February Update!!!!!
February Update!
A Short month. Not as many things happened as in January, but it was still a good month.
Uncle’s Wedding
The first full weekend, my Uncle Mark got married and now I have a new Aunt. This is the uncle that had a stroke last summer. This is the (new) aunt that was there when it happened and helped get him to medical care as fast as they did. Our family has so much to be grateful for coming out of that. Yes, my uncle has made a full recovery, so the wedding was wonderful. I pretty much cried happy tears the entire ceremony. It was in the same church that Justin and I got married in. A smaller guest list, since this was the second marriage for both of them, but that became an advantage later on.
The reception was in the hall there at the church (we didn’t use it because it is small). There was plenty of cheeses and crackers, DELICOUS PUNCH, NON-punch (my aunt made sangria… it was out before the punch…. There were Baptists in attendance!!) The hall was decorated beautifully, covered chairs, full place settings, candles and flowers. I regret that I don’t have any pictures, but my older brother had his super camera. The food was really great, so was the cake. And then it was dancing time! Many of the guests left within the first half hour of dancing, so the floor was open for those of us that stayed. Which was pretty much my immediate family, other aunt and uncle, cousin and wife, and a few other people. There was a lot of dancing going on. All of the traditional party dances. We did the robot (starring youngest niece, it was awesome )
“5”k
The day after the wedding, I spent the afternoon with my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and her mother-in-law. The women of the bay area are going to build a habitat-for-humanity house… all women done. So they had a fun-stroll event. It was advertised as a 5k fun walk, you know, since it’s a casual fundraising thing. We finished it within 45 minutes without breaking a sweat. That was my first clue that it wasn’t 5k. The second was when I noticed our pink, event t-shirts did not mention ‘5k.’ The third was when I google-mapped it and it came out to 3k or something. We still had a good time walking together. It was overcast and there was a breeze, which, despite being in early February.. it was in Texas, so those things were nice. The post-walk treats were…. Cookies and brownies, I refrained from those.
If you want to see a picture of me in action, go here: http://www.bahfh.org/id218.html I'm wearing a pink shirt.... but I also have a pink headband. I know i'm in the first set of pictures. Sorry I have no idea how to capture stills from the slide show. Oh, I've figured it out.
in action
standing around
I can't believe no one took a picture of the DESSERT TABLES.
Camping
Valentine’s weekend we went camping! Huntsville state park is near the prison, but not so near that we had to worry about it. We actually saw a baby alligator within 100 yards of our campsite. We got there Friday afternoon and set up camp. Our spot was reserved, meaning it was also in the section with RVs and pop-up campers. For camping, there sure was a lot of generator noise. That night we had stuff bell peppers and s’mores. Yum! It got really cold that night. We should have taken more blankets.
Saturday morning Justin made pancakes and then woke me up. While he cleaned up, I made our lunch (sammiches, fruit and chips). We hiked all day, from our campsite, around the lake, through the marsh boardwalk and back to our campsite. Lunch was had sitting on a log on the trail. It was a beautiful day, a little cloudy and a little cool in the morning, but warmed up a little in the afternoon. What to do after a day of hiking? Take a nap of course! Just a short one. Justin always gets up before I do, so he had the fire started around 4pm. It had started to get very cloudy in the late afternoon and once I got up, there were some serious thunder. Dinner preparation was very fast, silver turtles seasoned with Tony Schachacheries. It began to rain so we ate our dinner wearing panchos. I thought it was very funny, because all the other campers in our area just went inside. We were going to have s’mores with peanut butter infused Hershey bar.. but it was raining a little too much to enjoy the fireside. Now, we could have really toughed it out by heading to the tent and sleeping through the storm… that started at 5:30, but we’ve slept through a rainstorm in that tent. It leaks in rainstorms. And, assuredly, it would have been colder than Friday night. So we decided we’d rather go home. We packed everything up quickly, got in the car and were home by 8:30. Ah, a shower and pajamas felt so good.
We did enjoy some technology while we camped though. Friday night, in the tent, we watched an episode of Scrubs on Justin’s iPod, though we had to trade off holding it above us. I was all ready for Saturday night, having rigged up an iPod holder with a baggie and some string - never got to use it. There’s always a next time… a time that won’t be so cold and rainy.
If you look again, you'll notice we are wearing the same E-walk shirt. WE didn't notice this until after we had set up camp, many hours after getting dressed. "So that's why everyone was looking at us so strange," said Justin once we realized we matched.
Justin & the oral surgeon
Justin grinds his teeth (apparently passed on by his father and grandfather). He has a custom mouth guard that he sleeps with. Last fall, he asked the dentist to make him a new one, as the old one was getting chewed up. Well, they took the molds, but the dentist wanted Justin to go to an orthodontist first, because if he was going to get braces to fix his teeth and misaligned jaw, he wouldn’t be able to wear a mouth guard. He went to an orthodontist, who recommended an oral surgeon. We were prepared for: a year of braces, jaw surgery, a year of braces. I was excited about telling people that I broke Justin’s jaw and that’s why he’s all beat up. But alas, at Justin’s February appointment with the oral surgeon, he learned that all of that work wouldn’t really improve his quality of life, current or future. Overall, this is a good thing, but it would have been a very interesting experience for us, neither of us have had braces… (or our jaws broken)
Girl’s Night
You may or may not know that Legally Blonde was turned into a musical. Imagine how cheesey that sounds! Well, my good friend Amanda was in Houston and wanted to see it, so she invited me, Alicia and Lauren. Lauren couldn’t go because of her husband’s birthday or something… but the rest of us made a girls night of it. We all decided to wear pink too. We looked like some pretty cute ladies. They picked me up at the bass pro shop parking lot, and we drove down to the theatre district. We walked to Mia Bella Trattoria for dinner. It was delicious. There were drinks involved. A pink one and something called a ‘flirtini.’ Oh yes, it was girly. There was delicious salad, and I can’t remember what I had for main course, but it was delicious too. Sadly, we were too full for dessert. I hate when that happens. We walked back to the theatre, climbed some stairs and got to our seats. They were pretty good, except for the big headed people sitting in front of Amanda.
The musical itself was, as expected, cheesey, but in the way that musicals always are. It was fun to see which scenes became songs and how fun those songs were. (first song title: ‘omigod’). I really enjoyed my night out with Amanda and Alicia and hopefully we can do fun stuff like that again
Yes, that was taken in the parking lot of the bass & pro shop.
Ash Wednesday
For Fat Tuesday, I purposefully ate chocolate!. Then on Ash Wednesday we went to mass in the evening. It was bilingual and that GIANT church we go to was absolutely full. It makes me wonder where all these people are on Sundays :[
Fitness Class
Second month. It seems like the first couple of weeks she was starting us off light and easy, but she’s been kicking it up. With the abs and the squats and curls and the flys. There are some days I come home and I feel all sortsa sore. By the end of February I could tell I was working hard for those muscles.
Weight Watchers
I decided that since I’m paying someone to motivate me to exercise, I can justify paying someone to help me eat proper portions of better food choices. And because it’s a health program, work pays for half. So, in the middle of the month I joined weightwatchers. We meet every Wednesday for lunch, but then I get an extra 30 minutes of lunch break.
If you are not familiar with the program, here’s how it works. Everyone gets a certain allotment of points based on weight, gender, amount of activity required for your daily job, etc. Every day you get to eat that many points worth of food, with an extra 35 points to spend sometime during the week. Like when you want a piece of chocolate cake. The point value of a food is based on the fiber, caloric and fat count. These first two weeks of weightwatchers was to be the learning experience of point awareness, learning when you truly feel hungry and managing that with healthy choices. Well, let me tell you. I was hungry ALL OF THE TIME. Was most of it in my head? Yes. Because Justin and I would have the same breakfast, the same lunch, and at 2pm when I was absolutely starving, I’d go by his office to complain and he was completely fine. That first weekend we went grocery shopping and we bought all the unnatural foods: low calorie bread, fat free ham, low fat cheese, whole wheat pita, super healthy hummus, whole wheat pasta. I actually am a big fan of the pita and hummus lunch. And we turned my lunch sammich from 5 points to 3 points(also, a little toasting does a lot). Saving those 2 points was very important when each chocolate of my post-valentines-day-sale-box-of-chocolates was one point. Justin was particularly encouraging as we changed our regular menu items around and started trying different things. According to WW, by the end of Feb (two weeks of the program), I had lost 2.6 pounds. And to be serious, I felt like I starved for every bit of it.
Overall Progress
So, where did that put me for the month as a whole? About 5 pounds for the month of Febraury according to our bathroom scale. That earned me my 5 pound reward! A new sports bra! (more of a necessity than a reward, but it sounds like more fun than tedium when it’s a reward! Yay!). I’m not very sure where those 5 pounds came from, since none of the measurements I’m tracking went down much. And none of my clothes started fitting looser. The hope is that March will continue to be a productive month and I’ll earn my 10 pound reward of the adorable, green, Jackie-shoes I saw at the store when Justin and I went anniversary-shoe-shopping. Do I need a pair of green shoes? Well, really, do I need another pair of green shoes? Probably not, but the green tennis shoes I have are so much fun to wear. A ‘dress’ pair of green shoes can only mean great things.
Crazy Brain Update
Had an appointment with my crazy brain doctor. No real update. I’m still taking my daily medication to keep the headaches at bay (and it helps with my sleep). When I get a headache, I’ve got an extra pill to take. They are coming more infrequently, which is good.
February was short. The End!