Ah, Shannon, you are getting into the "caring for ailing family members" stage of life rather young. My father died when I was 14, my mother has been gone at least 12 years, and DH's parents both died a few years ago. Miss them, but much less stress now that they have gone. Now it's only elderly ailing animals that stress me out! Good luck with making suitable arrangements for your mother and her parents.

Birchie, I'm glad to hear you are looking forward to a workout. I had one Mon and Tues, so I'm only walking today. Sunday I hiked many miles and my crummy knee needs a rest!

Saturday has been my only bad food day. It was a "patch" meeting (gourd and basket artists) with a potluck. I told them I had to be strict all week before I visited the "land of bread and chips". Weight hasn't come down yet. Patience, I tell myself.

I'm in what I think is the last week (possibly) of sore foot. March 28 will mark 8 weeks since I broke it. Looking forward to this all being over.

I'm eating sugar in the evenings. From the bag, with a spoon. SIGH. I haven't had any alcohol since I broke the foot and I think the sugar cravings are part of the detox. That and the cans of diet pop. I caved and bought another 12 pack of the stuff.

All of this is directed to avoid thinking about my return to dinner dog walks tomorrow. At least there will only be one this week and next. I hate them and don't want to do them any more - they disrupt my evenings and totally wear me out - but my two most lucrative clients are the ones who ask for them.

Don't want to do it but can't really afford to lose either client. One of them is now 30% of my total income - household with 6 pets.

Gotta accessorize those golden handcuffs with a smile.

Dagmar

Dagmar, yeah, I know how it is to have a big client that you aren't crazy about serving. Don't worry--someday this will all be behind you! I hope your foot is completely healed and walking is pain free.

Just one humble thought about alcohol and sugar. Alcohol detox does not take 8 weeks unless you were a falling-down-every-day drunk. Eating sugar out of the bag with a spoon is something else--self comfort, perhaps.

Have you tried Coke Life? (Green label) It is sweetened with sugar and stevia, and has less sugar and sodium compared to regular. It's still sugar, though.

A habit I've gotten into is cutting my diet soft drinks with plain seltzer. At first it tastes weak, but once I got used to it, I'm not interested in drinking soft drinks undiluted.

I'm at 161.8, I think.

We had another Nor'easter storm which dumped many inches of snow on us. I worked from home and didn't even notice it, at first, because I was so intent on my laptop screen. Yesterday was supposed to be a quiet working day. The snow was going to help with that. I had no meetings. I'll say that again: I had no meetings. But I ended up frittering the day away with constant emails to people wanting things, rather than working on a presentation that I'll need to give. Those emails ran into the evening, and I was so tired, I looked at my resume, which I'd planned to update, and knew I wasn't up to it, not last night.

A new product that I knocked myself out working on last month just launched & immediately made a $44,000 sale, and the congratulatory emails are flying around, but all I can think of is, how do we muster resources to support this thing, if it's going to happen? I will be in charge of training them & quality control. This is another task that I don't need.

JayEll I was the falling down drunk about 30 years ago. My body still goes off in all directions with just a bit of alcohol. But you're probably right - this is self comfort.

I did try the "green Coke" and liked it but it gave me the same sugar cravings plus a caffeine buzz.

Great idea about the seltzer and diet soda! I have both in the house and will try it this afternoon! thanks!

Dagmar

Yes, lots of taking care of everyone going on right now. My MIL has an antibiotic resistant bacterial infection in her lungs, we are working with Infectious Disease Control to figure out how to handle it. Looking at 6-12 months of treatment I expect. The grandparents are worrying us. My stepson just got over some viral something that had him running 101-102.8 temps for over a week. My brother has pancreatitis, which is better than what we all thought it was, so yay there. Allergy season is hitting me hard so I'm worn out, my mom is worn out, DH is worn out. We are looking at planning our annual Mother's Day luncheon that myself, my SIL and her sister host for our mother's, grandmother's aunts. We are considering skipping this year. We've done it now for 16 years. But... my grandmother won't be up to a luncheon I don't think, as she doesn't know who we are all the time and only has a few minutes of focus at a time. My mom is wiped out. My SIL's grandmother died in January, so her mother is having a tough time. May be wise to bypass a large gathering that might be hard for everyone this year. Which makes me sad.

Birchie & Alice - thanks for the thoughts.

Dagmar - I get the feeling held trapped to a situation as well. Good luck with it.

Saef - glad you are safe in the weather.

Thinking good thoughts for you, Shannon. It is so stressful to be in the place you are now.
I also took care of my parents who have been gone many years now, but we know that dh's parents will soon need more care and we are out of state so that presents different stressors.

We are going to Vancouver for my Spring Break and I somehow just realized how close the trip is-- we leave next Saturday. I'm excited as we've never been but there is so much to do before! I've been very strict with my workouts and nutrition for months. My plan is to try to do the workouts in the hotel gym (I will bring my loops and sliders and ipad and use their weights), but I will relax my food regimen. My understanding is that Vancouver has excellent sushi and seafood which dh and I both love!

My dd in Houston put her house on the market on Saturday-- she had multiple offers and accepted one last night. Crossing fingers that it all goes smoothly! Next is to put her fiance's house on the market, sell it, and then they will buy the house they plan on living in.

Hugs, Shannon. It's difficult when there is illness all around us. We're dealing with that with my FIL. Kidney stones, collapsed lung, bronchitis, colds, staph infection...I don't think he's been "well" for more than a week since last summer. He's missed the past month of work, too. DH doesn't want him back until he's 100% because sitting out in a cold warehouse won't do him any good. Unfortunately, it's also caused a riff in his marriage--DH, SIL and I had an "intervention" last weekend and told them they need marriage counseling. That was fun to do on my birthday. Not.

So I'm on day #2 of no soda--diet or otherwise. Instead, I fixed myself a small pot of hot tea and am having that in the morning. So far, no cravings.

I'm back, after having that horrible cold for a week or more, to walking about 5 miles per day--broken up into three segments: 20 minutes mid morning with the dogs, ditto in early afternoon and then 2 miles on the treadmill once I get home. Now if only my weight would go DOWN rather than up like it did this morning. I'm seriously considering going back to Nutrisystem or something like that, but would have to do it alone this time as DH needs to gain rather than lose. It's kind of depressing.

Shannon, hugs and support to you with everything you are dealing with right now.

Allison, I have a similar problem where I struggle so hard to lose weight, and my husband is losing even more. I do try to keep out of his food and to make dinners where he can have one variation and I can have another - but it's not always easy. I feel guilty when he makes something like veggie soup for our dinner, because he knows it's what I want. I'm sitting there watching him eat soup and a few pieces of toast, thinking "that's maybe 400 calories total, not NEARLY enough for you". All he knows is that he's full afterward, same as if he ate a big bowl of buttered pasta. He's more active now than he used to be and is now borderline underweight on BMI charts. Meanwhile I've been restricting pretty consistently since new years (except those few craptacular weeks in February) - for minimal progress.

I went to the physio on Friday afternoon (the DB's appointment which he couldn't keep as he has flu). I've had something 'not quite right' down my left side for a few months, not enough to go and see her but annoying. She's sorted me out (it was the 'old problem') and given me some more exercises. On Thursday evening I walked up to the fifth floor of a new public building and my knees and quads hurt. I thought I'd see what it was like yesterday and it was Absolutely Fine. I'm so pleased.

At my mother's. I arranged for groceries to be delivered in advance, hoping it might cut down on walking into town to buy food and give me more time to do other things. On the agenda: buying a new mattress, planting the bulbs I didn't have time to do in November. And lots, lots more. I must pace myself: enough food, some exercise, enough rest.

I'm back from my week-long business trip and a crazy day yesterday. I didn't manage to hit the gym on my trip really (combo of the hotel having a crappy gym, it being freezing cold outside, and me having a cold and feeling like crap), but I did a good job of keeping my food choices in line and ended up a bit below where I started. Weight has been hovering around 149-150 which is encouraging! Today I'm in the office and I've got my gym bag and the cold is almost entirely gone, so I'm going to try to get a workout in at lunchtime. I feel like I *should* do HIIT but I'm more motivated to do a moderate steady-pace bike ride because I can play games on my phone while I do it. Once the weather clears up I'd like to get back to running in the early mornings.

Speaking of weather, wow, we had crazy weather this past weekend. After having felt like spring for a couple weeks, suddenly a snowstorm! It was good wet snow too so the kids had a blast building snowmen and forts and having snowball fights. Two days later, the snow is entirely gone and it's pouring rain. Hopefully spring is here to stay this time.

I think we are having our first spring rain here starting today. While I don't like being out in it it'll be good to tamp down the dust that's everywhere.

Going to take my jeans out of the closet today and start the "pantsometer" readings tomorrow. We have Easter to get out of the way and then I go into temporary diet mode. Too much comfort eating over the past 2 months.

Dagmar

149.4 today. I ended up doing a moderate bike ride yesterday and the plan for today is yoga. The cyst in my wrist has gone down recently and I'm wondering if there's a direct correlation between the size of the cyst and the amount of yoga/strength exercises I do. It seems like the more I do, the worse it gets. I'm not really sure what to do about that. I'd like to build strength, but I also don't want to have terrible wrist pain, and if I can avoid having surgery then that would be good.

I'm glad that I'm making progress with my weight going in the right direction. I hope that this time I won't stall out at 146 and regain again like I did the last couple times. I'm not making as much progress as I'd hoped, but it's still progress. I'm still thinking about that wedding in a month and a half and wondering if I'll be able to fit in my nice dresses. I think I'd need to be down around 140 to be able to fit and I don't know if I can lose 6lbs that fast, but I do have at least one nice dress that fits me now.

Jessica-- you're doing amazing! Keep it up!

Dagmar-- or anyone else-- any must see's or do's in Vancouver? Tips or advice?