If you missed my email, the anxiety from my last post was because of an interview.  I still haven’t heard anything back from that, but I didn’t expect to until late this week or next week.  I’m not sure how good my chances are, but I’ll be sure to let you know when I know something.

I’ve found a gym to replace the one near my house that closed.  There’s a YMCA near work that has a deal with employees.  It’s a little further away from the house, but it’s significantly cheaper.  And they do offer a Zumba class on Wednesdays at 5:30.  So I’m heading there after work on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the foreseeable future.  It’s not bad!  And I get home for the evening earlier since I’m going directly to the gym and then going home, instead of the other way around.

I’m going to a symposium for work.  I don’t know how I managed to score an invitation – no one has admitted nominating me.  But it’s in Orlando in a fancy, swanky hotel and all my expenses are paid and I get paid to be there and the talks are all about Lean and process improvement and I’m very excited about the whole thing.  Justin’s coming with me because he can stay in the hotel for free and only have to pay for his food and he’ll just bring the netbook and work from the hotel.  He doesn’t get to come to the fancy dinner at the end of the symposium, and that’s a bummer, but it’ll be wonderful to have him there.

From the symposium, we’ll drive up to Luke’s wedding.  We’ll actually spend Monday – Wednesday night at the symposium, Thursday night at a hotel on the road, Friday and Saturday night at a place near the wedding, and Sunday night at another hotel on the road.  We won’t stay in our own bed for a week!  But looking at the price of tickets (greater than $500) and the price of hotels and gas (less than $500), we decided to take the less expensive way, even through the drive will be really long.  It’s going to be interesting!  And the wedding is going to be awesome!

Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep up with tasks at work.  There are a lot of projects to complete in the next couple weeks and I expect them to stack up more than they’re already stacked.  It’s just the way things go.  “Oh?  You’re busy?  Let me give you more to do!”

But it’s not bad!  In the evenings, Justin and I might make dinner together and watch an episode of Pushing Daisies or Eureka, both excellent shows if you’re not familiar with them.  Or we’ll poke at our computers and relax.  His work stuff is going slower than we’d like, just because people are slower at responding to requests for information than we’d prefer.  But we’re still optimistic about how it’s going to work in the end.  Things might be tight right now, but life is still so much better than it was when he was working for the Awful Place.

So life is good!  Busy!  But we make time to relax and maintain our sanity.  Before money got tight, we bought a year-pass to a beach not far from here, and we might head up there this weekend.  It’s a great way to get away from it all for a while, and then I sleep for the rest of the afternoon because it’s exhausting!

It’s a great life!

Well, after chatting a little bit, he said that he could “push out” my payment for a month.  I should just keep on coming in like normal, but they wouldn’t charge me in July for my membership.  I thought, “That sounds great!  What’s the catch?”  And I went home and told Justin about it and he said, “That’s great!  What’s the catch?”

Well, I found the catch, people.

I went to the gym tonight for the first time since the 28th — we’ve been out of town and busy doing other things, so I hadn’t been in until today.  I thought it was odd how many of the 30-minute parking slots were open, but I thought maybe the complex was getting more strict on parking times or something.  And then I got to the door and it was locked.  And the swipe thing for my card didn’t work.  And the whole building was really quiet.

And I thought, “Well, that’s weird.  What don’t I know?”  And I went home.  “All dressed up and nowhere to go!” I told Justin when I got home.  We were both baffled because we couldn’t think of a reason why the gym would be closed.  And why their website was missing when I looked it up online.  I finally found this written on their Facebook page from June 30:

Friday at 6pm is the official time that we’re closing for good. Thank you to all of our members that have supported us over the years. Good luck to everyone in achieving your fitness goals!

Well, I guess I won’t need to pay my membership for July!  What the heck?!  Seriously, there was no indication at all that they were closing down — they were still doing sign-ups for programs and promoting different classes and NOT ONE PERSON was saying anything about being closed.  Even when I was at the building tonight, there wasn’t a sign that the place was closed down for good.  If I hadn’t found it on their Facebook page, I would have gone back on Wednesday and wondered AGAIN what was going on!

So I’m bummed out and I’m frustrated.  Frustrated because they really did a crappy job with the PR on this one.  I mean, not even a sign on the front door?  “Sorry, we can’t pay rent.  Good luck finding another gym.”  It would have been nice guys.

But I’m bummed because now I’ve got nowhere to do Zumba.  And I’ll have to figure out if there’s somewhere to do yoga that’s not too expensive.  And I don’t have a reliable scale or a body-fat percentage thing so now it’s not going to be nearly as much fun to lose weight.  And gosh darn it, I enjoyed going to the gym!

This catch sucks.

I’m back on the diet again after taking about a month off to handle with stress and not logging while we had company in town.  But I’ve been logging again for 15 days now and my scale at home (that’s not terribly accurate) gave me a whole long line of 0’s on Saturday that made me very excited.  It’s gone back up a couple pounds, but that’s what happens when I sit down with a bag of M&Ms on one day and a big plate of Kung Pao chicken the next.  But I thoroughly intend for it to be back down again by Saturday.  I might not make it down the full 50 pounds before my doctor appointment at the beginning of September, but I’m going to be pretty darn close!

I don’t know exactly how much weight I’m going to end up losing in the end, but my goal right now is to get my body fat percentage down around 25%.  Wherever I land poundage-wise is where I’ll end up, but I want to get that percentage down there.  I started at 42.2%.  Right now I’m at 38.2%.  Once I get under 32%, I’ll no longer be considered “obese” and THAT will be a very happy day. 

The car thing is an end as far as I know.  I finally called the claims department on Friday to ask what the progress was on the file and they told me that they had denied the claim.  Wohoo!!  I mean, the woman didn’t have a leg to stand on but it’s still nice to have things work out the way that they’re SUPPOSED to work.  I didn’t hit her, I shouldn’t have to pay for it.  And I’m not!

As far as I’m concerned, the matter is now closed.  She can try to appeal the decision or take me to small claims court, but the insurance is going to back me up if she does that.  I’m going to assume that she’s not going to be quite that desperate and just stop thinking about the whole thing.  And now I can finally try to get the paint off my car, since I’ve been waiting until everything was resolved to try to work on that.  Before I was just being lazy.  But now I have more motivation to get it off.

There are things happening in the job front that I’m not comfortable talking about right now.  You know that feeling like if you talk about it, you might jinx the whole thing?  THAT.  But hopefully I’ll have news for you there in a while.

I am still going to be briefly unemployed while the whole place shuts down for a couple weeks, but I’m looking forward to the time away from work.  It’ll be nice.  I’m hoping to get a bunch of projects done around the house.  Because, you know, there’s nothing like a vacation to get some work done around the house.  What?  Relax?  I don’t have time to relax!

In more trivial news, I’ve developed an allergy to my face lotion.  I’ve been using it for a while and I’m about halfway through this bottle, but the last few times I tried to use it, I broke out in hives.  It wasn’t pleasant.  My only hypothesis is that there’s almond oil in the lotion.  Of my nut allergies, almonds were pretty low on the list of reactions, so I picked up a box of cranberry-pomegranate granola bars (with almonds) and was eating one of those a day.  And then I broke out in hives from my lotion.  So I’m not eating the bars any more and I’m using aloe vera to moisturize my face, since we didn’t have anything else in the house that would work.  Avoidance is effective and I’m doing just fine.  But it’s kind of a bummer because I was fond of that lotion.

And to end on a more UP tone, I have a trip coming up to visit several people and I’m SO EXCITED about it!  I’ve mentioned it here before, but I’m still just beyond thrilled to get to take this trip.  I didn’t expect to be able to spend time with my siblings and it’s going to be so much fun!  Lots of people know about it, too, because I can’t stop talking about it.  I’ve already started my packing list—I’ve been trying to figure out how to pack everything in a carry-on so we don’t have to check our luggage.

But mostly, I just think, “I get to see the kidlets!”  “I get to see my siblings!”  “I get to see Grandma!”  “I get to see the Barnetts!”  And try to figure out how I could fit seeing more people into the tiny amount of time that we’ll be in each place.  Like Sara!  And Gillian!  And Mom and Dad!!

But before that, I’ve got 3 projects that need to be completely finished up before the end of this week and 3 other documents that need to be released and mailed off for approval before next Tuesday, at the absolute latest.  I have a lot of work to finish up.

I feel so much better today!  I’m eating real food!  My brain is functioning correctly!  It’s a wonderful day. 

Plus, hey!  It’s already Tuesday!  I’m going to see my parents over the weekend and I am So! Excited! to see them it’s hard to say.  And then we’re going to make a second attempt at going to the Ren Faire and I’ve been looking forward to that for several months.  I’m trying to figure out where I’m going to get my henna tatoo this year.  I get one every time we go.  Last time (in 2008) I got a rather large fairy on my shoulders.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do this year, but I’d like it to be in a place where I can actually see it without a mirror.

In other news, my pants are too big.  The pants I wore yesterday were too big, too.  But I thought these fit!  I’m going to have to wash them “wrong” and see if I can get them to shrink a little bit because this is getting silly.  It’s easier when shirts don’t fit quite right.  When pants don’t fit, they have a tendancy to try to fall off!!

Such a bother. 

I’m going to go outside and see if it’s as nice out as I think it is!  Cheers!

But yeah.  If you haven’t eaten anything for a couple days, my advice to you is not to start out by eating tuna noodle casserole.  It’s absolutely delicious, but your stomach will not thank you.  TRUST ME.

I’m back at work today, though.  I’ve been tempted more than once to go back home — when my alarm was ringing, when I was pulling out of the driveway, when I was walking all the way across the parking lot, when I was staring at my computer trying to figure out what I was doing, when I was sitting outside on lunch enjoying the beautiful weather . . . .  I think it’s a testament to my strong will that I’m still sitting here.

Not getting much work done.  But I’m here.

I think I had a point when I started, but it totally excapes me now.  I guess it was just to let you know that we’re starting to feel better.  And I should get back to work.

For the last week and half or so that Justin’s been fighting it, mostly he’s just had the usual business–sitting in the bathroom for hours at a time before coming back to bed for couple minutes of sleep.  But once (twice?) he came back to bed and had uncontrollable shakes for a long time.

Last night, I got up to do the usual business and sat in there for a while.  And then my stomach lurched and gave a big growl and I felt sure I was going to vomit.  So I got up, washed my hands, pulled my hair back in a band (planning ahead, see?), and went to go sit in front of the toilet to wait.  When I washed my hands, I noticed that I was very pale, and when I sat down on the floor, I really didn’t feel well at all.  Everything hurt, especially my stomach, but I couldn’t tell if I should stay where I was, or sit back down on the toilet again and deal with problems from the other end.  (I’m really trying to write about this delicately….)

And then I started to get really cold and woozy and I tried to yell “Help!  Help!” to Justin in the other room because I knew that something just wasn’t right.  But I couldn’t yell loud enough.  And I remember thinking that maybe I’d feel better if was laying down.

And then Justin came running into the bathroom asking “What are you doing?”  And I thought, “I’m being sick in the bathroom, what else?”  And then, “Why am I on the floor?”  I was completely flat on my back on the floor of the bathroom and had no recollection of how I got there.  I started telling Justin what had happened and asked if he knew why I was on the floor.  He said he was sleeping when he heard this undulating “Whaaaoooogh!” scream from the bathroom and then a *thump* as I hit the floor.

So apparently I fainted for the first time in my life.  I’m glad I was already sitting on the floor when it happened because I hit the door of the bathroom with my head and that really could have hurt more than it did.  As it was, my ears were buzzing for a while but I don’t have a lump on my noggin.

We sat there for a while, Justin holding my hand while I lay on the floor.  And then we sat me up and saw how I handled that.  Not too bad, but I stayed there fora while.  We eventually tried to stand me up, but I had to sit back down again because I got dizzy and nauseated again.  Really nauseated.  I think we tried it three times before we just made a quick lurch to the bed so I could lay down there with a bucket next to my head in case I needed it.

I haven’t needed it, but ugh.  My whole digestive track, from the bottom of my esophagus and all the rest of the way, is not happy.  Even my teeth hurt, though that may have been from hitting the floor.  That’s probably where the headache is from, too, though that may be from dehydration, too.

So the whole point of this post is to say, “Holy crap!  I fainted!”  and also that I really don’t feel very good.  I am feeling better this morning than I did last night.  But I didn’t feel badly before I went to bed, either.   There’s just no making sense of this bug.  It’s just nasty.

I’m feeling pretty good right now.  My stomach isn’t grumbling quite as much as it was before.  It used to feel like I had a tight band going across my belly right at my belly button even though I’m wearing loose pajamas,  but that’s gone away for the moment.  It might help that I’ve only had 20 oz of water and 4 graham crackers all day….

I’m down about 5 pounds since this morning.  Is it bad that I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to keep that weight from coming back once I’m feeling better?

I should get some water in me.  But I’ve been awake for about 1/2 an hour and I’m starting to get really tired again, so I think I’m going to sleep some more.  Sleep is good.  Sleep helps me feel better, faster.  So I’m going to go back to sleep now.

I actually have A LOT more to talk about filing, but I’m going to take it elsewhere.  I’ve got the website for my organizing business, so I’m going to post all these over on that site.  And I’ll link to it from here so you can know that I’ve written something, but I won’t post it here so you don’t have be completely excited totally bored overwhelmed by it over here.

I’m writing about it because I’m helping a client through this process right now and it’s helpful for me to write it down so I can work through the whole thing.  Paperwork can be really complicated, so it’s nice to be able to really focus on an aspect of it at a time, work through my thoughts, and get them down really clearly.  But I recognize that it’s not always terribly interesting to read.

I recognize it, but I don’t always understand it.   I mean, how can that not be interesting?

Anyway.  Welcome to the beginning of May, if you somehow missed that change-over.  Did April go by really quickly for anyone else?  And May looks like it’s going to be a very busy month for me.  We had plans to go to the Ren Faire in Atlanta last weekend, but stuck around the house so Justin could be sick at home instead of on the road.  He’s starting to do better, now that we’re on day 7 of him being sick.  Day 8?  MANY days. 

In other news:

• Tuesday is my sister-in-law’s birthday, so we’re trying to figure out how to celebrate that with her when she’s busy celebrating it with all of her college friends.  Plus, she needs to do laundry, so she’s got to come visit.  Mwha-ha-ha-ha!
• My parents are going to be within 6 driving-hours from our house all next week, so on Wednesday we’re going to go meet them half-way between for dinner. 
• Sometime in the next couple weeks my mother-in-law, step-father-in-law, and grandma-in-law are all coming to visit and pack up my sister-in-law for the summer break.  Apparently they may or may not be bringing their adorable puppy.    I don’t know when they’re arriving or for how long they’re staying.
• One of these weekends we’re hoping to go to Myrtle Beach to meet up with a couple friends.   I have no idea which weekend this is happening.
• Some local friends of ours are moving and they’re going to need help moving, I believe, on the 22nd, if we’re in town.
• And if there’s a free weekend somewhere in there, we’re still hoping to make it up to the Ren Faire.

Why does it all have to happen in May?!

Plus, of course, there’s the usual craziness with work.  We’re completing one or two projects each week this month.  Compare that to next month, when we’re planning to complete three in the entire month.  Who creates this schedule?!  Drunken baboons?

 But whatever.  Life is good!  It’s pouring down rain today and even that is good because it’s better than the 85% humidity and burning hot sunshine that we had yesterday.  And I remembered my umbrella.  And I got to talk with both of my parents last night and that was fantastic!  And there was a new Castle when we weren’t expecting one.

So life is busy, but life is good, and I’m feeling happy!  I think I’ll go for a walk. 

Before -- Christmas 2009

Current -- April 2010

Okay, so anyone who doesn’t want to hear about diet stuff can skip this post and go back to admiring our work on the lawn. 

As you can hopefully tell from the pictures, I’ve lost about 20 pounds.  This is crazy amazing to me because I’ve only been seriously working at this since the beginning of March.  To lose 20 pounds in a month is insane!  I’ve slowed down to about 2 or 3 pounds a week now, but those first couple weeks were crazy!

What I’ve been doing is logging every single thing that I eat through MyFoodDiary.com, which I resisted for a long time because of the time commitment involved.  It’s frustrating, sometimes, having to keep track of every little thing and write it down and figure out how big of a serving it was and how many calories were involved and blah, blah, blah.  But ho-ly cow.  There’s no denying the cold, hard truth of nutritional information when it’s all written down and telling you that you just put more than 2000 calories in your body today.  And half of that was sugar.  And you didn’t exercise.

I’ve had to make some adjustments to what I eat and how often and all of that, and it’s been interesting to notice how my appetite has started to change.  If I eat healthy foods, which look more and more appetizing, then I don’t get hungry as often, and I can eat less.  I have more energy to get up and exercise when I’m not so weighed down by a full stomach and it’s easier to sleep when my stomach isn’t bloated with food.

I set a goal for myself to log my food for 30 days straight.  The reward for achieving that was to get an hour-long massage.  I met that goal last week and my massage is scheduled for Sunday afternoon!  I’m on my way to 60 days, now.

Exercise-wise, I’ve been hitting Zumba classes on Monday and Wednesday evening and yoga class on Saturday morning.  Besides that, I try to exercise for about an hour on my own enough times so I maintain a consistent 5 out of 7 days where I’ve exercised.  Not that any day in particular is a “non-exercising” day.  Every day is a day when I should exercise, but some days are too busy and I don’t beat myself up if I can’t get in a workout between work and band practice.

Other than that, I haven’t done anything in particular to work on this.  I try to drink my 64 oz of water or more each day.  If I REALLY need a cookie, and if I can afford the calories, I’ll have a cookie.  But not a handful of cookies followed by a handful of chocolate and ice cream with syrup on top.  If we’re going to a restaurant for dinner, I try to get a hold of the menu online before hand so I can look at the options and find something healthy – like grilled fish instead of breaded and fried fish.  And that’s pretty much the whole story – eating foods that are healthy, in appropriate amounts, and logging it all, while exercising for an hour, 5 days a week, doing something that I really enjoy.

I’m very pleased with my progress so far.  I have a long way to go – I figure I’m just under a quarter of the way to where I’d like to be.  I figure, at my current rate of weight-loss, I should be in the 100s by late May.  And I should be down about 40 pounds by the 4th of July.  My goal when I started was to be down by 50 pounds by the time I went back to my doctor appointment in early September.  I’m hoping to blow her socks off when I get there.

Even better, by Christmas of this year I hope to be almost to my goal weight.  And that makes me a very happy girl!

So I went home and asked Justin to rub my leg.  And he did and it was wonderful.  It hurt, but it felt better.  And then he covered me in blankets and let me sleep until about 9:30, when he offered me food left over from our anniversary dinner (baby back ribs, mashed potatoes, and cheese biscuits).  I ate delicious food, poked at my computer a few minutes (gotta log my food so I can get my massage), and curled back up for sleep again.

When Justin came to bed, I asked him to massage my leg again, and he’s a wonderful man because he rubbed my leg again.  And then I was out for the night.

When my alarm rang this morning at 6:00, I wouldn’t have minded sleeping for a few more hours, but I have multiple projects on the table right now, so I had to get moving.  And when I got out of bed and stood on my leg, it didn’t hurt at all.  AT ALL!  It’s completely better.  I have some bruising, but that’s probably related to all the scratches on my legs from the yard work over the weekend.

I’m hearing again and again that what I should do the next time I get a cramp is to stand on the leg or pull my toes up toward my knees.  Both options sound terrible, but apparently they’re wonderful once the pain stops, and that the pain will stop more quickly and result in less residual pain.  So I guess if it happens again, I’ll either have Justin push on my toes or I’ll have to figure out how to get myself out of bed so I can stand up.  But I’m telling you right now I hope it never happens again.  Ever.

To that end, I’m trying to figure out why it happened at all.  There are so many options, but the primary reasons apparently are dehydration or a lack of potassium, magnesium, or calcium.  I thought I had calcium supplements in my multivitamin but turns out that I don’t.  So I have to either increase my dairy intake or start with a supplement.  And I might just do the supplement anyway because this girl doesn’t want osteoporosis.  And I have to figure out what all has potassium in it other than bananas.  And keep on drinking my 64 oz plus of water.

Anyway, since my leg is feeling so much better and since I got a lot of sleep last night and I’m much more rested, I’m having a much better day than yesterday.  I’m actually getting work accomplished and catching up on projects, and with any luck, I won’t have to work on Friday afternoon again.  It depends on how this document goes this afternoon, though.  I was supposed to finish it today, not start it . . . .

But we’re keeping positive!  And I’m going to go step outside for a little while and see what the weather is like.  It’s supposed to be lovely.  The only thing that could make today better would be if I could take the afternoon off and go finish my yard work.