It's been a whirlwind of a week. Our trip to Tampa last weekend for my daughter's birthday was a blast and my little reunion was SO fun. We left both of the kids in Tampa for the week with my ex husband. They are having a ball and this week has been awesome for me and hubby. We've been like teenagers, having no kids here! Lots of reconnecting, lots of wine, lots of nakedness. LOL (Sorry, TMI!) We're going back to Tampa tomorrow to pick up the kids and go to a dinner party with some of my old friends. It should be another fun one. I'm SO ready to have my babies back home though! I haven't weighed this week because it's my TOM, but I've been good and have worked out everyday since Monday. Life is good. I'm so blessed!

So tomorrow is my baby girl's 10th birthday. I can't believe she's gotten this old. She's out of town with her Dad for a month and I miss her like crazy. We are going up to spend the weekend there for her big birthday celebration. He usually throws her a great party every year and we never miss it. Her little brother decided to write her a "rap" song for her birthday and I'm so proud of how well he did helping me come up with rhyming words for the things he wanted to say! I'm so blessed to have not only 1, but 2 fabulous children!

I have to keep saying that to myself. I was hoping to have lost more weight by now, but I guess I should just be happy that I'm still actually losing at all. I have a little mini-reunion this weekend and was looking forward to being at my goal weight, but whatever. I think I'm still smaller now than I was the last time I saw any of those people. It should be fun. Maybe another pound or two will disappear by Friday!

A few weeks ago my husband called from work and asked me if I'd ever seen an "ugly doll."

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I had no idea what he was talking about so I went to the website and said "ok, what about them?" Then he asked if I could make a cake for a co-worker's wife who collects them. Apparently the guy wanted to surprise her for her birthday. I said sure. It seemed like an easy enough task and we agreed I'd call this guy and work out the details. Well, what started as a seemingly simple task turned into a true stressful ordeal. First the guy tells me his wife is lactose intolerant. OK, I can handle that so I ask him what flavor cake he'd like. (I'm thinking chocolate or vanilla, right?) He told me "well, I'd really like it to be a peach, caramel and vanilla cream cake." I was thinking "great, let me whip that recipe right out of my ass!" Then I asked him which doll he wanted me to make. He told me he wanted the one called "Suntan Target" - ok, this is the one with 5 arms and hair! See what I mean - a simple project gone bad!
Well, I JUST NOW AT 2:08AM FINISHED THE CAKE! It turned out awesome and I can't wait for him to pick it up tomorrow. However, I am a dumb dumb because I charged him $100 for the cake and tonight when I added up what it cost me to get all of the lactose free stuff and the huge supplies of fondant, I spent $70! So I guess with my $30, I probably made about $.05 an hour. LOL Oh well, another addition to my ever growing collection of hobbies. Now I'll be spending all day tomorrow getting the black and orange food coloring out of finger nails!

Well, my weight loss has definitely slowed down. I'm at the point right now where my body starts fighting me. It is apparently very comfortable being fat, and doesn't like being under 150 pounds, but we are going to have a fight and I am going to win, and not only is it going to cooperate, but it's going to LIKE it! I am at 149.9 this morning! Ha, ha ha silly silly old fat body! I'm beating you and you look good and eventually, you'll feel good at a smaller weight too!

I'm wearing my favorite Size 6 Levi's today. They are probably the smallest article of clothing I own, and finally, yes FINALLY, they are not tight. No rolls, no bunching, just a normal pair of jeans! Damn, it feels good.

Yesterday was a really good day. After I finished my usual morning chores (sweeping, mopping, a load of laundry, taking care of hubby, son, and animals) I worked out with Cathe Friedrich for almost 2 hours. I did her supersets DVD, which is a great strength training routine and then I followed it up with a step aerobics workout. By the way, even though I ate off plan this weekend, I still managed to workout both Friday and Saturday. I probably would have worked out on Sunday too, but I figured a full day at a water park climbing stairs was probably good enough.

A mood struck me to start painting yesterday afternoon. I had been putting off painting the trim in my hallway that goes upstairs for about 4 months. I finished it in just a few hours and had paint left in the pan, so I moved into my bathroom, which is the next room on my list that needs to be painted. I think today after I work out I'll get that room completely done.

Last night I still had some energy and felt like eating something bad so I popped in Jillian Michael's Metabolism Boosting dvd. 2 months ago, this dvd almost killed me. It's straight up, mostly intense old school cardio and back then I'd have to take lots of little 5 second breaks to even get thru it. Well, last night I kept thinking "why did I think this was so difficult?" the entire way thru. It's nice when you can finally feel yourself getting stronger. Honestly, I give most of that credit to Cathe Friedrich. She's really good and her dvd's are tough and smart. I'm doing another one today and can't wait to see how my weigh in goes on Thursday now!

This 3 day weekend seemed to go on forever and I'm really glad it's over. I only hope my waist line will forgive me for what I've done. LOL We started our weekend on Friday with a small bbq. I made italian sausages on the grill and friends brought over side dishes. While I didn't eat much, it was still things that aren't normally in my menus. (including that vodka and cranberry juice!)

Saturday hubby and I were desperately craving sushi for dinner and after driving to our 3 favorite places, we gave up as no one was open. We ended up at Carrabba's and I don't think I'll ever eat there again. We ordered mussels and calamari to start and I only nibbled at those. Then I had the chicken rosa maria. My son ate the mashed potatoes and I had a few bites of chicken. I don't know what did it, but I woke up at 3am with pregnancy style heartburn and my tummy was not good! I spent about 3 hours running to the bathroom.

Sunday we took Sebastian to a water park and had loads of fun. I didn't eat the whole time we were there (which was only 4 hours) so afterwards we went to one of our favorite tex mex restaurants and I had some shrimp and crab quesadillas. I brought home more than half of my small plate and ate the rest for dinner. I feel yucky today, bloated, full, just not right. I realized that it's been so nice the past month not eating out and how much better I feel when I eat the things I cook! I'm not even going to get on a scale until Thursday. Hopefully I can work it all off by then!

The smell of dinner tonight is SO delicious. I am dying for hubby to get home so we can eat! I made lean pork chops that had been marinated in apple cider vinegar and a tsp. of splenda. I sauteed them in cooking spray for just a minute per side then took them out and added onions and chopped apples. Then I added the marinading liquid back with some thyme, salt, pepper and garlic and put the chops back in and reduced it down. I sauteed some spinach with garlic and a few squeezes of fresh lemon juice and I have brown rice going in the microwave almost done. (Yes, brown rice cooks much better in the microwave than on the stove!) It smells wonderful in here and I'm starving after a hard 2 hours of working out today!