Oui Madam!

I gained 2 pounds this week. Which I am okay with. I went out to eat twice this week (I was asked to go out, which i think is different than just going out) and both times I ordered the AMAZING chicken curry. I have been worried that I haven't been counting it correctly. Now I am pretty sure that I haven't been. :( Also, while I managed to get in four days of exercise last week, two of them were pretty lame attempts.

I am back on my game plan and I feel really good! My goal is to lose 3.6 pounds over the next two weeks so that I have reached 35 pounds by Thanksgiving. I think it is totally doable. My strategy this week is to not use my anytime points, to count out everything, to stick to my eating plan, and to be serious about exercise. Last night Dan and I took a 40 minute walk and today we are doing a 50 minute walk after dinner and then I'll also be doing my weight lifting before bed. Touche!

Yesterday went really well. I didn't use any extra points but I also felt full by the end of the night! Huzzah! I never want to believe it, but when I get in my 5 servings of fruits and vegetables during the day I do feel fuller by the end of the night. I guess it's just science. I have been having fruit with breakfast, a fruit and veggie with lunch, and loads of veggies with dinner every night. I think other than the mean chicken curry I probably did pretty well last week in terms of the healthy guidelines.

For Thanksgiving Jan is making me a lean green bean casserole, a low fat stuffing, and a low fat pumpkin/cheese cake pie. She is also making baked sweet potatoes w/out butter or brown sugar, low fat squash soup and turkey, so I think I will be in for a relatively easy Thanksgiving Day. The real trouble comes at my soon to be inlaws houses...Dan's step mom has a plan to cook us a feast in celebration of our engagement! I may ask if I can "help cook" and maybe even suggest that we start with a salad or soup. Hey, I'm allowed to do that, right? And at Dan's mom's house it should be pretty easy, as she is usually keeping an eye on her weight. Again, I may ask if I can help cook or even just flat out ask if she could do a low fat dinner.

I made our Christmas shopping list for this year and have already started to knock out some of the men in our families. We decided that all our men are getting threadless shirts, so that makes life much easier. I've already chosen a bunch of designs for everybody, so now it's just up to me and Dan to pick who will get what. Easy peasy.

I feel accomplished in other areas in my life right now as well. I found us a great designer for the postcards for our show and was able to get them ordered in time for us to have them for the reading. I've nailed out a simple program for our reading, created a button image and got all that stuff ready for Katy, and I also created teasers for the show and got them all printed up and ready to go. Sometimes it seems like I have too much on my plate, but I also really enjoy taking on these projects and seeing them all the way through. We've managed to collect 10 boxes of books for the show, too. I'm also trying to start thinking ahead as to what we'll want to be focusing on next - like finding designers IMMEDIATELY for our fourth show and beginning the search for our fifth show space. I also have to say that I love the direction our company is headed. I feel like we have a solid group of people who are focused, positive, excited, and working really hard. No more negative energy. Hooray!

Wedding planning is also going really well. I completed a checklist for my family so we know what we need to do. My Dad apparently said, "Wow, she's really got this organized." Jan said she's going to look at it and see if I'm missing anything, which was the goal of the list to begin with. And right away Dan said, "you forgot to put purchase wedding bands." So we are all thinking on our feet, which is important. I can't wait to discuss everything over Thanksgiving. I feel bad for my brothers and sister, ha ha.