Arizona is the only place where you run out of cold water in the shower.

Either that or my shower hates me.

Clearly I'm back in the land of the hellish heat. Hiding out in my apartment with two fans blowing directly on me at the same time. I wound up eating banana chips and grape tomatoes for dinner yesterday because it was too hot to go to the grocery store. Yup, feels like home.

The rest of my Washington trip was delightful. There is something inherently therapeutic about spending time in a farm town. Especially since I spent most of it curled up in the recliner in my parents room watching movies with my mom in my pjs. Yeah, good times. Once I walked into their room to find them watching Gladiator. So I sat down to join them. Then my mother started fast forwarding, but not through the gory scenes. Turns out we were only watching the battle scenes. That's how awesome my vacation was. I went to Spokane to see my brother, his wife and their new baby. My brother plays a game called "Where's Duncan?" Basically I close my eyes, he hides the baby and then I look for him. In case you are wondering how this works, here is a video of what I turned the corner and saw once while playing said game:

Yup, that's a baby under a coffee table. My mother felt the need to rescue him while I felt the need to take a video of his freaking adorable kicking legs.

In other kid news, my niece loves to be filmed. I took what felt like 100 videos of her telling stories about cowboys and pirates and something that lives in the tree at Grandma's house. In the end though, my questions about who was who in the family was my favorite video.

Sadly, I asked her this the first time without a camera and after she declares that I have no boyfriend she adds "you just have your mom." Good thing my mom is awesome.

Work starts again next Tuesday. It's both tragic and exciting. Tragic in the sense that I can no longer stay up until midnight or later on a weekday watching 30 Rock and Project Runway and exciting in the sense  that I get to go back to teaching, which I love. Also, crazy things my students say. I got a little preview this week at Freshmen Orientation. A student told me that I look like an evil vampire when I laugh. Not the first time I've heard this, I am unfazed. I also threw a packet of A&D ointment at a kid who said I was old (I was in the nurses office, I don't have packets of burn/diaper ointment in my classroom, but I'm thinking now it's a good idea). My new year's resolution, as always, is to write more bloggy posts, so look forward to that. 

No More Secrets

I've had a secret for about 6 months, and it was fun to have, but the cat's out of the bag now, so it's safe to blog about. 

Right after my birthday this year I decided it was time for some life changes, so I started meeting with a dietitian. Turns out I don't mess around with this stuff and now a little more than six months later, I've lost almost 80 pounds.  

This picture was taken on my birthday weekend, a week before I started my diet and about 10 minutes before eating the best chocolate napoleon I've ever had. I highly recommend the chocolate shop in the Bellagio, just saying. 

For good measure, here is the picture of me eating said chocolate dessert.

For the record, I thought this was a crazy flattering picture of me. 

And here are the after shots:

This is me on Monday with my newest nephew Duncan, who I affectionately call D-dubs.

I love that kid. Seriously. And here is my face, just for fun:

It's strange, most of the time I don't think I've changed much, but then sometimes I see a picture like this or see myself in the mirror and stop and stare. Who is that? 

I've been traveling lately, the above picture was taken in New Orleans, a place that I now love. I should have taken more pictures there but I was busy falling in love with the city. Now I am visiting Washington, staying busy with activities such as:

Dragon hunting with my niece, she takes this stuff seriously, as indicated by her face, and she is 100% certain that this rock is really a dragon. 

And baking cookies for my mother's achievement day's activity.

Because nothing says vacation like being told that you need to make 100 star cookies. By the end of this venture the star shape looked very strange to me. 

I love spending the 4th of July with my family in Ephrata. There are no city fireworks so we buy some from a sketchy looking guy at a booth that has the word "Discount" displayed prominently one too many times to bring comfort (seriously, why would I want to buy something that could blow my arm off at a discount price?) and then sit on our porch and watch the men in the family put on a show for us. The porch sitting continues as we watch the neighbors light all their fireworks late into the evening. It's low-key and calm and everything that I love in life. This year my mother and I sat on the porch and talked and would occasionally point in one direction or the other hoping the other would catch the firework that had just gone off. You never know where the next one will be, it's part of the fun. 

This weekend I am heading to Seattle to see the little sister and the guy she currently spends her time with. I hear there is promise of Thai food and a pedicure. What else does a lady need in life? I'm sure I'll be blogging all about it.