it's been too long

Okay okay, I know!

Look, I've been busy. Well, not that busy, but still.

I didn't go back and read my last post but I'll try to start off from there. After my trip to Orlando and my epic fail of keeping to my diet and a bad weigh-in I focused myself and got my butt into gear. I think I mentioned before the pee test I do every week when I go in. I pee into a cup and dip a ketone stick into it and the color is supposed to change if you are in Ketosis (see Diet). Basically your body is burning fat. Well in past weeks the stick NEVER changed color, and after my week of self-combat (my mind was telling me no, but my stomach was telling me YES, YES I want that f*$#ing burger) the stick finally changed! Not only did the stick change, but I lost 4.5 lbs bringing me to a total of about 12.5 if I remember correctly.

That ketosis probably lasted all of three hours, because after that I met up with an old co-worker/friend and a current co-worker/friend to catch up on life and gossip. I had ravioli. They had some seafood dish that smelled like sewage. on the plus side the restaurant has 1/2 price wine through October, so I guess that made up for it, right?

The next day (friday) I was pretty sick. Me and my roommate caught a pretty nasty chest cold, so I worked from home (A. to not get my pregnant boss sick and B. because my mom had bought play tickets months before and my grandma was in town and I wanted to feel well enough to go and C. I was leaving for Vegas on Sunday and NEEDED to be better in time for that). I rested and worked from bed and pumped myself full of theraflu and felt pretty good when I headed out for the play that night. First we went to dinner at Cuba Libre which was delicious, but I really struggled with wanting to stick to my diet. I figured, "whatever, I won't be having a weigh-in for at least 2 weeks because of my vacation... I'll have plenty of time to get back to it. Let's enjoy tonight." So I did. I had the Arroz con Pollo (rice with chicken) and I loved every carby second of it.

After dinner we saw Fela at the Sidney Harman Theatre. It was a great show. I did have to do a bit of Wikipedia'ing during intermission to fully grasp it, but it was still good. Lots of dancing and gyrating and jokes about sex and drugs and politics. But.. by the end of the show I felt like death again. I had run out of tissues and all I wanted to do was blow my nose for 20 minutes and pass out.

Saturday I rested, pumped myself with more theraflu, dayquil, nyquil, and was just generally lazy. Saturday night I packed for Vegas and Sunday morning Ivette and I went for Mani/Pedis, grabbed lunch from Chipotle (oops again) and waited for Allison to take us to the airport.

Well, right away Vegas was off to a semi-diet-concious start. Evan (Ivette's boyfriend) picked us up from the airport (we got in at midnight), we checked into the hotel, changed quickly and were off to the Marquee in the Cosmopolitan. To keep the calories to a minimum I was drinking Vodka and soda water with lemon. And that's about where it stopped.

The Marquee with Evan, Ivette, and Steve (Evan's friend, I think that was his name). It was snowing.

The next day we got up around 12 (pretty good for going to bed at 7am and being up for more than 24 hours and going straight out), moved pretty slow to get our lives together and by 4:00pm we made it to Pink Taco at the Hard Rock Hotel. I had wanted to try it just because 1. I've never had a fish taco, which the West Coast seems to be known for 2. the name is funny and 3. I had seen it on the Real World (shut up) and it looked delicious. Well, it was! We stuffed ourselves to the point of wanting to vomit and still made it back 2 more times before the trip was over. It was THAT good. I still dream about it.

The next few days were pretty much all about the pool.

Me and Ivette by the pool

The rest of our crew got there on Wednesday and the fun began.

This was actually our second night. Don't think we got a group shot on the first night.
Top of the Palms (Me, Tymeke, Selwa, Nancy, Kamilah, Ivette, Allison in front)

To be continued....