So I asked Keith the other day how much he thought I weighed… I have put on a little bit (ok a lot) of weight since him and I met, so I wanted his opinion. Last summer about this time I was only about 120lbs, then again it is hard to keep weight on when you are constantly dehydrated from being in a really hot climate that you are not used to. So I asked him and guess what he guessed?!

170lbs!

I’m glad to say he was off. By about 20lbs. I am 152lbs… which is still about 30lbs more then I should be. But not as bad as I thought. I’m going to work in the next few days on a theme for my weight loss blog. I want to blog about how I am doing with my start weight and the start date as well as a goal weight and the date I’d like to complete the goal by. I did some research on the internet and from all the health sites (not diet sites but sites like Weight Watchers and WebMD) 2-3 lbs a week is a good goal.

I talked to my doctor and she agreed with me on all of it. My plan is to cut out about 2/3 of the junk food I eat, not all of it just cut back on it a lot, and also to walk 3-4 times a week  with 3-5 kms per walk. She also suggested that I eat yogurt every morning with breakfast. Not as my breakfast just with a small breakfast since it helps with digestion which can help with weight loss among other things.

I am going to start for April 1st since I am going to be busy moving over the next few weeks. And I want to wait until Keith and I get settled in. That and it will be nice to have my Mom and Mary Ellen to walk with. But I am going to make sure I go with or without anyone!

I was considering joining Weight Watchers but I decided I could do it without spending the money on joining. It would be nice to have the support of other women trying to loose weight though. One of the girls I work with joined a few weeks ago and asked if I wanted to come to one of the meetings. I guess it’s something to think about.

I fixed the theme a little more. It should now fit on 1024×768 and higher resolutions. I would have to really redo the whole thing to be able to get it viewable on 800×600 +. I may still do that in the next few days as it really wasn’t all that hard to make it fit 1024×768. I also fixed all xhtml errors and it is now XHTML 1.0 Transitional. And I fixed most of the CSS errors as well. There is still one error which I do not know how to get around and a few warnings but I will worry about them later. All in all I am extremely pleased with it.

Now it’s time to start working on a design for my portfolio and take some more pictures and create some more sites to use in it. I think I am going to do a weight loss blog. I know everyone seems to have one and I hate jumping on the bandwagon and doing it too but it will help me so I don’t really give a damn what other people think. They can read it or not…

I’ve been thinking really hard and I think as soon as I get a majority of my debt paid down I am going to apply to NSCC for either Graphic Design or Photography. I will probably apply to NSCAD as well but if I don’t get in there right away maybe I will go with NSCC first as they are both only one year programs. And then maybe it might be easier to get into NSCAD after that. I really enjoy designing and really want to go to school to do it. In the mean time I will just keep plugging away at it on my own.

I finished my first week of 9-5. What a difference! I always felt so tired and just didn’t feel much like doing anything on the 1-9′s but with 9-5 I get up easily in the morning and I feel awake and refreshed. I really don’t want to go back to 1-9. It’s amazing how much your work hours can affect your life and your health. As soon as we move in with my parents I am going to start walking every night and see if I can loose some weight. I am not sure exactly how much I weigh but I know I am overweight. If I watch what I eat then I should be able to do it easily. Since we are at my parents this weekend I am going to try and go for a walk somewhere tonight.

SUN!!  And lots and lots of it. It’s been a beautiful sunny warm week out. Only rained a little yesterday morning. And the temperature Tuesday morning before I went in to work was already 19 °C. This morning it is already 12 °C and sunny. I feel like I should be a weather woman… But I just love this weather. I need to get some summer clothes. Nothing I have from last year fits. I bought a pair of cheap flip flops from Walmart last weekend. And I also bought one pair of denim capris. But I need some more capris, shorts, t-shirts and camis. Time to hit up value village I think. I really hate shopping there. But whatever. I’d rather not bake in my winter clothes because I don’t have enough money to by designer summer clothes. Where do you shop?

So I am almost finished my first week of days. And I got to say I am loving it. And dreading the idea that I may have to go back to nights sometime in the future. I love having at least 2-3 hours of daylight before I go to work. And I love having 3-4 hours of daylight when I get off of work! Since it is so beautiful out this week

I hate packing. Did I mention that? I hate it ! I really do not like trying to go through things and deciding what goes where and what can go in the garbage and what needs to be brought up ahead of time. I hate moving! I guess it is a necessary evil however.  Every reasonable part of me knows that this is for the better. That if we move in with my parents it will give us a chance to do something we would not be able to do on our own. Getting debt paid off is so hard to do. But the rewards are so worth it in the end. Right now I would not even dream of us getting a house, well okay, I did dream. But I knew deep down it was not going to happen. Or at the very least it was not going to work. At least this way we can accomplish something. Set a goal and achieve it. It’s something attainable this way.

Edit – I fixed it so it was centered and everything seems to line up and show up in every browser and resolution I have tried. I may try later and see if I can get it to fit on a 1024×768 screen without having to scroll. But that would require resizing the whole thing… so I think I’ll leave that till later.

I realize there is some issues with this theme. Some of the backgrounds are not repeating properly in certain browsers and certain resolutions look awful. I am working on that. Not to mention the errors with validating… working on that too. I guess I jumped the gun on this one and should have waited. But since the last theme looked wrong in IE I guess it’s just trading one problem for another… anyway.

After a lot of deliberation and discussion and an offer from my parents, Keith and I decided the easiest way to get out of debt, besides trying to follow an impossible – impossible for me anyways – to follow budget is to move in with my parents for a year or so. I only say impossible, not because I have no idea how to follow a budget. Which I really don’t!  But because it’s hard to pay out more in bills, rent and debt then what you make in a month, that’s why I say impossible!

Therefor we decided to move into the 4th bedroom in my parents 4 bedroom home. It’s going to make for a bit of a crowded house.  There is my brother (he’s 19) in one bedroom. Mary Ellen (a friend of the family who lives with them… I mean us) in the second bedroom. And my parents in the 3rd. Luckily there is a rather large 4th bedroom/den downstairs on the main floor that has a half bath/laundry room attached to it. We are going to either put our stuff in storage here in Halifax. Or we will take it to Chester with us and store it at my parents house, in the basement. Speaking of which. We may finish off a room in the basement as well for storage/rec area for Keith and I. Just so we have a little more room.

The plan is to take the rent money, the phone/cable/internet which is all one bill, and the money we spend on power, groceries etc, and pay off the debt we both currently owe separately - as we haven’t got a whole lot of debt together yet thankfully – and give my parents $200 a month for groceries and just to help out. Meaning that we probably have an additional $600 to $700 a month to put on past debt and in our savings. So we are aiming for a year. Maybe a year and a half to pay off all or most of what we owe. Then in a year or so when we move back out and find a house to buy or rent we are either debt free or almost debt free. And hopefully with better credit ratings too. So that’s the plan. And we are hoping it works. In theory it’s a great plan.

We both get along with my parents really well. They treat Keith like a son. For the most part. They wont tell him off yet the way they do me when I piss them off. But I’m sure that’s not far away. They are comfortable with him and he is with them. Which is awesome since he’s the guy I plan on spending the rest of my life with. It makes me so relieved to know that they like him and approve of him. More then approve. They think he’s good for me. In so many ways.  I’m not sure I have ever admitted this to anyone before. And I’m not sure I want to admit it now But I am excited and happy to move home this time. I love my family and have always enjoyed their company but I hated the feeling that I could not rely on myself. That I always had to rely on someone else.

Now I feel like we are taking charge. Keith and I. Together. It’s a really nice feeling.