Hi all.

I hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was great, but a bit too much celebrating. Too much cake, that's for sure, but I loved every bite of it. The steak on Friday night was wonderful. I ended up making mashed potatoes, sauteed onions and mushrooms, green beans, and a salad to go with it. John bought a small kiwi/mango torte at the bakery. Saturday we went to my mom's for mostacioli (ziti) and pork roast and, course, cake. Yesterday, John made brunch, but the rest of the day was light eating. So I really have to go easy today. So far so good.

Talk to you all later.

Carla

Carla - I'm glad you had a good birthday celebration. Glad to hear that you are doing well so far on "going easy". BTW, how have your knees been?

I had a good weekend although I elected to take a "no weigh" day on Saturday. The sneak peek was awful and I just didn't want to see evidence of slipping below the 10 pounds lost. I had a so-so weekend. I did OK at my cousin's but snacked a ton late on Saturday night (why do I DO that?) I made up for it on Sunday, eating my minimum. Tony and I also got a good hour of tennis in so my sneak peek yesterday was good. I snacked too much last night (I think it may have to do with the emotions of yesterday being my next to the last day in the office) and have put myself in quite a little deficit but I hope to eat at minimum today and get some spinning in. Tonight we are going to the graduate open house so most of the evening I won't be here to snack!

Have a great one!
Judy

163.6/153.6/135 and 152/240 workouts
(last week's numbers on the scale)

Hi Judy,

I'm considering doing a no weigh this week too as PMS is here. I'll see tomorrow. Good for you for making up for Saturday on Sunday and yay for a good sneak peek. I imagine that, as much as you've been anticipating it, this will be an emotional week. It's always hard to say goodbye, be it to people or to a part of our life, even if you really want to go. But you're aware of what's going on, so that should help you not snack your way through it. For the last couple of weeks, but knees have been fine. Thanks for asking.

I had a good day yesterday and am expecting to have a good one today too. I'm stuck in the house for awhile while I wait for my new dryer to be delivered, but that's ok. They gave me a window of 8-noon, so I shouldn't be stuck all day. There was a side benefit to getting the new dryer. We've been having to shop vac up water from our basement every day and were having difficulty discovering the source. We finally decided that it was probably the deep freeze, but last night when John moved the old dryer, we discovered that it was the water meter valve. So we were able to get that taken care of this morning.

Have a great day.

Carla

Wow, sure is quiet here. Judy, I suspect that you're very busy tying up all the loose ends at work. Today is your last day, right?

Karen - I think you may be coming home today. Hope you enjoyed your vacation.

I opted not to weigh myself yesterday as I was retaining water and generally feeling very bloated. I had a good day yesterday. I'm going out to lunch today with a friend and plan on being sane about what I eat. The other day I got a phone call from the bank I had interviewed with and then heard nothing from. Long story short: they changed the original position such that I'm now way overqualified for it. However, I had talked with another manager there who was going to have some positions open up. He now has two open positions and I'm going back in tomorrow for 4 hours worth of interviews. It's going to be a tiring day, that's for sure.

Talk to you all later.

Carla

Good Morning!

Carla - first of all, a very happy belated birthday to you! Sounds as though you had a great time. Good luck with the interviews tomorrow. Four hour's worth sounds gruelling. Good idea not to weigh today if you're feeling all bloated and yukky.

Judy - Hope things are winding down well at work for you. Things must be feeling odd for you as you get into transition mode. I totally agree with Carla, you're going to be one fantastic educator!

We got home last evening. Had a really wonderful time; very relaxing. Went boating, spa'd, did wine tours and tastings, went to "Bard in the Vineyard" A Midsummer Night's Dream - done in a natural ampitheatre overlooking the lake under a nearly full moon. Ate out nearly every meal and...ta da...up 5 lbs this morning. Oh well...back to Kashi and ff yogurt for breakfast today.

The dogs did great at the kennel - apparently they were "angels", which I find very difficult to believe.

Missed you guys very much, it's good to be back!

Carla - Sorry I didn't get on yesterday. It turned out to be quite a busy day - meeting in the morning, lunch with friends and then a bunch of goodbyes. Way to go on stringing some good days together. I was going to ask you if you had heard from the bank. That's good news about more positions opening up. Wow, 4 hours of interivewing? That's is certainly going to be one tiring day but I'm sure you'll do well. I hope the positions they have open are to your liking.

Karen - Welcome back - we missed you. Your vacation sounds like is was wonderful - I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. I can hear the good attitude about the gain too - you go girl - you'll get it off 'cause you are on a roll! LOL about the dogs!

Yesterday was a very busy day tying things up. Although today is my official last day, the real one was yesterday. I worked in out with my boss that since I had to be on Long Island today to sign the employment contract and do paperwork with the school district, I could hand in all my electronics and my id yesterday. All day long I kept hearing The Who's song, "I'm free..." from Tommy in my head! I schlepped all my stuff home and treated myself to a taxi to Penn Station. Two nights ago, Tony gave me a new kind of "charm" bracelet - the "charms" are more like panels - anyway, he said it was a gift for my "new life"- there was a tennis racquet charm and three cat charms AND a little yellow school bus! What a guy! We had a little celebratory dinner out yesterday - I went over points for sure - I decided to try this place's ribs which were great and had a tartufo for dessert. I didn't snack last night though because the dinner didn't sit so well - I'm really not used to having that much fatty food. Tony and I played tennis for an hour this morning so I should be able to whittle my deficit down some today. FF hotdogs for dinner is very low point. I've decided to go up to my camp reunion on Sat instead of tomorrow - the one person I wanted to see is only coming Sunday for the day and there's no reason for me to spend the $$ for two nights. That should make it easier to stay OP - I hope to weigh in tomorrow morning instead of Saturday so I can get an early start on Saturday.

Have a great one - time to go do paperwork for my new job. Here's to "Day 1" (as Tony said this morning)
Judy

Hi all.

Karen - Welcome back. We missed you. Sounds like you had a heavenly time. Don't fret about the 5 pounds - probably most of it is water, so it will be off. Wines tours and tastings..... yum.

Judy - What a sweet gift from Tony. Here's to the start of the next phase of your life!!!! WHen I logged on just now I read of the power outage in NYC and saw that the buses, trains, and subways weren't running. Good thing you didn't go into the city today. Wouldn't it have been ironic if you got stuck in NYC on your last day of work.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Carla

Carla - yup, I was thinking the same thing. Originally, I was planning on going in but was only going to be in in the morning so I would have been OK. My sister was in the city though, and ended up having to walk to Queens where her husband picked her up. That was about a 3 and 1/2 hour walk in 80-90 degree temperature. She finally got home around 9-9:30 last night. I made her laugh by telling her she could eat whatever she wanted 'cause she earned about 50 activity points!

Our power came back on at 5:30 am but it's still a bit iffy for today so I'm not going to stay one the computer long. I ate pretty low point yesterday - ff hotdogs on the grill (where we also steamed corn and broccoli since our stove is electric). We ate a few WW giant fudge bars 'cause they were getting soft.

Keep your fingers crossed for us that the grid stays up. It's going to be 90's and humid today. I don't know if I'm going to get back on today so have a great weekend!

Judy

Judy - I wasn't sure if we'd hear from you today. When I posted yesterday, I thought the problem was confined to NYC. When I started watching the news, I realized how widespread it was. Your poor sister - she must have been beyond exhausted when she got home - probably too tired to eat all those points. Hopefully she didn't have to go into work today. Sounds like you and Tony made the best of it and had a lovely dinner, in spite of no electricity.

I got back from my interviews early today as one of the people I was scheduled to talk with couldn't make. Fine by me - two hours was enough. Sounds like an interesting position that would keep my challenged and busy. I still haven't reconciled myself to the idea of going back full-time, but at least this wouldn't be boring and the people I talked to were all nice. They won't be making a decision until mid to late September. Tomorrow we're going out to dinner with my BIL, SIL, and MIL. We're going to a BBQ place, so I'll have to be on my best behaviour the rest of the time.

Have a great weekend.

Carla