New semester

Started the new semester yesterday.  It was soooooo nice to have that first day not hanging over my head any more.  It was fun to see my friends and catch up on how everyone is.  One of the ladies I was in clinical with last semester asked me if I had lost weight!  HA!  As a matter of fact I had, I just didn't know how much at that point.  BUT last night after all my classes I weighed in and had lost 4.6 pounds.  I was VERY pleased.  It made the fact that on Saturday  I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich at a great little burger joint worth it!  

The first day of the semester is always a little crazy with the faculty seeming to find the LEAST efficient way of doing administrative things and then complaining that we just don't have enough time to get through the material for the semester.  Computer problems abound.  The lab is packed with everyone in the entire building trying to print out ever piece of paper for the entire semester at the exact same time.  But at the end of the day the fact is that despite all the problems, I am back in the swing of things.  Another semester!  I'm pretty excited!  I'll have two clinical days this week (actually maybe even one clinical day and one clinical night, I could end up with a 3p-11p shift, which I think would be just fine.) and one of my clinicals is in Women's Health which translates into OB!  It will be interesting to see if there is really anything new to learn beyond memorizing a few sets of normal values.  Honestly, I'd be surprised if there is...

Gotta make school lunches (including one for your truly!)

Hungry

I'm hungry, like gnawing stomach, dull headache hungry.  I want to eat volume.  Like a lot of something.

So I'm eating a very large bowl of vegetable soup from Progresso that has zero points.  i like soup a lot.  And this one has a nice spicy, southwestern flavor.  I'm also making soup for dinner.  Thai Chicken Chowder for 4 points/ bowl.  I'

ve never made it before bt the recipe looks good.  We'll see.  

oh here's a picture of what I made Saturday night for dinner.  A copykat version of California Pizza Kitchen Thai Chicken Pizza. It was soooooo good and tasted exactly like the real thing.  No telling how many points it has!

Before measurements

Waist: 31.5

Hips: 41

upper arm: 11

thigh 21.5

So far the day is going well.  I have been very intentional about wen I eat and what I eat.  I went to the store and got the healthiest $98 of food that I have ever seen!  I have menus planned for the rest of the week and most of the ingredients to make stuff.  

So far so good!

Survived my first meeting

I went to Weight Watchers last night and no one laughed at me for being a cliche which is good.  Ruins the whole supportive atmosphere thing if the laugh at you!  I think I want to lose about 12-15 pounds which compared to a lot of the folks in there, well, most of the folks in there,  is not much.  But I guess I belong there as much as they do.  

So today I am going to go buy my books for school, visit a friend in the hospital (who thankfully is going to be fine but scared me to death on Dec. 30 that we were going to mess up a good streak for 2007 and probably into 2008) and spend some time meal planning and grocery shopping.  that should take the majority of the day I think!

Stay tuned for before photos and measurements...

New Year's cliche

I HATE being a cliche'. Hate it hate it hate it.  I was the anti-label snob in high school.  When everyone was spending their babysitting money on Guess jeans I declared I wouldn't be caught dead in a pair.

(Actually I did have a pair.  I got them on sale at Neiman Marcus.  I think they were something like $11.  They were actually plaid!  Loved those jeans.  They were the epitome of anti-label snobbery!)  

So anyway, I hate being a cliche and yet, I am about to be the ultimate New Year's cliche.  Today I am joining Weight Watchers.  Along with half the world.  I am excited to finally actually DO this.  But also nervous about failing.  I don't have a lot of weight to lose.  Certainly 5 holiday pounds.  Probably 15 pounds beyond that to be the weight I was when I got married.  

(This weekend i cleaned out my closet and got rid of a dress that I remember wearing when we were engaged.  It was a black velvet Anne Klein cocktail dress.  Very simple but very elegant.  My mom had a friend who was a personal shopper.  She found this dress on deep clearance because someone had bought it, had it altered by the store and then didn't like the alterations.  I think it was a couple hundred dollars marked down to like $35.  The person who bought it had a big butt so the alterations were weird.  Anyway, I've been holding on to it all these years because it was the perfect "little black dress".  Make that the perfect TINY little black dress.  And it was TINY!  I know it was altered again when I bought it so that it would fit me but man, who was that teeny tiny person who wore it?  And seeing as how that person was me, why didn't I EVER appreciate being so skinny back then.  I was just as concerned that I was FAT then as now.  Sorry for the reminiscence.  Back to the post....)  

 Not sure that is realistic or necessary.  But I'm curious to see what I look like 5,10, 15, 20 pounds lighter.  Well, I can really not imagine myself 20 pounds lighter.  I have been on all sorts of diets before, but I have never had to pay for them and I have rarely lasted beyond the initial couple weeks thrill of doing soemthing new.  The fact is, though, that hubby needs this more than I do and the only way he will be successful is if I am doing it too.  (Being the chief cook  and nutritionist in the family.)  Everytime the church deteriorated (see previous post) hubby added 5 pounds of the weight of the world.  Now he wants to lose some weight and I want to be supportive so here we go to weight watchers.  I'll keep you posted....

Reflections on the New Year's past

As hubby and I rang in the new year (sans kids, they were at grandparents!) we reflected on 2007 and decided it had been a pretty good year.  And it has been a long time since we have been able to say that the year past was a pretty good year.  Most of our New Year's lately have been Good Riddance.  Those readers that know me know that I am optimistic to a fault.  I have been accused of bouncing into a room and ruining a good "bad day". So it is particularly disturbing for me to look back at several years worth of "Bad years".

2003: Moved to Houston.  That was good but certainly a huge transition.  Within a couple months of getting here the situation at church deteriorated and it became clear that all was not what we expected when we took this Call.  I turned 30 and started running.

2004: Ran a half marathon on January 18th. Major accomplishment!  Church continued to deteriorate.  Hubby was more and more stressed by it.  As a couple we grew closer but life was hard on us.  Found out middle daughter had some serious problems with her bladder and chronic UTIs.  The medical merry-go-round started for her. 

2005:  Ring in the New Year! with an ectopic pregnancy. Quote of the moment when the registration lady at the hospital asked me if we'd met our deductible yet ON JANUARY 9th! Given middle daughter's issues the year before the ectopic pregnancy was about 10 days too late for that part to go right.  Things do not improve at church but hubby gets a big raise and a promotion. At least if work stinks he gets paid well for it! By May I had a second ectopic.  Although unplanned (it happened in that unsafe time after a vasectomy), it broke my heart more than any of my 3 previous miscarriages.  

2006: Ring in the new year ready for things to get better. January 18th a plane crash and our world crashed around us.  While the ectopic pregnancy broke my heart, Frank's death took it out and stomped on it and devastated people I love.  Church deteriorates further until it becomes almost intolerable. Hubby looks at employment ads and starts asking around about going back to Geology.  Again, our life as a couple and a family seemed to be strong and even strengthened it just wasn't a good way to get there.

2007:  Church improves dramatically all at once and almost like there was a plan all along.  Hubby is rewarded for his faithfulness simply by knowing he stuck it out.  I got into nursing school.  Dealt with some minor medical issues with the girls but they were easy to deal with and actually seemed to fix the problems they were designed to fix.  We did a lot of stuff to our house that we had wanted to do for a long time.  Major improvements in our living space.  Maybe that is shallow but it was soooo nice and represented stability!

2008: Who knows....but I feel pretty certain we can handle just about anything.

Now I've gone and done it!

I have jumped ship, changed teams, defected to the other side.  I have joined the Mac world.  

Yes, I am now the cool guy on the MAc commercials and no longer the geeky PC guy.  I can sit in Starbucks with my laptop and overwhelm you all with my coolness.  I can laugh at the PC world trying to figure out which virus protection to buy.  My ipod, and my computer can look cool together, like they are at a family reunion.  On the practical side, my laptop now has a battery that has life in it, a click pad that works, and it takes about 2 seconds to load a webpage (my PC was having issues and took about 20 seconds or more.)  And for the first time in a long time I have a really REALLY nice computer, not last year's model that was refurbed and on clearance.  

I'l let you know when I create a number one single on Garage Band.  You can say you knew me when I was merely a PC!