Questions?

Do you have questions? I have answers! If you have any questions about me or things I never followed up on that I mentioned in a post that you want to know, leave a comment and I will do a Q&A post.

WW: Week 3

Weight Watchers works. No doubt about it. Follow the plan and you will lose weight. The mental part of it is the hardest. Right now my mind is in the right place to do this and I'm losing weight. I'm even still eating out at my favorite Mexican restaurants. I just eat less. This week was very up and down food wise because I was very sick for a couple days and didn't eat much. Then when I felt better, I was starving all day.

I am only going to be reporting my at home weight going forward, rather than the WW weigh in at work since that one fluctuates more based on what I've eaten before the meeting and what I'm wearing.

Here are the results:
2.0 loss for the week / 5.0 loss overall

The Blind Side

Most of my adult life there have been two actresses in Hollywood that I just could not stand. I would avoid a move if it had Sandra Bullock or Andie Macdowell in it. I found them both really annoying. Well, I can admit when I'm wrong and say that Sandra Bullock was AMAZING in The Blind Side. I watched it over the weekend (on the Roku of course) and loved it! She made that movie and it didn't even seem like it was her. Bravo! A much better movie than The Hurt Locker. I might even become a Ravens fan now that I know the story of Michael Oher.

Time Flies

Time flies when you're having fun, but also when you're busy. Days and weeks just go by lately and I didn't even realize it's been almost a week since I posted something here. I'm still super busy at work and I don't see it slowing down at all. We went into DC over the weekend for dinner and saw Chelsea Handler's stand up act. The opener was much better this time around (Heather McDonald), but Chelsea used a lot of material I had heard before or read in her book. I didn't enjoy her last book very much. It felt like she was forced to write it and she didn't really want to. I started baking dog treats again last night. I'm going to try to focus on just six products to keep things simple. I hired a graphic designer to do a header for my Caribbean blog, but she can't start for about a month which gives me some time to get some of the content ready. That's all for now!

WW: Week 2

I had a nice loss this week! I think I'm still too far behind to win the Biggest Loser contest at work, but my real goal is to get into a bikini for my vacation. At least a tankini. So I did pretty well with my food this week, except for one day. I had been planning all week on going to On the Border to have a margarita. I was saving my points since these are very high in points. I checked the menu before we left and saw they had a chicken salad that was only 290 calories. Perfect! I would have a few chips, a margarita and the salad. Only problem was that the salad was so overly sweet that I couldn't eat it. The dressing was fat free, but very very sweet and mixed in with the chicken and veggies. I ate the chicken out of it and then some more chips and a tortilla. Then when I got home we decided to have another margarita and I made WW pizzas since I was still hungry. I figured that I needed to just eat something to fill me up (the pizzas were 5 points) instead of making a bad decision later in the night and eat something really bad. Anyway...that day ended up being 50 points by my calculations. It could have been more or less though since it's hard to count things like chips. Next time I'll just get the chicken fajitas since I know I like those and fill me up. Overall for the week I ate 26 points more than I should have per the plan.

Here are the results:
At home weight: 1.4 loss for the week / 3.0 loss overall
WW weigh in: 2.4 loss for the week / 6.2 loss overall

One more week until the Biggest Loser contest is over and 6.5 weeks until vacation. My goal is 5 more pounds by vacation, preferably 10, but I don't want to set unrealistic goals that may make me want to give up.

Step Away from the Botox

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills have had way too much plastic surgery!

Paradise

When we go on vacation in May we are chartering a boat for a day. I want to make a stop here. I wish I were there right now....

Pa'Treats

It's been close to two years now since I first started thinking about starting a home based dog treat bakery business. Many things have diverted me, including having the kitchen remodeled, but the biggest factor has been that I over analyze and complicate things to the point where I end up getting so overwhelmed that I just give up. I need to learn to just jump in and go for it. I saw a picture on a magazine recently of some donuts that made me start thinking about this again since one of the products I wanted to do was a doggie donut (all healthy ingredients, of course). The Super Pet Expo was in town over the weekend and I went to check out the competition...and there was only 1 booth dedicated to homemade treats and another 2 had a few treats as well as other things. I joined in a conversation that the dedicated place was having with a couple men because they were talking about the new rules Virginia has put in place regarding pet food. I knew about this since I have researched just about everything I can think of. Each product has to be registered with the agriculture department and there is a fee of $60 per product. Each product also has to be tested for nutritional content and there are labeling requirements as well (per the FDA). The guy said that two years ago before these rules were made that there were 15 vendors like his, and now only three. I saw this as a huge opportunity! $60 here and there is not going to scare me away. I know many people got into this business because it was cheap to start. Now, not so much. Between all this and the poor economy there seems to be a lot fewer on the internet. The agriculture fee is something that needs to be checked in every state so if they all enact this, it could become very costly, but that will mostly just force me to keep my product selection smaller...which is a good idea for me anyway since my large number of product ideas just complicates things even more. The point of all this is I'm getting ready to do this. I need to start baking some serious amounts of treats. I was a total lurker at the pet expo watching people to see what they liked and didn't and was taking mental notes on how I would set up my booth. My goal is for this to be an internet business, but I would use shows like this to get the name out there. Let me know who has a dog that wants to be a taste tester!

The Perfect Margarita

I believe this to be the perfect recipe for a margarita on the rocks. Potent...but smooth.

2 parts Patron Silver tequila
1 part Patron Citronage
1 part Rose's lime juice

Fill shaker with ice and all ingredients
Shake
Pour into a salt rimmed glass with ice
Add a lime wedge garnish and enjoy!

An Open Letter to Old Man Winter

Dear Old Man Winter,

Today is the first day of spring so your time here is done. I understand you come "in like a lion, out like a lamb", but what the hell was that you did to us in the middle??? Two blizzards in one week? December, one day and season total snow records? Oh, and the temperature rarely went above freezing. I would have never moved here had I known you were going to do this. Please do not do this to us again...what did we ever do to you??? I trust this explains my position. See you again in about nine months when I hope you will go easy on us.

Kind regards,
Patrice

WW: Week 1

Long time readers have seen posts like these before, but here we go again! It helps me stay accountable by posting how I did here. I'm once again trying to lose some weight and joined the Weight Watchers at Work program. I admit I completely pigged out before the first weigh in last week since the meeting is at 1:15pm so it made my starting weight artificially a little high. When I do weight loss programs I typically want the weigh in to be in the morning because I don't want to eat or drink anything before it because I want to be consistent. I usually only lose on average 1 pound per week dieting so differences each week in drinking or eating before the weigh in makes a difference. So I only journaled 1 day and I gave in when my husband said he wanted to go out for mexican and margaritas on Friday night (who could resist!).

Here are the results:
At home loss based on morning weight: 1.6 pound loss
WW weigh including the difference of eating vs. not eating: 3.8 pound loss

I'm happy with that! I've done better before the first week on a diet, but since I didn't journal or try too hard, I'm happy with it. I'm serious now though. I have my journal set up and am going to stick to this. There is also only 3 weigh in's left for the work Biggest Loser contest. I have fallen to the middle of the pack, but three good weeks could give me a chance.

Dear Kindle: I Want to Love You...But I Don't

I really wanted to love the Kindle I got for Christmas...but I just don't. I'm not usually a techie gadget kind of person, but since I fell in love with the iPhone I thought I would try some others.

Here are my issues with the Kindle:
1. Availability. New releases are not available for a month or two after a book is released. I don't want to wait until June to read Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang so I ordered the hard copy.

2. Price. The price is not much lower than getting a regular book. The hard cover price of Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang is $14.03 and the Kindle is $12.63...so only a $1.40 difference in price. I get free two day shipping from Amazon so there's no savings there either. Seriously, only $1.40???

3. No back light. I mostly read in bed and our bedroom lighting is a little dim so it sometimes strains my eyes to read.

4. Interface. I have a hard time navigating this thing unless I just turn pages forward and backward. I keep wanting to touch the screen like the iPhone. It's hard to find a particular page if you don't know exactly where it is.

5. Graphics. The pictures and charts are pretty much illegible. The first book I got was a reference type book on blogging and there were many screen shots and graphics that I couldn't read at all.

6. Little commitment. It's too easy to give up on a book. If I'm not into a book I just get a different one. I've bought 3 Kindle book and only finished one of them...and that one was the blogging book that I wish I had in hard copy so I could go back thru it and find the sections I wanted to reference.

There may be other features on it that I could like, but haven't tried or don't know that they are there. One of the places we are going on vacation in May doesn't have phones or TV's in the rooms so I could see using this to get a newspaper, but the resort gives a daily fax of major stories or I can just look on the iPhone for news.

Is there something I'm missing??? Anybody like it?

8 Weeks

Most of the weight I lost during my five week mystery illness has found its way back on my body. Crap. Eight weeks until I go on vacation and I don't want to have to wear my old lady skirted bathing suits. I've joined Weight Watchers at Work because it's in a conference room right next to where I sit so I can't say it's inconvenient. I'm really going to try to 10 pounds in the next 8 weeks.

Cougar Town is Friends Grown Up

I've been watching Cougar Town since it started and think it's the funniest thing on TV in a while. I don't know many other people who like it and most say they like Modern Family, but I can't get into that one. Cougar Town has Courtney Cox as a 40 something recent divorcee in Florida. When the show started she dated some younger hot men, but now this show has turned into an older version of Friends. There are 3 guys and 3 girls who are all mostly neighbors, live in a nice Florida neighborhood, have good jobs and are financially stable. There is the sexual tension between some of them and they talk about relationships between men and women a lot. There is also a teenager that is the son and he is sometimes the voice of reason. Courtney Cox's character's personality is the same as Monica's, except this time she's the girl all the guys want. It's a funny show...my favorite of the season. What's your favorite???

Running to Stand Still

And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was lyin' still.
Said I gotta do something
About where we're goin'.

Step on a steam train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night.
Singing ah, ah la la la de day
Ah la la la de day.

Sweet the sin, bitter the taste in my mouth.
I see seven towers, but I only see one way out.
You gotta cry without weeping, talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice.
You know I took the poison, from the poison stream
Then I floated out of here, singing
Ah la la la de day
Ah la la la de day.

She walks through the streets
With her eyes painted red
Under black belly of cloud in the rain.
In through a doorway
She brings me white golden pearls
Stolen from the sea.

She is ragin'
She is ragin'
And the storm blows up in her eyes.
She will suffer the needle chill
She's running to stand still.

Lyrics by U2

Pet Peeve

It really bugs me when people are rude. Something that really bothers me is when I'm going through a door and hold it open behind me and the other person doesn't touch the doors and walks ahead of me. I don't know if this is clear or not, but it was a push door that I walked through first so there I was in the bathroom holding the door for this woman. There was someone else at my work that this happened a couple times with and I referred to her as Miss Priss. She had one of those fancy southern 2 part names which I won't reveal here since some of you may know her.

Dr. Chang...No Longer Lost

I had an MRI today and the technician was Dr. Chang from Lost! Haha. Not exactly, but he looked like him and sounded just like him. While I was in the tube he would give me instructions.

The next one is 6 minutes
Don't move
Don't swallow

You may swallow now

All Work and No Play

I have been so busy at work lately that I haven't had much time to blog. A couple days were 16 hours...yikes! I think it will be busy for one more week and then hopefully slow down. I have had to take over the work of a few people who were laid off and transfer my current work to other people. I knew at some point it would get really busy and that time is here. One more week...I hope. I did have a chance to have fun last night with the girls and go to dinner and a piano bar.

Summer Concerts

Last year I had fun going to a few concerts so this year I'm lining up even more. Here is what I am planning so far. "Summer" is a loose term. It is quite the array of performers this year.

Chelsea Handler in March
Maybe Bankie Banx in Anguilla in May
U2 in June
Sheryl Crow in June
Yo-Yo Ma in June
Willie Nelson in August