Be Happy; It's Purim.

We went to synagogue today because we will have no opportunity to do that again for the next seven weeks. It was nice seeing everyone, but tonight we'll see them again and even more folks. It's Purim, and at our shul that's one crazy, crazy night. Mark and I just made up 23 Shalach Manot bags containing an assortment of 3 Hamantaschen and either two different granola bars or an apple and a dark chocolate square. This is the first year that Mark did not "personalize" these bags. In the past he would put one hamantaschen per person in the family plus raisins, nuts, and many chocolates. He also decorated the bags and wrote the receiving family's name so we knew who was going to get each bag. It was easier when the kids were here to help. This year we just made them generic and didn't even sign the bags with our name. Sigh. Still, it's the thought that counts and people always enjoy exchanging them. I'm sure I'll come home with several bags full of goodies that I shouldn't eat. I already scarfed down 3 Hamantaschen just making up these bags.

I've been eating way too much because today I got on the scale and I'm up FIVE pounds since Tuesday. Sigh. Where is my self-control and discipline? It seems to have flown the coop.

So Much to Say!

I didn't even realize that I had not posted since Tuesday until right now, but I have just been so busy that it wasn't possible to sit down and write. I think this is the largest number of days that went by without a post since I started the blog. Apologies to my most loyal readers who have probably wondered what was happening!

As for my weight, I had reported that I was 205.5 Tuesday morning, but now it's Friday morning. This morning's weight was 207.1. A bit up, but we are still eating most of our meals out. Yesterday I had Chinese food for lunch, high in sodium.

As for where we sleep, Wednesday night we were able to move into the house. Mark helped the contractors put all the furniture back into the living room, and I helped them put it back into the basement TV room. We now have the right furniture in all the right places, although there are still boxes and assorted closets to be re-organized. There is also a thick layer of grime and dust on every possible surface. Today Peggy, my fabulous cleaning-lady, is coming at 8 a.m. to help with that.

As for work, it's OVER!! When I went to work Wednesday, I did not even realize that it would be the last day ever. I was scheduled to work on Thursday, but snow was in the forecast, so I turned in my keys and handbook to the main office, emptied my lockers, gave away my tote bag, and turned my service log book over to the department chairperson just in case there was another snow day. I went home that day feeling confident that there would be a snow day; I started making mental plans for what to clean on Thursday and what to tell the contractor to do as they finished their last day of work. Then it didn't snow! That's why people hate weathermen!

I decided to use another day of sick leave, so early in the morning an email was sent to all the appropriate people that I would be out Thursday. Since I was already scheduled for "Illness in the Family" leave for today, Friday, that made Wednesday the last day of work ever.

Then things got REALLY EMBARRASSING!! I started to get text message after text message from co-workers with pictures of two cakes and heartfelt pleas to come in for the surprise going-away party they had planned. That was definitely embarrassing.

Mark and I went up for an hour, ate cake, got three beautiful cards signed by all the special ed department members, got a $100 gift card to Target for things for the new house, and schmoozed with lots of wonderful people. This job as a paraeducator in the special ed department has been the best possible post-retirement job any teacher could want. I'm so glad I made the decision to do this, and so very, very glad that I landed a job at Catonsville High School. I have made some life-long friends there, and I'll miss them all very much. My career, spanning five decades from the 1970s to the 2010s, included 32 years of teaching music in both middle and high schools plus six years as a paraeducator for the special education students in English classes. I feel proud of myself for all that work, but I'm ready to move on to new activities. With snow days and Mark's heart condition, I only worked FIVE days in February out of the potential 19 work days. It was a nice way to ease out of the working lifestyle. Now it's on to a new chapter of life.

I ate a bit more cake than I should have, but not as much as I would have if Mark hadn't gone with me. He was watching and finally made me throw the rest in the trash. It would be so nice if I had the ability to do that for myself, but sadly I don't. Then we went to get some kosher Chinese food for lunch! Yum. Denny's tilapia for dinner rounded out the day.

Today Mark has an echocardiogram scheduled for 10 a.m. and a follow-up appointment with the cardiologist at 1 p.m. He has had three symptom-free days, so we are anticipating a good report. Around those appointments we need to keep working on putting the house back together, shopping for Purim tomorrow night, and getting ready for the big vacation on Tuesday. Never a dull moment in the Silverstein household.

"This is this, and that is that."

Today I'm going to feel a little like the character Flounder from the Disney movie Little Mermaid. There's a very cute scene where Flounder is explaining to Ariel's father why she was late, and he lets slip that she was up on the surface talking to the seagull about human things. The seagull was explaining what the items were, and Flounder recreates it by saying in a silly sing-song voice, "This is this, and that is that." That's going to be me later this morning.

I have to go to the house at 8:30 a.m. and tell the contractors, "This is this, and that is that," or more accurately, "This goes here, and that goes there." Yesterday they moved everything, quite literally, out of all four bedrooms and into the living room and kitchen so that they could sand, refinish, and seal the hardwood floors. This morning I have to point to things and tell them which room to put it in and where to place it. That will take awhile and not be as easy as it sounds. There is still a lot of junk that should be thrown out, saved for later, boxed, or put in the POD. When we finish that chore, they are going to redo the living room floor by putting that stuff back in the hallway. Tomorrow morning, Mark will do the "This goes here, and that goes there" chore by himself so I can go to work!

We took our bunny rabbit up to the bunny-sitter last night. Our wonderful contractor, Eric, scooped her out of the cage and into the carrier. There seems to be nothing he cannot do! He also surprised us by handing us keys to the new backdoor locks. He had changed the top and bottom locks on the kitchen door because the locks were so old they were inoperable. He needed access to that door to the let the carpet man down into the basement once the dining room floor was wet and c0uld not be walked on. Eric is amazing. He planned to stay very late last night to get the carpet laid down the stairs and through the basement TV room. Wow, I'm really looking forward to seeing it this morning. They also ripped all the vines and weeds off our fence in preparation for power washing the sidewalk and fence today. The staining of the fence and the rest of the front yard landscaping will happen tomorrow as the whole project winds down to a finish by Thursday. Tomorrow at 4 p.m. the real estate agent is coming back to see the results. She's bringing the paperwork to list the house for sale. This is really happening!

In spite of eating three meals a day in restaurants and in spite of not always making the best choices at those meals, I lost .7 of a pound. Not huge, but I'll take it! I was 205.5 this morning, and it's Tuesday, so that's an official weigh-in!

Skipped a day?

Yesterday was so busy that I did not write a blog entry. I only figured that out just now because when I logged into today, there wasn't a Sunday entry. How odd. Just shows how busy and crazy things have been.

Despite the craziness, my food yesterday was pretty good. It included the Subway lunch and Denny's dinner. That's always great. I brought my scale to the hotel yesterday and jumped on it this morning: 206. That's what I was last Tuesday, so as long as today is ok, I guess I will have stayed the same for this week. Considering what's going on in my life, that's just fine.

I am down to my final week of work, but I'm not going in on Tuesday or Friday. I have to work with the contractors in the house tomorrow morning to replace the furniture in the right places in all the bedrooms. Friday I have to take Mark to two cardiology appointments. So I guess I only have two more days in the classroom, EVER. I'm not complaining about that. As I said to Mark at dinner last night, going to work is getting in the way of my life! He knew exactly how I felt because it's how he felt before retirement. I never had this feeling before because when I actually retired in 2002, I knew I was just going right back to the same position for two more years. Then when I left music teaching in 2004, I knew I was facing six years of more work, just at a new school in a new position. Both times I was very excited about the prospects. Now I'm just DONE. I want to move on to a life that includes no job, and that will begin on Friday. YAY!! I'm just as excited about that as the upcoming trip or the house renovations or the future move to Florida.

What a good day.

Today was a wonderful day. It started off with a nutritious, and fairly reasonable, hotel breakfast of two hard-boiled eggs, a 4 ounce container of sugar-free yogurt, and a very small biscuit with a small amount of jelly on it. Then we went to synagogue services. We had not been to the synagogue since the last weekend in January for the show and the after-show clean up. It was good to see all of our friends, and we were called up to the Torah. Mark "benched gomel," which is a prayer for coming through something life-threatening. I also put him on the prayer list for continued healing. I did not eat anything but some hot tea at the kiddush, then we went to Subway for lunch where I ate only the 190 calorie double-meat turkey breast salad. I had a nice 25 minute walk in the hallway at the hotel. I did 20 round trips up and down the hall at a brisk pace with my iPod. It was fun. I haven't had a nice brisk walk for nearly a month. At 5 p.m. we met our Pentathlon buddies: Phyllis, Saul, Cindy, Ken, Denise, Logan, and Kip. We had a wonderful dinner at the Longhorn Steakhouse, which is one of our favorite restaurants. I had a salad, a 7 ounce grilled salmon, seasonal veggies (broccoli, snap peas, squash), and asparagus. I drank half a shot of whiskey with that and some black coffee. Excellent choices today. We went back to the house to show Cindy, Ken, and Denise the shambles of our house. Then Mark printed out things he needs for his class at the synagogue tomorrow morning. It's the end of the era for that class since tomorrow is the last one ever. I played with the bunny rabbit while he did that. She seemed to enjoy the attention. I gave her a big plate of veggies and tossed in a few extra craisins. She is such a good bunny rabbit. She is so adaptable to her situation, no matter where she is or how much space she has. I guess that's why she has survived so many owners and environments. Maybe we can all learn something about dealing with change from the bunny rabbit.

FIVE more nights at the hotel!

Well, I got home from work and looked at the house. Crazy. We left and sat at Starbucks for awhile using their wi-fi and then went home again. Still Crazy. We were told they would be done by Wednesday! Mark called the Comfort Suites and booked it for five straight nights. We brought up another suitcase and loaded three days worth of clothes in it and left for dinner at Old Country Buffet, where I totally DID NOT eat the right things. Sniff. Then we went home to see if we could feed the bunny some veggies. It was 7:30 and the men were still in there. Can't fault them for not putting in some hours. We just didn't feel like getting in their way again, so we went to the hotel, got checked in, and watched Smallville on TV. When it goes off, we are going back to the house to feed the bunny and try to set her up in her old room with the old bunny carpet Evey had in Boston. She has been locked in her crate since 8:45 this morning. I'm sure she'd appreciate getting out of the crate for the weekend.

Friday at work

I went to work today, two hour late opening. Can't complain. It was weird coming back after being gone nearly two weeks. For the whole school system there have only been 8 days of work in three weeks, but I only worked 3 of those days. Next week is my last week, and I'm taking off the Friday to take Mark to his two cardiology appointments, so I'm down to the FINAL FOUR work days.

I did not eat especially well today because I had a donut at the hotel breakfast. I also had my usual eggs and yogurt. Today I just gave in to the donut. Sadly last night at Silver Diner I gave in to a big dinner, a glass of wine, and most of Mark's gigantic biscuit. I think by Tuesday I should be able to find the scale in the bathroom, and I bet I won't like the number I find on it.

The workmen are still in the house. It's still pretty chaotic in there, but things are looking good. The bunny room is being done while I'm typing this (at Starbucks on their wi-fi network!). That room looked great with no wallpaper, no torn carpet, fresh paint. I like it. All our electrical outlets are shiny and new today. The new light fixtures in the two hallways and the two main floor bathrooms really look awesome. Also, we are loving the new medicine cabinets. They still have to put down the tile in the kitchen, finish painting the basement, lay carpet down the stairs and into the basement, and spiff up the newly-uncovered wood floors in four rooms. I don't see how they are going to get that all done today. We know they are coming back on Monday; we just don't know exactly what will get done today and what will be left for Monday.

The bunny rabbit ran into her crate this morning when she heard the workmen come in. Up until then, about 15 minutes, she was hopping around the room, eating her usual morning treats. When she heard the men make some noise, she quickly hopped into the corner of her crate. Gotcha!! We closed it up and moved her to the floor of Lowell's room. She has sat in there all day, but she's got food, hay, water, and a litter pan, so she's surviving if not happy.

Another night at Comfort Suites

Here we are again. The hotel is nice, but it's getting old. Hopefully tomorrow night we will be home.

Today Mark visited the endocrinologist for the first time. It went well. The doctor took his time and was very good. He ended up increasing one of the oral diabetic meds to a pill at bedtime and asked him to come back after the trip to see how it's going.

Tomorrow I'm definitely going to work!

The house is still in chaos, but it's getting there slowly, and it will be beautiful when it's done. They found hardwood floors under the nasty linoleum in the dining room. That was a pleasant surprise.

I ate way too much today. It is possible to eat three meals a day in restaurants and eat well and lose weight. I proved that last summer, but right now I'm not making good choices. Can we say STRESS??

Back to the Hotel and Wake-up Calls.

I am so glad that I decided to take today and tomorrow off from work. I thought it was just because I didn't have access to any clothes or toiletries, but now I know there was another reason. Mark was able to get a cardiology appointment today and an endocrinology appointment tomorrow, so I am available to drive and go to the appointments with him. Always a reason for everything.

Today's cardiologist appointment was a big wake up call for both of us. Mark had really overdone it the past four days. He has always seen himself as the strong one in the family, and he has not been wrong! So he pitched in and packed boxes, moved things around, and carried too many heavy things from one room to another or even up the stairs. Then yesterday he said he didn't feel right. That prompted us to try really hard to get him into the doctor's office today. So the story the doctor told us today was this: "Imagine you have a really great, expensive, new Michelin tire on your car. Then you take a blowtorch and heat up a large chunk of the outside edge. When it's nice and hot, soft and stretchy, would you pump it full of air? Of course not because it would blow out. Well, imagine your heart is the tire and part of it is stretched out, bulging, unhealthy, and not working, the blood pumping through is the air. You do NOT want it pumping too hard or it will blow out. If you let it rest now, it will heal up. If you make it work too hard right now, it will stay stretched out and bulging forever. There's a strange Japanese word for this condition, Takotsubo. It is named for a pouch that the Japanese use to catch and hold octopus."

Wow, that was quite an image. He is NOT to get his blood pressure up or overexert himself. He wanted to see him again in two weeks to check him out, but we reminded him we are leaving on our trip in 13 days, so he said come back in 10 days. That's a Saturday, so we made two appointments for 9 days from now on next Friday. At 10 a.m. he will have another attempt at an echocardiogram, the only way to know if his heart is back to normal. At 1 p.m. he will see the doctor for another followup and hopefully get the full ok to go on the trip. Next Friday is supposed to be my last day of work, EVER. I hope they don't get upset if I don't come in that day.

That image of the blown out tire really got us today. We were taking it seriously before, but now it feels even more important!

And we are back in the hotel! The dust and smell in the house is just as bad as yesterday. What was different today is that the tarps are gone. We were able to move some furniture (ok, wait, I was able to move some furniture) and get some clean clothes out of the drawers. We could not stay in the house, though, because today they painted the insides of all the closets. Everything in any closet is piled up somewhere! In our bedroom, that was on top of the bed. We cannot put it back until the paint is dry later tonight, but also we have to wait for them to rip out the carpet tomorrow. We are kind of hoping that tomorrow we might be able to stay in the house, but we are not counting on it yet. We are taking this a day at a time. They haven't really started any floors, or the bunny room, or the basement. They still have to install four new light fixtures, new electrical outlets and switchplates, four new medicine cabinets, two new sinks and faucets. And hopefully they will also put things back where they found them and dust!! We just had NO idea what we were getting into with this project.

As for my food today, I have been great. I ate two hard-boiled eggs and a small, sugar free yogurt at the complimentary hotel breakfast (200 calories). I had my usual double meat turkey salad at Subway (190). We went to Denny's for dinner where I ate my usual senior tilapia dinner, no sauce, with double green beans, salad with no dressing, and garlic toast (750 calories). I had two-thirds of a banana in the afternoon, shared with the bunny rabbit (110). Tonight I will eat one complimentary cookie from the hotel (appx. 120). Total: 1370. Pretty good day.

Living with Tarps

I am so naive that I did not realize that all the major renovations going on in our house would require that every room, every stick of furniture, every EVERYTHING would be sealed up under plastic tarps. We managed to sleep in our room last night because they had not put the tarp up yet; they had pushed all the furniture into a heap in the center of the room, but we crawled up on the bed anyway. Now that's impossible also. As we began to see things getting tarped this morning, we rescued our coats, Mark's pills (sadly not mine), my purse, and our laptops. That's all we have. Now we've booked a hotel room. I have no access to clean clothes or toiletries, so I am taking sick leave tomorrow and Thursday. I went ahead and told the school Thursday also because it's not looking good for any tarp-removal happening by the end of the day tomorrow! I might have to go buy new clothes tomorrow; my current clothes are filthy from cleaning the basement all day. We took out 12 giant green garbage bags of sheer crap from the TV room and two closets. That took four and a half hours this morning. At that point we went out to lunch and did some shopping. When we got home, we found the entire kitchen and bedroom had been tarped! Funny, we could not put the fresh veggies that we bought into the fridge. Our pantry is being rebuilt so all the food is on the living room floor under the tarp. So now we have booked the Comfort Suites in Laurel for tonight. Once they tarp the basement, we won't have any more internet access or TV either. OY.

On the plus side, it will look truly beautiful when it's finished! I also lost two and a half pounds this week despite more alcohol than usual, lava cake with ice cream on Valentine's Day, and hot cherry cobbler with ice cream last night for President's Day. Ah...lots of work cleaning and hauling things up the steps worked those calories off! I hit 206 this morning, so I was happy. Now I'm only 31 pounds from my goal of 175. I might even lose those six and hit an even 200 before we get on the train, which is exactly two weeks from today! Wow.

Start of the work week.

Today is President's Day, so there is no school. Of course, there hasn't been any school in over a week because of the snow, but that's another story. It is the start of the work week for our contractors in the house. They came promptly at 8:30 a.m. as promised and have worked non-stop ever since. It is now 3:15 p.m., snowing outside again. The contractors have stripped all the wallpaper, painted Kills on the panelling, patched all the holes and cracks in the ceilings and floors, and generally gotten a great start on this huge project. Mark and I have holed up in the basement, packing and sorting what feels like thousands of videotapes.

We are getting excited about the progress we have made towards selling the house. Florida is no longer just a some-day-in-the-future dream. The future is right around the corner.

Tomorrow is weigh-in day, and despite the LARGE amount of calories consumed at the restaurant last night on Valentine's Day, I expect a pretty good number tomorrow. I have been very good today, and I have been so very active packing and moving things these last four days that the calories just seem to get burned off. Tomorrow will tell if I'm right or if I'm dreaming.

Don't Worry. It's All Good. And the update...

For those of you who read last night's depressed post, I want you to know that I feel better. A good night's sleep and the light of day, plus some wonderfully supportive emails, have gotten me back to my usual self. I'm ready to greet the moving crew (my brother, nephew, and friend) who will be here at 9 a.m. to load the POD.

Even drinking three glasses of wine and a shot of whiskey yesterday, I still only had about 1600 calories and did not put on any weight yesterday. I'm the same this morning as yesterday morning, 209.

OK, Kip and his crew of two showed up just before 9 and had the entire POD loaded by 12:45. Amazing. We ran out of boxes or we might have stuffed few more in there. Approximately 80, yes that's EIGHTY, boxes are now in the POD along with most the living room furniture and several other bits of furniture from other rooms. Wow.

Sadly because we could not get Mark to the cardiologist this week, we have had to indefinitely postpone a reprise of our Cabaret show for the synagogue. The doctor told him over the phone that he could not recommend that Mark do the show without being seen and having an EKG. That appointment is now scheduled for February 25. Oh, well...we tried.

Tomorrow our friend Joel is coming to help haul away another large bunch of boxes and odds nd ends for a potential yard sale, eBay, or Craigslist sale. Then we have to do some serious tidying up and organizing for the contractors who will be here Monday to start painting. This crazy plan does seem to be working.

Serious Depression

I always deal with stress with eating. I have been so stressed out these last few weeks that even I did not realize how bad it was. I have been eating whenever no one was looking and popping Vitamin C drops or Halls Menthol lozenges by the dozens all day for weeks. Tonight I just went over the deep end and curled up in a fetal position and sobbed for a few hours.

I don't know if I'm doing anything right anymore. I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I could handle everything. I'm hitting bottom and sinking lower. Is that even possible? I have spent the last two hours crying in bed. Now I've slugged down three large glasses of wine in a very short period of time, something I never do. My head is swimming, but I'm not crying and feeling mellow enough to type.

I'll probably regret this post tomorrow and remove it. Read it while you can. I'm about to drink a shot of whiskey.

Stuck Vehicles

This has been a frustrating morning. I have pictures of this, but I can't seem to have the blog find them to upload them. I will keep working on this. Ah, now I got the pictures up but they are sort of in the opposite order of time. The one at the top was the end of the story, so looking from top to bottom you are going back in time. Still, I managed to get something up there!!

There was a giant Fire and Rescue truck stuck outside our house. it has been there for over an hour at this point. We cannot get out of our driveway because of it. Mark had to cancel the cardiologist appointment. Now a big whompus (our family's technical term for any large piece of vehicular equipment!) is out there trying to yank the thing out, but even IT is spinning it's wheels. It's a front-end loader, so it's scraping up a mount of snow like a dam across our street. I hope they drive over it and squash it back down before they leave! IF they ever leave!! YAY, they just managed to pull the big rig out of the drift. It is 10:45 a.m. That means the entire fiasco has lasted about ninety minutes. It's frustrating. Of course, we are not going anywhere because the truck is now stuck on our street about five houses down on the right.

Shocking new pictures!

My daughter just reminded me of some pictures she had emailed me back in December of 2007. I was having lunch with some high school friends at Mike's Crab House in Annapolis. She called them to my attention today because she said they really highlight how much weight I have lost. She's RIGHT! Wow, I think these were taken very near, if not at, my all-time high of 322 pounds. It's shocking. And her timing was perfect. Today I was beating myself up for not sticking to my plan these last few days. In fact I've been in a holding pattern for a month just going up and down the same six pounds, and I'm getting discouraged. I even said to Mark the other day that I HATED the way I looked in most of the pictures from the Cabaret. I said, "I look so FAT. I thought I looked better than that." He laughed it off and told me I looked great, but my disorder never allows me to enjoy my looks. Of course, now by comparison, I realize that my 100+ pounds loss DO show up at the Cabaret and I DO look better than I did.

Hunkering down and bingeing

Yesterday was busy with snow and busy with packing; sadly it was also busy with bingeing. Why do I do this? I know it's a "condition," but still I thought I could do better. On Tuesday I was up two pounds for the week; on Wednesday I went up another two pounds; now on Thursday I'm up another two pounds. I'm eating about 1200-1500 calories at night on top of the 1200-1500 calories that I had planned to eat. Add it up and it adds up to a two-pound-a-day weight gain apparently. STOP! I want to get OFF!

Today will be yet another "Big Dig" day. If my neighbors are willing, they can earn another $60 from me. If not, I'll do it myself. I feel better about it now that I got the good report from the surgeon. I also need to pack up some more boxes. Although whether or not the POD can get loaded on Saturday remains questionable, Mark and I will continue to move forward with the packing.

New Tricks

Lowell has a blog of his own now at www.cupisonlybeingfilled.blogspot.com. Now I'm learning from him all the features that blogspot offers that I never realized I had. The first new trick was how to insert a picture into the text of a blog. If you go back a few posts, you'll see a picture of Mark bundled up reading the day we had the power outage. I have inserted a picture of snow on this one just to get your attention! To my loyal readers, I think you can expect to see more pictures in the future. Thanks, Lowell, for the tutorial!

Nothing's really free.

We were not able to get our free Denny's Grand Slam Breakfast yesterday after all. We finished some shopping at Target and drove the 10 minute drive to Denny's in 35 long minutes. The roads were horrible, lanes giving out in random places. We finally arrived at Denny's only to find the parking lot PACKED!! We go to Denny's for dinner almost once a week and usually find maybe four or five cars tops. Yesterday we knew it was going to be crowded when we could barely find a parking spot. We got lucky, parked, and carefully walked over the ice to the entrance. Stunned is the word I would use to describe my feelings. The place had such a huge crowd of people milling in the tiny lobby that it looked like two or three tour buses had just dropped off their passengers! There seemed to be no organization at all, but one nice gentleman informed us that the wait was estimated at one hour. It was 1 p.m. at that point and the free meal was over by 2 p.m. We went right back home. Free eggs and pancakes were NOT worth an hour wait for us, although it seemed to be for the other hundred people in there! Wow, did anyone get that free meal without waiting?

Tuesday Weigh-In and Free Food!

Sadly I have to write down a weight gain for this week. Last Tuesday I was 206.6 and today I up exactly two pounds, 208.6 I'm not happy, but neither am I surprised. I'm pleased that I'm still under 210 and that I'm just a fraction under the 209 that I weighed for the show on January 30. All I can do is try to do better. Looking on the bright side, last year on this date, I weighed 304. I had been dieting for six weeks at that point, and I am still on the right road. This is probably the longest I have ever stayed on the right road! I have never lost over 100 pounds before in my whole life!!

In ten minutes I'm going to drink a big bottle of some citrus-flavored thick liquid in preparation for an abdominal CT scan to let the surgeon see what my new hernia is doing. My appointment is for 9:30 this morning. Normally I'd leave at 8:45 to drive up to the northern part of Columbia, but today we plan to go at 8:30. I'm not sure how long it will take to get out of my parking spot! My tires appear to be encased in ice. If we get out ok and can do the CT scan, we hope to do some grocery shopping before coming home and before the next big storm hits. We have heard some news reports that the stores are pretty empty right now, and I expect the crowds to be huge today. Neither Mark nor I are looking forward to the shopping chore.

Another positive is that my brother Kip, his son, and a Kip's friend Michael are coming this weekend to load the POD!! That is very exciting! Another friend is coming at the same time to load his car with the items that we hope to sell. We struck a deal with him for a 60/40 split. He'll take the stuff, sell it on E-bay, Craigslist, or yard sales, and keep 40% after expenses. He will send us a check for the balance. Anything he can't sell will be donated, so at least we'll get the tax deduction. It's a good deal all around. So this is an exciting weekend, and right now it's also snow-free.

One other thing for today: Denny's is giving away FREE Grand Slam breakfasts today nationwide from early this morning until 2 p.m. Our plan is to make that our lunch today if the snow holds off. I'll let you know if the CT scan, shopping, free b'fast/lunch works out!! If you have the ability to go to Denny's and get a free Gland Slam breakfast yourself today, let me know!

Snow Day and Binge Regrets

All the schools are closed, thankfully. We have only one car dug out, so there is no way that we are both going somewhere separately today. Also, Mark is not a confident driver in bad conditions and generally prefers me to do the driving. So...I rescheduled my 1:40 p.m. CT scan to tomorrow at 9:40 a.m. in order to be available to drive Mark to his 1:45 p.m. Cardiologist follow-up appointment. His stress levels and heart rate will shoot up as a passenger, but they will be better than if he was the driver! He hasn't ruled out rescheduling his appointment also, but so far no one is answering at the cardio office. Hm...that should be telling us something.

As for weight and food, it's hardly the first thing I'm thinking about these days. Maybe it should be, but it's not. Stress brings on binge eating. Do you think I have just a little stress going on? I was on track for a perfect day yesterday until the Super Bowl. In the past I have watched it with my daughter at home with tons of salty, crunchy, and sweet, sugary snacks. It was a mega-excuse for us both to overeat. The last few years have found us at the synagogue's Super Bowl party chowing down on vegetarian chili, kosher hot dogs, chips and salsa, and playing Mah Jongg at the same time. This year the party was canceled and my daughter is in Boston. That left me home alone with the Super Bowl.

I did one thing right. I did not buy any junk food, so there wasn't going to be a huge binge with the wrong foods. Unfortunately for me, I can manage to binge on whatever is available. So last night I managed to eat 2,000 extra calories of low-carb granola cereal, low-carb maple pecan cereal, walnuts, lo-cal whole wheat toast with lo-fat margarine, and the bunny rabbit's stash of Craisins. None of that is bad on its own; in fact it's all rather healthy. But a binge-eater can make anything bad if enough is consumed. Yeah, I ate 2,000 calories worth of that stuff after I had already had my day planned to include about 1600. So unfortunately, yesterday I had to write down 3,600 calories for the day. Sad. I hope today is better. That's one thing I have to learn to do--not beat myself up too much over losing control periodically. I hate myself in the morning every time, but it can't be the beginning of a streak. I'm learning to let it go and start over. Wish me luck.

Mark, when you read this, I know you'll be mad and yell at me. Don't yell too much, please, it will spike your heart rate!

26 hours No Power

I have lived for nearly 29 years in this house, and we have never lost our power for longer than an hour or two until yesterday. I woke up at 12:30 a.m. Friday night (Saturday morning, actually) to go to the bathroom, and we had power. At 2:50 a.m. I got up again to go to the bathroom, and we did not have power. Later I learned that it had gone out at 2:01 a.m. It did not return for over 26 hours. I usually like snowstorms; I enjoy watching it and being cozy warm inside with hot soup, hot chocolate, and coffee. Well, this one was not like that! We put on multiple layers of clothes and sat under blankets all day. Our thermostat is programmed to go down to 62 overnight, so when the power went out, that's where we were. When it came on this morning, I ran out to check the temperature. It had gone down to 50 degrees. Pretty nippy! Our gas hot water heater still worked, so we made some tepid tea through the day. When my hands got really cold, I ran them under hot water. Cold salads got old as the day went on. We had a wind-up radio, a flashlight, and some candles, so we were ok. We also had our cell phones and a regular land line that worked. I talked to a lot of people on the phone, and we read a lot of books. My Kindle worked just fine! Still it wasn't the most fun I ever had.

Now I have to face shoveling over two feet of snow. Mark surely can't do it, and I'm not supposed to either. My plan is to go out for half an hour and see how it goes. Then I will rest an hour and see if I'm up to some more. If anyone is out there from my neighbor's house who is willing to work for pay, I will pay ANYTHING to get someone else to do this.

How was your snowstorm? Hope you are all cozy and warm inside if you had snow.

The snow is falling fast.

I went back to work today, and it was nice. Everyone was so kind, even many of the kids had heard and asked how my husband and I were doing. So sweet. The county announced early that it would close two hours early for the impending snowstorm, so I knew it would be a short day. I got home by 1 p.m.

This morning I weighed 213. I was stunned. I did not feel that I had eaten that much yesterday. I ate 2360 yesterday and 1400 the day before. I really shouldn't be putting on that much weight so quickly. It might have been fluid retention or it might be too many vitamin C drops at 15 calories each. I don't know. I'll see what it looks like tomorrow morning. I'm doing well so far today, still I weighed 207 Tuesday morning. This is a 6 pound gain for three days. Once when I was 18 years old, I gained 30 pounds in two weeks. My body is so annoyingly efficient at packing on the pounds.

My daughter is in a nutrition class in her final semester at Northeastern University and plans to go for her masters in Nutrition next fall. She said yesterday that your weight times 11 is the number of calories your body needs to maintain itself, not counting any extra exercise you might do. If I weigh 210, then I need 2310 to maintain that weight, even if I don't do any special exercise or long walks. Mark weighs 144 and should need 1584 on this formula. Clearly there are other factors. If he eats less that 2800, he loses. If I eat more than 1800, I gain.

Now that Mark is on medication to lower his heart rate and blood pressure, he is thinking that his daily calorie intake might be able to go down and still maintain his weight. He'd be happy about that because it's hard to get 2800 calories on a low-fat, low-carb, low-sodium, mostly vegetarian, kosher diet. OY!!

Did I say Murphy's Law? We had NO idea!!

I did not blog for the last few days because it appeared that my husband Mark had a heart attack Saturday night. Yes, you read that right, Saturday night during the SHOW. Crazy. Unbelievable. He did such a great job on his part of the performance that no one suspected a thing, and he didn't tell anyone anything either. He felt crushing pain in his chest from the time he left the stage after his first set of songs in Act One at about 8:30 or so. Of course, he didn't mention it to me until after midnight.

Long story short, he ended up in the hospital by Monday. Tuesday he had heart catheterization to look for the blockages. Surprise, surprise, NO blockages! He didn't actually have a heart attack by definition; they now call it a cardiac event. He had cardiomyopathy, a large part of the top of the heart just stopped working. They call it "stunned." He also has a birth defect in his heart. Wow. His heart rate is super fast, always has been, and his blood pressure had been creeping up over the years. These two things and possibly his diabetes probably contributed to this myopathy. The defect means that when his heart pumps, it actually squeezes his artery shut. Weird. His heart was pumping so fast that it didn't have time to fill up properly between beats, so it was not efficient or effective.

The good news is that proper meds to slow his heart and lower his blood pressure coupled with rest for a month or two should restart the heart and get him back to normal. His activities are severely curtailed for a few months, but it looks like we will still go on our big trip in March.

From the standpoint of my food, it was really hard not to want to give in to a binge at the hospital. I cruised through the cafeteria many times; ice cream was calling me, but I didn't listen. I stayed all night Tuesday. I ate ok, but too much. Tuesday morning I weighed in as normal before I left for the hospital and I was 206.5. I was VERY excited about that new low; however, this morning, I am 210.6. I estimated that I ate about 1600 calories on Tuesday and 2400 on Wednesday, so it's amazing to me that a four pound gain would occur in those two days, but that's what my body does under stress, I guess. Today I'm going to do Mark's usual chores of shopping and laundry. Our storage POD is being delivered today; another huge snowstorm is on the way for the weekend; I have a surgeon's appointment today because my hernia is back, and I may be facing another surgery myself. Can we say STRESS!!!!??? I need to stay focused because the last thing I need to do right now is sabotage my own health and progress that I've made. I need to stay strong and healthy for Mark right now. He has always been the strong one; he's taken care of me through so many of my health crises over the years. It's only fair that I stay strong for him now.