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Eileen - January 30, 2011 - Sunday
Exercise Today: 2 hours shopping-walking
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 288.8  Today: 288.0
Change Today: - 0.8 Total Progress:   - 8.6
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Down another .8 lb!  I am now at the exact weight that I was six days ago - before I decided to start strength training.  I have not tried using the Total Gym since I strained my back on Thursday.  It’s still bothering me, just a twinge now and then, not anything like it was on Friday.

I don’t know what it was that caused my back to spasm like that.  I did these same exercises when I first got it and it never hurt my back before.  Everywhere else hurt like crazy (arms, shoulders, legs, abs) but not my back.  I’m wondering if I did it when I picked the thing up to put it back in the closet.

Hubby and I had more errands to run today.  We took our pickup truck to have an oil change and a super-ultra-premium bath.  The place where we go for that is near the restaurant that serves the vegetable soup so guess what I had for lunch, lol.  It was so good!

After the truck was clean and lubed, we turned down the road that leads to the WalMart Supercenter, thinking that we had a few household items we needed to pick up - and we could grocery shop there as well.  Before we got to WalMart, Mike asked me if I wanted to stop in at the Goodwill Store.  We both wondered if it was even open on Sunday, but since it was just a mile or so down the road, we decided it was worth a look.

It was open.  We went inside and went directly to the back of the store to the furniture department.  It was crowded and so we were having some difficulty moving around to look at things.  Finally a couple of people in front of us moved, and we were able to move forward - and there we saw…

THE DESK.

Even from a distance, I felt my heart go pitter-patter.  We both made a beeline for it and we both reached for the price tag at the same time.  We both looked at each other and we both said the exact same word to each other at the exact same moment:

“WHY?!”

Okay, let’s review:  This is the desk we were looking for, something like this:

Small, real wood, not photo-finish-fake-wood-paper-covering-cheap-pressed-board-stuff.  Preferably oak.  Preferably light oak.

BUT.

I have always wanted a roll-top desk.  A real roll-top desk with little cubbies and drawers.  We have looked at a kazillion of ‘em and never found one remotely within our price range.  And here in front of us today was a big old solid oak roll-top desk and they only wanted FIFTY BUCKS for it.  WHY?!?!?

Mike looked it over with his discerning eye.  It wasn’t perfect.  Needed some serious cleanup.  Needed some minor repair.  The roll-top rolled smoothly and the little cubbies were all accounted for, that’s all I cared about.

Hubby gave it the thumbs-up so I snatched the price tag off of it and took it to a sales clerk, quick, before someone else could claim it.

It sure isn’t the sweet little light-oak desk I’d pictured, but ohhhh I love my new desk!!

It’s a lot lighter than it looks in the pictures.  Not as light as that other desk up there, but definitely lighter.  I keep looking over at it and I still can’t believe it was only fifty dollars.

We stopped at Lowe’s and bought the hardware and wood that Mike will need to make the repairs to it, as well as some wood cleaner.  So altogether the desk actually cost us about sixty-two dollars, but still.  OMG I love my desk!

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Eileen - January 29, 2011 - Saturday
Exercise Today: 3 hours shopping-walking
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 290.2 Today: 288.8
Change Today: - 1.4 Total Progress: - 7.8
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Down 1.4 lbs!  Still not back down to where I was, but very happy to be draining off some of that water I was carrying around!.

My back was still hurting today but I was able to stand up (almost straight) so Hubby and I went out to run some errands.  We stopped at a couple garage sales (didn’t buy much) on our way to visit a guy we haven’t seen for about four years.  He sold our son his car and we were hoping he’d be able to give us some insight on how to fix it.  He was actually helpful.

On our way back from his place, we stopped at a couple second-hand stores, still looking for our furniture pieces.  We’re still searching.  Good thing we’re not in a hurry!

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I’m still doing good in the food department.  I’m sticking to the low-carb even when we go out to eat, which is often since I hate to cook.  :)  I still have trouble in the evenings, I want to snack!  I think this will always be my biggest challenge.  I try to keep low-carb-low-calorie foods around and I also try to plan special snacks into my day (as y’all already probably know, my plan calls for at least a couple bites of chocolate every day, usually in the evening).  But it’s still just a temptation for me!

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Eileen - January 28, 2011 - Friday
Exercise Today: none
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 290.4 Today: 290.2
Change Today: - 0.2 Total Progress: - 6.4
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Down 0.2 lb!  A little bit of water subsides.

Again, I was sore, so I took the day off from exercising.  This time, though, the soreness was in my back.  And that’s not a good thing.  Every once in a while I might overdo or stretch the wrong way and I get a muscle spasm in my back which hurts so bad that I can’t stand up straight.  That’s how I felt this morning.  I actually stayed in bed most of the day.

I feel like such a wimp.

This evening my back feels better.  I got up and did the dishes, took the garbage out and picked up a little.  Other than that, I haven’t expended much energy today.

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I have Netflix.  This is a bad thing.  I am totally addicted to watching old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.  I started at the beginning of Season 1 and right now I’m up to about the 4th week of Season 3.  It’s like a soap opera that I can’t tear my eyes away from.  A guilty pleasure, for certain.

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Eileen - January 27, 2011 - Thursday
Exercise Today: 20 minutes Total Gym
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 289.8 Today: 290.4
Change Today: + 0.6 Total Progress: - 6.2
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Ha!  Up another .6 lb!  Ai yi yi!

Even though my muscles were still a little sore today, I felt like I needed to get back on the horse, so to speak, and continue my journey through the edema-soaked pathways of strength training.  Again I only put in 20 minutes but I’ll eventually build up stamina to go longer.  I did, however, manage to do more reps this time on a couple of the exercises!

Chest Flys - last time 20 / this time 30
Lateral Raises - 20 / 20
Hip Abductions - 20 / 30
Pullover Triceps - 30 / 40
Pullups - 10 /10
Bicep Curls - 10 / 10
Obliques Twist Left - 10 / 10
Obliques Twist Right - 10 / 10

I know it’s probably boring stuff to sift through but I think it will help me to post it here.  It helps me feel that subtle level of accountability to pull the dang thing out and do it again.  I think it’s really lame that I bought it and then only used it 10 times - and then wondered, when my weight loss stalled for so long, “Gosh, why?”  I hadn’t done anything to build muscle, I stopped doing regular exercise, yet for some reason when I got to 50 lbs. lost, I expected the pounds to just continue melting off of me, without the effort.

So I will pull it out of that closet and do it again.  And again.  And I will get back to my elliptical and I will build up my stamina there, too.  I will hit 45 minutes without stopping - which is what I was able to do back in 2009 - and then I will surpass that and make it to 60.

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I saw my car today.  They still haven’t even started fixing it!!  When they pulled the bumper off they found more damage underneath so they had to get a second appraisal and then wait for the approval for that.  The auto-body shop owner told me today that the approval came through, parts are on order, and the car should be done sometime next week.  *Sigh!*  Poor Sally looked so sad, sitting there with her front parts hanging out in the open for all to see.

Oh, and by the way, I did talk to my friend at work and she called her sister (”Sarah”), who said she hadn’t received my email.  So she looked for it and found it, and clicked on all the links I sent her and said it was really cool and that she would check it out.  I still haven’t heard back from her in email, but it’s good to know that she was in no way offended by my reaching out to her.  Thanks again to all the people who went the extra mile to welcome her here!!

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Eileen - January 26, 2011 - Wednesday
Exercise Today: none so far omg i am sore
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 288.0 Today: 289.8
Change Today: + 1.8 Total Progress: - 6.8
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It’s a dark place, dark and very warm.  Most of the time the temperature hovers around 100°F and when the weather finally does fluctuate, it’s almost always an increase which gives the place all the charm of a steamy furnace set at full-blast.

The terrain is occasionally, but not often, wracked by quakes. Most of the time, though, the environment is stable, quiet, calm.

Soothing.

And then, with no advance warning, it happened.  The walls began to shake, the floors to rumble and shift.  While most of the quakes in the past to afflict this dark steamy landscape were slight and lasted only a few minutes, this onslaught was of an unprecedented intensity and lasted well beyond the norm.  The walls and floors stretched and rippled and finally ripped, splitting and tearing, revealing jagged and gaping slices in the very fabric of existence.

Even after the quake was well over, the walls thrummed with aftershocks which could be felt long into the night.  Sometime before dawn, though, another seemingly unprecedented weather event would rock the terrain yet again.

It began as a trickle, which became a babbling brook, but quietly and without advance warning, the incoming rush of water increased until it flooded the entire area.  The last and largest wave first surrounded and then engulfed, filling every structure, every empty space, every nook and cranny.  The wave crested, but the water did not subside.  It stayed, doing its important work, carrying within its massive depths an unlimited potential.  A potential to heal the torn and jagged environment itself.

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And there you have it.  LOL, the entire life story of the 1.8 lbs of water which is now residing within my aching, sore muscles!!  The landscape was the lovely place where my muscles reside and the quake was me workin’ them yesterday!  Ha!!!  Did I getcha?!?

Yes, when I stepped on the scale this morning, I expected a gain.  But almost TWO pounds?!?  LMAO!!  That’s okay, though, I know that the flood will eventually subside, and I know that my sore muscles will eventually heal.  In the meantime, it makes me happy to picture all this stuff in my head, and yeah, I know I’m weird.  :D

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Yep, clipped it from the bicep there, then photoshopped the woman in.  See those muscles?  Those are my muscles - someday soon!

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Eileen - January 25, 2011 - Tuesday
Exercise Today: 20 minutes Total Gym + 10 minutes elliptical
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 288.0 Today: 288.0
Change Today: - 0.0 Total Progress: - 8.6
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Weight’s the same.  Just made me more motivated!!

This afternoon it got all windy and cloudy and overcast and there were storms coming in off the gulf, so that seemed like a good time to pull out my Total Gym from the closet.  I expected that it would be a little rusty or at the very least a little dusty after being neglected for so long, but the dang thing seemed happy to see me.  I think it actually likes torturing me, that’s what I think.

I bought the Total Gym on August 10, 2008.  I then proceeded to use it ten times.  Ten.

The last time I pulled out my Total Gym and did a real strength-training workout on it was August 27, 2008.  Just 17 days after i bought it.  Hmm.  Not a very good testimonial for the product, huh?  Well the two weeks after I bought it?  My weight loss, which had been moving along quite nicely - totally stalled.

I know why.  In my head I know all the reasons why.  Retaining water.  Muscle weighs more than fat.  I also know all the reasons why it’s SMART to strength-train, why I should be doing it!  Fat just sits there, hanging off your body, jiggling and looking generally useless, while muscle actually burns fat.  It doesn’t have to actually do anything to burn fat, it just does, all by itself.  The more muscle mass, the higher the metabolism.  (That being the reason men burn so much faster than women, because they naturally have more muscle mass, without even trying.) (Jerks!) (Just kidding.) (Sorta.)

If my goal is to lose weight, then my first objective should be to increase muscle mass.  Yes.  I know this.  But I was hesitant to actually start, because I know - temporarily - doing so will probably slow down my weight loss.  Eventually, though, it will pay off.  It will.

I managed to find the chart I’d made years ago.  The file was hiding in a forgotten (probably dusty) corner of my computer hard drive.  After all this time I’d forgotten the exercises that I’d selected and the chart has a short explanation of each.  I looked over the list.

OMG I remember these.  I remember that my first day doing them, I didn’t do very many.  I was so painfully out of shape that I could barely complete 10 reps for each of the moves.  I also remember that the number of reps I was capable of doing - they increased at an amazing rate.  I also remember that I walked around sore a lot, aware of muscles under all that fat that I didn’t even know I had, but once the soreness wore off, I felt better.  Stronger.  Duh.

So, trying to be bold and brave, I approached the ugly black contraption.  Took a deep breath.  And spent the next 20 minutes in pure torture.  At the end of the 20 minutes, I was panting and sweat was pouring off my face, which was beet-red.  But.  But I felt great!  I emerged victorious!  Then I sat down.

It took a while to start feeling normal again.  My arms felt all rubbery and weird.  My insides felt all shaky.  But I still felt great.

More than three hours later, I got on the elliptical, thinking that a good 25-minute session on there would round out my day perfectly.  I started moving along and it seemed really hard.  It always feels hard at first, like my knees are gonna snap with the effort but then usually after a few minutes, I get into the zone or whatever it is, and I don’t feel that pain in my knees, I just feel the exertion.  Today, though, I never got there.  My knees hurt, my legs hurt, I felt a little dizzy and rubbery. After what felt like forever, I looked at the clock and it had only been four minutes!

I managed to make it to ten minutes and stopped.  I really wasn’t feeling very good.

I know this will pass, I know that I will build up strength and stamina and I won’t feel so weak and defeated when my body can’t do what my mind thinks it should be able to do.  I know that very soon my body will be amazing my mind with what it can actually accomplish once it has a strong infrastructure of muscles under this fat I’m trying to burn.

I know.

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Eileen - January 24, 2011 - Monday
Exercise Today: 25 minutes (uninterrupted!!) elliptical - I did it!!
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 288.2 Today: 288.0
Change Today: - 0.2 Total Progress: - 8.6
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Minus two-tenths of a pound this morning.  I’ll take it!!

This morning one of my co-worker/friends was telling me about her sister.  I’ve known the co-worker for many years and I’ve known her sister too.  I don’t see her often but she’s a wonderful person and I love her and enjoy her company very much when I see her.

Anyway, the sister (we’ll call her Sarah) went to the doctor and her doctor advised her to lose weight.  Not just a few pounds.  She needs to lose like 100 lbs.  I know how that feels, I’m there myself!  So I asked my friend if she thought her sister would mind if I sent her an email, and she thought that Sarah would not mind at all.  So today I wrote Sarah a letter.

I told her about 3FC and about the forums and about the blogs, and how back in 2009 it helped me to lose almost 60 lbs. because the network of friends provide encouragement, inspiration, motivation, and accountability.  I gave her a link to the 100-lb-club forum and also a link to the main diet-blog page.  I even sent her the link to my own blog (which I basically never give out to my real-life-friends or family!!).

So anyway, I’m hoping hoping hoping that she’ll come here and join us all in our efforts to get healthier and lose weight!  At least I hope she comes here to check it out - so if you have a second or two, please leave a comment for her (not for me!) to encourage to set up her own blog and come play with us!  (Alright, if you wanna leave a comment for me too, that’s okay, ha!!)

I will understand if it’s not her cup of tea (forums and blogs are not for everyone) but I really believe in the power of peer-to-peer support and besides, it’s just fun.

Hey, how often can you say any aspect of dieting is fun??!?

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Oh, by the way, the lady from Tampa called this morning and said they’d decided not to sell the dresser after all.  Bummer!!!  Oh well, saved me a trip.

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Eileen - January 23, 2011 - Sunday
Exercise Today: 1 hour of shopping-walking
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 289.0 Today: 288.2
Change Today: - 0.8 Total Progress: - 8.4
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Almost another whole pound!  Woooohooo I’m lovin’ this drop-a-little-every-day-trend!  Gotta love it now while it’s goin’ on, because sooner or later I will hit a plateau or even a gain.  But for right now, this is very cool.

I re-read what I wrote yesterday and I thought, “Why would a couple go to that much trouble to find used stuff when they could just go to a regular store, find what they want, and just buy it new?”  Well, the obvious answer would be related to finances, but it’s not that simple.  For example, I checked Target.com and found three items that are exactly what we’re looking for!!  Here they are:

White Camden Dresser, $239.99

Orchard Hills Executive Desk, Carolina Oak - $369.99
2-Door Library Bookcase - $119.99

This morning I went on Craigslist to see if there were any new listings and found this:

Kinda close, right?  It was listed for just 30 bucks, so heck, it’s worth a short drive to take a look.  Umm… let’s just say the pictures don’t do it justice, ha!  It was bad.  Really bad.  But MAN!!! If it HAD been a nice piece of furniture and we had picked it up for only 30 dollars?  That woulda been so cool!!!

Well, it wasn’t cool.  But that’s okay.  The quest continues.

Tomorrow morning we’re driving to Tampa to look at this:

It’s not exactly like the Target one above, but it looks darn good.  They are asking $45 for it, we can only hope the picture is not misleading.

So yeah, a lot of it is about the money, we are far from rich.  But more than the money, it’s definitely about the hunt.  It was a hobby my husband had when I met him, and now we enjoy it together.

It’s so cool when we finally find exactly what we’re looking for and we get a good deal.

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Eileen - January 22, 2011 - Saturday
Exercise Today: 5 1/2 hours of shopping-walking!!
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 289.2 Today: 289.0
Change Today: - 0.2 Total Progress: - 7.6
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Since I had such a big drop in weight yesterday, I thought it might be a possibility that I would wake up with a small gain this morning.  Woohoo I was happy to see that I’d maintained that loss, in fact, had lost two-tenths of a pound more!  I’ll take it!

Hubby and I continued the noble quest today.  Here’s what our day looked like:

- Drive to Largo.  Find the Goodwill where we found our end-tables.  Look at all the furniture.  Nope, not what we’re looking for.  Walk all over the store.  Buy a scratchy-thing for our cats.

- Drive to Clearwater.  Find the big Salvation army store.  Walk around the furniture area, look at desks which are too dark, bookshelves which are too big, and cabinets which are too beat up.  Walk around the store and look at everything else.  Buy two blouses that are like brand-new.

- Drive to another street in Clearwater.  That big church-thrift-store is around here somewhere.  Walk inside and realize just how huge the place is.  Spend over an hour inspecting all the furniture.  Drool over the king-bed-set that was sold already anyway.  Walk around the store.  Buy a little 99-cent wooden desk caddy that will look great on our new desk - if we ever find it!

- Drive past the restaurant we like in Downtown Clearwater.  We are starving!  Dang it, it’s closed.  Continue on past on that same road, which just happens to take us right to that neat consignment shop we used to go to.

- Go inside and spend over an hour weaving through the furniture in the huge warehouse.  Find a great cabinet/bookcase but it’s too expensive.  Find a great dining set but we don’t need one right now.  Find the perfect stereo receiver that Hubby’s been searching for, but it, too, is too expensive.  Leave without buying anything.

- Drive just a half-mile.  Even though we’re hungry, there’s another thrift store so close.  Go in and look at furniture.  Verify that no, they do not have the pieces we’re looking for.  Do not walk around much, leave without buying anything.

- Drive along Drew Street.  Notice the cell-phone store and yet another thrift store.  Drive on past because another restaurant is up ahead and we’re hungry, then turn around because it’s 4pm and the thrift store might close.  Look around, not much furniture at all.  Hubby buys 3 pairs of Levi’s and 2 music CDs.

- Drive to that other restaurant.  Eat dinner.

- Drive back to the cell phone store.  Buy a new phone for Hubby.

- Go next door to the pawn shop and look around.

- Drive to Safety Harbor to yet another thrift shop which we know is open until 7pm.  Walk around and inspect all their furniture.  Close the store but don’t buy anything.

- Drive to Palm Harbor to the grocery store.  Spend more than an hour walking the aisles.  Spend way more than we expected to.

- Drive home and unload all the groceries and stuff.  Put everything away.

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I added it all up and I really did spend more than five hours today, walking.  I should buy a pedometer!

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Eileen - January 21, 2011 - Friday
Exercise Today: none whatsoever, so far
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6 Wednesday: 290.6 Today: 289.2
Change Today: - 1.4 Total Progress: - 7.4
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I went on my trip.  I left Wednesday afternoon and drove to Tallahassee.  The only exercise I had that day was about a 10-minute brisk walk down to my office.  Well, then that evening I went shopping for shoes and walked around the store for about an hour.  Other than that, I sat behind the wheel of a car for five hours.  I didn’t track my food for this trip on FitDay until today and when I added up Wednesday’s food I was quite surprised to find that I only consumed 934 calories / 14.5g carbs.  I didn’t starve myself or anything, I wasn’t hungry, I was just busy.

Because I left home so late, I got into our lovely capital city very late, took a shower, didn’t get into bed until after 2am.  The alarm on my phone beeped at 8am and though I’d slept pretty soundly in that interim (only got up once to pee), it felt more like two hours than six.  Nevertheless, I needed to be at my meeting so I had to get up and moving.

The meeting was an all-day one.  The entire group went to a buffet place for lunch together, during which we continued to work while everyone (except me) gobbled greasy fried chicken and mountains of mashed potatoes.  Me, I had an iceberg-lettuce-a-little-cheese-and-a-handful-of-sunflower-kernels salad.  I had one bite of meat loaf (the bread or crackers in meat loaf make it a no-no) and about an ounce of barbecue pork (barbecue sauce is also a no-no).  I could have peeled back the skin of a fried chicken breast but honestly, it didn’t look so appetizing, even though everyone else seemed to be enjoying it.

So when the meeting was over after 4pm, I was quite hungry.  I had decided to go ahead and drive home instead of staying another night, so on my way home, I stopped at Olive Garden, which, if you know how to choose your food, is a low-carber’s heaven.

I ordered stuffed chicken marinara with no mushrooms (they aren’t all that high in carbs, I just don’t like ‘em).  The stuffing is primarily cheese, really yummy tasty probably high-calorie cheese.  Passed up the garlic mashed potatoes and asked for broccoli, then got a side of alfredo sauce, another high-calorie low-carber’s delight.  If ya pour the alfredo over the broccoli or dump the broccoli into the alfredo, either way, it totally rocks.

Now that’s what I call diet food.

I never did get my steak tips (got in so late that the restaurant had closed, and then didn’t stay the second night), but oh man, this was just as good.  No doubt.  I got home, relaxed for a couple hours, and then when my husband got home around midnight, I had a little snack.  Today I added it all up in FitDay and the grand totals were 1401 calories / 28.3g carbs.

Given that I spent 10 hours in two days, sitting behind the wheel of a car, I would not have been surprised to see some gain on the scale this morning.  I was kinda hoping, though, that the plus-six-tenths-of-a-pound that I saw Wednesday morning wasn’t really a gain and that it would drop back off to result in a loss instead.  So yeah I was pretty pleased to see a 1.4 lb loss this morning!!

It’s Friday - and I stayed at home and did nothing today.  So far.  Well, except a load of laundry.  Hubby works day shift so I guess we’ll probably go out tonight.  Everyone have a great weekend!!