Good Morning Everyone,

Yesterday was a bad day - LOTS of pain. This morning, my jaw is less painful. I think that too many days of too-low-calorie days finally caught up with me. In the middle of last night, I woke up starving & had a turkey sandwich! First time I'd been hungry since I started taking the antibiotics & first time I ate solid food - chewed on the other side.

Hi Ali, Sorry to hear that you're having trouble with your eating/exercising plans. When I get into one of those "determination ditches," I always try something new - a new recipe, a new exercise video, a new place to walk, maybe even a new diet - something to shake things up.

Hi Linda (Meowee), you just reminded me about flu shot - I'll call my doctor today & make an appt.

Hi LindaD, I'm not sure what's been going on for the last couple of weeks - I've been pretty out-of-it - so, just in case I didn't do it before, let me send some sincere congratulations your way for getting into ONEderland -





Hi Zoe, Mercury being in retrograde has always caused me problems - generally with machinery (cars/washing machines...) - but this time was my mouth. I'll work on the "Rose Gallery." My thought is that we should each have a "before photo," a "during photo," and, a "when we hit goal photo." Also, all photos should be within 1 year of the day it's posted. What do you think?

Hi Rosey, I hope you're feeling better this morning.

Hi Trish, Good for you - back to the gym & a salad at the restaurant!

Hi Lily, I have a question - could you make a rule for yourself to "not eat sweets" for the next 3 weeks? Kind of like going on a "sweet fast." I am convinced that simple carbs - sugar/white potatoes/white rice/white pasta - are what trigger cravings. If you can cut them out for 21 days, you get over them. Also, this would be a good time (over Halloween) to give up candy.

Hi Cat, I'm not sure if I told you how much we all loved your eggplant lasagna. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to eat my 2nd portion because of the tooth/jaw pain. I'm looking forward to eating it today.
I'm going to try the new "muffin aka pie crust" recipe.

To everyone I've missed today & over the past couple of weeks - I will do better. I think I'm finally getting back to a more pain-free state.

Lynn

Lynn, so happy you are in less pain and hope NO pain will be the norm soon. A turkey sandwich is a great thing, huh? It's my "I'm in a hurry breakfast"...turkey and spinich sandwich on whole grain with a v-8 chaser...yummy and filling

Good morning everyone,

It's still hot and humid here. Yesterday I heard that we should start seeing more seasonable temp. by early next week.
Linda D., congratulations on getting into ONE-derland. I am so happy for you. Now, treat yourself to either something you've wanted to do or buy something special for yourself.

Lynn, glad that you're not in as much pain today. I like your idea about shaking things up. I would like to try a new eating plan, but there are so many out there, it's hard to choose. I am waiting for my friend to get back next week so I can walk again. I don't like to walk on my own for various reasons. DH will go with me, but sometimes he can't.

Lily, do you have a favorite low calorie/low fat treat you can bring to work with you to eat whenever you want candy? I like Lynn's idea about trying to give up sweets for 3 weeks. When I read her post it jogged my memory of what I read some time ago. Each day tell yourself, just for today I won't have any candy and keep saying that to yourself everyday until the cravings go away.

Zoe, good for you for staying on plan. HMMM, so Mercury in retrograde is the cause of my feeling unsettled. I'm not astrologically inclined, buy my mother was. She did everyone's chart in the family. She had a professional do mine and all I could do was sit there and . I still have it somewhere unless it got lost in the move. Hopefully all our planets will be in the correct alignment soon.

Rosey, I hope you're feeling better.

Karen, have there been any bites on your house? The right buyer will come along.

Hello to all the GOLDEN GIRLS I missed.

Hope you all have a great weekend.
BFN, Ali

Hi gang . . . OMG, it's afternoon already . . . I'm on the run today (will explain later, hopefully) . . . we are having beautiful and unseasonably warm weather right now. Amazing yesterday and again today.

See you, later.

Hello:

It's Friday!!!! I love Fridays because I look forward to my weekends. For several years I've had to work 6 days and sometimes 7 days a week. Until this bankruptcy occurred at work my schedule was very hectic and very long hours. I remember working for 21 days straight the last time I had a deadline. I'm so glad those days are over and hoping the next job I get won't be so demanding. Anyway, it sure is nice to spend two whole days at home to enjoy my time and relax.

I had a dentist appointment yesterday and got a temporary crown. I have two more appointments and then I'll be finished with drills, needles, and pain. Then I will be getting Invisiline. It's more expensive than braces but I don't want a mouth full of silver. This way if I want to meet friends for an evening out I can take out the Invisiline and no one will know I wear braces.

Zoe: I like the WW IC sandwich. I also like the sugar free Breyers Ice Cream Bars. They are yummy too.

Rosey: Hope you get better soon. Take care of yourself. I never get a flu shot but I don't usually get the flu. A couple of ladies at work got the shot and ended up with the flu for the whole week. What's that all about? Hmmmmm

Trish: The scales and I have had a war with each other for a long time. I've learned to weigh twice a month and leave it at that. I used to get too caught up in weighing and would weigh a couple times a day. Now only every two weeks and my main measuring stick is a pair of slacks a size smaller than what I'm wearing which I try on once a week to really determine if my program is working. It's fun to see the zipper getting closer and closer to actually zipping up. I've come to realize the scale is just a number and measurements and clothing are the greatest determining factor.

Lily: How about keeping a piece of sugar free hard candy, sugar free hot chocolate or fat free chocolate pudding at work instead of focusing on the candy bowl. Keep these things near so you will feel like you are treating yourself if you get a serious craving. In order to not eat the candy I pass out on Halloween night I always purchase candy that I don't like. That way I know I won't eat it and what's left over I just throw away. Also, last year I passed out Play Dough. I think I got 36 cans of Play Dough for $10.00 at Costco and bought enough to give each child one and a couple pieces of candy (the kind I don't like). It worked out well and the kids loved it.

Cat: Have fun with your mother and sister. It's always stressfull getting ready for guests. My sister made soap one year. She bought different things to drop in the soap such as pearls, jewels, lavender, etc. Real cute.

Lynn: I'm so very sorry you are still having problems. I hope you get some relief soon.

Hello to all the GG's I missed.

I will check in again on Monday. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Hmmmmm. No internet access at home right now. We subscribe through our local cable TV company. Looks like there was an electrical outage sometime during the night, and it interrupted our server or something. Dh understands this stuff; I don't. The most ambitious repair I could do was reset the time on the microwave. I guess restoring cable access is a little more complicated.

Well, I'm thinking to weight myself tomorrow and hoping deperately that I can at least leave my ticker where it is. If I have to push it UP, I will be seriously depressed. I will KNOW that I have no choice but to stick closely to my current eating regimen, but it might also be a strong indication that I'd better start doing some exercise again. (Oh what a nasty word - exercise)

I'm at work, and a tad swamped at the moment, but wanted to wish you all a happy and joyous weekend just in case our internet isn't successfully restored and we have to wait for a service call.

Soooo, have a happy weekend, my dear GG's!!!!!!


TTFN,

Z

Hi everybody . . .

Good Morning !! I figured before I get busy I would just sit right down and write to all of you first! I did get breakfast done and the bed made so feel I need to try to catch up with everyone.

Cat, I absolutely love the picture of you at the cemetery. You are so photogenic. I thought that I might try the recipe that you had but Tim is such a picky eater. He doesn’t want anything done different to like a steak--- he wants salt and pepper on it and then grill it--- nothing else. Chicken the same way. In some ways having him like things so plain should be good but I like to experiment sometimes too! The times that I have I’ve ended up liking something but he doesn’t and gives me such a hard time about it that I end up throwing it out! Not good I know.

Rosey, I know how you feel about staying in jammies all day! Since we live up here in the mountains I pretty much stay in sweats all day except if someone is coming. They are comfy and warm! Speaking of that--- we are supposed to get 3 to 5 inches of snow tomorrow! Still not ready for snow!

Trish, I agree that the biggest meal should be in the middle of the day….. But again, Tim thinks it needs to be in the evening. I kind of thought since he has been off work since April I could try to get it turned around but he doesn’t want that at all. I may just have to do that part on my own. It just seems to make more sense to me.

Barb, good to hear from you. Congrats on getting to the gym. I still have a hard time making myself do what I have here at home. The treadmill, ab lounge, and mini-tramp. PLUS the WATP’s videos. Sometimes it is so easy to just put it off.

Meowee-- Did you get a perm and try it? What did you think? We are having about 65 degrees today but then tomorrow our high and low temps are only supposed to be 29 degrees with 3 to 5 inches of snow! And then back up in the 40’s and 50’s the next 4 or 5 days after that. We did get our flu shots on Thursday and we both have sore arms still. Not to bad though. They have been worse before.

LindaD-- Congratulations on getting to ONEderland! The Dance Company looked like it was really fascinating. I’ve seen some of those that dance on the side of a building on late night TV. But never been to a performance. I imagine that was quite the treat!

Hi Zoe, Thanks for sending all the good vibes this way! I had a dream last night that someone came today to look at the house and bought it! JUST A DREAM! But wouldn’t that be nice! I would love to be back in MO. Before Christmas! My cousin who lives up near Denver, really wanted our house but they raise Labradoodles and when they called the county to see what they needed to do they found out they needed 35 acres to have a kennel. I guess because of the barking. So what seemed like was going to be great for the both of us ended up being nothing. People up the road have all kind of Llamas and they just have the 5 acres but guess they don’t bark!!

Joanne, Lyn, Ali, Lily, Hello to all of you.

Lynn, I hope you are feeling so much better now! I think the only pain that I would put right up there with a tooth pain is an ear ache! And I don’t wish either of those on my worst enemy!

Marylynn, Hello and How are you doing? I wish I had nerve to get some of those zumba videos and see what I could do-- just to mix things up a bit! My Girls say Hello to your Boys!!

Well, I hope I at least said Hello to everyone. Now I suppose I really better get busy in case we do have people come to see the house. I still need to chase the vacuum cleaner and hopefully get at least 30 minutes of treadmill in!

Everyone have a good Saturday and I’ll check back later!

Good Morning (afternoon) GG's!

It is a glorious day here. Getting warmer now, but was so cool this morning. We got out soon as the sun came out to start on some yard work to take advantage of the perfect weather. Got roses dead headed, got the flower beds raked up, got the driveway raked of pinestraw and hauled it to the back yard to go around the fence to block weeds (put newspaper down first) Terry (dh) went and got a bunch of mulch that I'm getting ready to spread in the front (and he also got me a surprise pink muhly grass that we saw last night at a gardening lecture when he picked up the mulch)
Now he is blowing off the patio and I'm boiling saltwater to kill grass that sprung up in the gravel driveway. I LOVE DAYS LIKE TODAY! I love to accomplish stuff.

We went to a gardening lecture last night ("famous" local gardening guy from LSU gave the lecture...he's great and funny) I saw so many slides of stuff I want! They also had a dinner outside afterwards at sunset...I shouldn't have, but ate it anyway....smoked brisket, cole slaw and baked beans..I'm sure it all had sugar in it (but skipped the role and brownie)

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

Hi Everyone,

Hi Ali, Have you ever tried walking inside with one of the Walk Away the Pounds tapes? Quite a few folks here have used these.

Hi Linda (Meowee), it's beautiful here today also. I went out with my friend - just lovely.

Hi LindaD, hope you're enjoying your days off.

Hi Zoe, you know the internet problems are all part of Mercury being in retrograde. Hope you get it fixed soon. I'm working on the Rose Gallery - I'll keep you posted.

Hi Karen, I sympathize with you having to deal with your dh's eating requirements. When you live alone, you eat what you want when you want it - you just eat it alone.

Hi Cat, sounds like a lovely weekend - enjoy.

Catch you later,

Lynn

Well, DH fixed the internet connection lickety split this morning, but I had to do the grocery shopping, which typically takes me awhile because I usually get sidetracked a bit before I make it to the market - have to check out some of my favorite stores to see what's new, and poke around some. Then I did the grocery shopping. Now, here's the scenario: I shop every two weeks at a market about twenty miles outside of Worcester (which for the newbies, is where I live) because the prices are so much better and they carry all the brand names that we like. I started going there before we bought this house - we had a condo in Leominster, MA, which is where this market is. I do my BIG shopping there bi-weekly, and then pick up the milk and little stuff that we run out of during the week closer to home. The market closer to home currently has a P.R. gimmick going on where they've hooked up with Sunoco gas stations locally, and for every $50 you spend at the grocery store (swiping your grocery card each time), you get ten cents a gallon off a fill-up at Sunoco. So, my discount is now up to ninety cents a gallon, and I wanted to get my tank filled up, but you can only use your discount for one fill-up, and then you have to start building your credits up from ten cents a gallon again. My gas tank was only a quarter full, which would be just about enough to do the 40 some-odd miles to and from the grocery store in Leominster. My gas gauge has this quirk where when it's first filled up, it takes about 100 miles (not much more than one day's commute in and out of Boston) before the gauge starts to go down - and then when it gets down to about a quarter of a tank, you know you're really only dealing with about an eighth of a tank. I really wanted to get my fill-up with as empty a tank as possible because I'd be getting the gas for right around $1.70 a gallon, so I decided to go to Leominster and back on that quarter tank and see if I could make it. (I love a challenge.)
So, I get to Leominster - and putt around the mall, some (there's a shopping mall adjacent to the grocery store plaza) and then do my grocery shopping and head home. Now my gas gauge is at about an eighth of a tank, which, as I've explained, is really LESS than an eighth of a tank, and I've got twenty miles or so to get home. So, naturally, I get half-way home, and my "low gas" icon pops on, and I think somebody told me that you've got about ten miles left when that comes on, but I mean, who knows for sure? I knew I had just about ten more miles to get home, but could I make it PAST the turn-off to my house and to the Sunoco station that's about two miles beyond?
Hmmmm.
Yeah. So you KNOW I chickened out, right? I stopped for some non-Sunoco gas, and now I've got to use up THIS gas and try to be right near empty when I'm not twenty miles away from a sunoco station!
What drama, eh?
So, I got home, DH helped bring in the $267 worth of groceries (this gets more and more ridiculous, all the money we spend on food!) and then we set off to shop for shirts for him; he recently inventoried his heavier, long-sleeved shirts, and found that a lot needed replacing. Plus he has thousands of ties, but you know how when you're buying shirts, it just seems logical to find ties to match...he's horrendous to find shirts, or any kind of clothes for, really, because he's tall and big like a teddy bear. Not fat, just big and solid. Mostly, the shirt sleeves are too short, and he has to try every one on before buying any. BUT, we got lucky and found eight - count 'em. EIGHT shirts that fit perfectly, and a pair of pants and a sport jacket. Then I just happened to find two pairs of very chic wide-legged and cuffed pants in dark gray and brown and a sweater for MOI in <gulp...I can't believe it! in a SIZE TWELVE!> Now, I'm guessing they just run on the large side, really, but is is a rather astounding thing at any rate, to put on a pair of 14's, and determine that they really ARE just TOO danged big even though I LIKE my clothes to fit loosely and comfortably! Oh, and I DID weigh myself this morning, and didn't have to push my ticker up, after all! In fact, I lost a whole four-tenths of a pound!!!!! At THIS rate, I'll waste away to a stick somewhere around 2020, eh?
Okay, then after our highly successful shopping expedition (I KNOW I'm making us sound like conspicuous consumers, but the truth of the matter is that DH owns four or five decent suits for work that he replaces on a rotating schedule of one a year, and wears his shirts for three or four years apiece, too - only gets new ones when the old ones start looking more like rags than shirts. Now ME, I do buy more clothes than he does, but whole weeks go by that I don't buy a single thing for myself! )
THEN we went out for supper, ate conservatively, it started to pour just as we were leaving the restaurant, and we ran through the rain laughing like two hyenas.
Now we're home, we have internet access, and what more could we ask of life?
I'm in my pyjammies, too, Rosey. <looking surreptitiously around for any opposite-gendered readers> gotta say it always feels good to just yank off that bra and really relax.
Trish, I'm on friendly terms with my scales today. That doesn't mean we won't be enemies again soon, though. I've discovered that not only do they LIE, but they can't make up their mind from one day to the next, either.
Lynn, I'm LOVING the "Rose Gallery" idea, but I honestly don't know if I can scout up a "before" picture. When I'm unhappy with my weight, I avoid the camera like the plague. I'll look through all our pictures, but I can't think of any right at this minute. I'll do my best. Thank you for doing this, though. It's certainly way beyond MY expertise. I'm glad you're feeling better.
Oh, Karen! Let's hope your dream is a prophetic one! Wouldn't that be wonderful??? I keep sending those vibes, and I know a lot of the others are doing the same. How are your furbabies lately? They're so adorable!
(Tee hee - that was the closest I could find to how they look!)
Hi Ali - yep, I know from nothing about astrology, either, but I have friends who dabble. And it really IS weird the way at certain times, people ALL feel unsettled and machines break and so on and so forth. It's as good an explanation as any I can come up with, I guess.
Hellos and hugs to everyone - my Tee; dear Phyl whom I hope is having a wonderful time with her family; Jo-annie, whom I know is enjoying another idyllic weekend with Geoff; Marylynn, LindaD, Meowee-Linda, Gayle, Cat, Lyn, Lily, and all the rest of you Golden Girls, wherever you may be!

TTFN,
Z

Well, I guess my dream was just a dream!! Our phone never rang once today! Maybe somebody will want to see it tomorrow--- probably with 5 inches of snow on the ground that I will have to clean up after!! GRRRR! Keep Smiling Karen!!

Karen,

Don't get discouraged - sometimes dreams just don't come true overnight - takes a little longer. It will happen.

Z

Hello everyone,

I hope you all are having a fantastic weekend. We had some much needed rain yesterday. It hadn't rained in so long that our lawn was starting to get brown and crunch underfoot. Supposedly we are to get more rain today, but the sun is shining at the moment, so don't know what it's going to do.

Karen, I am sorry that you didn't get any calls about your house yesterday. Your house has a lot going for it. Someone will come and snap it up when you least expect it.

Zoe, on the size 12 pants and sweater! Don't worry what the scale says, the pant-o-meter is the best way to judge your success.

Lynn, I do have the WATP tapes, but it never occurred to me to use one. Thank you for the suggestion.

Enjoy your Sun. everyone.
BFN, Ali

We have sunshine, which is wonderful, but coupled with very high winds, which isn't. Nothing exciting in my plans anyway.

See you all later . . .