A Dollop’ll Do Ya

Words to live by.  I have naturally curly/wavy hair and I like it.  As I have gotten older, and bangs (fringe for you Aussies) aren’t in fashion, not to mention the fact that I refuse to spend more than a few minutes “doing” my hair, I have trouble when it comes to special events.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my hair (except that grey patch that is spreading at break neck speed, oddly, it’s not at my neck, but up near the bangs/fringe…). I just don’t have the patience to fuss over it.  Mainly because it ends up looking the same within an hour or so anyway unless I out copious amounts of product in it.

Which is where were were yesterday. I decided that I’d try something different.  Most people curl their hair for a special occasion.  Me, I decided to straighten it.  A friend said she would help and she told me i need to do 2 things: make sure my hair was completely dry and put product in it.

I doubled the amount I normally use.  OK, maybe I tripled it.  My friend gets here and takes one look at me and says “maybe the flat iron will burn a lot of it out...”  I can hear her patiently straightening and I ask her how it’s looking.  Without hesitation she lets me know I look like a grease monkey.

We were suppose to leave at 2 to be at the venue (5 minutes away).  At 2:00, I was standing in the shower with the hand held shower head rinsing and re-blow drying my hair.  You know it’s bad when, even after rinsing my hair, I could still see the product smoking out of my hair as I dried it.

I asked my friend if her hands were waxy (this was after I scared her by coming back upstairs in just my bra & panties in the process of putting my dress back on…poor thing - she had a traumatic day and it was only 2:10!). Without missing a beat she declared “Oh yes, I had to wash them.  My fingers were sticking together.”

Second time around, success.  Still one or two areas that I could tell were product heavy, but I didn’t look like a grease monkey any longer.

It was an outdoor ceremony and we were helping with some of the set up. While we were outside, we were wondering and laughing that if the bright sun beating down on my hair would cause it to burst into flames.  I still have a full head of hair and as far as I know, I didn’t send any smoke signals either.

File THAT Under Disgusting!

Cute, isn’t she?  Yeah, that little pee monger.  Seriously.  Ewww.  I almost vomited.

Cecelia stays in the basement during the day while I am at work.  She use to have run of the house, but she started peeing IN MY BED.  So, I blocked her out of the bedrooms.  She started peeing on the living room rug.  I now have her blocked in the kitchen and basement.

The last few days, my basement had been starting to stink.  Like pee.  I didn’t see where she had been peeing though.  Tonight, I went into the basement and the smell was overwhelming.   I looked around and found where she had nested.  I picked up the blanket and oh. my. goodness.  I had to suppress the urge to vomit. The cheap IKEA comforter didn’t seem wet…until I picked it up.  The entire underside of the blanket was drenched and the ammonia smell was powerful.  It went straight out to the trash can.

All I can say is, she’s lucky that she’s so darn cute…

A Close One!

0.6lbs down. I truly didn’t think it was going to be in my favor.  I know I have said it before, but I had traveled (and ate like CRAP while I was gone), had a burger and fries AND a junior shake –complete with chocolate chips (small one from Steak ‘n Shake) late night/early morning Saturday.  THEN, I really didn’t track on Sunday and had crepes this morning.  Who eats high carbs on weigh in day?!  Crazy.

My only redemption was the exercise. Sunday alone I earned 24 Activity points (for non-weight watcher folks, that’s about an entire days worth of food I earned).  I used that exercise as justification in case I gained…”Muscle weighs more than fat” was my Facebook status.  I know, sad justification, eh?  With that, I deserved to gain, but alas, I didn’t.  Thank you, Weight Watcher Gods.

Bike the Bend

The first Bike the Bend was today.  Good times, sore butts.  It was 30 mile roundtrip.  Instead of having to deal with parking & transporting bikes, I just joined up at the route near my house, which shaved a few miles off.  It was a 30 mile round-trip, when I broke off from our group, we were right at 20/21.  So, I figure I did just around 23 total.  It was a perfect amount of time.  My knee was just starting to get irritated and all the SAG stops were out of cookies.

It was a good first attempt by the city/cities.  There were a couple of areas of opportunities: There were 2 intersections that either needed a volunteer/better signage.  And…then there were the geese.  Due to missing one of the turns, we were accosted by a gaggle of geese and their goslings.  They should have selected a better place to sun themselves than the middle of the sidewalk.

What a Difference a State Makes. Max & Erma's - Take 2

About a week ago, I blogged about the atrocious experience at the Max & Erma's in Mishawaka, Indiana (I also emailed them - yeah, still not one word from them on the email. Must not really care about service recovery...)

Anywho...here I am sitting at, you guessed it, a Max & Erma's in the Cincinnati airport. All I can say is "what a difference a state makes!" - Janice, my waitress is fabulous. She was attentive, pleasant, and just plain nice. No bugs in the food, no practical jokes that impacted me, no broken glasses either!

I observed her attendingt to the other tables - and no, I wasn't being creepy about it! Every table referred to her by name & made sure to gain her attention to say "thanks, Janice" before they left. Impressive. I ended up giving her a 75% tip. She impressed me that much. Good on ya, Cincy Max & Erma's. Might want to send her up to do some training at the one in Mishawaka!!

25+ pounds!

I didn’t realize I got a charm for 25lbs!  How exciting.  Seriously!!  While it’s goofy and trite, I EARNED that darn charm!

I have been very lucky.  I have fabulous support systems in place & a FUN group at the meetings.  I am sure I annoy people with my interjections, but such is life.  I add character to the sessions :)

I’m very proud of my accomplishments and I thank each and every one of you for any and all support that you have given me!

10%

I didn’t think I’d make it this week.  I really didn’t.  But as the day progressed…I started to realize that there was a good possibility.

I got excited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was worth getting excited about.  I made it!!  10% of my total body weight, gone.  I am finally to the point where I need to move down a size in pants and I already had to get a smaller size underwear.

<--- this is my little 10% trinket from Weight Watchers.  I have my 16 week charm to put on there too.  Once I find where I put it…

Max & Erma’s…No Thank You…

My friend loves going to Max & Erma’s.  She grew up with them in Ohio, but they recently opened the 1st in Michiana just a couple years ago.

The food is good, but the service, well…it sucks.  I have decided to not go back there again unless “forced” by a majority rule.

The first bad incident, I describe as “drive-by” service.  The server was too busy to actually stop and take our order; the story that the Hostess was sharing with him was much more important. I am generally a big tipper.  I left a penny.

That was about a year ago.  I have been back since then and it was lackluster, nothing memorable.  That was until tonight.

We ordered the black bean roll ups.  They were good, until we saw the dead bug smashed on the plate.  “Oh, so sorry…” Eh, it’s a bug…OK…

Then, there was a refill on the diet coke.  Only, it wasn’t a diet coke.  she brought me iced coffee in my glass.  I gagged and almost barfed.  For as much as I can’t stand the smell of coffee, the taste makes me gag.

Instead of jumping into action, she stood there and watched me gag.  Get me a friggin’ glass of water!!!!  More apologies.

We figured by this time, a manager would have been alerted or a discount offered.  Nope.

I ended up downing my friend’s diet coke so I wouldn’t vomit up my dinner & cause a scene similar to that in “Stand By Me” at the pie eating contest.

Then, comes the replacement diet coke.  I took a drink & yeah…the glass was cracked.

Still no manager.  Ok, but certainly she’ll take something off the bill, right?  I mean, THREE separate issues in one meal…

No.

A manager was never called & when it was mentioned on our way out, I was informed that the manager was on a smoke break.  Yeah.  That must have been one big cigarette…our issues spanned the entire meal.

Bug in meal

A “prankster” switching drinks and making me gag

a broken glass

not my idea of a great time.  Sorry Max & Erma’s…you get a FAIL.

A Trip Through the Cemetery

Cecelia & I live close to 2 cemeteries.  We like to walk through one of them and lately, we have had the pleasure of another friend’s company.  My friend and I have been walking at least 3 nights a week.  Cecelia joins us for the cemetery portion and then, we drop her off and walk along the riverfront.  The city of South Bend just recently (last year?) created a nice wide footpath along the river along with some nice little bench areas.

Today, it was just me & Cecelia…and my camera.

 

This is the river front path.  The river is to our left, but the trees are really thick where we were.  Cecelia was a trooper and made it the whole way!

 

It makes me happy when it is trash can season in the cemetery.  I don’t have to carry around the poop bags!

 

 

Cool name, one I haven’t heard. Hulda.

 

This one frustrates me. It was a 21 yr. old man that was obviously killed, but is this really the legacy you want left on his final resting place?  Will this really help him to rest in peace? Notice my cool sneakers reflected in the shiny black granite?

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve got the butcher and the baker…anyone know where the candlestick maker is?

Sad.  This priest’s headstone fell over recently.  I don’t know why, but I didn’t expect to see a priest buried in here.  I guess I thought priests had their own special/elite cemetery.  Or, maybe they do and this fella just chose to be here…?

 

This isn’t “the” Studebaker tombstone. They are in the City Cemetery.  This is just Highland Cemetery.

 

 

Heh, Minerva…and Cecelia’s head.

 

 

The only headstone I saw where they had the “V” instead of the “U”

 

 

 

Glotilda? Poor thing.

 

 

Another interesting name.

 

Heh…I thought they made that name up for Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

 

I LOVE this guy’s name!! That’s his 1st & middle names.

 

Cecelia being such a good puppy!  I even took her off her leash for a few minutes to see if she would behave. She DID!  Mamma’s so proud…after 11 years, she's finally listening…when she wants to.

 

 

This crypt is so happy.

Steve, The Spider

This is Steve, the spider.  He was a Christmas gift for a little friend a couple of years back.  I just came across the picture and thought I’d post.  He was fun to make. I wanted to have different textures and fun colors. I was told this weekend by the mother of my little friend (who is also a friend) that Steve was selected for the honor of Show & Tell at daycare.  Sadly, Steve wasn’t able to make it that day; there was a last minute substitute.  Steve probably was demanding all green M & Ms  again…you know how pretentious spiders can be.

Jami

2 years ago,  I attended a funeral. She was a brilliant, energetic, loving woman.  Way too young to leave us. She was one of the most beautiful people I know.  She battled with her weight, and often lost, so she said.  But, oddly, I never saw her weight.  I saw her smile.  Her inner light.  Her quirky chunky highlights and the bright bold clothes that she’d wear.  She lit up a room when she walked in.  Her personality exploded through. She loved – and I mean LOVED – animals, especially dogs.  She was one of those people that no matter who was around, she made YOU feel like you were the most important person in the room.

Her death was one of the hardest things that I have had to deal with.  The questions that plagued me the anger I felt toward her for leaving us.  See, she chose to leave us. All of the love that she exuded didn’t seem to help her battle the depression within.  She never saw how wonderfully she impacted our lives.  Or was it our failure?  Was there more that I could have done to reinforce how we needed her?  How we loved her?  There were so many questions.  I still have no answers, except one.

My dear friend, Chris, knew I wouldn’t have heard the news.  I had been traveling for work and I don’t read the Obits.  She stopped by before work to tell me.  The funeral was that night and she knew I would want to attend.  The answer I have: I know how much she loves me. True friendship.  She loves me enough to tell me the sad, ugly and bad stuff.  She’s not just around for the good, silly, and happy times.

To Jami, my love for you is still strong. I think of you often and can’t help but see you smiling back at me.  I pray that you have found your peace and that you have finally found the beauty in yourself that has been so apparent to everyone else. 

To Chris, thank you for being the loving and amazing friend you are.

Excuses Excuses…

I was busy, I went to a wedding, a friend was in from out of town (out of the country really…), I was traveling, I was stressed, work was horrible, people were mean to me, I was mean to people, I didn’t get to spend quality time with a friend, my parents were driving me nuts, I had to stop somewhere I didn’t want to…

You name it, I could use it as an excuse for gaining this week.  For the 1st time this year I gained.  2 pounds to be exact.  That’s really the only real gain I have experienced in this journey and I am not surprised.  All of the things listed above actually happened and yes, they influenced my choices and behaviors, but I will not let them be excuses.  I take full blame for not walking in the evening like I had been and for laying around allllllll day Sunday.

I am already back on track.  And plan to stay.