Sleepy Bullets

• Ambien kicking in so this will be quick...
• Jen's post about taking care of your band really made me think. Please go read it if you haven't already.
• We moved over to our new office today. It is beautiful and cuts 10-15 minutes off my commute each way. AND there are showers in the bathroom. AND easy walking distance to the gym at my school. AND a real break room where I can take my time and eat my healthy lunches. I'm excited.
• It's raining really hard. So much for my 4 mile walk I was planning for tomorrow at this beautiful park nearby. No excuses! I'll go walk the mall for an hour if I have to.
• I ate almost a whole jerk chicken wrap for lunch (with lettuce, plantains, beans, but peeled off a good part of the tortilla). Was not overly full.
• I ate part of a roast beef sandwich for dinner (bread well scooped) last night. Yeah - bread and meat together. I am afraid I will need a fill soon. I am loosey-goosey. Breakfast has been no problem. I even "tested" myself with a few dried apricots, the food I notoriously got stuck on for the first time. Went down like buttah. I'm going to ride it for a couple of weeks though before I decide anything...I'm coming up on that part of the month that I usually end up much tighter.
• Night night time.
  

Airplane Seats

When I returned from Chicago, I posted on my bariatric surgeon's Facebook page, "It is amazing how much larger the airplane seats are these days. ;-)"

Here's a little proof from my trip to Boston last weekend...legs crossed, and just look at all that extra seatbelt!

Baby Shower Weekend

The baby shower for my sister and brother-in-law was great, and I really enjoyed being in the Boston area in the fall.

This blanket is the knitting project I have been working on for months, and now that Dana and Mike have seen it, I can share pictures. :-)





My husband, Scott got them a book called My Little Geek. It was so funny!



For the first time in our lives, my sister's belly sticks out more than mine. :-)



I love this one of me, Dana, and our parents.


The day after the shower, we went to my brother-in-law Mike's sister's farm, First Root Farm, to help with the garlic planting. It was so cool seeing how the garlic is grown.



Later that day, we went to walk around Walden Pond. It was 1.7 miles around, and Mike and I wanted to walk it fast, so we took off and did so. It was awesome to think about how the first time I went to Boston to visit them, I wanted to cry during the half mile walk to the train station and now I can go ALL day with no problem and walk miles and miles.


Life is good. :-)

TILTing the Day Away

I haven’t done this in awhile but I used to do a TILT (Things I Love Thursday) every week. It’s a good excuse to slow down for a minute and pay attention to the good stuff in your life. Things I am loving this week…

• I get to see my little sister tomorrow and snuggle her baby bump - yay!


• Cooler weather.


• Pumpkin spice everything.


• A completed knitting project. So satisfying!


• Lunch with my husband...even though it was because I forgot something at home and had to meet him at his office.


• That the airplane seats are "getting bigger" and I'm not worried about whether or not I can buckle my seat belt tomorrow. :-)


• SQUIRRELS! (That was for Lap Band Gal.)


• My new Android phone.


• Watching Jessica go through the banding process, and knowing how awesome she is going to do.


• Audiobooks (I'm listening to Penn Jillette's book God, No right now and really enjoying it).


• Getting back into my workout groove.

What are you loving this week?

Busy

I have been a busy lady. I feel like I just got home from Chicago and now I am getting back on a plane to Boston this Friday for my sister and brother-in-law's baby shower. I can't believe my little sister is walking around with an entire human being inside of her! Too cool.

My company is moving to a new facility in a couple of weeks, and we'll have - get this - showers in the bathrooms. You know what that means? Lunchtime workouts! I'm definitely psyched for that. It means that I have decided not to re-join the gym for now as I hope to be able to get most of my working out done then. There's a great running trail right there, and I'll be within 1/2 mile of the gym I can use for free at my school - at least until I graduate in December.

I had some awesome time on Saturday with Jessica, who got her band installed on Friday by the same surgeon who did mine. She's doing great and I am so happy for her!


So...that's really it. I'll check in with pictures when I get back from Boston.

Swag Bag Review

I'm settling back in to life after BOOBs...but it ain't easy. I miss everyone!

I do have one BOOBie thing that I'm still enjoying...my swag bag. The goodies in the swag bag were just amazing, and I wanted to tell you about the stuff I've tried thus far.

• Pashmina - super cozy, and folds up into the size of a postage stamp. Perfect for tossing in to my purse on these chilly (ha!) south Florida autumn days. I think it got almost down to 85 degrees today...brrrr. But seriously, everywhere is so heavily air conditioned that it's nice to have a handy cozy thing to take everywhere with me.
• Detour low sugar protein bars - these are seriously yummy! I've tried the peanut butter cream and the caramel chocolate chip ones. I like them so much that I definitely plan to order more.
• Jenny Craig cheesy poofs and toffee cookies - I've done Jenny Craig (um, a few times) so I knew what to expect. Sorry to say that they're just meh. Not bad, not great. I'd much rather have...
• Pirate's Booty = CRACK! Cheesy, crunchy crack. Way too good. I love the little portion controlled bags. They're 65 calories of YUM. I can't find the little bags in the stores near me and I'm afraid I can't be trusted with a big bag. I MUST find the individual baggies.
• Umpqua Oats - I have no idea since I really don't like oatmeal so haven't tried it. My husband ate it though and said it was REALLY good and he wants me to order more.
  

That's all I've tried so far.

BOOBs 2011...The Adventure

(Settle in and go grab a tasty beverage...this is going to be a long one.)

What an absolutely fantastic whirlwind weekend! I had the most amazing time. I have to hand it to the planners - this year was even better than last year by a long shot! There were so many people who were dearly missed (Amy, Sarah...so many others) but we thought of them often and sent our love. Here is the story of my BOOBs experience in pictures...

One of the first things we did when I got to town on Friday afternoon was go have pizza at Pizzeria Uno with some lovely ladies. It was so much fun! Karin and I shared a personal pizza and a salad and really enjoyed it. Even more enjoyable was the company - Angela, Stacey, Jessica, and the infamous but anonymous (and not pictured) Fluffy.





After dinner, Karin and I did a little shopping at Trader Joe's and found the most spectacularly decadent peanut butter and chocolate cookies ever. We liked them. A lot.




It was time to head to the meet & greet. There was a whole lot of laughing.


Plenty of drinking.


And the planners did such an awesome job of getting everything together. The goodie bags ROCKED! We got tons of protein bars (oh goodness...those Detour low sugar bars are delicious) and shakes, healthy snacks, custom made wine, a pashmina, and all kinds of other good stuff. Also I won an awesome filtered water bottle as a door prize. Very cool!

After the meet & greet, several of us went to Second City Comedy. It was a total blast and just a bit raunchy. There was more drinking. Oh yes. The drinking.



A drinky Karin is a silly Karin. She was so much fun to have as my roommate.



She liked having me as a roommate too, but only because the minute my eyes pop open I want my coffee, so I fetched our Starbucks first thing in the morning 2 out of 3 days. The third morning, she left me in bed and brought ME a skinny caramel latte. I love her! (Not just because of the coffee in bed...but that helped.)


On Saturday, Karin and I had a really nice lunch and a great talk with Amey and Maria. Amey brought me a bag of bird toys for my parrots, which they LOVE!


And then it was time for shopping. I'm not a big shopper (not to mention that we have every store possible in south Florida) but Karin needed a Marshall's fix - and there was one right across the street from our hotel. We played model and tried stuff on. Karin ended up buying a VERY sexy purple dress. She also tried on this very expensive coat and didn't buy it...but didn't she look fabulous?


Here is my Zoolander pose...



Saturday evening was the fancy dinner at Texas de Brazil. We had to stop and take pictures in our pretty dresses and shoes in the lobby.


I had to get a picture with the gorgeous and brilliant Grace - she is one of the people I really felt a connection with last year and I was so excited to see her again.



We enjoyed more drinks...yummy.


Dinner was very tasty. I opted for the "light" option (instead of the meat on sticks) which was a salad and hot bar that included such things as a vat of bacon, loads of seared tuna, and a pile of goat cheese the size of my head. Yum.


Angie and I discovered that we have a past in common - I graduated high school with her brother, and she went to the same high school as my sister, but a grade behind. Crazy! What a small world it is. I loved meeting Angie. She is so sweet and it was great to get to know her.



Doesn't everyone look gorgeous? I felt like a munchkin next to these beautifully tall ladies...and I was wearing high heels!


We were too full for dessert so we decided to go for a walk instead...and then headed to Grand Lux for dessert awhile later. (Is it any wonder why I gained like 5 pounds over the weekend?)


We went back to the room and changed out of our fancy clothes just in time for a...pajama party!



Sunday morning we got to have breakfast with some more ladies we hadn't had much of a chance to spend time with before we had to say goodbye for many people to catch their flights.



Sunday afternoon, we went to Navy Pier to ride the ferris wheel and spinning swings. Oof. I can't do spinning rides like I used to and we both got very dizzy. But my ass fit in the little bitty swings - NSV!





We went over to Millennium Park to walk over by the Bean.


And we accidentally shared some ice cream with a very bold squirrel, who Karin was sure was rabid.



Then it was time for one of the highlights of the trip for me...the Segway tour! It was so fun and I highly recommend doing it if you can. It was VERY scary for the first 5 minutes, but then it was pure fun. The weather was spectacular, and we saw some wonderful sights.








Sunday night, Karin and I had dinner with the wonderfully sweet, hilarious, and extremely athletic Island Bandit at the other Stephanie's favorite restaurant, Roy's Hawaiian. (We didn't get any pictures that night, damnit, but we had a fabulous time.)

Monday it was time to go home. Karin and I decided on Giordano's pizza as our final Chicago meal. We both preferred Uno's pizza, but it was very tasty. We ordered the small, which supposedly fed 1-2 people, and the two of us didn't even get through half. It was VERY rich. (My husband pointed out that my shirt matched the booth...and now I can't look at this picture and see anything else.)







It was an incredibly awesome weekend and I am so thrilled I got to spend time with so many amazing women. I only wish I'd had more time to spend with each and every one! There were a few people I would have really loved to spend more time with. I guess that just gives me more reason to go to BOOBs 3.0!

Confession Time - 201.6

Just a quick post before I go to work so I have this in writing and I can't run away from it. 201.6 on the scale this morning. I knew I was "on vacation" but didn't realize my eating was THAT bad.

Yes, I am aware that alcohol, flying, and excess salt can cause a bit of bloat.

No, that's not all it was. There was deep dish pizza (twice), cookies, ice cream, chips.

Yes, it is horrifying how fast the weight can come back if I let myself slip.

No, I didn't want to get on the scale this morning, but wasn't going to hide from reality.

I am back on track as of RIGHT NOW.

I'll be posting about BOOBS later, but for now I'll just tell you that I had an unbelievable time and am totally re-motivated to kick ass.