We had over an inch of rain yesterday - there is no joy like that of a gardener watching a needed rain. DW was in heaven.

Fortunately that put her in a mellow mood when I asked why all the rooms in our house were going to be painted yellow. Wrong question; they are all different colors. Those of us who see 'yellow' instead of 'Arizona Desert Sand dune Cactus Shadow Supreme' should learn not to ask such questions, LOL.

Bill on the paint colours. I too call yellow "yellow", although I have a really good colour matching sense from my graphic arts days. I have a preconceived idea of Boston being foggy and gray a lot of the time (I've never been there) so I can see why your wife wants cheerful colour(s).

We had here too and are expecting more this week. I will be looking after 5 yards this week, all with container plants as well, and I'm totally grateful to Mother Nature for any help she gives me.

I'm just on my red line weight this morning. I was hoping to finally have slipped under it but DH and I messed up on the weekend and had . . . beer and chips. SIGH.

This week is going to be tricky. I am doing a live-in with an elderly dog - not difficult - but I have two cat sits as well. It's going to make for long days. I tend to "reward" myself after long days with too much food.

And DH is finally stepping up to the stove and cooking dinner for us on the two nights I will be visiting my house. I will have to eat a lot of whatever he prepares and I know it's going to be high, high, high in carbs. That will set me up to be ravenous for the rest of the night.

I'm hoping a late evening walk with the dog, followed by a shower and then straight to bed for some reading will help with the hunger. I can't "diss" any of DH's cooking because he uses that as an excuse to never cook. And I can't make substitutions - he is still going on about some meat I picked up to have with the carby dinner he made 9 (!) years ago.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to handle DH's cooking/not cooking?

Good week all!

Dagmar

Bill, we finally got rain here too and our garden is appreciating it! LOL about the yellow.

Dagmar, I dunno, if you want your DH to cook you are going to have to eat what he cooks. If you don't want to eat what he cooks, you will just have to cook for yourself. I understand his reasoning perfectly well here -- if you don't want to eat what I cooked you, why do you want me to cook? I think long-term your goal is really to change the way he cooks for himself. But in the meantime, if you don't want what he's cooking then don't ask him to cook for you.

I took my first dose of prednisone this morning. I wonder how many days it will be before I know if it's working or not. I am going to have to be careful about measuring out all my pills because the prednisone pills look nearly identical to my cytomel pills, and I'd be in trouble if I took five of those at once.

It rained here last week. Just enough to spot my car and no more.

Got back from my reunion last night. We had such a good time! Friday, we arrived, visited with my Dad, took him and met my brother for lunch and then went back to my Dad's for more visiting. The first night was fun, but not that great. It was good to reconnect with people and actually meet a few new friends. Saturday we headed up to Snowbird where DH and I hiked the hills a little and then relaxed in the afternoon. The party that night was tons of fun! Sunday we slept in and then drove to Park City for their annual arts festival. That was painful! Slow walking and a lot of standing (3-4 hours) did a number on my hips (as I knew it would). My brother noticed my pain and said "you, too?" Seems he gets the same thing, although only on the left. Mine is bilateral. Anyway, a nice salmon dinner with my brother, Dad, SIL, niece and their new Japanese exchange student last night, drove my Dad back home and headed to the airport.

I slept so much better in my own bed, although I had to get up to take Advil for my hip pain so I could sleep. My brother thinks we have the beginning of osteoarthritis. Great.

Anyway, back to work today. DD arrives tomorrow for a few weeks. We leave Sunday for our RV trip to Montana. Everyone have a great week!

We've had plenty of rain and humidity here. Last night, I was finishing dinner in front of an open window, with a fan turned on me, when I realized I was also getting fan-strength wind coming in from the window. It was accompanied by a blast of rain: One of those sudden, explosive summer thunderstorms. So I had to rush down the length of my apartment shutting windows against the blast.

We are having the usual tropical season, where I keep imagining we live in South America. I nearly stepped on a big American cockroach while running in the subway on Sunday. Why do I feel as though the water bug population has me under surveillance, no matter where I go?

I saw two movies over the weekend, both of which I'm still thinking about, but I'm hesitating about recommending them unreservedly. One was "The Future," by Miranda July. How do you feel about the hipster lifestyle and view of life? Also, it's narrated by a cat from a shelter while it awaits adoption. The other one, "Mysteries of Lisbon," is quite wonderful, but it's a four-and-a-half-hour period film, with a 20-minute intermission in the middle. It comes from European television. But the director Ruiz has done some very interesting things and filmed some expected scenes in different ways. Personally, I have a general weakness for period films, which you'd probably expect to find in someone like me, based on her home furnishings. So this movie didn't feel as long to me as the clock time indicates it is.

It has been hot and humid here, too. We have gotten rain, but nothing steady. Intermittent thunderstorms here and there, just enough to be annoying.

I got stung by some fireants on Saturday while cutting the grass - they followed the normal pattern of bump, pustule a day later then blister. The blister on the biggest one was larger than I expected, and burst on its own. I'm pretty sure that I'm having other symptoms now - rash, some overall bloating. I guess I need to be seriously careful around fireants now just in case.

Hello, everyone! I'm back from vacation. I really didn't intend to disappear last week, but it felt so good NOT to be on my computer (except for checking work email once per day) that I couldn't bring myself to get sucked in to 3FC. Did I miss anything exciting?

Vacation was good. I saw my family, of course, and a couple of very good friends. It always means so much to have deep, thoughtful conversations with wonderful friends. I overate - some of it planned, quite a bit of it not. I have somehow gotten it in my head that "vacation" = food free-for-all. I don't know why it's gotten to be this way in maintenance; I wasn't like this during my weight loss! So I'm back to weight loss mode right now, which is fine. Nothing too strict, but I know I'm going to need to avoid sugar for a while until my cravings are under control again.

I'm prepping for classes this week and classes start next Monday. I'm excited to see my students again - but not yet!

Jen - glad you enjoyed your vacation! Are you in Cobb? Everyone else starts before next Monday, don't they?

That seems so early, Jen. Too early. But what do I know? This is what I know: I've got colleagues with wives who teach, and some of them are taking vacation next week, to get a week in before their wives' duties resume.

Online today, I'm watching the stock market tank. And wondering if this will mean layoffs in a couple months. And whether our Events business will play its usual role of canary in the coal mine, as businesses cut their travel budgets.

And the NY Times just ran an article two weeks ago about luxury clothing & purses selling out -- unlike goods in your average mall stores -- because Wall Street was doing so well.

Welcome back Jen!

Saef, is it tanking again? I'm young enough that my current approach to investing is to invest all my money in total stock market indexes, international indexes, and targeted retirement funds (targeting 2045). Then I just close my eyes and hope that by the time I'm old enough to retire this will all be over with.

I am gearing up for my Wisconsin vacation. Anyone been to Door County before? Any recommendations for what to do/see, especially pet friendly activities and pet friendly dining options? We should be able to leave Mr. Carter in the vacation rental while we go out but it would be nice to take him places. I actually found one restaurant online that had a separate doggie menu, so if you're eating on the patio with your dog, you can order him a hot dog or a burger (bunless of course -- just straight up meat). Or some kibble.

Saef - a lot of the counties around me started already, we are starting school late for the area. The county right by me started on 8/1, some on 8/4 or 5, more today, some on 8/12, then my stepson starts on 8/15. I remember when we used to start after Labor Day... It is so hot outside to be on a school bus right now, and last week was worse.

My DS went to school today to pick up his registration packet. School doesn't start until the 29th, though.

Last week, when the Dow fell, what was it 5%?, I responded on Facebook to a post by our local news station and my comment was chosen to be highlighted on the 6 o'clock news! I got a lot comments on that one. Another comment I made earlier that day, simply "Stupid Dow" elicited comments from friends who simply said that that was the #1 reason they were still working rather than being retired. It is sad. Jobs are so scarce and yet the older generations cannot retire because they've lost so much in savings/investments. It just causes more of a problem. DH and I were hoping to retire at 55 but at this point it isn't looking possible. We'd want to sell our home first, and there is no way we're going to put it on the market until that goes up. If we were to sell today, we'd sell for at least $300,000 less than we feel it is worth (based on our recent appraisal).

Jessica - Yep, me too! Kind of sad that that's my approach to investing for my future, but it's so overwhelming. I was NOT a math person in school and have always felt that one of the mandatory classes in HS or college (rather than calculus or Algebra II, which I promise I have still not used) should be a personal finance class. It could cover the stock market, retirement accounts, budgeting, maybe even insurance and annuities and things like that. Where else are people supposed to learn how to do this? My parents could teach me some basic things, but they don't know about newer, more complicated options.

Shannon and saef - I actually teach at a university (Shannon, I'm at KSU, but I live on the Westside). The regular university students start Wednesday the 17th, but our ESL students start Monday. I don't mind starting so early, and since I teach year-round it doesn't matter much anyway.

Allison - $300,000 less????? Please tell me you accidentally added a zero? I can't get over how crazy expensive housing in SoCal is. I have a friend from Pasadena and I just about fainted when she told me how much her parents sold their house for. And she told me it went for less than it could have because it was in the "wrong" school district.

Sadly, not a typo. We worked hard and built the home of our dreams, more or less (I'd change so much now in retrospect). When we built it, we looked at comparable homes in our area that were selling at about the $1 million or more mark and based on the size of our home and location, we believed, at the time, that our house would sell for $950,000. That was then. This is now. Even IF we were to put it on the market and HOPE for $650,000, in reality, no one is able or willing to pay that much and we're certainly not going to walk away with less than we feel it is worth. The good news on this is that we are not in financial trouble with it. We're refinancing to save $400 a month in mortgage payments but we owe less than half of it's current value. It does feel good not to be one of those "upside down" in their mortgages.

Hey Jen, you are in my neck of the woods for work! I work in the Town Center area.

Allison - I'm not surprised that you would see that kind of drop in your house right now, I know that you have put some things into it and that the market is down where you are. Not a good time to be selling your place...

Jessica - I'm older, but am hoping that things even out before I retire as well...