Thursday

Wow, I can't believe it is Thursday already! What a wild week! Lost 3.5 pounds since Monday: 1.5 Tuesday morning, 1 both Wed and Thursday mornings. Today I am really hungry, though. I ate my melba toast, apple, minute piece of steak, and some asparagus and was hungry a couple of hours later. Hubby has lost about the same as me. Both down around 8 pounds. Not bad for less than a week.

Monday

Down 3 pounds since yesterday! OK! The nice thing about this diet is that I am not really hungry. Sometimes I get a little hunger, but usually when more than 3 hours have passed since the drops. I guess I am getting headaches due to lack of caffeine since I am only drinking water and nothing else. I took an excedrin migraine that contains caffeine and my headache went away. So.... that was good. Today was a challenge at work because we all went to Pappadeaux for C's birthday. I ordered a plain salad with grilled chicken. WAY over priced for that....ended up being close to 17 with tax and tip. So I ate half and saved the rest. I had an apple for a mid morning snack. I kept drinking water, which led to many trips to the bathroom, which got me up and about, helping with that boredom feeling when I've been working at the computer too long.

I will be really happy if I can lose 35 pounds. 40 would be even better. I know I still have 35 days to go, so it's going to get harder, but in a way, the first few days I figured would be hardest to break the habit of eating carbs and so much sugar as well as diet drinks. Hopefully afterwards I can slowly add carbs in, but never go back to as much sugar and diet drinks. It's amazing how much I eat to kill hunger pains and kill boredom and add interest to my day. Food can't make life better is what I need to focus on. Tonight is asparagus. yum.

Earlier in the day I was tempted due to a bad day: younger daughter hit a pole after hitting a wet spot on the way to work. Airbag deployed. Hubby hasn't heard back about job interview, so thinks it is a no go, which was bad news. And then situation at work with the way the guys act about some things really is irritating. But, I need to focus on my goal: weight loss. Help me, Lord.

Sunday

Woke up with a really bad sinus headache. This weather isn't helping. Very dry out there, but windy. Had a water bottle and my drops before church, and drank a couple of glasses of water while there, and then had some meat, strawberries, broccoli for lunch. I was starting to feel pretty hungry before we got home, so I may need to take more drops when I'm not going to have them with me. The hardest part right now is the having to think about EVERYTHING I put into my mouth. I didn't realize how much eating I do without thinking about it at all. And like Pavlov's dog, when I feel a hunger pain, I fill it with the closest option. Bad habit.

I couldn't seem to shake the headache, even going to Walmart for a paper and a few more food items. So took some headache medicine and took a little nap. I woke up about 5:30 thinking it was morning. A one hour power nap did help with the headache, but then I was groggy and feeling pretty lethargic. Lots to still do to wrap up the weekend!

Saturday

Ok. Day one of the 500 calorie diet. Took the drops and drank water and had some celery and leftover turkey breast. Not too exciting, but didn't feel any hunger. Stayed busy and took the 6 drops every 3 hours or so. Ran a couple of errands and brought my water with me. I was tempted to get a diet drink as a diversion but I refocused and was ok. Went to Joann's and Michaels and Family Christian books and Mardel's. Got a few bargains and the yarn I needed.

I had some strawberries and some leftover fajita meat with another stalk of celery for dinner. I think that was a no-no but didn't think about it until after I'd enjoyed every morsel of the meat. I've been fighting a sinus headache for the past week, so I don't think it is due to anything related to this diet.

Watched some Netflix last night and did some crocheting and coupon clipping. My brand new laptop's CD/DVD is not working already, so will need to get that checked out Monday. Ugh.

Thanksgiving

Ok. So we had a wonderful, yet exhausting Thanksgiving. We invited the usual friends and various random people that wanted to come. We spread the word far and wide that our home was open to anyone that didn't have a place to celebrate. We ended up with 29 all together! We had a table set up in the living room, 2 in the study, and then the kitchen table and dining table were full. The drinks were on a table in the entryway, and the food was mostly spread out on the bar, with desserts hiding in the laundry room on the washer and dryer! Some food didn't fit, so it was put on the tables. I have 20 stoneware place settings that I inherited from my mom, so we used those with my good china. The stoneware looks more Thanksgiving-ish, but I'm not sure if I did find more plates, I'd know where to store them the rest of the time.

Before next Thanksgiving I need to get more folding chairs, because we borrowed several this year and still didn't have quite enough. Those camp chairs just don't look very Thanksgiving-ish!

Anyway, L spent Monday and Tuesday finishing up the kitchen wall remodel. We texturized our dining/kitchen and painted it. The wallpaper was so dated it was ridiculous! I mean, seriously? Salmon and dusty blue? Well, older daughter helped a lot, too. Anyway, so Wednesday was clean up and start cooking and grocery shopping day. I got off work early to help. It was a LONG day and totally exhausting by the time we collapsed into bed.

We started our HCG diet on Thursday, too. We started with Thanksgiving and the day after being our load up days. We loaded up all right on Thursday, but really were not that hungry on Friday, so went to Pappacitos to get a Mexican food fix, hoping we could keep on eating. It's harder to eat when you aren't hungry than I thought. I usually am thinking of how little I should be eating, not gorging myself.

Anyway, it was a great day and great day after day as well. Saturday started the HARD PART.

Friday

Thank goodness it is Friday. I have been so sleepy every day this week! Not sure why exactly, but it has been a challenge at work. Anyway, I got my new laptop yesterday afternoon and all installed! It's very nice and top of the line, yet rather small so it's not so heavy to carry about. However, it's got all 2010 stuff like Microsoft Office 2010 and all manner of new and changed things from my old 2006 reconditioned laptop I was using with Office 2003 and WIndows XP.

So...learning curve. And my accounting software is not quite compatible. So I can only do part of my job.

But that's ok. Minor blip.

Had lunch out every day this week. Monday it was boss J's 50th birthday, so after bagels and a card and decorated office, we took him out for barbecue for lunch. Tuesday I met my growth group leaders in training at Wendy's. Wednesday I was going ot run errands but bosses D & J made a special point to invite me to lunch with them, so we got a burger at Braum's. Thursday was my monthly ish lunch with C at Chili's and today was lunch there again with older daughter. I had a gift card so was able to get both days paid for without spending cash, including treating older daughter.

It was a nice lunch. She's growing up. Still looking for a job. But maturing. She talks about issues now instead of just reacting to them and hiding in her room depressed or angry. I'm encouraged. We went to CVS after lunch to get a couple of things on my list, but they were out of what I needed, so wasn't a long trip. She headed on home and I went back to the office. Monday I'm having lunch with Jordan's girlfriend. She's a sweet girl.

Busy weekend as usual. Youngest son has a cross country meet tomorrow morning, I have a meeting at 8 Sunday morning at church, and an Eagle Scout celebration at 3 Sunday followed by another group leader meeting Sunday night at 6:30. Tonight I hope to get some laundry done and maybe work on a quilt. I have some plans to clean as well. Hard to squeeze in family, work, church & group leading, household stuff, kids activities, etc. and have time left to exercise. But I'm trying. I'm lifting 5 pound weights every morning and night for various arm exercises. I can tell a difference, but now I need to do something with this stomach of mine...

One year later

Well, it's been almost a year since I wrote. I debated about leaving that last entry in or not. You see, this incident in our lives was a blip and only a few people know about it. I may delete it at some point, but, well, it's part of our history.

So much has changed in a year. Younger daughter got a job at Target in October, graduated from high school 5th in her class in May, and starts college next week. She is saving money to buy a car as she is a good saver. She has taken initiative at work and learned how to do the photo lab and guest services as well as cashier. I made her get braces as even though her teeth aren't really crooked, her bite is off. So she delayed braces until she graduated and hopefully will have them off before she starts her junior year of college. I'm proud of her. Most. of. the. time.

Older daughter went to a college/youth conference in January and felt like God wanted her to go to Project Impact this past summer. It was neat to see God working in her life independent of us. She raised support, earned money, and went to California this summer. God used this time in her life to be exposed some new people, experiences, and ideas that will help to shape her future.

Oldest son graduated from college in December with a degree in film and video. He resigned from his assistant manager position at Blockbuster in the spring to work as a film editor in Dallas. He's still dating J... it's been a year and a half! He moved to Arlington to live with some other guys. He still helps at church with the media stuff.

Middle son left for Eastern Asia the first of July in order to learn the language and do some mission work. I'm so proud of this kid as he really has pursued God at a personal expense to himself. It might take him awhile to finish up his International Business degree, but he's right in the center of God's will I believe. We sure miss him.

Youngest son finished up his freshman year of high school and got 1st in state in the 200 im breaststroke for private schools in Texas. He beat the state record, so that was exciting. He also got 2nd at state in the 100 breaststroke. He's running track and cross country and enjoying a break from swimming this month. He dropped time in all his events at Sectionals in July. He earned enough money lawnmowing to buy a new drum set this summer, and is enjoying practicing in his room, much to the consternation of his sisters. :-)

Hubby has had a rough year. He was hit by a truck in Dallas, totalling his car, sending him to the hospital and giving him neck and back pain right before Christmas last year. He got a year contract for a job, but they ended it after 4 months. He has been having some health problems, sprained his ankle from a fall, and has just had a tough time this year. He's been doing the cooking and coordinating of kids this summer, but money is so so so tight.

My job is going well, keeping very busy, trying to balance work and church and family obligations. I'm not sure how well I'm doing, but one thing I have learned this year: keep looking to Jesus, not to my circumstances. It's sort of like if I keep my eyes focused on Him and doing His will, and living one day at a time, I am free and content. When I look at my circumstances and all the bills, etc. I start getting panicky and deal with discouragement, discontentment, with leads to despair and depression. NOT GOOD.

Had a wonderful trip to California in May, taking older daughter out there to Project. Once she decided to go, I set aside every little penny I could scrape together or earn extra (garage sale, doing some freelance accounting work, coupons, etc.) for 4 months and got enough to pay for our trip. We invited a close friend M whose daughter lives in California, and younger daughter, older daughter, and I and rented a car and drove out there. Our trip out there consisted of one motel stop near the Grand Canyon. We drove all the way to Flagstaff the first day, toured the Grand Canyon the 2nd day early, and arrive in Southern California that evening. We were able to stay with old friends the whole time. I even bought Disneyland tickets so the girls and I enjoyed going there two of the days, traveling down to San Diego to visit a college friend for a couple of days, and leaving older daughter in her new place before heading home. On the way home we went through Las Cruces, NM, spending the night with another college friend. It was a great trip and loads of fun. I would like to save a little money this school year in order to take another trip next spring or summer with some or all the family.