Ugh. I was so good this morning, but tonight, when my "healthy burger place" didn't have the veggie burgers we were going to get my vegetarian friends, we ended up with Fuddrucker burgers and fries instead. Much denser than Topz aero fries and whole wheat buns. Oh, well. I also had thick chocolate chip cookie chunk.
Technically, I'm still on plan because I didn't eat past satiety, but I still feel off plan because of the fat and refined starches.
onebyone: for putting yourself back together and moving on! again for wii-fit-ing. Thanks for the link. I love garbanzos too! I've bookmarked it and will be checking it out in greater detail later.
Robin: Yes, the blog is 3FC, and thank you for the compliment. They've got a bunch if themes to choose from - some work better than others.
How the hip began hurting is something of a mystery. Apparently my hip was something of a time-bomb. I don't know if you recall, but last summer something similar happened with my left knee - I was walking across the parking lot and WHAMMO! It felt as if someone had jabbed me in the back of the leg with a sharp stick.
Well, about the time I was beginning to feel truly recovered from that, I spent a day doing field work at an elementary school in Dallas. I was getting along pretty well, careful not to over-stress the knee. I was sore and a bit tired by the end, but not in any kind of pain. Then I climb out of the driver's side of the car and WHAMMO! Excrutiating pain in the right hip.
It seems there are a number of contributing factors - knockknees (my physical therapist tells me the valgus is uneven - more pronounced on the right side), poor core leg muscles, and being obese. I can work on the strength and flexibility of the muscles, and on the weight, but the valgus is permanent.
The shoes do help (the inserts are a large part, I'm sure, but I'm also crediting the soles of the running shoes.) Now if i can just not do things that stress the joint out while I work on it...
Tali 100% OP! Seeing how motivated and focused you are, I know your Sunday was as productive as you hoped!
tera Being focused on the long term, big picture.
onebyone Jumping back on the wagon! Thanks for sharing the web site, a regular treasure trove for me in my protein quest! (My vegetarian daughter is probably right, I do obsess, but she wasn't losing her hair!)
Robin Planning and shopping for food for the week. I'm really starting to feel good about weigh ins but it's taken 6 weeks to learn to look beyond each day's number.
chinaMaine We all need an off day to remotivate if we are going to do this long term, whether it's from the gym or posting or a calorie count.
My yoga teacher friend pointed out yesterday a pose is a flow of energy, not a static position. I had an epiphany on how being so goal oriented, seeking perfection, deprives me of so much joy in the process. I'm sure there's a balance between being focused, and letting attaining your goal interfere with pleasure in the present moment. I KNOW I do that with exercise; I'm going to ponder how often I do it in the rest of my life! Not very Beckian but somehow I felt writing it down would help me take it more seriously.
Hubby is home sick with a cold so Im here at the shop all by myself. Its lonely here Even though he sits in the back room, I still know he's there. Every once in a while he slams the mouse to make something work on the screen Oh well, Im sure he'll surface sometime today even though I told him to stay home.
Im all planned for the day, lunch packed, even stopped at the market on the way here (I walked) and picked up my fav. yogurt for my mid-afternoon snack.
Yah, kudos to me.
Bill~ ouch! Kudos for being on plan!!
davidette~ kudos for writing/typing out your thoughts!
Tera~ I remember your hip issues happened at about the same time mine started, but I didnt remember how it happened. Strange how these things came just out of the blue isnt it! Im glad your shoes are helping. Its so hard to stay on a plan when you are in pain. Good for you!
Ok, I got on the scale this morning.....its good. Not too high and not suspiciously low like the other day. But I think that had alot to do with the meal I ate the night before, and what it did to my system! So it was kinda cool to see that weight, and then see my weight go up again as things started to fill up again. (kwim?) I think that was probably good for me to see. Rather than see a 6lb loss, and then a 3lb gain 4 days later. I would have been quite upset and bent out of shape about it.
So.......day one with the scale was good
Alright, I better get to work or hubby is going to be nattering at me from home about getting things done. Have a great day everyone!
Diet Coaches/Buddies - Took all the tax info to the accountant who actually runs the numbers, so my part is done. CREDIT moi, although I can't think of what Beck strategy paying my taxes represents to justify taking credit. Perhaps that eating and exercise on plan would be more difficult in prison, so chalk this up to long term planning. I passed on the opportunity to eat from a table of dessert options. CREDIT moi. Whole tables of good desserts seem to be easy for me to ignore; it just those d*rn FREE samples that send me into disinhibition. (Thank you Break Through Your Set Point by George Blackburn for the cool word.)
maryblu - Yay for "home-sprouted broccoli sprouts." Glad you're doing it yourself. I've never had a broccoli sprout, I love the adult version with a passion. I haven't read about your senate race in a few days; are you near a resolution?
Robin (RobinW) - Bon Voyage on your 21 day scale weigh in. LOL at "chicken pot pie without the crust."
onebyone - LOL at viewing the most jarring genre switch back-to-back. I tried that once for a double-header and had to leave during the second; just couldn't make the switch. Count me as a garbanzo addict also, usually by way of hummus. Good luck in figuring out a path through your ceramics room job.
Anne (wndranne) - Neat that you took DD for an hour trek; programming that mind to know that exercise is a part of life. Ouch that good health is slow in returning. Do you suspect that Warren Buffet doesn't procrastinate or that he's just buffered from any repercussions?
Tera (twilit tera) - Yay for good intentions on the Dunkin Donuts flatbread sandwich. Glad that coffee is "(barely) anti-inflammatory;" hope that means that it's good for me.
davidette - Kudos for giving yourself credit for the success eating out. Love that ordering exactly what you want. I've done the extension route; found that the extension itself finally ends and then I still have to do the taxes.
ChinaMaine - Ouch for the low energy day; Kudos for getting in some 10 minutes of exercise anyway. There are houses around here that still have their outside Xmas lights; there outta be a law or sumptin'.
Tali199 - Ouch for the demise of Genie. RIP. Sending productivity vibes.
Readers -
"what to do ... 1. Check with your health-care provider to be sure that your exercise plan is safe for you." The Complete Beck Diet for Life, pg 70
OP 80% (Supplements, rest, anti-inflammatory @ dinner, 3FCx2) Oh, well. off plan food
Yes, I was off plan. Not everything has to be low-cal density, but last night's supper was not according to the "most low-cal density" part of my plan.
So there, I've accepted it and today will be better.
Bill: bummer about losing the post! for eating on plan in the midst of tax return stress! I think that the Beck strategy you're crediting yourself with is dealing with your stuff instead of eating to soothe. (I can't remember what catchy thing she called it, but I know it's in there!)
Davidette: Thank you for sharing your insight. For myself, I can find it difficult to "stay in the moment." But striving to be in the moment is still striving. Interesting paradox.
Robin: Sorry to hear about hubby's cold and sending him warm healing thoughts.
for your use of the weigh-ins! You've really gotten the hang of treating the scale as a tool instead of a tyrant!
Well, I gotta go get some biology reading done before my aunt arrives. She's never been to Sprouts, so we're going to go check it out together. (I've been but usually prefer Whole Foods.)
Last edited by twilit tera; 02-23-2009 at 12:29 PM.
Beck – WI-down .5 lb. (new low) So last night after posting I went offplan, way off plan, for the rest of the evening. I love watching the Oscars and I got caught up in old habits of how I enjoy such events. I got up this AM, entered it all in my log and found I was 285 calories above what I had planned on yesterday. I felt guilty, terrible, etc. In short I was letting guilt make me feel worse than necessary. ,
Anne reminded me about cheat sheets (thanks Anne!). Right after I joined this group, someone mentioned that they didn’t like the name of them: ‘cheat’ sheets. And after my morning of self-flagellation, I think I agree. Those of us who need CBT, tend to be perfectionists and tend to use unhelpfully negative language to ourselves when we don’t meet our too-high standards of ourselves. I’ve learned that words matter when it comes to CBT. So, I don’t plan to call them ‘cheat’ sheets. The word ‘cheat’ is too negative and is likely to get in my way. I avoided doing one like the plague today, in part because of the name. So, I’ll call my ‘Mistake Analyses’ – at least to myself.
My lesson from last night is two-fold. (1) My adolescent fat chick likes to have fun and wants to stay both an adolescent and fat. (2) I disagree with her and think that I can learn to have fun in new ways – that don’t result my staying/getting obese. So, I won’t listen to her in the future, will read my stack of anti-craving card even when she tries to stick her fingers in my ears and sing ‘LA LA LA LA LA’ at the top of her lungs. I want to be in control, and not let some obese, adolescent minx be in charge instead!
Food – op
Exercise – on plan. Even though we have no electricity and thus no wii. I did my strength and toning exercises in my wii space, but by the light of my electric lantern.
Anne - Congrats on moving up to Week 5! I hope you are right about your health, etc, and that a change is a-coming! I have just been reading Skill 9, but haven’t done a cheat sheet until today (see above). Doing only 10 mins of exercise yesterday is ok, because I ‘plan’ for 1 day a week that’s a day of rest. But I only use it when I really *need* a day of rest. And yesterday, I needed it. The extra exercise on Saturday really wore me down. I should have made an effort to explain all of that, but I was really worn out and didn’t feel up to it.
Tera – Sorry you couldn’t get your healthy burgers… And I’m happy you realized they were indeed off plan. We all do it sometimes, perfection and humanity aren’t meant to go together… But bravo for admitting and today is a new day. Bravo for being onplan today.
davidette That is a good insight on enjoying the process. I think it’s a matter of keeping the two in balance, because we can’t lose weight without having goals and a path to achieving them. As Bill said to me recently – there’s a time for No Choice and a time for flexibility. I’m finding if I listen to my inner voice, I can tell it’s my adolescent fat chick talking, or if it’s my mindful voice suggesting a reasonable modicum of flexibility.
Robin Bravo for day 1 on the scale! Tera is right – it’s great you are on the road to seeing the scale as just a source of info, and not a tyrant. And hope the hubbie feels better soon.
Bill – Sorry about losing your post. I just saw your second post, so glad you got your taxes in. I still have my 2 hours of work left on tax info, then I'll send mine off my my Mom. I know - how pathetic is that? My Mom does my taxes. In my defense, she runs an H&R Block office and does them for everyone in the family. Credit on the dessert table. And everyone needs a free pass now and then on exercise and such. You more than make up for it on other days...
Last edited by ChinaMaine; 02-23-2009 at 07:54 PM.
Coaches/Buddies Sigh. I'm so far off plan, I don't know if I can see it from here. I dived into the giant vats of candy and work and did a few laps each of freestyle, backstroke and fly. I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, and I need to go do a Cheat Sheet on it. I think mostly I had a case of the "Poor Me"s and now I have a case of the "Poor Fat Me"s. See? No help there. If I must search for a credit today, and search I must, I was otherwise perfectly on plan. I actually think I'm going to do a Memory Card on this one, because I feel so disappointed in myself. I know those are supposed to be positive, but one little bit CAN hurt, and that is also worth remembering. And no, it wasn't a little bit, but it could have been a whole lot worse. And it hurts, and I will not be suppressing that memory today.
In other news, I have strained my neck and can't look to the left very well. This is typically a stress thing, which means I'm repressing stress, which could have very well played into the whole chocolate swim. Cheap crappy chocolate swim at that. I'm dwelling.
Tera Sorry your healthy burger place didn't work out. Yep, sounds off plan to me, and glad you got your head around that. You can come to my off-plan mope-around tonight. Serving up cauliflower and brussels sprouts.
Bill Ah the post monster slinks back in... I shall be careful.
I think paying your taxes does count as arranging your environment. Getting a stressor out of the house.
Thanks for reminding me of disinhibition. I need to go reread Set Point. There was a lot in there. Maybe on the plane.
Warren Buffet buys and holds, right, so he can afford to procrastinate if he wants. I was thinking more of the heiress, trust-fund kind of rich, like Paris Hilton, rather than the self-made kind. Is she rich? I don't actually know. I couldn't pick her out of a line-up. Maybe I should get out more.
davidette I think your epiphany about perfectionism depriving you of joy is a profound one. I think this would fall under the "Unhelpful Rules" type of Thinking Errors that Beck covered in BDS and not at all in CBDL. Not sure which Beck you are using, but, yep, it's there.
RobinW Hurray for scales that behave, even if a suspicious dip is a nice thing to see once in a while--we all have our share of big bounces up. Hope your lonely day worked out.
ChinaMaine I like Mistake Analysis. Cheat Sheets are just too cute.
Cool that you can identify your adolescent fat chick. Mine disguises herself, and will sometimes go to the original peer-reviewed literature to justify her actions (Dark Chocolate as a health food, anyone!). I think this is good practice for DD. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Anne
Last edited by AnneWonders; 02-23-2009 at 08:50 PM.
Reason: signature, smigmature
Back on plan today and feeling good about getting right back to business instead of letting a single afternoon derail me. My aunt and uncle came and we had lunch at that 'healthy burger' place I didn't get yesterday. Since I'd had a burger just yesterday, I ordered the grilled Ahi tuni steak sandwich and enjoyed it. My aunt also delivered Breaking Through Your Set Point and I started reading it this afternoon, after our trip to Sprouts where I got fresh bananas, strawberries and an artichoke.
The hip has returned to normal levels of discomfort today, so tomorrow we go back to the pool. We're trading Monday for Friday at the health club this week because of hip pain and lack of sleep after seeing friends out late last night.
ChinaMaine: If calling the "cheat sheets" something else is more productive - by all means DO. I haven't gotten BDFL, so I'm not familiar with the sheets personally. I do all my analysis in my journal. Every day is a record not only of what I eat and what exercise I get, but how I'm feeling and what special circumstances might be supporting/sabotaging my efforts.
Anne: Sorry to hear you had an offplan day. Is this something you need to build a new strategy for?
Mmmm. brussel sprouts! (Only, we always had them with mayo when I was a kid, and now they don't taste right without it... so maybe that's not a good choice for me.) How about some smoothies instead? I'll bring the strawberries!
Robin: Congratulations. You are now the only other person that I know (besides me) has fallen up the stairs.
Hey, everyone! I just got back from teaching my night class and I'm tired. So CREDIT for posting when I'd rather be sleeping . . . that'll come soon enough, though.
Thanks for the support. The past couple of days have been planned, although I did overeat a bit at dinner tonight, it was still in my calorie allowance. I just ate to fullness, instead of stopping - it tasted so good! I'd be fine if food tasted yucky.
Sorry for no personals, but I should have time to look things over tomorrow and do some then. In the meantime, sleep well everyone.
Great wisdom and epiphanies in such a short 24 hours, Beckies.
Davidette, thank you so much for reminding me of something I used to know for certain:
"I had an epiphany on how being so goal oriented, seeking perfection, deprives me of so much joy in the process. I'm sure there's a balance between being focused, and letting attaining your goal interfere with pleasure in the present moment."
So true in so many aspects of life. Not just the perfectionist thing being such a trap to our weight loss efforts, but the way it sucks joy. It just sucks the joy out of the moment in many, many aspects.
ChinaMaine, how did you manage to go off program and only end up 285 cals. over? My goodness, I would get that many cals. down between the kitchen and the TV. Seriously! Good job for containing the damage, and great job for logging and moving on. I agree that Cheat Sheet is kinda negative, etc...and I am not sure I should get any input into this as I stubbornly refuse to by CBDSL, but even "Mistake Analysis" seems so. How about "Deviation Analysis"? I will bet our engineers would like it! :-)
Not sure why I refuse so stubbornly to buy book 2. Partly because I seem to think I need every You (Oz and Roizen) books ever written, and they do get redundant, but also I think because I thought book one was perfect (and I went looking for flaws!)
Because I did not have every diet book ever written, the one I did buy was Vento's The Body Fat Solution. It was highly praised by Meg on Maintainers, so I dived in. It is helpful and spoke to something I had heard Bob Greene say before, but had let slip from my consciousness. Further, I think it is often advised against in dieting lore. What Vento and Green both say is that to get the final pounds off, you need calorie deficit..nothing new there...but that to get it, you need to accept some hunger. I remember Bob Green saying it to someone in a very similar situation to mine on Oprah, and Vento took it a step further. He said if you are out of calories for the day and are still hungry, tough. Suck it up. Well......not like that, but that was the gist of it. But, Beckies...here is the interesting part.
Beck endorses the book, and he references Dr. Beck more than once, which gives great credibility to me. I will say this, though, if I only could have one book, just one to give me all the tools I need for success, it would be Beck. The rest is just supplemental.
While on topic, though, a friend of mine who desperately needs to lose wt..the drs. are pressing gastric bypass surgery on her, which she chooses not to do. She has serious, serious health issues.....many more than one.
She has lost 40# "on her own" so to speak with the book I Can Make You Thin . She was telling me some of the strategies, and they sound sorta Beckian and sorta not. There was a version of the questions, and the response card is a strategy of imagery, but certainly threads of CBT and Beck. What she likes best about it, is she can eat anything. Which is a hoot..can't we all? If we choose that route, then we choose moderation and we are good to go. I am thrilled for her; it is working! That is such good news. Different strokes, and her health is already so much on the mend.
Think spring.....daylight savings time March 8th!! Yay.
Diet Coaches/Buddies - Good gym workout with my trainer. CREDIT moi. New core exercises tweaked additional muscles I've ignored for years. How can there be so many. Did my first gentle set of push ups since I hurt my elbow; it was fine. Maybe I can start slowly working with the weights.
Had a neat tiny achievement; when I served myself some leftover whole wheat spaghetti with basil pesto, I stopped at the amount I wanted even though there was only about a large fork full left in the container. I debated the old, just-dump-in-the-rest thought, but didn't, even knowing that such a small amount of leftover-leftover is certainly fated to grow mold and get tossed. CREDIT moi for a rare example of choosing a serving size despite a noble excuse for making it just a bit bigger.
maryblu - Yep, I could get into "Deviation Analysis", but would have difficulty with Opportunity Analysis in the current vernacular of Process Improvement. Interesting thought that hunger is expected in order to drop the last few pounds. But I think I'll stay on the side of those who believe that hunger has no place in losing weight.
Thanks for the reminder that Daylight Savings Time is only two weeks away. Yep, Spring couldn't be far behind.
BillBluleEyes - Gently observing the passive voice in "the browser just closed with my post in it." You might find it easier to figure out what happened and avoid that problem in the future if you first restate as "I just closed the browser with my post in it." Remember how many times you've reminded computer users that "Idiot begins with 'I'." Good luck.
Robin (RobinW) - Congrats that day one of the scale is working out. Kudos for walking to work and managing to pick up a favorite yogurt on the way. That's my kind of walk. LOL at the divine intervention, thinking that, however clumsy that intervention was, it was more gentle than being kicked out of the Garden of Eden for just one bite of apple off plan.
Anne (wndranne) - Ouch for the pain of disappointment for the swim in cheap chocolates. And Ouch that you're accumulating some stress that's also showed up in your neck. Sending soothing thoughts of a airplane cabin attendant swooping up your two kids and entertaining them for the whole flight. And I'll be dropping by for that "cauliflower and brussels sprouts" dinner. Perhaps you can remind me then that daily exercise includes the days that I-don-wanna.
Tera (twilit tera) - Yay for getting some biology reading done. Drooling over your shopping list from Sprouts. We don't have Sprouts around here; is that a Texas store?
davidette - Thanks for the thoughts about the tension between enjoying the moment and focusing on the goal. Good area for me to work on that balance also.
ChinaMaine - Ouch for no electricity; Kudos for doing your strength and toning exercises by Yak butter lamp (or whatever you used, but this sounds better, LOL). Neat to rename Cheat Sheet to get past what gets in the way. LOL at your dialog with your adolescent fat chick with her fingers stuck in her ears.
Jen (JenMusic) - Kudos for being aware that you ate to "fullness, instead of stopping." Methinks it's a big step just being aware of our state of fullness while eating.
Readers -
"what to do ... 2. Start walking a minimum of five minutes every day. The point is not necessarily to burn calories but to establish a daily lifetime habit of exercise." The Complete Beck Diet for Life, pg 70
Last edited by BillBlueEyes; 02-24-2009 at 04:32 AM.
Reason: Typos
Robin Following through on planning and scale weigh in. I brace myself every time I step on, hoping it's not going to be one of those "giant step up" days, but if it is, it just increases my odds of a "gianter step down" day coming tomorrow.
Bill I'm sure NOT getting your taxes done could drive one to emotional eating (stress, panic) so I'll give you Beck credit.
back to pushups! You'll be wondering how you could have celebrated that dubious pleasure before long.
observing and discarding that "noble excuse for making it just a little bit bigger"; that's an battle I frequently concede. I blame my mother.
Tera acknowledge, accept, move on, strive to do better; with that attitude I'm not surprised yesterday was better! Glad to hear you'll be back in the pool. Movement is such a mood lifter when it doesn't produce pain.
chinamaine new low! don't you ? But the "persist in victory" challenge follows. on your mistake analysis and recognizing how important it is you avoid a spiral of condemnation, which is sabotage in itself.
KUDOS exercising through power outage; I say that's adequate penance! I'm going to be listening for my inner voice but I suspect I've ignored her often she's giving me the silent treatment.
Anne Maybe the memory card detailing your pain could serve as an "imagine giving in" card; but don't leave out imagining how you feel when you are successful!
I sympathize on the stress = neck pain syndrome. I find those heat in the microwave pads are somewhat helpful, along with anti-inflammatories.
Thinking Errors, you're right: Perfectionism is all about not being satisfied until life is all packaged up in a pretty box on the shelf; it doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that's also known as being deceased!
JenMusic CREDIT for posting and staying in calorie allowance!
Maryblu I'll have to find The Body Fat Solution, if Beck endorses it, it's worth reading. I have both Beck books, and if I could only pick one, it'd have to be the first because of the thinking errors elaboration.
I'm indulging in the paradox of striving to fully experience the joy of springtime without emphasizing the "striving". My first thought was bring in some flowers and take the time to smell and savor them, my second thought was there you go again, making it a "todo list" item!
On plan with diet and exercise; this is the lull before the storm of my son coming home for a week on Friday but I'm going to look at it as lots of opportunities to be a good role model and feel great about handling challenges well!
Davidette, lol....making enjoying spring flowers a "to do" list item. We ARE a buncha type As, aren't we?
Also, lol at your reaction to Venuto's book, "if Beck endorses it, it's worth reading.". My thoughts exactly.
BillBE, do you really love broccoli? I mean really it? I have palate envy.
Now, don't misundertake me. I do choke it down; it is, after all, a superfood. Caraway seeds help a lot to disguise its taste and distract from its texture. Weird, really, that I can't bond with the stuff. I am fond of, if not ambivalent about, all outher Crucifers, from brussel sprouts to the innocuous kolrabi. Luckily, broccoli sprouts taste like radishy alfalfa sprouts.
Favorite sammy is a slice of best ww bread available, smushed or sliced avocado, chopped sun-dried tomatoes (this time of year preferable to the plastic tomato replicas available), some soft cheese like Havarti, and as many broccoli sprouts as will stay between the fold. TDF. Not at portable as the BillBE fav. of peanut butter and banana between ww heels, but more fun trying to catch the wayward sprouts.
I am mulling over this hunger thing. BilllBE, what worked for you worked for you, and I am thinking that your planned snacks, bang for the calorie buck, keep hunger at bay. That is great, because it is all within and part of your plan. I still marvel at how well you stay on plan. I do realize how much glee it gives you, and I think you still marvel at it..is that true? It seems that many days you are still pinching yourself. Yes?
Most of the conventional dieting wisdom pretty much says don't get hungry..from WW to lap band..keep your hunger tiger tamed, etc.
Neither Greene nor Venuto are saying you have to get hungry to lose the last few pounds. They are saying, if you are at your calorie limit for the day and still hungry, then you have a choice to make..too many calories, or stay hungry to keep within the caloried deficit. Now, Beck addresses hunger if it pops up inconveniently, or we fail to plan..and methods for coping.
When I lost down to 138# so easily, I just ate less. I was hungry every 3 hours. Weird, though, I don't remember being particularly hungry at night, but sure woke up eager for my kefir and coffee first thing in the morning. I got used to not feeling full, and liked it very much. Feeling light and alert, not stuffed. I never eat to that stuffed feeling anymore..not stuffed, stuffed, but obviously have found a new level that is too high for me to be where I want to be.
If we have carried so many extra pounds for so long, I think we need get in touch with our feeling of full. We need to take the Beck drills seriously and do them over and over til we get it right. If we are packing 50 or more extra pounds, we are way off on our perception of what full it, and once through the Beck drill only gives us a starting point; we can't unlearn a lifetime of what full feels like to us in one practice step.
Anyone wanna do the "Change your definition of full" step ( step 18 in book 1)with me until we get it right?
for putting yourself back together and moving on! 
Maryblu and Anne
Monday
100% OP! Seeing how motivated and focused you are, I know your Sunday was as productive as you hoped! 
Even though he sits in the back room, I still know he's there. Every once in a while he slams the mouse to make something work on the screen 
Oh well, Im sure he'll surface sometime today even though I told him to stay home. 
Monday
Is this something you need to build a new strategy for?
observing and discarding that "noble excuse for making it just a little bit bigger"; that's an battle I frequently concede. I blame my mother. 
new low! don't you 
? But the "persist in victory" challenge follows. 
