Fit by 50 ~ Leenie's Journal

[Leenie]

197.00 I'm seeing a pattern here. It seems I go up a pound after working my tail off on Saturdays. That's ok, the pattern seems to show it will drop off around Tuesday or Wednesday.

The kitchen is all painted and looks terrific. Now for all of the clean up work; take all the tape off, caulk around the countertops, clean up the paint drips on the floor put the window treatments back up, etc. We went appliance shopping last night as we need to replace what we have before we rent the house. We didn't buy anything yet as will shop around a little more. I'm debating between stainless and black appliances. I know stainless is the in thing now but I'm not sure how they wear over time or how much effort it takes to keep them looking nice. I may just go with the black to be safe.

Today is the finish kitchen clean up, I have to go into the office and meet some prospective new hires, need to get up in the attic and see what's there for the garage sale and a whole bunch of other stuff there will not be time for.

Have a super Sunday!

[Leenie]

197.2

We made spaghetti last night for our family dinner and used the Dreamfield's pasta. It was very good but felt like something was missing. Oh yeah, what was missing was a big hunk of bread dipped in olive oil I don't have to worry about any leftovers as the kids that live on their own packed up the rest to take with them.

We've begun making huge amounts of food on Sunday night so the kids have leftovers to take home. We love doing it except for one thing. My plastic containers never make it back to our house. I guess we'll have to make a plastic container run and bring them back

This will be a very busy week with a trip to the Rio Grande Valley later in the week. Too bad I won't have time to enjoy spring break which is getting in to full swing down there.

Have a good week!

[Leenie]

197.2

I could have slept in another 2 or 3 or 4 hours this morning. I was up late last night working on our training presentation for Thursday. Nothing like waiting until the last minute It's all coming together though so no problems getting it all finished by tomorrow.

I'm getting way behind on all of the things I need to be doing. Thank goodness I have a husband that does most of the routine chores at home so I don't have to worry about that. One of the girls at work was mentioning that she hates going to the grocery store. I told her I was spoiled and didn't have to, I just give my list to my husband and he does the shopping. I guess it makes sense that he does the grocery shopping since he does 95% of the cooking too I sure don't know what I'd do without him!

[Leenie]

196.2

Today my business partner and I are heading South to a little town right on the Texas/Mexico border, about 4 hours South of San Antonio. We have a full day of work first though before we leave. I doubt we get out of here before 7 pm. Tomorrow we're conducting a training until 5 pm then will head back tomorrow night in that we are both so busy and just can't take another day off. We would have loved to stay down Friday and go to the beach for a day but that will have to wait.

We're doing the final walk through of the new house on Friday morning then closing Monday morning. However, we won't take possession until April 20th as the seller doesn't get into their new place until then. They didn't expect to sell their house quite that quick. Hopefully by April 20th we'll have nearly everything done on our current house so we can get it leased out.

Time to get busy and get on with the day.

[Leenie]

196.4

I'm back from my trip to the Rio Grande Valley. What a crazy last two days it has been.

Wednesday I spent all day working on finishing up the training manual we were to use for our presentation yesterday. We sit the manual in our copier around 3pm then realize it's going to take way too long with our smaller copier to get this thing done and make the decision to take it to Kinkos to finish up. However, my business partner and I were just so busy with other work related thing we couldn't get out of the office. I finally left at 7 and headed home to pack up my stuff and grab some dinner. My business partner left the office at 8 to head home to pack. We met up at Kinkos at 9pm to make the copies and get the manuals bound. The copying part went very fast but Kinkos was telling us it would take 2 hours to get the manuals bound. After much persuasion they let us help with the binding. It was 11 pm and $600 later when we walked out Kinkos door and headed to the Valley.

We arrived in the Valley at 3 am, absolutely exhausted! We crashed and thankfully our training didn't start until 10 am so we slept in just a bit.

The training went very well! We had approximately 30 people in attendance and the day just flew by. We picked up some new business All in all it was a very successful day.

Back in the car at 6:30 pm to head home. We had a couple of unplanned stops on the way back. One was to chat a bit with the Brooks County Sherriffs department. He seemed to have a problem with going 82 in a 70 mph zone. No, I wasn't driving, my partner was She used everything she had to get out of it

I arrived back at my door at midnight and made the mistake of checking my email before bed. Another hour working and I crashed.

Other than being in a little pain from the long car trip I'm feeling pretty good today. I guess part of it is the excitment for the new business we generated and feeling great about where our company is headed. I also feel good about being gone out of my comfortable surroundings and managing to not gain 5 pounds.

Today is the final walk through on the new house, go into work for 8 or 9 hours then come home and work on the garage sale for tomorrow.

I absolutely promise that after the garage sale is over tomorrow, I'm taking a very long nap.

[Leenie]

Oh and I just have to mention that the Rio Grande Valley area is just gorgeous and I could see myself buying a vacation home there someday.

Today's weather forecast for San Antonio is sunny and 93 degrees.

[Leenie]

196.0

I spent all day yesterday going crazy at work, all evening last night going crazy over the big community garage sale today. I was feeling very overwhelmed last night and could have eaten everything in the house. It's just a good thing we don't have any "bad" things to eat in the house and I was too darn exhausted to go out and get anything Instead I had about 12 ounces of awesome steak that hubby fixed for me.

Today is the community garage sale and amazingly enough, we're ready for it. I guess I must have been fairly organized with it as it didn't take long to get everything priced and out. I absolutely hate having a garage sale but I just love getting rid of crap

Today's forecast is 90 degrees which is about 15 degrees above what is normal for here. I'll have to find my sunscreen to put in since I'll be outside most of the day.

[Leenie]

The community garage sale is over and was a successful event.

I was exhausted so went down for a nap at 2:30. Woke up at 7:30 I guess I needed that!

[Leenie]

196.8

I'm running late this morning as I didn't get to bed until 2:30 am due to the long nap yesterday and didn't get up until 9:30.

Today is church, then off to work for a few hours then family dinner tonight. The day will fly by.

[Leenie]

197.0

I had too much ham last night for dinner and am all swolen up this morning. I was tempted to take off my rings in the middle of the night as they were getting so tight.

Busy day today. We have the closing on the new house this morning but at least the closing will take place at my office which saves us driving to the title company. I don't forsee any problems with the closing at all as everything has been reviewed and approved by all parties.

I have a ton of things to get done at work this week as it will be a short week for me. Friday we leave to go up to Illinois to visit the grandkids

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Kiss me, I'm Irish

[Leenie]

196.6

Yesterday was our receptionist birthday so we had birthday cake at the office. I passed on the cake I also passed on all of the candy bars that have found their way into our office. It seems my business partner has had the chocolate cravings for a couple of weeks and has been buying large bags of candy. I pretty much avoid the kitchen area so I don't even see it.

The closing for the new house went just fine. Everything is signed, sealed and delivered so the house is ours now The former owner is staying in the house until April 20th so another month before we can get in there and get started on the fix up. We'll spend the next 30 days working on our current home to get it ready for rental. The tentative plan is to make the move around May 1st but it may take us a bit longer to get the new house liveable.

I talked to my son in Illinois last night about our trip this weekend. He was giving me their weather updates...looks to be in the 40's/30's over the weekend. I'm going to freeze! I'll have to dig my sweaters and coat out to take with.

[Leenie]

195.6 Another Wednesday drop of a pound I actually felt smaller again yesterday.

I still haven't bought any new clothes to wear. Maybe I'll have time to do that this weekend since we will be visiting the grandkids. I'm going to have to get out some suspenders if I don't go shopping What a nice problem to have! This sure beats not being able to breath in my clothes.

Maybe I'll also get a hair cut while I'm in Illinois My hair looks like total crap every day I don't know if I can take the growing out process any longer.

It rained dirt in San Antonio yesterday. I guess the high winds during the day brought all of this red clay dirt over San Antonio, then it rained just a bit and the clay fell from the sky. I walked out of the office to my car last night around 7:30 and thought someone had taken my car off roading. You literally could not see out the windows it was so filthy. Fortunately I have a very sweet husband that made sure I had a clean car this morning

I worked at the office yesterday until 7:30, came home and had dinner with the hubby then went back to work in my home office and worked until 1:30 am. It's just crazy. But I'll have Friday to Monday off, well mostly off work but I'll take my computer and have to do a few things. Still, it will be a nice re-charge type weekend to be away and spend some time having fun with the grandkids.

My granddaughter turns 6 on Friday. I can't believe it! Her birthday part with many other 6 year old little girls will be Saturday at the bowling alley. That should be fun! I'm so happy we're going to be there with them!

[Leenie]

195.6

Tomorrow start the little mini vacation Thank goodness. I worked until 1:00 am yesterday, today, whatever that was Amazingly enough though I'm feeling pretty good.

It helps that I'm feeling significantly smaller every day. Darn it, I wish I had taken some measurements because I can tell I'm dropping some inches.

I am planning one splurge meal this weekend at my very favorite in the whole world pizza place. Although I don't know when that will be. Usually we go there on the Friday night we arrive but I think son has made other plans. We may have to go there for lunch on Saturday. This pizza is super thin crust with lots of toppings and the carb count is not horrific so I usually do pretty well there. Of course I'll start with a salad so I won't be a total piglet Other than that I plan on staying right on plan. I do need to make a stop at the store to pick up some bars to have on hand for the travel days.

Time to run so I can get to work and get home.

[Leenie]

195.6

No time this morning as I have to finish packing for our trip. I'm taking computer with me as will probably have to work some but hopefully not too much.

See you Monday evening

[Leenie]

199.2

I'm up 3.6 pounds after my little vacation and believe me I thought it was worse than that. I ate whatever was around to eat including pizza two nights, sub sandwiches, large Easter dinner including chocolate. By the time we were heading home I was ready to stop eating the junk and get back on plan. Today I will do just that and hopefully drop the excess by the end of the week.

It was a fabulous mini vacation and we had a wonderful time playing with the grandchildren. The only rough part of the vacation was the weather; it was so cold up there. We did get to see some snow flurries but thank goodness it didn't stick. My son is doing fantastic and is such a good daddy. Oh and they found out a couple weeks ago they are expecting child #3 in November. Maybe we'll plan our next trip up there around then to visit the new baby.

We also visited with my sister who is doing good, my elderly aunt who will be 81 this fall, still living on her own and getting along very well and my cousin who had gastric bypass surgery this past August. She's lost over 80 pounds since August and is looking very good. She's done very very well with the surgery and hasn't had any complications at all. The surgery was really a life saver for her.

So, back to work today and if my email is any indication, I will be plenty busy the rest of the week. I'm sure it will take me most of the day to figure out what was done and what wasn't. The good news is I have a new girl starting today so that will eventually help my work load some.

I guess I'd better get busy and get on it to work. Play time is over.

[Leenie]

197.0 I feel so much better today after being back on plan. I'm amazed at how crappy I feel after eating a bunch of crap food.

I worked until nearly 1 am this morning I think I'm getting too old to do that Things are a little crazy in the mortgage industry lately with our most recent news that most of our investors have gone to credit score limitations on FHA loans. We're busy trying to get all of our FHA loans under the credit score limitation submitted and closed prior to the deadlines imposed. It's certainly a crazy business right now.

[Leenie]

196.4

Two days back on plan under my belt. I'm really happy about that. In the past, it has been difficult for me to jump back on plan after a weekend of splurging. I guess I just made up my mind this time would be different. I haven't checked to see if I'm back in ketosis yet. I'm guessing not yet but should be by tomorrow. I'll check later and see.

Today will be another busy day, end of the month and all. I'm already looking forward to the weekend when I get to do lots of fun, relaxing stuff like paint My mind is rather weary from the work events of the week so it will be nice to do something I don't have to think about.

Hopefully Saturday morning hubby and I will do a little shopping for the new house. We probably won't buy anything yet, but need to get an idea of what floors we want. We're leaning towards laminate as we have laminate in our current home and love it. I can't decide if I want laminate in the kitchen and dining room or tile. And then there's the area that will be my new office and I can't decide if I want laminate or tile there Decisions, decisions.

[Leenie]

195.2

TGIF

[Leenie]

194.8

Came home last night and crashed. I napped in the chair a bit then went to bed and got 8 hours sleep. I'm rarin' to go today

Today begins some packing of our belongings then sanding and paiting of trim work at our existing home. Hubby will work on sanding and painting of all of the doors in the house. We will go out and do a little looking around this morning. We need to replace the stove and refrigerator at this house and at the new house need a refrigerator and dishwasher.

But first I need to work out the budget for the project. I think it's going to cost 20,000 for everything, hubby seems to think we can do it for a lot less. We'll see who comes closest

Time to get going, the day will get away from me.

[Leenie]

197.0

[Leenie]

198.2

I can not make a fist this morning. My hands are screaming after sanding and painting all weekend. The trim looks great though! Do you realize how filthy dusty dirty baseboard trim gets? Hubby got 6 or 7 doors finished and 5 or 6 left to go. Our house is still a wreck though with the doors standing in the living room to dry. I still have a little bit of trim left in the master bedroom then I'm done with that. I will try to knock that out during this week unless I end up working all hours again.

My business partner and I are doing another presentation on Thursday. Since some of the "rules" of lending have changed since the last presentation, I have to go through and change it all. I'll get that done by tomorrow.

I finally made it out yesterday to do some clothes shopping. I picked up 4 outfits at Penneys. Nothing fancy, nothing extravagent, just some basic pieces to get me by. I hate shopping. Well, I hate clothes shopping. I do love shopping at hardware stores

[Leenie]

197.6

Recap:

January -16.2
February -7.0
March -1.2

Total -24.4

I did not make my goal for March or even come close. My long weekend away and eating whatever sure didn't help. I really should have measured though as I feel I'm making progress there. I feel smaller anywy I even got called a skinny ****** yesterday from my business partner Of course that's because my weight loss was more noticeable with the new clothes that fit.

I do feel like I'm easing off mentally so I need to focus on that. I've probably eased off mentally because so many other things have occupied my thoughts like work, the house projects, etc. I'm afraid that will still be the case during the month of April. However, I know I can still find the time to plan out my meals a little better.

Goal for April: 7 pounds

[Leenie]

196.2

no time to chat

[Leenie]

I can't believe how fast this week has gone.

Most days I'm finding myself working 12 hour days at a minimum. A couple of days this week I've probably worked 14 or 15 but who is counting. It's just crazy. My schedule this week has been at the office by 9:00 or 9:30, work at the office until 7:30 or 8:00, come home have dinner with my husband then back to work at the home office from 9:00 until midnight or 1 am, rinse and repeat.

Surprisingly enough, I feel pretty good. I'm not sure where the energy comes from some days but it's there. I hope I just don't crash this weekend as I have a lot to do on the home front too. Eating right certainly plays a big part in the energy levels. I just really feel great if I'm eating Atkins style. I know if I was eating like I was last year I wouldn't be able to keep this up. Atkins gives me energy, for sure.

Tomorrow morning hubby and I are heading out to shop for appliances and flooring. We were going to do that earlier but got sidetracked and now we really need to get that part done. Tuesday the flooring guys will be at the new house to give us some measurements so we know how much to purchase. Tomorrow afternoon will be more painting at the current house. DD is coming over to help so that will be fun.

Tonight however, I'm going to go out on a date with my husband

[dusk]

Where's my Leenie? I look in on you just about every day, but you've been MIA for several days now. Hope you and yours are okay.