C'moooooooooon July. Hurry up already!

"And then, such scandal! You would not believe what she did next!"

My sister is coming tomorrow to visit for the weekend. I haven’t seen her since daddy passed away, and it’s the first visit that doesn’t have some other purpose except for it being a simple visit. Of course, she can only squeeze me into a weekend, and part of that weekend will be dedicated to Satan. She’s up in Seattle today doing some consultant work, and will be driving down tomorrow, and flying out of Portland on Monday. I’m excited to see her. She always makes me laugh.

I’m going to sneak off on Sunday, when she’s playing golden-child with my mother and driving her all over the place, to go and pick strawberries on Sauvie Island with some of our ORS folks. It’s going to be nice to do an ORS event again. I won’t be wearing my new dress quite yet, since it’s only half a dress at the moment. I’ve been draping it on my dress-form and hand-sewing everything, and right now, only the front portion of the dress is attached. It looks funny. I still have to make a new petticoat and shift (which I might just make sleeveless) and I’m going to make some pantalettes too I think. Not quite sure... it depends on what I can swing before the 31st of July. I might not hand-sew the undergarments.

Today’s office special is what happens when I am put on hold with the EPA for extended periods of time. The reports are coming along, but with everything else, I confess I’m pretty stressed out. I want this month to be over! The adoption certification workshops continue to be informative but still are tiring. We got a small reprieve on Tuesday because Mr. and Mrs. Moron did not show up to that session and as we suspected, their absence caused the seminar to end an hour before scheduled. Hubby and I were able to get home at something closer to a reasonable time. I wish they’d stay home every time; we’d be much less tired. We are now in the stage where we are going to sign criminal background checks, submit fingerprints, and are filling out the small packet of forms to get the home-study process rolling. After today there are only two more sessions next week then we’re done with that bit. We’re in crunch time now at work for the EPA report submissions, and I also have a site inspection tomorrow morning with one of our regulators and a mammogram on Monday to take additional bites out of our prep-time. We’re hoping to have them all done by the 30th, I hope so. I feel like my head is going to explode. I could use some deflating, like a real vacation, but that’s not an option. :::groan:::

I hit 19 pounds the other day, and haven’t budged since. We’ll see. My average per-week loss has gone down to 1.3ish pounds a week. I’m not drinking the water I should be drinking, and I can’t do mornings without my thermos of green tea... so I’m sure that, plus the stress and everything else is contributing to my slowing weight loss; but I’m still losing so that’s really awesome. I got into a jeans size this week that I haven’t been able to fit into since 2003. It’s an amazing feeling. I found some jeans for $5 at the Sears outlet store and got a couple of ‘interim’ pairs so I’m not walking around in super-baggy pants all the time, which I’ve been doing a lot of lately. I actually see how my hips have gotten smaller now. I want SO bad to hit that 20lb mark. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I’ll hit that goal on my Tuesday weigh-in. Hubby has hit the 40.2lb mark. He looks amazing and is also wearing smaller pants. We are both going to be due for a wardrobe overhaul pretty soon. I will definitely have to remake or alter my regency stays for sure—they close all the way with ease now and seem a bit loose. ::urgh:: I JUST made them. Anyway, that’s another update of my inane life. I might have something *interesting* to say soon enough... we’ll see. Right now it’s just all about the stress. :::GAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!::: /rant. ;)