...I never posted here that I cam home!

I'm home! And have been since Sunday afternoon :)
Spain was awesome. And awesomely hot. There are a crapload of pictures which I will be posting over the next few days.

Today my dad had surgery on his back. I got a call from my grandma a few minutes ago and she said that he is doing OK, but that they're not sure if the surgery will completely fix his back or not. *crosses fingers* Even if it doesn't completely fix it, hopefully it will at least give him some relief. :-/

Also, when I came home from work today, I found Vern the Cat sleeping on broken23's suitcase - right next to my suitcase, which he had peed on twice. I then went to get the mail, and when I came back I saw that Vern had peed on my suitcase a third time while I was outside. FML.

Still alive, still in Spain.

We leave very early tomorrow morning to go home to Portland.
This has been very fun but a little overwhelming!! :)

Just a quick update...

We're in a coffee house in a little town on the coast of Spain, about 45 minutes from Barcelona. It's very warm here - much warmer than I thought it would be with the humidity. I have a giant 'fro - my hair is not used to this!

There's a lot of walking to be done - his parents don't have a car and everyone here walks everywhere anyway. Yesterday we think we walked about 5 miles or so. And today has been similar but not as bad.

We were hoping there would be a wifi connection near his parents house that we could hijack, but there's nothing open. Oh well.

Yesterday we got in at about 9am, and after going to his parents house and resting a bit, we went to a touristy/shopping area, and then to the docks and over to a mall where we walked a bit and then ate at a tapas restaurant.

Today we took the train to this little town called Sitges (where we are now) which is also a little touristy but very pretty. We just had a HUGE lunch at a restaurant called La Nina and walked to this coffee place because broken23 remembered that they have free wifi. So I'm all caught up on my email, briefly checked Facebook/Twitter, paid/bid for something on eBay, showed his parents some pictures from Multnomah Falls, and wrote this update. All while enjoying the coastal Spanish air and a lovely mocha frappe. :D

I should wrap this up because I think his parents are getting bored. Maybe I get get online again soon!

So yeah... tomorrow around noon, I'll be on a plane headed towards Europe!

We'll be in Barcelona with broken23's parents for about a week. I'm both excited and completely terrified at the same time :)
But... it will be really fun, I'm sure. David's friend has taken on the task of checking on the kitties every other day, so we don't have to have them boarded. They'll be lonely, but at least they'll be in their own home which should be less traumatic. I spent a couple of hours this evening making them 4 new catnip toys. ^_^

I'm mostly packed. Minus the bathroom stuff and a couple clothing items that are still in the dryer. And my iPod which is charging. And shoes. But yeah, mostly packed.

We shall return to PDX on July 5th, mid-day. I am pretty sure that we'll be online quite regularly. Certainly we can find a wifi hotspot nearby. So expect the occasional update from me. Right now, I'm going to go lay down for a few!

There was a request from ladymusashi for pics from my latest shopping trip. I have this one picture of the dress I got (size 12!!) from when I was in the fitting room but I don't have pictures of the other stuff yet.

( The aforementioned dress and some miscellaneous camwhoring from Facebook under the cut. )

Work sucks. Tomorrow I have to apologize for losing my marbles and yelling. Serenity now... serenity now...

Wheeeee I suck and forgot about Livejournal. Stupid Facebook.

Today I tried on clothes at Fred Meyer and found out that I'm a size 12 in a-line dresses! Naturally, I bought one. I'll be taking it with me to Europe! :)
(I also got a pair of red capri pants, a black top, some uber-clearance tank tops, and a new waist cincher shapewear thing. Yes I said red capri pants.)

Speaking of... we leave for Spain on Saturday! And we won't be back until the following Sunday. I'm very excited. This is my first time to Europe!

Also... I thought I posted this like 5 hours ago. FAIL.
*faceplant*

See? I told you I keep forgetting to post. :P
I started typing this up before I started having a gall bladder attack, but I really wanted to post something because I said I would. So here you go.


I come bearing pictures though! I've actually taken some photos this month. Please forgive the oversaturation and color wacky-ness on a couple of them - I edited those on my laptop and I didn't realize how off the colors were until I uploaded them.

Teasers:


( ...and there's some of the fiance and myself under the cut )

I'm going to go take pills and lie down now. Or possibly vomit. Hopefully not in that order.

I keep telling myself over and over again that I'll post something on LJ "soon" or "later" or "today"... and then I don't.

*faceplant*

Blame the iPhone or Facebook or something - that's where I spend all my time!
Real post to follow "soon" or "later" or "today" or something. ;)

Today I saw another new number on the scale... a 7.
I'm 179.6 as of this morning. This means I'm 4.6 pounds from my goal weight, and have officially lost 130 pounds since my highest weight and 115 since my surgery. Holy crap. I bet I can lose that 4.6 this week if I really work hard. If not this next weekend, then the one after that, I *will* be at my goal of 175. And then I can try on my wedding dress again.

I don't feel like I'm at any "goal" weight, but I can always set a new goal. This is just the goal weight that my doctor and I talked about and both felt like it would be a healthy, realistic goal for me. At the time I didn't think it was realistic because I thought it would never happen, but now I know it will :)

Anyway, yesterday I decided that I needed some new clothes in a serious way. Kohl's was having their "power hours" sale (where there's sales on some stuff if you buy it before noon) and I had a 15% off everything coupon, so I bought a bunch of stuff. And then I stopped at Macy's for fun and tried on expensive things and ended up buying one not-too-expensive shirt. That shirt is pictured below for one reason: It's a size medium.

It was the last one, and I really liked it and wanted to try it on, and I was thinking "well, I could *see* how tight it is, and then if I really want it I could look at macy's.com and order it in a large!" but when I tried it on it was just barely too tight around my flappy-with-extra-skin belly. And I loved it. So I bought it. And then I ran over to the lingerie section and put on some shapewear to suck in that skin and put the shirt back on over it, and... it looks awesome. So I took a picture in the fitting room.

If only my butt/thighs/upper arms would catch up with the lower half of me... hot damn. :D

From the left: Me in the aforementioned "Medium" shirt, me in a dress that I also bought at Kohl's yesterday (so pretty), and me at 295 pounds in October 2007. Ignore the face in the first one ;) Click for full size.

I just peeked at my wedding dress for the first time since I bought it :)
I really want to try it on, but I can't do that right now, hehe

This last week has been pretty difficult, diet-wise, but also not so bad. It's a lot easier for me to succeed if my diet is REALLY strict. Not that I'm not totally looking forward to two weeks from now when I can add a few more things in, but I really do feel pretty decent and it is so rewarding to see the pounds coming off again. At this rate, I will overtake the goal that my doctor and I set for me (175) before then. Maybe I'll try the dress on then :D

So something freakish happened to me this morning... I woke up with a big blind spot. Just to the right and just below whatever I was focusing on. It was making it really difficult to read stuff on my monitor.

At first I though I must have been looking at the computer for too long, but then it just wasn't going away, and then I started freaking out. broken23 found me in the kitchen trying to cook my lunch for today, totally frazzled, looking at various things.

I have this fridge magnet:

And if I looked at George's face, the magnet said "Beat" and Ringo wasn't there.

After crying a whole bunch because I was spazzing out (uh yeah, no health insurance until October, and I do visual QA for a living) I pulled it together and finished getting ready for work, and before I left I noticed that it was getting better, so I checked the magnet again and saw the whole thing. It seems to be all better now.

I don't know if maybe I slept on my neck funny or something. I was doing some strenuous lifting over the last couple of days and might have hurt my neck/upper back some. I dunno if that could cause it.

Now I have a headache, but that's just from the crying/spazzing. WTF.

Good grief I've been so busy. But with nothing horribly exciting!

Saturday we went to the Crab, Wine, and Seafood festival in Astoria. OMG did we eat too much. But it was so worth it. The food was fantastic!

Sunday I tried to get my address labels for the Save-the-Date cards for my wedding under control but things were getting increasingly difficult because I was going to have to take everything to Kinko's and print them out due to our extreme lack of a printer. (I know, in my line of work, I don't have a printer? WTF.) So instead, we went to Best Buy and bought a printer. LOL. Naturally, it's from the competition. But... well, yeah. I just won't talk about it much at work. But it's actually really cool - it prints via wireless!

So last night I got the address labels all printed out. Tonight I will assemble the cards and they can go in the mail tomorrow. I hope. :)

(Now I need to start working on the actual invitations... ugh)

I'm buckling down on my diet in a hardcore kind of way for the next three weeks. Must get all de-carbed! Yuck! It's probably really sucking for broken23 because we can't eat out at all. Wait, that sucks for me too! No sushi! *gasp* Then after the three weeks are up, I'll work some stuff back into my diet slowly and we can have sushi again, hehe.

Well, I need to do some actual work at work now...

Sorry if I've not been commenting much on people's posts - somehow I got like 5 days behind on my friends page and it's taken me a while to get caught up! But I read it all, I promise!

I'm the "official" street team leader for the VAMPS show here in July. Which means I get to put together a banner and a thank you card for the band and management, and make/distribute fliers for the show, etc. It's going to be a little bit of work, but it will pay off in the end and be a lot of fun. I made a couple of fliers in Photoshop last night that should work OK, but I may try again. The Portland show is going to rock. :)

Work has been boring. And annoying because I've had to share my space with another project that is staffed by nice but inexperienced people who don't know what they're doing and spread their things EVERYwhere. And cold because well, it's cold in there right now. I have no clue what I'll be doing in a week or so, which is a little bit scary. Who knows what project I'll end up on. :-/

Today I'm getting a much needed haircut! I've enjoyed letting my hair grow out, but this length just doesn't work for my current cut and the pink chunks. And I need to talk to my hairstylist about my hair for my wedding! I have *no idea* what I want to do with it or how long I should grow it out by then... gah! :D

So yesterday I went back to Seattle to see my doctor. They did another fluoroscopy and there's no change to my throat. He put 4ccs back into my band and said to really watch my portion sizes and then once I get health insurance I should go see a specialist. Good times.

Somehow even though my band was not functional for a month and I ate some very bad things, I still managed to lose 5 pounds from the last time I was there. :)

When I got back to Portland, I stopped at Uwajimaya and picked up a catfish and some chicken and vegetables. I baked both meats with lemon and thyme and lots of freshly ground pepper, finished the fish in a skillet for some extra crisp, and ate the fish for dinner. But the chicken I chopped finely with some celery and a little red bell pepper, and turned it into a really lovely chicken salad. Which I just had some of for lunch. Mmmmm.

I have nothing to do at work today. Seriously. So bored.

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Extreme
Level 7 (Violent)	Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Very High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very High

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test

Yesterday I received and installed my new sound card (the old one died) and HOLYCRAP I'm glad I bought a new one! Not only does it you know, work and stuff, but it sounds *amazing*. I'm so glad I bought a new one!
In other news, my speakers are oh, 7 years old at least I think but they're still just fine. I kind of miss actually playing games on my computer. I just feel like I have no time anymore for anything. :-/

My hunger is paying off! (But I still can't wait to get my band somewhat functional again, hopefully Tuesday.)

This morning, I weighed myself, and it said... 189.6!
*leaps for joy*

Why hello there, number 8. Nice to see you again. ;)
This means I'm down about 120 pounds from my highest weight. And I'm only 15 pounds from my goal. WTF.

Lap-Band @ NWWLS Dr. Michaelson
October 2007
310/295/189.6/175
(highest/surgery/now/goal)

I just realized that I never posted this here, though I think most people who see my blog (that care) already know.

Jrockuploads.com is back again.
I know, I just said it was gone, but... it's back. I have no explanation, other than that the administrator decided to reactivate it. It's as though nothing happened, except there's about a 3-week period with no posts, heh.

So, if you were a JRU person and haven't already, please come back! And tell other people in case I missed some.

<3
Your moderator,
celeste_

Well, I'm feeling better today so far. My insides are still *really* sore... just walking or bending/twisting hurts my gut. But I have more energy. This has really sucked!

In better news, my VAMPS tickets for the Portland show arrived in the mail yesterday, and we decided that we will indeed go to both shows, so broken23 bought the Seattle tickets last night. :D

The weather was so nice the last 4 days - it was like it was actually spring! And then late afternoon yesterday it got all cloudy again and it's supposed to stay like this for a while. *sigh* Yesterday when I got home from work I sat on the patio on our swing bench with Pooper the Stray Cat and a book and it was quite nice. I'm looking forward to using the grill, too. We didn't use it much last year for some reason.
I'm thinking about food so I must be feeling better, right?