Good morning, sistas! Well, okay. . .it is only 2 AM here, but. . .
Do they have Tetley tea cannisters in the states? I just love almost all of them and this weekend, made them iced (used 2L water, 5 bags, and 11 packets of sweetener). The rooibos (sp?) vanilla and peppermint were soooo good! And no points! Will try more when I am unpacked. They no longer have earl grey vanilla around here, which is a shame because it was the best. I bet the strawberry would make a lovely iced tea as well!

My situation is getting realer and realer and it hits me in little pockets. Had finally gotten back into packing and cleaning after being so angry with the heat and the sunshine just burning my back while I was trying to work. :-/ I do not know why I looked into a notebook before packing it. What was I expecting to find? Got me. Sadly, the first page I flipped to was a little "note to self" kind of thing from probably 1998, saying how sad I was that my husband and I had gotten in a fight and that I wanted more than anything to be with him. Of course, he was not my husband at the time-I was only 16! But I could feel my old desire and sadness from the words, and of course that recreated. So I closed it and packed it away with a few more notebooks and a few teardrops.

Can you believe it is August already?

Good Morning! How can it possibley be morning already? And MONDAY morning at that? I am soooo tired, I hardly slept at all last night despite the physical exhaustion from all the painting.

Hippo-Sounds like you and your husband have a long and complicated history. It has to be hard to get untangled from something like that, especially with all the emotions involved. But you can do it. You will come out on top. I know it must be hard to see now, when things are so low. But you will get there.

I am waiting for the kids to arrive once they are settled in I am gonna crash on the floor. They always sleep on the couches until at least 8 or 9 and my kids were up late too so they should be out for a while yet. Hopefully I can get my livingroom put back together. DH let the kids totally trash it while I painted yesterday. Then I hope I can get a bit more painting done before we go to the fair today, maybe at nap time.

Have a dancing Banana kind of day everyone Right now though I feel like this guy I'lll perk up with a couple more hours of sleep. Byes!

Good morning Sistas!

I'm back from vacation. I definitely did not stay OP last week... I was in a cabin in the woods with my husband, daughter, sister, and her boyfriend. In the cabin next to us were my parents and my other two sisters. We rotated turns cooking supper, so, I had to eat what was fixed for supper-- we had a limited amount of food with us --- one night someone made lasagna, garlic bread,etc; another night BBQ ribs, etc. It was great food, just not the choices I would have made if I'd been at home. Oh well. On the up side, however, we swam for two hours or more each day, so I did get in a lot of exercise.

Hippo- hang in there! Oh, and your tea sounds fabulous. I think I'll make some sun tea today myself. I bought some plain green tea on vacation and I think I'll try it as sun tea to see how I like it.

Misty- I hope the kids all sleep in late!

Good morning, everyone. I sulked all weekend and, I hope, got it out of my system. I don't really feel like posting, but I feel I need to keep my promise to be here to support everyone, even when I myself feel like giving up. Thank you all so much for your help.

Dinner Saturday night was unbelievable. It was obscenely expensive, and I mean that. I'm embarrassed about how much I spent. But, my honey is worth it. I won't go into too many details about the food, but I have to say that his prime rib was 27 ounces; it had to be 4 inches thick and covered his whole plate. And my gosh it was delicious; you hardly had to chew it at all. I had crab imperial. Sigh.... I didn't even bother to try to count the points! But we had a wonderful time, so it was worth it. (Someone please remind me of that next saturday when I'm whining about my weigh-in!)

Yesterday was an eating, sulky day, so another bust points-wise. But like I said, back on track today. I have a new employee starting today, so I'm taking her out to lunch. The place we usually go to is a bar with very good food. They have a huge salad with baby greens, sliced steak and goat cheese with a balsamic reduction. I don't know how to count it all, but I think that would be the best thing for me to get. The greens are 0, of course. The balsamic reduction probably has oil in it, so I'm going to count it as 4 (it's not drenched in dressing, at least). There's just a little goat cheese, so I'll count that as 2 (one full cup of pot cheese is 3); and I'd bet there's about 3 ounces of steak, so I'll call that 5. Does that sound about right? 11 points?

Thanks again, ladies, for pulling me back in, even if it was kicking and screaming!

Oh boy...what a morning. *yawns and stretches* Whew, I feel so lazy compared to all of y'all! My cat (i.e. alarm clock) didn't wake me up at 7:30 as she usually does. This morning she decided to let me sleep in until 8:30. Crazy kitty. I suppose when the semester kicks in, I'll actually have to rely on an alarm clock instead of my cat.

Today is going to be a pretty laid-back day. I absolutely MUST finish The Faerie Queene, no excuses. I've been reading this sucker for a week. It's time to end it. And once I finish it, I'm going to move on to Confessio Amantis, which is about ten pages shorter, but in Middle English. Lol. Ah...the life of an English student. *shakes head* But before all of that, I'm going to go work out. Today is a cardio day sans my personal trainer, but I've had plenty of those and this week I'm extra motivated. I'm only 1.5 pounds away from saying "I've lost 10 pounds!" And I would really love to say that to my parents when I see them after my WI on Saturday morning. I'd love to walk into breakfast, wherever we're going to eat breakfast, and say, "Well, I'm 10 pounds lighter since the last time I saw you." Lol. How fun would that be? So I just want to shake at least 1.5 pounds. If I can shake 3 pounds and waltz into One-derland this week, that'd be amazing, too. But I'm aiming at the 1.5 for now.

So! I better run. I don't want all the good treadmills taken!

Have a great Monday, sistas!
~Amanda

Amanda, you aim for the 1.5, and I'm going to quietly root for the 3 pounds for you. I want to take your hand and lead you into one-derland! You're so close!

HH, we're here for you, sista. This is a tough time right now, but once you actually get moved out and on your own, you're going to be so awed and proud of the things you can accomplish. Trust me on that.

Good morning everybody!! Maggie, i had a sulky kind-of weekend too.

I got our spare bedroom painted and redecorated. It's a very pretty blue color, which matches the tiny blue flowers in the bedspread perfectly. The bedspread is mainly white with pink roses, but it has tiny blue daisies on it also. In my opinion, it looked beautiful, but dh said, I don't really care for the color.

I just get kind-of down--today is my 2 year anniversary at my job. I love my job, but we haven't met any new friends in this city. We moved here from out of state, and I haven't met a single friend. I honestly don't know how to meet people. I just sat at home last night and moped. I know there are people worse off than me, but I just was feeling sorry for myself in a pathetic sort-of way!!

I guess I ate okay over the weekend, but we ate at Culvers on Saturday night. Are you familiar with Culvers? It's kind-of an upper-midwest restaurant.

I'm suppose to have my weigh-in tonight, but I don't think I'm going. I'm going to quit to save money. I'm sad about it, because this was my social time outside of work, but I'll be okay.

Maggie, thanks for posting. Even if you're not feeling rosey, we all need your fabulous support! I'm glad you enjoyed your night out. It's fun to spulge every once in a while! My husband sure would have enjoyed that enormous prime rib.

Amy, I'm glad you enjoyed your vacation! Did you get any exercise in? I haven't been camping for the longest time, but I remember one time in college when I camped in northern Minnesota. They had a fairly nice cabin that had a tv and a VCR. Well, we watched the Shining--that insanely scary movie with Jack Nickelson!! It was the first time I saw it, and I was freaked!! Then, my friend and I had to camp back to the cabin that we were at, and I was a basket case. Man, I was scared!

HH, maybe this pain will get better once you are off starting new again. You're a very strong woman. I've only known you for a couple of weeks, and I can already tell that. The most important thing is that you must take care of yourself first.

August 1st--summer is almost over. This heat is getting to be too much for me!

Good mornin' sistas!! I have missed you all like crazy cakes! Thanks for the hugs while I was on my vacation from ****- it helped, really. And overall, now that I am home, I see that I had a lot of fun- Duluth is fantastic, and I spent quite a bit of time with my son and his two cousins (my three little men) so if nothing else, that was worth it! Duluth, ah... I really must find a job there...

I did not WI in this week because I was still gone on Saturday (my WI) and had no access to a scale. Yesterday I weighed and was up 1.5lbs, but I wasn't concerned. I actually thought I'd lose on vacation because I'd be getting so much exercise (walking all over, swimming twice a day) and I planned for points as well as I could. Well, I did fine on eating- I stopped writing everything down after a while because I was always in a rush to go here or get to the next thing, but I didn't go hog wild either- i always remembered sensible portions and avoided the stuff that would have really stuck to my hips. Bravo to me- there was a LOT of temptation...

But anyway, I am sure I went over on points with drinks at happy hour and in the evening- but I also figured that the activity points I earned probably balanced out the drinks (lite beers mainly) I think the reason I didn't see a loss was also due to the fact that I wasn't getting in all of my water.

Now this morning I am down 1/2 lb from my last WI (so, 195.5) and yesterday was a perfect point day and I drank all my H2O, so I'm right back on track and expecting to see a big loss this coming WI on Saturday!!

OK, I'm going to go read all of your posts to catch up on how you have all been, so I'll post again when I'm done- I'm guessing it will take me most of the day to read all your posts, no?

Welcome back!

Maggie~ The dinner out with your honey sounds wonderful. Don't feel too bad-- we all go way off sometimes, the important part is that you're getting back on track today. And your salad calculations sound right to me.... but I tend to guesstimate (that's the problem with not actually joining- I'm just doing it my own way, lol) so I could be wrong.

Amanda~ That WOULD be fun to walk in and tell them about the ten pound loss! I'm rooting for the three pounds, too. You can do it!

Iowasteph~ I know what you mean about not knowing how to meet people. Outside of my job, most of my friends are people I've known since way back in college or high school (we live close to the same area as we grew up in, and DH and I went to the same school-- but we never dated in school). I joined a MOMS Club last year and while I like some of the people there, I've not really "connected" with anyone in particular.
I'm sorry you'll have to quit going to your WW meetings if you enjoy them. 3FC- specifically you guys here in Slimmin Sistas-- IS my ww support group- I can't afford to join WW right now. You'll just have to post away & we'll be here for you.
And, Yes, I swam every day for a couple of hours, played badminton, and went for some long walks. So I did get in plenty of exercise on my vacation.


Lori~ Welcome back! I'm glad your vacation ended up better than it sounded from earlier posts. And WTG with your food choices-- I was on vacation, too, but I didn't stick to my plan as well as you did. :0

Hee hee, Amy, do you mean REAL badminton?

Everyone,

How's everyone doing today? Woo Hoo, Monday!!! Might as well be happy about it being Monday.

I've been doing some housecleaning today. I swept & mopped our uncarpeted stairs, vacuumed every surface in the living room (and I mean every surface) & dusted it within an inch of it's life. Rearranged knick-knacks, candles, etc. and found a basket for magazines & stuff. Looking pretty good now. I worked about 1 & 1/2 hours. So I'm taking 3 AP's for it. I can't go as fast as I used to be able to with the back problem, but I'm getting it done. I know that I won't be able to do stuff like this for awhile if I have surgery, so trying to get the big cleaning done now.

HH, were you still up at 2am or did you just get up? Are you having trouble sleeping now? I know it's rough trying to move on, but you will come thru it. You got your sistas with you.

Hi Misty, I hope you have an easy day with the kids. Have fun at the fair. I remember when I was a kid I lived for County Fair time. Ours usually didn't start until the last week of August. I lived in rural Western Ohio as a kid, so most everyone farmed. I hung out at the horse barn all the time, mucking out stalls, washing horses, anything to do with horses. I haven't ridden in too many years, though.

Welcome Back, Amy . I think you were leaving for vacation when I joined this thread. Hope to get to know you. Sounds like you were getting enough exercise while you were gone to balance out the off plan eating. Swimming 2 hours a day earns a lot of AP's.

Oh, Maggie, can your honey actually eat 27 oz of meat? (At one time?) Whew, that would take me all month to eat that. heh, heh. Anyway, I'm glad you got to go out to a really good meal to get away from your WI trauma. I think you got it out of your system!! Have you ever thought about trying Core?

Amanda, I'll keep cheering for you to make Onederland. I still have a ways to go. Hopefully, we'll get there soon. I have 8# to go; trying to make it by Aug 31.

Steph, yeah, it's kinda hard to meet new people and make friends. I moved here from Lexington, KY in 1994 and I had some very close friends there. It took until about 3 yrs ago to actually find a couple of people that I "clicked" with here. It took a while.

Welcome back, Lori. You will probably do well on your WI. Sounds like you got a lot of AP's. You may be surprised.

TTFN, ladies

*giggles* You guys are great! Actually, I'm silently rooting for the 3 pounds, too, but I don't want to pressure myself too terribly much (just in case it doesn't happen, I still want to be happy about whatever weight loss I do see).

Lori! You're back!! My fellow comps-sufferer has returned! I'm glad to hear that the vacation ended up being better than it started out. So glad you're back! And yeah...it will probably take you the rest of the day to finish this stuff. You know how talkative we all are, haha.

Okay...time to devote the rest of the day to The Faerie Queene. Ugh...just 60 more pages. Just one big push through the rest of the text and I'll be finished with it. Maybe I'll go read outside on my new patio furniture! That sounds nice and relaxing. Good to get a change of scenery--that couch can be very depressing.

See ya on the other side of The Faerie Queene!
~Amanda

Well.... we were on vacation with my entire family- parents in the cabin next to ours, and one sister in the cabin with us, and our two year-old in the room WITH us. So, yes... this particular game of badminton involved a net, birdies, and a lot of running around.