Before & during

A friend suggested that I find a before picture, so I did. Here is me before I started my weight loss journey and then my picture from yesterday 69.6 pounds lighter:

Weight Watchers: Weeks 29 & 30

Week 29: Didn't weigh in

My emotional eating got the better of me for multiple reasons, the main one was the passing of my dad's birthday. I missed my usual meeting because I had a migraine and didn't have it in me to go to another one.

Week 30
This week :(+.8 lbs)
Total Loss: -38.0 lbs

Trying not to get upset about the gain. I guess all things considered, it could have been worse. I have a dress I've not fit into since Abby was a baby that I've saved in hopes of wearing it again. I tried it on a few days ago.  I can get into it, but it's too snug to wear.  Maybe in 20 more pounds? It felt good to see that I was close though.

Little living room changes

Just wanted to share some little updates to our living room. Please excuse the cell phone quality of the pictures, I couldn't find my digital camera at the time.


Throw pillows for both chairs that I found on Etsy.







Put this funky plaque up above the tv, also found it on Etsy:






Painted Buddha plum and also painted this frame from IKEA and put some cute Michael Miller fabric inside.




The wall behind the fireplace is going to be painted gold, we just haven't gotten around to it. I'm not sure how I like the grouping on the fireplace. I was thinking of getting rid of the faux mercury glass candle holders and putting a fern with the buddha. I'm not sure though. Any ideas?

Happy 65 Dad!

Today would have been my dad's 65th birthday. It's the 2nd time his birthday has come and gone without him here. I thought this year it would be a little easier for me, but it wasn't. It was difficult from the time I first woke up at 4am and realized what day it was. I missed being able to call him and sing happy birthday to him. I miss his voice. I miss everything about him. We don't have a grave or anything to go to yet (mom is working on something) so my answer was to go to the park where I have fond memories of his birthday. We got some pretty helium balloons and tied notes that we wrote to the end. At sunset, we let them go and watched them disappear into the clouds.

Weight Watchers: Week 28

Week 28

This week's loss: -3.0 lbs
Total Loss: -38.8lbs
Short term goal: -40 lbs
Long term goal: -160 lbs

Woot, so close to my next goal! We went away for a few days with my mom and I definitely slid into the thinking of "woo, it's vacation time...treat yourself!" for a day or two.  I didn't track for one day which freaked me out a bit, but I just said okay that's all my weekly points too. So I didn't use any weeklies beyond that. I stuck hardcore to the plan after that and made sure to get in some exercise at the pool. I feel great.  I can't wait to hit that next goal!

Weight Watchers: Week 27

Weight Watchers: Week 27


This week's loss: -3.8 lbs
Total Loss: -35.8lbs





I have been chronicling my weight loss journey since I started weight loss journey in my private journal and it felt like it was time to ease into making it public.  I'm not ready to share my starting or current weight, but I think I'll get there. I lost 30 pounds before starting Weight Watchers through keeping a food journal, counting calories and exercising. Weight Watchers has helped me step the process up a notch. Each week I weigh in and I will share my progress and thoughts about the week.

I didn't have time to go to a meeting this week because we were out of town.  I did go to a different time though and the meting leader weighed me in.  I liked her.  I am planning to go to her meeting next Tuesday and see how I like the style of her meetings. The time might be a little tricky because it's at 10am.

Mini-me follows in my footsteps

Last night we took Abby to the Sanrio store and she was in heaven. It was a tough choice, but she picked  out a Hello Kitty ring. I could squee with happiness that she loves Hello Kitty as much as I do.

Pepper pride

Our little garden has been pretty good to us this summer. We've had a bunch of peppers and tomatoes. A lot of fresh basil as well. We've also enjoyed some lettuce and a few strawberries. This is what I picked from the pepper plant in just one day. 




Not bad for a little container garden.

5th Relay For Life

I've been wanting to share my Relay For Life experience for the past 2 weeks, but every time I sat down to write something about it I felt really emotional. With the kids home for the summer, I'm usually quite rushed anytime I am using my computer and I wanted to give this the time it deserves. 

This year's Relay was very emotional for me which surprised me. The first year was emotional and I expected that.  I wasn't even in remission yet and I remember feeling doubtful that I even belonged among the other survivors.  When I put my hand print on the banner with other survivors, I didn't really even have a time to write down as a survivor in remission, so I just counted back to my diagnosis. I remember feeling unsure of my place among the courageous survivors that I sat amongst on the field for the opening ceremony. Many of them had been through a much harder journey than I had.  They'd faced chemo.  Some of them had needed stem cell transplants and other procedures far more serious than what I went through.




But when I joined them for the survivor lap, I felt something that I didn't expect.  I felt empowered.  Walking seems like such a small thing, but it was and is one thing I could control.  I was able to band together with other survivors and show cancer that it can't knock me off my feet. The biggest thing that cancer took me from is my health and being able to walk a lap felt a little like thumbing my nose at cancer. Although I am in remission, I am not as healthy as I was pre-cancer. Losing my thyroid has turned a lifelong struggle with my weight into what sometime seems an impossible battle. The pounds that 2 years of hypothyroidism packed on have been such a difficult battle for me to take off.  Nevertheless, slowly I am winning that battle.

The fact that I am down almost 65 pounds since my last Relay made this year's walk more poignant for me.  It was a bigger "screw you" to cancer. Not only am I still standing and still alive but I'm taking off the weight that cancer helped me put on. It was much easier for me to walk that survivor lap and 2 laps that followed without even getting tired.  Progress! Physically this Relay was the easiest one for me.




It was very emotionally challenging for me though. It was the first time I cried during the survivor lap.  Seeing other people's tears always brings me to tears of my own. Seeing the luminaria that Abby and I decorated for my Dad choked me up.  I wish that my Dad was a survivor too.  I wish he could walk that lap with me. I hate that I'm here and he's not. This year was less about my battle and more about carrying on the battle in his memory. It's safe to say that my Dad wouldn't really have done Relay with me.  That wasn't his sort of thing. He never came when I was walking just for myself.  But last year and this year he was there....I carried him in my heart.






I am about to reach 5 years of being in remission on Wednesday July 13th. 5 years for a cancer patient is a huge milestone because the risk of recurrence becomes so much lower.  I realize that with thyroid cancer, recurrence at any time of my life is possible.  I know that the radiation therapy I had increases my risk of other cancers. But those risks are moving farther and farther to the back of my mind.

So as I reflect on the 5th year of my remission from Stage III papillary/follicular thyroid cancer, I am feeling thankful, blessed and hopeful.  I am thankful for my husband and children who have sustained me through this fight with love, patience and understanding.  They laughed along with me when I was so hypothyroid that all I could do was stare at my hand all day.  The sympathized with me through many a Low Iodine Diet. I am thankful for my friends and family who have been there to support me.  Those who have joined my Relay team and cheered me on each year as I do that survivor lap. Those who have been understanding when hypothyroidism drained me of energy to hang out or when I was filled with anxiety as I went through my testing. I feel blessed that I continue to win my fight against cancer.  I feel blessed that I have a wonderful competent doctor who cares for me and keeps me healthy.  I am blessed to have a good hospital with caring medical staff to give me a smile or a chuckle during testing or to add yet another bill to my monthly payment plan. I am hopeful that someday I will no longer worry about my cancer.  I feel hopeful that someday I will no longer touch the jagged scar on my neck as I worry about why I'm not feeling alright. I feel hopeful that some day there will be a cure for cancer.

House updates

I've temporarily given up on finishing our bedroom because we (mostly I) can't decide what to do for a headboard or the wall we have our bed on. Instead I'm focusing on our main living area. We recently replaced our broken leather sofa and loveseat with a fabulous brown Karlstad sofa and ottoman from IKEA. We also picked up some cool chairs for a bargain through Craigslist and garage sale shopping.










Now I want to do a little changing up of our fireplace mantel.


We currently have this Buddha which I love sitting in the middle.  I want to paint him a fun color.  I'm thinking turquoise or purple.  Josh suggested white which could also be good.  We do need to paint the wall above the fireplace the gold accent color that we painted in the window next to the fireplace and in our hallway.




I also want to get a fern for the fireplace and change out our wall tapestry for this IKEA frame which I'll likely also paint. While I love all the black we have in our space, I think we need more pops of color.




Any thoughts or suggestions on colors?

Earlier this week I tackled a problem that was really bothering me in our master bedroom. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but I have a necklace addiction. Our dressers have these really handy knobs on the sides which are great for hanging necklaces but I ran out of space to hang them awhile ago. This was keeping me from finding things which was frustrating. Naturally my husband suggested I go through my collection and glean out some of the beads, but of course that wouldn't do because I love them all! (I actually did wind up parting with some as I was organizing but I was loathe to admit that to him!) So I found these awesome branch hooks on Amazon and got Josh to install them for me. Here's the before, and after. I would argue that my bead collection is also art. And it needs to continue growing (shhh, don't tell Josh I said that).

June garden

I decided to take some photos of my little container garden each month.  These are June's edition.

Solar light jar project

On a recent yucky weather day, we needed a fun art project to do so we made some solar light jars. It was a pretty easy & cheap project. 

Our supplies:
*jars (we used things that were old pasta sauce jars, an olive jar and a ball jar)
*paintbrush
*food coloring (we used Williams-Sonoma because that's what we have)
*solar lights (got ours from Target: $1 for little one on sale, $3 for big ones)
*Mod Podge (we used the outdoor variety and the glitter one)
*newspaper




Using newspaper to protect our kitchen table, painted on a mixture of Mod Podge and food dye.  Because ours is really bright, I just put in a drop of the dye. I would say we used about a 1/4 cup of mod podge for 2 jars but I didn't measure it.  We painted it on and let it sit for about 10 minutes. After that, we needed to add a 2nd coat. On the blue, yellow and purple jars, we took a paper towel dipped in our Mod Podge mixture and stippled on some more "paint" all over the jars. On the green one (which was made with the glitter Mod Podge), I just took my paintbrush with more more "paint" and did a swirl pattern.




While the jars were wet, the colors looked a bit obnoxious but they dried to a much nicer color. We let them air dry for 2 days and then they looked like this:




Our next step was to remove the stems of our solar lights. The tops fight just right on top of the jars so we super glued them to the jars. The blue, yellow and purple ones can go outside since we used the outdoor Mod Podge, but they hang out in our kitchen window. The green one has to stay inside and lives in our master bedroom. I love them. They have a pretty glow at night. I'm hoping to save up more jars and do a few more for our house.