Milestones

I had a conversation with my coworker last night about WW and weight in general. 

She asked me, “Are you still doing Weight Watchers?”

The funny thing is my usual reply is yes.  You never actually stop doing WW.  But, when I really stopped to think about it, doing WW means  that I am attending my weekly meetings , that I am tracking my food daily, that I am exercising several times a week, and that I am making healthy food choices most of the time.

In that case then no, I am not doing WW anymore.  Of course the answer isn’t as cut and dry as it seems and often the answer tends to end with me rambling.  As I’ve shared many times before on this blog the struggle to lose weight is really hard and the struggle to keep the weight off is really hard. 

I have been thinking a lot about milestones in our lives and how they relate to weight. 

When you are fat you are aware that you are fat but your life isn’t necessarily sectioned out into milestones that remind you that you are fat.  Sure when you are only able to shop in the ugly plus size section, it hurts your feelings from time-to-time but you usually go about your life just being fat.  It’s who you are.

When you lose weight and suddenly you are skinny your life takes on a new milestone.  This is what separates you from your fat days and your skinny days.  You will now create a timeline that refers to events as before and after.

If you are lucky enough to stay skinny…well…it is quite grand.  It can feel carefree and enjoyable most of the time.  The compliments really rock!

If you aren’t lucky enough to stay skinny and you start to get fat again…well…then there are LOTS of milestones that hit you in the face like a ton of bricks.  You now compare the before and after but it isn’t as positive as when you were skinny.  You start to feel anxious when you are attending a social function wondering if people will notice that you used to be skinny.  You start to talk negatively to yourself when you remember how awesome it was to be skinny but that you aren’t anymore.  You are reminded every time your pants don’t fit that you used to wear a size (fill in the blank) but now you can’t fit into more than half the clothes in your closet.   

When I hosted my annual Academy Award Party on Sunday, it was like taking a trip down memory lane. 

Here I am at an Academy Awards Party about 10-ish years ago.  My Aunt Barb is wearing my high school homecoming dress.
 

 

Here I am at an Academy Awards party three years ago.  I am wearing my high school homecoming dress.

 

This year, I doubt the dress still fits.

Milestones. 

When you lose weight your life will now be measured in milestones.

We Sold A House AND Bought A House Both In The Same Day

I have exciting news (of course the title has given it away).  We sold and bought a house all in the same day!

 

We already had a meeting with our realtor at 4:30pm yesterday.  At about 3pm the CBH Homes counter offer came back and we really wanted to me with our buyer’s agent.  She was able to squeeze us in at 4pm.  Everything with the new home looked good so we signed on the dotted line, got a letter from our mortgage broker, and will hopefully get started on the building process here soon.  Yeah!

At our second meeting we discussed the offer on our house.  Since this was an offer that came BEFORE our house was even actually put on the market, our realtor explained to the buyer that the offer needed to be substantial.  And boy was it!  We signed the contract on the offer and are now in the waiting period for the inspection and appraisal to be completed.  Since the buyer is getting a VA loan, our realtor is a bit anxious about the appraisal portion.  So far our home is selling for higher than comps in the area.  I am keeping our fingers crossed we don’t run into any snags.  If we do, we can still continue with listing our house and officially putting it on the market. 

 

Since our house doesn’t have to be ready-to-show next week we can now relax a little bit on the stress of moving/packing/cleaning/painting/etc.  I’ve cancelled all the appointments except for the professional cleaner.  I’m still going to have her tackle my master bathroom on Saturday.  We also need to continue to get stuff moved out as we prepare for an inspection/appraisal and a projected closing date of April 15^th.  Maybe now I can actually sleep again.  It has been tough dealing with all this and being on the graveyard shift at work.

I’ve also been neglecting my self-care.  The scale continues to go up and I’m feeling more and more uncomfortable in my pants.  I didn’t have a really successful month of activity either.

 

It is harder to get the three goals met when I am on night shift.  Since the watch changes over at midnight, I have to be diligent of getting in my activity.  As is I’ve been really lazy with formal activity and have put that on the back burner.  I’ve not been to Curves in weeks and really need to make a better effort to get back to it.  Now that I don’t have to be dealing with appointments interrupting my sleep I can make activity a priority again.

The same goes with making healthy eating a priority again.  We’ve been eating out way too much!  I did some grocery shopping/meal planning yesterday.  We need to stick to it!  We also need to start going through what we have in the freezers so I’ve tried to plan some meals around that.

I badly need to re-focus on myself.  Instead I seem to be finding every reason to focus on something else.  If it isn’t a job change it is a new house purchase.  Eventually I’ll run out of diversions and have to get back to facing the real issue…my weight gain.

The Last Few Days: Lots Of Packing And Moving

Good Morning and Happy Wednesday.  I am writing this just after midnight so I can officially wish you a happy mid-week hello.  I’m sorry for my absence.  It was a crazy busy weekend but a productive weekend as well.

Saturday:

Saturday was the first day Kenyon and I actually had time to really dig in and do some packing.  We got a late start but still managed to get quite a bit done.  We rented our storage unit and picked up boxes from Uhaul.  Since the weather was a bit iffy and started out with rain we figured that was the better day to be inside packing.  My Mom came over and helped me tackle the kitchen which was a huge help.

While we were packing I noticed the same car drove by three times.  As we were about to head out to lunch two females were walking up the driveway.  I stepped out to greet them saying I noticed they had driven by a few times.  It was an older gal from California that was interested in buying the house and her daughter-in-law that lived close by.  They wanted to know when we might be ready to sell and at what price.  I extended an invitation to come inside and look around despite the mess and chaos of packing.  We made sure to get them our realtor’s information so they could make contact with her.

Saturday evening I had a party to attend.  I was invited to a Fuller House premiere party at my coworker’s house as I am friends with his wife.  I got there too late to visit with their twin boys and see my friend Stephanie’s little girl.  I’ve seen lots of photos and I was sad to miss out seeing those cuties.   We had a great time and I wished I could have stayed longer.  I love Fuller House and as soon as I have a spare minute I’ll get back to my binge-watching.

 

 

Sunday:

Sunday was our Uhaul day.  We went to breakfast and then picked up the Uhaul bright and early.  I had talked with my Mom and she and Dad had offered to come help us load the Uhaul.  Again, it was such a huge help.  Once we had the Uhaul loaded it was time to get ready for my annual Academy Awards Party.  I was exhausted and was down to the wire on time getting things put back together so my friends weren’t sitting amongst a mess.  I kept thinking to myself “it is a good thing we are getting a bigger house” every time I saw my friends squeezed into our tiny kitchen and dining room.  Jamie’s daughter Audrey told me, “I hope you get a bigger table too.”  How cute!

During our party we got an email from our realtor that the same people that came to the house on Saturday wanted a pre-showing of the house Sunday afternoon.  They were fully aware the house wasn’t in the ready-to-show condition but they were really interested in purchasing our house.  We decided we could make it work.  I was really exhausted by the end of the evening and as much as I protested Jamie helped clean up, which the next morning I was grateful for.

Monday:

We started our day in a furry with un-loading the Uhaul and then packing and boxing so we could get ready for the pre-showing.  Since we had to get large items into the Uhaul the day before we had stuff all over the floor that had been removed from bookcases.  I was also trying to get the house clean and in showing-condition.  We got a text at one point from the buyer’s agent asking if they could move the time up…ack!  Thankfully we were able to say no as we just weren’t ready.  I had a mini-meltdown with all the stress and anxiety.

I used the stager’s recommendations to try and make the house look somewhat presentable.

We barely made it out of the house with 15 minutes to spare and went out to Red Robin for lunch.  We were exhausted.  It is really hard to pack and clean in preparation for a pre-showing.  I think that was more work than just the packing/moving alone.  We had hoped they would make us a decent offer on the house so our time spent wasn’t for nothing.

We came home from lunch and I proceeded to take a two hour nap.  As much as I knew I should keep working on the house, instead I took the night off.  Three days of packing and moving is really tough on the body.  I think I exceeded my daily movement goal everyday over the weekend and one day I doubled it!

Tuesday:

I had to return to work at 8pm but was awake in the late morning.  The painter stopped by to put a paint sample on the wall and I moved a few things to the storage shed so I could get my car back in the garage.  That was about it.  I’ll be honest; I’m losing steam on this whole moving/packing experience. 

We got offer on the house and it is a really good offer.  We meet with our realtor later today to discuss the offer and hopefully she can tell us the bottom line after all the fees are paid what we will come away with.  We are also expected to get our counter offer back with CBH Homes later today so that will give us an idea on how much we need for our 10% down payment.

If we are able to accept this offer, it means we won’t have to rush anymore.  This would mean that we no longer have to get our house ready for showing and no longer would be on such a quick deadline.  If all things go smoothly and there aren’t any issues with a home inspection, they would be looking to close in April.  We could push back our pending appointments for painting, carpet cleaning, and window cleaning until I can get back to dayshift in another week and a half.  That would be awesome!

Well, there is a recap of our last few days.  My Mom said on Saturday that I must enjoy thriving on stress.  She was pretty sure when I came back to ISP I was looking to just be normal again.  Then I decided to go and buy a house.  In the end it will all be worth it but boy is it stressful!