the good, the bad and the ugly... after two weeks....

Last night I went to bed around midnight. Austin asked to use my laptop for a little while... which is fine... I don't mind sharing... but when I got up at 7:45 this morning he was still awake and still online with an empty two liter of coke beside him. Aggravating enough... but when he moved the laptop back to my room and I tried to sign on I got an iexplore.exe application error. It says, "the application failed to initialize properly" and gives the code 0xc0000142. I have no idea what that means - but it keeps shutting down the computer. I tried to restore... I tried in the reboot to go back to last good configuration... and that just gave me a windows incompatability error. I tried to see if there was anything installed or changed... doesn't look like it. Very frustrating. I was without a computer for months last year and it drove me nuts. By the grace of God and the generousity of the people who love me, I got a new one and I love it... love doing digital photos... love the social networking... and to be honest, I'm really VERY angry at Austin. No telling what kind of bogus inappropriate stuff he was trying to look at that caused a virus or who knows what. That's the bad.

Yesterday was my "sugar day" and I really didn't want any sugar. Funny how you lose the taste for it. I got a venti iced green tea from Starbucks with sugar instead of splenda and that felt wild and decadent. We even went out for lunch (which I couldn't afford but ... every now and then you just have to live)... Austin wanted Wild Wings Cafe - which was a place we really enjoyed in Jacksonville. There's one in Gainesville so we went... he had wings... I had grilled shrimp. You can have the grilled shrimp with the same sauce as the wings... I had a honey/lime sauce... with steamed broccoli and potato salad. The potato salad was too thick and salty so I only had a bite of it. We did get these buffalo chips - they're just basically potato chips with blue cheese crumbles. I ate those. That was my only real indulgence. That's the good... losing cravings for bad stuff.

We've been eating a lot of produce... I made black beans and brown rice earlier in the week last week... I took the leftovers and stuffed red bell peppers on Friday night. I roasted some baby carrots and YUM! I had leftover leftovers last night for dinner. I got the munchies late last night and had a half almond butter and banana sandwich on whole grain bread. It was really good. That's another good for you.

The ugly... two pounds back on the scale this morning. I haven't eaten two pounds of food so I'm sure it's just *float* and *bloat* and will rectify itself in due time. I'm not going to get hung up on the scale although I am using it as one of my tools to make sure that what I'm doing is successful. But I dooooo feel better and I am sleeping better and learning to not freak out when it's a little later before I fall asleep. I think for many people it's that panic of not being able to sleep that keeps them awake. Does that make sense? I'll do measurements in a few more days. I want to try to measure every two weeks or so and I didn't measure on day one... So that's ugly but also good. I'm making progress.

George W. Bush is on Fox News right now - he is completely white headed now, just like Clinton. W has aged more out of office than he did in. That's odd.

It's pouring rain out. Miserable weather. That's ugly.

I went to church this morning... even though I had a huge distraction with the laptop not working... I decided that I was going to church no matter what and I worked at keeping my focus there. It was a great service... I'm glad I went... Always a good time. I miss those folks when I'm away from church. That was good.

I'm not doing the major preparation in cooking today because... well... our last payday was December 31st. We get paid tomorrow... which was already a long time between paychecks - 18 days - and the banks are closed tomorrow. So I'm hard core broke and hanging on to what I have left. Can't afford a grocery run until after payday. We're fine... I mean, there's lots of great fresh produce in the house and I have enough black beans, pinto beans, etc to handle our protein needs until Tuesday. We have some frozen chicken too. I just don't have all the ingredients to do my meals ahead like I have been doing. That's a bad... but I'm not going to let it turn into an ugly. I had a banana for breakfast... i never like to eat much before church because I don't want to be all gurgly and have to go to the bathroom halfway through the service. I had some stir fry broccoli and fresh mozzarella on reduced fat triscuits for lunch. I was baking some eggplant but forgot about it and it burned. I'm cooking some beautiful butternut squash for later - it's so thick and meaty that it's like eating a baked potato but it tastes better and doesn't need butter.

Speaking of butter... we're out. Austin made these lowfat orange and cranberry muffins yesterday and I decided that could go under my indulgence of the day and they were so moist that they didn't need butter. He wanted some, though... and it was then that I realized that we had been out of butter since I used the last little pat in our sauteed mushrooms on Thursday and I hadn't noticed. He said we'd been out of tub butter (margarine) for over a week. I think that's purty durn good!

We went produce shopping yesterday while we were in Gainesville. I let Austin help me pick some things that he really enjoys... and pick some things he wanted to try... he wanted to try kiwi because he thought they looked like .... never mind. I can't even go there. Whatever it takes to get him to eat healthy. And he loved the kiwi. I have a hard time eating kiwi. I'm allergic to pineapple and I have a similar but milder reaction to kiwi. But I will definitely be buying them for Austin. That was good.

There was a "sample lady" at the grocery store who was cooking asparagus and salmon. Austin asked for a sample and she sort of brushed him off saying, "it's asparagus!" and I said, "no... he loves asparagus... " so she gave him some and he loved it. That's right, lady, my kid eats asparagus!

Our church is doing disaster recovery certification training and ... I think I'm going to do it. I'm good in a crisis... I know a lot about insurance so I have that extra skill/training... and I've been in a place of hopelessness... of losing everything... and I know that there is always hope.... and I think that's a message that folks going through a disaster need to know. Financially, I don't see myself in a place of being able to just take off work and head off to parts unknown... but I know that God will work that out. I know that where He leads, He will feed. Sometimes it's not really about going so much as it is being willing to go wherever He leads. And I'm willing. I'm going to be an empty nester in a few short years... so who better than me to go? Besides... every motivation that I can find to get healthy and stay healthy can only help. If I'm trained in disaster recovery... then I have to be at a weight and in good enough health to be helpful.

I guess I better save and post while this one trick pony is still in the ring! Y'all have a great Sunday!

love and hugs!