Sheep Guarding Llama

I overslept this morning so was rushing to get into the office.  My car’s (well, Dominica’s car’s) tires were soft so I had to take some time to fill them up before getting on the road too.  It is chilly this morning and there was just the tiniest drizzle going on while I was filling up the tires at the house.

I got into the office.  It is dark today.  Definitely rain coming.  There was some lightning to the north as I drove home last night so a good storm is not out of the question.

I had a lunch meeting today that got moved to Red Neck Heaven in Lewisville.  So I drove up there in the rain.  This was my first time going there.  With a name like that, not the kind of place that I would be very likely to go to without some particular reason.  The place was absolutely packed.  We had to wait about twenty minutes to get a table and there were only two of us.  The food was good, I had a grilled shrimp salad that was quite tasty.

The afternoon was really slow in the office, it was great.  I didn’t get to leave early but the afternoon was pretty relaxing.  I worked in the office until around a quarter after six.  I was supposed to hang out with Stacey tonight but I called her just before leaving the office and she decided that she was going to take a nap.  Going out late last night was too much for her.  So she might want to go out later but I won’t find out until after she is done with her nap.

So I went home and did some cleaning and reading.  I finished reading Simon Winchester’s “Atlantic” and started reading the sequel to “Under the Tuscan Sun”, “Bella Tuscany.”  I figure that I need to catch up on my Italian travel reading before we go so that I am that much more prepared for the trip.  I got much of the house cleaned up and did some of the dishes.

I figured that getting deep into work would be unproductive as I had already mentally set this evening aside for taking Stacey out to see Dallas so I ran over to Redneck Heaven around the corner and had a beer and grabbed a light dinner (another salad, their grilled shrimp salad is excellent and a nice change of pace.)  I hung out there for a while and Stacey eventually woke up and decided that she was just going to watch television tonight.  So Andrew came out and hung out for a little bit.

I was home on the early side and just used the opportunity to get to bed and do some catch up on sleep.  Oreo thought that that was a great idea.  He is always extra snugly when it is just he and I home.  I read a little more in “Bella Tuscany”, but not much, before going to sleep.

I didn’t feel well this morning so slept in a bit on the late side.  Oreo was snugly and glad to have me there.  Work was pretty slow today.  Nothing of note.

I got a hold of Stacey Rodgers today who is in town and found out that she was free for dinner.  Stacey and I went to high school together and have not seen each other for roughly nineteen years!  She is in town for training for her new job for two weeks.  Thank goodness for Facebook or I would never know when people were going to be local.  What a huge impact Facebook has made on our lives in little ways like this that you often do not think of.

After work I ran home to take care of Oreo and to change since I was dressed more for work than for going out.  Traffic was horrible.

I had to drive down to Grand Prairie to pick up Stacey.  She is down there without a car.  Not a good combination, Grand Prairie is hardly the pride of the DFW and there is nothing that she can get to on foot out there and Texas is a big, sprawling place in general so she is in the middle of this huge, awesome city and can’t even see the city itself because she is stuck way out there.

So it was around six thirty when I picked Stacey up.  We went up to La Cima and had dinner there.  We ate in the lounge as we got a nice window seat and she was able to see the expanse of the DFW Metroplex from up there.  We were lucky that we got up there while it was still daylight so she was able to see the metroplex in daylight and then watch the sun go down on it as the city lights came up.  That is the best way to get introduced to the city.

We had a really nice time catching up.  We used to hang out a bit in high school, it is really sad that we lost touch.  We, over the last few years, have been in contact on Facebook a bit but that’s not the same.  But at least we have a fair idea of what each other have been up to and we see the pictures of the family and stuff.  Her oldest daughter is in college now (wow, now that makes me feel old.)  Stacey was a year younger than me in high school (in fact, she still is.)

We closed down La Cima and then were talking about going out as she has not seen Dallas at all yet but she has to be up early in the morning (five, ugh) to get to her class so we just went out to MacArthur and got frozen yogurt.  We ended up sitting around talking long after the yogurt place closed.  Then I drove her back to her hotel and went home and took care of Oreo and got off to bed.

I went in to the office this morning and came home at lunch.  While I was at home Dominica was working on some planning for this weekend.

Dominica realized today that she needs to be in Houston on Friday to help prepare for Luciana’s birthday party which is going to be on Saturday.  That doesn’t work well as I have already stayed home from work this week and I have tons of work that needs my attention.  I have a number of work conflicts too, so going to Houston early really is not a good option for me.  The best case scenario would be that we would have to get up and leave super early on Friday morning and that is not a good option for anyone.

So we decided, very last minute, that Dominica and the girls might as well head on down to Houston today rather than waiting another day or two as our schedule is so busy that I will barely see the kids between now and when they would need to be leaving anyway – so better for them to get time with the cousins down in Houston than to be at home while I am at work.

So I returned to work and Dominica got the girls packed up and they were on the road between three and four this evening.

Today, strangely, is tax day in the US.  Normally it is April 15th but that was a Sunday and yesterday was some obscure government holiday that no one has ever heard of before but the IRS was closed so we got an extension until today.  I actually got all of my tax stuff in to the accountant last week but they are swamped and hoping to get to it without needing to file an extension.  Fingers crossed.

There were a lot of tax questions to be answered today so luckily I was home all day and was able to scan and send documentation as it was needed throughout the day.  We got everything in, paperwork done and we signed and submitted electronically.  No extensions needed for the Miller family this year.  It is amazing, I cannot remember the last time that we had our taxes in on time.  We still have no received our money from our 2010 filing (which was only a few weeks ago.)  Because this one is filed electronically and has direct deposit there is actually a chance that we will receive the 2011 refund ahead of the 2010 refund!

I was pretty busy all day just trying to keep up with work and get caught up on bills and stuff.  With the upcoming vacation we are feeling pretty overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done both physically, work related and financially.

This evening we did dinner at Brookhaven.  It is kids’ night.  Dinner was excellent tonight, Jalapeno BBQ salmon, corn on the cob (which I am now allowed to eat again) and salads.  Very tasty and quite a departure from the norm.

After dinner Liesl played in the inflatable bouncy gym a little before we went back home.  The country club as that set up for the summer.  They got it for Easter and decided to keep it.  Helps a lot with keeping the kids under control.

We came back to the house so that I could attend my class tonight but at the last minute it was cancelled because the professor was attempting to buy a house.  Dominica had just remarked that she was upset that I had class tonight because she wanted to take the family out for a walk because the weather was perfect.  I told her that class was cancelled so that we should go straight away, and we did.

We went for a long walk tonight, just over five miles.  We explored some new areas and walked to a yogurt place that apparently just went out of business so walked a little further and went to a Marble Slab Creamery which also had sugar free, fat free frozen yogurt.  I got mine with blueberries and vanilla yogurt.  Dominica did the same but with birthday cake yogurt.  And Liesl, being Liesl, got cotton candy ice cream.

Dominica got a lot of exercise today because earlier in the day she had gone out for a job and did about two miles.  So altogether today she has done seven or eight miles!  She was exhausted by the time that we got home.  I carried Ciana on my back the entire way and pushed Liesl in the stroller almost the entire way.

I had to get up at three in the morning to check my email.  I was able to reschedule the meeting to a later time so that I was able to sleep in until six.  I ended up being awake for nearly an hour but it was better than it was going to be and I didn’t actually have to get out of bed that whole time.

I got up and six, showered, and did my morning call.  Then got ready to head to my Medifast appointment.  Today is the moment of truth.  I fasted yesterday trying to get ready for today.  All evening yesterday and all morning this morning I was weighing in pretty much on the hour trying to get a feel for my progress.  Last night I was at my lowest ever with only one pound to go.  This morning I am inching my way closer.

My final weigh in, before leaving the house to go to my appointment, put me at one pound under my goal weight.  That, I hope, gives me enough breathing room to weigh in well at the clinic.  Historically my weigh ins at home are exactly the same as my weigh ins in the clinic.  That means that my scale at home is off by roughly three pounds because at home I weigh in naked (I know, too much information) and at the clinic I am normally in jeans and a light shirt.

I got to the Medifast office and weighed in straight away.  To my amazement I weight in a full three pounds under my goal weight!  That’s it, I’m officially done with the weight loss portion of the program.  I can’t believe it.  After a year of struggling to get down to this weight I am finally there.  Not only did I break my own, initial, weight loss goal but I have set a new record for the clinic as well breaking their previous weight loss record by ten pounds.  I’ve lost ~90 pounds now.

So I am having a good day today!

This evening we ate at home.  Dominica has decided that she is going to go strictly back on to Medifast.  Her experiment in going off of it did not go well and she found herself unable to regulate her food intake and in just forty-eight hours saw that she needed the regimen of the program.  So a lean dinner tonight of veggie burgers with low fat cheese, veggie bacon strips and green beans.  And later on, of course, some sugar free, fat free frozen yogurt with berries.

We tried watching That 80s Show tonight hoping that it would be kind of like That 70s Show.  But it is not.  It was done so poorly that it actually feels much older – kind of like a show made in the 80s would – and the writing and acting is really bad.  It feels painful, like people are just popping in, reading lines and popping out again.  It feels labored and awkward.  No wonder they only managed to make thirteen episodes.  It is a neat idea – those of us from the 80s have many fond memories of the time period and That 70s Show was a huge success.  But mostly it was good because the characters were believable and endearing.  You cared about their story.  It wasn’t just a collection of period references.