Saturday Weigh-In...Weight Watchers Works! Also, Alliteration's Awesome Too

I skipped last week's Weigh-In post, but never fear:  I'm here today to divulge the details of my very personal weight loss journey (because me divulging personal stuff is so uncharacteristic).

I'm also going to take this opportunity to brag about something cool that happened to me.  If we're real life friends on The Facebook, you may want to skip this part.  Go play your turn in Words with Friends (or start a game with me, please??).  You've heard this one before.  Here goes:

So one day last week, I happened to take a peek at my blog stats before heading out to work in the a.m.  I was a little shocked to see a few hundred visits.  Normally I don't get a ton of traffic here.  I mean, don't get me wrong, the fact that more than 1 person checks in on a semi-daily basis rocks my world like nobody's bizness, but still...these were weirdly high numbers.  I tried to see where they were all coming from, but all I saw under "referring URLS" was facebook.  I figured one of my homies had posted a link to my blog, and as much as I was dying to figure out who it was, I had to get to work.

Work, by the way?  I am in love with my job.  Love.

Back to my little braggart tale:  It was one of my short days, so around noon I headed home.  Before leaving the parking lot, I decided to take a look at my stats, to see if the wave of lookers had receded, and to see if I could figure out where they came from in the first place.

Um...holy crap.  During the three hours I was at work, there were over 1500 new visitors to my blog.  And not only were people looking, they were READING.  Like, some people had hour-long visits.  I started to get a little excited now..this was kind of big.  Big for me, anyway.  And then I noticed I had a new comment...a comment that mentioned the fact that FAMOUS AUTHOR EMILY GIFFIN posted a link to my blog on her very own Facebook page.

Yes, best-selling author Emily Giffin somehow found my blog, took time out of her life to read it, and then posted about it on her facebook page.  Her facebook page with over 16,000 fans.  Do you know of Emily?  If not, please get to know her books.  She's a fabulous writer with a knack for creating absolutely real characters, characters you visualize in your head and try to figure out which celebrity will play them in the movie while you're reading.  And speaking of movies, one of my favorite movies was based on her super awesome book "Something Borrowed" (really, Kate Hudson and girl-crush Ginnifer Goodwin dancing to Salt and Pepa's Push It is classic...see that movie if you haven't already).

When I saw that comment, and realized what had happened, I got goosebumps.  Seriously..that doesn't happen to me very often, being a very warm-blooded, sweaty lady.  This was big.  Then, of course, because I seem to have crying-Tourette's, I started weeping.  So I figured that was a great time to start driving home. Crying while driving isn't edgy enough, so I also rang up my BFF Danielle and wheezed out the details of this most exciting development.  She looked up the page on the facebook and read it out loud to me, and then invited me over so I didn't have to experience this coolness all by my lonesome.  She also made me a really nice turkey sandwich.  I love her.

Now, here's why I loved this experience:  Of course, the fact that someone like Ms. Giffin called my blog "well written" and actually said, "Thanks for the good morning read, JENNY" was, on its own, one of the most tingly moments of my life thus far.  Seriously.  First Jennifer Weiner, then Sarah Pekkanen, and now this?  Thrilled doesn't begin to describe how that felt.

But more importantly:  it gave me some validation.  You see, that morning I got another little nugget of news that wasn't so awesome.  It involved Big Daddy, of course, and the fact that he has yet to pay a penny of child support.  Not only that, but his attorney suggested that I am purposely under-employed, and boy would they like to see what the Family Law courts have to say about that.  Yes, he's trying to find ways to throw me under the bus, rather than manning up and doing what's right (and what's legal, but that's beside the point, I guess). 

Can I tell you how sick and tired I am of this struggle?  How annoying it is to have to wait, and worry, and stress about this shit?  You have no idea how badly I want to be successful, to be able to provide enough for my kids that I can finally, for once and for freaking all, tell that bastard to (in the words of my beloved Violent Femmes) KISS OFF.  To wash my hands of him, completely.  Be done with his icky ways, his shadiness and his cruelty.

So, the whole Emily Giffin thing gave me some hope.  That was why I was crying as I was driving down the highway.  I felt somewhat validated, at least for a few hours.  To paraphrase Sally Field, "they like me!".  I felt, for a blissful handful of moments, like there was a fantastic, bright light at the end of this seemingly endless tunnel.  It made me think about the life beyond this one, the life that my kids and I could have.  The life I hope we will have.

I can't thank Emily enough, nor can I thank Jennifer Weiner and Sarah Pekkanen and every single one of THEIR fans who clicked over here and read a little bit, enough.  Just like I can't thank you guys enough, for being here, for sending me encouragement via emails or comments or facebook posts.  One day, soon, there will be a day when all of this crap is nothing more than a fuzzy, stale memory.

And when that day comes, you bet your gorgeous hineys it's going to be sweet.

Sweet, and hopefully low in points.  Which is my clever way of segueing into the Weigh-In portion of today's post.

I'm converted.  I'm a believer.  I'm all Jennifer Hudson about Weight Watchers.  Given my pretty severe financial limitations, I've been feeling guilt about paying for this service every month.  It's about $40, which for most people is nothing, but for me?  It's something.  It's a tank of gas, it's a few day's worth of groceries, it's two haircuts (with a generous tip, of course).  But I've decided that it's important.  I also decided that if it wasn't working, I'd stop it.

Guess what?

It's working.  I've done my fair share of weeping in my car over the past two weeks.  I've already regaled you with the famous author tear-fest story, now here's the second.

I cried at Weight Watchers.  Like, standing on the scale, tears running down my face, crying.  I had gone in last week not expecting to see a whole lot of  improvement.  I'm still trying to figure out how to incorporate exercise into my insanely crazy schedule and so far all I've figured out is how to fall asleep at 9:00 every night (it's pretty easy to do, sadly).  So when I stepped on the scale, I did so with a bit of resignation and a whole lot of apprehension.  When Weight Watchers lady told me what I had lost, I lost it.  I apologized to her, explained that even I didn't know why I was crying.  She hugged me, told me it was ok, and then congratulated me.  Because I lost a lot of weight that week.

Here's the breakdown, and then I'm off for a walk.  I have a date again tonight, and believe you me...mama wants to eat.  Thanks again, each and every one of you (even you, Big Daddy, you stalkery creep.  Without you and your torturous mind games, I would have never discovered the awesomeness inside of me) for giving me so much support and encouragement...it truly does take a village to raise a Jenny, and I'm oh so grateful for my amazing village.

Week 1:  -4 lbs.

Week 2:  -3.8 lbs.

Week 3:  -3.2 lbs.

Week 4:  -1.4 lbs.

Week 5:  -3.4 lbs.

Week 6:  -1.8 lbs.
Week 7: +.2 lbs.
Week 8:   -3.6 lbs.  (!!!)
Week 9:  -2.2 lbs. (!!!!)

Grand total:  23.2 pounds gone forever.  If I can do this?  Anyone can.

Wooooooot!