Footprints on the Moon

My dad moved to Oklahoma last weekend, so I didn’t get to spend the day with him today. Still, in honor of the occasion, here is a picture of the two of us when I graduated college 6 years ago!

I had a good and busy weekend! Friday I called my dad’s mom and asked her what she was doing for dinner, so we headed to Texas Roadhouse. Mmm…

Saturday morning, I got up and decided to join some of the derby girls at the rink for lessons. After a snack and a shower, some of us headed north to Kalamazoo to watch the Killamazoo Derby Darlins take on the Naptown Warning Belles. It was a super exciting bout, and a good time was had by all!

This morning was a scrimmage practice and it kicked my booty! We tend to have a lower attendance on Sundays so we do very short scrimmages, if any at all. But we had a very experienced ref from another league in town so we scrimmaged pretty much the whole practice. We were playing 8 on 8, so there were not very many opportunities to rest! I left there and went to Chipotle to grab lunch… and I had to try twice to open the door to the restaurant because I was so tired and the door was heavier than I expected! lol No need for panic drug treatment centers, it was just me being plain old WORN OUT.

I was pretty useless for the rest of the day… I did get a load of laundry done (it was a desperate situation), and made chicken salad for lunches this week, but mostly I’ve lounged on the couch all day watching Dexter. And I called my daddy to say Happy Father’s Day, of course!

Our league said goodbye to a skater who is moving to Charlottesville.

I said goodbye to 27 years and the house I grew up in as my dad packed up and moved to Oklahoma.

Lucy watched the birds

I got all dressed up.

And Pudge pretended he was a tiny kitty.

Wow, I haven’t posted a Self Portrait Sunday in awhile..I wish I would have kept up with it more over the past year while losing weight… those pictures would have been great to see. It’s fun to see them from before and now.

ANYway, this is me from this morning, in the car on the way home from practice. (Don’t worry I was not driving at the time.) As you can see, I made a pit stop at Chipotle. It was a good practice this morning, really pushed me out of my comfort zone. Yet again, I wished I’d done something like zumba fitness or running or ANYTHING physical really over derby break because man, not even halfway through and I was BEAT. One week of sitting on the couch does a number on your fitness level! So what I have I done for the rest of the day after practice? lol

It’s been a great weekend, I’m sad to see it end. It started out with a BBQ with friends at one of the derby girls houses, and then a slightly productive, mostly relaxing day ending with dinner out with my dad’s side of the family. He’s moving to Oklahoma at the end of this week, so it was a goodbye of sorts. Nice to sit and visit with family I don’t see often. Then of course today was roller derby, Chipotle, and watching Veronica Mars on Netflix. Not ready for it to end… I’m loving these summer weekends so far.

I still haven’t updated the progress bars on the sidebar (the plug in I use for that is a mess, and no longer really usable, so I’m investigating other options), but the debts themselves are inching down this month!

The credit union visa is reflecting two payments… one for May, and the one for June. I just made the first payment on the loan, and the June payments for the two student loans haven’t cleared yet, so only one payment for May is showing for those.

I did have to put nearly $450 onto my Amazon Visa (not listed) thanks to breaking off a part of my molar and needing a crown. No need to visit http://www.wholesaleinsurance.net/… the total price was $850, and apparently the amount my dental insurance covered is the norm. Still, I don’t have $450 lying around so on credit that charge went. At least I’ll get some reward points? The only other thing this credit card is used for is auto-pay on my cell phone and Netflix. I always cash in the reward points for Amazon gift cards to buy books for my Kindle.

So that’s where things stand to start June! Here are the numbers:

I did not post here the entire month of May! That month was full to the brim of derby, and I was way too busy looking at bout pictures on Facebook to come post about it. Bout pictures make me happy. And they’re about the only pictures that never send me looking for the best cellulite treatment. Derby is empowering, y’all. Anyway… the month o’ derby started with a home bout for our league’s local teams.

MAYday Michiana, May 6, 2011
SBRG: The Lake Effect vs. The Bonnie Dooms

This bout was… interesting. I won’t go into all the details, but this bout was not without its drama. A couple of league skaters were dismissed in the weeks leading up to this bout, and on bout day a few skaters from both teams pulled themselves from the roster for various reasons. Both teams went into the bout with shaken up rosters and morale. But the first whistle blew, and everyone put the drama behind them to skate their butts off and put on a good show for our audience.

Early in the second half of this bout, I took a really hard fall and hurt my back. Being the wonderful team player that I am, I skated the rest of the bout anyway! (Yes, I’m on the medical committee and frequently tell people not to skate while injured…. bout vs. practice, do as I say not as I do, etc…) In fact, once everything was said and done, I was fairly convinced that I’d cracked a rib. Some ice and some painkillers later though, and everything was feeling much better by morning.

Final score: Bonnie Dooms 111, Lake Effect 98

Spring Roll!, May 14, 2011
SBRG Studebreakers vs. FWDG SWAT team and SBRG Studebreakers vs PVRD Weapons of Mass Destruction

The following weekend found us in Fort Wayne for the Spring Roll tournament! In the picture above, I’m number 75 on the left, holding a wall with my teammate, Gore Gore Bordella. We skated two bouts this day… the first was at the lovely early time of 8am against Ft. Wayne’s SWAT team. It was a rough one for me… In the first half, I spent some time behind a wall of Ft. Wayne girls– what we call being the goat. And being the goat SUCKS. In the second half, due to some decisions by the coaches, miscommunications, stars aligning, what have you… I ended up skating in only one jam. So I spent most of that half of the bout getting upset that I was obviously (in my mind) sucking so bad that I wasn’t even allowed to play. Yeaaahhh… not fun. And since my emotions are hard wired to my tear ducts. A fun 30-40 minutes of calming down after that bout ensued. Final Score: FWDG 175, SBRG 105

Then we had a looong break, getting lunch, watching juniors and men’s derby play and then we went up against Pioneer Valley’s women’s team at 5:30 pm. It was a penalty heavy bout for our team, and I really think we could have won this game if we could have kept our girls on the track. There was at least one occasion where it was all 5 of their skaters on the track for PVRD… aaaaand just me for SBRG. HA! That was fun. Cough. But these ladies were super sweet, and fun to play. After that jam of me vs. all of them, they said sorry for picking on me and complimented my attempts to break free. A lot of my teammates were really frustrated, but I think I used up my quota of upset for the day after bout one, so I just had a good time with bout two even though we didn’t win in the end. Final score: PVRD 139, SBRG 100

And last but not least for the month of May, we headed down to Lafayette for MayDay Mayhem, May 21, 2011
South Bend Studebreakers vs. Lafayette Brawlin’ Dolls

I don’t know what to say about this bout except it was just FUN. We turned out to be really evenly matched with the LBD girls, and this bout was a fight down to the end. There were plenty of lead changes and ties to go around, but when the final whistle sounded, SBRG was ahead by 11 points. It’s always fun to play, but I gotta tell ya… winning feels good

We had such a good time playing Lafayette though, I would have still had just as much fun if the score had come out the other way around. They were great to play AND hang out with at the after party! Definitely looking forward to a rematch with these ladies at some point in the future.

Final Score: SBRG 88, LBD 77

Then we rounded out the month of May with derby break: a much needed week without practices, most of which I spent on my couch watching Netflix, eating candy, and finally cleaning my apartment before it was officially labeled a biohazard. So there you are… kind of long, but that’s what I was up to for the last month I wasn’t writing!

Killian: June 1, 2011

That’s what I posted on my Facebook last week, anyway. As you may recall from my last financial post (maybe not, as that was 5 months ago…), I’ve been struggling with the credit card debt lately. The money’s just not stretching as far as it should these days… between a few necessary purchases, and the insanely high interest rates that credit cards carry, I just couldn’t get any traction.

I’d finally had enough, so I went to my credit union and talked to someone there about consolidating my high interest credit card debt. Long story short, I’ve now financed my credit card debt a couple of ways. The first is a credit union credit card which affords a 0% interest for six months, and will be at 7.9% for the remainder of the time. The rest of it is financed through a secured loan (secured by the title to my car) at 4.99% for the life of the loan. Since the interest rates were previously at 16.24, 20.99 and 21.99, I do think it will be much easier to make some forward progress now!

If you go back and look at my most recent financial statement, you’ll notice the total balance is about 400 or so dollars higher than it was before, thanks to a couple of purchases and the transfer fees the credit union charged. Even so, I’m incredibly optimistic, and am in the midst of reworking my budget to fit the new payments. My minimum payments have dropped about $20, and we’ve already covered how much less I’m paying in interest! I’ve considered getting a second job to help pay things down even faster, but I have to confess I don’t have much motivation to look. Between a full time job and derby, there’s just not much extra time left to fill with more work!

As far as the chart goes… I thought it would be much easier to just start over than try and fit everything in. I’ll update the sidebar… at some point. Here’s to progress!

(I didn’t make this, I found it, but I’ve lost the source.)

Yesterday marked week 52 of this weight loss journey. One year later, I’ve seen incredible changes… in my body and in my life! Here’s a picture of the physical changes. The top row is my Before pictures, taken April 10, 2010. The bottom row is the pictures I took last night, April 10, 2011. One year and 55lbs lighter.

Also yesterday, I discovered that I don’t have any summer clothes that fit! So while I won’t be buying any rocawear jeans, I will be “rewarding” myself by looking for some shorts/capris to wear now that the weather is getting nicer! I even have my eye on a really cute skirt, but that will have to wait until I have more money in my budget I think

Obviously, I still have quite a way to go, but I’ll get there eventually. The food plan could use some more focus, and I’ll probably be adding in some more exercise somewhere as (*whimper*) my body seems to have adjusted to the skating three times a week! I’ve been stuck on a plateau for a couple of months now, and it gets frustrating. But it’s hard to stay frustrated when I look at these pictures and see how far I’ve come in a year.

Just in case the Wordless Wednesday post was too subtle… Recently, I did this:

Somewhere there is a picture of me holding that ponytail up in the air like one of those sport trophies, but I can’t find it right now. In any case, the hair had reached a point where I just couldn’t stand it anymore. It was getting caught in things all the time, was a pain every time I wanted to roll over in bed, not to mention how long it took me to comb the tangles out and blow dry it every day!

So I busted out the measuring tape, determined it was long enough to donate to Locks of Love and the rest is history. The only time I ever regret chopping it off is times like right now… I woke up really late this morning, so it looks scary. And it’s static-y but I have no way to pull it back! But I get a lot of compliments so it all works out