Eleven months and counting!

Wow, it has been a long time! I nearly lost this blog--couldn't remember what email I used or the password. I am back--I hope--and I want to take this blog in a different direction I think. I want to document my weight loss progress, but I also want a place to keep articles of interest that I find online which I may want to refer back to. After all, this blog is for me, and there are things I read that I may want to look back on--pints of interest and such. So I think I will try that. I don't have anything specific to post right now, but at least I can start the thought and see if I keep up with it.

Of course, it will still be sprinkled with my own personal--only interesting to me--anecdotes of my life. Like how yesterday Kyrie and I made pasteles! Not only did we make them, we made a video of us making them that is so totally dumb, but fun at the same time. Kyrie put in on her You Tube account and linked it on her Tumblr account. Maybe I will need to link it here as well.

So, just a quick post to remind me that I am trying to make this commitment to post a little more often than once a year!

Day 2--midday

So this is technically my post for day 2 since my earlier post was about yesterday.

Meals
It is 1:25 pm, I just finished lunch and I am still hungry. I had a yogurt in the car on the way to work, my two banana pancakes, a cup of coffee with skim milk, then another yogurt at 11:15 am. Lunch about 12:30 and hungry! Lunch consisted of some white meat chicken from the Costco roast chicken, some frozen mixed veggies and some kashi. I don't want to eat anything unhealthy. I have already eaten more than I did yesterday. Damn, I gotta shrink my stomach so my appetite shrinks as well. I had some grapes in my lunch box but that just wasn't hitting the spot so I put it away. I NEED SOMETHING!

My New Plan

So, I think it is pretty clear that I am not a true blogger. I am not witty on paper, I don't even bother to blog regularly, and I would so not share this blog with anyone. The only people that may read this are other bloggers who may stumble upon this while surfing the blogs. So I decided to use this as my journal of this coming summer. I have made a commitment to lose 20 lbs by the end of the summer. Started June 1st. So I want to log down daily what I have done for the day towards this goal. I want to do this sensibly, make positive lifestyle changes and even if I can't do everything right everyday, do at least something to work towards my goal. If I lose 2 lbs a week, by the end of the 12 weeks, I will have lost 24 lbs! I think that is a reasonable goal. I would love to lose more, but that is my goal for the summer. So let's log down what I did yesterday (I couldn't blog last night because I was so busy with my first actual paid slide show job--but that is for another post.)

Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Meals
--Cannot give up my banana pancakes in the morning from Richard's shop, but I don't put anything on it and spread two pancakes over 3 hours.
--Did not snack or pick. Wasn't hungry so made it to lunch.
--Ate my roast beef sandwich and fresh veggies with Ranch dressing. Yes, Ranch dressing is fat, but I am trying to make positive changes I can actually live with and not deny myself everything. I ate a whole bag of veggies (cherry tomatoes, broccoli, sugar snap peas and baby carrots).
--No chips all day
--Dinner was some lettuce and chicken. Wasn't all that hungry, but boy was I starved in the middle of the night!

Exercise
I decided to start jogging again. Ideally I would like to jog 3 times a week, but this is going to be one busy summer. Ryden has basketball practice Tuesday and Thursdays from 4:30-5:50. So I had decided I would get a jog in while he is at practice. But starting June 14th, Kyrie will be volunteering at SHA to help in the classroom during school then help in after school care until 5 pm. That means on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have to drop off Ryden, run over to pick her up then come back. I don't think I can run on those days. The his basketball game will be Friday nights. That leaves me Mondays and Wednesdays. I doubt I will get a jog in on the weekend, so I'm not sure what I will do to fill in that third day that I wanted. So yesterday, Ryden had practice and Kyrie isn't in summer school yet, so I started running. I jogged from Ala Wai Elementary, down the service road behind Iolani to Date St., turn right on Date, head towards Kapahulu, turn right then jog as far down Kapahulu as I could before hitting 20 minutes. 20 minutes is my turnaround time. That will be my basketball practice route.
I Jogged for 20 minutes, walked for about 6 minutes then jogged the rest of the way back to my starting point which took 15 minutes 50 seconds. I was pretty stoked with the amount I was able to do. Yeah, I was slow, but I kept up the jogging momentum for 20 minutes and only walked for 6. My half time returning was only 1 min 50 seconds longer than my half time starting. That was pretty good considering I walked for 6 minutes on the back half. I guess my back half was a little faster.

So today, I brought my clothes, but I haven't mentally committed to jogging as my lower body is really tired. I may rest today and go tomorrow. We'll see. But hey, off to a great start.

Weight Loss Progress
--Lost 2.2 lbs since yesterday. I am 10 lbs heavier than I was on January 1st., and I know that the beginning is all water, but mentally it really helps to see the numbers go down. I know over this summer I will be so grateful for a digital scale, because even a .2 weight loss is better than nothing or worse a gain! And for each week that I lose more than 2 lbs., that would cover me on those weeks that I may not hit the 2 lb loss--and I hope there aren't too many of those weeks, or none at all!

So, I hope to be able to update regularly. We'll see. I am not the best at this, but I would love to be able to track and see my progress. On those days that I don't do too well, I can look back on all the good days I've had and not beat myself up. : )

Half full or half empty?

Well, it has been 21 days since we officially moved home. We seemed to settle in quickly--the physical unpacking of things, finding a place for our belongings, purging a lot of things we didn't need. The kids seem fine. But I think things are finally settling in for me and now I am starting to feel sad and depressed. I think I am missing the loss of my space, my privacy, my own home. We go back every weekend to try and clean up and our little apartment is like a deserted closet. It is a mess. And I mean awful. But I look around and I am just so so sad that we aren't there anymore. Kyrie and I had been living there since Nov. 2001. Ryden was born less than 2 years later and it was our place. My little family. Mess and all. Now we are back with my parents and I just feel like I have lost something. I knew this would happen but nothing prepares you for it when it actually sets in. My parents are wonderful. That isn't it. But they are still my parents and I have lost that amount of control over my life. Right now that is what goes through my mind. But yet I need to remind myself that my parents need me too. For little things maybe, and nothing they wouldn't do for themselves if I weren't there. But they are getting older and now that I live there I see even more clearly how frail they have become. It is easy not to see it when you just hear about it on the phone, or maybe see it once in a great while. But living there, I see how often my Dad falls. Or how often my Mom can't sleep because of her neuropathy. Everything makes me depressed. I can't really help them be better, but I can help with little things. And I have to remind myself of the big picture. It is quite apparent that I won't have them forever. Yes, I know that logically, but do we ever really face that until we have to? And the kids--I think Kyrie is missing Mililani more than Ryden. Ryden is young. He is happy to be with Grandma and Grandpa. He is a typical guy--he goes with the flow and is such a happy-go-lucky kid. He finds the good in everything for the most part. But Kyrie and I are more emotional with tendencies towards the glass half empty mentality.

I have to remind myself that I am so lucky to have my babies and have my parents there for me when I fall. I have so much to be thankful for and my ramblings I am hoping will help keep me focused and grounded. I need to keep the big picture in mind and stop focusing on the minuscule details that really don't matter.

Time for some pics

Can you tell I am bored? Ever since giving up Facebook, I have no computer life. MySpace is like a desert. No one there, nothing to do. Oh, if only I could play Farmville. I so miss Famville.

Alright, in no particular order as I haven't been taking much pics lately. I am in Kyrié's folder that she calls "Pwetty Pictures" grabbing and posting some pics that is Kyrié approved. These are a few from school. I actually see smiles!

And on to Ryden, starting with his first official AYSO soccer pic.

The Red Dragons

Bumblebee


Pretty adorable, wouldn't you say?

The countdown is on.....

.....well, it looks like Monday is D-Day! Chas and Nalei are available to help me move. Richard has to work, but Chas says that between the three of us (four if you count Kyrié), we can move all my wordly possessions. We are just moving the sofa, entertainment center, my bed and dresser, the kid's single bed, the dresser, a tall bookshelf and the coffee table. The rest of the household goods can be moved slowly. Ryden and I will move stuff tomorrow and Saturday, and the three of us can move more stuff on Sunday. I can't believe it is here. Wow. A life-altering move to say the least. Maybe slowly our life will start moving in a forward direction.

Just another typical day

It is Thursday. I am looking forward to the next four days off. Yes, it TANKS that we have furloughs, especially when you get your paycheck. But having the majority of Fridays off is a blessing in its own way. Furloughs are so much better than having to take a pay cut but still work 40+ hours a week.

So, I am so ready to have this move over. Our house looks like a wreck. I mean, more so than normal. The non-essentials have gone to my Mom and Dad's. There are boxes everywhere in the living room. I want this to be done. I haven't touched my closet, the kitchen, the bathrooms. But once the furniture goes, we gotta go too. So, do I hire a truck this weekend, bite the bullet and kick it into high gear? I want our life to be settled. I want to have everything where it belongs, be able to think about more than the move, money, tuition woes, and how my life seems so shallow sometimes. I am so lucky, so blessed to have parents to go home to. I hope that I will be able to be there for my kids if they ever need me like my parents are always there for me every time I have a crisis. Well, they seem like crisis' in my mind!