Good morning!

I just got back from New Mexico last night and am struggling with the time change. Right now my body thinks it's 3 am - ugh. But it's time for the gym!

I managed to lose almost a pound when I was gone by eating very carefully. This the first vacation in a while that I haven't struggled with eating and come back with pounds to lose. And it's a whole lot nicer this way!!

Today is going to be unpacking, laundry, groceries, and just trying to get re-oriented. DS (who had been sick with a stomach virus) is feeling better but his blood sugar levels are all over the place. When you're diabetic and sick, nothing is predictable any more. I want to feed him some healthy food and get him feeling better.

So what's going on with everyone? Fun weekend? Plans for Memorial Day weekend - yikes, that's coming up fast!!

Hi, everyone! I'm hoping this week will go by very quickly...I'm looking forward to the 3 day weekend. I'm even stalling right now to leave to go to work.

Well, this weekend was the first weekend in a few weeks that I've been home and haven't had a planned overeating session (I was out of town last week). You all know about the cornbread episode (I actually had two of those), and I had an all day pancake fest two weeks ago that I didn't mention here.

I've decided that I'm going to allow myself to have little treats at different times during the week -- a more normal way of eating than reserving my calories for a planned overeating session on Sunday. This Sunday, I had a blueberry and banana nut muffin for lunch with some beef-veggie soup. They were so good. It's been at LEAST a year or two since I've eaten a muffin -- probably 2 years or more! Because I didn't go overboard and eat a whole bunch of muffins, I'm less worried about needing to eat less calories during the week. Perhaps I'll have a muffin for dessert one day this week. Of course, I'm not making them or keeping them in the house -- I think that would still be a recipe for disaster. I'm hoping this new plan might work! I really enjoyed my muffins!

Haven't even had time to be online this weekend so catching up

Lily-How scary. I hope you're feeling better. How sad about the 23yo dying. I hope your SD gets moved in ok.

Carolyn-Those aren't really five pounds!

Jessica-Congrats on the house.

Meg-Glad the trip to NM was successful. I hope your son gets his blood sugar under control.

I'm swamped with sports and end of the year school programs/projects. I also have a huge list of things to do around here. I got my garden planted this weekend. Now I need to waterproof the deck and repaint the kid's play house. We'll see how far I get, I'm not feeling terribly motivated at the moment. I've had alot of intestinal um, disturbance this weekend so I'm feeling kind of washed out. I hope everyone has a good week!

Lily, that must have been some scare! I know my MIL gets new allergies all the time as she gets older. You may have to think back to everything you ate and drank that day to figure it out (and even then you may not as it could be a tiny ingredient that you were not aware of). MIL is the most allergic to green things like avocado--which she really misses and broccoli. But Brussels sprouts and green beans are fine. Weird thing allergies.

I'm back from Vegas (obviously). I took my laptop but there wasn't wifi in the rooms. I could have carried it down to the business center for free wifi, but I wanted it in my room!! Yeah, I know, I'm lazy! We had a nice time but the crowds were just amazing! The wedding was nice but didn't start on time. Apparently they made the invitation to read 6 PM knowing that their flaky friends would be late. The wedding really was supposed to start at 7:30. I was more than a tad miffed at that! I am an EXTREMELY punctual person and we got there at 5:40. So yeah, we had to wait almost 2 hours!

Hi everyone, nothing really new here. I'm still working outside a bunch. The weather is close to 90 degrees.

I did all my grocery shopping and was needing it so that I could be back 100% on plan. My wt. this morning was still 144 lbs., so I'm happy with that. My weekend eating wasn't perfect but I did lots of exercise and managed to still maintain my wt. I did get a hold of my Dr. regarding my allergic reaction and he instructed me to take 40 mg. of prednisone daily for the next 7 days. Yuck. I hate that stuff. He says, then he'll start tapering me back down on it. (My rash is really bad right now, so I know that is why he wants to up my dosage).

Our electricity went off the other day during an electrical storm. Now, I can't remember my password for Fitday. I am going to have my DD set me up a new one when she gets home today. I am just lost without Fitday.

Allison, I have noticed that I am now developing allergies that I never had before. The only food that I had that day, that I don't normallly eat was the one little mini SF hershey candy. I think most likely that it was the culprit since I ate it just shortly before I went to bed. I hate to think that I'm now allegic to chocolate. How horrible.

Lily, do you think it could be the artificial sweeteners in the SF chocolate instead of chocolate itself? A lot of SF products have a lot of chemicals in them.

Meg, it may have been the artificial sweetner. I'm not sure. I use splenda everyday and I'm not sure if those are made with splenda or not. I threw the bag of them away. I have tried sweet-n-low and it gives me a reallly bad headache.

I just went out and checked my garden. I am so excited as I have little tiny squash and little tiny tomatoes now. Yeah. It is working and I'm so happy. I've put in tons of hours in that garden and was really hoping I'd reap some rewards for all my hard work. Everything is all bloomed out and I just know now that I'm gonna have lots of fresh veggies. LOL, I'm sure everyone thinks I'm nuts over being excited about my garden. But, it's my first one and I'm loving it.

Hi everyone!

Meg - Coming back from vacation weighing less than when you left is quite an accomplishment!

Tara - It sounds like your new plan will be pretty successful.

Allison - It really sucks that you had to wait around so long for the wedding! We are planning to put our actual start time on the invites but knowing some of my family members we will probably end up starting a little late anyway.

Lily - I think artificial sweeteners are a pretty common allergy. Your garden sounds great, I can't wait to have one of my own!

I'm going tonight for my second acupuncture treatment. I went to my regular wrist doctor yesterday and he referred me to a rheumatologist. He also ordered a bone scan so they can check for arthritis, but he said he is pretty sure it will come back negative. I'm feeling pretty stressed out about all these medical things and moving at the same time -- yesterday I went to the wrist doc in the morning, and the optometrist in the afternoon, today I have acupuncture, tomorrow we are moving and have a meeting with a caterer, Thursday I'm scheduled for the bone scan which will involve getting injected with radioactive dye at 8:40 in the morning and then going back at noon, and apparently the test takes an hour to do. Saturday I'm flying to Boston for a friend's wedding. Too much stuff!

I think I am going to check with my boss and see if I can work from home Thursday. It feels dumb to come in to the office just to leave for appointments half the day.

Jessica, that sounds like you have a very busy schedule. That would be really rough with trying to get moved at the same time. I'm really sorry that you are having so much trouble with your wrists. It sounds so painful.

Last night I started on readying my strawberry patch and I bought cantaloupe to plant also. I planted some Okra and put stakes up around all my tomato plants. After a short rest, I did my elliptical. I'm using it more now than I am the treadmill. My son has his big PT test for the Army in 2 weeks so he has been using my elliptical a lot and inspired me to use it also. Since he moved it out into the living room, it just feels like I should hop on it when I'm lounging and watching TV. I guess it guilts me into it.

We had an upsetting night last night. DH's 14 yr. old DD called and was literally screaming and crying. Her mom's live-in boyfriend had beat her mom up really bad. They live in Las Vegas. Shelbey wanted to get back here immediately. (She was planning on coming to live with us the middle of June ). They had the police and ambulance at their house. The mom filed a protective order against the boyfriend, but they aren't moving back until Shelbey finishes school on June 7th. I hope and pray that they will both be OK until after they manage to get back here. Although the XW is not my friend, I don't wish harm on anybody. Deep down I kind of blame the mom for moving in with a man that she met on the internet and really didn't know very well. But still, she didn't deserve to be beaten up. DH and I have both been frantic that he will show back up and try to hurt them. I am so sorry that Shelbey had to witness all this. She has never been around violence of any sort and my heart just goes out to her. DH and I have set aside the money for her a plane ticket to use if she needs to get back here quickly. Shelbey is to call us immediately if the mom let's the BF come back home. If that happens, we'll go to the judge and get emergency custody of her.

Oh my gosh Lily. That is horrible. That poor girl.

Jessica-That sounds like an exhausting week. I hope things calm down soon.

I washed the deck but decided it was too hot for my pregnant self to waterproof it today. It is about 90 and the heat makes me feel sort of sick. I'm thinking tomorrow while the sun is on the other side of the house will be a much better time. My oldest dd is having a reoccurence of her strep from two weeks ago and my 13yo ds is having a migraine, so I really need to be inside anyway.

lily~so sorry to hear about SD and XW! How scary for them to be in fear like that. I think I'd just skip those last few days of school and get the heck outta Dodge!!!

Jessica~I agree, you should work from home for the half day. Sometimes it is better to not have to make the drive into work (especially if it is a long commute). I used to work with some people who had commutes of an hour or more and they didn't mind coming in for half a day......I never really understood that.

Joy, joy, joy~you're pregnant. Take it easy!!!

So I've been incorporating a few new things into my diet....hoping that the choices were good. Well, they may not be so good after all. I guess I'd better get the cookbook back out and see where I went wrong! I had been making a "grilled" sandwich (I use Pam instead of butter on the griddle) and according to Cooking Light, it should have been only 350-400 calories. I must have forgotten the type of bread to buy.....I made the sandwich last night with only one addition (avocado) and today I decided to add up the calories. **Gulp** over 700! It may not be totally accurate (I did use reduced fat cheese, but 2 slices and I think the original recipe called for only one). Guess I'd better stick to the cookbook rather than my imagination!!!!

Hi everyone.

My DH called SD's school in Las Vegas and they are letting her take her finals early (today) and she'll fly here tonite. The mom let the batterer come back home. The mom has now agreed to give custody of SD to her dad. Basically she had to or we'd have been at the judges this morning for emergency custody. I can't understand why someone would take a person back that beat them. Shelbey stayed at a friends house last night and the girl's parents are picking her up from school and taking her to the airport. The mom is to pack all her stuff and have it shipped to us. All she is leaving with is a little overnight bag with a couple changes of clothes. I hope her clothes get here quickly as mine and DD's clothes would not fit her. I will probably take her to buy a couple sets of clothes until her stuff gets here.

I worked outside yesterday for 4.5 hrs. and readied a new patch to plant my cantaloupes and strawberries. OMG, it was 2 old flower beds at the back of our property that were really grown up. I bet I removed at least 200 lbs. of rocks (It used to have a rock wall around it that had crumbled). I was throwing the rocks all in a big pile about 20 feet away. I am now taking ibuprofen to calm down my sore arms and back and shoulders. I really overdid it. I am the type that when I start a project, I just can't stop til I'm done. It really felt like my old high school days when I threw the shotput and discus. LOL. This evening I plan to plant the fruits and then pick all those rocks up again and load them on a trailer for DH to haul off. Luckily I didn't find any snakes in the rocks, just some lizards. My little grandson was out there with me while I worked. He had a blast digging in the dirt.

BTW, my house that I always complained about being too big, isn't too big now that we will have both my kids, the 2 SD's and DH and I all living here. I'm happy now that we have all the extra room as everyone will have their own bedroom.

Wow, Lily, never a dull moment at your house! All those teen-aged girls

I swear we had our spring over the weekend. By Tuesday it was back down in the 40's and overcast. Bah! And it's supposed to rain for most of the long weekend. Good thing I have a lot of indoor stuff that needs to get done. But I'm also supposed to be doing a 4 hour training walk. I think I'll aim for the first dry spell I find. Walking in the rain is one thing - walking 4 hours in the rain is another.

DH rolled in about 6 am yesterday. It's so nice to have him home. And he's so appreciative, esp of my cooking. We'll see how long that lasts.

Pat, It does seem like my life is one constant battle. I guess I should have anticipated this with a total of 6 kids. I live by the old saying of "what doesn't kill us will make us stronger". LOL. When PMS hits this household, I stay outside. LOL.

I got outside and worked 2.5 hrs. today and now my cantaloupes are all planted. Yippee. Next, I'll plant the strawberries and then watermelon. I think all this gardening helps keep me sane right now. LOL. At least it's a good escape. No one wants put to work, so they don't bother me when I'm working in the yard. LOL.

My DD is sick again with a bronchial infection. We got her started on antibiotics today. I sure hope she is better soon.

Pat, that 40's sounds really, really cold. It's mid 80's to 90's here. But, we are getting a lot of rain. Usually rains every time I water the garden. LOL.

Hi maintainres,

Lily - wow, as Pat says, never a dull moment at your place ! However, glad to hear that SD is getting out of that dangerous situation.

Pat - it's hot here today! rain is expected at the weekend, but today it was 27 C !!!

Not much news from here: my hay fever is acting up in this weather. Exercise this week was no good, but today i biked to work and back (1.5 hours total) so that is something.

have a great day all,
rabbit