Hi everyone, I'm up and having my coffee now. The house is quiet. DH and DS went back to work and the girls went to school. So, it's just me, the dogs and the kitty here.

I've stuck on-plan with my eating all weekend. I haven't weighed. I want to weigh, but I'm afraid too. I'm afraid if it doesn't show a loss, I would be disappointed. So, I'm sticking to healthy eating and exercise and plan to wait til next Saturday to weigh.

Meg, I'm excited to get to plant more corn for the fall. Now, if it would just quit being still 100 degrees til past dark each day, I'd be right out there planting it. Todays high forecast is 104 and tomorrow's is 107.

robin, WTG on the new swimsuits and the fun weekend with all the great compliments.

Anne, sorry you hate shopping. I'm the opposite, I love to shop for jeans, but hate to shop for shirts. My SD buys her jeans exclusively from American Eagle. She wears size 12. She has that same problem that if they fit in the hips and legs, they are always WAY too big in the waist. I always had the problem that if my jeans buttoned high up on my waist, they were too baggy in the butt and legs. But, now with the medium rise jeans, I can find a good fit.

Mars, yes , moving is hard work. I'm sure you burned off those calories.

Oh that's the same over here, I lived in Groningen before, and it's church(tower) is from the 13th century, it has loads of lovely old buildings, this is a dutch site with pictures of the town --> http://www.xs4all.nl/~bgordijn/Groningen/index2.htm

We moved to Rotterdam, one of the most bombarded city's in WWII so not quite as nice in my opinion, altough i've heard an anecdote from a friend that he knew an American girl from NY that lived in the Netherlands that regularly went over to Rotterdam to feel less homesick because it's the only dutch city that kinda looked like NY.:dizzy:

Hi all! I had another disastrous weekend. *sigh* Went to the state fair on Saturday and didn't do too bad, just a corn dog and some ice cream. Then after we got home ordered pizza for dinner (big mistake) with one of those apple pie pizza desserts from Papa John's. Plus we opened a bottle of wine. Sunday, had leftover pizza for lunch, cooked my traditional annual family recipe ("blueberries and dumplings", it's basically steamed sweet bready dumplings with blueberry sauce), AND made banana bread since there were two bananas. At least I made the banana bread healthily (ff yogurt instead of the oil, ww flour). I took most of the banana bread to work today and people ate the whole thing in 30 minutes!

Anyway my weight is up again this morning. I'm hoping it's at least partially water because this was certainly a sodium-full weekend. Next weekend and next week I'm having family in town so I will be eating even more, and skipping the gym. Blaaaah. Will I ever get back to 130? (Not if I keep eating like this!)

To whoever it was who was posting about stomach pain on the last thread -- I had problems with stomach pain after being on a very low-cal diet for a while. I think I had developed an ulcer but the docs never really tested me for it, just gave me antacids. Well, after being on antacids for a couple months I was fine. Anyway if antacids help the pain, it is probably some kind of acid reflux or "sour stomach" or even ulcer. They had me take prescription strength Zantac (I think it was Zantac, it was the one you take once a day to prevent heartburn?).

Lancaster!

Anne - So--since you hate to shop too, if you find something that fits well do you buy one in every color? Or at least 2-3 colors. I am thinking of going back and getting the black dress pants like the chocolate ones I bought Saturday. I am a SAHM who gets an opportunity to dress up maaaaybe 3-4 times a year, so why I need 2 pairs of dressy pants is beyond me....except I did find this fuschia blouse in my closet that I had forgotten about and it would look so much better with black than chocolate. And the pants fit. And I wouldnt need to even try on, just grab and go. And I could get my groceries there today instead of the Safeway. And every woman needs a pair of nice black pants. OK, you talked me into it. If they have em, I'll buy them. A part of me thinks the reason I didnt buy them saturday is they only had the bigger sizes in the black.

Gosh, I'm an hour or so late coming into work, and I have 2 pages of chit-chat to go through!!!!

I had a good/bad weekend. My nose wouldn't stop running and I sneezed incessantly all weekend, but I'm feeling better now. My weight was down on Saturday, but up again today. I really have to stop eating fast food on weekends--I know that's what does it to me! I went all weekend again without wine!!! I did have beer with lunch, though.

We went to see Hairspray this weekend. Very cute and funny movie. Better than the original IMO. Here's a breakthrough--I bought some Good & Plenty for the movie and stopped eating them when I was half done and didn't go back to finish them.....they're now home in my pantry. That is VERY unusual for me to do!

Morning. I'm here for the :coffee: - glad to see it's ready. :)

Called the doc's office first thing - 9 am (are they really bankers?) and the earliest appt I could get is Thursday at 2. Bah! She did say she'll keep my name on the cancellation list. I took some "real" pain killers last night so I could sleep. The advil just keeps the pain at bay, and night times are indeed the worst, Meg. DH brought both foam camping mattresses upstairs, so I slept on them propped up. I tried the couch but it doesn't have enough support and makes my back hurt. But, ugh, enough about my stupid shoulder. Except to say thank goodness I had my hair cut short - can't seem to manage the curling iron at all, and my left hand is not yet accustomed to combing/brushing. :lol:

Foodwise, it was a so-so weekend. We went to a potluck retirement party on Sat night. There was indeed chicken - but fried. :eek: I opted for a burger as they were made of moose which is very lean. The salads were fine, and I avoided the chips. I did have one small piece (2" square - it's how they were cut) of rhubarb cheesecake, and one glass of wine. Yesterday, I was probably a little low as I was into anything that didn't involve using my arm. Mostly leftovers that could be microwaved.

Ennay, glad to hear you're feeling better. And yes, you 'need' those black pants. :lol: FM is my preferred grocery store. The Safeway here (and in the next town) are pretty rundown, and more expensive. Our FM is just groceries and was new in 2003. I esp like that I don't have to cross the highway to get there.

Old houses - I grew up in Massachusetts, so it had to be 18** at least to be old. The house I grew up in was the same one my mother had grown up in, so was built before 1920, and wasn't considered old at all. I loved that it had huge rooms though it only had one bathroom. And it had a granite walled basement that was the only cool place on hot humid summer days.



Allison, I'm so impressed you didn't finish the G&P! I'm looking for a girlfriend to go see Hairspray. DH is totally not interested.

It just took me close to an hour to catch up on all the posts since my last one on Thursday.

We had a fairly quiet weekend and the shore. Friday night DH got down before 8 pm and we went to 'Friday night beer night' on the club's porch. It's $5 for a large plastic cup and unlimited refills until the keg runs out or wine if you prefer. I only drink blender drinks on rare occasions, so I just go to socialize. I took our cat Ashley on her leash because she's cool with it and everyone knows her.

Saturday and Sunday during the day, I just hung out on our sailboat and read Lisa See's Dragon Bones. It's one of her earlier books and not as good as her Snow Flower and the Secret Fan which I would highly recommend.

The wind was none existant on Saturday for Hobie Catting and I just didn't feel like it on Sunday - a rare mood. Also, didn't want to walk the 3 blocks up to the ocean beach.

Saturday evening we took DH's whole family out for a sunset cruise and to scatter his father's ashes in the bay. Last week was the year anniversary of his passing. It was a really moving tribute.

Coming home Sunday night, I FINALLY found my Medicare card in the mailbox. I've been trying to get coverage since February. Big releif. Now, I'm trying to get my prescription plan straightened out, but the phone number is eternally busy.

My weight is up 2 pounds, but that's common for me after a weekend. Today, I'm wearing one of my favorite t-shirt dresses from my fat days and I'm just swimming in it. Love the color - it's fuschia. Real comfy too.

On the Fall Clothes thread, Baffled called me a "Pixie Woman" which made me LOL so I've added it to my signature line. I was talking to my GF who now lives out on the West Coast and she had heard through one of our mutual friends how good I'm looking these days, so I told her I'm back to my normal weight and how much it is. She was shocked because her 9 year old 5'0" daughter weighs more than me and I'm a grown woman with hips and boobs (abet small ones).

Lily - how does your DS's work place handle all his comings and goings with his service requirements?

We've had a few of varying ages ... um ... a wartime airforce base storey and a half, an awesome money sucker circa 1875, a between the wars farmhouse and this one is probably from the early 40's. It's been fooled with a few times and is NOT as charming as it should be :D We'll see what we can do about that.

I just made a YUMMMMMMY Smoothie. My kids devoured it and barely left me a cup. Here it is -

Orange Strawberry freeze -

One can of frozen concentrate OJ (12 oz.)
10/11 large frozen strawberries
2 tsps of Vanilla extract
a cup of non-fat milk
a cup of cold water
10 ice cubes

Put in blender and YUMMMMMMMMM
All of my kids loved it, even the finicky ones (I have 9, did I mention that?)

Now I am making this for 9 kids so you can probably cut the recipe in half to serve 4. I figure less than 100 calories in a cup, probably closer to 90 and it was VERY filling.

BTW - cut out uncooked tomatoes and so far no stomach pains, even had cooked ones and no problems.

Do you think you might have developed an allergy to tomatoes? My MIL, after the age of 40, developed allergies to avocados and broccoli. She doesn't much care about the allergy to broccoli, but she just loves avocado and hates that it causes her so much stomach discomfort. She discussed it with her doctor and he said it isn't unusual to develop allergies late in life.

Well I am 39, so I guess I am later in life ;) but to have this coincide with a drastic weight loss? I dunno, I guess it could be. But if it were an allergy then why don't cooked tomatoes bother me? I am not even sure if it is the tomatoes at all, just a guess at this point, but meanwhile I cut them out and I am fine.

Um, no. Wow, I can't imagine it.... My hat's off to you.

Yowser, me neither. Your grocery bills must be insane! Do you need to use two or three carts to get enough food for the lot of you?

And please tell us that you're a SAHM. I can't imagine working full time and then popping home to look after *9* children!

I'm actually the dad, but yes mom is a stay at home mom. Our grocery bills are probably around $200 a week, not too bad. The kids are little though, oldest one is 12 and youngest is 8 1/2 mos. So perhaps the grocery bills will only get bigger as time goes on. Each one is a blessing in our lives and we wouldn't have it any other way. They all love each other and get along well and it's a house filled with a lot of love (and noise.)

Hi everyone, I just came in from working 2.5 hrs. in my garden. Got it all weeded out again and made my neat little rows to plant my corn in the AM. I am dripping with sweat. I walked 1.5 miles on treadmill before heading to the garden. So, had plenty of exercise today. I rigged a light outside by the garden so I could see to work after dark. I've drank a ton of water today, so I'll be up most of the night. I'm just happy that I finally got something accomplished out there.

Carolyn, my DS's job is awesome about his military duty. They pay him just like he's at work even if he's gone for the military. Not many jobs would do that. They have said that even when he's deployed, they'll "keep his paychecks coming". So, he should be able to afford to buy a house when he gets back.

I'm gonna hit the shower now.