May you have a good week even though it has to begin this morning without Meg and will be the whole week without Megan.

My challenge for the day is an evening meeting conducted at a table with shared snacks. All meetings challenge me to stay focused without being annoyed at each person who drones on repeating themselves or whatever, but the big challenge is to remember that snarfing the food doesn't fix annoyed.

My challenge this week is to cut waay down on the diet pop.

DH and I agreed this weekend that we are both addicted to caffeine and it's greatly affecting our sleeping/eating patterns. I am also addicted to the sweetening chemicals in the diet pop, which is my main source of caffeine too.

This will probably mean a delay in losing those last 5 lbs. as I tend to eat more to try to replace the energy the caffeine is providing.

My plan is to remain at/around 135 lbs. I will try drinking decaf and herbal teas to hydrate and placate some of the food cravings I'm having.

And the good news is that I have a new doggie on the bus!He is the first truly small dog I've ever walked commercially and he's darn cute!

Have a great Monday all!

Dagmar

Hi Bill! Good luck staying away from the snacks/food.

What kind of doggie is the new one Dagmar? Will you walk him/her with the big guys? Glad you have a new one to fill the hole of some of your lost ones.

Another busy stressful week for me. Just trying to keep my head above water. Dh is in Asia and he got there and got horribly ill-- probably a virus or food poisoning. He is so ill. I just hope he is okay which he is saying he is. He rarely gets ill but when he does he gets very sick!

I posted a couple of weeks ago that I was looking for a wedding dress. I found something over the weekend and now I have a question about wedding dress etiquette. The ceremony is at a church and then the reception at a country club. I haven't been to a wedding in so long I don't remember what is right and wrong to wear! The dress is sleeveless (bare shoulders). Looks like a very pretty party dress with gems, bright purple. Would that be inappropriate in a church? I was thinking I could wear a shawl or other cover during the wedding and take it off for the reception?

Hope everyone has a great week!

Michele~I would suggest either a cute sweater or shawl for the ceremony. Then of course it would be appropriate for wearing after then reception because it'll be cooler.

Good Luck on the meeting Bill!

Dagmar~glad you got a new doggie to walk, even if it is an ankle biter (what I refer to small dogs as!).

Has anyone heard from Marie? I haven't seen her posts lately (or perhaps I'm just blind).

My challenge for the week is to cut down on the nightly alcohol. One is plenty. Zero would be better.

My in-laws return sometime this week. They're scheduled to come in anytime this weekend, but they need repairs on their RV. They had it all scheduled in SLC, but the place said it'd take 2 weeks, so they've made another appointment here in So. Cal. They may have to leave it for a few days, so they might be staying with us for a few days.

We've decided to take our DD's advice and turn her room into the exercise room. We'll store her bed and chair, leaving all her other stuff as it has never been emptied of it's contents and I'm not about to do it! Perhaps when she comes home at Christmas or Thanksgiving she'll work on it a bit. Then when she comes home, she can sleep in the guest room which will be more accessible for sleeping as we won't have to move all the equipment.

Bill - stay away from the snacks!

Dagmar - Sorry about the old doggie. What breed is the new one?

Michele, I hope your DH feels better soon. I would bring a shawl or wrap to the church. Whether or not strapless is appropriate really depends on the church -- some will care and some won't.

Allison - have fun with your new exercise room!

DH and I had a great night out/anniversary celebration at the symphony opening on Saturday! This is the first year we've actually come to the opening night. They really go all-out, with huge floral displays, a big reception, etc. Perlman was great, although as I expected the Mozart was underwhelming. Afterward we went to a restaurant we'd never been to before, and it was absolutely delicious. I think it may become our new favorite special occasion restaurant (our old favorite one closed when the owner/chef decided to retire).

Starting today I am buckling down and going back into weight loss mode until Thanksgiving. I slacked too much lately, ate way too much this weekend, and I really want to be at the bottom of my maintenance range when the holidays get started. This morning was over red line, but given that Friday was under it's probably water weight. My goal is to get down to 136 by Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately my wrists are acting up again. My left wrist in particular is extremely unhappy. I don't know if it's related to doing NRLW, since I wasn't having any real problems before and nothing's changed at work. It would make sense that my wrist suddenly getting annoyed would be caused by lifting heavy weights with it. This does cause a dilemma though, because I really want to have more upper body strength. Maybe I need to give up on the heavy lifting and go for a program with higher reps of lower weight, so it won't be as hard on my wrists.

Dagmar, what kind of little dog are you walking? I definitely prefer large breeds (grew up with German shepherds and rotties) but there are some cute little ones too! Good luck cutting out the caffeine. I've cut back a lot on the diet soda, but I cling to my daily coffee.

Bill, be strong at your meeting! You're right that the food won't ease the aggravation.

Michele, I hope your husband recovers quickly.

Allison, enjoy the exercise room! Sounds great! Good luck as well with reducing the evening alcohol. I love to have a glass of wine or beer when I'm making dinner, and it is really hard not to have more than one sometimes!

Jessica, the symphony and dinner sounds so nice! My BF and I got season tickets to the Tucson Symphony - they have a great deal for students ($80 for the whole season, and decent seats) so we're enjoying that for one final year. I hope you can find a way to ease your wrists and still work on your upper body strength. Maybe there are some kinds of exercises you could do to strengthen the wrists and then go back to trying to lift heavier weights? I remember doing wrist exercises in color guard but I can't really recall what any of them were.

I've been kind of ignoring my weight (and posting) with being so busy trying to finish my degree. However I have decided that I have to at least stay consistent with the exercise because it's really good for me mentally too. This weekend I tried on some really cute, form-fitting clothing. What I realized looking in the mirror is that I've still got it, but it's hanging on by a thread. The bulges are threatening. A lot of my clothing doesn't fit properly anymore - it's just uncomfortable and tight, which makes me super self-conscious. My BF had me convinced for awhile that my clothes just shrank from the new dryer (craig's list - actually a very old dryer), but after realizing that my dry-clean only clothes are showing the same effects I have to accept the fact that it's not the dryer.

The new dog is a shih tzu and he's an ok little guy.Needs some behavioural tweaking but not much. He kept up very well with the two retrievers, despite having legs about 3 inches long!

Jessica Your night out sounds like it was lovely.

Allison Enjoy the exercise room!

Michele The dress sounds gorgeous. Maybe a wrap or a cute fancy cardi? (don't know what the temps are in your part of the country).

I managed to stay entirely away from the diet pop today. I had a big psychological thing where I was convinced I couldn't get through the day without it. That is now gone and I can move forward. I still drank some caffeine today but it was in regular tea instead of mixed with all sorts of weird chemicals and artificial sweeteners.

Anyone else use stevia? The claims are that it's totally natural (and I know this isn't true). I can't really use sugar or honey as those totally set me up for a sugar crash. And drinking black tea is just not on.

I'll figure it out. Off to an off-leash meeting at a Starbucks. Herbal tea for me.

Have a great evening all!

Dagmar

Good morning! I read yesterday, but didn't post.

Decent weekend - well, train wreck of snack food all after 9pm on Saturday, but great Friday & Sunday, so I'm averaging it to decent weekend.

Bill - I hope your meeting went well last night!

Dagmar - I've used stevia. I believe that there are some versions of it that are all natural, though the Truvia brand has msg as a preservative. Some of the others have flavorings and such. You have to be careful how much you use or it tastes like licorice. I drink a lot of tea and I tend to use 1 tsp of raw sugar instead of an artifical sweetener. Or drink a sweeter tea. My current favorite is a Hot Cinnamon Spice black tea from Harney & Son's. It doesn't need sugar in my opinion.

Michele - the dress sounds lovely! I agree that a short jacket, shrug or cardigan would do well for the service itself. And hope DH feels better soon - being sick while on a trip is terrible.

Allison - exercise room sounds cool!

Jessica - glad you enjoyed your night, even with the less than exciting choice of music. And glad that you found a good restaurant! About the wrist, I have trouble sometimes with heavy weights with mine too. I have wrist wraps I've never tried, I wonder if we could use those with the weightlifting?

Iris - the clothes always show the things we don't exactly want to see. You can get back into the exercise, I know it. When are you finished with school?

Good day all!

Iris, $80 for the whole season - wow! That's a great deal!

Dagmar, great job avoiding the soda!

Shannon, I haven't tried wrist straps. For today at least I'm going to just avoid my wrists entirely and focus on legs and core. Depending how I feel later this week I may add back upper body. My wrist feels slightly better today - so far - but still not good. Yesterday I massaged it, iced it, heated it, and took a couple ibuprofen. Not sure which of those things helped. I also made DH make dinner.

Jessica - do you have carpal tunnel from working on the computer? I think I have a touch of it on the right - though I blame pulling fryers in restaurants for it more than the computer.... I have strengthened my wrists a lot in the last few months with yoga, though I have to be super careful about hand placement.

Shannon, no, strangely enough carpal tunnel is the one repetitive stress injury I have NOT been diagnosed with (although I've been borderline a couple times). It's definitely from the computer. Last time through my occupational therapist said as long as I continue to work full-time doing software my wrists will never be 100% pain free. I've been diagnosed with De Quervain syndrome, tennis elbow, cubital tunnel syndrome, and plain old tendinitis (which is really what the other three are) at various times. It is somewhat related to my hypothyroidism as well -- when my thyroid was out of control, none of the treatments would work.

Sometimes I think maybe there's something else wrong with me and they just haven't figured it out yet, but who knows? I've been tested for just about every rheumatoid disease in the book and come up negative.

Well, I got my hair cut this morning. I'm less than excited about it, but it's okay. Everyone else likes it a lot. I'll post a pic later. I tried to take a picture of myself and I just can't do it! I'll have my DS take one when he gets here.

Jessica~I'm starting to wonder about my maladies lately. First it was my knee which was clearly an injury to either the tendon or ligament. PT really helped there, but as soon as I was done with PT my foot started to bother me (probably plantar fascitis). I've been doing some of the recommended things for that and it is much better but not gone. Now I think I have either tennis elbow or golfer's elbow. Both are injuries to the elbow tendon, one on the outside tendon, the other inside. All I know is that by the end of the day my elbow is in so much pain I have to ice it. I've found that certain activities are excruciating--mostly anything involving lifting. I guess I ought to see a doctor about that.

Dagmar~I've tried stevia and I'm on the fence about it. You have to be careful not to use too much as it will leave a horrible bitter taste in your mouth. I like my tea without sweetener, so I guess I'm lucky! I was using it in 100% cranberry juice, but I've pretty much given up on juices all together now.

Is it jsut me or were these ads I'm noticing in people's posts today not here before?

Dagmar

I don't see ads in posts....?

See if this link works for seeing my new haircut: new do. I'm thinking you might have to be a Facebook friend to see it. Let me know, I can move it.

Jessica, I think the wrist feeling better MUST be due to DH making dinner. At least you can tell him that =)

Dagmar, congrats on avoiding the soda! I used stevia before for baking; didn't notice anything different flavor-wise but I followed a recipe that already called for stevia. It's plant based so it can be "all natural" but then so can sugar. And of course most of what you'd buy in the stores are processed so I wouldn't necessarily interpret that as natural.

PS - I don't see any ads - not in the individual posts if that's what you meant.

I should finish school in December (am currently in the process of scheduling a room and date for the second of two presentations I have to complete). I'm a little overwhelmed that it's all got to happen in less than 3 months. I don't know where the time has gone!

Allison, the link works - and I think the cut looks great! What don't you like about it? I think I remember you hair being shoulder-length or so before, is it just a drastic change?

Last night I convinced my BF to go for a walk with me. We went 2 miles but the bribe was that I'd buy him a beer and this resulted in me getting a glass of wine at the same time =)