The Slacker Returns Again

Started Weight Watchers last week and have been spending a lot of time trying to figure things out. Tomorrow is my first weigh in and I'm pretty excited.

I'm having a few medical issues right now so I have a lot on my mind. Seeing a doctor next week for a possible bunion repair. Had it removed back in 1987 and now the big toe has grown sideways. Thinking they are going to break it and put it back to where it goes. Makes me cringe cuz the bunion surgery was the worst thing I ever experienced in my life ... including giving birth. It needs to be done because I am in such pain it's hard to walk now.

Have a CAT scan tonight to see if one of those stupid 10 hernias has re-ruptured. She doesn't think so, but something is there that hurts. She feels a little something, but she thinks it's scar tissue. Let's hope for scar tissue!

Planning Whit's sweet 16 party is well underway. I have 6 lanes at Royal Scot reserved, pizza, pop, cake is in the works and the best gift idea ever. She is going to be really excited and will never guess. Can't let the cat out of the bag on here just in case she reads this. She has a list of 27 girls she is going to invite. I know they won't all show up, but hopefully a good number shows up. I have never ever seen her so excited about something. 

Lastly, waiting for my grand baby Lily to show her little face. It should be any day now hopefully. We go day by day. It's a little early but she has tried to escape quite a few times so one of these times, she will make it happen. Come on Lily!!.

That's it for now. Come back soon!!

 

You too fat ... You go home!

Have you ever walked into a restaurant and felt like every person in there just turned their head to look at you and said to themselves ... "You people are too fat, you need to go get a salad"? This is a feeling that almost every single one of my family members has or has had a million times. We are a small family of fluffy people. If you look closely at the photo below, you will see that we are a very close knit group that likes to party and loves to eat. If you need verification of this, check out all the chubby cheeks and double chins.

 

I have been overweight my entire life. I have unfortunately passed these genes and bad habits down to my three daughters (well, at least two of them for sure). Last week when I went to my doctor for yet what I believed was another hernia, I was told that if I didn't lose weight, I was headed for a six foot hole and oversized box. A person knows that they are overweight but really doesn't give it much thought until a doctor sits you down and points it out. You just think, well, "I'll diet next week". NEXT WEEK JUST GOT HERE!

I went back and found this picture of me at my daughters house warming. It absolutely disgusts me. I am bigger than every single person I know. The buck stops here. When I got home from the doctor, I sat down and talked to the hubby about joining Weight Watchers again. I have done it before and it works for me because you can eat regular food. I told him that Whit needed to go with me so I was going to schedule her a doctor's appointment and get her going too. He is my biggest supporter (although he loves me no matter what size and would never say a word about my size). He told me he would support and pay for whatever I wanted to do. Whitney is a goal keeper in soccer and she is very good at it. Her only setback is that being so heavy, she is not quick. I'm not having her become a statistic and die on a soccer field.

Today we will be signing up for Weight Watchers. I am fully on board. My sister and nieces have been doing it for a little while now. Robyn (my sister) tells me that she is down over 14 pounds and her daughters are also both down. We are going to get to join their "weight loss support system" which will help me immensely. Tomorrow will be the first day of the rest of our lives. 

I will insert a photo here next week that is my ultimate goal for the first year. It is a picture of what I looked like when I met Warren. I think I look pretty good in it.

My first goal is to be able to weigh myself at home. I have a scale, but it doesn't register enough to give me a number. I was weighed at the doctor so I know my beginning number. I need to lose 28 pounds to get to my first goal. My second goal is to lose enough to be able to walk around without being in pain in New York with my daughter on a Mom/Daughter weekend. My third goal is to be able to play with my new (well, she is almost here) granddaughter as she grows up. My fourth goal is to wear a pretty dress for my last 2 daughter's weddings. My last goal is to look and feel good about my self like I used to.

I have given Whit an incentive of her own. I would like to see her lose about 75 pound in the next year. It will be up to her how well she does on her own. Her bribe is to #1 - feel better about herself both physically and mentally and #2 - I will let her buy a new pair of shoes every time she hits a 25 pound goal. If you knew Whit, you would know that #2 is all she needs to get her moving. At 15 years old, she doesn't really care about that I wanna feel good and such, she wants new shoes.

Well, I'm off to start a grocery list. There is about to be some boxed and canned foods heading over to the food pantry this weekend. Wish us luck!!!

Winter Blues Road Trip - Final Edition

We had pulled several flyers from the front desk of the hotel and we saw on the front of one of them a picture of the most beautiful pizza EVER! It was at a place called River's Edge Pizza Pub & Grille. When we got there, we couldn't believe it. There were only about 12 tables in the whole place. Luckily, we got one of them. A line began to form not long after we sat down.

This was just a little Mom & Pop place that only had beer and a very limited bar. Dad and Matt each got a draft and the 2 girls who were so excited for a cocktail ... they got pop with Whit. CRAP. Dad ordered his usual turkey club because he didn't want pizza and the rest of us couldn't decide together so we ended up getting 2. Matt and I split a meat filled one with onions, Lissa and Whit split a boring old ham and mushroom one. I also ordered bruschetta for us to share. Look at the meat on the beasty club they served:

 Then came the bruschetta (this is after we almost devoured it):

And along came the Chicago style pizzas!!!

All I can say is ... Oh! My! God!!! The whole time we are stuffing our faces, we were making friends with all the waitresses and even the owner. It was a pretty good time. We kept noticing some desserts going to all the tables but there wasn't anything listed on the menu. We found out it was their famous cannoli. Of course we had to get a few of those too, but we were absolutely stuffed with 1/2 a club, 2 slices of bruschetta, and 5 pieces of pizza left so we got them to go. The girls also wanted a shirt so Whit got lime green and Lissa got yellow. Valenda (the owner) brought over the canolli that she made herself. We exchanged names and said we would find each other on FB which of course I did the minute I got back to the hotel. It was just an overall great start to the evening. If you are ever in Dundee Michigan ... gotta hit up River's Edge. YOU WON'T BE SORRY!!!

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped for drinks. We decided to play cards while we digested. Lissa and Dad partnered up against Matt and I and we played a few games and relaxed. We got done right around 10:00 so we decided to go hot tubbin. The one good thing about this hotel was that the pool closes at 10:00 and from 10:00-12:00 it's 21 & over (Whit just turned 21 recently). Down we went. We were in the pool while a couple finished their soak and then we all got in and just relaxed. We saw a parent coming down the hall with her kids all in swim suits and I couldn't believe it. These kids were probably under 7 and should have been in bed. When they read the sign, they went right to the front desk most likely to ask if they could go in. Must be they got turned down cuz they walked right back by with the kids looking pretty sad. HA HA HA!!!

That was finally the end of day one. We all decided to turn in and get ready for the big Cabela day. Sleep? Nope. Tossed and turned all night on the crappy hard bed. Switch from the crappy bed to the crappy chair over and over. Watched the clock most of the night. Stole Whit's only blanket cuz she wasn't using it. Finally ... morning got there.

Everyone was up and getting ready to go get the long awaited waffles. I look over and Whit has a really strange look on her face. I ask what's wrong and she say's "I'm gonna puke". OH, CRAP! She went running in and through the gags I hear "Ham and Mushrooms ... it's the pizza". She comes out all teary eyed and pale and says, I'm starving let's go. Amazing. My kid has an iron stomach. Nobody else got sick. She said she had to get rid of it in order to get her day started. Off we go.

Breakfast sucked. Nobody even got a waffle cuz number one there was a really long line and number two, there wasn't enough room to hang around. We each grabbed a little something, scarfed it down and headed back down to clean up our rooms so we could be the first ones at Cabelas and have a parking space. Checked out, got to Cabela's in 45 seconds and began to sit and wait for the 45 minutes before it was going to open.

We spent a couple of hours shopping around and looking at all the animals. I got a couple things for the "cabin". The one item we actually went for (a fish finder) was out of stock so that has to be ordered online.

 

We headed out the door and straight to the elephant ear truck that was sitting outside on the curb. Who could go to Cabela's and not get an elephant ear? Not us. We got 3 to split and headed on down the road - the scenic trip. Stopped and had lunch at Old Country Buffet in Jackson which was pretty good and then settled in to finish our road trip. All in all ... a good time was had by all.

Winter Blues Road Trip - Part 2

We already knew that this weekend was going to cost us an arm and a leg, so we decided to have at least1 meal at a fast food place to save money.  Before we ever got onto the highway after picking up L & M, we stopped in at Wendy's. Everyone got their fill and it only ran Dad $25.00 for the 5 of us. Not a bad way to start off.

 For the next hour or so, Whit and Lissa napped while Matt and I played with our cell phones. When the girls woke up, I believe the three of them were playing Words with Friends with each other - at least that is what it sounded like. We turned on the XM radio and played the "name the artist and the song" from different decades of music stations. Those kids sucked at most of the oldies but I will admit, Matt surprised me with a few. Finally, we got there around 3:00. Check in was at 4:00 but they found us two rooms across the hall from each other that were ready and let us check in.

We were staying at the Quality Inn Suites. There was nothing of quality with this whole experience. I won't go into every detail, but the short run down would be as follows. L & M got the sauna room, we got a semi coolish room. We got a microwave and refrigerator in our room, L & M got neither. Both rooms had 2 queen beds. Our room had a door on the bathroom that was full of holes where people had either punched it in or pounded nails in too hard with hammers and left holes. The back of the door also had a big blob of a hardened (it looked hardened - I didn't touch it) substance that just looked like jizz. The bottles of shampoo and conditioner held an amount the size of quarter. This was supposed to be for a room that held 4 people and 2 bath towels for those same people. Both of our bedspreads were covered in nasty nasty white or discolored stains. I'm not even going there. Our chair had what looked like a bleached stain in the shape of a penis and ball sack. You could see your breath in the pool area. It was so cold, you had to run to the pool and hope you didn't fall on your ass on the way. The jacuzzi was hot, but out of order so you just got to sit in a hot tub of water with everyone, almost like a community bath with no soap and wash cloths. Then you had to run to get back out. Of course we all didn't have towels so I had to stop at the laundry and ask for 3 more so we could shower in the morning. Did you just ask how the shower was? I thought so. Nope - not one iota of hot water. I went without. Lissa said theirs was hot. Must be only on that side of the hall. Whit said there was a pimp 2 doors down letting girls in. There was a family with about 6 kids running up and down the hall although I will admit, they were kept pretty quiet. Whit was really excited to get up and go down for the waffle for breakfast. Nope - one waffle iron for about the 25 people waiting to use it. Went without. We did get to use the toaster for a bagel and Warren had a yogurt. NEVER NEVER NEVER AGAIN!!!

So, we check in and since nobody is hungry the kids decide to start out at the water park and we will go look around town. If you are not a guest at that hotel, you can just pay the fee and go in. Open up your wallets people. $25.00 per person to go from 3:00-9:00. $5.00 to rent a locker and $5.00 for the key deposit. Yep, $88 ish for that little trip. Oh well, it's all for the kids right?

Warren and I took off in search of a nice place for dinner because Lissa and I wanted a cocktail to start off the evening. When we got into town, we went into a candle/antique shop. We browsed the shop for well over an hour. I learned that I LOVE looking at antiques. I can wait until summer when I can go antique hunting for our new cabin. We left without buying a thing but we sure enjoyed each others company and looking around without anyone bugging us. We decided to leave and go next door to a little bar and have an appetizer and cocktail. The kids were supposed to be gone for 3-4 hours and it had only been about 1 1/2. Just as we were leaving, my phone rings. The kids aren't having any fun and want to leave. I'm pissed. I wanted some more "me" time. Oh, well.

We went and picked everyone up and decided we would hit the jerky store and then head out for dinner.  We spent another hour at least in the Beef Jerky Outlet. It was great. They had all kinds of wild game. I tried the alligator (that was as adventurous as I get). Whit got the kangaroo. Warren got all different kinds of stuff. I also got some chocolate covered caramel popcorn and Whit got Cheesy Ranch Corn. We loaded up with another $50.00 worth of junk food and headed uptown to that bar for our supper. We couldn't wait to try our very first Chicago style pizza.

Check back tomorrow for Winter Blues Road Trip - Final Chapter