Erika

Buddies…I have yet another confession to make. For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, I consider myself a true liberal. I hold no judgement for anyone regardless of their race, creed, lifestyle, or economic status. I truly subscribe to the therory of ‘ live and let live’…..but… I have to confess that I do look down on some members of our society.  My name is Erika and  I am a Christmas Decoration Bigot…

I am a firm believer in a monochromatic theme. While I prefer a simple strand of white lights…be they of the twinkle or standard variety. I can even tolerate the combonation of red and green. As I look out my window this evening my eyes are visually assaulted by the multi-colored, slap dash chaos that is my neighborhood. There is a home with in a stone’s throw of mine that could only be made more tacky by an amplified rendition of dogs barking ” Jingle Bells”.

While I hate this judgemental side of me, and I struggle to suppress it, I find myself with this over whelming urge to right the wrongs committed by my brethern and commit a stealth attack of re-decoration under the cover of darkness.

I know that some of you are questioning my position on this topic as hypocryitical, being that I own both an inflatable snow globe and carosel, as well as the 8ft tall Grinch. But I assure you that they are stategically placed about my home and look very cute. So much so that people have stopped me at our local grocery store to compliment me on our decorations. ( very small town )

All that I am saying is that if you run out of red and white icicle lights, buy more… DO NOT fill up the extra gutter space with flashing blue ones…Is anybody else with me?

I am happy to report that 3 of the 9 holiday lbs are gone. More than likely that was water weight, the other 6 won’t go away as easily.

We are having a suprise birthday party for my father Friday night, it’s a week and a half early, but my brother will be in from Boston, so we are doing it then.

The only bad part about it is the angel food cake with the old fashioned 7 min frosting I’m going to have to make. That’s the only cake he really likes, what a pain in the…well you know.

Time to put the monsters on the bus, I’ll be back later to check in on all of you.

Hello buddies! The site let me log in with ease this morning, so that’s the good news, very happy about that. My home page says I am listed as female, let’s see if that works.

The bad news…I weighed myself this morning, and I’ve gained 9 lbs. I basically had been eating like a lunitic all last week. I know that a few of those are probably water retention from all the carbs, but at least 5lbs of it are real. I could just kill myself, well not kill myself…maybe just some well deserved flogging. I’m back on my diet plan as of yesterday, and I plan to workout this morning with the toning tape.

I have a brand new motivation now, I ran into my old music director from high school. He’s now working for the Community College, and is setting up a music program there. He’s also starting up a         ” Community Choir” and a jazz ensemble open to the public, and he asked me to join. I used to sing lead for him in both of those in school. I am really excited to get back on stage, I love performing.

Rehersals start in about 6 weeks, so hopefully I can get this 9lbs plus another 10 gone by then. I’d assume that we’d have another 2 months or so before our first performance, so my goal is to be 40lbs lighter when I take the stage for the first time in years.

I’m hoping that I’m able to get into all your blogs now, be well buddies.

Hello strangers, how are all of you? The site has not let me log in at all this week. I just hope none of you thought I had abandoned you, especially you Jo! From what I can tell the new change over deleted half of my buddies.

I’ve done absolutely horrible this week, but tomorrow is a new day, and a fresh start. I’ve managed to get about 70% of my Christmas shopping done, and everything that I bought is wrapped and ready to go.

I’m going to try my best to catch up on everyone, if the site will let me. Like Mary, I will give you all my email, in case you need me: stubbsfam1@verizon.net   I hope you all are well.

Hello all, I’ve missed you today! It has been a very hectic day, and tomorrow will be even crazier. I just got home from Bingo, hte friend I went with won $100, and  I won $215, and a turkey in a door prize drawing.The turkey was only a 15 pounder, way too small for my brood, so I’m taking it to the women’s shelter offices tomorrow. I’m also going to take some of my winnings and get some extra Thanksgiving fixings to take along with it. We debated about celebrating our win at the neighborhood tavern, but we were both too tired and decided to come home instead. The most pathetic part about that? Three elderly women at the table behind us were all debating about where to go next, the one shot down Denny’s because they don’t have a liquor license, and she was, ” in the mood for a cocktail “.

I feel like a total slug, I haven’t been able to exercise for 2 days, I tried yesterday to do the toning, but it hurt so bad I had to stop. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to do something. I’m going to try to catch up on some of your blogs tonight before I fall asleep, the rest I will get to tomorrow. Much love Buddies….

Because I trust all of you, I am ready to reveal yet another level to the dork I really am. I am very excited, because I am going out tomorrow night. No…not to a hip nightclub, or a fancy dinner, I Buddies am going to Bingo! I love bingo and I haven’t gone in months. It is pathetic how excited I am about tomorrow, but I am.

This weekend will be quite hectic, Saturday I have to go with Ethan to this dinner for college he teaches classes at. I despise these things. I can not stand dealing with women who look at you as second class because of being a stay at home mom. The irony of it is the fact that  I know more about the women’s movement than all of them put together. Once after I answered some woman’s question of ” What do you do? ” She looked me straight in the face and asked me, ” Is that what you had planned to do with your life? ” I told her, ” No, actually my plan was to become a hostle, bitter, career woman like you who relys on the hired help to raise my children, but it didn’t work out for me.”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t buy into any of that at home moms vs working moms crap. She started it by drawing first blood, I just finished it. I hate not being able to really let someone have it when they deserve it, but for Ethan’s sake I keep my mouth in check….well somewhat.

My brother is coming home on Monday evening, and my Dad asked me to put together some of his favorite meals that he can freeze and reheat throughout his visit home. So Sunday will be filled with shopping and cooking. Oh yeah, then there’s that whole getting ready for Thanksgiving thing.

My foot is still killing me, and now my back is out from walking funny. No treadmill for me today, but I am going to try and do the toning. If I workout today, that will be an entire week of exercise without missing a day. I know it sounds silly, but that is truly a first for me. Be well Buddies!

You guys are the greatest, thank you all for the wonderful comments today. Not 10 min after I was commenting on Gwenivere’s blog about her bad foot, I half way fell down the steps and twisted my ankle. It started to feel better, so I did 3 miles on the treadmill, big mistake! It hurts like hell now. I’ll live, I suppose. The best part of the treadmill today? When I went upstairs to walk, propped up in front of the TV was a copy of The DiVinci Code that Ethan had smuggled in the house lastnight to surprise me. What a guy!

If any of you need a good laugh, go on youtube.com and call up the clip ‘mothersday’ and ‘hahaha’. My Aunt told me about it and I laughed so hard I was in tears. While she and I were talking today about my diet, she asked me how I am doing it. Without hesitation I said BuddySlim. I know that without all of you, I never would be doing as well as I am. I am truly grateful for each and every one of you.

I’m so freaking excited I can barely type! So I weigh myself this morning, and not only did TOM leave with the 3 pounds of period weight he brought, but he took an extra 2 with him. Bringing my total weight loss to 31 lbs. But wait…..there’s more!

I took my measurements, and I lost 2.5″ off my waist and another 2″ off my hips. So I go on to the site I was talking about to calculate my body make up.  My body fat % went down 3.7% that translates to 11 lbs of body fat. My lean muscle mass went up 9 lbs. Looking at just the scale weight it’s only a 2 lbs loss, but when you are able to see what’s really going on it’s quite a different story!

I’m telling you buddies, take your measurements and figure out your body mass. Talk about a motivator.

Everybody sing along…

 THE KIDS ARE GOING BACK TO SCHOOL…DO DA DO DA

I ONLY HAVE THE YOUNGEST TWO…OH THE DO DA DAY

Once I get the 3 monsters on the bus I’ll come home and do the toning tape. I lost one of the 3 lbs of period weight so far, so that’s a plus. I’m going to try and do the treadmill again tonight, but it’s going to depend on how tired I am. I have to clean the house today, and of course more laundry. I don’t know why everyone in this house insists on wearing clean clothes every day, and did I tell you they expect to be fed a few times a day too? God, they are so demanding!

Well, I did it. As soon as the baby left, I took myself straight upstairs, got on the treadmill and did 3 miles. Boy is there a difference doing that in the evening after chasing kids all day, vs in the morning. I thought my legs were going to fold over, but I stuck it out. I would really rather do it in the morning, but that would mean I’d have to be up by 5am. I am a slow-waker-uper, I need at least an hour, before I’m of any use to anyone.

I feel better now that I did it. Damn it, I so did not want to be one of those people ( Nikki ), who’s body needs to exercise. I still hate every second of it. There had better be a serious loss at the end of the week, or I am going to be 7 different kinds of mad.