Hi everyone,

No time for personals tonight. I hope you are all doing well and having wonderful op days. Hugs to everyone of you who is in need of one and a big kick in the pants to those who need that. I am doing really well. I'm excited because as of today I have only 49.9 miles left on my virtual race on the exercise bike against my hubby. I can smell the $20 prize. lol.

Blessings to you all,
Annie

Brenda- WICKED!!! If you say its better than the trailer, its gonna rock!! A friend of mine worked on the film too so thats pretty cool.. No premiere tickets for me though . LOL SPAWN!!! HELLSPAWN!!! WOOHOO!! bring it, I love McFarlane. Rich *******! Its funny that you remember that. I have boxes too. OK I have totally just unleashed my inner comic geek on this thread. Must stop!!!

jill i sent my DH out at midnight to get my WII hewas lucky enuff to get one because they had maybe 23 consoles and were handing out numbers. and he got number 12. wasnt that sweet of him?

Good morning ladies!
Wow, this thread moves along SOOOOOO fast, it's hard to keep up! I will jump in and try not to get run over! I am still learning so bear with me if I can't get too "personal" yet.

Jill: on your engagement!! It is such an exciting time and I wish you the best!

Catherine: I have never thought to try situps in bed...I have a bad back, which I had surgery on about 11 years ago, and since I haven't lost the weight like I should of at that time , I still get pain, but in a muscular way rather than the disk. I think the "bed-ups" might help strengthen me up a bit. And as for your Chinatown adventure, all I can say is EWWWWWW, and that I would have been sick right there and then! You sure are a trooper!!

Michelle: As a Mommy of 3 kitties besides my kids, I know how you feel...they capture your heart as much as any human. I hope your little guy will be ok

LeeAnn: It's a good thing you didn't burn the house down! Does the treadmill still work?

And to all the other ladies and their terrific losses...
Time to get ready for work...Have a Great OP day!

Donna

thanks torister i am so glad to be getting back to normal... being unable to exercise was really depressing me and making me give up but i am glad to say those days are apparently over for the most part.Good for you for not blowing off the bike!

Just popping in for a really quick "hi".

Today is super busy because I want to get our corporate tax extensions out before tomorrow. Plus it is a great excuse to go out to the post office and experience the nice temperature outside. It is in the 60's!!!

Emily-Hope your day on the new ward went okay.

Jill-You know how they tell guys if you want to know what your wife will look like in middle age, then look at her mom? Well if you want to know what your geek husband to be will be like in middle age, my husband would be a great example. He agreed to go shopping at the mall yesterday which made me a little suspicious. The fact that 300 was playing at the mall cinema had nothing to do with it I’m sure. He was so “surprised” that it was showing, and since we were already there. We didn’t go though. We window shopped and walked. Poor thing, he was hunched over and quite pouty, until I told him that it was playing at the IMAX and we could go later in the week to see it there. The main game he and his friends play online is Civilization, battling against Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun.

Chimichanga-When I lived in Florida I drove an old VW camper van, and the kids at the little league where my foster sons played called me the hippievanlady. I wasn’t a mom or grandmother, so they didn’t know what to call me. I had to leave it behind when I moved to Canada. It wouldn’t have made the trip, and certainly wouldn’t have survived the winters. I do miss it though, but I don’t miss the constant tinkering with it that maintaining an old classic entails. We live just on the edge of the downtown area of Edmonton, so we are right on 3 major bus routes, and 2 blocks from the light rail transit. I can be in Chinatown or Little Italy in 15 minutes. I have a big backpack that I use as a shopping cart. I kept tearing the wheels off the folding kind dragging them through the snow. My husband is just as stanch an environmentalist as I am. He has never owned a car. Our monthly bus passes cost about half of what I used to pay for just insurance. There’s no upkeep or maintenance or scraping windshields or driving on ice. I had always lived where having a car was just a necessity, and I can’t describe how freeing it is to not have to worry about having one, getting it stolen or broken into or in a wreck. I will never again know that panic of realizing that the engine is acting up on the highway, or come out to a flat tire. Not having a car has completely changed my budgeting. It basically makes the difference in having a 15 year mortgage on our condo instead of the 30 year one we would have needed.

Donna/Peggy-I spent 8 years in a wheelchair due to a back injury and weight gain. At 600 lbs. all I could do was sit or lay in bed. I did scissor kicks lying on my back and flutter kicks lying on my stomach. At first for 2 minutes, then 5 then 10. Doing the sit ups in bed allows me to put pillows in the small of my back to support it where I need it. The bed is softer and more forgiving than the floor. Besides, if I had gotten on the floor back then, it would have taken fire/rescue to get me up. I got up to 1200 a day at one point, then I was strong enough to start learning to walk again. I just started doing sit ups again because I’ve been having trouble with my feet and the exercise bike pedals seem to irritate it worse. I’d rather be doing water aerobics, but I’m not a permanent resident of Canada yet, thanks to immigration losing part of my file, so I can’t use the city pools without paying a hefty fee that we can’t afford. I take my hands above my head and then all the way to touch my toes. That gives my upper body some work too. I went from not being able to stand up straight, I looked like my lower spine was a cork screw with a twist, to being as close to pain free as I have been in 15 years. My back still gets “tired,” but I rarely have sciatic pain anymore. I can lift as long as I don’t twist at the same time. Getting my stomach muscles strengthened seems to have helped as much as the back muscles.

I’ve got to do some serious house cleaning. My FIL is coming to visit next week, and he hasn’t seen our new place before. His parents live in one of those kind of places that makes the news sometimes where an old hermit lived with 40 years worth of old newspapers and 100 cats. Just because they live like that doesn’t mean I don’t want to make a good impression. I told himself that if he didn’t clean his desk off that I was going to scoop it all into a box, seal it with a date on the top, and if he didn’t touch it for six months I was going to put it in the dumpster. He actually liked the idea. It’s not that he liked living in clutter, he had just never been taught how to organize. I saw an interview with a professional organizer who has a show on TV, and they asked her if she ever went back to see if people kept it clean after paying her to fix it up. She said no, but that she got lots of letters from people thanking her for changing their lives. She said that unless you are raised in a home where your parents were organized (my mother was) and taught you how, or were in the military or had an office job where you were trained to organize, you just probably never learned how. My mom used to say that if it takes you longer than 10 minutes to find something, then it’s time to clean. I’m not that anal, but I do like knowing where everything is since I had the head injury and forgetting things is a constant fear. Now if I can just remember where I put the broom.

Hello ladies

Wow, I havent visited you for what 3 months? Just thought I'd take a peek to see how you all doing. Still being good I see..thats nice, I see some lost quite a lot in this time...way to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keep going
Byeee...

Catherine: I read your post and you sound like an amazing person!! I am so happy you have overcome your back injury and it sounds like you are doing great. I am starting to try the exercise thing again- (yuck). I have a Gazelle, but my feet burn after about 15 mins so I am putting it on the back burner for now. I have gotten a "Slamman", which is a black and green "torso" that has LED lights that you hit whenever they go on.
I am up to 5 minutes a day which is 300 punches. It doesn't sound like alot, but by minute 4 my arms are dragging! I want to add something else to do for now that wont be too difficult, so the sit ups sound like a good idea. You ladies have inspired me SOOOO much, and I am trying to start to enjoy exercise, even if it's just to keep up with all of you!

Zelma - i have been thinking a lot about you lately. i keep the keychain you gave me in my car, and think of you often i want you to remember something in this time that you are off work. It is OK to feel. whatever it is. joy, pain, grief, happiness, sadness, whatever you feel, FEEL IT. you cant release it until you experiance it. and i think you are seeing that right now in your life. bottling things up is never healthy, and its not fair to you or those you care about to hold on to things and not deal with them, just to have those emotions channel out in other negative ways. emotions will always come out, its how we choose to deal with them that matters. we all love you and all have happy thoughts for you.

as for the boy, hes amazing. every day he makes me smile. hes sweet and beautiful and wants to be a filmmaker. i smile just thinking about him.

i am still working. i work for a company called gopotato.tv its an entertainment website, and if they dont remove the link, you should check it out. im doing hair and makeup a lot, along with office work. i also got an assistant position over the weekend for a reality show called "who wants to be a super hero" lol it makes me laugh just thinking about it.

Hey everyone-

I am having a pretty good OP day today. I have been good with the calories but still to much sodium! Well I am sure I am getting WAY less than I used to! My cat Alex seems to be responding to the antibiotics so that is really good! I am just so nervous about him going under the anesthesia because he is older.

WYLLENN-That is so sweet about your DH making you a ring!

KAREN-Thanks for the well wishes! And yes I am so happy I am off those meds!

KYMBERLY-I hope your WI went well!

ANNIE-You will win that $20 dollar prize!

DONNA-Thanks so much for the well wishes about my furbaby! Also I noticed you mentioned that your feet burn when you are on the gazelle? Do you know why or what causes it? I was just curious because I wanted to look into getting a gazelle.

PEGGY-Thanks! WTG on staying OP and getting the exercise in!

LAVANDEL- hey! I was wondering where you went! You disappeared! Good to see you post and don't be a stranger!

Ok chicks I hope you all have a good rest of the day. I got to get some cleaning done.

Omg I am sooo tired, the shift on my new ward was just unbelievably tiring, I can literally hardly move, why do I do this to myself??!! Must have burnt a lot of calories off though!!!

Em xx

Oh my goodness. I just wanted to pop online to share an experience I had yesterday... I left work at 6pm last night to find the streets of North Sydney absolutely packed with people. Wondering what's up, a friend called and told me the trains were stopped. To cut a long story short, I walked 4km to the nearest working train station, across the Sydney harbour bridge. (google it!) Technically, from north sydney station to town hall is 4.59 km. From there I took 3 trains to get home, plus a 1/2 km walk from the train to my house. If that wasn't enough, I went grocery shopping after wards, bought lots of good stuff ( veggies etc), Then ruined it all with a pluto pop (pogo stick?) and two chicken wings from the nearby shops. I hadn't eaten for eight hours so I was absolutely famished beyond famished!!!! I honestly think I would still be in a calorie deficit! Well that's how it felt anyway . I woke up this morning to an even looser pair of pants so I'm chuffed