Aftermath

Hopefully we all survived Thanksgiving relatively unscathed!

I did, more or less.  To my chagrin I didn't end up following my own advice (*eyeroll*) and extended the holiday from Wednesday evening through Sunday evening.  And I will absolutely admit that I didn't put on a pair of my "normal" work pants until Wednesday (yesterday) morning when I knew most of the bloat had passed.  They're fitting fine; I'm sitting at 137, which is a pound or two over my normal-esque weight, which also means that I was a total crazy woman.

Why?  Not going into it here.  Suffice it to say that it's nothing going on directly within my own household (thank you, powers that be) and although there are other, more constructive ways to deal with stress rather than eat, food was definitely my coping mechanism in the moment.

That said, as soon as Monday hit I was back on track.  Even my extended "breaks" have limits, and the looming threat of the lack of a suitable wardrobe cannot be emphasized enough as a deterrent.

Now I just have to make it through the beginning of January without busting out at the seams.  It's totally do-able.  I think I might report in weight-wise once a week until this latest bout of lunacy is over.

Accountability:  it doesn't suck.

Just FYI...

All is well!!  I just got back from a dance workshop, which was a blast (outside of me being totally overwhelmed, that is), and everyone is doing nicely.  To give some of you more to be thankful about, I've started a secondary blog, It's All About the Herps (why stick with one crappy title when you can have two?) to spare you my ramblings about my reptilian household members.  Considering we're getting two more snakes -- ball pythons -- I thought y'all might appreciate that ;)

Have a very happy weekend everyone, and remember Thanksgiving dinner is ONE FREAKING MEAL :P

I'm Not Easily Distracted, but... oh Look! Shiny!

Hey gang, I'm alive!  I'm just terribly, terribly distracted.  My best wishes, thoughts, and prayers go out to everyone who was hit by Hurricane Sandy.  My sister lives in Brooklyn, so we've been staying pretty up-to-date. I'm just floored, and shattered for all in the area who are still being affected by the fallout from this storm.

Another point of distraction would be that the Gum Zombie's reptile-mania is only entrenching itself deeper, and since I have no objection to being overrun with reptiles (within reasonable limits, and granted "reasonable" is highly subjective), I've been researching like a fiend.  This is taking up what available time I have outside of work, homework, housework, workouts, dance, cat care, Hound duty, and socializing/maintaining the reptiles we already do possess, but if we're bringing more animals into the house I'm going to be darned sure we know what we're doing and that we can afford (financially and time-wise) to take care of them responsibly. 

I can guarantee you that I, personally, will be bringing no lizards of any kind into my home.  They're cute and have personality, but I have other things to take up my time beyond chopping salad for a giant herbivore; gut-loading bugs for the omnivores similarly lacks appeal.  I've considered a Sulcata tortoise, but in light of the fact that they grow quickly from a very cute hatchling size (2-3 inch shell length) to being the third largest tortoise in the world (18 - 36 inch shell length), I think we're going to take a pass for a bit.  I'm not quite ready to sign my back yard over to an animal that's going to not only outlive me, but also rearrange my landscaping to suit its wishes.

So this leaves us more or less with... snakes.  Lots and lots of snakes, at least someday if that child has his way.  My current big mission is preparing a habitat for our first ball python, which I believe we'll be bringing home sometime between spring and fall of 2013.  I have a tank already, but ball pythons have very specific humidity requirements (50-60% normally, 70% while shedding) which can be problematic when you're dealing with a glass enclosure and screen top, so this is requiring some work/ consideration.  Also, I need to provide not only adequate heat levels in addition to the humidity, but I need to monitor same and be sure I have a proper power supply to accomplish all these things.  Honestly, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed but once we get the first setup complete any future setups will be more or less just a matter of repeating what's already proven to work.

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On the list of things I haven't been distracted about would be my workouts and food.  I've started getting up at 5:30 in the morning (much more workable than 5:00) to do my resistance, and that's going well.  I've moved the necessary equipment into the master bedroom and there I can get everything accomplished in some solitude, which I desperately needed. Also, I'm still tracking my food on SparkPeople so I don't lose my mind and consume the entire GDP of a small island nation during this holiday season.

So in other words?  Priorities are sound, and I'll be more present once the newer additions to my schedule fall a bit more firmly into place.  Have a good one, folks!

National Domestic Violence Awareness Month

 October is, very quietly it seems, Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  In case that's passed you by I figured I'd mention it, especially in light of this:

Brookfield Spa Shooting

The above link goes to a blog that a friend of mine, "Lucy", writes for.  She's a domestic violence survivor.

So am I.*

I don't go into it much here.  This is not the place.  But when you're sitting in the middle of the Parents, Children, and Divorce class your state mandates divorcing parents take, reach the section on domestic violence, and realize that every. single. step. on the cycle of abuse excepting only the man beating you senseless is exactly how you've lived the past decade of your life...

... it all kind of clarifies things a bit.  You start to understand why you were always excusing, with "I'm sorry, he's just been so stressed out."  "He's only like that when he's drinking."  "I shouldn't have pushed him like that.  It's my fault really."

It wasn't my fault.  Five years ago, I finally realized that.

There is no specific class of person who is abused.  Domestic abuse and violence crosses all socioeconomic boundaries, all educational lines, and all gender lines.  It is at every level of society, bar none.

Shame is a great silencer.  The silence ends here.

Resource Link:  Our Place

*Please note that I am NOT in any way referring to Brent/ Choreboy.  We only just celebrated our third anniversary, and I cannot believe I am so fortunate as to have finally ended up with such a wonderful man.  I didn't want to put this in here, but I wanted even less for people to think that my husband is in any way being referred to in this entry.

Sucker, Part II

We went back to Repticon today, in large part because once the Gum Zombie had his snake yesterday nothing would do but to come straight home and get little Slither unpacked and into his habitat, so we missed probably at least 30% of the exhibits.

Today, someone else joined us on the journey home...

This is Sarah.  She's mine. She's a 3-month-old Dodoma out-cross, weighing in at 16 grams.  Kenyan sand boas are dimorphic, so Sarah will outweigh Slither by more than double by the time they're both adults.

Brent's sole comment?  "I live in a zoo."

Yes, yes you do sweetheart.  But no birds, I promise!

Sucker

I took the Gum Zombie to Repticon today.  We (okay, I) had zero-to-minimal plans of getting anything.

Of course we came home with something.

Meet Slither, the four-month-old anerythristic Kenyan sand boa.  Thankfully the little fellow (all 14.999 grams of him) eats frozen mice.

See subject line.  Yup, that'd be me.

'Tis the Season

Hooray holidays!  Yes, that delightful time of year is approaching that many of us have historically taken as free license to gorge, or at least sneak in a few treats we wouldn't indulge in normally.  Y'all know I'm the queen of moderation; that said, here are a few little... well, "guidelines" really that I find helpful to remember.

• Calories from the candy taken from your child's Halloween stash still count.
• Ditto the candy you bought to give out to the neighborhood kiddies.
• No, just because you "accidentally" overbought the Reese's Snack Size Pumpkins doesn't mean that you personally must ingest them all to avoid wastage.*
• Thanksgiving is one day, people.  One.
• No, not two.  I don't care that Great Aunt Paula brought her butter, cheese, mayonnaise, sour cream and bacon dip that you may never have a chance to eat again before you die.  ONE.
• Despite what the retail establishments would have us believe, Christmas, too, is one day a year.
• No, Grandmother Mercy's famous chocolate pecan marshmallow surprise cookies are not an exception.  
• Yes, I know she baked them special, just for you.
• Fine, just tape them to your ass and be done with it.**

In other words, everything has a caloric toll no matter what the calendar says.  I keep tracking over the holidays because it keeps me honest and I do better with visual confirmation that, yes, I really did eat THAT MUCH yesterday so I need to be sane today.  It's what I found works for me because otherwise... well, that list didn't leap fully formed from a vacuum. 

Have a good one, y'all.  And be smart.

*Not that I, personally, would ever have done this...
**Seriously, you might as well.

In Brief

You know how easily some folks throw out their backs?  I swear, that's how it goes with my knee.  This evening I was engaging in the high-impact activity of sitting down to eat my damn dinner when *crick!*  There it went.

I'm holding out as long as I can before I take up my ortho on his surgery offer, but days like this I start thinking maybe we could work out that whole six weeks of no driving thing...

Guts, I Haz Them!

No, this isn't becoming the Belly Dance Fashions blog.  That, m'dears, is a picture of Yours Truly, mid-graduation dance.  Turns out the old girl has some nerve left in her yet!

Thanks to my oh-so-delightful anxiety, I was planning to just take beginners a third time.  However, on Sunday night, September 23rd, inspiration hit and I figured I'd better grab that sucker before it got away.  So before I went to bed that evening, I had a complete choreography.  Brent videoed me the next night, I tweaked a couple of spots, and rehearsed every spare second I had (and some I didn't) up until the performance on Wednesday night, the 26th.  Nothing like giving yourself 72 hours notice to get the old juices flowing, eh?

And I totally wasn't hiding out in the restroom at work practicing my dance in a 4' x 4' space.  Ahem.  Nope, not me.  Pardon me while I work on perfecting that "I'm totally innocent!" look...

So anyway, I made it into the intermediate class.  Hooray!!!

As Promised

The recital pictures!  I've had to do some severe editing so I don't expose anyone on Teh Intarweebs who'd prefer to stay a teensy bit more anonymous.  I also had a picture "done" so when that comes in I'll post it as well.

Still hanging steady at 135/136, and I think I'm going to hang out here for awhile.  I have enough flexibility to not freak about how my pants are fitting, and it's time to stabilize once again.  I do find it hilarious that last year it took me 16 weeks to drop from just over 141 to right at 135, and this year it took a whopping six weeks, if that.  The only thing I can figure is that last year I'd been bouncing around the upper 140's for awhile and hit 150 before I decided to go into weight loss mode, whereas this year I'd been hanging around 138-142 since after my ablation (135-ish prior), thus giving me a lower starting point.  Eh, it's a theory.

Anyway, to the pictures!

Yes, I was texting well-prior to the performance :P  In fairness, I'm posting this one because it's probably the best shot of my hair and eye makeup.  That dressing room was crowded!

Outdoor shot -- my hip scarf is barely visible primarily because it hangs down in back.

Here's another outdoor shot -- do NOT PANIC over my stomach!  It was the pose (which is another reason why I posted the prior picture before this, because, yipes -- could I suck in any further???)

And at last, on stage!  This is definitely a better shot of the hip scarf, too.

We really had a blast performing, and everyone did a marvelous job.  We didn't get to see the professionals and more advanced classes/ individuals/ duets perform at the recital since we were backstage, but we saw their acts at the run-through and they were all fabulous. 

Now I just need to get over this anxiety and do my graduation dance to get into intermediate, because seriously y'all, I can only do this dance so many times before I go stark raving mad.

Have an awesome weekend!

Insert Cute Title Here

Well y'all, I've hit 136 enough days recently that I feel comfortable actually posting it. Once is water, twice is maybe? But third time's the charm. I am trying not to care if the scale stays in this neighborhood rather than continuing its downward trend. Honestly though, I'd like to wave at 130 even if it's just a fly-by. That was my ultimate goal. On the other hand, even when I was at 133 my pants were all loose and I'm not sure if that's a good look for me anymore.

Besides, I hate belts.

That said, we've got our belly dancing recital coming up this Sunday, so I'm glad things are more on the low end of the scale. I've been practicing like a fiend, and at this point with the choreography it's more about refining the steps for me than learning them and committing them to memory because after the number of times I've done this I don't think I'll ever forget it. I've got a permanent groove worn in my bedroom carpet where I've been hiding out going over and over and over this thing.

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My food intake is appallingly boring. Five days of the week I eat nearly the same thing, because it's just easier. Breakfast is an egg white scramble (sometimes with a yolk, sometimes, not, ALWAYS with lots of white) with a side of vegetables (broccoli, asparagus, tomato) and a side of fruit (berries, apple). Lunch is the infamous "Here's How I Keep Myself Away from Chipotle" salad with greens, chicken breast meat, salsa, guacamole -- I've switched from avocados because those suckers kept rotting on me, and after eyeballing its ingredients list, Wholly Guacamole is acceptable in my world -- reduced fat sour cream and 2% shredded cheddar. Dinner is some sort of lean-to-leanish meat (fish, turkey burger, pork tenderloin) along with more veg, and I do throw a dessert in, generally some variant of frozen yogurt. From my calories, I'm about 80% good to my 20% dessert, and I can live with that.

The other two days a week I kick it up a notch. Sometimes this is the weekend, other times I spread it out during the week just depending on my schedule and all. I might add in more carbs (Chipotle bellows loudly even when I do my best!), or go with a less lean meat choice (pot roast, anyone?). The boys and I went to Yogurt Mountain this past Saturday, which I'll totally cop to counting as breakfast. And I will absolutely admit that Bacon Happens.

Just not often. And not in excess. Because "often" and "excess" are what got me to 200 pounds. I'm not going back there.

Besides, I can't. I got rid of the clothes. Makes it a bit more tricky to scoot up that scale ;)

Have a good one, y'all! If I get any decent pictures of myself at the recital I'll post them afterward. Be warned, makeup will totally be set to Streetwalker.

I'm gonna have fun with this.

I Remember

Requiescat in pacem.

Evolution

Although I've been quiet on the blogging front recently, I've been reading. It's made me think about all the changes to my diet since 2006 when I finally got the big "holy cow, this is not what I want to weigh!" alert.

When the Elder, then age seven, first bellowed my 200-pound weight to the entire grocery store, I went with what I knew. At that time, it was one of those pre-packaged meal systems (I don't link to them, but its initials are NS). Oh god, it was awful. I wish I had some of the labels around because seriously, that is some of the most processed "food but not really" stuff out there.

But I did lose weight on it.

After a couple of months I knew I had to do something different because although the NS stuff was obviously working, I couldn't keep on eating like that. There were a few items that I found along the way that I could live with, but overall the stuff was just foul. I knew I liked Lean Cuisine, so figuring that NS had me on about 1200 calories a day, that's what I decided to do for myself.

I started reading the nutrition information on packages -- yes, it took me until I was thirty-six years old to figure that out -- and made sure my days were right at 1200, with about 30 calories on either side for mathematical issues. I ate Lean Cuisine, I ate South Beach wraps (mostly for breakfast), I ate sugar-free 10-calorie Jello cups, I chewed craploads of sugar-free gum. You know, that stuff does interesting things to your insides if you chow through an entire15-stick pack in a day.

So still more processed stuff. And I lost weight on it.

Then when I got divorced in late 2007/ early 2008, my household had a big drop in income. I couldn't afford all the pre-made food anymore, so I had to figure out what to do with a much smaller budget. I started looking at recipes more, because it's cheaper to cook from scratch.

I lost weight that way too. I got down as low as 133, and have maintained between 138-142 since then.

This past January, when I had my gum surgery, I got it in my head to track how much sodium I was eating. I'd bought some V8 vegetable soups in addition to the godawful Slimfast to get me through the all-liquid days following surgery, and I was absolutely stunned at how much sodium was in those suckers. Holy cow, it was insane!

That's when it finally clicked that cooking my own food was about more than saving money. It was about my health. Food companies don't care about our health; they care about their bottom line which is increased by using as many cheap, processed ingredients as possible.

And all that said, I'm still not a total convert. I love Fiber One brownies, although they're not the crack they used to be. You will pry my Diet Coke out of my cold, dead fingers, although I don't suck down quite as much of it than I used to.

Hmm. Interesting pattern right there.

The thing I see consistently is that my diet has improved over time, just as a natural part of me wanting to be healthy. First the focus was on scraping the weight off, then it became about what I could live with taste-wise, and then it became about eating what was better for me overall. I'm a work in progress. I'm not perfect, and honestly I'm not even trying to be. But I'm sure a hell of a lot better than I was, and I'm certain that process will continue. I work better this way.

I'm doing the best that I can, today. Tomorrow, that best may be better. I'm good with that.

High Anxiety

Still here, y'all -- I've just got some mental craziness I'm having to juggle.

I'm a pretty high-anxiety person in general. I stress to a ridiculous degree, wake up at 3:00 AM and can't get back to sleep worrying about things that I can't do anything about (mostly because it's THREE-FREAKING-A.M.), and endless loops of The Shit That's Gone Wrong Or May Go Wrong play over and over in my head. It's a delight, in the "wouldn't it be nice to function like a normal person? Hah!" sense of the word.

Trying to manage the anxiety is one reason I gained all the weight I did. I was in a very difficult marriage, the details of which I don't discuss too much here out of respect for my children's privacy, and the constant churning feeling in my gut was momentarily calmed by food intake. The worse things got, the more I ate until I finally hit a weight that slammed me between the eyes when I heard it. Then I had to drop the food and in doing so I was forced to deal with what was really going on (the whole "what was eating me" thing)...

Remember my limited coping skills? That would be one aspect. It's not over my marriage anymore, thankfully. Choreboy rocks. But I still have it over other areas of my life, and the big one that's kicking me in the pants right now is the "graduation dance" for bellydancing.

The way things are set up, everyone takes the beginning class twice. After you've taken it twice, you're allowed to choreograph and perform your own "graduation dance" and move up to the intermediate class. Unfortunately, I am not creative. No, don't point to this blog and say I'm creative because nothing here is fictionalized other than my last name and the names of others. Everything else is based firmly in reality. This extends to all areas of my life. I'd love to write fiction, but the best I could manage would be rather stilted fanfic. I can't worldbuild or create my own original characters to save my life. Every MC I create is a total Mary Sue, and I end up throwing in the towel on NaNoWriMo on an annual basis. In the kitchen it's the same. Give me someone else's recipe and I'm golden. I can follow those suckers like a beast. Just don't ask me to create my own because it ain't happening. On those few occasions I've attempted to follow some errant inspiration the results have been less than palatable.

So needless to say, choreography isn't my thing. At all. I can't improvise, I can't choreograph, and even trying it at all in the privacy of my own home has me a shaking mess. Again, I can follow someone else's choreography just fine -- give me practice time and we're set! But to create something on my own, without a specific pattern or anything?

Nope.

So I'm stuck. I can either stay in the beginners class forever or hope that sometime between now and the end of next term (there's no way I'll be able to graduate at the end of this term, less than one month away) I grow a creative bone and somehow make this happen.

We shall see. It's not like this is earth-shattering or anything; it's merely the symptom du jour of a much bigger issue.

Silliness

Yesterday was one of those run-run-run days, with getting the Elder's new school uniform shirts (they're changing the dress code, thus rendering his shirts from the past two years utterly useless), getting pre-first-week-of-school haircuts done for both boys, and shopping for Choreboy's birthday. The most relaxing part of my morning was stopping by the pet store to pick up a ginormous bag of food for the three garbage disposals cats. While we were at the pet store, I also found the perfect shirt for Hound:

Poor dog... hee!

I did make a donation of a flat of cat food to the SPCA while I was there as well. I figured if I could buy a very silly shirt for my dog, the least I could do was make a matching donation to animals who aren't quite as coddled as mine.

Have a great week, all :)

Yeah, About That

How'd Monday morning go?

It didn't.

I went to bed around 9:30 so I could get some decent sleep and wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Or at least semi-conscious. So what went wrong?

I asked myself that at 10:00...

10:30...

11:00...

and 11:30... this pretty much continued until somewhere around 1:30 AM, when I finally fell asleep. Basically, I managed to get so anxiety-ridden about going to sleep promptly because I was getting up early that I got almost no sleep at all. So when 4:45 finally hit, I smacked the daylights out of that alarm and swore I'd do my cardio that night.

Then I torqued my knee at work, scrubbing the bathroom floor behind the toilet. Oh the glamorous life I lead. Y'all, I'll work through muscle pain, but my stupid knee isn't something I trifle with. I baby that sucker, because my orthopedist salivates at the mere mention of that aging joint and I just don't have the sick leave or resources to handle 6 weeks of no driving. So, R.I.C.E. was on for Monday night rather than C.A.R.D.I.O.

On the plus side, my knee wasn't whining as much yesterday so after work I got on my recumbent for 40 minutes. Pounding the pavement wasn't going to work, but pedaling did. I made it 10 miles, which isn't awful considering how long I've been out of the saddle.

I'm aggravated because the only viable* time I have to work out takes away time from my family, and I hate that. I just need to figure out if I hate that more than I hate what lack of exercise does to me.

*Viable as qualifier because working out in the morning appears to be out of the question if Monday's anxiety is to be believed. Good grief. I can't believe that.

Bleeping Cardio

Tomorrow morning at 5:00 AM, I have a date with the great outdoors and my iPod. I've thought about doing this for two weeks, but it turns out thinking doesn't burn as many calories as one might suppose.

Who knew?

So here we go again with the "If I say I'm doing my cardio in a public forum then it has to happen" method. Oh well, I'm fully aware that my genetic propensity has me in the seated and reclined position, with remote/ mouse/ book in hand. Whatever works to get me into a more upright and mobile position is what it's going to have to take.

I'm still doing my resistance, and my food is on point. So is my weight. I just freaking loathe cardio. But it has to be done.

No, I Still Haven't Fallen Off the Wagon!

Still here, kids, still doing what I should do, even though I now have a smart phone which I'm pretty sure can do everything for me instead. There's probably even an ass-wiping app somewhere out there. I need to look for that.

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School is about to start and ladies and gentlemen, I am about to freak. I'm not ready for summer to be over, but in 2.5 short weeks it will be. I hate homework.

I know it's my kids' homework. I still hate it. Even back in the dark ages when I taught, my theory was that my students should be able to finish the lion's share of most assignments in class because, again, I hate homework. I also hate hypocrisy. Ergo, my students won the "anti-homework teacher" lottery.

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Yes, I still weigh the same. No, I have not suddenly (or slowly) ballooned to the size of a small island nation. My post-vacation bloat is gone -- thank goodness, because that was making me cranky -- and I'm still hanging right at 138 - 142. My goal at the moment is to move that more to 136 - 139, so I've changed my midday meal focus more to proteins, good fats (avocado is my friend), and reduced fat dairies rather than fruit, yogurt, and yummy, yummy peanut butter*. At the moment I'm having 4 oz. of chicken breast (I cook it at home in the pressure cooker -- I'm considering trying thighs next week for more moisture) on top of a bed of chopped romaine lettuce, topped with salsa, reduced fat sour cream, 2% cheddar, and avocado. It does not suck.

And as an added bonus, I haven't been to Chipotle since I started my latest lunch obsession. 720 calories for my burrito bowl vs. 330-ish for this salad. That'll do.

On the breakfast side of things, my father is again in prime weight-loss mode. Since I eat breakfast with my folks Monday through Friday, I'm getting a bunch more egg white in my eggs than I was (and less cheese, thank goodness, because the past couple of months Dad's been hitting the shredder HARD), and we're also getting interesting options like ground turkey breast patties. It's not boring, and my hope is that it also contributes to the "let's get Amanda so she's always on the 130's side of things" goal.

It's always a process. It has to be -- for me, stagnation means defeat.

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Now I just have to decide if I'm going to drag the boys to the beach for Labor Day weekend. The hotel Choreboy and I stayed at for our little mini-vacation has openings still, and the boys haven't quite stopped grousing about how they haven't been to the beach in years (true), so it's on my radar. We'll see. Considering I barely got my ankles into the ocean on Choreboy's and my trip, I'm not exactly the biggest beach fan but it could work.

At any rate, all hail Wednesday! Halfway to the weekend, y'all. Have a good one :)


*We were having a slight peanut butter consumption problem, so it had to go away for awhile.

Tech Geekery

From this post back in 2007:


There is no more "wanting". I was using a Pocket PC phone when the iPhone first came out, and I knew I needed to hold off so I behaved (even though I thought the iPhone was really, really pretty). Then there was a significant change in my financial circumstances which resulted in me downgrading to a basic flip phone which possessed the grudgingly redeeming features of flipping open in both portrait and landscape modes along with a full QWERTY keyboard while in landscape. I had no data plan, used no internet access, had the minimum number of monthly minutes I could get away with -- it was time for austerity measures, and it worked. And I've continued to use that phone for over four years, much to the distress of my cellular service provider.

But times change, and Choreboy and I decided that after nearly three years of marriage it was about time we combined our cellular plans. So now we're both the proud owners of smartphones: his is, lamentably, a Droid, and mine is the vastly superior iPhone*. Yes, I know they're about to release the new iPhone, but my iPad is first generation (the iPad 2 came out less than 3 months after I got mine) so I'm pretty used to being at less than the bleeding-edge of Apple technology anyway. Plus I hear they're changing the docking configuration this time around, and it will be easier for me to keep track of devices that all can share the same cord.

At least that's what I'm telling myself.

But seriously... iPhone, yay! I'm definitely a happy camper.

*Yes, this is a joke. He loves his Droid and it is the right phone for him and his needs. Plus with his extended work hours, the amazing battery life of his phone is a must. He's a happy boy, and I'm confident we can manage to navigate the hurdles of a mixed-phone marriage :P

And We Have Yet More Progress!

I just got my bloodwork back from re-testing my Vitamin D and B12 levels. Vitamin D is up from 12.2 to 27.2, which is pretty impressive. Now granted, I'm still low. The threshold for "adequate" is 30.0 ng/mL and I'm not quite there yet, but it's a definite improvement! And my B12 is up from 300-something to 517 pg/mL. So again, we've seen a definite increase.

The plan now is to keep on supplementing and see what shows up at my next annual checkup in March. I just need to get more Vitamin D pills, because I'm about out. For the B12, I'm working more on upping my meat intake rather than supplementing, because the Niacin flush on me presents as horrific itching on both my palms and the soles of my feet. Hate!

Also, I went and cancelled my gym membership. I have to admit I was freaking out worrying about it because the press on trying to cancel a membership with LA Fitness is abysmal, but it was pretty simple for me. I don't know if that's indicative of a change in overall corporate culture or if it's due to the fact that mine was a buyout contract anyway, but I'll take it. I'll just have to watch my bank account at the end of this month and August to make sure the cancellation went through.

So LA Fitness, if you're Googling yourself, Mike at one of your recent buyout properties in Central Florida is awesome.

Anyway, all that means we're back to working out at home (no commute, yay!) and I'll be checking out the Y to see what they have to offer for the boys. Also, Choreboy measured his waist circumference recently and muttered about what his AARP newsletter said it should be versus his own measurements so at least a family Y membership would offer him the ability to go work out there if he wanted rather than having to add to an existing gym membership. Definitely a win.

Bellydancing starts back up Wednesday. Hilariously, one of the people at the hafla videoed us and posted it on YouTube, so here for your viewing pleasure is our VERY newbie bellydancing class in our first public-ish peformance:



I know, I'm still a bit broad across the beam. It's genetic. I got down to 108 back when I was 16 after a nasty bout of pneumonia. I was hollow-cheeked, flat-chested, and STILL I had these saddlebags! My torso is freaking amazing, though :P

Have a great week, all!