O Scale, O Scale! Where For Art Thou Scale?

Glad to see a lot of the bloggers out and about commenting again.  Seems so lonely without it. LOL.

Not much to report on except how much I miss my scale.  It's still at the old house so I missed my weigh in this week and am picking it up tomorrow but still won't weigh again until Monday (because that's my Weigh In Day come hell or high water).  A little background:  Whenever I was serious about losing weight, I was a scale whore.  When I say "serious," I mean I was on a plan...Atkins, South Beach, whatever.  I'd get on the scale every day (sometimes more) and see the progress.  I'd do the thing where you weigh yourself, go to the bathroom, and go weigh yourself again to see what a difference it made.  And those daily fluctuations affected me terribly.  If the scale was up, I'd get discouraged and eat crappy the rest of the day because "I'm not losing weight anyway."  If it was down, I'd be giddy and happy the rest of the day.  Not a healthy relationship by any means and it obviously didn't work in keeping me motivated to lose weight.  So when I embarked my journey to Bandland I made the decision to be a scale whore no more.  I recognize the importance of the scale to track my progress and hold me accountable.  But this isn't a race...I can't expect to lose 5 lbs a week every week (I've NEVER lost that much since banded) and since the band limits my ability to binge, I can't eat my disappointment with the scale.  So I committed to once a week and I chose Mondays to try to help keep me motivated through the weekend.  I've cheated on this commitment a few times and did midweek weigh ins but never to the extent I used to.  And this has worked well for me.  If I gained, I knew why I gained.  There were no big surprises.  While I feel I've moved past my scale addiction, I don't like NOT knowing where I'm at.  I don't like NOT knowing how I'm doing.  To be fair, I don't think I've lost anything but I don't think I've gained really either.  I've eaten like crap but I've been doing a lot of heavy lifting and walking up and down stairs (My glutes sure feel it).  Portion sizes have been OK so I just feel like I don't know if I'm coming or going.  So there you go.  I miss my scale.  Wow.  That was a lot of rambling about the scale.  Moving on...

Hubby's surgery is Tuesday.  Wahoo!  This has been a long time in the making.  He started his 6 month supervised diet for insurance approval the same time I did so he's been working long and hard for this.  He's getting pretty nervous and having the same second thoughts we all go through.  Is the risk worth it?  Will it really work?  Is he sure he can't do it on his own without the help of the band?  I'm doing my best to reassure him but I also know that until he does it and starts losing weight, it's not going to help much.  I also know that a couple days after surgery, when the gas pain's at its worst, he'll wonder why the heck he decided to do this at all.  He's doing fabulously on liquids.  He's definitely ready to be banded so he can at least not be hungry and do liquids.  In my opinion, the preop is worst than the postop because you're still HUNGRY.  I wasn't hungry at all the first two weeks after surgery when I was still on all liquids so I missed chewing but at least I wasn't starving.  I hope it's the same for him.  I took all next week off to help him recuperate.  A little (meaning BIG) wrench in the plans.  My dad has heart issues and he has to have a procedure next week where they shoot the dye up his leg to see how big of a blockage he has at his heart.  The day of this procedure?  Same day as hubby's surgery.  The problem?  Who's going to watch my girls now?  Trying to figure that part out.  Of course, things can't just run smoothly because we always have to make things more difficult than they need to be.  *sigh*  Anywhoozle, I don't have internet at home and so will  probably not be posting much next week.  I'll try to get to my mom's house to let you know how his surgery goes and how he's doing but it will be minimal.  Please set a reminder for yourself to send good surgery and recovery thoughts to him on Tuesday.

I'll miss all of you next week!  Whenever I'm away for a few days, it seems like all kinds of exciting things happen and I miss it.  So please try to have a dull week to make catching up easier for me.  Hope everyone States side has a wonderful Memorial Day.  Let's remember what the day is all about and remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

And without further ado, your Friday Funny:

Help For Commenting Issues & New Bloggers

OK...so this is a random post.  I'm seeing LOTS of people having issues commenting.  I'm going to pretend that's why I have no comments on my last post.  It's not that I've become dull, boring and a completely incompetent writer...I have HUNDREDS of comments just waiting for me if y'all could just comment.  Anyhoo - I was having the commenting problem on Monday.  Thought it was just me and went in search of a solution.  I switched my browser to Google Chrome instead of Internet Explorer and POOF!  Problem solved.  So if it's REALLY bugging you, you may want to switch up your browser and see if that helps.  If it does, leave me a comment so I know 1) you're reading and 2) it worked.  And if it does work, pass the word along to other bloggers so we can all be commenting fools!

Next, the blog redesign contest.  I see my friend Amanda already has several votes but I'm shameless and Jen was nice enough to create a link to post on our blogs for voting.  I, however, am so internet UN-savvy that I can't figure out how it works...I don't get the "edit link" option with the image.  So instead, please click here to go vote.  Vote for me, or Amanda or any of the other wonderful ladies nominated who are all fantastic and all deserving of Jen's expertise.

I've also discovered 2 new bloggers that I think everyone will get a kick out of.

Little Red Riding Hood and Nora.  Please go say hi.

Hope y'all are having a great week!

And Then There Was Light!

Yes, peoples!  I've gots electricity!  Wahoo!  Ahhh...so much nicer.

I wanted to send a shout out to Lyla who was kind enough to nominate me for a blog redesign by the infamous Jen of JustFoolinBlogDesigns .  Her blog redesigns (she's done quite a few of them here in Blogland) are just so creative and fun!  I don't know if it's just because my current blog design is just oh-so-dull, Lyla can barely stand it or if she just wanted to be nice, but I'm appreciative none the less.  If you don't follow Lyla, you should...she's making great progress and her blog rocks.  You can find it here.  Thanks again!

Last night, BFF and I went to the Melting Pot which is a fancy, shmancy little fondue place here in Phoenix.  Oh. My. God.  First, let me say that fondue is incredibly band friendly.  So if you're ever looking for something that you don't have to worry too much about it, fondue is the way to go.  Since you're dipping everything (except the meat) in cheese or chocolate...it turns everything into a mushy.  The protein (our platter had steak, shrimp, chicken and pasta...OK.  I know pasta isn't a protein but bear with me) comes with an assortment of different sauces so they wind up being pretty band friendly too.  Now, with all this band friendly food, I will warn you that you'll eat WAY TOO MUCH here.  I seriously stuffed myself and it was so freakin' yummy!

So we established I ate way too much last night.  I also had to pick up my oldest from school yesterday as she threw up all over the playground.  Lovely.  She couldn't keep anything down last night, the poor thing.  This is the last week of school so there are all kinds of fun activities planned.  She's so bummed she might miss some of them.

Otherwise, not a whole lot new going on.  I hope to make my way back to the gym in a couple weeks.  Things are just too hectic at the new house and with hubby's surgery to make it.  HOWEVER, I do have a treadmill at home and, by God, I'm going to use it.  I'm not sure how y'all are about home exercise equipment but mine have always tended to become...clothes racks.  Oh it doesn't start out that way.  No sirree...it starts out being used regularly and then after a couple months, it starts to collect dust, then you put a shirt on it just until you can find the time to hang said shirt up and the next thing you know it looks like a picked through sales rack at Macy's.  Then after a couple years of this, you finally get rid of it at a garage sale because you realize you're just not going to use it.  Now, in this case, it's not my treadmill.  It's my husband's treadmill...we bought it for him to use at home to work around his schedule since it's tough for him to find time for the gym.  And I'm proud to say that even before we moved, there were no clothes on this treadmill and we've had it for almost a year!  Well, for the next couple weeks, I'll be using it since the gym isn't in my immediate future.  I'm going to commit (right here...putting it in writing) to doing the treadmill twice this week and 3 times next week.  Then it's back to the gym and Zumba.  I just gotta get back to some kind routine.  This floundering around with food and exercise obviously isn't working for me.

Anywhoozle, if you'd like to head over to Jen's blog to help me get a new look for Candyland to Bandland, well...I'd certainly appreciate it.  I think you should head over there anyway.  There are a lot of great blogs nominated and a lot of very deserving people involved and you'd get to see some of Jen's work.  So how about a Hump Day Happy Thought to get us through the rest of the workweek?