wow what a beautiful day here in Alaska. I even got some color on my white face from sitting out on my deck today. DH made some wonderful teriaki chicken thighs on the grill tonight also grilled some zuc.s with olive oil and garlic on them along with some eggplant the same way. it was yummy.

Took my Sylvee to the vet today to get her rabies vac. she is 5 pounds over weight . makes me sick. Since she was spayd she has just got lazy and never seems to get full. always hungry. But we are going on a Reduced calorie food to see if we can get some of this off. I want her to stay healthy.
My last cat would only eat what he wanted and leave the rest for later. Not Sylvee she wants to eat it all right then so we have to split it up.

We dont keep much in stock as far as groceries. Go to costco about once a month and then maybe milk eggs and bread we have to get in between.

Take care everyone!~

Hi everyone another nice day. dogs kept me busy.in and out lol.im off to bed sweet dreams rosey

breakfast
coffee
greek yogurt with 1/4 c kashi crunch cereal

lunch
1 c ham and corn chowder
2 soda crackers for crunch

snack
coffee mocha
27 special K cracker chips(110 calories)
handful of grapes

dinner
tomatoe cuke salad
2 meat balls with sp. sauce( dh had his with noodles)
iced tea

Hi ladies,, I hope I am posting in the right place!!

I am new here, I am a 50 year old mom, grandmom and wife.

I live in beautiful South Carolina

Plus I got two of the sweetest german shepherds ever!! they are my babies..

I have been dieting since birth LOL,, at my max weight 9 years ago I weighed 318, got down to 183, but regained back up to 260ish over the years and am now at 218, my goal weight is 165ish.

I try to stay very active, In Oct. 2011 I earned my black belt in karate, my hubby and I go to the Y allot I do spin classes, zumba and swim.

Right now I am nursing a very sore knee, pulled the IT band and it hurts too do much of anything and I hate not working out....

Anyway that's me in a nut shell,, nice to met ya!!

Welcome Cyndiem, pull up a chair!

Hi GG's thought I'd check in, although I've been reading all the posts. What a busy group of ladies, and what lucky pets you all have! I just have a large Maine Coon Cat (Trixie - 17 pounds) who is only given weight control cat food. We see how well that works HAHA but she's a gentle giant.

I've been buckling down and have lost another few pounds since last check in. I think it's a combination of starting the bio-identical hormones, fiber, green tea, and better food choices. I've still been walking a lot in the nicer weather, although I was a slacker yesterday.

I usually have problems on the weekends when I get with DBF who loves to cook. I'll see how much willpower I have tonight with his casseroles and wine. ;-)

My freezer is not nearly as bad as when my kids lived with me (all in college now) as most of the food is for me and of the healthy variety. I have a side by side ref., and it's fairly easy to see/get to everything there. Will need to replace it soon, and don't know how I feel about those with the freezer on the bottom. Will it become a black hole?

Hello to all and have a great weekend!

Good Morning
Mary...I checked our local library for The Mirror and it's not in their data base. Must be quite new? As to the budgeting, I do have a Money program where I enter all our checks and it automatically subtracted and I can balance it once a month when our statement comes. I had a real eye opener yesterday after putting our numbers (credit card, electrical, heat, food, etc ) into the budget form. Last year we spent every single month at least a $1,000 over what we brought in. It's no wonder we kept using our savings to make the credit card bill. We pay that off every month no matter what. So........I am on a crusade, the credit card will not be used unless absolutely necessary. The only problem we're going to have this month is we can't spend a dime on groceries. I need this months social security checks to pay off the Visa. $1,968.59 (my new computer on this bill didn't help. I told DH he had to use the check book only and no more buying. I've never had to watch my spending while DH was working and it finally hit me after 6 years. Yes, 6 years he's been retired and we've been spending like we had a bank full of money. What block heads we were....geeez.Marie..Oh, he knows. I was on the war path all day yesterday, I showed him the figures of last year and the $12,000 we spent over and above our income.Isabella...so what's a tomato soup cake? In regards to the wireless, I'm glad you mentioned this as I was about to ask all the Golden Girls about wireless. We don't have it, I plug into the phone line and not sure we can get it out here. I really need to call our server and ask. What I'd like to know is how many of you use wireless, the pros and cons of it. Yesterday I got another annoying IExplorer.exe. error.[QUOTE
]I received my new wireless modem in the mail this afternoon. I hope this helps the internet problems I've been having. [/quote]
Rosey...I just noticed your ticker too, fantastic! How are you doing compared to your sister? who had the same surgery. Is the weight loss about the same?
Debbie...Hope you get good news from the doctor about the spots? Good luck on that.
Rie...I like to use the brown carmelized goodness from meat/chicken to make stock too. It's so much better than canned/boxed or bouillon cubes. When we had chickens, the veggies scraps went to them as a treat. I miss our sweet chicken. Talk about mis-managed money, we spend more on chicken feed, housing (new home depot building) and electricity to keep them warm in the winter then we got eggs back. Live and learn!
Carol Sue..Let us know, this seems to be taking too long..KarenFla...funny you mentioned finding a rusty can of Slim Fast in your freezer, me too. That's how DH and I started making smoothies, with the old can of Strawberry Slim fast. I have since purchased a Vanilla and Chocolate. As to the cake recipe with yogurt, I've totally forgotten about how to do that, repeat it again please. Also...........how did the mini pizza's turn out? I don't use Jack cheese, is that like mozzarella? .Freda..my MIL always used a black marker and wrote the date on top of her cans and boxes plus she rotated. You can bet I'll start doing that too. Good luck on your retirement in July...hide your credit card. As to the pink slime, last time I purchased ground beef, it was the cheapest roast I could find, defatted and ground up myself.
DH just now started talking to me, he's been up for about 3 hours, he's still pi$$ed off at me for jumping all over him about the new budget. HaHa, he's got the rest of his life to get over it.
Lots of tension in our house today, think I'll go shopping! Ooop, that's what got us into trouble. Maybe I'll spend the time in the kitchen making use of our pantry stock.
later gators.

Lynn - Happy Belated Birthday! Hope you had a good day.

Darcy - I too would like to see a new picture of baby Noah. I had to go back and take a second look at the picture of your son after everyone was saying he is 14. He looked so grown up and handsome! Who says clothes don't make the man! LOL

Debbi - Sorry to hear about the results of your DR visit. Skin cancer is usually very easy to cure as long as it isn't Melanoma, and now days they can deal with that, too. I wish the best for you.

Isabella - I looked up the song "Friends" on Utube and cried through the whole thing. It's really beautiful. I had never heard it before. I think when I die my step-children will sing "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead". LOL

WebWoman - You are doing so great on your diet! You go girl!

The last refrigerator I had was a bottom freezer. I loved it. When we went looking for this new one I looked at ones with a top freezer but it seemed that I had to bend over so far to see into the refrigerator portion so I ended up with a french door with the bottom freezer. Once again, I love it. Both of mine had a drawer that pulls out and inside that was another drawer that slides in and out on top of the main drawer. It also has a divider that sections off the main drawer. I think it has more room than a top freezer and once you get it organized you can easily find everything. We also have a small 5 cu. ft freezer in the basement but it has a door in front instead of on top and it has shelves and also shelves in the door. It's great!

Welcome Cindiem! Congrats on your black belt. You seem to have a very active lifestyle. That's very good for your health, as well as weight loss. Tell us how you keep your momentum up.

fast fly by....off to bridge asap.....The Mirror was written in 1977 and reissued in1997 in paperback. I could only find it on amazon.com.

Bobbi...it's your recipe for cake. SF cake mix(devils food esp) cup of yogert and cup of water. Mixed and into bundt pan. Needs to bake a little longer. Fabulous I added dried cherries for extra kick byyyyyyye k3

Morning everyone im pooped befor the day has begun. we have my dd cats and have been leaving the door upstairs open. well during the wee hrs Lucky the rescue kitty decided to join me. but she wouldnt stay still. wanted to play and prrr. im used to dogs so this is new to me. after about 2 hrs of lucky i finally woke dh up and had him take her back upstairs and close the door but never did go back to sleep. I wanted to say that i do get hungry but not like i used to, i have cravings etc but went thru so much to get to where i am now that im terrified to relapse,every day is a battle of some kind. my youngest sister had the same surg as i did and she lost about 90# and has kept it off. my othe sister had lapband and has lost about 50# and kept it off. they say its harder to maintain,so im careful about how much i eat and the trigger foods never come home with me. its been a lifesaving tool for me and i wish i had the courage to do it yrs ago. by the way you all inspire me too. i ordered the mirror book at amazon. ttfn rosey

Hi all. I was in quite a grouchy pants mood yesterday. Everyone on this thread was so positive and perky that I decided to take my post down. I didn’t want to throw a wet blanket on all the cheerful happiness.
Easter dinner went well. I enjoyed seeing so much of my family. I felt bad when the DS that lives near D.C. was leaving. I asked when he thought DH and I could visit. He said, “Oh, probably 2 or 3 months.” I was thinking 2 or 3 weeks!!! I’m so not ready for this. I know it’s normal and good, yada, yada, yada. But no one really warned me that they grow up and leave you to the point that you only see them for a couple of weeks a year. Just was not on my radar. I guess it’s worse when they never leave (lol) but I’m very unprepared. This was part of what led to my grouchy pants syndrome.

Thanks, Isabella. You spotted my grouchy post and encouraged me to vent - much appreciated. I actually found a thread about “Keeping our sanity.” They all, um, flip the bird at evil, tempting foods. It made me laugh and I joined in. Decided to mentally flip the bird to certain foods (and in my case, certain people if I need to!) For instance, at bunko last night, there were some delicious looking Margarita cupcakes. I did the mental bird flip to them and ate the raw veggies. And I won $15 at bunko. I hardly ever win at that - too much luck involved.

My workmen walked out the door a few minutes ago. The bathrooms are done! Still have to have mirrors finished and hung in one and a couple of finishing touches but they are gone. I felt tremendous relief when they left. They bathrooms came out pretty nicely. I’ll post some pictures when I can figure out how to do it.

Debbie - so sorry about your suspected spots of cancer. If not benign, hopefully, they will be Basil Cell, which is not an invasive type. My dh has had it on both sides of his face. They only have to remove the spot with as little clear tissue as necessary. It was called “Mohs” procedure I think.

Change and Deb - I know what it’s like to want to get past one of those round numbers (no pun intended!) I am teetering on one of those, one that I promised myself I would never get above again! I don’t post my weight, not because I don’t trust all of you chicks but I hear horror stories about various things being hacked into and there are some things that I never want my husband, children, friends, old friends, old boy friends, etc., to ever know! I’m not very computer literate so I’m just not taking any chances. But just hang in there. You are doing well. Don’t get discouraged. Just keep on hanging in there.

Darcy - nice to meet you. Congrats on your sons making the honor band - he is very cute!

I finished reading “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” by Rebecca Skloot for my book club on Monday. It was an excellent book. Not light entertainment but an easy to read important story. I think those of you in the medical profession would enjoy it especially. My book clubs next book is, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist.” this book club does not do much light reading. I think I’m going to try to track down “The Mirror” that you’re all reading before I started that one.

Hope everyone continues to be happy. Hi to everyone. DH is calling. I better post this before it all gets away from me.