Back on the wagon

Hi everyone - I'm back on the NS wagon. I've tried to lose weight on my own without buying the food from NS. I did really good until I went to Colorado a few weeks ago and now I've noticed a few extra pounds. So, I'm putting in my order with NS again. My food should arrive next Tuesday. I still need to lose another 34 lbs.

One of my employees, Sheri, just signed up for NS last night. It will really help having someone in the office eating the same way. She only has about 23 lbs to lose.

My sister and I are still planning on meeting my cousin Judi in Las Vegas the 3rd weekend of September so my goal for this month is to lose 10lbs.

Wish me luck on trying to lose the last 34lbs.

Happy 4th of July

I hope everyone has some fun plans for today. I'm going to my sisters again tonight. We had Chelsea's birthday party there yesterday. We cooked burgers, chicken, and some dogs on the grill.

I'm so sore today, before the partiers showed up I went to Leigh's early. She was telling me that she had ordered Turbo Jam and wanted me to try it. It's a combination of ty-bo and dancing. It's really pretty fun. But, why don't skinny video instructors understand how hard it is for short fat girls to balance. First, knees wide apart, toes pointing out. Now tuck your tail bone up under you, this is the (tuck) and squeeze the abdominal muscles. Now with your tailbone under you, (Pump)! Keep your knees wide, toes pointing - now tuck and release. Kinda of a sexual looking move. Don't stop, now we are going to add jabs and kicks. Keeping your knees wide in the tuck positions with fists up (protecting your jaw) Pump and jab, 2...3...4... now kick out to your side. Oh I forgot the 7 step (it's like running through the tire part of an obstacle course, but on the 7th step you kick someone next to you.) I really can't remember if you lift your knee or kick out. Also the zig zag and kicks. Like I said it was fun, but will take a couple of times to get all the moves.

After the workout, we ate dinner. I think I did really good on portion control. I had a hamburger patty, lettuce, tomato, pickle, a tsp of quacomole, tsp of beans, tsp of potato salad.
1 bite of birthday brownie with icecream. Lots of water. After all the kids were gone, Leigh, her husband Brent and I sat out of the deck with the dogs. Drinking our water and listening to bluegrass music, talking and having a good time. Leigh and I even got up and did a couple of jiggs to the music. I'm just glad no one had a video camera.

I've got to get some laundry done today and hopefully knit up another purse. Then I'll probably go back to my sister's this evening and watch her neighbors shoot fireworks.

Have a safe and happy 4th everyone.

I'm back

Wow, it's been over a month since I've updated my blog. I guess I haven't been very motivated lately. I was on a plateau for the last month and finally today it broke with a 1.6 lb loss.

I decided to postpone my NS food for the month and see how I do on my own. Maybe that's what helped me break the plateau, my body was used to eating the same things all the time.

Let's see - what has happened this past month?

School is out so Chelsea has been looking for a job. She turns 18 tomorrow and is hoping to get a job at the local recreation center as a front desk clerk. Work has been busy, lots of drama going on with my employees. One got married, one is not happy in his marriage and the other is having problems with a step-son. Whew!!! I'm supposed to go to Boulder on the 12th for a training class. It should be fun, Stefanie from our Tulsa office and I are going. We are both the Risk Safety Coordinators for our offices in addition to our other duties.

I finally got my yarn back out and started knitting again, I've got lots of stuff on ebay right now. I'm trying to get all of my old yarn knitted up and sold to make some money to buy new fun yarn when I go to Colorado at the end of the month. (Check out my auctions on Ebay, search for handknit items and mine should show up in the list, or search by name for knakedknitter.) It's always fun to go see Mom & Dad up in the mountains. Plus, we hang out at Edla's Yarn shop alot knitting and drinking tea. It's very relaxing.

We had girls night last week, Frankie had to have back surgery, she's recuperating well. Diana had a total hysterectomy and is doing good. Kasey kicked her husband out and is dealing with that situation fairly well. Kim is doing good, her son just got back from his 6 week stint with the army. He's an MP in the reserves. We had a good time just talking and catching up on everything.

I've been spending alot of time looking at flights to Vegas, my sister Leigh and cousin Judi are planning a trip in September to meet in "Sin City". I've never been and I'm looking forward to the trip.

I'll try to keep everyone posted a little better.
talk to you later,
t

Weigh-In

Good news! This week I lost another 1.4lbs which brings me to 161.8 a total of 33.2lbs gone forever. This morning I straightened out my NS cabinet to get ready for my new shipment which should arrive Wednesday.

I haven't done much today - haven't felt that great. I mowed the yard - 2 acres yesterday and my allergies really hit hard. So today I've just played on the computer and watched some tv. I did manage to get a load or two of laundry done.

Today's Food

I got up this morning and had my favorite breakfast, blackberries (microwaved 3 min) sprinkled with cinnamon and splenda topped with NS granola and a few squirts of butter spray (microwave again for 20 secs) It's fabulous.

Lunch was NS tuna salad on a small whole grain bun with lettuce, tomato, green onion and green peppers. Very tasty!

Snack - ff yogart

This evening I think I'm gonna have the NS Chicken Parmesan, green beans and peaches with sf cool whip.

I'm running low on my favorite desserts, I think I've got some carmel corn left. I've got several puddings and shakes but I really don't care for them.

The Rest of the DAY

I'm going to go for a walk, what??? did I say that? just baby steps, for those of you who read my blog you know I hate exercise. So I'll go to the end of the road and back which is 1 mile. Then we'll see what happens tomorrow. I'm not making any promises, but I can set a goal. My goal is to walk 2 times this week. Remember I'm taking baby steps. Maybe next week I go for 3 times and progress from there.

After my walk - I'll have dinner and then finish up the laundry and finish reading the James Patterson novel I started the other day. Okay, Teresa get up, get Beau's leash and go for a walk.

TGIF

It's Friday finally - actually it's Saturday morning. Couldn't sleep so I decided to do some writing. What a day - still having problems with our new system, payroll has been a disaster. Still too many freaky glitches happening.

Mom and Dad came for a visit over the long weekend. It's always good to see them. They drove up last night from Colorado. I hope that everything works out and I'll be able to take off work for a week and go visit them this summer. The weather is always so nice at their house in the summer. It's so humid here in Oklahoma and add 100° temps to that and it's miserable here.

If I haven't mentioned this before, my sis and I are doing some research on our Indian heritage (or, trying to prove our Indian heritage). It's been really interesting. We always thought we were Cherokee, but we've recently found out that we also have some Osage history. Now we just have to find the proof in writing somewhere. I sure wish we would have started this while more of our family was still alive to help us with names and places.

This week has been really good food wise...I really need to get the exercise in, but I HATE IT!!! I know I would lose the weight faster if I'd get off my butt and get some cardio. I always have grand ideas and plans for exercising. I'll take my walking shoes to work and plan a walk during lunch time - do I walk? NO! I play on the internet instead. My friend Sabina wants me to take salsa dancing lessons with her. It sounds like fun, but I just can't see myself doing the salsa without throwing out my back. I can always think of an excuse not to exercise. My girls club wants to start taking belly dancing lessons...haha that's funny. The image I have of myself wearing a belly dancing outfit is hillarious. I'm sure it's good exercise and I should do something like that maybe I'd be more inclined to stick with an exercise plan if it was something fun. Because walking up and down my road just isn't fun. Going to the gym isn't fun. If not for the exercise the belly dancing would make me laugh so hard I'd have to burn extra calories. I'm giggling right now just thinking about it.

Sunday is weigh-in day - let's all pray really hard that the scale moves down again.

Talk to you later,
t

Alyssa's Graduation

This is the reason for getting up in the morning!

David (20) Chelsea (17) Alyssa (18) Baryn (16). Hey Sis - I think this means we are getting old. 2 more graduations to go, then we get to look forward to the weddings!

Last night my niece Alyssa graduated from high school. We had a get together before the ceremonies. There was alot of food and I am very proud of myself for not standing around and grazing in the kitchen. We had very very lean hamburgers on wheat buns, small amount of baked beans, a bite of potato salad and a cauliflower/brocolli salad. I didn't have cake, but I did have some unsweetened fruit with sf ff cool whip and 1/2 of a small brownie. I could have taken my NS food, but I want to be able to learn to eat real food and not go crazy. The only thing I could have done better was drinking more water. I got it all in, but it meant drinking water until 11:30 last night which interrupted my sleep more than once. Somthing else makes me wonder-hmmmm, I had a 2.4 lb loss this week, would it have been a bigger loss if I'd eaten NS food or a smaller loss. Did that REAL food throw another log on the furnance in my body or was it because it was just different food. Or, was it because I didn't have a loss last week and my body was just catching up. That's probably it! I'd forgotten about last week's non-movement of the scale.

This has been a nice weekend, I took a vacation day on Friday and I'll also be off on Monday. I've got to start using my vacation days because the year is almost halfway over and I've only taken 1 week with approx 6 weeks left. I always have to roll over 2 weeks at the end of the year but that's all I can roll, anything leftover I lose. I spent most of Friday at my sister's house trying to research our family history. It's been very interesting. This all began about 3 years ago when my grandmother died and after the funeral a great aunt started talking about the history of our family and that her great great grandfather was full blood Cherokee. We've always know this but she actually had a name. Leigh Ann and I went to the library and search the Dawes rolls but found out that our ancestor got off the Trail of Tears in Missouri. So we thought our proof of Cherokee blood would never be traceable. Then about 2 months ago one of my employees was telling me that he had just gotten his tribal card, I told him my story and he said his ancestor was the same way. He was able to trace his lineage back to the White River Band of Cherokee Indians in Missouri and Northern Arkansas. So we were back on the search. During this we also got some more information on my Grandfather's side that traces Cherokee back to my GGG Grandmother. So that would make me approximately 1/64 on my Grandma's side and 1/32 on my Grandpa's side. I've never been very good at fractions but I think that calculates to 3/64. Is that right? So we've got branches of family trees all over ancestry.com, a little here and there and we are trying to tie the tree together. It would be nice to be able to get our tribal cards to help send the kids to college and also for medical care if they aren't able to afford health insurance when they are on their own. If nothing else it's been fun.

You know something that I haven't talked about in a while is my knitting - that last project wore me out and I haven't knit since January. I put everything away while I was painting and just haven't gotten it back out yet. But I've got the bug again. I'm going to knit this tank. It should ber very simple and not take too long, plus it will be nice for this summer and I can probably even wear it to work. It's made out of cotton so it shouldn't be hot. I really miss my knitting, I think I might even go to the yarn store tomorrow and pick out the yarn for this tank and get started on it. What color should I get? I have alot of clothes this color of green so I need to get something else. Maybe turquoise??? What do you think. Leave me comments and let me know.

I've got a new picture that I want to post - it looks a little better than the girls night photo. Chelsea took this of me last night before we left for graduation. At least I've got makeup on and my hair doesn't look crazy. In the girls night photo I look like I was getting ready to bend over, kinda hunchbacked, a little wild eyed. This pic actually looks like me (most of the time)...

Okay back to the graduate.

Alyssa plans to go to our local university this fall and apply for the nursing program as soon as she has met the requirements. I wish I could have gotten the picture of her actually receiving the diploma, but my cameral has a split second delay and by the time I pushed the botton she was already walking away. I took another picture of her when she was walking to her seat at the beginning and by the time the camera actually captured the picture, she had almost walked out of the frame. (I wish I would have spent another $100 and gotten the Fuji 5100 - trying to save a buck isn't always the best).

Here she is wearing the sunglasses. They released the balloons and are getting ready to throw their hats in the air. It was a great night, even though it was very hot, sweaty, and my butt hurt so bad sitting on those metal bleachers for a couple of hours. Congratulations Alyssa, I'm very proud of you!!! Love ya Teresa.

Poker Night with the Girls!

Here's the gang!! (those aren't real tatoos are Kasey and Frankie-just residuals from the craziness that goes on).

Tonight Kim was our hostess and she served some sort of chicken pizza, it was her own creation with chicken, feta cheese, almonds and some spices all wrapped up in a pie crust. It reminded me of a quesadilla. The girls really liked it, I had my NS hamburger and salad with Ranch chips. She also had some fruit, grapes, apples so I was able to munch on that a little bit. Girls night was a week earlier than normal, because next week is my niece's high school graduation - can't miss that!

Okay, so the theme this month was a little unusual. Kim called me today around noon and left a message that her theme was going to be egyptian queens because it's Mother's day weekend and since we are all moms we should be treated like a queen. Her last statement on my voicemail was "so wear a toga!" What??? Isn't a toga Greek? So we are supposed to meet at her house at 5pm and I'm listening to this message around 1pm. I called her and said "I'm not wearing a toga" She cried and carried on that I was going to be the only one not participating in the fun. "Why a toga? that's not egyptian" She said "pretend, make it look like the Queen of the Nile." Fine - I start digging though the linen closet, but I don't have any white sheets, the closest was light blue with clouds. "Good enough." I pack my junk over to her house and she starts wrapping me up in this and putting dark eyeliner on me, tied my hair up in Mardi Gras beads, gold belt and dangly earrings and viola! I'm the Queen of the Nile.
After the girls arrived and pictures were taken, we ditched the togas and ate dinner. Then we played our normal game of Cranium, and then poker. I did pretty good tonight. Started out with $4.00 and came home with about $20.00.

Frankie, Kasey and Diana decided we needed to go to the casino and play the slot machines so we all jumped in the cars to hit the slots. I only played about $5.00 and lost it all, but it was fun. Then we called it a night and headed home.

When I got in the house I immediately downloaded the pics because if there were any of me that I didn't know about I could get rid of them. Thank God, I was the one in charge of picture taking. hehehe Diana and Kim would kill me if they new their picture was on the internet. Here are some of the pics from tonight.

My kids...aren't they cute. Chelsea's a free spirit and Dave's my musician.

This week was so busy at work and it showed on the scale. Only a very small loss this week. We got a new database system on Monday and it was a week long training process. We had a trainer in the office and we ate out for lunch every day. I made wise choices, mostly salads with grilled chicken, but I drank less water and more tea. Usually during a normal work day I'll drink 3 bottles of water. I bet I didn't drink 3 bottles of water all week. Just so busy, I didn't take the time to think about fluids. There were a couple days that I didn't even pee until I got home from work. Next week will be better, hopefully we can get the office back to the normal pace.

Today I've been really lazy. It's been raining all day and I've had a headache since I got out of bed. I've watched a couple of movies, talked to my sister for awhile, washed a couple loads of laundry and that's it.

I had to get glasses, yep I'm getting old age eyes. I had RK (the surgery before Lasik) about 14 years ago. I went to the eye dr. because I've been having trouble driving at night. He told me I'm far sighted with an astigmatism. (That's why the drugstore reading glasses didn't work for me) I picked up my new glasses yesterday and I'm having trouble with them. I can't get used to wearing them to read, because then when I look up I can't see far away. That might be part of my headache problem too.

Got to go, hope everyone who reads this has a good week. I'll write later.

Weigh in this week

I was actually very suprised this week to see the scale drop 1.8 lbs. It has been creeping along slowly but surely for the last month it seems. When it said 167.2 I got very excited. I was having trouble getting all my water in the past few weeks so I started substituting Crystal Light in the afternoon. It was so much easier to get all my liquids in during the day that way.

I'll be posting an updated picture soon.

Girls Night was a SUCCESS!!

Saturday night was my turn to host our monthly girls night poker game. I spent all day cleaning my house, 3 of the girls had never been to my house so I needed to make a good impression. Kim already knows I'm not the neatest housekeeper, but she loves me anyways. So I got up really early, about 6am and started my chores. I even shampooed the carpets. After getting everything spic-n-span I started cooking. I served lasagna, garlic bread, salad and dessert. I made a blackberry cobbler using frozen berries and a yellow cake mix. I thought I screwed it up because I baked it in a 9x9 pan instead of 9x13. I was afraid the cake mix wouldn't bake in with the juices and would end up being a golden crust with an inch of powdered cake mix and berries on the bottom. I did cheat a little because I sweetened the berries with splenda (they didn't even notice). I ended up making a backup dessert also. A Reese's peanut butter cake (this was actually something I had bought for the kids, but I needed it just in case).

The girls arrived about 5:30 and dinner was just coming out of the oven. After the tour of the house we gathered in the "favorite" room, the kitchen. They actually thought I had made the lasagna from scratch, but I came clean and confessed it was Stouffer's. Why spend $20.00 on lasagna ingredients when you can get a really good one for $11.00 already prepared. Before we sat down to eat we had to decide the winner of this months theme. The theme for this month was gaudy Easter bonnets. Chelsea was the bonnet judge and she determined that Kasey was the winner of the gaudiest bonnet. Her prize was a great smelling candle.

As the girls were getting their plates filled with the garlic bread and ooey gooey cheesy lasagna, I was preparing my dinner (NS lasagna). I didn't fill deprived at all. I had a large helping of salad and it was very filling. After dinner we played a game of Cranium and Kim and I kicked their asses this time. It was alot of fun. Then the girls decided it was time to try the cobbler. They cut a piece, microwaved for a few seconds and globbed on vanilla ice cream. The oohs and aahs wouldn't stop. You would have thought it was sex the way they were going on about it. I had my NS chocolate mochachinno dessert bar, which was very good. The stopped eating when they saw what I had and were very interested, "What's that? It looks very good." "It is very good." I replied.

After everyone was full we got out the cards for poker. We play no-limit penny Texas Hold'em. Ante is a penny and then you can bet whatever you want. I won about 3 hands, probably about $6.00 which was the most won. Kim won $1.75, Diana and Frankie split a pot which was up to $5.00 about. Kasey won the last hand which was around 85 cents.

It was a fun evening, I was able to stay on program 100% and the girls departed around 10:30pm. Next month Kim is the host - she doesn't cook at all so it should be interesting, but if it's warm enough to get in the pool we really won't care what we eat.

Girls night this Saturday

This Saturday it's my turn to host the girlsnight. The host prepares dinner, creates a theme and plans the evening. Usually it ends up being a texas hold'em night, which is probably what we will do this time too. The problem is I have NO idea what to fix for dinner. Since I'm doing NS and plan to stick to it 100%, I'm trying to fix something that will be close to what I'll have. So I think I'm going to do this the easy way and make a frozen lasagna, texas toast, salad and dessert. That way I can have my lasagna, salad and my dessert. Making a dessert for the girls and not eating it is going to be soooo hard. The plan is to make a brownie with mint chocolate chip icecream layered with hot fudge and cool whip. There only thing close to this in the NS plan is the Mint Chocolate bar, I think I might put it in the microwave for a few seconds and them put a dollop of fat free cool whip on top. I've got to be strong and make good decisions. I'm so close to the blue bear I can't take steps backwards.

Today was a very hectic day at work, we are switching to a new system and we have mandatory training classes this week and next week which makes it really hard to get the regular work done. It addition to the training we have to complete homework and quizes after each session. But after the training I realized what today was, we have a massage therapist come to our office every other Thursday at 3:30pm to give us 30 minute table massages. You would not believe how good you feel after a massage. After sitting at a computer all day and the stress of the job it is the best thing in the world to have someone get all those nasty pressure points that cause neck and shoulder pain and the headaches, after 30 minutes we are all so happy and nice.

Remember in my last post the guy on light duty who really isn't hurt that I was going to fire? Well, I didn't actually fire him on Tuesday because he had a dr's appt and I didn't want him being upset about losing his job and tell the dr that he was in such horrible pain, blah, blah, blah so anyways he went to the dr, had the test done, the next day he was so sore he couldn't bend his leg so he went back to the dr. He came in after his appointment and said the dr released him and inside I'm singing hallelujah and then the door hit me in the face. I read what the dr wrote, yes he released him with a permanent work restriction. Which means I may have to keep him on light duty forever or until he quits. My only out is on Monday when he turns in his timecard, if he writes in that he worked 8 hours on Monday I have him because the lady at the nursing home that he was reporting to said he did not work on Monday and she would sign something to that fact. So I can fire him for falsifying his timecard. Let's hope he's the worm we think he is.

So as I sit here at the computer, I'm relaxed and calm. The crap of today is gone for the time being.

Wish me luck with the girls night and if you have any better ideas for dessert (that won't be so tempting) leave me a comment and let me know what I should do...

Monday, Monday

If was definitely a Monday today. My assistant called this morning and wanted to take 1/2 day PTO time, because she drove to Houston this weekend for Easter. I didn't really blame her, I wouldn't have wanted to come to work after driving 10 hours to get home. yuck...but it did put us in a tailspin. Monday's are very busy for us, we run Help Wanted ads in Sunday's paper and the phone is ringing when we walk in the door on Tuesday. I don't know if I've ever told you want I do for a living. I'm the Operations Manager for a Manufacturing Support company. We don't like to call ourselves a temp service, because we aren't - all of our jobs are full time 40+ hours per week and ALL of them have the potential to become permanent placements. The job market is very high right now in our town and the candidate pool sucks. Most of the people we see don't really want a job, usually their wives want them to work, or their parole officers.

I'm going to have to fire a guy tomorrow, he's been working a modified duty job because he got hurt at work (I think he's milking it for all it's worth) anyways, he turned in his timecard today for 40 hours but it wasn't signed by his supervisor so I called her. She said he'd only been at work a couple days last week and that most of the time he sits in his truck and listens to the radio. Apparently the last couple timecards he turned in were forged. So he's gonna be history tomorrow. He knows somethings up because we called him at 3:00 (he doesn't get off work until 4:30) and he answered the phone. I told him he wasn't to go back to the nursing home but to report to my office at 8am. He hem hawed around and finally agreed to come to the office.

I've got another guy who has been on modified duty in our office (knee injury) he left at noon to go to lunch and about 15 minutes before he was supposed to be back called and said he fell down at home and hurt his knee again, he wanted to stay home for the rest of the day. (probably has an appointment with his attorney). Work Comp really sucks for the employer, especially in an industry like ours.

Oh well, hopefully tomorrow is better.

Happy Easter

The first thing I want to tell everyone is I HIT MY EASTER GOAL WEIGHT! 169lbs and dropping.

What are you doing for Easter? How old is too old for the Easter bunny? Do you go to church every Sunday, just Easter Sunday or not at all? Do you have family traditions? These are questions that people asked me this week. Here are my answers....

I'm probably going to clean house and try and start mowing the 2 1/2 acres of grass that won't stop growing, if you watch really close you can actually see it getting taller. (if I ever win the lottery - I'm blacktopping my yard).

My kids are 20 - Happy Birthday Davy! and 17. I don't hide Easter eggs, but I did make them up a little somthing. I bought each of them a cute Easter coffee cup, jelly bellys, chocolate eggs, an OU t-shirt (go Sooners) and a $20.00 gas card.

I used to go to church every Sunday, in fact I've been going to the same church (First Christian, Disciples of Christ) since I was 12 years old until a few years ago. To be honest, I've never felt like I fit in at that church. I was the only kid in my age group, everyone was either 2-3 years younger or older than me, so I was put with the little kids and felt stupid, or put with the high school kids and felt unworthy. Even when I grew up I felt like an outcast. My ex-husband wouldn't go to church with us and at the time there wasn't a class for young married couples, so I went in the class with my parents, don't get me wrong it was a great class, but I was 20ish in a room with 45+year old people. Then about the time I got divorced, the church decided they needed a class for the young adults. Guess what, everyone was married except me. They would have monthly get togethers, parties, etc. and I just didn't fit in. But, I still felt like I had to go to church even though I was always on the outside. The reason I stopped going was because the kids stopped going. Davy was in the youth group band and when the youth music leader quit and went to a church in another town it just wasn't the same for the kids. They didn't want to go anymore, and I wasn't going to force them to go, because I knew what that felt like. I guess the other reason is I just don't like organized religion. I believe in God and that Jesus Christ is my savior and I pray and try to lead a good life. I am a very spiritual person, I'm just not religious. Alot of people will probably say I'm going to hell. But while I was watching the Passion of Christ last night, I don't remember him saying anything about not going to church equals going to hell. I remember him saying those who believe that he is the lord and savior will join him in paradise one day. So to answer the question...I don't go to church at all.

Enough of that....on to the next question - We used to have family traditions, (church, easter egg hunt, big fattening lunch, lots of chocolate and gooey candy, but since Mom and Dad scattered off to Colorado, the kids grew up, and I'm on NS now I don't think we are going to stick to the tradition. No chocolate bunnies for me this year.

We celebrated Davy's birthday last night (I just can't believe he's 20 years old), my sister Leigh and her husband Brent, Chelsea and their friend Tyler joined us. My niece Alyssa was our waitress and my nephew Baryn had to work at McDonalds. It was fun, Leigh Ann (she's also doing NS-just started, her NS screen name is bumpey, send her an email of encouragement) and I had a grilled chicken breast sandwich (but we didn't eat the bun) with tomato, lettuce, pickles and onion topped with a little mustard and tiny bit of ranch dressing with a side salad. I also had 2 (very small) bottle caps - fried jalapeno slices. They were very good, but I was proud that I just tasted and didn't binge on them.

I hope everyone has a nice Easter and don't eat too much candy.

It's hard to get the Blue Bear

The first 20lbs came off really very easy. I've earned the red and purple bears now, I'm in possession of the red bear and the purple bear was supposed to come in my last shipment, but they missed me (hopefully I'll get it in next shipment). I've struggled alot trying to get the next 10 lbs off, I want that damn blue bear under my belt. Last week I lost 0.8 and this week it was only 0.6. Two weeks and barely lost 1 lb. I will admit that I didn't do ALL my exercising that I commited to, but I did walk on Monday about 1/2 a mile and yesterday I walked the whole mile. I didn't walk last Friday or Sunday. I promise myself that I will walk the full mile at leat 4 times every week.

What is it that the others do? I read profiles all the time and there are all these people losing 3-4 lbs each week. How are they doing it? I stick to the food plan 100%. I've been getting all my water intake, I've limited my caffeine. I just want to see a 2lb loss next week.

Okay, no more whining!!! A loss is a loss, at least it wasn't a 0.6 lb gain. I'll be quiet now.

UPDATE Since this morning...
A former employee came to the office today, she quit last May to get married to an army man and moved to Texas. Now he's in Iraq and she's about to have a baby. She actually noticed my weightloss. I was very excited about that.

I took off work early today and went to the salon, got a cut and color. Now my hair is dark aburn with blond highlights. It looks alot like Debra Messings hair color (Grace from "Will & Grace") Then I went and bought some new pants (Size 12) yeah!!! and some tops to go with the pants...tops are a large, down from XL. But I've got huge boobs (36DD) so I may never be in a size small. So being so discouraged this morning about only losing 0.6 was just a pity-party and I'm over it, I'm down another pant size...and one day I'll be at goal.

Why do I have animals?

We live in the country where fences are not required. We have 4 cats and 2 dogs. Cats are really keep to themselves creatures, but the dogs take so much work. Someday I'll try and get a picture of all the animals posing for a portrait. (That should be interesting). But until then, I'll try and give you the image. The oldest is K.C (Kitty-Cat) he is 17 years old and a snowshoe. A snowshoe cat has the markings of a siamese, except they have a white mask in the middle of the dark mask around their nose (kinda tri-color, tannish-gray, black, white) and they have white on their toes. Then we have Meeko she is around 11 years old, white with patches of tan all over and the momma to Crystal who is an 8 year old gray tabby, very skiddish only wants to cuddle if you are sleeping. And to finish off the kitty collection we have Joe. Joe, is a big big gray tabby (probably weighs 20lbs) who wandered up to our house as a kitten about 7 years ago. Thinking we had a boy he was named Joe, once we went to the vet we found out he was a she, but the name stuck. The dogs...Sampson (Sam) is a 6 year old Rat Terrier and a little crotchity. He gets nervous alot and shakes, the past year has been pretty hard on him - his sister Delilah (Deli) was murdered last year by the neighbors golden retriever (Popcorn) on our front porch. Sam was tramatized by that ordeal and seemed depressed. We had been talking about getting another friend for Sam, but I knew I didn't want a little dog.

Sam hasn't been real thrilled that Chelsea brought home a lab/border collie puppy and the cats haven't bonded yet either. Beau is about 4 months old, black with white on his chest and tip of his tail and a holy terror, we got him when he was about 10 weeks old. It had been along time since I'd potty trained and house proofed for a puppy. I think he's going to be a smart dog, the potty training went well - we still have a few accidents if we don't pay close attention, but he will scratch on the back door to go outside. His vocabulary is growing everyday. Outside, potty, cookie, NO, sit, lay down and get down are the words that he knows right now. He is into everything. Just this morning as I'm here at the computer reading NS profiles, I hear him crunching on something. I looked at him and all I see him chewing is his baby (a stuffed animal). I continue reading and decide to get up for a bottle of water and see red wet spots all over the carpet. Immediately I look at him and said, "What did you do?" Sheepishly he lowers his head and then I see the bottle of Cloreseptic throat spray. David had a sore throat last night and I guess he left the bottle on the coffee table. Beau chewed on the spray top, somehow got the top unscrewed and poured the liquid on the floor. As I'm cleaning that mess up and hoping the red doesn't stain I hear another peculiar sound. "Beau, where are you?" Now he's in the kitchen and has gotten a chunck of chewed bubble gum on his mouth, stringing from the top to the bottom. I had to get that gooey junk off of him before he has it all over the couch or God only knows where. I made him go outside and within a few minutes he's at the back door wanting in. As I opened the door and he came barreling in I noticed something in his mouth. "Beau, what do you have?" He ran into David's bedroom to hide, but I found him and his deer remains. Yes, that's right. He brought in about 6 vertebra of a deers spine. What's next?

Right now he's lying on the floor next to my feet being the sweet puppy I fell in love with. The bad part is, he's going to wake up soon and then we'll start all over again with something else being chewed up or drug into the house.

That didn't last long, now he's tormenting KC.

Sleepy Saturday

I've been really lazy today. Got up pretty early for a Saturday 7:00am, woke Chelsea up because she had to take the ACT test this morning. Logged onto the NutriSystem site and ready some profiles and the Daily Dose. Had breakfast, mixed berry crunch (I love this) 1 cup of mixed berries microwaved for 3 minutes to get really hot and bubbly add 1 pkg of splenda and then top with the NS low-fat granola cereal, couple squirts of ICBINB spray and microwave for about 30 more seconds. Yummy it's like eating berry cobbler for breakfast.

After breakfast I got ready and went to the grocery store. Does anyone out there know the money/time equation at Wal-Mart? It's $100.00 per hour. I spent exactly 1 hour and 7 minutes in Wal-Mart this morning and my bill was $113 and some change.

Came home, put the groceries away, chopped up my veggies and made a big salad to have on hand. Ate lunch (NS sloppy joe - I love these too!) Has anyone tried the new Diet Dr.Pepper Berries and Cream? It is sooooo good, it tastes a little like cream soda with a hint on berry.

After lunch I planned on walking a mile, but instead ended up taking a nap. Woke up with a sinus headache that took forever to go away. Around 6pm I got hungry and had the homestyle chicken and noodles (not my favorite) with greenbeans and a banana. I still need to drink 2 more bottles of water before today ends, shouldn't be a problem.

Hope everyone has a more productive Saturday than I've had.

If I could turn back time

I want to look like this again. Isn't she gorgeous? She's my baby, almost grown up. I look at pictures of myself when I was her age and we could have been twins. Well, maybe she is prettier than I was. I'd love to look like this again, but I'd never give up what I've learned over the past 25 years.

Like a Turtle

Slow and steady wins the race...that's what the turtle said anyways. This weeks weigh-in was a loss, but I was really hoping for a 2lb loss this week instead ended up with a 0.8 loss. Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled with any loss.

I up'd my exercise this week, taking 1 mile walks 3 times. Oh wait did I lead you to believe I increased my exercise routine? Sorry, I began an exercise routine. I hate exercise, but I know it's got to be done to really make this a success. I've tried every exercise out there and can't find anything that I will stick with. I tried yoga, belly-dancing (that was just sad), eliptical machine, I joined a gym for women with a sauna and free tanning. I had to sign a 1 yr contract and they took 56.00/mo out of my bank account. I think I actually went to the gym for about 1 month maybe 2, but that is probably stretching it. The really really sad thing, the gym is in the same complex as my office. I just had to walk down there after work and I couldn't make myself do it. My year contract ended March 16th, they tried to get me to resign - did they think I was that stupid. I think I mentioned something about bike riding in an earlier post. That wouldn't work either. Walking is easy, I just have to make myself get off my butt and go. So that's my plan for right now. Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday I'll walk at least 1 mile, then I'll try to increase that to 1.5 next week.

My son's birthday is on Easter this year, he will be 20 years old. I can't believe I've got a kid that old. My goal weight is to lose 2lbs by Easter. 1 1/2 weeks I should be able to reach that goal.

Wow, this year is the year for holiday birthdays in our family. Like I said, David's birthday is on Easter. Chelsea (my daughter) will turn 18 on July 3rd. I always tease her, if she'd actually been born on the 4th of July her name would have been Liberty Bell Harmon. My mom's maiden name is Bell. I thought it was cute, she would have killed me. My mom's birthday is Mothers Day and my niece Alyssa is turning 19 at Thanksgiving. The kids dad's birthday is 3 days before Christmas. Interesting isn't it?

My promise to myself this week - exercise, moving a tad faster than the slow and steady turtle.

Look at that chin

I don't have very many pictures of myself - this is me, 2 weeks after starting NS. I had lost about 10 lbs at this mark. I look awful, but we were having fun. Girls night, playing board games. Our normal girls night is eating rich fattening foods, drinking foo-foo drinks or wine and playing Texas-Hold'em or just visiting. We get together once a month and the party is hosted at a different persons house each month. The hostess decides the evening, theme, prepares the meals, etc.

We've had girls night 3 times since I began NS and I've never slipped. I taked my own food and snacks and Diet dr pepper is my drink. This month I'm the hostess, April 22. The theme this month is gaudy Easter bonnets. Everyone has to make their own and then we will vote and have a prize for the winner. I don't know what I'm going to make for dinner - should I make a dinner or just have snack food. I'm not sure what to do?


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Alias

I guess you guys are probably wondering why my alias is knakedknitter. I promise I'm not really naked when I knit.

When I was 3 years old my grandma (Deanie) taught me how to cast on stitches. When I was about 5, I was knitting squares (potholders). I kept up with knitting over the next few years, but by the time I was a teenager, knitting just wasn't cool. I'd create the occassional baby booties or blanket for a new mom, but that was about it.

About 2 years ago, while visiting my parents in Colorado, my sister (Leigh) and I both caught the knitting bug (by the way, knitting is way cool right now). We met the owner of Edla's yarn in Walsenberg, CO. She is from the Farro Islands and turned us on to knitting with wool, felting and creating beautiful art.

We were so into the knitting, that my sister's co-worker (Pam) decided to go back to Colorado with us for a weekend trip just to knit. We started a monthly Friday knit-in, Leigh and I would go to Pam's house and knit into the wee hours sitting around in our pjs. Pam would joke about us knitting in our "wearwears" and we became the knakedknitters. You should see some of the things we've made. Felted totes, purses, gorgeous shrugs, sweaters, scarves, lots and lots. I've even set up an ebay account and sold lots of things on ebay.

Knitting is my therapy - if you knit, you can't eat was my slogan. Now that spring is in the air it's been harder to get the yarn out and start creating. I haven't knit for the last month, the last shrug I made took forever, lots of detail, lots of counting and it took it's tole on me. But, I just got my latest newsletter from Berroco and the bug is starting to get under my skin. I love yarn, I think I'm addicted. You should see the yarn collection I have - mind you - I don't buy Wal-Mart yarn. Once you've knit with quality yarn, the discount store yarn is just to synthetic.

I'll post pictures soon of some of my work.

Good Morning

The sun shone through the curtainless window, bright and brillant. My eyes slowly opened to the wonderful day ahead, flipped back the warmth hugging my body and stood to a new morning. Slowly I make my way to the bathroom, stripping off my nightshirt. Empty my bladder and step on the scales. 171.8 - yeah, another loss.

The dogs are in a hurry to get outside for their routines, the cats are underfoot circling my legs waiting for me to get their daily crunchies. I grab my 32 oz of cold water and start chugging as I walk to the computer to read the daily dose on ns and document my new weight.

Decisions - what's for breakfast? Looking through the cupboard and trying to decide, pancakes or granola with yogart. Opting for the pancakes I busy myself while mixing the batter and waiting for the pan to heat I hum a Kelly Clarkson tune that I can't get out of my head. Because of you...and I wonder is her life really so bad because of someone else or is it an excuse. Why can't she change her destiny? I could say the same thing, because of you I'm overweight. My mother has been overweight all my life. I would never blame my weight on someone else. It's because of me and my choices. So today, I'll continue making good choices - because of me.

4 day weekend

Well, I'm taking tomorrow and Friday off for vacation days. The plan is to finish painting my bathroom, I stripped all the old wallpaper off (dated back to 1990). What a task! Fixed the wallboard in a few places and ready for paint.

Mom is in town from Colorado this week and hopefully we can do some playing this weekend if it's not yucky outside, it's supposed to be nice, but you never know in Oklahoma. It could be 90 degrees one day and snowing the next.

Tomorrow is my weigh-in day, hopefully I'm down 2 lbs this week. Which would put me right under 25lbs lost since Jan 11th. That's pretty good, I'm happy with myself. This week has been a little tougher than others, because I've had lunch meetings everyday. But, I've been making good choices with food. I've finally come to the realization that I have to eat to live and not live to eat.

I've really got to step up the exercise, the plan is to do yoga 3 times a week and cardio 2 times. Hope that will help strengthen the muscles and burn more fat. I need an exercise buddy to keep me going, I hate exercise.

Just Thinkin

Hi, my name is Teresa and I'm 42 years old. This blog will journal my long road to a healthy lifestyle.

In The Beginning
I began this journey with Nutrisystem on January 11, 2006. Wait let me back up because that isn't really the beginning.

Like I said, I'm 42 years old, mother of 2, David will be 20 on Easter Day and Chelsea will be 18 July 3rd. I've been divorced from their father since 1993. I dated a little for the first 3 years, but after having my heart broke once again I decided my children would always come first. So I haven't been on a date in 10 years. Now that the kids are pretty much on their own, I'm ready to start living for me again, the problem is I found myself almost 80 lbs overweight. If you gain 8lbs a year for 10 years you end up with a huge problem.

One night sitting in my room watching TV, I saw Zora talking about Nutrisystem. The next day I signed on to the website and decided it was time. I ordered the food and began my program on Wednesday. When I told my friends what I was doing, some were supportive, others acted like they didn't think I could or would really stick with the plan.

As of today, March 26th - I am down 23 lbs and 2 pant sizes.

I was able to finally convince my sister that this was the program for her also. She just placed her first order last Friday and I'm so excited for her. Her food will be here sometime this week and we will be able to really help each other out.