Katie, it's feeling like the stew and soup in the crockpot season here too. Now you've inspired me to go dig out some recipes!

Hi everyone, I just had to post again today. Remember I bought my new car about 6 weeks ago. At the Ford Dealership they were giving away a free car and the drawing for it was this morning. We got the call at noon that DH had won it. LOL, it's a 1983 Ford Escort with only 14,000 original miles on it. It looks brand new inside and out, except it's 24 yrs. old. It is bright orange in color. DH, Lacy and I went and got it. Now, DH has gone to teach Lacy how to drive. Lacy loves this car, LOL, and doesn't want to repaint it or anything. It totally suits her style. LOL. As soon as I can get a picture of the car, I will post it. (Shelbey is totally into very new and popular sports cars and says she would be too embarassed to drive this car,LOL, so I guess it's Lacy's car now). I'm just looking at it as this is just one less car we'll have to buy. It was hilarious that Lacy had never been inside a car that had manual rollup windows and manual mirror adjusters before.

Hmm, I'm wondering how much the tag will cost on a 24 yr. old car, LOL.

Lacy told DH that she will look cool driving this car, but that he looks like the 40 yr. old virgin driving it. LOL

Thanks for the kick in the butt, guys!! Unfortunately, I can't go back in time and save today (I did eat too much), but I can certainly get right back on track tomorrow!

Our cross country race today was great. The kids did really well and it was weird for me to be there as a coach, but I'm starting to get used to that role!

Morning!
The trick turned out to be the peanut oil. DH drove 40 miles to find it and still had to supplement with safflower. After the turkey was done he did french fries and (a country boy for sure) he made peas. Pumpkin pie of course!
Health-wise coulda been worse, coulda been better. But it was delicious!

Lily, that is too funny about the car (and especially your 40-year old virgin remark )! Actually, a car with only 14,000 miles on it is pretty sweet, no matter how old it is. We definitely want pictures!

Why do I never win anything??

Congratulations, Coach Lisa! We're all going to be back on track with you today. Hey, is that a coach joke -- being "on track"?

Susan, dinner sounds divine.

I've got a sore throat and my ears hurt. I'm hoping it's the beginning of a cold and not the tonsillitis/strep that DS has had for two months. His sore throat is back after the fourth round of antibiotics and his doctor told him the next step is IV antibiotics. Ugh. I can't afford to be sick now because DH and I leave for New Mexico on Friday. And I have so much to do before then!!!

So I'm going to skip the gym this morning and just try to carry on like normal. Mind over matter, ya know?

Deep fried turkey? Wow, that sounds really good... though I would also imagine it was loaded with fat and calories. What a paradox!

I've been BAD the last couple days. Who wants to tell me that I better get back on plan before the jelly rolls magically emerge and I become a big fatty again? I have not stayed on plan, at all. I have usually eaten less than 1,600 calories this week (but I'm trying to stay under 1,300 for these last ten pounds), but they have been BAD calories, full of fat and carbs. The last time I said TO **** WITH DIETING, I ended up magically losing 5 pounds, so I guess we'll see. The girlfriend's birthday is on Wednesday, so we're getting ENDLESS SHRIMP at Red Lobster. Yeah, to **** with dieting...

Exercise wise, I've stayed mostly on plan. The dieting bit is much harder for me than the working out.

lily, at the 40 year old virgin comment. A 1984 Ford Escort with hardly any miles on it still sounds better than MY first car - a 1993 Plymouth Voyager! Yeah, an ugly minivan! It looked a bit boxy and everyone made fun of it, but I didn't care: I HAD A CAR! It was, of course, my parents' old car. My dad went and bought an upgrade after that. I wanted a nice sports car or a classic (I LOVE classic cars!) and even almost bought one - a 1968 Pontiac LeMans for $6,000 - until I realized how much work I'd have to put into restoring the outside (paint job, dent job, new seats, yeah total car plastic surgery even though the insides worked fine!) Not worth it. Maybe one day.

Shane! Bad eating will catch up with you and you'll look like a Krispy Kreme again! Don't undo all your hard work. Go back and read your old posts about how important this is to you.

Get back on plan today and stay there until Wednesday, then enjoy your shrimp.

If you like classic cars, come to my house. DH and DS collect and race old BMW's (M-series). Our garage looks like a car repair shop and at last count, we had almost 100 tires piled up there.

I prefer working A/C, satellite radio, and heated seats. They think I'm nuts. I think they're nuts.

Meg, thank you! I just got on the floor and did some pushups, and now I'm getting my workout clothes on to go to the gym. I need more fashionable workout clothes, because my current ones also double as pajamas.

Wow, your husband and son collect and race old BMW's? That's AWESOME! I love, love, love old cars. One day, I will get one for myself... when I'm rich enough to afford continuous mechanical service, that is! I know nothing about fixing cars or even performing small maintenance tasks... my car knowledge is limited and external.

I've never raced a car and would probably be too scared to, but I used to do BMX racing and freestyle when I was younger (and I'm going to get back into it once I can obtain a BMX bike). Funny, I'll do a crazy turn off a ramp on a bike but am afraid to race a car? Yeah, it doesn't make much logical sense to me, either...

Btw, Meg, I hope you feel better and that you don't have strep!

If it's tonsilitus, it can be cured by drinking lots of tea with honey. Just tough it out, take it easy, and it'll be gone in around 3 days.

Or, you can always be gross, take something like a chop stick to the back of your tonsils, and force the icky white stuff to come out.

Meg, it sounds like your son is going through what I've been going through. Yesterday I finished a 10 day round of Levaquin and by last night my throat was all red and hurting again. I don't know why this won't go away. I'm all congested again. By tomorrow, I'll probably end up seeing the Dr. for another round of antiibiotics.

Shane, LOL at your first car. My first car was a 1973 Pontiac Catalina. It had seatbelts for 8 people. It was humongous, but it sure ran good. I drove it all the way through college and nursing school and then sold it in 1985 for $150.00. LOL. Luckily gas was only 32 cents a gallon back then , LOL.

LOL, here is our new found wealth. Gotta love this little jewel. BTW, I don't know who is in the car, the dealership gave us the pic.

on the car Lily.

What kind of shrimp is it Shane? It is really hard to do a lot of damage with steamed or boiled shrimp if you can stick to that.

I went out for tapas with some friends last night. It was my first time trying that style of dining and it was really good. But lately nutritionists seem to be saying how diet friendly it is. I wonder what they were smoking. We had lots of healthy stuff and lots of unhealthy stuff, and well just LOTs. The plates kept coming and leaving and a couple bites of this and a hunk of that, and there was just no keeping track. It was fun though, and wonderful food, including an eggplant dish to die for. Coffee was terrible though, so hmm, diet buster and bad coffee--will I go back? Probably!

Got out this morning walking two dogs and pushing DD in the jogging stroller. I always feel like I'm the circus; I get so many stares and comments when I do this. I've been feeling sort of off lately, and DH is on a 90 mile bike this morning, so I'm just glad I got us all out of the house. Then DD & I went to the grocery store and both of us behaved! Yay me! Yay DD!

Well I hear Dora the Explorer coming to an end, so I'm back on call. Happy weekend everyone.

Anne

Hi everyone!

I haven't checked in here in a while! School has been keeping me VERY busy and VERY stressed! Not so much homework but LOTS and LOTS of reading and studying. I just switched my major from Business Management to Finance. I felt Business was a little too broad for me and I really wanted to major in Marketing/Advertising but my school doesn't offer it. So I'm really good at math and actually find finance a little interesting so it's worth a shot. A lot of businesspeople and professors that I speak to say that finance is the way to go, as far as jobs and salaries go. Entry level pay for a personal financial planner is $26 an hour (in NY anyway)! That sounds amazing to me because right now I'm feeling pretty broke

Food has been fairly decent. Not enough veggies but lots of fruit. Stress eating has been happening lately due to school. But exercise has been great. Weight training and tai chi twice a week and running 3x a week. I absolutely love the weight training. I just bought Nike weight training gloves from Modell's for $10 because I've been getting blisters on my hands from the 25 pound dumbbells. I use them to do heel raises and I have a feeling the teacher is going to bump me up to 30lbs because I've been able to do a lot of reps with the 25lbs.

Lily, congrats on the car! It's looking mighty shiny!! LOL @ your husband looking like the 40 year old virgin in it.

Meg, I TOTALLY hear you on the heated seats in cars. They are my salvation during the winter. I don't know what I would do w/o them.

Lily and Meg, I had a sore throat and headache a few days ago but now it's just a runny nose. I hope you're both feeling better soon.

Shane, shrimp is actually really low in calories. Getting it steamed/boiled as Anne suggested would be a good idea.

Hi to everyone else! I'm leaving to EcoFest now in Manhattan. There will be the SEOTO (Sources of Energy Other Than Oil) Alternative Fuels Display which demonstrates a wide variety of alternative-energy vehicles. There's also a EcoFashion Show (presenting collections made of 100% organic & recycled material) at the Solar Stage and the EcoFest Environmental Education Conference (free seminars where key environmental issues are discussed). I hear there's also going to be celebrity performers and good food.

Thanks ladies. I said I would not drive this car, but Lacy talked me into driving it to our convenience store to get gas. People were laughing at us, ROFL. Of course, everyone in town knows we just won it. Can't beat a totally free car. I can't wait til the pic of DH comes out in the newspaper with the dealership handing him the keys. LOL, I refused to be in the pic.

Oh, what's really cool is you punch a button in the glove compartment to raise the trunk, it's a hatchback trunk. LOL. The air conditioning works and so does the original AM/FM radio. It has a weird sounding fan that comes on to cool the engine off after it has been driven. Lacy says her car is very Unique and that she'll never be mistaken in it. LOL.

I just came inside from weeding my garden. Picked a bunch of tomatoes and okra to fix with dinner tonite. I'm trying hard to stay on plan. My wt. has been steady at 141 lbs. , so I feel like I'm doing fairly well. I keep getting confused and somedays it seems like I'm still calorie counting, other days more strict South Beach.

Oh Meg, I had tonsillitis this past spring. Even worse the week before FINALS. My doc gave me Amoxicillin I had to take for 10 days, but the white patch cleared up after about 5 days. I hope it's not strep, though, eeeesh. If it is tonsillitis some salt water gargles could help clear the nasty patch (I took pics of mine, weird I know, but no one believed I was sick). Popsicles could help with the pain .