Footprints on the Moon

I played with one of the derby girls’ kitten, The Flash.

I got a pretty awesome bruise on my belly from being at the bottom of a “dog pile” at a scrimmage.

I finally baked, and posted something at my cooking blog! You can check out the Cake Batter Bars at Jenn Cooks.

I painted my nails teal and black to support SBRG before a bout. (Please ignore the polish in places it’s not supposed to be.)

Lucy held me hostage on the couch. Seriously… she’s holding on to my hand, and would tighten her grip any time I tried to pull my hand away. Aww. And then she bit me. lol

Not pictured: The scale. This post brought to you by the HCG diet Austin that I need to be on. Or back on. Whatever. Point is… weight, still doing scary things. Not cool. It’s my own fault, but that’s beside the point!

My baby girl kitty in a rare calm moment.

First, the usual chart:

*Not sure? Think something auto paid that I wasn’t expecting and so my payment didn’t quite cover it. (Though, now that I think about it, may be Netflix’s cost change.)

In the first half of this month’s financial update comes the usual suspects… slow and steady progress on the credit cards and loans, two months worth of payments.
Then there’s the ** next to Nelnet. This is because, thanks to the medical bills I’ve accumulated, I’ve decided to put this student loan into forbearance to try and free up some money in order to make payments. It will accumulate approximately $386 in interest over the next year, which I can either pay off prior to my next payment being due in October 2012, or it will be rolled into my balance when payments resume.

Not really much to report there. Then there’s the new chart for the lovely medical bills that have all (I think. Please?) finally arrived.

((I have question marks in the cents column because I don’t have this bill in front of me or access to it on the internet. I’ll get that added in when I can.))

Ouch, right? So far I’ve made payment arrangements with the surgery center for $100/month, and everyone else gets…. not much. Cause there’s not much left. Don’t call me up and ask me to make an ach payment, cause it’s not going to happen. I’m doing everything I can to free up some cash to pay down balances. I called up Comcast to cancel my service, but let them talk me into keeping the internet at a discounted price for at least 6 months. That will save me around $50/month. I put one of my two student loans into forbearance. I am adjusting my tax withholding from my paycheck. I’m being extra diligent about shutting off lights, killing the power strip to my computer/wireless router when I’m gone/sleeping, keeping the heat off or extremely low… anything to keep the electric bill under budget and “snowflake” that money to one bill or another.

Hopefully it will be enough. Suffice it to say, I’m extremely stressed about money these days, but all I can do is take it one day at a time. It will all work out in the end, right?

On the left is the first picture I took of myself in an SBRG league t-shirt. On the right is the most recent picture of me in an SBRG t-shirt, my headshot. You can see clearly that I’ve lost weight. But the fact of the matter is, I’ve been pretty well stalled out for almost a year. I still get people telling me that I look great, asking how much weight I’m losing, so maybe I’m adding muscle and redistributing… I’m more inclined to believe that I’m simply wearing more figure flattering clothes these days. I am, in fact, at basically the same weight now that I was at the beginning of the year. I’ve lost momentum, and I don’t really know how to get it back. Beyond figuring out what suppresses appetite anyway.

Weight Watchers changed their program just after Thanksgiving last year which threw me for a loop. My weight loss had been coming at a very steady rate until that point. Then I lost a couple more pounds through the end of the year and stalled out. I was firmly on a plateau. After that, I was frustrated with not making any progress. There was a little bit of “Well, I’m not getting anywhere so I’m going to just eat what I want!” I also couldn’t justify paying $18/month for Weight Watchers anymore. I’ve been trying to use MyFitnessPal to count calories, but it’s not really working for me. Partially because I have had exactly no motivation and have spent a lot of time tracking just how “bad” I’m being. And partially because calorie counting just plain isn’t working well for me. It seems counter-intuitive because calorie counting should be easy. You have 1500 calories a day, you deduct this 356 calories from that total. Easy, right? Except I can’t seem to have a concept of how many calories is too much to spend on a meal or a snack. With WW points, I knew that if I had 32 points a day, 8 points was probably too much to spend on a snack. But I have no concept of 280 calories being too many calories to spend on that same snack.

I don’t know what the answer is… Calorie counting is “easier”, it’s faster, I don’t have to spend as much time looking up/doing the math on labels to get the information I need… but it’s not working. I don’t know if going back on Weight Watchers would help. I do know that it’s $18/month that I don’t have, especially now that I’m trying to pay off the surgery. And I do know that I’m not happy with maintaining where I’m at now, especially since I’m not so much maintaining anymore as creeping upward.

So yeah… that’s where I’m at now in this journey.

I spent pretty much the entirety of last weekend crocheting on the couch and watching “Besterns.” Aka the WFTDA Western Regional Playoffs! (This weekend is South Central and next weekend is North Central Regional playoffs. Visit DerbyAccess to watch for free!)

We got our league pictures taken by the fabulous James Korn. Here is Jennuine Pain!

And these are my rocks in the league. My beautiful and amazing “derby wives”: Star Cross’d Shover and Naw D. Beaver.

I got plenty of Lucy-kitty snuggles.

The bill from the surgeon arrived and made me consider a second job in rv towing. This doesn’t include the ER visit, ER doctor, or anesthesiologist.

Pudge got some last minute snuggles before Killian arrived to spend the night. (Once Killian gets here, he hides under the bed. Or sits in the hallway hissing.)

About five minutes after he insisted that No, no, no, NO, he did not want to watch that! I’m trying to expand my nephew’s horizons beyond Toy Story and Sponge Bob and he’s having none of it. He’ll usually watch what I put on anyway, but with periodic protests. Now we’re watching Chicken Little for the second time.