02/15/10: A Whole Lotta Nothin

I had an extended weekend this weekend.  Today was a holiday for my sweet hubby today so I took it off as a vacation day.  You'd think we'd have used the three day weekend as an excuse to go somewhere and do something.  But we didn't.  Instead, we used it as an excuse to be lazy and to just chill out.

It was rather spectacular, really.  Sometimes nothing is exactly what one needs to do.  I do have this sorta feeling like 'did I really just do nothing for three days?'  But the answer is yes and I feel good about that.  We did get up early on Saturday to take our two dogs and two cats in for their annual checkup.  But other than that...  Friday night we ended up in bed and asleep by 9:30 pm.  That is soooo not like us...so apparently a weekend like this was in order.  It didn't help that my sweet hubby wasn't feeling fantastic, although not sick, I think he was making sure he could have a do nothing weekend.  I had no qualms with that, anyway, so it would have worked out no matter how Friday night played out.

Friday night, on the way home from work, we stopped at the airport to pick up a neighbor.  We were going to go out to eat, her treat as she was just returning from Vegas and had quite the winning streak while there, at a restaurant touted as one of the best steak houses in Texas.  But when we got there it was reservations only as the overflow from Sunday night reservations had spilled into Saturday AND Friday booking the place up completely.  So, instead, we found a new sushi bar.  OMG that place was to die for!  I have never seen such selection.  Easily 500 different types of rolls.  It took us about 20 minutes to read through everything and we ended up with some new twists that were just phenomenal.  OMG!  We will be going back - although luckily, not that often.  The place is over 15 miles away and only city streets to get there...we'll really have to want it.

So we got home and then the sweet hubby was down.  And that, my friends, was how the weekend played out.  We ran a couple of minor errands Saturday morning and came home and lit the fireplace up.  The rest of Saturday entailed me trying to work through a few blogs.  I am trying to catch up with all that I am following...but catching up on years and half years worth is taking time.  Tons of valuable information, though, and I love to see (or at least read about) the band coming to life.  It is so varied for everyone but you can also see that it really makes people do what they have to do to change their specific situation.  Some people - makes 'em get off the couch (that will probably be my story).  Other people - makes 'em eat less.  And even other people - makes 'em eat better.  Just so interesting and I keep wondering how it will pertain to me...but I can't and won't know that until I'm there.

I know that my sweet hubby and I have agreed to change something that we have to change.

Right now...we eat at our neighbors houses every Tuesday and Thursday.

Pro - I don't have to cook or clean on those evenings.
Con - I don't get to control what I'm eating and I end up not having time for the exercise routine that I prefer.  And another con is that I don't get to cook or clean on those evenings.

So the pro that's also a con.  I love to cook.  It's part of how I decompress from the day.  I also love to clean.  Especially when it comes to my kitchen.  One of my favorite things to do is wash the dishes.  I have my odd reasons for that...but it's true.  I'm weird.

One of the biggest issues, though, is that my husband and I drive over an hour and a half each way to work.  We get to carpool and that helps.  However, it's time taken away from our evenings.  It means getting up earlier than our colleagues to get there later in the morning.  So if I want to work out, I have a relatively small window in which to do so.  Especially when you factor in cooking and then eating and then cleaning.  Add to that my love for baths or dips in the hot tub...and well...if we go to a neighbors house for dinner, there just is not enough time in the evening to do what we need to do and want to as well.  I know that when the "unweightloss" program is over I will start my official what I want to do each night routine.  Mon-Weds-Fri I will be lifting weights.  Tues-Thurs I will swim.  This time of year it will be at a local indoor mostly heated pool.  Once it is nicer I will switch to my own pool.  We have a swim jet in our pool just for me and my love of swimming and so I can swim endless laps right here at home.

But I can't do my wonderful routine if I'm not home to do so.  And I do have to make this time about me.  I can see getting to maintenance weight and then backing off the weights which could free up particular evenings.  But I also see that by then we might have wee little ones running around the house.  And I'm all about routine...I don't think wee little ones do well if they can't predict, even internally, what is about to happen.  If bedtime changes every night, for example, it makes it hard to get them to bed. 

So the evening meals at our neighbors homes...and the lingering until well after what should be our very own bedtimes, is going to have to stop.  Right now...I can't exercise as I wish to anyway.  So it's ok.  But in two weeks and three days I can start.  And by making that change, I feel like I will also be able to better control what I can eat.  I can cook fish and chicken almost exclusively. 

Now there's an interesting topic.  I noticed something about myself.  I have not had a beef or pork dish in over three weeks.  I don't even miss it.  And we used to eat, almost exclusively, beef.  I always said to myself I should switch to predominantly chicken and fish but never thought I could.  And now without thinking about it or really even trying to, I've made the switch.  When it comes to dinner time now, and I start thinking about what to pull out of the freezer, I flat out do not even want to pull out beef.  Interesting.  Odd.  Yay me!  That's a switch I've wanted to make for years! 

So back to the lazy weekend.  You'd think in all this nothing-ness we might have wanted to do something for Valentine's Day.  And we thought we were going to...but in the end...we just didn't really want to.  I woke up early and created a breakfast in bed situation for my sweet hubby.  He is always doing breakfast in bed for me and I wanted to spoil him for once.  So I did.  Other than that...there wasn't much of anything done.  We exchanged cards...yes, plural, cardS and he gave me my fave flowers - tulips, while I gave him some truffles that he loves.  But other than that, we didn't go anywhere and we didn't do much else of anything besides just enjoy being together.

Our hot tub has been out of commission as I think after all the freezes we've had this winter, one of the actuators on our pool equipment that controls whether we are returning water to the pool or to the hot tub froze and then busted.  We've had a request in for warranty work for over two weeks now and they finally called today to say it would get fixed this week.  However, yesterday it occurred to me that we can take that actuator off and control the hot tub/pool return manually.  So we were able to crawl in the hot tub last night for the first time in over a month.  And it was a chilly night so it was perfect.  Towards the end of our dip it started to rain...it was heaven.  I love sitting in a hot hot tub with cold rain falling all around.  It was one of those 'this is the life' moments!

And today has been equally as lazy.  We actually both slept in today...and once we got up, we just crawled out to the couch.  I continued reading blogs while my sweet hubby worked a puzzle.  It was just a nice day.

The next bunches of weekends won't be nearly as lazy.  Next weekend I have a baby shower to attend and we are getting dressed to the nines to go out to dinner with our neighbor.  Before we left that one-of-the-best-in-Texas restaurant, we did make reservations for this coming weekend.  The following weekend we are headed to Austin.  I believe the weekend after that will be around the homestead but I'm sure I'll be itching for some spring cleaning activities by then.  March promises more trips back to Austin as my grandmother will be visiting from California.  I can't wait to see her and it's always great to see my aunt and uncle that live there in Austin!  And hopefully, something will be happening for me in March, too!

I'm tellin you...A whole lotta nothin.  It was nice!

And I mentioned this in my previous blog...here are some pics of me through time...

Me at 19 just about two weeks before I went in the Navy.  Notice that I am a bit more muscular here than I appear in some of my uniformed photos.  I was swimming 6 hours a day Mon-Fri at this time and lifting weights for an additional 2.  Three days a week I would also run for an hour.  I wasn't "physically fit" or anything...I weighted about 140 here.

This was taken at my boot camp graduation.  My physical activiy decreased in boot camp.  Which is not to say that boot camp was easy.  It was certainly...umm..life changing.  But it was not conducive to keeping my muscle content....(and there are a couple reasons behind that other than that we were always running or doing drills or being punished...) I weighed about 130 here

This photo was taken about midway through boot camp.  I haven't quite lost all the muscle I would lose yet...but we did spend more time in the pool in the first half of boot camp than we did in the second half.  The second half really focused on marching and learning how to be in unison ALL THE TIME.  I have no idea what I weighed here...we had no access to a scale in boot camp.

Me at 21 years old.  I had been in training for over a year and finally made it out to my ship.  I came home to meet my best friend's new baby.  (I was stationed in Hawaii and my best friend was and is still in Cali).  Once I got to my ship, we went into dry dock for about three months and I was able to pick my swimming back up.  I also had managed to get back to swimming and weight lifting while in training, once out of boot camp.  When I arrived on my ship, the guys later told me, they couldn't keep their eyes off me.  I had no idea...  I weighed about 135 here.

At 22.  I was definitely curvy.  I took those curves as meaning I was fat...I weighed about 145 here.

I was 22 here.  This picture was taken in Australia just outside of Melbourne.  This was just before my life was changed pretty drastically by a guy who thought he needed to control me...I weighed about 150 here.  Lots of beer was consumed on deployment.  :)

Just after getting out of the Navy.  I had just turned 23. What I went through had already happened and I was in the process of "making the decision to get fat".  Yes, I got fat on purpose.  I wanted to deflect any and all attention - hence the hideous hair.  (My step-dad asked me if I was a lesbian...this was growing out a shaved head...)  I weighed about 160 here...and it was the last time I weighed that...

(It was this shirt I was wearing when I met my husband.  Not quite so loose when I met him...but still pretty baggy.  My mom and grandmother hated that shirt - said I'd never meet a guy as long as I dressed like that.  That was the goal!)

At 24.  I was working on "making myself ugly" but it was a pretty slow process.  At least that's how it felt at the time.  I weighed somewhere between 160 and 170 here.  I was back to swimming A LOT, though.  I lifeguarded and coached 5 days a week for 2 hours a day then swam for at least 2.  I also lifeguarded for a disabled student class which was VERY hands on.

At 26 I was finally winning.  I started to get a good layer between me and the world.  I was about 210 here.  This picture was taken at one of my favorite locations in Texas...just outside of Kyle Field in College Station.

Here I am at 28.  I just like this picture.  I'm so bundled up it's hard to tell anything one way or another.  This picture was taken in Iceland.  What a gorgeous country!  I can say I was about 180 here.  I had forgiven and moved on.  I lost weight easily once that happened, however, the yo-yo-ing kicked in and this was about a year before my weight started to run away.

Again in Iceland.  Not so bad.  But I knew it and I slacked off not making it to my targeted weight loss.  And that slacking off just got worse.

In Japan at 29.  I went on a four month world cruise, quit my job to do so, after my mom died.  My step-dad and I went together in her honor and to decompress from what we'd just been through caring for her in her final months.  I was 180 when I left on that luxurious and rich food-filled cruise and I was 180 when I got home four months later. 

In Sri Lanka towards the end of the cruise.

At 31, this was about a month after I met the man who became my husband (yes, that's him).  I was about 215 here.

At 32.  Yes, this is NYC.  We went to visit one of my hubby's best friend's from high school.  I was about 220 here.

Still 31 but almost 32.  This was the night we got engaged.  That story will get told in a future blog, closer to the anniversary of that event.  I was still at 220 here.

One of our 500+ engagement photos.  Our photographer said she loved us.  If the amount of pictures she took is any indication, we had over 2000 from the wedding, over 400 from our rehearsal dinner and over 500 from the engagement photo session.  (Most of her clients had in the ballpark of 1000 total, even when they had the same package we chose.)  We love her, too!  She was fun and has a great eye.  I wish we had a digital copy of the photo hanging over our fireplace...anyway...still 220 here.

This photo was taken in Galveston, TX (pre-Ike).  Galveston was the first topic of conversation that we ever had.  My hubby was 32 here...I was 31.  Our birthdays are only two weeks apart, though...

My wedding day. I was about 230 for that beautiful day. I wish I could have been less...but my weight problem was still running away from me...and it felt like no matter what I did...it just kept getting worse.  32 years old here.

 

One of my favorite wedding photos.  I love our photographer!  She did all kinds of things like this!

Again with the wedding day...

It must be love...a Texas A&M Aggie wearing Raider Red?  ARGH!!!  But as much as I bleed maroon...I love my hubby more!  We were in Lubbock for a game and I was pretty sure I wouldn't be spotted.  :)  I was about 240  and 33 years old here.

And this was this past Christmas.  34 years old.  And while I wasn't my heaviest ever, that happened in April and I stayed at that weight through the summer and into October when I started the "unweightloss" program.  Highest weight ever was 265.  In this photo I was 255.  This was the photo that got printed as a Christmas card and most people do not know that it was their "before" photo of me.

And that's a photo history of me, my weight, and my ever-changing hair length.