Curiosity has landed after its "Seven minutes of h*ll" descent to the surface of Mars. What a thrill to wake to the news. Congratulations to any of you who work at Jet Propulsion Laboratory or NASA who made that happen.

We're back to appropriate August heat, so any walk, however brief, works up a sweat. I kinda like it because sweating always makes me feel like I've done something - even though I know that in this weather I can sweat just by standing in the sun, LOL. Off to my gym this morning which is over-chilled in the mornings so that I have to work just to stay warm.

Bill Maybe you can jog alternately into the gym/outside, thus confusing your body and revving up your metabolism?

It's been a quiet long weekend so far for me. Terribly hot and humid the previous 2 days so mostly reading while inside in A/C. A quite startling juxtaposition of Vogue and Baazar with "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson. We Canadians tend to be rather smug and feel superior to those American southerners who kept slaves and then reenslaved them after emancipation with the "Jim Crow" laws. But a visit to most indigenous communities in our north would dispel that smugness immediately.

I am much calmer today re the situation with my father. I am going to turn over the responsibility of caring for him to those who should be responsible - his doctors and health care workers.

And I'm going to look at maintenance a bit differently from now on too. I'm quoting someone else but this is something that's been at the back of my mind for a while.


"Genetics helps determine your natural weight range, but you have some control over where you fall within that range," says Edward Abramson, PhD, an expert on obesity, dieting, and weight disorders and the author of Body Intelligence. Rather than aiming for a size 2, aim for health: If being overweight is a family trait, diabetes, heart disease, and other obesity-related illnesses could be, too, Schwartz says. Walk to the grocery store, choose the stairs over the escalator, and take good care of the body you were born with. "It's important to distinguish between body size and body health," she says. "Research shows that people who are overweight and physically fit can live longer than people who are ideal weight and not physically fit."

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/health/Think-Yo...#ixzz22fOxL0Zx

Those last 5 lbs. are not going to be such an intense focus or point of discussion for me any more. Although I will continue to come here and blab my little head off. You folks are my only support system and I value you!

Good week all!

Dagmar

I'm walking through my days back home in a kind of daze of mingled strangeness and familiarity. Thinking, "Oh, yeah, I used to do that. And I did that, too. And I often went there." I'm happy in a rather furtive way, as if I'm afraid I'll be caught at it and it might be taken away from me all over again. And indeed I worry it will: The hurricane season & the first anniversary of the flood is just a few weeks away.

This morning, I made contact with the plumber who certified that our gas line had a problem that needed to be corrected, which caused Con Ed to shut it off. He's the guy who has to update Con Ed and let them know that the problem is all taken care of, which will then enable them to send someone out to unlock the valve. I really hope it happens this week. I miss sauteeing, roasting, baking, even boiling water.

Bill, the mars rover is very exciting news!

Dagmar, glad to hear you are feeling better about the situation with your dad.

Saef, things will be back to normal before you know it. There will be a point several years in the future when you'll realize you don't even think about the flood anymore.

Things are fine here. We went to a wedding (DH's childhood friend) Saturday night and had a blast. It was probably the most fun wedding we've ever been to, and the most fun night out we've had in a long time. Other than that my life has been consumed by fandom for my new favorite TV show, Teen Wolf. Yes, I am a fangirl at heart.

Dagmar, good to hear you're making some peace with the father situation. Letting go of things that are so far out of your control is the only workable way to deal with it. I like your attitude about the pesky 5, too!

Bill, I'm also looking forward to following Curiosity's adventures. Hopefully it will make some nifty discoveries. We seem to be between heat waves at the moment, and I'm glad for the respite our AC will have for a couple of days.

saef, maybe the anniversary will give you an opportunity to reflect on your immense strength and courage over the past year. You've been through the valley, for sure, and you're emerging out the other side without having resorted to food, drugs, or alcohol. I hope you can find some moments in there to celebrate YOU and your ability to navigate this incredible challenge!

This is shaping up to be an ordinary week for me, with only one event: DH and I will be "pulling the trigger" on the first of a few major renovations - this one being the replacement of two large window walls. (Thanks, Andersen). DS13 is home from two weeks of camp; it's good to have him around again.

It was an interesting weekend for us. First a trip down to San Diego in hopes of adopting a dog, and then the drama over what happened afterward (suffice it to say that the foster mom just isn't ready to give up the dog--so I wonder why she even bothered to bring him to the event). Sunday we went to see Total Recall. Very good guy kind of movie and extremely different from the original.

DD is coming home on Thursday and I hope to have my new car by then. I was expecting a call from my salesman on Saturday to at least announce that the car had arrived, but no. Nothing.

The oppressive desert continues with extra humidity all week long, so little will be done outdoors. 6 AM and it is 85 degrees and 45% humidity. We'r expecting 112 and lots of clouds, but no rain.

saef~I would put my trust in that plumber who detected the problem. Gas leaks are nothing to shake a stick at! I prefer cooking with gas, but gas does scare me!

I, amazingly, slept 8 hours last night, this happens so rarely that I must mention it. We had a fire alarm in our building yesterday, people are so weird, some of my neighbors came out of their apartment right away, as they should but were angry that they couldn't go back in until it was OK to do so. And what was the alarm about ? Somebody had a flash fire in her kitchen, burned some food, put the fire out but opened the door to let the odor out, that imnmediately set the fire alarm off and we had to evacuate the building. We have been told over and over , open the window but not the door. This happened around noon, it was interesting to see how many people were still in their night clothes.

Saef-- this is so true though I'm sure it is hard for you to imagine at the moment. Years ago I was suffering through infertility and I had just had my second miscarriage when the pipes in our house burst and all of our ceilings in the house fell--- the kitchen cabinets fell-- you name it-- obviously we had to move out of the house for major work-- it was 10 days before Christmas. At Christmas the relatives were trying to act like everything was normal and we were horribly depressed. Today it is such a distant memory that I rarely think of it.

Hi to everyone this morning!
I'm off to visit dd again in Spokane for the week.
Our constant travels were funnily ironic yesterday. Dd was flying from London back home (California) but there was a medical emergency and they had to land in Spokane (where other dd lives). I was delayed hours picking her up and today I'm heading back to the airport to fly to Spokane. In the meantime, dh flew to Arizona for business which is where we will be flying to in 9 days to take younger dd to college. We just thought it was all ironic.

My back still hurts this morning. I don't think it's related to the colonoscopy because it hurt before the procedure. It is definitely worse now but that could be due to the position they put me in for the procedure. I'm skipping the gym today, taking anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxers and wearing a heat patch. I'm hoping that does the trick as I really want to drag dd to the gym while I visit her.

My weight is still not where I want it which always concerns me when I travel because I know I won't have a scale to obsess with (dd does have a scale but I don't trust it) and we'll have meals out. Hopefully I can/will make good choices and get some activity in. I'm bringing some recipes (healthy) to cook for dd.

Poor dd came back from London not realizing that I was leaving and dh is gone. He comes back late tonight but leaves again on Wednesday so she'll have a couple of days alone. I figure she can relax and start prepping to pack for college!

Off to finish packing!!
I hope everyone has a fabulous week!

Hello Maintainers. (Tonight I'm not drunk, whee. Except on warm tea, I suppose.)

Bill - August heat here is, uhm, close to nil. The weather rather reminds me of September and of all those days of going back to school, year after year. Of course, come September, we'll have proper summer weather again, and we teachers will spend one month trying to keep our pupils as well as ourselves in check (because everyone will want to still be on the beach or whatever).

Dagmar - Interesting quote, and one that doesn't strike me as illogical at all, on the contrary. (TBH I'm not even sure what my 'ideal weight' should be, which is why I have removed my 'goal weight' from my 3FC profile. So I'm not the thinnest among the thin, then what? At least I'm at a normal weight, and moving regularly, and in better shape than 10 years ago.)

Hope you all have a good week. ^^

bargoo, oh, what a difference a good night's sleep makes!

kery, I have no idea where I'll be weight-wise when I settle out. I took my goal off too. All I know is that where I am now is something approaching a preferred maximum.

michele, you guys remind me of the commercial where this businesswoman calls in to her admin from an airport, asking "I think it's Tuesday. What city am I in, again?" I spent a lot of years traveling Before Child, and I actually met my spouse for a drink at the Houston airport once as we crossed paths.

My mom's having a garage sale this weekend, so I'm using the opportunity to purge DS's room, with his permission. This coming year (8th grade) needs to be a big improvement over last year from the standpoint of organization and focus. I've already taken two huge bags of broken or worthless stuff to the trash; we've found plenty that he can sell, or donate if it comes down to it.

Are you all following hte Olympics ? My favorites are Swimming , gymnastics, beach volley ball and I am completely fascinated by the Triple Jump . If I were physically capable of doing it I am sure I do not have enough brain power to figure out the hop, step, jump thing. I wish I could see it in slow motion. I look at those teen age gymnasts, they do not have an ounce of body fat. They must eat thousands of calories per day to perform they way they do plus many hours of practicing the same things over and over.

bargoo, I did watch the swimming and I've been following the news updates. I just can't sit in front of the TV any more. Once upon a time, I was one of those teenagers. In HS, I swam for a class A school, and we put in 4 1/2 hrs in the pool per day - 2 before, 2 1/2 after, plus a 3 hour workout on Saturday. I needed to eat about 12K/per day to hold my weight. Laughably, that is now my calorie target for a whole week!

bargoo~we record the Olympics and watch it the following night so we can breeze through commercials, unnecessary repeats and stories on athletes we don't really care to watch. As for beach volleyball, I had a friend on Facebook as "is it really a sport?" I was like WOW--have you EVER tried it? It is the most exhausting thing to run in that soft sand and if you fall, it's a bit of a struggle to get up quickly. Yes, it is a sport! And a hard one!

My car salesman should be calling me this morning. I sent him an email asking a question last night and he said he had had to run out early yesterday (I think his wife is having some medical issues).

RE: Beach Volleyball. Some of you may remember that I moved a few months ago, I moved from Saratoga, Ca.....Keri Walsh's hometown. I never met her but like to think of her as a hometown girl.
Becky, I don't watch a lot of television, I can get hundreds of channels but am for sure watching Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, don't watch many movies may watch History Channel or an occasional special but don't sit glued to it as I did when I was younger.
I was never an athlete, Becky but am sure I ate thousands of calories of my mother's homemade baked goods.

Hi all,

Ok, it's official. My "I can't invest the energy in losing right now, I'll just maintain" has slid out of control. I suspect I've gained a few pounds but am too afraid to get on the scale. Is summer over yet? It is always this way, so tough since I'm not able to lift at the gym 6 days a week and there are so many more social events. I deal better with the structure I can put into my routine the rest of the year. Anyway, I'm taking an August breather from the social events and alcohol. Only one more birthday to get through. I'm really trying to clean up my eating and continue to exercise, despite the heat and yadda yadda yadda... And I must get more sleep. I am exhausted!

I'm trying to attach a few pictures taken from the past few weeks. Some scary storm clouds rolling in (I've mentioned the frequent storms here), an alligator snapping turtle that crosses my path, and oh yes, the baby sea turtle I rescued yesterday. A few nest stragglers were trying to hatch during the day, so I gathered them up and released them last night (don't do this at home! I do have the proper permits and training for this). So, so cute. Some friends were in town so I asked their kids if they would like to help release the turtles at night. They loved it.

Beach volleyball is hard? Geez, walking on the beach is hard. When the sand is soft and fluffy it really works the calves! I do really enjoy watching the Olympics and it makes me sad I don't have a TV provider. I haven't seen much of this year's Olympics. The athletes really are amazing. I do like to see the different body types in different sports. The difference between a marathoner and a short distance track runner, for example. You can really see how different types of training utilizes different parts of the muscles.

Becky, Kery, I don't even know what my ticker says right now. I think I should re-examine my "goals" and how I may or may not work towards them too.

Allison, stay cool! Whew, that sounds hot. Sorry this dog didn't work out, but there are so many others who need homes too!

Michele, sounds like a lot of running around for everyone. You'll figure it out.

Bill, I agree, the Mars landing is quite an accomplishment. A friend wanted to go out to a bar and watch it land. At 1:30 AM, on a work night? Umm... I did have to pass. I'm sure it's on the web.