Friday, March 31, 2006
...three...more...days...
...till weigh-in. Lord, it's going to kill me. I used 2 of my weekly points last night with our steak. I bought groceries, and I didn't get any of the lean stuff-no sir. I got round steak...and counted all the points, too, so while I feel guilty for not getting something leaner, I still counted every single little point. Anyway, we usually go out once a week (usually for Chinese) and we haven't done that yet this week. I'm apprehensive about doing it this late in the week, though. It's getting bad though, because walking from the parking lot to the store today, the Mexican restaurant across the street smelled SO good. I was nearly drooling by the time I got in the door at work. I think I'm going to talk Jen into either going out for sushi or for Chinese Monday night after the meeting. I just hope I can hold out that long...this totally goes to prove all those annoying people right that say depriving yourself when you really, really want something is the worst thing to do on a diet. I hate it when annoying people are proved right.
posted by Jen @ 11:07 AM   1 comments
Thursday, March 30, 2006
An epiphany!
First, let me apologize for turning this into a diet blog. Well, sort of apologize...I usually would send all this through the Mommy list, but I hate to fill up a bunch of people's inboxes with my diet-capades when only half of them have met me in person. I figure YOU folks are coming here to read, so I'll bore you with the details. :)

So, back to the subject. Did you know that Lean Cuisine puts WW Points on the side of their boxes? I didn't, until my meeting Monday night. This has opened up a whole new part of the frozen food aisle for me-believe me when I say I've waded through a lot of the WW brand frozen dinners; at least the ones that seemed worth the points, and have weeded them out to about maybe 7 that I like. Now I have a much bigger selection! I haven't looked through them yet, but I'm just excited to have other options. Whee! I just had the pepperoni french-bread pizza for 6 points, and I found it MUCH more satisfying (i.e. MORE FOOD) than the WW brand "Smartwich" (HotPocket rip off), which is also 6 points. I'm really worried that I'm going to get burnt out on this, so finding these are a big relief.

Oh, I barely, BARELY talked myself out of going out for Chinese last night. I mean it was THISCLOSE. It was mostly because I didn't want to cook, but also because ....mmmm....Chinese.... So as of now, I still haven't used ANY of my weekly points, and still managed to end up with a few points leftover last night. I know it's unrealistic, but I'm still hoping to get to my meeting goal this upcoming week.

In another post I'll tell you about my latest diet-related Excel spreadsheet...heh. I'm such a nerd. But I'm a relatively happy, and well-fed nerd, so it's all good. :)
posted by Jen @ 12:38 PM   0 comments
Cherry tomatoes make me happy
For real. There's a story there, too; I'm sure you'd be disappointed if there was not.

Ok, go back about (mumblemumble) years when Val, Resa, and I were elementary school/middle school ages. Yeah, you'll have to use your imagination for that one, huh? Smartypants. Anyway, the folks that lived next door to our Grandma & Grandpa Morton was an old, old friend of theirs. He had an in-ground pool, and made it clear to Grandpa that we were more than welcome to use it (with adult supervision, of course).

We'd go over to Grandpa's house, and would always, ALWAYS make Resa call Mr. Harry (the neighbor) to ask if we could use the pool. Granted, we'd already been given permission, but it's just polite to ask before barging into his backyard and cannonballing into the deep end. Resa always made the call because she was "the cute one." Swear to god, that's the reason. To this day, Grandma Morton will bring it up, "Remember how Resa always called? 'Mr. Hawwy? Can we come use your SWIMMINPOOL?'" She says it just like that, too. ...sigh...

Anyway, we'd go over and swim and dive till we were dragged out of the pool pruney, tired, and ravenously hungry. We'd wrap up in towels and go back to Grandpa's house, where we were left on the back patio until we dried enough to come in the house. While we were drying off, we'd pick over Grandpa's cherry tomato bushes, eating them straight off the bush. Mmmm... Every now and then Grandma would bring out Popsicles or marshmallows, but for me, the cherry tomatoes stand out.

Having said all that, cherry tomatoes are once again a big feature in my diet. I can have a cup of them for 0 points, as I did today. Mmmm...cherry tomatoes...comfort food for 0 points. Can't beat that! That concludes our trip down memory lane today, folks, watch your step on the way out and tip your waitresses. See ya!
posted by Jen @ 11:00 AM   4 comments
A success!
Well, mostly. The Smucker's Strawberry preserves sweetened with Splenda, I mean. Here's my breakfast BEFORE:
2 Eggo Special K low fat waffles: 2.5 points
2 tbsp black berry preserves: 2 points
1 Morningstar Farms Breakfast pattie: 1 point
A total of 5.5 points, but it always rounds it up to 6. However, with the new preserves, I can have:
3 Eggo Special K low fat waffles: 4 points
2 tbsp Smucker's Strawberry preserves: 1 point
1 Morningstar Farms breakfast pattie: 1 point
Ha! Still 6 points, but with more food! (happy dance) Taste-wise, it's obviously diet food. It doesn't have that nasty aspartame after-taste, though, and that's good enough for me! :)
posted by Jen @ 6:32 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
An ode to my laptop
OK, it's not really an ode, but it sounded clever. I think the hardest part about blogging is coming up with a witty title. Anyway, my laptop...

I don't know if I mentioned this before, and I'm entirely too lazy to look it up-those of you that know this just bear with me. TJ's laptop died a terrible death. He re-ordered. That was like 3 months ago. Now, thanks to the stupidity and laziness of other people, AND my husband's impatience, we have TWO new laptops. Well, one NEW-new one, and one new-to-us new one. Guess which one is mine? :)

Anyway, it was decided that my desk would go bye-bye, and we'd ghost my PC's hard drive onto my laptop. K. It worked-sort of. My PC was opened up for the swap, rendering it useless. My laptop, after the hard drive transplant, refused to boot. There I am, with two computers, and neither works. Story of my life, right? Anyway, Billy did his computer magic and now my laptop works-mostly. I get 2 error messages every time I boot it up, and it doesn't understand that "hibernate" means more of a "deep sleep" than "blank screen of death." I also need to buy a new battery, as the life span on this one is about 45 seconds. But that's ok, I can deal with that until I annoy Billy enough to figure it out.

I've putzed around online from the couch, from the kitchen table, and from bed. It's a very handy thing-no more sitting in front of the picture window at my PC, freezing my bum off. The space my desk used to take up is now home to Cam's air hockey table. As it is in front of the picture window, we just put a sheet over it when it's not in use as the cats require a perch from which they can supervise the neighborhood. Yes, our cats own us.

I've decided to name my laptop "Lappy." Anyone else out there a Strong Bad fan? I actually checked the store there to see if they had any "Lappy Logos" (hee, alliteration is fun!) I could buy, but alas they do not. I'll just have to make my own.

So now I'm a laptop girl. Which sounds bad when taken out of context, but you all know what I mean. I sort of miss my mouse, and am having a dreadful time adjusting to the keyboard-I was using an ergonomic monster of a keyboard with my PC and LOVED it. Resa enjoys my typos when we chat, and as I figure it's her biological right to pick on me about it, it's all good. Bear with me if I spell badly or just don't make sense (well, more so than usual); I plan to blame it on the new computer as long as possible. :)
posted by Jen @ 9:53 AM   2 comments
"Humpfh" day
Heh, it's always good to get in a Rudyard Kipling joke before 9 AM. Anyway, it's Wednesday. Whee! Now that I posted about how fast time seems to be going, it ground to a screeching halt. I swore up and down that yesterday was Thursday...much to my chagrin it was not. You'd think that with time slowing down I'd have time to keep up with my laundry, but noooooo. I have a load in the washer that will need to be washed again, lest it get up and walk away in disgust at itself. I have at least 2 more loads waiting to be washed. In reality that's not a whole lot of laundry, and I realize this. I've spent the last few months trying to get in a habit of doing laundry every other day to avoid having to spend ALL DAY washing, drying, and folding clothes. I've done a pretty good job, up till last week.

I was just crazy busy at work, and then school...and I just realized that I never did take that celebratory drink over the weekend. Well, hell. TX Jen, how bout this weekend? Assuming it ever arrives. I won't really be out of MFK until sometime the following week anyway, and even then I'll be on-call for the new owner. I'm thinking a drink last weekend would have been a little premature.

On to other things...I keep going to WW online to peek at my weight chart with all my pretty stars... I forgot to mention the GREEN one to show that I've already lost 25 pounds. How very colorful! I bought some Smucker's strawberry jelly (preserves? I don't remember which) that is sweetened with Splenda...it's only 10 calories per serving, so I'll be able to slather up my toast now, rather than scraping a tablespoon all the way across. :) I just hope it's tasty. I'll be sure to let you know. I've done really well this week so far-I haven't dipped into my weekly points at all, and went to be two nights this week with a few points unused. I think I'm secretly holding out for a 4 pound loss this upcoming week to make it to my MEETING goal...in all reality it should take at least two weeks to do that, but I'm a very impatient person. As my band director used to say, "Get it done yester-dadgum-day!" He was from Mississippi, though, so that was one of his less weird things to say. And on that note, I'm out of here. Later!
posted by Jen @ 8:42 AM   5 comments
Monday, March 27, 2006
Woot!
I lost 3 pounds this week! That was enough to get me to my online goal! I now have a pretty brown star (1st 10% goal) on my chart to go with all my pretty red stars (every 5 pounds). My group leader noticed today when I weighed in that I'm only 4 pounds away from my meeting goal. I hope to have that under my belt in two weeks. (happy dance here) Then she and I will talk about setting another goal...I'm thinking about going with another 10%, but then I'm not sure if it's 10% of my CURRENT weight or my original one-if we go with my current weight, it'll be less to lose than my original 10% (that I'm about to clear). That's either cheating, or just overly confusing, so I'll leave it at that. Yay me!!
posted by Jen @ 7:53 PM   0 comments
It's that time again...
Man, I remember in high school when I'd sit in 7th period English (honors, no less...as if you didn't already know I was geek!) and the 50 minute period would last for YEARS. Now weeks are going by like hours. I hope things don't speed up anymore-I'm already having a hard time keeping up as it is.

Anyway, it's Monday again, and time to begin the weekly speculation about this evening's weigh-in. I've been good this week; I used up 17 of my 35 weekly allowance points with 2 dinners earlier in the week. One was Chinese, and I can't remember to save my life what the other was...hmm. Anyway, I'm hedging my bets that by being good the first part of the week and then REALLY good the last part of the week, I'll get back to my 2ish pounds per week loss. Here's hoping! I'm within 6 pounds of my online goal, which means I ought to be within 11 pounds of my MEETING goal. Confusing, no?

We had Grandma Tucker's birthday party yesterday; she'll be 81 on Wednesday. I ate some mixed fruit, a slice of dill pickle, and some sliced sweet pickles. This was around 4 PM, so I knew we'd have dinner later that evening. There was sausage, meatball subs, potato salad, baked beans, and all sorts of other yummy things. Dessert was carrot cake and/or Grandma Morton's strawberry jello/angel food cake dessert. I had...neither. LOL The carrot cake was sorely tempting, but I didn't give in. Weight Watchers makes these awesome little twinkie-looking cakes that are 1 point each-one is carrot cake with cream cheese icing. It's my favorite. mmmm... Anyway, I behaved. Yay me!

I do feel better about this attempt-I had already given up by this time last year, so I really hope I can stick it out. I think it started with the Superbowl last year-Jen (Kas) and I took that night off for snacks...then it ended up that we weren't dieting on the weekends...that diet went well, as you can well imagine. We did healthy snacks for the Superbowl this year, and both still lost weight that week. Those jalapeno poppers were STOUT, though. Shoo. Anyway, I'm going to get on with my day and will post either this evening or tomorrow with the results. See ya!
posted by Jen @ 8:02 AM   0 comments
Friday, March 24, 2006
When did he get so big?

Check out my kiddo...these were taken before school the day of Spring Pictures.
posted by Jen @ 6:33 PM   1 comments
Aw!!
I taught this morning. Pete was conducting and I was wandering around behind the kids, helping where ever I'm needed. I saw one of the clarinet players not playing her clarinet-in fact, she was leaning over a notebook, writing, and then passed it along to another clarinet player who added something to it and passed it back. Hmm...she's not the type to write notes during class, so instead of busting her in front of everyone in class, I peered over the last two rows of chairs to try to see what she was writing. I read:

Dear Mr. Krostag,

Thank you for hiring Mrs. Smith. She's been a huge help...

And then I was too busy going, "Wait, what?!" to read any more. Then I got a little teary-eyed. Yes, I am a sap. It's not that I want the kids to LIKE me-I'm not there to be liked. It's just nice to know that I'm appreciated. I've had a nice, shiny feeling all day now. I didn't read anymore of the letter, and I didn't bust her for writing notes in class. I'm curious (ok, nosy) to know what they plan to do with it, but assume that I'll find out eventually. And in all honesty, even if they crumple it up and throw it away, that's fine with me. The gesture was beautiful. :)
posted by Jen @ 4:05 PM   2 comments
Thursday, March 23, 2006
I ache
My knees and ankles are very sore tonight. I haven't really done anything remotely exercise-like; I did a very slow inventory today with the guy that's buying the website I run. Very slow. So were were on our feet for many hours today. I was wearing my black quasi-combat boots, so there was NO support there. I'm just getting old. ...sigh... Anyway, I plan to take a drink this Saturday to toast the sale of the website-TX Jen, I'll let you know when so you can toast, too. Anyone else looking for a reason to drink, feel free to join us.

So today is the 2nd day of Spring. Pensacola has enjoyed its usual "Spring" weather: cool to cold at night and hot during the day. You still can't put away the winter clothes, but have to keep out something short-sleeved or you'll swelter. We had a very mild winter, too, so a lot of my winter stuff was never even used. After a mild winter and a long early Spring, tonight we have a frost warning. Go figure. I'm probably going to haul up the blankets on the bed again, and dig out some of Cam's PJs.

Oh, speaking of, Cam fell out of his top bunk Sunday. Uh huh. He was reaching out to turn off his TV, and over the side he went. The more I think about the bad things that COULD have happened, the more freaked out I get, so I'll just say that he's fine except a minor scratch under his chin where he caught his computer on the way down. I'm going to be completely gray-haired within 5 years.
posted by Jen @ 7:16 PM   1 comments
Is it Friday yet?
Man, I really just don't think I'm going to make it till the weekend. Not that I have anything spectacular planned, I'm just ready for some time to do NOTHING. Well, to do NOTHING and not get in trouble for it.

Have I posted since the weigh-in on Monday? I can't remember. I lost a half a pound, which works for me! Now that things have settled down, I'm hoping to get back to losing another 2-3 pounds a week. I've never been a patient person, and while I know the weight is going down and my clothes are fitting better, I want it to happen faster. ...sigh... Patience, grasshopper. I know. I wore a pair of khakis yestereday that I only recently was able to fit into again, and they were much looser than before. Yay!

So it's been nice and temperate here lately-our version of Spring. Cold/chilly at night and in the mornings, and hot during the day. I was looking over the local paper's website this morning, and there's a frost warning out for tonight. Wha?

Cam had Spring pictures yesterday and was looking quite cute. Once I can locate the cable for my camera I'll upload it. Someone got him a white long-sleeve, button-down dress shirt with a little clip-on tie for Christmas-either Barb or Becky, I can't remember which. He wore that to school, and had the front of his hair spiked up. Too cute.

OK, that's all the rambling I have for today-it's going to be hectic at work so I doubt I'll be able to read mail or chat...call me if you need me!
posted by Jen @ 6:30 AM   0 comments
Monday, March 20, 2006
Vacation? What vacation?
Bah. Spring Break was last week...I worked every day except Friday which was spent on the road going to the thriving metropolis of Umatilla, FL for the annual Florida Trail Conference. We had a really good time-no screaming fits at 2 AM like last year. Heh, that's a funny story (well, funny NOW) for later. Anyway, my only complaint was trying to sleep in my hammock the first night-ye gods. This was the first time I'd used it, so the ropes were all new and not-stretched out. Most uncomfortably, the ropes at the HEAD stretched out but the ones at the feet didn't...so within about an hour of climbing in the damn thing and maneuvering into my sleeping bag, I realized that my feet were about 6 inches higher than my head. By the time I gave up around 3 AM, they were about a FOOT higher than my head. I'll describe that adventure in further detail later...it's quite funny NOW, but not so much at the time. I ended up sleeping in the backseat of the Tahoe the rest of the morning. TJ fixed it up for me, and the next night I slept like a dead person. Well, a cold dead person-it was pretty chilly that night.

We bought a meal package for the conference, so you can imagine how the diet went. Lasagna for dinner Friday night, eggs and bacon for breakfast the next day, tacos for lunch, and BBQ chicken for dinner Saturday. Weigh-in this afternoon will be interesting. Did I mention that I lost 2.5 pounds again last week? May have to make that stretch over two weeks. LOL

Oh, TX Jen, I have a band-related funny story for you. I was walking from the bathrooms to the hammocks Friday night and I SWORE I heard a Dr. Beat-DB88 with the emphasis on each beat. Very distinctive sound, no? By the time I made it back to the hammocks it had stopped. I asked TJ if he heard it and hadn't; shortly after, I heard it again (as did everyone else) and then I heard a snare tap off. Wha? Drumline warm-ups? Indeed-it was the standard marching band drum warm-up. In the woods. Okaaay. The next morning we go down to breakfast and I see a whole passel of folks in a field stretching-it must be a drum corp! And it was-Magic, to be precise. So even when I ride for 7 hours out to the middle of NOWHERE, I'm still hanging with a bunch of band geeks! Go figure.
posted by Jen @ 10:16 AM   1 comments
Friday, March 10, 2006
One more day...
Tomorrow is County Concert Contest. A load of my friends are going camping this weekend...I get to go hang out with high schoolers. Hardly fair, but I'm doing it. Because I'm a grown-up, and we do things like that all the time. Bah. Anyway, Mr. K and I are cautiously optimistic about the kids' chances for straight 1s. Here's hoping... Once we get over this hump, we have the Spring Concert and then Graduation. I'm already itching for marching band again, which is good and bad-we're going to the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville next school year. That's New Year's Day...which means our marching season this year will last until JANUARY. I was done with it by September this past year, so we'll see how that goes. Anyway, we're going to start on the show music later this month (again, I'm slightly concerned about burning out too quickly, but we're all really excited about it now...) and they'll play the parts they know for the Spring Concert. We're going to make sure all the feeder schools (Bellview and Wedgewood Middle) know about it so that next year's freshmen can come hear it if they want. We're also getting new uniforms this year-it's going to look pretty sharp! If we could only find a guard instructor... Anyway, that's really about all I have to report today-all band stuff. Once we get past Contest I ought to be able to focus on other things. I hope. :)
posted by Jen @ 10:26 AM   0 comments
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Gracious...
It's been a busy week! The weigh in on Monday? Eh. I didn't lose ANYTHING. So I guess I was spot-on with the guilt. Not that maintaining is a bad thing-it's just not LOSING. Anyway, in other news, I now have a laptop. Whee! Billy copied my PC's hard drive over to the new (to me) laptop, which promptly barfed on its own shoes. So I was temporarily without PC OR laptop. I was checking my mail on my PDA; nice to be able to do, but not something I'd want to do for any length of time. The laptop is up and running now, as long as I don't let it go to sleep. The instant it goes into hibernation, all hell breaks loose and you have to actually take the battery out to get it to shut down. So...anyway, here I am. Back on track with my diet, and sitting on my bed next to a VERY grumpy Cam doing his homework. He's been whining, adding, and subtracting for almost 30 minutes...there's been more whining than anything else, hence the duration. Anyway, I apologize for the delay-computer issues and other such irritants kept getting in the way. :)
posted by Jen @ 5:59 PM   0 comments
Monday, March 06, 2006
Monday again? Already?!
Well, it's been an interesting week. I've done well diet-wise; I've stayed well within my points range, and even walked a couple miles. Whoo hoo! Even though I've stayed in my point range, I still managed to have Chinese one night, and pizza another. Between the two wonderful, delicious, scrumptious, fattening dinners I did manage to use a good amount of my weekly points, but that's what they're there for. I keep telling myself that, but I still feel guilty, and it's driving me nuts. (the yelling to follow is aimed at me, not you, dear reader) I AM ALLOWED TO HAVE AN EXTRA 35 POINTS PER WEEK! Why do I feel bad? Ugh. I think it's because I've been losing just over 2 pounds a week by NOT eating them. I can still lose weight eating those extra points, but not as fast. I guess? Who the hell knows...we don't expect my brain to function anywhere in the "normal" range anyway, right? We'll see later tonight, huh?
posted by Jen @ 10:39 AM   0 comments
Friday, March 03, 2006
Happy Birthday to Resa!
Yes, it's that time of year again! Happy Birthday to my favorite baby sister of all time! Cam says, "Happy Birthday, Sa!" We love you, and you're NOT a bad person for not emailing or anything-you're busy adjusting to a very interesting new job. :) We love you!
posted by Jen @ 9:25 AM   1 comments
Traveling Bells
Danny Lyons, the piano technician at work, has gone back over to Serbia. He went last year to rebuild a piano, and this year they've invited him back to perform a handbell concert. He's maintaining a blog to keep everyone up-to-date on his adventures and it's quite a good read. I added him to the list on the right, or you can cheat and just click here.
posted by Jen @ 9:23 AM   0 comments
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Excel, why hast thou betrayed me?
I can do amazing things with Excel. I can make numbers dance, I can make bad numbers look good, and I can make charts and graphs out the wahzoo. I'm pretty sure you could use it to solve world hunger, or even charter peace in the Middle East, but my ADD prevents such drastic steps. Today, however, I'm stymied. All I want to do is make a chart. Something I've done many, MANY times with much success. Today, however...not so much.

I highlighted the 4 fields I want to include in the chart. I click on the pretty little chart button. For some reason, it assumes that the first two fields (in the same row as the 2nd two fields) are not included in the data, are are supposed to be the series name. Wha? No, put those numbers down there with the others-I didn't TELL you to do that! I can not figure out why it keeps putting those numbers in the wrong place-I've never had this problem before! If I go to the previous month's numbers (in the same row, directly adjacent to these four offensive fields) it works properly. If I go to the NEXT month's numbers, it gets all screwed up again.

I feel betrayed! Hurt! Confused! If Excel isn't the pliable numerical whipping post I've always known it to be, what ELSE am I wrong about? I'm going to go curl up in the fetal position and whimper until someone can help me figure this out.
posted by Jen @ 9:08 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
It was a good day
The entire state of Florida is doing FCAT testing this week, so my teaching schedule (during the day) is completely screwed up. I drove up to school to find that there were NO students in my class. I went to work and got a lot of stuff done before we opened, and had a relatively pleasant day. I went home to eat and change clothes before leaving for rehearsal, and realized I had a little more time than I expected...what to do? I briefly considered a nap, but realized that a 45 minute nap would do me much more harm than good, so I put on my hiking boots and took a walk.

I really enjoy walking-especially alone. My MP3 player is one of the best investments I've made when it comes to exercising-I was attempting to walk to the beat (it's the band nerd in me) but some of the zydeco and Irish tunes I had on there were a little too challenging for that. I did 2 miles in about 30 minutes, and it was actually pretty nice. Especially compared to the walks in August...LOL! It earned me a couple extra points for the day, too, but it turned out I didn't need them. I ate all my daily points and am saving those for another day this week...at least I THINK I can do that...we'll find out!

I don't have rehearsal this afternoon, so I may see about getting hold of someones lawn mower (ours wouldn't start Sunday) and taking care of the yard...it looks like CRAP! The winter's been so mild it has grown up dreadfully. One of the guys on TJ's crew has a lawn business but has neglected us as of late, so it looks like I'll have to take care of it myself. I'm the one that has to stare out the window at it while I'm on my computer, so I guess it's only fair. Besides, I enjoy doing it when it's not 100 degrees out.

Anyway, I made salmon for dinner, which is probably one of my top ten favorite dishes, diet food or not. Yum! The peppers and onions messed up my tummy this morning, but it's to be expected...that's the price you pay for eating something so yummy that's also good for you. I did burn the hell out of myself while cooking, though. Anyway, that's all for today-nothing witty, charming, or remotely interesting, but I'm putting it all out there anyway. :) Later!
posted by Jen @ 10:25 AM   2 comments
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