Boobs

Dear Boobs,

Why did you have to be the first to go? There were many who could have easily taken your place - butt, hips thighs, love handles, chin number 2, 3, or 4. But, while some are gone others still hang around where they are not wanted or needed. But you, YOU were loved and YOU were needed! I have always appreciated you and have shown you off **sometimes, shown more of you then I needed to - damn tequila** However, I understand that your leaving is for the greater good. No amount of stuffing or tube socks can fix you now. However, I have promised myself that once my goals are met I will find you again - even better than you were before!


Our last great night together.....


So, dear boobs - I will remember you fondly. Our good times were many and our bad times were few and far between.

Until we surgically meet again,

A couple of challenges and one of my own - are you in???

I have been WAY behind on many items in my life since our vacation. I haven't worked out - not one stinkin time - since we got back, which was on the 22nd - that was TWO weeks ago. I made it a goal for the week to #1 get on track with working out, #2 get the rest of my trip pics edited (only 120 left to go, out of 1200!), #3 get my blog updated and #4 get caught up on my blog reading.

Yesterday, I accomplished #4 all in one day. Mind you, I follow 60 blogs, so three weeks worth of 60 blogs is ALOT of reading. In doing this, I discovered several dead blogs and some I just need to clean out of my list. Its not that I don't enjoy the blogs - I just don't have enough time to fit all of them in. Yall know how it goes, I'm sure.

Im SO glad I caught up on reading, instead of just punking out and start my reading at today. I found lots of encouragement, goals met, fallen bloggers who are now back on track and lots of fun challenges.

Here's a couple of the challenges I found that I decided to jump on - and a little ditty I came up with all on my own!

Tammy's Summer Challenge
Tammy (as the challenge name implies- duh), at From Fat to Fab, came up with this GREAT idea! She and the hubster are leaving on May 1st for a vacation to Panama Beach. The one and only goal for this challenge is to lose 10 pounds by April 30th. That's it. The prize - a souvenir from Panama Beach! How stinkin awesome is that?? She asks for everyone to check in and post how theyre doing every Friday. She doesn't care how its done or what other goals are linked to the 10 pounds. Just get the 10 pounds off and she'll send you a little trinket! She didn't say I couldn't cut my own arm off to get the 10 pound loss..... Hmmmm, something to ponder!

Seriously, I totally LOVE this idea! I really wish she would have come up with it sooner - I could have stolen the idea and brought everyone back a tacky set of Mickey ears for meeting their goal! Oh well, there's always next year!

Photo Comparison Challenge


This idea came from Jessica, at CBGBlog.
First of all, I totally <3 this chicka! She has a great heart and busts her hump to get her goals accomplished. So, here's her plan: Find a pic of yourself. Either a "before" pic or one from when you weren't as healthy as you are now. Take a pic of yourself today. Not from yesterday, or last week. Today - like NOW. **Ok, really Jessica, can I PLEASE shower first?? Pretty please?** She wants a blog post showing both pics and wants to see you compliment your changing body. Not on what the scale says, or how you were able to not eat the cookie last night **though those are both great as well** but on the physical changes that are taking place in your body. **Do my bat wings and shrinking boobs count?** Ok, POSITIVE changes that are taking place in your body! Once your post is posted, she then wants to know - so post a comment on her page linking your photo comparison. That way she and all of her readers can look, comment on and make comparisons of their own. FABULOUS idea!! Some people are fantastic about taking pictures of themselves for comparison **Keelie** but I just am not. I feel strange taking pics of myself. Do I smile, not smile? How do I stand? What do I do? BUT, in the pics I have of myself lately, I see a difference in my body. So, I do need to make a habit of taking more pics of myself. So, after my shower - I'm breaking out the Canon, baby! :)

Now, on to my idea--

Help Me Help You!


Ok, so this isn't really a challenge but more of an idea of another way we can help each other. I have the book, Master Your Metabolism by Jillian Michaels. This book is full of great information and I'd like to send it to someone, anyone. If you'd like to read it, just let me know and I'll send it out tomorrow. No challenge, no weigh in and no link to my blog **however, that would be great seeing as I only have 23 readers** I just want someone to get the information that I got.
BUT, there is one catch! Whoever gets the book is not allowed to keep it. When you're done with it, post that you have it and put it up for grabs for someone else. So, if you have alot going on and would take 6 months to read the book - maybe let someone else get it first, who can read it quicker. I plan on getting a few more things - books, dvds, cookbooks etc. Stuff that ships well and is fairly inexpensive to ship. The only "challenge" part to this is that I'd like to encourage everyone to pick up a few things to add to the Help Me Help You pot. There will be no governing agency making sure people pay the items forward. It will all be done using the honor method.
I think this will be a great way to pass on the things that we are using in our journey. With money being tight, I know Id love to be able to read a book or try out a work out dvd before I buy it. So, here's a way we can do that! Let me know what you guys think of the idea! If it blows, I wont put the effort into it. Also, if you know someone or are someone who can make a tag for this - Id love you long time! Something cute and bright would be awesome!


So, here's a run down of a couple of awesome challenges and my plan. Check em out!

Disney World Trip Report - part 1 finally!!

My gosh! I didn't think this day would ever come! I just finished editing all of the tons and tons of pics I took. So, the first thing on the agenda now - to tell ya'll about the trip!

Friday afternoon before heading out, we had to make a stop by the bank first. The boys had been saving all of the change in the house in the Mickey bucket. It was time to cash it in! They made $227! We surprised them by letting them have all of the money for their own spending money. They were pretty stoked.
The drive was 21 hours and needless to say - sucked, with a capital S!
We stayed at the All Star Movies Resort, which was super cute. Here's a few pics of the hotel:
The first night we met a friend of mine who lives in Oklahoma and I hadn't seen since high school and her daughter for dinner at Mickeys Backyard BBQ. As we were walking into the BBQ area, Monkey fell. Not just a regular fall but a running down a gravel slope kind of fall. So the rest of the entire trip was filled with both a wrapped arm and knee. But, the BBQ was alot of fun.
The next morning was our breakfast reservation at Cinderella Castle. Our reservation was for 7:30 and wake up call was for 6:00. Early, but no big deal right? Wrong! Not only did I not take into consideration the time change from Texas to Florida but that night just happened to be Spring forward time change. Yea, our bodies were saying "It's 4am! Why are we getting up at 4am??" On the monorail headed to Magic Kingdom:
The first view of the castle looked like this: If you've never been there, the Castle is totally awe inspiring. Ive seen it many many times - different times of year and different times of day. At night, it changes colors - pics of that later. But, this was the most beautiful Ive ever seen it. I was so tickled to be there, I cried. Yes, I'm a bawl bag like that. Hey, a princess is allowed to cry when she sees her castle, right?
Breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table was a highlight of the trip, to say the least. Monkey was more excited about having breakfast with his girlfriend than anything else. The inside of the castle is amazing. The staff and food were amazing. It was just a fun experience. During the meal, they do a wishing ceremony. Each kiddo is given a "wishing star" and either a sword or wand. During the ceremony, the kids wave their sword over their star and make a wish.


Then it was time for the princesses to come out!

After a couple of hours running around Magic Kingdom, we headed over to The Pirates League for the boys' makeovers. They actually had more fun with that than we though they would!

My sweet little boys before:



And the little pirates after:


Here's more pics of our first day at MK.


The next day - we had a character breakfast at 1900 Park Fare. We met several characters including Alice, the Mad Hatter, Tigger and Pooh. After a great breakfast, we spent the day in Epcot. We were there during the International Flower and Garden Festival. The gardens and topiarys were amazing! Here's pics of the day:



During the trip Bubba and I had tons of fun looking for Hidden Mickeys. Here's a couple:

Don't see the last one? Look on the right door - the plates. Cool huh?

Couple of more pics from Epcot:



He didn't believe me when I said that Time Outs even happen at Disney World! :)

Ok guys - so this trip report is going to end up being at least three posts. I have at least one, maybe two posts to finish showing pics **cause this one only shows two days** and I plan on doing one full post of just food pics. It was all too good and too pretty not to share! I hope you like what you've seen so far!

Why didn't I do this years ago???

First off - Im sorry!! I have not been around in forever (it feels like)! After we got back from our vacation, I just felt like I couldn't get caught up on anything. Laundry, sleep, getting the kitchen restocked, etc. I really felt like I needed a vacation from the vacation!!

I have every intention of writing a trip report - full of pics from our vacation. However, I took just shy of 1200 pics! Ive been working to get them edited and ready for posting, as well as printing for a scrapbook but gosh - 1200 pics take FOREVER to get edited! We got some scrapbook supplies while on our trip and several tons more this past weekend. I'm very crafty but have never done a scrapbook. Im kind of excited about it! It should be fun!

This past weekend, we didn't do much - just bee bopped around town, hit some garage sales and picked up bunches of stuff for the scrapbook. We stopped at Old Navy to see what they had for the boys. I love ON but rarely get anything for myself because I usually cant find anything to fit. BUT - oh, how this trip was different! I had arm loads of clothes to try on and was SO loving it! At one point Mistee said "Umm, this could be a problem!" I only walked away with a white summer time top and the cutest wrap around espadrilles! They both complimented perfectly with a pair of shorts Mistee bought me last week.

So, Sunday I put on my new outfit, did my hair and make up (which I never do - just to run around town). I felt FAN flippin TASTIC! The weather was great, I looked cute and felt wonderful. All I kept thinking to myself was "Damn, why didn't I do this years ago?" Ive lived my life feeling like crap for so many years - its a great change to feel confident. I will NEVER go back to where I came from.

This morning the scale said 242.6 - that's a SIX pound loss from last Monday! However, we had just gotten back from our trip last week Monday. I had a three pound loss over night - the scale last week Tuesday read 227.2 after saying 230.6 the day before. I know alot of it was because of water weight change. I posted before about how extremely bloated I was. But dang, SIX pounds? One week? And did I mention - no, I mean NO working out? I don't know why it happened (though it could be that my body is catching up to all the walking we did on the trip) but Ill take what ever I can get!

So, Im at a 36 pound loss now. In January, I was in a size 24 pants. At ON on Saturday I put on a size 16. They didn't look good and I didn't buy them. But I got them on, they buttoned and zipped with ease (Ok, maybe I had to suck in just a tad). Just too much muffin top for me to actually get them. BUT THEY WERE ON! A size 16! Can you believe it?

My next goal is to get into Onderland buy July 4th. I need 25 pounds off to be there. So, that's just a little over two pounds a week. I think I can... I think I can.... WAIT - no, I KNOW I can..... I KNOW I can!!!

Were home!!

Good morning!

We are finally home from our trip. It was an amazingly good time! We laughed, played with Mickey Mouse, ate GREAT food and spent a lot of money. After a 21 hour drive, we made it home Sunday early evening.

Weight wise -- I posted before we left that I was very nervous at how I would handle myself with all of the wonderful food around all the time. In looking at the overall trip, I think I did very well! I made good choices, didn't feel deprived and even at desert at almost every meal! I tracked my food everyday in my notebook and logged it all into Sparkpeople.com yesterday. The first few days of the trip I ate between 1200 and 1300 calories a day. Towards the end, my calorie intake increased to just over 1500 a day.
I wore a pedometer on everyday to see what my mileage per day was. We walked anywhere from 9 to 12 miles a day! On average, it was a 1400 calorie burn a day! So, eating 1500 calories a day was really ok. Three days into the trip I started getting famished by every meal. I knew my body needed the calories and I was more than willing to find some! However, the majority of my calories came from protein, fruits and veggies. I did get desserts but would eat a bite or maybe two. Ok, maybe on the pineapple upside down cake, I ate almost the entire thing - but it was WONDERFUL!

During the trip I drank orange juice with breakfast, had 6 ounces of vanilla coke with lunch one day and one alcoholic drink. Other than that, water, only water, and LOTS of it. However, during the drives I couldn't drink much because I did not want to have to make pit stops. Because of that, I knew I would be dehydrated when we got home. But I didn't know how badly dehydrated I would be. My feet and hands were horribly swollen and I had a hard time wearing any button pants or shorts. So, I gave myself yesterday off to not only get rested and unpacked but to rehydrate as well.

Before I tell you what the scale said this morning - Ill let you know that of the clothes I bought for the trip - two pair of shorts and a pair of capri pants - the all fit great! Even the capris, that I really didn't think I would wear because of my love handles hanging over the sides, fit fairly well. While there, I bought a pair of shorts and several shirts. The shorts are an XL from the women department. This was the largest size they carried in that department. I would not have been able to get the shorts with out losing the weight first. They are SO cute! So, I was excited about that. I also got a hoodie sweatshirt that's a size L. There's no X or number in front of the L! I honestly can't remember the last time I was able to wear a Large anything!

Ok! Ok! Get to the point Lindsey - What did the scale say???


227.2

Yup! A 3.4 pound loss while on vacation!! :0)

I'm working on a post now with tons of pics from the trip. I took tons of pics! I also plan on spending the day getting caught up on everyone's blogs. I have several I follow, so this could take a while.

I hope everyone is doing well. Thanks so much for the encouragement and well wishes - you guys are amazing!

To quote Dora....

Remember my goal of wanting to lose 30 pounds before we left for our trip??

I DID IT!!

Here's the scale just a few minutes ago!



Boy, that scale is dirty. Maybe I should take better care of him - so he'll be nice to me!

So, technically I still have .6 pounds to go to exactly reach my 30 pound loss. Yes, its more than a half of a pound. But - all I wanted was to see 230 on the scale before we left. And there it is! Am I going to stress over the .6? Uhhh - no.

Next goal????
I will NOT be over 235 when we get back from our trip. However, I'm really really reeeaaallllyyy wanting to maintain at 230 while were gone.

Regardless if I maintain or not on the trip. I want to hit Onderland by July 4th. I lost this first 30 in 10 weeks. July 4th is in 16 weeks, so I think this is an achievable goal.


Like Dora says " I did it! I did it! I did it! Horray!"

Twenty Questions

Kenz, over at All the Weigh posted a list of twenty questions she answered about herself. She asked for others to answer the questions as well, so we can all know more about each other. Great idea! So, here's my twenty questions....

1. What is one of your favorite ways to spend a Saturday?
I love Saturdays in the spring time! After a good breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast and fruit we like to all pack up and go search out good garage sales or go to the park for the afternoon to feed the ducks, walk or play on the playground!

2. List your three favorite tv shows.
I'm really not much of a tv watcher. My days are filled with the Disney Channel and Yo Gabba Gabba. My favorite show right now is Private Practice. I'm really looking forward to Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.

3. Would you rather be in pictures or take them?
I actually wrote about this here. Normally, I wouldn't be caught dead in front of a camera, though I love photography and consider myself an amateur/professional photographer. However, this changed when I realized how few pictures there are of me and my kids together. I have more of myself from the last week than I have for the last two months combined!

4. Why do you blog?
I started blogging as a way to journal my experiences. However, it has really turned into more than that for me. I don't hunt for more readers - probably why I don't have very many - but I love the ones I have! I love the little community of support we all have together.

5. Share five websites you visit everyday.
I'm a Facebook junkie. I can always be found there. Other than that - reading blogs, and looking for anything Disney World to help plan our trip. We leave tomorrow!!

6. If you could have lunch with one person from your Twitter list, who would it be?
Twitter is one thing I haven't really gotten into. I know! I know! tisk tisk
BUT - Jillian Micheals is on my twitter list - so obviously her!

7. List a few of your favorite snacks.....
I always grab a Special K granola bar or a Cutie clementine.

8. Do you have a pet? If so, what kind?
We have two dogs and two cats. This number is really good for us! We've been known to have a small zoo in our house, including ferrets, pet rats, we had four aquariums -two saltwater- at one point. The dogs we have now are Peaches, the basset hound and Peyton Manning, the weenie dog. Cats are Tinkerbelle and T-Bone. Here's Peaches, my old girl. She's the best dog on the planet.


9. Which three material possessions would you struggle to live with out?
My laptop, for sure!! It is my life line - I would DIE with out it! Yes, I'm taking it on vacation too. My cell would be another one. Mostly, because I use it to get online too. The third would be my camera. I am totally a camera whore. I take it everywhere and take tons and tons of pics!

10. What's your favorite drink?
Are we talking alcoholic or non? Non is sweet tea, though I haven't had any in probably a month! Its all about water - lots and lots of water these days! I know, boring right. Alcoholic, I love Jamaican Cowboy margaritas! Its a margarita with a sweet and tangy twist. Yum!

11. Do you enjoy cooking?
I LOVE to cook! And I'm damn good at it too! Hey, I've earned my butt!

12. Do you have children?
You obviously have not been paying attention to my blog! Since, other than my weight, that's all I talk about! I have three boys aged 22, 9 and 3. The 9 and 3 year old both have birthdays in April. We also have an 18 month old grand baby. And I do home child care for two other kiddos right now - one turned 2 this past November and the other is 16 months old. Ive kept both of them for over a year and love them like they were my own. I also have a 9 year old nephew and a 7 year old niece, who until recently lived with us too. AND - were planning on starting to try to have one more here in the next couple of months. Do I love kids? Uhh, what do you think? :)

13. What are your favorite hobbies?
Photography is my favorite. But I also love to read, cook, and sew, cross stitch etc.

14. Would you consider yourself to be shy or outgoing?
Uhhh - is both an answer? I'm pretty outgoing and love to laugh. But, I have a hard time making close friends because I have a real hard time opening up. I'm overall not very trusting and feel like people think I'm stupid, immature, a geek etc. (Though I know I'm not.) I was raised in an adult environment so was always considered mature for my age. However, as a result I had a very hard time relating with my peers. Now that I'm older and am supposed to be more mature - I find myself being silly. Its almost like I'm going backwards.

15. If you could change one thing about yourself what would you change?
Two things that kind of go hand in hand are my trust in people and the fact that I hold grudges. I try not too - but its always there in the back of my mind. I'm working on these though.

16. Who is your favorite actor/actress?
I think Kathy Bates is amazing. I haven't seen of her work that I haven't loved. I'm also a Tom Hanks and Robin Williams fan.

17. What is the silliest thing you've done this week?
Just this morning I ran away from a Vietnamese man who was chasing me with an electric drill! Seriously, I went to tan and parked in a parking spot labeled for the nail salon next door. I made a point to look and make sure the nail salon was not open - they didn't open for two more hours so I thought it would be OK. Well, when I went to leave, a Vietnamese man, who I'm assuming is the owner of the nail salon, was hanging a banner outside. He jumped down from his ladder and started chasing me, yelling and waving his electric drill in the air! I just smiled and waved, acting like I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. I figure that's how he looks at me when he's doing my toes - now he knows how it feels. Guess I wont be having him do my toes anymore. Time to look for a new nail salon.....

18. Do you live near your family or far from them?
I have a very small family. My father passed when I was young. I have no contact with that side of my family. My mother lives in Anchorage, Ak and I have an aunt and two cousins in Oklahoma. So, yea - not so close.

19. List three of your talents....
Photography (have I mentioned I like photography?), Humor, and I can decorate a mean cake.
This one I made for Doodle's first birthday.


20. What is your greatest attribute?
Compassion. I am very compassionate and do not judge anyone. If I have not walked in someone's shoes or lived their life - I am in no position to make judgment calls on their life or the way they live it. The only exception I have to that rule is in the treatment of children. They are empty slates and are all perfect at birth. They deserve nothing less that to be treated fairly, with respect and love.


So, there you have it. My answers to the twenty questions. Who's next??