[karenrn]

Good afternoon coaches,

Food has been on plan and I went on a nice 10 mile hike this morning. I started at a trailhead with no bathroom and then went to the peak and down the other side to a trailhead with a bathroom and then back to the start. It's nice having a bathroom to use and I ate an apple, I listened to Endeavor on my way over and Marie Kondo on the way back. Since then I've walked Otis, had lunch, took a rest and did some food prep.

Maryann When I get headaches it is often from stress from my shoulders and neck. I'm sure with the stress you're under right now it isn't helpful. I hope dinner with your Mom and sister will be enjoyable and a bit of a distraction.

Penny Good job for staying on plan with the pain you've been going through. I'm glad it's better.

GardenerJoy You're an inspiration with your clearing out. I'm enjoying listening to the book and will give it a go soon . . . at least the closet again. I do have tee shirts in multiple locations so I'm going to have to think about what would work best for them. I have a ton of hiking shorts and tee shirts. A number of them have been too small for such a long time that they are in really good shape.

Curlyjax Your dinner out sounds fun and good food is an added bonus. Glad you had a nice visit with man friend without feeling badly afterward.

Bill What fun watching the interactions with the kids. I'm sure it changes week by week. Yes the dressing up for school sounds very fun. I wore a uniform to Catholic grade school. I'd say you're doing pretty good with the small violation of Beck rules.

Waving to Nationalparker and Ann!

[nationalparker]

Hello, all! I thought I was going to skip the drive to the in-laws' house but DH wanted to see where they dropped the dumpster a day early. So I mailed the estate taxes certified mail, then got on the road. Then realized I didn't have all of the keys I needed. My brain is in a fog some days. So called DH, found out where they were at home, drove back and then out to the house. Then the rains started. I got about 15 garbage bags and misc. other things flung into the dumpster, then worked in the house a bit. Called it a day quite early and got home to start on meal prep for tomorrow's lunch at a friend's. We went to the cinema tonight, to see Infinite Storm. Ehhh... it was "ok" but nothing like other great mountain climbing type movies like Meru, Everest or Free Solo, etc. I think my hopes were raised because I just received Jimmy Chin's new coffee table style book, There and Back: Photographs from the Edge from the library on hold. This was more of a rescue type story but needed much more backstory. I'm no Roger Ebert with a review More tomorrow.

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Over the top excitement was visiting the Turner's Modern World Exhibit at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. More exciting because we were the second to last car allowed into the packed parking garage and after being told we couldn't check our coats because the coat room was full, got in line behind a couple collecting their coats to leave and got to check our coats on their hanger. The MFA has exactly one Turner, The Slave Ship, which it calls a "masterpiece." The man can certainly make the sea come alive. The exhibit over the span of his career became a history of the turn of the century England starting with English fears of sympathy for the French Revolution. Slavery, canals, poverty, royalty - he painted it all. His early works contain miniscule details - smaller than any brush I can imagine. Then he began to "anticipate Impressionism and Expressionism." Wonderful way to spend a rainy day. I'll declare it responding to Beck's call to expand our horizons, since I'm not an art major.

Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. Dinner was special: Gorton's Crispy Battered Fish Fillets and Tater Tots both cooked in our convection oven pretending to be an air fryer. Really good. My response to being set off by gardenerjoy's mention of visiting a Lenten Fish Fry. Last year I was similarly set off and did take out from a good local restaurant. Only good-enough because the fish wasn't still hot and the fries were wimpy by the time I got them home. Straight from the oven is the way to go.


Joy (gardenerjoy) - Continued Kudos for follow thru with your clothes editing. Just aghast at your info about city names. Boston, Lincolnshire is totally new to me - who'da thunk? New place to add to my bucket list.

maryann - Supportive thoughts for your overloaded plate right now. Hope your DH can find the right path forward.

nationalparker – The pictures in Jimmy Chin's book are boggling. I can't look at his picture on Thank God Ledge on Half Dome, Yosemite without trembling. 15 garbage bags to the dumpster sounds like a success.

Karen (karenrn) - Neat up and down then up and down hike - all powered by one apple.

curlyjax - Congrats for being able to chat with manfriend. Good sign of moving on.

Penny. - Ouch for the delayed doctor's appointment. Hope you get relief soon.

Readers -

Chapter 5 Stage 2 - The Think Thin Initial Eating Plan

Snack Guidelines
Use this advice as you incorporate these snacks into your daily repertoire:. . .

• Each evening, measure out all you snacks for the following day and put them in "snack bags" to carry with you. Refrigerate the bags if they contain perishables. These snack bags will help you stick to your plan and avoid other foods, such as when you pass a vending machine, open a cabinet or refrigerator, or see a tasty treat in the breakroom.

Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), Pg 120.

[curlyjax]

I did not do well with food yesterday; somebody left a bowl of kisses that I got into, and then when I was picking up my meds at the drugstore I bought a little chocolate bunny. The woman checking me out remarked she liked Easter candy better than Halloween. It does have a certain taste that I crave each year, even if it is low rent chocolate. In theory I was buying a treat for DD but it was really myself. She zipped home for an appt and I said she is welcome to stay but I am not running errands for her etc, this is supposed to be my free weekend!
I spent a lovely hour perusing garden stuff, then ordered an elevated garden bed kit from Gardener's supply company. I am determined to get a garden going this year, as I have a little more time. DS can help me put it together. We have a large area in the ground that can also be used, but the groundhogs wreak havoc on it so I'm trying this. I'll have to figure out how to keep the deer away too.
Wave to all including Ann!

[gardenerjoy]

I'm consuming this week's Sunbasket offerings on my own. The sole with cooked veggies worked well as lunch a couple of days ago and supper last night. Today, I'll try the chicken over romaine lettuce, my first foray into raw veggies. I might also try half an apple to see how that goes. I'm skipping next week's offerings since I don't know what DH will be up to by then.

My discards are now out of the house, and it feels lighter. Especially my closet. The first of my new organizer purchases arrived and now my large collection of pins and brooches are arranged, instead of jumbled. That felt like a good way to honor Madeleine Albright.

Exercise +30, 1105/1500 minutes for March

BillBlueEyes: Thanks for the tip about Gorton's Fish Filets. That may be the solution we've been looking for to solve DH's occasional craving for fried fish. It sounds much safer than fish fried by untrained volunteers.

[nationalparker]

Hello! I finally was able to socialize for a few hours and boy did it regenerate me! Took lunch to share at my friend's house and she made a salad as well, and we chatted and enjoyed her dog's antics for a couple of hours. Stopped at Sam's and then came home and started in on laundry, dishes from making the lunch entree, and then started dinner and finished those dishes. I'm starting to get ready to search for a new dishwasher. Tomorrow we'll head out at 9 for his folks' house to keep the momentum going, someone is scheduled to buy one of the older vehicles around noon. I am going to hunt for a slow cooker recipe to put on when we go. I thought of black bean soup, but I don't have dry black beans. My weight is consistently creeping up. I didn't help my cause today, either. I did prep a salad to go with dinner that was an autumn favorite, but I had extra apples, so used some, along with craisins, some glazed pecans, sliced grapes, greens, etc., and a homemade apple cider dijon dressing that whips up in a minute.

Frustration was DH called Direct TV regarding a 'final bill' to his folks that was higher than the previous bills, yet I shipped back all of the equipment. Their reason: The prices went up late January and we needed to add that in. DH said you realize they died in the first two weeks of the month? I got hot when he was telling me about it. I'm like I'd pay all but the increase and let them fight for that. Or else I'll call. :-) They knew the service was being cancelled due to their deaths, that's the only way it could be cancelled by another person.

CurlyJax - The ONE store bought chocolate that I used to absolutely LOVE was the maple cream Santas. Then they stopped shipping them here. So it was easy to curb that desire. I'm the person who always will choose bread over chocolate, and probably the same calories! Have a great weekend!

Bill - I was visiting my sister-in-law's family in Kentucky years ago and got lost in a town and called them (before Google Maps, Waze, etc.) and he asked where i was and I said Versailles, which was on the town center sign. He laughed and said, ahh i know where you are, but we call it VerSALES. Ha ha yeah, right you do. I thought he was teasing me. Nope.

[karenrn]

Good evening coaches,

I met my friend for a hike at 6 a.m. and it was great. Not crowded and not yet hot. In fact most of the hike was in the shade. After that the day wasn't too productive, but I did have phone visits with three friends and sorted through some recipes. I put the new recipes into a binder so they are easy to refer to and put the older recipes with ingredients we aren't eating into a plastic envelope thing. I'm not going to get rid of them, but they don't need to be as handy at least for now. Dinner was whole grain angel hair pasta with tomato-olive sauce. Dh never met a noodle he didn't like, so I knew this one would be a winner and it was.

Otis had an annual check up at the vet this afternoon and a vaccine. He's lost 3 pounds since last year, which was on purpose. He was up to 23 pounds and is a pretty small Cocker. The doctor said he is at a perfect weight. He has another vaccine due, but I make them spread them out like I would for a child. They are only a couple miles away.

Nationalparker Have you seen The Alpinist? I saw it awhile back and it was very good.

GardenerJoy I love that you organized your brooches in honor of Madeleine Albright. A friend took me to hear her speak a couple of years ago and I was so impressed. What a woman.

Curlyjax This would be the year to grow a garden for sure. Any price savings would be a great thing and then the wonderful fresh produce, num.

Bill I want you to know I do eat breakfast before I hike, otherwise I wouldn't make it up some of the hills. When you said you can't look at the pictures of Thank God Ledge on Half Dome it made me think of a guy I was backpacking with when we were going to go up Half Dome on the cables. From the direction we were coming you couldn't see the side with the cables. This really athletic young guy finally asked the guides how we were going to get up to the top of Half Dome. He was totally freaked out thinking we were somehow going to climb up the face. Actually even when we went up the cables he was kind of freaked out and really didn't do well on the way down. You can't tell by looking who is afraid of heights or whatever.

Waving to everybody else!

[Penny.]

Good evening!

My doctor's appointment got moved back to today and I managed to squeeze it in between work visits. I have a few hurdles to jump before the hysterectomy and the first is going to be done on Monday morning: a biopsy to make sure there is no cancer.

Then an ultrasound, then I just have to wait until she has room on her schedule which isn't until the end of next month. That means one more dreadful cycle to get through.

After my day, I did have a small bowl of unplanned pasta. I will still be on plan for the week if I stay the course but you know how these allowances often go. No, no, no. I'm going to finish out the week stong.

Curly, I love that you told your daughter you will not be running errands for her this weekend. Haha! We need our chill time. I'm trying to decide if I can tell my son he has to wait an extra 30 miutes (hour total) for the bus on the weekends because I don't want to have to pick him up every darn time.

Nationalparker, Yay for the garbage bin and all the bags cleared! I'm with you on the bread over sugar preference. Homemade sourdough might as well be on the list of Schedule 1 drugs for me. I will eat the entire loaf if baked fresh in my kitchen. I had to let the starter die.

Bill, the museum trip sounds so interesting. I'm sure it brings history to life more than a text book. I now have fish and chips craving, thank to you, thanks to Joy.

Joy, those meals sound good. You're probably going to be giving that lettuce some side eye after the last week.

waving at Karen and Ann!

[maryann]

Good evening, Coaches.

I came home from school and lay down for a nap. I woke up five hours later. Wow. I don't know if I had been fighting a bug or it was the creeping depression I had been feeling. But I felt better when I woke up. So maybe my mind is just processing in its own way and I have to let it do so.

Food was punishing at school but I closed the kitchen when I got home and drank several glasses of water. Hopefully that will flush out the crap and I'll start fresh tomorrow.
Two credits though was even though I ate too much yesterday all the food was fruit and veggies. Also, instead of making a cookie run, I weeded some of the pots at 8:00 pm last night. A little diversion instead of food.

Karen and Joy: Credit for organizing effort. I love it!!! I am always trying to put things that I use in the PRIME real estate of my house. It really works to thinking of it that way.
BBE: Lovely to see art shows.

Wave to everybody eles.

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Victory: Two days ago, we received a package that DW ordered from England via DHL shipping. No big deal. Rare for us, but not strange these days. What was strange was that TWO packages arrived. The second one was in an Amazon Prime box with a hard-to-read label. But one part of the street name was the same as one part of our street name. Not the same full name since our town has three streets with that same part in the name. I pondered. Didn't want to open the package. Thought of bringing it to Whole Foods where Amazon returns are accepted. Pondered some more. Then figured out that it was also DHL delivered and which of the dozen numbers on the package were its tracking number. Used that to contact DHL to ask them to pick it up. Easy peasy. To my amazement, within the day the same DHL driver who'd delivered it was at the door sheepishly asking for the package back. Problem solved with minimum fuss. CREDIT moi for having just enough street smarts to unravel that one. DW is still slightly annoyed that we didn't open the package to see what was inside, LOL.

Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. Dinner was dahl with toasted coins of baguette. We limit baguettes coming into this house for lack of self control. One local bakery charges more but its baguettes are seriously better. I have no idea how flour and water can come to produce such different loaves of bread.


Joy (gardenerjoy) - I, too, am delighted that you're honoring Madeleine Albright - one feisty lady. Hope your forays into foods works well.

maryann - Yay for accepting that your brain needed a five-hour nap. Kudos for weeding pots at 8pm - presumable with a flashlight, LOL.

nationalparker – Refreshing to hear that a little socializing, "boy did it regenerate me!" Love your story of pronouncing VerSALES in Kentucky. When we visited Newport, RI, we were shocked that the locals pronounced their street, Thames, to rhyme with 'James' despite it being named after the river.

Karen (karenrn) - Kudos for organizing your recipes. Perhaps Otis will publish his diet to help us all lose three pounds, LOL. Interesting story about the athletic young guy being freaked by cables going up half-dome. Half-dome is still on my Bucket List.

curlyjax - Hersey's kisses should be outlawed - because they're addictive but not worth it. Neat that you're going to try an elevated garden. I'm so glad that we don't have groundhogs. But we do have deer, rabbits, and squirrels.

Penny. - Glad that you got your doctor's visit right away. Sorry that you have to wait a month for the next step.

Readers -

Chapter 5 Stage 2 - The Think Thin Initial Eating Plan

Snack Guidelines
Use this advice as you incorporate these snacks into your daily repertoire:. . .

• It's so much easier to resist these temptations if you know you have your planned snacks handy. Whey you get home from the supermarket, you might want to take snacks that come in a large quantity and prepare single-serving sizes to put in small containers or food storage bags.

Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), Pg 120.

[curlyjax]

Work was fun yesterday, a lot of chatting. I showed a recent widow around and chatted a bit, and hugged her at the end. The support of those who know what you're going thru is the best thing. Then after work I met a former colleague for a long chat. I popped into Kohl's afterwards and didn't buy anything, credit. I did notice they carry some lands end stuff, which could be nice in the future as it would save on shipping and hopefully have discounted stuff post season. I'm feeling the itch to buy a few new shirts-maybe I'll zip by a thrift store at some point. Credit last night for 20 minutes on the stationary bike while watching tv. Demerit for getting into the chocolate again at work. I am postponing breakfast until I'm really hungry these days so hopefully I'm consuming less calories this way.
Today is getting bills paid, cleaning up, figuring out financials for DD nursing school etc.And a nap, i woke up too early. Also submitting my proof of covid vaccine for my upcoming volunteer stint at the Boston marathon, woo hoo! I'm going to get up at the crack of dawn to hand out water to elite athletes April 18. It will be fun to be a part of it, and I get a free marathon jacket too!
Gardenerjoy-yay for discards out and actually using an organizer!
Nationalparker- its true, warm bread and butter is one of the best things in the world. Glad you got some nice social time with a friend.
Karen- great idea to sort thru recipes you will actually use. Glad Otis is at a good weight, I know its important for little dogs to be overweight.
Penny- glad you're getting going on the biopsy. Geez, it seems like there should be someone else who could get the ultrasound in quicker!
Maryann- my body definitely reacts with fatigue when i'm feeling overwhelmed or depressed.
Bill-good for you for getting the package delivered to the rightul owner ultimately. We have deer but i'm not sure how close to the house they come, I may have to get fencing or something.

[Penny.]

Good morning!

One last weekend to enjoy before I start the whirlwind of having kids in school. Fingers crossed both daughters don't have a miserable time and adjustment.

I'll spend the day food prepping, cleaning, knitting and TV. I also switched to the audio book for Villette (Charlotte Brontλ) so I can knit, and her accent is great. I will finally be able to get this book off my nightstand after an embarrassingly long time.

Food is planned. Have a great day, everyone!

[karenrn]

Good morning coaches,

No hiking today. I've emptied my drawers and closet after putting a sheet over the bed and I'm in the midst of organizing. I've vacuumed the closet and scrubbed the floor and shelves and am taking a break while it dries for a couple of minutes before I get going again. I was planning on doing this and then a bookcase, but decided I would wear myself out and still need to make something to take to our gathering today which starts at 3. I've already put a couple of large bags of clothing in the car and I'm sure there is more to come. Some is just too big and some is a combination of a little big and I never liked it anyway. I do have some cute summer skirts that I haven't worn in some time, but they fit and they are knee length so fine for me. Skirts are a good way to go here in the summer because they are cool.

I'm taking a salad that has some black beans in it so I know I'll have something to eat at the gathering and I am going to have some of the apple dessert that one gal is bringing whether it is totally on my plan or not.

Okay, back to work. I hope you all have a great day.

[maryann]

Good Morning, Coaches.

The sleep sessions continue. I woke up at 10:00. I think it is healthy, I feel better and ready to get a couple of gemology lessons behind me. I have also committed to the gym.

Weight is high again. I will focus on eating healthy foods and pampering my stomach which had become an acid bath because of poor food choices. I am focusing on accepting this body as it is and ignoring the number.


Karen: Best idea ever to bring to a potluck something you can eat and enjoy.
BBE: I have an article I am going to read with the kids about the carbon footprint left after ecommerce free returns. ( I know that wasn't your situation it just made me think of it. I wonder how long this will last with gas $6.00 a gallon here in California. If Jeff Besos follows the classic horizontal integration of monopolists he will be buying oil fields soon.
Penny: Fingers crossed for the girls. There has never been more acceptance in high school for the transgender community than right now. There is a prebuilt clique waiting for your daughter.
curleyjax: super cool bout the Boston Marathon.

[gardenerjoy]

I meant to post this morning, but the day got away from me.

The salad and half-apple worked for me, yesterday. I'm going to try two salads today.

One reason that the morning got weird is that I was determined to take some boxed-up books to a drop-off site while I was out mid-day. I managed to make four boxes of books this morning. So, that's a bunch gone. I've found a pattern that books that were very useful to me pre-Internet aren't as much anymore. Things like planning travel and identifying plants are more effective on the internet than with a book.

Exercise +55, 1160/1500 minutes for March

nationalparker and BillBlueEyes: French speakers struggle in St. Louis. We have a lot of streets and parks named with French words that are no longer pronounced at all like the French do.