Oh KAREN . . . I'm so sorry to hear that I do have somebody to share this delightful weather with. Spring is such fun. :s:

The Gov. has declared the State of Colorado a State of Emergency. Have called out the National Guard! Think I'll stay in and keep warm!

OH MY GOODNESS! I love snow, but don't want any part of that. Especially now when spring has sprung at my house. I'm so sorry that ya'll have to put up with all that snow.

Well, I gave in today.......this morning I did great. Our garage foreman brought in Crispy Creme Donuts, and I pushed the box aside and said.....it is NOT worth walking an extra 30 minutes just to burn those calories.......but.....there were still some left when I went in this afternoon, and I couldn't resist any longer. I had one, but added it in to my intake for today, still didn't go over, but know I shouldn't have had it. At least I feel guilty over it...lol

I think I may have told you all that my mother has dementia, a pre-Alzhiemers condition. She is getting worse each day, and here lately she has been really sweet. She has always been a sweet natured person, but a few months ago, I was ready to pull my hair out. She would accuse me of not giving her her med's, so that I could get rid of her......she would scream at me how stupid I was, she would say all the time that she just wanted to die. I can relate a little bit to what you all are going through, but we do what we have to do, and bear it. Like I said, she has been doing alot better lately, THANK GOD!!

I try to only weigh once a week, so that I'm not disappointed if I'm retaining fluid.....lol. Can't eat popcorn the night before I weigh...lol. So, I don't have any weight loss to report tonight, but hopefully I will on Monday!!!

Have a great night, and a wonderful Friday!

Susann

Hey, did anyone watch The Doctors yesterday? It was all about weight loss and staying fit. Jillian from The Biggest Loser was on there, and gave lots of good advice. They were also talking about the fact that artificial sweetener can actually cause you to gain weight. Go to the doctors website and read all about it. I put my sweet n low away and am going to use sugar in my coffee, and see what happens.......

Have a great FRIDAY!!!! YIPPPPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Hi Everyone,

The April Accountabiltiy Thread has been started. Come join. Make a commitment for April and keep track of your progress.

See you there,

Lynn

:wave:

Believe it or not, we got a bit of new white dust overnight. Today is very overcast but a bit warmer and it was very fogggggy first thing this morning. Things are looking up though -- I actually saw my first robin yesterday. He stood out vividly against the pure white background.

Nothing in my plans today . . . really need to go out for a bit, but may just wait until tomorrow . . . definitely feeling lazy.

Good Morning girls,

Played cards last night, and I made oven fried zucchini sticks w/homemade marina sauce, and a Died and Went to Heaven Chocolate Cake, both from Eatingwell.com They were both delicious. I cut the cake into 12 servings, and put 1 serving each into baggies and froze them. When I have a chocolate attack, I can take a slice out and go for it. I used apple sauce in place of the oil, and it was great.

I have stayed within my range this week, but don't feel like I ate all the right things. I need to do better this coming week.

Bobbi, I hope your MIL adjusts quickly and you and your DH can get back to your lives. When will you be able to start planting your garden?

Meow, are you in a place where you have below 0 weather a lot? And several feet of snow most of the winter? When will it start getting warm there and how long does it last?

Karen31, so sorry that you are having to deal with the weather there, we had the horrible ice storm in January, and are still trying to recover. It still looks like a war zone here.

I hope everyone has a great Saturday, mine is going to be quiet, I think.

Susann

:wave:

This has been an unusually long and very cold winter for us, SUSANN. We do get a fair bit of snow but it kind of comes and goes because the overall climate is what I'd call "fairly soft" -- i.e., not too cold in the winter and not too hot in the summer.

Today -- oh wow -- things are looking great -- lots of sunshine and the temperature is going to get up to around the 50 mark. Tomorrow supposed to be more of the same and then things will get warmer and become rainy for a few days. I think Spring is finally, finally going to appear.

Wanted to get on here early this morning because I need to get out and about; but my internet connection was being uncooperative. Just when I was about to call the cable company and register a bitter complaint, I decided I'd better take a look at the main computer upstairs first. Sure enough, some wonderful little nocturnal beastie had managed to disconnect me. :dizzy: Did you know that having pets is supposed to lower your blood pressure. :s:

Well, I'd better get moving and get into the shower and then out the door -- oh, I will probably take a few minutes to get dressed between those two activities -- maybe. :lol:

See you later, gang . . . :grouphug:

Good Morning Girls!
Lynn...I bit the bullet and signed up for the April 'Accountability' thread, my jeans are getting tight around the waist and I'm continually gaining. I need to stop it before it gets out of hand and the accountability thread will help me with that. If I commit to something, I'll follow through so I don't look like a quitter.
Speaking of quitters, who watches the Biggest Losers? Tara was going to quit and she had a good talking to by her friend. That's what this thread does for me!
Karen31...Good thing you didn't put your snow shovels away but late March snow melts fast and greens up the lawn.
Susann...my MIL started out as dementia too, then turned into full blown alzheimers, we have to make another trip in today. We live in the country and my little sports car has been eating up the miles. It's a 2000 Celica and only has 42,000 miles on it. Unfortunately that's going to change fast at the rate we're going. (We could take DH Jeep but that takes more gas) Our garden won't get planted for a couple of months as it stays cold here for a long time. We do have all our garden seeds and another peach tree coming to replace the one that died last summer.
Meowee...we had a dusting of snow here too, now Northern Minnesota/North Dakato has the Red River flooding. We're in the S.E. part of the state so it doesn't affect us.
DH is going to prune some of our fruit trees today while I'm in town. DD bought me a rose bush last Mothers Day that's still covered and DH needs to unearth it, hope it survived the winter. I can grow most anything but not roses, never had any luck with them surviving.
Anybody makes Scones? I cut a recipe out of the paper last week for 'Crispy Cornmeal Scones' and made them last night, really good. I'll post the recipe next week, they would make a fantastic biscuit to serve for company. They are not real calories friendly with the 1/2 cup butter in them but we all have to make regular food for holidays and family members that are not counting calories/carbs, etc. This recipe is a keeper!
I've gabbed enough, you all have a great week-end.
Be not afraid of going slowly; be afraid only of standing still.

- Chinese Proverb

Never giving up

Do you ever get frustrated because things are moving too slowly in your life? Many people don't realize that building a foundation for success does not happen overnight. It is a slow process in which you are constantly working and learning. After all, that foundation must remain strong, even in times of failure or crisis. This takes time! You may have to remind yourself that "failing" is only failure if you quit; otherwise it's a learning opportunity. So don't worry if your life seems to be moving in slow motion. Concentrate on building a solid foundation and learning from your back steps.

Hi Bobbi,

I think the Accountability thread and the Biggest Loser and this thread all help me. Sometimes, when I think about eating something at night, I think about whether or not I want to add those calories/carbs to my Accountability thread post. Sometimes, when I'm at the gym & feel like stopping before the time I've decided on, I think about those folks on the Biggest Loser & keep on going. And, when I lose it - get off track - start beating myself up, I get encouragement from you gals to be kinder to myself.

No big plans for today. Some household tasks and some work I need to do on my syllabus. Maybe I'll make some kind of low-cal/carb food.

Lynn

Morning all....Got up expecting a rainy day...wrong! Bad enough the weathermen lie to tourists now they are lying to us, too. The map shows nice rain about 20 miles North of us.

Making a real dent in freezer and should be okay in another week. I lost a whole freezer of food when we had no power for 8 days after hurricaine Frances. It was beyond nasty cleaning it out. So every year about now we eat everything I stashed over past 8 months. Plus got a generator which we'd now hook up and keep freezer at minium defrost. By June 1st would like to a freezer just full of frozen water bottles. Am not complaining about having scrambled eggs this morning with shrimp and ff cedar cheese.

I bought one of those upside down tomato planters. Has anyone ever used one? Everywhere here in Florida there are nematodes in the soil. They attack roots and we have not had alot of luck with in ground gardening. Hung one planter out front yesterday so of course it has been windy ever since.

Karen....Our friend who is building a house outside Trinidad went out last weekend to help finish up the building and is now stuck. For someone growing up on the Easternshore Of Md I'll bet he is shocked by that amount of snow. stay warm and keep the puppies warm too.

Susan....You stuck 12 slices of cake in the freezer. Damn girl don't you know u can eat the cake frozen. I froze the almond brickle cookies DD sent me for Xmas and admit there are a few packs missing.....frozen cookies are FINE! Think I read somewhere that freezing them nullifies the calories!

Am so ready to swim....but pool temp is still at cardiac arrest stage. Refuse to run heater and pay power company!

Off to look some more for a new sofa.....never knew there were so many ugly sofas in this world. Why do those big pillows make me feeling like am being swallowed alive and then there are the hugh things that I can't put my feet on the floor....sighhhhhhhhhhhhh Karen3

Hi everyone. I'm finally back after a rotten but sweet 2 weeks. The sweet part was the birth of our darling baby boy. He is such a sweetie. I now have grandmother bragging rights. :lol:

The rotten part was my FIL died after a long six and a half weeks of lingering on and on. We had the funeral yesterday and we (the family) can finally get back to normal. It's been very stressful on everyone and I have been asked to take care of the paperwork with insurance policies and pensions. And to top everything off mom has been impossible to live with all week. She's now in her room as I type crying out for help as if she is falling out of her chair. It's a sensation she feels with the Parkinson's disease and no amount of talking or comforting her can convince her she's not falling. She keeps wanting me to pull her up in the chair but if I pull her up any further she'll be sitting on the window sill behind the chair. So I just close her door and let her yell until she falls asleep.

I've probably gained a ton of weight back but I'm not going near the scales until next week after I've had a more normal week. But I'm going to sign up in the April accountability thread and try and get some normalcy back to my life.

Anyhoo, it's good to be back.

:grouphug:

Sorry your two weeks away were less than perfect ISABELLA. It's good that you can get back to normal now though.

We are working on another gorgeous sunny and mild day -- the snow is going fast. We are, however, scheduled for rain, snow, ice, and you name it over the next couple of days, but if it stays fairly mild, I imagine most of this snow will be gone when we hit April.

It's so nice, I really want to go out and play today but I do have mountains of laundry and other house-wifely chores calling my name and I do have to go out tomorrow anyway (that rescheduled dentist appointment I missed last week) . . . but . . . . but . . . . . but

Oh well, hope everybody else gets a good Sunday . . . see you later . . . :wave:

Hi Lynn, I found this recipe on Hungrygirl.com, I don't know how to copy in the recipe thread, but know how to do it here. Can someone tell me what to do to add in the recipe thread?

Zucchini Zazzle!
You asked for it, you got it. Here's our recipe for lightened-up zucchini nut muffins. Hooray!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini (about 1 large zucchini)

1 cup whole-wheat flour

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2/3 cup Splenda No Calorie Sweetener (granulated)

1/3 cup brown sugar (not packed)

1/2 cup fat-free liquid egg substitute (like Egg Beaters Original)

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

3 tbsp. light whipped butter or light buttery spread (like Brummel & Brown)

3 tbsp. crushed walnuts, divided

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. salt

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, combine both types of flour, Splenda, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

In a separate medium bowl, mix together the zucchini, egg substitute, applesauce, butter, and vanilla extract. Slowly add this mixture to the first bowl, and stir until thoroughly blended. Mix half the crushed walnuts (1 1/2 tbsp.) into the batter.

Line 9 cups of a 12-cup muffin pan with baking liners and/or spray with nonstick spray. Evenly distribute batter among the 9 cups. Top each cup with a sprinkling of the remaining 1 1/2 tbsp. crushed walnuts.

Bake in the oven for 20 - 25 minutes, until a toothpick poked into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool and then enjoy!

MAKES 9 SERVINGS

Serving Size: 1 muffin

Calories: 147

Fat: 3.5g

Sodium: 246mg

Carbs: 25g

Fiber: 2.5g

Sugars: 7g

Protein: 4.5g

POINTS® value 3*

Good Morning everyone,

What a cruddy, rainy, cold, yucky day we have today...lol. But my mother would say, behind the clouds the sun still shines......I really wouldn't mine it, but I have to go show property this afternoon, and not crazy about showing it in the rain. BUT, so thankful to be showing property that I'm hoping they don't cancel.

Bobbi, I'm afraid that Mother is going to be facing alziemers at some point, and I know that it's harder on the family and the caregivers than on the patient. What is going to be so hard is that if the time comes to put her in a nursing home, that she won't understand why. That will break my heart. But, I know where she will go, if the time comes, but otherwise, I'm going to be like Scarlett, and think about that tomorrow.

Isabella, I'm sorry to hear about your FIL passing, someone told me that sometimes death is a blessing, I truly believe that, sometimes it makes it easier to accept. And I'm so sorry about your Mother, that has to be so hard on you. But, your new little one is a wonderful blessing for you, one to fill your heart, and I know it will.

Meow, I hope spring comes soon for you, and no more rain, snow, ice, or you name it..........lol

Everyone have a great Sunday!

Susann