Update

Wow, it's been awhile since I blogged. I meant to several times, but there never quite seemed like a good time. My last post was at the start of Valentine's weekend, and my boyfriend and I had a minor falling out. Suffice to say I didn't feel like venting on the web. We're fine now though.

My toe isn't healing properly. I had surgery on it to have a piece of bone removed on December 29th, and apparently it's having a reaction to an internal suture. When I went to the doc last week, there was a huge amount of pus visible under the skin.  She cleaned it out, found the remains of a suture, removed it, and then proceeded to tell me my new care regimen.

I'm using something called Prisma Matrix, a blend of silver and collagen in a cellulose medium. I tear off pieces of it, apply it to the "wound" area, and wet it with saline solution. I've been doing this for a week, and since the toe is still swollen around the area, I'm not sure as to how much healing is going on. I hope to find out later today when I go back to the podiatrist.

My weight is back up somewhat. Add to that the fact that yesterday was my birthday, and I'll be celebrating through the weekend.  My mom is up to see me, to get away from her empty house in Florida, and it's good that she's here.

I got more ink done.

Back in 2004 when my divorce was final, I wanted a tattoo that reminded me of who I am, apart from any man. During my marriage I had lost a lot of myself  in the relationship. I fought to regain my sense of self, and self worth throughout the 8-month divorce process. I wanted the ritualistic art-through-pain process.

This is my tattoo that I got 5 and half years ago.  I'm a Pisces, naturally.

So I've been giving thought the past few months of having some work added to it. I wanted water to represent my first home that I bought in June, and I wanted the space shuttle to represent my father, who passed away in November (he was an elecrtrical engineer who worked at United Space Alliance creating gyroscopes for instrumentation on the shuttle - also, he was a space enthusiast all of my life)

The artist I went to had a great style to her art. She was also the owner, and my entire process there- from the start of synthesizing the ideas, to drawing up a composition (I took her reference photos of the shuttle), to doing the ink- kept getting interrupted by customers. She had no store manager, or front desk person, and the other 2 artists there didn't seemed interested in helping someone unless they had nothing else to do. All in all I was at her store 8 hours. Four before the ink was started, and 4 during.

 

Linework

This photo was taken after the line work was done. Line work took about 45 minutes, and was actually the most pleasurable, least hurtful of the ink. If I had known ahead of time how long everything would take, I would have arranged to come back for a second session. By the end I was not the most attractive or sane person in the world, and many kudos to my boyfriend for seeing me through it. 

The finished piece

This was taken after the area was cleaned. Currently it's been 10 days since the tattoo was done, and I'm at the "don't-you-dare-pick-at-your-scabs-no-matter-how-much-they-itch" phase of the healing process.

Last, but not least: the past two days I attended a training workshop called SIOP - Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol. That long indecipherable name is an educational approach when teaching a classroom that has English as 2nd Language Learners (ELL). We got a huge amount of information in the 2 days, and I could have used another day with the trainers.  Today however, in honor of my birthday, I took the day off from school. So when I left work Monday, I was ready for 3 days of sub plans, and a giddy feeling of guiltless freedom.

Yay for birthdays!

SNOW

Yes, it's snowing. The wet thick-flaked kind of snow. I didn't believe it would get like this, but it's still coming down.

Some photos:

Normally this would make me giddy with excitement. Snow for a teacher usually means a day off and sleeping in. But my county has a 4 day weekend scheduled, so I was off anyway Fri-Mon. Now if it snows again Monday night, I may get excited.

I was also looking forward to a Valentine home-cooked dinner from my boyfriend tonight. But he's not coming over with all this snow.

I have a warm home, warm dog, and food in my fridge. Time to snuggle up to some WoW I think.

Friday Weigh In and Oprah

Starting weight: 261
Last weigh in: 256
Today's weight: 255.4


So I lost half a pound this week. It's movement in the right direction at least. And considering I've not been as good as I could have been about food and exercise, I'll take it.

My thoughts this morning are a bit jumbled, so I apologize if this isn't the most cohesive post I've written.

On Oprah this week I saw Ruby, the woman who used to weigh 700lbs, and now weighs less than half that. She looked amazing considering the amount of weight she started at. She has considerable follow-through.

How do I get around the part of exercise where it feels like I'm killing myself? If not around, how do I work through it? Sheer willpower? I saw another episode of Oprah on "Undercover Boss" and the president of Waste Management was undercover at various jobs in his company. He met this man who underwent dialysis every few nights, but yet he had a physically taxing job and never complained about it. When asked by the boss, he said his spirit tells his body what it's going to do.

And then yesterday on Oprah (can you tell I record everyday?) Dr. Oz was talking about diabetes. He showed the ravaging effects one woman was going through and how she'd lost part of her leg do to the disease. Dr. Oz stated that people don't make life changes based on what they know, they make them on what they feel. He wanted the viewers to feel the plight of this woman, in an effort to get people motivated to A)find out if they had diabetes and B) treat it properly if they did.

Do I feel motivated to lose weight? Some days I do, and some days I don't. I guess I should break down that statement into 2 parts. Do I feel motivated to eat better, and do I feel motivated to exercise? More often I feel that about eating, than I do about exercising.

What do you, the readers feel? How did you get to a point where you exercised regularly, and worked through the "omg, this is killing me I just want to lay back down" feeling?

Food, Glorious Food

Friday began the weekend well. I'd weighed myself and lost a pound. That gave me the motivation to skip the donuts and bagels with cream cheese in the teachers lounge. Dinner with M was pot roast that had been slow cooking all day, with a nice merlot.

Saturday I didn't eat right, nor Sunday. I was out of Nutrisystem snacks and meals. I had made cookies on Sunday and ended up eating just about all of them. Monday at work included two vending machine packages of shortbread cookies with the jam center. Fought lots of sleepiness, and felt again the sugar cravings that had ended when I was on the plan's food last month.

Yesterday after work though, my Nutrisystem order arrived.

How can I explain the feeling I had, putting away 28 days worth of food and snacks? You know the cliche about people rolling around in money, and the feeling of ecstatic joy?  That's how I felt. If I could have rolled around in it without crushing boxes, I might have. I felt giddy. Some connection to food I have, huh?

A Meme

Saw this on Athena's Melting and thought I'd share my answers

1.What time did you get up this morning?
4:13am

2. How do you like your steak?
medium

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Avatar 3D

4. What is your favorite TV show?
It was Doctor Who with David Tennant- won't know if still is till I see the new Doctor in action. I record Castle, Ghost Hunters, Project Runway, Top Chef, Heroes. I LOVED Defying Gravity and wish it hadn't been canceled.

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
I'd have to travel to a lot of places to decide that... can I start with Italy?

6. What did you have for breakfast?
Chicken Tikka Masala leftovers

7. What is your favorite cuisine?
hmm sushi, Indian, pizza

8. What foods do you dislike?
Veggies most of the time... I'll eat if others fix it, but rarely fix for myself.

9. Favorite place to eat?
Cafe Bombay

10. Favorite dressing?
honey mustard

11. What kind of vehicle do you drive?
VW Jetta

12. What are your favorite clothes?
my comfy fleece pajamas

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance?
I'd love to go back to Japan with friends

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full?
full

15. Where would you want to retire?
someplace warm

16. Favorite time of day?
bedtime

17. Where were you born?
Maryland

18. What is your favorite sport to watch?
hot dog eating

19. Bird watcher?
Nope.

20. Are you a morning person or a night person?
Depends on time of year.. I have to be a morning person for school, but I love sleeping in and staying up late.

21. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share?
I'm going to be an Aunt any day now.

22. What did you want to be when you were little?
A teacher, or a go-go dancer

23. What is your best childhood memory?
climbing trees

24. Are you a cat or dog person?
dog.

25. Are you married?
Not for the last 6 years.

26. Always wear your seat belt?
Yes.

27. Been in a car accident?
Yes. I was a passenger.

28. Any pet peeves?
People in a position of authority who cannot communicate well in emails (all caps, more than one ! etc).

29. Favorite Pizza Toppings?

black olives, artichoke hearts

30. Favorite Flower?
Roses but not the hot house kind- has to have a scent

31. Favorite ice cream?
Breyer's mint choc chip.

32. Favorite fast food restaurant?
Wendy's.

33. How many times did you fail your driver's test?
Once- I didn't stop at a stop sign- never made it out of the parking lot.

34. From whom did you get your last email?
Facebook

35. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
American Signature Furniture- I need bedroom items for 2 rooms

36. Do anything spontaneous lately?
I broke out into a Michael Jackson-esque dance in the hall at school as kids were returning to class

37. Broccoli?
yep

38. What was your favorite vacation?
One to Seattle where I got to take a ferry to Vashon Island to see a fabulous artist.

39. Last person you went out to dinner with?
B

40. What are you listening to right now?
Oprah on DVR

41. What is your favorite color?
Red is my power color, Yellow is my happy color, Green is my Calm color

42. How many tattoos do you have?
One, but want to add 2 things to it soon

43. Coffee drinker?
Sometimes.

Protein Packed Pancakes

I was wanting pancakes this morning, so I looked up a recipe and tweaked it to include protein:

1/2 cup flour
1egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup almond milk (or your milk of choice)
1 scoop whey protein powder (I used chocolate flavored)
1tsp Splenda
1 Tsp cinnamon

Apple sauce instead of syrup. YUM! Made 4 pancakes.

A Weird Thing

I spent the hour afterschool with my first meeting of Japanese club. Kids in grades 2-5 meet on Monday afternoons to have me teach them beginning Japanese Language and Culture.

When I got home, I realized I felt a weird thing.

Calm.

It was the first time in...weeks I hadn't come home too tired, stressed, or angry. The first time I didn't immediately crave food of some sort. I didn't crave pizza, or Chinese or Indian. I actually sat and had to think... what do I want to eat?  Understand that I'm usually driven by my brain-tummy impulses. I had none today. It was like being free. I could choose to eat, or not.

I waited a bit, until my tummy was saying it was hungry. I fixed a Nutrisystem "Cheesy Homestyle potatoes with Broccoli"  Well, not much broccoli, but it has 10g protein and 4.5g fat.  200 calories.

Later while watching TV, I began to be aware of my brain searching for more... I had a half-urge to go to Wendy's for a chocolate frosty. Instead though of going, I got some strawberry banana Kefir from the fridge, and put it in my ice cream maker. YUM  It did the trick.

I don't know why it's happened, but I really hope I have another day like this.

Also- my feet and ankles ache from the trampoline work. They hurt like when I was a kid and would ice skate for an hour. Kinda good in a way, but sucks when I'm on my feet at work all day hehe.