08/16/10: Life is good!

Hey y'all.  Sorry I went so quiet at the end of the week (and over the weekend).  I turned my attentions to really trying to get caught up and just didn't have anything to blog about.

Well...that's not true.  But I was more interested in catching up than rambling incessantly, as I do.

But today...today it's all about BOTH.  :)

Still catching up.  As of right now...I have 684 blogs to read, according to Reader.  More, really...but...that's what Reader knows I have to read.

Want to....

Read...

That is...

Anywho.

I passed all my tests.  I am officially past the "Gateway".  I now have to get a project...propose that project...do that project...present that project's results to my "local" powers-that-be....present that project's results to my "regional" powers-that-be...undergo a "Career Orientation Review"....and then hopefully graduate.  And then I'll get to start a new training program.  One in which I become a "senior".

People around me did not pass the Gateway this time around.  The Gateway's are only open for the first two weeks of the month and only "X" amount of people can take the Gateway at any given time.  Given that they are open book and open everything save talking to coworkers...I thought they were incredibly passable.  But...they are also timed...and when you are battling the clock....perusing all of our resources becomes...um...not so doable.  I was given two hours for each test...and most tests took me right at 1.5 hours.  Others around me...it was either submit it with "something" or don't submit and let the clock do it for them.

Anywho.  I just need a danged project now.  PLEASE!  Can I PLEASE have a project?  I asked my boss Friday when I announced "I'm done and I passed" and he said he thinks he has something but he has to ask the bigger boss who was on vacation.  My boss promised he'd have an answer by today.  If I can get a project today...and propose it this week....I might get my graduation by the end of the year.  And that means pay raise.  And it also means eligibility for merit raises!  I like merit!

Anywho.

On to the meat.

I WAS SO LAZY LAST WEEK!  We got home Monday...beat.  Absolutely beat.  I'd planned that we'd get home around 7 and I'd go straight into my gym for my Monday night workout and the whole rest of the week would fall in line.

Umm...yeah...NO.

I COULD NOT DO IT.

So Tuesday...I could do Monday's...and Wednesday...I could do Tuesday's...and then Thursday...I'd be doing Thursday's and then I'd be back on track.  But.  BUT....Wednesday we had dinner plans.  That whole thing I'm doing because Draz has inspired me to get the hell out of my shell.  Reconnecting with beloved friends.  So...in order to reconnect...I said...hey...let's do dinners on Weds.  (We used to do Tues.)  And they loved the idea and we started it up last week.  Well.  Because of dinner on weds...I didn't want to do tues workout (which was really mon's) and then take a break before doing what should be back to back.  So...I thought...I'll take tues night off, too.  And weds, of course.  And then I'll do mon on thurs, tues on fri, thurs on sat and fri on sun.

Got all that?

Nope.  It didn't happen.

Then I convinced myself (I had been all along, really) that I was pregnant.  And last week was my insanely high weights.  And then on thurs I convinced myself that lifting what I needed to lift was just not safe for a potentially budding pregnancy.

Well...not pregnant.  So then fri I was kinda sad.  So there went that workout.

So then I thought...Sat...I'll do my mon and sun I'll do my tues and I'll leave it at that.  But Sat...we sat on the couch and watched movies.  Ahhh...bliss.  Went out to dinner with our friend, her daughter (also our friend) and her x-daughter-n-law.  (Don't ask.  Just know...no, her son aint happy about it.  But he's by himself in another state and so doesn't really get a say in the matter.)  It was a birthday dinner for me.  And the company and the dinner was perfect. 

So then I thought...Sun...I'll do mon and tues and I'll leave it at that.  But Sun...we sat on the couch and watched more movies.  It was shear bliss!  Grilled some steaks for dinner and were otherwise absolute vegetables.

We haven't had a vegetative weekend in ages.  We always have someone around and are entertaining or we've gone somewhere or we're doing something.  I feel soooo incredibly recharged!

And stir crazy....

So...nope.  Didn't workout.

Instead of doing last week's routine this week...I'm thinking I'll start just the whole cycle all over again.  Wouldn't be safe to pick up the heaviest weights this week after a week of nothing.

You know what else I did not do this weekend?  Take my latest 10-pounds-lost pictures.  Oh well.  I'll take 'em one night this week.

I also didn't pay the water bill.  Oops.  That one just seems funny to me.  I know it shouldn't...but it does.  I'd love to pay it right now while I'm thinking about it...but my city makes it impossible to log in to their system to pay the bill unless you have your bill sitting right in front of you.  And who carries their water bills in their purses?  I'm pretty sure I'll remember it tonight.

So tonight.  My neighbor...the one that took my hubby and I out to dinner for my birthday on Sat.  She wants to do something to lose weight.  She is thinking that because right now, while it's insanely hot and humid which makes walking our lake miserable, that joining a gym with a pool so she can do aquareobics and aquacize is a good idea.  Problem is, she doesn't know if she likes either of those things.  So this week, M-W-F I am going to do "classes" with her so she can decide if she likes it.  I'd be happy to keep the classes going but she also wants the heated pool in the cooler months if she decides she likes it.  While our pool is allllllll kinds of hot right now...it will not be in Jan.

I wish...when we'd designed the pool....that we'd made the "hot tub" more of a rectangle and a bit bigger...and put the swim jet in there.  If there was enough floor space in there...I could use that for aquareobics and aquacizing - things I like, too.  But our hot tub is really just a hot tub...so unless we are soaking...it's not really....

Anyway.

I guess since I was absent on Weds Thurs and Fri (and the weekend, as usual) that I'm trying to make up for lost times.

Something I want to talk about besides all this incessant drivel I've already spewed.

Something's different.

Yeah, I know...50 pounds lost...it's different.  A lap-band....it's different.  But I'm not talking about that.

Last week, Tuesday night, to be exact, my husband and I went to the grocery store on the way home from work.  Stocked up on many things as our kitchen was a little bare.  Went through the fruits and veggies and it all looked good and I wanted it all.  Went through the bulk aisle and I perused all the nuts and mixes looking for something low cal, low fat and high protein.

I found it.  SOY NUTS!  And they are so yum.  They are slightly peanuty-ish with a big huge crunch.  1/4 cup (if you can eat that many) is 130 cals, 11g of protein, 5g of fiber and 5g of fat.  I swear it's impossible for a bandster to even eat 1/4 cup of these things.  But they are so good.  I actually just ate those for lunch on Sat. 

Anywho.  Back to the grocery store.  Went through the bakery - didn't care.  The cheese...well...now...I love me some cheese.  I will never go low fat-no fat on cheese.  If I want cheese I'll eat cheese and if I want some sort of exotic cheese, I'll eat it.  Cheese is high in protein and while yes, it has carbs,  I'm not worried about it.  One of my favorite go-to snacks is a little cube of cheese, generally, less than an ounce worth.  Just a bite or two, really.  It's enough to change my palate and sometimes that's why I want to eat something...to change the taste on my palate.  And cheese, for me, is perfect for that.  Anywho.  I love cheese.  And like I said...I'll never do low fat-no fat or even fake cheese.  It has to be the real stuff (and I'd love it if it could be the real real stuff like everywhere else in the world instead of the pasteurized crap we have here in the US...but don't get me started).

So we leave the cheese and olive bar and deli and head to meat.  And we find some meat stuff on sale we decide we can't live without.  And we wander to the other side of the store.  Now...our grocery store is being remodeled - expanded, really.  It's gonna be huge when it's done....and NICE!  The organic/health food section just about quintupled in size.  We went from 2 half rows to 6 real rows and an entire wrap around refrigerated case.  We went from 2 options for Greek yogurt to 9.  We had another store we could go to for a lot of our stuff like that but we like this store better and are glad they are listening to what we want!  But because the remodel/expansion is still going on...organization is not yet perfected.

So back to leaving cheeses and olives and meat.  We go through dairy and grab our nonfat milk.  We grabbed a few canned goods along the way - like canned chicken and canned tuna which I use for my chicken or tuna salads for lunch.  And then we are at the end of the store.  And we have our milk in hand and we need nothing else.  And we walk down the freezer aisle of nothing but frozen pizzas and frozen meals and frozen taquitos and frozen eclairs and...you know...all that "fake" food that's oh so tasty and yet filled with processed carbs and just not really good for you stuff.

Used to be I'd walk that aisle and I'd say...."I want this and I want this and I want this".  At various points in my life, I might actually let myself get the stuff, too.  The frozen pizzas and the hot pockets and the not good for you stuff.  I had gotten to a point where I 1) didn't go down those aisles or 2) if I had to, I wouldn't look and I'd definitely not allow myself to stop and open the doors.  It's never been that I don't want it...it's been that I could just make myself not do it.

But Tuesday...I looked.  I looked to see how they had organized it.  I looked to see what frozen pizzas they added to the mix.  I looked at the sweets and all the stuff that used to look good to me and appealed to my busy life.  I looked at it all.

And I was disgusted.

I looked at the box of pizza that said it was chicken and garlic and artichoke hearts.  And my stomach knotted in thinking of 1) what it tasted like and 2) what it did to my body.

I looked at the box of this and the box of that and I could feel what it had already done to my body, to my metabolism, to my organs and my veins and my arteries and my muscles.  I could feel the processed crap building up in me and slowing down my progress.  All I could see was this horror story of where I'd come from and what that "food" really does to us.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm nowhere near perfect and I never plan to even try.  I will eat my Hooters on occasion and I will drink my sodas, too.  On occasion.  I will make my home made pizzas and eat my chocolate or ice cream when it sounds good.

But I want real stuff.  I want flour ground from wheat and not enriched.  I want chicken raised on a farm without hormones.  I want sodas made with only natural ingredients, not aspartame or any other "fake" sweetener.  And yes, I eat processed crap.  But I do not want a steady diet of it.

Once upon a time...I was ok with it.  Now...I just can't appreciate the "quickness" it supposedly affords.

It was very surreal walking through that aisle seeing things I used to love and now only seeing the horror that it brings.  No more can I look at these things and think "ahh...oohy gooey cheesiness."  Nope.  Now I see "yuck, blocked artery in a box".  or... "fat pocket on a hip".

I could go on.  But...the thing I know...is that it wasn't my taste buds that changed, per se.  It was my brain.

I say that because my taste buds have always preferred "real" to "processed".  But my brain, once upon a time, was convinced that "a little each day was ok".

As a last little tidbit, know what else I found in the grocery store?  "Nut-thins".  Crackers.  Made from nuts instead of flour.  They are incredibly crunchy and while they are crackers and are, well, crackers.  They aren't as "bad" for you as some of the "better" crackers.  Compare 'whea! thins' to 'nut thins' and you'll see what I mean.  In a gist, same amount of protein...but less fat, less carbs, and less calories in the nut thins.  And the crunch is awesome.  And they have many different flavors, too.  I am in love with the almond sea salt with little slivers of brie on them.  (We have brie logs at our grocery stores now that are perfect for very thin slices to put on crackers.)

Oooh...and one last story.

So....neighbor friend took us out to dinner for my hubby's birthday three weeks ago.  She and her daughter.  She says..."think of where you want to go and we'll go there".  And hubby thinks for about three minutes and says "Carabas".  He loves Carabas.  I do not.  We rarely eat there.  :)  So we go to Carabas and we had a great meal with even better company.

Two weeks later...it's my turn.  Neighbor friend says "think of where you want to go and we'll go there".  And I think.  And I think.  Birthday comes and goes.  And I'm still thinking.  On Friday, neighbor friend's daughter texts me and says "where we going"?  I say "I don't know".  She says "Let me know by 6 tomorrow and I'll meet you there".  Ummm...ok.

I could not just up and decide on what my favorite place is.  I don't even know what it was anymore.  So Friday I enlist the help of hubby.  I say to him "where do I want to go?"  He says "let me think".

He doesn't even know anymore, either.  In general nowadays, all I can tell you is that "I want chicken".  I can get chicken most anywhere.  I can also tell you "I want salmon".  A little more limited on that one...but still...

I can also say "I want veggies".

What I can't say is where I want the chicken, salmon or veggies from.  I can also tell you I want Asian.  Asian anything.  Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese.  But I can't really do a steady diet of those things, either.

Hubby ultimately came up with a nice sushi restaurant we have close by.  Because I was scared of the rice, I did not order any of my own sushi on Sat, I got sesame salmon instead.  It was sooooo yum!  And then it turned out, cause I always have to try, that the rice was fine.  Everyone loved the restaurant.  Our neighbor friend doesn't do seafood so this restaurant was a great choice because it's one of those that has the full menu in addition to the full sushi list, too.  The table shared sushi and neighbor friend ate her terriyaki beef and I ate my salmon.  Because I could eat the rice, I had three pieces of sushi, too.  And when I took little niblet bites of the pieces they worked.

So then I'm thinking...because I could eat on Sat...I should be ok yesterday.  Nope.  Stuck on mashed taters.

And by stuck...in my case...it goes down.  It doesn't cause sliming.  It just sits there for 30 minutes before it goes down.  It's painful.  It's irritating.  It makes me eat cold food.  But it does go down...it does not come up....and it does not cause pb's or sliming.  Just sits there.  Painfully.  Whether I eat a hand-sized bite (which I don't) or a pinky nail sized bite.  Just sits there....

Enough ramble for today.  I had another thing I wanted to talk about today...but this is too long now...so I'll blog about it tomorrow.

Hope y'all had a great weekend.  Hope y'all have a great week!