Rise and Shine everyone!! Boy morning came way to early for me today!! Had rough night last night. My brother has this psycho chic from **** living with him and he can't get rid ofher and it was drama city once again around here. UGH, why do some people choose to live in such a way.

Anyway, how was everyone's weekend? Anyone do anything special? Who has a busy week planned?? Nothing extra special for us except on Wednesday I am taking Keilyn and we are going to see Ice Age 2 with some of her friends.

Anyone try any new recipes this week??? I noticed WW has some awsome cookbooks out. Those recipes can easily be converted to fit the 3 Hour Diet!

Well I still need my coffee so I am off for now.

Hope everyone has an awsome OP day!!!

Laurie - You Go Girl! We've missed you around here!!

I am at work with my second cup of coffee. Boy it was hard to get the kiddies moving this morning! I've got a very hectic week. I ned to run around today and tomorrow picking up last minute things for Michelle and my trip. I also need to make sure I have everything Robert and Bobby will need for the 3 days. I don't think I've ever left Robert in charge of either of the kids on a weekday morning before. It will be a challenge for him, but I am sure he will be fine. I will leave everything laid out and DETAILED instructions for what to do.

The scale this am showed me down 1.5 lbs fom yesterday. I guess that 100 oz of water helped! I feel better seeing it move down even if I am not able to maintain because of travel this week. At least it is moving around and not STUCK in one spot!! I have packed a yogurt and a roast beef sandwich for work today. I will try to push the water while I am here also. An added benefit of pushing water while at work is extra exercise - the bathroom is a LONG flight of stairs down!

Okay - I'm off to do some work. I'll check back later.

TTFN- Sharon

Well its a nasty day today, dark and yucky outside. I can hear the rumbles of thunder off in the wild blue yonder. Watch out here come the storms!!

Have we lost the daily thoughts and inspirations sticky? I was really hoping to post there. Trying to build self confidence and self awarness again.

I had to cancel my plans to meet my sister & nieces for my great-niece's birthday. No aid showed up for my husband. I just got a call that someone new will be here in an hour. I won't travel far from home with a new aid.

Dreary here - looks like rain is on the way.

OK - I met yesterday's challenge - no bread/rice/potatoes/pasta/sweets. Today my goal is same as my weekly goal - to stick to my WW points. That was EASY yesterday.

Check back later,

Lynn

Well, I STS this week. I am quite pleased with that! Better then gaining weight. But it's time to get more serious and lose some weight if I want to wear a bikini this summer. LOL Well, maybe. I told myself if I reach 130 by this summer and look good, why not buy a bikini. My husband loves the idea. That will not be easy. I'm a shy person. It took me everything to start wearing shirts that stick to your body after losing a lot of weight. So who knows? We'll see! I'm hoping to start losing 1 to 2 pounds every week. I know I can do it!

I made some changes this weekend. I decided it was time to work on my behaviour as well as my daughter's. So I created a table with things she must do to earn a sticker every day.

Empty her school bag, Clean her room, No screaming, etc... Every night, she gets a sticker for each good behaviour that day. She loves to earn stickers. She cleaned her room yesterday just to earn a sticker. So far, so good!

And it's not just her. When I get tired and upset, I tend to scream at my kids when they don't behave well, making us feel more miserable then anything else. So I have my own table and I'm getting a sticker if I don't scream at both my kids all day!

Even my husband wanted to do it too! As for my younger daughter, we did the same thing for her potty training. I'm hoping this system will improve all our behaviours. I don't like to scream at my kids. I want to be a better mother. My daughter enjoys the job of awarding us with stickers for not screaming at them the day before. It makes her feel good! So I'm all for it!

Hello all!

Well we are all tired with this time change plus we had a huge round of destructive storms last night for a couple of hours. Needless to say, everyone in my office is really lagging behind. The weekend was really good. Went to see the Nashville Predators kick butt against the St. Louis Blues, lots of fun and then out to eat. Yesterday we just pretty much laid around trying to recuperate. This week I have tons of homework plus the usual carting around of kids to misc. lessons and such. I know that everyone here is going to have a great week!

Maybe Laurie knows what happened to the inspirational thread???? If not start a new one and Laurie can move it up top again.

Big plans for the day laundry and grocery store....my two favorite things.

We had a busy week-end and I think I will just take off today and do a bit of walking and drink lots of water as I am up from the week-end! And this time change just kills us for a few days....I hate it...

Hey Sharon, you have a great trip with your teenagers!!! You will have a good time they are still "young" teens. Enjoy.

Phyllis

This whole time change thing is a killer. It was like coming upr from the bottom of the ocean this morning. I had about 5 third graders with their heads on their desks at 8:15 this am! We had gloomy rain and gray skies all weekend - today the sun is shining. Hang on gals on the east coast - it's coming!
Did well yesterday until evening - met DD and her BF for pizza. Too good - I am an overeater of good things. Don't seriously think I have a lot of emotional eating problems -I just like food and enjoy eating! I really have to work on the portion thing and the exercise part because I will never be able to give up good food in favor of tasteless diet food for the rest of my life. I do like veggies and salad, too, so if i can just save the pizza and pasta for occasional treats?
Have a great Monday - I will stay OP today. Laurie - are you posting the daily challenge, or do we each think up our own?
Marsha

Hi Francine,

This weekend, Super Nanny had a tv marathon. I watched several episodes. If you get a chance, take a look at it. She has several techniques that she uses for discipline - a daily schedule that includes time for playing with the kids; a "naughty" stair/chair/spot/room where kids get time outs (1 minute for each year of their age) but with specific ways of handling this; and bed time techniques to get kids into bed and staying there. I was pretty impressed at the results.
BTW - one of the episodes was about a mom who wanted to scream less.
Lynn

Hi Lynn

Yes, I have seen that show a few times, and they do have some good tips. I've also been using the time out which works well. I'm now working on avoiding the chair if you know what I mean. LOL

When I watch that show, it reminds me how well behaved my kids are compared to those poor parents. My girls are still pretty good! Just in one of those phases where they like to test me! But thankfully, they are nowhere close to kids on that show!

My 6 year old daughter's latest was lying to me to my face about hiding her winter jacket and not admitting it. It wasn't the face that she hid the coat that upset me so much, it was the fact that she kept lying about it after we found it in her bedroom where it was not earlier. I had to leave her at the school's daycare in the morning still crying. When I picked her up at night, she had made a nice card for Mom to apologize and she told me the truth! I kept telling her before leaving her in the morning, that I wanted her to tell me the truth when I picked her up later and that I still loved her.

The daycare lady told me that night, she really liked how I had reacted to my daughter that morning and did not let her get away with it! She still had a good day and everything was fine at night! I must admit that her lying to me and not admitting it before I left for the day was scary to me. But now is the time to teach them how to react correctly. And my screaming doesn't help at all. So I have to learn how to keep doing what I'm doing minus the screaming. After all, I'm the one showing her how to scream her anger when I'm doing it myself.

I love the sticker reward system. Sometimes as grown -ups we forget that stickers can work on us to. Francine keep us updated as to how it is going. I can relate. I also try to attack the root of my yelling and screaming. Whether it is frazzled or not enough sleep. I have to plan a little better sometimes to get to bed on time or to do a few things that allow my week to flow a little bit easier. Procrastination often rears its ugly head, I really need to remember how great it feels to have your morning flow so easily because I did just a few things the evening before.

It has been raining all morning long making it one of those dreary days that are so good for getting inside stuff done.

Absolutely Francine. I have always told my kids there is one thing I will NOT tolerate and that is lying. I am going through a tough time with my 8 yr old son regarding that now, but I am really trying to hold my ground. He always says that I am lying and I had agreed to whatever it is at that moment in time. I get so frustrated because I know he is lying by saying that. UUGGHHH! It drives me insane!!!! But I think I am getting through in the long run - at least I hope I am. My daughter is 13 and while she may tell a fib now and again, I always give her the firm voice and "1 more chance to tell the truth." It usually works. The thing is not to punish them for whatever it is they tell the truth about. If they tell the truth and then you punish them, it actually encourages them to lie. Crazy - I know! But noone ever said this was easy!

I used the sticker method to potty train my daughter. When she accumulated 25 stickers on her chart, she got to go pick out a new toy. After about 3 times through, the chart just sort of disappeared and she never noticed. But she was potty trained!

And yes Fonty, my whole day goes better if I just take 10 min out of my evening to pack snacks and set up the coffee maker. It is just a small little thing, but when I realize all I have to do is push the start button on the coffeemaker in the morning, I honestly smile ear to ear!

Sharon

Hi everyone,

I have 2 girls ages 2 and 3 and I am also wanting to scream less!! LOL! Sometimes I just get soooo frustrated!!! I saw an episode of the supernanny yesterday while I was exercising. OMG! This couple had 2 sets of twins and an older boy. YIKES! It was chaos! I got some good tips but I think it is easier for a nanny or someone to come in and make changes than the parents. Kids manipulate parents more than strangers!

I like the sticker idea!!! I will have to try that!

Sharon,

That is exactly it! It just calms you down and gives you a great start to your day. I love to go into my clean kitchen, but it only gets that way if I follow my dinnertime clean up routine which includes all the little things for the next day that can make it such a blessing. But thinking about that and writing it out here makes me think that I would feel just as thrilled if I did my prep work for my meals, not just for the kids and DH. I could take the thought out of fixing todays meal because it is already done and that in turn would eliminate to a greater degree the temptation to change it or even cheat. My aha moment for the day. I will need to work this into my routine the rest of the week. I often write down or plan out my weeks menu but often get side tracked or even feel like I don't have the time to fix it so I choose something else.Alot of erasing going on, on my food journal. This might actually eliminate that all together.