wow, its a quiet day here!
quick update- DH had his cat scan and cancer hasn't spread thank goodness. It isn't responding to the current drug though so he'll have to get into something new. It sounds like there are options out there, and we are dealing with it early. So more meds, more possible side effects etc but very glad there are things we can try.
I'm off to see my mom early tomorrow and will try to check in when i'm there- good night all!
I'm beat. Got literally an hour of sleep last night after finishing work at 2:30 a.m. got back to my room and set alarm for 5 a.m. to drive into downtown Chicago to studios there for taping...I couldn't decompress and was on alert to not sleep thru alarm. Meals were good choices. Ate dessert like it was my birthday. It's not. Toooo much sugar.
Going to sleep early tonight. Back at home. Pets loving on me. Life is good.
Curlyjax that is great news that the cancer hasn't spread!!
Bill thank you for keeping us steady on here with your check ins. Dgd sounds like a joy.
Decent note tomorrow. In the harder grind of work now... for about six weeks, maybe less.
I got a great deal done yesterday which pleases me a great deal. I started the day by emptying a compost bin into a barrow and tidying up a little in that area. I then moved on to a full day at the office. This is good for getting work done and poor for moving around, however much I try.
Food was OK but I am feeling rather squidgy. That's partly related to not enough weight-training so I must make that more regular. At present I'm finding it difficult to keep a balance between targetted exercise, work and all the rest of it. At least sleep seems to be OK at present, though, now I'm back to turning my light off at 22:30.
nationalparker, being on alert so you don't sleep through the alarm is horrible. I hate nights like those.
curlyjax, great news about DH! I hope they find the right medication quickly.
Bill, good work constructing a meal at the reception and choosing wisely. Those fried balls do not sound attractive.
Diet Coaches/Buddies – Started the day with a bird walk, CREDIT moi. The spring warblers still haven't arrived. We had to be content with great views of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet whose ruby crown is rarely visible but was because of the foggy wetness. A later walk allowed stopping at the drugstore for an errand on a weekday when the crowds aren't there. I managed to escape the bookstore by just patting some books fondly. I recently refused two books offered me by a friend because my stack is too large even for my standards.
Dinner was "Heavy appetizers" before an evening event. I've never seen that expression used in an invitation before so was really psyched. They turned out to form a reasonable vegetarian meal of Middle Eastern foods, CREDIT moi. DW and I had pictured mounds of shrimp, rare beef slices, and tuna sushi - what else would be described as 'heavy?' I ate standing - there was no other choice - and enjoyed chatting with some old friends and meeting some new ones.
silverbirch – Emptying a compost bin is just the greatest connection to planet earth. Yay for good sleep.
nationalparker – I know that experience of staying awake to avoid missing the alarm - Ouch. Kudos for keeping your sanity when working that hard. Glad you're home with your dogs.
curlyjax - Yay for cancer that isn't spreading - such good news. Have a good bus ride to visit your mom.
Readers -
Quote:
Conclusion Stay Free of Traps - for Life
Using Escape Plans for Life's Varied Traps
Chris, whom you met in the psychological traps chapter, often got discouraged with losing weight, especially when the going got tough, because he expected that dieting should always be easy. He didn't have confidence that he could get himself to do hard things, and he greatly overestimated just how difficult his week had been. A few challenging hours colored his memory of the whole week. He learned to count the difficult hours, reassess the importance of each advantage of losing weight, remind himself of what he had been learning, and rein in his focus to whether he could keep going right now. About a year after we had finished working together, Chris changed jobs, from working in the claims department to sales. He said he had wanted to do that for quite a while, but he was always concerned that he wouldn't be able to keep motivated. He made the decision to apply to the training program after realizing that the motivational skills he had learned from our work together would be applicable to a sales position.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., Deborah Beck Busis, The Diet Trap Solution, Train Your Brain to Lose Weight and Keep It Off for Good (Blue book), pg. 224
10:23am and I have already been foiled by trying to update our potters' guild website. Wow. I have come to the conclusion that I must always add "when you know how to do it" to anyone who says to me ever, in any endevour related to anything to do with any kind of computer program "Oh, it's really easy (ADD: when you know how to do it)" I am sure, the new wordpress I installed is "really easy to use" but for now I have misplaced our contact page but for now I can live with that as I did successfully move our/my first blogpost about our upcoming (next weekend! so late doing this!) sale front and center. For now this will have to do. Although I may have just figured out what happened as I wrote this to you guys here.
Stepped on the scale to see 260.8. Still thrilled to be on the threshold of a 250's number -- day#3 of waiting for it. It's ok. I can trust that 260 to be real. Since Jan 10 I am down 16 lbs. And that's with a big off plan not trying phase of 6 weeks. I am ready willing and able to accept the forthcoming 250's number and the 240's! Bring them on.
No word at all from the place I applied to. I find it very rude and annoying not to be acknowledged when you submit something. I don't understand how businesses and people think it's ok to just fluff off others.
On plan today. All is well. Fantastic summer temperatures yesterday! Wow loved it. Happy to see some flowers in my environment finally: apple trees are blooming. Magnolias as well. Forsythia. I miss colour and really look forward to seeing it out there on a daily basis.
My neighbour has his house up for sale. Open House over the weekend. Kind of want to go and see it. I'll be sad when they leave and hope that someone intent on knocking it down and building a monster house doesn't move in. However if that happens it will only add to my Suburbs print series.
billblueeyes I thought of you for some odd reason as I was searching for "how far is it from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea" on google maps. Google "maps" are not really real maps. As DH said when I mentioned my discovery of GM limitations that it's just a road system and it's too far between those points, or from where I live (I did punch that in: Toronto to the Black Sea) plus I needed a fixed point. Don't ask me why I thought of you. I did marvel at the thought of the Blacak Sea, the Caspian Ses and the Baltic Sea all touching Russia somewhere yet we here in North America have no seas except maybe the Caribbean Sea? But isn't it the Carribean Ocean?
curlyjax: I'm with the others! Such good news your DH is stable. My MIL is as well. May it continue for your DH and start to recede until it just goes away.
silverbirch: Happy you used your "barrow". I saw a guy, definitely not used to using a barrow, having a tough time keeping it upright. Then I saw his wife bringing a large brown bag of leaves to their curb using a dolly. These, I thought, were not country folk or Real Gardeners. Although, maybe they were just beginners. They looked worried.
nationalparker: Nothing like the love of a pet when exhausted. yay for being home.
Just got back from a pleasant walk with Otis. It's cloudy here and a little windy, but still in the mid-70's.
The company has been here and left this morning. It was very fun as they shared exciting news when they arrived that they had decided to get married on in Las Vegas on their was down. They have been together for 30 years and living together for the past 6. Patty hasn't ever been married and Paul was married years ago briefly. I can't tell any mutual friends as they have not told their family, but we did celebrate a little. Out to dinner the first night and then yesterday dinner at home with champagne and a little cake and I bought a cute topper. Patty was touched.
I was pretty darn close to on plan, over by only a tiny bit. It helps that they are both trying to watch their weight as well. We got a nice walk in yesterday after I had walked Otis and then we saw the movie, The Zookeeper's Wife. We all thought it was very good, also very sad.
Paul loves dogs and even sent a package for Otis when we first got him, so he was delighted to play with him. Otis does pretty well, but there are a few things that we need help with. I met a gal on the walk yesterday and was visiting and she gave me the card of a dog trainer (because I asked, not because Otis was being bad). Anyway, Tom the dog trainer is coming over at 5:30 to do an evaluation of our environment and our pup and will give a recommendation and price. Should be interesting. I wonder if Tom thinks Otis shouldn't walk the length of the top of the sectional? The day before yesterday we were taking a rest (Otis on the top of the back of the sectional), when I heard "thud". It was Otis falling on to the floor.
Onebyone I used Wordpress when I blogged about my Camino trip. I thought it was cumbersome and not that user friendly, so if it's the same thing you are not alone. Good job about being almost in the 50's. As for your job application; it seems unless you are selected which you may be, companies are really bad about acknowledging resumes and applications according to what I've heard. I agree it is upsetting after all the time and thought put into your correspondence.
Bill How do you put in the links so that we can see the photo of the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Is there something on the site that describes how to do it?
Silverbirch It does sound like you've had a productive day. I'm going to work on today being one for me. My friends left the ice chest they started out with because it wasn't very good. It's going to the Goodwill (which they know) but I am going to fill it with little used kitchen things first.
Nationalparker I hope you got a good and long night's sleep last night.
Curlyjax So glad to hear that the cancer has not spread. It seems there are more options all the time, so that is good too.
I just wanted to pass on that my friends replaced their ice chest with a Yeti brand ice chest. They are not inexpensive, but they had ice cubes in theirs this morning that had not melted in two days and the ice chest has been in the warm car. I will be buying one of those ice chests. It is very thick walled so a person may have to get a larger one than you think, but there are many sizes.
I am feeling older this week - slept well last night but was so busy at work today from one thing to another that I'm just tired again! Severe storms this evening. I got home in a deluge after making a run for it when it started pouring right before I was leaving the store on the way home. Soaked and cold. We have a weak fire flickering now, for coziness' sake. Will be another early night, I hope. Stormy weekend forecast, so no yardwork except for picking up branches, I suspect.
The folks at DH's work have been so happy to have him back, he said it feels nice to be wanted.
Not my best effort today. For some reason, today I don't care.
OneByOne - give it a while to receive acknowledgement of your application. Sometimes it takes quite a while ... frustrating as it may be.
Last edited by nationalparker; 04-28-2017 at 11:00 PM.
Diet Coaches/Buddies – Major excitement for the day was that the supermarket reorganized itself. That means that the only way to shop was to traverse every aisle hoping to recognize what I needed. The other shoppers, instead of ignoring each other, smiled at each other with a knowing nod since we were all lost. The value of the reorganization isn't clear to me. However, turning isolated shoppers into a warm group was magic.
At an evening event we chose to arrive late so that we would miss the happy hour before. CREDIT moi for finding a way to avoid unnecessary food and drink. Dinner was leftover grilled salmon. DW called it the Immortal Salmon of Henrietta Lacks since it had outlived any rational prediction for lifetime in the fridge but tasted fine to me. Exercise was walking there noting each and every tulip bed planted by folks along the way. Spring is such a good idea.
onebyone – Those blooming apple trees will attract Baltimore Orioles soon. You'll have spring also. Absolutely go visit the Open House next door. The best way to dig out of your brain what you want in a house is to see houses that don't have it. Congrats for remaining so close to the 150's.
nationalparker – Not surprised that you're tired after being so busy at work. Love the notion of a "coziness' sake" fire.
Karen (karenrn) - Yay for having house guests who are watching their weight. [It's easy to post a link "when you know how to do it." 1) Type the phrase that will be visible, e.g. Aquarius, 2) Highlight that phrase. 3) Go to another Tab or Page to find the link. 4) Back on this page click on the just above the typing window. 5) Paste the link in the opened box. You're done. It's "really easy to use."]
Readers -
Quote:
Conclusion Stay Free of Traps - for Life
Using Escape Plans for Life's Varied Traps
"When I got accepted to the training program, I wrote a list of all the advantages of working hard to get through the program. Whenever I started to have sabotaging thoughts about whether I'd be successful, I read the reminder cards I had made. Then once I started actually doing sales, I made a new card to read before every sales call to remind myself that I might not be able to close every sale but I needed to give myself credit for making the call anyway."
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., Deborah Beck Busis, The Diet Trap Solution, Train Your Brain to Lose Weight and Keep It Off for Good (Blue book), pg. 224
The morning has been full. I was at a plant sale and chose sensibly from the lunch options. It's the May Day holiday weekend here and the roads are very, very full. I've holed up at the office for the afternoon and hope everyone gets where they want to go by the end of the afternoon.
Very reassuring to see that Bill had posted, as per usual.
hi coaches!
bus drive to parents was long and crowded, I was surprised as it isn’t a holiday weekend. The bus driver got lost twice in two small towns due to poor directions, but each time the the passengers were able to help find the bus station fortunately, kind of funny!
I felt like I was in a tv show at times: the drivers was straight out of central casting as a large woman who told the bus rules in a firm but kind way (no drinking etc) and called everyone baby. She also joshed around with a few guys who could have gotten a bit obnoxious and kept them in line but in a fun way, and encouraged one guy to “be good” now that he was done with jail or drug rehab, something like that. It was great to see regular joes just helping each other in that way: thats the thing you don’t hear about enough.
I feel lousy, I brought a cold with me but parents are so happy to see me, I am glad it did it. My dad has a lot of laptops and the wifi is mighty Its nice to be away from responsibilities and just loll around.
Bill- we ate middle eastern yesterday as well. Fairly healthy really, bits of this and that and not too much meat. Nationalparker- i hope you get some rest one of these days! Karenrn- dog trainers input will be interesting. A few tips from a pro is always a good thing. onebyone- glad your MIL is stable. good job on the scale! Silverbirch-I hear you about finding the balance on getting things done and taking care of your self. I need to get back to weight training also.
The week was overwhelmingly full. Credit for seeing through all my responsibilities with Grace and Dignity. Managed 110 teenagers with smiles and laughter. I think there was a conga line of sophomores at one point and freshmen wielding Shakespearean insults at each other by Thursday. I have been listening to the radio/ BOT to break up the driving drudge between home, family and work commitments. One show talked about the "sweet spot" in work that is intersection of talent and passion. I truly feel I am in a sweet spot at work with the kids. Its the drama and chaos that surrounds ischool that is a different story. Emergency staff meeting at the end of Friday told us that our principal would not be returning Monday. Staff nearly went "Hunger Games" on superintendent. I had to leave when teachers were shouting about the grief the students would feel as they missed their principal. It was everything thing I could do to not stand and declare "How about their grief when you abandoned them to a strike for two weeks?" So I left because it is none of my business. My job is the my responsibility to the kids. Period. Super credit for not eating over it. No sweets at work lasts another week.
Today I want to do a "QUICK" perusal and grade of the final term paper. I follow the Henry Ford method of teaching. You fix the problem with the car before it rolls off the conveyor belt. When it is finished you give it a stamp. I want to spend sometime with DH tonite not thinking of anything else. He is really getting down with the water killing the trees and no end in sight.
So first things first. I'll do the terms papers then take a walk. We have a rare dinner out planned. It is the first restaurant we ever went to together. To keep OP I ate a healthy breakfast and will only have a green smoothie for lunch. With a salad at dinner, I will have two green meals.
KarenRn: I have a Yeti and love it. Silverbirch: I also struggle with planned exercise during these crazy days. I only did stretches all week. This coming week exercise will become my first priority.
Credit for new orthotics in my shoes to keep my active.
Sunday - France sells land to U.S. (1803, Louisiana Purchase)
Diet Coaches/Buddies – Another bird walk morning, CREDIT moi, that produced my first Baltimore Oriole of the year and first Black and White Warbler but few other returning warblers. Except for, of course, the Yellow-rumped Warblers who were there in the hundreds. The others come at their own pace.
Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi, due to avoiding snacks all day except for a half mango in the evening. Did both lunch and dinner on the patio in absolutely splendid weather. Decided that a handful of peanuts was just what I needed in the afternoon. But realized that I just didn't like the book that I was reading so I did something else. Peanuts didn't happen; the brain just suggested them as its first attempt to solve, "something isn't right."
silverbirch – Happy May Day. Isn't your garden already too full to be spending time at a plant sale?
maryann - Just WOW at "Staff nearly went 'Hunger Games' on superintendent." So much drama at your school. Kudos indeed for "Super credit for not eating over it."
curlyjax - Gotta love the description of your bus ride - what a trip. I've never heard of a bus driver getting lost. Have a happy "just loll around" time.
Readers -
Quote:
Conclusion Stay Free of Traps - for Life
Using Escape Plans for Life's Varied Traps
Chris also used his skills whenever he got discouraged. He reminded himself why it was worth it to keep going. And he narrowed his focus. He recognized that of course he could keep going that day. He got himself to stop looking too far into the future. "I'm pretty sure I could never have gone into sales," he concluded, "or never have been as successful as I am, if I hadn't learned those dieting skills." I laughed when he told me I should write a book for salesmen.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., Deborah Beck Busis, The Diet Trap Solution, Train Your Brain to Lose Weight and Keep It Off for Good (Blue book), pg. 224
Dinner with DH was a success. I asked him the same questions I did on our first date. He laughed. The restaurant had been remodeled ( after all we were there 20 years ago) but the waiter was terrific. DS comes home from Boy Scout camp today. It will be a nice family day.
Credit for many good choices yesterday. "Oh well" to the decision I somehow "deserve" TWO desserts in one day. I move on.
I woke up at 3:30 (DRAT!!) and decided to use the time productively. Finished my term papers Yeah!!!!. The big hump is over. I was moved while correcting to witness "the light bulb turn on" for some of the students between their first and second drafts. It felt good that I was apart of that experience. And now correcting is all downhill. Practice multiple choice for the National exams and lots of class debates, discussions, etc. . . Did I mention I turned the desk calendar for the last time before summer? I told DH last night this will be the first summer vacation in 15 years that I REALLY appreciate because it will be following a full time schedule.
So I will continue to use this extra morning time to my advantage and hit the gym. Just for today I can live without two desserts.
Food on plan. The weekend plan includes some extra weekly points which makes it nice. However I need to cut back a bit or get more exercise, because I did not lose any weight. I remain three pounds from my goal, but I actually want to get there. I just remind myself that it is very easy to follow and will be how I'll need to be eating the rest of my life. Yesterday I hiked after WW and then took Otis for a walk. Today I only took Otis for a walk.
We did sign up to have a dog trainer come to train Otis and us. It is kind of a package deal, but the price reminds me that he really is Precious Otis (that's part of his full name). He really is a good dog, but I want him to be a nicely trained good dog.
Today I'm meeting a friend who will be in town for a layover. We went from 1st grade through high school together and she lives in southern CA. She became a flight attendant for Alaska Airlines in October and loves it. She will be 64 next month, but you wouldn't know by looking. I'm looking forward to hearing how it's going. All I can say is I'm glad it's her and not me. I can't imagine working that hard and with the crazy schedule.
Maryann Sounds like things are going well for you. What about the water? Do they continue to let water out from a dam that makes the problem?
Bill Good realization about the peanuts. I'm sure we all do that more than we care to admit or even realize.
Curlyjax I loved the story about the bus ride. It will be interesting to see how the ride home goes.
Nationalparker I hope you're able to get a little extra sleep/rest over this weekend.
Well, I'd better get cleaned up and out the door for a little grocery shopping so I'm ready to meet Linda when she arrives.
Weekend has been super busy so far. Something happened to my back during the night - feels like it did a couple of weeks ago ... At least the knowledge that it was healed in a week is there this time. Food prep has been steady - turkey meatballs and sauce, the italian turkey sausage/veg soup, chicken salad, and even just cutting up the carrot sticks. (As a decade-long baby carrot eater, now I despise the taste of them ... go figure.) Off in a minute to go see DH's younger daughter's apartment. That will knock out three hours minimum from the day. I feel like I'm losing the entire afternoon/early evening.
Maryann - That's interesting on the hullabaloo on the principal leaving. In my school, I doubt one student would have spent time worrying about the departure of a principal ... we knew the staff but never felt any connection. Maybe it's more the fear of those teachers, wondering about their jobs with the shakeup of the staff? Or doesn't it work that way? I know in athletics, when a new AD comes in, they often clean house a bit.
Hoping to have time to return to add more personals. Last night I put on the movie, "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" - enjoyed it. Very different from the routine plots and I like that.
Friday - National Arbor Day (since 1872)
just above the typing window. 5) Paste the link in the opened box. You're done. It's "really easy to use."]
Its nice to be away from responsibilities and just loll around.
