Kind of in Limbo, not to mention DOIN' the Limbo!

189.4 - up 0.4. Not surprising, since hubby and I went to a Mardi Gras dance this weekend!

It was held at St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church in Fontana, California (sister church to our own St. Mary's in Sherman Oaks).

The food was EXCELLENT: real Southern fried chicken (not that fast-food crap!), cornbread (yum) and jambalaya with sliced kielbasa - MMMMM! Really good!

Not to mention really SPICY! Which of course meant that we had to imbibe lots of cool drinks to compensate!

The dancing part wasn't so great. Steve and I are not, um, shall we say, accomplished dancers? Actually, we kind of suck. And we also kind of suck at compensating for each other's goofs.

It didn't help that the music was SO LOUD WE COULDN'T HEAR A THING WHAD'D YOU SAY HUH HUH HUH??? I know, we're old, but still ...

At one point we actually came close to having a fight, about which I won't go into detail except to say we've made up, but we did leave the dance early because THE NOISE THE NOISE OMG IT WAS DRIVING US MAD! MAD, I SAY!!!

It's so nice to be at work, where it's vewy vewy quiet today. Perhaps a lot of rabbit hunting. ;-)

Happy Valentine's Day, Mr. President!

P1000292
Originally uploaded by stoogeswoman

Um, ok, well, Valentine's Day is over and it's President's Day, so that's why, so um ...

Hee hee! Sorry. I'm a little waterlogged today! It's POURING down rain here in beautiful downtown Los Angeles, California. I did my usual walk from the 7th & Metro subway station to Bunker Hill, and boy, is it a good thing I keep an extra pair of shoes in my desk, 'cause by the time I got here, I was walking on water - and NOT in a Messianic sense!

Oh yeah, weight loss 0.2 pounds, 189.0 - gotcha!

We had a really nice Valentine's Day - our church had a dance-slash-spaghetti dinner. Spaghetti and disco balls, yummm! And yes, my sweetie and I actually did dance! If you really want to you can find a few photos in my Flickr photostream which Steve's mom snapped on my camera while we were out on the floor. If I feel ambitious - and warmer! - later on I'll come back & post one here myself.

Boy, is it COLD! And WINDY! What I want to know is this: if you live somewhere other than sunny Southern California, what's it like where you live? And if it's over 50 degrees right now, can you find me a job? I'm ready to move!!!

Cute Cat Saves Economy!

Well, at least that's my hope, as I embed the following video for your Monday morning pleasure:



That's my hand reaching up from the bottom left, adorned with a wristwatch given to me by sweet hubby Steve. We have both gotten in the habit of getting down on the floor and playing with Princess in the evening. As you can see, her "official" play area is small but potent! That mat is hollow and can easily be filled - and refilled - with the highest grade catnip available to mankind!

Which makes it a lot easier for me to let you know that I gained back a little of the loss from last week - 1.6 pounds, so back up to 189.6. Oh well! Down a lot one week, up a little the next, that seems to be my pattern, so I'm not worried about it.

Also, here's something else that cheered me up - I found an old file on my computer with my measurements from last April, when I started all this. My hips then were 55 inches - and today they are 47!!!

Even if I never lose another pound, I'm thrilled with that result!

What a weekend!

Well, the good news is I lost 2.2 pounds - weight is now 188.0, yay! I hate to say it, but I think going back to Curves was a good decision. It may not be the best place to work out, but it's the most convenient place for me right now, and if I alternate it with my Fabulous Downtown Lunch Hour Walks, I should see some good results.

Now for the bad news - my husband and I were puttering around the house yesterday, enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon and even seriously contemplating some, ahem, romantic activity, when ... RING!!! It was my mother-in-law - she'd just fallen asleep at the wheel and plowed into a parked car!

So we had to drop the romance, and get down to business*. First we drove over to the scene of the accident. Wow, it really looked awful. I had thought, ok, going slow, hitting a parked car, probably nothing serious. But mom-in-law's car is a Honda - and she ran into the back of a Suburban! The Suburban had maybe a couple of scratches - but the poor little Honda was smashed all the way in on the front!

The windshield hadn't shattered but it was a maze of cobwebby cracks, and BOTH airbags had deployed. That's what caused mom-in-law's injuries (looks like they're mainly going to be deep bruises - apparently no internal injuries, thanks be to God!), but man, imagine what it would have been like without the airbags. Shudder!

After spending hours in the ER waiting room, surrounded by other sick and/or cranky people (all of whom took great and noisy pleasure in watching the Super Bowl - including a resident who kept wandering out of surgery, in full scrubs, to check the score), we went home, only to get another phone call saying she might be released tonight.

So poor hubby went back (letting me sleep the peaceful sleep of the guilty-but-not-guilty-enough-to-get-back-out-of-bed), only to return an hour later after being told they were keeping her overnight. Hospitals! Gotta love 'em, right?

Anyway, if you're a praying sort (and if you're reading a blog called the Curvy Catholic, one hopes you would be!), please keep mom-in-law Anne - and devoted hubby Steve - in your prayers today. I think everyone will be OK, but we're all sleep-deprived zombies this morning!

Did get some nice videos at an Eastern Orthodox Vespers this weekend - here is a nice one from the very beginning - listen to the bells ringing in the background:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYnQ8RTw0_8

(note - it's still being uploaded as I post this - sorry if it doesn't play right away. I'll come back later & see if I can fix it.)

So - how was YOUR weekend?

(*though any marriage that can't survive a situation like this probably doesn't have any romance to it anyway!)

Down a pound - and back to Curves????

Yes, that's right - I lost a whole entire pound (weigh-in: 190.2) last week. And yes, that's right - after all my fussin' and feudin', I'm back to working out at Curves regularly.

What can I say? The proof is in the pudding - more specifically, in the pudding-like flesh that was developing under my arms!

See, I quit Curves for a whole month, and went for a nice long walk every day on my lunch hour - which felt really great and wonderful (not to mention FREEEEE!).

But - with all that walking - I didn't lose any weight! (well, except due to the "D-word", but I ain't countin' that!) I did maintain my weight loss - so maybe the walking is best for when I want to let my body absorb the loss of flab, and work what's left into more pleasing shapes.

Yet during the last week, before I caved in and went back, I was definitely feeling the lack of movement in my muscles. And craving my Curves circuit!!!

Sigh. For better or for worse, the Curves workout, for all its flaws, does seem to have an effect on the fat.

So for now - at least for another month - I'll do the 3-times-a-week circuit, and just do whatever I can to keep it from being boring.

And I'm definitely NOT going to stop walking! Especially when I can use my wonderful digital camera, given to me by my wonderful husband, to take kick-ass videos and post them to Youtube - like this one:



Unfortunately, as noted in the Update I added to the description, that video had a sad aftermath - I found out that there was indeed a fatality in that accident I saw. A woman named Gwendolyn Coleman, age 58, of Burbank, CA, was struck and killed by that DASH bus while trying to get across the street.

And if I hadn't gotten in good enough shape to walk that route every morning, I would never have known about it. It wasn't splashed all over the news or anything. If you're not a celebrity, nobody cares in this town. But I care. Rest in God's peace, Gwendolyn, and may He bless your family and friends.

Irony, thy name is Curves!

OK, I was up a little bit again this week - weighed in at 191.2.

So I says to my husband (shown here napping with Princess, the cat who adores him and imitates his every move), I says, "Hey, maybe I'll try going to Curves again this week. You know, just to see if it really makes any difference."

And my husband says to me, he says, "Hey, yeah, that's a great idea!"

So I goes in to work, all psyched up to do my first Curves workout in - what? - a month?

I gots my shoes, I gots my socks, I got my hideous purple shorts - in short, I am ready to WORK OUT, baby!

Only to get to the door and see the following sign: "Closed in honor of Martin Luther King Day."

Whoopsy daisy! Forgot about that li'l detail, yes indeedy!

Oh well, as Scarlett O'Hara* famously opined, "Tomorrow is another day!"

And I really do feel the need to change my workout again. Yesterday I did about 40 minutes on the Tony Little Gazelle out in the driveway. And it felt really good! So although I've been enjoying my daily walks in L.A., I think it's time to switch back to Curves, for a while at least. Get those biceps and triceps and quadriceps and quintupleceps in shape again.

So get ready, Curves of Bunker Hill - I'm comin' back! 'Cause tomorrow is another day! (And also 'cause I'm still paying you $39 bucks a month, so I should probably get something out of it.)

*apologies to the politically correct amongst you for referring to Scarlett O'Hara on MLK day - not to even mention the dawn of the Obamanation tomorrow! Mea culpa, y'all!

When is a gain not a gain?

225 Pounds
Originally uploaded by stoogeswoman

When the previous week's loss was caused by the "D-word", that's when!

No, I won't repeat the way-too-TMI info from last week (you can read it yourself anyway!). Let's just say I'm 99.9% recovered from that disgusting parasite, and move on - shall we?

Anyway, as predicted, I did gain back some of my faux weight loss from last week - two pounds, to be exact - but I'm actually counting it as a loss. I weighed in at 190.6, and two weeks ago my weight was 190.8. So if you don't count that unfortunate episode, I actually LOST 0.2 pounds.

And I'm back on track! And one thing hasn't changed since last week - I am grateful for my renewed health, and trying to maintain that attitude. Losing weight is great, as long as you're doing it because you WANT to and not because your body just won't keep anything in.

Hmm....well, I did say I wasn't going to talk about that anymore, didn't I? Nyuk nyuk!

Here's something more interesting - I have been going absolutely nuts with the digital camera my wonderful husband gave me for Christmas! And as promised, I'm going to start posting at least one photo here every week. How about the requisite "Fat Me and Not-So-Fat Me" photos that seem to be a part of every halfway decent weight loss blog? Here's the first one:

This was sometime early last year (2008). My husband and I went to the Getty Museum to see the Icons of the Sinai exhibit. My weight then was about 225 or 230 - I'm not 100% sure because at the time I wasn't worrying about it too much - just enjoying being with my handsome hubby out in the sunshine!

Now here's a more recent photo -- see any difference? This is from about two weeks ago - at @ 195 pounds:

Not bad, eh? I do kind of miss the long blonde hair; but notice I'm no longer wearing the ankle-length skirt? Wow, I actually have LEGS under there!

And the difference between these photos is about a year - and about 30 pounds. Not a bad way to spend the year.

I still have a long way to go, but I feel so much better -- and healthier now. I haven't really changed that much *inside* but my *outsides* are lookin' pretty good, I think! (Tsk! brag brag brag!)

By the way, I'm still struggling to figure out this photoblogging stuff, so please excuse the crapulence of my formatting here. I'll get it worked out! Oh, and if you're wondering, "Where's the CATHOLIC stuff, dagnab it???", check out my channel at Youtube - I've uploaded a few videos there showcasing my wonderful Byzantine Catholic Church. Enjoy!