Christmas post!

Photo Courtesy of Frank "Buzz" Trexler

Well, I received an awesome surprise gift on Christmas morning. My parents bought me hiking boots. Really, really GOOD hiking boots! So, I'm excited and soliciting ideas of places to hike in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

I had to order a different size, so they won't be here until Jan. 4. But, when they do come, I'm planning on taking a short hike to break them in. Watch out National Park, here I come!

I also received money for new clothes, some beautiful sweaters, photos of my beautiful nephew, a Gryffindor scarf, a Pittsburgh Penguins short and quite a few other little things. I was overwhelmed with joy and love on Christmas morning.

Oh dinner, how you make me not want to go back to work

Sitting here on my dinner break, thought I'd update. I've lost a pound this week, although I may have gained that back last night thanks to pepperoni pizza. Woohoo. But you know what? It was delicious.

I am definitely going for the slow and steady wins the race. I've been reading a lot and people seem to forget the world we live in. They vow to never eat out again, homemade meals, three times a day. Nothing fattening, nothing high calorie, ever. That is simply not logical, or possible. I firmly believe with a few changes, and addition of more exercise, I can lose this weight and keep it off. Drastic changes help in the short run, but in the long run its simply unrealistic. And you are setting yourself up for disaster, and guilt eating later.

Tomorrow is Friday, which means drive to Knoxville and see Ben day. I'm excited. We watch Big Bang Theory and NCIS at his place every week. True love right there. We are playing each other in Fantasy Football this week. I'm nervous!

Anyway, I'm going to go read The Two Towers on what's left of my dinner break.

Ok, I'm back for real this time

OK friends. I am back, for real this time. I have managed to procure a laptop so I'm no longer using my iPod Touch as my sole internet device. Ben set everything up for me this morning, so much thanks to him. It took him a decent amount of time to get everything set up for me, so I really do appreciate it.

On to more business. This is my first Christmas completely on my own in my own place. I don't really count Hickory because I moved on Dec. 22, and therefore could not have a tree. This year, the Saturday after Thanksgiving we took our annual trip to Ripshin Mountain Tree Farm, and got trees for everyone (my parents, brother and sister-in-law, the Wolz's, my friends Ryan and Nancy, and me). Yes, me. I have a 6-foot tall tree in my one bedroom apartment. Do you know what's around the tree? A train set. It is awesome. Of course, this means I don't have a dinner table, but whatever, I can live without that for a month or so.

Miss Pan is very intrigued by the tree. So far, she hasn't tried to climb it, but I'm waiting. This thing is up for about another month so she has time. She's only knocked one ornament off, and that was the second day. I've moved them all out of reach of her little paws. Since it has gotten colder, she's been spending more time at my side. I didn't turn the heat on until Dec. 1, so she was spending a lot of time right up on me.

After seven months on Weight Watchers, I have canceled my membership. It was getting too expensive and I was struggling to lose. I actually didn't lose from around Aug. 20 until sometime in November. It's not worth it in all reality, plus they just changed everything right after Thanksgiving. In total, I lost about 20 pounds on WW, so it wasn't a total loss, but when I stopped losing I lost a lot of my drive. I am now using sparkpeople.com. I have only been using it for a week, so I don't know how well it's going to work. But a friend told me her sister was on it and lost around 50 pounds. So, I'm definitely giving it a shot.

Also, have you checked out firefoxlive.org? They are 24-hour Web cams set up at the Knoxville Zoo's red panda room. You can watch red pandas, all day, everyday. It is AWESOME! And, the more people who download firefox, the more stuff the red pandas get! Isn't that awesome? Go check it out. (Just a heads up, they sleep a lot, but they're cute even when they're sleeping).

Well, I need to get back to setting up this laptop. Just so you know, I will be blogging on a regular basis about my weight loss journey, Miss Pan and for the next month or so, Christmas.