I lost 3.5 lbs in February.

Yay me!

While I did not make my goal of 5 lbs a month, I am happy to say the crack down in the last week made this month at least respectable and not abysmal.

This makes a grand total of 18.5 lbs. I’ve also updated my project skinny chart (link on the side).

Now to keep up the momentum into March 🙂

This one was a present for a boy in Jocelyn’s class.

I need to learn to get these things done way ahead of time, as when you rush and finish it the day of the party, no amount of oohing and aahing (which there is usually not much) makes up for the stress.

This is the second time I’ve finished something for a gift way too late (was a joint baby shower last time).

Still though – very cute, don’t you think?

Yeah… too cute 🙂

I’m having computer issues that are really truly going to drive me around the bend.

At work, firefox has decided to freeze up whenever I try to load up a page on my localhost (basically, a webserver on my computer).

This means that I have to use IE to work on anything.

I HATE IE.

At home, my internal wireless card in my laptop is not working properly. It will be connected to our wireless network and then disconnect for no reason, and not be able to reconnect. I click “repair” and wait for it to do it’s thing and cross my fingers that it will be able to reconnect. It does this about 15 times in the span of a half hour.

I AM SO FRUSTRATED I WANT TO SCREAM.

IN OTHER NEWS:

So, February has not been a good month for Project Skinny. I have only lost 1 pound so far. Is it silly to try to go for a 4 lb loss in the last week of February so that I can keep my 5 lbs a month goal?

I don’t think it is, especially considering a few things:

I have a lot of weight to lose, which makes big numbers a big easier than for someone who only has 10-15 lbs to lose,

The first week of a weight loss program can often throw up big numbers. (for me in fact, it was over 6 lbs, back in November.)

I think with me hovering up and down half a pound most of the month, if I really get back to basics, quit dinking around and GET ON IT! a 4 pound loss is feasible.

So I’m aiming for that. Wish me luck!

We’ve decided to have Jocelyn’s birthday at home, and we’re going with a paper doll theme. Which led me to go looking everywhere for paper dolls online.

What a lovely time I had!

How cute is this?

So yeah, kind of cheating, as these aren’t really photos.

but I don’t care! CUTE!!

OK people.

I totally fell off the wagon (oh, and in more ways than one, lemme tell you) on this photo a day thing.

I KNEW this was going to be tough, because well, yeah, I’m me.

So every day that passed w/out a photo, I thought, should I put up an ass load of photos and hop back on the wagon? Set up a lawn chair, with a little table next to it with a nice cold diet coke and wave as the wagon trucked off down the dusty road with all it’s photo goodness?

So yeah, I was on the lawn chair sipping away. But I guess I don’t want to throw in the towel yet, so here goes.. all my missing 366 photos.

As Thursday ended, doom and gloom threatened our nation’s capital in the form of.. ICE STORM A-COMIN! HIDE THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN! and so, since the next day was my birthday, I greased the wheels of corporate america by saying to my boss, “boy, if it’s bad tomorrow, I may just work from home.”

Ahhh, a relaxing day of working at home on the couch in my underwear jeans covered with a blankey with Pride & Prejudice playin’ on the TV.

BUT my plans were foiled, FOILED I tell you by the nation.. well, specifically, my kids’ school also catching the doom and gloom and deciding not to open on Friday. Doh.

So I took the day off and spent it with my kids. Here is my birthday… in photos (and more words, because hey. I’m a wordy bitch.)

First, I woke up, grabbed the laptop, hit refresh on the school’s website, and saw those fateful words: CLOSED.

Unfortunately, I was up anyway. So was James. So I made him go get mE my PRESENTS!!

The kids came in and snuggled into bed, and I opened up my 2 presents.

This one was from me, that I’ve been coveting since before Christmas:

I heart Amy Ruppel. Next year, I’m buying myself a painting instead of just a print. Hopefully before next year!

Next was James’ present for me:

Isn’t this the best? Circa 1951, I am tickled tickled tickled.

I also gave james really good word of mouth with my mom later, because when I told her he got me a vintage doll making sewing book, I didn’t bother mentioning that it was rated high priority on my amazon wish list. Aren’t I a fab wife?

So after we got all that bothersome gift giving out of the way (I do have one more gift coming, it’ll be a late present) we got up and had breakfast of biscuits (from a refridgerated tube) and scrambled eggs. James kissed us goodbye and headed off into the (as far as we both could tell, ice-less) world to work.

So the kids and I got busy and made carrot cake:

Ethan insisted on NOT licking the batter, because it had CARROTS IN IT. He also insisted that he would NEVER taste this CARROT CAKE. “MY GOD woman, you know how to ruin EVERYTHING, INCLUDING CAKE, WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME?!” was pretty much, the epitome of his thoughts on the subject of carrot cake. Jocelyn took his beater and licked it clean along with her own.

I took the opportunity to take some much needed pictures of Ethan lego creations:

Here is his latest. A forklift:

Which can go up and down:

and the platform thingee comes off:

Just for the record, an attempt was made to lift the chocolate soy milk container, but we are still working out the engineering technicalities.

Then, Jocelyn let me play “hair” with her, except that it was really more like, she ordered me to do her hair in EXACTLY the way she prescribed, and WOE UNTO ME if I misinterpret her directions.

She wanted “crazy braid” hair, and pointed very specifically where she wanted each braid:

We had lunch. Notice that most of us (yes, both of them) are still in their jammies. Most of us also have soy chocolate milk moustaches.

Peanut butter and honey for Ethan:

Peanut butter and banana for Jocelyn:

Me? Peanut butter, banana and honey, of course.

Next, I sent them upstairs where they managed to not kill each other and were even reasonably quiet, for 2 hours of “quiet time” while I didn’t get any work done, but instead talked to my mom and my sister while not posting photos on this blog (which was the intended purpose of blessed “quiet time” time).

I finally unlocked the toy room door and let them out. Then I chained them to the couch and made them watch Totoro while I alternated between playing internet backgammon and mah jong.

Then I marched them upstairs and forced them to beat cream cheese, butter and powdered sugar together. I topped it off with making them lick the beaters clean.

Then we frosted the cake, daddy came home, we anxiously awaited the sitter, and we took off, hollering, “SO LONG SUCKER!” for a long night of carousing (japanese way-too-salty tepenyako, with no alcohol) and partying (hanging out in the bookstore until the movie started, watching Juno, and then heading home.)

Yeah! that’s how we party it up for 34. When 35 rolls around, I will probably just head to bed at 8.30 and call it good.

the dinner table.

Jocelyn has been bouncing in her chair for the last five minutes.

This is a sign that she needs to pee.

“Jocelyn? Do you need to pee?”

“I DON’T NEED TO PEE!”

….

10 minutes later.

Jocelyn has been sitting on the potty for the last five minutes, singing to herself and kicking the stool over and over.

“Jocelyn, finish up!”

“I AM!!!!!!!”

….

5 minutes later.

Jocelyn is still sitting on the potty.

Jocelyn is still kicking the stool.

“Jocelyn, finish up.”

“ALL RIGHT!!!!”

…

5 minutes later.

Jocelyn is standing up, pants around her ankles, and has been distracted from getting a wad of toilet paper by who the fuck knows.

“Jocelyn! Wipe, pull up your pants, flush, and wash your hands already!”

Big exhale of breath. “I AM! I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!”

james: It’s like she’s a grown woman.

me: *laugh* why’s that?

james utters not a word.

me: because she takes forever in the bathroom?

not a word from james.

me: she can’t pull up her pants? she can’t flush??

nothing from james.

me: WHAT?? Why is she like a grown woman??

Finally:

james: She doesn’t listen.

That’s right, today is my birthday. And I’m having a dilemma.

I haven’t lost much this month, but today I am finally lower.

But it’s my birthday! I wanted to go to a japanese steakhouse tonight, but you know those places are pretty bad on the healthy food scale.

The real sticker is I have an appt with my doctor to check up on the whole weight loss thing one week from today.

ARGH.

We will probably still go to the steakhouse. I just need to eat LESS of it!

Now… I’m off to make myself a cake 🙂 Carrot, with cream cheese frosting.

(scary ice today has caused the kids’ school to close so i’m home with them today.)

(i really hope to get back to posting soon, and ahem, i’ve totally fallen off the photo a day wagon and am still debating whether to try to get a bunch of photos up or just can the whole thing. I guess we’ll see.)

Sunday: Slimmer Chicken Parmesan (registration required, but it’s free)
Monday: Homeade Pizza (storebought crust & sauce)
Tuesday: Spaghetti
Wednesday: chicken nuggets & fries
Thursday: fettucini alfredo (lighter version)
Friday: (kids only) mac & cheese
Saturday: potato soup (my own version, but kind of like this one here

If you are a follower of the crafty blogs, then you may be as overjoyed as I was to hear that Claire at Loobylu is starting up her blog again!

YAY!!

How much do I love this?

A lot.