02/07/11: Bunches o'stuff

• The scale just randomly started moving again last week.  Down.  It started moving down, I should say.  After carbfest '11 on Monday followed by not shabby nights Tues and Weds but craptacular on Thurs and dumb on Fri and "on the road" on Saturday and Superbowl on Sunday...well, oddly enough, I ended the week down.  I started last week at 204.  I finished the week at 198.  And I didn't do anything different.
• The band is so weird sometimes.
• I do know that I ovulated over the weekend that I hit 204.   Normally my (.) is my weightgain problem...but maybe this particular month it's the estrogen that's getting me and the progesterone is saving me!  Whacky, for me, but I'll take it whatever it is.
• I had my annual "well woman exam" last week.  In this appt we were also visiting with our doc about our trying again efforts.  After the D&C he wanted to see me again ten days post-op for a follow-up and said he wanted to see me after "two normal cycles".  Well, two normal cycles later fit in perfectly with "well woman" so it was a joint appt.  I showed him the incision issue and said that is our concern for trying again, especially since now we are trying steroid injections to "see" if it will clear up.  He said I'm fine, the steroid injections are so minimal and by the time the steroids make it to my liver, I've already metabolised most of what they are using anyway, so little is getting in my blood stream, effectively.  He hated these incision issues.  Hated 'em.  Was absolutely mortified.  Maybe I should take a picture someday and show you what they look like...  But when I told him all that my Dermatoligist has done so far, he didn't know what else to do, either, to pinpoint the problem.  So, it's still going to be the Derm's issue - 'cause, as we know, the surgeon that did the surgery has said "it's fine".
• Anywho, so we had the conversation and he said, you're fine to try again.
• He also said "you've lost weight beautifully" as he reviewed my chart from visiting with the nurse.
• Really?  I'm sitting here beating myself up for not being on a "good enough" losing streak anymore and he says my progress is "beautiful".
• And then I stopped and thought about that.  You just had a friggin miscarriage, Lori, I said to myself.  I had a D&C to finish it and my hormones have been running amuck and crazy, too, ever since.  This is the first "month" that has felt like normal me and it's still not really normal - just getting closer to my expected.  It's not normal for me to gain with estrogen and then lose with progesterone.  Those hormones usually do the opposite to me.  So, I'm not quite normal yet, but I'm the closest I've been.  Suffice it to say, whether I want to acknowledge it or not, my body and my mind have been through the ringer since October and I'm beating myself up for not losing enough.
• So I calmed down.
• We had our annual super bowl gathering yesterday.  We were pleased with the results.  Here's a picture of our spread.  This picture shows the spread before it was really done.  That's just what I put out there - although there are three things on that table that are not my contributions.

• By the time everyone was done bringing stuff, there was absolutely no exposed table left, or so it seemed.  It was insane.  People took pictures of it as it grew and if I ever get copies of it all, I'll post that.
• Various comments included:                        
• (I love this, by the way, it's hearing stuff like this that makes me love to do this stuff!!)
• "This is the most beautiful spread I've ever seen."
• "You should open a restaurant.  You can't make anything wrong and you make such a wide variety of things that most people are too intimidated by."
• "This is amazing.  This is why we come here."
• "This is the best super bowl party I've ever been to."
• "I've never seen a spread like this, anywhere, holidays included, let alone for a super bowl party."
• "This is amazing."
• We took Thurs and Fri off work to prepare.  That turns out to have been a waste, for Friday, anyway, because it was a snow day for my office, as well as my hubby's, since Houston froze overnight on Thurs and given that this city doesn't know how to deal with ice, it was not a pretty picture on Friday.  But because I scheduled Friday off as vacation, I still have to burn the day, even though I wouldn't have worked even if I'd been available to work.  And my own plans at home changed because of the ice, too.  I didn't think pruning frozen bushes was wise.
• Anywho.  Thursday we put pulls and knobs on all of our cabinets and drawers in the kitchen.  We'd already done our bathroom and we finished the other bathroom on Friday after finding pulls to match furniture we have in our bathroom on Friday.  Yes, we have furniture in our bathroom.  It's nuts.  We should not have that much space to be able to have a credenza in there, but we do and it finishes the space nicely.
• Anywho, the pulls and knobs look really nice and we are glad that we finally made the investment.
• We did our grocery shopping for this feast on Thursday.
• We prepped almost all of the food on Friday.
• And then Saturday we drove to Austin for a family reunion.  Got back late Saturday night and did a little more food prep.
• Got up at a reasonable hour on Sunday and went to work.  I finished the food prep and got a few things baking while my husband set up a stadium seating setup in our family room.  We brought over bar height chairs from a neighbors house and staged our couch (lowest) followed by normal chairs followed by bar chairs.  It worked incredibly well.
• We had a crowd of 38 people this year.  Last year I think the number was closer to 25.  So this thing is definitely growing.  Our house can't accomodate many more for a seated style event like this, so our evite list is probably set now.  But it worked out incredibly well!
• Two weeks ago we had cable jacks dropped and installed in our kitchen and dining room so that we could have tv's set up where ever people might be.  Our kitchen, as is any kitchen, is always a gathering point, so we put a 42" plasma on top of the fridge.  There are two chairs at our kitchen table that no matter how you adjust the seat, you cannot see the tv in the family room (a 65" plasma).  Everything else in the kitchen can see the tv in the family room.  Last year, we ran cable out of a bedroom window, into the dining room window, up and over the archway that splits the two rooms, and into the kitchen with a split along the way for the tv in the dining room.  It worked but I saw huge potential for things to go wrong there so the cable drops seemed incredibly worth it.  In the dining room we put our 36" LCD.  So if you were getting food, you could still see the tv.  And people were most definitely always hanging around that table!  That was a pretty neat thing to see. 
• So, back to Saturday.  I visited quite a lot with my SIL who is a fairly new mom.  My niece is going on two months and is still as cute as ever.  I so love that they asked us to be the Godparents.  That was such a sweet surprise.  Anywho.  We visited a lot.  My BIL and SIL had a  miscarriage almost exactly a year before we did and then got pregnant again early last year to have my niece in December.  So, finally, someone I can talk to about the differences between miscarriages and post-partum.  Either way, whether you have a baby or not, you are still considered post-partum.  But I'm very curious about how and why it's different, because I'm sure there are differences.  Anywho.  She did tell me, at one point, that the hormones after the miscarriage were far worse than after having my niece.  She said, wisely, that she thinks that having the beautiful baby girl is part of the ability to deal with the hormones better after a full-term pregnancy.  Anywho.  I knew it was different, but, of course, I don't have any sort of personal gauge.  I haven't had a successful pregnancy yet.  We talked a lot about our miscarriage experiences and that was a great conversation for me.  Between that conversation and my doc saying "you are losing weight beautifully", I just feel so much calmer about where I am.
• And that's about all I know.  I am down and the scale is creeping further downwards.  Last night before crawling into bed I saw 197.  I am in a weight range that I haven't seen since 2005 and in 5 pounds, I'll be back in 2004 weights.  Getting into the 180's will take me back to 2004...but getting into the 170's will take me back to the 1990's.  So many people walked in the house yesterday and called me skinny.  I'm not, not by a long shot, but it's really apparent in my face nowadays.
• I did finally take photos last week - got the 205 photos at 202.  It'll work.  I need to crop and adjust them and will probably do so tonight and get them into my post for tomorrow.
• I hope y'all enjoyed your weekend and I hope everyone is still staying warm!