Sheep Guarding Llama

Medifast Status: Day 82, Down ~40.5lbs

This morning I walked outside to do something and looked down and noticed that the sidewalk coming up to our front door had cracked.  I knew that this crack was not there before and I knew exactly what this meant.  This is the shift that I have known was coming since we first looked at the house but no one had believed me that it was going to be a problem.  I looked up and, to my horror, I was right.  Three of the four brick pillars supporting the roof over our walkway and begun to significantly sink into the yard and were leaning away from the house even more than previously and the mortar had given way, bricks were loose many feet above our heads and the roof had broken away and was buckling from the lack of support from the pillars.

So this is not going to be fun.  At all.

Today was our day to do work around the house.  It really needed it.  The house is a total mess, mostly caused by us getting in from New York and just dropping everything where we were and not getting a chance to do anything about it all week.  That and Liesl wanted her “tunnel” taken out so we have that set up in the living room again.  Boy that thing is huge.

We got a lot of the house cleaned up today and then worked on the garage too.  This morning we got the unfinished dresser out and set it up on the back patio so that Dominica could work on staining it.  It is incredibly hot outside which is good for the stain itself but it does not make it a fun job for Dominica.  She was melting out there.

It took several hours but the dresser appears to have turned out really nice.  It needs to sit outside in the heat tonight so that it will be ready to come inside tomorrow.  Liesl has never had any real furniture of her own other than her bed (which is going to become Luciana’s) so this will be nice for her.

I got the Nintendo Wii all hooked up today.  It is nice to have that back.  I popped in Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and played that for about an hour tonight.  I have never actually played a Zelda game before for more than maybe fifteen minutes except for Ocarina on the Wii about a year and a half ago.  I know how unbelievable that sounds, but it is true.  It has just never been my thing and I never got into it even though we own what must be nearly the definitive collection of the games and that Ocarina of Time is one of Dominica’s all time favourite games.  So I decided that I needed to give this one a real try and see how it is.  I’ve seen it listed as having more than one hundred hours of gameplay in it.

We also played just a little bit of Super Mario Galaxy.  Funny enough, this is a game that we still had in shrink wrap when the Ralstons borrowed the Wii.  So even though we have owned it for probably two years we had never played it, ever.

This evening Dominica made some popcorn and we settled in to watch the latest Harry Potter movie on BluRay.  It was late when we started, after Liesl had gone to bed, so we were pretty tired.  We only made it halfway before we were too tired and headed off to bed ourselves.

Medifast Status: Day 81, Down ~40.5lbs

It is apparently a La Cima themed week for us.  Dominica saw today’s menu and decided that she was coming down with the girls to join me for lunch again.  They have just had a really good menu this week and we’ve been completely unable to resist using the club again.

This afternoon we got a panicked communique from our renters back in Peekskill, New York.  Apparently there are several issues going on at the house including a broken door, wasps, a water stain, a running toilet and some exterior painting issues.  These things just never end, it would seem.

So we spent a bit of the day just attempting to coordinate work up in Peekskill.  That was stressful and not fun at all.

I worked late this evening and then went home for a short night with the family.  We are going to be home all weekend just dealing with stuff around the house.  And around the other house, apparently, too.

Medifast Status: Day 80, Down ~37.5lbs

Eighty days on Medifast.  It really does not seem like it has been all that long.  But looking back, it sure has.  I can barely remember what food is like anymore.  It’s not that I am hungry very often but boy do I crave normal food.  I really miss being able to eat.

I skipped lunch today and just stayed at work all day.  I’m still struggling to get caught up from having been out of town.  I’m pretty exhausted and looking forward to the weekend coming up at home.

We stayed in again tonight.  Just stayed home and relaxed.  I brought home dinner from Rockfish so that we could just eat and take it easy.

Medifast Status: Day 79, Down ~37.5lbs

I sent the menu over to Dominica this morning from La Cima and she decided that she wanted to bring the girls down and go eat there again.  They are on a roll this week.

This evening we just stayed in and spent a quiet evening at home.  We’ve been watching 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter – the television show that John Ritter did and passed away while filming the second season.  Neither of us have ever seen it and we have both wanted to and the first two seasons are available on Hulu Plus in HD so we have been watching it there.

Medifast Status: Day 78, Down ~37.5lbs

We got up this morning early and unloaded our stuff from the U-Haul trailer and then loaded the trailer back up again.  It is crazy hot here so that was no fun.  Francesca pulled the truck and trailer around the back of the house in the alley and we moved everything through the garage from there.

Boy is our garage full of junk.  I can’t wait until we figure out how to deal with all of that stuff.  We need work done on the attic so that we can move most of this stuff up there.  A lot of it is just empty boxes, empty luggage, plastic bins, bins of wires or yarn and the like.  Nearly all stuff that would happily live up in the attic.  Some shelving on the far side of the garage and maybe a small shelf on the house side would take care of nearly everything else.  Much of the issue is just a horrible use of space and continuing sprawl caused by the lack of necessary space to move around in.  Like the fact that there is a large spool of insulation sitting in the middle of the floor – that could serve us far better in the attic than in the middle of the garage floor.

I got in to work and worked through lunch today.  The Grices left shortly after we had unloaded the trailer.

This evening I can home and Dominica and I discussed our La Cima membership.  For once she is less inclined to give it up than I am.  I am really disgusted by the changes that they have been making and don’t like where they are taking the club.  She decided that she should go in and get a look at it herself so we made reservations and went in for dinner.  We were the only people with reservations tonight and we pretty much had the club to ourselves.  Tuesday is the slowest night of the week.

We dined in the Lakeside room tonight.  We were the first to dinner and only after quite some time did one couple come and join us sitting at the farthest point of the room behind a support so we never even saw each other.  They left before we did too so we were alone for the end of our meal as well.

Our chef, Chris, knew that we were coming tonight and put together a dinner special just for us.  We had grilled red snapper on sauteed vegetables with a butter and oil sauce. It was excellent.  We got to see the construction work on the new bar that was just put together today.  It will be about two weeks before that is done but you can see what they are doing with it now.