Photo Challenge - NUMBERS!

Here are my contributions to the most recent Brenda Photo Challenge, hosted by Karen M. The theme is "numbers". For my first picture, I went with the obvious choice, a picture of my Numb3rs DVDs: I love this show! The guy that plays Charlie Eppes, the math professor, is the actor who played Bernard the Head Elf in the first two Santa Clause movies. He's why I first tuned into the show. And Rob Morrow, who plays Don Eppes, reminds me a little bit of my nephew, Joseph. I think it's the mouth - the way his lips are always pursed. Yoda (my nickname for my nephew) always does that with his mouth, too. lol My second picture is this:

Don't you just love that song "The Twelve Days of Christmas"? Probably THE best song that features numbers. Makes me get all warm and fuzzy just singing it in my head..."On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...". Yessiree Bob. I could hear that every single day of the year and would love it each and every time. My third picture is definitely personal (Not that kind of personal, you pervs! Sheesh!). It's a picture of my keychain and charm that I've recently received from Weight Watchers. (Yes, me, the Queen of Complaining About Weight, broke down and joined Weight Watchers 10 weeks ago this past Wednesday. Yay me! lol) I received the copper colored keychain a couple of weeks ago when I reached my first goal of 10% body weight loss (I circled the little number "10" that's stamped into the metal) and I received the silver charm that has the number "25" as well as the abbreviation "lbs" stamped into the metal, 3 days ago when I officially lost (what I hope to be) my first 25 pounds. I'm very proud of both of those numbers. I honestly don't know which is a harder struggle...quitting the cigarettes or losing weight. But boy howdy, I'm sure glad I developed all these bad habits in my misspent youth. Trying to rid myself of them now that I'm in my 40's has really given me reasons for getting out of bed every morning. (She said with teeth gritted and eyes crossed.) LOL

Now for those of you who are just here to check out the Numbers Photo Challenge pictures, you might want to stop here. The rest of this post is a little bit of bragging, a little bit of self-pity and a whole lot of talk about dropping pounds. In other words, it might just bore you to tears! lol Okay...don't say I didn't warn you!

Anywho...has anybody else heard the phrase "Livin' Large"? It (normally) means:

Living Large: "a. U.S. slang"; to live large: to live in an extravagant manner; (hence) to be very successful, popular, or wealthy, esp. ostentatiously so.

Well that's not the meaning I had in mind when I named my blog. No, no, no... I named my blog "Just Livin' Large" because of the size of my arse, not the size of my wallet or my house. See, my arse is large. And well, it is definitely livin' - (don't think I'm not grateful for that, eh?). But I wasn't too happy with thegeneral state of my arse or the rest of me, for that matter, when I first started blogging. My very first post went like this:

Monday, June 11, 2007
So I stopped smoking. Now what? Okay, well I stopped smoking 16 weeks and 6 days ago (but who's counting, right?). What happens now? Will this almost uncontrollable urge to eat everything in sight stop soon? Will I continue to grow larger and larger and larger until one day I find the only thing that will fit me is a queen size bedsheet? I went clothes shopping the other day, mainly because I was down to one pair of pants that I could zip. I was shocked to discover that my clothes weren't suffering from an unexplained laundry mishap. They hadn't shrunk. I had grown. A lot. A whole lot. In my mind, I'm not fat. In my mirror, well let's not go there. Not only are my clothes not mysteriously altered to a smaller size as per my previous stated belief, but apparently my mirror isn't reflecting an inaccurate vision due to some glazing error. I'm just fat. When did this happen? When did I go from "fluffy" to "fat"? And is this condition permanent? And have I reached the fat boiling point that makes me actually take action to change this? Tune in tomorrow...

You might say I've been "fixated" on the subject for a while although only recently have I decided to actually do anything about it. It happened after that little "Mini-Moon" Randey and I took to OKC back in May. Remember, I'd bought new clothes for the trip. Really BIG new clothes. Even when I was buying those clothes, I still refused to believe how large I'd gotten. Until I saw the pictures of me in those clothes, that is. YOW-ZA! I mean really...YOW-ZA! It was awful. I was disgusted with myself and decided that enough was enough. That Monday, I got online, found the nearest Weight Watchers meeting and that Wednesday, I attended it and joined. As of this past Wednesday (10 weeks after my first meeting), I've lost a total of 25.4 pounds. I feel better, I act better, I'm more outgoing...(this is the bragging part I mentioned earlier, in case you couldn't tell! lol). Now for the pity part...my dad, my step-mom, my step-sister and my nephew all came down from Oklahoma almost two weeks ago to drop said nephew off with us. I was all excited. After all, they hadn't seen me since the weekend before I'd joined Weight Watchers and here I'd lost 20, count 'em, 20 pounds! Oh I just knew I would be positively basking in the glory of that heady achievement, yessir. Only...nobody noticed. Not one person said anything. In fact, other than Randey, no one's said much of anything about my weight loss (although when I make a point of patting myself on the back after my meetings, the boys have been very nice about it and have at least acknowledged the effort. lol). Oh and Aunt Sandi said she thought I looked like I'd dropped a little weight when she saw the vacation pictures (thank you very much Aunt Sandi!) But for everyone else out there: Hello, people! I'm 25 pounds smaller than I was 2 1/2 months ago! Doesn't it show? Well.....apparently not. But that's okay for now. I'm still plugging along, watching what I eat, learning new things and ways to cook, moving my body more. And even if no one else ever, ever notices that I'm slowly shrinking right before their very eyes, I know it. I guess that'll have to do. Of course, I'm never one to suffer in silence (hence this post. lol) or to trudge along with no reward for myself, so to celebrate losing 20 pounds, which was the 10% of my body weight I mentioned earlier, I got this:Oooooh, aaaaahhhhh. A pretty new pink bike. Randey and I are going to start riding bikes in the evenings instead of just going for walks. Pretty cool looking, isn't it? I love it. Here's hoping I don't fall off and break something - it's been a while since I've tootled around on just 2 wheels! Hmmmm, now which handle did they say operates the brake???