Weigh In Wednesday - Week 9

I really hope I lose. My cousin was here over the weekend and I took off Monday so I wasn't perfect (helloooo 3 cupcakes.) but, I think I did okay. I mostly counted and I don't think I even used all my extra points (okay, maybe the cupcakes). I ate a turkey sandwich at a burger place (I did have fries though) and got a salad the next day for lunch (the BEST salad, but I stuffed myself with said salad even though I knew I shouldn't).

So, I may not be losing 6lbs by the end of Spring Challenge. Oh well. This Challenge has NOT had the desired effect on my motivation. I feel too pressured and start to give up.


Okay. Just got back from weigh in. To refresh your memory:

Week 1: Starting weigh in

Week 2: -.6

Week 3: -3.4

Week 4: -1.0

Week 5: +1.2

Week 6: -1.2

Week 7: 0

Week 8: +1.4

Week 9: -2.6

Total lost = 7.4

I should really stop writing half of these posts BEFORE I weigh in. I LOST 2.6 POUNDS. Now, I need to be careful not to "reward" myself for doing well. Note to self: cupcakes are not a reward for weightloss.

I guess the moral today is - stick to it and don't give up even when you screw it up a little...or a lot.

Short Post

Basically I'm tired, my diet got screwed up (again, my fault but I don't want to talk about it), and I'm having trouble with my stupid stupid credit card.

I took off work yesterday so I'm trying to catch up on all my stuff. It sucks a little bit.

I'll be back tomorrow with Weigh In Wednesday.

Sticking to It (and a car story)

I'm doing well this week. I've only used a couple points of my 49 for my weekly lunch with the hubs. I WILL lose weight this week. I will.

Also, I really suck at blogging. I want to be all honest and real with you, but.... I can't keep on topic for more than 5 seconds. Luckily no one really reads my little blog, so I guess it doesn't matter right now. *sigh* so I'll just bounce around.

We bought a washer and dryer yesterday, but it'll be April 24th before it's delivered. I suck at waiting. It's a simple toploading HE washer and matching dryer with autodry functions. Spent $1035 when all was said and done. I wanted something fancier, but I just couldn't justify a fancy HE with all the electronic features for a couple hundred more right now. We probably could have held out indefinitely with the ancient washer/dryer we have now, but my best friend is moving into her first grown up house and needed a washer/dryer. I knew I'd be upgrading soon so I offered her mine. It kinda stuck me in a bind after my car decided to be a bitch, but I can't mess up someone else's plan so I just sucked it up and figured it out.

I've also got a plan to buy myself a new car in September as a birthday present to myself. My car (Champ) hates me for some reason. He was fantastic (okay, there was this one time that his fuel sensor broke and he was almost impossible to drive because his shifting was so jerky and my mom got really mad because my dad made her bring Champ home 2 and a half hours away doing that. That was only $50 when all was said and done though) then, sometime last year he just....broke. The A/C went out. It was the tail end of summer, so I figured I could hold out and get it fixed before next summer. A day later (an hour and a half away from home) the engine just... stopped. I stopped at a stop sign and it died. I restarted it, and it died, I got it start barely enough to coast into a parking spot downtown where I was. I missed class so I could call a tow truck, had to stay with a friend because I couldn't afford to tow it all the way back home and was told they couldn't even FIND what was wrong with it because the A/C belt was locked up and if they forced it to keep running it would snap the belt.... so fix the A/C for $1200 when that may just be one thing that is wrong with it, or.... be up shit creek. My parents paid for the A/C because I was still in college. Luckily, for whatever reason the A/C was the root of all the problems. I even asked my mechanic if it was my fault. Should I have come in when my A/C stopped working? I just thought I could be hot for awhile and still drive the car. His reply was that he'd never seen that happen. Oooookay. Then Champ was okay for a little bit, then he wouldn't start. I spent 30 minutes in a Kohl's parking lot trying to get him started and drove him straight to my mechanic when he did start. I don't even remember what was wrong with him, but something got replaced. $300. Then I take him in to get the brakes pads changed and an oil change. Oh. My. God. The brake pads have squealed since I bought that damn car. I hate them. They continued to tell me they were fine, just noisy. I was paranoid that I wouldn't hear the actual squeal when they needed to be replaced so I made them check them every time I got the oil changed. I saved up some money and finally just told them to change the damn things because I hate them and don't care if they still have enough surface. Well, they resurface the rotors when they change break pads and there wasn't enough surface anymore from previous resurfacing so they would need to be replaced. $300. Oil change $100 (synthetic oil) I had a hydraulic leak on the back breaks. Apparently this is really bad. I could have complete system failure in a day, or it could work for the next 10 years. Should be replaced NOW. My parents had to step in, again, and pay my $680 bill. And that's not all the shit that was wrong! I knew I needed a new pair of tires $300 but there was at least $500 more of work that needs to be done on this car. I'm so done. Between now and September I'll be changing the oil once and then trading in Champ for whatever he's worth (or not worth as the case probably is) and moving on with a NOT BROKEN CAR.
It's not even fair. I'm so nice to my cars. I drive them a lot, but I get the oil changed regularly. I always put the same oil in there. Any time something feels weird I take him to the mechanic. I get the tires changed regularly. And I get fucked.
My husband gets his oil changed like twice a year with non synthetic oil, has needed new tires for over a year, never takes his car in, and probably needs new brakes and his car just RUNS.
The thing that sucks is this car is supposed to be like, the most reliable runs no matter what car. I've had mechanics tell me if I keep taking care of it the way I do it'll run forever.... I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you Champ, but fuck you.

Weigh In Wednesday - Week 8

I didn't have high hopes for this Weigh In Wednesday. Like I said on Monday, Easter blew my diet and it doesn't help that the Spring Challenge is having the opposite effect on my weight loss than I anticipated. I'm stressed out about not doing well enough that any time I screw up I get really depressed and start eating like shit. It's the worst thing I could do to myself for weight loss, and yet I keep doing it day after day.

So, that's why I didn't think I'd lose any weight from last week when I held steady at -6.2 total lbs.

Week 1: Starting weigh in

Week 2: -.6

Week 3: -3.4

Week 4: -1.0

Week 5: +1.2

Week 6: -1.2

Week 7: 0

Week 8: +1.4

Total lost = 4.8
It's okay. I'll do better next week. I'm going to work REALLY hard. I promise.


Now, a rant about my week.It's been rough. I'm feeling like my master's degree and passing the CPA exam (won't be a CPA until my year of supervision is done) were worth nothing to this company. I'm stuck on the same level in the same job as people with a bachelor's degree.... but I still need the same 3 years of "experience" to get a promotion. Basically until I want to be a controller, my CPA is unnecessary. It's very disheartening, but to make it worse I'm in the ONE department I knew from the get go I didn't want to be in. I'm an audit major for a reason. I don't enjoy tax. Tax makes my head hurt. I'm not naturally good at tax, and even when I'm putting everything I have into it I'm slow and barely at par. Now I'm going to be here for an extra 2 months. I thought I was 2 months away from leaving this department, now I'm only halfway through my stint. 8 months. 8 months in hell where the qualifications are made up and the degrees don't matter......

See what I did there? ha. I need to be more positive or I'm never going to get through this. It's just hard not to want to crawl under my desk and hide from the world. I hate everything, and when I don't I have a hard time feeling anything. I fake smile and interact with people. I try to act like a normal person. I think I get it right, but it takes a lot out of me and there  seems to be no end in sight. I just need an end in sight.

Easter Blew My Diet

I really felt like I did okay, but I didn't track over Easter. I'm now -15 weekly points. Not awful, but I probably can't workout enough by Wednesday to counteract that. *sigh*
BUT I didn't eat ANY chocolate or Easter candy (some strawberry pound cake and key lime pie were my downfall). Small wins.

I'm still hoping for a little weight loss this week. I held at zero last Wednesday but if I want to make my Spring Challenge goal of 6 lbs in 6 weeks, I need to start losing a little over a pound a week.

Okay, short post today. Trying to get caught up from being off on Friday!

Weigh In Wednesday - Week 7

I'm a day late, but I don't weigh in until noon at my weekly meeting, so I forgot.
Anyways, I'm holding steady.

Week 1: Starting weigh in

Week 2: -.6

Week 3: -3.4

Week 4: -1.0

Week 5: +1.2

Week 6: -1.2

Week 7: 0

All in all, I'm happy with that. I splurged more than I should have. Not exactly what I wanted going into Easter weekend, but I'm determined to be good and only splurge with my 49 points. 

Speaking of, it's a holiday tomorrow. We're going all the way to Arkansas. I actually really hate busy weekends. They make the week back feel so much worse. But, it'll be good to see the hubs parents. 

Spring Challenge - Day 1

My goals for today specifically - drink 100 oz of water - log food - journal.
The water thing is going to be the hardest. That's 5.55 of my water bottle. I average about 2 a day. Should have done the math last week and started slowly increasing. And also bought a new bite valve for my camelback. I'm using a knockoff type camelback water bottle, and I HATE not having the bite valve. Oh well. Maybe I'll order a replacement tonight, because I think my camelback is also bigger and so less refills which is psychologically pleasing.

As of noon I've drank an entire bottle of water. This is not looking good.

We also got our team challenges for the first 2 weeks. The first? Attending group classes. I want to go to group classes, but the only one's I can go to are during lunch...which is very stressful for me. I don't want to be sweaty, so I'll have to rinse off after. No big deal, we have showers, but what if there are a ton of people waiting? What if I have to stand around in a towel after? I'm too self conscious to do that. One of these days I'm going to force myself to go, but I'm not ready yet. Next week is better, it's  walking/running/rowing distance. It has to be in or around our gym. Which makes me remember that I forgot to update my ipod. It still has all of 20 songs on it from my wedding. Shoot.

This probably sounds like I'm just going to be complaining about the Spring Challenge the entire time. I hope not, but I have trouble with team sports. (okay, this is not a sport, give me a second). I feel like if I would have just moved faster, hit the ball harder, or in general been better we would have won. So, I stress about everything.

Cross Stitching - Marauder's Map #1

I'm not very far into cross stitching the Marauders Map I purchased a few weeks ago. Most of my time is on the weekends when I also have to get housework done. But I wanted to upload a few pics to show progress.

Here is the cross stitch section I've completed.

Here is the section I've completed (pink highlights are done)

Aaaaand, here it is in the big scheme. 

It'll be around 23 inches tall when I'm done. (you should be able to see bigger pictures if you click on them? I'm not actually sure I need more blogger practice). By far it's the biggest cross stitch I've ever undertaken. But, I wanted to be motivated to do something because I wanted to hang the end result and the smaller ones just weren't doing it for me. This will be an epic Marauder's Map and worthy of being hung in our game room. 

Food and Work

I think I'm going to dip into my weekly Points+ allowance and have Cane's Chicken for lunch. I can be really careful and not touch them, but I think I want to enjoy it a little more than I would being extra careful. I've only had 2 points+ today (I usually have 5 but my recent stomach flu and antibiotics has made me fairly intolerant to milk products, so I can't have my cream cheese english muffin) so if I eat 20 points+ for lunch I could still have 11 for dinner. That's a serving of cheeseburger casserole and a weight watchers ice cream. Not bad. That's for a three finger box at Cane's, water, no extra sauce. (there is some discussion if that's the right points, some go as high as 28 but this seems to have all the right components). But, I really want a pop, and some ketchup, and an extra thing of Cane's. Soooo, that would bring it up to about 28, leaving only 3 for dinner. But I can dip into my weekly and still have about 20 points+ left in my weekly for the weekend. So, I think I'll do that. 

About work.

I work at an oil and gas company. I'm a new accountant (graduated with my masters in December) and all new accountants go through a rotational program where we rotate through the different accounting departments. We are like glorified interns for about a year, year and a half. Currently I'm in tax. I don't like tax. I don't want to be negative about it, all the people are SUUUUUPER nice, but, I love the other side of the equation. The doing journal entries, income statements, etc. I've always felt like tax is just over my head. One of those things I can learn, but it never just clicks. Even when I was in school I had to relate it back to the original journal entries to figure out what was going on. Here..... it's worse. The original journal entries don't make sense, or they don't do it quite "by the book" or there's some consolidation reason that it's in these weird accounts. I sort of hate it. I spent all afternoon yesterday and a couple hours this morning trying to figure out the corrections my boss sent me. I finally understood them (after having him come in and explain, then leave and email me a different explanation) and went to do the NEXT one, and it should match. Different numbers but same concept. Nope. It didn't balance. And every time I checked my work thinking I'd put something on the wrong line for adjustments I came up with the same answer. I HATE when I know I'm wrong but I can't even find my own mistake. I shouldn't be so hard on myself, but handing my boss a packet and knowing it's wrong is just not a good feeling. (for the record, I did tell him it was wrong and I couldn't find it.  Like I said, I'm like an intern. Not to be trusted, so he checks everything and sends back corrections)

My depression is also hard to keep at bay in this rotation. There are a couple different parts of tax and I keep getting shuffled to a new one after about a month. My one and only ally quit and now I keep working with actual managers, not accountant 2's. It's intimidating and I always feel like I'm wasting their time. Then about the time I start to feel like I've got this particular part, I get moved to another one. This is really hard for me. I don't do well with new people, I'm shy and awkward. I act fine at work, but it really stresses me out figuring out how to work with new people. Does this boss want me to struggle for hours before asking a question (I actually had a boss like that once), does this one like complete work sent to them even if it's wrong, or would they rather help you every 5 seconds? I obsess about these things, probably longer than I should, and it makes getting used to new people really hard. 

Okay, enough complaining. I'm hungry and I have to wait another hour before I can eat.

I Dropped a Pant Size!

I knew my current pants were too big, I just wasn't sure if I needed an actual smaller size, or just a different fit in the same size. I was going to go shopping this weekend, but I remembered I had a pair of pants that were about 1.5 sizes smaller than my current (Target fit vs Maurices fit) so I donned some soft body shapers (not the suck you into 2 sizes smaller than you are, just the keep you from jiggling too much type) and they fit really well!

On a  not so great note, I don't think I'm over the stomach flu (dysentery!) I had last week. I missed work last Monday and ended up in the ER after the urgent care told me I needed tests back today and they couldn't help me. The ER doctor ran some tests and mashed around on my stomach and told me I had gastroenteritis in my colon. He put me on meds and sent me home with a sheet telling me what to do to get better. The first thing? Rest at home for a few days. Did I do that? Of course not. I was never vomiting or I would have. But now it's come to bite me in the butt. I barely made it through that week, then of course I decided to power through the weekend as well doing chores and whatnot. Now it's Thursday and every day this week I've gone home and gone straight to bed. I'm so exhausted. Usually in the morning I'm at least okay, but by about 1:00 I'm just waiting for 4:00 so I can go home. Today, I'm not even okay in the morning. I need a 24 hour nap. I need my A game back.

Weigh In Wednesday - Week 6

It's week 6 of Weight Watchers for me. I've been (mostly) steadily losing weight. It's felt really good, but I know half of it is getting off the Zoloft. Within a week of switching my meds I stopped craving carbs so bad I would talk myself into ANYTHING (6 doughnuts, whatever. You'll feel better when you eat them even if you feel guilty later). I have pretty good self control, but for about a year that all went down the drain. I gained 60lbs and things sucked for awhile. Now I have a new doctor and different meds. Getting my mental health/medications under control has really helped me, and Weight Watchers is a great support group.

Anyways, here is my weight loss starting from week 1.

• Week 1: Starting weigh in
• Week 2: -.6
• Week 3: -3.4
• Week 4: -1.0
• Week 5: +1.2
• Week 6: -1.2

So, I lost what I gained in week 5. I'll take that (I was sooooo sick in week 5 I didn't count a thing all week, and ate pizza a lot). 

Spring Challenge

Well, Monday starts our Spring Challenge at work. We are put onto 3 teams and choose 6 goals out of a list of about 30. I chose to workout 5 days a week, lose 6lbs, 10 minutes of meditation for 3 days/week, log all food for 4 weeks, drink 100 oz of water/day, and lastly - journaling 3 days a week.

I don't know why I chose journaling. Scratch that, I know exactly why I picked journaling, I'm just kicking myself for it now. I want to run a semi successful blog. I've even started at least 3 blogs (crafting, beauty, and refashioning clothes), and didn't do anything with them. I tried, I really did. I just get stuck in my own head trying to figure out if I should cuss, how much personal info to reveal, and generally trying to figure out what the heck I should talk about.... I like focused blogs, but I don't have a focused mind. I craft, I cross stitch, I ride horses, I play online video games(hence the NuggetIRL), I train dogs, and I work 40 hours a week. However, other than the working 40 hours a week I don't really do anything consistently. In the end, I just stop doing whatever it was I started the blog for and don't swing back around for awhile.

Sooo, I guess here's my life blog, at least for the next six weeks. (I really want our team to win this challenge!)

I hope someone enjoys it.