Why I'm Thankful

Since it is Thanksgiving weekend, it seems to be as good a time as any to reflect on things I'm thankful for. Here is just a short list:

My wonderful, patient husband.
My sweet, cuddly little dog who keeps my feet warm at night.
My family who keep me grounded and encouraged.
My friends who keep me laughing and feeling loved.
A job that pays my bills.
A solid roof over my head.
Food on my table.
Cooler temperatures.
Religious and political freedom.

Oh, and I can't forget how thankful I am for not gaining weight over Thanksgiving! Of course, the week's not over and neither is my next WW weigh-in, but I'm pretty confidant I'll have a loss this week. And speaking of losses, as of my last weigh-in, I'm happy to report that not only did I lose the weight I gained two weeks ago, but I lost a couple pounds more for good measure.

But now on to some sad news. As the deadline for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) looms close (hours away, at this point), I must admit I did not finish my novel. Nope - not even close. I did, however, at least get out of the starting gate with over 1000 words and an actual plot/idea. So, no celebration parties for me, or "eleventh hour" freakouts getting the last few words in. Just complete defeat. But, even though I didn't get it written in a month, I'm going to keep at it and maybe, just maybe, it'll actually turn into a real novel one day. Here's to hoping!

And the Good News Keeps on Coming...

On the heels of our week-long AT&T debacle comes this.

After a very uneventful day, I was so looking forward to coming home, making a delicious fish dinner for Nelson and myself, and relaxing while watching Survivor. But God has a sense of humor, as always, and clearly that was not in the cards for us tonight.

Instead, I'm in our computer room (blogging, of course) and waiting on Nelson to make sandwiches for us to eat in here. In front of the computer. On the futon bed. Why, you may ask, won't we be in our dining room or living room watching our favorite show? Well, it is currently "under construction" due to a leak that apparently sprung sometime today and has soaked our carpeting and some of our wall.
Sooooo...our furniture is currently in the middle of the living room, there is a huge hole in our ceiling, and plaster and debris are pretty much everywhere. Oh yeah, and a cloud of dust that is hovering over the entire space that is making it hard for me to breathe.

But it could be worse. The people who live upstairs, where the leak originated, have a huge whole in their floor AND they won't have any heat tonight, since the leak was in their hot water unit. Or something that sounds like it heats things. In their apartment. I guess that means no hot water for them either. Now THAT would suck. (In case you were thinking, no big deal on the heat thing, you live in Texas. Well, a cold front is blowing through and it is supposed to be in the low 30's tonight). Nope - we got off pretty good. Instead, this is what we have to look forward to: no living room for several days while they pull the carpeting back and put big blowers on it to dry it out.
And people in and out of our aparment for several days while they patch the hole in our ceiling and fix the pipe(s). But, at least the drilling has stopped. And can I add that we have the BEST maintenance guy ever?? He was here within 15 minutes of us calling, after hours, and with a smile and happy attitude.

Denver, our dog, of course could not be happier that there is a new person in our apartment. Every time the door opens, Denver plays "beat the mom to the door" and practically trips me on the way so he can see who's there. Even though you'd think he would have figured out by now that it's the same person. And I would bet money on the fact that he's plotting his escape from the bedroom tonight to nose around through the dust to see what treasures he can find. No doubt the smell of wet plaster seems inviting to him. Oh to live the life of a dog!

At any rate, our night has kind of gone downhill from here, and we're subjected to sandwiches for dinner since our water had to be turned off for a bit while the leak was being located. Thus making the whole cooking thing difficult. But hey, at least we have heat tonight!

Three Steps Forward, One Step Back

Soooo...today was my 7 week weigh-in at Weight Watchers, and sadly, I'm up 2.5 pounds. As much as I know I will obsess over how it happened, the reality is this is my first week with a gain since starting the program. All other weeks I've been averaging 2-2.5 pound losses. While I'm not surprised I gained this week, I'm surprised at how much I gained. The source of the damage, you may ask? One delicious deep fried meal at RC Fowlers (or is KC Fowlers? I can NEVER remember the name of that place!) consisting of chicken tenders with wing sauce, waffle fries, chips and queso. To my credit, however, I did count every last thing "on program", wrote it all down in my food journal, and used all of my extra "flex" points (plus maybe a few I didn't have). Not to my credit was the yucky tummy I had to deal with all night. Apparently, the body gets used to healthy food and rebels when something nasty accidentally finds its way there.

I find that I've also been relying heavily on Lean Cuisine meals, so maybe the sodium finally caught up with me. I've cut way back on Starbucks, so I can't blame that this time. Overall, however, I've lost a total of 15 pounds, 9 pounds with Weight Watchers, so I'd say I'm doing ok.

I'm also happy to report that instead of using it as an excuse to "throw caution to the wind" and "eat everything in sight since I gained anyway", I actually sat down and contemplated how I could do things differently to not have a gain next week. Strangely, I actually ate below my points today because I just wasn't all that hungry.

On another note, I've been watching the show Ruby on the Style Network, and I just can't say enough how much I love her and find her inspirational. She is beautiful inside and out and just exudes this amazing energy. While I don't have as much weight to lose as she does (I believe she started the show around 470 pounds), I can still relate to the struggle and desire to be "normal" and able to do the same things that "skinny" people do. And I appreciate the fact that she is losing her weight the old fashioned way - which I still believe is the best way there is.

This week's show focused on the return of her ex-boyfriend and her feelings over how things ended between them. He said if only she would have lost weight, he probably would have married her. Whatever. That's a LOT of pressure to put on someone. Chances are that even if she had lost the weight, he probably would have eventually found something else that wasn't good enough. I really question his return at this point in her life. My guess is that he caught wind of the fact that she was on TV and didn't want to be left out of the spotlight.

But Ruby didn't fall for it and said that she wants someone who loves her for all of her - weight and all. And I say Amen to that! Ruby closed by saying for the first time she is falling in love with herself. And what could be more beautiful than that?

The Good, the Bad, and the Healthy

For anyone wondering what ever happened with our AT&T U-verse, I'm happy to report, after MANY MANY MANY phone calls between my husband and AT&T customer service, that we now have cable and internet. However, we still don't have a home phone because Time Warner Cable has decided to "not release it" for two weeks just because they can. I'm told they do this so that they can try to convince us not to leave them. Well....funny, but we haven't gotten any phone calls offering us some incredible deal to make us want to change our minds. Oh wait....they can't.....because we HAVE NO PHONE SERVICE! HA! I guess the last laugh is on them. And, Nelson is currently on his way to Time Warner to turn in our equipment, so it's already a done deal.

Despite the obvious issues getting U-verse installed, I have to say that I LOVE IT!!! The DVR is awesome - it can record up to four shows at a time and can hold some ridiculous number of hours of shows - like 120 hours, or something like that. And, no more having to rewind, fast forward or hunt for available VHS tapes, which I'm guessing will soon be obsolete anyway. And I love that I just go through the menu, push the ok button on the show I want, tell it to record, and VOILA! Done. I.Love.U-verse. And the not having a phone part? Not so bad.

What I don't like is that I no longer have Exercise TV On Demand. I may have to write a letter telling AT&T that so far it is the only flaw I find in their service. They do, however, have Fit TV, but not on demand. So, instead of being sad at losing my hundreds of options of various workouts (did I mention how much I LOVED Exercise TV On Demand???), I've decided to go through and DVR some of the Fit TV workouts. It doesn't have all the cool workouts like Biggest Loser, Leslie Sansone, Jackie Warner or any of the rest of the top trainers, but at least it is something. I've already canceled my gym membership, since I never used it anyway, so it's good that I can at least have some variety for working out at home.

I just finished doing a Tai Chi/Kickboxing workout, and I have to say I feel very invigorated - so I'll definitely be keeping that one. I also think I am digging the Tai Chi part and that it may make an excellent workout to do before bed. I am going to have to check into that. Either way, I believe I'll have to start building my DVD exercise video library. So, if anyone has current workout DVDs that they are loving, I'd be happy to hear your recommendations!

Can You Feel the Change?

Barack Obama = inspiration and hope.

Today I am proud to be an American.

AT&T, Thanks for Nothing!

As I type, Nelson is on the phone, yet again, trying to straighten out our installation of AT&T's Uverse - something we were VERY excited to get. Being the hopeless TV addicts that we are, when we heard we could get all the same channels as we were getting on Time Warner Cable, along with Starz, and DVR that can record up to 4 programs at a time, and all for the same price, we were pretty excited. And, this all happened quite coincidentally at the same time as our local NBC affiliate, KXAN, and Time Warner were having some ridiculous dispute over paying for NBC's signal. Since they couldn't resolve it, Time Warner pulled KXAN off the air. All the signs pointed towards Uverse.

So, we waited patiently for WEEKS to have it installed, and on our scheduled day, this past Saturday, we got up early and were prepared for the nice installation person who showed up around 8:30am. Cancelling all other plans, we stuck around all morning while she was doing her thing. Half-way through, she announced that she couldn't get the phone line up and working. After calling the office, she found out that somehow that portion of our order didn't make it through, and if we didn't mind not having a phone for 2 weeks, she could reschedule the phone hookup, and we could get the cable and internet part done that day. No problem, we said, we have cell phones. We can live a couple of weeks with no pesky calls from telemarketers, who are about the only people who use our land line anyway.

After another hour or so, she informed us that she had more bad news - now she couldn't get a signal on any of the hookups - phone, cable or internet. Seems AT&T scheduled our hookup for November 28th. Which is kind of baffling, since SHE showed up November 1st to hook it up. Which is the date they told us on the phone. Soooooo....I'm not sure how she would have known to show up or where to show up if the appointment wasn't really scheduled until later in the month. It appeared to be just as baffling to her and everyone she talked to at AT&T, because they couldn't provide an explanation that made sense. Something about our order getting "lost" in the system, and that it was stuck somewhere along the way....whatever. She was kind enough, however, to reschedule it for us on Wednesday, as an evening appointment, between 6 and 9pm.

Unfortunately, I had an appointment for that night, but I gladly moved it so that one of us could be home for the installation. (We only have one car - so if I have an appointment after work, Nelson has an appointment after work)

Today Nelson gets a message saying that the install is all set for Wednesday between 12pm and 2pm. HUH????? When he calls to let them know that's not what we were told, the friendly customer service rep tells him that because it's a new install, there's no way they can do an evening appointment. Despite the fact that all the equipment is in our apartment, our furniture pulled apart, in anticipation of just getting a signal. He then tells Nelson that our appointment was actually scheduled for November 28th.

So, it's now 7:50pm, and Nelson's been on the phone since about 7pm trying to straighten it out. After they had an initial "bad connection" on their end (big surprise, right?) and had to call him back. Then he had to call yet another department - I believe the third or fourth he's spoken to since this morning.

What's really annoying is that when the nice installation girl hooked our Time Warner back up, she didn't route it correctly, so we don't have the ability to tape one show while watching another.

The good news? I got a full workout in tonight, since the DVD seems to work just fine.

The REALLY bad news? We now have to pay for a month of Time Warner AND AT&T since we didn't disconnect Time Warner by the first of the month, as planned.

Will we get AT&T Uverse? Will we stick with Time Warner Cable? Will we blow up our TV's and swear off all television? Stay tuned.....