Mel~ I find that when you go back to a closet or drawer or pile you are willing to let more go each time or the stuff you thought "might be used" has not been used to so, out it goes.

I am very organized but it seems the sheer amount of what needs to be sorted,filed etc in a day got away from me. I have been tossing even more. I have needed to add business files instead of piles. Getting there. I have been at the Dollar store regularily picking up bins, tubs, trays,cleaning stuff.....................

I find that actually writing it all down instead of it being in my head has helped incredibly.
I am looking forward to showing my DH my Control Journal once I have it tuned. I really do wonder if he "gets" what i do in a day.

I must get on with the day!!

PainterWoman--When I had webtv my keyboard ran on batteries. Do you have a program for digital painting?

Mel and Meadow. The chemicals are auto fed but I do have to refill the tanks, better than the old set up. I gear up in heavy rubber boot, gloves and wear a face shield. I feel like an alien at times, but safety is my issue. Yes, I do breathe some light fumes during this time which I seriously think is the cause of my runny nose. But the ear nose and throat doctor say's no.

Meadow--love those graffics, especially the one with the woman shooting th scale. I felt like doing that last night. i'm now at my highest weight ever. 191.8 pounds.

Java- If I could find something in town and not have to drive 60 miles to a weigh in I'd do that. I'm seriously thinking about asking the doctor to let me come in once a week to weigh on his scale and I'll have the nurse to chart it in my record.

I don't have time to go back and read all the posts will have more time over the week end.

Here's something to give you a laugh. I spilled something on the floor yesterday at work and got the mop to clean it up. Evidently the mop handle hit the clock and it fell and hit me on top of the head the fell to the floor and broke into pieces. It really hurt. T asked how my head was this morning. It's still sore.

The pedometer showed a 2.6 miles and did aerobics for 20 minutes again after I got home from work. I've joined the Sonoma team. A total of 40 minutes and 4.0 miles.

I have diffinately been in denial about the weight issue. My calorie and fat intake must be controlled plus do this exercise. The exercise is the easiest part if I keep it at intervals.

The tragedy of the trapped miners story is compounded by the roller coaster ride the family and friends have been on. Just so very sad. I vented about it all in my journal, so I won't muddy up my post here. Just so very sad.

On a possibly brighter note, I found a kitten, nearly identical to my late stray kitty, Squeak, waiting on my front porch for me when I got home last night. She's not so sweet this morning when she came to the realization that she's being "held hostage." I'm hoping she'll come around, provided I keep her. I will be more wise about her spay, when it comes to that. I stayed OP with my food yesterday, water was great and I did a short weight lifting circuit. I also took the time to travel back in time through your thread here and get to know you all. Hi

Bills paid (although I had to transfer funds from savings again sigh) and now it's time to get some house work done before work. Peace to all who roost here.

Java Turtle

Well, h***. Even with the split screen bit, I managed to erase a long post. How do you spell hopeless? C-a-r….. So this will be both shorter and less “newsy” than planned. In fact, I’ve realised that with some of the fitness/diet changes I’m trying to make, I just won’t be able to spend as much time on 3fc. Especially since it takes me forever to compose, try to post, and then start over… Even if my visits are brief or infrequent, however, I will be lurking…

With reference to the pedometer: tying it to my shoe would be great when I’m wearing running shoes, but my work shoes aren’t lace-ups, and I’m already far too dowdy without pedometer-shaped footwear jewelry… I’m thinking of gluing Velcro to the clip, and pinning the other side of the (heavy-duty) Velcro to the waistband of whatever pants I’m wearing. (And I do clip to the side of the pants, but it still pops off sometimes.) I've already cut most of the belt loops off the front of my pants - they make ugly lumps in the front of my tops, and I never wear belts anyway.

There are way too many of you out there suffering from colds and other seasonal maladies. Bummer! Do take it easy on the exercise – when I was still a regular runner, I was always told it was okay to run if the problem was above the neck (a good thing in my case ), but not if it was below.

As for the treadmill/work station, I think the monitor and keyboard were on a stand at the front of the treadmill, no reaching required. The interviewer made a joke about having meetings with everyone on treadmills ha-ha, and the interviewee replied that in fact they often do that, very popular and shorter meetings.

Shad, I don’t think I could stand the hot weather you’re having. Yuck. Of course here we have our second freezing rain warning in a week. Does the screen of the Weather Channel in Australia also go all red when there’s a weather warning? And the timing was terrible: two days ago it was only one more cold day before the canal skating rink opened, and now it’ll get softer and unsafe again, so no skating. I was on the verge of bringing my skates up from the locker.
A friend here is pushing me to sign up with skype. Is the reception always bad, or just with the bluetooth technology? It would save $$$ (I think) when calling out of town.

Yesterday and today have been rather pleasant: my first weigh-in post holidays was .5 lbs down, and another half pound on my scale today! I am SO in the mood to succeed! So It's eating properly, in bed early, daily exercise, lots of water, no late-night food, lots of veg and fruit...

Sorry to all those I’ve not addressed in this post, but I must get some exercise and lunch toot sweet. Ta-ta for now.

It rained again overnight - Yeehaaa Never thought that I would go overboard for rain, but too much blue skies does that for you. We're all turning somersaults over here - well me and the cat anyway.

Holly - I don't call it breaking down to go out and get something to relieve pain. Good heavens girl, do you enjoy pain? The organisation sounds incredibly good. I may just send DB2 up to you to get some pointers.

Java - If you can research this lot and still remain sane and sober, then you are doing well. Glad to hear your Mountaineers won the trophy! And it sounds like you did well with the catering and party. Good on yer. Nothing like a good auccessful socialising for lifting the spirits and the ego. Sad about those miners. It's a dangerous industry and I understand the mine operation was slated by the safety people a while back. Such a tragedy to make management see some sense. Sometimes I have to wonder about the stupidity and greed in business today.

Meadow - good going on this exercise thing. Be careful or we will have a WATP junkie on our hands. Love the graphics. I should print those out and put them on my refrigerator.
The cufflinks turned out to be earrings - although earrings as I have never seen the like before. I should have taken the darn things out of the box but since they were with a whole stack of other cufflinks (????) I just took it for granted what they were. Silly me.

Linus - so pleased to hear that finally someone has sorted out CJ and that he is now a more reasonable baby. I well know the feeling of not being able to cope with a crying baby anymore. DS1 was such a baby. And when you finally discover that there is a personality in amongst the aggro you feel so guilty about what you wanted to do with the child. I remember saying to my Mother that I would gladly raffle this one off - but I'd have to pay them to take a ticket.
Christmas presents sound grand. It's so nice to know you are appreciated.

Painter - I hear you on the paper work and the marketing necessary to encourage business and how I would so much like not to have to do this. Perhaps I am coming to the end of my time with the job I do now, maybe time for another switch in careers - if only I knew what I really wanted to do with myself!
As for the pictures as per Meadow. If you have photoshop or photo editor you can resize to the normal - mine are usually around 500x300 pixels and that will do the trick - sometimes a bit bigger. Keep the image to low quality and you should not have the problem of size again.

Mel - junk has a habit of attracting more junk. I have managed to do my wardrobe and got rid of some of the DS1's stuff - now relocated to his place. But there is still a fair amount of stuff around. Unfortunately not much point in cleaning it out until I have finished the redecorating. So I should just stop procrastinating and get on with the reno. So much to do, so little time, and just me.

Ceejay - good going on the exercise again. I see LindaT's thread on exercising is getting a good showing. It will keep Linda busy - which means the prod is not pointed in our direction!

Carla - The pedometer is a pain I found. I still have one, but these days I rarely use it. If it is not annoying me in the waistband, then I am hard put to find a place for it when wearing a dress - yes I do wear them occasionally. If they are not correctly placed, then they are not accurate. I find them not accurate in the gym anyway - if using the rowing machine the thing does not consider that I am moving since I am sitting down. The one I have at the moment seems to be impossible to program properly - instructions written in Japlish. I can't get it to count calories used and it doesn't want to accept the fact that I was born in the first half of the last century. Whinge, whinge.
Don't get excited about not getting in every day, or not being able to reply to everyone. We are getting quite big here now. We simply have to do what we can and what is best for each or us. I'm sure that you will be here with support and helpful advice as it is needed. I for one will not get excited if you don't refer to me by name in your post!
As for Skype. I have no problems with anyone except the DS1. I think it has a lot to do with the bluetooth and the fact that he talks fast and that the reception in his area is not that great - even for mobile phones. I have no trouble talking to my friend in Japan as long as we both remember that there is a short delay between the 2 countries - about 5 seconds or so. It's free and therefore worth a go. You could then try annoying me in the middle of the night!


The day is dawning sort of overcast and pale grey. There will be humidity today I can tell. Time to go out and do something out there.

Oh yes the earrings/ cufflinks saga. I took them to a snooty jeweller down at Loganholme yesterday. No they can't alter them because the heat would affect the stones - can't they take the stones out - they don't know what they were put in with! Can they then make something similar! Yes of course they could, quote $900.00 in silver!!! So what will it cost to fix this gold chain - oh that's simple a quick weld, $24.95!!!! You have to be kidding. Thanks but no thanks. I took the chain to a jewellery chain at the lower end of the market - cost $9.95 for 3 1/2 minutes work. I didn't ask about the earrings/ cufflinks as they weren't manufacturing jewellers. I think I will live with the earrings and give DS1 the money to buy a new pair of cufflinks.

I am supposed to get married on May 5th and I have done, well pretty much nothing to make arrangements for the actual ceremony and reception - but I've booked the plane tickets (seat sale!!!) and the hotel for our honeymoon!!! Hey, there is always city hall, isn't there??

Actually, we got some worrying news today. TB's dad has been having liver/ kidney/ gall bladder problems for the last 18 months or so. Last Christmas they took out his gall bladder and that seemed to help a bit (though the idiots knicked his liver in the process) but he's been having problems again. They sent him to the hospital for some tests yesterday... and they found "something". They didn't say what or where, just that there was "something on the ultrasound". We are trying to not fret before we have any more facts... but needless to say I paid for cancellation insurance on the plane tickets just in case.

Anyway, two days in a row at the gym. My knee hurts! I have some stuff to comment on etc but it will have to wait - if I don't get to bed now I'll be useless in the gym tomorrow. 5:30 is really, really early in the morning...

'Night night all

Wanna bet?

Just can't sneak anything past that woman, can you?

Ok, I'll go finish my crunches before I post ...

Darn, and I thought she was occupied elsewhere. You're right happy - wonder how she manages it?

Ok, I'm back.

First of all to Mary. I felt so bad about the miners - was saying prayers for them as I was following the news story. I feel so badly for their families. I agree with you, the miscommunication was unfortunate but not malicious. I take away from this tragedy once again that life is precious, you never know if this is your last day, give those you love a hug and a kiss each day, even if they aren't acting "kissable" at the moment.

Madcat, we first planned a big-ish wedding. Postponed it when my dear MIL came down with cancer. Time passed (2 more years), I got impatient waiting for DH to ahem, get the lead out. Told him one day to make up his mind, marry me or hit the road. We were married 2 weeks later. It was a small but intimate wedding that everyone said was so much more fun than the stressful, more formal affairs. So keep your priorities in perspective, it's your day, your celebration, do not let others influence you. Hope all goes well for TB's dad.

Carla, don't worry about responding to everyone all the time - just maybe once in a while if one of us has asked for help or just said something profound It IS more important to take care of you first.

Shad, good to hear you got some rain. Hope you got a nice refreshing breeze or two also. I am almost shocked that in the heat of your area someone is actually wearing formal long sleeved shirts that require cufflinks. Bravo to the well dressed man *hats off*

What a busy group - Ceejay's treading along even with an ouchie head, Mel's cleaning - can I ask why you steam your veggies ahead of time?, Holly's making lists, Meadow's walking away those pounds AND finding stuff to make us giggle. Painter, often I dream of escaping the corporate life to do something on my own but the idea of marketing myself - always scares me away. I guess you just have to set the timer and say you'll spend the next 30 minutes doing nothing but revenue generating things. And poor Linus - sleep deprived, getting unintentional ear baths but looking good in that new jewelry. My mum tells me that I was also a colicky baby. One day dad walked in the room and me mum - a woman of infinite patience who was also severely sleep deprived and tired of a wailing baby was getting ready to hurl me to the wall. Dad stopped her in time and made her step away for a bit for a walk down the street. Moral is, just proves that everyone needs a break once in a while, you are only human and to this day I love my Mom more than anything so we babies don't hold anything against our tired mums - we just torment them in the teenage years.

I went to check with the nurse nutritionist today. She loved my food log / charts. Said it was obvious I understood the terms of the diet. I am getting more used to the food logging and the nutritional DB here on 3FC is a great help. I also lost 3 pounds over the holidays. I was not really following the diet, just trying not to over do it and making good choices when possible AND enjoying a reasonable serving of some darn good pizza.

I did ask to see the doctor. I have toughed out this cold for a week and this morning I woke up with a sore throat, earaches and it appeared this was cycling through my body all over again. I have very little tolerance for being sick and the idea of another week or two of this was unbearable. Doc looked at me said my inner ears were the color of ripe tomatoes, throat was complimenting the matched set and I was indeed in need of some serious medication. So I got a shot in the butt! I actually took comfort in that tho it did hurt like the dickens when the medicine pushed into my rather ample butt. When I was little, a shot in the butt always seemed to cure you fast - just like the most vile tasting medicine cured you the quickest. She also gave me 3 different medicines - nasal spray, decongestent, and anti biotic. Good thing as my chest is getting tight and I would have been in the doctor's office by the weekend anyway the way this was going.

My nose is now clear - sort of. But the air is very dry. Dug out the humidifier and set it in the bedroom. I can now dream of being with Shad in the humid tropics.

I also decided that it was time to take the dreaded "before" pics. The last thing in the world I wanted was for DH to take pictures of me in silloutte ?? in form hugging clothing. However, I am committed to losing weight and many people said that they regretted not having a really awful start picture to compare to when they finally got to fabulous proportions. Besides it's so hard to see yourself change. So he was quite accomodating and his eyes didn't burn out of his head - I tried taking pictures myself but it just didn't work out right. Finally, I'm no Meadow but I do have some software which allowed me to "trim away the bulges" to see what I was shooting for. Amazing and inspirational.

Food and water were very good today, even remembered that I like to eat yogurt when I'm on antibiotics and swapped out a fresh fruit cup for some berries and vanilla yogurt for my snack. Yum.

I should have been in bed an hour and a half ago, but as Painter and Meadow can attest to, playing with these graphics programs are so much fun -however, the medicines won't work as well without adequate rest so good night all.

Good afternoon Shad, I see your egg light on.

Carla what are you doing up now too? Aren't you supposed to be in bed by midnight?

Happy, how did you do that? What egg light? Do you mean lurking in the wee hours is NOT a private sport? As for my transgression, all I can say is "forgive me, for I have sinned". Got involved sorting thru some papers and decided to heck with it. It wouldn't be a challenge if it weren't challenging! And I'm nothing if not challenged.

Happy-Congratulations on those three pounds lost. I'm back to square one. First of all in admitting that I do have to count calories. I agree that injections does better for me than just meds alone. Feel better soon.

Shad--Rain what a blessing that is. We could use some rain or snow.

LindaT is using that prod. Ouch. I've completed 25 minutes of aerobics which is my air bike. It looks like an eliptical but you sit down. It's very easy on the joints. I've planned 25 more this afternoon.

Hello to all the rest.

I' m going to try something a little different. I watched the 700 club on tv last night and Pat Robinson was talking about set point. I can relate to the set point idea because that is how the water plants filters are set. He also stated that your metabolism normally would burn 14 calories per pound of body weight. I'm still going to follow the new food pyramid and chose 1800 calories for me. It's basically calories in verses calories out but I need to do some math. I know I've been feeling hungry and not having enough calories to feed the metabolism does make since. Hence the bingeing for me.

Mel, you are on right now and if you check, my egg's lit too. Good luck at the doctor's. I am seeing more of these huge waiting rooms. Down here it seems several doctors go in together for shared facilities. Seems to me tho that now that they have 5 patient rooms they schedule 5 patients all at the same time so you can cool your heels not only in the waiting rooms but in the examination rooms too. I was so ticked yesterday - my appointment was at 8:30, I sat for 45 minutes and then waiting another 45 in the examination room. I was not too pleasant with the nurse but thank goodness she did not retaliate when she gave me that shot!

Maybe we need to get you one of those toy steering wheels for your chair. I can just picture you sitting in the waiting room, honking your steering wheel and saying HELLO, WT*! did you forget about me????

Gosh, if you can give up the sugars you will be my hero. Teach me wise one!