I made it through the first day back at work without any energy drinks. Quitting them is much harder psychologically than physically. Now that I have 11 days of not drinking them and one day being at work without them it'll only get easier. I'm relieved. I was starting to loathe my behaviour around them and my over-reliance on and over-consumption of them. Good riddance!

All day long today I marvelled at the skies above me. The clouds were constantly changing colour and shifting shape and the sky turned various shades of blue every hour it seemed. Beautiful!

Another bonus to today was that I didn't stop at the grocery store for ice cream as a reward for getting through the day without the e-drinks.

Dagmar

Dagmar, congratulations! Those energy drinks can be a real trap, and they're not cheap, either. Also, good for you for skipping the ice cream as a reward. That's just drug substitution!

Bravo Dagmar!

Allison, very sorry to read about your dad.

Amazing clouds today here too. All sorts of cool shapes and sizes. Wish I could have spent more focused time enjoying them, instead of just thru the windshield on the drive home.

A couple of weeks ago I purchased a sous vide immersion cooker. Now I'm thinking I ought to invest in a vacuum sealer to bag the food before cooking (right now I'm using ziplock bags but it's hard to get all the air out). Do any of you have a vacuum sealer and if so, are you happy with it (I've seen a lot of negative reviews on most of the sealers I've looked at on Amazon)? Any recommendations?

Allison - I have a food saver and really like it. The bags are expensive, but they sell a large box at Costco for a better price.

Allison... I'm very sorry about your dad...

Andrea... Only I'm on vacation at the moment. Dh and younger dd are still at home. Tomorrow I do have the pet sitter doing one visit as they will be at work quite long.

Made it safely to Texas and am enjoying dd. I am exhausted though as younger dd and I went to a concert last night! Then I had to get up at 4:00 to catch my flight. We saw Hoodie Allen, Wiz Khalifa and Fall Out Boy. Great show but I've never in my life seen so much blatant drug use! Wiz Kalifa is apparently famous for that. We were mainly going to see Fall Out Boy.

Hoping to go to bikram yoga here tomorrow and possibly a water park.... And hopefully eat well too!

Michele Now I feel old - haven't heard of any of the acts you went to see in concert. Kids keep you more plugged in to current pop culture I guess.

Today is going to be a long and hard day. I'm doing 6 dog walks and 3 cat visits and the day will be about 11 hours long. My brain is telling me how much I need to go and buy a 4-pack of energy drinks to do this. Interesting how each addiction is basically the same - just a different substance.

I will be strong. No promise on the ice cream at the end of it all though.

Dagmar

Allison - thinking of you and your family today.

So am I. Hugs

Thanks guys.

So next weekend's trip to Salt Lake, which was to go and see my Dad, will now be to assess the work we'll need to accomplish in the coming months to, as my sister said, take care of the house. It's an old house--60ish years old with some updates done in the 1980's, so it's still old. I know my brother would like to fix it up and sell it but frankly I think we'd be better off just selling it as is. But in the mean time we have 60 odd years of stuff to get rid of. And since my Mom passed about 4 years ago he's become a minor hoarder who refused to put anything away where it belonged. I know there are paint cans in the basement that are older than I am.

Then the following weekend we'll fly up for his memorial service. That evening is our church's annual "salmon run" which is basically a smorgasbord or potluck and the hosts cook salmon. I've never gotten to go to one so we'll all go as a family and that should be fun.

I imagine I'll have to go up for a couple weeks sometime this fall (when it's cooler) so we can really clean stuff out and then either have a huge garage sale or hire someone to do an estate sale. It'll be a lot of work.

Allison, it's bound to be a difficult time but you do have support. I hope you can enjoy the salmon run.

Allison, I'm so sorry to hear about your Dad. You've got a lot of work ahead of you but it will also help you re-live old family memories (hopefully good ones).

Dagmar, have you seen the FitBark? it's a fitbit for dogs I need one for our cats, although I have no idea how I'd increase their activity.

I get a mcdonalds cone (170 cals) to satisfy my ice cream desire.

Holy cr*p but my contractor should quit while he's ahead. There are a bunch of things installed incorrectly but all I want now is for him to bring me the lights I've already paid for and I'll give him his last cheque and call it quits.

He's emailing me and asking about stuff and I'm telling him what we are seeing but that we have OTHER people to fix his mistakes.

I think if he asks me for a reference I will truly know that he's not quite right in the head. He can't seem to understand what we tell him, whether in spoken or written form. Same native language as DH and me - English - but he can't seem to process information.

DH asked me what I want and I said I wanted my lights and for the contractor to never darken our door again. That is how I'm proceeding. Now I wish the contractor would get with this, bring the lights, take the cheque and sail away into the sunset.

Dagmar