Good Morning!

It's beautiful outside this morning, but it's supposed to be hot and humid later. I'd better gear up the air conditioners!

Yesterday turned out to be a pleasant day, once we were finished with that d***** fence. It was exhausting trying to work in 92* heat, holding heavy panels of stockade fencing. Once we were finished I jumped into the pool, and it immediately put me in a better mood. Dustin, Andrea and Amber came over for dinner, and we ended the day on a pleasant note.

This morn, first to Curves, then I have to finish cleaning the house. I'd like to bring the girls back here for the afternoon, but Audrey has Art Camp and a doctor appt., so we'll just stay at their house and I'll set up their wading pool for them.

Gotta run for now, Curves is calling!

The gym is calling me - whodathunkit? It's a lovely cool morning here but we are heading into a stinker of a week. I will set up the wading pool for my "Girls" this morning. Hershey wallows in it but Lucy just considers it a big water bowl!

I also have a dental appointment for a cleaning which sort of screws up my morning. I wish we could get really early appointments, like 7:00 AM and get these things over with! If it's not too hot this afternoon, I may work in some digging. I have one area that is infested with skutch (quack-grass) and want to get it "pure" before I plant anything there. This may be an all-summer project.

How does your Monday look? Stay as cool and relaxed as possible and drink that water!

Hazy Hot and Humid :

Just planning on stayin cool as a cucumber
and watching Darby... she's healing up just fine.. has her same robust appetite! She has some problems navigating with the lampshade..Doink Doink into the walls heh hehe.. I've covered the back door with paper since it over looks the deck and the feeders... seeing the squirrels out there makes them crazy .. so in essence I've "turned off the tv"
later gaters~

That's funny, Schatzi! My dog always loves to stand by the windows! She gets the most annoying nose prints all over the place.

Ruth, our dentist out in California opened at seven. I thought it was an awful idea because I could never have gotten there so early, packing up the kids for the trip and all. Makes sense now, though!

Mornin' Cottage! Hope your trip to the gym was nice. My mom goes to Curves and she loves it! I've gone with her a couple times and it is such a nice, supportive environment. Much like this board!

We had a nice Monday here. I'm giving Connor a little break from school for a couple weeks. He finished up most of his work on Friday - phonics has been finished since we left New Jersey in April, but last week he finished up his math, history, and science for the year. We're still doing a short grammar lesson every day and working on handwriting, and I'm continuing his spelling curriculum through the summer because we just started that a couple weeks ago. He will also keep up with his reading and I've just started doing some art appreciation with him this last month and we're both learning a lot, so I think we'll keep up with that until the library runs out of books to support our interests. But I went out and bought some of those fun activity books and I'm going to supplement with them for the summer. So, he finished everything by lunch and we took the afternoon to relax. Then we had to head to base for his violin lesson, and Tom met us at the library and took the kids to the lesson so I could run to the gym during that time. It was nice - the first time I've been in the cardio room since we got here. Usually I'm a exercise to lose weight kind of gal. This is actually the first time I've been successful following any sort of diet plan. So, I'm hoping with the addition of a little exercise I'll be really seeing the numbers on that scale go down!

Need to get some laundry run before bed. Have a great day, everyone!

Kara

It's so hot here! I woke up and was panting :P I need to haul up the big guns tonight- my huge fans! This is the first summer I'll spend somewhere without aircon!

I opened my underwear drawer while getting ready for work and it smells AWFUL! I guess I must have put some clothes away damp and since the dresser is in the closet and super contained, it just started to stink! So I had to do some quick damage control and washed out in the tub (with some shampoo!) most of my stuff in there. I just hope I get home before my male roommate because panties and bras are hanging up all over the apartment! :P

Off to work!

Morning Ladies...almost hate to post since nothing is happening here..same old, same old...work, gardening etc.

We had a really nice evening when my husband got home from work yesterday. The two older kids ended up getting him the same thing without knowing it...imported beer! They know him well. So now France and Mexico are well represented in his special beer drawer in the fridge.
Everyone enjoyed dinner and I made a chocolate cake for Terry (husband). His favorite cake is plain chocolate cake with no icing...that's great because I really wasn't tempted by it. I tried making chicken a different way after watching Emerill's "Wrap" show the other night, but changed it up pretty much since a lot of the ingredients are no-no's. (also I could not find an ingrediant called Mirin and I wasn't about to spend $ on a bottle of sake so I kind of made up my own marinade and glaze.) You pound out big chicken breasts till very thin, then cut it in 1/2 legnth wise, season them and roll them around a green onion and tie them with string, then marinate for a few hours or overnight and grill. I did put a little rum in the glaze I used on them when grilling, but not much. The glaze was soy sauce, splenda brown sugar and a tiny bit of rum. Very good! We also had black beans and quinoa and a big salad. Very nice meal with a lot of laughing!

femme ~ Your dinner last night sounded pretty good! I can find Mirin in most grocery stores around here in the Asian section, have you checked there?

Ruth ~ About the earliest you can get an appt. around here is 8am, but I know what you mean. I'm an early-bird, too, and like to get things done and over with first thing in the morning. Are you going to join the doggage in the wading pool? I usually just pull up a lawn chair next to the pool and stick my feet in, but with all the splashing going on, I end up drenched most of the time! The girls think it's hilarious.

Schatzi ~ That's funny, "turning off the TV"! I'm glad Darby is recovering well from her surgery. Cindy's golden lab, Jim, has to have surgery on his leg on Friday, he somehow hurt it while roughhousing with the other 2 dogs. His recovery is going to be hellish for all of us, because he'll have to be crated for 2 weeks afterwards, and he's a runner who loves being outside.

Kara ~ It sounds like Connor is getting an excellent education, being home-schooled. Do you plan to home-school through 12th grade? I can imagine it must be fun for both of you, but it must take loads of patience!

I finally followed some of my own advice today, and took time to "smell the roses." I took a cup of coffee out on the patio and sat and savored the peacefulness (is that a word?). It gave me time to sit and think about how stressful I've allowed my life to get lately and I just have to learn to say No more often. I've just always been there for everybody, and I guess I'm afraid to hurt people's feelings, but it's just gotten to the point where I'm just overwhelmed. I have a week off in mid July, and I'm thinking of just going somewhere by myself. Maybe to the shore or something. The only glitch in that is that Andrea could have the baby any day, although she's not due until Aug. 1. She's a high-risk pregnancy, and if the baby goes into fetal distress, the doctor will have to take it then and there, and I promised to keep Amber while she's in the hospital. So far she's doing pretty good, and the baby is fine, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she'll hang in there til her due date.

It's going to be a hot and humid day out here today. I'm planning my return to the gym this morning ... I had been walking with some friends but that fell by the wayside when the kids got out of school. We might go to the pool this afternoon but it's supposed to rain at some point so I think we'll play that one by ear. The rest of my day will be dedicated to cleaning the house.

Sounds like you all had a great Father's Day all in all. We went out for breakfast and my boys (7 and 9) took my husband to a movie. They pooled money for the movie and snacks ... it was very sweet. While they were gone my daughter and I did a little shopping and am I'm thrilled to say that I didn't buy anything in XL -- only L!!! It was very exciting! For dinner, we grilled and ate outside. For dessert, everyone had cake and I didn't even sample the frosting. We're leaving for vacation on the 29th and it's definitely helping to keep me motivated.

Well, I'm off to get ready for the gym now. Have a great day!

morning all... you all sound so busy

a special beer drawer femme? wow... we hardly drink so that seems wow... interesting...

cottage: enjoy curves I haven't been to the gym in forever ruth ... it doesn't call me it forgot my name. and i hate the dentist and i'm having so much work done it's nuts...

kara: I could never home school very impressive of you to do so.

charolastra our laundryroom is like VS between my bras and panties and girl child's. to make hubby not feel left out we hang his boxers...

and shatzi it's going to be 95 here code RED heat index today.... i'm almost glad to be at work..

today's food is fish and chicken, i'm retaining water, hubby has 2 more half days after this (as does girl child) then summer break I'll walk the dogs after i get home (i'm working till 6) for my exercise today.

one of these years i'll go back to the gym.

good morning all! This will be quick as I'm running a bit late this monday. I had a rough Saturday - completely fell off the wagon. The good news (twisted as it is) is my body is so used to eating SB that I was sick, sick, sick yesterday morning (I called it my sugar hangover) and I had no interest in continuing the behavior. So I was back on the wagon yesterday with no problem and have my cooler well stocked to get me through today. I'm thinking about trying to go to the gym during lunch. Not sure if it'll give me enough time but I'm always too pooped by the end of the day. We'll see how it goes.

Have a grand day everyone!!

Morning gals!

Sounds like most of us had a good weekend. We did around here too! Our original plan had been to camp on Saturday night for Father's Day. But, we have just had TONS of rain here in Texas- it is crazy as this is typically when our drought weather starts. So, we "camped" out in our living room, went to church on Sunday morning, and then DH and DD went fishing in the afternoon. Other than a very unpleasant visit to the in-laws last night, it was a great weekend. It makes me so sad for my girls, but I just cannot stand going over there. It is a stressful environment....

Anyhow, we are watching a neighborhood kiddo periodically this summer. I think it going to make for some long days when the weather isn't cooperating! I have an art project for this afternoon and then we may bake some cupcakes.

Off to plan some menus for this week...

Hi everyone,

Monday isn't going so bad! Work is crazy as always but that's better than being bored! Only problem is that I get busy and forget to eat. It's 2pm and I am just getting to my lunch now! Oh well......

Hope you guys are having a good one.

oh guys this is too funny
a walking desk to burn calories at work:

http://www.wbaltv.com/health/1351264...606182007&ts=H

Afternoon ladies! Busy work day here! Was supposed to be hot and humid, high in the mid 90's with "popcorn" showers. Well it has pretty much rained since I got to work, nice since my garden really needs it! Can't trust those weather people for nuttin!

Scale wise, arg lets not even discuss it! Only thing I have "cheated" on is dinner at my mother-in-laws on friday (I swear she has it out for me!) Chalking it up to TOM arriving any day (thats my story and I'm sticking to it!) going to try to avoid the scales for a few days (right!).

Have a great remainder of the day chickies, may we all eat OP!

I'm back, ladies! And I survived Twilight Camp. We were a bit small this year. We had about 400 boys and 300 adults which is still quite a few people for a weeklong camp. In addition, we had about 100 who camped overnight Friday night. That isn't bad considering we had a brief thunderstorm around 2AM and then it poured all Saturday morning. Tom cooked the breakfast in a bag in the pouring rain. And we loaded the trucks from the storage POD and got them to the warehouse in the rain.

I just ran to the new warehouse and old warehouse and out to the park to remove the Women's signs from the portable restrooms. I'm about ready to head back to the new warehouse with a carload of boxes. We are moving the rest of the stuff to the new warehouse sometime before the end of the month but we will need a truck for much of it.

Camp went really well. We had lots of comments (and evaluations) indicating it was much more organized than last year. Everyone love the shooting gallery we had for BB guns and really liked having a separate range for the older boys. As for archery, 20 boys could shoot at a time instead of 8 the year before but there were still boys waiting. I'll see if we can't add another 4 stations or so next year. Since we bought 40 new BB guns this year, we can probably swing some new bows and stuff for next year. Last year's camp director showed up and was a bit of a jerk but the camp director's of two of the local districts showed up and really liked the camp. I have a ton of stuff to still get put up but I've made lots of notes on improvements for next year.

I have gained about 4 pounds what with eating out when I got a chance to eat at all. I now have fresh food in the house and even picked up the new South Beach Summer cookbook. Tomorrow I am back at work. It's kind of sad that it is over for the year but also a relief. I am just really glad we didn't have to close camp due to the weather. There was a LOT of severe weather that just missed camp. I was not looking forward to how to cram 700 people under the pavilions or how to evacuate them.