New Year's Eve day is here. First is work, then an appointment at the DMV. Then home where I hope to stay for the night. I really dislike going out on NYE just because of crowds and scary driving conditions. We've been invited to a friend's house for festivities and I really don't want to go. I'm hoping the invitation has been forgotten (it was extended in early November and hasn't been mentioned since). I've also been informed that a former neighbor family is in town and the brother (also a neighbor) might be having a party or get-together. They are such that it is always last minute and I'd rather go there (walk across the street) than the other place (30-40 minute drive). I'd really rather stay home, cook up the meat and seafood for tomorrow's lasagnas and then work on my knitting project.
I no longer drink so New Year's Eve is quite lost on me. DH has accepted that there is no way I can stay up past 10 p.m. unless I have so much caffeine that I'm super cranky so we kiss goodnight at that time and I go to bed. Tonite I'm hoping we can watch a decent movie on Netflix after we have our fish, salad, and wedgie baked fries dinner. I even splurged and got us frozen whole cherries and Madagascar vanilla ice cream for dessert.
And the desert will be one portion each. No leftovers, as it's a small carton of ice cream and one bag of cherries.
DH will probably get a little drunk but I'm hoping he's seen that being useless and totally hung over on the first day of a new year is not a good thing. Up to him though - the pets and I have a big day planned for tomorrow, with or without him.
Happy 2015! May we all achieve whatever dieting and maintaining goals we have set for ourselves!
I did think about what I want to do in this new year. I want to reawaken my mind. I have a number of DVD's about meditation, yoga, history, culture, and photography that I have never watched or completed watching.
It's time to spend that evening hour in front of the TV (or probably computer since we have one TV) watching something a bit more worthwhile than the stuff that's on.
This will accomplish 2 things. It will give me a bit more awareness of the world, new skills for coping with stress, and take away that connection between watching passively and eating mindlessly.
And, once Trixie and I have completed the first level of obedience, I will then sign up for a new Coursera course for me - probably the "History of Rock'N'Roll" as I have an interest in that.
I went to bed at 9 PM last night, read a book, then shut off the lights about an hour later. I was up around 7 AM today, wishing I could go out for New Year's Day run. I love how quiet the streets are on the morning of a holiday. But no, I had to grab the walker and stump into the kitchen for coffee.
Just staying in all day today -- but my mother and I will get some reprieve from unrelieved proximity today, as she'll head for a local casino this afternoon. I feel great relief at the prospect of being able to do what I want, unobserved and unremarked-on, while she's out. Even if I will just be cutting up vegetables for cooking, reading and doing physical therapy exercises.
Flying back home today and very ready for a return to normalcy.
Yesterday proved quite interesting. We had a scare with my MIL. Thought she'd had another stroke so FIL took her to urgent care. She came home many hours later after the doctor thought she was dehydrated and had low blood pressure, possibly as a reaction to meds. She seemed ok the rest of the evening but wasn't feeling well during the night. So that set our dinner plans way back. Then, while fixing dinner, my 18 month old niece pulled down a glass table in the kitchen which shattered. Miraculously, the only one the glass hit was my dd's service dog who got a small cut on his forepaw. As you can imagine, our dinner was further delayed!
Happy New Year all! I'm praying my 10 days here didn't result in too much collateral scale damage. I was good most of the time but definitely not all!
Can't wait to see my dog and kitties too though I'm not ready to go back to work yet
My DS and his fiancee (wow, sounds strange to say or type that) came over last night and then just DD, DH and I. We had a relaxing and fun evening but went to bed right after 12 because DD and I had to get up early to run a 5K on the beach. DH was riding with some friends on a long bike ride. DD came in first in her age group and I came in 4th in mine. Wasn't sure how I would do after all the champagne I drank.
My winter break is ending soon.
DD and I are going to Universal on Sunday, my last day off and going to see all the Harry Potter things. I think I love it more than her. Read them several times. It's fun to know all about them when you teach HS because most of the kids have read them all, although I've noticed less have read it lately.
Tonight we have to eat at MIL, my least favorite meal of the year. She is German so we have to eat Sauerkraut and some type of meats that I don't like. Then black eyed peas which I'm not fond of either. Oh well, it's just one meal a year that is not good, I tell myself every year.
Thanks to all of you for the support in 2014! You have taught me a lot about being a maintainer!
Hi Cal Counter,
Thank YOU too! I'm grateful we can all be such wonderful support to one another.
December 19-January 1 was non-maintenance time, just trying to stay somewhat in control (except for Christmas Day and New Year's Eve). I more or less stayed on track with that, but it's always scary to go from overeating (even if it is somewhat controlled) to dieting (for now) and then back to maintenance. Today I go from overeating to dieting, along with, what, 60 million Americans? As Karen says, dieting is in the air now, so I can ride the wave of that energy!
Happy new year everyone! Sorry for my absence the last couple weeks. One week out of town, one week of staycation, and then this week of half-holidays. But I am here!
We survived our first family trip. On the way out the girls were good on the plane and even took a nice nap for half of our first flight. They were a pain in the airport though, largely around food -- A just refused to eat anything except for a banana and was generally fussy. C was okay. Well, we found out why A refused to eat when we arrived Monday night and were on our way to the parking lot . . . turns out she had the stomach flu! C came down with it the next day but luckily DH and I and the rest of my family escaped.
We ended up spending the first half of our trip housebound taking care of sick toddlers. It was pretty nerve wracking as it was the sickest they'd ever been. They'd had colds with runny noses before, and once one of them had a fever of 99, but this flu hit them with a 101 fever and thankfully infrequent puking (only three pukes total between the two of them, then the virus moved on to the other end). They slept for almost an entire day and were so subdued the rest of the time it was very disconcerting. DH and I both felt like, on the one hand we should have been glad they were sleeping all day because we got a break that we never get, but on the other hand we were so worried about them and missed them being their usual selves that we couldn't manage to do anything other than fret about it. In our concern for their hydration my mom went out and bought some pedialyte and popsicles (I had called the doctor's office for advice, that was their recommendation for when they refuse to drink anything), but they didn't want either of them, so now my mom's stuck with all this random stuff.
But they are resilient little creatures, and were better enough that by Thursday afternoon we were able to have my sister & SIL and niece over (we carefully kept the toys our sick girls played with separate from my niece's toys), and Friday we went to the zoo with them. Saturday they seemed pretty much back to normal, and we took them to the beach with a friend of ours and then had our family holiday celebration that evening (this was Saturday the 20th). Flying home again went well that Sunday, they took a nap on the first flight, we had a long layover where they entertained themselves by climbing in and out of their strollers and running circles around them, then they fell asleep for the night on the second flight.
Their sleep has been a disaster but that's pretty much what we expected, and is why I took a second week off work to recover from the trip! Sad to say I think it may be time for sleep training. They had been sleeping acceptably well (not great, but sleeping through most nights) up until a little over a month ago, but lately they've been up multiple times per night. There are three possible reasons as far as I can see -- first is that their reflux is back and bothering them (I suggest this because sometimes during the night they make that refluxy swallow sound -- the guess is that it was irritated by their stomach flu), second is that they keep losing their pacifiers under the blankets and we really need to get them off the pacis anyway, and third is that it's just a disciplinary issue and they just want us to come see them during the night. We'll get them checked out by the doc for reflux but once they're cleared of that I think it may be time to cry it out. I don't know how we will get them to sleep without pacifiers anyway so there is definitely going to be crying involved in that transition.
Anyway, sorry for the book!
Saef, glad you are getting out of the house some. I hope you will continue to improve and get back on your feet soon!
Allison, what's the situation with your assistant?
Weight-wise, I ate junk and didn't work out much while on vacation, and am currently 162. My new year's resolution is to finally lose this remaining baby weight. I have an appointment with a personal trainer at work today who is going to give me a fitness assessment and suggest a workout routine! The house is cleared of junk food. All that remains is for me to follow through.
to all, and Happy New Year! Wishing everyone whatever fortitude, dedication, luck, or supernatural intervention you need to achieve your goals!
I managed December reasonably well and let a lot of meaningless stuff slide. Guess what? If anybody noticed, they didn't say anything. Tree is coming down today. DH and I are implementing new storage guidelines, so I am going through all the holiday decorations and getting them into the right containers. Quite a lot is moving to the "Garage Sale/Donation" bin. I've committed to an August garage sale, and it'll be a doozy.
I mentioned what a killer Natalie is - brought me all sorts of live and dead critters since we got her. DH found a fur play mouse in his stuff over the holidays - leftover from Mudpie and Mishka - and gave it to Nat. She is going nuts with it. I'm hoping I can find similar ones at the pet store. This will keep her amused over the winter as she doesn't like to go out for long any more.
Dagmar, my cats have a slew of toy mice. We pick them up and put them in a box most mornings only to wake up to a mouse explosion the following morning. I spray them with catnip from time to time to keep it interesting.
Glad your trip went reasonably well, Jessica. Traveling with toddlers is a daunting task. Sorry they ended up sick, though.
You asked about my assistant. She went in for what was to be an upper GI to "see" what's going on with this hernia. They ended up doing a biopsy. That was three days before Christmas. She intended to come to work the following day and Christmas eve, neither of which happened. She wanted to come in this week, too, but that didn't happen either. She goes in on Monday to get the results of the test and to find out what options she has. I'm fearing stomach or esophageal cancer rather than a hernia. I guess we'll know this week.
Meanwhile it hasn't been too huge a burden on me at work. I'm able to do all my work and 80% of hers. If it turns out she won't be back for a while, I'll just have to bite the bullet and complete her stuff. That won't be too terrible because we've discussed changes with our CPA which he is fine with so starting 2015 all the manual logs will be discontinued. And my FIL works 3 days for us and since it's been so cold he's been hanging out in the office a lot more and I can teach him to do the filing!
We had our annual New Year's birthday celebration yesterday. The two lasagna's turned out wonderful and I sent everyone home with leftovers so we have only one meal of leftovers ourselves.
Those of you with the vegetable spiralizers - I am looking at the Paderno. There is a 3-blade version and a 4-blade "pro". Both have lifetime warranties Worth the extra 15 bucks for the 4th blade?
May we all achieve whatever dieting and maintaining goals we have set for ourselves!
Sorry for my absence the last couple weeks. One week out of town, one week of staycation, and then this week of half-holidays. But I am here!
C came down with it the next day but luckily DH and I and the rest of my family escaped.
to all, and Happy New Year! Wishing everyone whatever fortitude, dedication, luck, or supernatural intervention you need to achieve your goals!
Tree is coming down today. DH and I are implementing new storage guidelines, so I am going through all the holiday decorations and getting them into the right containers. Quite a lot is moving to the "Garage Sale/Donation" bin. I've committed to an August garage sale, and it'll be a doozy.
