Yukonopoly...and more
Current mood: busy

This year, I get to be the PTO president for Mason's school.  So far it's been a lot of fun getting to know some of the other parents and the teachers.  We have a pretty good team approach going this year.

We're doing a new kind of fundraiser - Yukonopoly.  This is a take off of the Monopoly board game - looks a lot like it, but each of the pieces of property will contain an ad.  We put the ad packets together for everyone who is going to do sales - and are still working through the kinks in the process.

I am also going to sell ads and sell games.  This weekend, my goal is to shoot an amazing photo of the Yukon Mill to put in the middle of the board game.  For those of you who've witnessed my mad photographic skills - say a little prayer, chant, mantra, whatever for me and those who will be subjected to the photo.

I've also set up a 'beginner's' website for Yukonopoly - just to get the information out.  Rob can now work his magic on it if he chooses.  This project ought to be fun as Yukon's growing and has lots of new businesses eager to advertise around town.  I hope, hope, hope that this fundraiser is a big success.  I want to do something significant this year.

Next, Rob just got back from a week-long business trip.  I'm off on my trip tomorrow, so today is Lay Out Everybody's Laundry for the Week Day, and Regret the Fact that I Forgot To Take My Suits to the Cleaners Last Week Day. 

My masters program starts September 1st.  The first class is about Inequality in America, and consists of reading seven books, and doing seven papers in seven weeks.  First book is The Communist Manifesto (TCM), which I have never read, but am glad that it's short.  I'll be taking it and whatever the second book is on the plane.  Hopefully I can get through it.  Oh yeah, I've gotta get some new MP3's from Rob and replace my ear buds before I leave.  Hopefully the MP3 player will keep me awake through TCM. On that note, I'd better go!!!  Happy weekend.

2:35 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Back from San Fran - the city with a ton to do and great weather.

Last week, I attended a conference for work during the day.  In the afternoons and evenings, I had fun.  Rob and I had originally planned to take an RV across country with the kids and take this trip as a family.  This trip will be a blast in a couple of years.  A lot of the stuff I did was geared towards families.

Day 1 - Monday - Meetings started at 1 PM.  I came in on the early flight and got to the hotel around 10 AM.  Nice hotel, right in the middle of shopping district, Union Square and Market street area.  I immediately went to Macys and tried on some clothes.  I made the mistake of accidentally looking at the pricetag on some bathing suit off of the clothing rack.  $94, on...clearance?  I sat down the clothes and got away from that store.  No thanks!  I ate Chicken Nuggets for lunch and headed to the meeting.  After the meeting I met up with other folks from OKC and went on the subway, a first for several of them, to the Embarcadero area of town.  We walked forever until we got a bellman to give us directions to a good Thai restaurant.  We ate and then headed for a cool bar with old motorcycles hanging all over the place and a resident 28 lb cat.  We got...loud and had a good time.

Day 2 - Tuesday.  Got up at 5:30 and worked a bit on email and stuff then went for a 2-mile walk.  Ate some San Fran ice cream for breakfast.  More meetings.  We at least had a 2 hour long working lunch at the Cheesecake Factory to get some action plans worked up.  In the evening we headed to Pier 39 and caught a boat ride around the Bay area.  We went under the Golden Gate bridge, around Alcatraz and almost to the Bay Bridge.  Nice ride.  After that we walked thru a lot of cool sidewalk cafe seating areas over to the Cannery, where we found good margaritas and mexican food. 

Day 3 - Wednesday.  Got up early again and worked.  Meetings turned into conference sessions.  As soon as I got out of the last session, I headed for the drag queen stores to find shoes for my size 13 feet.  I had a blast trying on shoes of all kinds, but oh, were they expensive.   I finally settled on some (get this) payless shoes.  They come bigger in the gay part of town.   I met up with my friends at an Italian place for appetizers and drinks and then we headed over to see Beach Blanket Babylon - America's longest running live show.  And oh, was it a hoot.  It had great singing, and hats galore that just kept getting bigger.  By the end of the show, the hats on stage were like 8 feet wide and really really tall.  Lots of fun.  After that we had dinner at a different restaurant (Little Italy part of town).  They had good drinks too.  After that, all 6 of us climbed into the back seat of a cab and headed for the hotel.  Me, being the party pooper went to bed at 11:30.  At 2:00 though I was awakened by familiar voices - not in my room, but out on the street.  My group had headed for the hotel's bar and had somehow ended up outside and they were hootin' and hollerin' like I've never heard back home.  I did see some interesting pictures from that night.

Day 4 - Thursday.  Got up not as early as before, but still worked a little.  Went to some sessions at the conference.  Didn't even go back to my room but headed for the pier with one of my traveling companions and rented a bike to ride to the Golden Gate Bridge.  After the first couple of major hills and miles I was like, oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into?  We slowed down the pace as we crawled up higher and higher towards the bridge.  Finally we got there and the weather went from cool to foggy/cold/'almost' raining.  The bridge was awesome and worth the ride.  After going across the bridge, we rode downhill for several miles to the little historic town of Sausalito - where the rich people live.  We rode through the land of Lamborghinis and had lunch on the water and then caught a ferry back to San Fran.  We had just enough time to meet our group for the night time Segway Tour, which is the next blog.  Straight after the Segway tour, I went to bed, and sat 3 alarms to get up at 2 AM.  Caught a 5:45 flight out of Oakland to home. Thank goodness!

2:53 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

My version of the princess and pirates party...
Current mood: exhausted
Category: Life

This is a post to help busy moms who are planning a princess party - I got a lot of help from other people's blogs about the topic when planning ours and thought I might share my lessons learned...

BTW, next time I start talking about some big bash for some celebration, make me read this blog first...

So Morgan, up until a couple of months ago had decidedly wanted a Chuck E Cheese birthday party.  We love those kinds of parties - you send out the free invitations to a few kids, pick up a cake on the way and good 'ol Chuck takes care of the rest.  When it's done, you write a check and they clean up the mess.  Well, then what happened?  Cinderella happened. One day Morgan announced she wanted a Cinderella party.  I think, "I can do that!"  We instantly decided to have pirates involved so Mason and all the big and little brothers could be participants.

The party started small, and then it got outta control really quick.

I started looking around for a Cinderella for hire.  There are two in OKC - one looked pretty good but she'd just retired, the other, um always wore bad wigs on her website pics that looked kind of funny.  I decided to ask one of the kids' teachers to do it - Stacia - she's on my myspace friends list.  Stacia is really good with the kids and always does little drama shows around town, so this gig would be perfect.  We rented a dress for Cinderella - while I was at the costume shop I picked up a Snow White costume for myself as well.

(Note:  There was another kid's birthday party going on at the community center during ours.  The attendees of that party made several visits outside the doors of ours to come watch the princesses.  Lesson learned - shut the doors so you don't disrupt another kid's party if you're having character visits.)

I decided that I didn't want the stress of having to clean house a bunch before the party, so I rented a room at the community center in Mustang.  I later had to rent a bigger room at the community center as the guest list got a little out of control.  Then I made the mistake of looking online for princess party ideas…And I started late.

People, there are some ladies in the world with a lot of free time on their hands.  And of course, once you read their blogs you'll be compelled to do what they did, and more.  They decorate party rooms up with Christmas lights, homemade castles, pumpkin carriages, red carpet rolled out - you name it, some nutty mom has done it.  So I thought, "I can do that!"  Oh boy.

I started at Garden Ridge, where they were having a huge sale on a line of wedding and party supplies that were being discontinued.  I grabbed some bargain wedding invitation kits with sparkly parchment covering and ribbons with a daisy on the front.  I sat on them for two weeks before deciding I was either going to have the party or not.  Of course, my printer driver was nutso and I ended up printing them ever-so-slightly off center - just enough to drive ME nutso. 

Invitation Wording: 

Calling All Princesses and Pirates
Princess Morgan is Turning 3!

Join us for a Royally Fun
Princess and Pirate Birthday Adventure

A Cake and Ice Cream Feast for All!

Sunday, June 29th
3 to 5 PM

At our Far Away From Home Castle
Mustang Town Center Building
Address

Please wear your favorite princess gown or pirate garb.

RSVP to Captain Rob at Phone.

Be There or Walk the Plank!

I literally waited until 13 days before the party, then took an hour of leave and printed the invites really quickly and threw them together while the ink was drying.  Since we were late getting them out we delivered them on the way home from picking up kids.  I 'snuck' to friends and family members' mailboxes, hoping we wouldn't get caught and have to stop (cutting into my delivery time) and visit.  We didn't.  As soon as I pulled out of people's driveways, I'd call them and say "go check your mail."  (This way the invites weren't in mailboxes when the mail carrier came).  Invites really should be sent 2-3 weeks before a party, so I kinda messed up here.  I fretted about the RSVPs the whole time.  The lesson speaks for itself. 

As recommended by other bloggers, I decided to get the goody bags from Oriental Trading online, which was a lot of fun.  I liked it that I could shop in the middle of the night and be able to get some things that were outside the normal Wal-Mart stuff.  I picked brightly colored backpacks and pirate backpacks for the kids and then just a few things inside for each:  inflatable swords for the pirates and magic wands for the princesses, along with a ring and plastic metallic noisemaker for each. Since I waited until one week before the party to shop, I had to pay extra shipping to get the goods on time - start a little earlier to save the $$$.  They did have an amazing selection really cheap though.

Note:  I'm glad I got the bigger room.  Nothing good can happen when you give a bunch of little boys swords and don't give them adequate space to use them.

Check in - I set up a check in table outside the room.  When kids got there I wrote two name tags for each.  One went on the child so Cinderella could know their names.  The other one went on the goody bag.  I told each child to keep their bag with them as they would be winning prizes.  I sent them inside to the craft table to start on their crafts.

While I was at Oriental Trading's website, I noted that they had some pretty cool crafts for kids to do, so I decided to have a craft table.  We set up a table with make-your-own fairy princess hats, eye patches, swords, and telescopes, and another table with a color your own cup.  I have to admit that the craft table didn't go as well as planned.  I had hoped that each kid would leave with their own pack of markers and a couple of neat and tidy little crafts.  What actually happened is that the kids who showed up earliest got a head start and the markers ended up spread out everywhere, mixed in with a pile of craft stuff all over the table.  All the markers ended up coming home with me.  I think the kids enjoyed the free for all with the art (a lot of parents helped supervise this - thank goodness), and I did see some good creations walking out the door, so I shouldn't be so hard on myself.  Next time though, I think I would probably pack up the craft stuff for each kid and put it in their goody bag.  Then they could take the craft to their seats and keep their own stuff separate instead of having a big pile to dig through.  Lesson learned.  I guess another lesson would be to relax on the expectation of how stuff should go and let it all play out.

I also found some Disney Princess tattoos and pirate tattoos.  I sat up an un-covered tattoo table with a sponge cut in half, tattoos, paper towels and two plastic bowls of water.  I had older nieces sitting at the table throughout the party giving free tattoos.  This was fun, and some kids went up there several times to get different tats.

Food.  I was on the fence about serving snacks or not.  I didn't plan much, and decided that if I wanted food I would run to Sams Club the morning of the party and just pick up pre-done trays from the deli.  Saturday night before the party, I decided that this was where I drew the line.  Since our party was between mealtimes, I went with two things besides cake and drinks:  a big pink bowl of goldfish crackers and a big pink bowl of Chex mix.  Rob's mom brought a platter of hot doctopus (hot dogs halved, then sliced about halfway down several times, then dropped in boiling water - the 'legs' curl up and look like really cute octopus - kids love 'em).  In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't go crazy with the food. The Sams run would have been an unnecessary expense and a lot to clean up afterwards.  (Lesson:  you don't have to serve a full spread for 10 AM or 2 or 3 PM parties lasting 2 hours).

Of course you all know that Rob and I baked two practice cakes and then pre-baked, and froze the final doll cake.  I thawed it out and decorated it the morning of the party. I honestly think everyone who did was overly kind to complement the cake - I am not creative at all.  Anyone can do a cake with a single piping bag and a star tip.  Even me. We used a crystal serving tray we already had to put the cake on.  I made the table look fancier than normal by covering it with a round tablecloth, then putting a big shoebox down in the center.  I covered the shoebox with a crinkly (clearance) tablecloth and crinkled it all around the stuff on the table.  This put the cake up on a pedestal.  (Total cost of the cake + 24 cupcakes = $6.33).

It's summertime and hot.  We had to have extra drinks, so aside from the cooler of sugar free Capri Suns and water, we made our friend Carol's famous slushy kool aid punch.  Everyone always asks our friend Carol to do punch at every event, so I decided to nab her recipe.  It's awesome and cheap (total cost for 2 big punch bowls = $4.78).  It's prep work is time consuming and it's really high in sugar, so you have to decide what works for you.  It was a hit again though (thanks Carol!)  Here's the recipe in case you want it.

1 cup pineapple juice
1.5 cups sugar
4 cups water
4 packs kool aid (off brand is fine - any flavor)

Mix all this up in a pitcher, and fill ice trays (this batch will fill about 4 ice trays)
freeze for several hours, and empty into freezer bags.
Repeat process until you have at least 8-10 ice trays worth.

When it's party time and 30 minutes before serving, dump half of the punch base cubes into your punch bowl and cover with 1 2-liter of ginger ale (do NOT use 7-up or anything else really sweet as the punch would be way too sweet).  Let it sit for about 30 minutes.  Break up cubes with a long knife right before serving.  DE-LISH!

I found a really cool play in 3D castle decoration by Shindigs at toysrus.com.  You can get it from shindigs itself for TWICE the price.  I have to admit, this was a booger to put together.  It was really supposed to have stones made of corrugated cardboard all around it, but we ran out of time so we just stuck them to the front.  No one noticed after I draped some tulle from Wal-Mart around the top and stuck a few balloons on top.  The kids loved playing in it during the party.  I think I would make my own castle if I had to do it again.   There's nothing you can't do with a cardboard box and some paint or colored duct tape. 

We also bought a bunch of unfilled latex balloons and one of those Balloon Time disposable helium tanks.  My nieces and sister came early and filled the balloons on site - this really saved some money and time transporting 50 balloons.  We put balloons on everything that would stand still, which also made lots of balloons available for kids to take home at the end of the party.

Games - simple.  Pin the eye patch on the (home printed) princess (eye patches were simply cut out of black paper and stuck on with masking tape), and Captain Hook's fishing game.  I used a black Halloween tub (already had it from the Halloween clearance rack) with skeletons on it and three colored fish bath toys from the dollar store.  Because we had a lot of littler kids coming, I barely filled the tub enough for the fish to float to prevent any falling in injuries.  I also didn't want the girls' little princess dresses to get wet if they had long sleeves.  Cinderella had the kids blindfolded and spun them around to pick a fish.  Each fish corresponded with a colored prize bag, from which the kids could grab a prize.  Prizes all came from the dollar store.  One sack was small stuff, one sack was gum, and one sack was bigger stuff.  The kids all love winning their goody bag favors as a prize.  I like these old-timey kinds of games. 

One thing - on the pin the x on the y game - you might make the kids stand behind a line marked by tape a little bit away from the wall.  We saw a lot of cheating going on with the kids feeling for the eye patches that were already stuck on.  As a result we had a lot of 'winners' and I didn't have enough big prizes.  We solved it by letting the other winners pick extra prizes from the fishing game. 

Presents:  Present time is always a mess, and this party was no different.  We spray painted an old chair hot pink and had the princess of honor sit on it to open gifts.  The gift givers were invited to sit on another throne which we draped more of the sparkly table cloth material on and held it down with a sash.  This way, we were able to take each child's picture for thank you cards.  In our case, we had a lot of people, and the gift giving got to take too much time.  So we first had Cinderella sing a song to the kids, and then quickly devised a plan to have each kid sit on Cinderella's lap for a photo op.  This impromptu photo act probably kept the party from getting out of control.  These pics turned out great, and made up what will be the even better thank you cards. 

I loved this party, because each child had a lot of fun just dressing up.  The party was for each kid there, not just the birthday girl.  Each princess really put a lot of thought into her little outfit - shoes, rings, necklaces, crowns, hairdos.  They went all out.  And the little pirates put in equal effort - eye patches, hats, beards jewelry, etc.  All were absolutely adorable.  The parents were really creative with the costumes and that was cool.  I think the kids all had a blast.  At least I hope so.

Funny thing about this all - I think that while Morgan had a wonderful time at the party, her favorite part of the whole day was when I cleaned out the ice chest afterwards.  She took off her little dress shoes and stomped and played in the icy water and just laughed and giggled.  Do you know I could have spent 5 minutes at the 7-11 and $3 and made that kid's birthday!!!  How funny is that!   Again, lesson learned.  Simple is sometimes the best. 

It's been a day since the party and I'm still sleep deprived and my feet still hurt.  I'm glad we did it.  There may be only one year in your daughter's life that she wants a princess party.  I'm sure next year we'll move on to something more real, so I'm glad we had the chance to do it while she still believes in magic.

As a side note, we have had a lot of fun going through gifts to make sure we got our thank you notes correct.  Morgan got a ton of princessy things:  rings, necklaces, crowns, purses, lipstick, earrings, shoes, dress up clothes, Cinderella cell phones...She refused to leave the house without (get this) a Barbie Mariposa butterfly princess costume, 'click-clock' dress up shoes, a ring, necklace, purse, 5 hair clips, a crown and lipstick...all for a trip to Wal-Mart.  Good Lord.  Even riding her scooter down the street all the pink and glittery stuff she had on could have blinded drivers passing by. It's all fun, and this is exactly what she wanted.

Now I have to go book Morgan's 4th birthday party far in advance, as I don't want to miss the date.  It WILL be at Chuck E Cheese's.

You can see a few pics of the party on my myspace.  A ton of pics are on my husband's website:  www.robohara.com.

2:20 AM - 7 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Woo HOO!!!! Thank God the PMP is over!
Current mood: exhausted

You may have noticed that I've all but dropped offline for a while.  It's because I've been studying for the last FOUR MONTHS for a professional certification, the Project Management Professional (PMP).  I've read the book of knowledge, I've read a study guide, taken two online courses, and finally a big-time intensive pre-test bootcamp (from 8-6:30 for four days) last week.  I was scheduled to take the test next Monday, but I just couldn't stand all of this information percolating around in my head anymore.  I finally found an open slot at Prometric in Tulsa today and went to take the test.  I had to leave the house at 5:30, drive to Tulsa and sit there for an hour (had to pad in some time in case there was a traffic problem or whatever else usually comes up when I don't pad in time.)  The test was FOUR HOURS long, and grueling.  After the test, I drove 2 hours in the rain back home.  I could have waited a week, but I wonder how it would have turned out...?

I think everyone around me will agree that I'm much more pleasant to be around now that I'm not trying to retain formulas for Earned Value Management or remember whether you write statements of work during planning contracting or planning acquisitions...Either way, I passed!  Thank goodness it's over.  Now on to bigger and better things...

I have to plan a fundraiser for Mason's school, somehow put together Morgan's upcoming Cinderella party, and oh yeah, I got accepted into the Master's program for Public Administration at OU - starts in August.  Life would be boring without a bunch of stuff going on to keep us outta trouble, I guess.

Susan O'Hara, PMP  : )

11:03 PM - 6 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Have you ever had this happen?!
Current mood: embarrassed

We were having lunch today at the Miller Grill, one of my favorite places to eat in Yukon.  It is doubtful that I've ever made a trip there and NOT seen someone from Yukon there.  Today was the norm - my high school typing teacher and my best friend from fifth grade (Sarah, who's also a friend on myspace) and their family were there.  A teacher at Mason's school was there.

One of the things I love about this place is that it's laid back.  The same mom n pop has owned the place ever since Big Ed sold it back in the early 80's.  They know us and have watched our kids grow up.  It's a hamburger joint - you can show up in your sweats with no makeup, let the kids kinda run around and play video games and pinball or ride on the little motorized boat for a quarter.  I usually bribe my kids.  They have to eat before they get quarters, but they're free to fake play with the games while we wait on our burgers. 

Today though had a bad ending.  My mom, sister and I were peacefully eating our little lunches while the kids played.  I saw Morgan kinda touch in a mean way, a kid on the shoulder.  I corrected her immediately and that was all I saw.  But then an obviously POd mom came over with her little toddler, bearing two big scratches on the child's shoulders.  Looked like Morgan's signature work to me.  The lady said, "I just wanted you to know that she just scratched my daughter."  I can't deny it - I've seen that same scratch on Mason many times, and given numerous butt bustings for the same repeatedly.  Mortified, I apologize and have Morgan come sit for a time out. 

Morgan swears she didn't do it. Granted I didn't see Morgan do it, but the kid works quick and even a sideways glance out the window by Mom would give her time to make her mark.  I never could get a confession from the child, nor could convince her that an apology from her was in order. 

We quietly ate the rest of our lunch, while Morgan's latest victim played video games under a now closely watcful eye of Mama and Big Sister.  We could feel the cold shoulders and angry stares from across the room.  Whaddya do?  If my kid was not wrong, I'd defend her.  When she IS wrong though, I guess all you can do is apologize, and get the hell outta Dodge. 

When Mason was entering his 2's he and a friend at school had a love-hate relationship.  I was always having to apologize to Averie's mom for a bite or scratch incident and she'd return the favor regularly as well.  At least we both understood that both of our kids were biters and knew the embarrassment.  I walked around for a solid 12 months in fear that Mason would get kicked out of his school  It eventually ended for both kids about the same time.  They love each other today.

This incident however, is just one of those things that the only way the kid could get back was with those awful cold stares from the family.  I hate that.

11:34 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

MySpace Tangent
Current mood: cooky/wacky

Do you ever get going on a MySpace tangent and end up looking at blogs and pictures of people you will never know?  Ya know, you start off at a friend's page, then a friend of a friends, and it just keeps going?

I did that tonight and have decided that my friends' default pictures are all normal.  Well, except for one of you (you know who you are!).  Why is that?  I was on some gal's page and every one of her friends had artsy-fartsy kind of graphics for the avatars.  Do you think she made them all up with individual accounts, or that she's really got friends who won't post their picture.  It's wierd. 

Another one I got off on tonight, started the same.  A friend's, then a friend of a friend's, then pictures.  And low and behold...this person who I barely know, who lives more than a thousand miles from me, has the SAME couch as I do (well, he obviously doesn't have kids because the couch looks pretty new). 

Ya know, MySpace is like watching soap operas.  You get all up in the business of people you don't know.  WHY!?  I don't need anyone else's business to keep me busy, but it's just so stinking interesting. 

I think I need to go to bed.  Had too much cold medicine tonight and Rob's not home to keep me in line.

10:04 PM - 5 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

Gettin’ ready to post the 150 lbs. lost pics
Current mood: happy

nuff said!  I'll post 'em sometime this week.

9:46 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Unintended Consequences
Current mood: content

For those of you considering the surgery, here are a couple of things that are unintended consequences of losing a lot of weight;

1.  For some reason, my tailbone is killing me all the time.

2.  It hurts when I go barefooted now.  I think my heels are skinnier or something. 

3.  My feet are narrower - a big unexpected plus that is going to cost Rob some money, I'm afraid.

4.  My fingers have gone down several ring sizes.  I alwayss thought I just had big hands. 

5.  I can wear normal people pantyhose, and they don't roll down around my knees.  I thought that happened to everybody.

Funny.

5:48 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Nobody told ME!!! A new way of thinking

This blog is really all about the lap-band and a change in the way I've got to think.

As many of you may know, my husband Rob is planning to have Lap-Band done on December 4th.  He is going to a different surgeon than I did due to the fact that Weightwise, where I went, no longer takes our insurance for new patients.  I continue to use Weightwise for my followups and occasional band fills.

When I first started this process, I participated in some online boards and forums for lap band, but basically, since I've been doing well, haven't been participating.  Since I haven't been active, I guess I just wasn't aware of the huge range of differences in diet plans between different doctors.

I had to lose 30 lbs. before my doctor would schedule surgery.  But once I did lose it, the surgery was like a week or two away.  Rob didn't have to lose anything, but he does have to do a 10-day high protein and mostly liquid diet before his surgery date.  That starts tomorrow, by the way.  Tonight we'll be getting rid of any Thanksgiving leftovers and junk food around.  We want a 'clean' house for him to start this process out in.  I wanted to know what foods to buy, and what I need to be preparing for Rob over the next 10 days, so we reviewed his diet plan.  And MAN is it different than mine.

Even the diet after surgery is really different.  His place incorporates daily use of protein supplements and has a daily protein requirement.  My plan doesn't do any of this - it just requires me to eat the first half of every meal as a protein.  I lost a lot of hair and had a few dizzy spells, but I thought that was normal.  Now I see that Rob gets to have protein drinks during his first couple of weeks postop.  I think this is great.

I started thinking about this and went out to one of the Band forums and did a seach for "protein."  It looks like a lot of people have specific protein goals and that eating enough protein may actually increase your ability to lose weight.  Interesting.  Apparently I need a little re-education.  According to a formula Bonnie gave me, I should be eating about 90 grams of protein. 

OK, let's just play this out.  I have 'almost' an egg for breakfast every day.  That's 7 grams.  Let's say I have 1/2 cup of fat free refried beans (7 grams protein) and 1/4 cup green beans (.5 gram) for lunch and 1/2 of a chicken breast (8 grams) and more green beans (.5) for dinner - it's not adding up.  23 grams is not 90 grams.  Hmmm...

I'm committed to following Rob's 10-day diet with him as much as possible.  He's got some specialty food in there, but I can do similar things.  Especially meals where we eat together, I'll have the same thing, just less of it.

Here's another eye opener.  My place didn't set a specific goal weight for me.  And my other supporting doctors told me to shoot high, like "anything under 250 would be great."  At my last doctor's appointment, I was well under 250, and pressed the doc for a goal weight.  So Weightwise set a good goal at 199.  This puts me in the 'overweight' range and not any 'obese' range, according to the much-hated insurance charts.  I'm shooting for that by New Year's.   The reason this comes up is because I went to the forums to look up protein, and then I find that all these people have set goals.  And they've set them to a normal weight.  I don't know why, but I never really believed I'd get to a NORMAL weight. 

Sometimes I wonder about myself.

Ultimately though, I secretly (well, not so secretly now, I guess) think I should get down to about 160.  (I'm 5'9". ) I hate to admit it because I'm afraid I'll never get there.   I wonder if I really can do it.  I feel myself already wanting to make excuses for not getting there.  But, I've got to change my way of thinking.

1.  I can get to a normal weight if those other folks can.
2.  I need to count how much protein I'm eating and start logging it.
3.  I need to supplement my diet w/some protein...apparently.
4.  I need to be participating on some forums regularly, hence the blog.
5.  I need to get past the fear of adding the calories that 63 grams of protein will add to my diet.

So this is what I'll focus on while Rob's doing the 10 day.   For now, my next goal is 199.  If I can do that, I can do 160.  So far, I'm down 133 lbs.

My diet  has slipped a little, and the mentality I've incorporated is that I can only eat a bite or two so it might as well be something good.  I'm going to clean that up and see if I can pull these last pounds off without too much of a struggle.

5:29 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Closer to Normal

It's been a while since I've posted.  Here are a few updates:

1.  I'm down 125 pounds.  There's a snapshot taken last Saturday at Yukon's Czech festival showing a pretty accurate pic. of what I really look like.  It's in my newest folder...the hundred pounds lost pictures.

2.  I went to Frontier City last weekend with Mason and rode every ride I wanted to...multiple times.  Mason was a little mad about having to ride the 'upside down' rides, but I was making up for the last 15 years of not riding rides.

3.  My friend at work gave me a beautiful pink silk business suit.  It's a size 14.  I put it on and zipped the pants, no problem.  I was a size 32 in April.

4.  I went to Mason's school for a book fair.  Noticed that some of the PTA moms were talking about me.  Then they cornered me to find out exactly what I did to lose all that weight.

5.  My docs are all really excited about how well I'm doing.  I saw them all at a 'walk from obesity' at the zoo - I'm sure it makes them feel good to have patients who are now able and happy to participate in charity walks.

Overall I'm really happy about the surgery.  My only regret is that I didn't do it sooner.

On another note, I read a book by a RNY patient, and also a "foodie".  While I could relate to some of the things she mentioned in the book, the writer's lifestyle is apparently way above that of a middle class person.  I had a great deal of trouble relating to her.  For example, she and her husband bought a Harley V-Rod and rented a condo on the beach for Daytona's bike week.  While I understand the Non Scale Victory of riding on a bike and all that, I can't relate to that.  Also, the types of food she eats are so upscale and gourmet that it almost turned me off.  We're in two different worlds.  But it at least does go to show that being overweight isn't an upper, middle, or lower class problem.  For that I appreciated the book.

I'll post more official 100 lbs pics later, I promise.

10:49 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment