279 replies to this topic

[I Called Jenny]

Ouch, Paulette! I'm so sorry. I know how miserable that can be. Please get healthy and feel better soon!

And David, you're doing so great. Keep it up because you're one of my favorite inspirations.

[mindymdc]

Ah shoulder arthritis - ugh. I'm sitting here in a clavicle support the doctor gave me yesterday because my shoulders have been bothering me so much. Aging is so fun. All the more important that we get our bodies in better shape!!!

David, I'm sorry I have been nothing but a slacker lurker here for a while. I have been keeping up with you though! You keep up all your good work, you are learning lifelong skills. I hope you stick around the forums through your entire weight loss journey so we can all follow you, be inspired by you, encourage you all along the way! Even if that armband is right about 2015. You are doing great! But listen to your body - it knows when it needs rest my friend!

I can't wait to see your train move up a bit on your ticker! Post back after your weigh-in!

[CMECRZN]

David, have you updated your ticker lately???

[Dshireman]

woohoo, so i just got in from bowling. had a nice night, improving my skills. i bowled 101, 121 and 103! yippie! i broke 100! and the best part about bowling was that between 6 pm and 9:30 pm it takes up about 5000 steps and gets the heart pumping. so its a nice bit of exercise, yay me. i had a nice walk on monday too, and i am doing great on my thesis. so things are feeling good over here with me. but i need to get back to jenny craig center, not been there in three weeks. though my consultant keeps calling to ask me when i am going to go in. maybe this saturday, though tomorrow i am heading up to the campus to turn in some forms. so how is everyone else?

[Dshireman]

I used to be intimiated by crossword puzzles when i was a kid, but tonight when i could not sleep i decided to give one a try and YAY i sovled it completely and correctly and it wasn't one of those themed ones where all the answers fall in a single category. see, college education was not for nothing! but it was fun to complete one and not need it to be a themed one.

[I Called Jenny]

Congrats, David on the crossword puzzle and the "breaking 100" at bowling. I also was never a great bowler so when I'd break a 100, I felt as if I'd just won the Super Bowl. LOL

BTW, why haven't you been going in for your consultations? They really are a very important part of your journey. What's going on that's making you hesitant to see your JCC?

[Dshireman]

not hesitating, part of it was the end of the month, part of it was that i've kept myself locked away mainly to do the writing. and now a new little hicup has come up with the thesis, so we will see if i survive this new obsticle. when i know that my future is not in jeopardy any longer then i'll take a few hours out of my day and head across town to the centre.

[CMECRZN]

David, what degree are you working on?? I understand about writing your thesis. I have a Master's degree in Computer Engineering and writing that thesis was almost harder than taking any of the classes that allowed me to get to the thesis. You can do it, but please don't forget to take care of yourself at the same time. You are so worth it!!!

[Dshireman]

Thank you for the kind words. I needed that. I don't really feel like I am worth it or much lately. I kind of had the floor fall out from under me again yesterday and spent today doing what I was told I needed to do to fix it, only to have the computer not function properly when submitting the forms. And the professor who was helping me can't help me anymore, so now I have to call in tomorrow and see if this new lady is in working on saturday which probably is not, so that means waiting until monday to try and get a hold of her and figure out what is what. I just don't react very well to this sort of thing, doing what they tell me to do and then it doesn't work and then i have to wait on them to figure it out. I worry that they won't figure it out fast enough and mean while the deadlines will pass and its my life that goes down the drain but no skin off their noses.

But I stare at it and remind myself that I am doing all I can as fast as I can to jump through their hoops. And I cling to a hope of sucess, of a life in warm weather in hawaii, and a belief in myself. I can take a straight up no, or rejection, or bad news, but its the "well I don't know" answers that really twist my stomach into knots. I want to yell "what do you mean you don't know? you're the one who is in charge over there!"

And then i remember to have faith. That no matter what transpires that determination and hard work can over come. At least thats what they always told us growing up.

anyway, to answer your question the degree is in English Literature ... i know, pretty useless huh? but its all i've ever been good at, hopefully it makes me a better writer and lets me find a teaching job somewhere i guess. I don't really want to teach, I mean i'm good at it and I enjoy it, but it doesn't get me all excited inside you know? writing does, so I'll stick with that as my great hope. We'll, no sense crying any more tears tonight, can't do nothing until morning comes and even then like I said might have to wait until Monday. Bless you all and i hope you are all doing well. Better than me anyway .

Well, if i ever do get published I know i can count on all of you to buy my book, so hey look at that I'm already working the publicity angle lol. Maybe I'll write a book about weight loss journey too ontop of it all, but no one will want to read that Unless I am successful right? Well I did go for a walk tonight, but only 4 laps so just shy of 5,000 steps. cut it short because my right arm started to ache really bad, i guess the walking somehow reminded the muscles that they were dog tired from the bowling? Who knows. Smile everybody, this too shall pass, and spring will come again. Race you all to the sunshine.

[nancy5012]

Hi David - so glad you see you again!

I applaud your working towards that degree - I have a masters in business admin and it was tough going for awhile, but well worth the effort. There were times I wanted to give up but I figured I had so much invested in it that it would be such a waste not to finish.

Ido hope you are keeping a journal of your weight loss - I think it can make a great book. Everyone has their ups and downs so your travels on this road will appeal and inspire so many. I am glad to see that you are keeping up with the walking -

[I Called Jenny]

David, I took the long way around to becoming a writer and I congratulate you on working so hard to get your thesis done. That's one thing I never had to tackle so you've already impressed me with that.

Sorry that you're having "technical" difficulties and a lack of guidance but I have faith that you will ultimately succeed at getting your thesis done and score high on it.

I've written 8 books (although most of them were custom-written for major corporate clients) but two actually sat on bookshelves in stores and are still in libraries.

My writing is non-fiction and I keep toying with the idea of writing fiction but I haven't had much success in that area so I tend to continue to do the non-fiction writing. And believe me, yes, WHEN you are successful, your weight loss journey WOULD become a best seller!

And whatever you write, just let us know when it's published and you can count on a sale from me.

[CMECRZN]

David, that is a WONDERFUL degree. Have you ever considered technical writing? It is an extremely NEEDED skill and one that has a lot of job openings. My 2nd daughter has her degree in English Lit and she worked as a tech writer for a few years before her children started coming. She also does some editing work still today.

I hear you about your major prof. I had the same thing happen. I had one guy that wanted me to write my thesis on how to design a computer program that converts food recipes to something else. REALLY?? I bet he never suggested that topic to any of his male students. I suggested to him that perhaps I just write a solution to solving world hunger. He looked at me like he didn't get it. Oh yeah. I finally switched to a female prof who was WONDERFUL. I finally landed on a system that designed a monitoring solution for a multiple computer network. And I ended up not having to jump through any hoops to get finished. I tell you that because it is VERY possible that the new Professor witll be just as easy to work with as mine was. Expect the best. Sounds like the old prof was just being difficult. A lot of them like to do that.

In the meantime.... don't forget to take care of YOU... because you ARE WORTH IT!!!

[Dshireman]

Greetings all.

Show of hands, who here was worried? All you lurkers up in the website attic, you too, show of hands? who was worried I was not coming back.

Well here I am. So lets get caught up on a few things. Last monday I went and checked in at the jenny centre, it was a good meeting, I left feeling very positive. My goal this week, as far as food/weight loss went was to stay on the jenny food, and i've mostly made it. I did have one night when i went off the reservation but good, but other than that I did pretty good. I got my walk in only twice this week, but i spent the last two days doing a whole bunch of house work around here. had to do a lot of spring cleaning and moving lots of furinature. Basically the situation is that my mother decided to put a bed in the third bedroom of my house, so the room that had been my office is now converted into a second guest room. This required me to rearrange my bedroom to make space for moving my desk and computer in here. So i spent a lot of time working on that yesterday and then the entire day today because the new bed will be delievered tomorrow. I didn't wear my armband today, but I wish i had would have been curious to see what the read out would have been here at the end, as it is for the first four hours this morning i had almost 2,000 steps just going up and down the hallway of my home from one room to the next, to the trash can, and all about. Wonder how much more i would have registered if i had kept the band on, but I took it off because it was starting to chape (spelling?) my bicep with all the lifting and stuff.

Anyway, hmmm yeah not sure what else to say about that. good exercise, fun times. tomorrow it is suppose to rain but i don't know if it will, looks like it is heading north of us. i got my paperwork resolved up at the college to the point where i only needed one more person to sign off ... i was told that that person was aware of my situation and that I would hear from her in a few days. Now it is one week later and oh yeah tomorrow is the last day to get it done ... lovely huh? So after calling last week, and sending e-mails, and being reassured that all would be well, i am heading up to the campus tomorrow for face to face interaction. don't know if it will work out or not but i am keeping positive thoughts.

As for the thesis, kept up as much as i could with putting in work on that, and if tomorrow goes well then on tuesday i am going to turn it in, or maybe parts of it, we'll see. but either way i'm handing in stuff on tuesday so that i won't have to worry/think about it during V-day celebrations with jessica. neither of us have had time to really arrange anything for the holiday, she is working just as hard as I am for her thesis, so we are both kind of okay with just having dinner and seeing a movie and then maybe after the storm of stress and pressure has passed then we will do something more important.

I'm also going to head over and try to get weighed in tomorrow before i go to the centre again in the afternoon for my next round of food.

On other good news I have been offered that IRS job, so yay for me. Gonna earn a little cash hopefully and put it away into savings. and hmmm not much else to report. i am doing the best i can to stay strong, stay on task, and do everything i can to make things right with me. I am looking forward to the warmer weather which will spark a return to the gym for me in march or april since i'll be able to walk in and out without having to change or worry about catching a cold from the cool air. and i will have lost enough weight that i hope to have a significant improvement in using the gym machines by then.

the bowling is going well, i've gotten much better at keeping the ball going straight and getting more control over it. i'm looking forward to this wednesday night and then on friday some friends are coming over to watch the new season of Spartacus on starz, hang out and catch up. another reason for why i want to have thesis stuff in this week, so that I can enjoy having "earned" some down time with friends.

Anyway, hope everyone is doing well. Hey Debbie, i had not heard of a job relating to "technical" writing, could you when you get a chance shoot me a message with some explanation about that? might be something I'd like to look into for future employment, and it might lead to getting on track for an editor job.

Stay positive everyone, even as all my muscles ache i tell myself to stay positive. The storms are passing and spring is coming once again and with it there will be no more stress and a great deal of shedding of pounds.

[CMECRZN]

David, check out this website for technical writing explanation.... http://www.docsymmet...al-writing.html

or http://www.ehow.com/...iting-jobs.html

or http://idratherbewri...l-writing-jobs/

or http://money.usnews....echnical-writer

[Dshireman]

sweet. thanks.

[Dshireman]

8,463 step walk today. Yay for me! Everybody keep it going strong! I'll be heading in tomorrow to the centre, hope i get good news this time with the weigh in.

[CMECRZN]

David, good to hear from you and good luck on the weigh in! I was beginning to get a bit worried about where you had gone to. Then I want to see that ticker updated!!!

[I Called Jenny]

David, sorry I haven't posted in a while and, yes, I've been thinking about you but, no, I didn't think you'd give up. You're much stronger than that!

Congrats on the bowling, walking, new job and turning in your thesis!!! You're doing all kinds of positive things and I'm so proud of you!!!!

BTW, Deb, thanks for those links. I get offered jobs on occasion to do tech. writing and I was too embarrassed to explain that I didn't really understand what that was.

So I'll check that out and see if that's something I actually can do.

[CMECRZN]

Oh, if you can write well (and we KNOW you both can do that), you can do it. It requires you to talk to a geeky developer (ME) and then translate that geek speak into real people speak. Kind of like writing a Windows for Dummies book. Those were all written by Technical Writers. My daughter had no technical training and an English lit degree from Ohio State. She did that before she started having babies and making cakes.

[I Called Jenny]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Deb!