afternoon tea with my mommy and future mommy-in-law. I ended up buying 4 tank tops at the consignment shop. I forgot to take pictures of them, but I'll get around to it. I did find out that I could get away with a size 14/16 top, which is super awesome. Of course that's only if I wear the proper pants (I have a pair of black stretchy dress pants that I can pull up nearly to my boobs and it shapes me pretty well since I don't have any shape wear yet). After shopping, we went to afternoon tea at a really cute restaurant called the Hyeholde. Even the building itself was absolutely adorable!

mine on left, Ben's on right,  both equally fabulous

I'd been worried about the food they would serve us because for a fat chick, I'm a really picky eater. See, they don't let you choose what you eat, they just bring you whatever they felt like making that day. So, we get there and sit down and we have a list of at least ten different teas to choose from. Ben's mom picked Earl Grey, my mom had pear caramel and I got green tea tropical. They were delicious. We each got our own little pot of tea and it was adorable. Then, they brought us each our own little plate of assorted goodness. Beware food porn:

Seafood and sausage soup, crab cake, ginger and cream cheese sandwich triangle, ham salad sandwich triangles, and couscous. YUM!



We savored each delicious bite and then they brought out desserts.

Almond and apricot scones and banana bread with clotted cream and raspberry blackberry jam

Tiny lemon panna cotta with strawberry rhubarb jelly topping and candied lemon peel garnish.



Bottom to top: Pistachio French macarons with pistachio creme filling, mini pineapple upside down cakes, Bailey's cheese cake (to die for!), nut clusters, and on the very far left were bittersweet chocolate and Grand Marnier truffles.

It was the most fun I've ever had at a restaurant, quite honestly. Obviously it's not something that should be done frequently, but it was a great time with great company. It was the first time any of us had gone to tea and I'd say it was well worth it.

It's just about time for Ben to get home, so I should probably get started on making dinner. I suppose I'll have to wait to post about Easter for another time...But here's a sneak preview...

Love my nephew!



Hope everyone had a great Easter/Passover/Feaster :)

xoxo

Happy Easter!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter. Will post pictures later on tonight after family time :)

My commitment to myself is to not look like this by the end of the day:



xoxo

8 Month Bandiversary

Happy Hump Day, bloggers. I don't have any pictures yet because I'm at school, but today is my 8 month bandiversary. In these 8 months, I've lost 55.9 pounds, bringing me to a weight this morning of 208.5. I'm still pushing to get to Onederland by my 24th birthday on April 19. I've mentioned this before, but the last time I remember being under 200 pounds was in seventh grade when the school nurse recorded my height and weight. I'll be ecstatic to see a 1 in the first position on the scale. I'm almost half way to my goal weight. 58.5 pounds left to lose until I hit my goal of 150. I'm getting kind of scared because I'm having such trouble seeing the difference in myself. If I can't see the changes in my body in the mirror at the halfway point, will I be able to see the changes after I've reached goal or will I always see the 278 pound fatty in the mirror? It worries me. I know this is a fairly common theme in the banded blogger world, so if anyone has any advice on how to deal with these changes and how I can help my eyes and mind catch up with my body, that'd be great. I mean, the pictures help, but I don't want to live my life through photographs.

I just got a text from my dad congratulating me for being over half way to my goal and I was confused...but he was going with my highest weight of 278. It took that text message to realize that I've lost 69.5 pounds total. Crazy. And you know what? I really like the metric system in this context. I'm not a big fan of centimeters and such, but it's super awesome to know that I'm well under 100 kilos, weighing in at 94.7. Good times.

And speaking of good times, in non-band related news, I have a really fun girls' day out planned with my mommy and future mommy-in-law. We're going to a plus sized consignment shop followed by afternoon tea. I can't wait. We've never been to tea before, so we're all pretty excited. And I also won a gift basket from my office for Easter. We had one of those guess how many jelly beans are in the jar contests and I won one of five baskets. Now, I've never won anything like that in my life because  I'm  terrible at guessing things-age, weight, height, amount of stuff-I'm just bad at it. That being said, I just wrote down a random number (436) and went on my merry way without even looking to see what kinds of goodies were in the baskets. Hopefully it's not packed full of candy. Keeping my fingers crossed. It should be a really good day today, once I get out of school. Oh and that's the reason for my absence lately, too. I just turned in my GINORMOUS online portfolio to the education department. They'll review it and decide whether or not I get to student teach in the fall based on that stupid thing. I did the best I could, I think, and it's so nice to have that weight off my shoulders, but now I'm just worrying about whether or not they'll like it.

On a brighter note, my wonderful nephew is doing well. He sleeps a lot, but I went over to visit on Saturday and he was wide awake and very animated. It was nice. He's even able to roll over onto his side now, probably as a result from overstaying his welcome in his mother's womb. He'll be three weeks old on Monday. I can't wait to see what my brother and sis-in-law picked out for him to wear for Easter.

That's about all I've got for now. I'm sorry I haven't been commenting like I'd like to, but just know I've been keeping up with your blogs religiously. It's a great means of procrastination and for that, I thank you all :)

Stay tuned for pictures from our girls' day out!

Have a good day, all.

xoxo

Week 33

Very little movement on the scale this week, but at least it's movement in the right direction. 210.6, which is .1 lb down from last week. I'll take it. I was so nervous this morning because this is the first time since surgery that I didn't step on the scale at all between Thursday weigh ins. I don't think it's worth the anxiety not to weigh between weigh ins, at least for me, anyhow. Things are on the band front are kind of weird. I'd been eating badly, especially the day Michael was born, and I PB'd this week. Too fast eating a pork chop. Yuck. But, it's only my second time in nearly 8 months, so I guess that's not so bad.

This might be weird, but my parents still make Easter baskets for my brother and me. Obviously, this year I said no candy. I asked my dad for any combination of Benefiber, vitamins, and my yummy delicious Costco protein shakes. I was out of the shakes already, so he stopped by and brought me 4 cases of protein shakes. I'm a happy girl. That's a pricey Easter basket though.

I have to go finish up some school stuff, so I'll leave you with what I think is the most fabulous picture of my bitty baby nephew.

Have a good day, all!
xoxo

Go Steelers!  We love you, Hines!