Friday, July 15, 2011

Things Falling and Keys

Where to start, where to start.  I suppose the scale would be as good a place as any.  Yep, the numbers are dropping.  I must have had a WHOLE LOTTA water retention going on.  I've done basically no physical activity for the last 48 - 72 hours and yet the numbers have been progressively dropping.  Yesterday they were at 232 and today they are at 230.  That just shows I wasn't overstating how sore I was because that is a LOT of fluid retention!

Next ... my pants.  You know, the ones I take pictures in every month?  I think it's about time for new ones.  They are now so baggy on me that they drag the ground when I walk so the hems are starting to fray and frazzle and the other day I even got them stuck over the heel of my shoe, didn't realize it at first, and walked a hole in them.  I could just cut the length up a bit to compensate but they're baggy around the hips and waist too.  I used to be able to tie the draw string at a comfortable size and then use the elastic to pull them on/off without untying them but I have now become too small for the elastic.  I have to tie them so tight that there is no longer any stretch which means I either tie them loose enough to pull them on/off without untying them but then I feel the need to hold them up when I try to put my cell phone in my pocket, or I have to untie and retie them a dozen or so times a day.  It is becoming tiresome.  It is awesome news, of course, but I hate buying new clothes ... hate it.  Even if they are smaller than the ones I had before.  You can see in this month's pic what I mean ... my feet are practically drowning in pant leg, all you can see are my toesies.

November, 2010 (start)
July, 2011 (present)




















So I'm holding my arms weird in this picture because my bra is now also too big and the underwires dig into my armpits.  Lovely huh?  P.s. I'm posting this in the right margin with a weight of 229.0 since we know that Monday's weigh-in was an annoying fluke.

And finally, keys: Yep ... that's right.  Finally, 14 days late, we are closing on the house and getting keys TODAY!  I am a somewhat jaded individual so there is this part of me that thinks 'I'll believe it when I see it' ... like some horrible bomb is going to drop out of the sky and blow up my house right before I get the keys or something.  But the president of my lending agency called to congratulate me yesterday along with the Lender, the Processor, and the Appraiser so I guess that's a pretty good sign that it's official.  I'm on pins and needles just waiting to hear from the Realtor today.  We have all of our cleaning supplies boxed up and ready to go and first thing after work tonight we're going to go over and start scrubbing the place down from top-to-bottom so that we can paint.  We've scheduled utilities to be transferred on July 23rd and are going to get a U-Haul and some scouts to come help us move everything in one fell swoop.  Don't worry, I'll be sure to take before and after pics for the blog! :)




Food:
11 glasses of water
1 cup of coffee w/creamer
1/2 serving sunflower seeds
1 Healthy choice lunch
1 serving veggie chow mein
1 serving beef w/broccoli
1 serving garlic chicken
--------------------------------
Daily Caloric Intake: 1,114




Activity:
4 flights of stairs
Shopping: Ran through Home Depot grabbing cleaning supplies
Cleaning: Washed four sets of blinds, three A/C vents, two ceiling fans, two light fixtures, seven windows, and all walls from top to bottom in two rooms including base boards (up and down off a step ladder a lot!).
Demolition: Snackers ripped out the carpet in what will be my office and then I used a scraper to get the glue and old padding off the concrete and swept the room.

5 comments:

  1. WOW, those 2 photos are just SHOCKING!
    :D

    And *CONGRATS* on your new home! YEAY!
    PS: painting before you move in is a good move; we were so busy we didn't do it and it's only now (5 years later) that we are starting to prepare to do it... but it's going to be a bit harder now since we live there. Oh well. Anyways, yeah, CONGRATS!


    PSS: paints can be pretty unhealthy for you to live in. They off-gas for like a year and it's actually pretty toxic. You'd do yourself a favor to look at a low-toxic paint and also invest in a good air-purifier (one that removes "Volatile Organic Compounds" -- VOCs) to place near your bed while you sleep. We spent about $180 on ours from Costco several months back, but they no longer carry that one. Call me if you want more info. to help you shop. You can find out more info about VOCs here: http://www.epa.gov/iaq/voc.html

    YEAY!
    :D

    (b)

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  2. I'd like to get a purifier anyway because Piper is allergic to Casper (as is Snackers' brother). I'll look up the link and see if I can talk Snackers into it. He claims that they are a waste of money but I disagree with him.

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  3. Love the pics!! Amazing job!
    And cograts on the keys!!!

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  4. A quality purifier isn't a waste of money -- JUST THE DUST ALONE that I've seen mine catch has opened my eyes... we're not "dusters" (actually dust our house less than once/year), but I've noticed by keeping our furnace filter cleaned regularly and not keeping the windows open the levels of dust in our home are pretty low (just ask mom!) -- anyways, after installing these it seems the dust is eve less.

    Also, at least with ours, you can smell the difference... come back to a home closed-up over a long 3-day weekend away and it doesn't smell musty.

    Furthermore, there's a boat-load of studies out there by the EPA that shows that good-filtered indoor-air is several times healthier than outdoor air (in most areas) whereas indoor-air that does not get filtered is several times worse than the outdoor air.

    Finally, the U.S. Navy filters their air on submarines (and ships too!) using a number of different techniques, one of which is "electrostatic filtration" (which is what mine uses) where the filter has a insert of thin sheets of metal that the air passes over... these sheets are charged with electricity and as the air passes over them the electricity causes the particles in the air to bind to the sheets (thereby pulling them from the air)... particular large particles will occasionally cause the filter to "zap!" much like a bug-zapper. After 2-4 weeks of run-time you can pull that insert out and see a *LOT* of dust that it has captured. One of the drawbacks that some people don't like about this type of filter is that if you smoke inside your house this filter will pull the tars out of the air but it makes it a lot harder to clean the filter because of how sticky the tars are. (that being said, I've read smokers say that spraying it down with clorox and letting it sit in the sink for 10minutes before putting through a cycle in the dishwasher is all you need to get it clean)

    So yeah, they work. You can *SEE* that they work.

    Granted, they aren't perfect, but if I'm not mistaken they are something like 99% effective down to some really small particulate-size (1 micron I think, don't recall for sure).

    But if they're good enough for the U.S. Navy, I'm guessing they're good enough for me!

    :D

    Seriously, though, don't forget to check into "low VOC"-paints. Not sure you can get them at the local Home Depot, I think you have to go to one of the specialty-paint stores. Vegas, though, is sure to have a large handful so it shouldn't be too hard to find.

    I'm looking at using Benjamin Moore paint... looks like really pretty stuff and they claim you'll never need more than 2 coats for any surface, any color.... so that way, even though it's more money, my family will have cleaner air, the paint will look better longer, and I'll be able to better estimate up-front how much paint I'll need per room.

    (b)

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  5. Here's a document on naval-filtration technologies... you can see the write-up on the electrostatic stuff on page 8.

    http://courses.washington.edu/cive494/HEPA.pdf

    (b)

    ReplyDelete