AIN'T THAT A KICK IN THE HEAD!

So last night was a dissappointing weigh in. I'd gained 3 lbs since my last weigh in (8/3). I was pretty annoyed with myself, but I definitly got what I deserved.

Seeing that + 3 in my member book was really the kick in the ass that I needed to get myself back on track. Also, the topic for last night's meeting was very relevant! We talked about getting stuck in weight loss and ways to get out of a rut and common mistakes that people make. I know that I've been guilty of an all or nothing attitude lately ("well, I've screwed up all ready today... might as well have some ice cream too") and I've also probably put some unrealistic expectations on myself. So it's time to start fresh.

After the meeting, I went to Price Chopper and bought a rotiserrie chicken for dinner and some veggies and oven fries. My dinner turned out to be 5 points, which was exactly what I had left for the day and I didn't use any flex points on snacks. I packed my lunch last night and made ready my gym bag, and I got up early and went to the gym today. Second day this week! I rule!!

I feel very certain now that I'll lose weight. I'm pretty sure that I'll lose the 1.4 I need to in order to get back within my range. And I'm pretty sure I'll make it to at least 152 by Disney. If I got underneath that number, I'd be hella excited, because 152 is the least that I've ever weighed in at.

And it's not just about the numbers on the scale. I've been feeling pretty unattractive and crappy lately, and I know that has a lot (if not everything) to do with my poor eating and exercise habits lately. Now that I'm back into it, now that I'm making it a priority again, I feel a lot better about myself.

And I want to keep those good feelings going! :)

GETTING BACK ON TRACK

So I've gained. I know it. I need to stop eating like I don't care.

Because I DO care!!

And I feel lousy when I don't really pay attention to what I eat... And the past couple of weeks (when I've been all not caring), I've had zits. I never break out. This sucks. I look like I did on bad days in high school. And I really think that has something to do with the fact that I've been all not caring about my food.

So yesterday I got up early and went to the gym. Yay! I'm back at the gym! And I really paid attention to what I was eating yesterday and I've been doing the same today. I rock. And tonight, I'll be going back to Weight Watchers.

This will be my first meeting back since I made Lifetime. I didn't go last week because I was "exercising my right to not go". Now that I'm Lifetime, I don't have to go every week. But I think I will from now on. Because going to the meetings really keeps me on track.

I also didn't go back last week because I was a little afraid that I gained. I didn't want to have to pay on my first meeting back as a Lifetimer! But then, I found my Lifetime member rules and realized that I wouldn't have had to pay if I was outside of my range: After you weigh in the first time in a calendar month and you're within your range and you go to another meeting that month, you don't have to weigh in if you don't want to "and if you do decide to weigh in - it doesn't really count - so if you're a bit over your weight goal - that's OK - and you don't pay." So that rocks! I might be outside of my range tonight, but since I've already weighed in as a lifetime member within my range this month, I won't have to pay! Rock! So now I can go back and get on track!

And I will get back on track! :)

Three Weeks!!

Three weeks from today, I will be in Walt Disney World at the Magic Kingdom.

I am so excited!!!!

I just can't wait to be there. Well, I can. I have to. And, as Alex pointed out the other day, I'll be a basketcase after I get home. He asked me if I'll start planning our next trip there when we get back and I told him I already started planning. ;) I sort of have... I've been looking at all my research and thinking about what time of year will be best for our next trip. Depends on how this trip goes. I think September might continue to be ideal, but there are a lot of people out there who say that Early December and Mid to Late January are even better. So we'll see... And, I don't think we'll go again right away next year... we'll probably take a year off... depending on what kind of deals I can get. ;)

Anyway. I'm loving the planning part of this trip. I have a pretty good idea of what we'll be doing each day that we're down there, and a list of "Preferred Seatings" to make. I've done a lot of "work" (had a lot of fun) planning this trip, but I'm really an amateur compared to the people I've "met" on the DIS Boards. There are some serious Disneyphiles there!

So yeah. In preparation for all the photos I'll be taking on the trip and then posting when I return, I've been looking for a new way to do my photo albums. Currently I'm hosting my own photo album pages. This is annoying for a few reasons... I haven't found a good, simple, quick way to produce a slideshow effect, or at least the ability to scroll through the pictures easily. Also, since my camera takes pretty large sized photos, I'd have to produce copies of all my edited, ready to be shown photos in a smaller, more web-friendly size, which meant that I'd have multiple copies of my pictures stored in different places on different hard drives. Annoying. So I decided to go looking for something better.

I wanted to find a site that would host my photos and allow users to easily browse my pics. Easy enough, there are tons of them out there. I'd used Ofoto in the past, but their prints were expensive and it was annoying that you couldn't link directly to an album, instead you'd have to invite people by email and they would have to sign up to be members of Ofoto just to view your albums. That's irritating. I found Snapfish and I was pretty pleased with their site... Easy to use, really cheap prints... but then they require people to sign in to view photos too.

Finally, I found Photosite. This site hosts your pics, allows you to specify what pics you'd like people to be able to order prints of (but they're not cheap), and doesn't make visitors sign into your site just to view your pictures. The albums it produces are not as customizable as I'd like, but they're pretty decent. What really pushed this site over the top to be the winner for me, was that it has a really nifty mobile version. So, in order to view a photosite link from your web enabled cell phone, you'd just navigate to the url by putting "mobile" in front of it. For example, to view my photosite on the computer, you'd go to http://aliwolly.photosite.com, but to view it from your cell phone, you'd go to http://mobile.aliwolly.photosite.com. It's really cool. :) I can also post to a photoblog album from my phone. So now, if I want to share a pic with someone who's not on the Sprint network, I can take the picture, email it to my photoblog, and then text the non-sprint user with the "mobile" link to the pic on my photoblog. How cool is that?

Anyway, so check out my new photosite. This is where I'll be posting any new pictures from now on. Pictures from before April of 2004 will all still be hosted on my older photo album page.

A PICTURE SHARE!