April 5th (179 lbs): Well, I hit a milestone today..I'm now officially below the weight that is on my drivers liscense (180 lbs). Now granted, when I had my DL picture taken, I was much over 180 lbs, so it's nice to finally not be a fibber. I really need to start exercising, I had joined the Q gym a year ago and in August for some reason they stopped billing my bankcard each month. So I stopped going to the gym thinking maybe they'd never track me down...low and behold here they call me up and tell me they are going to have to double up on my payments to catch me back up. It's bad enough to pay $47 a month for the gym and not use it, it seems a sin to pay $94 a month and not use it. It's really a great gym...olympic size indoor pool, whirlpool, sauna, steam room.. the works. Now if I can just convince my fat butt to drive over to the gym...

April 9th: My father-in-law suffered an aortic aneurysm last week and had to have surgery. It was the size of an orange, but thankfully it did not rupture. He's not doing very well, so I'm going to take my daughter to Austin tomorrow to see him. He's been so good to my daughter that it breaks my heart to think of what we'd do without him. I'll update more when I get back. Please keep him in your prayers.

April 10th: Alexis and I are in Austin for the week, her grandpa is doing much better, in fact, he is being released from the hospital tomorrow. He had a couple bad days right after the surgery, but has now seemed to be over the crisis. My eating the last few days has been TERRIBLE...drinking way too many sodas, junk food, and fast food. Since this is a "mini-vacation" for my daughter and me, I'm not going to beat myself up this week, but definitely will be getting back on track come Monday. I'm so close to my goal weight now, a year ago I wouldn't have dreamed I'd ever come near it. I saw a surgeon last week and he said that I have about 15-20 lbs of loose skin in my hip/stomach area that will probably not shrink up due to it being mainly strech marked skin with no elasticity. He also thinks that skin may be whats causing my stomach and back pains. So I'm going to start saving up to have a tummy tuck as I'm not sure my insurance would cover it. (Darn HMO's!) Once that excess skin is removed I'll definitely be out of the plus sizes. It will be so wonderful!! The rest of me still needs to be toned up with exercise, but it's so frustrating to have this huge "apron" hanging down on my stomach.

April 19th: Not a whole lot new to report. I'm going back to work on Monday after a two month absence. I'm still having pains in my abdomen and my back, but there really isn't much I can do short of having surgery, so I figure I can be in pain at work just as easily as I can be at home. Maybe getting up and out of the house will start to motivate me again. I've really slacked off a lot over the past few months. My first mini-goal that I've made is that I would like to lose 9 lbs by June 1st. That's almost 6 weeks away, so I know it's an obtainable goal. I'd like to make some exercise goals, but I absolutely abhore exercising and know I am setting myself up for failure if I try to make goals. Now that the weather is a bit nicer I think I'm going to start taking the dog out for a walk. Even if in my mind I don't count it as exercise, my body will count it and that's all that matters!

April 26th (177 lbs): The scale actually said 176 a few times, but I had to keep jumping on and off so many times that it moved to 177 a few times, so I'll go with the higher number so I won't be mad if it goes up the next day. Ugh. It amazes me how much that little number on that damn scale controls me. Controls how I feel about myself that day, controls how I eat for the day..it's ridiculous. On another note, although I haven't really seen a whole lot of movement on the scale, I've had major compliments from co-workers that I have really lost a lot of weight while I was off on disability. Granted, they haven't seen me for 2 months, and I've probably dropped 20 lbs in that time, but it was a nice morale booster for me. I'm glad to be back at work even though it really tires me out. Just sitting in the chair for a few hours really does a number on my back and I have to get up and walk around a bit.

My aunt passed away yesterday. She's been battling lung cancer for over a year now. The doctors had given her about 3 years with treatment, so we thought we'd have more time to spend with her, and of course we never made it up to Missouri to see her one last time. I've got so many regrets now that I kept putting it off. It really makes you stop and think about priorities and how you just don't know when it's going to be someone's time to go.