TRAINS!

Mike a new free DVD player for cashing in his reward points. So he hooked it up and AJ can watch his train video. He loves all modes of transportation, but planes and trains are his faves. By the time I dug the camera out of my purse and started it up, he was not as vocal as he started out. But he stood there riveted for the better part of the 45 minutes the video played. I relaxed, taped him, made dinner, and checked my email while he stood and announced each engine as it arrived in the scene. He learned new words like "fireman" "steam" and "bridge" that he repeated 30 or so times throughout the evening.

He has watched this DVD 4 times since Wednesday. It is Thursday night right now. That's a lot of trains for me.

Week 2- OFGS

I will not mask my disappointment. I will also not lie about my sneaky food habits. I only lost .5 lb this week. I exercised 6 out of 7 days, and I ate all the right foods in the right portions. So I was hoping for a bit more this week. I also noted that I was hungry. This led to 2 "bad" days. Wednesday I ate too much and I didn't feel good the rest of the day. Thursday I ate too much bread and ate popcorn on a field trip. Oops. But I gotta get real- I like that stuff and there is not room in my life for such a strict regimen that does not allow me to eat some of the things I like. I just have to work on stopping after the right serving size.

This is my new focus for the week.

As far as my knees go, they are feeling almost back to normal. Coach Kenny is making the girls and me jog before our weight training after school. This should be interesting...I hope I don't spend the weekend with bags of frozen veggies on my legs again.

Frisbeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Personal Shopping Plug

My friend Katie is helping me with Operation Fat Girl Slim. She gave me a meal plan and even DID MY SHOPPING. That is the spectacular part. When I am accountable to someone else for my eating and working out, I tend to have more success. So I dialed it up a notch and figured that if she went to all that trouble to do that for me, I better get my butt in gear and show her I can do it. If you are interested in having your own personal attention from her, let me know and I can set her up to contact you! Either leave me a comment here, email me or write on my Facebook wall.

Katie Schaefer Choudhary Oh yes, I am starting my personal shopper business as well. If you are a busy person who doesn't have time to grocery shop, message me and I'll give you the details. You just need to email/phone in your grocery list to me and I'll do it all for you.

She is very knowledgeable about special dietary restrictions as her son has food allergies. She is kind and generous and is a child of God I am blessed to know!

Operation Fat Girl Slim

Week one is done. I lost 5.5 pounds.

I have learned many things:

• I have a love/hate relationship with Jillian Michaels.
• I may like beans more than I thought.
• It is hard to drink 64 ounces of water a day when you're a teacher.
• I'm old and slow.

I learned that last little gem on Thursday when I decided to let the PE teachers work me out at the Olympics Track and Field Games during after school programs. Here's how it all unfolded. I went out to warm up and the first thing they had me and the 15 kids do was high knee running things down the field and back. Strike one. I did it, but not well. Then I had to do those silly football side slides all the way down and back and then a series of sprints. As I felt my heart stretching to accommodate all the blood my fat body needed to live, and my lungs pull to help my brain stay functioning, I also became aware of the stiffness and pain developing in my knee caps.

But I kept going.

I was assigned to be a part of the Canada team with A and B. A is looking at me sideways thinking, "Great. Old teacher on my team= no medals." B is just smilin'...he has not idea what is about to befall his team.

I had to run a relay. We have no track, so we ran it on the field. The bumpy, full of holes and possible-dog-doo-land-mine-infested field. Anyway, one lap was probably where I should have called it quits, but I had to do 3 laps. Mexico lapped up and A just gave up and walked, but the teachers made me do ANOTHER lap and we came in dead last. I tried to lay down under the tree but they made me get up.

After that, we had to do hurdles. Now I believe that this might have been my undoing. The positives were that I did not knock any over. They were about 12 inches off of the ground, but it was still hard. And I finished the whole thing. The negatives were that the rest of the Canadian team was mad at me. A says, "We didn't win ANYTHING, you know!" Sorry little dude. And the pain in my knees had turned into a stiff and frozen PAIN!!!!!!!! and I had to limp to the car to go pick up AJ. After fighting off the urge to vomit on the way home, I attempted to get out of the car at home. Attempted. I had to sort of flop out with the help of gravity.

AJ thought this was great fun and raced up the steps without me. I pulled myself up by the banister and spent the rest of the evening with ice packs on. I feel much better today, though. But not good enough to go back to the Olympics. Canada wouldn't let me back in, anyway.

"Water Watch It Down!"

We have been blessed with a beautiful spring. AJ and I have been getting out more and taking Daddy with us, too. We headed out to the park in the wagon the other day and enjoyed a swing on the swing. He is talking a lot more and string more and more words together. Most of his sentences are backwards, however, but that makes it funnier.

There is a "water fall" at the end of the block, so we stopped to investigate.

Then Daddy took us to our favorite family gathering place...the carwash.

That's It.

I have reached it. That limit that is reached when you are out of breath, out of patience for what doesn't fit, what doesn't look right, and out of money to keep supersizing clothes because many meals were supersized. I used to look like this.

Now I don't. And I am over it. For those of you who have never experienced a weight problem, it is not something that I can explain to you or just fix. You don't get it. Don't try to. And by "weight problem", I mean any unhealthy weight at either extreme.

I'm putting it out there, people. Here I am...I mean was. Hopefully in the coming weeks/months/years there will be less of me. Like there was before. When I could breathe.

Easter Celebration

We went to church at 10:00 am and then came home to await Lola, Lolo, Gramma Betty, Papa Rog, Uncle Chris, Lisa, Mireya and Mia.

When everyone got here, we hunted for eggs in the yard. AJ looked neat in his little outfit. The weather cooperated but it was really windy and made the sound on the video camera real loud.

Mia was a bit faster on the egg grab than AJ was, but we all had fun helping the kids out.

Found This...

while waiting for Easter guests to arrive. I think Mike would like it. (If he read the bog, that is.) Just Joking - ha, of course my husband reads the blog, all the time! Just don't ask him about what it says.

Easter Egg Hunt

There was an Easter Egg Hunt over at church today. Since it was raining, we had to set up in the basement. This church basement has looked pretty much the same since I went to Sunday School there in the 70's.

Our friends came and so did Gramma Betty and Papa Rog. Mike took the pictures as I was running the egg dying station.

AJ had a chicken basket. He was not wide about it at first, but he came around.
After a while, he let go of my leg and would run around with Mike and GB. He collected a bunch of eggs and then would have a drink of juice.

Ella and AJ did a great job representing the 2 year olds!

SPRING BREAK!

We have been really busy this Spring Break. I am behind in my postin'!

Monday: AJ and I went to our "BB" group at the hospital and played and visited with the moms and babies...er, toddlers we don't get to see except on days off. Then AJ hung out with Dad while Mama and Gramma Betty went shopping. We found Easter outfits for AJ and me. We also bought a little Elmo Potty so AJ can get used to that.

Tuesday: We had a TERRIBLE trip the Aquarium. No more will be said about that.

Wednesday: AJ and I traveled to Romeoville to visit Anthony and Ms. Katie. We saw a big plane, a bobo, and went for a wagon ride.

Thursday: Steph, Macy and Ella played with us at their house and we went to the park, played with toys and chatted. But I forgot the camera. L

Friday: Re-Pete Mangione (born 3-30) needed a visit, so we headed over there to see him. Jillian, Jayne and Pete seemed happy, although REALLY REALLY TIRED. Diane was there, too and it’s always fun seeing her. Then we dyed eggs and tried to go to the park to play, but since AJ realized he can see the ground through the slats in the playground equipment, he refuses to go on it and screams until we take him home, so that was a wasted trip, but I think we all got our vitamin D for the day since the sun was bright. On the way home, we saw a dad and son flying a kite, so AJ stopped crying.