Look Great in 2008 (Week 7)

As I've been blogging, things have been very difficult at our house. Things are still difficult, and a family crisis of immense proportions has now erupted full force. It's been something that has been brewing for a while, and now it's reached nearly cosmic proportions.

Grief has an interesting way of taking away your appetite. I've lost 5.2 lbs since last week, and I haven't even been trying to diet. In the midst of all of the turmoil, food simply looks like cardboard, and even the idea of eating mostly makes me want to throw up. When I do eat, it sits in my stomach like a lead ball. Within 20 minutes, I end up running to the bathroom where it exits my backside in a huge explosion.

My weight this morning: 230.2. That's down a total of 26.8 lbs from when I started my diet back in April.

So, I guess there good things can come from great trauma and sadness in your life.

Sometimes, Family Trauma is Good for Your Diet

There are some very personal and traumatic things brewing over here at Chez Oinkstop which I don't feel I can blog about right now. They involve The Kid, and they are just heartbreaking. Perhaps, when things are resolved, I'll feel like I can say more. What I can say now is that prayers are needed. Please pray that the powers that be will do the right thing when it comes to The Kid.

On Halloween, I missed dinner (and trick-or-treating with The Kid) because I had to work. Last night, after getting some horrible news, I simply felt too queasy to eat. The SO spent the night crying and talking about what had happened.

This morning, my weight is down 3.4 lbs since Wednesday, for a pleasing weight of 232.0.

Sometimes, I guess family trauma is good for your diet.

Look Great in 2008 (Week 6)

Well, as a few readers have noticed, I've been conspicuously absent from weigh-ins for a little while because my life has been spinning pretty badly out of control these days. As I blogged last night, I'm having struggles with The Kid, I'm not getting enough sleep, and work has taken over every living, breathing moment of my life.

It is now Wednesday morning, and before I even do one minute of work for the day, I've already put in 30 hours at work. On Monday, I put in 12 hours, and that doesn't include off-the-clock time for meal breaks.

Obviously, this doesn't leave me a lot of time for blogging, exercising, or anything else. Just about every waking minute has been spent sitting at my desk, churning out work.

All I can say is thank G-d I'm Jewish. Were it not for the fact that I can tell my boss that I need Saturday off for religious observance, he'd be insisting I work seven days a week and not the six days I've been putting in.

As far as my weight goes, I'm happy to report that it hasn't completely ballooned skyward. It's still not where I'd like it to be, and it's still a few pounds higher than my all-time low, but this morning's weight was 235.4. That's about six pounds up from my all-time low, but I'm not sure that weight was even valid, since I was having trouble with my scale giving me weird readings right around that time.

But 235.4 isn't bad, since it's only 1.8 lbs higher than what's showing in my sidebar. I haven't updated that in a while for the same reason I haven't been blogging -- I've just been working far too many hours and dealing with far too many problems on the domestic front.

But I'm still here, and I haven't completely given up. I'm going to try to do better for the next month or so, because I have a friend who has been sent out of town for six months for work, and she'll be coming back sometime in December. It would be nice if I could lose enough weight that she will notice.

The Abyss of Work, Sleeplessness and Bad Behavior

I haven't blogged in 18 days because I seem to have really fallen down an abyss of work, sleeplessness and bad behavior on the part of The Kid.

We've been having a rough go of it for a while.

The Kid had a melt down just after her birthday, and she's been ugly, difficult and defiant. This evening, she was arguing over trivia (whether one of our household pets should be asleep after dinner or not) and it's been really hard. We have started the ball rolling for special education services at school, and they have decided to do their own independent testing. This will be good, because it will either confirm the bad news we got earlier, or refute it. My gut feeling is that it could go either way. On good days, The Kid seems together, smart, and quite capable. On bad days, I think figuring out how to open a mayonnaise jar with a loose lid is beyond her reach.

I still haven't been sleeping worth a darn. I keep waking up in the middle of the night, thinking about The Kid and her numerous behaviors and challenges. I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, but three to four hours later I wake up having to go to the bathroom, and thoughts roll around in my head until it's time to get up.

And, if all of that isn't enough to put me over the edge, I've been put on mandatory overtime at work. I'm so exhausted in the evenings I barely can keep my eyes open.

I'm tired. I'm grumpy. I haven't been blogging. I haven't been reading anyone else's blog.

Bad Oinkstop, no cookie!

My diet isn't exactly doing great, but it's not doing horrible, either. This morning I weighed in at 236, which is still up from my all-time low, but down from my most recent high of 239. So, I can't say that I'm doing good, but considering how my life has somewhat fallen apart around my ears, I'm not doing bad.

The one thing I have been doing , which probably falls into the won't hurt, might help category is that I've been trying to exercise in small five or ten minute chunks. This way, I'm hoping to avoid breaking out in exercise-induced hives, and I'm at least doing something.

I haven't been doing as well as I should, as I haven't been making any effort to count calories or keep track of what I'm eating. I've tried to make a conscious choice to eat less than what I'd normally want to put on my plate, but that is about the extent of it.

But I'm still here. I haven't given up. Tomorrow's another day, and things are bound to get better eventually. Right?

Right?

Happy Birthday to The Kid

Yesterday was The Kid's birthday.

It was not such a good day for dieting, and we haven't even gotten to her birthday party scheduled for this weekend.

We went out to breakfast, we had tamales for lunch, and we went out for burgers and fries for dinner. It was not pretty.

We still have a party to look forward this weekend, with two of her girlfriends sleeping over Friday and Saturday because their parents are out of town, pizza and cake.

I'm just not going to step on the scale this morning. I don't even want to know.

Insomnia and Weight Loss

Lately, I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping. Part of it is because I've needed to change my schedule at work. I'm waking up at 4:45 AM so that I can be at my desk by 5:00 or 5:15 AM, which means I'm going to bed a lot earlier. The change in schedule has been tough, but I don't think that's my only problem. When I go to bed, I'm tired, and I fall asleep quickly, but I don't seem to stay asleep. Last night, I woke up at midnight, 2:00 AM, 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM. I wasn't able to go back to sleep after that, though I was most definitely tired when the alarm went off.

From a recent article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune:

Poor sleep habits have become so closely associated with obesity that some scientists want obesity therapists to address sleep with the same intensity as diet and exercise, according to the National Sleep Foundation.

"There's an association between [inadequate] sleep and obesity," says Dr. Joseph Ojile, head of the Clayton Sleep Institute in St. Louis.

For decades, studies have found that overweight and obese people tend to have poor sleep habits. But the evidence was statistical. The physiological link, albeit in a relatively small study, came in December 2004 when a University of Chicago researcher in endocrinology, Eve van Cauter, found that poor sleep disrupted two hormones associated with appetite.

Interesting.

I for one have had problems sleeping for years, and if there is a link between sleep and weight gain, it doesn't surprise me that the years I've had the most trouble with sleep have been my heaviest. It's been so long since I've slept through an entire night without waking up for one reason or another, that I really can't honestly remember what it was like. I think I was last consistently able to do it when I was in high school or perhaps college. Since I started life in the adult working world, I've definitely been plagued with both a lack of both the total amount of sleep I get and a lack of uninterrupted sleep.

That's something to think about, isn't it?

Look Great in 2008 (Week 3)

Once again, I'm finding myself barely hanging in by a thread. But, I'm still here.

This week I made a concerted effort to get back on track because I saw some pretty scary numbers on the scale earlier in the week. My high -- 239 -- really freaked me out. I'm not sure why it was that high. Yeah, I ate some things I should not have eaten, but I suspect the fact that I hadn't been to the bathroom in a while was part of the problem.

This morning's weight -- 234.6 -- is much better than the scary high, though still a bit more than I weight in last week. I'm hoping things will go in the right direction between now and next Wednesday.

I'm slowly getting back to regular blogging. For those who might have missed my recent posts:

• Mini Cheese Wheels to the Rescue
• Too Hungry for my own Good
• Often There is no Pleasure in Virtue
  

Although things are going better at our house and some of our major stress-causing problems have improved, it's not to say things are perfect. Right now The Kid, who is one day short of her birthday is having a small temper tantrum because I asked her to go look for a jacket she'd misplaced. "But I don't need it right now," was her excuse. I made her go find it anyway, because if she didn't find it right then, we'd be made late for an appointment because then it would suddenly become the key to her being able to leave the house.

So here's to another week. I'm hoping things will get better!

Often There Is No Pleasure In Virtue

Things have calmed down to a dull roar chez Oinkstop, and things are going better:

• The sick critter seems better.
• The over-the-top brat has moved elsewhere, and The Kid has taken her place.
• The alarmingly-late paycheck finally arrived.

So several crises are over. Of course the sick critter might not stay better, as we think she has something seriously wrong with her, but two weeks of antibiotics has improved her mood a bit.

We'll see.

So, on to weight loss things.

I figured since the level of rottenness in my life was sinking back to its usual level, it was time to get back on track with regards to my diet. It's time to start eating better and trying to make more active choices, though the exercise thing is still a problem because I keep breaking out in hives.

For the past few days I've really been making an effort to eat well, skip the crap and pay attention to what I'm doing. Last night, instead of having something that actually tasted good, I had some salad and some plain tuna.

Certainly it met quite a few caloric and nutritional goals, but there wasn't much to entice my tastebuds. Although I walked away from the table no longer hungry, I can't say that dinner was a particularly enjoyable experience.

Often, there is no pleasure in virtue. I guess we'll have to see what the scale says tomorrow.

Too Hungry for my Own Good

Despite the fact that I ate a couple of mini cheese wheels yesterday afternoon, I let myself get just a little too hungry during the day, and I ate more than I should have at dinner. I was so hungry I went back for seconds on pasta, which I should not have done, since I also had a beer with dinner.

Despite the train wreck dinner, I was really good the rest of the day, and my weight was down a pound from yesterday.

So that's good.

Other things around here are a mixed bag. Our sick pet seems a little better, but not a lot better. She's lost a little bit of weight, which isn't a good sign, but she seems to be feeling a bit better as she's playing with her toys and has a bit more energy. We'll see. She's got another week or so of antibiotic treatment ahead of her and we'll see how it goes.

We are still waiting on our check. It's now about two weeks late. We'll be okay, but it's just stressful not having the money. I paid a bit more than the minimum payment on all our credit cards, so all our bills are paid to the point where we aren't going to incur late fees or punishments of any kind. I just keep reminding myself, we'll be okay.

We are still having major struggles with The Kid. The basic problem: she doesn't want to do anything that isn't her idea. Anything that involves chores, school work, or anything she doesn't want to do becomes a complete and total battle of wills.

It's exhausting.

Mini Cheese Wheels to the Rescue

As I've mentioned quite a bit in my last few blog postings, things are not going so well over at Chez Oinkstop. This morning, however, I decided that enough is enough. Even though my life is falling apart at the seams, I really need to get back on track with my diet and start paying attention to what I am eating.

So I did what any responsible dieter does. I cut back.

Things were going surprisingly well until about 4:00 PM this afternoon.

Then, all of a sudden, I found myself crashing. I was hungry -- no, starving -- and I felt like I was having a low blood sugar episode. My hands were shaking and I felt dizzy and light headed.

The So and The Kid weren't home. They'd taken the car to go pick up a load of produce from the farm cooperative.

I was hungry, and my first temptation was to drive over to the local mini mart and buy myself something small and sugary so I wouldn't feel so dreadful.

I felt crummy enough that I didn't feel safe driving to the mini mart, and I was definitely too shaky to walk.

I decided to investigate our refrigerator. Usually, that's a place I avoid, as The SO has it claimed as personal territory, and I'm frequently threatened with bodily harm for going in there. Besides, The SO isn't the best of housekeepers, and usually the inside of the fridge is populated with the corpses of dead and dying food items that have decomposed to the point of being unrecognizable.

I stay out most of the time.

But today I found myself in a moment of desperation.

I opened the refrigerator door and discovered, quite happily, that it wasn't nearly the dreadful food morgue as the last time I'd looked inside.

Sadly, it was filled with lots of nothing to eat. There were several bottles of some sort of diet drink, a few miscellaneous cans of something, and various condiments. There was nothing identifiable as edible, so I started to close the door.

As I closed the door, a small package jumped out at me. It was a small net bag of mini cheese wheels, that were preserved in wax. The bag was unopened, and I had no idea how long the bag had been in there.

I decided to take my chances. The cheese wheels looked like a safe bet, so I selected two. I unwrapped one, and it passed the sniff test, so I went ahead and ate it. It was good, so I ate the second. Then I stopped. 140 calories of cheese was probably more than enough to tide me over until later.

I'm still hungry and shaky. Now I just have to wait for those little buggers to hit bottom.

Look Great in 2008 (Week 2)

Well, I'm still hanging in here. My weight this morning was 234.0, or 0.4 lbs higher than last week. I guess that's pretty good, considering that I've paid almost no attention to my diet recently.

Part of it, is because I'm just tired of dieting. I'm tired of being hungry, and having to make "good" food choices, and eating things I "should" eat, rather than what I want to eat.

Part of it is because we've had some simply horrendous challenges going on at our house. We've had a pet die, another get sick, behavior problems on the part of The Kid, some unexpected and very big expenses come up, hassles at work, and a very late paycheck.

Every time I turn around, something else goes wrong.

We've gone from paying off our credit cards every month to carrying over $7,000 in debt practically overnight. We've had some very expensive things go wrong lately, and the problem has been compounded by the fact that about half our income for this month never appeared. Sure, there are contracts and laws and all sorts of things that are supposed to guarantee we get paid in a timely fashion, but when the boss doesn't sign paychecks before he takes off on vacation, there's nothing that anybody can do.

Maybe we'll get paid this week. We were expecting the check almost two weeks ago.

We aren't at risk of financial ruin yet. The check will come, the debts will get paid off, and hopefully The Kid's behavior will improve.

I just keep reminding myself: this too shall pass.

Hanging On (By a Thread)

Well I'm still here.

I'm hanging on barely, by the tiniest thread.

I have mixed news to report:

• My scale isn't working right (again). No surprise there.
  
• My sick bird is very sick, but probably isn't contagious. The vet's current guess is that she has a tumor.
• Our biggest client didn't pay his bill on time, and we had to dip into savings to pay our bills this month.
• The Kid is continuing to be difficult.
• The diet is still on my "to do" list, but it's sinking lower and lower on the priority list, simply because of all the major disasters happening right now.

It seems like every time I turn around, another disaster happens. We've had several major and unexpected expenses pop up, including dental bills, car/RV repairs, and veterinary bills. All I can say is that I'm glad someone invented credit cards. Yeah, they are evil, but they are the only think keeping us out of complete financial ruin at the moment. Were it not for the evil plasticharge, The SO would probably be dying from a massive toothache/infection, our car would be inoperable, our RV roof would be leaking, and our sick birds would have gone without veterinary care.

Now if someone would just kick my non-paying client in the ass, the world would be a much better place.

Look Great in 2008 (Week 1)

I haven't been posting (or even paying that much to my diet) recently because I've just had some really horrendous things happen in my personal life. The Kid has been exhibiting some significant behavioral problems which are driving us crazy. Some is "normal kid stuff" for her age, but some is just so over-the-top it is not to be believed.

Then one of our birds died.

Then things at work started to go crazy.

Then another of our birds got sick, and our new vet (we had to fire the old one because she was so overbooked we could never get an appointment) tells us that she might have something lethal and contagious, and all the rest of our flock in our house might die of this disease. Fortunately, this isn't something humans can catch, but it's quite upsetting.

Of course the key word is might. This vet might be one of those doctors that always assumes it's the worst possible scenario until he rules it out. The state of avian medicine is not nearly as advanced as it is for dogs and cats, so we are dealing with a big unknown at the moment.

But the stress is just unimaginable. I have several large and intelligent parrots, and the idea of losing them is just overwhelming.

My weight this morning was 233.6. That's up almost five pounds from my lowest weight, but since I've never been able to reproduce that weight, I think it was a fluke. My scale has a history of malfunctioning periodically and showing weights that are 5, 10, and even 15 pounds lighter than the actual weight of the person standing there. My weight is up 1.4 lbs from my last known reliable weight, but truthfully I really don't care right now. I feel like I have much bigger fish to fry than worrying about what my stupid scale tells me.

Still Struggling

I'm hanging in here. My scale keeps malfunctioning. My last believable weight was two days ago at 232.2. I can live with that.

One of our pets suddenly died of an undiscovered, but terminal illness. We had a necropsy done, and at least we can take comfort in the fact that there was nothing we could have done for her. Nevertheless, we are heartbroken. I miss her terribly.

The Kid has been acting out in all kinds of difficult and annoying ways. She's been so rotten that even the surviving critters have all found legitimate reasons to nip her, hard. Among other reasons, she's been antagonizing them.

I feel like I am about to implode under all the stress.

Ok Woman, Where Are You?

This post is a direct response to Shannon, who asked:

OK WOMAN. WHERE ARE YOU?!?!?!

:-)

Actually, that's a good question.

I've disappeared from the blogosphere because things in my personal life got, well, a little out of control. We've been dealing with some behavioral problems with The Kid lately, which has sapped a lot of my motivation for just about everything. By the time we are done with her passive-aggressive and obstinate tendencies for the day, I feel like a shriveled up husk with nothing left. Add to that two days of yom tov (the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah), one day of shabbat (the sabbath), plus several days' worth of client melt-downs because I was out of the office on Thursday and Friday, and it creates a situation where I completely fell off the face of the earth for a few days.

It's been a tough week, and I'm expecting things to get tougher before they get easier. Another couple we know, who finalized an adoption on two kids just a few months ago, also struggling with their oldest adopted child as well. Maybe it's in the water, or maybe it's just the time of year where pre- and post-adoptive kids start melting down in a big way.

The Kid's birthday is coming up, and I expect some more challenging behaviors around that. Her birthday wish list includes such inexpensive items like a cell phone, an iPod (and no, a Nano or Shuffle just won't do), and a trip to a very distant, pricey and rodent-infested West-Coast amusement park. She's going to be mightily disappointed, because my budget for this birthday wasn't all that big to begin with, and all her recent behavior struggles haven't left me in the mood to open the tap to the Gift Shower very wide.

Yeah, I know, color me bloody selfish, but when The Kid is acting like a Royal Pain in my A$$, I'm just not inclined to spend a lot of hard-earned cash to feed her Royal case of The Gimmes.

Anybody want a kid? I'll rent her to you cheap. (Okay, well maybe not, but it's fun to think about, sometimes)

Diet-wise, I'm not sure where I am. I've been so busy running around like a crazy person that I suspect the news isn't good, and I'm kicking myself for missing the last weigh-in for the May Day Weight Loss Challenge. I've pretty much avoided Mr. Scale for the past week or so, because I just don't feel like I have the emotional bandwidth to deal with more challenging news.

It's been a tough week, and I'm wishing I could pack my kid, my job, and my scale into three separate boxes and ship them off to parts unknown.

But I do know my stress level is over the top. When I wake up in the morning, my jaw is clenched so tight I can barely open it. Too bad it won't get stuck that way -- then I'd really lose some weight!

Eight Random Things About Me

So it seems that Lady T. has tagged me with the Eight Random Things About Me meme, so now I'm stuck having to answer.

This is a stretch here, so forgive me for being boring:

1. Last summer, I was bitten by the "car bug." I've owned a variety of cars over the years, but always looked at them as a tool to be taken care of, but basically used up and thrown away after a number of years. I looked at people who bought rims, bras and fancy stereos as essentially a weird flavor of nut bar. But, last summer I bought a new car that has a bit of a following, and people have created car clubs that revolve around the modifying, driving and showing of these cars. Suddenly I understand why someone might need rims, a car bra, a fancy sub-woofer so they can bump their music, an under body lighting kit or a set of vertical doors. (And yes, my car has a bra, under body lighting kit, fancy vinyl graphics, and an under-dash LED lighting kit. I'm still working on rims, and stereo upgrades.)
   
   
2. I'm fluent in American Sign Language.
   
   
3. I love sushi. If it's fish and it's raw, I'll eat it. I'll pass on the squiggly stuff like raw crab and shrimp, though.
   
   
4. I used to hate rap and hip-hop. Then I bought my car, and everyone was playing it at car shows. I've learned to actually like it. I still hate country music, though.
   
   
5. I write with a fountain pen because it's cool.
   
   
6. I give a free concert (I play guitar and sing) at the local convalescent care center once a month.
   
   
7. I have a houseful of parrots.
   
   
8. In my younger days, I used to go camping roughly once a month with a group of guys whose main objective was to get as drunk as possible for the weekend. We'd pretend we were pirates, drink beer, and give our motor homes and travel trailers piratey-sounding names. We even had a pirate flag that measured 3' x 5' that we'd fly off the top of a flagpole constructed out of recycled tent poles.
   

Since Lady T. pretty much tagged all the bloggers I normally would have tagged, I'll leave it up to you to tag yourself. If you decide to participate in this meme, just leave a comment so I can stop by your blog and check it out.

May Day Weight Loss Challenge Weigh-In #18

I haven't been blogging very much lately because we've had a lot of things going on at home. This weekend was insanely busy. We had two car club events to attend, and got stuck babysitting three kids on Saturday because a friend had to be out of town on business and came up short at the last minute for childcare.

The weekend was a mixed bag. The car club events were fun, but dealing with four kids in the house wasn't particularly enjoyable. They were squabbling, tattling, and fighting, and I can honestly say I was never more glad to be rid of a group of kids than I was when our turn to babysit was over.

Diet-wise, it's becoming more and more evident that the uber-low reading I got on my scale two weeks ago was most definitely a scale malfunction.

This morning's weight: 231.8, which strikes me as just a normal weight fluctuation from what I weighed last Friday. On Sunday, we attended a carnival that was part of the car club event, and they had all sorts of terrible things to eat. I had a hamburger, chips, diet soft drink, some cotton candy, and a snow cone, but that was all I ate for the entire day. I skipped breakfast, because we had to get up early in the morning and drive for three hours to get to the event, and I wanted to maximize sleep time and minimize bathroom stops. I skipped dinner, because I was bone tired when I got home and went straight to bed.

But the cotton candy sure tasted good. I used to love the stuff as a kid, and I can't remember the last time I'd had any. I think it tasted even better because it was given to me free. I doubt I would have eaten it if I'd had to pay $3.00 for it.

According to the May Day Weight Loss Challenge blog, today marks the last day of the contest. I'd thought, however, that the contest was supposed to end next Tuesday, September 18, and not today. Maybe I am hallucinating, but when I checked the original announcement page this morning, it clearly said September 18 was the ending date.

In the event that I'm suffering from some sort of weird hallucination, I'll post my results anyway:

             Today's Weight: 231.8
Weight Lost During Challenge: 18.0 lbs
          Total Weight Lost: 25.2 lbs

Although I'm a little disappointed that I wasn't able to average a 2-lb loss per week during the challenge, I think it's a flipping miracle that I lost anything at all. I figure 18 pounds is 18 pounds, and in this case less is more.

If this does turn out to be the last week of the challenge, I'd like to wave a fond farewell to all the other challenge participants, and invite people to come back and visit once in a while. My blog is set up with an RSS feed, so I definitely welcome people to keep visiting.

Weight Loss Challenge or no, I'll still be here.

Peace out, everyone.

Back on Track

Surprisingly, yesterday's corn binge for dinner actually didn't do any harm. My weight was down a bit from the day before, and I'm slowing starting to sink back to the weight I was last Friday, before my Labor Day Diet Holiday.

John wanted me to come clean and admit to the number of ears I consumed, but the truth is, I lost count. I'm thinking it was at least six ears of corn, maybe more. It was disgusting. In my defense, the ears were on the small side, since our corn didn't pollinate very well and there were plenty of blank areas on each cob where the kernels didn't grow.

But it was a lot of corn.

In retrospect, I think the corn wasn't as damaging as I thought. I just checked, and realized that an ear of corn with no butter or salt is only 63 calories. Assuming that I did stop at six ears, that's only 378 calories, which is about what I would have eaten for dinner on a normal day, anyway. Even if I was completely gross and had ten ears (which I know is more than I possibly could have eaten) that would have been only 630 calories, which isn't all that terrible considering I didn't eat all that much else during the day.

I suspect tonight I'll be having another corn fest as our small field of corn is all ready, and has to be eaten. The good(?) news is that we won't have as much edible corn as we'd originally thought. Our plot was too small, and about 25% of the ears didn't germinate at all. Next year, we'll have to plant more.

Yum.

There really isn't much to blog about in diet land at the moment. I'm doing my best not to eat, and waiting to see the results on the scale.

I Ate My Weight In Corn

For breakfast: Carnation Instant Breakfast
For lunch: A bean, rice and cheese burrito
For dinner: Corn on the cob

I hate to think what damage I'm going to see on the scale in the morning, because I think I must have eaten my weight in fresh corn on the cob.

Last spring, we planted a vegetable garden. We are now harvesting corn.

The corn is really good. Unfortunately, our small field of corn is all ready to harvest at exactly the same time.

So of course we gotta eat it, right?

In my defense, I ate corn without butter or salt. It was delicious and so sweet it didn't need butter or salt. But I ate a lot of it.

A lot.

May Day Weight Loss Challenge Weigh-In #17

Over the weekend, I gave myself permission to go on a "diet holiday." I didn't count calories, make good choices, or worry about anything. I just ate what I felt like eating, and drank what I felt like drinking. We hung out with some friends and I had beer, chips, BBQ, and ice cream.

It was a nice break.

My diet vacation was certainly visible on the scale, but I'm not going to post my weight this morning because I'm not sure that the readings my scale is giving me are even accurate. It's like watching a ping pong ball bounce all over the place.

So, I'm just not going to worry about it. Vacation is over, now I have to get back to work.

Now that summer is semi-officially over, I've got a lot of stressful stuff on my plate. This is the season of crunch-time at work, and I expect I'll be putting in some major overtime between now and the end of the year. I also expect we'll be running into more school-related challenges with The Kid, simply because she really doesn't like school, and would much rather sit and vegetate in front of the television than do anything else.

Wickedly, I solved the TV problem last month. We called our satellite TV supplier and cut the thing off. They couldn't believe it. I'd been a "good customer" for several years, and they wanted to know if we were switching to another satellite TV vendor, or going back to cable. When we told them we were just disconnecting all TV, the customer service representative didn't know what to say. Apparently, her script had no instructions for keeping customers who have decided to unplug themselves from the media world.

Anyway, I'm still here, still part of the challenge, and still moving forward. We'll see what happens next week.