Weight: 162.4
Weight loss since beginning of challenge: 1 pound
I hit a hurdle this week with my challenge when I found out that I cannot exercise for 2 weeks. Part of my challenge is to lose some weight, but a more significant part of my challenge is to improve muscle tone and increase lean body mass. Without exercise, improving my strength is a difficult thing to do. This will not deter me!!!! I will focus on my diet for the remainder of this two weeks and start exercising again as soon as the doctor clears me.
I'm happy with the touch-up work, so far. The little bulge above the center of my belly scar is completely gone and it makes my whole tummy appear to be much flatter. I'm surprised how much difference that made. I can't tell how the ends of the scars look yet, because of the steri-strips, but I'm sure they will be fine. The keloids that developed in the scar under my right breast/arm are already smaller and less painful. The steroid injections had an almost immediate effect on those. All in all, it was an hour well spent and two weeks without exercise is a small price to pay for the improvements that it will bring.
I've lost one pound during the first week of my challenge. Not much, I know, but it's something. Considering my mid-week gain, I'm happy with it. I think I figured the puzzle out when I changed my meal schedule. I'm hoping the weight loss is a little more predictable for the remaining 11 weeks. I don't have pictures to post yet because I am the only person in the house that is awake. After my photographer wakes up I will take progress pictures and post them tomorrow.
Jack and I have a busy weekend ahead of us, especially considering the fact that I can't do any heavy work. The house needs a thorough cleaning, but I am going to have to put off my chores until at least next weekend, if not the weekend after that. I get my stitches removed on Wednesday, I may get cleared for some increased activity at that time. We'll see. I don't want to do too much because putting stress on the scars is one of the things that causes the keloids. Now that I know what those look and feel like, I know that it is something I want to avoid!! We are going to go to the farmers market this morning to pick up some starts for the garden. Jack will have to prepare my dirt for me, but I think I can plant the starts and the seeds. It'll be good to get some vegetables growing in the back yard, again. We are going to the baseball game, today. It looks like it will be a sold out crowd. The Royals have been popular this season. I can't imagine why!! Tomorrow we have our last regular season kickball games. I can't play, but I can go out there and make a lot of noise.
Steve called last night and they are bracing for Tropical Cyclone Amos in Samoa. At 1:00PM Sunday, local time (7:00PM Saturday, CST), they are expecting a direct hit in the capital of a category 4 cyclone. The Peace Corps has corralled all of their volunteers into the best hotel in the capital and put them on room lock-down until the storm passes. I talked to Steve last night, he said that they are bracing for a very severe storm by boarding windows, tying down the roofs of buildings (including his hotel), and laying in supplies. He is not worried for his own safety as much as he is worried for his host family and the other residents of his village. It is very likely that the village, which is located right on the beach, will get destroyed and he will get relocated to another community after the storm passes. Prayers to Steve, his host family, and everyone else living in Samoa.
My work life is starting to get a little more manageable after about 8 months of hell. The audit is 100% complete as I received published audit reports on Friday. There were no (as in zero, nada, nil!) audit adjustments. Hooray! That is always a goal of mine. I can't stand audit adjustments, though they've been difficult to avoid as I took over an incredibly sloppy set of books. It takes time to fix everything. I am very close to having my overhead and labor allocation project done, which is very exciting. I am developing a tool that will take the work that I did for the audit (allocating labor and overhead to finished goods inventory at year-end) and allow us to translate that to a forecast for allocating expenses to inventory that is sold in 2016, based on 2016 capacity and expected revenue. I started this project almost two years ago, when I created a huge workbook. I considered every number and calculation that I could think of. After working with the model for over a year, I was able to start narrowing down the data that I really needed to make the model work properly. Part of the challenge is to make the model easy enough to update that it becomes a useful tool, not just a chore to complete at year-end for the auditors. I am very, very close to having something that is manageable and easy to update. I think I will have it complete by the end of next week. We will be meeting as a group early in the week to review the work I have done to date and get everyone's input for the final touches. I am pretty excited about getting this done.
Once this project is done, I will update the quote sheets. After that, I think I will have time to start training Mike, my accounting manager, on how to do some of the work that I do and, conversely, start training myself on how to do some of the work that he does. It's only been 4 years. It's time, don't you think?
That's it for now. The sun is coming up and Saturday is upon us. Here's to another glorious spring day!!
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