I had a first date tonight with a guy that I’ve been talking to for a month now.  We talked online for 3 weeks before progressing to talking on the phone everyday (sometimes multiple times a day) for a week before we finally decided to go out.

Despite our original plans not working out, I think things went alright anyways.  I had a nice time and I’m fairly sure he did as we’ve already talked since the date was over.  He at one point texted me saying that he hoped I would see him again and I replied that he didn’t have to hope…that he could see me again sometime.

So, I think it went pretty well overall – things were a little comical about our circumstances, but we muddled through it and had a nice dinner together.

Anyways, my day was spent getting ready – I did a few preparations in the early afternoon and then surfed the net – mostly on my photog message board – and then got serious in the late afternoon about getting ready for my date.  Took some self portraits of my new hair cut and me all done up and ready to go out tonight.

Tomorrow I plan on running a few errands and then at some point I wanted to get out and take some photos.  I found this neat old bridge that I would like to shoot…maybe I’ll head that way tomorrow, too.  I am really enjoying the POTD (Picture of the Day) that I am participating in on the photog board.  It’s getting me shooting more and wanting to shoot more.  I primarily thought I would only post once a week, but I am currently enjoying posting everyday, time permitting.  Work days might keep me from posting because I won’t get an opportunity to get out and get some shots for the day.  But maybe I can post some old pics….some other peas post old pics when they aren’t able to shoot new ones.

I’m also attempting to stay on manual settings.  I’m trying to get away from shooting everything in auto and truly understanding the manual aspect of my camera.  So, that is my current endeavor, along with all one hundred other hobbies and projects that I am working on!!

This year I am taking part in POTD (Picture of the Day) from one of the websites that I frequent a lot – twopeasinabucket.com.  I hang around the photography board a lot and POTD is one of the things that quite a few people participate in.  So…I jumped on board!!

You can find my POTD blog and photogs here:  www.bluesharpiemonologues.blogspot.com

Hope the new year has started off well for you all!

So…the ball dropped almost half an hour ago…  How did you spend your New Year’s eve?  Most people go out to parties, etc etc, and a good number of people stay in for different reasons.  I decided to stay home tonight.  Partly because I worked all day and was tired.  I wanted to stay up to watch the ball drop, but was unsure whether I would actually be able to stay up till midnight.

Despite staying in for New Year’s eve, I still spent the evening with a very nice guy.  He wasn’t here with me, but we were on the phone the whole time.  So we essentially spent the whole count down and ball drop together on the phone.  I know we are still getting to know one another, but I’m feeling a little bond growing between us…but since we spend about two hours a night on the phone with one another, I would hope that there was some kind of bond growing.  I look forward to it being the end of the day when both of us are home from our jobs so that we can talk to one another.  So…we’ll see what happens in this new year….we’ll see what the new year brings us…

To round out my 2008 – it was a great year!  I continued to grow and flourish at work…I learned more, I experienced more, and I grew in my job.  Not only did I grow in my job, I also grew personally in a number of areas. 

I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, started medication for that, got it under control, went on a medically supervised diet and as I ring in the New Year I have lost 63 pounds.  I have gotten to spend cherished time with family and friends.  My best friend got married and I was her maid of honor.  My best friend had a baby.  I had the pleasure of throwing her a baby shower.

I’ve continued to tend to my love of photography and work towards goals of increasing my knowledge and skill.  I continue to look into schools for photography in the hopes to further my knowledge and skill.  I shot my first engagement session for a coworker and I might add that I think my pictures turned out pretty well.

I’ve attended friends’ weddings….being that we’ve been out of school for a little over a year and a half, people are deciding that it’s time to get married and start their families.  I’ve had the honor of attending weddings and visiting hospitals where friends have recently had babies.

I know 2008 has brought me so much more than what I have listed about, but it’s late and I need to be getting some sleep. 

May you all prosper in the new year and have much love and happiness along your path in life!

This is my new theme song for the year of 2009 – the year I’ll shine!!  (Okay, I know, that was a little corny line, but it’s oh so true!)

This Year

Na na na…
This year is gonna be incredible
This year is gonna be the one
All the planets are linin’ up for me
This year I’m gonna have fun

This year, I’ll paint my masterpiece
This year I’ll be recognized
I feel, I’ll fall in love for real
This year, this year

January, I’ll learn to fly
February, love’s gonna find me
March, April, May,
I’ll get carried away
Ooh, ooh

This year, I’m gonna reach a pinnacle
This year, I’ll get to the top
People will ask,
“Where’d she get that energy?”
This year I’m never gonna stop

January, I’ll learn to fly
February, Love’s gonna find me
March, April, May,
I’ll get carried away
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

This year is gonna be incredible
This year is gonna be the one
All the planets are linin’ up for me
This year I’m gonna have fun
I’m gonna have fun

Just watch me
This year, this year, this year
This year I will be havin’ fun
Just watch me having fun
This year

Okay…here are some of my Christmas pics…not a whole lot of them, but a few…

The next few days I have off of work and it will be spent in lovely Christmas spirit.  Christmas tunes will be blarring…a little Christmas baking will take place (despite not being able to eat “real” food on this diet, I still really enjoy baking and cooking and still do so for others occassionally) and a little bit of wrapping up some loose ends on the Christmas gift scene.  Oh, and Christmas cards will hopefully go out tomorrow!  I’ve never been this late sending out Christmas cards!!!

And now for some pics…

A little Christmas self portrait.  This was a little hard to accomplish with needing a tripod so I could have a slower shutter speed to give the tree that Christmas-y glow.  I like how I am “warped” in this pic

The Pink tree all aglow in the pink lights.

Same tree, pink lights off, clear lights on.

One of the many pink ornaments on the tree.

Another pink ornament…I love the star that is on the relection of the light from the star filter on my camera.

Okay…a final pink ornament on the tree.

I love Christmas   And in order to carry on some Christmas cheer, I need to be getting to bed.  I will hopefully get the engagement pics posted soon.

Woooow, it’s been awhile!  Almost a month!  I really try to put forth the effort of updating, but I always think about updating when I’m at work and then by the time I get home, I’m too tired or too busy doing other things to get around to posting.  Finally….here is a new post!

So…let’s start off with the diet and health update.  I’ve completed 19 weeks and have lost 57.5 pounds.  Yay me!!  I’m very close to my goal of 73 pounds, however, my doc and I have discussed me losing more weight after hitting the first goal.  He said we would reassess once I hit that first goal and reevaluate my fat levels and what not to make sure that it’s healthy for me to still lose weight.  He said as long as I don’t drop down too far and stay in a healthy range then he is okay with me losing more.

Other than the weight loss, there isn’t much on the diet front to update.  I’m doing incredibly well and this has really truly been a life changing diet for me.  Not only did it help me to find out that I had a thyroid disorder, but it has helped me regain my life.  I am loving life – it is amazing!  Not to sound too full of myself here, but I love to hear people comment on how great I look and how skinny I’m getting! 

Life is now an adventure…I always loved life, but I love it even more…I feel great (a lot of that due to the wonderful thyroid hormones that I am on and that have my hormone levels normalized).  I’ve somewhat started running on the treadmile – something I would have never done in a million years before.  I can’t wait to reach my goals!

So, I’ve also gotten glasses within the past couple of weeks.  I don’t have to wear them all of the time….they’re pretty much reading glasses.  I had them on the other day with some old friends who had never seen me in glasses and one friend commented that they made me look smarter….hmmm….made me think I should start wearing them all of the time! 

It’s Christmas time…..my favorite time of the year!!  My house is all decorated…my nice big tree in the living room, my mantel all decorated, the kitchen decorated, the dining room has a tree with handmade ornaments of family member’s photos….it’s my “family tree”.  Upstairs in my “studio” is my pink tree…okay, the tree isn’t pink, but all the decor on the tree is.  I will post some pics on here after this posting.

Something I had been meaning to post was some pics from the engagement shoot I did a month or two ago.  I had fun on this shoot – the first engagement shoot I had ever done.  I will share some of my favs in a following post

And…that’s about it in my life right now…haha, okay, maybe not….there are a few gentlemen in my life…not really dating, but talking and possibly progressing at some point (not all of them at once – I’m not that kind of girl!)  And most  recently, I’ve become smitten with a medical student who has been hanging around at work…quite good looking and a nice sarcastic personality.  Maybe things will spark between the two of us – who knows – but I’m trying

Hmmm, that’s all that I can think of right now.  Let me post this and then pull up some pics to post.  Oh, and I will post a somewhat updated pic of moi on here….

Okay, so actually this isn’t a completely updated pic – this was taken on November 19th…almost a month ago.  So I’m skinnier now than I was in this pic   Oh, yes, and I wore a little black dress for the first time, to my work Christmas party.  It was a blast getting all dazzled up and going out in a tiny black dress when my coworkers are used to seeing me in semi baggy scrubs!  And there was a litte….cleveage showing….I was a little self conscious, but at the same time it was nice just enjoying my new found body

Okay…this is to be posted….now…..and then I will add Christmas pics and engagement pics.

My monthly goal of submitting some “scrap work” has not been accomplished yet this month.  I have a layout that I did of when I passed boards and officially became a registered nurse which is my November submission, I just haven’t sent it in yet this month.  I need to get on it!  I also need to check out the pub calendar and submit for another design team soon.

And one last thing…tomorrow Christmas is coming to my house!!    I’m all giddy…I’ve been listening to Christmas music for weeks now.  I’m going to start decorating tomorrow…I need to finish cleaning the living room first.  The all pink decked out tree will go in my “art studio” again this year.  I’m putting a tree in the dining room this year that will be my “family tree” with ornaments made with family pics.  And the big tree with the array of ornaments will go in the living room.  Will definately take pics and hopefully post in a relatively decent time frame  

Alrighty, enough said for the time being

Oh, my busy life!  I know…I’m slacking on the updates.

And yes, I have pictures of the engagement shoot and still haven’t posted…I will get to it eventually  

Life has kept me busy…so here’s a quick update…

Health and diet – this week marks the completion of week 17…I’ve lost 54.5 pounds!  Yay!!  I’m looking and feeling great!  A couple weeks ago I finally bought new scrubs…people were getting annoyed with me wearing scrubs that were too big and I kept having to pull the pants up…so I gave in and bought some new ones.  Everyone was happy with me.

I’ve gone down another pant size…yay!  I love getting smaller and smaller clothes.  So, one of my coworkers and I were going to go shopping one day.  We met at work so she could get her flu shot.  So she’s driving around the parking lot trying to find me to pick me up and I’m just wandering around the parking lot.  Finally she pulls up and she said she couldn’t find me…there was only a skinny girl wandering the parking lot and she didn’t know that it was me!

Lately, I’ve been having some vision problems while driving at night…so I went to the eye doctor today and I now am going to have glasses.  I don’t have to wear them all the time – just night driving, anytime I do extensive reading or computer work or anytime my eyes are bothering me. 

Let’s see….what else to update about?  Still searching photography programs….haven’t made my decision regarding that just yet. 

Thanksgiving this year is going to be real low key for me.  I’m working that day – I’m actually glad about that so that I don’t have to think about the food aspect since I’m still not eating “real food”.  I’m beginning to dislike so much of life and social settings being centered around food.  And yet I still love to cook!  I baked chocolate chip zucchini cake the other day for a bday lunch…people don’t understand why I’m baking when I can’t eat and I reply that I still love to cook and bake and this gives me an excuse because I haven’t gotten to cook or bake in a long time.

Alright, I think that is enough from me for right now because in half an hour I will be doing a “webinar” on photoshop so I have to make sure I am all ready to go for it!

Till next time!

So, totally sorry that I repeated myself in the last two posts.  Didn’t realize that I had updated about the diet and what not just a couple days ago.  Guess I should have looked and paid more attention, right??

Today is November 1st.  It doesn’t feel like November.  FYI, the time changes tonight – don’t forget to set your clocks back.  I have what is considered a “smart” alarm clock, however, it’s not so smart anymore…it resets itself according to the time change, but if you remember, a couple years ago they passed a law about when the time changes.  My clock was made before the new law went into effect.  Therefore, my clock resets with the old time change and reset itself last weekend.  I was late to work because of it…a coworker called and asked if I was coming to work and I was really confused why she was calling me.  I said yes and they said it was 7 and I was late, I argued that no, it was 6.  I thought they were playing games with me at work…but then it donned on me what happened.  So, I need to remember to reset clocks tonight before going to bed since I have to work tomorrow.

On another note, I’ve been thinking about my future.  Won’t go into detail here about things, but I’ve been thinking a lot.  Enough said.

So…I can’t remember when I last updated about my diet and my health issues…I guess I could look back at old posts, but I’m already in the middle of this one   So, this week is currently my 14th week.  At the end of my 12th week, marking 3 whole months of newfound glory on this diet and my medications, I went in for my weekly weigh in…disappointment here, I only lost 0.8 pounds.  However, if you look at my trending, every few weeks I put up really low numbers like that…it’s like my body is screaming out “Hey, what are you doing to me????  Stoooooop.”  So…bummer with the numbers.  However, since it had been 3 full months, they took my measurements again….I like telling people this part….I’ve lost 19.25 inches!!  I’ve lost 1.5 in the bust (taking me down one cup size), 5 inches in the hips and 7 whopping inches in the waist!  I love hearing those numbers…almost more than my total weight loss numbers!  Oh, yes, end of week 12 with these measurements I was down just over 41 pounds.

With those 12 weeks also came more lab work…  So, last week, the end of week 13, I lost 3.8 pounds bringing my total to 45 pounds… 66% of my weight loss goal (and in 13 weeks!).  Got my lab work back…everything is looking amazing…my cholesterol has dropped about 80 points, my vitamin D levels have come up (I was pretty deficient here and taking 10,000 units a day)…I got to cut back to 6,000 units a day now.  My TSH was finally in normal range so no change to my medication there – so I stay at 125 mcg a day.

So, that’s my update on my weight loss and health for the time being.  I think this post has gotten a little long…I should head on out of here and work on some other things.   

Till next time!