This Little Piggy...Makes Lemonade

So life throws curve balls and if you don't have an open glove you can't catch the ball.  So much has happened and changed in the past few months.  My best friend and cousin is moving to South Carolina to embark on a wonderful career opportunity.  Her amazingly wonderful boyfriend is going with her, and we hope to make him a part of the family sometime...sooner rather then later hopefully.  I moved in with my best friend and partner in crime from college.  It is amazing after so much time, and even after we didn't talk for a while we were able to pick up right where we left off.  We are in the process of buying a house, oh we have adopted another dog (making for 3 now).  Life is full of surprises, never did I think a year ago I would be in this moment now.

So I quit Piggy Farm, I dunno why, I just did.  It is a great program and one I may take up later.  I went to my doctor and he prescribed me some appetite suppressants.  To date I have lost 95 pounds!!! I have a long way to go but I am getting there, one pound at a time!

I still have my same job and I still love it.  Burn out has become a reality and I have been more on top of my vacations and taking the time I have and deserve.  The people I work with are great and we always have a good time!

After a "minor" set back with a vacation property in Florida, I realized that crafting and design is something I love and am good and passionate about.  My roommate suggested I start my own business.  After a long time of No's I finally agreed to look into it.  My biggest fear was what if I don't make any money, to which he said, "Val you already have, people have already hired and payed you for tons of stuff.  You just don't look at it like that"  So I agreed to give it a go...we will see what happens!

So here we go....New me, new adventures, same blog!!!  Losing weight is hard enough, it's harder when you love food, whomever said "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" is either anorexic or hates life! because my motto is "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feel...except pizza, chips, cake, and all other food."  Food is delicious...I'll let you know when I have an idea of what skinny feels like.

So any ideas for my business name? The only thing we came up with was Decorative Designs: Party Planning and Interior Design. Any ideas are appreciated!!!!

Just remember when life throws you lemons cut it up and add it to a Corona.

This Little Piggy....has a Dodge's Hangover!

OK so it has been a while.  The problem is I have fat kid moments but then forget them before I get here!  Well this is one I can't forget.  Let me explain...In college there was a gas station called Dodge's Chicken Store.  This place was open 24 hours and served gas station chicken wings, tenders, pizza sticks, crispitos, corn dogs, burritos and of course Jojo's.  It was pretty much a given that any night you drank, when you were ready to go home you made stop at Dodges for food.  Now you can only eat at Dodges after you drank because the food is sooo greasy you need the alcohol to be able to break it down.  If you have failed to drink and decide to eat Dodge's prepare for the worst heartburn EVER!!!!  Dodges is a tradition and only the most incredible fat kid snack place ever!  So you can imagine that when I left Clarksville after graduation I was sad to see it go.

Now the first time after college I was blessed with locating a Dodges was when I lived in Florida.  I was in Orlando with a friend and he suggested that we go grab some food.  I said sure so as we were headed to McDonald's, I start screaming STOP!!!!!! STOP!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD STOP!!!!!!!!!!!! My friend freaks out and says "Are you OK?! what's wrong??!!??!"  I scream PULL THE CAR OVER!! so he does and I say "It's a Dodges"  to which he looks very disturbed and says "you know that is a gas station!" Obviously he does not have any idea about Dodges, but one thing was for sure...I didn't eat McDonald's for lunch that day!!!

Now my most recent Dodges find was in the most surprising of places!  On my way to lunch with the girls on Friday someone mentions a Dodges.  I say "I love Dodges I miss it so much!" they say "why do you miss it there is one here!?"  My response was "WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!?! WHERE?!?!!??!?!?!  I was ecstatic!  I called my friend Tiffy and this is the voicemail I left while screaming " Oh my God Tiffy, this is a 911 Emergency call me back immediately!!!!!!!!!" about 4 seconds later she calls back.  I tell her "Tiffy this is the best news we have ever heard about Little Rock!" I can tell she is half asleep and I say "There is a Dodge's in this town!!!!"  We both start screaming and make plans to find this Dodges later that evening!  That night I call Tiffy and we set out on our trek to Dodges.  We found it.  May have needed an armored car and some guns but we went and got our Dodges.  Tiffy and I ate Pizza Sticks, Crispitos, Corn Dogs, Chicken Strips, Jojo's....when I got home that night I passed out on the couch and sunk into a food coma!

Passing out from eating to much waking up feeling like crap!You know you are a fat kid when eating has the same effect on you, as alcohol does on an drinker!  But you do it anyway because you can't say no to a Chicken Strip and a Jojo.

This Little Piggy...Has To Potty!!!

So the Piggy Farm scale was not so nice to me this week.  Only lost .2 pounds....BOO! But a loss is a loss!  After looking at my weekly points tracker it was apparent that I was not drinking the required 6 servings of water a day, I was not eating the required 5 servings of fruits and veggies daily, and I wasn't eating near my required daily points, so basically it was my fault I didn't lose weight! So this week to get back on track I am sticking to the program 100%!! So far so good.  I have realized, however, the reason drinking so much water helps you lose weight is not because it cleans your system out, or because it hydrates you, it is because the more water you drink the more times you have to pee, which means the more times you have to walk to the bathroom.  I swear I walked a mile and a half from my office to the bathroom on Thursday!

Well like I said a loss is a loss and to celebrate my loss my brother and I had lunch at my favorite Mexican Food  Restaurant (what did you expect from a fat kid???) It was glorious per usual...anyway after lunch we were talking about this weekend and how we are all getting together with my grandmother.  I was trying to give him directions to the hotel where we are meeting, here are the directions: "Take the Shackleford Road Exit.  You will pass Mama B's Burgers, you will go to the top of the hill and the hotel is behind Krispy Creme Donuts, if you get to Cracker Barrel you have gone to far."  As I went through the directions again in my head it dawned on me that all my landmarks are restaurants.  Such a fat kid moment when you realize that directions you give are dictated by your local eateries!

This Little Piggy...."Thinks A Serving Size is Merely A Sample"

So this week was interesting.  Since my birthday was last Monday and I ate two entire cakes (don't judge me) I wasn't surprised to step on the Piggy Farm scale and have only lost .6 pounds ( I was just thankful I didn't gain weight)  Kind of a big hit for me, this is the first week since I started that I haven't gotten a 5 pound star! So I knew I needed to kick it into high gear.

On Friday's the girls in the office like to have lunch together.  This past Friday we decided to go to Mexico Chiquito.  Now let me just say...I love Mexican food, it's my favorite, not sure if it's the cheesy, meaty, fried goodness, or the fact that you leave smelling like a taco for the rest of the day to remind you of the amazing meal you just had, but for whatever reason I LOVE Mexican food!  Well anyone doing Piggy Farm knows that Mexican Food is the WORST thing for you, because of the delicious awesomeness packed into every fried bite!!! Now since I started Piggy Farm I like to have my points figured out before I go to lunch just to make sure I am on track.  Nikki sent me the Piggy Farm Mexican food "cheat sheet" which gives you a ball park figure for different foods.  I was looking through trying to figure out what my points would be for lunch (even though I knew it would probably be around 400,000 points and since I only get 60 for the day I knew I was screwed but just wanted to see how badly)  Melissa came over and we were talking about the chips and salsa, I said Chips and salsa aren't bad, but you only get 8 tortilla chips in a serving, I eat at wayyyy more than 8 chips.  Melissa said, " 8 chips, that's not a enough, that can't be a serving, 8 chips is a sample!!!!" That's a true fat kid moment, when you realize that a serving size is merely a sample!

This Little Piggy...Isn't Paying Taxes! (this weekend at least)

If you live in Arkansas and had to go out anywhere in public on Saturday or Sunday you know that it was tax free weekend!  It was much like Black Friday, only for school supplies! Don't get me wrong, I love the adrenalin rush of pushing that 7 year old out of the way for the polk a dot binder but just not the same as Black Friday.  We took my 5 year old nephew to get his school supplies for Kindergarden, we had a lot of fun not to mention the ice cream guy was handing out free fudgecicles at Wal-Mart! YUMMM.....I was good though and forgoed the delicisous creamy chocoalte on a stick....I knew I was having birthday cake later....So after about an hour of unruley parents and their children, we decided to wrap up the Wal-Mart Trip and head to our next destination.  I still needed to get a lot of school supplies for the Back To School Supply drive at work but mom and I agreed in order to prevent chaos we would come back later alone.  After the day was done mom and I decided that 1:00am would be a great time to head back out hopefully no one would be in the store, we were right.  We got the school supply donations we needed and then mom and I headed over to the clothes to look for a cute top to just see what they had.  Now normally the plus sizes are by the jewelry, and razorback gear, then it is the missess and juniors then over by the food is the exercise clothes (kinda ironic that you can get your gym shorts and candy bars on the same isle....just saying) but this time the clothes were not in that order, mom and I started near the jewelry and we were in what I refer to as "tween clothes"--you know that weird style that you think is cool but you would look ridiculous in because you are too old for....that section.  In the middle was the misses then next to the food was now the plus size clothes....talk about convenience...........Coincidence? I think not!--Well played Wal-Mart, Well Played.

Speaking of convenience reminds me of one of my all time favorite fat kid moments of the past!  My brother Russell, my friend Sarah and I had all gone to Panama City Beach Florida for Spring Break.  One night after going to a club, we were starving so I drove us through McDonalds.  Sarah ordered a cheese burger and an ice cream cone.  As I handed her the food, she looked at the ice cream cone in one hand and the cheese burger in the other and with the most frantic look on her face says "Oh my god I don't know what to do? Which do I eat first?  The ice cream cone or the cheeseburger?!? I can't make these decisions, why can't they put the ice cream on the cheeseburger, then I could have it all in one!"  I said, now that is a true fat kid momement..."ummm can I get a vanilla double cheeseburger cone please...would you like fries with that?!

This Little Piggy's got Buns of Character!

That's right, I might not have buns of Steel but I do have "Buns of Character."  Every other first Sunday my brother and sister in law take the Youth Group of their church to work for a soup kitchen called "Stone Soup" where they make an entire meal and serve it to people in need.  It's a great opportunity for them to give back and really show the kids in youth how blessed they truly are.  I started going with them because I love to get involved and they need all the help they can get to wrangle a large group of teenagers!  This week the menu was hot dogs, apple sauce, baked beans and cake.  I said I would help prepare the buns while the hot dogs were cooking.  We had to mix up mustard and relish, open all the buns, smear the mixture on the buns and line them up on huge trays.  We started out working pretty quickly but our pace slowed the longer the buns were out because of the weather.  The humidity was making the buns wet and sticky and harder to open.  After about the fourth bun that ripped apart I thought to myself, we can't serve these to people, they look horrible! So I set the buns in a pile to the side.  As we got to the end of the 200 buns, the line of people started to grow in front of the windows.  I still had my broken buns to the side, and thought to myself, these buns might not be the best looking buns but they serve a purpose.  They have character! Like the buns I might not look perfect but I have character! The buns, even broken, can provide a meal to someone who may not have one otherwise.  My body, no where near perfect can still do things like volunteer to serve meals to those who are hungry, can still help people in need, and can still accomplish a lot of things in life!  So as I left Stone Soup today I thought to myself "yep, MY buns have Character!" 

This Little Piggy..Went for Mexican Food!

Sooo.....dieting has been my way of life since I was about 13.  I wasn't a true fat kid until about the 6th grade.  Growing up in a small town there isn't a lot to do except eat...obviously.  I wasn't too bad off until college.  Now, some people will tell you to "beware the freshman 15!" I'm here to tell you to "beware the sophmore 50!!!!" I started to gain weight and didn't really care, I was so busy in college the only time I had to eat was in the middle of the night at Waffle House while I was trying to cram for an exam, learn lines for a play, or just trying to avoid doing any work at all...and since you only wear sweatpants and pajamas in college you don't really notice the weight!  After college I was so busy trying to get a job and I was so poor the only thing I could afford to eat was Ramen (yummmm)! I finally landed my dream job and am working so hard on my career, but it's time I work on myself as well.  Last year I set a goal for myself to run a half marathon by my birthday.  Well a few bumps in the road and needless to say my birthday is next Monday, and I am no where near a half marathon in fact I'm not even close to a half mile!  In all fairness and excuses I was on a really good track until about December when I had to have my gall bladder removed.  After that I was pretty unmotivated to get back on the track.  I had lost over 50 pounds and since my surgery I have gained almost all of it back! After some coaxing from my best friend Bernice Bernice and a few co-workers I have taken on the challenge of Weight Watchers, which I will refer to as Piggy Farm (thanks to Bernice)! I am very skeptical of Weight Watchers because I don't understand how I can still eat a Whopper and fries and still lose weight.  However I agreed to give it 100% and really try it!  I am at week 3 and have lost a total of 17 pounds, 7.5 the first week, 6.5 the second week and 3 pounds this week.  So it's working...so far!  Even with my small amount of weight loss I am still a true fat kid and have my fat kid moment's daily!!!

Take today for example...
Each week a group of girls from the office decides to go to lunch together.  We had decided earlier this week to go get Mexican food and Cactus Jacks (only the greatest Mexican restaurant within a quarter of a mile)  Now you know you are a fat kid when you wake up and your first thought of the day is "Hooray! Today i get Cactus Jacks for lunch"  All morning I watched my computer clock thinking about the greatness I would order at lunch, all of a sudden I get a call from one of the girls "Val, after Cactus Jack's can we get a snow cone?" Now my immediate thought is "OMG did I win the lottery today!??!?! Not only am I getting Mexican Food but a Snow Cone?!, I'm in fat kid heaven"  Now on a side note, the Mexican food was incredible and I have never inhaled chips and salsa that fast in my life, but I did remember that would be all of my points for the entire WEEK so I needed to take it easy on the snow cone.  So...I had a sugar free snow cone.....still amazing and still 0 points!!!!!

I will always be a true fat kid!!!