in a handbasket

Lots of stuff has been going on around here lately.

We both have been busy with work, but with the economy, my work load has slowed a little, but not too much. I have some extra flexibility that allows me to work from home on occasion (yes, I do actually work).

I have been making plans for additional "fixin' up the house" items, such as painting and whatnot. I decided on coordinating color for the main color of the kitchen. it did take me 6 months to pick the main color out. I'd rather be sure than be hasty and carefully pick something out, rather than buy it, paint it up, hate it and then have to redo. I'm just lazy like that. My time is too valuable.

We're finally getting a real patio and patio cover!! Hooray for shade. The patio cover build is currently in process. Granted it is just alumawood (We just don't have 25K for a full on stuccoed, wood frame, tiled patio cover). The support footing holes were dug and inspected last week. The concrete for the slab and footings is being started at about 630 tomorrow morning. Then that has to dry and so forth then the cover build is Thursday and Friday.

We got a big palm tree from Eric's parents for the front yard. They had it in a pot, but now it's pushed out of its pot and they don't have room to plant it. Free plants, I'll take it. It would cost about $400 bucks to buy a comarable sized tree at the nursury. We will then have 3 kinds of trees in the front (desert willow, screwbean mesquite, and the palm). Variety is nice.

After the patio is in, I am going to go to the nursury and get more plants to replace the 90% of my plants that died i the last year due to a lack of shade in the scorching hot summer. Even my all of my cacti died. How sad is that? The poor things had always had shade at theh townhouse, then they were just abused in our empty ass sun-baked backyard.

We planted two eucalyptus trees back there in October, and they are doing nicely. Once the patio cover is in, Eric is going to run the irrigation line from the stub at the side of the house so we can start making the backyard a nice place. at least the one end of it. The south side of the yard will have to wait, as that is were the pool/hot tub is gonna go...eventually. That will probably be next year if all goes well. Sooner if some rich relative we don't know about dies and leaves us lots of money (as if).

In my personal life, my lifestyle/body over haul is going well. I am down 20.6 pounds since Mid February. The bridesmaid dress has been purchased. Doesnt look too bad on even now. I'm hoping they will have to take a lot of it in come September when we go in for our alterations.

So far on my quest to not be a fatty I have managed to get my tush on the treadmill three times a week minimum, eat less than 2000 calories per day of good food choices, and get more regular walking around time into my day.

The result?

I have managed to lose somewhere between 6 - 8 pounds.  I am thinking its more on the low end of that becasue the scale I used for my starting weight was an older analog scale (that didn't belong to me) and my 2 weekly weigh-ins have yielded a loss of almost exactly 8 pounds.

4.4 the first week and 3.6 the second week.

Other things I have noticed are:

That I am sleeping better at night, even if I'm only getting about 5 hours some nights
A pair of crop jeans that required that 'hop-hop' movement to get into the last time I wore them (well every time I wore them) pulled right on- no 'hop-hop' needed. Another pair of jeans that were snug across my bum were also not tight at all when I out them on.

I don't see any actual loss- I still just see 'jiggly-n-fat" at this point though my ring is a little looser than it was before.

I am trying to do this as an overhaul to my life and eating habits. I refuse to give up steak and potatoes or the oh so delicious In-N-Out cheeseburger or french fries.  It's not realistic for me to think I can live the rest of my life without those oh so tasty foods, but it is realistic to make them a once in a while meal. Yes, I can have french fries, just not every day.

I can do this.

I think I can. I think I can.

I know I can.

Today was Day 3 of my self developed motivational program called Fatty's Gonna Lose Some Weight.

Wednesday and Thurday, I had a calorie intake of right around 1300 calories and spent 30 minutes on the treadmill doing one of the weight loss programs. It was basically walking 1.5 miles at an average speed of 3 mph.

Today was the same with the exception of not working out on the treadmill. I had a long day at work, got home late and just wanted to just eat dinner and watch tv.

I am going to work out tomorrow morning, take a shower, go to my monthly pedicure (and I decided to treat myself to a manicure),do ??????? for the rest of the afternoon then we have tickets to go see Billy Joel at the MGM at 8 P.M. (Hooray).

Oh, I suppose I should go buy a scale at Target tomorrow so I can see if I am losing any weight.

What's the first thing you do when you get home from work?

The first thing I do when I walk in the door is give my dog, Turk, attention. It's kind of hard not to, as he is right at the door from the garage.  He is so excited when I come home from work. He get lots of pets and scratches... then gets let out back so he can go do his dog business and play in the yard.  Then I go find my kitties and give them attention too.

It makes me feel better after a long day.

I have decided that this is going to be the year I get off my fat duff and lose some weight.  No, this is not a New Year's "resolution". 

I am just tired of being fat. 

I am tired of my blood pressure being too elevated.

I am tired of clothes not fitting right. 

I am tired of looking like a piggy pig face in photographs that are not carefully "choreographed" in the MySpace styling.

I don't want to be a skinny twig. I just want to get down to a healthy weight and feel good about myself. 

I don't buy into that BMI bullshit that is all based on height to weight ratios.  They are nothing more than a "tool" to make people feel bad worse than they already do about their weight, about being too heavy or not being in the right zone. 

According to these "all mighty" BMI charts I clock in as morbidly obese.  That's right folks you heard that right: MORBIDLY OBESE!!!

I am sorry.  Morbidly obese my jiggly ass!

I wear a size 16 jeans.  Not a vanity sized size 16 from Lane Bryant.  Size 16 from DKNY or Anne Klein.  There is no W next to the size number either. (This is not to put down ladies who do wear W sizes or buy clothes from Lane Bryant as I do have shirts and sweaters from LB and the "Women's" departments).  I can go out and push out 15 + miles on my mountain bike in short time span and not be completely wiped out. I can still get to the trans-fatty Oreo cookies in the grocery store under my own power. I don't need the Rascal scooter to go and fetch them.

I am not morbidly obese you fu@%ing bastards. I am overweight. I am out of shape.

OK.... I digress.

A good friend of mine asked me to be a bridesmaid in wedding in mid October.  I have managed to make it this far in life while avoiding the dreaded bridesmaid role.  However, for her, I'll wear a ridiculous taffeta gown in bubblegum pink if I have to (I know it's not going to be pink... but a lovely shade of wine or plum the last I heard).  This has only motivated me to get on with it and lose the weight.  Who wants to be the fatty bridesmaid?  Not me.

I had been looking at treadmills for sometime now; comparing prices, features and whatnot; and finally went out and bought one last night.  Dear Eric drove to the other side of town, literally, so we could get this treadmill.  There was only one Sears store in town that had it in stock and it was on SALE (even better).  We brought it home and after some clever maneuvering, we got it up to the second floor of the house and assembled it.  So now I have forked over my "economic stimulus" money (that the government doled out to taxpayers last year) to stimulate the economy buy the treadmill so I can exercise whenever I want and not have to be outside or go to a sweaty meat market gym with those bitches skinny girls hogging all the treadmills.

So tonight after work I began my mission to lose the weight and get in shape.  I started simple, did a 30 minute "weight loss" pre-program.  I did pretty well and I feel pretty good.

1.5 miles in 30 minutes with a max incline of 5% and a top speed of 3.5 m.p.h.

I don't know what my actual weight is.  I do not own a scale.  I guess I should go buy one.

makes for a good laugh.

On Wednesday December 17th, it started snowing about 1230 in the afternoon. It kept snowing and snowing and then it snowed some more. At midnight it was still snowing.

Las Vegas, which does get some snow from time to time is not prepared to get that much snow. Down on the south end of town where I live, we got about 8".  The roads were an absolute mess.  It took me a little over an hour to drive less than 7 miles down a straight stretch of road.  There were no accidents, the roads were just an icy, snowy mess. Combine that with people who have never driven in the snow. That equals a big damn mess.

I got home, Eric was already home and shoveling the driveway off.  We have a shovel that works for that?  I guess it IS Eric I'm taking about.  He really does have just about anything he could need.

I digress.

Turk (the dog) had a ball playing in the snow, biting at the big, wet snowflakes as they fell and chasing snowballs.  We built a snowman.  It was leaning a lot and fell over before the night was out, but then again, I haven't built a snowman in about 20 years. It was a lot of fun.

Sunday, there is still a bunch of snow left on the ground and the mountains surrounding the valley are still snow covered.  The snow never sticks around this long, but then again, the Vegas valley hasn't seen a snowstorn like thois since the early 1970's.

...Nothing all that important.

Well, we have had our dog form a little over a month now. I have lost count of the toys he has destroyed, and how many times we have caught him "dining" from the litterbox (gag), and doing other naughty things, but overall, we love having our dog.

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He came with the name Trunks, but he didn't seem all that responsive to it, so we decided to change it to Turk- he really responded well to that. We tried numerous names. Eric wanted to name him Brawndo or Leroy...I said no.

We are working with him on behaving a little better at home (barking at weird noises like the dryer) and on walks (pulling and tugging).

He is really good with the cats, but I don't think he realizes how big he looks to them and that he invades too much on their comfort zone. The amount of hissing, spitting, growling and swatting has decreased, however, I think it will be a (long) while before they will be cuddling up with each other.

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Turk can really be a ham.  Even when he does something bad and you are mad at him, he does something really cute and it's hard to stay mad at him.

Well, It's official, we have adopted the dog from the rescue.

He is settling in and want to be friends with the cats so bad, but the cats are really disliking the situation. He is housebroken, pretty well behaved, has (mostly) good manners, and gets a little overexcited when we take him for walks. He pulls on the leash a lot, but were working on that. He is crate trained, and likes being in it. Plus he has a history of chewing on stuff, so, for now, he has to be in his crate at night and when were not home, but he doesn't seen to mind it too much.

Eric and I have decide to make an addition to our family!

No, we're not going to have a baby. That's just silly!!

We put in an application with a local dog rescue to adopt an 11 month old Boxer mix puppy named Trunks.

The rescue is reviewing our application and has called our references, so I hope we will find out in the next few days if we will be adding a new furry bundle of happiness to our family.