Thursday, March 25, 2010

Sixteen

Well, no major progress to report on the weight loss.  But-no gain, so I will take that!

My appetite is back, sort of.  After I eat anything 'solid' my stomach still hurts, but not like it was.  I have been slurping Smoothies and fruit and yogurt for the most part.  I had a burger and fries yesterday and I was sorry all night.  But, I am hungry which is good.

Now, for exercise.  Let's see, yesterday we took several short strolls in the warm sun.  Saturday, we hiked a few miles in Huntsville.  I played the Wii a few times-which sadly counts as exercise in my world.  LOL  That's been it!  Between heavy rain, snow and not feeling so great, I have not been out and about much or doing much bouncing around indoors, either.  



Next week, we will be camping 4 days, I have no doubt I will gain it ALL back and next Thursday, my post will read 'twenty-five'.  Cathy is a great cook and I am a great eater, it's dangerous to be stuck in a camper with her.   Eep!


But, I am looking forward to the trip anyway.  We need to stretch our legs and my eyes are in need of new views.  

One-Fanged Vampires

Ben had a cherry hemangioma pop up on his neck recently.  By this week, it had taken on its own personality and I was afraid by next week, it would have an eyeball or something.  


I took him in to the doc this morning at 8:15 and by 9:15, it was in a bottle on the way to the lab!  


He has a tiny mark on his neck, which he claims is a one-fanged vampire attack and is trying to get me to allow him to stay up all night in honor of being a half-vamp.  All the glory, none of the side effects.  


It bled, of course, like a fiend and the cauterizing machine was not working today.  I was all kinds of excited to see that thing in action, had visions of running home and ordering one for myself.  Oh well.  Guess I'll just let them bleed until they are done-as usual.  I'd like to think with their advanced ages, the days of skinned knees and elbows are over.  



Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Trace Part Two

Today we did the second run on the Trace with Cathy and Kaitlin.
We drove up to Lawrenceburg and got on the Trace and drove to just below Colbert's Ferry at Florence.


















Our last stop was the Coon Dog Cemetery:




Saturday, March 20, 2010

Huntsville Hikes

We had a great day today, first Jake tried on the base for his costume, so we had to go to Huntsville even though no one had rehearsal!  

That was over quickly and we went to the library and got some new books, picked up some pizza from Little Caesar's and drove up to Green Mountain and had a picnic next to Sky Lake.  






After that, we went to Mathis Mountain, which is a Land Trust property and picked up 2 geocaches there.


After that, I wanted to check out the Wildflower Trail off Cleermont, another Land Trust property and my favorite this time of year.
Matt enjoyed it as well, scoring another 2 caches.

















Thursday, March 18, 2010

Twenty

I had these 20 pounds I wanted to blog about losing.  Then, they became 22.5 pounds and I wanted to never admit any of it.

My recent activity increase followed by my even more recent...purging has them down to 15 pounds.  Now it seems kind of dull to chat about.  Who doesn't want to drop 15 pounds?  Other than Heather, who does not have 15 pounds to spare.  Well, maybe if she shaved her head.  Karen is also really scrawny...hey, and Cathy.  hmmm.  Okay, who other than me really DOES want to drop 15 pounds.  I need to meet new people.

My plan as of yesterday was to simply never eat again.  This seemed a sure way to A. avoid further bouts of puking and B. that 22.5 pounds would be history, along with most of  my brain cells and a couple of organs before someone thought to force-feed me.  I think it's just a LITTLE counter-productive that your body digests organs BEFORE the stored fat if you stop feeding it.  WHY does it store the fat, then?

My plan of today-that was before the wretched cramps of digestion set in-was to eat dry crackers and drink protein drinks and fruit smoothies.  7 crackers later and my stomach is doing a polka and I can FEEL the progress of the crackers like a rock in my belly.  Maybe I should have stuck with the no food at all plan.  I just thought 'food groups'.  Dairy and protein-shakes.  Fruit and Veg...smoothies.  Grains?  Oh, whole wheat crackers!  Nauseated pregnant women snarf crackers!  How can I go wrong?  I can't even think about rice or pasta after puking them both so recently.  Luckily, I had Little Debbie cakes that day-I only eat them on Tuesday, so that's something to begin with-and now thinking of THEM makes me queasy, too.  yay!  That blue-hat girl is a temptress and I have no willpower on my own.  LOL

The only food I will really miss is mac and cheese-the good kind.  It's like looking around your house at ALL your stuff and trying to decide what you would pay to have shipped overseas.  Suddenly, not much has great value.  The furniture can all be replaced.  You can take the computer and camera easily enough.  Should you ship the photos or just get new ones printed from a disc?  You don't need any of those nic-nacs or decorations or 95% of your books.  As long as your stuff is still out there waiting, it's easy enough to do without for a long while.  I realize I CAN still have food, I just feel like a break.  Until I find out what is making me so sick, nothing tastes good enough to feel THIS bad.  Not even mac and cheese.

So, I will post every couple of weeks, see where I am with the 20 pounds.  Maybe some small level of accountability will motivate me more than just thinking about it has.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Sunday stroll

or more like a hike!  What a great hike, I got back to the van sweaty and sore and feeling GREAT!  I needed that to stir my sluggy blood from the winter of fishing at Animal Crossing and sighing loudly over my Atlas and occasionally staring out teary-eyed at my poor lonely camper...


Anyhoo, loving the hike today!  New area, new falls, new everything.  It's hard to head down new trails when you are sure of the outcome with an old favorite, but I was ready to give it a shot.  Matt picked out 3 falls, but we only made it to the first hike, we were having so much fun exploring!  


I was loving the green-the moss, the tiny ferns, the grass.  I had the oddest compulsion to put the moss and the tree leaf buds in my mouth.  It just seemed like they would be delicious!  I told Matt I need some Green Goodness, if I can hide it from Ben, that is!


After the hike, we drove into Cullman and snagged some fresco bean burritos, which were really good, but freaked me out because they crunched!  LOL  I was sure I had gotten an old dried-out refried bean!  But no, that was some leafy thing.  After behaving so well with the fresco stuff, we got Chocolate Xtreme flurries.  That is the BEST thing I have had in a LONG time.  The chewy bits are what I love most.  We had a good guilty chuckle that the dessert was more than dinner and that after eating from the lite menu, we were hogging down ice cream studded with fudge chunks.

It was a great day, I have really been enjoying my hiking dates with Matt, though I was so invigorated after this hike, I think I chattered his ear right off!  



Two creeks meet, both have falls!  Hard to get a decent shot.




This is the larger falls, further downstream, from the top.



The view of the creek as we climb down the bluff














Matt found a geocache-which had 2 items that had been logged as 'lost' for nearly a year!  








Who says you can't surf in North Alabama?




Next time-nylon pants!
My shoes were pretty sad, too!