Weight Loss and A Night Out

Yesterday was some day!

I got up around 0630, watched a bit of telly with the main man, then got up at 0905 and showered fast. I was just getting ready to get out the door when Greg called. I love him but I couldn't get him off the phone! I raced over to the chiropractor, was massaged, then twisted into a pretzel. I ran out of there and headed to my parents' house.

We had breakfast and then went visit Ma in St. Joseph's Hospital. I'm not crazy about religious hospitals or any place run by one religious group and frightningly enough, there is a crucifix on the wall.. because that is what I want to look at when I am in a hospital room... a dead guy nailed to a cross. Uh-huh. There is faith and there is positive thinking and then... a crucifix. This doesn't seem weird, negative and just a little depressing?

Well, anyway, despite the horror of seeing crucifixes on the walls in every room, it seems to be a pretty okay hospital. The rooms could use a paint job, but the facility itself is pretty well-run, although they don't know us and we don't know them (hospitals will treat you differently when you've been there before). The meals are an issue - they aren't trained to give her a lot of skim milk, which we have the staff at Lakeview and Morristown very well trained.

But that is not the major part of this post.

Ray and I left the hospital in the rain around 1320, stopped to pick up some Amaretto creamer for Ray's coffee, and then headed over to the Hanes Outlet to find him a pair of pants. I was not planning to get any pants or anything else, but I was curious about the size of pants I might fit in... the scale shocked me on Thursday morning -- or maybe Friday morning -- by telling me I weighed in at 166.5lbs. I wasn't sure I was reading it correctly. The lowest I'd seen it was 177.

I checked it again and got the same weight... YAHOO!

So we had Ray's waist measured first. He showed as having a 54" waist. I didn't want to tell him when he asked what it was. I asked if he was sure he wanted to know. Fortunately, he tried on 54" waist pants and it was too big. Oh, thank the gods. He is between a 50" and 52" - jeans are 50", pants are around 52" but he needs a belt (which we will get this coming Saturday, since I completely forgot about that and so did he.

He went into the trying room with his 54s and I had grabbed a pair of 16 mediums (I was a size 20). I figured that might be right. I took my jeans off, pulled the 16s on and... hmmm. Comfortable, yes... but... well... I could pull 'em right off. That is, pull them off without unbuttoning and unzipping it. Hmmm.

No. It couldn't be...

OK. I went out and grabbed a couple more pants for Ray to try and then got myself a 16 petite and a 14 medioum. Ray disappeared into the mens area, and I found a stall. I pulled off my jeans, and tried on one pair (I did not look at the ticket on purpose). They were a teeny bit tight around the middle (and if I lose another two to three pounds more, that will not be tight any longer), and long enough and fit nicely around the butt.

I looked: size... drum roll, please... 14!

I did try on the petites, but I now what makes a petite. Short legs. The legs were like capris, I style I find worthless in any fashion. The waist was loose like the other pair. So petites are like fat pants with 4" shorter legs!

I came out smiling. Let me rephrase that. I came out SMILING!

Ray was not having so good a time. I lost weight and he found it. Not so much fun, but like me, Ray is great at laughing at himself. That is always a great trait. Most people take themselves WAY too seriously!

So I ended up buying three pairs of pants and one pair of Crocs. I like them a lot. Very comfortable. I think I will buy a couple more pairs with the liner sock in different colours. At Hanes they are $40 a pair. The pants are $24.90 a pair, an unbeatable price. The last time I bought pants they were $20.00 a pair. Rats... I'm down three sizes but the pants went up!

Pants...

(That won't make any sense unless you're British and know that for a while saying, "Pants!" is like saying "damn" or "shit". Now, does it make sense?)

I came home and relaxed for a bit before getting dressed for our dinner reservation at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Ever eat there? Save up your sheckels and go. The food is so worth it. It comes out on a sizzling plate that is around 500 degrees F and it is the best meat you will ever eat. Ray had filet mignon, Luis had lobster and I had lamb chops. That is not my usual choice for a meal, but it looked good. And it was. All of them were. And we all had dessert; I could not pass that up. I almost never have dessert and when I do, I usually regret it. But this is fine dining. The dessert?

Seasonal fresh fruit in sweet cream sauce.

I wanted to tell the dessert chef that I will happily be his or her love slave. That is how much I love fresh fruit in sweet cream sauce. Blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries... in sweet cream... Oh, how unbelievably, amazingly delicious! Yes, I know - full of sugar. Guess what! I'm more than okay with that! I'll have it out of my system before I go to bed. But I won't gain back the 40lbs total I'm down from a couple of years ago.

How awesome is that?!