Week 325 Update

It was 06:32 when I stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, "197.5 pounds!"

I finally hit it—my target goal weight! For the second week in a row all of daily weigh-ins have been inside my target range. ☺

My eating has been good too, as far as points are concerned. All 7 days I ate fewer than 46.0 points, which is my upper limit. And I averaged 32.43 points per day.

As for the progress on my dental issues, I am continuing to log that at: The Tooth Fairy's Evil Twin. If you would like to keep tabs on how I am doing in this area, please feel free to drop in and read all about it. It hasn't all been fun, but I am making progress!

On the left you will see a picture of me wearing my new dentures. Since real life doesn't have an UNDO BUTTON, I think they will be with me for some time. ☺

On Tuesday, Dotti and I took an outing to see the “Street of Dreams” this week. This is a place where 6 houses are put on display, each of which is priced between 2 and 4.5 million dollars. Guests are allowed in once they purchase a ticket, and then are free to browse through the houses.



Here's Dotti waiting in line to get our tickets. Isn't she cute?



Dotti, looking beautiful in her dress, is eyeing one of the doghouses that were also on display. I don't know but I think she was looking for someplace where I might be comfortable next time I got in trouble. ☺ Some of these places would have made Jim and Tammy Faye Baker's dogs jealous.

We were just getting ready to go inside this multi-million dollar house, and you can see there was a stream of people already heading for the door. There were quite a few visitors while we were there.

Dotti took this picture of me, outside the same house as she had posed before in the previous picture. Even the lawn looks like a million dollars. Nice house!

All of the houses were multi story and they all had a view of either Mt. Hood or Mt. Adams to the rear of the house. Many had huge picture windows facing the Mt. Hood, and with a fireplace right beside them, these living rooms were storybook fantasies come true!



I picked this shot of Dotti looking over the layout of a closet, not some much because of what it shows you of the house, but because Dotti looked so good in it, I couldn't pass it up. Her smile is priceless!



Can you believe it? One of the houses had a golf hole in its back yard! Several of the houses had some form of golf practicing area laid out, including putting greens, but this one had a fairway and sand traps to go with the green. Wow!

After we finished touring all of the houses, we headed home, but on the way we stopped off at the new IKEA store. It opened on the day I got my dentures July 25, 2007. The freeway and surrounding roads had been hit with a log jam that day, and we didn't want any part of it for a few days. But we decided a week might have allowed things to settle down a bit.

It wasn't completely settled down, because they had several rent-a-cops directing traffic into the various parking lots, and we drove past many people hoofing it from one of the auxiliary parking lots as we drove to the lot directly in front of the store. We figured that either we would get a good spot close to the building, or we would come back another day. As it turned out, there was plenty of open parking in that lot and so we had the chance to check out what all the fuss was about.

The store is just off Airport Way, and nestled up against the long term parking lot for the PDX airport. Notice the plane coming in for a landing just over our heads.

Dotti seems to be enjoying the idea of going inside this huge store. ☺I had no idea what to expect really. They were getting close to opening this store before I had ever heard the name IKEA before. All at once Portland was going crazy over the grand opening.

I thought the name of the store sounded Asian, but it is a Swedish based store, and the name of the store is actually an acronym formed from the name of the founder (Ingvar Kamprad) and his home village (Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd).

I am ready to go in too, but I don't think I look as enthusiastic about it as Dotti did. What do you think? ☺ We spent a couple hours browsing, and I did have fun.

IKEA is loaded with low priced home products that are pretty high value for the cost. The second story was a display shop, where they had room after room of merchandise set up for you to see how it looked in use. Bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms, etc. were set up for you inspect, and there were product numbers on the items so you could write them down (with paper and pencils they supplied gratis) and later locate them in the merchandise area on the first floor. Dotti and I enjoyed touring both sections of the huge store, and we made a few purchases as well. ☺

Day by day this week, I was just trying to get by, and not lose hope in things improving. I still focused on my journey, even with the distractions and I tried to eat as healthy as I could, and to remain within my program. All and all, I am very happy with how the week went, considering all the distractions going on. It is not a week I want to relive, but it was better than last week, and I hope next week will be better still.

Dotti is my very best friend, and she makes even the tough parts of life much more pleasant to live through. She is a great example, and wonderful cheerleader who is always trying to keep my spirits up. I am a very lucky guy!

I have also found a lot of help in the Men's Forum on the DWLZ message board. There some great people there who always seem to find the right thing to say when you most need a pick-me-up! Thank you to all of them!

Well, here goes another week. Wish me luck. ☺

6 years, 85 days on my journey; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-
6 '3" 239.5/197.5/197.5±2.5/BMI:24.69/WK- 325

Starting weight: 239.5       Target Weight Range: 195 lbs to 200 lbs