Good grief. I was waiting for the end of January to do some things and didn't notice it slip up here.

Boston folks are, of course, elated that the New England Patriots are headed to the Super Bowl. It does give me a problem that Super Bowl Sunday is one of the great temptations in life. I don't quite know how to eat a modest portion of guacamole - not to mention the other stuff that will become available in large quantities.

Good morning all!

bill No problem for me re Super Bowl Sunday - not a football fan. I will check out the volkswagen "dog" teaser ad and the subsequent one broadcast during the game, when it hits uTube.

Still under red line this a.m.. I am having some "tolerance" problems with DH but will not detail them here. Suffice to say that, when he was talking and talking and talking about climbing yesterday I suggested he lose some of his belly and join me in doing it.

I'm working in the rain today - all day. Bleagh. Better get to it and get it over with. Bought some new dog toys so that will be interesting.

Good Monday all!

Dagmar

Morning all,
It is sooo nice to say that I stayed OP all weekend. I had two glasses of wine Friday night, counted the calories, and moved on. It was my highest cal day of the week at 1850 but that is fine for one day of the week, the rest were much lower. Busy day today. I came into work early because I need to leave early to have my teeth cleaned at the dentist. During lunch I have to run over to our local access TV station to do a little publicity for the play. I don't think I can fit in lunchtime workouts anymore, they're just taking too much time away from my work day and work is of course the priority. I'm a little sad but will figure something else out. My gym is open on Saturdays again - enough people signed up at New Years to justify the cost to them - woohoo! Of course I was there Saturday morning. Lately I've been on the stairmaster non-stop. It makes me sweat sooo much I love it.

Bill, I don't care about football but usually end up at the superbowl parties for social reasons, and BF likes to watch. I always dread the parties bc of the food too! My play has a matinee performance on superbowl sunday this year. Even though it will be over before kickoff, I'm thinking that's the perfect excuse to beg off a party and let BF go alone.

Hope everyone has a good week!

I survived the weekend with house guests--they leave today. Eating was difficult, didn't do much of the Nutrisystem foods, but kept the meals in check, more or less, and I'm up only half a pound this morning. Not too shabby.

We hiked Saturday for 3 hours--went anywhere from 4 to 5 miles. Got home at about noon--just in time for a horrific wind storm. Trees were toppled, traffic was snarled, and you couldn't go outside without risk of being hit with flying debris. It was all over by dinner time, but left a wake of destruction (they had to cancel the day of golf at the Humana Challenge and the scoreboard ended up in a lake). Now the street sweepers will be out en masse to clean up the mess.

I'm starting to plan a hike for when DD comes back next month. I'd like to go east to a place called the Painted Canyon. It's a less strenuous hike but the scenery should be spectacular. Saturday's hike the only scenery was to look out over the Big Horn Golf Club and the roofs of all the houses.

LOL Bill, we Hoosiers are not so excited about having to "welcome" Tom Brady et al. You can bet that probably 98% of Indianapolis residents will be rooting for the Giants, except for those few who grew up or went to school in New England. Besides, if we can't have Peyton Manning, his brother's almost as good, right?

Speaking of the Super Bowl, this town is kind of going nuts. My plan is to completely avoid going downtown until after it's all over. We have symphony tickets next weekend and they actually moved the symphony from it's usual location because some Super Bowl activity was taking over. That's okay with me, it means we don't have to go downtown!

Dagmar, sounds like you had a good time at the climbing gym.

Megan, good job staying OP this weekend!

Allison, sounds like quite a storm! Do you take Chico hiking with you?

We have had some crazy weather. Friday they predicted freezing rain, which started up around 9pm. Then it snowed overnight. Saturday was cold but not bad, then it started warming up yesterday. Last night it got up to 50 degrees and we had thunderstorms in the middle of the night!

I took Carter for a loooooooong walk (5 miles) yesterday. I was pretty bundled up but was still cold by the end of it. We did a one-way walk and then had DH come and pick us up. Good thing too, because I didn't realize that on a walk that long Carter's left back leg would start walking funny too. Normally he walks funny on his right back leg, so we put a boot on that foot so he won't scrape it. Right at the end of our walk though he scraped up his left foot instead. Now I know, next time I feel the urge to walk him for an hour and a half I will put boots on both of his back feet.

I'm headed to Miami for a business trip Tuesday night (back Thursday night). Most of it will be fine but I am a little worried about having a big chunk of time where I'm expected to "network" . . . basically wander around and introduce myself to people. I'm really bad at that kind of thing. There will also be a big fancy business dinner involved. I need to look up if my hotel is in a safe enough area that I can go run in the morning...

Up here, the cold broke and the weather turned mild. I went out to get the paper at 4:45 AM wearing just a pullover fleece jacket and not shivering. There was that wonderful earthy smell, with wet pavement, that we get during a thaw. I felt some tension let up inside me.

I don't follow sports at all, but I did get a really good laugh out of a skit called "Tebowie" that I heard on the radio last week while driving downstate -- it was Tim Tebow's dialogue with Jesus Christ rendered as David Bowie's song "Space Oddity." One thing that Jesus Christ said to Tim Tebow in the song was: "Dude, you're on your own."

Upstate, what everyone around me cares about is college basketball. The Syracuse Orangemen went down in an upset this weekend after winning 20 straight games. I admit to feeling badly for them, but I soon moved on, as I've never followed my undergrad alma mater's team.

I need more coffee. I have so much work to do today, including a piece for an analyst in Ireland that was due the Friday before last, and not ready this past Friday. It wasn't ready this morning, either. I am determined to finish it today, despite all the other things on my to-do list.

I am feeling overwhelmed, like I don't want to be a heroine anymore, making a heroic effort to keep working as though my life is running normally. It's not normal. It's completely abnormal. My living quarters look like the scenes in "Citizen Kane" where there are crates and statues and furniture stacked all over, as if in a warehouse. And I've got to find someone downstate who can take in temporarily a 70-inch-long Empire sofa that's been restored and reupholstered, since the upholsterer wants it off the premises after I've paid down the balance.

Ok, my trip towards..err...closer to maintaining, may be a little longer than planned, after yesterday. I need to find out how many calories are in a whole bottle of Zin!

The wine went quick in the excitement of the game and since Angie and my sister were off "staring" in a movie shoot...I had no one to police me!

I posted some pics of that GRANDdaughter for those interested in seeing her growth.

http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/gene...ml#post4184189

And we're expecting more winds today.

I wish I could take Chico hiking. He'd love it, but most of the hikes take you up into the mountains and they claim the dogs scare off the bighorn sheep or interfere with their breeding, so most of the trails are closed to dogs. About the only wilderness area you can take your dogs to are the flats near I-10 but that's just boring.

My little cat, Louie, has gotten into the habit of taking pieces of potpourri out of the bowl and batting them around as if they were toys. Normally I'll take them away and put them back and he'll get the hint that it's not a toy. But this morning he's been rather adamant about playing with several big pieces. I finally gave up and put new catnip in the catnip toy. Now the two cats are fighting over which one gets to play with the approved toy. At least my potpourri is safe (there is one piece that falls apart when he plays with it and I'm tired of cleaning up after him).

Hi all.
We have a teacher workday so I'm trying to work, but the library is being used for meetings and CPR training.
Yes, the heat came back on Friday thank goodness!!

I was out of sorts all of last week. This resulted in my eating too much. I'm hoping to rein it in this week. My emotional eating has gotten the best of me and I'm up 5 pounds.

In other news, dh may apply for a new position with his company. We're not sure where it would be based, but likely in Atlanta. Shannon??? Do I want to move to Atlanta??

Michele might move to Atlanta! Woo hoo!
Seriously - I like it here more or less, but there are pros and cons. The weather is generally good, the people are pretty friendly, we have art and culture and theaters and great restaurants, the traffic is generally bad and we are run by a very conservative government. A conservative, Christian government. As you probably know from here and my FB I'm pretty liberal, so that is hard for me sometimes. It is better now that I've found some like minded friends. The school systems are cutting jobs right now, so I don't know how easy it would be for you to find something. There are parts of the city that are better than others and are more progressive. I think you could like it. (Not a rousing 'heck yea' I know. Sometimes I would like to move. LOL)

Hap got clipped by a car this weekend. Badly scraped leg. When was I told? After I brought her back from her walk. Of course I saw the scrapes and kept her on leash for the walk. They didn't even bother taking her to the vet. I did manage to convey to her owner's girlfriend (who was in tears when she recounted the car story) that Hap had to wear a head cone and stay on the leash for the week. We have developed a kind of "charades" with partial soundtrack system that works pretty well. Except when she keeps pointing to the dog and saying "pen, pen". That would be "pain". SIGH.

I suppose if I was required to reply to her in Chinese (her first language) she would be as puzzled by my utterances as I sometimes am by hers. I did understand her tears and her repeating "fear, fear" when she told me how Hap got away from her and she watched, in horror, as the car hit Hap. I managed to convincingly pantomime a rapidly beating heart and shaking hands and she was so grateful that I did understand how badly she felt.

Hap? She was totally p*ssed that I wouldn't let her off the leash today - wanted to run and jump and all that. Tough little monkey!

Dagmar

This morning I "hit the snooze" on my canine alarm clock... took her out, then came back to lay down for a few more minutes. Which tuned in to about 2 hours! Usually she whines or puts her paws up on the bed and nuzzles me to get up and play, but not this morning - she went back to sleep too.

So I'm a little bummed that after a weekend full of indulgences (wine, beer, nachos, pizza... you know, the good stuff!) I didn't even get up and get a good run in.

Bill, I haven't figured out who I'm rooting for in this year's super bowl - neither the Giants nor the Patriots have ever been favorite teams of mine (I'm a Steelers fan, but after they were knocked out I was rooting for the 49ers). Either way I will have to figure out a plan for MODERATION in my eating and drinking and stick to it during the game!

Allison, the hike sounds great! Bummer that you can't take Chico, though. I should really try to get some nice hikes in this year before it gets really hot. When I first moved here (Tucson) I went hiking in Saguaro National Park in AUGUST... I don't recommend doing this!

Jessica, at least you will get to enjoy some nice warm weather in Miami! Networking can really pull a person out of their comfort zone - I do much better with it if I've had a couple cups of coffee first!

Gary what a sweet looking little girl your granddaughter is!

Michele and Shannon, my bf lived in Atlanta for a few years and loved it. He really wants to go back to the area. I'm interested, but a bit skeptical. The one thing he didn't love about the city was the traffic, which I hear gets pretty miserable. He's interested in working for the CDC after he finishes his PhD this year and I applied to a school in Suwanee which isn't terribly far from Atlanta, so we'll see...

Dagmar, glad to hear the dog seems to be doing well despite her scrapes. It's kind of lousy that they didn't even tell you at first, though.

In early September we went for a hike somewhere in the vicinity of Scottsdale (our flight had been delayed a day, so we needed to find something to do). Unfortunately, we didn't start until 10 AM and it was HOT! We carried water and I sipped it sparingly, but the constant up and down was brutal. Toward the end (and it was only 2 or 3 miles!) I felt like I was going to throw up--and it mainly due to the heat. We got back, downed a second (colder) water, headed to a bar, where I downed a third water before I felt well enough to eat anything.

I will be rooting for the Giants for the second time. I rooted for them the last time they played brady in the super Bowl, since Tom already had a couple of rings. My future son in law and a very good "like a son" friend of mine are huge Giants fans. Jessica, Peyton Manning has been my favorite player since his junior year at Tennesse, because of some things he said about loyalty, even though I am a USC and Raider fan.

Thanks for the shout-outs for my granddaughter...I love her to pieces! everyone always says she smells like grandpa....from my after shave! So many kisses!!

Shannon, Atlanta sounds like a place for me....wink. But I can swear I am a pretty tolerant person, I have several close friends and family that are not in, what I would call a relationship pleasing to God, but they have no problem coming to my house because they know I love them dearly.

Dagmar great job stepping out to climb that mountain...you too Allison! Angie and I did some hiking a few years ago...always thought about getting really into it but between the long work days and out of town days, and her yoga...just never worked out.

Be good

Adorable baby photos! I can tell you are so proud!!