JayEll-- Oh my! I hope you recover quickly. I agree-- a spa day is in order! When I worked for vets, chows were the scariest breed I saw-- they would bite in a second. Any dog with any purple on it's tongue has some chow in it-- anytime I saw that I was wary too. My bosses would say that pit bulls were dangerous because they were unpredictable-- they might wag their tail and then attack though I never saw it. Chows however-- they didn't even pretend to be nice...

Welcome Sharon! Glad to have you posting and congrats! My number one piece of advice is to NOT eat 2100 calories a day. Increase your calories very slowly and see how you do. Maybe you can increase by 50 or 100 at first, and maybe more, but everyone is different. I've recently started calorie counting after a creep of weight gain (I had originally done weight watchers) and I'm doing pretty well so far.

Congratulations !

Michelle - OK, thanks for the advice! I'm glad you said that because I am at about 1500 tonight and I was thinking there is NO WAY I can eat anything more tonight. I'm too tired and not hungry anyway.

Bargoo, you wrote such a simple, one-sentence post, and yet I've been thinking and thinking about this since reading it. You know what? You are right. It's obvious, isn't it? But not to me, because I've thought that I have been showing the world that I am able to carry on despite adversity. But this is the truth, and there's something post-traumatic about it. It's not just the winter that's made me entrench myself in my home, and feel reluctant to leave it, and let me shrink down my world. It's more like an animal that stays near the entrance of its burrow at all times because of a fear of a great shadow of a hawk flying overhead at any moment.

Remembering to congratulate saef for persistence chasing down permission to build a sea wall. I hope your condo association is now organized enough to get the project underway.

We're having a string of 50 degree F days. I was overdressed yesterday with too many layers out of habit. Despite being too warm, it felt good to get the signal that the worst of winter might be coming to an end.

Send that up my way will you Bill? I really would like to work in my 3 seasons coat and some SHOES for just one week.

I only bought 2 pairs of boots (I alternate days with footwear) for this winter. In the past that has gotten me fully through the season and sometimes I was able to use them for 2 winters. This year they are already worn out and I really don't want to shell out for new ones and then have to find somewhere to store them.

Dagmar :beach:

I'm still in the hospital having IV antibiotics. Really tired of being here. I hope everything improves to where I can go home and take oral antibiotics.

The food in this hospital is really quite good, considering. But I don't have much appetite. I get hungry, but then after eating several bites of what's brought, I'm done. I think this is OK.

Good gracious, JayEll, this is a long stay in hospital. I quite understand you're tired of being there. And I agree it's fine to have a few bites of food and then nothing more. Sending good vibes and hope that you'll be out soon, right as rain.

Feel better soon Jayell and I hope you get released ASAP.

I think I would quite enjoy being there - for awhile. The only decision I would have to make is what to eat? Yeah, I could do that for a couple of days, particularly if I had reading materials along. :spin:

Dagmar :cool: