03/03/10: The day before the last day

I have less than 24 hours left on the "unweightloss" program.  Words cannot begin to describe the relief or anticipation for tomorrow's weigh-in!  I am so ready to move onto the next thing to stress about.

Will I?  Won't I?  Insurance approval - and quick - would be a real tear jerker, I think!  Whatever will be, will be.  That is always the way of it.  And I will keep working to get what I want!

My husband wants me to give a shout out to our new found savings friend.  http://www.groupon.com/  Check it out and see if they have your city on their list.  What is it, you ask?  Well..have you heard of http://www.woot.com/?  Ok.  Let's start with the woot thing, for those who don't know what it is.  They sell one item a day for absurdly low prices.  It's generally electronics stuff and sometimes it's brand new and sometimes it's refurbished.  Did you know that refurbished means, in most cases, that the plant shut down during production?  It does not mean, necessarily, that someone bought it, it broke, and then it was fixed, and now it's being re-sold.  Although it can mean that, that's actually pretty rare.  But if the assembly line (or whatever) is shut down while a batch is in the middle of production due to whatever reason - all the items on the line at that point must be sold as refurbished since repairs were in order.  So generally speaking, refurbished is still brand new.  In the case of woot, it basically has to be because they buy things by the lot - not individually.

Ok.  So woot sells one thing a day at an absurdly low price.  We bought a dyson hand vac, for example, brand new, for 60% off the normal price.  Everything ships for $5 no matter where you are in the USA.  You can buy up to 3 of the things.  And when that item is sold, it's done.  You don't get to see the new item until the next day.  One thing a day, that's it.  Sometimes, though, they do something called a 'woot-off'.  In that case, they have a few things that they sell each day - and it works like this.  Item one goes on the block.  That's all they sell until they are done.  They might be selling 100...so you won't see the next thing until all 100 item 1's are sold.  When those are sold, item 2 gets put up there.  It can be a pretty rapid-fire process and the deals are incredibly extraordinary in those cases.  We've seen 50" plasma tv's (with $5 shipping) for $800.  That was 2 years ago when 50" was still super huge.

Ok.  So that's woot in a nutshell.  Well...groupon is similar to woot.  They have one coupon a day.  The coupons are pre-paid things.  We've bought a stay in a bed & breakfast at a place about 2 hours outside of Houston.  The coupon is for one night and we paid a third of what the normal rate is.  You have to find your nearest city as the coupons are specific to your location.  We've also bought a coupon for a couple's massage and another coupon for a dinner.  In the case of the couple's massage - it made the massage half price.  We just had to tip.  In the case of dinner, you buy the $35 coupon for a specific restaurant, for example.  That $35 buys $70 worth of food.  It also covers the alcohol.  Again, at the restaurant, all we're on the hook for is the tip.  (Assuming we kept our bill to within $70.)

So why am I talking about all this?  We bought the couple's massage which came with a bottle of champagne, fresh strawberries, and gourmet chocolate.  We paid about half price for all that by having this coupon.  You get the coupon in hand and then call to book the appt.  We had the appt yesterday afternoon.  Ahhh...bliss!  It's been quite awhile since we'd had massages and we were both way over due!  (I love that my sweet hubby loves massages and pedicures!)

Groupon is slightly different than woot because, obviously, you are buying the coupon, which is really a pre-paid deal.  But...enough people have to buy the coupon for it to be good!  It tells you on the page how many have to buy the coupon before it "tips".  If it tips, then you actually get charged.  Otherwise, you just clicked a button.  You can only buy one for yourself but you can buy them and give them as gifts, too.  But, for example, we cannot go back to this spa and use another coupon.  They know who we are, now.  If we'd been going to this spa, we would have been ineligible.

So check it out.  http://www.groupon.com/

Ok...shout out is done.  Happy, Sweetheart?  (I love that man!  Yes, he reads the blog...)

I can't wait until tomorrow.  Other than the fantastic massage followed by a terrific evening at the Rodeo, it's about all that's on my mind.  Tomorrow.  8:30 AM...

In other news...I decided to try the pre-op diet to see what I could see.  OMG!  I lost too much weight in the first day so I had to stop and eat yesterday.  I lost 4 pounds between Mon-Tues.  Those 4 pounds put my BMI under 40.  So I thoroughly enjoyed the rodeo last night!  I am trying today out again - although I will eat an old school dinner, not the recommended dinner, i.e. I will eat starches.  This morning I was back up 2...but I am definitely going to be weighing in down tomorrow morning.  Down from the last appt...not as down as I've been, though.  And I will be wearing heavier clothes, too.  I love it!  I'd rather have the options like this!

And that's all I've got! 

I'm excited!

Have a great day!