Morning all...

I was so tired last night after staying up to watch the Olympics. We get it all in prime time...for the west coast, so Gymnastics coverage didn't begin until close to 11pm. The I fell asleep on the couch so I rewound it (Thank you DVR) to see what I had missed and then Is at on the couch and cried through the medal ceremony.

I stayed home with a sick DH yesterday but it also allowed me to get some stuff done which was nice. I then realized that by the time dinner had rolled around I had eaten about 11 points for the day and I need to have 31. So when we went to dinner I did not feel bad about the onion rings at all. I had a grilled chicken sandwich on a whole wheat bun (only at the bottom half) with some bbq sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, grilled onions and avocado. All in all tasty.

I am so so excited. My best friend is in town with her husband visiting and we have a play date tomorrow...and she is FINALLY pregnant! They hav ben trying for about 3 or so years and have gone through IVF twice. I am so super psyched to see her...plus the last few times she has been in LA she had other people in tow so our time was split. Last time she was with 3 girlfriends on a Cali coast road trip and the time before that she was with her high-maintenance friend who would not lete her do anything...so we missed out altogether. We are now in the planning stages of a vacation together (with the men and the new baby) for next July in San Diego during Comic-Con.

Have wonderful weekends and stay fabulous!

Debi - have not measured since the end of July. Check out the recipies on wholefoodsmarket.com. I have a bunch I am trying this week.

Anne - I am doing my peaches this weekend. Jam, and some frozen so I can do pies & cobbler during the winter. Would like to do some blueberry jam too. But my fam is not too into blueberies. But I like them in my cottage cheese.

TOM arrived last night Blech! So this am WI was up 3 lbs. I am not to upset as I know I can water drink some of it away and it will be gone by monday!

Check in later.

Morning all,

Froma winter that would never end to a hot tamale summer. lol. It is so warm already and it is only 10 a.m. here. Yikes. I am trying to cool the house off with fans and closed curtains etc. Joel is in the best room in the house to sleep during the day. Our room tends to be the coolest one in the house. The fans are going the shades are all down and it is nice and dark. Now, if I can only stop my furbabies from trying to "kiss" him awake. lol. They love him so much and I think they are a bit confused on his hours lately.

Bernice: I think you would be a fantastic family to have Foster children or even Foster adopt. Hugs.

Rat: Hi girl.

Debi: A favorite dish with chicken that I make is something my grandma showed me when I was a little girl. It is arroz con pollo. Really just Spanish for Chicken with rice. I cook a whole chicken in a roasting pan at 350 until it is tender and done. I take the chicken out of the pan when done and set aside then pour 2 - 3 cans of cream of mushroom soup into the bottom of the pan. Stir in the water with a whisk and add minute rice. I also add about 3 cans of cut up mushrooms. Then I place the chicken back in the pan on top of the rice/soup mixture. Let it cook for another 10 minutes or so until rice is done and there ya go! I have never had anyone eat it and not love it. My stepmom who is the best cook I have ever encountered can't stop raving about it. I do serve it with another dish I learned as a child called Colachi`. Maybe spelled wrong. For this one, I take a bit of butter or marg. in a pan slice up squash and cook it in the butter until tender and done along with garlic and onion, add a tiny bit of water if needed. Then put in drained whole kernal corn, amt. depends on how much squash you cook, then a couple of cans of tomato sauce. Just before taking off the stove, add in as much shredded chedder cheese that you want. Salt and pepper too. Another family favorite. Hugs and have fun.

Anne: You are amazing! Thank you for sharing your dieting experience too. It makes perfect sense to me. I have watched the Biggest Looser enough to see that when they don't eat enough, they don't loose weight. Great thoughts.

Toni: Our tomatoes are not getting ripe very quickly either. We have 2 that should be ready today. Yumm!

Debbie: Congrats on the -1 pounds. I don't have any little dishes right now. Most of my crafts sold when I made them and the ones that didn't went to sisters. lol. If I start making some again, I will share the photos with you.

Julee: So glad that you get to spend some time with your best friend. Congrats to her too on the baby!

Well, I am down 2 pounds today from last week. I sure have slowed down a bunch with that. I am so happy to be going down though. I don't know if it will be more when I am not retaining water from TOM. Hopefully. lol.

I have my one year check up on the 28th for my Weight Loss surgery. I would love to be in the 230's by then. Of coarse I would love to be even less than that but the 230's would be amazing.

I hope you all have a wonderful op, water drinking and bootie moving day.
Blessings all,
Annie

Hi guys,

Went to the Dr today,they took blood, but sent it out for tests. Oy, I was told previously that they would do it there. Now I won't know anything until next Tuesday or Wednesday. And I may need another test after that. TOM should be knocking on the door, and I have found I am very down about not getting the results. I am sure it's mostly my hormones, but I was ready to know if I had diabetes or not. The good news, I am down 22 pounds since my March 8th appointment. That's something anyway. It's chilly and rainy here, so I may go burrow myself into the bed with the cat.

Bye all,

Angie

Julia: Isn't TOM Fun! lol.

Angie: Sorry you won't know the results until next week. Hugs sweetie. Congrats on being down 22 since last vist! Wonderful.

Blessings to you,
Annie

Good afternoon all,

I'm sitting her typing away with a big heavy furry cat sleeping on my arm. He doesn't understand that he's heavy... and really quite hot. Sometimes it's just the head on my arm but every now and then I'll be blessed with a paw sliding over my hand. Obviously he doesn't mind that I'm still typing. What's too funny is that after typing all the personals I decided I'd take a picture of him and that made him get up and leave.

Ratkitten - I'm so into the lifting it's not funny. I really love it. I'm a little excited that the college has a fitness center. I might actually chose to workout in public if I can work on bench presses and back squats. I can't do either as I lack equipment. Well, I've done back squats but I'm limited by what weight of bar I can lift over my head to start.

Toni - we have tons of cherry/grape tomatoes that are ripe but my beefsteak and medium-sized tomatoes just refuse to show colour.

Julee - we've been lucky in that the Canadian channels are covering it live with some repeats in the evening. Although I admit I've mainly been watching the three-day eventing and recorded the jumping qualifiers this morning. I can't help it, I like the horsies better than people.

Julia - I can't ever remember making blueberry jam on its own. I've usually put it into other jams. That's something to consider.

Annie - I think the problem is that there are so many conflicting opinions out there. And hey, what works for me might not work for others. I've always considered that I had a slow metabolism (something I would blame on why I couldn't lose weight) now I realised that I was trying to eat way too little (again, for me). There's a show on telivision here - The Last 10 Pounds Bootcamp - for women basically who need to lose 10 pounds or so. They pretty much put them on the same program. It's 1500 calories a day with 9 hours of exercise a week. This is done for a month and most of them will drop the 10 pounds, sometimes a few more. These are women who weigh 130, 140, 150 etc. depending on height. So how would I think at 400 pounds that the same levels (including the exercise) would work for me. Oh, and best wishes on your one year check-up.

Angie - sorry you haven't had the progress you wanted, however, down 22 pounds is still down 22 pounds. And I know what you mean about the weather. On horrible rainy days I have a hard time motivating myself.

Well, I think the brief rain shower has stopped so I should probably go see if any of the garden needs water. That sounds odd but there are always spots that the rain doesn't hit. Take care everyone and hope you're having a great day.

Hello again

Debbie, you all are so crafty!! I don't have the patience for beads. Too tiny!

deb, wow, you've been doing the fresh veggie thing to the max! I'm not a fan of veggies, and I've been trying hard to enjoy the things my coworker brings. It's hard to incoporate into my daily food.

Julee, I love watching the Olympics too, but I fell asleep early last night. I didn't event think to turn on the dvr.. doh!

Julia, you do jams too? All of these talented women. Sorry for the appearance of that nasty old TOM.

Catherine, I just left the insane stage of TOM to the "Stuck pig" stage. *sigh* Can't you scare him to make him go away??

Annie, you are doing so fabulous!! Wow, it's been a year already.

Realist, hang in there. The doc will have the results soon. You keep doing the great job. You've lost 22 lbs since your last visit! wow

Hugs to all,
Ratkity

Rat -Somewhere along the line I became domesticated! Never imagined life with a DH, 3 kids, 1 dog, 2 cats, 1 bird and homemade items in my pantry. This I tell you 10 yrs ago was a forgein concept. I was 25 single and living in downtown Toronto with 2 guy roommates and my ol cat who pooed in the shoes of my dates she did not like. But in the long run I can control more of the ingredients in the stuff I make. That part of me is not different. Its ALL in the CONTROL or as my hubby likes to remind me its MY perceived control.

TOPS went really well today, I was the best loser this week, and have had 17 consecutive weeks with a loss, yay! I dropped another 3.25 lbs. and am thrilled to be "almost" to the 200's. I can walk faster and actually have a stride instead of sort of waddling from side to side to avoid picking up my feet like before. (I think my hips and knees didn't like the thought of picking up my feet) I also seem to have a constant smile on my face these days. Life is good, life is now!

w00h00 Toni!!! You go!

Seventeen weeks of continuous losing is amazing!!

Luv,
Ratkity

Hi Girls
I only have a minute. I am about 4 hours behind tonight because I went to the mall with my sis school shopping for her son. He looks up to me and wanted my opinion on clothing HA! He is just going into a new school, new town and starting Junior High all at the same time. We got him some MAN clothes and no more kid stuff.

Had a better day today. Ate too much popcorn last night *L* Felt like an oink. Mind you it was air popped with 0 calorie butter spray and flavors (mainly salt but it was good )

Anne: Liking what you said earlier about the amount of calories that we girls need. It makes SO much sense and in my head I want to stay eating around 1800 for most days and for some reason don't want to allow myself to go over, even if I am hungry! I have to get rid of that mentality!! Good for you on all the jarring!! I just started jamming this year. Excited!! I need a life!! We did strawberry, gooseberry, raspberry and peach now and thinking that this week its time for blueberry and rhubarb.

Toni: Way to go I hope I have a good loss at TOPS this week!! n17 weeks is AMAZING!

Hi to Annie, Angie , Julee, Luann, Catherine, Debbie, and everyone else

Time to head to bed!!
Brenda

Brenda, is your tattoo a goal reward? That is a cool idea. My husband would freak if I said I wanted one but secretly I have always wanted my moon and star drawings to be a tattoo on me. Good wishes to you for your TOPS weigh in also.

Thanks for the hoots ratkitten! I was hooting today on the way home in my truck. (I'm in Montana so I guess I need a truck, lol)

My husband and I just got back from driving a hundred miles to get thirty pounds of blueberries from an organic orchard. Lovely drive and scenery to boot! I love blueberries and at 16 calories an ounce I can eat plenty.

hi everyone, im lurking. nothing to report. i weigh in sunday. i have a trainer and start kickboxing monday. we'll see. lol

Hi...hubby was feeling like getting out of the house last night so we kinda did a trip to a golf store for him and a mini shopping trip for me. We went to burlington coat factory and i got a few awesome deal..two really soft windsuits for only 5.99 each..they have all their clearance 40% off the already marked down price. It was awesome!! I live in comfy stuff in the winter while im home with kids so these are perfect and just a bit snug right now.
I had a good loss this week even with the increase of 300 calories per day. I lost 1.6. Im only 4lbs from my halfway point.:O)
Rat_ i could live on veggies..I love them!!
heading out to do some errands and then sewing some projects i have started and maybe even take in a few things.
hugs

I've got about half my pattern altered. That really is the hard part. Once I get it down, I'll probably get my coats made in a couple of days. I don't know how much I'll get done today because I've got to get him ready to go to Montreal tomorrow. I shouldn't complain, at least I'm not having to go with him. He's giving a speech at the CMA annual convention. That's the Canadian equivalent of the AMA. I just got done printing his speech off, and now I've got to pack his bag. He'll be back late on Monday, so not too long a trip.

Did everyone see the report that kids who have a bunch of ear infections are much more likely to become overweight? It seems to damage the nerves for the taste buds, and makes one more likely to eat sweet or fatty foods. I had huge numbers as a kid. If you lose some of your sense of taste as an adult you'd notice the difference, but if you lost it as a kid, how would you know the difference? They said getting those tubes in the ears seems to prevent the damage.