My Motivational Catfish

I found something really motivating.

Do a Google image search for "X pound fish" where X is the number of pounds you've lost.

Here's my fish!  Evan Martin caught this blue catfish: 

He released that fish, by the way.  He's awesome.  (not my photo)

Holy crap, that's a fish.



This fish represents the weight loss I started in 2003 but stalled at in 2009ish.

The stall has been for various reasons.  It started as an ankle/hip injury, then continued as silent acid reflux (unreasonable hunger even immediately after eating), stress, a year or so of pointlessly steeping in fertility treatment hormones, having a baby, plantar fasciitis, etc.  Oh yeah, and mostly I have stalled because of laziness.

I've been super ridiculously tired for the last 6+ months, like... scary, can't-even-walk-around-the-block, can't-form-thoughts tired.  I'm sure I could fill 5 whiny blog posts about it, but after discovering some bone loss it was finally diagnosed as a calcium deficiency.  Well, hypocalcemia plus hitting sleep-deprivation rock bottom... 'cause hey, it turns out you need calcium to make enough melatonin to stay asleep.  A few days after getting the diagnosis last month, just because the universe thought I hadn't actually hit rock bottom yet, I got shingles too.  Yay!

It's been a month of supplementing so far and my energy is finally starting to come back, and I can walk around the block without feeling like I might pass out.  My never-ending shin cramp is even gone!  It's pretty nice.


I'm officially out of excuses.

It is time for me to tackle this hardest part of my 100-pound weight loss journey. 

My allies in this quest are:

• My Fitness Pal - for easily counting calories, macros, and making sure my calcium is perfect. 
• Happy Scale app - to keep you sane, it shows you trends even when your weight fluctuates, and it also visually breaks your big goal up into 10 little ones for better motivation. 
• Fitness trackers - the Bellabeat LEAF and the Fitbit One. Yeah, I decided to wear both for now... the LEAF is gorgeous and was working great, but has been crazily under-counting my steps lately, so I changed some settings and am trying to see if I can improve accuracy while still wearing it as a necklace.  It's still kind of in beta, so they keep making changes with the LEAF's algorithms and such.  The Fitbit is, as always, perfectly accurate for step-counting.
• Folding magnetic exercise bike - this thing takes up so little space and is silent compared to the old recumbent bike.  It's hanging out in the living room for a while as a reminder to bike while Torin is asleep on days that we can't hike.  So far it's been working.
• YOU?!  Does anyone want to join me on the social side of My Fitness Pal or Fitbit?

71 pounds down, 29 to go.

Time to catch me another fish. 


If you've lost weight, show me your fish! 

Lucky number 177777

After pulling into the driveway to see this number, I feel like I've accomplished something.

I have accomplished... something.  Yes.  Exactly. 

Need more beans.

Once I was out of coffee and offered to brew some more for my guests... one of them said I could just run some water through the old grounds and that'd be fine.  I just made a fresh pot, 'cause there's a subconscious social rule that if someone wants coffee enough to say it out loud, then there's always at least 1 other person who secretly wants coffee too. 

Anyway... so I ran out of coffee yesterday, but I'm headed to Costco today and will pick up more.  I was dismayed to discover that there was not enough cold coffee from yesterday to fill my mug, so I decided to try running more water through the old grinds from yesterday.   BAD IDEA.  So gross. Don't try it.  It's a trick!

A single tear rolls down the side of my distraught coffee mug from Sydney.

 ... I'm drinking it anyway.  Help.  Send coffee beans.

Spring 2016 Seedling Code

It's record-keeping time!


The first seedlings to be planted are labeled with the following numbers:

1. Super Sweet 100 Hybrid Tomato
2. Sun Gold Hybrid Tomato
3. Gold Rush Currant Tomato
4. Black Vernissage Tomato
5. Tigerella Tomato
6. Green Zebra Tomato
7. Amish Paste Tomato
8. Egg Yolk Tomato
9. Black Plum Tomato
10. Lemon Squash
11. Early Golden Summer Crookneck Squash
12. Biquinho Hot Pepper
13. Chinese Five Color Hot Pepper
14. Wild Thyme
15. Sage
16. Basil, Genovese
17. Cilantro, Calypso
18. Purslane, Green
19. Spinach, Red Malibar
20. Collards, Georgia Southern
21. Swiss Chard, Vulcan
22. Kale, Tronchuda
23. Arugula
24. Beet, Bull's Blood

Here's the current "greenhouse" setup:

It's just the dining table covered with plastic tablecloths, with a light we found in the garage (which used to hang from chains somewhere, apparently) propped up on bricks.  As the plants grow, the light will be raised by using more bricks.  The table is wedged up against the windows like that to keep the light out of the toddler's reach. 

You'd think that the glass ceiling of the solarium would give plenty of light, but it's definitely not enough during winter for the seedlings because they get far too leggy, so hopefully this will give them enough of a boost.  In an ideal world I'd have that light fixture hold both cool and daylight bulbs which are less than 6 months old, as I did in the environmental rooms at the lab... but hey, these lights were free. 

Maybe next year I can figure out a way to suspend the light from the ceiling.  


A little about the seeds: 

Last year I temporarily lost my key for all the seedlings, which was slightly terrifying.  If it happens again, at least I will have this blog note to remind me. 

All the varieties after #13 are also being planted directly into the garden right now, but I am addicted to sprouting things, and just wanted to do some extra indoor seedlings for fun. 

The next batch of indoor planting in a few weeks will include squash, basil, sunflowers, and cucumbers.  I've simplified the process from last year and am mostly just doing 1-3 plantings of each type instead of a new one every week, because I really didn't notice any difference between the batches of tomato seedlings that were a variety of ages.