Why I shouldn't be allowed to use tools

So, I went to Habitat for Humanity today with my dad to work on a house. We worked on one back in the fall, and didn't get to finish for one reason or another. So, they just started the spring build and were able to go today. It obviously requires the use of tools, and I'm fine with that. My dad is very patient with me, and helps me figure out what I'm doing, and finishes it when I can't do it. I'm not very strong, and my muscles get tired very easily. Here is a good example of why I shouldn't be left alone with tools.
We spent our whole day putting in nailers. For those of you, like me, who have no idea what that means, I shall explain. We put 2x4's on some of the framework, sticking out over the ledges, so that they had something to nail the sheetrock to. They don't actually nail it, they screw it, but as the green hat(leader guy) said, "We don't call them screwers." Haha, I thought that was funny, but anyways. So, we were often hammering the nails in in funny positions. We would be on a ladder, in between 2 joists, with our arms wrapped around one of the joists - so that we could reach the nailer we were nailing in. Well, My dad was off cutting a new piece, and I was finishing nailing one in. I wasn't at a good angle, and had gotten a nail bent (that happened a lot) so I tried to fix it. The nail was right in front of my face, and I decided to use the claw side of the hammer to pull it back straight. Normally this would be fine, except for the fact that I was directly in front of the hammer. So, when it didn't move the naile at all, the hammer had no where to go but my nose. That's right, I hit myself in the face with a hammer. I'm pretty glad that I was by myself and up high where no one could see me. It hurt (needless to say), and it pushed some tears out. I was understandably shaken, and kept checking to make sure there was no blood. I mean, how am I supposed to know its broken? The only way I know is, it normally bleeds right? (That's what happens on TV!) It didn't bleed, so I figured it was alright. I didn't tell my dad til we left, and it really had stopped hurting. But now, the pain is coming back. I don't think I hurt anything - its just bruised. So, now I make sure my face is out of the way, whenever swinging the hammer. (You'd think I would've already been doing that.)

22 pairs of jeans

Yup...thats right. I own 22 pairs of jeans. Seems a little much doesn't it? Well, only one pair really fits right now. I have 2 pairs of 22's, one pair of 20's (which I'm wearing practically every day) 5 0r 6 18's, and like 30 16's and 14's. Yeah, I know I only have 22, so I can't have 30 - but you get the point. I went through some clothes last night, so that I wouldn't miss a chance to wear something. I still have a whole closet to go through. I have a lot of clothes. And, as you can see, they are in such a vast range of sizes, I couldn't possibly wear them all. In fact, I think a good bit of them were either worn once or not at all, because I gained weight.

Not much else to say, but here's a picture from last weekend's trip - Fun times!

Basketball!!

So, I went to Little Rock this weekend to watch the Memphis Tigers play! It was lots of fun but really bad for my weight watchers. I knew it was gonna be a hard weekend, and had kinda come to that realization. What really got me down was how disappointed I was in the food I ate. Let me take you through my weekend. We left here about 11:00 and I ate something before we left to help out my hunger in the future. Then we stopped at a gas station and I got some chips, which weren't great - but are there really good options at a gas station? Then, when we got to Little Rock, we went to Chili's. I wasn't incredibly hungry and was trying not to eat bad, since it was kinda a lunch/dinner and knew I would be eating again later. So, I got the turkey combo thinking it wouldn't be much food. Well, it was a lot more food than I thought. But, I didn't eat many fries - just stuck with the sandwich and salad. We went to downtown Little Rock Saturday night - wow was it exciting. By the way, I'm saying that sarcastically. We ended up having a lot of fun, but there wasn't much there. We went to a Pizzeria, because our options were limited. My mom and I have been talking about how much we've missed pizza - so here was my chance. I split a pizza with Ashley and ended up ordering the worst possible kind of pizza for me. By that I mean - it was a horrible pizza. I felt gipped and like I wasted points on this horrible thing. But, I was hungry and knew I would be drinking so I had to eat something. We had ordered a Chicago style pizza and I didn't know that meant an inside out pizza with the most tomato sauce in the world ever on one pizza. And most people know I hate tomato sauce. So, needless to say, I was not happy. We then went to a dueling piano bar and had a blast! It was so much fun, and we stayed til they were done, didn't get back to the hotel til 2. Then, I had some chips and a candy bar because the drinks gave me the munchies. (Horrible, I know) Then, everybody wanted to get up and go to Cracker Barrel the next morning. So, I had to get up at 8:30, and of course I slept horribly. I don't really like Cracker Barrel and I know there isn't much good to eat there. I ended up getting the small order of the biscuits and gravy. Quite honestly, there gravy does not compare to my mom's. Even my mom's sausage gravy-diet style is better than theirs. And, I really didn't like the biscuits. So, once again gipped and wasted points. Then we headed over to the hotel that the players were staying at. Emily and Ashley are HUGE Tigers fans and Emily is pretty close to being a stalker to Joey Dorsey. So, we had to stand around and wait for them to come out. One player came down for a second, then one of Greg's friends that works with the team came down and said they wouldn't be coming down until halftime of the Texas/Miami game. So...we just went on to the Arena. The Texas/Miami game was horribly boring - plus I was so tired, it was hard to stay awake. We went to get something to eat and we all know what great options arenas have as far as food goes. So, I got some chicken tenders and fries. The fries were soggy and the chicken was too crispy. Yup, you guessed it - once again gipped. So, the game was great, but way too close, but we pulled it out because we're awesome! Then, we decided to stop and get supper right outside Little Rock. We stopped at a Burger King. We were waiting in line and there were 3 people working. One in the kitchen, one at the drive-thru and one at the counter. She kept apologizing, saying they weren't normally this busy on a Sunday night (but you could have thought about the big group of people in town for the games) and then we heard one of the girls say "Are we out of hamburger meat?" So, we decided to drive a little further. We stopped another 20 minutes out in Lonoke, AR at a Sonic. We hit the button to order, and 5 minutes later were still waiting. We asked the lady next to us if she had ordered and she said she had her food but had been waiting 15 minutes for marinara sauce. First of all - is marinara sauce that important?? Second of all, I would have already been out of the car getting someone's attention, but anyways. So, we hit the button again, and they finally took our order. After about 25 minutes of sitting there all together, we get our food and we were missing a corn dog. We waited another 5 for that and said - screw it...and left. So, apparently, Arkansas people are not used to people actually using their fast food restaurants. We had lots of fun joking around about that. Foodwise - I ordered a burger, and the bread was kinda soggy. I'm not sure how that happened, but oh well. All weekend, I ate bad, and it didn't even taste good. That's not even fair. If I'm gonna waste points, I at least want it to taste good. I had a lot of fun though. I just need to do really well this week to make up for it. I didn't go to WI yesterday because I was so exhausted. I also didn't really want to see the scale. So, I may go tomorrow or I may use my pass this week and just go the meeting. We shall see.

And, by the way I was extremely disappointed in my other Tigers for not even making it past the first round. They COULD have gone far if they had tried. So, thanks for messing up my bracket since I had faith put you going much further than you did. Sigh...(shaking head)

Brackets and burgers

Thank goodness for a loss this week! I lost .8 and I could not be happier. All week my scale has been showing me up, so I was expecting a gain. And, the thing is I wasn't bad this week. I ate out Monday night, used my flex points. Then ate good the rest of the week. I did have trouble using all my points everyday. But, when I snacked, I ate well. So - anyways, I'm just happy there was no gain. I would have been happy maintaining!

So, on to basketball. My (Clemson) Tigers did really well, although I was really rooting for them in the championship game. Man, that would have been the best feeling ever if they beat UNC. You have no idea how much I hate UNC - like with a passion! I'm just hoping that they lose early in the bracket this year, although I doubt that will happen. So, I have to fill out my brackets. This year I am doing several different ones just for fun. Our family always does brackets online that Mat sets up for us. There are 5 slots - My, my mom, my dad, Mat, and then Mat forces Melanie to do one. Last year, she based her picks off which mascot she liked best. Obviously, she's not that into basketball. This year, she joked about doing it based on who has the most vowels in their name. So, I am doing one thats completely fun - maybe based off colors or something, haven't decided yet. I just finished one doing mostly upsets - it has Pitt winning, which isn't too impossible. Then I will do one for real with a mix of what I think and some hope splashed in. It will be interesting to see how close they each come.

Back to food - I said before that I used my flex points last Monday. Well, we normally go out to dinner on Sunday as a family. Last night, Mat and Melanie chose Red Robin. Although it isn't impossible to eat there on lower points - its really close. Plus, what I normally get is so damn good, its really hard to think of not getting it. I looked at some other options before we went, and came up with squat. So, my mom and I split the Whiskey River BBQ burger and fries. The website showed that as 19 points and wouldn't you have it - I had 19 points left. So, I got my half burger and 5 steak fries - finished in like 10 minutes - and then sat there like, "where's the rest?" I did get a couple more fries later on - but I still just felt gipped. (sp?) But I was proud of myself for not just getting the entire burger - just throwing my hands up and saying "oh well" which is what I felt like doing. Plus, I felt perfectly fine when I got home as opposed to feeling like I might throw up because I forced myself to finish the fantastic burger that was in front of me. So, hopefully I get some more exercise in this week, now that I am not sick anymore - and hopefully I get my schoolwork done ! :/

Slim Feet

I don't know if you remember my fat feet - but my mom was apparently right. I did gain weight in my feet. And, I have now lost weight in my feet. Again - not the first place I wanted to lose weight. I put on those same shoes this morning, and they fit, no problem. Although, I have realized that they're just really uncomfortable shoes, but what're you gonna do?

And, I don't remember if I mentioned but I got A's in both my classes! Yippee!

Its HOT!!

Ok...so, remember a couple days ago when it was snowing? Remember that - 30 degrees, even 40?


Yeah, well, forget it! Its 75 degrees! It's hot! I mean, when I said as long as we get one snowfall, it can get warmer. But, I meant gradually....geez!

Woo-hoo!

Alright, so this week was a much MUCH better week than last. That gain really hit me hard and really upset me. I was so proud of myself that I hadn't gained yet, it was just a big disappointment. So...drumroll please.....I lost 4.2 lbs!! Now 1.6 of that was from my gain last week, but still its a really good loss! I am at 214.8 and 20.8 total! Its really exciting to pass that 20 lb mark. And just 4 more til I get my 10 %. I'm also feeling much better...still have the sniffles a little. But, I have much more energy. So, I should be able to get some exercise in this week. I also wore a pair of 18 jeans yesterday. I kinda felt like I was walking around with pasted on jeans...although my mom said they looked much better than the 20's. I think I may stick with the 20's for a little longer. The 18's are also much lighter jeans than I'm used to wearing, so I didn't really like that either. (Funny that they used to be my favorite pair of jeans.) I dried my 20's last night, and they fit much better for now. Well, I really need to get some school work done...boo!

Ohio and Snow!!

So, we went to Ohio last weekend to visit the cutest niece and nephew in the world. I held Katie as much as possible, fed her, changed her diaper, whatever got me more time with her. And, I got asked to put Ty to bed (by Ty) for the first time. Yay...I felt special! Here's a picture of me with Ty and Katie...one of many trying to get everyone looking at the camera. Also a rare picture of my hair straight!Also, we saw snow up there...but of course we brought the warm weather up with us. Then we came home, had several days of 60 degree weather...then it snowed yesterday...only to have it all melt away this morning.

Here I am...happy as a kid in.....snow!! It was beautiful snow!
I love this picture because it looks like cake fondant spread across the ground with a hole cut in it for the pond. You can barely see where the porch is. So we had our one snow for the year...I'm happy.

um...yeah

Alright, I'm not saying much about certain things today, maybe later. I gained 1.6 this week, which really sucks, and I don't even want to talk about it. What's wrong is I weighed the night before weigh-in and it said 216 and the next morning it said 220.5. Keep in mind, the scale at home is 2 lbs heavier than at WW. So, I gained 4 lbs overnight.
I also am getting sick, which seems to be the inevitable after visiting Ty and Katie. How parents aren't sick all the time is beyond me. So, I didn't feel good from that yesterday, and I also started my period yesterday. I know, TMI, but I just had to show the awful day I had. I felt horrible, with cramps, and my ears hurting, and I was upset about WI. So...push all that deep down inside...

What I really want to talk about is the presidential race. I am a Clinton supporter, but overall a democrat supporter. If McCain becomes president, I may just cry. I will also be completely flabbergasted that this country is really ok with things the way they are, or that they think McCain is actually going to change anything. Anyways...I find the latest primaries to be very interesting. So, Obama was on his run...thinking he had this in the bag. But, not so fast buddy...it seems that the country got a little tired of only hearing how wonderful he was going to be as president, instead of hearing how he might actually change things. I'm not against Obama in the least, I think either Democrat will do a good job. However, I had gotten really annoyed with Obama lately. It was like he thought he had won, and all he had to do now was to do victory speeches across the country. I have also been annoyed with how the Press has made it seem like Obama has smashed Clinton into the ground...like hes running away with the race. The democratic nomination race could not be closer to 50-50. She is only 100 delegates behind him. Even when one wins a primary, they're still splitting th delegates. As far as I'm concerned neither one should be calling victory until they stomp McCain into the ground. Anyways, I just hope that this changes Obama's strategy, cause I sure was getting tired of hearing how he is going to change the world, without actually hearing how he is going to change the world.