Happy Sunny Saturday

Happy Day to you. The sun is out and my plants will be joining it shortly.

Work got busy sometime during the week. I don't really notice that we're getting busier until all of a sudden I realize we're slammed. Strange how that works. Thursday was the end of the month so we had several mailers that had to go out plus all of the normal rush to get everything billed. I worked really hard and I figured I'd be paying for it on Friday. Then after work I went to a fundraiser for the Food Bank. The annual Chef's Feast. There were 10 of us that went. It was a lot of fun. I got to meet some spouses of my coworkers and they're really cool. The food was really good too. I liked the pineapple sweet potatoes and the chocolate dipped banana bread and the bacon wrapped quail and the tuna and pineapple sushi roll and the shitake ravioli... yeah, it was yummy. Oh! and the Beef tenderloin with mushrooms and yummy sauce. And the chocolate whoopie pie... that was my favorite! The best part? I still lost .2 pounds that day! I learned that I much prefer Riesling over Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay. I've had Pinot before but never Chardonnay and I've wanted to try it. But yuck.  Riesling is where it's at.

Speaking of wine, we went to Mahogany last Saturday for MIL's birthday and I had a Pinot Noir that was pretty good.  Not my favorite red but still good.  The Filet Mignon and asparagus were just as good as last year.  No, I take that back.  They over salted the steak a little.  The asparagus was delectable.

Apparently we're going time traveling today.  I realized I didn't blog about last weekend. 

Mom and Dad and my brother came down on Friday night and we looked at a potential new car for them and then had dinner with my dad's side of the family at Cracker Barrel.  The company was awesome; the service was decidedly not.  The 4-star waitress was not earning her stars and she was training a rising star waiter.  He had not learned much yet and she wasn't supervising him well enough.  My dad didn't leave a tip and we were really proud of him!  DH even gave 10 percent. 

My parents just paid the last of their debt.  We are all so proud!  But one of the things that let them do that was that my dad totaled one of the cars.  So as soon as the last payment went through they were looking for a car.  DH spent the previous week researching and calling dealers.  The car we looked at on Friday night was the only car in the city that met Dad's top two criteria: manual transmission and cruise control.  Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find those two things in the same car?!!?  The dealership looked and felt more like a front for the Mexican Mafia than a dealership.  We weren't comfortable there.  But!  On the way to Cracker Barrel DH got a call from AutoMax.  They just had a trade it that met all of the qualifications!  We had planned to go all over the city on Saturday looking but the right car was half a mile from our house!  We went to AutoMax first thing on Saturday.  The car was still on its way back from the detailer so we decided to wait on it.  Well, they decided to wait and Mom and my brother took me back home to decorate a cookie cake.  While we were doing that, Dad and DH test drove a newer model of the same car that was on its way.  We got back to AutoMax, and the salesdude thought maybe we could afford the newer model.  DH and the dude negotiated for a while but they weren't able to get the price low enough for us.  Its not really their fault.  It was still technically a new car, never been owned and they don't have as much leeway on those.  In the meantime, the 2008 showed up.  The seats were still too wet to sit on but it had the same driving characteristics as the 2010.  Same parts were used and stuff.  This car had been owned by a family and they definitely used the car!  But that's not a problem.  It actually made me smile to see the kool-aid stains.  There was some superficial body damage; an old rear end wreck made the bumper stick out just a little and minor scrapes and dings.  The motor ran beautifully, the tires were good.  All the controlls were in working order.  The detail lady said she wanted to take the car back and re-dye the carpet to get rid of the stains so we couldn't take it that day.  But DH and the salesdude were able to strike a deal that my parents could easily afford.  Then I had to go deliver the cookie cake.  I ended up talking to D for quite a while.  She's from Sri Lanka and so we talked about all the differences between there and here.  I love talking to people from other cultures. 

In the afternoon Dad helped me put some pictures in frames.  I had open-back frames and I'd only used frames that already had the glass and backing and stuff.  Now I know how to frame things myself!  Cause my dad rocks.  Then we had to go to dinner with the InLaws and you are now caught up on last Saturday.  Whew!

I don't even remember what happened on Sunday.  I think we cleaned out the upstairs office for about half an hour.  But the rest of the day is blank.  I was pretty tired from the weekend so I must have rested a bunch.

So skip ahead to Yesterday.  I was able to wake up suprisingly easily considering how Thursday went.  At work I numbered 2 jobs and then I had to go over to the place that sells us our mailing equipment.  Our big inserter has a motor out and they couldn't get the part here in time for this giant mailer that we had to have out so we were using their demo model.  The inserter put 6 pages in a 9x12 envelope and spit the envelope out, I stuffed a booklet in the envelope, and the temp girl sealed the envelopes and put them in their respective bundles and sacks for the mail.  The inserter could insert 850 an hour except you have to stop and refill every few minutes.  So I estimate we were able to do about 500 per hour.  The total on the mailing was well over 10,000 but I'm not sure on the exact number.  On Thursday evening my boss said he wanted the mailing done by 1:00 but since I was going to be working on it, it would be done by 10am.  That's one of the biggest compliments he's ever given me!   So on Friday, try as I might, I couldn't get it done by 10:00.  Couldn't get it done by 1:00.  At 5:00 we still weren't done.  We got 3 other helpers and a little after 6:00 we finally got the last one stuffed.  We hauled the whole job back to our building where we had an automated sealer and sealed the last several hundred pretty quickly.  Then we had all 7 people that were still at work sorting all the pieces into the right bundles and sacks and we got finished just before 7:00.  I was about to pass out!  I started feeling the effects of Thursday by 11:00 that morning but other than lunch, I didn't stop.  My mouth was so dry but no amount of water could fix it.  I felt like I could just fall down and never get up again.  My back was one solid concrete block.  The temp was exhausted and hurting too.  We worked hard but I was upset that I didn't get the job done in time to go to the Post Office.  My boss said I did a good job and deserved a high five anyway.  The job went to the Post Office this morning.

So I treated myself to Braum's for dinner.  I had a 1/6lb burger and a scoop of cappuchino chunky chocolate and still had 45 calories left for the day.  The ice cream really hit the spot too.  I haven't had many sweets or chocolate since I've been on this diet.  Sweet tea is now too sweet.  But that CCC frozen yogurt was the best scoop of ice cream I've ever tasted!  At 140 calories for one scoop, it was the perfect indulgence.  Just the right amount. 

I talked to Mom on the phone for a little bit about options for killing the grass and weeds under her rubber mulch mow strip and I fed the snake.  He only wanted one mouse.  But he had just shed too so I'm not concerned.  Then I took a Tylenol3 and a methylcarbamol (muscle relaxer) and went to bed.  I feel much better after 11 hours of sleep!

I took a soil sample from the flowerbeds at work and gave it to the Extension Office.  I got the results back this week.  The nitrogen is supposed to be 60.  Ours is 6.  That explains the weird mutated growth this spring!  I gave the report to the boss in charge of that and he said he'll tell the lawn people to fertilize the beds on their next visit.  I need to find out when that will be.  If it isn't soon, I'll do a nitrogen treament myself before they come.  I don't want to plant anything else until I get the nitrogen back up a little.  But I need to start planting things very soon.

After lunch DH and I are going over to Dave and Froggi's to help them haul their old broken hot tub to the dump.  We'll probably hang out with them until we need to leave to go to Norman for dinner.  My friend is about to have her second baby and I want to get the baby blanket to her.  Sunday is free except for dinner with the InLaws.  We forgot MIL's birthday gift last weekend.  Oops.

So now I'm going to take a bunch of plants outside.  Hooray for warm weather!!!!

Oh, and I lost almost 7 pounds so far.  Hehe!!  Ultimately I want to lose around 20 more.  I'll be 5-10 pounds heavier than I was in college but I don't really want to be that thin anyway.  That was back when I still had a metabolism.  Plus, I have a lot more muscle now and that will add some pounds.  I'm not really obsessed with the number; it's just a way to measure where I am vs. where I want to be.  If I get down to 125 and decide I like myself there, then I'll stay there.  I just know I was 110 in college without much muscle so that's the only reference I have.  I'll keep reevaluating as I go along.

Ok, now I'm really going!