I am not a maintainer- I read you guys for inspiration- but I have to say that is horrible about your pup. If at all possible see if an attorney in town will write them (the pit bull folks) a nasty letter and/or see if your local city attorney (government) will write them a letter about concern that they have a nuisance/dangerous pet. Absolutely love your story and take it as inspiration on my low carbish, high veggie food plan.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAT!!

It is Angie's birthday too!

I hope you had a great day!

LILY for your dog.

Thanks everyone for the concern about my dog. She is better tonite and moving around a little more. She is eating and drinking again. I have to take her outside on the leash to do her business. The vet. said no running for her for a while.

My DH is now fed up through the roof with the neigbors dog. He is going to talk with our other neigbors about it too. Probably will then talk to our local police dept. and see what can be done. At the very least they should have to put up a fence to contain such an aggressive animal. If I had proof that it was what attacked Lucy, I'd be suing them to reimburse for her emergency bill and 2 follow up vet. visits that are required.

That dog has now charged across the street and growled at me when I was checking the mail. I had told here how it scared Lacy and Shelbey terribly by growling at them in our own yard. When DS arrived home the other night it came running at him growling in our driveway. DS had a golf club in his hand and Christina (the owner of the dog) came running over screaming "Shane, just be still and he won't hurt you, I promise". Well, this is BS , us being afraid to be in our own dang yard!

I had an awesome workout tonite. Did 30 min's on the stairstepper machine. Did my upper body workout. Then swam laps for 30 min's. I spent 2. 5 hrs. working out. I am overdoing it , I think. My muscles are screaming at me.

Lily- I agree. You shouldn't be scared in your own yard!

I finally have a gym membership here at home!!! My dad had been paying for my mom and my sister(his work pays for his...not that any of them go), but they haven't been going. He was just going to replace my sister with me. But it only costs $10 to add me to the family plan, so he just did that. I have to go to some stupid orientation(Actually, its probably a good thing. I haven't worked out in this gym in over 3 years) and then I can get back into my routine! I think I've ticked off my knee walking on the streets around here. And I do my videos but I feel like they aren't enough.

I have a 2nd interview for a job here in my hometown that I already know I don't want. At first I was telling myself, I'll take a job just to get experience and have money while I look for one somewhere else. But I really don't want this one. I think I'll tell them I've decided to focus all my energy on finding a job outside the town. what do you all think? I'm going to get certified to sub so I have money coming in while I job hunt. My best friend made a good comment---Once I find a job(hopefully) in Nashville, it'd be easier to just stop subbing and move than it would be to quit a job and move.

Ok, off to make some breakfast and then start the job hunt in full force! Have a great day!!

OK, Lily, call the police now, before someone else in the family gets hurt. That is not a safe situation.

Cute story: we put DD to bed last night. She usually parties around in her room about an hour before she actually sleeps, and as long as the light stays off and she's (more or less) quiet, we let her wind down however she needs to. Last night she was making a lot more racket than usual. I went to go find out what was going on and instead of finding my sweet two year old curled up in her bed in her reindeer pajamas, I find little miss party girl parading around the room in nothing but her diaper and a green basket perched over her head. She was quite proud of herself. I, of course, collapsed into hysterical laughter and her father had to deal with it.

Have a great day everyone!

Anne

Anne - LOL, I'll cook for you if you'll give me a free trip to Tucson! Actually these recipes were from older issues. I tear up my magazines and put them in a file. I think they were all from this past year though, and of course they're on the myrecipes.com website. The story about your DD is great too!

Lily - I am a dog lover, but I also think that all dogs (even the friendly ones) should be kept behind a fence, both for their own protection and the protection of others. Your neighbor's dog sounds out of control. If you can't get anywhere with the local police, maybe you could report them to their homeowner's insurance? A lot of insurance companies either won't insure you or will raise your rates a lot if you own a pit bull, for exactly the reason that if the dog bites someone you can sue and the insurance has to pay for it.

Too bad there isn't CSI for dogs or you could take samples from the wounds on Lucy and match the DNA to the neighbor's dog. Incontrovertible evidence! In any case you should be able to get the police to do something about it since the dog is a "public nuisance."

Allison - I hope you're feeling better today!

Carolyn - Thanks for the tip about the tofu. I have never eaten seitan, I don't even know what it looks like! The whole stew is only supposed to cook for about 20 minutes though (it's one of those "quick and easy" recipes) so I am guessing I'll be OK with the tofu -- I bought firm tofu.

Hi to Bargoo, Gary, Megan, Pat, Meg, DGA, Kery, the Lisas, and anyone else I missed! Welcome to Tommy, please feel free to stick around the maintainers forum!

I'm at six days with no junk food, five days under 1800 calories! Woohoo! Admittedly my calorie counts are a little off, since I don't add in my vitamins/calcium supplements (the chewable chocolate-flavored kind ) or tic-tacs. But those only add up to about 40 total for the day. Yesterday's workout was a mixed bag. It started out really great uphill on the treadmill, but then my calf cramped up so I had to reduce the incline, and then my knees started hurting so I had to slow down and stop early. I'm going to the rheumatologist in a couple hours, maybe he will examine my knees and my ankle that's been bugging me too.

You know what I noticed that is kind of funny? It's like the sides of my joint hurt. The other day DH grabbed my elbow and it really hurt (even though he didn't do it hard or anything), then if you grab my knees around the sides it hurts, the sides of my ankles hurt, and the sides of my wrists hurt. Weird. I'm still putting my faith in the thyroid medicine for the time being.

Oh, I have a funny story. So yesterday at work I was sitting at my desk without a sweater or coat or anything, and I thought to myself, "Wow, this thyroid medicine must be really working, I'm not really cold at all!" Then I went and looked at the thermostat and saw that someone had turned the temperature up to 75!

Hi everyone,

I am so sore from working out! I need to quit trying to overdo it every single time. My muscles feel so tight and swollen, I'm betting until they settle down that I won't show a weight loss. I'm still 100% on track with my eating plan and the more I work out, the more I actually want Water to drink instead of diet coke!

Lucy is even better today. I've gotta go take her to my vet. for a recheck.

I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to get Power Of Attorney for my son before his deployment. So, yesterday I just called his military commanding post. They have a legal meeting with Shane and a lawyer on Feb. 13th and that is when they will set me up to be his POA. All he has to take is our joint bank account, my SS number and my date of birth and it will all be taken care of. I was worried cause Shane wants me to sell his motorcycles and his jeep while he's gone after they have a little work done on them. Without POA, I would not be able to sell anything for him. Plus, he wants me to be able to do his taxes and pay his bills for him.

Lily - please remember to stretch really well after working out!! It will help prevent muscle injury and reduce soreness. This website has some info on stretching. The general rules I follow for doing any kind of weight lifting are: (1) warm up first, (2) optionally do some stretching after your warm up BEFORE you start lifting, (3) never work the same muscle groups two days in a row, (4) always stretch really well afterwards, and (5) make sure you are using proper form. Doing lifts improperly can cause injuries! There are plenty of books and websites with info about this.

Hello everyone!

Lily -- Glad to hear that Lucy is doing better. If it's that pitbull who did it, that's really a shame, and something should be done. I'm all for letting pets roaming leash-free (well, in the garden, that is, not *everywhere*), but only when they're not aggressive. If a person is feeling threatened, then there's a problem, for sure.

Jessica -- Congrats on the clean eating! I'm not sure if what I do is totally clean, but after the same amount of days, at least it feels pretty good to NOT be stuffed with greasy, sugary holidays food. I bet it must be the same for you!

Thanks for the well-wishes regarding my exams. I don't know how it'll go, but the good side of having an exam at 8 am is that I'm generally still too sleepy to panic in front of some old mouldy quotation to comment on. (This said, today's was... "Process in The Handmaid's Tale". Weird.)

I experimented with cooking at noon. It was either that or grabbing a pizza at the supermarket. The desire to experiment won. The result is that pasta with chicken, eggplant and various herbs thrown in the same pan was really delicious. (Don't laugh, remember that I'm still quite new to the veggies scene. ) I sure don't regret having chosen THAT option.

Anne~your story reminds me of a time when my DS was in daycare....they would usually separate the little ones into different rooms for nap time and my DS had her teenage daughter's bedroom. He slept, and the then got up really, really quietly and climbed out of the crib (he was about 2 at the time). When the daycare provider thought he'd been sleeping a little too long, she went to check on him. He had also stripped down to his diaper (or perhaps further) and had found the daughter's stash of valentine candy. He had managed to smear chocolate all over himself, her bedspread and the walls! What a mess!

Ok, so I wasn't feeling all that well yesterday, but by mid afternoon, I was better. For breakfast I had had a grapefruit and a piece of dry wheat toast. When I went back to bed, I brought a large glass of orange juice. For lunch I had several cups of chicken broth. Later in the afternoon I had more OJ. So dinner comes around and DH had invited his Mom, Dad, and Aunt & Uncle over to watch the BCS game on TV. I made a big salad and we ordered pizza. Thinking I'd have salad I could probably do with 1 or 2 slices of pizza. I really wasn't that hungry. Unfortunately, the pizza was just too close and I ended up eating 4 slices. What's worse was I felt hungry AFTER eating all that crap. And I felt like crap when I woke up and saw the number on the scale. Sheesh, why do I do this?

Anyway, I'll be posting my plan for today......no more crap!

Morning all.

Thanks for the b'day wishes, Gary. It was a really low-key day as my DH is still out of town.

Lily - glad that Lucy is feeling better. We have a law here that ALL dogs must be licensed and when they are off your property they must be leashed or otherwise controlled (i.e. in a kennel). We have lots of problems both with pitbulls and wolf hybrids. grrr. Like you we live in a rural-ish area and people think that living out of the city allows you to let your dog run loose. I know they do in my neighborhood as I see fresh tracks in the snow all the time. Luckily my cat stays in.

Happy B-Day to Pat & Angie!

?How do you all know when everyone else's B-Day is? Is there a place where you check daily to see who's it is?

Where's Glory - we want to know how your conference went where you had to buy all those suits for.

I've managed to take of half of my holiday weight gain by just saying no to sugar. I've got to be better at not eating when I'm not hungry. Yesterday, I had some peanut butter and then later some cheese just because I felt like eating them, not because I needed to.

Carolyn, you can look at the very bottom of the main page listing all the forums and the day's birthdays are listed. They get pulled from people's profiles, so if you don't put it there, it won't show up. Likewise, if you don't put your birth year, it won't say how old - or young - you are. Me, I'm older than dirt, so I don't list my birthdate.

Oh I wanted to add to the toddler stories. I was working for a law firm that was expanding its offices and several of us were working one weekend to move things to the new space on another floor. One of the women brought her 2-1/2 year old daughter. While we were unpacking boxes and putting stuff away, she put the little girl in an empty office to take a nap. We heard her singing and talking to herself for awhile, and then it was quiet. When the mom checked a little while later, the little girl was indeed fast asleep - and stark naked. It was really cute.

Jessica, I'll check out that link. I'm sure I need to do more stretching before and after my weight lifting. I am rotating which muscle groups I'm working out on.

Those are such cute toddler stories. When my son was 3 yrs. old, I had a bunch of ladies over for a Home Interiors party. Shane went to the bathroom and stayed a little longer than usual. Then he came out into the living room skating with one of my MaxiPads on each foot. LOL, thank god, it was a room full of mothers and they all got a good laugh. When I went back in the bathroom I found he'd pulled the sticky off the pads and had them stuck all over the walls, sink and toilet.