Puzzles, Red Pin Bowling and FINALLY - the scale moved!

I'll start at the end and go backwards. When I had surgery, I had a mini goal of being under 200 lbs by my birthday. Well, my birthday is tomorrow (the 19th) and I did not make that goal. However, I'm getting closer - the scale has been friendly to me the past couple of days, and I am down to 215.5 - that's from 251 on surgery day, and 291 from the beginning. So while I did not make my mini goal, I am grateful for what I have accomplished. I mean seriously, 35.5 lbs lost in a little less than 3 months! When have I ever done that before! And even better - 75.5 lbs lost since I started my WLS journey. How can I be anything but grateful? And of course, the support I have had over the last year has been amazing - my family and friends, to them I cannot thank enough. Especially my husband, Jeremy. My love, my everything. He has loved me through everything - not just my battle with weight, but with so many other things.

I think part of the reason the scale has moved, is because I've started "exercising" a couple of times a week. Granted, I do not get out and exercise AT ALL. I try to be more active each day, but having had pain issues the first couple of months, it's been hard. I'm slowly overcoming that. Anyway, I mentioned before that I am on a bowling league. It is so much fun! J and I bowl with a couple of girls from his work (hi Bobbi! hi Sea! and I cannot leave out Windy! hi Windy!). It's a couple of hours worth of exercise on Thursday nights - and it's fun, so it's not like REAL exercise. Then, the last couple of weeks J and I have been going bowling on Monday nights. It's Red Pin Bowling, and it's $10 an hour for the lane. We usually get in 3 games per person during that hour - so let's break it up. 6 games at $10 = about $1.67 a game. Yeah - good deal! Anyway, they have different things they do - the main thing, is if you get a red pin as the head pin and get a strike, you win a free game. They have other things too. It's just great fun!

Finally - today. Jeremy came home, and we figured we were going to go bowling, so he needed to take a nap and rest. So, I went into the living room, played around with a couple of boxes, then settled at the dining room table and started a puzzle. Now, I love puzzles. I hate that I haven't done more of them. But, I have one now, and I have finally got it started. I finished the border, check it out:

I'll have to post the picture of the puzzle when it's supposed to be finished - it's a tough one for only being 500 pieces! Anyway, I'll take more pictures as the puzzle progresses.

Well, I'm tired. And tomorrow's my birthday! J is taking me whale watching tomorrow night, so watch for pictures in the next couple of days. Usually, we only see dolphins - so here's hoping we see a whale! It's blue whale season, though - and they do not have a migratory pattern like the gray whales do. We'll see how we do.

Later!