Weigh In

I thought I was going to have to title this post Where Weight Watchers = Ann's Wasting Money but I was down 1.6lbs. Slowly but surely.

I am focusing on the mental part this week which is where my challenge is. Right after seeing I lost 1.6 lbs my first thought was can I have a cookie?....

Precious and Few

are the hours I get the house to myself. Thanks to high school football that's what I'll get tonight.

What's that I hear, the roar of the crowd, no the silence of just me in the house. Bliss.

The F Word

No not that word, although this word FUNDRAISER makes me want to use that F word. We've been in school for what a month now? Some schools less than that. I've already been hit up to sponsor runners, buy cookie dough, buy sheets, and buy Coke products at a discount all in the name of fundraising. Now I am not being a hater. We've spent many years hitting up family and friends to buy gift wrap, needless crap, cookie dough, and girl scout cookies. So I get it. I get the pressure parents and students fill to make those quota, win that plastic toy, that limo ride, what have you.

Once Lolly left elementary school I thought all that was behind us. Boy was I ignorant. Last year when she came home with cookie dough order forms to peddle for Chorus I realized how wrong I had been. After receiving the said cookie dough, baking the cookie dough, tasting the cookie, and then throwing away the cookie dough I said enough is enough I can no longer subject our family and friends to this craziness.

I think I remember once or twice while growing up doing a fund raiser but this on going group after group stuff is crazy. Here's an idea lets get some administrators and politicians in there who know how to budget and get things done so I am not having to pay $4 for the use of a gym locker. a gym locker. How crazy is that? See I've gone and got myself fired up. I am almost convinced that the school system is set up to systematically nickle and dime me to death.

I really made a stand last year, I drew a line in the sand when I refused to continue to pay for school pictures taken in the Fall AND the Spring. But that's a topic for a different post because those LifeTouch people, they're on my list.

Where was I, oh yes fundraising. The first week of school Lolly comes home with a letter stating that the chorus has been chosen to perform at Carnegie Hall Memorial Day weekend and they hope to have several fundraisers to help defer some of the cost. The $1,400 cost. Included is a nice payment schedule with the final $100 payment to be paid in March or something like that. It's noted that the last $100 payment will be dependent on the amount that is raised through the fundraising. It's worth a $100 to me not to have to sell anything.

So my dear friends and fellow parents of school age kids when you ask me to buy, sponsor, and help raise funds for your child/ child's school cause d'jour know that I am not the fundraising grinch but that I just started the "Send Lolly to Carnegie Hall Charity" and all my nickles, dimes, dollars, ten spots, what have you need to be going there and the off shoot charity it creates of "Send Lolly's Parents to Carnegie Hall."

Table Topics Tuesday

what do you want to make sure you do before you die?

Live overseas, preferably outside of Florence, Italy or perhaps London. While there I don't want to work, well not work like I know it now, tied to a cube M-F 7-4 (crazy American dream, it's taken 40 yrs to realize that the quest for more stuff is highly overrated). I'd like to spend my days reading, exploring, and building relationships with interesting people.

what do you want to do?

Marriage

Left to do it again, I am not so sure I would.

No fear, I know this feeling will pass right along with Mister's extremely foul , with a capital F mood...

Because I don't know when to stop myself

I will be enduring this Saturday night

I got Lolly tickets for her birthday, back in April. She didn't ask for them. She was completely content with the list of things she asked for and her party, but because I have a tendency to go overboard I thought I would suprise her with tickets. I predict that by 8:00pm Saturday night I will have learned my lesson...

Train Wreck

I usually work from home one day a week. A day I cherish because for the life of me I don't understand why I must drive downtown every day to sit in a cube and do all my work by phone, email, and blackberry, but I digress.

One of the things I love about working from home besides not showering, not putting on a suit, and being able to do laundry is having the tv on as background noise. Week after week, it never ceases to amaze me that the people at the Today Show thought it would be wise to team up Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. Or that putting Kathie Lee back on tv was a good idea. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is she annoying! I wonder why those closest to Hoda didn't say this might not be the best career move... I don't like for anyone to lose a job, unless it's deserved, but man couldn't they had found a better combination.

Table Topic Tuesday (on Wednesday)

what's your most cherished recipe?

It should probably be something passed down but right now it's something that I've acquired recently thanks to Martha (Elizabeth Hill Cottage). Martha who I was fond of before she answered my call for a "sugary" frosting, but now I absolutley love!

“Buttercream” Frosting

½ cup shortening
½ cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ to 1 teaspoon Wilton butter flavor
¼ to ½ teaspoon almond extract
4 cups confectioner’s sugar (use C&H- pure cane)
2 tablespoons milk

In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with mixer. Add vanilla, butter flavoring and almond extract. Add confectioner’s sugar 1 cup at a time beating well and scraping down sides of bowl; add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.
Store in refrigerator up to 2 weeks. Re-whip before using.

This frosting is so good it'll make you want to slap your momma. I put it on cupcakes and it was even better after it set a day.

So what recipe do you cherish?

1st Weigh In

My first official weigh in -1.8 lbs. My leader thought that was good since I am petite. Petite meaning this is going to be a long and painful process.

I ran 10 miles on Monday and 10 miles on Sunday so I was hoping that would made a bigger impact. I guess I can't be too disappointed, I really didn't track last week at all since I missed the meeting due to the funreal and didn't have the official "tracker" [like a piece of paper and pen won't have worked =) ]

On my to do list this week:

• Get use to feeling hungry
  
  

Love Me Some Office Supplies

And I hope my Pokeno peeps do too, because this is my gift for tonight.I found it at Michaels - 30% off! The girls are pretty sassy so I am hoping this is right up their alley. Who knows, if I win, maybe 'll end up with it. It wouldn't be the first I ended up picking my own gift. Don't judge. Isn't it best to buy something you yourself would like?

What'd She Say

What my co-workers heard coming from my cube today

"Fowler don't you dare hang another dead animal in my house. No we don't need a stuffed beaver to sit next to the fireplace"

Just my luck, the guy we sold the car to for scrap also owns a taxidermy. I came home to find this

It can't stay. The Great Room is not big enough for a deer head and a duck. It just can't...

S-Crap

That's what my Honda is being sold for, scrap. My Honda CRV is no more. After 1o years and 180,000 plus miles it could go no more. I always said I would drive it till the wheels came off. Well the wheels didn't come off but the engine won't go any longer so I guess that's about the same thing.

Without my car, I was left to drive Mister's smelly Big Rig, which is some sort of Ford truck. You can't even open the passenger side door without a pop cup and an empty 5 hour energy bottle falling out. Very classy. The air conditioner doesn't even work properly. I could go on but in Atlanta in the middle of summer, commuting downtown in business attire, well I couldn't go on long like that.

But there was a problem - car payment. After not having a car payment in quite some time I was not looking forwad to the idea of a car payment. So my number 1 criteria for replacing the Honda was price. I am talking cheap. The cheaper the better. In the car world cheap means small or old or both. I really don't have a problem with either small or old. Mister, well that's another story.

Based on our criteria - price (me), make (either Honda or Toyota, both of us), year and mileage (Mister) let me intorudce you to the rolla

I am now rollin in the rolla. A red 2008 Toyota Corolla. Don't laugh. I have no car shame. (and I say this only because most of my friends fall into the SUV, luxury car, or I deserve a nice car mindset catergory, I fall into the Dave Ramsey I am getting the hell out of debt category) It comes with a small car payment, working air conditioner, and will probably run another 10 years.

Boy do I miss my Honda...

Table Topics Tuesday

would you rather run into an old boyfriend with no makeup on or after gaining 20 pounds

without makeup, without a doubt. chances are if they are an old boyfriend they've seen me at one time or another without makeup.

which would you choose?

Should I live so long...

Yesterday, I attended a funeral of a family member on Mister's side. The gentleman was 96. He's survived by his wife whose 95. Emily and Remer had been married 70 years. 70 years!

I only had two occassions to meet the couple. Once at a family reunion and then again at my wedding reception. Both times I was taken with their spirit, zest for life and their health. Yes, they were old but you would never know they were in their 90's.

They'd seen a lot things happen in their lifetime, a lot of things come and go, a lot of changes in their abilities. I think it would be easy to let those changes wear on you, make you bitter, but they were happy, happy people. Even yesterday, Emily was happy, happy to greet guest, appreciative all who came to pay their respects.

When someone lives into their 90's you can't be sad for their passing. For surely they move on to someplace much better. It is a melancholy experience. Makes you think, if given the opportunity would I want to live into my 90's, could I make adjustments in my lifestyle to better my odds of spending my golden years productive, do I want a funeral? Odd? Don't get me wrong the funeral and service were very nice. The Crum's have touched a lot of lives and will continue to do so with the land and money they've gifted. There were a lot of nice things said yesterday and a point was made to say that they gave with no intention of ever being recognized for it.

That's kind of how I want it. Most likely on a smaller scale. I want to have a lot life in my years and I hope to give of my time, love, and money to help others. And when it's time to go I don't want to be recognized or mourned or whatever you want to call it, I just want to wait on the other side for my loved ones.

Weight Interrupted

My first weigh in will be delayed due to my necessary attendance at a funeral. Seriously, I am not making that up. I wonder how may of my fellow weight watchers will think, humm, I haven't heard that one before...

Crap, It's Cake Day

Otherwise known as the Monthly Birthday Celebration at work.

I curse the point system and my sweet tooth.

The Magic Number

I can guarantee you it's not 18, the number of points I am allotted a day on Weight Watchers. That's all I am saying...

Freak of the Week

My sister, I mean that in the most loving way possible.

recent phone conversation: Warning - NOT edited for political correctness, and absolutely no disparage is meant to anyone...

My sister: Have you known all your life that we're mexican?

Me: Ah, yes

My sister: Not me, that explains why people always follow me around stores, they think I am going to shoplift and why people bust out speaking spanish to me. Do you think I look meixcan?

Me: I guess, but I think it's because you're addicted to tanning. Your dark all year long.

My sister: huh, maybe your right

Me: If it makes you feel better, you're half white. (I don't think that she really has a problem with it, more said to get her onto the next topic because she can easy rehash a topic a for a good hour if you let her)

Table Topic Tuesday

what was the worst hairstyle you ever had

The little Lulu, like the cartoon character. It was actaully called that and I actually wanted it. What was I thinking?

Spill it, what was your worst hairstyle?

Translation Please

Working in the HR space in the Corporate World I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this.
Web Economy Bullshit Generator But it so explains why I often read something and think what's that mean? Honestly, I struggle with corporate speak but I can't wait to put some phrases into the generator so I can bust them out on Mister. The most un-corporate person I know...

Don't Ignore Your Check Engine Light

Even if it's been on for a year and you've been to the mechanic for other reasons and he finds no problem for the light to be on, because your car will break down while you're in the left turn lane on your way home from the grocery store and you will have to wait for 2 hours for a tow all the while worrying about your weight watcher ice cream sandwiched melting...

Can you feel yourself gain weight?

I've eaten so much my hips hurt.
On Monday I start Weight Watchers at Work, that is if I can find anything I can fit into to wear to work on Monday morning.

My beginning of weight watchers is 3 weeks in the making, 3 weeks of "if I am going to eat this after I start weight watchers I am going to have log it's points so I probably wouldn't eat it so I better eat it now"... dangerous way to live...this was my breakfast

only it wasn't the round version, it was the long creme filled verison which I proceeded to add extra sprinkles too because in my book you can never have enough sprinkles.

Monday maybe difficult...