. . . All My Chaosity . . .

We're enjoying New Year's Eve festivities at the Wheeler's tonight. We're having pinwheels, pizza, barbeque little smokies, cookies, cake, drinks.... and marinated cheese. I can eat the tops of the pizza, I can probably get away with some sausages but mostly I'm looking forward to the marinated cheese. I'm including my tweaked recipe, which includes parts of Melanie's recipe and also a Taste of Home's. Ta dah! Angie's Marinated Cheese 1/2 cup olive oil 1/4 white cooking wine 1/4 cup white vinegar 1/2 pkg sundried tomatoes 3 tablespoons minced green onions 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 teaspoon sugar 3/4 teaspoon dried basil 1/2 teaspoon salt & pepper 4 oun...

Thought I'd share- because I *love* them. Deucey actually prefers bass, and most of all wants drums. He goes around the house beating on all the furniture,and all over the inside of the car. We'll have to see about those drums...

There actually were pictures on that tiny little card, I just forgot. They would've been super cute too- as it's mostly Bryson and D-Ball playing guitar hero. FABULOUS! Wonder where Bryson hid that little card..... So D-Ball's been bored. Not bored enough to admit he wants to go back to school, but bored nonetheless. Sometimes I consider feeling sorry for him, but then I never really do. He's been playing Lego Batman (on PS2) and Wii games since last week. The Wheelers are finally back in town, and we saw them today and left D-Ball with them for a couple hours while we shopped for a headboard ($50!!!! I make a smokin' deal!!) and a computer desk/armoir. After we returned home fromall of that, I had to nap and Bryson and D-ball made the Black Pearl and something-or-other-else out of the crayola modeling compound/set D got from his grandparents. So tomorrow I have to go to Deep Water Running (DWA for short I think). I know I need to go, but I'm kind of co...

That's all I got. The other pics, with said lame-o hat, are on the camera hard-drive and we can't find the cord to get them off. SoI got 1 lousy picture, in the hat DBall decided to wear on his own, then decided it made his head too warm, and finally gave me the ultimatum. Bluh! We open our family gifts on Christmas Eve, so as to avoid confusion with Santa gifts and because (mostly) I grew up opening family gifts on Christmas Eve. I like it that way, and I have zero patience. I *have* stopped pre-opening presents though... in the last few years. I'm pretty proud out that. Bryson still doesn't put my presents out under the tree early though, just in case. Here's a couple of other pictures from last night. I totally forgot to take pictures of Santa presents this morning- as did Bryson. Ahhh, well....

So I'm at 33 pounds lost now!! WooHoo!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited, this might actually work. I'm of course terrified that it won't, but maybe it really really will. YeeeHaaaaw! Of course I'll gear up to ovulate (and YES, CELESTE ; I know the birth control pills are supposed to stop ovulation- THEY DON'T for me!!!) in the next week or so, and will likely retain water again. Since it's 10 lbs of water retention , it's quite alarming to see it on the scale. But I'll keep eating right, exercising, etc. and I know it will go away after a week or two. If it happens again. I wish it wouldn't. I've been to Harp's today. I've made the gingerbread cookie dough. Bryson and DBall are going to make gingerbread men cookies for Santa, and chocolate chip cookies for Poppy (Bryson). I'm going to bake the pizza rolls, make marinated cheese, etc. We're going to take secret presents to a little family after dark. Then we're going to...

But that's okay. I'm down 31.5 pounds today!!! (total, from the day of surgery). Some of my clothes are too big and my face is starting to resemble me again. I still want HOT & SPICY food all the time, like when I was pregnant (I'm not, thankfully). I'm still scared to try Thai food... since I had IBS before, it might just come back again and kill me or something. You never know. This past weekend we went to Branson. We stayed in a decent hotel with a free buffet breakfast and an indoor heated pool and hot tub. The pool was a real benefit, since it never got over 20 degrees f. outside the whole time we were there. Sunday night we did the "Festival of Lights" which was awful, actually. But then we went to Shepard of the Hills and did their drive through lights and it was REALLY good, I thought. Monday we went to Silver Dollar City, it was frigid but I thought it was pretty fun. We saw three shows there, then Bryson and D-Ball did the Mavel Cave t...

but somewhat useful. I did get my hair cut today ( yay ! I like it!) and I did go to Sam's. Oops-I just remembered I left the groceries sitting on top of the freezer in the garage. I guess they'll be okay- it's 23' outside, so the frozen/cold things still ought to be so tomorrow. I also bought candy for D-ball's GT class... they're making candy houses and his teacher requested we all send something to that end. I'm uncertain how many calories I'm supposed to be eating every day. I tracked it more carefully today, even looked up the nutrition information for some things online to be sure. So today I consumed somewhere between 500-600 calories, approximately 50 grams protein, and drank just over 64oz of water. I know Marla says she tries to eat 1,000 calories a day, and 70 grams protein. I think I will call one of the nutritionists tomorrow and ask how many calories. Last night at the clinic holiday party they told me it would n ot help in any way...

Today was... different. That headache I'd had for the last three days- turned itself into a migraine over night. I was *SO* disappointed, mostly because I wanted to go to water aerobics. I took a pain pill, and was hoping to still make it to WA, but then I got really nauseous and actually threw up, though there was nothing in me to throw up. It was unpleasant. Then I thought the nausea had cleared, so I went with Bryson to drop D-Ball at school. The nausea reappeared in spades, and I didn't think I would make it home. So after that happy turn of events, I came home and went back to bed. I slept til almost 11:00am. But I still have the migraine. Since it's Bryson's birthday we checked D-ball out of school early and went to see "Bolt" in 3D. It was kinda fun actually, I was surprised. We saw Madagascar 2 a few weeks ago- and I didn't really enjoy it much at all. They should've stopped after the first one, in my opinion. I managed to accumulat...

Things are definitely looking up in my world. I've tried a few "soft foods" and it seems to be going well, though there's clearly NO WAY to consume 70-100 gr protein from food for me, with my magic tummy only the size of an egg. Really it's just not going to happen. I believe I'm going to name said magic tummy.... Celeste, bless her heart for real, and Truman her infant accompanied me to World Gym to sign up last week. They advertise this fabulous $22.95/mo deal, and that's what I was going for. I'm supposed to be exercising 3-5days a week, 30-45 minutes each time. I have a Gazelle, which is fabulous and virtually no impact, but my right hip and my lower back start aching so badly about 5 minutes after I begin, and I just can't keep it up. So we went to the gym, had to tour the entire facility, and then finally made it back to the office. Apparently that amazing deal they advertise all over the place limits you to working out: Tues, Thurs and...

So I'm loving the 'real food' change. But I can't imagine getting enough protein in from just food- I'd like 70-100 grams a day. This morning I made two scrambled eggies with cheese- and I'm not entirely certain I managed to get one of the eggs down. I just filled up so fast I couldn't eat any more. So I *maybe* got 7g protein then. For lunch I went back to refried beans- because they go down so smooth and I had a full ounce of cheese in them, plus the cream cheese- so I know I got 14g protein at lunch. Dinner I tried to eat the beans and avoid the rice in Celete's fabulous Red Beans & Rice, but I added a turkey cheddar sausage- which thankfully I was able to eat the whole thing. For "snacks" I've been eating 50% reduced fat cheddar cheese dipped in SALSA- it's so fabulous, and +7 proteins for each little bar of cheese. All in all I've managed over 70 grams protein today- but it took "snacks" and one protein dri...

I had my 2-week checkup today. FABULOUS!!!! I lost 23.5lbs, cured the diabetes and the high blood pressure. I actually felt fantastic all day (the first time in two weeks I could say that) and the Dr. doesn't have to see me again until January 15. So I ran right home and had refried beans; with fat free cream cheese, low fat cheddar cheese, and chipotle salsa Absolute heaven, it was. Of course, after about 1/3 cup I was MORE than full... I start getting this pain in the center of my chest which I take to mean I am finished eating. And I didn't get hungry again, but as I'm supposed to be getting "most of my protein" from real food now, I went ahead and started dinner. I made these fabulous chicken sausages from Sam's- they're so tasty. They have ground chicken, asiago cheese and baby spinach in them- I *LOVE* them. Thought I could eat a whole sausage, but the chest pain showed up a little over halfway through so I decided to stop. Also I'm beyon...