Some Favorite Holiday Memories

Merry Christmas from Joe & Mandy

Preparing the feast.
Observe that I am merely drinking a White Russian and not helping in the least bit.

Our lovely and healthy Christmas Eve Dinner - YUM!
courtesy of Nicole & Zetty

Faithful friends who are dear to us...
Me & Nicole

Outside lights...

and the inside lights...aww!!

Mandy and Joe ornaments!

Christmas Grayci with her jingle on.

The culprit of last week's gain.
I cooked for three days...

Me with my new haircut & Joe's niece, Cheyenne.

Joe with his grandmothers, Mary & June.
They're the BEST grandmas ever!
(notice Joe's tacky sweater I made him)

Yuehli, Amanda and I at
Amanda's Tacky Sweater/Guitar Hero 3 Party.

I hope that you all had holidays just as wonderful as we did!!

Raise your hand if you're over the damn holidays!!

Too much wine, too many shots, and WAY too much eggnog, grandma's fudge, coconut cake and m&ms. I fear it will not be a pretty sight at the scale on Friday.

BUT although I was totally kicking my own ass about the numbers last night, I'm totally not stressing about it today!

I feel this strange and unfamiliar motivation urging me to get back on the the wagon with a vengence that I haven't felt since early November. See, this weekend was the first time since joining WW last March that I've completely let all of my self control fly out the window. And it's led me to realize that I absolutely hate the feeling of being out of control! I found myself eating anything within reach as if I were a starving zombie (and I will even confess to then spitting it out in the garbage when my taste buds reminded me of what I had done - yikes!). And I certainly don't like the depression that follows my actions when I've been that way.

So, even though I have a major uphill battle to climb this week to get back on track, I have had a valuable reminder of why I started this to begin with and why I will continue - not on January 7 as previously mentioned. But TODAY!!

Who's with me??!

And to all a good weigh in!

This is probably my last post before Santa's arrival, so I'm ending my Christmas Challenge with a loss of .4 for the week. That puts me at 4.4 away from my goal, but I'm pretty happy with what I've accomplished in spite of the holiday fare over the past month. I'm continuing the rest of the holiday season in maintanence mode, but I vow to be back to weight loss mode on January 7. That's the day we return from our annual employee appreciation bash (which is an entire weekend at The Don Cesar in St. Pete, Florida this year - sunshine, baby, yeah!!!). I think someone around here *cough Randi and Carolyn cough* should propose a Spring Break Challenge to get our asses in gear for bathing suit season! Not that you'll see my ass in a bathing suit anytime soon, but just seeing them on the racks makes me want to have the option, you know?

Anyway, the food here in the office sent from clients and brought in by employees has been just plain out overwhelming. I've been holding out for the most part, excluding the 2 chocolate covered raspberries and 2 toffees on Wednesday and a handful of Mud Buddies yesterday. Actually, a coworker noticed I was eating yesterday and was curious to know which treat from the kitchen I had decided to nibble on. She almost seemed disgusted to find out it was an apple, and that made me really proud. :D

A side note in reference to yesterday's Pottery Barn rant, I was thrilled to see a sincere apology from them in my inbox this morning along with a $50 gift certificate which is also good at Williams Sonoma! I'll be doing a little late kitchen gadget shopping for myself in a few weeks - hooray!

As I may have mentioned, after the holidays are over I will be training my replacement for two weeks and then starting 'boot camp' on Jan 17th. Boot camp is basically a 6-week, 12-hour a day, intense training course here at my company where you learn the details of our company, the industry and our software. Only a few more than half make it through the class, the rest go to the unemployment line. I have an advantage in that I've already been here a year (but in a position that did not require getting through the training) and I also happen to live with one of the QA testers for the new version of the software that's being used in training this time. The biggest obstacle for me, I believe, will just be the disruption to my normal routine. I will have to plan my meals even harder and pack more food to get through the 12-hour days, but it's not impossible. Oddly, I'm actually even looking forward to the challenge.

It looks as though they're letting us go home early here today, so I should get back to work tying up some loose ends.

Merry Christmas, Ya'll!

Happy Freakin' Holidays to you too, Pottery Barn.

This letter pretty much sums up how my shopping experience has been this year. Hope you guys are more ready for the holiday than I am.

Dear stupid f*$#s at the Pottery Barn:

(no I didn't say that in the real letter, but I should've)

Last Wednesday (12/12/07) I placed my first, and what may very well be my last order with the Pottery Barn. After I placed my order , I continually checked back on the progress on your website only to find it still "in progress" a week later. Upon calling your customer service line yesterday, I was told by Ellie that my order appeared to be lost and that 2 of my items were now out of stock and I would not be able to get them. This was SO disappointing - as they were two of my main christmas gifts that were going to be given during our dinner this coming Saturday. Not only would I not have any gifts, I would have to make time to go and choose alternatives in just 2 days!! Meanwhile, I asked for those 2 items to be cancelled and since the rest of my order was in stock, I asked Ellie to please expedite those items for Saturday delivery.
I did receive an email today (Thursday) that my items had been shipped. To my surprise, the 2 items I was told were not in stock were shipped!! The good news is that I will have the gifts I originally wanted. The bad news is that I will have to make ANOTHER trip to the mall today to return the gift I bought in replacement for them last night. The straw that is absolutely breaking the camel's back here is that I just found out that my items will not arrive until MONDAY! This is just completely unacceptable considering I placed my order LAST WEDNESDAY!
I do not want to cancel my order, however, due to your failure, my parents will now not receive their gifts until after Christmas - possibly spring! I am so very disappointed. I was very much looking forward to being a long time customer of the Pottery Barn. I had recently gotten my first catalog and couldn't wait to get my first order. I am very let down that a ruined christmas would be my first and last experience.

A. Vaughn

So now thanks to them and Barnes & Noble, half of my presents won't be here until Monday - 2 days too late. I'm having to try REAL REAL hard to keep up the Christmas spirit, people. *sigh*

Scrooged

It had to happen eventually. My indulgent celebrations have finally caused me a gain: A whole freakin' pound this week.

I'm currently trying to detox from Friday night today in hopes that I can level it back off for this weeks' weigh in. 0-point soup, here I come!!

I Give Up

I'm not exactly sure why, but my info for the christmas challenge never gets updated.
So I'm posting my own, because I'm starting to feel like a loser with the 30% that keeps showing up on the official spreadsheet:

Goal: 160 lbs
Current: 163.8
Total lost: 9.2
Total lost %: 71%


12/07/07 163.8 lbs -1.0 lbs
11/28/07 164.8 lbs -0.8 lbs
11/21/07 165.6 lbs -1.8 lbs
11/14/07 167.4 lbs +0.2 lbs
11/07/07 167.2 lbs -1.6 lbs
10/29/07 168.8 lbs -0.4 lbs
10/26/07 169.2 lbs -0.6 lbs
10/19/07 169.8 lbs -1.5 lbs
10/12/07 171.3 lbs +0.9 lbs
10/05/07 170.4 lbs -1.1 lbs
09/28/07 171.5 lbs -1.5 lbs

I feel better now.

Checkin' in

I managed a tiny loss last week (1.0 lb) And for that I am SO thankful! I have had to employ the most stellar of eating habits during the week to make up for all the festivities. I'm now 3.8 away from my Christmas goal, and with 2 weeks to go, it *could* happen.

BUT, I'm worried about WI this week...chinese food, wine, eggnog, cupcakes, peppermint bark, sausage balls, bacon wraps were all a part of my weekend. Our Christmas party for our friends was Saturday night, which wasn't SO bad. I even ate a healthy dinner BEFORE the party started AND drank all of my water. I nibbled here and there, probably more than I would have had it not been for the wine, but overall, I escaped with little injury. THAT was Saturday. I will share a bit of advice with you all about the day after: put up any food the night before!! I awoke Sunday morning a little dehydrated of course and starving, so I managed to ruin the day 30 minutes into it with the leftovers lying around(cookies & M&M's). F)%*(&@#&@!!!
I proceeded to ruin it even further last night by choosing to order chinese instead of getting my ass up and going to the grocery store (we were cleaned out on everything to eat from the party). I'm paying dearly today with a major case of bloat. And I couldn't even make myself step on the scale this morning.

On top of it all...my fitness goals for the month are going on the backburner for now. And I really hate this since I'm seeing all of you guys setting fitness goals, but I'm barely managing to get my cardio miles in! AND I haven't even done a lick of shopping besides what I got for Joe. I'm seriously behind. Whoever said (I think it was Randi) that dieting should be just a summer thing, I have to agree.

But I think the break from it all during the holidays may be just what I need to get back to it in January.

In the meantime, a couple of tiny goals for the week just so my whole world doesn't crumble:

- get in 12 miles somehow
- give away the rest of the damn cupcakes and peppermint bark

You may now commence to kicking my ass: