Today's lesson is why one should keep one and only one appointment calendar. It's convenient to have one next to the kitchen phone to share with DW. And to have one on my desk which I think is the master. And one in my pocket to know which end is up when making choices while away from home.

Yesterday, I found myself annoyed that there wasn't space on my desk calendar to write an appointment for this morning. Then was horrified to realize that that was because I had an appointment at that time - I had double-booked all by myself; can't even blame it on DW. <sigh> . . . One was able to be juggled and I was spared. I see more of this happening in the future.

Spent the day suffering from snacks too large between meals. Gotta learn that dry roasted almonds do not resolve tension.

Bill Sometimes too many ways to process info are available to us. I have a desk calendar/blotter for everything, a schedule binder to lay out my work week, a daily planner type book to make sure my day to day work week is in the car, and there's a calendar in the kitchen to remind DH what we are doing and when.

I am starting to get a realistic idea of what kind of house I can afford. I don't like it but hey, much better than renting and I have an asset to sell at retirement time. So I will be living with piece by piece reno for the next 10+ years. I had hoped to escape that but no go. Time to stop beating my head against the "nice house" wall and accept the "almost wreck" as my fate.

I'm angry about this right now but I'm not eating in response. I'm actually down 1 lb. from all the other Monday weigh ins of the past 2 months.

I'll take it!

Dagmar

Crunch, crunch. Jaws grinding. Seems like they would help, but no, they don't. And yeah, in some moods, that texture appeals far more to me than that of raw almonds. Other times, I wonder what I saw in them. The difference seems to be entirely in my head, with my mood.

I just walked a check written out to NY State over to the post office after my morning workout. That's my own private celebration of Tax Day. Unfortunately, I owe because of my complicated shift in residency from upstate to downstate over the past year.

Yesterday's run along the Bronx River and around various ornamental ponds turned up some migrating Northern Shovelers with deep chestnut breasts and brilliant green heads, upending themselves among the usual mallards and Canada geese, as well as a small flock of Green-Winged Teal, which, when the sunlight hit that bar along the wing, made it burn like a fluorescent green laser for just a moment. What're you seeing yp your way, Bill?

We did our taxes a couple months ago, but I did take a moment today to verify that my e-payments to both the state and federal gov went through okay.

Bill, we have a similar problem. We have a paper calendar we keep on our kitchen table at home, then we have a google calendar that is synced with our email and cell phones. Then each of us has a calendar at work. Typically if I make an appointment, I put it straight into my google calendar, then send myself an email that says "put this one paper calendar" so I don't forget. I don't usually try to coordinate my work calendar because unless I'm actually at work I don't really care about what meetings are when other than my weekly meetings.

Okay, I'm going to make a resolution: no more donuts. People keep bringing donuts in to work, and it keeps being on days when for some reason I didn't bring enough food, and I keep eating them. Too many of them. Like, four in one day too many. Compound this with the fact that I've now passed my all-time high weight and today for some reason was up 2lbs from yesterday, and I am making a rule. No more donuts. Actually, no more junk food at work. Being pregnant does not mean I can stuff my face full of donuts and cupcakes.

New York, rehearsals of my opera, all went great! One of the best weeks of my life. Somehow I managed to lose a half pound that week BTW. Karen and I go back for final rehearsals and performances April 29-May 6, so for the next couple weeks I can start actually losing that winter weight! Nine degrees and several inches of snow tonight tho. Will this winter EVER end?!?!?!?

Jessica, before I turned my life around and got really serious about losing weight each morning I would get in my car and drive to Safeway and buy 4 doughnuts , 4 different varieties, jelly filled were my favorite. On the days I didn't do my doughnut run I would make pancakes. I guess you could say I am a sugarholic . I rarely eat doughnuts, now but still like them, a lot.

Bill-- I also keep a paper calendar. My dh keeps telling me to use my phone/computer but I don't always check it. I like to walk by my calendar in the kitchen and double check it.

I've weighed myself the past two evenings (after saying I would only weigh once a day). Confession time. I'm back to once a day. Just not liking that scale right now.

Dd leaves tonight to go back to school. Then I've got no distractions and no excuses! Dd wanted to go out yesterday and get something BAD-- we compromised on PF Changs so she could get what she wanted and I could get something somewhat healthy. Then she wanted Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory! So we went there. Man, did those cheesecakes look amazing. She took a piece home and ate it while I pretended my red grapes for dessert were just as good.

Dagmar-- I hear you on the house. When we first moved to California, the realtor showed us houses. I hated them all. I couldn't believe that the prices were 4X higher than what we paid in Houston for a third of the house. After a few days, I grudgingly told her to show me the houses again that I had originally vetoed. We now live in one of those houses. I still don't love it by any means but we have done a lot of renovations and it is home.

Jessica~you're right, you are not privileged to stuff your face just because you're pregnant. I remember when I was pregnant with DS, suddenly the doctor was a little alarmed at my weight gain and gave me a list of foods to avoid (mainly salty stuff--I guess he thought I was retaining water). When I had him, he indicated on my chart that I was obese. That made me SO MAD, but it also instilled in me the need to lose the weight--which I did, but I didn't really start for at least 6 months.

We filed an extension for our taxes only because the administrator for our 401(k) was slow in getting us the information for our Safe Harbor match. We need that for our corporate return and we can't file our personal until the corporate return is done. I got the needed information last Tuesday but my CPA says he'll wait a week or so to file. We had to pay this year. Last year we got a nice refund--all of which we used to pay for Chico's treatment.

My DD filed electronically and gave all her banking information for them to deposit her refund directly to her bank account. So we were surprised when a check arrived on Saturday.

DS went on Saturday with DD to visit UCI and Cal Poly Pomona. They went on a campus tour and housing tour at UCI and simply drove around the CPP campus (no formal tours there--just a virtual one online). DS came home and almost immediately accepted his admission to UCI.

We're in the middle of a huge wind storm here. Clear and calm at home but only blocks away the wind kicked up and sand is blowing EVERYWHERE. When we got to the office, so much sand had forced it's way under our front door that we had to vacuum the tile. Everything feels gritty and it isn't supposed to calm down for another day or more. It makes it really difficult to install glass when it's this bad. And one piece we have will take all of our 10 installers to do. We were going to do it this morning, but due to the wind we've had to postpone it. I can't even imagine what it must have been like at Coachella last night. I wonder if the tents blew down.

As for calendars, I've given up on the paper kind. I have one in my office which I'll consult just to see the date when writing a check. I use my smart phone calendar which links to my Google calendar--and the appointments are easily shared with DH and my in-laws as needed through Gmail.

Hi Maintainers! I wanted to pop in and a) thank you all for your very kinds welcomes a couple weeks ago and b) apologize for not coming back after introducing myself.

It's been a hard couple weeks. I had a boot put on my vehicle about a month ago (on the passenger side and nevermind that I hadn't had any tickets, let alone owed any money, when they did this) which I didn't see and drove on, resulting in damage to my car. My battery crapped out on me a couple Saturdays ago, so I took the car into the shop and had him also look at what I thought was just body damage. $1800 and an insurance claim later...I'm really hoping to get my car back. This was after another week and a half without it in Feb after the Ford garage needed to repair my parking brake and subsequent warped disk/missing brake pad because it was sticking. Even though in Jan, when I still had my warranty, I told them "my parking brake is sticking" and they couldn't find anything wrong...until after my warranty expired. Right.

But the worst of all that is the other thing that happened last Monday. My grandfather broke his hip, lingered for about a week, and passed away on Sat night. I live about 1200 miles from home and couldn't be there, and it was pretty rough sitting by the phone waiting for one of the most important people in my life to die. I'll be going home in a couple weeks for his memorial service.

So the past week I pretty much just laid around and drowned my sorrows in vast quantities of pizza. A small victory is it wasn't quite the binge eating experience I would've had this time last year, but that might just have been the difficulty in getting to the grocery store without a car. Yesterday I decided to rejoin society and ate well and exercised. Tonight I start an Irish dance class.

Oh, and did I mention it's snowing? This year is awful! Hoping this is the rock bottom and it will only be uphill from here.

ChrisMohr Ditto to winter never ending. I'm sooo ready for spring! We had a little tease of it in March, but the last couple weeks have felt like November.

Atmos, good to hear from you. I understand about your grandfather, mine was very important to me, also and like you I was thousands of miles away when he passed. Think of the wonderful memories you must have of him, some people aren't so lucky .

I'm sorry about your grandfather atmos. It is always hard to lose a dear family member-- and even more difficult if you aren't nearby. I hope the worst is over for you. We took my car in on Friday to get tires and it was almost $900! Just for bloody tires. We are giving my car to my dd that is going to school in Arizona and apparently we needed more expensive tires there because they have monsoons.....

Ummm, Michele? Why did you need monsoon tires? What kind of car is this?

Atmos - I'm so sorry about your grandfather.

I have pretty expensive tires on my Jaguar (Pierreli) and recently had to have one replaced due to a nail that punctured the bottom and sidewall. It was $275. I'm just glad I don't drive an all-wheel drive car--you HAVE to replace all four even if you only damaged one.

My dishwasher took a dive yesterday. I don't know what happened. I ran a load while we went to see a movie (Quartet--cute movie) and all was well. Sometime during the evening, it randomly opened (something it does at the end of every cycle to aid in drying) and wouldn't shut at all. We unplugged it in hopes of "rebooting" it but it didn't work. I was able to get it to start a load this morning, but it shut off after just 2 minutes and eventually the door opened again. It's still under warranty as it is only 1 1/2 years old, but due to that, I have to go through the manufacturer who contracts the work out locally. Yeah, that company doesn't have an opening for over a week! Did I mention my disdain for doing dishes by hand?

Sorry for your loss, atmos. Is the law enforcement agency going to pay for repairs on your car? I can't imagine being able to drive at all with a boot on it! Lucky you didn't get in an accident.

Bill, what's up? How close do you live to Boston? Are you and yours okay?!

I have the same question as saef.