Sheep Guarding Llama

Medifast Status: Day 257, Down ~73lbs

We had talked about maybe doing brunch this morning at Brookhaven but everyone decided against it.  So we just stayed at home instead.

Emily and I managed to get a start on her diorama today.  This took a bit of work, partially because we did not have the proper base on which to do it so that made for a lot of extra effort.  We built the frame of the diorama and used packing tape to secure it to a folder microwave box.  A pretty silly way to go about modeling a waterfront but it did the trick and is very solid, if not attractive.

Emily enjoyed doing the plaster work to form the diorama.  She has never worked with plaster before, and admittedly I have barely worked with it myself, and thought that that was fun.  Doing plaster work is one of my favourite parts of modeling as well and I think that I am pretty decent at doing it.  It has been years since I had the chance to do this.  If I remember correctly, the last time that I managed to do model railroading was back when Dominica and I were living in Peekskill.  We modeled a vignette while watching the BBC show Waiting for God.  Isn’t it funny the things that get connected in your mind?

For lunch today we took the Grices to Ruchi Palace for Indian food.  Francesca has been wanting to try Indian for a very long time and they had a buffet on today so we decided to throw our diets to the wind and head there.

Lunch was excellent.  There was a ton of good food on the buffet including a lot of good vegetarian.  Dominica and I really enjoyed our lunches.  Francesca liked hers but found nearly everything to be too spicy and she was unable to eat very much of it. Emily does not like to try new foods and would eat almost nothing except for a little bit of naan.

This evening, pretty late, Dominica and Francesca went out to the movie theatre to see Breaking Dawn which is one of the Twilight movies that I refuse to associate with in any way.  Emily and I stayed home to watch the kids.

Medifast Status: Day 256, Down ~73lbs

The Grice family is staying with us this weekend.  Dominica and I slept with Luciana in our room last night for the first time in many months.  I have gotten used to her having her own room.  We got to hear first hand just how much she talks in her sleep.  It is really hard to sleep with her in the same room.

With our bed moved to the north side of the room and sleeping with our heads against that wall we could hear Liesl especially well through the air vent too.  I was surprised to discover that she appears to talk in her sleep.  I went in to check on her multiple times and she was always fast asleep.  But at one point she was talking quite clearly.

For lunch today Francesca and I went to Brookhaven and got takeout for the family.  This was her first time seeing the club in daylight.  It is a very different experience during the day.  We got there at two and they were just taking the chef’s table down so we had to order normal food.  It was a gorgeous day and the golf courses were very busy.

This afternoon Emily and I went out to do some shopping.  We hit Lowe’s and picked up paint for Dominica and my bedroom.  Dominica finally decided that we could do an Indiana Clay accent wall to the west (behind us when we sleep) and Crab Bisque on the other three walls.  I really like these colours.  She is not convinced.  We will see.  She said that if Emily and I went out and bought paint today that she would get to work painting the room right away.

After Lowe’s we also went to Hobby Lobby, to which I have never before previously.  They have a ton of stuff there, way more than any hobby shop I have ever seen.  And their decorating selection is quite impressive.

Hobby Lobby had some basic modeling kits from Woodland Scenics that we were interested in.  Emily thinks that model railroading sounds interesting so we are giving it a try.  She has never seen a model railroad before, I don’t believe.  But given the crafts that she enjoys I would be surprised to find that she does not find it entertaining.

Medifast Status: Day 255, Down ~73lbs

It is Friday and I have my Medifast appointment today so I went in to the office this morning for one of my few appearances this week.  Work has been surprisingly not busy considering that the freeze is now over.

I went to MediFast today and had my lowest check-in there ever.  Pheww.  I’ve been working hard trying to keep from gaining any weight over the holidays and this was kind of the moment of truth.  I’m not losing much but at least it continues to go down.  It is getting harder and harder to lose anything these days.

After Medifast Dominica and I took the girls to Brookhaven for lunch.  Lunch on Fridays is my favourite time to go there because they tend to have a good seafood selection then.  They had a great clam chowder, seafood cakes and more today.  It was quite good. Dominica is very glad that she came out because so often the chef’s table does not have things that she wants and she finds it very frustrating trying to eat there as often as we do because that limits the variety dramatically.  So this was good timing.

After lunch I just came home and worked from there for the rest of the day.  Dominica and I moved the bed in our bedroom and got the south side of the room cleared out and I ran the Rug Doctor in there.  We are going to save the north half of the room for next week.  So our bed is now up against the north wall and we will have to turn ninety degrees to sleep tonight.

The Grices arrived pretty late in the evening.  The house was looking pretty good by the time that they arrived.  Clean floors, the dishes all done, candles burning, fresh paint.  It is amazing how quickly the house is transforming.  If only we had the money to get the atrium done now rather than waiting a really long time before getting to be able to use it.  But it really does not make any sense to do anything with it, it seems, until after we go to Europe.  We will be returning to Texas in late June, most likely, and that will be a good chunk of the outdoor season that we will be in New York so investing in it now makes little sense.  But I hate not having it to be able to be used.  It is such a key component of the house.

Medifast Status: Day 254, Down ~73lbs

I stayed home from work again today.  I’ve been home nearly all week.  Not a lot of need to be in the office.  No one is there for me to see so it is pretty silly to be sitting there all alone attempting to work when I could be just as productive from home and not have to pay to drive in and back twice a day (because I always come home during lunch to see the girls.)

The floor in the living room is still pretty wet today but it is looking pretty good.  The Rug Doctor definitely does not get out the stains like my boiling bleach water method does – because the hot water does not sit for five to ten minutes on the floor working its chemical magic.  So it looks like I will need to do that a bit more on the toughest spots.  But the Rug Doctor does a good job of getting the floor to look more even as it hits everything.

Our plan is to start doing the Rug Doctor once a month until the floors are really clean and then moving into a seasonal schedule of doing the entire house four times a year.  Overall, though, the carpet looks great.

Our friend Andrew stopped by this evening to do some computer training and Dominica used the opportunity to pick his brain about places to go while we are in Belgium.  So he was at the house for a while.  He is going to be in Belgium with us for a little bit and we might reschedule things so that we are there for about a week all together.  He has friends all over Belgium and knows everywhere to go.  So we will get a guided tour of the country.

It is looking like our latest plan is that we are going to fly into Germany and spend a lot of time in Belgium skipping the Alsace and only seeing Germany briefly.  We will get a lot of time to get to know Belgium though.  That will be nice.  I much prefer staying in one spot and getting to know it really well rather than zipping from place to place trying to see and do everything and not ever getting a feel for anywhere.

Medifast Status: Day 253, Down ~73lbs

I finally weighed in down another pound!  This has taken forever.  I am really anxious to get this diet back on track but boy has it been hard.  The holidays make it such a struggle and now I am in to the habit of eating food that I shouldn’t.  That is going to be really hard to break myself of.

Today was a pretty normal day.  Dominica did some more painting.  The main hallway is now completely painted as is the one wall in Liesl’s room.  Liesl has been very excited to get a wall painted pink and she went with Dominica, I believe yesterday, to Lowe’s to pick out the paint that she wanted on her wall.  So three walls remain purple, the lavender-like shade that came with the house, and now one wall has a fresh coat of pink paint.

The hallway being done looks great.  So bright and new.  Really improves the look of the house.  The bar is the last remaining piece of this current round of painting.  Luciana’s room is going to get a pink wall as well but that is held off until after the Grice family visits this weekend since they need to be able to use that room and having wet paint is a bit of a pain.

The Rug Doctor arrived today!  We are very excited.  The living room was already empty so I went ahead and Rug Doctored the entire living room.  Now the floor is very wet.  That will take some time to dry.  We wanted to get it done before the Grices came with plenty of time to dry.  We have about fifty hours before they will get here so that should be enough.