Good morning! I made a big enough pot of coffee for everyone, so grab your mug and pull up a chair!

DD is getting married in a few months, so last night we hosted a wine tasting party to select her wedding wines. We have to select from the hotel wine list, so I bought five bottles, which we served with cheeses, crackers, nuts, and sliced apples. Too bad I didn't stick with the apples only! I don't think I drank much wine in total, but couldn't even think about dinner after all the cheese. Ugh! We came up with some nice choices, though.

Off to the gym in a bit for cardio and weights. What's your week going to be like?

Good morning!
I'll have mine black thanks.
This week? I work four day shifts. I have a walking date with a friend on Thursday and on Friday (early) we're going to Frankenmuth with another couple.

Our youngest DS probably starts a full-time job this week. Shift work as well. So we're going to have to have a few chats about what, when and who makes supper. I've always been a bit anal about making sure everyone ate a good dinner. I may have to relax a bit .... sure, sure, yup, yup that'll be me.

Good morning! Hot black coffee will indeed be welcome!

Tasting wines, and cheese. Now that sounds like a lovely moment, especially given the special occasion it was for.

My week will be quite full, I think. Work, an appointment at the dentist's, another at my regular physician so that I can be pronounced fit for sports, and my round of re-enrolling at the university, paying my home insurance for the school year, and everything related. Oh yes, and on Friday I go back to my home town to see my grandmother, who's coming out of the hospital after eye surgery. (Fortunately she won't have to go under general anaesthesia for that!)

Soo... My plans regarding weight management are basically to keep my food in check and move enough for me to consider it 'exercise'. I suppose that running a couple of times and biking one hour a day isn't too shabby in itself, even if I can't do weight-lifting before another two weeks. (Why are gym memberships so expensive when you're paying by the month and not the year!)

Good morning friends.

Thanks for the coffee, Meg. Nothing I'd like better then to actually sit down with you all and shoot the breeze over a cup of, well maybe tea, since I don't drink coffee. But I do appreciate the sentiment.

Susan, I'm anal as well when it comes to my family eating a nice, healthy supper. Good luck to your DS and his new job.

Kery, I guess they (gyms) just want to hook you in for a whole year. They make it much more worth your while to do so in hoping to get more money from you. I hope your grandmas surgery goes well.

Since I was home, I had a great on plan weekend.

Last night I made zucchini ribbons. I kinda just kept on peeling them. I would up with long, thing strips. I put it on a baking sheet with some cooking spray and lots of garlic powder, a bit of sea salt and broiled it. Very delicious.

So...... I was able to move my ticker down a few pounds. I now officially have a normal/healthy weight BMI. I started out this little venture of mine with a BMI of a whopping, now get this - 56.0. Since today is Monday, it's official, I weighed in at 127 lbs, my BMI is now 24.8. That makes me VERY happy. I never, ever remember being in the 120's. I hit it a couple of weeks ago, but it was never official, I know that sounds silly, since every weekend brought me back up come Monday.

Have a great day everyone and a great week as well. Happy maintaining, maintainers.

Congratulations on being "normal", Robin!

Wait a sec - what am I saying? Robin -- normal? You are anything but, and I mean that in the very best way!

But yeah, normal is a nice - and strange - place to be.

Meg, the more you talk about it, the more it seems like your DD is going to have a huge and elaborate wedding. Of course, it is probably completely normal, but since I got married in Vegas, I have no idea about these things . It is obvious that she is lucky to have people who love her working hard on all the details, and it should be a wonderful event.

SusanB, have fun on your walk! I think it sounds good to make sure everyone has a good dinner (we do that here too), and can see how it might be tough to change up the routine a bit. You always seem to do everything with quiet determination and good humor, so I know it'll work out OK.

Kery, you sound quite busy. Since Indiana Robin is MIA for a while now, I'll use one of her favorite lines. Breathe!

Robin, what to say? The zucchini sounds wonderful and the weight even better! Congrats.

Good morning everyone!

Well, today is my rest day and I'm taking off work this morning to get a massage, so I get to lie around a bit, read 3FC, drink my coffee at leisure, before heading off. The rest of the week is the usually crazy schedule of work, exercise, driving DD around (swim lessons are starting), trying to walk the dogs a bit, and squeezing in a bit of me time. Also my anniversary 5K is this weekend, and I'll be running, so I'm looking forward to that.

Anne

Meg, I'm joining you on the coffee this morning. The wine tasting sounds like it was fun. So did you still eat dinner, or skip it?

Robin, Congrat's on being in the 120's and the normal BMI range. That is fantastic.

SusanB, I'm anal too about making sure our family has a healthy dinner meal.

Kery, your week does sound busy and I hope your grandmother's surgery goes well.

Today is Day5 of SBD induction for me. I had planned to wait and weigh to see how I'm doing, but I broke down and weighed this morning. Down 3 lbs. per my scale. My official W-I day will be on Thursday. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't gaining weight with this new woe.

I'm happy to say that I'm exercising again and logging it down. My goal is to exercise at least 4 times a week. I feel like I'm actually on-track again.

Today's plan is to finish doing the ton of laundry that Lacy and Shelbey so graciously gave me at 8PM last night. My week should be fairly quiet with only me and the girl's here.

Lily, how old are those girls again? My mother made us start doing our own laundry when we were in our early-mid teens. If I remember right, they are old enough, and it always sounds like you could use a break!

Anne

Thanks a lot for the well-wishes. (She's turning 84 in a couple of months, so I really, really hope there will be no complication whatsoever...)

Good morning, everyone! Good going on following SB and getting those cravings to go away, Lily. Mine are in full swing right now because we went out to dinner last night and I had bread. Then I came home and was craving popcorn. Then I had some chocolate. It was a good thing I just gave up and went to bed because it was one of those times where I could have eaten my way through the pantry. My weight was up to 143 this mornign so that really bums me out and is setting me up for more munching. But I am going to hold FIRM and get back on track. I've already been to the gym and feel great. Now I just have to stay out of the kitchen. Trouble is I have tons of work to do (I work at home), but I'm really tempted to just go shopping to get me out of the house and remind myself how much fun it is to fit in cute clothes.

Gary, I wonder if your weight is up from the extra sodium you ate yesterday. Mine always goes up a pound or two if I eat soup, hot dogs, or turkey or veggie burgers (thanks to all the ketchup, mustard and dill pickles I pile on them). I'll bet your weight is down a pound or two by tomorrow. Drink water!!!
Thanks for the suggestion of framing his diploma. That's a good idea. I'll probalby do that and some kind of gift. His girlfriend's dad is buying her a brand new car for her college graduation in May. I know he would like that but it is not even on my radar. I'm thinking maybe a new laptop or something "small" like that. :-) You kids sound like good kids telling you that you're already done enough. My son recognizes how much we are helping him, but I think he'd still like soemthing. We'll see.

Allison, your daughter is my two kids rolled into one. My son is the CIS major and my daughter (16) plays the string bass and piano. She's probably not going to major in music as that isn't what she wants to do for a living, but she'd love to get a music scholarship (I'm not sure you can even do that if you don't major in music) and major in something like physical therapy. I'm a writer and she likes to write so maybe she will go in that direction. She may end up at the university my son is attending as they have a large music and performing arts school. She's already panicking about moving into a dorm and not having her piano. I told her she could take our keyboard but it only has 66 keys and just won't do. I know some of the dorms in at my son's school have pianos in the common areas. That would be better than nothing. We'll see what she decides. It's just fun thinking about having one down and one to go.

Have a good day everyone, and good luck staying on track eating and exercise wise. I really want to see my scale below 140 again. I should change my ticker but I'm going to hold off and see if I can make some progress this week.

Pam

oh, and Lilly, I forgot to add that I do my daughter's laundry too. I've taught her how to do it, and she does know how, but I can't stand to have her tying up my laundry room all the time because she'll throw in a load and then leave it for a day, then put it in the dryer, then pull what she wants to wear out of the dryer. It drives me nuts. Plus I think it's easier to sort all of our clothes and wash them together. For example, I know this is more info than anyone could possibly want, but that way I can do a load of our bras and delicate things togehter, instead of risk having her toss hers in with her dirty socks! I don't know. I just like the laundry done properly and I like to keep the laundry room neat and orderly, so the laundry is just my thing, I guess.
Pam

Morning everyone, although I guess it's now noon here. Eek, where did the morning go. Oh, I know:
-- mad scramble to get The Boy up, out the door, and on the bus
-- walk 20 min from bus stop to gym
-- 1 hour workout (leg day!)
-- shower, coffee, walk to office
-- eat grapes and cottage cheese for breakfast
-- put out fires at work
-- catch up on 3fc!

Yesterday we tried the climbing wall on campus. This was the first time any of us (me, DH, and The Boy) had tried climbing. It was a little tough for The Boy because the handholds are too far apart for a 5-year old, but he had a good time climbing up a little ways and then jumping onto the mats. I thought it was a blast. My upper body strength really paid off, although not enough to make up for my abysmal technique. My grip, though, was pretty much shot by the end of an hour. Need to work on that!

My week looks to be more of the same: workout in the am, go to the office, come home & eat dinner, hang out with DH and TB, then bed. Rinse, lather, repeat. I'm sure this sounds boring to some, but I have no complaints. I'm lucky to have great health, a secure and well-paying job that I love (well, most of the time), supportive friends, and a wonderful family.

It must be lunchtime! Hope y'all are having a great day so far.

Kim

Good morning everyone!

I'm in a little late today as I had to stop off at the hospital for my yearly mammo. They did it digitally this year and I was in and out in 5 minutes. Of course, it still took 40 minutes in all because I had to wait to check in, wait to be registered, wait to be called in for the actual mammo. Oh, well.

DD went to school early to see if she could (finally) see her counselor about her missing class and messed up schedule. She is supposed to have 4 classes, but they only gave her 3 and her schedule is that she has classes 2nd, 4th and 6th periods. What a mess! I hope it finally gets fixed.

Pam~yeah, my daughter wants to be able to perform forever, but doesn't really want to teach any longer. But because that's what she has concentrated on since junior high, I'm thinking that it is her best bet for scholarships. But how can you get music scholarships and then not study music? Hence the double major. She's doing the music education because it is easier to get into than the performance or composition.

Oh, work is calling.....

Morning ladies!

Decaf please with a dash of soy milk

Got my run in, went to the gym for weights for the first time in ages. Did a good upperbody series and then a light lower body series. Too nervous about marathon stuff to really push the lower body. Just did my physical therapy exercises and about 80% of working weights for ROM. Now I am going to walk to pick up dd from preschool since it is hot and sunny out. So overall I will be burning it up today!

Laundry..I'm all for having kids do their own too. I started doing mine when I was 9 but thats because my dad kept ruining my clothes.

Gotta dash....bbl...love you all! Have a splendiferous day!

Hi maintainers,
Coffee ...thanks meg!

Wine tasting sounded great!
You all sound like well into the swing of things...i am shivering and not well, so i did not bike to work and i did not go to power class. i will go with DS to the otho because his braces broke so we're in for an emergency visit.

Lilly - I do the laundry for DS and DD, but they know that I only do laundry in the weekend: I have a double meter so the power in the weekend and at night is cheaper and besides, this is one of our good deeds for the environment ( it lowers peak power needs so you can have less power stations) So, in short: if the laundy is not in the basket by sunday morning at the latest, then it does not get done untill next week saturday.

Have a great day all,
Rabbit