WaterRat: I am almost 5' 4" but I'm the exact opposite of you. I wonder how we would look standing side by side--same height but waists at very different heights. I have unusually long legs and an unusually short torso. The area between my knee and where my legs joins my pelvis especially seems abnormally long. Even my trainer has commented on it; he thinks its one of the reasons I have so much trouble with squats. So the inseam on petite pants are always too short (this is exacerbated by the fact that I like to wear my pants long, almost hitting the floor, and at least a 1-in heel) and often times the rise is too short as well. I usually end up buying regular pants, except at a couple of manufacturers. But anything even slightly fitted on top absolutely has to be a petite and sometimes even the petites tops aren't petite enough. I used to have a problem with the arms being too long, but now that I am wearing a much smaller size, I have the opposite problem. I guess clothing manufactures assume that everyone wearing my size has short arms.

Megan: The jam recipe I made over the weekend called for a very small amount of sugar but had me infuse the sugar with spices. You put the sugar in an airtight container with the spices and then let it sit for a week or longer, then make the jam as normal. The recipe is just 4 cups of diced fruit, 1/4 cup of infused sugar (more if the fruit is tart, like plums), and 1 tbsp lemon juice. I infused the sugar for the plum jam with lavender and the sugar for the apricot jam with cardamom. The possibilities are endless--vanilla beans, cloves, cinnamon sticks, rosemary. We got another big batch of plums today, so maybe I will try another batch of plum jam this weekend.

Shane: That's great that you are getting a bike. Also, that's a great attitude about the sentimental value.

lilybelle: 76 degrees! Ugh! My gym is set at 68 and when it's full of people even that feels too warm (although they've also been having problems with the heating/cooling system not operating correctly). What Lacy is going through now is so tough; at that age we are all so self-conscious and having people ask her if she is pregnant is certainly not helping. What are people thinking? Seriously, I thought everyone knew by now that you should never ask women that question. Do people think that rule doesn't apply to teenage girls?

Paperclippy: I don't know, rolling out the dough so thin, cooking it, removing the plastic, cooking it some more, breaking it into pieces, cooking it some more... it all sounds so complicated! I think I'll stick with my High Fiber Cereal from Trader Joe's.

Hi everyone. Lacy has agreed to go to gym with me this morning (by default). She wanted to stop and get a new cell phone afterwards and I wasn't going to drive (round trip 30 min's) back and get her when the phone store is close to the gym. Hopefully she'll see it's not that bad and want to come workout with me more often.

Good luck to you and Lacy!
I can't get my dd to go with me anymore and I've stopped trying....

My DD has been coming to the gym with me and I have been loving it. But once school starts she will be working out with her team twice and day and she shouldn't weight train in addition to that. I will miss her.

I hope you and Lucy had a good workout, Lily.

Our girls are active - they've both been in year-round athletics their whole lives - so it's been hard for our oldest daughter to come to the realization this year that if she doesn't exercise she will gain some weight. She told me the other day she needs to lose 10-15 pounds. Since she's the same height as our five-foot-nothing-fearless-leader, that's a big chunk to be carrying around. She eats pretty well, but too much. She's been walking with me a lot this summer, but it's what she does when she goes back to college that will decide if the weight comes off and stays off.

I do think it's harder for kids to be overweight - other kids are MEAN!

We had a good time at the gym. I did my cardio for 45 min's and then my UBWO. Lacy did Ab's, and mostly the treadmill and exercise bike. But, at least this time she didn't just sit in the lobby and wait for me to finish working out. She must not have found it too displeasing cause she has agreed to go with me again tomorrow.

I'm so proud. Tomorrow makes 14 days straight of me working out at the gym. It is starting to feel like a normal routine for me. I already dread Monday cause I will be gone to OK City to take Lacy to the cardio-thoracic surgeon appt. So, I won't be able to work out that day. She wants to go to the OKC zoo though. So, if we have enough time we may go there. Always plenty of walking to do at the zoo which is better than no exercise at all.

Isn't this ironic, my gym gives out a $25.00 gift certificate each month to any members that worked out 21 days in the month. Bad news is the gift certificate is for a delicious Italian Restaurant that I'm better off not to even grace the door of that place. Especially since I'm doing well limiting my carbs and my weight is finally on a downhill trend again.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! It's worse than the trainer at my gym that hands out candy during her classes. What are they thinking? Maybe they figure it will force you to keep your gym membership because you'll have to work off what you eat at the restaurant. :lol: When I first started reading your post, I was thinking I wished my gym did that because I get it every month, easy. But then I got to the part about the gift certificate being to an Italian restaurant--well, that's no use to me! They should give away a free personal training session or a gift certificate to a sporting goods store (where you could buy cute workout clothes).

Barbara - I cooked both my giant bran flakes at once, just on different racks in the oven. It worked fine, I don't know why they say to do them one at a time!

Lily - that is ridiculous about the gym gift certificates! I used to belong to a gym that tried to sell all its members protein bars all the time.

I'm going to call my doctor today to get some more thyroid tests run and maybe get my dosage adjusted. I felt much better yesterday than I did the earlier part of the week though and I seem to be okay today too, so at least that's something. I wonder if I'm not getting enough iodine in my diet, because I never add salt to anything since DH has high blood pressure.

Speaking of DH :love: :love: :love: he is such a sweetie, he cooked me a delicious dinner out of random leftovers last night. A healthy, balanced meal that tasted great and looked great on the plate too! Beets boiled with balsamic vinegar and honey on a bed of baby arugula, steamed broccoli shoots, maple roasted potatoes, onions, and carrots, and a tiny portion of roast turkey we had left over. My plate looked just like the cancer society's "New American Plate" is supposed to, plus it was super-colorful. Those beets were delicious!

I should make him cook me dinner more often. He is great though, he cooked for me pretty much every day this week because I was feeling crappy after work, and yesterday while I was doing my UBWO.

Hi all,

I did fine at my seminar reception last night - had a cup of fruit and 9 wheat thins with cream cheese and red pepper jelly (I used my sis's red pepper jelly, which I'd never had, and now I'm on a quest to get her recipe - definitely be my next canning project!). Now the leftovers are at my office, and I'm trying to convince myself I don't need any more wheat thins w/ jelly (or to start eating the brownies I successfully ignored last night!). Picture me squinching my eyes shut thinking :dust:

I don't have much planned for the weekend, just the usual. If I can get my sis's recipe I'm going to make the jelly!

Count me in amongst the group that has something funny going on with their pants length. I'm 5'5", and have a medium bone structure and a curves to my hips and behind. I've never fit into junior's sizes, as they're not cut for curves. Regular pants are usually too long, but "short" are usually too short, and of course if I get "petite" they're sometimes too short, and even if the length is right I have to go up a size b/c they don't accommodate my hips. I'm very glad my mom taught me to sew, since I alter at least 1/2 the pants I buy.

Aww, it's so nice you moms want to go to the gym with your daughters. My Mom and I work out very differently, but we always take the dog on long walks together when we're together. I had a good gym buddy during college, but we live 1200 miles apart now (but we're still good friends!), and it was nice to have company/motivation.

Jessica, aww, your DH is a sweetie. I'm glad to hear it sounds like his mood has lifted.

Lily, umm, maybe you could request a gift certificate to something else? A % off membership? Anything else? Barbara's got a good idea - maybe they're just forcing you to keep returning to the gym if you eat that Italian food! I would re-gift it, lol. I'm so bad about foisting unhealthy food off on my coworkers, but they are like vultures around food, so I don't feel bad.

Barbara, do you have a red pepper jelly recipe? The infused sugar sounds absolutely delicious. I've seen Jamie Oliver make vanilla sugar on his show. I will definitely have to try it. What part of the lavendar do you use to infuse? Dried something? I can at least get cinnamon sticks and cloves in this small town!

What does everyone have planned for the weekend?

I forgot about the pants length discussions. I'm in that weird zone too. Regular pants 99% of the time are too long for me, and "short" pants 99% of the time are too short for me, as are petites. I don't wear heels so I never have that extra height. Sometimes even if the short length is right for me, the cut is really weird and hemming the regular length looks better.

I have, however, found jeans in the perfect length: Levi's 515 size 6 short. Perfect length for me to wear with sneakers and sandals, which is about all I ever put on my feet! Levi's came out with a curvy bootcut jeans too but I can never find them in a 6S in the store so I can't really try them on. I'm thinking about ordering online though, because I have very curvy hips, a small waist, and a big butt that always causes gaps in my waistband!

Lily-- That is hilarious that your gym gives out those certificates! What type of clientele does your gym serve mostly? My gym has a large percentage of younger, fit people who I guess would still be going out to restaurants, bars, etc. (I don't know-- I'm an old fuddy duddy!!).

Add me to the list of folks for whom pants length is an issue. I am a tad under 5'5", and I always have to get pants hemmed. I tend to buy a ton of capris which are the only pants I don't have to alter!

I'm off today to buy everything dd "needs" to go off to college. We are also going to go to Torrid to buy her some clothes. We went there a few months ago and dd really liked their clothes. They are plus size but trendy for younger girls. On the one hand, dd didn't like shopping at a plus size shop for the first time, but I think she liked that she was the smallest size there! When I was larger, I always felt like my "limit" would be not to shop in a plus size store, but then regular stores kept getting bigger and bigger sizes. I guess we all have our limitations....

One tip for folks who have trouble getting pants the right length is to buy them from Lands End. They will hem a number of the pants they sell for free and they sell both regular and petite sizes. You just specify how long you want the inseam to be when you buy the pants.

Megan: I've never made red pepper jelly. There's no pectin in red peppers, so if I were making it, I would just make apple jelly (apples have lots of pectin) and add red peppers in with the apples when I was boiling them to extract the juice (before draining the fruit through a jelly bag). Actually, in my case, I'd probably use guavas instead of apples because we get so many. In fact, that's a great idea. I think I will add guava red pepper jelly to the jellies we make this year. But this would be pretty different than the recipes I found for red pepper jelly, so it might not be what you are looking for. I might try subbing cider vinegar for some of the water I use to boil the apples/guavas--that would be at least a little closer to the recipes I found.

But I do have a recipe for red pepper jelly from the book Blue Jelly. The ingredients are 2 1/2 red bell peppers (seeded and ribs removed), 3 or 4 hot peppers (seeded and ribs removed), 2 cups cider vinegar, 2 tsp salt, 2 tsp chili powder, 10 cups sugar, 2/3 cup lemon juice, 1 6-oz bottle liquid pectin. You put all the peppers in a blender to chop them finely. Put them in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the vinegar, salt, chili powder, sugar, and lemon juice. Bring back to a boil. Stir in the pectin and boil for one minute more. Skim off foam and ladle into jars. BTW, the book Blue Jelly is hilarious. It's autobiographical, by a woman who used canning/jelly making to get over a bad break-up. Every chapter has a different recipe and is also about what is going on in her life while she is making the jelly. It is laugh out loud funny. I highly recommend it. It also has tons of really good information on canning and making jelly. I used it to teach myself to make jelly.

I have a second recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. This one calls for 2 to 4 jalapeno peppers (seeded and ribs removed), 1 1/2 cups cranberry juice cocktail, 1 cup vinegar, 5 cups sugar, 3 oz liquid pectin, 5 tiny hot peppers. You combine the jalapenos, cranberry juice, and vinegar in saucepan, bring to boiling, reduce heat and simmer for 10 min. Run mixture through a sieve, pressing to extract all the juice. Combine strained liquid with sugar, bring to rolling boil, stir in pectin and tiny peppers, boil for 1 min. Skim off foam and ladle into jars (making sure each jar contains a tiny pepper).

Thanks Barbara! I think I'm going to try several different recipes and see which one I like best. My sis's is in storage, as she's moving and is in temp housing right now, but I found one she said "sounds similar" to hers. I think I'll try a few. And I just read the review for "Blue Jelly" and ordered a used copy already. It sounds like a good book!

Gosh, Barbara, you reminded me that I ordered a copy of Blue Jelly for the library, and I haven't read it yet. I'm going to go check it out now.

I just ordered a pair of Land's End pants last week, hemmed to what I hope is the perfect length. I measured the inseam on my best fitting lengthwise pants. Megan, I can sew too, and hemming is not the issue. It's the rise in regular pants that's too long for me. Looks silly with the crotch halfway to your knees! :lol: And I'm here to tell you that it's difficult to find shorts in petite (at least here), and pajamas....

Today is the library's end-of-summer-reading party and we are having hot dogs, chips and cake for about 300 kids (we had over 900 registered for the program). I, on the other hand, have plans for a healthy late lunch with a friend. Besides, eating with 300 active kids doesn't interest me (I am NOT a children's librarian :) )

No weekend plans, though red pepper jelly sounds good to me too. If the peppers are still on sale here I'll get some and try it. I'll have to leave out most of the hot peppers as DH doesn't "do" spicy, and he's the biggest jelly eater here.

Lily - 14 days is great, but I would worry about a day off. You need a rest day every so often, and active rest - as you'll get from walking at the zoo - is great. Nice that Lacey wants to go again with you.

I end up ordering a lot of my clothes online because it's so hard to fine petites in stores. Dresses and fitted tops rarely fit me if they aren't petite. I can sew also and I will sometimes hem my own casual pants, but dress pants, especially those that are lined or have a cuff, I prefer to let a professional do. And even with casual pants, sometimes I'd rather pay someone else to hem them than take the time to do it myself.

Let me know how the jelly works out!