¡Ombligo!

Stepped on the scale yesterday morning and discovered I gained five pounds. Ah, don't worry I didn't have an all out binge festival, my cycle started up - fashionably late.

I've been seriously puffy but am not worried about any serious weight gain as I was very good last week and stuck to my exercises routine and took account for everything I ate. In fact, I turned down an invitation to eat out this past weekend because I knew that I'd be tempted to order something unhealthy.

My hormones have been making me rather emotional lately - a slight touch of melancholy but for the most part I've remained rather positive.

Something I forgot to mention in my last WW update was about my mom's progress.

Now we're at the point where we can reflect on how much progress has been made. For a while I was really scared that she would suffer another heart attack. While I had been researching low-sodium foods and healing post-heart attack I came across a statistic that only 1/3 of female heart attack patients make a full recovery. So, during that time I was slowly preparing myself for the worse case scenario.

To see my mom now, you never would have thought that anything ever happened. In so many ways the heart attack changed everything because now she's committed toward being healthy - both for the present (to continue her healing process) and for the future (because we do have so much control over health.)

She was told that a friend of hers has a father-in-law who also had a quadruple bypass around the same time as her surgery and he's currently in awful shape. That he's severely depressed, still incredibly swollen, refusing to eat. I suspect that this man's doesn't have the will to go on.

And then consider that my mom had both thalassemia and diabetes to contend with and she's slightly older than this man.

She offered to speak to this man as she can relate to what he's going through but he's not taken her up on the offer.

Remaining positive has really played such a huge role in her progress. Ugh, things really sucked for a while and then got even worse than we ever could have imagined but then they got better and then even better than imagined.

For now I'm really grateful that things are going really good - almost impossibly good. And I'll reflect on this when things turn bad. This too shall pass.

Labels: WW

Ugh, stupid blogger changed up on me and now I'm totally confused!

Anyhow, I meant to update this earlier but was a bad cold gave me a serious smack down. Now that I'm feeling better it's back to making myself a priority.

I had one full week of exercise - then slammed down by the cold for two and then one more week of daily exercise. I've not lost any weight and I showed a gain of three pounds this week which upset me at first but my cycle is due - so that could explain the weight gain. That or else my body is rejecting weight loss!

I have to keep on keeping on, hopefully I'll see some results this week!

SI: This is my most vulnerable week as it's right before my cycle. I've been trying to ward of the one big trigger that's been on my mind lately. Last week, the IRS sent me a letter saying I owed over $9000 for unpaid taxes based on my 2005 tax return.

This entire mess is based on the van I won back in 2005. As it's reported as additional income, you're supposed to pay taxes on that additional income. Well, I paid the taxes on the van (actually, my parents paid the taxes on the van because I gave it to my mom.)

But, what happened was that both the advertising agency (who ran the promotion) and the car makers Daimler Chrysler (who awarded the prize) both submitted the same information to the IRS - making it seem as though I received double the additional income (in the form of two vans). So, of course the IRS wants me to pay taxes on this phantom additional income as only one van was awarded and accepted.

I had to unearth all the paperwork I had from two years ago and contact both the ad agency and DaimlerCrysler. Both which blame each other for this fiasco.

I need to put together a response to IRS to explain that a mistake has been made and only one party should have submitted the tax information of additional income in my name. Ugh, by the end of this week - it should all be cleared on my end and hopefully I'll never have to deal with the IRS ever again (at least not in owing crazy amounts with penalties, late fees and crazy taxes that should never have been submitted in my name!)

Mom: Thank you all for your good thoughts and love during this entire obstacle with my mom. She's doing really great! She's back to work full time now and has been exercising 20 minutes a day on treadmill. There have been moments where she wants to venture off her low sodium diet but knows the consequences in doing so.

Her doctors visits have all been really positive and she's healing quite well. I never thought that she would recover so well, but she has and for that we are grateful.

Labels: WW