This is why I probably shouldn't exercise

So, it was the first of the year, and I made this vow to eat less and move more. We didn't have anything planned for the day, so I asked the kids what they wanted to do.

My daughter had just received a new pair of roller skates for Christmas, and she wanted to go to the rollerskating rink. Cool, we can do that. I used to be a pretty mean skater back in the day. Of course that was 20+ years ago, but I figured it was like riding a bike, right?

We went to the rink, and my daughter started skating right away. My son is not a skater, so he took his time around the rink. I stayed with him for the first couple of rounds, while I got my skating legs back, and then I started skating on my own.

Let me tell you: It IS like riding a bike! It all came back to me! How to bend, how to turn... I even spun around and did some backwards skating so I could talk to the kids! I was an expert! And I bet this was GREAT exercise! I had visions of coming to the rink every weekend.

There was a boy skating in front of me, going pretty fast. I remembered when I could go that fast! I started to pick up speed, and soon I was overtaking him. Look at me! I'm Awesome!

And then.

For a good 10 seconds, I wasn't falling yet, but I was ALMOST falling. What do I do? Tuck and roll! Fall to your knees! No, I can do this, and I can keep my balance..... 

CRASH!

tuck in your fingers so no one rolls them over.... roll on to your knees to you can get up.... Get up before anyone comes here... good Lord, how is a 240 pound woman supposed to get up quickly?

By the time I was standing up, there was quite the crowd around me. I skated my way off the rink and went to sit with my husband, who came with us but was smart enough not to put on skates.

"Did you see me fall?" I asked.

"No! And I'm so upset I missed it! I would have filmed it! Describe it for me! Did you yell 'ARRRRGH!' as you came crashing down? Can you do it again? I want to see it!"

He's so supportive.

all three of us... before the fall

I came home with a bruise on my knee (which is weird because I thought I landed on my bottom) and a bruise on my wrist. By the end of the day, the pain had radiated to my shoulder, and I could barely walk.

My husband was pretty upset about my wrist. "You could have broken your wrist! I TOLD you not to put your hands out when you're falling!"

Like I had any control whatsoever.

I took Advil for the next 4 days, but obviously nothing was broken, so there was no reason to go to the doctor. Besides, as my luck would have it, my health insurance changed in 2017 to a high deductible-- totally my luck to be injured on the very first day of the new plan!

Caffeine Withdrawals

I think I mentioned that I quit caffeine. I take creamer in my coffee, and since I'm trying to give up on sugar, and caffeine and artificial  sweeteners really aren't that good for you, anyway, I decided to quit coffee and soda... at least for now.

I was ok at first. It wasn't until day 2 or 3 that I really thought I was going to die. I thought I had the flu! My muscles ached, I had a headache, I was just not ok. I went to bed at 7:15 that night.

Luckily, I didn't have the mood swings that people talk about.... or maybe my husband was just very afraid of me and stayed out of my way.

Now I'm on day 11, and I'm feeling like myself again! Woo hoo! Here's what worked for me:

I drank green tea (which has some caffeine, but less than a cup of coffee) for the first couple of days, to try to gradually wean myself off, then switched to completely caffeine free tea.

I switched to sparkling water. When I drink a soda, it's because I crave that fizzy burn going down my throat. Sparkling soda water does the same thing. No calories, no caffeine, no sugar. Good stuff. My brain thinks it's drinking a Diet Pepsi!

I powered through. I read somewhere that only 50% of caffeine drinkers experience withdrawal symptoms, and only 50% of those people experience a headache. Count me in that group. My headache was terrible! I was on Advil (for another matter that I guess I'll talk about on Friday), but it did absolutely nothing for the pain. I ended up just going to bed-- only the darkness helped. But I felt a lot better  when I woke up. The very worse withdrawals only last for about three days, so the best thing to do is to power through!


Have you given up on coffee and soda? What works for you?

Motivation

Hi. It's been awhile. I don't know if I'm back, I'm just writing. 

 Before the new year started, I told myself I was going to enjoy the week between Christmas and New Year's, but then on January 1st, the crap food goes away. 

 Today is day 3. I'm doing good so far. But I also know that there may come a day in the near future when I just stop for some unknown reason, and then before I know it, I'm back to square one. 

 I need some kind of motivation.

 "You don't need to lose weight," my husband said. "You look gorgeous. I just want you to be happy. Remember that night you wore the black dress? You were happy then. So you were, what? Like 10 pounds less than you are now?" 

The Black Dress

I remember the night of the black dress. That was on our anniversary, six years and 50 pounds ago. I told him as much. 

 He was shocked. "No way was that 50 pounds. If you lost 50 pounds, you would look sickly." 

 No. I would look like a sexy girl in a black dress. And I would still want to lose another 20 pounds.

 "OK," my husband said. "How about this. You get back to the black dress size, where you looked like you were really happy with the way you looked, and we'll go on a cruise. OK?"

 OK.

I don't own the back dress anymore. I tried it on about a year after I wore it and I ripped it as I was trying to get it over my hips. Instead of trying to repair it, I  threw it away in tears of frustration and disappointment. But that's ok. There are other black dresses.

And I was happy that night. That was September of 2010,  after 5 months of steadily losing weight. I had lost 40 pounds since that April. I was proud of my accomplishment.

Now I need to lose more, and I'm older now, so it will be harder. But I know it can be done.  

Perhaps I will start using this as a weight loss blog....

Hey ya'll.

I'm going to take a bit of a bloggy break. Maybe it will be forever, maybe not. But it's not like I was writing all that much, anyway, so we'll see how the little break goes.

What will I be doing on my time off? Reading, mostly. I have a new found love for Liane Moriarty, so I've been reading all of her books. I also want time to read all of YOUR fabulous blogs! I'm really looking forward to that!

So, I'm here, I'm still alive, and hopefully you'll see me in your comments. Talk to you soon!

13 things that are right in front of me

Ok, I need to get back in to blogging. I'm going to start out small. Forgetfulone recently posted a blog about 13 things that she could see in front of her right now. Here my list:

1. The TV. I'm watching Bachelor in Paradise on Demand right now. I wasn't going to watch it, but everyone at work was talking about it, and The Agent is out playing poker, so I decided to binge watch. It's not anything to get excited about.

2. 4 Baskets of laundry. To be fair, it's all clean laundry. It just needs to be hung up and put away. I'm waiting for a child or a husband to volunteer to help put it away. It's been there for three days now.

3. The cat. More specifically, Bug's cat. There's something wrong with this friggin' cat. He hates the world. If you try to pet him, he's flinch and cower like you're trying to beat him. But he loves Bug. He leans into her hand when she pets him, and curls  up on her lap when she's sitting on the couch. And then when Bug goes to bed, this fool cat goes to bed with her and sleeps with his head on her pillow. Nutty cat.


4. My laptop. Duh.

5. Several toys and books belonging to the short people in the house. Seriously, can't they put ANYTHING away?

6. A Weird brass flamingo. So, my stepmother's aunt died, and her mother (so, my stepgrandmother?) was given this life sized brass flamingo that was found in the house. Alice's mom put the flamingo in her living room and it worked perfectly in there, because, well, her living room was last redecorated in the mid seventies. So then we're over at their house for some holiday and The Agent fell in love with the flamingo. So what does Alice's mom do? She straight gives us the flamingo. And I'm like, "no, please, I'm sure it has sentimental value,  please don't make me keep that ugly brass bird in my house." So now Freddie Flamingo lives in our living room. And not in a corner. Straight in the middle of everything. Watching me like a creeper.

See the unfinished wood in the background? See #10.

7. The house phone. There are only three people who call me on the house phone: Mom, Dad, and BFF. I have received 3 phone calls tonight, from none of those people. Freakin' telephone solicitors. Luckily, I have caller id, so I didn't answer the phone at all, and they didn't leave messages, which is also annoying.

8. A notepad. Filled with sentences written by BK. On the 7th day of school (which was Tuesday), BK's teacher called me and asked if there was "a bathroom issue" she should know about. It seems that BK went to the bathroom during class 5 times over the last two days, even after he said he went at recess. I told the teacher there are no bathroom issues, he just wants to get out of class. Duh. So, as punishment, BK had a fill a page with "I will go to the  bathroom at recess."

9. A pizza box. Ummmm...... yeah. We had pizza two weeks ago. The Agent wanted to save it for some reason. Just call us the Hoarders.

10. The fireplace. Two years ago, almost three now, The Agent put a big hole in my living room when he ripped out my fireplace. 6 months ago, he finally put in the new fireplace and the shelving I've been asking for.... and then he stopped. It still needs to be painted and the baseboards needs to be installed.... but I haven't been complaining because at least there's not a big hole there anymore. Maybe it will be completed someday.

11. Bug's backpack. I should probably check to make sure she did all her homework...

12. My Yeti. Do you guys know about the Yeti? Oh my, I think it's it's going to make my list of my favorite things in 2016. It's basically just a steel cup that keeps hot things hot and cold things cold. In the evening I enjoy a cocktail (today it was vodka and soda), and in the morning, the ice will still be in the tumbler. My friends, this is California. It's 9 o'clock at night and it's still 82 degrees out. The ice should have become water in about 26 minutes.

13. Pretzel Crisps by Snack Factory. This is my new crack.

What's right in front of you right now?

Drama in the world

There's drama in the world.

People are shooting each other.

People are judging each other in the face of tragedy.

People are hating each other.

Why?

Why do we treat people this way?

I'm not saying we have to love everyone, or even like everyone.

But when did we start to think so little of the human soul that it became easier to destroy one than to tolerate one?

It makes me sad to think about the future.

My neighbors are all carrying guns.

Politicians are screaming for gun control.

I don't know what the right answer is.

I just want to live in a world where I don't have to worry that my children might be shot while walking to the park.

May results and June goals

Another month down and I still don't have a lot to say, but that's ok!

*Lose three more pounds. Finally, a good month for weight loss! May 1: 241.1. June 1: 238.0. Whoo hoo! I've been working hard on the Lovely Diet Plan (which is essentially logging everything I eat and calorie counting).

*Create our summer bucket list. Done! The kids love creating this list every Summer. You can read about this year's list here.

*Create a You Tube Video for Bug. I still didn't get to this, and Bug hasn't been asking. Out of sight, out of mind.

*Go on a date without the kids. We went out not once, but twice! First we went to my girlfriend's 40 birthday party, and then the very next night, we went out to dinner with the other parents from BK's baseball team. A bit of a bummer that it wasn't spread out a little more, but at least we got out of the house!

And I also read two more books in May, making the total 23 for the year:

The Swan House by Elizabeth Musser

find it here 

This book was only ok to me, which is probably why it took almost the entire month to read it. It was about a young rich debutante named Mary Swan,  growing up in Atlanta in the 1960's. When her mother dies tragically, her housekeeper takes Mary Swan with her to volunteer at a soup kitchen on the other side of town. While there, Mary Swan questions everything about her society and the life she's always known.

So this was a book that's supposed to make you think and question the way people do things. It was about discrimination and segregation and the differences between the rich and the poor.  Not my cup of tea. I'd rather have a good love story.... so I was particularly annoyed when the book ended and we don't know if Mary Swan ended up with the guy (there is a sequel that answers this question, but I will not be reading it. You can read it and tell me what happens).

Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes by Denise Grover Swank

find it here

I got this book because it was free, but what a cute story! This girl has always been a plain Jane outcast, but she's special because she can have visions of future events, but that makes you kind of creepy in a small town in Arkansas. So she's an outcast, but then one day she sees her own murder in a vision. She knows she's about to die, so she starts to really live for the first time in her life.

This book was the first in a series, and I liked it enough that I've already read the next three books so far in June! There's like 8 books in the series, so I'll have plenty of reading material this Summer!


Now, we're on to June!

* Lose 5 More Pounds. I'm on a roll, let's keep it up!

* Have a birthday party for BK. BK turns 7 in June. He already blew it, and can't have a party with all his friends (I guess I better write about that at some point). But he's still having a birthday, so he'll still have a party with the family, and I'll make it cute and fun. And bonus: I saved about $400 by not having it at the laser tag place like we were planning! #silverlining

* Build a relationship with the boss. I have a new boss, who just started on May 31st. I've only met him a couple of times, but my position works very closely with him, so June will be spent getting to know each other, how we tick, all that.

* Teach BK how to swim. We didn't join the swim team this year. Bug was at the point that she needed to start getting competitive, and she just wasn't feeling it. We decided to just stick to the HOA pool, so we could all enjoy it, and I could spend some one on one time with BK to get him to learn to swim. I'm not sure that we'll be able to accomplish this in June, but it's definitely one of our goals for the summer.

Happy Summer!