Welcome Back Lisa Marie, how is the baby boy doing?

I'm glad superbowl Sunday is over, there was definitely too much testosterone at my house. I didn't do nearly as well on the food as I had planned. I simply didn't resist the hot wings and cheeses (and still ate my fruit too).

Since someone brought up the topic of budgeting, I'll let everyone know the mess my son has gotten himself in. Jan. 1st he had me rent him a very nice duplex and turn on all the utilities for when he gets home. (It's on a golf course and he was afraid it wouldn't stay empty til he gets back). Anyway his GF (at the time) was moaning that her grandparents were wanting her out of their house. He agreed to let her stay at his duplex and he'd pay the rent and she was to pay the utilities. (Very generous albeit dumb IMHO). She moved in there and a week later she lost her job for not going to work. She decided to go "on vacation" to Arizona for "a few weeks" instead of looking for work. When the utility bills came in, I had to go pick them up and pay them out of Shane's savings account. When I went by the duplex, I could hear someone inside and lights were on but no one would come to the door. I left a note saying I'd paid the utilites. I called Brittany's grandmother and she said she had no idea where she was or what was going on. I had the landlord go by the next day and she used her key to open the door. There was Brittany's XH living with her in the place that Shane is paying for. I'm now in a mess trying to get her and XH evicted. They won't leave willingly!. Yesterday I went and had the utilities all suspended and put on "temporary vacation status". Hopefully this will get them out of there. The landlord gave her an eviction notice and she has 10 days to vacate. I'm very worried they will trash the place. Neither Brittany or her XH has a job so small claims court could be pretty pointless right now. It's just all one big mess and stress that me and Shane neither one need. Anyway that pretty much takes the cake for Lowlife tricks done to a man while he's gone serving our country! Sorry, just needed to vent!

Brittany called me screaming and crying last night about me turning off the utilities and her getting the eviction note. I stood my ground and told her to GET OUT or I would have the police to remove her and her worthless EX.

OMG, Lily. You certainly live in a soap opera! I hope that she vacates now without trashing the place so that when you son gets home he has a decent place to live. Best of luck to you.

Good Luck, Lily, This girl doesn't deserve a nice guy like Shane. I hope you can get them out of there without further turmoil.

Yes, Allison, everyday I'm amazed when I check the mirror and find I'm not totally gray-haired or bald!

Bargoo, I think my son is taking it all better than I am. He's just looking forward to coming home. His response was "get her out in any means necessary" and "we live and learn". Yes, he does deserve so much better and he's just thankful he found out now before that relationship went any further.

Of course Lacy and Shelbey are furious and I hope they don't run into Brittany anytime soon, LOL.

Lily,
That is so horrible to do to someone serving our country. Some people are such low lifes it is hard to imagine. Wow. I hope you can get them out.

Allison,
Sorry the scale isn't budging for you.
I will have to go to Costco and get some blueberries!
My breakfast lately has been a big bowl of blueberries and/or blackberries with a little bit of fat free vanilla yogurt and a little bit of grape nuts on top. I love it but I'm going through the berries!
Costco is very close for me but I just have to budget the time to go (and the $$ as I always spend too much!).

Lily - if it were me, I might hope that Lacy & Shelby do run into her sometime soon, somewhere very private with no witnesses.... ooo, did I say that outloud? Good luck getting crazy and company out of the duplex. Is she on the lease? If not, couldn't she be arrested for trespassing?

Allison - sorry your plan isn't working.

Pat - I can't seem to do anything well on an exercise ball. I see the jacknife in the pics but haven't tried it, I can barely keep the ball from shooting across the room when I even look at it.

Sheila - LOL at the idea of you peeking in at your remodeled kitchen! And high five on the candy!

Goal - good luck with the no chocolate plan. You can do it! And, a guilt free shopping budget as a reward sounds perfect!

I have exercised now two days in a row and am feeling better. Though, I'm trying hard to forget the fact that I maintained, even lost a little really, for 14 days with no exercise. When I'm awake and rational I crave the exercise, but my snoozing the alarm clock self in the morning reminds me of the no exercise for two weeks fact...

Lily - I really hope things work out! Being a landlord myself, you just cross your fingers that the tenants leave quietly.

Shannon, she is not on the lease, but Shane had called the landlord and given his verbal permission for Brittany to stay there while he is gone (in a documented call). (Basically she was supposed to House-sit for him until he returned). The landlord now says that since Brittany had let a 3rd party (her XH) move in without permission of Shane or me (his Power of Attorney) or the landlord that she and the worthless XH must move out ASAP. I can't even go inside the place for fear that I might be accused of stealing something that belongs to her or the XH. (I have left my key with the landlord just to make sure I couldn't be accused of anything like that). My only true recourse was shutting off the utilities since she's not officially on the lease, she can't have them reinstated. With temps below freezing at night the electric and water was all I could shut off . I had to leave the gas on so the pipes would not freeze.

If they do trash the place or turn the heat off to freeze the pipes I will see her in court.

Believe me if it were possible I would have put all her stuff on the driveway with a garage sale sign and recouped some of shane's money. LOL.

Lori, I sure wish I knew more about this kind of landlord-tenant law stuff.

Morning! We're warming up here, but the wind is blowing, so feels just as cold. Supposed to go up to 20 and have 2-5" of snow, but it hasn't started yet (11 am). And our "may erupt" volcano is still just sitting and seething with "increased seismic activity." I just hope it stays that way til DH leaves on his vacation Sat night.

Goal - my DH gave up alcohol for all of January (not that he drinks a lot, but after the holidays he feels it's kind of cleansing) so I know you can not have any chocolate! As for the Couch to 5K, I like the program and used it successfully and ran several 5Ks before my knees decided that was too much impact. I still use Robert Ullrey's Couch to 5K podcasts though - I do HIIT on the elliptical with the earlier weeks when the run/walk is closer to 35/65 or so.

Allison - I'm coming to your Costco! I paid $5.99 for 1 lb of Chilean blueberries and it was a bargain for me. I love blueberries! In fact, I see they still have some, I may have to go back and get some more.

Shannon, I do crunches on the ball all the time, but I have to have my toes against a wall to get started. I also use it to do squats. The ball is between a wall and my lower back. It lets me go deeper without putting any extra weight on my knees. WIsh I could find a way to do lunges that way too. I cannot go very deep on my right knee esp without hurting.

Speaking of exercise, let me tell you my arms are more sore today than yesterday from Tues night's workout - guess I worked harder than I have been. Legs are a little tired from last night's HIIT, but nicely sore.

Hello maintainers! I'm sorry I don't have much time to post, so I can't answer every post, but hello all the same.

And welcome Kristen! No worries if you're not at goal: maintaining, after all, also entails maintaining whatever we have lost--and this is as much weight we won't have to worry about losing again someday. So I hope this part of the forums will help you as much as it's helped everyone else here.

So for a few tidbits of the French side of things:

* Things in my city are getting a little heated. Our new university (the three unis have been gathered into one, the biggest of the country now) was officially opened today, with the Education minister coming to pay a visit. Given the current controversy about the reforms she's been working on, many people gathered to protest, and the cops actually started with the tear gas before anything violent had erupted. We're living in interesting times.

* I freak out everyone when I tell them I currently eat about 8 tangerines a day. I'm probably the healthiest person in my class right now. It feels very weird; a few years ago, I'd still be sick about 8 weeks total over each winter...

* How to lose weight easily: come study at my university. Their chairs are so uncomfortable that I find myself wiggling my ***, sitting on my foot, then on the other foot, then moving again, then rinse and repeat, all the time. That's like mini-exercising all day long. I also drive other people crazy.

...And I must go back studying now, so I'll try to read this thread again tomorrow and actually answer some of the posts.

Looking forward to the movie....

Lily....The Wild Years!

And now for more posting.

Dagmar -- I've read the article you've posted a link to. And I wonder, is that a 'sign' that now I think "but it's all common sense!", when I actually wouldn't have thought that about 3 or 4 years ago (when my weight was high and I was wallowing in 'but whyyyy can't I do it')?

Meg -- I say, what the heck. Most of my colleagues at work whine exactly about the same thing: not having money and gaining on weight... But they buy huge sandwiches everyday for lunch--and it's true that the nearest place selling food here is also quite expensive. So alright, we don't have time to cook very elaborate meals during the week, but... doing twice your evening amount of rice, and same for the fish and veggies, and pack a yogurt to boot for the day after, isn't this quite easy and not especially time-consuming?

Speaking of which, today I have brown rice w/mushrooms, green beans and omelette. Everyone tells me it's 'bland', but I seriously love that. And it must have cost me about $2.

Oh well.

Megan -- I say, go for it.

Lilybelle -- Oh the nerve... I think you're right. That's pretty much a crappy thing to do, living there with the ex at the bf's expense while he's away. (I hope they won't trash the place. The apartment where I used to live 6 years ago was trashed by the next tenant;the landlady was my BF's mother, so we knew all about that, and when we came to help her clean, it wasn't a pretty sight. :|)

I don't know how it goes in the USA, but in France you basically can't evict anyone between October and March (the 'winter months'). I hope it's not going to be problematic for you.

We had a very unexpected tragedy at my girls high school yesterday. A 17 yr. old boy that was to graduate next year with Lacy and Shelbey died yesterday. He was sick and had went to the Dr. on Tuesday and was told he had "walking pneumonia" and was sent home on antibiotics. Yesterday morning he told his parents he was having chest pain and felt like he couldn't breathe. They rushed him to the hospital and his heart stopped. They were able to revive him several times, but finally he succumbed and passed away. The whole school is in shock. They called off classes and the high school kids were let to go home after a big assembly with everyone crying. Counselors and pastors were at the school to talk to the kids. Both of my girls cried all evening and all night. I only knew the boy in passing but I will attend the funeral on Monday at the high school to be there for support for my girls. Lacy has an especially horrible time dealing with death and I know this is gonna be very rough for her. Shelbey was having what appeared to be anxiety attacks yesterday evening. The mother of this boy has a congenital heart defect and they believe he may also have had a heart defect that had went undetected.

I am currently waiting to see if my gym partner wants to go workout this morning. She asked me to give her an hour and see if her headache will go away first. I'm gonna go walk my dogs and then I'll go to the gym and workout with or without her. I feel like a good workout is what I need to ease some of my stress! Funny before I'd think a bunch of donuts was what I would need!

Kery, I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that whole situation. I will definitely take pictures when they get everything out of there.

Lily, oh no! How awful! I hope you get your workout in. I was stressed about work last night and felt much better after working out, and like you I found myself thinking, "I'm so stressed, I need to work out" instead of "I need to eat junk."

Work is a mess right now. The closer we get to our deadlines, the more of a mess it becomes, and we have two months to go until our ultimate deadline. This morning I found out I might be getting sent to the Miami office for a couple days next week, so we'll see what happens with that. At least it's warm in Miami!

Our weather is going haywire. It was -3 yesterday morning, but it's supposed to get up to 45 this afternoon and 60 next Tuesday. I'm not complaining! I can't wait to get outside and run again, or maybe even take a bike ride this weekend. I'm hoping the snow will melt off the sidewalks by tonight so I can go running.