Thanks, Saef. DH is pretty upset, and I'm sad for XW, too. She loves that cat, I know. And I love the picture of Fritz.

shannon, hugs all around. It's never easy when a pet gets sick (puddling up just thinking about my bunny).

So sorry about the kitty Shannon.

I can't see the pic of Fritz-- perhaps it is blocked at my work. Like I'm not supposed to be looking at cute animal pics at work or something?! The indignity.

Poor kitty! So sorry for everyone.

Chico went to the vet today. They discontinued his IV chemo and will continue his oral chemo for another 6 months. All sounded good until they checked his blood and his white cells plummeted (so he wouldn't have been able to have IV chemo anyway). All other blood stuff is perfect. Let's hope it's just because the appointment was so close to when he last had his oral chemo (they say the oral is actually harder on their system).

So sorry to hear of pet problems, your DH and XW will certainly be sad but DSS is another story , how to explain all this will be difficult. I know how much we can love our 4 footed friends, they are like family and it causes us much pain, too when they are ill.
Allison, I hope Chico will come through this problem. he is such a brave boy.

Oh, Shannon, sorry about the cat. And Allison, I hope Chico is feeling better soon.

As for me, staying on my eating plan has been an epic struggle today. So far I am winning, but evening looms. I just keep telling myself that whatever I have going on (anxiety? anger?) will not be solved with food.

I love your loveseat, is this one you had restored ?

Oh, he's feeling just fine! One cannot see a low white count in a dog! Granted, if he "goes off his food" (which isn't likely with a Lab) I need to check his temperature and if it's up I am to call the vet "immediately." I guess this would be indicative of an infection.

One of the labs I used to walk (she died 4 years ago) got into the food cupboard one evening while her owners were out and ate approx. 15 lbs. of kibble. She literally could not move when they came home. Went out every hour that night and little by little the meal came out the other end.

White cells are part of the body's immune system. If their numbers are down it's a lot easier to get sick and harder to get well. Hope Chico will be fine Allison.

Shannon So sorry to hear about the cat - DSS will be very sad and confused I guess.

saef Fritz looks lovely! And you posted a pet PIC! I have not done this yet, although maybe my web site counts as many?

Lucy, my nuclear-powered room mate is quite contentedly gnawing on a gigantic marrow bone. This is the one activity which calms her a bit. Although she gets up and moves to another spot every couple of minutes. She is whip thin and all muscle - I wish I had half her metabolic burn capability!

I'm off at noon to face my father's "ambush" - my cousin gave me a heads up after my dad called his house and rambled on to his wife about how I'm turning the whole family against him in order to steal his worldly goods. DH is coming along for support and then to take me to lunch afterwards.

I'm working all weekend except the Monday so thought I'd get this bit of distasteful business out of the way early.

Dagmar

Another pleasant surprise on the scale this morning. Seriously, I totally gave up trying to lose this week and yet there it is.

Thanks for all the well wishes for Chico. I do know that the oral chemo is harder on the system than the IV chemo was. I think the closeness of his last oral dose to his lab test was part of the problem with his white count. He'll have over 2 weeks to get better after his next oral dose to get his white count up for his lab test. Next time he should have more recovery time so I hope the labs are better then.

I have been holding for the last two weeks, weight is way down. I now weigh less than I did in high school ! I am starting to very carefully add a few calories a day.

My weight came down over a pound from Wednesday. I don't know what I did differently, and I've still got time of month going. I've got no understanding of cause-and-effect.

Bargoo, that is not the sofa that I had restored and reupholstered. That's a little loveseat that I bought from an insanely paranoid & temperamental individual who lives two towns to the north. I saw it on eBay but bought it after he took it off eBay because it hadn't sold. (It's hard to sell things that are local pickup only -- really limits your pool of buyers.) He was selling everything in his storage bin to help pay off a hefty IRS fine. He used disposable cellphones, which made the whole process of meeting up, seeing the thing, negotiating the price and then meeting again to pay & haul it away very tricky. Also he vacillated a lot about accepting my offer. And wanted to be paid entirely in cash, so I had to get a wad of bills from an ATM just before meeting him. Then, about three weeks later, he called & left a screaming message on my phone, insulting me. It felt completely random. I still don't know why. The price was fair, though not as high as he'd wanted. The upholstery on the thing was ripped through with the stuffing poking out & I had it redone in the blue Waverly stripe that you now see on it. He gave me the creeps. I hope I never see him again, but since he's two towns away, and knows that I got flooded out here, who knows?

It's the phase of the moon, folks. I am down two pounds this morning after ten days of +/- 0.2 pounds. I have stayed OP even when I wasn't getting results and it has paid off. I had a fluke low last Saturday morning, but this is 1.6 pounds lower than that. Hopefully it sticks, LOL!

bagoo - Isn't it nice to weigh less than you did in high school? I'm about 15 pounds under my high school weight at the moment, and of all the things I love about losing weight, that is one of my favorite. When I went to my reunion last spring, everyone swore I looked younger than I did when we graduated. Little did they know...

Pageta, yes it is nice to be less than I did in high school, but I do not have the same figure that I had then.....of course then I had never had a full term pregnancy or years of gaining, losing and regaining all destined to show up in ones body no matter what the scale says.

saef, somehow many of the sellers, restorers, etc. that you deal with are a bit weird or don't keep their word as promised. I wouldn't worry about this seller , he offered it for sale. you gave him the money, he gave you the loveseat in return and it does look great, your apartment is well on it's way to being a beautiful place to live in again.

Bargoo, if you've ever seen the TV show "American Pickers," about a pair of guys who drive around in a van looking to buy antiques, the narrative voice-over that introduces it says, "And the people we [the pickers] meet ... well, they're a breed all their own." The antiques business is not a regular 9 to 5 job. That is part of its allure for many people. Some who gravitate toward it would not survive in a corporate environment or even deal well with having to show up daily on time and ready to work. Some are a lot more comfortable around inanimate objects than they are around people. They don't work in corporate-run stores so they don't receive traditional customer service training. Also, some of them have hoarder-ish tendencies. The high-end dealers are far more domesticated, but I don't deal with them very often, even if I love their merchandise, since I'm on a budget. I concentrate my search lower in the food chain. And I choose by what my eye tells me that I ought to have, which means the objects often come along with unsavory or difficult owners. I tell myself that I have to put up with them long enough to cut the deal and get the thing that I desire.

My mother's visit thus far has been more pleasant and less disruptive than I'd imagined. I've kept up my regular gym sessions. We've been out to eat once. I ate rather more richly than I usually do, but not insanely and not bingeing. This was the most relaxed dinner out that I've had, actually, in quite some time. It helps that I go out to eat at sit-down restaurants maybe once a month, or even less frequently than that.