Lesley – I love your new tattoo!

Jill and Carol – What cute puppies you have!!

I am too exhausted tonight for personals. I really wore myself out at the gym between yesterday and today. I overdid my lunges last night and my quads were totally sore today. I then proceeded to do almost two hours of exercise tonight. I hurt all over.

About DDR for Wii - I know that it is slightly different from the regular DDR in that you need to use your hands as well as your feet to complete the moves. That said, I haven't played it too much so far because of the noise (I live upstairs in an older house). The beginner ones are pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Basically there are the four directional arrows at the top of the screen and when an arrow moves up the screen and hits the main markers then you are supposed to step on the corresponding place on the mat. Again, the Wii also has a different symbol that signifies you have to move either the right or left controller adding another dimension to the game. The hardest thing I have found so far is keeping my feet in the right positions on the mat and not wandering too far to one side and then when I step back I miss. Although I can also say that the few times I was doing it I was doing something wrong because even though I would hit all the arrows I was still getting C's and D's (they grade you). I guess maybe I should read the instructions? I did figure out how to tell it not to have me jump (it makes me feel like I am going to go through the floor) and to not boo when I messed up - who needs that?

The other thing I just got for my Wii is Soul Caliber Legends. I really like RPG's and dungeon crawl games (Neverwinter Nights and Diablo are two of my faves for any gamers here) so I really wanted something like that for the Wii where you have to swing the controller to swing the sword. That is what Soul Caliber Legends is like and so far I am really enjoying it.

OK – off to bed with me. I hope I am not too sore tomorrow.

Donna: Over $300 for dance costumes?! Holy cow! I was in a dance company all throughout elementary and middle school (I was the 'chunky' one), and our costumes were pretty cheap, I seem to recall. But we did our performances in nursing homes, about once a month (or more around the winter holidays). So we used them multiple times, and it was low budget.

Anyway, I just got back from my one and only holiday dinner this year, for work. Wow, my boss's boss was there and he got trashed! And told some great stories about my boss that, er, probably violated some sort of ethics code at our company, as they were of an 'adultish' nature of their wild days in college. My poor boss. He was the designated driver so wasn't as into drunken storytelling, so he didn't tell any himself.

Dinner had the most awesome steaks, too. I got the 8 oz fillet, and half of it is sitting in my refrigerator, along with half (or a bit more) of the scalloped potatoes. I had a nice field greens salad with a touch of balsamic vinegarette (on the side, natch), and skipped the fried appetizers to eat more than my share of the shrimp cocktail. I loooove shrimp cocktail, so glad it's healthy! Then for dessert, I got the bread pudding, and had maybe a third of it. It was good, but not my favorite, I wish they'd had the chocolate dish I'd tried to order, but the kitchen ran out.

So overall I think it was reasonably healthy, for a special occasion. I even skipped the cookies and brownies that went with the foot-long subs people had for lunch today. Everybody was eating them, gah! I had a teriyaki tofu stir fry, one of my favorite 'light' meals. In retrospect, I would've rather had half a brownie than the bread pudding, but oh well, I'd never had it before (and was hoping for something chocolate). I'm sure I'll have more chocolate before the holidays are over. Doubt I'll have another chance to try bread pudding this winter, I don't go out much.

Well, I must have read everyone's good luck wishes for my review too late--it was not pretty. After half an hour crying in my car out in the parking lot, I came in a typed up a long explanation as to why I felt some of the scores were lower than deserved. I really felt like my reviewer focused on a few individual negative incidents throughout the year rather than the big picture. Many of the examples of negative performance she gave were from months and months ago, and while I understand it is an evaluation of the entire year, I would think they would also take into account how I've improved over the year, not just focus on the bad things from earlier in the evaluation period. I mean, if I did something stupid on, say, 10 out of 365 days of the year, does that really make me a sub-par employee? I would think it just makes me human! Anyway, I said my piece and turned it in to my supervisor, so we'll see if anything comes of it. So frustrating to work so hard all year and then get slapped in the face...

heh, so much for getting online last night at all. Jeff and I had both had pretty bad days, me with my review and him with having to runn all over the last county we lived in to pay his taxes on his car (never recieved a bill this year, and then we moved out of the county, and the new county wouldn't renew his registration till his taxes were paid in the old county--what a pain). I never recieved my tax bill, either, so I'm wondering if our bills happened to get caught right in the middle of our move and ended up not being forwarded to our new address for some reason. C'est la vie--we're both all paid up now, so everything should be fine moving forward.

So anyway, both feeling pretty beaten last night, we ended up going to Ruby Tuesday for dinner. I really need to stay home for dinner more. I vow not to eat out tonight!

Alright, off to do some [underappreciated] work. Catch you chicks later!

OH, and we're having our first snow of the season today--hurray!!

Hi everyone! Well I got on that "scarey" scale today! I gained 2.4#! Honestly I thought it was going to be much much worse! I'll accept, acknowledge and move on!

Have a great day and stay OP!

Mega: So sorry to hear about losing Gadget. My heart goes out to you, I still think of and miss the ones I have lost.

Debbie: Congrats on your 3/4 lb lost. Every bit lost is a another step forward.

Jill and Carol: Your babies are beautiful.

Rabid: Sounds like you did really well for your holiday dinner. I agree with you, I would rather have 1/2 brownie over bread pudding, but then I always choose chocolate above everything

Jill: I'm sorry your eval was disappointing. I hope your rebuttal will be considered seriously. I hope today is a better day for you.

Jeanne: After weeks of not weighing and the whirl you've been in I don't consider your gain to be that much. It is really hard to stay OP this time of year. But I know you will move on and be back losing in no time.

For those of you kind enough to suggest checking into hospitals for aquatics, unfortunately my town has only 3 hospitals, one being the rehabilitation hospital that has the only indoor, heated pool in town. They now only offer short term therapy for outpatients and I've done that before. Their approach and attitude is to get you the least bit ambulatory as soon as possible and then cut you loose. I went to them last year for therapy and after 3 weeks in the pool, they moved me to the regular gym, discontinued the pool and released me after 3 more weeks in the gym. I could walk across the room so that was good enough for them. I didn't like their program or personnel much. I thought if I could go to just the regular classes I would like it better, but now they've discontinued those.

Here's wishing everyone a wonderful OP, water drinking day.

Johnnie

I'm late with this, but Xena - I love your new red hair! Nancy - I love your new red bed! Sadly, the colour police called, and they said Xena can't ever sleep over at Nancy's. Meanies!

Debbie, I hope you're not floating down a sidestreet on a raft right now! We have a foot of snow on the ground already - mildly (just mildly) unusual for this neck of the woods.

Jill - That's lousy about your work review. They can feel quite personal. Hopefully a few days distance will help. Hang in there!

Annie - You are the forum exercise hero of the moment...3:15 am! Amazing. Don't forget though that there are lots of ways to be kind to ourselves, and if one day you need the sleep more than you need the exercise don't even think about feeling guilty about it!!

Battle - I feel your scale standstill pain...I'm not stuck right now, but I get really, really down when I am. All I can say is what you already know...these stalls are almost always followed by a whoosh - I lost 5 pounds in October, and 15 in November - doing exactly the same thing. Keep on keepin' on - all work and no scale payoff is what it will be like when we reach goal and maintenance, so we may as well acclimate now.

Heather - Interesting about your cutural psychology specialty! I was just reading about a study that found that the "nurture" aspect of those genetically inclined towards psychopathy may be developed much more strongly by the culture in which they live, rather than by the environment in which they were raised. In clinical prison poplulations, home environment was a strong influence on when non-psychopathic individuals began to commit crime - those with a lousy home life started a decade earlier (avg. 15 years old) than those with a normal home life. Psychopathic individuals on the other hand started to commit their crimes around the age of 14 regardless of the quality of their home life. Building on this, and noting that several eastern cultures have an exponetially smaller number of psycopaths in society than western cutures, it was theorized that the individualism stressed here produces much more psychopathy that those cultures that stress connectedness...that the genetic and physiological psychopaths in eastern cultures learn social responsibility and connectedness in an intellectual/cognitive way through cultural osmosis that becomes an effective surrogate for the absense of an ability to connect with others emotionally. Or something like that. I thought it was a pretty neat proposition.

I think I'm buying my son DDR for his X-BOX 360 for Christmas. Ha! Kind of like buying your wife a table saw or something. I'll let you all know how I like it.

Hugs and hellos to everybody else!

Carol...me thinks it will be for you!!!

Nancy, thanks for the take on the Wii DDR. My mom ordered it for me for Christmas so I'm pretty excited to get it and play. I guess with anything, it just takes practice practice practice. We have Maro Galaxy and it's pretty fun. We also have the sports one that came with it and on that one you can do a physical challenge that tells you how old physically you are. I started out at 67... and am now down to 44 which is 9 years younger than my real age. It's probably not that accurate...but it's fun. I want to get the Sims Castaway too...I just love the Sims.
Sounds like your body is saying "please let me rest"!!!! You're doing great on the exercise!

rabidstoat, sounds like you did make some good choices. Good for you!! I have my hubby's company dinner on the 14th. That will test my willpower especially if they have the tortellini salad again...I'm ga ga for that stuff.

Jilly, sorry the review didn't go well. I hope what you wrote to them makes them reconsider. It always seems people focus on the bad instead of the improvements. Glad to hear your taxes are all paid. Try to enjoy your day.

Jar, that's not too bad. I finally got on mine...I'm up about 8...ugh. I've done better today so far though. Just have to keep at it.

Johnnie, sorry to hear about the pool situation. But maybe there is something else that might work out better for you. I wish you all the luck in finding out what that is.

Meta, nope, we're still in dry lands for now. Down south is where all the flooding is. It looks like Katrina all over again, but in Washington.

Today my hubby had to change the brakes on the truck. They were sqealing big time last night. At least he'll be safe driving to work and back now.
I'm trying to get back to OP. I don't want to gain anymore weight and I don't want to outgrow the smaller clothes. So that's where I'm at....again.
I've got almost half of the beads a customer ordered done, so I better get to the rest.
Have a great day!
Debbie

I am feeling so much better. I have transitioned to one forearm crutch instead of two arm pit crushing ones. I was able to clean the kitchen to my satisfaction while sitting on my sewing chair, and got 2 loads of laundry done. He had to carry the baskets for me, but it felt so good to be useful again. I'm trying not to overdo it, and am going to put something in the crock pot, and do some hand sewing for the rest of the day. Just being able to cook again will help. He tried to cook something the first night, and he tried to stir fry cole slaw and put cinnamon in it. It was horrid. He's been feeding me hotdogs ever since. Now that is incentive to get back on my feet.

Stir fried cole slaw with cinnamon - that would keep me OP - gotta love him.

Hi chickies,

I'm 2/3 through one of my Triple Challenge days--all 3 meals eaten at events/restaurants. This morning started at a monthly breakfast meeting, where I look forward to eating the bacon once a month. Today I ate 3/4 of a strip and didn't want any more. Go figure.

Then it was on to a Chinese dim sum restaurant to meet a professional contact I haven't seen in a couple of years. She stood in the doorway staring at me for a bit because she wasn't sure it was me. Said I lost a lot of weight and look completely different. Yay, big NSV for me. These last few pounds must have made a significant difference in my appearance.

I don't like eating dim sum because the plates come fast and furious, I always overeat, and leave feeling overgreased, oversalted, and sick. All that, and I don't really enjoy the food all that much in proportion to the consequences. Luckily, today, my lunch partner took charge of selecting the dishes for us to eat (she's Chinese) and made a point of going for the food that wasn't fried. I still left not feeling that great, but didn't overdo it to my usual extent.

Now it's on to dinner at a restaurant with a friend, and I think I will be fine tonight.

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Nancy: with the DDR, are you jumping around a lot? I live in an apartment, and worry about disturbing my neighbors. But you and Rat are having so much fun, I want to join in.

Rabid: You did great at your holiday dinner and at lunch today. I'm impressed. It's a real challenge to face all that yummy food that isn't always around, and stay in control.

Jar: that's not so bad of a gain. You can turn it right around.

Texark: sorry to hear there are no aquatic classes for you to take. I hope you find something that will work. Have you thought of taping a couple of Sit and Be Fit shows? Theyre usually on PBS.

Debbie: Hang in there. You can get back on track.

Catherine: Yay, I'm glad you are healing enough to get some things done. The stirfried coleslaw with cinnamon would have me out of bed faster than a speeding bullet. Hot dogs aren't much of an improvement, though given the choice, I'd take the hot dogs.

Meta: holy smokes. 15 lbs? 20 in 2 months? You are losing weight like crazy!

Rabidstoat – I am not a bread pudding fan either. I could easily pass that up. A brownie would be much more difficult. Congrats on sticking with your stir-fry!

Jill – I am sorry to hear you got a lousy review. It is just like weight loss – people tend to pick out and remember the few negative things (I messed up and ate a(n) X!) and forget all the day in and day out positives. The important thing is that you know you did a good job and hopefully your supervisors will recognize that.

Jeanne – Good for you not letting the scale get you down!

Johnnie – I am sorry to hear that your medical coverage is so short sighted. Do you have a YMCA anywhere near you? A lot of them have pools. I was just glancing through brochure for the one in my town and they have interesting classes and rehab.

Meta – I love your analogy about buying DDR for your son. I think you will like it.

Debbie – The same thing happened to me on the physical challenge! My problem now is that I can’t figure out how to aim the ball in tennis and when you do the one where you have to bounce it towards the wall I can never get it. Sigh. Maybe at some point I will figure it out.

Catherine – I am glad you are healing and able to be more up and about (in Canada that would be aboot ). Was he going for a Moroccan thing with the cinnamon? Thank goodness there are things like hot dogs that almost no one can mess up.

Battle – What a great NSV with your friend! See - it just takes awhile and people will definitely start to notice. DDR is a good bit of jumping on one foot, but I was able to turn off jumping with both feet. Part of my problem is that one of my windows doesn’t latch and every time I jump it rattles really loudly. Without that it might not be so bad. I also think I should get a carpet of some sort. I think that would help a lot with the noise. Dim sum is one of my favorites and so easy to overeat at. I am glad your friend was able to help mitigate the damage.

I was so sore this morning I didn’t know if I should work out tonight. But I looked up soreness online and it said that if it is in the muscle and not in the joint that it is called DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) and safe to work through. So I popped some Advil and kept going. Once I really got the muscles working it mostly dissipated. It was a good class tonight and I felt like I got it, although it was a much easier routine than Monday’s class (the same teacher does the classes on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday).

I am cooking some brown rice and I am going to have that with some steak and veggies. There goes my timer! Have a great night everyone!

Morning Peeps

On the road to another OP day - wish the scale would move. I will not meet my goal before the cruise as we leave next Friday and I know I won't lose nearly 8 pounds this week. It wasn't so much a time goal anyway so I will continue along with this journey - can't worry about how long it takes just stay the course.

Looks like we will be having our first snow later on this morning - making Mexico look even better.

Everyone have a great day.

Hugs,
Carol

Hello everyone

I'm feeling pretty down in the dumps because my cat, Muffin, has been having some health issues for the past couple of days. Tuesday she had a partial seizure which consisted of a head tick and lasted about an hour. During the whole thing she was completely responsive and could walk around, etc. Worried, I took her to the vet. He said that her eyes were responding differently to the pen light (one pupil was shrinking and the other one wasn't or was slow to catch up). Since her temperature was elevated about half a degree, he sent me home with some antibiotics and said that I shouldn't worry unless it happens again.

Well, at 10 that evening she had another one that lasted for about 5 minutes so I took her in to the emergency vet clinic and they ran all sorts of bloodwork and physical tests and concluded that it wasn't an electrolyte imbalance or liver or kidney problems, but that the thing with her eyes is due to floating particles in her eyes, more so in the left, and scarring that prevents the cornea from shrinking. She basically has no blink reflex, meaning she's at least somewhat blind, but can follow large objects such as a piece of paper. The vet's guess was that if this is connected to the seizure, it could be toxoplasmosis, which is what I'm personally hoping for considering the other options are FIP, epilepsy (which is rare in cats and probably isn't the case), or more likely a brain tumor or cancer. We're trying the antibiotics that treat toxoplasmosis first, and if those don't show any improvement then further tests will be necessary.

Sorry to give you my life story, but I don't know if anyone else has been in a similar situation and can say what happened with them?

I need to head off to school. Will be back later.

Hi everyone,

The floodgates have opened, and that magical moment when everyone notices the weight loss is here. My friend at dinner last night noticed, too.

I know we all have different feelings about the compliments. I've been waiting for this day with great anticipation. This is why: I have spent a good number of years hiding behind layers of fat. It's no fun being the invisible, sexless, fat, middle-aged woman.

I want all the good stuff other people have. I want to be seen. I want to be pretty, I want to move around with ease, I want to fit in chairs, booths, and rides, and I want to be brimming with life and vitality, and yes....I want to be sexy. I want men to notice me, and I want dates. It has been 4 years of hiding since my divorce, and it's time to move on. I am a much stronger person, and I think I can have a healthy relationship.

All that being said, there is the nagging part of me that says being noticed will be too much for me, I'll retreat back into my fat shell.

--------
Lindsey: I am sorry about your cat. I don't have any advice, but I hope everything's going to be ok.

Jill: It's unfortunate that your bosses have focused on the negatives. Good for you for submitting a rebuttal. It's usually best to stand up and fight.

Nancy: You're exercising hours and hours! I am impressed. You must be in great shape.

Carol: I don't set time lines with the weight loss. I only tried it once, and while I hit the number goal, I didn't hit the clothes size goal that I thought would accompany it. I realized that we don't have control of when the body loses weight. We can only put in our best effort each day. You'll still have a great time on your cruise.

Megawatt: Great job! You're off to a good start.