Maintainers Weekly Chat Apr 1 - Apr 7
 

My brain is made happy when the first of the month falls on Monday - so easily satisfied, me.

Stood outside with DW yesterday admiring the crocuses in the neighbor's yard - without a coat! Believe! Warmth is truly coming.

I also made it through all of Easter Sunday without a single piece of candy. When I get to be Czar, this deep association between candy and holidays will be eliminated. Merchants offering candy for sale will be forced to eat it all in public. Immediately had the thought that that would be cruel and inhuman punishment. Then remembered that I did that for years. Ouch.

I agree Bill - first of the month and a Monday is a good place to start new endeavours. Easy to remember :lol:

I maintained my weight at 137 through March and over Easter. Also, for the first time in my life, I didn't finish my chocolate bunny. I quietly threw the last 1/3 of it out this morning. No need for DH to be my garborator. ;)

April 1 is spring diet start for me :dancer:. I am going to get down to my "summer" weight of 133 by the end of May and stay there until November or so.

I'm also launching the official start of the serious house hunt. Asked DH to set up a chart. I am not putting any deadline on this as I have already driven myself :crazy: with the "pre-shopping". I will buy the house I can afford when it shows up. There will be some mistakes but when I finally submit an offer that is accepted it will be for the right house at a price that will leave me with a reserve.

We are still in winter here, although there are bits of green stuff poking up through the snow left on my front garden bed. In Canada April definitely IS the cruelest month :devil: but I will cope.

Good Monday and start of a new month all!

Dagmar :beach:

Agreed, a fresh April start is a good thing. I'm starting the month at 151, due to food sloppiness and too many weeknight evening drinks. Time to stop that stuff! I have a Danube river cruise to think about in late June, and I don't want to look like the typical puffy, out-of-shape American.

I had a really nice weekend in NC with my friend. She's one of those folks who talks about ideas instead of people or things or TV shows, and neither of us has local friends who spend a lot of energy on those types of topics. The most vigorous discussion was about how the role of a college education (and the subsequent true value) is changing.

dagmar, best wishes for finding (and acquiring) the right house at the right time. It sounds like you have the best attitude possible for the market conditions you're in. And kudos for doing so incredibly well with the stresses you've had over the last few months!

bill, well done with the Easter candy! Although I fled the traditional Easter dinner, DS received his annual dozen handmade dark chocolate-covered marshmallows and I did not resist the one offered when I got home. NC is coming abloom; I've yet to see anything but brown and blah in Michigan. Our time will come! I would love to see a crocus. Problem is, the %^&* deer would destroy them. Somehow, crocuses blooming in a box of reinforced chicken wire isn't quite the same.

Good morning all! Mark me down as another OCD'er who loves to see the start of the month on Monday!!! :)

Yesterday was not a victory for me. I did plan to let myself indulge, but went WAY overboard and I am paying for it this morning! Since my excess skin removal and the surgeon sewing my abdominal muscles together, I can't eat way too much without being in actual pain. So I was in pain from stuffing myself. I also woke up in the middle of the night with my tongue stucl FIRMLY to the roof of my mouth, a clear sign of the amount of salt I ingested!!

Back on plan today - including LOTS of water!!

Speaking of my surgery, I will be going to see the surgeon tomorrow for my 1 year follow up. I am excited to see him and see what he thinks - especially of my newly pierced belly button.

I am trying to refuse to let the weather get me down - we are having terrible winds and predictions of inches of snow falling over the next 2 days. Spring has to get here, right???

Hope everyone has a great Monday!


Jen

Here in Northern California we have been having rain complete with thunder and lightening for the last two days. I don't know what today will bring, I have Doctor's appointments and medical treatment this will take all afternoon, not particularly uncomfortable but gets very tiresome.

Morning all,

Is it really April? Where the heck did March (and February for that matter) go? For the past two months I haven't been doing well with diet and exercise, though I have been doing well with my weekly yoga resolution (I don't however know if it's helping me learn to deal with stress any better). Clothing rant: I broke down on Thursday when I had to go to the city to see the doctor and decided I would just try to find some summer pants/capris in a size 10 - yes a size 10, which I've been in denial about for 3 years because I can't stand being back up in double digits - so I would have some pants that fit properly this spring. It was so depressing. It's tricky to find capris that flatter my curvy lower body anyway, let alone deal with being in a higher size than I want to be. I did find a pair of size 10 trousers for "dress-up" work days but no summer pants. I will need to go shop again soon, because summer in FL can't be lived in jeans. Which means another 3.5 hour round trip to the city.

Anyway I could go on for a long time, but I think the basis of the issue is that I'm stressed out about my work situation and (still) not reacting to that stress well. I'm going to try and attack it from the dealing with stress angle first. I'm not ready to cut & track calories today, but I do need to eat more fruits and veggies and less bread and junk and beer. Weekend veggie prep is something I've gotten out of the habit of doing, but I did it yesterday.

I did have a nice Saturday where I repotted a bunch of potted plants and generally cleaned up my porch that's littered with pine needles and half-empty pots of past plants. It felt good to get outside and get dirty, and my porch looks much better. My bright red amaryllis are in full bloom and are lovely.

Bill, glad the crocuses are coming up in your neck of the woods! Nothing says spring like the bulbs and little buds on trees coming in. Do we get to vote for the candy czar? Because you have my vote. ;)

Dagmar, throwing out food is hard. Good job.

Becky, I agree, friends that we can really talk to about ideas are hard to find. I have the same problem - why I'm still closer to some college friends I haven't seen in a few years than the people I live with here and see every day. Glad you got to spend quality time with her.

I'm taking some deep cleansing breaths... :yoga:

Jen and bargoo, I missed your posts while I was writing mine.

Jen, I love to add lemon wedges to my water to help flush the system. Wow, a year from surgery, congrats!

Bargoo, you sound like you need a hug. :hug: A stormy day is never helpful for clearing out a sour mood. I hope your treatments go alright and tomorrow is sunnier. How about a little indulgence like a trashy book or a pre-treatment pedicure in a sunny color? Or a magazine you don't normally let yourself buy to take to your treatment (can your read during?)... something like that to lift your spirits a bit.

Easter here was beautiful. 8:45 tee time for golf with a crystal clear sky, although a tough head wind. But by #3 the wind died down and by #8 we were wishing for a breeze which did return from time to time.

Yes, there was chocolate here. For some reason, a neighbor of the in-laws brought a 1 pound box of See's over and from Saturday night until Sunday night we indulged--six of us. It is now gone. I believe I had four pieces, which is about right for that sized box. Two per day, no big deal.

I'm forced to drive DS to school for the week as his car is still not properly fixed. The wheel and tire guys should be done today but the insurance adjuster said there is a small area of body work that needs to be done--repainted I suppose. So this week will be a bit awkward with work and driving. Our new office is way too far for DS to walk to after work. We'll see how it all goes.

Good morning all.
We just returned from our cruise yesterday so I haven't properly caught up with what I missed while away.
I did see the news about Gary and am deeply saddened.

I have learned before and I continue to learn-- unlimited food and me don't mix well. I will duly try to flush as much out as possible but the scale is not my friend today. According to my scale I am up 7.6 pounds. I know that not all of that is salt either! Cruises are so hard for me food wise. There is so much available. I feel like I'm not indulging because we didn't eat any of the unlimited pizza, ice cream or hamburgers. However, we did the high tea twice, had coffee (and sometimes pastries) once or twice a day, ate three full meals.... we were on the 15th floor and I refused to use the elevators so we were up and down stairs all day-- most things we did were on floors 5-7. We went to the gym on most days that we weren't physically active-- we had two days of snorkeling-- one in Roatan, Honduras, and the other in Cozumel, Mexico. We also did ziplining and cave tubing in Belize. I NEVER drink but offer me free alcohol and apparently I do that too. Both of our snorkeling days included free unlimited drinks on the catamaran (after snorkeling). I was feeling no pain in Honduras, but I went overboard in Cozumel. I don't know what I was thinking. That was on Thursday and I'm still feeling the repercussions-- my tummy is not happy with me at all. So.... back to work today and back to the straight and narrow. I made it to hot yoga yesterday afternoon and it was so hard. I think I'm so puffed up that it is hard to move. Yuck. Will I never learn?

Please say a prayer for my dd this week if you're so inclined. She is in Houston to interview for teaching positions. She has a couple of interviews set up and is trying to set up more.

I am also very happy that the China move is off, however dh will still be doing the position and traveling back and forth so I will be seeing even less of him in the future.

Bargoo-- I hope the weather isn't too crummy for you today. Hugs.

Welcome home , Michele. Glad things worked out for DH re: China. I will be praying for DD job interview that she will be offered exactly the right job for her. Michele, you will get that excess poundage off, I an sure, with your determination.
Megan, I will probably take a mystery novel along with me but usually can't read because there is so much activity around me. I see other patients reading with no problem. Maybe I am picking boring books.

Happy April! To me, April means that I only have a couple more months to go until these babies are born. :lol: My personal goal is to make it to June 7th which will be 37 weeks. Anything after that is bonus, since they say that more than half of twins are born at 35-37 weeks. Things are getting more and more uncomfortable though, so I think maybe starting next week I'll be working from home 3/5 days during the week and only coming to the office twice. Weight was at 180 this morning, which is a gain of 42lbs and puts me only 5lbs below my high weight. My back, hips, knees, and feet are feeling the strain of carrying all this around.

We had lovely weather this weekend -- sunny and in the upper 50's. Yesterday I went and sat on the deck in the backyard for a while. Carter is so funny. He came outside with me, but he didn't want to lay down on the hard wood of the deck, so he just stood there whining. I got his dog bed from inside and put it on the deck, and he immediately settled down on it. He definitely is enjoying his cushy doggie retirement! :lol: I need to remember to schedule him for his annual checkup and vaccines this week. Hard to believe that Carter is 9 years old and we've had him for nearly 5 years (his adoption anniversary is 4/19).

Michele, welcome back! Sounds like you got plenty of exercise on your cruise. I will keep my fingers crossed for your DD.

Allison, sorry your DS didn't get into his top choices, but he's still got some good schools to choose from.

Megan, I always have a hard time with capris. I think to find ones that look good on a curvy figure you have to find the ones that flare out a lot at the bottom or have elastic so you can make them more bunched up at the bottom. Otherwise I feel like they just make my thighs look super fat, especially because I'm short. I will say though that my most useful summer clothing purchase of the past few years was the pair of denim shorts I bought at Meijer (Walmart/Target equivalent for those who don't have them in your area) for $15.

Now I am thinking about summer clothes and wondering what the heck I'm going to wear this summer during the transition time from pregnancy back to my normal size. Pajamas I guess, I doubt I'll be going out much. :lol: Almost makes me wish I'd kept some of my fat clothes. (I do think I have at least one large skirt that I kept because it was a souvenir from a vacation...)

I was very sorry to read the news about Gary on last week's thread. He will be missed.

Jessica-- so glad you are doing so well. I can't remember-- are you having two girls or am I imagining that? Have you shared their names? So exciting....

Re capris on the short and curvy - that's me - I only found a couple of pairs that don't make me look funny. I think they are "boyfriend fit" capris - :lol3: - how many men have you seen in capris? They are shorter than average and hit where they are supposed to hit. I had regular fit capris and got them shortened but they always looked weird.

I wear shorts every day to work (in summer of course - :brr: right now) and I find I have to go shopping online every couple of years for ones with lots of pockets. Royal Robbins made some great ones in cotton/poly blend but now all of theirs are nylon. I get a rash from nylon anything (as I very painfully found out while on vacation in Morocco years ago) so have to get cotton blend stuff.

I generally find stuff that fits @ Eddie Bauer but even they are skimping on the pockets. I guess we all take our purses out hiking, to the beach, etc.?

I wish I could get some stuff custom made for dogwalking. I even kept a pair of very tattered Royal Robbins shorts as a template (and for kayaking where no one but DH sees my lower half) but never found anyone who could make something for me at a reasonable price. $250 :yikes: for a pair of shorts (and I'd need at least 2 pairs) was a bit much at the time.

Dagmar :beach:

Dagmar, try Duluth Trading for women ... Very hardy working stuff, with gobs of pockets. Even the sweatpants!

Thanks! Our equivalent here is Mark's Work Wearhouse. I'll try Duluth - nothing at Mark's fits me right.

Dagmar :shrug: