Maintainers Chat: April 28 - May 4
 

I know I sound like everyone's grandmother, but how did it get to be the end of April already?? :faint:

Barbara and Glory have a great discussion about how to handle food when you're away from home at the end of last week's thread that you won't want to miss. Breakfast buffets are my absolute downfall -- I lose my mind when I see trays of cheese danishes. :dizzy: It's always such a challenge to eat right away from home, especially when you have no control over what's being served. We're all cheering for you, Glory!!

I had a wonderful weekend with my new ELECTRIC staple gun and the attic insulation. Electric makes all the difference in the world. Thank you, Thomas Edison! And Home Depot! :D (I bet Lily has her own electric staple gun! :lol: )

Off to the gym in a few minutes. It's turned cold and rainy here. Bleech!

Good morning :wave: Have fun with that staple gun, Meg. Ah, I remember the bliss of getting an electric one after the pain of bruised palms when making cornices and headboards!

Off to an ON TRACK DAY! and no high heels.... I blame a lot of recent lapses on painful feet :rofl:

Mel

Meg: Staple gun does sound fun. Sounds like a productive weekend to me.

Mel: I hear ya on the high heels, I just don't wear them anymore b/c of knee problems.

This morning started off good with my yummy multigrain cereal and cup of hot unsweetened tea. Will work out after classes today. I'm excited, I start my new strength training regime I planned out all by myself. (I change it up every two weeks)

Hi gang!

I'm no Lily mind you, and have never tackled insulation, but I have been known to do some creative decorating around the house and am therefore a proud owner of my very own electric staple gun.

I'm in a great mood. Not sure why. It's pouring rain out with no let up in sight, I've got a TON to do and my pants are snug. Could it be that Passover is OVER and I've got Splenda back? And Danon FF/SF Yogurt back and FIBER ONE cereal? And string beans? Well yes, it could be!! And as unhappy as I am about the pants being snug, I'm happy to be participating in our "7 Day No Excuses" challenge thing-y and getting the heck back to where I belong.

Have a great day ya'll. :wave:

Hi all,

I played with an old-fashioned staple gun yesterday to fix the blown-out screen on the front porch. Cleaned the whole porch (picked up numerous bottle caps, cigarette butts, trash, cans, cups from other people's parties, grr) and swept the gross outdoor carpet, worked in the garden, vacuumed the house, did all my laundry... I give it 2 days before my roommates trash it again. sigh.

Saturday I waited almost 2 hours in line to get my compost bin - the discount program was sponsored by the city. I had no idea it would be so crowded! I didn't get a dress for the wedding and clothes shopping was really frustrating. I gave up and went to the organic co-op and the "real" grocery store instead. I like shopping for food (all healthy!) much better. I made a delicious recipe of stuffed peppers last night. Tasty and healthy!

April plan NANS is going well, still, but my resolve to eat 96% clean for the rest of my food is slipping. I overate yesterday afternoon, and Friday night, even though I was doing my best to keep busy with all my chores. I need to tighten up and re-discover my inspiration. Since April is almost over and I've lost a few pounds, my pants are looser, but I'm not at goal, I need to figure out what my plan is to keep moving the scale down. NANS worked fairly well... maybe I'll give myself 2 drinks and 1 dessert on the weekends only, or something like that. Or 1 dessert or 2 drinks? Hmmm...

Robin, glad you've got your favorite foods back!

Hi Meg, Mel, Amanda, everyone! I hope everyone has a great Monday!

Ooh, a staple gun sounds good. I spent last week pulling up carpet, tack board and working on new sub-floor. Have I mentioned I HATE home improvement. After a week of being too busy and tired I needed to come back on line. I just joined the no excuses thread so here's to a better and saner week.

Meg - I am wondering how it got to be the end of April already too!

Megan - ugh, your roommates sound so messy! When we lived in a first-floor apartment we went out one day and filled up an entire plastic grocery bag with cigarette butts from the people who lived above us. :barf:

No staple gun stories here . . . A college friend of mine came down from Chicago for a couple days this weekend, which was a lot of fun! We went downtown and walked around the war memorials, and went through the museums that we didn't even know existed underneath the memorials! According to wikipedia, Indianapolis has the second highest number of monuments within city limits, after Washington DC.

While having my friend over was great, eating was not as great. Friday night we went to a friend's house to play some board games, and got talked into eating ice cream. Saturday I did great most of the day, but we went out to dinner after my friend arrived at a Russian restaurant, and I had boiled dumplings which were coated in a sour cream-based sauce Then we ate instant pistachio pudding DH had bought at the grocery (that's what I get for letting him go unsupervised!). Sunday I did fine for breakfast, had a pretty healthy lunch at Au Bon Pain, then got talked into buying fudge. Dinner was fine, we cooked at home, but then we bought ice cream and I had a reasonably large bowl of it (though I am proud to say I did not go back for seconds).

I don't think I did too much damage - my weight is only up about 1.5lbs and I'm sure most (if not all) of it is water weight. My skirt-o-meter says my weight is just fine, and I've been getting a decent amount of exercise taking the dog for a walk every day. My doctor finally referred me to a knee specialist who I am supposed to see next week, so hopefully my knees will get fixed and I'll be able to jog again. The dog would make a great jogging partner! Plus elbow therapy was added to my wrist therapy order so I guess we'll see what happens at my appointment tomorrow. I think I screwed my wrists up again this weekend by driving too much and having to hold the dog's leash a lot. :( They feel a bit better today though.

I'm headed to Philadelphia Thursday night! I'll try to make good (or at least better) choices while I'm there. I'll probably disappear Thursday afternoon and reappear Monday morning. :)

Hey! Busy here... much to do this week... I'm trying to get caught up enough that I can drive over the West Palm Beach the weekend after next to spend some time with my spiritual teachers. Goodness knows I can use the boost...

I had a great weekend of bush trimming, made easier by the electric pruner that I bought. It kinda counts as a staple gun. Wait until I tell you about the pressure washer... (sorry, Meg ;))

Have a good one!

Jay

I'm back from my convention. Here's a short recap:

Food was good. Breakfasts were the obligatory array of breads (I succumbed only once to a small croissant) with fruit, yogurt, and hard boiled eggs. Most mornings I had the fruit and an egg with my coffee. Once I had a yogurt--but skipped the granola on top. Lunches were salads--the first was a cobb and the second was baby greens with lots of vegetables and chicken. I ate the cobb with no dressing and the other with a vinegarette. Dinner one night was a very, very light pasta and salad. It was more of an appetizer size. The other night was a salad bar and a Mexican bar--I had a big salad and a little taco. The third night we went out and I chose a vegetable platter. All in all, I thought I made good choices. Too bad my scale says otherwise. I'm joining you all in the No Excuses week!

Surgery tomorrow. I really don't know what this will do to my morning runs. The doctor said running is fine, but how on earth will I get up at 4:30, pull on my full leg compression stocking, go running, come home, take off the stocking, shower and put it back on? I'm thinking this may be the beginning of an excuse! However, I HAVE to walk an hour a day, so perhaps the hour of walk will do me better than the half hour run three times a week.

I don't know, an electric staple gun sounds dangerous to me. :eek: I'm such a klutz that power tools are always a little scary. I'd surely end up stapling my thumb or worse!

I decided I didn't put up enough asparagus pickles last week, so I made some more this weekend and also pickled some cauliflower just to see how it would come out. The cauliflower was way easier to shove into the jars than the asparagus, that's for sure. And I'm done with the pickling now, at least until bean season.

My weight is up a little this weekend, but I think it is just water. My trainer made up some new hamstring exercise on Friday and also had me lifting heavier than normal, so I was sore all weekend. And I had a glass and a half of wine on Saturday night (I would have had more, but that's all that was left in the bottle). My calories (other than the wine) came in low over the weekend, so I don't think I've gained.

Megan: What is NANS? Bummer that you had to wait so long to get your compost bin. And messy roommates are the worst. In my first apartment out of college, both my roommate and I were total slobs. Dishes would sit in the sink for days, maybe even weeks. It didn't help that the apartment was a dump, so it started out dirty and we just made it worse. But it cured me of my bad habits. As soon as I got my own place, I was so tired of the filth that I became super clean. For a while there, I would actually do the dishes before I would eat dinner (except for the plate and utensils I was eating off, of course).

Robin: I didn't realize you had to give up splenda during passover. You poor thing! :hug: No wonder you've been having so much trouble lately.

joyofsix: I am so with you on home improvement. Also gardening--hate that too!

paperclippy: It doesn't sound like you could possibly have done much damage; you did a lot better than I would have done in that situation.

Barbara, NANS is my April "No Alcohol No Sweets" plan - pretty self-explanatory - for the month of April, I haven't drank any alcohol or eaten any sweets. I'm trying to jump-start my weight loss by being super strict with myself (I don't do moderation well).

Hi all, I'm back OP after a big slip this wknd. TOM is looming in the horizon so between that and the slip I'm dreading the scale on Thurs, which is my day of the week to weigh myself. ~gulp~

I'm the proud owner of an electric staple gun, thanks to my DH's suggestion on the importance of owning one. It's still neatly wrapped in the pckg it came in...lol. We bought our house lat Aug and it's an older home so there is a lot of projects we want to work on, but the stapple gun hasn't been used. DH does have a collection of drills he uses all the time, he has a thing for tools and him being a plumber, well he has an excuse to keep buying them. I want gardening tools, that's my big project b/c I'd love a beautiful yard, right now is not so beatiful, it's actually pretty sad looking. :(

Barbara: I've always wanted to try pickling, is it difficult? What is your favorite pickled veggie?

Megan: I give you a lot of credit for giving up alcohol and sweets. I rarely drink, but I do love my sweet treats, but April is almost done! :)

Rockinrobin: Why do you have to give up Splenda during passover? Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is Passover? I've heard about it but don't really know what it is. :o

alinnell: Good luck with your surgery tomorrow

All this info about pickling makes my mouth water! I don't have the time to do any real pickling, but I do make "fresh" pickles. Basically it's water, vinegar, salt, sugar and dill--boil until sugar and salt dissolves and then pour over sliced cucumbers (I use English cukes). Chill and store in the fridge--they keep for a week or two. These are the only pickles my DS will eat.

Allison-- I wish you much luck and quick recovery with your surgery tomorrow.

Speaking of messy roommates, my older dd (off to college in the fall) is a total slob. We keep trying to tell her that if she is so messy in college that her roommates will request a switch! I sure hope she can get it together. She has always been a slob....

My dh is out of town for the week. I have planned most of our meals already and I will have no excuses to eat on plan and to exercise. Since I wrote it down, it has to happen, right?!?!?!

You all were very busy little beavers over the weekend! I did some housecleaning but no major renovating!

Megan-- I could do the no alcohol, but I think I would die before I could do no sweets for a month! I work sweets into my daily points.

No excuses, no excuses, no excuses...does it count that I got almost no sleep last night due to dh having to get up at 2:30 and leaving at 3:30? No-- no excuses!!

This was a nice, laid back weekend for me for a change. I really needed it as work has been quite stressful since I got back from vacation, and I don't see it changing any time soon. I have trouble keeping myself from staying late or working at home, and in reality that only adds to the stress.

After our nasty surprise snow storm on Friday which lasted late into the night ended we had a foot of snow!! Heavy, wet stuff which bent lots of our trees over, and brought down some electrical wires. We were without power until noonish on Sat. Since we have a well, that meant we had no water either. Luckily I have a gas stove so we could cook and we had some bottled water. Wet ones had to suffice for washing! :lol:

Since I could do anything that required power, I started cleaning out off home office - yikes! I got rid of a lot of stuff, and have a lot more organized to get filed - once I make room in the file cabinet..... Once we had power, I did a bunch of cooking for the week, and all the laundry. But it was restful - spent a fair amount of time reading, watching movies and knitting. Oh, and sleeping. I find that all of excuses are made worse when I don't have enough sleep!!