Maybe just write back saying very directly that innovative and creative sex aren't really what you're looking for?

I'm in a boot now! The xrays showed a TEENSY line of healing, and the pain is not really any better than it was 2 weeks ago. Hope the boot fixes things! Actually I think it's an excuse. I'm going to start doing what I CAN do. I'm going to go to class tomorrow and see if it works at all, and if it doesn't I'm going to ask Elyse to help me design some circuit I can do at home while I heal.



Having friends who are retired there and very very social was the key -- honestly it made all the difference. We went to the beachfront bar of a gay resort the first day, and the headwaiter recognized Glenn and took us to very nice seats, got a waiter right away. We tipped heavily and the next day I walked in with the girls and he recognized me and took good care of us, and after that I knew I could send the girls down by themselves and they'd be in good hands. They only had trouble once when they went to some bistro (not the gay resort) for dinner and were seated at the edge of the patio, and a passerby started bothering Jane, asking her where she was staying and if she wanted to go somewhere to party. They handled it, though -- just hung out at the restaurant until he was gone, then took a taxi home instead of walking.

I think we're probably not going to make it to Carleton. She just thinks it's not the right school for her. I personally think she's basing her opinion on too little info, but since there's absolutely nothing wrong with the three schools she's focussed on, I'm just letting it go.

report: forgot to weigh this morning as I was in a hurry to get to my appt. Ate reasonably yesterday, though. Going to my WW meeting for the first time in three weeks today!

Hope your day was a good one!

That would be very difficult for me to say, which of course is ridiculous! I heard from another guy today and wrote back right away, since this one didn't scare me!!

A teensy amount of healing is better than no healing! And good for you for recognizing that the fracture could easily be an excuse that would keep you from exercising for a long time. I'll bet there are all kinds of things you can do without exacerbating the injury or disrupting the healing.



Knowing the right people and tipping heavily go a long way!! Good for Jane for keeping her head in what could have been a scary situation. I continue to be amazed by her maturity.

Number one lesson for dealing with adolescents: Pick your battles!

Well, you'll get weighed at WW anyway! Hope the meeting was helpful for you.

My weight was up .8 this morning (don't know why). I did go about 200 calories over what I'd planned today, but I am sure I burned them up and more at my training session (which made me extremely hungry, thus the extra calories). I wasn't wearing my Exerspy but wish I was, because I HAD to have broken my record for most calories burned in one session. In the space of an hour, I did 80 "baby" pull-ups, 80 sit-ups, 80 burpies, 80 lunges while carrying kettle bells, 80 chest presses, and 80 bicep curls, all done 10 reps at a time in 8 circuits with not a moment of rest. That was followed by 20 trips running up and down a flight of stairs with no resting, a bunch of jumping and jump roping, and then finally, to finish out the hour, 10 laps running up a flight of stairs, across a large loft on the second floor, down another flight of stairs, across the first floor, and so forth. I was absolutely panting by the end. And I had to laugh--my trainer suggested that I should be ready to run a 5K later this summer, EXACTLY what you said!!

Hope you had a good day!

If you ignore him long enough I'm sure he'll go away.

Boy, this boot is a pain. My ankle does feel better after having worn it nearly all day yesterday, though.


She is becoming amazingly mature. It's like I can see the changes happening. I had thought she'd be shy and quiet around Glenn and Joe, neither of whom she'd ever met before, but she wasn't at all. She completely held up her end of conversations and was even making jokes.

Which is the same number one lesson as for dealing with toddlers, LOL!



Decided to weigh with the boot on (because it's a total pain to put on/take off) and...eek! Gotta go -- picking up Jane in less than an hour to go to the airport, need to shower!

Yep, and I'm really good at ignoring people when I'm uncomfortable!

I wore one of those boots for months the last time I broke my leg, and I remember how miserable it was, especially when the weather got really hot. I do remember being grateful that I didn't have to wear it during the winter, though!


You must be incredibly proud of her. I can only imagine......no, actually, I can't really imagine at all....what it would be like to be a parent watching your child poised on the threshold of adulthood, but it has to be pretty awesome!

And perhaps that strategy works with husbands as well??



Oh, no!! Weighing with the boot on would definitely be discouraging, but not at all accurate, either!


After my extreme training session yesterday, I was expecting a drop on the scale but went up .4 instead. That just plain ticked me off. I am sore all over today and did not exercise. Planned and stuck to a lower calorie day today, in light of the recent gains.

Hope you had a better day today!

FRIDAY: Sorry I didn't post last night. I couldn't get this page to load, and I had a lot of trouble tonight, too. Looks like maybe you are also having trouble this time. Hope you are OK! My weight was down a pound yesterday and up .4 today. Stayed OP both days. Had a personal training session yesterday that wasn't quite as grueling as the previous one, thank goodness!!

SATURDAY: I'm getting worried about you now. It's not like you to be out of touch so long.

My weight was unchanged this morning. Stayed OP. Took a walk.

Hope you have a very happy Easter!

Sorry to disappear! I thought we'd have internet access at the hotel in Colorado Springs, but the room internet required an ethernet port, which my laptop doesn't have. I've been taking it off when I'm just at home not doing anything, putting it back on if I'm going to be moving around much, although I took it off for the college tour because I didn't want the tour guide to think he needed to worry about terrain and stairs and stuff. It really is helping with the pain.

It is, and yes, I'm proud of her and Michael, although I do really think as long as you love them and avoid doing anything major to screw them up, you've probably done as much as you can to make them turn out well, and after that it's a matter of luck.

Actually, LOL! What I'd started to write and then realized that I had just exactly one hour to shower, pack for Colorado (and I hadn't yet completely unpacked from vacation), and pick up Jane from school was that I decided to weigh at WW with the boot on because it's such a pain to take on and off and I weighed 118.2, which is just .2 over my WW goal. I'd been ready to take the boot off if it was going to put me over goal+2 and make me pay for the meeting, but it didn't! That was fun!

Bummer on recent gains. Where are you around your goal? After an extreme training session, you could be retaining water.

Yay for staying on plan and being down .6 for the two days.

Sorry! Jane and I went to Colorado Springs to see Colorado College, one of the choices she's narrowed it down to along with Emory and Kenyon. I'm not sure I'd told you about that yet, given that we were out of town while she was getting her final responses from colleges and then only back in town three days before we left, during which time I was crazy busy. At any rate, we flew out to Colorado Springs on Wednesday night for an admitted students program.

Colorado College is awesome. They use a block plan -- you take a single class for 3 1/2 weeks, then you have a four day weekend and start over. 4 blocks per semester. Professors teach a single class each block, too (during their teaching blocks -- they also have research blocks during which they don't teach, which sounds like an amazingly cool thing for them too, and those with administrative duties have fewer teaching blocks -- the president teaches one block per year) which opens up the possibilities for field study for literally every class. A geology class might spend one week of their block in New Mexico, digging and collecting specimens. There's an English class on Shakespeare that spends the entire block in London and Stratford-on-Avon. A class in Oceanography is offered once every two years that involves a week at Wood's Hole and two weeks on a research vessel at sea. The downside is obviously that if you have a class you hate, you're totally immersed in that for three and a half weeks. And for some subjects that involve skill development like foreign language, a long period between one block of that subject and the next mean you either are going to lose and need to regain or you need to commit to practice in between -- there are ongoing 'adjunct' classes for languages that meet once a week for an hour. If you're unavailable for some of your adjunct sessions because your current block is off campus, you have to plan ahead or make up what you missed. And obviously you need to be a person who's ready to, say, read Moby Dick in two days. But if you're willing to take those downsides, the upsides are incredible. Classes generally meet 9am-noon every day (unless the professor thinks some other time is better -- Astronomy meets at night), depending on the class there might be a lab or field study some afternoons. This means pretty much everyone on campus is on more or less the same schedule. Classes start on a Monday and end on a Wednesday, followed by a 4 1/2 day Block Break until the next Monday, during which time the school offers service trips or skiing or backpacking trips, plus various student groups put together trips, some students might go home, some might just chill and do nothing for a few days. CC describes it as, "That 'school's out for the summer' feeling...but at CC, you get it 8 times a year." Jane says, "All I can think of is, if I go to Emory, and it's the week before finals, and I'm sitting there with three papers to finish and four finals to study for, and I'm thinking, 'If I were at CC, I'd be worrying about ONE class.'" The idea of having to immerse in subject she doesn't like doesn't worry her because she took Geometry in summer school -- 4 hours a day, 5 days a week for like six weeks -- and it wasn't that bad, and because she didn't have anything else she'd -rather- study to procrastinate with, she did well.

AND it doesn't hurt that the student body is as attractive as the surroundings. Our tour guide was drop dead gorgeous, funny, clearly very bright. Jane whispered, "I want to come here just so I can meet him." On her list of concerns about CC was that it often comes up on lists of "most attractive students" and she was worried that meant girls had to worry about makeup, hair, dressing cute every day, like at places like Vanderbilt. But these kids are attractive because they're fit and outdoorsy types -- most of the girls were wearing very little makeup, many just had their hair pulled back into ponytails, some clearly had rolled out of bed and pulled on a pair of sweats to go to class. Jane likes to look cute, but when she's under the gun she wants to know she can skip making the effort for a couple of days without sticking out like a sore thumb.

And the surroundings! OMG! Jane took this photo from her host's dorm window:



The college is just north of downtown Colorado Springs (that's Pikes Peak in the photo), with a couple blocks' walk to little restaurants and shopping. Just far enough that students tend to stay on campus to take a coffee break but close enough that you could easily decide to go off campus instead if you wanted a change of scenery. Colo Springs has a greater metro population of over a half million. It's mostly flat and students get around on bikes and skateboards -- there are racks for skateboards next to the bike racks, and both were full to overflowing everywhere we went. The food is good, the dorms vary from okay to fantastic, the political atmosphere seems to be laid-back liberal. It's sunny 300 days a year. The weather is changeable in the extreme. The tour guide said he'd gotten a sunburn Sunday when it was 80 degrees, then Tuesday morning it snowed, then the sun came out and melted the snow and by that afternoon it was 65. Thursday when we arrived it was 70 and sunny, and when I got up Friday morning it was 43 and there was a HEAVY fog over the area. I went to a panel of staff -- just for parents, as all the prospective students were attending a class -- and when I came out an hour later the sky was absolutely cloudless and it was 65. Crazy. But apparently most days even in winter there are at least some sunny warm hours -- no long periods of grey cold snowy/cloudy/rainy days/weeks/months on end.

Jane said the class was great, she loved the professor, loved the other students, everyone was talking and asking questions of each other and the prof. She told me she's never been in a class like that one. At the panels I attended with other parents, I was impressed with staff but also with the other PARENTS. When you attend these question-and-answer sessions, there are always at least a few a$$holes among the parents, people who want to ask "questions" that are really just a chance to brag. "Do recruited athletes have a hard time scheduling classes around practice and games?" Give me a break. But at CC it was MINIMAL, and even those were actually worth the brag. I felt I could like the other parents.

Jane hadn't expected to love CC as much as she did. She'd been intrigued enough by the block plan to decide to keep it on the list until she'd had a chance to visit, but she really had thought she'd probably be deciding between Kenyon and Emory and that Emory had the edge. But Kenyon is now likely off the list. She's supposed to do an overnight for admitted students there on the 16th, and she's decided that since we've already got the plans fixed and she only has to miss one day of school, she might as well still go, but they'd have to really wow her. This Thursday we drive down to Emory for an admitted students program. No overnight, unfortunately. Emory uses the excuse that they're too big and have too many admitted students, but I think that's bull. They may have three times as many admits, but they also have three times as many current students and dorm rooms as all the LACs that offer overnights for admitted students. Emory just doesn't want to deal with the logistics, and because they're a brand-name school they don't have to. That's probably one of the main things Emory has going for it: nearly anyone who has any knowledge of US colleges will recognize it as a great school, while most people in Ohio have never even heard of Colorado College and a lot of folks outside Ohio are similarly unfamiliar with Kenyon. Jane also likes that it's bigger -- she worries that at a school of 2000 (CC) or 1600 (Kenyon) if she had an experience like she had this year at her high school (which has 1400 students) when a friend turned into an enemy, will she be constantly running into that person like she does now. But I think she's really giving some thought to how important those two things are, especially the brand-name thing. At any rate all of her visits will be over on the 17th, and then she'll have just about two weeks to think before she has to commit. I'm just trying to let her make up her own mind while still pointing out things like, "In high school you're in three classes with your former friend because you're both on the same AP/accelerated track, which is a small subset of students. It's like being in a 50-person class rather than a 450-person class, and all of your courses are required of all students. In college, even in a small school, you'll likely never have three classes with the same person unless there are classes that are both only offered once a year AND required for both your majors."

Whew! Sorry for writing a book!

From last Wednesday: Wow! What a workout! LOL! What do you think about aiming for that?

Report: weighed (3.8 under goal, yay!) and had a fun NSV yesterday. We were up at 3:30 am to make our 6am flight, so obviously neither of us had much sleep and were kind of stumbling around getting dressed, etc. All morning, driving to the airport, going through security, on and off planes, every time I sat down I felt like I had to pull the back of my shirt down because my pants were riding down. I hadn't weighed while we were gone, so I thought I must have gained weight or been retaining water or something. Then I used the restroom at the Minneapolis airport, and I was staring at the tag of the jeans...and it said 0. Mine are a 2. I had accidentally put on Jane's jeans, which are the same brand as mine, same color, same pocket design etc., but are in a style that has a lower rise. I was in my teenage daughter's jeans and had only realized it because they were riding down when I sat.

MONDAY: Report: weighed (no change, 3.8 under goal), didn't exercise. Ate fairly reasonably even though it was Easter and I'd put baskets together for the "kids" (Michael was home on Easter break from Muskingum -- such a bummer that he came home Wednesday after Jane and I had already left, and we missed most of his visit), though we did order subs for dinner and I had beer with mine. I definitely need to figure out this exercise thing. I'm just so swamped with the final college decision travel plus the startup of the farmers' market for the year that I am having a hard time thinking of much else.

TUESDAY: Hm, now I'm back and you're MIA! Hope everything's all right. Report: weighed (no change, 3.8 under goal), didn't exercise. Grilled fish for dinner, yum! I'd overordered and came home with 2 pounds, and I thought "what am I going to do with 2 pounds of fish?" I grilled it all anyway and my husband ended up eating the entire extra! He must have eaten over a pound and a half of fish! Planning to go to my WW meeting today, though it looks like it's going to be the late meeting at 12:15 since the early meeting starts in five minutes.

I know the place we're going in Atlanta gave us problems with the internet when we were there in December, and I have no idea about the place in Gambier, so if I'm not around Thursday-Saturday and then again Monday/Tuesday, don't worry!

So 4 pounds in six weeks is totally doable, and of course I understand wanting to be at your low point before going on a weeklong trip. BUT: have you considered that you may actually have been continuing to lose fat while building muscle over the past few months of exercise and that as a result you could weigh more but be leaner than before you started training so regularly and so hard? Have you measured or gotten a body composition reading recently?



Yes! She's culled some wonderful schools -- Carleton, Hamilton, Dickinson, Allegheny, Centre, University of Michigan all accepted her -- and she's left with three great schools. There's just no wrong choice here, I think.


They have a very high freshman-to-sophomore retention rate, so I don't think it's common, but I imagine the average transfer probably is due to discovering that you just don't have the discipline. What subjects do you think it would be worst for? I wondered about math, too, but they do have math majors.

For Jane the catch is the size. She thinks Emory is a good size. I disagree with her. I think it's way too big, especially once you add in all the grad students, and I suspect she wouldn't have anywhere near the same relationships with her profs as she would at a small all-undergrad LAC, but she's the one who has to make the decision.

Not at all! The tuition net of the merit awards (but not taking into account potential NMS money) puts all three schools within $2000 of each other. We had told her not to worry about money, but she wanted to know if there was some huge difference so she added it up.


Thanks, it's good to hear that from multiple people who attended small schools themselves. It's really the one thing I want her to keep in mind. I personally think Emory is too big. The undergraduate college (minus the business school and school of nursing) is 5000, and when you add in the business and nursing schools and the grad schools, it's 13,000. That's almost the size of Miami. I also think it's way too greek and possibly too southern for her, although of the southern schools, it's probably the least that way. I'm sincerely hoping we get down there and she starts noticing things she didn't notice before and doesn't like. But I'm trying to keep at least the appearance of being totally open-minded.

I think just finishing is a great goal. If you need to finish at a walk, that's okay. And if you start feeling your knees, you can even stop altogether.

No, she's curvy but just wears normal jeans. And actually all my curvy jeans are now too big, even though they're in the smallest sizes offered. The jeans I bought that are like Jane's are from a different store than the store that carries the curvy jeans.

I know...I just keep thinking things like, 'once this is over, I can get on track.' But that's not really productive thinking. I need to be able to stay on track even when life is a little crazy, especially when it's ongoing craziness.

I'm with you. I wonder if there's research to back up the idea that overeating healthy foods reinforces the overall general habit of overeating?

Bummer on not feeling well! Hope it's just a quick passing mild virus or something!

Report: forgot to weigh this morning, arg. Ate reasonably yesterday until a wine-induced snackfest. Didn't exercise, and never made it to WW. Just too busy. I am going to do my pushups today, though.

Hope you had a great day! I'll post this to email too, just in case!

Yeah, I was glad to head down to PV at my low number. I came back 2 pounds heavier than I went down, even with being fairly careful!



Yeah, I just hope she doesn't end up second guessing herself after she makes her decision. She overthinks things.




I believe she'll be required to take Calc, and of course if she's a psych major she'll have to take stats. She did take Geometry in a 5-week summer course 4 hours a day and did well.

I think it's 90% fear of a relationship going sour and then not being able to get away from that person on a small campus. She thinks that because that happened to her in a 1400-person high school, the same thing might be possible on a 1600- or 2000-person campus. I just don't think it's anywhere NEAR as difficult to avoid someone on a college campus as it is in a high school, even when you're talking about the same number of people. The other 10% is just thinking that 1600 people isn't a lot of people, and at a school that has a definite personality, like Kenyon and CC, what if she doesn't fit in well with the typical student -- will she find friends. She doesn't really understand that the college has already filtered those 1600 people for you. At a selective LAC, those 1600 students are all bright and motivated and they all chose a small school over their big state U. So that 1600 people isn't like the pool at her high school, where maybe five or ten percent of her classmates were as bright and motivated and interested in an LAC.

And yet so many kids choose Ohio State. It boggles my mind.



No, the curvy 2s were too big on me as long ago as last summer. I like the fit of them, but apparently there just aren't that many women who are still curvy as a size 0. But fortunately this other brand (American Eagle) makes their jeans with a tiny bit of stretch so I can get find a 2 and the hips stretch a little but the waistband doesn't gap. I tried on Jane's 0 jeans right out of the dryer yesterday and could get them on but barely. Which according to her means they fit me -- apparently you're supposed to get the tightest pair you can zip up, because once they're on they stretch out and if you bought them any bigger, they'd sag.

Yes, but it's better if I cross the bad ankle over the good to ensure I'm not putting any weight on it.

Just a few more weeks! Yay for being down 1.2.

Report: forgot to weigh AGAIN. Got up, went out to make coffee after which I would normally come back to the bedroom to brush teeth, weigh, etc., while it brews, but I discovered the dog had had an accident that required over 20 minutes of cleanup. By the time I was finished the coffee had brewed and I'd forgotten I hadn't weighed. Oh, well. Off to Atlanta in a few hours, taking my laptop but I may or may not be able to get on so if you don't hear from me until Sunday, don't worry!

Taking a math course in such a compressed format surely wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem for really bright students as it is for the majority of mine.

Jane is definitely overgeneralizing from her one bad experience this year (but understandably so). You are absolutely right about the filtering process. The population of students at a small LAC will be so much more homogeneous than at her high school. I remember how mind-boggling it was for me to get to Allegheny and discover that nearly all of my classmates were smart and motivated!

ATHLETICS!



No, I don't imagine there are many women who need a curvy size 0! As for Jane's advice about the fit, maybe I should heed it. I tend to buy jeans that fit comfortably when I first try them on and then am dismayed later when they become baggy and hugely saggy in the seat.


I've been derailed more times than I can count by the need to clean up after my "bulimic" cat! I won't worry if I don't hear from you.

I didn't get on here last night because I had a total meltdown. To make a very long story short, I got extremely upset about an insight I had about my relationship issues (came about from a combination of my last counseling session and something that happened at the church meeting last night). I had my worst binge since I first started to diet (ate about 3000 extra calories, I think). I just felt so depressed that I couldn't muster up the energy to post last night. I had a counseling session today that was incredibly draining, leaving me more tired than I am after a personal training session! But it was also very cathartic, and I agree with my therapist that I have reached a critical turning point. Considering the flood of emotion I was/am dealing with, I can definitely forgive myself for the binge and move on. I didn't weigh this morning. I ate only about 1025 calories today and am going to bed now, partly because I am so tired and partly because I don't want to eat anything. Will check in again tomorrow night. Hope you are having a good trip!

SATURDAY: Weight was up 2.2 this morning (relative to Thursday's weight, since I didn't get on the scale yesterday). I only ate 1180 calories today, so hoping to see a drop tomorrow. Feeling blah and depressed but did not give in to the urge to overeat--credit for that.

That's what I'm thinking, too. She actually got a glimmer of it this past weekend at Emory. As you can probably imagine, turning down Emory would be difficult partially because it's a name-brand college. As their President put it during his address to us, their goal is to "consolidate their position" as an "international destination university." I think that translates to "we want people to mention us in the same sentence as the Ivies." I was trying to hide from Jane how troubling I found this aspiration of theirs, and in particular how troubling I found it that they'd frickin' ADMIT to this aspiration. Uh, what about EDUCATING STUDENTS? And he wasn't the only person who used that phrase, either. But I digress. About halfway through the day Jane turned to me and said (I'm paraphrasing), "I was thinking about how great it would be to have that Emory sticker on the back window of my car. How I would never have to explain what college I went to, never have to realize someone had no clue what a great school it was or how hard I'd worked to get there. And then I suddenly realized if I make the decision because of that, I could be choosing a school full of people who made that decision for that reason."

Neither of us was blown away by Emory. Everything was very formal. They herded us into a big room and a bunch of people in suits lectured. It suffered badly in comparison to the experience at Colorado, which felt more organic and sincere. As a tiny point of comparison, there was a question at both places about the alcohol policy. At CC, the answer was, "CC is a 'wet' campus. As long as you aren't bothering someone or endangering yourself or someone else, you're not going to get into trouble. We want people to know they can call security for help if they think their roommate has had so much to drink she needs medical attention." At Emory the answer was, "Underage drinking is illegal in Emory's dorms." Uh, okay. At CC, our tour guide clearly had not been told to say nothing negative. We're walking through a dorm and he points out the computer lab and says, "The computers usually work, the printers can be a problem sometimes. You can send it to another printer somewhere on campus, though." When he was talking about the weather he said it was so changeable he never knew what to wear. It just felt honest. At any rate, at the end of the day at CC Jane was pumped and enthusiastic. At the end of the day at Emory she said she felt like she hadn't learned a single thing about Emory that she hadn't known when she showed up. I had to agree with her. It felt like they were phoning it in. Jane was pretty disappointed. She'd been expecting to be blown away by Emory. She walked on campus ready to LOVE it.

Oh, absolutely! Plus I bet there are cuts that are better for your shape. I wouldn't know which ones would be good for someone with less booty, but I bet you have students who are shaped like you are.


Oh, dear! I'm sorry you had a bad episode! But I'm really glad you were seeing your therapist right after, and that you are able to forgive youself. Do you want to talk about what happened? No pressure! If you don't, that's fine!

Credit you, and sorry you feel blah and depressed. Maybe just a function of the emotions the day before?

Report: weighed (up slightly to 3 under goal, but that's okay), didn't exercise. Happy to be home, but am headed back out tomorrow for the final admitted students program, this one at Kenyon. I'll be happy to have this over!

MONDAY: Hm, hope you didn't have a bad day yesterday! Jane and I are off to Kenyon, will take my laptop with me but I don't know if the hotel has service.

Yeah, I'm often stunned by the things she comes up with. I'm pretty sure I didn't have her maturity at that age!

I'm less worried about kids drinking than I am about the consequences when they feel they have to HIDE their drinking. I'd much rather see them drink a couple beers in their dorm room than drive to a seedy bar where they won't get carded. I'd rather they go to a keg party than hide vodka in a water bottle. I'd rather have them openly serve at a sorority formal than have everyone 'preparty' and show up sh1tfaced because they knew they weren't going to be able to drink at the event. Oxford was 3.2 when I was at Miami, and it was the PERFECT solution IMO. Even a physically small and inexperienced drinker will start to feel -full- before she gets sh1tfaced on 3.2 beer. No one DIES from overimbibing 3.2 beer. Yeah, we've certainly heard our share of only-the-positives tour guides!




What brands/cuts work for you? I hate to shop so much that I haven't tried many on. I tried the Eddie Bauer "curvy" fit simply because it was =called= curvy, and then when I found that I needed a smaller size than those came in I just asked Jane what she wore since we have a very similar shape. No kidding -- like these curvy Eddie Bauer. I bought three pair of shorts in a different cut, and they fit in a 2. The curvy cut is too big in a 2 in a trouser but in a jean still fits. Not me or Jane, that's for sure!







Do you still have the same teaching load when you're Faculty Chair? Because it seems like your teaching load should be decreased if you're taking on administrative duties or else why would anyone agree to do them?

Kenyon was beautiful, but I think Jane's ready to decide on Colorado College. She pretty much saw CC and Kenyon and Hamilton and Carleton as being basically the same -- small highly-selective liberal arts colleges with great reputations -- so once she realized Emory (and earlier, University of Michigan) wasn't for her, she was down to personal preference. She had culled Hamilton and Carleton in favor of Kenyon because if she was going to be in Ohio-like weather, she might as well be a 3-hour drive instead of a 12-hour drive from home. So once she looked at it that way, CC just sort of floated to the top. The block plan is really compelling, especially making a mid-April just-before-finals visit to Kenyon and seeing her host and host's roomies stressing over finishing up multiple classes. And CC's location wins on nearly every count. Even the ones on which it doesn't win, it still wins -- that is, Kenyon is close by, but she yearns to live somewhere that feels "different." Kenyon's campus and town is more beautiful, but it's a very midwestern beauty and again not "different." Which pretty much gives Kenyon an edge ONLY in the category of "Mom and Dad are not too far away." I'm afraid that's not going to win the day with my daughter. I'm actually always surprised when it wins the day with some kids!

Report: weighed (up 2 to 15.4) but I totally deserve it. Ate badly while travelling this time. I'm just ready to stop travelling, I think. Glad we're at the end of it for now. I've got an appointment today with Elyse (the woman who runs my fitness studio) to see what she can come up with to keep me in shape while my ankle heals. Way behind gearing up for the farmers' market. Gah. Too much to do.

Hope you had a good day! I'll cc: this into an email in case you can't get on here, but maybe we should just go back to NS's boards? They never gave you trouble, did they?

A friend who owned a boutique told me that quality jeans don't sag as much, even when they get stretched out, which was what made a $200 pair of jeans worth buying -- her philosophy was that you were better off with two pairs that looked good rather than 10 that didn't. She also reiterated the fit goal -- as tight as you can pour your body into, even if it gives you a muffin top because that'll disappear when they get stretched.

Yeah, I can see how it would be annoying! I guess that's why you see suspenders on so many men -- nearly all overweight men will have a bigger waist than thighs.


Err...or perhaps the prof who was on sabbatical could pick up the slack?



I think it really is. Since she'll be avoiding as much math as possible and certainly not taking any math -series-, she'll probably do fine with that. And she totally buys into the idea of adjunct classes for languages. And everything else should be fine. Of course she'll have to figure out how to multitask again in grad school!



Basically I just am going to attend my regular class and she's going to adapt what everyone else is doing to avoid impact. I went Friday, it worked okay. Not -as- good a workout, but much much better than none at all.

Oh, just agreed to order in a pizza when that's what Jane felt like instead of going somewhere I could get a lower calorie item, and then overeating. Nothing horrendous. Just a minor failure of discipline, really, from the sabotaging thought that I 'deserved' to eat another slice.

Report: have weighed 1.6 under goal for several days in a row now. Went to class Friday, yay me! (Saturday) Hubby's off with my friend Cindy's husband Dave to The Big Tap In, a craft beer festival up in Youngstown, staying with my cousin and her husband. I had decided not to go because I knew Jane was going to be down to the wire with her decision and thought I'd stay in case she was feeling anxious or something. Too much of a party for me, anyway. I can barely last through an evening of trivia much less an all-day drinking event. I'll be glad tomorrow morning.

Hope you're having fun with your Longaberger friends!

I definitely do agree that quality trumps quantity, and sometimes expensive jeans are absolutely worth the money! My most expensive jeans (the Hilfiger and Lauren) are my favorite.
There have been many times I considered buying suspenders! Thankfully, sanity (or maybe vanity) kicks in just in time!


Unfortunately, he is not qualified to teach many of the courses we need to offer (because his training is in clinical, and the courses are experimentally-oriented, which is my training).



She's already thinking ahead to grad school? At her age, I didn't even know what grad school was!!



GOOD FOR YOU for going to the class and adapting appropriately. YAY!

It's amazingly easy to fall back into old habits of thought, isn't it? And the "I DESERVE it" one is especially easy to buy into in the heat of the moment!

I'm sure the scale will thank you for that decision!! So did Jane need you, and has she made her final decision? It's been a long year for her (and for you)!

It was definitely fun. I did pretty well with my eating. I had a couple of extras (a piece of pie in Amish country and a cupcake at the Longaberger event), but also made very good choices overall (like eating a grilled chicken breast with a side of zucchini and squash when my friends were eating a half-pound bacon cheeseburger with fries).

The reason I didn't get on here last night is that I discovered late yesterday afternoon that I didn't have my credit card. Thinking back, I realized I had left it in the restaurant where we had eaten lunch. I ended up going back there last evening to get it (wouldn't have been able to get it off my mind otherwise), and then still had to do hours of work to get ready for today. I only got two hours of sleep last night.

Tonight I had another total meltdown. All of my struggles lately have come from indecisiveness. I'm back in a mindset I was in for years before starting to diet, one in which I devoted a tremendous amount of energy to trying to decide HOW I would go about losing weight, eating everything in sight and gaining steadily while deciding. I stayed there for YEARS, and I feel like I am back there again. I go around in circles. I worry about all the processed food on the NS plan and wonder if getting rid of it would address my continuous bloating and constipation. I worry even more about all the diet soda I drink, and often think I am going to quit it (always TOMORROW), but never make it more than a couple of hours before I am climbing the walls. I couldn't decide about the NS desserts (hadn't had any in the house for quite some time) but then broke down and ordered a bunch when they had that recent 30%-off sale. The order came while I was away this weekend. Tonight I ate at least 20 of those desserts and feel absolutely ill and nauseous. After overeating, I can't decide what to do the next day--should I go back to my usual plan, or should I try to eat "nothing" to make up for the binge? I also can't decide what to do about going back to the NS site for our daily posts, mostly because I still have some pain about what happened with Bethy, and also because I have been out of touch with everyone there for months, and going back there would mean having to deal with all of that. I don't know what I want from a romantic relationship or even if I want a relationship at all. I am kicking myself for agreeing to be faculty chair again. I can't decide what I want to do this summer. And of course I am stressed to the max from lack of sleep and having to deal with all the work of the end of the semester. My head feels like it could explode. I also feel physically miserable, not only from the overeating, but because I have ridiculous hot flashes from the medication I am taking to reduce my breast cancer risk. I get numerous hot flashes every hour, some of which make the sweat just roll down my arms and legs, making me question whether I can continue to take the drug. I just don't seem to be able to make up my mind about anything, and in the meantime I am much less able to resist food. The few binges that I have had have reminded me in an incredibly powerful way just how painful my old life used to be. And I can totally understand why Beck claims that it is the trying to decide whether to eat or not eat--the constant STRUGGLING--that makes eating issues so painful. I think I need to start completely over with Beck, because I feel like I am just losing my grip. But again, I can't make up my mind! And I don't have the time this week to really deal with it all. I am coming up on the one-year anniversary (May 5) of first reaching my goal weight (my WW goal of 138) and want to feel in control again by that date so that I really have something to celebrate. Sigh.......

Hope you are doing better than I am!!

[QUOTE=4EverLearning;4305810]I definitely do agree that quality trumps quantity, and sometimes expensive jeans are absolutely worth the money! My most expensive jeans (the Hilfiger and Lauren) are my favorite.

So -every- class you teach next year is going to be a class no one else could teach? Because it seems to me that once they've decided they're going to serve the students rather than serving the budget, why not take the extra they've already agreed to pay you and instead cut your class load and use that money to pull someone in who can teach a section of intro? There have to be any number of people living within a half hour of campus who are qualified to teach a section of intro and would LOVE to try teaching. I'm sorry to harp on this, I'm sure you've thought of everything I'm asking. But I truly hate seeing you take on yet another stressful year if there's any other possible solution. This year has been hard and your mental health is worth protecting. And, yes, I believe you have a right to say that your mental health is more important even than whether some of your majors have to drive to Kent to take a class they can't get at your location or have to take an extra semester to get through or whatever. YOU ARE IMPORTANT, TOO. Don't set yourself up for failure. (And on a related note: think about whether some part of your subconscious is looking for an excuse to fail. "I had no choice but to regain because I had to take the entire responsibility for ensuring my students stayed on track.")

I think it's just a function of growing up in a household with parents who both have grad degrees themselves. We've joked with our kids that 'babies are for after grad school.'

Decision has to go out this afternoon to the National Merit Corporation via fax. I'm glad to have it over with.



Yay, you!

Wow. Okay, for me, it really, really makes me think you should strongly consider how you can reduce your stress levels for next year. Seriously, this is a MEDICAL ISSUE. It's not just that you would prefer to have less stress in your life. You need a year to get off the crazy-go-round, solidify your learnings into habits, and deal with various anxieties. And learn to cook fresh food from scratch. I understand that you're committed to making sure your students have the classes they need. But there has to be SOME solution that allows them to graduate on schedule while still not burning you out completely. I can't really know what the options are for solving this issue, but I know there must be a DOZEN solutions that maybe aren't ideal but are better than turning you into a crazy woman. The solution doesn't have to be PERFECT for everyone. But "slightly imperfect all around" is a better plan than "perfect for everyone else but hideous for Robin." Now is the time to find this other plan. The closer it gets to the beginning of the fall semester the fewer options you will have to find an alternate solution.

Re: Beck. Perhaps we should both go back to Beck day-by-day? I'm willing if you are. We can restart it right from the beginning together. Tell me when you want to start. I can use the refresher too.

Re: the diet pop. Is this caffeinated pop, and you're climbing the walls because you aren't getting your caffeine? I actually have a suggestion for that, if that's the issue.

Report: up 1.6 to AT GOAL. Ack. Must have a low day. Fortunately I have zero planned for the rest of this week that will tempt me to overeat. Fish tonight for sure.

We have tried for years to find someone who is willing to teach a section of intro, with no success other than the one person who is already doing that and will continue to next year. (This area is not teeming with Ph.D.'s in psychology who are willing to teach for $1500 a semester--yes, less than $100 a week--the pittance that part-timers get for teaching a course.) And it wouldn't help me anyway, since none of the courses I am teaching next year are intro (for the first time ever in my career). I'm actually happy about that part, since I am totally burned out on the intro course due to all the discipline/behavior problems that occur much more often in the intro course. And I'm really as sure as I can be that I am not trying to set myself up for failure. It's really not the work schedule that is the issue. I've had insane schedules for much of my working life, and that's never been the factor that determined the success or failure of my weight loss issues. It's the relationship issues that are breaking me down, not the work stuff.

You grew up on a different planet than I did!! My parents thought it was reasonable for me to go to college (I'd meet a better class of man to marry, and I'd have "something to fall back on" if, God forbid, I ever had to support myself) but not grad school (my mother warned me many times that I would educate myself out of the marriage market, because no man wants a "smarty-pants" for a wife).

YIPPEE!! I hope there's some major celebrating going on in your house tonight!


Again, it's really not the work that's the problem. I agree that I have a tendency to take on too much and that I have sometimes used my "busy-ness" at work as an excuse for not dealing with other issues in my life. The problem is that now I am having to deal with the crap that I determinedly pushed to the back burner for so many years--the relationship stuff. I knew that the decision to try dating would mean a really difficult period of adjustment and self-exploration for me, but even I have been completely blind-sided by just how intense my angst is. I am hoping that the summer will give me enough time to really deal with it and make some decisions about the rest of my life. I can also use the summer to get organized for my courses in the fall. And when fall comes, one of the things I can definitely work on to help reduce my work-related stress is to learn to delegate more, something I have never been good at. The fact that I will no longer have to make twice-weekly trips to the main campus next year will be a huge stress-reducer, too; no more 15-hour days.

Yes, I do definitely want to start over. That's a decision I feel confident of! Let's start next Wednesday. By then I will be almost done with school and things will have slowed down a lot. I do think that both of us could really benefit from it.

It's partly the caffeine for sure. I also crave the fizziness and the sweetness.

Did something happen yesterday to bring about that gain, or did it take you by surprise? I'm glad that the rest of your week will be temptation-free.

I didn't get on the scale this morning. I ate about 1250 calories--no NS desserts. I took a nap this afternoon and feel a lot better as a result. I also had a nice thing happen this morning. At the end of my intro class, a student (male, probably 19 or 20 years old) came up to tell me that he thinks I am an awesome teacher. He had no idea how much he made my day. I was feeling exhausted and depressed and was dressed in my baggiest jeans and a sweatshirt, having not even bothered to take a shower this morning because I was feeling so yucky, so what he said really touched me.

Hope you had a good eating day today and will be rewarded on the scale tomorrow!

Yegods! That's incredible. No kidding that no one would be jumping all over that. So it has to be a PhD to teach intro to psych? I mean...it's intro to psych. Jane's taking it from someone with a master's and probably some sort of certificate. Not that you're makign that policy, of course, but really? Grad students teach it, some places. Well, I'm glad the courses themselves are going to be one of the upsides! What kind of discipline/behavior problems are you seeing in the intro class? Is it because there are more students in an intro class who maybe were never really cut out for college, or is it just that there's an adjustment period between high school and college? Okay, I'll take your word for it that it isn't the workload that is the problem.

Totally different planet, though my mom and her brother were the first in their family to go to college. Their mom never even went to high school -- it wasn't free back then, and she went to work so the family could put her younger sister through school.

It felt pretty momentous! The letter is going into the mail today. She also filled out all the responses to the other colleges she got into, though she thinks she might wait to send the ones for Emory and Kenyon until the last possible minute JUST to make sure.




You'd mentioned that you couldn't decide what you wanted to do this summer? What do you usually do with your summers?

Delegating's good! I'm glad you won't have those 15-hour days.

Okay, next Wednesday. Which book do you want to use?

So you have three things you like, and probably none of them are really GOOD for you. But you're trying to go cold turkey on all of them at once. Wean yourself, and do it from one thing at a time. Caffeine's one place to start because you can't taste it and just have to wean yourself from the addiction rather than the taste. I cut my caffeine consumption by ~2/3 about fifteen years ago by switching to half-decaff, then slowly making my coffee weaker until I got it slightly over half-strength compared to what is normal. You could start by alternating caff with decaff throughout the day. Once you get used to that, go to 1 caff, 2 decaff, etc. I think I read that caffeine doesn't actually help with normal morning grogginess but just causes you to feel groggy because your body is looking for the caffeine it always gets in the morning. I've been thinking about cutting my caffeine again. Trouble is I'll be cutting John's too. I wonder if I could do it without telling him and do it slowly enough that he doesn't notice? Hmmmm.... At any rate, once you've gotten yourself off the caffeine, you could start switching yourself to either something unsweetened or something unfizzy the same way -- mix soda water or sparkling water into your pop, just a barely noticeably amount at first and then more and more as you get used to it until you're drinking plain fizzy water. Then once you're used to that, same thing for moving from fizzy to plain water. Although I'm not a huge fan of water myself. I enjoy having some sort of flavor, so if it were me I'd probably move toward iced green tea or something. But I guess it would probably be ideal to move toward plain water. My daughter has a plain water habit -- she occasionally will have a sprite zero or a lemonade, but she just drinks water in restaurants more often than not.

I'm not actually sure! I think it might be partially salt and a delayed reaction to all the travel.

Yay, you! How cool is that!

report: weighed and still was at 117 today, but I think that may be a function of being slightly constipated from all the travelling. I ate low yesterday and had a GINORMOUS salad for lunch, so I suspect I'll be lower tomorrow. Went to class this morning.

Hope you had a great day!