I know it's been forever since I blogged and I do apologize I've been waiting until I hit the 75 pound mark and.... well.... I did it.  Officially this morning I weighed 212.4.  That means I've lost 75.2 pounds!!!   I am so excited.  It feels like it took forever to hit this point.   I looked back at my last blog and it was 2 months ago and I was 64 pounds lost then.  I guess I shouldn't complain though.  11 pounds in 2 months is still good.  It's just not as fast as it was coming off before I moved here.

As far as other parts of life... things are great.  I love my job and the people I work with are awesome.  It's been really busy this last week but I like busy.  I'm still trying to get my sleep schedule down.  I have been staying up way to late and then have to get up way to early. 

I'm also doing Partylite and working on starting my own "Paint Your Own Pottery" business.  It's still in the planning stages but I'm really excited at the possibilities.  I have a small inventory of pottery, paints, brushes and design ideas.  I'm hoping to have a mobile studio and take everything to houses to do birthday parties, girls night outs, and bridal showers.  If you interested in having either type of party let me know!

I got to go to San Jose last weekend and had the best time.  I got to see friends that I haven't seen in 10 years and it was wonderful.  I'm hoping to go back in a couple weeks to visit again. 

Okay, well, NASCAR is on so it's time to go.  I hope you are all doing well.  I'll try and get some updated pictures up soon.  :)

m.a.

So Sunday night was Family Night.  We spent the night watching the Giants game and hanging out and playing cards. 

First some photo's from us just hanging out on Sunday night....

My brother Kiko

My Uncle Mike

My Mom and I

My brother Kiko and his wife Ambur

My Mom and Grandma

Grandpa

Now onto Tamale making.  We spent the day at Grandma and Grandpa's making tamale's for Christmas Dinner. It's a huge undertaking.  I don't understand how my grandmother did it by herself all of those years.   First you boil the pork and cook it through. When it's done you drain the broth off put the meat aside. Then you make the mole' (a thick chili sauce) and pour it over the meat. Here is my grandma and sister making the mole'. 

Then you take the masa (a form of corn dough) and pour the broth from the pork into it along with some lard (I know sound gross but it holds it all together and honestly it's just like crisco) and some salt.  Then since the batch was so big my brother and I kneeded it with our hands.  It was messy but fun.  Here's my brother all dressed up and ready to kneed.

And after the masa was all mixed I got bored waiting for my grandma to give me my next instructions so I made a masa snowman.

The next step is getting the corn husks ready.  You need to soak them so they are flexible and wont rip. Ambur and my mom were doing that part...

Once everything is prepped we all headed to the table to piece them all together.  Here is how it looked before we got started...

Then it was time to put it all together.  You spread masa on a corn husk, then put some meat on top and then wrap it up like a burrito.  Here we are putting them together...

We had quite the little assembly line going.  lol

Grandpa even got into the action - cleaning up.  haha

Well that's it for today.  I've got more to post but I'll wait until tomorrow.

I wish you all the same happiness I'm feeling this holiday season.

m.a.

I got my haircut yesterday.  I figured it had been 6 months and I'll be going home in a week so it was a good time.  Plus, with the weight going down I figured and little change in the "do" was in order.  Here's the picture:

I washed it and restyled it today and of course it never turns out like the stylist did it but it doesn't look bad. 

Oh, and two great things happened today.  #1 Im down another pound so I am officially 49 pounds down and #2 I easily fit into a pair of jeans that have been in my drawer forever because the last time I tried to wear them I had to lay down on the bed just to get them on!   I love these jeans so I was really happy.  It's like I have a whole new wardrobe now that I can fit in all my "skinny" clothes.

6 days and counting until I get to go home.  I'm SOOO excited.  I already starting packing my suitcase.

If I don't talk to you all before... HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

m.a.