Oops - lost my post...

I'm working from home today, to keep from taking my fever and chills that have ridden in on the tailend of my cold into the office and exposing my coworkers. So far I've made three phone calls that have gotten no answer, sent some email, ran a spreadsheet, spilled my coffee and burned my bagel. Blah.

Hey Pat! I've been watching your travels on FB. Seems like you are having a fun retirement!

Dagmar - sounds like you have a plan, cool!

Jen - I kind of like the dentist, too. My dentist has massage chairs and they dip your hands in paraffin and wrap them in warm mitts during the teeth cleaning part, and clean teeth do feel yummy. I do hate the fact that I always have a cavity these days, though. (I'm PM'ing you when I'm done with this post - we need to meet up for coffee or something when I'm not contagious! :) )

Saef - how goes the movie?

Michele - I didn't know that you could get an assist dog for Tourette's. Interesting. I know that there are agencies down here that help with them, we let them come in and train in our restaurants sometimes. There may be state agencies that help with it?

Good day everyone!

Hey folks, I missed checking in yesterday since I was busy at work (and am still busy, so this will be short).

Saef - I am loving this idea of you in a romantic comedy. What really has to happen next is that you meet two guys, one of whom is dashing and rich, and one is scruffy and poor but has a heart of gold. The rich guy courts you, but eventually you find out that he is really a jerkface and you end up with the scruffy guy. Then through some bizarre sequence of events you and the scruffy guy end up with all the rich guy's money and he has to deal with being poor.

Dagmar, sounds like you have a good plan in place!

Shannon, I hope you feel better soon.

Pat, welcome back!

Jen - I am sort of a football fan. I never used to be, didn't even know the rules of the game, but in Indianapolis you had better be a football fan or you won't know what everyone is talking about all the time. I swear 90% of our local news shows is about sports. Although this year with Manning injured the Colts are probably going to suck big time so we may not bother watching...

Hi to everyone else!

Thanks for the welcome. I'll try to be a little better about checking in. We've had a busy summer - some good, some not so good. My BIL died in May, and we spent two weeks in Maine with family in June (for his services), having also been there 2 weeks in April. Right after July 4 our great-nephew and his wife (age early 30's) arrived for a visit. He is in the navy, and they had spent the last 2 years in China, and were relocating to Rhode Island. Fun to have them and show them around. Then DH had lifelong friend visit for 2 weeks the end of August through last weekend. And now I'm leaving on Friday night to spend 2 weeks in Portland OR. Whew.

I rejoined WW in June, and have lost about 10 lbs (been down as much as 12) and I just keep working at it. I saw a new doc last week, a naturopath, because I've been feeling quite depressed most of the spring and summer. She did some blood work and suggested several things, so I'll see her again when I get back from my trip and we'll evaluate if they've helped. I'd rather try non-medication options first.

Right now we're getting ready for fall/winter. The leaves are turning - and falling on our lawn! - and it's getting colder. We had 34F one morning this week, and there is snow on the higher peaks. DH is working on cleaning up the garden and greenhouse. I've begun cleaning the flower beds, since everything has died. We've already taken in the hoses. Sigh.

Feel better Shannon!

Clear and cool this morning - fall is here! The dogs will be extra energetic :hyper: today. I'm hoping one of my older guys is still away next week so I can bring bitty Bella out with the youngsters.

Speaking of the youngsters Hap did something totally cool :cool: yesterday. She was a bonehead at the beach when it was time to come home. Ignored me and stayed just out of reach when I wanted to leash her. A dog owner grabbed her and I clipped the leash on her.

She has been all over poor Javi in the back seat lately. So I decided, based on her evasion at the beach and on her behaviour with Javi, that Hap would ride up front with me in the "baby" seat, tethered.

She was pretty surprised :yikes:. Sat there for a second, wide-eyed. Then she put her paw on my shoulder, looked me right in the face, heaved out a great big sigh, and laid her head on my shoulder.

She didn't say it in words but her end of the conversation, based on her body language, would have gone like this;

"Whaaat? :shrug: The baby seat? Really . . .awwww I'm a bad :devil: girl".

I burst out laughing and undid the tether. She sat there quite contentedly all the way home. I suspect she wants to ride up front with "the boss" (that would be me) as that is where the second-in-command usually is. Problem is that I have to keep an eye on the puppies so Hap will join the rank and file in the back next week while bitty Bella sists up front with me.

I think Hap and Bella will be :devil: brats :devil: together like none I've seen for awhile. Good training exercise for me.

That ends the doggie news bulletin for this morning :lol:

Dagmar :badbat:

Oh and DH has started a calorie log and is using my calorie counting book and scale. He did really well yesterday until he turned the TV on. One thing at a time. At least he's becoming aware of what he's putting into his mouth and that's a positive step forward.

I have been making excuses in my head for why I can't go to jewellery club tonite - did I mention that I'm extremely shy (as you all can see from my infrequent and scanty posts here :p) face to face? But I AM going.

Good hump day all!

Dagmar :yikes:

Dagmar - make yourself go. You'll enjoy looking at all the sparkly jewelry.

I love going to the dentist - but then again, I've never had a cavity.

Trying to eat some foods with some calories in them so that I don't lose too much weight. Had an avocado, a club roll dipped in olive oil and made some fried plantains. Dinner will probably on the low cal side.

Plan to go to the dance tonight. I've put my dress on for it all ready as motivation. Now I'm head out to Philly to drop my 7 pieces of artwork at my art partner's house for the show I'm in for six months up in Princeton. Spend last week and this week finishing the last two pieces for it. She's going to drive the work up for the hanging while I'm out in Colorado visiting my sister. But I'll be back in time for the opening reception.

Carolyn - I forgot to tell you last week, but I googled your art from a post you made. I love it!

I went to the Vintage Costume Jewellery Club meeting last night. The presentation was interesting. The woman who gave the lecture and showed us her collection gave us some history and brought along some reference texts as well.

The club is also having a show in November. I took copies of their flyer and will give them out to my clients. I will also volunteer to move tables etc. to help set up at the show (since I have nothing to sell).

I have a background (pre-computer so largely useless now) in graphic arts and would love to offer them something more visually appealing than their current flyer to promote the show.

But I don't know any of these people and don't want to overstep any boundaries. Next year!

DH received "official" confirmation yesterday that yes, he passed the CMA. Now he HAS to seriously job hunt. He brought home a pizza and two beers for himself (thinking I would be in bed when he arrived). I just sighed and went to bed. I can't do anything but set an example.

I didin't get to bed 'til well past 11 and woke up at 4:30 so it's gonna be a loong day. Dinner walk with the two blondes as well. Think I'm going to go to bed after my own dinner tonite :tired:

Dagmar :cool:

Here is my new avatar, scooped out of a picture taken at a friend's wedding this past spring.

It replaces this avatar, which I posted yesterday while feeling really bad. By "bad" I mean something that feels remarkably like grief.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f4...terIrene-1.jpg

I wasn't happy yesterday morning. One of my neighbors at the apartment complex called while I was out on my run. She lives upstairs and so was not affected by the flood. She is an 84-year-old woman who, in the chaos when the Hurricane Irene announcements were coming thick & fast, offered her guest bedroom as a place for me to move some things before I evacuated my apartment. So I carried up some small items of furniture, a fur coat, my jewelry. In retrospect, wish I'd saved more. But no one knew at the time that the water would come up five feet. Many of us thought maybe more like six inches.

Anyway, this neighbor called yesterday to tell me that she'd looked down into the courtyard of the building and saw that my apartment was being cleaned out. She recognized many of my things being thrown into the dumpster by the crew. She was feeling very emotional, she said.

"Are you sure you don't want more saved?" she asked.

I'd been pretty sure that when I left, we'd taken out all that we could, but that left me wondering, was there more I could have done?

Nothing tortures me quite like the idea of there being more that I could have done, only I didn't do it. This is true with weight loss, working out at the gym, my work on my job, and again here regarding this whole salvage and rebuilding operation.

That call left me thoughtful all day. What really bothers me about having moved five hours away is that I don't know what's going on there. I can't see anything. I don't know if they're proceeding with work or if the apartment is just sitting there, growing moldy, with its windows open, and the bedroom window screens popped out (which we had to do to enable the furniture restorer get the sleigh bed out, as it's a massive piece of furniture), with the stuff entombed in the fridge decaying & liquefying into something terrifying & deadly. I'd had no news, so it was something of a relief to hear something was happening. But then it bothered me all day, even when I didn't seem to be thinking about it directly.

Half my mind is on this place far away from here.

Thinking about you, saef. I well understand the feeling of being far from home and out of control. Even though things would still be largely out of your control even if you were there, it's different and troubling to know that things are happening without your direct observation.

On a different note, may I say your new avatar looks lovely? I remember your old one quite well, and while it was also great, I always wished you were smiling more in it. :)

Last night was the first class meeting for a new course I've been helping design. It's been causing all sorts of personal stress and some degree of conflict with one of my colleagues with whom I've been collaborating, but last night went well. It's a weight off my mind. There's still quite a bit or work to be done for the class - it's a semester long and we're working week to week at this point - but at least we're off on the right foot.

I've been reading "Breaking Free from Emotional Eating" by Geneen Roth, and really enjoying it. Well, "enjoy" might the wrong word, but really feeling a kinship with a lot of what she talks about. Anyone else read any of her stuff and had it resonate with you? In a strange way, I think I'm getting more out of the book reading it while in maintenance than if I'd read it before my weight loss journey.

Have a good Thursday, everyone!

Great new avatar Saef!
I think it's a good sign that work is happening on your place though I understand your feelings of helplessness.
When we lived in Africa, my father's health started failing and it was quite a helpless feeling....knowing we were so far away and couldn't be there to see if/when he needed us to come home.

Shannon-- is your nasty cold better yet?

Hope Allison is having fun without us in Costa Rica!

Hi to everyone else!

bad week
 

I don't know why but this week has been a total write-off for me. I feel like I've failed totally at diet/exercise/maintenance.

I'm going to call the psychology centre today and book the consult. I think I'm starting to sink into a major depressive episode and I can't afford (literally) to do that.

That might be part of the problem - never having any time to do anything, except in a caffeine-fuelled frenzy.

I will go kayaking this weekend, instead of sitting in the house eating and drinking. That will add to the already impressive pile of "tasks not done" but so be it.

Have a good Friday and weekend everyone!

Dagmar :tired: and :hyper:

Okay, I'm trying to do a small good deed.

When I was 20 years old, just out of college, attracted to antique shops & old stuff but without much money, I used to collect antique photographs. What I coveted were little paper photographs called cartes-de-visites, made around the time of the Civil War. The clothing styles fascinated me, but also the faces. Those were not modern faces. Those people were not living like us, or even thinking many of the same thoughts. I used to get these little photographs for $1 or less, sometimes just for a quarter or a dime, if I bought a lot of them. I put them into plastic sheets that baseball card collectors use to hold their cards, since they were about the same size, and clipped them in a three-ring binder. I had a Native American woman in a wildly printed dress, old bearded eccentrics that looked like Gold Rush prospectors with their hound dogs, little girls in hoopskirts clutching their china-head dolls, identical twins in identical plaid dresses, dying people sitting for their last photographs, mothers holding dead babies, people with wooden legs, people with crossed eyes, widows in lacy black veils that fell to their knees, Civil War soldiers in uniform holding their sabers (and these had some actual value).

All drowned, in the flood. All gone.

Except for one leather-bound album of the period, which contained photographs that were numbered and labeled with their names. This album was remarkably intact and so carefully documented, I kept its pictures together (except for the Civil War soldiers in uniform, alas!!!) and separate on a bookshelf. One day, on the Internet, I did some searches on genealogy pages, got hits, and started sketching out notes & a family tree. Turns out this was the Pierce and Moe family of Groton NY, just before, during & after the Civil War.

Anyway, I got in touch with descendents, scanned the photographs & shared pictures of their ancestors with them. They were so excited. But I liked the album very much & while I was willing to share images & information, I didn't want to give it up.

Anyway, fast forward to the flood. This little album was on the topmost shelf of my collapsed bookshelves. It got doused, but not soaked. I abandoned all my books, but I grabbed this album during salvage. Because I have always felt that it isn't really mine; I'm just holding it in trust. Because deep down, I'd always realized that eventually, one day, I was going to give it to the people whose ancestors it contained.

Anyway, I've dried out the album as best I could, and I went back into my email archives on Yahoo to 2004 & contacted the family members last night. Some email addresses were nonworking but one family member answered.

So I am going to pack up that album & send it off.

Please, please let this action draw down some good karma to me, as I could use some of it desperately right about now. I have already cried once today, while driving back from the gym in my car.

Lord, this new way of living has to get easier eventually. Maybe when all my stuff is cleaned & packed away in boxes & put away. Maybe when I know I've got a livable routine going. I don't know when. But look, I am trying to make some reparations of some kind.

Dagmar-- some weeks are just like that and I'm sure you've had good moments.

I have a mini dilemma.... I am super excited for dh and I to do our intro to scuba class tomorrow. However, yesterday evening I started not feeling too great. Not sure if it was a cold or allergies yesterday. Still not sure today but leaning towards horrible allergies-- very windy here yesterday. I'm super congested, and tons of drainage-- eyes, nose, throat, slight cough. I took a different allergy pill from my normal array to try to see if it might kick in and clear me up. I really don't want to cancel. I bought this with a groupon and I don't want it to expire and dh will be traveling after this week almost non stop. But, of course, I don't want to try it if I'm having trouble breathing! I think I'm just going to pray I feel better enough! Sound like a plan??

Saef-- that is a wonderful deed! That family will appreciate what you are doing for them immensely. Did you tell them about your flood? Maybe it was "meant to be" for their photos to survive so they could have them.

Things will get better. I'm so proud of you for sticking to the gym and as much routine as possible.