This has been a bad week.

Not only weight-loss related, just stuff in general.

First I've been having female issues again.  I've mentioned them not too long ago.  The link goes to my bother blog that explains in detail.  Last Sunday I woke up with lower back pain.  Monday it hurt so bad, a coworker gave me one of her prescription Motrin 600s and all it did was dull the pain.  Tuesday I cried my way thru the shower before work, it hurt so bad.  I took 3 220mg ibuprofen before work and another 500 at lunch and it finally started to be tolerable.

Wednesday I still had pain, but I was finally figuring out it was cramps, too.  Oh yay, my favorite thing!  And we got crap-tons of snow dumped on us.  It was warm enough to make the snow really heavy, too.  We didn't shovel until Thursday afternoon, tho.  It was even worse, since we'd driven on the driveway multiple times, so it was really packed down.

Thursday morning is when the issues started getting bad.  And I got mad at the family to the point where this meme could have been true.  Pardon the language.  (I actually think this is pretty hilarious now!)  I don't even want to write about it, since I dealt with things badly and ended up having to apologize to both Randy & Angel even tho they were the ones being stubborn buttheads.

So moving on.  Due to above said female issues, I didn't go weigh in this week.  Friday morning at the regular doctor's office, wearing jeans and not long after breakfast, I weighed in at 222.8.  Which is up a bit from 219.5 from last week.  That mid-afternoon in a different doctor's office, still wearing jeans but having only had a cup of yogurt since earlier, I was down to 221.3.  Meh.  Guess that's not too bad.

Oh, this is so weird!  Friday afternoon after I got home from all the doctor visits, I was laying across the bed with the cats and dozed off for a little bit.  I woke up with a cramp in my leg.  My right foot was rolled inward and I couldn't straighten it out or put any weight on it.  It hurt so bad that I started feeling faint!  At least I think that's what it was.  I felt hot & my vision was going black around the edges and I was having a hard time keeping my balance.  Once I almost fell, so I sat back down on the bed and held on until I started feeling clearer.  I was sore for the rest of the night.  It was a weird place, tho.  It wasn't directly above my ankle bone on the outside and not directly in back, but in between.  And below my actual calf muscle.   Weird.

I've been doing really lousy in my journalling this week, also.  Here's last week's round-up.  I finally reached my massage goal!  HOOORAY!!!  I still have a knot between my shoulder blades from shovelling Thursday night, so a massage would be very welcome.  I just need to get my booty into the place to get it done.  Now I'm going to start over to work toward another massage!

 2 out of the 7 days had over 6000 steps, 2 of them had over 7000 and one had over 9000!

So that's the excitement going on here. Randy was so funny tonight. He noted that our Saturday consisted of 2 trips to Tim Hortons (and we STILL haven't won anything on Roll Up the Rim to Win!!), 2 different Salvation Armies, 2 trips to CVS, a dollar store, a nap and dinner at the Thai restaurant where Angel works. It sounds kind of sad, but we are OK with that!

So send some thoughts & good mojo & prayers this way so my health issues get resolved and have a great day!

Part 1
Part 3
part 4

#SnS 

Skywatch Friday 2/26

Yeah, I know I'm posting this a day late.  

Amazing what a small turn of your body can do to perspective. 

I was standing in almost the same spot to get both of these. 

From the parking lot at work

Troy MI

Linking up over at Skywatch Friday

#TFTLS

Sometimes it sucks being female......

I shall try my damnedness to keep this un-gross for my gentle readers.  Lets face it, 8 years in the Navy took away all shame & modesty regarding my body.  Even the regular monthly visitor isn't anything to be ashamed of.  Discreet, yes.  Ashamed, no.  But there is nothing regular or normal going on right now!

Rolling back several months.  I missed my period in October.  A couple weeks rolled by and I told Randy.  We just stared at each other, since not long after we got married, I went 4 whole years without taking the Pill and procreation did not happen.  Why NOW, when I'm 42?  We decided to wait a few more days, then take a test.  There were symptoms.  Tenderness.  Clothes felt tight. Nausea.  Cravings.  Etc.  Then The Visitor arrived and would not go away for like 3 weeks.  Stopped.  Started again way too soon.  Lasted too long.  And so on. General suckitude.

I thought maybe it would be a good idea to go back on the Pill. to get things straightened out.  Nope.  Made them 1000 times worse!  This was earlier this month.  I took them for a week and was all "F this Shit!" and stopped taking them.  Then I had a couple days of really bad back-aches where I thought I'd pulled something in my lower back, but figured out they were cramps.  Those eased but it won't go away and has proceeded to just get heavier & grosser & yeah.  Today was exceptionally bad.  I literally left my mark in multiple places. Thank God for dark jeans!

edit : I was taking ones my male doctor prescribed, but the female gyn told me that particular kind suck! 

So I went to the doctor.  I knew my general practitioner would refer me elsewhere.  We chatted about what it could possibly be, and I went next door to the ob/gyn he suggested.  (Sadly, they didn't set up my appointment with Dr. Love - that would have been hilarious!!)  We chatted, then she examined me.  I have NEVER been so mortified or so grossed out.  I swear the room looked like a crime scene when I was done.  She gave me a prescription for a different dosage of the Pill and told me a certain way to take them to hopefully get things settled down quicker.  Fingers crossed!  They took blood (as if I had any to spare!!) and I got to pee in a cup (that was a fun experience ~insert eye roll here~) and sent me for an ultrasound.

The tech commented about a couple small fibroids she thought she saw in my uterus, and one large one.  I won't get the "official" word until tomorrow when the doc calls me with the results.   I have to go back next week for a follow up and to talk about treatment.  Which will probably be a D&C, which is basically scraping the gunk out of my uterus.  But she also wants to talk about other options, some of which would be permanent.  So I'm making Randy go with me to that one.

So there was my exciting Friday afternoon.  Here's a picture of my crabapple tree from last spring so there's something nice & pretty & happy in this post!

Send some thoughts & prayers this way if you want.  I'll need all the help I can get!

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

#TFTLS

Skywatch Friday 2/19

I have never personally seen robins in Michigan in winter, altho a coworker tells me she hears them in the park year-round.  Last Saturday was clear and beautiful, yet one of the coldest days of the season so far and there were easily 25 robins in my back yard!
Shelby Twp., MI

#TFTLS
Linking up over at Skywatch Friday

Ice & Graffiti

Every year there is an Ice Festival just down the road from us.  But we have never actually gone TO the festival!  It was actually crazy cold & windy last weekend, when it was held.  So yeah - not going!   But I usually take the dog and we'll walk around Utica in the days afterward to see the ice carvings that are left.  

We went today.  I didn't get pictures of all the carvings, since some were already broken and some I didn't care about like Pooh, Mickey & Peanuts, etc. 

Each block was sponsored by a local business. You can see their logos on/in some of them.  Most blocks were originally about 4 feet tall by like 2 feet square. 

 Outside the Fire Department - go figure! 

 I heard the theme was "Love" - pretty appropriate for Valentine's weekend!

 It's hard to see his stick, but he's a hockey guy.  There's one every year!

 Diamond ring.

 Not sure if there are cockatoos or supposed to be 'love' birds. 

 Pretty ironic that this sea turtle - a US Navy symbol for being a Shellback, (one who has crossed the Equator and been initiated by King Neptune) - was outside the tattoo parlor where I got my tattoo last summer commemorating 20 years of me being a Shellback!

 This is a cupid shooting his bow, while standing on a car.  Sponsored by some auto insurance place. 

 The UAW tulip.  

 This was outside Hogs Hollow Smokehouse Bar & Grill.  The block in the middle says True Love and the things on either side are toilets!

 Jack was checking out Spiderman. 

 Outside a barber shop, of course! 

I was really surprised to see another bird outside the police department.  Thought they'd have something police-related.  Kinda disappointed. 

They are in the process of building a new minor league ball field, actually just beyond the point of this unicorn.  I realized now that this is the mascot for the new team!  

Lancelot of the Utica Unicorns

 Cookie Monster!

Pretty sure Genisys Credit Union was a huge sponsor of all the goings-on.  This huge bench has their emblem under the crown thingy. 

This would have been cool to see.  To kick off the events Friday night, they had a big fire inside this block.  It was easily 10 feet tall.  I barely had to bend to look into a hole in the middle. 

 Those last 5 were in the "municipal park" which is right near the library and M-59.  This tunnel goes underneath M-59.  The flowers caught my attention, but the graffiti was pretty neat, too! 

 The Clinton River. 

I'm also linking up with Amy for Monday Mish Mash!

#TFTLS

War analogies??

Rosa, my leader at WW made WAY too many analogies tonight.  The whole "you may lost a few battles, but you can still win the war" and "we are revolutionaries", etc, etc, etc.  Weird.

Anyhoo.  I was up 1.5 lbs and the reasons why all popped immediately into my head.  It simply all adds up to bad choices.  Randy & I went out to an early Valentine dinner Saturday night.  We began with amaretto sours, then I had a plate of veal scallopini marsala and followed up with a nutty Irishman coffee (with Baileys and other good stuff in it).  Sunday morning we had cinnamon rolls.  Sunday night was Chinese carry out. Sweet & sour chicken.  Fried Rice.  Crab Rangoons.  Ya know.  And Monday we had beer battered fish sticks & french fries.   That basically totally negated the 3 days of 3 mile Walk at Home workouts.

I was planning on 4 walks, but I must have been fighting a bug this weekend.  I couldn't get warm most of Saturday and spent a lot of time under the covers in bed, with my feet under the biggest cat.  Sunday, I moved furniture around in the bedroom to clean and found many hair ties, hair clippies and a lot of earrings I've been missing.  And dust bunnies enough to take over the world!

But I have no choice but to own up to it and move on.  And I'm sure that the mild female issues I've been having hasn't helped any!

So here's my journal for last week.  I'm seeing the left side numbers coming up some, except for the bottom part of the list.  I'm been keeping up on laundry and dishes, but I haven't been shining the sink at night (I'm not nuts, look here!)  and for Taps, it should be 3/5 days since I don't even both trying on Friday & Saturday nights.

You can really tell the days I did the Walk At Home DVDs!  And wearing heels to the store registers steps more easily than when I wear tennis shoes!  Because Sunday I did some shopping at Hobby Lobby and was in there for a good hour and didn't clock many steps.

 My FitBit Progress report.  Love that 51 flights of stairs!

So tomorrow should be another DVD day, but last weekend was a big Ice Festival in town. so I'm going to take the dog and go walk around, looking at the ice sculptures and stuff.  It's only supposed to get up to 30* tomorrow so I'll be really bundled up and we probably won't be out there long so Jack doesn't get too cold.  But some fresh air & a happy dog make it worthwhile!  I can always do a shorter DVD when I get home.  I've been cold a lot lately, so they really help to warm me up!

So I better sign off so I can get ready for bed.  It's getting late - chao!

#SnS

And now this happened...

**gasp**

Miss Angela managed to add some new character marks to her car!  We were having some snow squalls Friday afternoon and the roads were slick in patches - she couldn't stop at a red light and slid thru the intersection - and got hit by a pickup.  Thankfully, he'd just started up from the light and wasn't going very fast at all, so the damage is VERY minor and nobody was hurt.   She called me up crying & freaking out.  I established her & the boyfriend were OK and off the road.  I told her to make sure they called 9-1-1 and I'd have Randy call her since I really didn't know what she should do!   Luckily when the police finally showed up, (and gave her a ticket) the officer was really nice and explained everything to her.  So Tuesday she gets to call and set up a date at the courthouse, woo fun!

Somehow I don't think that window will be rolling down anymore! And I'm kinda nervous about even seeing if the door will open, since I'm not 100% sure it would close again. So we'll just leave it.  Glad the other driver was in a truck, because, altho the hubcap is broken, it appears the tire & axle are OK. If it had been a lower vehicle, we may not have been so lucky.

edit : we checked the door on 2/28/16 and it does NOT open!

This was also happening today!  There was a flock of at least 25 robins going back & forth between our backyard and the next-door neighbor's front yard!  One of my coworkers who lives hear the woods said she hears them all winter long, but I'd never seen so many of them at one time and definitely not this early!  And it was the coldest day we've had so far so they looked like puffballs with beaks.

#TFTLS

No weigh in this week

I'm sure I could still get one in, but I'm curious to see how it goes after finally starting to purposely exercise.  Both Tuesday & tonight I did the Leslie Sansone Walk Slim 3 Fast Miles which equates to 45 minutes of a good cardio sweat, right in my living room! So I plan on doing it Saturday & again Monday.  

I was actually planning on going to the meeting on Wednesday until I saw a note that Miss Angela brought home about a Q&A meeting at the studio about Nationals in June - at the same time as the WW meeting is.  Oh man.  

2 years ago, every single dance they took to Regionals moved on to Nationals, so they're quite confident.  I'm kinda getting excited - more than a week in Charleston SC!  Too bad most of it will be in a convention center.  

Anyhoo, it looks like 2 weeks until I earn my massage!  I'm still having a hard time getting 5 fruits or veg in each day!  I usually have a Lean Cuisine or Smart One for lunch and I have a hard time believing those have a full serving of veggies.  

The eTools went nuts when it updated with all those FitPoints!  I saw the email where they're going to adjust how the site calculates FitPoints and such.

I'm going to start bumping up my goal # of steps in my journal.

I thought this was funny!  I checked my FitBit app Tuesday and saw this!  I showed Randy and started laughing and that sent it over 10K!

So I have those steaks in the oven right now and the house smells so good!  I could have taken them out and been happy 15 minutes ago, but Randy doesn't like his as rare as me.  Pansy!

#SnS