Good morning, o chatty ones, and welcome to a brand new month! It kind of reminds me of the days when diets would always start on the first of the month and hey, today is a Monday too -- double good diet omen. Got to say that I'm happy to be out of that mindset.

Based on our little poll and discussion, we'll stick with our weekly thread for now. Don't forget that no one is expected to try to keep up or address everyone individually! Just post what you can, when you can and we'll roll with it. If you ever have an idea or suggestion for improving Maintainers, feel free to post it or PM me.

I had a lousy weekend with a sore throat and the blahs but am definitely feeling more like myself again. Which means it's time for the gym! I can't believe I took the whole weekend off. I'll blast some great music, lift some weights, get those endorphins pumping, and be back to my old self in no time. I swear, exercise is a drug for me. Good thing it's cheap and legal!!

On Friday, DH and I are going to Albuquerque for the International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. There will be close to a thousand hot air balloons with night launches, mass ascensions, and all sorts of fun activities. It also won't hurt to be on the scene for last minute wedding planning! We still have to find shoes for DD (the perils of wearing size 11) and something for her hair since she isn't wearing a veil.

We're putting together welcome bags for the out-of-town guests (and there are lots!) with all local items, like NM pecans, Santa Fe chocolates, and chips and salsa, with a bottle of local wine (and maps, itinerary etc.) We'll get those done while we're there.

Anyway, I have lots to get done here at home before we leave on Friday!

New week, new month ... what's going on in your world?

Good morning Meg! I'm taking advantage of this new virgin thread, before I totally lose track again as usual.

Glad to see you're getting well after this week-end. On my side of the world, I may have spoken too fast the other day about being less often sick than before, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed--tomorrow, it could either evolve toward a good old cold or toward nothing. I really hope it won't be a cold, I have 8 hours of classes to tackle on Wednesday, four of which in a row, and I seriously don't want to have to cope with on top of that an illness that typically makes me unable to focus well on anything complex (read: syntax & linguistics classes). Fortunately, my decision to extend rigorous planning to other areas of my life than just eating has paid off; if I end up sick, at least it will be with all my homework for the week already done.

As for the double diet omen, I'm happy that I don't have that mindset, too. (Right now, it's just a day like the others to go on with what I was already doing before, after all.)

Good morning!

Not much to report on this end. Probably a busy week ahead, but at least moving is over. It's just the hassle of putting things away in new places now.

Hope everyone is well!

Jay

Oh, as a sidenote, a coworker has brought some weird alien today for lunch: a brownie-cheesecake. I have no idea if those two go well together, though, because I didn't eat any. Let's say that the fact that said coworker has gone home this morning feeling sick, after having eaten of his own cake yesterday evening, hasn't made me feel very tempted: coincidence, or not?

Good morning all.

I had a bit of a rough end to last week and then this weekend. But no where near as rough as my hubby had it. He was in agony on Thursday, we eventually rushed him to the ER. 13 hours later, we were sent home - with the diagnosis of a kidney stone. Yuck. It passed Saturday afternoon. So, it's been a bit hectic. I'm a bit behind on the posts. But I did see some exciting news about Lily winning a car - congrats!

Food was so-so during the ordeal. Not too much of weight change though, less then a pound. So, all is good.

Kery, having had brownie cheesecake, I can tell you it's a wicked, wicked (in a good way, though not a good "weigh" ) combination. I hope whatever you have coming on, blows over quickly.

Jay, at least the worst is over. You'll get to all those boxes - eventually.

Meg, that must have been one heckuva a sore throat to keep you away from the gym all weekend. I'm glad to hear that you are feeling somewhat better. Sounds like you've got a lot coming up with the wedding and all and going away this upcoming weekend.

I hope everyone has a great day, week and yes, month. Because before you know it THIS month will be history and we'll all be staring at the holidays. YIKES!

Hi everybody,

I can use a double good diet omen, Meg, so I'm going to take it. Why not?

I've been really blah lately. Can't get excited about exercise, which is not like me, eating too much, although I did manage to transition from eating too much junk to eating too much mostly healthy food.

We are going to Missouri to visit my family this weekend, and to pop in for my 20 year high school reunion. I feel good about my life now, so I'm not at all worried about the reunion, but not so much looking forward to a 4 hr plane sandwiched between 2 hr car rides with the toddler. Apologies in advance if you are on my flight. We are bringing the portable DVD player and are planning a Dora-fest, so hopefully that will get us through.

Anne

Robin - To be honest, I've had a peek at what's left of the cake in the kitchen, and I don't find its looks very... appealing. I don't know why, because I like brownie and cheesecake normally (if cheesecake is the same things as in France, but I assume it is). It's just, well, the visual combination that looks... weird.

Hi everyone,

I had a nice weekend. I went to "the big city" to go shopping Saturday. I found a good sale and bought a few pieces of clothing, some cute earrings, and designer shampoo & conditioner on super sale (score!). Since I wear a t-shirt and shorts to work most of the time, and there is always the possibility it will be wrecked by mud, I'm still slowly building my "thin casual/weekend" wardrobe. I also visited the farmer's market (yay fresh veggies!) and the oriental market and I found frozen seaweed salad packages! High in sodium but they are one of my favorites. And I got to visit the big grocery store and stock up on things like flax seeds, steel cut oatmeal, good yogurt, etc. that are not offered at the store in my town. My friend & I ate at a Vietnamese restaurant and it was totally worth the splurge, and the rest of the weekend was totally OP.

I started doing unassisted squats instead of squats on the smith machine about 2 weeks ago with just the bar, and added weight last week (still not as much weight as I did on the smith machine, but I want to get my form down). It feels about the same, but my form's gotta be somewhat different, because my quads were so tight last week! I haven't had this kind of muscle tightness in a long time. I've been stretching extra, and it went away this weekend. We'll see how the quads feel this week.

And my other roommate brought fudge home from her weekend in St. Augustine. But I did not have any. She has been bringing home lots of baaaad food lately, but I am proud to say that I didn't truly want any, so I didn't have it. Holidays? I'm not ready for that yet!

Brownie and cheesecake does sound good. I'm glad I don't have to face that temptation!

Anne, eating too much healthier food is still better than too much junk. Enjoy your reunion. I hope the traveling goes well w/ your daughter.

Kery, if your homework is already done, then you can get some extra sleep to help ward of whatever this illness is, right? Way to plan ahead.

Meg, ooh, your trip sounds fun! Even the wedding planning errands. Enjoy your "exercise fix". I hope I feel like that at the gym this afternoon!

I hope everyone's week is off to a great start.

Meg - I've always wanted to ride in a hot air balloon but never got around to it. Sounds fun! Oh, and I know the perils of having big feet -- mine have varied from a size 9 to a size 11. They're smaller now after the weight loss, though!

Robin - your poor husband!! I'm so glad he's ok now!

Anne - my 20-year reunion will be in 2009, and I hope we actually have one! We had a 10th, which was fun and VERY casual, but at the time I was quite heavy and in a miserable job. And all I heard from everyone was how gorgeous my husband was. He is, but it was annoying because it was like they couldn't believe I landed him. This time, I look pretty good too, and I have a job I love!

Megan - I'm proud of you for not having any fudge! The way I've been lately, I would've torn into it with reckless abandon! I just want to munch constantly. I'm back on track, though, because the scale said 169 this morning. Eek!!! I refuse to get this close to goal and then let it creep back up -- that would be ridiculous! Plus, I really want to see the 150s now...

Hope everyone's day is good! Mine's going to be busy busy busy. I'm on my planning period now and I should be reading my 10th graders' horrendous essays or my 9th graders' homework, but I'd rather hang out on 3FC!!

Good morning maintainers! In honor of the first day of the week and month (and the fact that the baby is a month old now) I'm seriously re-dedicating myself to getting back on track.
Meg Sorry to hear you're not feeling well.

rockinrobin I hope your dh feels better soon.

I'm way behind on last week's thread so I hope all are doing well.

Hi everyone, I'm feeling better now. I did get the yard mowed and the garden weeded yesterday. I weighed this morning, to start the new month. I'm at 142 lbs. (which is up a lb.) but, I had a run in with a few cookies yesterday that I should have left alone. We've had a fun week with DH being off work. Lots of fishing, ball games and going places. He leaves back to work tomorrow, so things will slow back down a little.

robin, sorry to hear about your dh's kidney stone. Hope he is feeling much better now. My DH has had those stones before too and it looks very painful.Oh, Robin, did you see the pic of the car, LOL? It's so hideous it's cute.

Lisa, when I went to my 20 yr. reunion, I was very overweight. I know what you mean, I got lots of comments on how "gorgeous" my DH was. I have my 30 yr. reunion next year, so that's even more incentive for me to keep this wt. off. We actually look like we belong together now as a couple, LOL.

meg, glad to see you're feeling better too. I'm gonna try to get myself back into my exercise routine again now that I've quit coughing so much.

Good morning everyone!

Kery~what is it you are studying over there? I have a friend from way back when who is an expatriate. She majored in forestry, got a job in Washington DC working for the Forest Service and met a Frenchman. They were married and then moved to Switzerland. He works in computer graphics for some German company there. They are actually closer to Italy and both of her kids were born in Italy but have dual American and French citizenship.

Meg~sorry to hear you were sick but I'm glad you are getting over it. I seem to have missed getting the last cold that DD and DH both got. DS has seasonal allergies, but they didn't hit him as bad this year.

Annd~good luck on the trip. Dora must be your DD's favorite!

Megan~eww. Seaweed salad? I had a friend who ate freeze dried seaweed as a snack. I tried it and YUCK! Not my cuppa tea!

Lily~I can't remember--did you tell your DH about finding your rings yet? What did he say?

Lisa~good luck on re-losing! We're glad your back and both you and DD are good and healthy!

Lisa~my DD has to write some essays for college applications. She's decided to let her teachers edit them! I guess she doesn't value my opinion (yet I think she writes very well).

Robin~so sorry to hear about your DH. Thankfully it passed. I can't imagine how painful that must be! My FIL had one last year when they were at our house. He couldn't figure out what the problem was, they decided to leave for home only to head to the ER 15 minutes later. It took several hours, but his passed as well, but OUCH!

Lily, LOL about the car (from last week's thread). My first car was a 1984 Toyota Cressida (it was my grandma's!) but it had 120,000 miles on it by the time I got it. It lasted me a good four years after that though. The funniest part was that I was thinking of taking it with me when I moved to RI, but it needed an entire quart of mile for every 60 miles I drove so I thought it would be a royal pain to drive across the country!!

Kery - I haven't had brownie cheesecake, but I have had cheesecake brownies. In general, YUM.

I have been busy busy busy. Food wasn't terrible but wasn't great either. I did stick to the "eat out only once a week" rule, and it was a good one because I just got lunch from noodles & company and I know the meal I got was only 350 cals. I wanted cookies Saturday night, but thanks to my new "small batch baking" book, I cooked exactly two cookies (one for me, one for my fiance). Not too bad! Plus they were oatmeal cookies, that's healthy right?

Saw my rheumatologist again today. My wrists have gotten a bit better. I'm hoping the honeymoon will give them time to rest and heal even more. Anyway he is repeating some standard blood tests (blood count, liver and kidney function, some inflammation markers) and also testing me for lyme disease. Basically he says if the tests come back normal, just keep taking the NSAID he prescribed and come back in another 3 months.

The only thing I am really annoyed about is that my arm is hurting where they drew blood, and I'm terrified that I am going to get a huge bruise (it happens to me sometimes when they take blood). My wedding is this Saturday and I have a strapless dress - I don't want a gigantic bruise in my elbow!! Hopefully if it bruises I can cover it up with makeup.

I'll probably be checking in the next couple days, but after noon on Thursday I doubt I'll be here again until the 25th or so. I would be reminding myself that a week from now I'll be lounging on the beach in Australia, except that a week from now I'll just be at the airport praying my flights don't get delayed, then on a plane for like 20 hours. Bleh. However, a week from now I'll be married! Then I can finally start talking about my "DH" like all the rest of you.

Meg - hope your sore throat gets better! Drink lots of tea! When is your DD's wedding? Sounds like it's coming up! FYI, I got some gorgeous hair pins from here: http://www.glamgal.com/ I'm not wearing a veil either, and I don't like tiaras, but the pins I got are lovely! They're number ZD70112 on that site (hair pins, page two, champagne color).

Allison - LOL about the college essays, more likely she wrote something personal in there and is embarrassed to let you read it!

I'm kinda bummed because my 20th should have been about now and I realized I never got any info. grrrrr I even made sure to get my contact stuff updated. Not that I would have hauled 2 tots 3000 miles, but ...

I love brownies, I LOVE cheesecake, I hate chocolate and cheesecake together...it just tastes sour to me.

Jessica - if it is a mild bruise regular foundation should cover it, if it gets really dark find the stuff meant to cover tattoos. Or yellowish foundation will cover purple bruises better than skin toned. Pinkish will cover yellowed bruises better.