Meg, I went through all Lacy and Shane's Myspace pic's and didn't find any of me to post. Apparently they like photos of themselves and their friends, but not of MOM. I do have some regular pics that I want to post, but have a printer and not a scanner, so can't post them. Maybe next month I'll get me a scanner. Dang it, I've wanted to post my Halloween pic's for a couple of months now.

I've always thought Shane is very nice-looking , but I'm sure I'm a little prejudiced. Of course, I think Lacy is totally beautiful too.

My weight seems to be slowly moving in the right direction again. I have added back a few carbs and am still keeping my cal's at 1500 or below and it seems to be working. One thing for sure, my kidney's are working better. I think they slow down when I eat larger amt. of protein and less carbs.

Had another run-in with DH's XW today. She let us know that she is claiming Shelbey on her taxes. I was furious. Shelbey lived with us 7 months in 2007 and therefore we should rightfully be able to claim her. What a b--ch. I wish our attorney would hurry up and get this mess straightened out. It stresses me too dang much. Our attorney did send the custody request before the judge and it was rejected because He never had DH come sign the formal papers. Seems like we should have been notified to come and do that. Now DH is out of state working til next Tuesday, so it has to wait til then. BTW, Vic's paycheck still has his child support to his XW being automatically taken out. She hasn't ever paid us a dime, this past 8 months! Please, please, can I slap her? Sorry for my b--ch fest, I needed to get it off my chest.

In happier news, DH called today and got another pay raise. His annual salary has now gone up by an extra $24,000 since changing jobs less than 6 months ago. yippee! He loves his work and seems very happy. Funny how men's happiness is tied to their work salary. LOL, I guess my happiness is tied to HIS salary too. Only bad thing is , if his pay keeps going up, that's just less that his XW will eventually have to pay. (And I dearly want to make her pay).

In other news, Lacy is going through her first real heartbreak with a boy. She has been crying all evening and it hurts me so much to see her so upset. I'm trying to be supportive , but she seriously needed to ditch this little boyfriend. He was ignoring her and waiting 3-4 weeks at a time before calling her. I'm glad they are through but I know she isn't. I'm planning to spend more time with Lacy, going shopping and to movies, to help distract her for a while. She was way to serious about that boyfriend anyway, they had already talked about getting married after she graduates in 2 more years. Good grief, she's only 15. She feels like she's wasted her life already !

I'm trying to catch up but it's hard! All the pictures are great - Shane, your haircut's awesome and really suits you. Allison, I tried to pull up your pictures but my computer's so slow I'll probably have to wait until I get back to my wireless connection at school! And Lily, you have gorgeous kids!! I'm sorry Lacy's going through a heartbreak -- that has to be tough for you to see her go through it. But congratulations to your hubby on another raise!

I'm not feeling so hot today. I think I have a stomach flu or something, because I've had stomach pains and all the other yucky stuff that goes along with it for the last day or so. I couldn't even eat yesterday, which isn't good for the baby. Of course, I'm terrified that I have food poisoning or something that will affect the baby, but a bug is going around so that's probably it. Right now I'm trying to decide if I should call the doctor or just wait it out. I'm feeling a little better today, because at least I can stand the thought of eating something.

Lily - I finally got to see your pics, your family sure is blessed with good looks! :lol: We aren't allowed to install our own fence per homeowner's association guidlines, so we are probably paying extra for the labor. Plus I think they are offering us pretty high-quality fences. It's still pricey though... The guy told me their company will not be the cheapest quote we can find but it won't be the most expensive either.

Hi everyone,

Lisa, I hope you get to feeling better soon and can feel like eating .

Jessica, I'm sure your fence will look better than mine and be done a lot quicker than mine was. We live in a very rural area and didn't have any home-owner regulations to follow. Although, DH did do better at the fence than he does at most home improvements. Since his pay went up again, I'm now planning to hire contractors to put in all the new flooring that I want done and refurbish my deck.

For Allison and Meg,and others that have teen/20ish daughters. Have you ever helped your DD's through a breakup with their boyfriends. Any advice on how to handle it ? I hate seeing Lacy hurting so much!

I went to bed with a tiny fever blister. I woke up with a huge monster of a fever blister. Does anyone know how to shorter the course of this. Seriously, I'm embarassed to leave the house.

Thanks everyone for the kind words about my kids.

LisaMarie~I hope you get over your bug really soon. Being sick and pregnant is no fun.

Lily~unfortunately, my DD has never had a boyfriend. She has had crushes that have let her down, but she's never suffered a breakup. As for fever blisters, I have no idea as I've never had one, BUT if it were a canker sore, hydrogen peroxide works wonders. You might try dabbing some hydrogen peroxide on a cotton ball and daubing it on the blister a few times a day. I can't imagine it would hurt it and it might help.

It's cold here this morning and I'm having a hard time motivating to get out for my morning run. I usually go as soon as I get up, but here it is an hour and half after I got up and I'm dressed to go and I keep thinking of reasons NOT to go. I'm sure as soon as I sign off I'll get my butt moving. After that I have to go help with a garage sale and then I'm off to get my hair done. Everyone have a great day!

Lily, have you tried Campho Phenique?

Thanks ladies, I'll try your suggestions.

I had a neat NSV last night. I put my arm up over my head and noticed a little bulge on my arm. I felt of it, and OMG, I am starting to feel a little muscle. My underside of my arm doesn't even feel as flabby as it did before. I think I'm liking this weight lifting and can't wait to find other muscles too!

Lisa, so sorry you're feeling poorly. Hope you can keep some food down today.

Jessica, HOA's have such strange regulations sometimes. I mean, why can't you install your own fence if you use the appropriate materials? My DH's cousins lives in an area where they can't leave their garage doors open for more than a specified time, which is the weirdest regulation I've heard.

Allison, go, go , go , go! You'll feel better after you go run. Looking forward to seeing a photo of your new hairdo.

Lily, I feel your pain. Really. I went through all that with my DD when she was in high school. It's awful to watch your kid going through such heartbreak. All I can suggest is that you listen and hug her as often as she'll let you. It's tempting to offer advice, but that can backfire. You want to take the pain away, I know, but that's not possible, and not really healthy because pain is part of life. That kind of stuff is as difficult for the parent to get through as it is for the child, maybe more so. :hug:

Freezing rain here, darn it. We were supposed to go to the Big City today to take some antiques to an appraisal fair. We've tried to go to this thing, which is held every other month, since July, but something always comes up. We couldn't get to the gym yesterday or this morning, either, because of the ice. We live on a hill so it can be a bit treacherous. Since this kind of stuff happens so infrequently, there's no sanding or plowing equipment where I live so we just wait for it to warm up.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Sheila, thanks. Lacy is acting calmer today and is going to the movies with her friends tonite. Hopefully she won't be crying this evening.

Ladies, I'm having a hard time knowing how to distribute my calories throughout the day. I've been having 200 cal's for breakfast, 350 for lunch and saving the rest of my cals for dinner and evening snack. Right now, I've had BF and Lunch and feel like I'm so dang hungry. Can anyone explain to me how to distribute out my 1500 cals better so I won't feel so hungry all the time. One of my biggest problems is that since I thought I was gonna keep doing very low carb, I didn't really buy fruit (except 1 pineapple that we've already eaten). I've tried snacking on some celery sticks and carrots, but this isn't cutting it.

Lily, what I found that works for me is dividing my calories into five equal meals and being sure I have protein at each meal.

I eat roughly at 7 am when I get home from the gym, 10 am, 1 pm, 4 pm, and 7 pm. So another way to look at it is breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks. But they're really more than snacks because I need a substantial MEAL every three hours to keep going. Otherwise, I get too hungry and you know where that ends up! Protein keeps me full, so I'm sure to eat some protein every time I eat.

Have you tried eating more frequently? I could never make it from lunch to dinner without eating! And maybe eating some protein with your a snack? Celery sticks and carrots would never cut it for me either! I like cottage cheese or yogurt between traditional meals, but I'll eat turkey breast, salad with chicken or almost anything with protein.

Everyone is different and something entirely different might work for you, so don't be afraid to play around with meal timing and what you're eating. :)

:wave: Happy Saturday! It's a gorgeous, sunny day here, but only 6 degrees! Which is an improvement over the -10F when we got up! :brr: I was out of the house about 7:40 to make a 8:00 vet appt. Little Simone is doing fine - just a new pet checkup (which I had a coupon for) and to get her on our vet's records. She did not like riding in the car one little bit! Hollered all the way to and from. Wore herself out too, and had to take a nap when she got home. :)

Not much happening around here. I'm just trying to wade through all the paperwork on my desk and get stuff organized for taxes. In between loads of laundry of course. :)

Lisa - hope you feel better soon.

Lily - no advice on DD, but congrats to your DH on another raise, and bad karma to his XW. :lol:

Allison - did you go for a run? You'll be glad you did.

Well, I got out there, but it wasn't much of a run. I decided to take my old yellow dog along and I practically had to drag him the second half. I walked very fast and did work up a sweat, but it wasn't quite as good as a run, but my heart wasn't in it for some reason (probably the cold). I keep trying to convince myself that running in the cold beats running in the heat of the summer, but my mind keeps wishing for 60-80 degrees rather than 45-50.

That's an excellent point Allison. I've been wishing and wishing for summer, but I didn't start running outside until November, and, now that you mention it, running in 90 degree heat probably isn't going to be that much fun either. What i need is a treadmill of my own for the house. The dog and I could take turns on it. :)

I spent all day in my office working. A typical dreary Saturday. And it's cold. And I'm feeling disgruntled.

Hope everyone else is in higher spirits!

(Btw Lily, Shane is very cute! And my sympathies to poor Lacy. I hate the idea of teenage girls pining after teenage boys who are basically a$$holes. It's not right!)

Meg, I am going to try dividing my food into 5 different 300 calorie meals tomorrow. It's a mental thing for me. I think that always makes me feel like I was eating way too much. At 4PM this evening, I couldn't take being hungry any longer and ended up making me a roast beef sandwich on wheat bread. It did help and now I haven't wanted to eat dinner yet. I can already tell that for counting calories to work for me that I am going to have to eat more often.

I also have a problem with saying I'm gonna stick to 1500 calories a day. I don't go over. I end up only eating 1100 and feel starved! I don't know why I can't seem to make my mind understand that my body actually needs more calories than that! The weird thing is that when I do only eat 1100 cal's a day, I don't lose any more weight than if I was eating 1500. These mind games may be a result of having done Atkins and knowing that as long as I stuck to meat, eggs, cheese and green veggies that I didn't have to bother with counting calories. Now that I want more variety in my foods, I'm finding sticking to a new plan very challenging. I really hope to find a plan that is workable for me. I'm really tired of my weight fluctuating so much and me switching back and forth between food plans. I want a plan that I can live with for Life!

I actually think since I'm pretty inexperienced at counting calories and getting the most out of my calorie buck that I could use a good "diet" book to help me. Hope that makes sense. Something that might help me see how to keep my calories in range and still get plenty of protein to keep me full. Any book recommendations that follows counting calories would be greatly appreciated.

Pat, glad to see your new Kitty is adjusting and doing well. Thanks about DH's raise, we are very happy. It will sure help in our remodeling efforts.

Allison, I took Molly (my overweight Lab) for a walk today. She seemed pretty feisty, so I jogged up and down the driveway with her several times. It was fun but cold, 32 degrees. She actually needs more physical exercise and I could use it too. She acted like she loved running with me.

baffled, I feel like I get it from both ends here. Girls calling crying cause my son broke their heart. Lacy crying cause a boy broke her heart. Today I feel like I'll be glad when both my kids are married.

I figured out how to get some new pics of me. I'll have Lacy take some on her digital camera and transfer them onto the computer. I think this is how she and Shane put all their pics' on Myspace. Of course, I'm gonna wait til this fever blister goes away, cause I don't want to scare everybody off here.

Lily, this is one of those things that I feel that I spend a lot of time railing against in the calorie-counters forum: under-eating and the desire to always eat as few calories as possible. I think it's a mindset that develops with years of unhealthy dieting and procrastinating about weight loss; a kind of mental equivalence between being hungry and being virtuous. The great thing about calorie counting is that once you discover that you can lose efficiently on 1500, there NO REASON AT ALL to eat only 1100. It doesn't make you lose faster, it doesn't give any moral superiority, it just perpetuates unhealthy relationships with food. You need to really convince yourself of this in order to be able to stick with it and make it work. :)

The other thing is experience. It takes a while for it to become second nature and to develop a really strong sense of appropriate eating. I don't like to be hungry, so I make sure I get lots of vegetables at each meal. If I'm making soup for lunch, I pile in the vegetables. If I'm having an omelet for breakfast, I add volume with beans or vegetables. But it does take practice. Perhaps you could try planning out the entire day's meals in advance, to make sure you hit the right number of calories? I don't have any book recommendations, I'm afraid (I've never read a single diet book in my life!), but perhaps you should read the cc forum for a while?

I always become ravenous at 4pm too. The period between lunch and dinner is endless! (8 hours!!!) I haven't entirely figured out this time of the day yet. If I eat too little I start grazing while I'm making dinner; if I eat too much I go over my calories. It's tricky.

Happy Sunday everyone.