Take care of yourself!

Gotta have the hooch once in a while.

Chelle--hope you are perking up.

Selina--holding your heart in the healing light

Everyone--try to find an NSV this weekend, even if it is just saying 'no' to something you don't need. Find strength and power in that NSV.

I am out of town AGAIN this weekend. Remember my truck that runs on used veg oil from restaurants? Well, DH's car is the one we bought to see if we could really do it. She (Helga) has 325,000 miles and is dying. We love her, and hate to see her go, but there is no heat, AC, cruise, radio and only two of the windows work. We are getting a new car to convert, and the perfect car was in Cleveland, so off we go to get it! Another Mercedes, but this one is gorgeous instead of pathetic.

Taxes are done, we don't owe. Thank heavens.

Going to put on a West Wing DVD and hop on the treadmill.

Good morning everyone,

I am about to go WI. I hope to be down again today. It is rainy here today. I have really had the munchies for the past couple of days. I guess TOM is going to come early. Well, I better go WI. I will let you all now how it goes later this afternoon.

To everyone that is sick- get some rest and pamper yourselves.

Rhonda- I hope that you get the project completed soon.

Zinkemomx2- enjoy you kid free day. Sometimes you definitely need those days. Relax

To everyone I missed have a great day.

Flu is getting better today but I'm still home from work.

I can at least get some breathing through my nose and I dont have a fever.

My sore throat still remains but its starting to head off.

I'm hoping by Monday I'll be well enough to weigh in and be down a pound or break even at least. I haven't really been eating a whole lot but I've been drinking water like crazy!

Okay, I went to WI and was up .4. I have been following plan. My counselor decided that I have hit a plateau. She suggested that I start some exercising. I guess I will try to do that. However, like I told her that last time I started doing those I gained 4 lbs. What is a girl to do???

Hey Blue team! I'm SO glad it is friday, bless the weekends!
Dionne - Sorry your weight went up. It's so frustrating when you stay on plan and everything then the scale doesn't validate your hard work. Keep it up, the scale will eventually cooperate. Adding exercise seeems like a good idea. I've heard that exercise can cause water retention becuase your muscles store extra water when they are repairing, so maybe that could explain some of the gain last time. It may temporarily make the scale go up, but exercise will undoubtedly burn calories and increase your calorie deficit in the long term so you may as well give it a try. And it is good for you in so many other ways, too.
Chelle - Glad you are feeling better. The water's good for you so no harm in drinking tons! Hope you have been able to get in lots of reading and relaxing while you have been home.
onthetee - A new car...how exciting! Do you use the vegetable oil for environmental reasons or economical reasons? Either way it is pretty cool.
Zinke - enjoy your day without the kids. If you start the c25k program March 1 you will easily be prepared for your race on July 19th. I think you should sign up for the race now as motivation to stay on track with the running plan!
Rhona - You are doing so great with staying on plan, more than a week already. Hope your project is nearing completion. Deadlines are so stressful, and they always cause me to procrastinate which increases the stressfulness. It will be over soon, though.
SCgirl - Hope you feel better soon...and when you are better I hope you will post some more pictures of that giant cute face on the little tiny body (and Franny too, please)
VixJean - How fun getting your nails done. And after reading your post I decided I must have a skim mocha today, so my treat at 3 o'clock will be in your honor!
Kris - Yeah for 5 days! Have you looked at things like fiber 1 cereal to add fiber. I'm not sure how much you are restricting your carbs but something like that could add a significant amount of fiber for few calories. Or how about the low carb tortillas, I think they have like 8 grams of fiber and I'm guessing not too many carbs. Just ideas as I'm sure mass consumption of flax and broccoli will get old really quick.
Nori - How are your legs feeling today? You are going to be in your regular 16's in no time with workouts like that.
Purple - Thanks for sharing those quotes, they really do make you think. I definitely need to start shifting my focus away from the scales and to the process, just like the quotes suggest.
Ginger - Wow, I am so impressed with your discipline to leave all that tasty but bad food and go make your own healthy dinner. Good Job!
Selina - You and your spouse are such a blessing to the children you care for. I hope that you soon get that baby. About the sunshine, have you ever tried tanning? Perhaps doing something like that once a week would benefit your seasonal blues. I know it gets a bad rap because of skin cancer but if you look at it as "sun therapy" rather than tanning for cosmetic reasons it doesn't seem so unhealthy.

I'm going to take a freebie week this week, sorry. Hope everyone has an awesome weekend.

Primarily environmental. The economical reasons are about a wash for us.

Thank you for your sweet words of encouragement. I'm a little better today. I'm taking it one day at a time. I signed up for a forum of message boards too for foster/adopt people. Reading that they are in the same boat helps. Wish none of us were in that boat though.

I am soooo grateful for my children. I love them soooo much. I do pray all the time tho that my children won't have fertility problems and can welcome their children thru birth and it be a simple and happy time for them. I don't regret anything with my two but I'm scared to death about the next two we want. We could have a baby a year and a grandparent finally change their mind and with a phone call take custody of the baby. It's happened b4 to ppl we know. I don't know what I'll do if that happens to us. I think I'll be devastated. I believe God has helped us with our two because he knows I couldn't take losing one I had that long. 2 months is hard enough but a year????

To answer a question, yes, they know what we want but it's not important that they call only us. They just want to place the child. They get a child or baby in care and start calling all of us, going down the list. Whoever bites gets that one. So we wait to see if we'll get a call for a newborn. Could take months or one day. Just so hard to sit and wait. So since my one little guy is about to leave soon (not as hard on us bc we knew we weren't able to adopt him), it will just be Emily and me for a change.

And we've decided to start exercising almost daily with Tatiana and her baby Gianna, walk in our neighborhoods, work out on the weigh bench in my garage, etc. from now til school lets out then go to the park with all our kids maybe 3 days a week in the summer.

I have to keep my mind off all this or I'll go crazy. What better way than focusing on myself and my kids who are here? Plus Imma try to get my home more organized, bills in the right boxes, shelves straightened and neat, etc. b4 we get another one. So that's what Imma do.

I'm OP but bloated and miserable bc TOM is coming around Monday. I cleaned toilets and scrubbed my oven today along with laundry and stuff, I try to stay very busy or else I get sadder. Just sucks. I like the idea of tanning. I tanned one summer. One. I looked great! LOL. I wonder if once a week would help my mood, I probably will just wait for spring since it's so close. Smart idea tho. May do that next winter, the whole winter. Hmmmm....

Ok, gotta run, hugssssss Selina

Hey everyone, hope you are having a great weekend.

I am going to take a freebie this week. I'm leaving town and forgot this morning to weigh in until I'd already eaten, bathed, dressed, etc. I've had a rough week with having AF for TEN DAYS now. And to top it off, I called my GYN about this and he prescribed Provera. When I went to pick it up tonight at the pharmacy, I read in the prescribing information that you should not take it if you are allergic to peanuts -- which I am. When I called the pharmacist to ask about this he said, "It's up to you if you want to try one pill and see if you have a reaction or not." Um, yeah... I'll take the massive bleeding over the peanut reaction.

Anyway the point of all this is that I've done really well with exercising this week but eaten....not so great. I feel like I probably broke even.

I'm so proud of all of you who are sticking to your plans in spite of the miserable weather & life challenges!!! You're my inspiration!

Hi to all ,grandkids are better thanks to all for prayers.
I spent the night with them on wed. and it was a long night.
But thank GOD there better today.Pam is so tired but things
will get back to normal.I know about depression i stay that
way.sometimes its hard to get out of bed and start another day.
But with GOD all things are possible, and with him i can make it.
I hope to lose a couple pounds this week,hope everone has a good
weekend. Be safe and keep on track hope all get over the flue.
Talk to all later and good luck on weigh in.

I think my new motivational plan is to go back thru my credit card receipts (which I use instead of cash) and see how much money we've spent on eating out, quick snacks, quiznos/subway types of places for the last 3 months and make that into a motivator for me. Like I could have had $xx more if we hadn't done that. It's hard tho bc dd goes swimming most nights and is DYING for food when she gets out. She wants a hot dinner. We both like to watch her progress and talk to her coach, but i think now one of us will just have to go back to staying home and having dinner ready when we walk in the door so we are not tempted to swing by and grab something for her to eat in the car. She'll get used to it. I realize if we had not started the kids on this bad track of going out to eat, they wouldn't expect it or ask for it. But instead, when they were younger and took more energy, it was how we managed. And I'm sure they wouldn't have dried up and blown away at 2 or 3 bc they didn't get what they wanted at each meal. No time like the present to fix the sins of the past.

Just checking into read posts today.

Jordan - my legs are quite sore today! I actually took the day off from regular exercise - although I got a lot of moving in at work running up and down the hall and in and out of exam rooms all day...

Glad g-kiddos are doing a little better, Ellie.

Fran - We have cut way back on convenience eating also. Especially on M and F when I work it used to be a given.

We are off to one of my sisters house tomorrow afternoon.

Sorry so short - got stuff to do tonight...

I'm excited to weigh in this week!!!

I am very at myself today. I ruined my 365 day challenge last night. I had a long, busy day and barely found time to eat so by 8PM when I finally got home from my daughter's gymnastics class I was beyond starving. Hubby ordered chinese food but I didn't order myself anything because there would be no way to judge the calories and I know it's high fat. But, my son started running a fever and I got busy giving him a cool bath, Tylenol, etc. and I didn't get my own food made. They ate and there was a ton leftover on the counter and I just ATE. I didn't totally binge until I felt sick, but I know I was way over calories. Thing is, at that point I didn't care. I didn't even think about it much I just dove in out of complete hunger and exhaustion, not wanting to cook for msyelf.

I know I was over my calories, so I am starting over with my 365 challenge. I did learn something though: I need to have something quick to grab that will really fill me up, and in last night's case i should have had hubby pick me up something from somewhere I can look calories up online. I did have a good bit of calories left, so even a McDs chicken sandwich with no mayo would have stayed under my limit...I just didn't THINK about that! My thoughts don't go to fast food anymore...which is good, but last night could have helped me stay OP and keep with my challenge.

i am disappointed, but at the same time I feel determined to get it right this second time around...I'm not going to quit! And skating should work off some calories, right?

I won't be around again today. DD has to cheer then it's her birthday party and looks like my son and hubby will be home sick so it's all on me today. I will definitely be back tomorrow or maybe late tonight to catch up personally...promise!

Purplefirefly don't worry about it. I think I've been in similar situations dozens of times - you get too busy to think about yourself. Look at it as a learning experience, and in the future plan ahead with ready to go snacks. You're doing great!

I don't need a freebie this week after all. With the ice on the roads we decided to wait until today to leave town and I remembered to weigh in this morning. Actually I was downstairs pouring a glass of water when I remembered, so I ran upstairs, stripped down, and got on the scale. I think I'm down a lb or 2 from last week, I need to post it to see. I don't even remember what last weeks' weight was.

I'm worried I may have to go on birth control pills here for a bit to regulate my cycles and I'm so scared about weight gain and other side effects from them. But this is day 11 of AF which SUCKS for me you know?

Hi Bluesers!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend so far. Last evening, I had the house to myself as Hubby took the girls roller skating and for pizza. I've been renting Desperate Housewives and I'm in the middle of the second season. Good stuff! I watched about 6 episodes last night. Today, I'm going for a hair trim then tonight is neighborhood Ladies night. We're getting together for another round of Bunko and good food and fun. I've already saved some calories to have a couple of snacks and a margarita. I'm also going to look for a new top to wear while I'm out getting my hair cut. And...guess what I'm signing up for? Belly dancing! I've always wanted to do this and I've heard its great for the core abdominal muscles. I'm so excited!

Zinke - My birthday is on July 14th. Running a 5k sounds like a great birthday present for yourself.
Dionne - Sorry about your slight gain. Exercise is probably a very good idea.
Selina - Sounds like you have a great idea to work out with Tatiana and the kids.
Sportmom - I'm sure looking at the cost of eating out will be a great motivator. Restaurant food is expensive! You definitely don't always get what you pay for. Your daughter might get resistant at first, but she'll adjust. Kids are like that.....much more adaptable than we think sometimes.
Purple - I can't wait to hear about the marvelous day you will have with your DD for her birthday party. Hope you get some time to skate and enjoy yourself.

A big Hello to everyone else that I didn't get "personal" with. Hope everyone has a great on-plan weekend.

Split second to say hi. I judged a science fair this morning, and my baby is all pukey. She is normally a demon, so when she is sick, the difference is dramatic. Spending most of the day holding her and reading. If she were only well, it would be a perfect Saturday for me.