Hi!
It's nice to read all of your posts.
I used to do mystery parties. My mystery party friends always tell me they'd like to do another one, since we all live in the same area again. But so far, I can't find a time when all of them can come. I hope you had a great time, Judy.
The current issue of Fine Cooking magazine has an article with vegetarian recipes designed to do double-duty as both vegetarian and omnivore food. You start with a vegetarian dish and add some meat prepared to go along with it. They allow you to cook basically one menu and serve everyone. If you have that issue come up a lot, you might want to check it out. You might have to tweak a bit to get the points down, but it shouldn't be too hard.
But, I don't see why you don't just do a vegetarian menu when you have some people who are vegetarians over for dinner. There are many wonderful dishes that non-vegetarians love, too. I NEVER cook two menus to accommodate picky eaters. I figure out one menu that will work for everyone. If you need help with that, let me know. It saves a lot of stress and kitchen time.
I'm sorry your kitty is having problems, Bandit. I'm not sure feeding your cat food from your plate is a good idea, though. We had to stop feeding ours her favorite plain roasted chicken and turkey because she started to get tummy problems when she ate it. But, canned tuna seemed to be fine her whole life. You might try canned fish--tuna, sardines, and salmon. The senior cat food seemed to be fine for my elderly cat, too. Be sure your kitty always has plenty of fresh water available. Not getting enough water can be a real problem with older cats, especially those who eat mainly dry food. Good luck!!
Lauren, many
and prayers. It's very stressful on many levels to deal with aging parents. I hope the move goes well and your stress level gets manageable soon. Good luck!
Looks like I'm the only one who hasn't had a major teary session in my car, but that's probably because I don't have one.
I'm really stressed out over managing two jobs and an active social life and now adding extra care for my aging mother to the mix. It's a matter of what I'm going to cut from my life. Right now is the first time I've wished for work in a for-profit industry. I need the benefits, but more, I need the higher salary than non-profits can afford to pay. I sat down yesterday and took a look at the time involved in doing my job, keeping up with the chores, and keeping all of my social & personal activities and it's not going to happen. Since I can't afford to hire someone to help with the housework, I'm going to have to give up some of my social activities or personal projects.
It's VERY stressful to have to sacrifice things that I enjoy doing or are stress-relievers in order to keep up with the duties of life, especially since the main reason I can't keep up is that I have to add caring for my psychologically abusive mother to the mix. I can't get much help from my brother with that because he lives too far away to be more than an occasional help. My son who's living with her and her tenant do a lot, but I can't expect her tenant to take on what's really my responsibility. Plus, when it comes down to making decisions, neither of them have any legal standing to do that. So, aging parents are definitely a stress point in our lives.
On the weight-loss front, I'm doing pretty well this week. Despite the stress, I'm still managing to stay OP. My current wish is that someone would make affordable skirts in a style I like so I can replace my too big ones. I especially need a long black skirt for concerts, but black is not exactly a spring/summer color. Right now, I'm managing with the aid of safety pins at the waist so they don't fall off.
I noticed a couple of you worrying about what you eat the day before your weigh in and not so much the day after. Ummm...managing our eating that way dosen't work. Our emotions and brains are very immediate with regard to cause and effect, so we think what we eat today causes a good weigh in tomorrow. And we can "make up" for overeating the day after our weigh in because we have a whole week before the next one. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. It's our eating pattern, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year that decide whether we lose, gain, or stay the same. I'm stating this very important point because understanding that concept and living that concept is the key to maintenance. We're all on long journeys to our goals. If we don't learn to live each day as if tomorrow is our weigh in day, we'll end up having to do the journey all over again. Weighing every day doesn't counteract the problem, either, because our weight naturally fluctuates. It's the overall pattern of our weight that counts and you only get that by charting it over time. That's why I love the WW graph. It's an easy way to see the pattern and figure out when I need to make adjustments and what I need to adjust. Just a thought for today.
Keep on turtlin'!