Hey Shabs,

Thanks for the words of encouragement, I appreciate it.  I'm super proud of you for being so successful.  While I recognize that people frequently feel that "misery loves company" in this case it's more important to remember that "sisters love success" so I'm nothing but happy about how well you've been doing!  Well, happy and a tiny bit jealous.

I did decently well yesterday, I guess.  When I got home from work I took Zoe on a long 45 minutes walk, which was nice.  Not the most intense exercise, but enjoyable.  I had a granola bar when I got home while waiting for Trista to get hom and Seth to finish mowing the lawn before dinner.  Probably wouldn't have had it if they hadn't been out on the counter.  Oops.  At least I did well at work.  I stayed out of the candy jar and stuck to my zucchini muffin and apple as an afternoon snack.  For dinner we had a pork roast with fingerling potatoes and carrots in the crockpot with pudding for dessert.  The pudding wasn't too bad, it was made with fat free, lactose free milk.  I was fine then until around 8:30 and I got really hungry and had a bowl of cereal.  Again, probably not the best choice.  Somehow with all of that I managed to gain two pounds yesterday and when I stepped on the scale this morning, it said 177.  I am beside myself right now.  I haven't been this heavy in quite a while... like over a year, maybe two even.  How did I gain 10 lbs in the last two weeks?!  That's insane!  And so unhealthy.  And sooooo discouraging.  I guess I'll just keep trying.  Like you said, the frustration and struggle is always going to be there.  The worst part is that my pants are super tight, but there's now way I'm going to ask Trista for my big pants back.  I'll just have to wear looser shirts for a bit.  So uncomfortable though!

This morning I managed to get my butt out of bed at 6:00 and went on the elliptical for half an hour and then did some ab work.  That was good for getting me jump started in the morning.  I hadn't been sleepnig well so I took melatonin and benadryl last night and I finally got some decent sleep, which I think helped quite a bit.  My goal is to get my work outs in in the morning when I can so that I have more time to do things after work.  And I'm going to try to take Zoe out for at least a little walk when I get home from work.  It's ridiculous how little exercise she gets and I enjoy walking her, so it'll be good for both of us.

I'm pretty disappointed in my body right now and it's stressful to me thinking about going to New Orleans on Thursday.  I know I shouldn't care around Chris and Melissa, but I do, and to make matters worse, Jenni is going to be there with Beav.  She's the teeniest tiniest most perfect little thing and I really don't like her.  She makes me uncomfortable and Seth likes her too much.  I don't know why she makes me so insecure, but she really does.  She doesn't work (and like never has, even before kids) and is overly religious and totally weird about medicine (always questioning vaccines and such) so she's just obnoxious to me.  I wish it was just going to be us and the Lemas.  But Jenni is coming since her parents live in Texas pretty close to the Louisiana border I guess.  Boo.  Hopefully Melissa won't like her better than me and extra hopefully, we won't go swimming.

I guess I'd better get back to work.  Today's exercise from the book is one in thinking about hunger.  Kind of an annoying one, but I'm trying to do all of the stuff it says, so I'm doing it.

Love you.