Sheep Guarding Llama

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.

I slept in until eight this morning.  That was three hours of sleep.  Not a whole heck of a lot.

Today is my fasting day.  Tomorrow is my weekly weigh in at Medifast.  I weighed in first thing this morning and I was at my record low.  Not a new record, just equal to my record.  But that is an entire day ahead of my weigh in and this is my chance to really get the weight down and get a good weigh in.  So no food today.  My last meal was early yesterday afternoon so it will be a full day and a half without food.  I will have no water once I got to bed tonight.  Hopefully that gives me time to process what I have drunk before the Medifast appointment tomorrow morning.

As of first thing this morning I have one and a half pounds to go to reach my original Medifast goal.  That should be very doable for a fasting day.  I will be drinking water like crazy all day to desalinate.

Today Liesl decided to come into my office and point to her wrist and tell me that she needed a clock.  She handed me a marker.  So I drew a watch onto her wrist.  She thought that that was awesome.  She would come into the room, look at her wrist and say “Look at the time, I have to get going!”

I had to work all day as I am the on call for the office this weekend.  The on call really seems to be a twenty-four hour weekend.  It is rather exhausting.

Dominica decided the other day that she is giving up on the Medifast plan until we are back from Europe.  She has been craving food horribly and really struggling for months to stay on diet.  Her being half on, half off of the diet makes it nearly impossible for me to stay on it.

It was pretty much an all work day, even though it is Sunday.  I have to be up at three in the morning to deal with some stuff in the UK so not much sleep coming for me tonight after getting not very much last night.