30 pounds down -- when did THAT happen?

Okay, I'm floating pretty high right now. I had a goal to lose 30 pounds before I left on a fabulous European adventure and today was my last weigh-in before leaving. I honestly didn't think I could make it, because I had to lose, like, 3 pounds in a week and there was clearly no way that was going to happen. And I was right. It didn't happen. I lost 3.6 pounds instead! I can't believe it. I've lost MORE THAN 30 POUNDS in LESS THAN 4 MONTHS. And I'm skinnier than I have ever been in my adult life. That is crazy. When did it happen? Seriously, I feel like I haven't even been on this site for that long. It's still new. I just got started; how can I be more than halfway done?

I used to always think about losing weight in terms of how long it would take. "Oh, well, if I started dieting today, it would be, like, a year before I even managed to reach the weight I want. That's so long. I know I won't stick with it for that long, so why bother suffering today when I know I'm just going to fail and end up right back where I was anyway. It's pointless." And so I would just keep doing what I was doing and gain just a little bit of weight every once in a while, and then a little bit more and a little bit more until all of a sudden I was pushing 200 pounds (that's still hard to admit) and feeling helpless and like I just didn't know what to do to make it right.

Enter MFP. All of a sudden I had a plan that involved short-term goals like "stay under your calories for one day," and "work out three times this week," instead of a long term goal of "be a magically different person for a year and reach your final end goal, which will obviously never happen because you're a fatty and always will be." Plus I had the insanely wonderful support of all the great people on this site who believed in me and pointed out how great I was doing when I let myself slid back into that "there's no way you can stick with this until the end so why bother" way of thinking. Thank you, guys. You know how much you mean to me. In fact, my first thought when I saw the scale this morning was, "I've got to tell my MFP buddies!"

Now, as I've reached two major goals in one fell swoop (losing 30 pounds before my trip and getting half way through my weight loss) I feel a posting of my other major accomplishments thus far is in order. They are as follows:

-- Dropping down from a size 16-pushing-18 to a size 14-pushing-12
-- Actually wearing SHORTS in the SUMMER TIME
-- Actually buying DRESSES that could in no way be termed as "moo-moo's"
-- Looking at shirts while shopping and thinking, "I might need a medium in this."
-- Running a 5K in 36 minutes!
-- Training for a 10K and assuming that "of course I'll be able to do it."
-- Dropping down from "obese" to "overweight" on that little scale thing
-- Not thinking that people are patronizing me or being sarcastic when they comment on how good I look
-- Being able to shop in "skinny people" stores
-- Not using food as a way to cheer myself up
-- Being able to think "I have 26 pounds to lose" instead of "I have 57 pounds to lose."
-- Not feeling like I'm being silly when I let myself believe that I might actually reach my goal weight

There are more. But I'll save them for the next 30 pounds -- when I'll be at my goal weight! Thanks MFPers! I couldn't have done it without you!