Ease on Down

The scale very politely said 144 this morning and yesterday morning as well for that matter.  I am not offended in the least.  What's silly is how different I feel having 9 pounds to lose as opposed to over 10.  Even just that pound-and-a-fraction was enough to make a big difference in my head.  Weird.

Also, I did the math on my 49,000 excess calories consumed in 35 days and you know what?  That's an additional 1400 calories per day which, mid-holiday insanity, is sadly totally do-able.

I'm living proof.

Still, 5 of the 14 pounds I gained are gone, and I continue 100% on food and exercise.  The only wrench in my future works (oh of course one was coming, because that's life) is that my brother's 40th birthday is Monday, and Sunday we're going out to eat.  That wouldn't be a problem except it's to a damned buffet.  A very nice one with good choices available, but a buffet nonetheless.  Oh well, there will be protein and vegetables available, and those are what I will eat.

You have no idea how hard it was to type that sentence; in spite of the recent holiday foodfest and the fallout therefrom, I still want to hit up that dessert table like there's no tomorrow.  However, I won't.

Thank goodness my "official" weigh-in day is Monday.  I'll take what I can get to bolster my at-times-nonexistent will power.

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Our little ratling is doing very nicely settling into our home.  She's named Sarah, which yes is the recycled name of one of our sand boas, but the Gum Zombie desperately wanted it for his rat as well and I told him I saw no reason at all why we couldn't have a warm-blooded Sarah in addition to our cold-blooded Sarah.  Now I just have to survive the total mind-trip I'm going to have to play on myself when I'm feeding the scalier members of our household tonight.  Because there's Sarah, our pet.  And then there's the frozen food.

Sigh.

Outside of that not-so-little issue, it appears I overlooked the fact that rats are social animals and do much better with at least one additional rat as a companion.  This means our Sarah needs a little fuzzy friend.  I'm hoping I can convince the Elder that he needs his own little rat, because otherwise the new rat will be mine and Choreboy's head will finally explode.  I already spend part of most evenings handling our other critters, and adding one more to my list might be a bit more than any of us can take.

I'm torn also because although our rat is young, she may not have been too young, if you know what I mean.  So I'm thinking that I might want to just sit and wait three weeks* before getting her companion to be sure we're not about to have multiple pet rats already.  Yowzers.  Because no, I could not "use" them for another purpose.  Don't ask me how it makes a difference, it just does.  There's the frozen food I buy at the store or have shipped in, and then there's the cute little fuzzy being in the Gum Zombie's room.  The only way I can manage this is to keep them both firmly established as separate items entirely.

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Still no word on Emily.  I've got a call in on the latest test results.  I'll let y'all know when I hear something.


*Rat gestation is 21 - 23 days.  The More You Know!^TM