Doh! Forgot something

I forgot to kidnap my wife and take her with me... But I also forgot to take the cable to transfer the pictures from my digital camera to my computer, so I can't submit my receipts for my expense report like I planned. I can at least take the pictures so they are ready to send, oh well, I blame Hillary because her laptop had a card reader built in.

Sometimes life is just a game of hurry-up-and-wait. I hurry, hurry to the airport to be on time or early, then wait at the gate because my flight is delayed at the last minute. I hurry exercise and get to work, then wait in boring meetings for people to stop flapping their lips without saying anything new. I rush to get back from lunch but have to wait around for two hours because of unforeseen events.
I hurried all morning last Saturday to get the house ready for Christina to come and for me to be gone again, but I eventually gave up and spent some down time with Rebecca once the kids were asleep.

On a side note, I am proud that I have not turned on the TV in my hotel room yet.

Schedule controversy

Linc you are right, this is a controversial approach but can you see the advantage? It is absolutely as mathematically "fair" as possible (no more, I always get so-in-so complaining) Their is no element of chance or luck in who gives you gifts or who you give gifts to, which you say removes the fun. I think the other element of fun you experience is in keeping the secret about who you have until the big day and using stealth/espionage to find out what the person might like to receive.

I suggest random draw often results in giving to the same person year after year after year, which is not as fun. Furthermore, several people work in concert to expose the complete givee/giver list by sharing their secrets with each other. If people want to know who has them, they can always find out. Finally, with the luck of the draw approach, you could very possibly never give to some members of the group. This is especially the case when you add in the requirements for no self-gifts, no spouse gifts. It is tough to get a good random draw with this inherent tampering with the random draw.

Could we maybe combine the preplanned and random? Take these seven preplanned lists and randomly draw one out, keep the names secret, and keep the other six lists for next time? I don't see how it is much different from what we do now, except by doing this you can ensure no repeat gifting.

Regardless of random draw vs preplanned, I think we should do it now so we have 8 months to make a gift. The holidays are busy and stressful enough without having to come up with a handmade gift idea for a specific person, then create the gift from that idea before the gift deadline. What I am saying is: not all of us operate lathes, cross-stitch and solder on a regular basis. So it may take time, for me at least, to research and "learn how" to even make a certain handmade gift for someone because I am pretty sure some people do not want me to give them origami for Christmas.

Seven year gift schedule

Here is a proposed gift schedule for the next seven years, it will then cycle over on year eight back to what it was in 2009.

           2009       2010       2011      2012      2013      2014      2015
Reg        Harley     Hillary    Randy     Hannah    Lincoln   Heidi     Rebecca 
Roxane     Rebecca    Randy      Hillary   Lincoln   Heidi     Hannah    Harley  
Harley     Reg        Hannah     Lincoln   Heidi     Randy     Hillary   Roxane  
Rebecca    Roxane     Lincoln    Heidi     Hillary   Hannah    Randy     Reg     
Hillary    Hannah     Heidi      Reg       Roxane    Rebecca   Harley    Lincoln 
Randy      Lincoln    Reg        Hannah    Harley    Roxane    Rebecca   Hannah  
Hannah     Heidi      Roxane     Harley    Rebecca   Hillary   Reg       Randy   
Lincoln    Hillary    Harley     Rebecca   Randy     Reg       Roxane    Heidi   
Heidi      Randy      Rebecca    Roxane    Reg       Harley    Lincoln   Hillary 

19th Tuesday weigh-in

??? lb
(Update: I weighed in on Saturday and was at 222.5 lb!)

I owe you a scale measurement. I did not take my scale with me and their is not one at the hotel handy to use either. I have not missed cardio this past week, I did not do weights however. Once I get back from my trip I will start that up again. I did track my food all last week and posted a screen shot of what I put in the daily plate. As you can see, I am still above what I should be eating most days, today for example I ate a 10oz prime rib (900+ calories), which put over by the most all week. I thought I was saving up enough to have it, but I could have eaten half of it and would have been much better off. I still think I lost weight because the blue line is for losing 2 lb per week, so I may have lost less than that. I like that I can check on the site how many calories I have left and "spend" them strategically.

18th Tuesday weigh-in

227.5 lb

Gain of 0.5

I have a new goal now: Lose 30 lbs by my birthday. I have been floundering around for a while now and need to get back on track or else I lose the XBOX. This will require a loss average of over 1.5 lb per week, about 1.75 will work.

I made it through the holidays and feel great about it. Now that the weather is not miserable and cold in the mornings, I should be able to easily continue to make it to the gym or at least to Hannah's treadmill very consistently. Some risks/obstacles I can plan for are:

• travel can wreck my sleep schedule (result: missed workouts or overeating)
• two kids are a big burden (if they get sick, even more) and may interfere with sleep (result: missed workouts or overeating)

If I can keep from overeating, missing a workout will be a minor issue. Once thing I have not been good at is making a full accounting of my food intake each day. I would track up through lunch then try to spend or use the rest of my calories for the day before bed by estimation only. I have not been recording what I ate after lunch and this must be where the extra food is slipping in and preventing a loss on Tuesday. A can of sprite here, a handful of almonds there, bag of popcorn, another sprite, some more almonds, hey some chocolate chips, why not? Bite by bite, one way or another, I undo the calorie deficit I need to lose the fat and get a scale number like the one above.

My original plan was to track calories on livestrong.com, so I have recommitted to do that. I also plan to use bigoven to plan meals so I am not having to wing it for dinner each night.
This should also help since the baby is here and his needs will be putting extra burden on Rebecca and I.

I hope you are doing as well or better than me on whatever goals you have set for yourself, and I wish you much success.

17th Tuesday weigh-in

227.0 lb

Yikes. Gain of 3 lb.. It has been a busy few days here. But I did make time to weigh myself and exercise today at least. I didn't plan well what I was going to eat at the hospital while Rebecca was recovering so I ended up eating the food in the cafeteria which is chicken fried steak and french fries with gravy, or bacon, eggs, toast etc.. I do think most of my gain was water retention from eating too much salt (damn delicious chips). I need to drink more water this week. I did about 120 oz of water today alone. I stayed off soda for the most part, having it on Wednesday and Saturday only. I definitely ate too much candy. Maybe I am just a sugar-aholic. If I don't get soda, then I crave candy or vice versa.

Picture is Jameson taking in some simulated sun in the hopes we don't have to get a bilirubin light. He has failed the bilirubin test three times now. He has another blood test tomorrow and I want it to be the last test. I mean what is the point of tests if doctors are not going to accompany the results with some treatment options? It is the almost the equivalent of saying, "Thanks for driving your child here over the dangerous roads and spending45 minutes in the hospital waiting room full of sick/disturbed people with your infant. Here, have him take this blood test... Oh, your boy failed it, come back tomorrow to take it again. By the way, that will be $45 for:

1. wasting two hours of your life,
2. stabbing your son's foot, and
3. milking drops of blood from him for 10 minutes."

New Baby

I took these, Rebecca took better ones so bug her to post them. Our daughter Eleanor is a big sister now. She is so big when you compare to her little brother Jameson.

16th Tuesday weigh-in

224.0 lb

Loss of 2 lb. Short term goal is to lose another 2 lb to weigh 222 lb. Long term... probably another 30 lbs to lose.

I need to start recording details about my exercises and what I eat each day more consistently because I want to repeat the results of this week. I planned to stay away from soda most of the week, but did have a 32 oz Dr Pepper and 12 Sprite however.