Good morning,

What a whirlwind couple of days. My daughter came up early Friday afternoon with just the 10 year old. Food was spot on all of the days but i got into some red wine and some hard seltzer, neither of which i will buy again. Just glad it didn't lead to eating a bunch of carbs. On Friday I baked chicken breasts and had cauliflower with cheese on it. the 10 year old loved it. Sat I made roasted red pepper sauce, cooked fresh pasta for my daughter and I had it with the Skinny pasta ( shiritaki) a little rubbery but no carbs. Except for my alcohol indescretion, I have kept my carbs under 20 grams per day. Yesterday everyone was coming, I had 8 for dinner, i made a huge chuck roast with potatoes and carrots and I only had some beef. Had cheese and crackers out for snacks and desserts, but I was fine with just my lemon water.
I didn' t weigh in on Sat or Sun, but will today.

Holly, I am glad to hear the job is starting to make sense. I usually pick up quickly on things so when I don't I am just devastated. My ex was terrible about taking care of stuff around the house, I had to figure out a lot including replacing the pump on my washer when it died a week after the warranty ran out!

We only got an inch or 2 of snow because it turned to sleet during the night, but only 5 degrees here this am. My snow blower is a John Deere and does a 28 inch path. the chute moves with a button and the hand grips are heated so it is pretty easy to run, I bought it because it has electric start and I have never tried to start it with the pull cord! After I clear the driveway, I make big circles in the dog yard and 'poop' trails off of them for the dogs, when we get lots of snow it is like a racetrack and they chase each other around it, I have just one dog, BF has 2.

The program I am doing is the old Atkins, low carb and I am trying to increase my steps per day. I would like to get back to the 5 miles or more I used to do. Since I am not hungry, I eat lunch between 1 and 2 and dinner between 5 and 7 so I am incorporating intermittant fasting as well. Whenever I have plateaued the IF shook things up, not it is just easier to eat this way. Less time thinking about food as well as preparing it and less dishes to wash.

Today I am taking my daughter down to get an MRI. I have quite a bit of laundry to do so I can pack for my 2 weeks in Vt. I will load my truck tomorrow morning; we have trick class at 1, then will head right to Vt from there so I will be driving in daylight. Been coming up with dinners for us that fit my food program, surprisingly there are a lot. I have souffle, anti pasto, stuffed peppers, etc on my list. DBF has to go to Burlington on Wed so I will grocery shop for our meals, typical guy , fridge is empty, cupboards have more dog treats than people food! I will shop, he will grill

Ann: It sounds like last weekend was busy for you! You must be a good cook. All of the food you described sounds delicious! That is amazing that you have been able to keep your carbs to under 20 grams per day. The girls' night with your daughter and granddaughter sounds like so much fun! ❤

How did your weigh-in go?

I hope and pray that your daughter's MRI went well. 🙏

Enjoy your time in Vermont! Merry Christmas!

Good morning!

Ann, I hope your daughter is doing okay? She sounds like such a strong person. But she has you for her Mother and you seem strong too So you are in VT now with your boyfriend? lots of packing you had to do! and food shopping, lol @ dog treats but no people food and I loved the description of the round path you snowblow for the dogs' race track LOL! I also like that you are a former biker chick And yeah, wow, staying under 20 carbs is amazing!! congrats!

What are you plans for Christmas Eve and Day Ann?

Kathleen - how are you?? we finally have a probably permanent layer of snow down, and it is COLD, 6 degrees out there now! brrr. How is your anxiety..I don't remember if you were able to find a new therapist that you can work with? That is so important. I loved hearing that you and your daughter can do some workout together.

and what are you Christmas Eve and Day plans, Kathleen?

What do you chicks get your husband/boyfriend for Christmas?? usually I come up with a thing or two but this year Nothing!! I know my husband doesnt mind, truly if he wants something he just gets it but he is always so thoughtful and gets me things to open. He got me the most wonderful assorted pack of like 2 dozen earrings last year that I am still working on. Have you chicks noticed that wearing masks RIPS OFF our earrings constantly??

I have a little more wrapping to do; assemble a dessert platter (already made the cookies and such, just arrange) and load the car with the remaining gifts, a crudite platter, and the dog and us My husband just got home from work and needs to sleep til hopefully 1 pm. If I have the car packed then we can leave when he wakes up, to go to younger son's house . So glad I brought 95% of the wrapped Christmas gifts there last week!

I have today off from work but it is not paid as I'm a newbie temp, that's OK. I am s-l-o-w-l-y progressing at work. Thank goodness they need someone to just work on mail orders, that's me. And I finally got a phone but it isn't a 'soft' phone (not in the computer) it is a regular hard phone that sits on my desk but with a headset so hands are free for inputting. BUT also thank goodness I am not connected to the phone queue - meaning my phone does not ring for me to answer incoming calls. The 3 off-site chicks and the 2 or 3 in the office are to answer those. This is another accomodation they are making for me. I had the awful thought that maybe I am being considered learning deficient but hey I am truly doing my best. I hope the ladies in the office aren't feeling resentful of that. I think they also see that I am trying. But now with that phone I can immediately call customers when there is a question about their mail order. And so far, any interaction has been very pleasant and fine with people.

The big news at work is someone tested positive for Covid and most of the people in my office will either be moved to a different office or work remotely. I am not even sure if my wonderful sweet kind manager will be in the office or remote! we do have a Microsoft Teams app with a Chat and we all communicate with that, any question I have gets answered within minutes and I can share my screen and have someone talk me thru, either with the Chat or as a video call. Technology! I actually don't mind being totally alone in the office, as long as I have tasks to do I keep plugging along.

Hello to all our previous Ups and Downs friends here!! I hope so much you are all okay

and a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to all

Kathleen OH NO at your son's gf's car accident but thank goodness she is not hurt! that sounded horrible for her! Best wishes to her, I'm sure she was bruised up the day after and hope getting her car repaired / replaced is not too much of a pain.

I was so sorry to hear that the therapist said something that made you uncomfortable, that is the exact opposite of what they should be doing, I think! Is it one of those circumstances when people say 'well, to grow, you have to be out of your comfort zone' or some crap like that ... sorry for my irreverance, I would definitely call them out on it and see what was the point.

Had a great Christmas, we did ours on Christmas Eve. Glad of that because there was freezing rain on Christmas Day which made everything outside coated with thin ice. But then it made me aware that we need more sand and on Sunday I went to the hardware store and got 2 of those 60 lb sand tubes. It was OK getting them out of the back of the car into the sled, that I pulled to the house; then I did have to lift each one to put on the waist-high deck. Yay for functional strength! then I placed the 5 gallon bucket near the deck, cut open the sand tube and let 'er fill up. Then lifted/dragged the full bucket into the house (if we left it outside it would gather moisture and freeze). Now it's by the door, ready for when it's icy again.

Had a bleh day at work yesterday, now that I"m all alone in the office, I continuously have questions and I have to post them in teh Teams chat and embarrass myself . ONe of the questions, my manager said 'that's applying payment to an open invoice, it's in the manual'. Well yeah maybe I should have checked that first..and then when i went to the manual, the drop down box that was shown was not the same options as my drop down box..I am not going to go ahead and 'try' to figure it out and then make an error for Accounting/Fulfillment/Shipping to deal with. I feel that the 'hand holding' should have stopped by now but all I can do is be totally honest and say "I am trying but I don't know what to do in this situation". If then someone talks me thru it and I have the opportunity to make notes, then I can follow that next time. Ugh it makes my stomach start hurting again like it did for the 1st 2 weeks