Many Holiday events done; a few ahead. I've already had enough meat for the year and enough cookies for a decade. I'm ready for celebrations to be a competition for best raw veggies, LOL.

Sharon - My take is that it's a terrific example to show that you know to remove yourself from a situation that can't be made supportive.

Good morning! I am on day 5 of the flu here. I've been having days of warmth, rest and plenty of fluids. Almost no movement and lots of sleep and reading. The lack of choice has been rather pleasant though I don't recommend flu to anyone.

Sharon, I agree with Bill completely. A sensible action by you and a good example to your daughter.

Hope you're well soon Birchie though what you're doing sounds very inviting to me.

Sharon I'm the third voice that is saying you set a very good example by walking away, rather than possibly confronting and being part of a less than peaceful scene.

Bill I too have had my meat quota for 2015 but I still have about 7 lbs. of ham in my fridge and a couple of turkey appendages as well. DH is quite against freezing it as he says it "kills the taste". I can't bring myself to throw it out either, though I did chuck the last of the fruitcake this morning.

My big indulgence this holiday was soft drinks. Usually I drink artificially sweetened ones (which are no better than the sugary ones) but we had so many of them I have been drinking them with ice. The remaining ones will go into storage with the rest of the bar.

Good Monday all! I'm back to work - bleagh.

Dagmar of

Birchie~feel better!!

Leftovers. Aaaarrrgh! I have quite a bit of ham leftover. I used some in a casserole last night but still have a lot left over. I may grind it up and add pickle relish and mayo for sandwiches. And now I also have leftover casserole. I'm hoping DS chooses to eat that for lunch this week.

Wednesday I'm making two lasagnas for our annual birthday bash (DS in Christmas day, FIL is New Year's Day, DH is January 4th--and we're inviting a friend who is also NYD). One is a traditional meat lasagna and the other is a white-sauced seafood one. I know we'll have leftovers of that as well (although I can pawn some of that off).

We're also looking at harvesting tangelos and grapefruit soon. We ALWAYS have too much! I already have a bag of tangelos from my neighbor and now we'll have more from the in-laws. My only problem with citrus is that I like to eat it cold but not when I'm cold and it's really cold here now!

We golfed yesterday and I did terribly--and I blame it on the cold. Not being able to grip properly due to numb fingers is not fun. It might rain mid-week but until then we're looking at cold temperatures for at least a week. I'm hoping my vegetables survive (we put Christmas lights around them and will cover them if needed, but so far there has been no frost).

Happy New Year to all!
Looking forward to January 2 and just getting back on track. Will try to be at least somewhat under control for a couple more days till the parties end.

Had to google tangelo. Cool. I'll now look for them in my local supermarket. Are they full of seeds like tangerines are?

I bought DS (and myself) a new scale for Chanukah. It measures body fat % and is bluetooth enabled to link up with a smart phone. Problem is, I can't seem to get it to "see" the app on my phone, so we haven't been able to take advantage of it's logging/tracking capability yet (I have a ticket in with tech support). And, it weighs us at ~1.4 pounds more than the prior scale, which is a bit demoralizing, even though intellectually I understand that I don't gain weight when I get off one scale and go stand on the other 20 seconds later. Between the scale weight difference and the increase from holiday indulgences, I'm not liking my number at all...

Also counting the days down till a return to normalcy. Hoping to go to yoga in the morning, but getting to bed quite late as we were at a Houston Rockets game. I snuck in my protein bar and almonds and had some fruit. I consider that a win for my dinner choice.

Andrea, if you need a quick smile with jargon bite, The Little Book of Neuroscience Haiku was a hit with my DD this Christmas.

My job today is to go to the Peabody Essex Museum show of Calder sculptures without using this as an excuse to eat a big lunch since we're in 'vacation mode.'

Bill Enjoy the sculptures!

Dagmar

The ones we get off the tree are full of seeds although I distinctly remember getting them in stores without seeds, so who knows what the difference is.

Funny thing about this: a few years back at Thanksgiving my cousin's side of the family and my side of the family had a rather heated "discussion" (disagreement) over the pronunciation of tangelo. TAN-Jell-O or tan-JELL-o. My side was the former. Finally one cousin got the dictionary out and determined that both are correct (but we still like "our" ways best!).

Good for you Michele! I ate pretty reasonably yesterday and still gained a pound on this morning's weigh-in. Dang! Not unusual tho. I am both looking forward to and dreading January 2. In past years, it took me two or three months to get really serious about returning to a really good diet. This year it MUST be different!

I have started "detoxing" for Jan 1 already. No more parties - just New Year's Eve and I always serve something quite healthy to the two of us - so I figured I'd get a jump on the weight, the sugar, the alcohol . . .

Dagmar to

I am thankful for the mild weeks we've experienced thus far -- no snow to complicate travel to thrice-weekly physical therapy appointments, no icy sidewalks for me to negotiate with the walker -- and diligently working on physical therapy exercises at home every day. When I bend my damaged knee, it feels as though I am trying to squeeze past a large hard rubber ball lodged within my leg. Also it's taking forever for the brownish bruises to fade -- it looks like staining on my leg in weird patterns, particularly at the back of my ankle, where it seems to have bruised as a negative of the folds in the high-top sneaker that I was wearing at the time of the accident.

I'm looking forward to the holidays ending, as we didn't really observe them anyway. The insurance company rep who's ruling on my disability claim will come back to work on Jan. 5th, and I'll check in with my doctor for my two-month post-op checkup on Jan. 10th.

Trixie and I just signed up for basic obedience class, starting Jan. 17th. I have been thinking about doing something healthy for her mind and it occurred to me that I've never taken my own dog to class. Been 6 times with various client dogs and took my friend's frenchie to tracking.

I'm hoping to refresh my basic skills as a handler and become strong enough with them that Trix starts to feel very confident when out with me. Right now she's really mixed feelings and this is coming out in some fear aggression on leash. Something new for both of us - I'm pretty sure she's never been to a class with her owner either.

Dagmar

Thanks Bill; I'll check it out.
Dagmar, I'm surprised that you feel the need for a (different) professional to teach you to work with Trixie. Does the instructor work directly with the dog, or is s/he teaching you how to handle her? Is it something that you need to relearn again each time for each dog?