The kids left this morning and I have to admit I cried a little. Our sil may pop in to say hi this evening if he has time. He gets in tonight and will be here hangin' with his old friends. I don't know if our dd will be with him. So that's probably the last time I'll see her until sometime next year (spring or later) unless we get down there. We are still hoping to drive down but our plans are really up in the air this year with our son's house and all on our minds/budget. It seems like things are a lot different now until we can get that off of us.

The good news today is I lost 1.6# this week! I was afraid I would not lose at all so I'm thrilled. I hope my latest shipment of MF foods comes soon as I'm getting tired of the few products I have. This time I selected a lot of different things...many just 1-3 singles so I can try different things plus boxes of things I know I like. I didn't know I could buy single packages before.

Speaking of housework, I have lots to do now that the kiddos have left.

So we are talking celebrities now? When I was young I thought Audry Hepburn mainly because she was skinny like I was then. Now I don't know who it would be. I think I'm one of a kind.

Zoe - I sure hope this is my last diet!! I'm sick of dieting...but I know I'll always have to be careful and monitor what and how much (esp how much!) I eat.

Well, need to get to work...some calls to make, some budgeting to do, maybe a few surveys to complete and then on to the housework.

Hi Everyone,

I still have not gotten back to the gym. Between no exercise and sitting around all day and no Celebrex, I am hurting. I feel like I am at a point in my life where I have to pick which pain I want to have. Somebody please remind me again about why they call it the Golden Years?

Hi Marie,

I have not called my friend. When my DD was in ICU after a botched surgery, it was really stressful for me when everyone was calling. I have sent her an email and, if I do not hear from her by the weekend, I will call.

I have had NO more spasms. However, I have been limiting myself to not-fried, not-hard foods. Mostly cereal, yogurt, cottage cheese, pasta… I am not sure what is helping – stopping taking Celebrex? Or stopping sleeping pills? Or changing what I eat?

I had 3 hours sleep last night. It was the worst night since I stopped the pills. I bought a new CD player and tonight, I will listen to a GREAT relaxation CD that I used to use when I was caring for my DH.

I am NOT kidding about Zoe’s Retirement Party. Some of the details are a little “creative,” but the get-together is real. I feel VERY close to the gals on this site. I am REALLY looking forward to meeting everyone in person. We have been writing about this for a couple of years. I am going to send out a survey. I will post a separate thread about the party.

Hi Gayle,

I will include when/where/how kind of questions in the survey. I hope to develop the survey this weekend.

Absolutely, each of us gets to pick our actress. My favorite Kathy Bates movie is the one where she has a crush on a singer from England, he gets murdered, she finds out he was gay, she and the singer’s lover find the killer. I am NOT doing it justice. It is a VERY funny movie.

Hi Rie,

An oral history is a wonderful thing to have. During our research into my father’s father’s family, we found a transcript of an oral history of the family that had been created by one of my aunts. It was in the town’s library and provided LOTS of information that helped us with our research.
About drinks at the end of races – I have heard that in Ireland, they hand out Guinness at the “water” stops.

I think that having our get-together in a place that is easy to get to is a good idea.
Hi Rosey,

So, can we drive the car (bus?) up to your house from Boston?

Hi Bobbi,

During my last course, one of the students’ attachments would NOT come up for me. As I was working with the University’s Tech Support, they had me download Google Chrome. I have it, but I never use it. I do like the spellcheck feature, but I miss all my goodies.
Hi Gayle,

It is so UNFAIR that it is SO hard to lose and SO easy to gain back! Good that you are catching it before it goes too far. The good thing is that you know you can lose it. You did it once, you can do it again!

Hi Mary,

What do you like better about Google Chrome? I am sure that I do not have mine set up right. When I use it, I lose all my bookmarks and favorites.

Hi Freda,
This is going to one “Star-packed” movie. Maybe we will all attend the Academy Awards. I think I will have Vera Wang as my designer. I have some of her things (bought at Kohl’s) and they are VERY comfortable.
I have one more day on the antibiotics. I am hoping I will feel a lot better by Friday. I have not heard from my friend about her daughter. I do not want to call too frequently. I know she has her hands full. I will keep you posted on any progress.

Hi Zoe,

Haley Mills!!!! She would probably be one of the last actresses I would have picked for you. Of course, my image of her is from the movie with the twins when she was a kind of cutsey little blonde pre-teen.

It could be anything. All that the doctors have done is tell me what it is NOT. Of all the things they told me it might be, the one that seems to best fit my symptoms is esophageal spasms. But, it could just as well be an allergy.

I had been thinking about a kind of “Thelma and Louise” theme (except for the ending). However, with the beach chairs on the roof, maybe it is leaning more toward the “Beverly Hillbillies.”

Hi Karen,

I DEFINITELY think you should pick Kim Novak! You are NOT a June Allyson or Judy Casanova!

Hi Bobbi,

Yes, I can see Jamie Lee Curtis. She also had a GREAT bod!

Hi Mary,

I think Audrey Hepburn would be GREAT! “ Breakfast at Tiffany’s” fits right into our “Wild Women” theme.

Hi everyone. yeehah im happly washing clothes. never thought id enjoy that but the dryer was delivered and installed this am. the delivery guys told me the dryer was sitting at home depot since they brought the washer last week,they had our name spelled wrong grr i was on the phone evry day getting the run around but finally i can wash clothes. Not thinking good thoughts about home depot right now. its cool and cloudy this aft noon and hard frost agin last nite. im really enjoying this movie thing. i think we are cast well and driving to alaska,s a long trip but i have a big house. i wish i could join all of you but travel is a bit difficult for me right now,howver i'll be there in spirit and take lots of pics to share. have agreat day all you know what i will be doing ((hugs))) rosey

Hey, for those of you who only remember Haley Mills as a 12-year-old, here's what she looks like today!

OK, I'm home and even after all that happened I've been thinking about the GG get together!!! I've been told that I look like Barbara Mandrell, Tanya Tucker and Nancy Sinatra---So who knows???

I am really tired tonight but had to weigh in on this subject. I hope to get back on a schedule in the next couple days! Hope everyone is doing well.

Good evening GG's,

Caddy K ~ I saw a pic of you that you posted once and you sort of looked a little like Reba McIntyre to me.

Bobbi ~ that picture she has on FB with her standing beside the red sports car with Charlie by her side and she has a big hat on ~ in that picture she reminded me of that lady Olympia Dukakis ~ the one who was in Steel Magnolias.

I hope I have not offended either of you ~ when my daughter told me that I sort of looked like Kathy Bates, the only thing I had seen her in was one of those creepy Stephen King movies, and I felt sort of bad that my daughter thought I looked like her. Now that I have seen her in other things ~ I don't mind the comparison. I have always hesitated then to mention to someone that they looked like/reminded me of some famous person ~ worrying ~ that perhaps they would not be thrilled with the comparison.

Zoe ~ the picture of Haley Mills does look like you.

When I read that Rosey felt that she would probably not be able to travel ~ I felt kind of sad about that. I wonder if it would be possible to do Skype so that if someone was not able to come ~ they could still be part of it in a way.

One day down ~ two to go. It was a pretty good day. Hope the next two are nice as well.

I did pretty good with the food today. Gotta be more firm with myself in the morning when that alarm goes off ~ about getting out of that bed and on my bike. I like my bike, but am having a hard time making myself get out of bed earlier than usual.

Hope you all are having a nice evening.

Take care

Gayle. I'll take Reba too! When my little sister took all the slides and put them on VHS she used Reba music behind all my pictures!!

WOW! Zoe, she really does look like you, or you like her. That is amazing!

Hi there....it's me, with a MUCH overdue checking in! I've been staying on track (would say on plan, but I don't really have a specific plan yet!) but have been so busy that posting has gotten away from me. A typical day last week, which repeated itself with various inserts and deletions....Friday... Took DH to work @ 6:30 a.m. (we only have 1 working car right now and his shift started before the kids went to school), came home and picked up my oldest (high school) and took him to school, came home and had 15 minutes before waking up the middle schooler and elementary schooler, got them up, fed, dressed, lunches packed, and drove them to their respective schools -- was back home and it was only 9:15. Sat down to work and ate a quick breakfast while I worked, went back to pick up DH for his lunch break at 11 because he needed to go to the credit union (this was so NOT the plan originally, as I really needed to work), dropped him back off at work, stopped at a nearby store for produce, stopped at the middle school on the way back because that son forgot his lunch, and drove straight to the elementary school in time for my shift (lunch duty/recess supervising for the kindergarteners for an hour a day). Picked up info packet from the nurse afterwards to study so that I could be certified in EpiPen use (1st grader with severe peanut allergy that we have to watch and they figured since I was out there near the "peanut/tree nut free" lunch table, it was one more person trained, which I totally agree with), then headed back to pick up DH at the end of his shift and came home for almost an hour to try to work a bit more. Left to drop DH off at the high school since he had a snack bar shift for the football games, drove back to the elementary school to pick up youngest, stopped on the way back at middle school to pick up that son, and drove to the high school to set up table to sell items for the band to raise money, which I manned for 5 hours after that -- got home about 9:30 that night, worked till 11, and called it a day. I don't know what it was about last week, but every day was crazy like that!

DH was working until midnight tonight, kids are all in bed, and I decided to be nice and wait up for him, even though my work is done, so I'm taking advantage of the opportunity to finally post while I can. :-)

Gayle -- you had asked if I ever got that treadmill walk in that day when work was slow. I did indeed! I put on a movie I had rented and kept walking -- but found myself dragging towards the end of my 4 miles -- hips were sore, legs felt heavy, I was drenched in sweat, and movie was dragging too which didn't help. LOL. Finally got to the 4-mile mark, so stopped and got off -- but as I was taking off the magazine rack to push the power button off, I noticed something that just made me laugh (and feel better) -- my oldest son had used it a couple days before and had raised the incline to 15 and hadn't reset it, so my 4 miles was all up hill! Sure explained why it seemed so hard to keep going!

That was also during the time I was stuck at the same weight (to the tenth of a pound) for days...and the day after that uphill 4 miles I got on the scale and what did I see??? The same exact weight! LOL I actually weighed myself 5 or 6 times that day throughout the day and evening just out of morbid curiosity....each and every time the scale read 164.4...no point in being frustrated, it was just funny. However, knowing we always weigh less in the morning than we do at night, it was pretty exciting to see that same 164.4 when I went to bed. Next morning.....162.6!! Finally :-) I've dropped a little more since last week, just this morning, but not confident enough yet that I'll see it again tomorrow, so I'll wait on posting that one.

I love hearing about the GG road trip -- you are all such an incredible group of women and it truly sounds like a Hollywood-made adventure. The actresses you've come up with to play each of you are such great matches -- just the short time I've been here, it's amazing how much they fit each of you!

Rosey -- your ticker must be reaching a point of exhaustion trying to keep up with your ever-changing scale! Congratulations on your continued weight loss. :-)

Mary -- so glad you found MF as it truly seems to be working magic for you. Your pounds lost so far are impressive!

Rie -- after hearing you talk about Walk It Out, I bought it on Amazon a couple of weeks ago. My kids were dying to try it, but I told them I got to do it first.....but after the week(s) I was having, I gave in and let them do it first -- they LOVED it. Gave me a chance to watch them and get some pointers anyway since they are the Wii experts. They were driving my oldest crazy because he's in marching band and every time they were out of step/off beat, he was commenting. LOL I did try it yesterday when I had 20 minutes before I had to be at school, but it took so long to set up the avatar and do the tutorial that I only got about 10 minutes to use it, but I can see it will be a fun workout and a good alternate to the treadmill to break things up. Different muscle groups, too!

Well, plenty more to comment on and write about, but DH is home and heading to bed, so I'm going to head to bed as well -- morning will be here before I know it! Thanks for being patient with me! :-)

Hi GG's,

After a day of delay, I finally joined our rec center and had a stud-ley guy give me an "orientation" on the machines. Sorry to say he was about my son's age and I must have reminded him of his mother

Anyway I got a good workout in, really pushing it so as to not look as weak as I really am. I'm sure I'll feel the pain later today. I got up early today and walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes here at work. My sister also works here and I think we're in a competition of sort to see who can lose more weight...so far she's ahead by 3 pounds, but I think I'm retaining water this morning from the chile I had last night.

It always helps to have someone losing weight with you whether it's a workout buddy or you guys at Golden Girls - helps to keep us accountable.

have a good day!

Andi

Thank you for the prayers for my DF’s daughter. My DF’s daughter is out of ICU. If they get rid of the temp and the fluid, she might be released from the hospital on Friday. I will keep you posted.

Today is the last day of the sulfa! Hopefully, I will feel better tomorrow. This morning was my first time back to the gym. I did 15 minutes at 3.0 on the treadmill. Quite a comedown from 2 hours at 3.7. Oh well, I built up to it before, I can do it again.

This afternoon, my SIL goes into the hospital for some kind of shots to his spine. It is not cortisone, but sounds very much like cortisone. Hopefully, it will stop the pain and let him get out of chair/bed. He is getting VERY miserable. He is typically VERY active. He does NOT do well with being immobile.

Hi Donna,

No problem if the actresses are dead or alive – the former can always be animated – Avatar-like.

A “portable rocker!” I LOVE it. Where did you get that?

I think Rosey needs Angela Lansbury or Debbie Reynolds.

Hi Karen,

I think you need Angelina Jolie, or Elizabeth Taylor.

Hi Gayle,

When I think of the appropriate actresses, I am not so much thinking of the look of each actress, but the style/personality/character. When I think of Kathy Bates, especially in the movie Unconditional Love, I think of someone who is kind and determined and fearless. Pretty much the same personality she played in Fried Green Tomatoes.
Rosey, do not say “no” so fast. Maybe we will all end up in your backyard! By then you will probably be down to about 100 pounds at the rate you are going. Remember, we have nurses in our group. We would take GOOD care of you!

Hi Darcy,

I am sorry to say that I do not know you well enough to choose your actress. Tell us, who would it be?

Hi Zoe,

Hayley Mills has got to go! She does NOT have your flair/style/strength. How about Katherine Hepburn, Helen Mirren, Sophia Loren, Cher, or Jane Fonda?

About tire light on the dashboard. My car lets me know when it is time to get things checked. For example, at 40,000 miles a light came on about brakes but nothing was wrong, it was just time to get them checked. So, when a tire light came on at around 60,000 miles, I figured it was time to get them checked – no urgency. Turned out I had 2 nails in one of my tires! Now, as soon as one of those lights comes on, I get it serviced.

About our preparations – one of the things we will need to think about is what we will eat! Given all of our different diets, we may need to attach one of those U-Haul It things to the back of your car just to transport all the food!

BTW, we may need to rent one of those luxury buses if everyone comes.