burns hurt

last night i unknowingly picked up a hot pan and burnt my hand badly. for awhile there it looked as if a layer of skin was going to fall off, but then it blistereed instead. i have a blister on my left index finger all the way down, across the webbing between the finger and thumb and up the side of my thumb. it hurts worse than my ruptured gallbladder did and i'm taking it easy trying to do everything right handed or not at all. i've promised not to drive and to watch the blister like a hawk so that if it starts to become sour, i can get treatment. because of this, my typing has worsened (hard to do it with one hand) and the only thing i'm really good for is reading and sitting on the couch. in lieu of running (i can't hold onto the elliptical) i took mandolin on an hour long walk in the cemeteries. we had good fun looking at names and dates and i had to explain to her that we shouldn't jump on stones and we need to leave the rocks on the jewish graves alone. i told her to say "amen" and put the rock back when she took one. when we walked through the greek orthodox cemetery, she picked rocks and pinecones off the train and decorated various graves with hearty "OH MAN'S!" (that's how she says amen).

feeling bad for the man

I am about 22lbs from my tentative goal weight. I think I can do it in 3-4 months or faster. I am a c25k graduate and I will be running a 5k (3.1 miles) for charity with friend on 6/12/10 at an overnight charity event near my home with real-life and online weight loss friends. I have 2 online weight loss pals who i've done real life stuff with. Life's pretty good right now.


But nothing's perfect. I'm fine but my guy isn't.

At prom we were in the picture line and having a nice chat with the picture lady (i'm a talker, i can't help it. well okay, my guy likes to talk to and so we did. a lot. but the picture lady liked it, so it was cool). Anyway, after about 15 mins of conversation, the picture lady spied his left hand and his ring, looks at me, looks at him and said "wait, you're faculty?" And he says "yep" she refunded our pic money explaining that staff pics were free, and then took a deep breath, looked from me to him and then made a comment about students going with staff. She looked ready to call 911 and CNN. My guy was upset, i kinda lughed it off, she apologized after we explained that i'm an old married lady and in no way a student.

Okay sure, from a stranger.

FF to this past week. Once a week we have family lunch with my guy either at his school or nearby during the day (he's got plan period during lunch, so 90mins during the day to spend with us). I took lunch to his school and the kiddo was trailing behind. Mandolin really looks like me now that i'm 69lbs down. People were talking to me etc. and all was well. I've known most of these people for 7+ almost 8 years. Later that night my guy calls me and said that one of the women who i'm chummy with didn't recognize me and accused him of cheating on me with another woman (who happened to be me) and having the great balls of stone to bring it to work. Now, I go to his school about once a week or so, and I don't see everyone, but really? It's flattering that I look THAT different that someone i've known for almost a decade didn't recognize me, but I felt bad for my guy because here's a friend accusing him of openly cheating on his spouse while at his job when he's doing no such thing.

I laugh a lot of this off, but something like this happens about once a week or so and I haven't noticed the effect on my guy until recently. I wish I could make it better for him. I know he laughes it off, he's a funny dude, but part of him still hates being accused of being a pervert or a cheater.

I have allowed him to post my current pics on his facebook page, hoping that will get some people up-to-date and off his back (all his students, friends, and many co-workers are into the facebook thing. I'm not on facebook, sorry y'all, but if you want to be my guy's friend, let me know, i can hook it up for you).

An Announcement

today, at old navy, I fit perfectly into a size 8 short jeanskirt mean for someone with a age a lot less than 28, but i looked good!

that's all

nuggets

i have little to share, so i'll bore you with more stories about the kiddo.

we were reading a farm book the other day and she poinred at the chicken and said "chitin bababa" then pointed at the rooster and said "wooser cacdodoo" and then i pointed at the baby chickens and asked her what they were. she looked right at me and said "that's chitin nugges" i laughed so hard.

that's about it for me. she's constantly doing or saying something like that to set me off.

i'm pleased that we're boring.

toy hippo

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i made this hippo toy for my sister for her 30th birthday. she loves the hippo from the madagascar movie. it took me about 6 hours over 3 days. it's a lot bigger than i expected. the problem with making toys is the details. they give wonderful instractions about HOW to make the parts but then for the assembly, there is usually one line that reads "stuff pieces and set them together so it looks like the pitcure" easier said than done. my pieces never really look like the ones in the pattern ads, but i'm usually happy with them anyway.

mandolin's holding the hippo to show you the size, the hippo alone and there is a pic of "their" hippo. I had to get very creative with the clothing because their directions were incorrectly sized and they left out a crutial step in the skirt. Oh, and i put a bow and shoes on mine because i felt like it.

The Zoo

we went to the national zoo on tuesday.

it was 96 degrees and very sunny.

we walked for 4 hours and saw everything that was open. much of the zoo was closed due to rennovations (this isn't the big zoo season yet)

Mandolin loved the monkeys the best.

last year i couldn't have walked around for 4 hours and been the happy person i was yesterday. mandolin and my guy couldn't keep up with me.

we put a lot of sunblock on and drank a lot of fluids, so we were a little tired, nothing bad happened. We didn't snap at each other, we didn't fight, and it was a day full of laughter.

It's shocking the difference 60lbs will make in a body. there were some people struggling around the zoo, and when i saw them, i was constantly reminded to thank myself and anyone else who helped me lose 60lbs, that i am no longer that person who struggles after 4 hours of hiking around places. I too can be a happy tourist (except i still hate crowds)

Here are a few pictures. I think i need to set up one of those online photo books because i have too many pics to share here.

enging march and starting april

these are pics from one of the big snows we had this winter

So tonight mandolin came up to me and said "mommy, I gotta potty." She then took her pullup off, got on the toilet and went pee. We've been potty training for over 9 months and this is a major break-through. I wanted to cry. We wiped, flushed, washed hands, put our pants back on and then got a jelly bean to celebrate. If we get her trained by the time she's 3, she can go to real school. If not, it's homeschooling for her. If she isn't potty trained, she'll only be allowed in the special ed class, and she's too high functioning to be in that class, so homeschooling is the best option until she's potty trained. I'm so proud of her tonight I felt some real hope that I needed to feel.

In other news, I'm starting week 3 of running. There are 9 weeks. I think I can do this. If I finish, I'm getting the over-priced c25k t-shirt that states I was a completer.

My crack whore cousin is having a birthdya party on 4/3 for her kid but sent invitation on 3/31. Who does that? Well, crack whores apparently. I'm not going. We're going to an Easter egg hunt as a family for Mandolin. I'll mail the kid a present next week.

Next weekend I'm meeting an online weight-loss buddy for lunch on Sunday and going to my nephew's 8th britday part on saturday. They live 2 hours away now and it's going to be a pain in my butt to go. There won't be anything I can eat and there's going to be a ton of people I can't stand. I have many issues with my older sister right now. I just don't understand why someone would WANT to live with a man that beats them and teaches her kids that her nickname is "fat whore." It's beyond me.

My two best friends are leaving got Thailand Saturday/Sunday and they'll be gone for about 28 days. I wish them luck. They've NEVER had Thai food, so they're in for a surprise. My dream $5,000 a person trip isn't to Thailand, but that's just me. This trip has caused issues amongst our friendship. The one friend who is going owes me and my guy about $3,000 and is going oon a $5,000 trip. You do the math and guess how long our friendship is going to last when they get back. She owes a lot of people money, but she'd alreayd paid for the trip when it all caught up to her.

$5,000 is tuition for private school for a year for my daughter. I wouldn't take a $5,000 trip knowing that I could give my daughter the gift of a better school. But then again, that's why I have good credit. We don't take fancy trips, own fancy cars, buy expensive clothing etc. We live in our means and pay off our debt as much as possible. It's harder this year because I'm not working and this person has decided to go on a trip rather than take care of her obligations.

I explained to her time and again that if you owe people money (no matter who it is a person or a large company) and don't pay it, then you're STEALING. If there's ever "extra" money in your account, it isn't yours, and if you spend that "extra" you're stealing because you just bounced a check. Some people really need to get hit with bad things to get it together.

I think it's out of my hands. We talked several times about the hardship she's causing others but I haven't seen her seem to care. She didn't apologise or even tell me "thank you" for not suing her etc. I talked to the other friend in our circle, and she'd tired of it too. It's not just the money, it's the carefree attitude about how her poor choices impacting others.

We were hanging out looking at shoes. I haven't bought shoes in months. I don't really need new shoes and it'd be a waste of income to buy something i don't need. I'm not havinga pity party, it's just the truth that when I had a job, I could go buy things on a whim and not worry. I can't now. She needed new shoes for her trip. I bit my tongue about her oweing me money, since a store wasn't the place to throw down about it, but THEN the bitch had the nerve to say "Aren't you going to get anything." I almost hit her in the face with a clog. You don't ask someone you owe $3,000 to why they aren't buying anything! You thank them for understanding why you need fancy walking shoes that are $50 when you owe them both your kidneys and a right leg and then buy your shoes fast and leave.