A Little Ray of Bitter Sunshine

I know I haven’t updated much here, I’m hoping that will change soon.

In the meantime, I’m stopping by to show you my new “signature” which will be at the end of all my blog posts. I created it at My Live Signature … so if you want one too, pop over there! It took me about one minute to create.

Days three and four of my New York Trip recap will be coming soon, so sit tight!

It’s another Haiku Friday over at the Facebook home of The Nervous Breakdown. This week’s theme is weird moments you experienced in elementary school.

Here’s my submission, and then the (slightly) longer story behind it:

Schoolmate giving first-
graders vodka, telling them
that it was Kool-Aid

Yes, it’s true. I think I was probably in 7th or 8th grade, and a girl in my class named Sonia brought a plastic water bottle-type cup to school and gave some to the first-graders over recess. She told them it was Kool-aid, but of course it wasn’t.

I think maybe it was Kool-aid mixed with vodka, but I’m sure there was more vodka than Kool-aid.

I wish I could remember if she was caught. She graduated with us in 8th grade, so most likely she wasn’t. It was Catholic school, she would have been out on her ass.

I heard from another classmate that she died of leukemia or something like that.

I am nearly back in Weight Watchers mode after a mini-hiatus over the Memorial Day weekend. The Thursday before Memorial Day my best friend and I flew to Newark to stay with some of his friends. Of course, each day (except for our Sunday hangover day) we went into New York.

It was my first visit there and I had a great time. A separate post with photos to come on that.

Basically I knew there was no convenient way to be able to track what I was eating while I was out of town. I justified that by asserting in my mind that the walking we were going to be doing would offset any overindulging.

So I prayed for good weather.

And got it. It was beautiful every day we were there, so when I got home and on my scale, I was not surprised to see the number go down from before I left.

Our WW meeting the week I got back was canceled, so I went to another location over the lunch hour to weigh in. I was down 2.8 pounds, and was very pleased with myself, especially after a couple weeks of yo-yoing.

Since I got back it’s been hard to get into tracking mode again, but I still watched what I ate. When I weighed in yesterday I was only down .2, but a loss is a loss, right?

Yesterday’s loss puts me at a grand total of 16.6 pounds down (anyone trying to lose weight knows how important those tenth-pounds are, amiright?). I’m tempted to put three small bags of sugar in a bag and see how that weight feels.

While I didn’t reach my 20-pounds-by-Memorial-Day goal, I’m still happy with where I am, mentally and physically. My clothes fit better and I don’t get as winded when taking the stairs (we walked the last six flights to the observatory on the Empire State Building when I was in NYC — yes, I was winded, but I NEVER could have done that 16 pounds and one trainer ago). I just basically feel all-around better about myself, which is a great thing!

10 percent ticker:

Overall ticker:

I’ve “Facebooked” and “Twittered” about this so far today, and then I was provided the inspiration to put my feelings about Excedrin® Migraine into haiku form.

So, for your Friday reading pleasure here is my level of emotion about Excedrin Migraine in 5-7-5 format:

Headache Haiku
Excedrin Migraine,
an elixir from the gods.
Headaches are a bitch.

With that, I bid you good weekend. If you would like to comment with a haiku of your own, please do so! I think this is the first poem I’ve written since college. :p

®Excedrin is a registered trademark of Novartis Consumer Health, Inc.

The Center for American Progress has an interactive quiz you can take to determine how progressive you are.

Forty questions, a score of 400 means you’re ultra-progressive. According to CAP, the average score is 209.5.

Mine was 300 which, according to CAP, makes me very progressive.

Where do you fall on the spectrum?

I didn’t track very well this week, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

Boy was I surprised.

10 percent tracker:

Overall tracker:

4.4 pounds!!! Seriously, I was not expecting that. My scale at home showed me down about three from last week, but I thought maybe the battery was running low. I really don’t think I did enough to warrant that much of a loss, but I’ll take it!

I did make some healthier food choices though. Instead of eating a whole pizza, I made spaghetti (with whole wheat pasta) at home. Instead of ordering a big combo meal when I had Mexican last Saturday, I just ordered enchiladas. And I know I sound like a broken record, but the strength training must have a hand in this somehow, probably a much larger one than I thought.

This most recent loss brings me to a total of 13.4 pounds down, which means I hit my 10 lbs. lost goal and my 5 percent of my body weight goal in the same week.

Woo hoo!

Tonight is my trainer session, and I want to make a concerted effort to get to the gym this weekend. I am scheduled to go Sunday, because a co-worker who is on Weight Watchers with me wants to start strength training, so I’m walking her through the routine I do when I’m not with my trainer. I wasn’t doing this routine for a long time, but have started up again to enhance what I’m doing with her.

Short but good-news-type post. Mouth is sore and I have some things to finish up before I leave work.

Down .8 pounds from last week. Awesome considering I didn’t track very well, and it was a good bounce-back from my gain last week.

10 percent ticker:

Overall ticker:

I still think that 20 pounds down by Memorial Day is an achievable goal.

For the first time, I have points left for the day. Nine to be exact.

Does this mean I can take back nine weekly points that I used? :p