Photography Momma

"Mommy! Where is my twirly Nemo swimsuit?!?"

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:02:00 +0000

"Sammie, I think it's in my bedroom."

"Okay, mom. Thanks. Keep and eye on Ellie - I'll be right back."

*snicker*

"Okay, Sammie. I'll do that!"

Mommy, I want...

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:00:00 +0000

the yummiest, strawberriest, the blueberriest oatmeal you've ever seen!

Okay, Sammie! Coming up!

Poor Sammie!

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:15:00 +0000

She fell off the step and bashed her lip on the rocks. :( It looks pretty fat right now and her gums on the top got hit, too... Poor thing! I bet it will hurt a bit tomorrow.

I gave her some ibuprofen and some homeopathic meds (cal) in hopes to stave of any bad pain.

But if this is the worst we have to look forward to with owies, we're good to go.

Crazy few weeks!

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:43:00 +0000

Long story short, the last few weeks have been a bit nutty (illnesses, Chris' flight being late for Ellie's party, Ellie's party, more illnesses (nothing serious, just pukey stuff for Sammie and me) and things like that....

And the next few weeks are going to be crazy, but in a MUCH better way. LOL!

Tomorrow is the 4th of July! I love the 4th - so much fun....

We have Judy and Tom (Chris' mom and step-dad) coming to visit for 2 days along with KT, his sister. They are a blast. I am so excited for them to visit! It's been a few months because of hectic schedules, but they are finally able to make it!

I have a shoot on Monday.

Then my friend Evelyn and her boys, Kai and Colin, are coming for a 2 day visit. She's just such an amazing person and I'm really looking forward to getting to know her better.

On Friday the new iPhone comes out and I think Chris is headed to Denver to get us each one! YAY!

After that it's Chris' company gathering here in CB. And then Aunt Ginger comes for a few days... And then it's getting close to mushroom season. Rock on! I LOVE mushrooming - and this year looks to be a great year....

I have a confession

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:51:00 +0000

I love many of the Backyardigans songs. They just CRACK me up. The lyrics are catchy and smart - and above kids heads, but not in a rude way. And I've been known to listen to them even after dropping the girls off....

*drops head in shame*

I'm such a loser.

But here are some of the lyrics that kill me:

RACING DAY
[...]

Racing day, it's racing day,
Racing day, it's racing day!
It's not sausage casing day,
Today's the day we race.
[...]
Racing day, it's racing day!
It's not picture-tracing day,
Today's the day we race!
[...]
Racing day, it's racing day!
It's not doily lacing day,
Today's the day we race!
[...]
Racing day, it's racing day!
It's not self-effacing day,
Today's the day we race.

_____________________________

Another of my favorites:

I LOVE BEING A PRINCESS
[...]
If you want to dress like this, and wear a shiny crown,
If you like how people look when they are bowing down,
If princess life is what you want, your choice is crystal clear,
Go find some other country, pal,
'Cause I'm the princess here!

There are so many more, I'm embarrassed to say, that I like.....

My stinky girl

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:48:00 +0000

How is it that someone so ADORABLE and sweet can smell SO bad? LOL! She just has the stinkiest poops and toots. But the kicker is how proud she is! She will just GRIN at me when I ask who tooted. "I did, momma!"

So proud.

P U!!!

Ellie's party went well...

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 20:59:00 +0000

It was a bit hectic - Chris got stuck in NY and couldn't get there until it was just getting done! - but several of the moms and Jayme (she works at the Last Steep and is a doll ) helped me get the whole thing together at the last minute. The kids had fun and overall it was an easy party.... Thank goodness!

(I'll try to get some birthday pics up later... I actually forgot my camera - that's how crazy it was!)

Happy 5th Birthday, Ellie!

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:08:00 +0000

My sweet girl is FIVE! I can't believe it.... I asked her how it felt - she said a lot different! LOL!

I wanted to post a few shots that really are HER. These are my favorite recent ones....

She loves "Butterfly Music" (aka Beethoven's 5th) and will sit and "whistle" it and conduct....

She just has that look that makes you realize that somehow she knows much more than you can even imagine....

And her pure joy of life shines through in so many ways....

Happy Birthday, my special girl! I love you dearly....

The funny things my girls say...

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:58:00 +0000

Sammie is a thoughtful child. She comes up with some really funny, yet insightful things that make me smile.... Here are a few (with dates at the end)

"You are such a goofy kid, Sammie!"
"I not a kid, I'n [sic] a girl!" 2/10

"Sammie, why did you hit Ellie?"

"Because I wanted my way!" 3/1

"Sammie, stop crying!"
"I'm not crying, I'm whining!" 3/1

"Sammie, what are you singing?" (She is constantly singing something different. It's so adorable!)
"My berry song"

... a little later...
"My windy song" 3/27

I have a pair of feet! 5/5 (This was just a revelation for her! It was so sweet how her face just lit up!)

Ellie's funny little things are different. Some, I think, are different because of age. But I think many are different because of who she is....

"Walmart is like a big fat guy" 1/24

"bone arrow" = bow & arrow 2/8 (We argued about this - apparently I'm wrong!)

Girl stuff: mermaids, volcanoes, rockets
Boy stuff: dinosaurs, rocks. 3/11 (I love how her mind works - I just don't know what to do with girly stuff, but rockets and volcanoes I can deal with!)

These are real live stinky buses! 3/27 (She was SO excited to "smell" them!)

Why is the sky blue?

Where do frogs sleep? (The snow was still up to the edge of the water and she was quite concerned that they would get cold.)

How does the world spin?

Where did the earth come from? 5/'08 (These are just a few of the fun questions she asks - and she'll listen to the answer and then come back to it later! Amazing....)

Long Summer Nights

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:24:00 +0000

Thinking back to my childhood, I remember those long summer nights. Those days that felt like they went on forever. Being outside, the long twilight, playing and eating late. Staying up past my bedtime and falling into bed exhausted.

It's funny how my girls getting to that age - that age of being able to remember it as an adult - has spurred my memories to the foreground. I remember being 6 or 7 (Ellie's going to be 5 on Friday) and running around in a flowy nightgown pretending I was... flying... a princess... beautiful... a bird... who knows.

Jumping off the picnic bench while mom and dad worked in the garden, dad listening to the baseball games. Playing with my little brothers, doing my own thing, sneaking the juicy, ripe tomatoes out of the garden to eat whole - and getting "yelled" at for not washing them first. Going to bed while it's still just barely light with the breeze blowing the curtains - snuggled in my parents bed for some unknown reason. Hearing them in the above ground pool in our back yard giggling. (Turns out they were skinny dipping! LMAO!)

Checking out the stars. Seeing the moon rise so big over the yard that I thought it was a planet.

Riding bikes on the back track. Building a tree fort. Playing in the "woods". (A small strip of trees between our back yard and the dirt bike track behind our house.)

Wow. The amazing memories!

I love how my girls growing up doesn't make me feel older, doesn't make me feel every bit my 42 years. Rather, it makes me feel younger, brings me back to those carefree, innocent times of singing my heart out with no care of what anyone thinks....

Maybe I need to sing even louder and without a care in the world.

I love my girls! Thank you for this precious gift....

Update on the acupuncture...

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:21:00 +0000

Just a quick update, actually.... I will just leave it that I wasn't as happy with it as I was hoping. Yes, I did see some changes and it seemed to give Ellie some relief, but there were other aspects of the person doing it that I wasn't as happy with. She was sweet to Ellie after giving the acupuncture, but didn't do very much to ready Ellie for it - nor calm her much afterwards. That was all my job. And while I appreciate that I'm much more capable of it, I wanted her to get Ellie more prepared for it....

Ah, well! Back to homeopathy only!

Ellie's Hot on Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:32:00 +0000

"Mommy, I'm hot."

"Well, Ellie, let's get a short sleeved shirt for you."

"No, mommy. That only works on Mondays."

Laughing.... "Ellie, that's the silliest thing I've ever heard!"

"Mommy! I'm serious! It won't work today! Is it Monday? It only works on Monday!"

Acupuncture? On a KID?!!

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:34:00 +0000

Well, with Ellie's eczema raging out of control and homeopathy not seeming to help her yet and her itchiness just driving me insane (let alone what it's doing to HER!), I decided to see what acupuncture could do for her. After two treatments, I'm FLOORED at the difference. (I did take before shots I'll have to post some before/after shots later.) Her itchiness is almost completely gone and her eczema, which had been flaring for WEEKS is subsiding. We'd tried everything and nothing seemed to work at all.

She was amazing. Sure, she sobbed during her second treatment, but she held out her arm for the pokes on there and was SO incredibly brave. And literally less than 5 minutes later, she was joking around and being silly! As a matter of fact, she didn't even remember that she got poked on the back!

While I hate putting her through the trauma of getting poked with needles, if this is going to be as successful as it's appearing, it will be totally worth it. She won't be as uncomfortable and itchy and my heart won't break for her when I see the awful scratches on her skin.

I'll update later on how successful it is in the long run!

Doin' Some Landscaping

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:32:00 +0000

Well, it started out innocent enough. Chris did the lawn so I decided to churn the dirt under the spruce trees, dig out the pine needles and generally get it cleaned out. And plant just a few columbines. Then we started thinking about the area to the left of the front door - should we do this? Should we do that?

And Chris was off to the Alpen Gardener to buy a few things.

While he was gone, Ellie and Sammie were invited to go to watch a movie with Journey, our neighbor, and Journey's mom, Lisa and I sat and chatted about gardening. (She is the gardener for the Wedding Garden in Mt CB and knows a TON about landscaping.) I weeded, raked and cleaned up in anticipation of Chris returning.

When Chris returned, she mentioned a rock stash to him and they went off - and came back with the Beastmaster so loaded down with rock that it was almost a low rider! They went for a second load after realizing we didn't have quite enough and then we set to work tearing everything apart. (I think they did more of the work - Chris dug and Lisa used the pick ax on the ground! LOL!)

So we're all getting reading right now to head back out to do more.... (I think I'm about to get yelled at. LOL!) I must run and get dressed!

Ellie's Graduation

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:31:00 +0000

Yup, as odd as it may sound, Ellie graduated from preschool! LOL! I thought it was silly at first, but watching the kids in their homemade caps singing sweet songs, receiving their diplomas and bringing flowers to the parents was incredibly sweet. I admit that I even teared up.

Congratulations, Ellie! Off to Kindergarten in a few short months.

My little girl is growing up....

(Note: No pictures today - I'll have to update this post later since I haven't edited them and uploaded them yet.)

Shooting Rockets - on Mother's Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:13:00 +0000

A few months ago when we was in Colorado Springs visiting Nana, Papa, Grandma Judy and Grampa Tom, I stopped at Hobby Lobby for a few things. I noticed some small model rockets and thought, "The girls would love putting those together with daddy!" So I bought them....

I later gave them to Chris to give to the girls. And the first thing out of Ellie's mouth? "Daddy! Can we shoot these off?!?!"

*doh*

So he headed to Gunni and bought the necessary items and we had a BLAST (pun intended) shooting them off! It was an awesome Mother's Day!

We redid the office!

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:30:00 +0000

"We" being my mom, dad, Ellie, Sammie and me.... LOL!

About two weeks ago, I walked into the office and got a bug up my.... you know. I thought, "This office is ALWAYS a mess and I need to do something to it!" At first, my goal was going to be to rearrange and then paint quickly. But as I thought harder and harder about it, I realized that it needed some serious work.

But the catch - I wanted to do this while Chris was gone WITHOUT him knowing what I had planned! Crazy, eh? I knew he was leaving on Sunday and wouldn't be home until Thursday. Plenty of time to clean the office, caulk, paint and put it back together.

Before I go through the process, here is a shot of the office before the redo:

As you can see, it was quite full of... junk. And very poorly arranged. I couldn't stand the shelves along the back wall - they weren't very useful and when you looked close, you realized how out of date it was. Ugh!

So the first thing I did was pull EVERYTHING (except the shelves along the left side) out of the office. Needless to say, this created quite the mess in the rest of the house - but worth it for the final result! Then I pulled the shelves off the wall. That's when I realized that there was no way to get around texturing - not just the walls, but the ceiling. As you can see in the following shots, the ceiling tape was very visible and the shelves left some pretty bad scars on the walls.

A big job. One bigger than I had planned! Whoops! How could I texture the walls and ceiling AND paint and caulk AND put it all back together by Thursday? Only one way.... with help. My parents called on Sunday night and when I told them what was up, they actually offered to come help! They ROCK! (But they are kinda like that - willing to drop things and help out. Very cool.)

So I cleaned, caulked and generally did a LOT of little things before they arrived. I also found the old wallpaper. Very interesting!

My parents showed up the next day and we managed to get the walls textured and the most of the trim painted white. The girls helped with painting the trim, thanks to my mother's patience!

And while mom and I painted, textured and caulked, my dad entertained the girls. Or was it the other way around?

We finally started getting the REAL paint on the walls and booked through to the end!

Finally! The room was coming together - just a few hours before Chris came home. Unfortunately, my parents had to leave before he got home - I wanted them to see his reaction. Luckily, he was THRILLED with the (almost) final result!

Note the printer station in the corner - that will be replaced by something shorter with slots for different kinds of papers.

Chris' reaction!

See the baskets on my shelves? Hiding a bunch of my random stuff - much nicer looking. (Still more to do, but it helps a TON!)

On a side note, this isn't completely done. We've got a little more left to do. Some cabinets above each work space, Chris gets a new desk and chair and a few other minor odds and ends. I'll post pictures when it's fully completed!!!

And finally, a slideshow with a bunch more photos of the whole thing:

A very interesting article a friend posted

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 17:19:00 +0000

Thought some of you (wow, there ARE people reading my blog!) might enjoy this article. Goes right in line with what I've been talking about - and more!

The Blog | Kathy Freston: On Cancer and a Vegetarian Diet | The Huffington Post

I was just wondering if anyone was out there checking my blog!

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 13:16:00 +0000

Let me know.... (Fully anonymous...)

Randomly stumbled across something a little scary

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 12:44:00 +0000

So, I've been reading "The Food Revolution" and it's been quite interesting how important it seems to be to be buying organic.

And I'm on a photography message board, www.dgrin.com, that is having a contest and the two words this week - "artificial" and "organic".

So I Googled "organic" to get some ideas for taking photos and saw a picture of veggies that said "At what cost?" Hmmm.... Odd title

I headed here: http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/06/the_rotten_side.html and found a very interesting article!

Summarizing it, it essentially says that much of the organic food we are buying right now isn't really organic and may even be coming from other countries where "organic" isn't standardized or enforced. This is happening because of the HUGE demand right now for organic food.

What does this do? It lowers the standards for organic and, because of big business getting into the organic industry, they are forcing the smaller places to work even harder to keep up.

For example, did you know that Silk (as in soy milk) is owned by Dean Foods? They are "the $10 billion dairy conglomerate notorious for bottom line business practices such as injecting their cows with bovine growth hormone and paying the lowest prices possible to dairy farmers"! (See above link.)

I found this site backing it up.

Did you know that Cascadian Farms and Muir Glen are owned by General Mills? Not small companies, as I expected.

Now, if we are getting the same or better quality with sustainable practices from these large companies, while I'm bummed the small farms are going to have a hard time of it, this is bound to happen. But if these mega-corporations are providing less-than-organic products, this is just wrong!

Now to figure out the way to deal with this from a personal level. I know one way is to buy local organic foods. Tough for me during the winter, but they are talking about putting in a Saturday Farmers Market in town. How awesome would that be?

Prove me wrong: Milk

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 20:22:00 +0000

I've been reading a LOT of things that are really interesting lately and doing a lot of research that backs it up. One of the things that has been the most interesting to me is that dairy products are actually NOT good for you! There are some things IN dairy products that are good, but overall, they are really BAD for you!

Talk about shocking.... I mean, I've always worried that I was going to have osteoporosis because of my low consumption of dairy products. I was completely convinced that I was practically unAmerican!

But after reading all this stuff, I'm totally shocked.

So.... I'm going to go through what I've learned, put together a few things I've wanted to put together and show that milk ISN'T good for you.... and if you're not convinced, I would love for you to go out and prove me wrong! Don't be mean, though! LOL! Just post links to credible sources that show that I've got things wrong and we'll go from there....

Here goes:

WHY MILK IS BAD FOR YOU
Drinking milk does not insure that you'll have strong bones
To process animal protein, our bodies require calcium to do this. If there isn't enough calcium in our diets to process the amount of animal protein we're taking in, it will pull it from our body. This is not true with plant proteins - the do not pull calcium from our bodies.
From the National Institute of Health (NIH) and National Library of Medicine (NLM)

As a matter of fact, the higher your animal protein intake, the more likely you are to have bone loss! (This study was done on elderly women. AJCN - American Journal of Clinical Nutrition)

The National Dairy Council actually funded this study that proved that drinking additional milk was actually not helpful! Whoops!

More milk means more weight!
A study done about a year and a half ago on adolescent children found that milk was directly correlated to gaining weight - even though these were drinking 1% milk. The Washington Post sums it up and here is the actual study.

But what about calcium?
1 cup milk = 300mg calcium, of which 32% or 96mg is bioavailable (absorbable by the body)
Other foods that have the same amount of calcium (bioavailable): 1.5 cups broccoli, 1/2 cup firm tofu, 1/3 cup sesame seeds. 1 cup of cooked quinoa has the same amount of calcium as a quart of milk! And lots of fiber and no fat and a ton of other nutrients. (Except for the quinoa, all information taken from The Food Revolution on page 101.)

Human milk vs cow milk
This section is just me thinking - precious sections were taken from other sources....

I am currently reading The Food Revolution and one thing that struck me was that we are the only animal on Earth that consumes milk from other animals. Another thing that was mentioned was the fact that cows milk is made to grow a 50lb calf into a 300+ pound cow in a year. (My numbers may be off, but they're close.) And that got me to thinking.

Why would we go from drinking a milk (human breastmilk) that grows a child from about 7lbs to 20lbs in a year to drinking cow's milk which is designed for cows and putting a LOT of weight on in a small amount of time? Just odd that this even happened. And that we push people to drink a pretty hefty amount in hopes of losing weight and staving off osteoporosis, which cow's milk doesn't do!

I finally found this link (although I'm not sure who it is!) and you can see that in some things, the nutrition in both is quite different in many aspects.

Milk causes cancer?
Actually not so much causes cancer, but allows cancer to grow. This article on the BBC talks about the link between milk and ovarian cancer. Scary. (Note the small inset box on that article - suggesting a diet high in fruits and veggies. )

This article talks about the rise in IGF-1 levels when drinking cancer - this is directly related to higher rates of breast cancer.

I've looked for information talking about how Dr Campbell, author of "The China Study", fed rats casein (milk protein) at levels very similar to the American diet and how, after being injected with a carcinogen, they developed tumors. And when their animal protein levels were dropped to 5%, the tumor growth slowed or stopped. But I haven't found much yet.... And everything I have found to refute him is shown to have a specific agenda.

Anyway, you can read an excerpt from the book that talks about this here: http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/research-dr-campbells-china-study.html. If I find any studies that prove this, I'll add them to this post.

Hormone free in England?
I've read a lot lately that Europe is way ahead of the US. As a matter of fact, they refuse to even import meat from us because of all the hormones and antibiotics! But I stumbled across this short article about only purchasing hormone free milk: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6147472

Ellie is drawing letters!

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 20:15:00 +0000

Ellie has been writing her letters on her L-Max (a small electronic gadget that has different cartridges to do different things - like letters, numbers, etc) for quite a long time. At least 2 months, if I'm not mistaken!

But getting her to write letters on anything else is like pulling teeth! Or was... Recently, she started writing them on other things - like the sidewalk with chalk! (You can see her making and upside-down "A" here.)

She's also started counting to 20 - without missing any numbers! And she also is understanding the whole each number corresponds to a certain number of objects. I found her counting each rock as she threw it into the river several days ago! I was VERY proud of her!

She's also into making up words.... Like the "colorish" house. Colorish meaning colorful! LOL! It's so cute that I just don't want to correct her!

I also love how she's over the top with things. "Mom, I just LOVE my new watch!" Talking about a watch I got her several months ago! Silly goose.

She just keeps getting more and more affectionate, too. I love how she'll tell me she loves me or wants to hold my hand or snuggle with me. She wasn't interested in those things until relatively recently.

I am a very lucky mom to have such wonderful girls!

Sammie is potty training herself!

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 19:50:00 +0000

I don't know whether to be excited or freaked! LOL! I know that she's really young (23 months) to be potty training, but she's been insisting. On Saturday (it's Thursday now), she decided no more diapers.

Okay, we'll try it....

She's had 1 poop accident and 3 or 4 pee accidents - that's all! I'm floored by how well she's done! We'll see, though. I'm totally fine if this doesn't work, but I'm not going to fight it anymore. (She's been trying to do this for several months, but I wasn't sure she could "get" it - you know, the feeling of having to use the bathroom.)

Oh, the photos are faces she makes while sitting on the potty! She's hilarious.

As for other things, she's started to know her colors and some of her letters, she can count to 10 - mostly - and is learning a LOT of songs! This is such a neat age - seeing her vocabulary grow almost hourly.

Major intestinal issues...

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 02:23:00 +0000

Okay, for those of you that are averse to TMI (too much information) type posts, you may want to just skip this one....

As someone who has always been prone to minor intestinal issues, I've been pleasantly surprised by how... um... regular... and well... great things have been in that area! I used to get constipated on a fairly regular basis, but when I'd have too much dairy, things would race through my system in record time - often very painfully. (I have minor lactose intolerance.)

I've actually only had one or two bites of red meat in the last 5 or 6 weeks, very little cheese, a tiny bit of fish and that's about it.

Today I had several bites of Sammie's gyro - with lamb, cheese and tzaziki sauce on it.... It was good, but not great.

But OMG! My innards have been rebelling for about 4 hours. Several quick trips to the restroom that are barely in time. Stomach cramps. Really bad heart burn. You name it. I felt like hell! Truly. (Hopefully the last trip finished everything off.)

So, you're thinking, why in the world am I talking about all this? Mainly because I wonder how something (meat, dairy) that is supposed to be SO good for me can make me feel SOOOOO horrible! I have had NOTHING in the last several weeks that has come from plants that has made me feel even remotely bad! (Okay, so I've had some gas.... But that's IT! Truly.)

For a moment I was a little sad - this means I really probably can't eat meat for real anymore, same with dairy, as my body isn't used to it anymore. I have the feeling I could wean myself back onto them - if I really wanted to. But why? I seriously doubt cutting out plant foods and then adding them in would do this to me. Actually, if I cut them out and added them back in, I'm sure my body would LOVE me for it! LOL! (Well, after it got over the loathing because of cutting them out.)

So.... lesson learned. I'm truly vegan! It feels GOOOOOD! :)

My cholesterol update!

noreply@blogger.com (Andi) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:21:00 +0000

Well, I have been REALLY great about being vegan at home and have noticed a few odd things - I have NO desire for meat! I had Fra Diavalo (spicy Italian dish) with scallops the other day - and gave the scallops to my SIL! This is truly unheard of for me.. Weird! I've eating a little bit of cheese going out, but that's it. (As a side note, I'm not grossed out by meat/fish, but it just doesn't taste good to me anymore.)

I haven't weighed myself in a while, but I suspect I'm still around 173 - that's 8lbs in about 6.5-7 weeks. VERY slow, but it's staying off. I still feel great, too.

But the BIG news.... I got my blood tested before my surgery on monday.

Old cholesterol: 194
New cholesterol: 168!!!
I dropped almost 30 points!

But the other exciting thing is my ratios are awesome!

HDL (good) was 76 and is now 66 (should be above 50)
LDL (bad) was 100 and is now 77 (should be below 130)

And the ratio of good to bad should be less than 2.5:1 and mine was 1.32 and is now 1.166!!!! WOW!!! (Obviously was good before, but is GREAT now.)

This was actually my goal - to get my cholesterol down. I would love to have it below 150, but not sure what to do to get it any lower. And I feel really great about the numbers so I'm not going to stress it.... I have the feeling it may go down even more.