The Beach Bum Returneth!

Hellooo bloggy people! I am home! Had a fantastic time in Washington with my friend Ashland. She was such a great hostess and so easy to be around. I loved LOVED the beach house in Long Beach. It was so cute! 

I was concerned about what I was eating on this trip, but I musta done something right because I didn't gain any weight! Ok, so I didn't lose weight either, but, meh, I'll take it. We did a lot of walking, which was great. The beach was beautiful and yes, long, as the name would indicate. :P 

Anyhoo, enough blathering from me! I will move on to what you really want...PICTURES! 

Ashland...she's so frickin' cute! And 5 months preggers, btw. :)

Beach house...love it! 

The white room. Cutest ever. :) 

Funky driftwood

Candid shot...waiting for Ash to figure out the self-timer! 

Popular pose! Ash looks out towards Oregon.

Sand art

Foggy beach

The path to the beach

This is my new house...in my dreams! 

Basking in the glow...

...of the sunset

A girl and her dog.

Bird

I gotta climb down there now?!

Picnic lunch on the rocks.

What goes down...must come up!

And here I try to go down again. Nice drop off I nearly took a header into!

The beach we walked the day before.

Lighthouse at Cape Disappointment

Ash found her name here...WWII bunkers.

Almost didn't see this one! 

I'm supposed to be pretending it's pecking my my eyes out...yeahhh.

Fire in Ashland's back yard...last night in WA.

Buds since elementary school! 

Well, there you have it folks! My trip, for the most part. Great, relaxing time had by all. Ugh, back to reality and eating properly and working out every day! 

Stats for the day:

Weight: 190 (phew!)

Exercise: 40 minutes. 

Fat to me or not fat to me

I am just a posting demon...writing on a Sunday here! Figure you will not be blessed with my blogging presence for five days, so I'd just inundate you with nonsense so you will just feel relived to have a reprieve. 

I have just been thinking, once again, about the sad fact that so many women think of themselves as fat. Even if they are so very NOT. I know that some of it is just whining and self-pity-induced need for reassurance from the world that they are, indeed, NOT fat. They are perfect, lovely, a slender reed. But then there are the ones who truly, with all their heart and soul believe they are fat. It is so very hard for us to see ourselves as others might. My very sweet guy friend told me last night that he didn't think I was fat at all...not even 30 lbs ago. I can't even wrap my brain around the idea! Is he crazy? Blind? Delusional? Or is he just being kind? Tryin' to make the chubby girl feel better about her sad self. My friend, Lara, said the same thing today! Not fat. Still can't believe it. Now how many people have to tell me this before I believe them? 10? 15? 100? Will I EVER believe it? I can't really remember feeling not fat. Maybe a year of my life here and there, but it was always short-lived. Not sure what will come of that. 

In my vain search to find jeans for my trip, I tried on a thousand pairs at the freaky-tall girl store. Nothing fit properly. The only pair I found that actually fit was, now get this, a size TWELVE. No shit. Of course I know this is just vanity sizing or whatever, 'cause there is no way in hell I am a size 12. I couldn't even feel good about that size for a second. Again, I wonder how many times I will have to fit into that size to believe it. Oh, and I didn't buy those jeans because they were almost $100 and had this weird whiskering shit going on on the thighs. Fuck that noise! I went to Old Navy and found a pair for $25 (size 14 Long, btw- I could get the 12s done up, but yugh, too tight!).

My new jeans...





 I know, kinda blurry. Whatev. Oh, and this was the size large top I got a couple weeks ago. Buh-bye XL! 

I had a great time going downtown though! The train was lovely and fast. I got to visit Lara at work and see her do her thang for the news updates. Very cool!  Seeing the setup, watching her get her news stories together and sitting in The Booth listening to her do the "radio voice" was the highlight of my visit! Bonus was walking 20 min. to the train and back and then walking around downtown was my workout! 

Stats for the day:

Exercise: 40 minutes brisk walking + 20 of downtown wandering

Weight: 190

Saturday night's alright, alright, alright!

I seem to be all recovered from my night of debauchery with no permanent damage. Yayy! 

Not too sure why I am bothering with a Saturday blog, since it seems much of Blogsville wanders away on the weekends. Ah well, call it an experiment! Maybe if you read this, you can comment so I feel like all this extra typing was worth it. :P I need your love and validation people!! 

Today was a great day hanging with my man. I  made some extra dough doing my tutoring thing in the a.m. Then we saw District 9, which was different and kinda cool, but it didn't make me wanna do a happy dance and tell the world about it. 

Afterwards we took a spin around the parking lot so Jason could practice driving stick. Hardly a jackrabbit was to be seen. I was so proud. :) He's learning so I can take his newer and far more reliable car down to Washington and leave him my lil' old (standard) Honda. Sweet of him, non? I think the whole experience has been rather positive with no cussing, screaming (though I may have yelled, "Clutch, honey! Clutch!" a time or two), crying or destroying of my transmission! 

I ate pretty well today, and though I did give into the evils of movie theatre popcorn, I only had a few handfuls. What? Am I a saint over here? Hellllls no! Dinner was chicken fajitas, and I only had two small ones, very easy on the shredded cheese. I used to eat...three or four STUFFED ones.

To top it off, I just worked out my lazy, boozin' ass and I did it on level 4 the whole time. Yeahhhh. I used to switch to 3 when I used my weights, but 3 was just feeling way way too easy. I have to work my way up to 5 a little faster here! Followed the bike and weights with my 100 sit ups. 

The BEST thing though, is the scale has decided to continue it's little downward trend of the month. 190 people! That's thirty, count 'em THIRTY pounds down. I worry about something though. I was talking to a friend this eve about my weight loss so far, and I was struck by a scary thought. What if I lose these next 15 lbs and still feel fat? Does this worry any other of you lovely floggers out there? Where does it end? What if I can never be happy with my body after years of being overweight? Can you say EEEP?!?

Brughh!! Ok, enough of that! 

Tomorrow, I'm off to the store for freaky-tall people 'cause no regular stores carry pants long enough for my daddy long legs.  I am going to the beach and apparently it gets colder at night there, so I frickin' needs me some pants. All mine just fall off my ass. Darn, right? And guess what? I get to take the Sky Train again! Yeahhh! Lol! I love that freakin' train! No traffic. No parking. Blessed be the train for thou art GOOOD. The other cool part about going downtown is I get to crash the local news talk radio station, CKNW and visit my reporter friend, Lara. She's gonna let me hang in the booth an' everything! The BOOTH! Be jealous. :P 

Love y'alls! 

Stats for the day:

Weight: 190

Exercise: 40 min. 

About last night...

Ugh...I am sooo hung over people. I had a fantabulous time out watching the boys rip it up on stage and hanging with my girl, Lara though. I just overdid the whole booze thing. Oooops. I tried to mitigate the extra calories by working out and not eating a lot during the day. I know, sound nutritional stance. I had cereal for breakfast, and then a piece of whole grain toast with a skim coat of peanut butter and an applesauce cup. Dinner was a ham sammich  with lettuce and tomato. I started the drink-fest whilst getting ready, and continued while my friend got ready, and even on the sky train. Oy. And did I stop there? Nope! Why be smart? I had three drinks at the bar. One was a double. 

Needless to say when I returned home in the a.m. hours, I was still a mite drunkenly. Woke up to ride the porcelain bus at 6 a.m. Got back on that ride an hour or so after I woke up. No workout today. Ate a piece of toast around 3, and then just had pizza for dinner. Ohh yeah...that's right. I think my body may be wanting to stage some sort of revolt here after this! We'll see what the scale says tomorrow. Yikes. 

BUT as I said, fun was had by all, and as I promised...pictures! 

Just chillin' and waiting for some heavy metal bludgeoning

Lara...she be the bestest! 

Me again...nope not drunk at ALL. :)

My friend Trevor- we go wayyy back to elementary school!

Heavy metal make Tammy ANGRY!! (Ok, not really, just LOOKS like I am!)

My bud Ross. You will see him next half-naked and bloody.

Annnd there he is! The man, the machine....ReD Rum

That's Spoon in front. Awesome lead singer/grunter/screamer.

A little more of Rosser in his glory.

Spoon, up close and personal.

Blood looks cooler in b&w.

Spoon looked hot, so Big B was really doing him a favour.

Love this blur

This is a sort of "pants optional" band.

Trippyyyy

Love the intensity. Unhindered by pesky pants.

Yup, so that's My New Enemy live. They seriously rocked the house and had the ENTIRE bar up around the stage giving them love. I love watching them! Their Facebook link and MySpace, if you are interested in learning more. 

So no working out today, jebus no! Tomorrow, I hope I can get 'er done.  Wish me luck on that one. :) 

Stats for the (hungover) day:

Exercise: does getting off the couch to BARFOLA count??

Weight: 191 (we shall see tomorrow...eep)

Never too lazy to curse the universe

Ahh lazy summer days. How I will miss thee as students rotate before me endlessly all needing me to educate them or some such thing. It's funny, actually, I am kind of like the kids when it comes to the start of school. Part of me looks forward to seeing the people, socializing etc. and part of me is like, noooo there's so much work to do! And House will be new! I have to watch HOUSSSSSE! And if I watch the curmudgeonly doc, I will feel guilty. Damn.  

I was railing against the universe today, which is something I do often. My poor mother got sick with a terrible sinus infection that has her face all blowed up and swollen in a most painful manner, which is bad enough in of itself. The kicker is she was supposed to babysit my friend Lara's son, so we could paint the town. No sitter, no town painting. Booooo. Then, in a flash of desperation-induced brilliance, I asked my sister for help, and the fabulous woman said YES! Don't you love it when someone surprises you with an AMAZING favour and just saves the fuckin' day!?!!? Thus, I am giving the universe a reprieve, for now. My plan is that I am going to get all done up and show off the new and improved curves. I will post pics fo sho...never fear. I will also be sure to get pics of my heavily tattooed friend Ross on stage and covered in fake blood for Ugly Girl with a Beautiful Heart. :)

I am also weirdly excited to take a ride on the new sky train built here for the Olympic Winter Games. It runs from my city to downtown Vancouver in 23 minutes, which is hella convenient for me! I loathe driving downtown with the traffic and icky parking situation. The pics I found online are teeny, but here it is, anyway! 

I know you are all terribly excited for me, and you most certainly aren't rolling your eyes and saying how I need some sort of life or to get out more. Not YOU dear readers. :) 

Despite my extreme case of the lazies, I did work out today. I ate cereal, turkey sammich with lettuce on whole grain bread, and banana for a snack. For dinner I had a smalll portion of smart fiber pasta with meat sauce (extra lean ground beef) made with Veggie Lovers Healthy Choice pasta sauce and added red bell peppers and onions. Did I mention this rockin' jar sauce has only 60 calories for 1/2 cup and ZERO fat? Niiice. It was tasy, but I didn't spice it up enough this time. :(

That just leaves

Stats for the Day

Exercise: 40 minutes

Weight: 191

Week 17 and a Weekend Update

Things have been going very well since Vegas in my world of weight loss...and then...there was the weekend. Mom's b-day and a BBQ get-together. Oyyyy. I don't feel like I over-ate in any way, but I know I ate more than I normally would...if that makes any sense. Didn't help that there was cake both nights (and I ate a small piece both nights). Ugh. But, that is life...and like it or not, I am in it. I really am not doing this to deprive myself from every perhaps "questionable" culinary experience out there (and by that, I mean the ones that taste really really good). I am trying to make better choices and to watch my portions. I am trying not to give into the mindless eating monster inside me that would sit in front of the TV and scarf an entire bag of chips. That monster is dead, I am almost certain. An old friend from school asked me yesterday what big changes I've made that just seem a part of my life now, and I said not snacking on crap. I really don't do that anymore! If I am hungry in the day, I will eat something healthy or nothing at all. 

So let's see what food fun I had on Sat. It was my first day tutoring, and the sister of my tutee (who I also used to tutor) wanted to buy me "breakfast" at the Bread Garden. I didn't eat my cereal, and when I arrived I decided a chocolate chip muffin wouldn't hurt (hahahaha). My tutee went off to get it and came back with a hot chocolate. Um. Hmm. His sister gave him heck and explained I really wanted a muffin. Did I mention English is not his first language? So I ended up with a muffin and a hot chocolate. With whipped cream. Oy. I drank most of the hot chocolate, and picked at the muffin throughout the 1.5 hr lesson. I ate most of it. Afterwards I felt SO full and bloated and icky. I got home after 12, but I didn't feel like eating lunch. I figured I had enough calories to count for breakfast and lunch. Still, I hate to skip meals, and I really hate to have only ingested crap. Sigh. Dinner was at the Olive Garden, and I ordered plain old spaghetti with meat sauce. I didn't eat all of it, but the portion was small, so I ate a bit more than half. I had salad and two breadsticks as well. Hey, I was HUNGRY after that whole no lunch crap. So not great. Then there was cake. Mmmm....milk chocolate mousse cake. I had a small piece, as I said. And, um, did I mention that I didn't work out on Saturday either? Eeeeep.

This is the cake. OMG.

My sweet little niece...she rocks (ask her if you don't believe me!)

Jason has a monkey on his back

Me and my sis. No resemblance here! 

Oh, and note the laminate floor visible in pic #2. Yeah, that's the SOB that nearly crippled me! 

Then Sunday...cereal and vegetable soup for breakfast and lunch respectively. I made certain to work out this day. At the BBQ I had some veggie chips (56 chips=250 cal...wozers) and one tortilla chip. With the veggie chips I sampled a smidgen of hummus and tzatziki. Dinner was hamburgers, chicken, ribs, and tortellini. I had a hamburger and a tiny bit of the pasta. Later I ate a teensy piece of chicken, just to try it. Yum. I also had some raw veggies and a wee spoonful of spinach and artichoke dip. Then there was cake again. I had a piece. 

Today, I have had cereal and soup again, and we are having mashed potatoes, turkey and salad for dinner. I did my workout early today, so it's DONE. It would be great to walk later. We'll see. 

The good news is I have dropped a few pounds this week! Yay! The scale didn't spit in my eye this morning, as I feared it would. 

Hope everyone had a happy, relaxing weekend! 

Stats for the day: 

Weight: 191

Exercise: 40 min.