Fast Forward 1 Month

I received an email from a friend of mine on the East coast of the United States asking, where's the blog?
Well, here it is :)

It has been quite a month.  My new job has kept me very busy!  I am finally beginning to settle in; no day will be like another.  This job is very fast pace, which I LOVE!  It is like being an ICU nurse without having to worry that I'm going to make a mistake and kill someone.  As with any job, there is quite a bit of stress.  I do bring the stress home, but I do try to leave most of the stress at work.  Kat tells me that I'm not really as successful at this as I hope I am :)

I have had a lot of positive feed back about the changes that are coming along in the clinic since I've hired on.  While I'm glad that things are getting better, I hope that I will be able to avoid getting into a rut and stop looking for ways to improve our care for our patients.  It has only been 3 months, but it feels like I have been here forever.  I love the people, I love the work, it just couldn't be a better fit for me!

I also pursued my hearing aids, and have been wearing them for ~ 2 weeks.  It is sooooo amazing!  Not just the richness to the sounds that I've been missing, but the technology itself is mind blowing.  I have a streamer, neck loop, that I wear around my neck that connects with the blue tooth in my hearing aids.  This streamer allows me to use my hearing aids for a cell phone headset, amplify the television, and even has a jack for me to plug my ipod into it, so no headphones!  I have to admit it is quite weird though, since I have bilateral (both sides) hearing aids, when I use my hearing aids for my cell phone hands free set, it sounds like the person I am talking to is actually in my head :)~

There have been ups and downs over the last month.  The downs have lead me to having Dairy Queen Blizzards 5 nights out of the week.  Then Abigail and Helen calling me on it because they would find the evidence the next morning in the trash.  It is a very humbling moment when your 8 year old daughter starts talking to you about finding a way to resist temptation.  With that, I have gone to Dairy Queen twice...trying to make better choices.

I am continuing to see changes in my body shape.  My weight is stable between 245 and 248.  All of my 42 in waist clothes are fitting or big.  The 22 slacks I bought for work require a belt.  There are still good things happening, just slow.  I was thinking about it, I have lost 15-20 lbs since the beginning of the year.  That is about 2-3 lbs per month.  That is a nice healthy rate and I have a better chance of keeping it off.  It's hard, I get discouraged because I'm not dropping the weight as fast as my friends, but I keep telling myself, the weight that I"ve dropped will stay off because I'm taking it slow.  

My hope is to have another 10 lbs off by the end of the year.  I think that is a reasonable goal.  Of course there is a wedding between now and then too ;)