Weigh in & update 5/27

Whew - this past week was a doooooozy!!  And actually, it really wasn't because of the holiday weekend.  It was the BBQ lunch at work on Thursday (which I did NOT track) and going out to dinner at another BBQ place Friday night (OMG chicken & waffles!!)  I can't remember the last time I used all of my weekly points AND all my APs, too!

But then.....the Plague happened.  Miss Angela had been sick last week and she graciously made it worse, then gave it to me.  I woke up Saturday morning with the tickly throat and it eventually morphed into stuffed sinuses, coughing, sneezing & such.  By Sunday I was losing my sense of taste and still don't have it back!  My chest & ribs hurt from coughing. 

On the plus side, it really cut down on my mindless grazing over the weekend.  I was really disappointed, since we had this most beautiful steak Monday that was easily 2 inches thick and I'm sure it was heavenly to eat, but WAHHH!  Couldn't taste it.  But I still did, and tracked it but I was sad the whole time. 

It's really weird that I can figure out what the food is supposed to be, but not the food itself.  Like I ate some sour cream & onion chips earlier - I could tell they were salty.  I had Honey Nut Cheerios this morning for breakfast, I could tell they were a little sweet. 

So basically that means I didn't get much activity in.  I did get the lawn mowed Saturday and half-heartedly worked in the flower bed off & on between rain sprinkles and motivation.

But I was feeling so lousy that many naps did happen. I managed to make it thru a half day of work Tuesday and didn't even go in today.

The half that's done looks pretty nice. And there's buds on my roses!!! And a whole lot of helicopters off the maple trees.

Did I mention?  I was down 1.4 lbs at weigh in tonight.  I made myself go to the meeting, even tho I look like death warmed over and have a lovely singing voice.  And the sickness beat out Mother Nature with her cramps & bloating!  I was feeling the scale could go either way.  I wonder how much I would have lost if it weren't for the TOM?  Who knows, I'll take this. 

In Remembrance....

Yay!

So I finally figured out the damn share buttons at the bottom of my posts.  I had to contact tech support at AddThis several times and they finally figured out something that would work.  And once they found the right code - BAM done.   Only 3 weeks after the A-Z Challenge wrapped up!

I lost my custom signature at the bottom of the posts, but I'm really not sure if I even want that back.  

So what do you think of the new look?  I like it.  Pfft, of course I do!  I wouldn't make my blog ugly to my eyes!

Yada, yada, yada, I've been doing pretty lousy with the losing the 12 pounds before Miss Angela's graduation.  That ain't happening.  I can shoot for her party in August, tho.

We don't have any big, exciting plans for Memorial Day.  I'm sure we'll meet the family at the cemetery to visit Dad and probably have some lunch.  I'd like to go visit my sister's house since her fur-family has increased significantly.  Last weekend she adopted a dog from an adoption event at the Detroit Zoo and Wednesday one of her barn cats produced 4 kittens.  The mom cat is pretty shy so seeing the kittens might be out, but I definitely want to meet Barney! 

Grilling will happen.  Randy & I stopped at the local grocery store that has a great meat counter and got a beautiful steak, some sirloin burgers and boneless pork ribs.  mmmmm Meat.  Got some squash and corn on the cob to put on the grill, too.  And I want to try grilling peaches - Randy thinks I'm nuts but I've seen lots of recipes for them. 

Yard work is a total gimme for this long weekend.  It's gonna happen. The lawn needs to be mowed again and the flower beds need some serious attention.  The lawn is taking over the one on the south side of the house.  On the plus side, I put grass seed down in part of the back yard to fill in some bare spots, and it's just starting to sprout, so I won't be mowing in that area for another couple weeks - yay!  We have a BIG yard and it's an effort to mow it. Like 2 1/2 hours of effort and that's without even using the bag to catch the clippings. 

I bought a bunch of bricks around today so I got some lifting in.  Right now we have rotted landscape timbers around the big maples out front, I want to make those nice stone rings around them before said grad party in August.  I have no idea who many we'll need so I started with 20.  I'll get another 20 next week and so on.  I figure that was enough to pile in the back of my car!  

Anyhoo, so I'm back!  I've updated my "In Progress" page with my weigh ins and earned APs.  OH!  I went in this week for my yearly physical.  Everything is fine. I still have borderline high cholesterol, which I've had since my Navy days, but the doc didn't seem concerned about it, so I guess I shouldn't worry, either.  Apparently there's a thing now that if you have a clear pap smear, you don't have to have another for 3 years!  So I got to skip that bit o fun.  But I don't get out of a mammogram!  Yay me.

Another thing - I took the dog for a walk today and went to enter my mileage in the website I was using to "walk across the USA" and found out the website has been retired as of May 6!  WTF!  It would have been nice to get an email about that!  I would have been really pissed if I was mostly across the US, but I wasn't even out of Virginia yet, somewhere like 450 miles.  Guess I'll have to find a new site.

It's getting late, so later!

A-Z Reflections post

Yay!  My 4th year of the A-Z Challenge is in the books (with 2 blogs!).  I stepped out of the health / weight loss realm that my blog usually lives in (and have done the challenge on every year in the past) and concentrated on women who have made a difference.  It was really interesting to research these fantastic ladies.

Anna Atkins
Angela Bachiller
Lt. Colleen Cain, USCG
Dorothea Lange
Einar Mogens Wegener
Mary Fields
RAdm Grace Hopper, USNR
Lt. Kara Spears Hultgreen, USN
Isadora Duncan
Jacqueline Cochran
Julie Krone
Linda Finch
Adm. Michelle Howard, USN
Night Witches
Odette Sansom
Maj. Heather Penney, USAF
Eve Queler
Ruby Bridges
Jr. Lt. Valentina Tereshkova
U
Brig Gen Wilma Vaught, USAF
Cathay Williams, US Army
Lou Xiaoying
Malala Yousafzai
Babe Didriksen Zaharias

On the down side, I am horribly embarrassed that I didn't visit many new blogs or reply to the comments left in a timely manner.  I promise I will still reply and I will be joining the Road Trip to hopefully redeem myself somewhat.  Funny how life in general gets crazy in spring...or is it just April??

That being said, I sadly don't have anyone to make a shoutout to.  I think the hosts & minions did a fantastic job and can't think of anything I would actually change about the challenge.

I learned the wonders of Tweetdeck and joined in on the Twitter chats each Thursday afternoon.  The people I chatted with each week are going to be the first blogs I visit once I get off my backside.

And I WILL figure out how to get the share buttons at the bottom of my posts!  I have an email in my inbox from AddThis right now with a completely different set of instructions than what is found on the website.  So hopefully that will work and I can put my customizations put back on the blog - this generic stuff is for the birds!!

#AtoZChallenge