Week 5

Went to Weight Watchers yesterday. I was pretty sure that I had gained weight. You can't drink a ton of alcohol and eat cake and enjoy yourself immensely throughout the entire week without gaining weight.

And, when I stepped on the scale, I proved myself correct. I did gain some of the weight back. Exactly 2.2 pounds. I am at the ten pound mark right now.

You know what the great thing about this is? I wouldn't have changed anything that I did this week. It is amazing how much my attitude has changed. A few years ago I would have been beating myself up about what a stupid person I am for gaining the weight back. This time I smile and remember how much fun I had.

Yesterday Kari, Eric and Josh came over. They wanted to go swimming. We hung around the apartment for a little bit while Josh played with cat toys and tried to convince Eddy that he wanted to play with him. Eddy, however, is not used to small children and has a tendency to head very rapidly in the other direction when Josh comes over. There were a few moments when Eddy's sense of self-preservation deserted him and he approached Josh carefully, tempted by whatever toy Josh was flinging around at the time. Wish I would have had my camera on hand. Well, I have my camera but my battery charger seems to have disappeared and so the camera is empty of batteries (Did anyone else see "True Lies" and whenever your battery light starts flashing, think of that guy who is videotaping the crazy, fanatic guy and is scared to death when he has to tell crazy, fanatic guy that the batteries are dead? And, in your head, say "Batteries" in a quavery, Middle Eastern accent? Or is that just me?). Plus, my camera and I don't get along very well. It is bulky and does not have a stabilizer and I keep hoping that it will slim down and learn to deal with the fact that my hands shake whenever I take pictures. This never happens.

Anyway, we went swimming. Or, actually, Kari and Josh went swimming while I read my book (Birthday present to myself - Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett and how the hell did I miss this book because it is so damn funny) and take pictures of them with Kari's slim and stabilized camera. I would replace said camera with mine but I think she would notice the difference. And, since I wasn't able to swim (I'm sure you can all figure out why), I did spend the 10 longest minutes of my life on the treadmill. That was fun.

But where was Eric, you ask? Good question. Eric was upstairs watching "The Prince and I" with Keem. When they got there, she had only been watching it for a few minutes and he had to find out how it ended. He did come down later and was then lectured on all of the things that Kari had been telling Josh (No, Eric. There is no running. Take baby steps. No, Eric, you can't go into the hot tub. Josh wants to go into the hot tub and it is too hot for him). It was pretty funny.

We then went to Timber Lodge. It was my favorite restaurant and we always go there for my birthday. I say was my favorite restaurant because I think Manny's has spoiled me (for those of you who don't live in the area, Manny's is a restaurant in Minneapolis with fantastic food). I did enjoy the meal and the time spent with my family. I made good choices, no croutons on the salad, dressing on the side and I did the fork trick (dip your fork into the dressing and then stab your lettuce. You get the perfect amount of dressing each time and use a lot less). I asked for my butter and sour cream for the baked potato to be on the side as well and then added just what I needed to make it perfect, over half of the butter and sour cream remained in their containers. When I found that I was getting full, I asked for a box instead of continuing to eat what was in front of me. And then, I did get dessert but we shared it. And I only had enough of the dessert to satisfy my cravings (it helped that the oreo cheesecake was horribly bland, the apple crisp was fantastic).

All in all, it was a good day.

I promise I'll finish the birthday post soon. But I have to do five thousand loads of laundry right now.