Good morning, all. Happy Monday! May this week hold wonderful things for each of us

Melissa is usually up and running earlier than I am in the mornings, but I guess I beat her to it this morning, so I thought I'd go ahead and start the thread for this week.

Melissa - hope you had a nice, quiet weekend as anticipated and had a chance to relax a bit.

Lala - hope your London trip is going great.

Lisa - got mixed up with the names last week -- meant to say that you were my inspiration regarding the walking. Did you have an audition yesterday? How did it go?

Hi to Pam and Susan.

I have started off the week well - I was OP all weekend, and I have already done my walk for the day. Additional goals: plan to focus on drinking enough water and taking a vitamin supplement each day.

Have a great week, all!

Austingal--thanks for starting the thread. I've been in "meeting city today."

I had a nice looong weekend since I took Thursday off. DH and I played golf on Thursday at a brand new course here. It was a challenge as it was very long and very hot here. Speaking of "hot" I worked in the yard yesterday and felt like I was going to pass out. The heat index was 105. Each year we say it's hotter than the last, but I guess the summers are all the same. We went to a birthday party for 40-year-old (ain't nothin' honey). Of course we got him all of the gag gifts (oh to be 40 again). Spent time in the pool; that was refreshing. Went to the beach a couple times; it was hot, but the ocean breeze felt good. Had an audition for a musical last night, but the competition was fierce. If I get cast, okay; if not, that's okay, too. The musical is "Urinetown." It won some Tonys a few years ago. It's a strange show and it's a parody of other musicals.

Pam, I am reading 12 Times Blessed; I'm enjoying it. Thanks for the reco.

I guess lala is in London.

Hi, Melissa and Susan.

Good afternoon ladies! It's been crazy here today--we had our final orientation for the students who didn't make a summer program. We had 13 students who didn't bother to show up so I was busy calling & canceling departmental meetings...grrrr.

Anyway, the weekend went pretty well--Saturday I did a lot of running around so I didn't get anything major accomplished. We did get to CelebrateErie and I enjoyed a turkey panini which was on rosemary bread...yum and it wasn't grilled in butter! Anyway, Sunday I managed to get a lot done--scrubbed the main bathroom from top to bottom and even got the kitchen done. I also met my friend for a walk on the peninsula. Our weather here is perfect--cool and no humidity

Austingal: Good for you for getting your walk in! I find it's better to focus on a few small things each day rather than tackling too much. Keep up the good work!!

Hi to Lisa, Lala, Pam, Susan! Hope you ladies had a great weekend!

Hi Ladies,

The weekend once again went by too quickly and here we are at Monday. I took Friday off and DH and I went to Saratoga to see the races. I bet on a few and even won a couple . On Saturday we golfed..I played terribly. Now that the weather is nicer I would really like to get out and play more.

Melissa this must be a busy time for you with all the students returning. My daughter goes back to school on Sept 1st and I'm not sure when my son's classes begin. UMass is usually the last school in the area to start. The temps are perfect here also, wish it could stay like this all year round.

Lisa I'm glad you're enjoying the book, she is one of my favorite authors. Yes, I think Lala is still in London. I'm wondering if Susan is back yet from her vacation.

Hi Austingal good for you on having an OP weekend. Mine was 1/2 OP but so far I'm on track today.

Well ladies, hope you all are having a fine Monday...talk to you tomorrow.

Hi everyone,

I'm back and god knows why I am up other that I'm soo wound up from our neighbors screaming and yelling that I can't deal with going to bed.


Other than that, had a nice trip. I got in to London pretty early and my hotel had a room for me so I took a shower and had a nice short nap. I puttered and did all those things that were on my list for other peeps and then went up to my aunt's in lower codswollop and spent some time gardening and talking.


Sunday, I went to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and had a nice walk and look around the Chihuly exhibit. I usually don't like his stuff, but some installations were great. I do love Kew as I spent many a day there in my youth.

Ran back into London and did a bit more stuff (book buying for DP and some boots shopping for me) and then went back up to lower codswollop. (this is not the real name of her town, but it feels like its that far from central london). Left there way too late, got back to hotel at 11:15, packed and went to bed.

Long flight home, flight not full as to get an operational upgrade, but still decent. I self catered and that was a good thing. The food is truly vile. Even managed to down a bunch of water. My flight back from Dallas was marred by giving up my bulkhead so that two children ! could sit together and then promptly started to battle and bicker as soon as they sat down. I know now why some of my friends believe children should be banned from first class (such that it is anymore). However, got a bit of sleep and now I'm unpacked and ready to go to bed. If the morons next door ever shut up.

I did okay (not great) eating this weekend. I did make it to the gym sunday and monday for a 2.5 mile walk. Its confusing going from km to miles. I need susan's help there.

However, I'm really feeling quite large, so maybe i'm clicking.

Sounds like everyone had a great weekend and I'm happy to see Austingal starting the daily!

more later, taters,

lala

Had a good rehearsal last night, but soon I will need to do the "underwear scene" as we open next week. It's a very short scene, but still! I've been doing well eating wise and running wise, but no real weight loss that I can tell.

Melissa, congrats on the loss. What is it about the summer? Maybe we're all retaining water.

lala, that was a short trip, but it sounds like you packed a lot into it. Ugh, I can't stand bickering kids. I'm so sorry about your noisy neighbors. When DH and I first moved into our home, the house next door was a rental and they would have raucous parties till early in the morning. We were so glad when someone else bought the house. Now if we could just get him to mow his grass!!

Austingal--it sounds like you're on the right track. Stay OP and keep exercising.

Pam, I had never heard of that author, but I will look up some other books of hers. Do you have any faves?

Hello, Susan.

Hi everyone and a special hello and welcome back to Austingal. Great to hear from you again.

It's been a while since I posted. I've really lost track of the days and need to get back on track for my return to work which is just about four weeks away. I will likely have a new boss when I get back, and there's a good chance it will be someone I don't see eye to eye with. I'm trying not to think about it too much.

My eating has not been good. Lots of visitors, dinner parties, etc and while I've used healthy recipes, there's always wine, dessert, etc. to pack on the pounds. It's been very hot and humid this past week, and my running has suffered. I will kick start things tomorrow night with hill training - ugh!

I see that several of you are running. That's great!

Susan

morning....

Hi Susan. Having recently been in your situation job wise, the best thing you can do is take control. Don't let them get the upper hand. You are a professional and know what you are doing.

I'm dutyfully (sp?) avoiding the gym by puttering in the garden, seeing wat didn't get watered in the four days I was gone and picking up odds and bobs. DP is scheduled to do her orals/generals in early november and she's taken over the dining room table right now with her books and schedules. These are all going away today. The garden looks a fright. I'm going to spend a bunch of this afternoon cutting back and watering and thinning. Need any crocosmia?

At least our kaffir lilies (schizostylus) are blooming now. They'll go until november.

Lisa -- I can't imagine doing anything in my underwear at the point! Keep on running and cut back on the fizzy drinks (at least that is what all the actresses say helps).

Okay, must go to gym, must either run/walk or elliptical for 40 minutes. Then must go to work and deal with dead laptop. Yup, work laptop died literally 3 minutes after we hit the 10,000 feet all electronics can go on now. I had a nice 5 lb door stop for the rest of my trip. I really need a better laptop bag.

see ya all.

lala

Grrr...just lost the post I had written so we'll try it again.

Pam: The weather here is perfect today--cool and 68 degrees, perfect walking weather. I took a nice 30-minute walk at noon. Our school is one of the first to start classes in the area--the other colleges don't start until next week and after.

Lala: Welcome back! Sounds like you were able to cram in quite a bit while in London. Too bad about the laptop--that'd be so frustrating! We're starting to get tomatoes from the garden and I think I'll be canning in the near future. My basil is coming along nicely. The lavender I transplanted earlier this summer seems to be struggling--I don't think it liked being moved. Enjoy the workout!

Lisa: I think I tend to retain more fluids in the summer with the heat/humidity--I'll be glad once the cooler weather arrives. I'm not a big fan of the hot weather.

Susan: Try not to dwell on the boss situation--maybe it'll work out for you. Sometimes I tend to look at the worst case scenario before I even get started and that sometimes gets me into trouble. Once the hot weather moves along we'll all be in better shape The key is to not give up.

Austingal: How's the water intake giong and getting your vitamins in? I sometimes have to re-start and work on getting those guidelines in. It's all worth it.

Hope everyone is having a good week!

Ah, went for a nice 3 mile walk with DP tonight around the local lake. Now I'm watering and uploading more photos to the kodak gallery. I lost a bunch of photos off my hard drive at work (no idea where they are), but I did manage to upload them to the web last summer and apparently you can make a cd from the images. Thank goodness for that. I'm uploading another 300 photos from my home machine to take advantage of the 1000 photo limit. Well worth the 40 bucks I'm about to pay.

Spent 3.5 hours this afternoon trying to diagnose my hard drive on my work laptop. It is bad, we're going to try one more thing then I'm going to request a new one. I can't tell you how much money we've wasted trying to figure out what is wrong. Most everything can be recovered on my work hard drive and email (always email yourself a copy of something).

Tomorrow, I'm going to start journalling again. It is the only way to keep accountable.

night y'all.

lala

Melissa, is that a normal temperature for this time of year? That sounds so refreshing. We're still sweltering and now we have Katrina to wonder about. I hope it just blows away. The Tropical Storm watch goes all the way to Vero Beach which is 40 miles south of me. Good for you for getting that walk in.

lala, so sorry about your laptop. That is so frustrating. Good for you for walking.

Susan, I'm sorry to hear about your new boss. That can be a downer. Just do your best and perhaps he/she will leave you alone.

I tried to go for a walk early this morning and it started raining with thunder and lightning, so that didn't work out.

Went to rehearsal last night and it went fairly well. We open a week from Friday and some of the actors still don't know all of their lines which throws me off. Oh, this usually happens in every show. They'll get it together.

Hi, Pam and Austingal

I think our temps are a little on the cooler side but it's supposed to warm up again over the weekend--hopefully not as hot/humid as it's been this summer.

Lisa: I hope your area is spared with hurricanes. My GF is in the process of building a new house and they're hoping that they won't have any storms. I was there once when a tropical storm came through and it was strange to have high winds & heat--here it's usually high winds and freezing temps! Hopefully the others will get their lines in order and everything will fall together for you

Lala: So were you able to "save" your laptop? How's the journaling going today?

I went to my meeting at noon today and was down another .6 so it's slowly coming down but definitely not at the rate I'd like it to. I'm trying to up my exercise to help get things moving at least with the cooler weather I'm a little more motivated to get outside and walk.

Good afternoon.

Listening to the best of neil young and wiping the disk clean to then run another diagnostic to determine if we should get a new disk. jeez, we've spent about 300 bucks in programmer time trying to fix this, a new disk would be cheaper.

Anyhooo, sunny here. Had a good 3 mile walk/run today. Didn't run that much, need to eat something before doing such activities. However, it did feel good to get it done and showered.

Have an acupuncture appointment this afternoon, this is good, because it makes me soo tired that I can go home and take a nap on the couch. I did a bunch of stuff at home this am, so when I go home I can collapse for a little bit before vacuuming and figuring out what is for dinner....

What is for dinner? Any ideas?

Melissa --- good for you and your loss! Yeah!

Lisa --I'm hoping that you will be spared. It is not a good year for such things.

Hi to everyone else! Austin, would you like to journal with me?

lala

It's very windy here today, thanks to Katrina. I got my run in and then the rains came; it was a heavy downpour. I think the next couple days will be like that. It looks like Ft. Lauderdale will get hit by Katrina and then it travels across the state. I hope your GF is okay, Melissa.

Yesterday I was doing all right till about 2:00 in the afternoon. It was a little slow here at work and I just had to have M&Ms. I hate when I do that, but they tasted so good.

Had a fairly good rehearsal till the last scene. One of the male actors just couldn't get his lines right, so he was throwing me off. I guess I'd better start coming up with alternate lines in case he goofs up during the performances. Good actors are supposed to do that anyway.

lala, I think you're right. You might be better off just getting a new disk. Does the acupuncture really work?

Melissa, congrats on the loss. At this point, I'd take any loss!

Hi, Pam, Susan and Austingal.

Hi, All

Sorry for the radio silence, it has been a hectic week. I went into work instead of working at home the past two days, but am happy to get back to my normal routine today. With the kids in school again (this is the second week), it is clear to me that my excercise routine will need to be revamped. There simply is NO time in the evenings to fit in a walk, what with homework, essays, studying for quizzes, cello practice, studying for tests, more essays, etc. So, on the days I work at home I am going to take time to get my walks in during the morning.

Lala - I have been journaling in a hard copy journal, but would love to journal with you online. I loved it when you and I used to do that. Caveat -- I haven't taken time to get back up to speed on points, so I have taken the easy way out and am currently just counting calories. It is working for me right now (I'm down 3 lbs. since I got back in touch with you guys). May go back to tracking points soon, if the effectiveness of this starts to pall. Good luck with your laptop and your photos. Please tell more about the acupuncture - what benefits do you get from it? Does it hurt?

Melissa - Enjoy the cool weather while you can. Hope yours doesn't get too hot over the weekend. Congrats on the additional weight loss!

Lisa - Sounds like you will be spared from the worst of the weather. Glad to hear it. Hang in there with the rehearsals - I bet it all comes together beautifully in the end. I had chocolate yesterday, too. Sometimes, you just have to give in to the cravings! It was my 20-year wedding anniversary yesterday and DH lavished me with Godiva chocolates. How could I resist?

Susan - so glad to see another familiar face from the old days! I, also, have had to deal with a jerk for a boss. All my best vibes are heading out to you -- good luck dealing with that situation. I bought a couple books that I like to refer to when things get crazy - "Jerks at Work" and "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff at Work". Referring to them really helps sometimes.

Pam - hope you are having a great week. The races at Saratoga sound like fun. Between you and Lisa, it sounds like we have some big golf fans in this group. I don't play, but DH likes the game a lot.

Must go try to get some work done, and keep my mind off the rest of those Godiva chocolates that are sitting in the next room, tempting me!