Here I go again!

We are going to Vegas on Monday! We will be there until Friday. Steve is attending a car show for three days and i'll basically be on my own during the day. I'm hoping to hit the gym in the Wynn every morning, do a little shopping (great mall across the street from the Wynn!) and than spend a few hours by the pool waiting for Steve. This is the first time we will be staying at the Wynn so I am looking forward to exploring the hotel.

When we get back from Vegas on Friday night, that will leave me all day Saturday to get ready for our week in the Bahamas that starts on Sunday. What the hell were we thinking? We are staying on Emerald Bay at the Sandals Exhuma Resort. I should be looking forward to it but I am stressing over being away for almost 2 weeks! Don't get me wrong, I love to travel but not like this. I have to go shopping for some things to wear as all my summer type clothes are way to big! Again, I should be happy about it but I'm not! I am sure once we get there, I will relax (I hope) and have a great time being with my husband and thanking God that we are able to be together. While we are there, we will observe the 6 month anniversary of "the accident" and I know that is weighing on my mind a lot.

On the band front, I am down to 173! I am beyond happy that my fill on 9/16 is still keeping me in the green zone. I still am able to eat anything but in very small quanities. Thats fine by me. Eating out will be a challenge but I don't have much choice. I just have to keep up with my exercise and watch my protein and calories and I should do just fine.

Some pics!

These are some pics from my recent travels to Long Island and Disney:

Of course Brutus got a souvenir t-shirt:



This was taken at the Sugarland concert. Isnt the sky awesome in the background?



Steve and his BFF getting ready for Mickeys Not so Scary Halloween party:



A little Halloween display at Downtown Disney:



That is a Serpent made out of Lego's behind Steve and I:



Mickeys Not so Scary Halloween Party...very fun and I even got to go trick-or treating:



Steve during our Segway tour of Fort Wilderness:



Me wearing my dads skull-cap getting ready for the Segway tour:



Captain "Steve" Sparrow anyone?



My beautiful family:



The hubster and I:



Dinner with Allan, his wife Sue, Rapunzel (a fellow blogger) and her husband and brother, great fun, not to mention great food, thank you again Allan:

Sorry I've been MIA

We got back from New York a week ago Tuesday and than left for Disney on Monday. We just got home last night. What a week! I promise to post some pic's tomorrow but I just haven't had time to download them.

Our friends from New York came down to meet us and we spent 4 days staying at Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort. Gorgeous. We spent most of our time at Epcot as they were hosting the Food and Wine Festival which I most certainly partook in! Great food, great friends. What more do you need, right?

It was the first time that Steve and I have spent any time there without the kids. It was weird at first but I really had a great time. We did so many things that the kids never wanted to do but we did. We had a few really great meals (flying fish) and some not really great meals (new Mexican restaurant in Mexico). We had real authentic pizza at the new Via Napoli Pizzeria in Italy....just like the kind they make in Italy!

This morning was back to reality, at least until Nov. when we leave for a two week trip to Vegas/Bahamas, gym at 6 a.m. and work! The scale was up 1.2 lbs but I honestly think the pizza I ate yesterday had something to do with that. In any event, I'm back and in the mood to see the scale go south!

I have missed all of you and look forward to catching up on your blogs. Love ya's!

Going to a Sugarland concert tonight!

So excited. I love Jennifer Nettles. Steve surprised me with the tickets BEFORE he realized it was Biketoberfest! my poor man...to make him happy I went with him and another couple to many of the hot spots yesterday. we had a great day even if Steve and Gary did not see any boobs! I had a little piece of funnel cake...good times for sure.

The scale was my friend this morning...174.8! I have not seen that number since my daughter was born almost 20 years ago! I honestly didn't Think I would see any losses because I didn't get my regular exercise in and its going to be another tough week for me as we will be at Disney for 3.5 days next week with our friends.

I have to say, the one thing that is really helping me is tracking my calories with myfitnesspal.com. I know many don't track but I have to. it really makes me think about what I am eating. in order to get in my protein, I don't have a lot of wiggle room for empty calories. the fact that I can track on my phone is a huge benefit.

we are at my father in laws and will be going for Italian food tonight before the show. I am in the mood for fish so I hope they have something good!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Weigh-in and a really good sliming story

I was actually dreading weighing myself this morning after being away for 6 days. Some things never change, right? In the old days, I wouldn't have gotten on the scale for at least 3 or 4 days after a vacation so the fact that I weighed myself this morning, is a SV in itself! 176.4!!! This is really great because last week it was 176.2. I am very happy with this number, believe me!

The problem for me with vacations is that for one thing, I do not get in all my water. No matter how I try, it just doesn't happen. The second thing I didn't do at all this week was formally exercise. I had the best of intentions to go to the gym but it never happened. I did go for a very hilly walk with Steve and Jordan, does that count? The third problem I had was that while I was counting my calories and staying at or under 1200 calories a day, I was NOT getting the calories from protein! I had 2 scooped out mini-bagels and 3 almost full slices of pizza (on different days!) not to mention other, not so protein fortified items...did I mention the pretzel M&M's? Um, yeah, 150 calories for that pack (or two) I had. For a great cause though, the proceeds went to the senior class of Bellport H.S. Who says I don't have school spirit?

This morning I was back at the gym, I am drinking my water and I will get in at least 80g of protein.

Ok, now to the sliming story. We got home last night from the airport around 6 p.m. and I just didn't want to go out to dinner. I decided to make this dish that Steve loves. Chicken & spinach over penne. Its basically chopped chicken breast, sauteed with lots of chopped garlic in a little EVOO..when the chicken is cooked, I add about 2 cups of chicken stock & a package of frozen spinach & season with s & p and some hot pepper flakes....I than add about 1/2 lb penne (cooked) in the pan and thats it. Ok, I was really hungry and probably ate a little faster than normal, but come on...3 bites of chicken and maybe 3 or 4 little penne pasta pieces and I was stuck!

I get up, walk around, things are kind of calming down. The phone rings and its my sister. We talk for about 15 minutes and I can feel the slime building in the back of my throat. She is being very chatty and you'd never know I was just living in her house for 6 days the way she was going on and on. Thankfully, I was on my cell phone and I was standing by my front door because the reception sucks in other places of the house. Normally I would be sitting on my couch, on a rug! Front door is surrounded by tile...do you see where I am going with this story? So, ok, I am getting ready to tell her that I have to run...literally and all of a sudden, I get this little tickle in my throat which made me cough....OMG...the slime that spouted out of my mouth and all over the tile was unbelievable! I yelled to my sister that I have to go and dropped the phone.

Steve came running around the corner and stopped dead in his tracks! "Wow...it really is slimy!" he said. No shit! Does he think I make up these little cute nicknames myself? I have to ask him to please go get paper towels because I am literally standing there with slime dripping off my hands as I tried to cover my mouth.

Lesson learned...never put off sliming but if you can't, tile cleans up very nicely!

I'm leaving on a Jet plane....

I am sitting here on my sisters computer....she left for work after we said our goodbyes...no tears this time though so that is PROGRESS for both of us. She will be coming to Florida for a long weekend in the beginning of Dec. with my mom and niece. We will than be coming back to LI for Christmas.

Last night Steve and I took the whole family including my sisters mother and father-in-law out to dinner to celebrate my sister having received her Masters degree! It was so bittersweet as we all felt the missing presence of my brother-in-law who was her biggest supporter and whose working 2 and sometimes 3 jobs at a time allowed her to go to school full-time.

Our initial reason for coming to NY at this time was my daughter Mallory's friends wedding (I will post pics when I get home and upload to my computer). Now that Christina's wedding is out of the way, we will be turning up the volume on Mallory's wedding. We still have to get favors, flowers and when I come back in December, we will be sitting with the caterer to finalize the menu! I suspect that things will be really going fast from this point.

I am looking forward to getting home though, and getting back to my routine. I didn't go to the gym at all since getting here! I have an appt. tomorrow though and between that and getting back to my regular eating, I should be fine! While I haven't been able to over-eat, I have not been making the best choices when I do eat! I am actually looking forward to my protein smoothies and Greek yogurt breakfasts as I have not had any while here. That also means that I have not been getting in all my protein.

Plane leaves at 12:40 and we haven't packed yet so I really better get moving on that!

Huge shout out to Jen!!!! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Jen took pity on an old lady who couldn't get her before/during pics up to size and redesigned my whole Blog for me! You are the best Jen, you know how special that pic is of my Dad and I and I will always remember you for doing this!

I am back "home" again with my family on Long Island and I really don't realize how much I miss it here until I come back. It is so great being here and being able to spend time with my mom, girls, sis, niece and nephew. Life goes on and they are all really living proof of this. I am very sheltered in FL in that I can go about my day and yes, at least once or 100 x a day "it" hits me and I remember May 11th. The big difference is that I didn't see my brother-in-law or father every day. My sister and her children live it 24/7, their husband and dad who used to be here is never coming home again.

I cannot walk into their yard and not see my BIL everywhere, he put in a built-in pool a few years ago and meticulously made a stone retaining wall, stone by stone, that surrounds the pool and landscaped the whole thing. This was the year that they were going to finish it with the pavers around the pool and continuing on the patio. My sister continued this job only she had a Mickey head integrated into the pavers as a memorial to her husband who was a Mickey fan to the end. The day he died, he had an appointment to have a Mickey that matched the Mickey on his tattoo, painted on his Harley! I know Jimmy is looking down from Heaven and smiling. People really do live on in our hearts, no one can tell me different!



We have a couple of really busy days ahead of us so I will apologize now if I don't get on here much! I just could not have gone a minute longer without thanking Jen, the Blog-Designer Extraordinaire!