Can I say that I am thrilled? So many reasons.
1. about 90% of my classes (which I teach) finish for the summer this week. This leaves me time to focus on job #2, which my current project will give me 5,000 USD towards my wedding.
2. This week has been so very productive. I made a list of habits I want to form and have 21 cards (one a day) to check off each day. More on that in another post but one of them is finish work by 9pm. I just love my job and I tend to over-commit so... must be less busy.

3. I just went shopping at H&M and got some cuuuuute stuff. I don't know what's sold at H&M in the states but I hear the Asia branch carries more European stuff than American. I realized that my budget for clothes is 5% of my income each month. I think that's reasonable.

I bought a nice, white, short and breezy summer dress for the impossibly hot Shanghai summer. Fits PERFECTLY! LOVE it!
Also, I got a pair of white and a pair of black summer shoes. Then a teal-ish tube top and a fantabulous black/brown/white multi-width striped halter dress. This is a "can wear in public when I lose 5-10 lbs" dress. As in, it fits me like a glove. Kinda like those jeans you put on and lay on your bed and zip them with a coat hanger only to roll off your bed because you can't bend and say between short gasps, "They fit!"
The only reason I bought it was because it fit the shape of my body so well and the pattern and style is really flattering AND I've become the incredible shrinking woman and so I can forsee myself wearing this dress in a month. Which brings me to reason #4 of happiness...

4. I'm shrinking! Woo-hoo! Ok, so last weekend I bought some mysterious Chinese-made diet pills which are really hard to find anywhere except this small Chinese city I lived in for 2 years. I think they definately wouldnt be FDA approved but they take away my hunger completely and give me a lot of energy- but not the jittery caffiene energy, but a really clear and happy energy. And, I only take them every other day so I won't get hooked on them.
The days I take them are really easy eating days because I just eat exactly as I should because I know I should and not because I really want to eat. Then, every other day I take a multi-vitamen and have either tea or coffee because I don't want to mix any kind of stimulant with the diet pill. On my no-pill days I have to work on my will power and make the right eating choices. So, it's kinda a boost or a jump-start to help me make good eating choices.

today I did pretty well (no-pill day) with my eating choices. I kinda wasn't hungry early so I didn't eat too much but by evening I hadn't consumed enough (about 700 cal with an hour of cycling)so I added about 500 cal which brought me to a non-starvation level. It was really hard when I was hungry to make right choices because I REALLY wanted to binge or eat sugar or bread but...

I defeated my temptations! woohoo!

thanks to today's Bible memory verse... 1 Corinthians 9:27- But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, est, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.