Congrats joy of six! I'm up since Thanksgiving (only 3 or 4 pounds) and I really don't intend to get back on program until just before the new year. It's not so much the sweets that do me in--its the desire to eat hot foods, especially casseroles! I eat really well for breakfast and lunch, but dinners do me in. I'll do better soon.

Morning all!

Joy - I too am still the same weight as the little slip posted on my computer! But like Allison, I have the desire to eat real foods, not sweets. I have 2 more parties to get through - and tonight's is at the local Chinese restaurant. Tomorrow's is an appetizer potluck kinda deal, and I know I can eat what I bring, and there will be a veggie tray and other better choice things (which I know from who's coming - a generally healthy eating group). Christmas day we've been invited next door, so I'm off the hook for cooking, so as long as I restrain from grazing all days I should be okay.

Well my eating wasn't completely perfect today. Had some family over and there was a lot of tempting foods. I stuck to the fruit tray for snacks. So, this much was an improvement for me. Plus, walked 1 1/2 miles tonite on treadmill. I have an abnormal amount of tempting food in the house right now. I'm doing my best to resist.

Merry Christmas everyone. I am having a Christmas dinner here at home tonite. Having it at my sister's tomorrow at lunch and my MIL's tomorrow night. I was 100% on plan with my food yesterday and did walk 1 1/2 miles again, so that was good.

I did the stupidest thing you can imagine. When paying bills this month, I accidentally wrote a check for my DH's jeep payment from the account with mine and my DD's names only. Instead of my acct. that I pay all the household bills with. I overdrew her acct. by $25.00. I got the notice yesterday and when I started figuring her checkbook, I was missing a blank check. I went to the bank to see a copy of the check. I just knew someone had stolen a check and wrote it. I was floored when they showed me the check and I had written it for the Jeep. Therefore, I had a surplus in my acct. and was able to transfer the money. ( with a service fee , of course). I had subtracted the payment from my acct. I'm glad that I got this all cleared up. I sure felt like a fool. Taking care of more than one checking acct. is a pain.

Yeah, I got my elliptical for Christmas. Bad news is , after 2 minutes I was wore out. Had to rest and then try again. I didn't expect it would be so hard since I use a treadmill most every day. I hope that with continued use of it that I'll build up some endurance. Hope everyone is having a great Christmas.

Congrats on the elliptical for Christmas Lily. I have a friend who has one, she could only do a few minutes at a time when she first got it. I have had a delightfully slothful day, but after another slice of cheese and some nuts I'll be right back on program tomorrow. I hope all those who celebrate had a Merry Christmas!

Lilybelle, you are going to love the elliptical. Give it a few weeks and you are going to be flying through your workouts on it. It's one of my favorite machines for cardio. I use an EFX at the gym and set everything as low as possible. This way it somewhat simulates the running I did on the treadmill. GO GO GO....

Well, I am in a state today. I'm having some sort of PMS-induced neat-freak fit, and the state of my house today after having a toddler open the presents and then trash the house is creating a great deal of stress. And then there is more stress feeling like a monster mother who doesn't want her DD to have a great Christmas.

I managed to leave it alone til DD got to bed, but then I had to pick up the big padded floor mats and scrub all the crud off them, and I just can't stand it anymore, and am going to have to start the horizontal surfaces project RIGHT NOW, and oh, I can hear my DH in the living room clipping his nails and I am 1000% sure he isn't going to clean that up and I'll be forced to feed it to him.

I feel like a complete lunatic. Maybe I should have a glass or three of wine and go to bed.

FYI: both DH and I are slobs and we get a tremendous accumulation of stuff on every horizontal surface of the house. Some of it is trash, some is legitimate stuff that just needs to be put away, and some of it does in fact belong there. We have been in the house nearly 5 years and the amount of stuff is getting to be too much even for me to bear. Hence the 'horizontal surfaces project.' It is a planned thing, but this need to start RIGHT NOW, isn't.

Anne

I now have several clean and organized horizontal surfaces. DH does not appear to be happy with the process, but I feel a lot better. I scratched the itch enough so I can leave the worst 2 rooms until tomorrow.

Ah the wonderful feeling of throwing junk away.

Anne

Wndranne, I've certainly been there too.
I've been known to find "homes for all of the gifts before the day was out. This year I did well. The gifts are still piled up around the chairs in the family room. You can be certain that by noon tomorrow though, they will find homes in the boys' rooms. As far as your horizontal surfaces projects, I say that when the motivation is there, go with it. Otherwise, in my case it may not return for a long time and then I really get buggy.

We're heading south tomorrow morning so I have to do the horizontal surface thing. If I leave it and then leave two young men living here for two weeks ... yikes!

I thought that feeling came with the children. I fought the urge all day to wipe up, admonish,or add nutrition to my kids' day. Back to normal today though. There will be no candy for breakfast or 12 hour playstation marathons. Monster mommy is back!

I can definitely relate. When I got up this morning, I didn't even want to get out of bed. I knew my house was a mess and that I'd need to take a whole day cleaning it. I've been working for 2 hrs. now and decided to take a quick break. I had to take gifts to the kids room and our room to barely be able to see the floor. I did have DH to take all the trash out from all the wrapping paper and boxes. Then, I sent him on an errand for me. When he gets back, I'm asking him to mop the kitchen for me. DD is still asleep and when she gets up I am going to have her take the Christmas tree down. I have decided not to do it all myself, everyone is going to help restore this house to clean.

I'm glad to have made it through the holidays. We had lunch at my sisters and dinner at my MIL's. The food was great and I refused to take home leftovers. Mil made a butternut squash dish that we all loved. I did all the dishes at both places. Many of the pots and pans by hand. I wonder if that burned any of those extra calories that I ate. Today is a brand new day and I am back on program. Plan to hit the elliptical again and the treadmill tonite.

My son that is very athletic got to running on the elliptical. After about 10 min's he had sweat pouring from him. Man, I hope to be able to get going like that eventually.

Morning all! I have to laugh about the monster mommies My DH is a total neat freak. He had the wrapping paper trash out about 10 minutes after we finished opening gifts! The presents are still under the tree though - as that's a tradition from his family. We had dinner at our next door neighbors. All in all we were 30 people. They have 5 kids and 4 of them - with families were there. There were 5 kids age 2 and under I heard many parents complaining about what their kids were eating. Trying to keep them out of the soda, and insist they eat veggies was a lost cause. I saw a 9 year old eat dinner of only hame and black olives! (Dinner was buffet style since there was no place big enough to all sit down.) My little house was mighty quiet when we got hom. All in all I did pretty well eating. No desserts, and only one plateful of food. Did have a few too many chips and dip before hand, but I count the day a "holiday success."

Whew! Was doing well, but this evening went a little overboard on leftover stuffing. Still fairly ok with calories, but just overdid things a bit. I even went back for more stuffing when I was already feeling very, very "stuffed"! Definitely overate! I had made both stuffing and a sweet potato dish yesterday for Christmas, and liked them both, and wanted to eat them for dinner today. I had planned to have reasonable portions of these plus some turkey, but the turkey pretty much went out the window as I overate the stuffing! Hopefully, by writing this here, I'll be less likely to go overboard tomorrow!