I am not being a curmudgeon - I welcomed Tudor Rose in the introductions section.

Seeing it's Friday I was momentarily contemplating getting a few beers for myself and for DH as a kick off to March and to the weekend. I thought about it for a bit and decided that ingesting something that's not really good for me (and will lead to off plan eating) is not a celebration.

I am going to have a big pot of herbal spice tea after dinner and read my Kindle for an hour, instead of TV and beer. Then I will have dessert - something DH came up with. He takes a cup of frozen blueberries and mixes/mashes them together with 3/4 cup of low fat vanilla yogurt. Our version of "ice cream" is 160 cals for a pretty big bowl. Good treat!

Have a fun evening everyone!

Dagmar :

Boy email really gives people an out from some hard face-to-face conversations. I've just been let go as Hap's dogwalker - by email . I feel worse for her than for me - she is a high energy dog who needs to run and socialize. The 2x a day 30 minute on-leash walks her owner's girlfriend gives her won't be enough. I will miss her energy and her intelligence - I have had a lot of fun with her.

And I will definitely miss the $$$. DH shows no signs of even looking for a job (and the diet and exercise has been "postponed" again) so I am it as far as the expenses go. I keep explaining to him that if he becomes debilitated due to disease or injury I cannot support him for the rest of his life but he's not listening. I guess he assumes that buying the house will somehow solve all of our financial problems.

I guess I'll start talking to people and advertising and just wait to get a new dog. More stress - yowza.

Dagmar

Welcome Tudor Rose - Congrats on your major success with WW. Will you stay on WW for maintenance?

Sending supportive thoughts, Dagmar, for your loss of Haps and for the soulless way you were notified. Hope the arriving Spring brings some relief from your stresses.

I'm off to a pre-Spring bird walk this morning. A touch of warm weather and the little guys start chirping away for mates.

Thanks for the welcome everyone!


My dessert last night was a Granny Smith Apple I cut in half, sprinkled some Chinese Five Spice on it, and then baked for about half an hour! It was so tasty but needed just a little something and so I was actually thinking some LF vanilla yogurt would have been perfect. (Or, if I'm ever thinking of splurging a spoonful or two of vanilla ice cream would do the trick as well)

For right now, yes but eventually I would like to switch to just calorie counting. I've been tracking both Points and Cals for awhile now.

Dagmar, so sorry about losing the dog and such a careless way to inform you.

March is indeed refocusing month for me per the suggestion of several of you. After a bad February, with encouragement from y'all, the refocusing is beginning to work with a 1 1/2 pound weight loss in the past five days, even with all the restaurant activity. The law that says I have to eat like a pig just because I'm at a restaurant has been officially declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Maintenance Court of the United States. So for all those who are joining me in this late-winter refocus, thanks for being on board with me!

Goodness gracious! What a change in routine does to a person!

I had to take Chico in for his oncology appointment (he got an A!) but it was at 4 PM and I didn't get out of there until 5 PM. Meanwhile, I got a Fed Ex tracking update that my wine shipment had arrived at the office (part of it is for MIL's birthday party today). I texted DH to bring it home and he called to say he was already home (one of our employees had stayed late and signed for the shipment). So he suggested I go pick it up as I was fairly close to the office. Yeah, I didn't have a key and there was no way to know if our employee was still there. So home I came and my usual hour of clean-up was way gone and it was time to get dinner on the table! I put everyone to work doing this chore or that and we did manage to eat on time, but I woke at 3 AM realizing I had forgotten to take the steaks out of the freezer for today's party. So now I'm hoping they'll thaw quickly enough to get them marinating by noon.

So we're having about 14 or so for dinner. I'm doing marinated flank steaks (four huge ones) which will be cut against the grain in 1/4" slices. It's really quite good and DH can be in charge of grilling and cutting those. I'm making a triple recipe of artichoke and parmesan risotto. I wonder what I've gotten myself into! A single recipe can take upwards of 30 minutes to prepare. I don't know if I should do two or three single recipes simultaneously or one huge pot (thinking a huge pot might be too hard to stir).

Upon realizing I don't have a key to the office, I also realized my assistant doesn't either and she does our cleaning on Sunday's (and she needs to feed Culley). We called her and worked out a plan. She's going to the old office to set a trap for Mama who has been sitting on our front carpet for two days wondering where we (and Culley) are. Hopefully she'll go in. DH will have a key made and will put it under the carpet at the old office and she'll pick it up and take it to get into the new office. Glad we solved that!

So, busy day ahead! Looking forward to golfing tomorrow. The weather has turned NICE! It was 82 yesterday. Perfect weather for a patio party!

Hooray for Chico!

My birthday weekend started yesterday with too much yummy food. Dh made a delicious dinner and he served me. He serves big portions. Of course I ate it all. My weight was up a pound. Today I'm going to lunch with a friend to a restaurant I've never been to, but I think there will be some good choices. Then, tonight we are going to a nice dinner which is a big splurge for me. He has something secret planned for after dinner? I'm very curious! Tomorrow we may go see a movie. Nice weekend! I weighed at WW this morning even though I was up a bit because the rest of March may be worse! I have to weigh once a month.

Michele, I must say, you do know how to celebrate a birthday. Have a great time deal with the consequences later.

Belated welcome, Tudor Rose. I peeked at your blog and will visit again when I have more time. Was there a Kirk in your Stars Hollow? Or better, a Luke?

Allison, I take it Mama is another office cat? How is Culley settling in?

Michele, happy birthday!

Bill, I don't get a wide variety of birds here in the city but the crows seem to be on the move. They sometimes use my neighbors big tree as a rest stop on their journey and it's an impressive sight - there must be over a hundred of them.

Dagmar, I hate it when people use email to avoid unpleasant conversations, though I am sometimes tempted myself. I hope you get a new, better client soon.

I've had a good couple of days and am feeling pretty upbeat. I even got up the courage to weigh myself this morning and it wasn't as awful as I thought it might be. I feel like I've stopped myself from going over the cliff, for the moment anyway.

Update from Angie, Gary's wife (EZMoney)He has developed an infection and will be in the hospital about another 5 days.He can use prayers at this time.

Sending Gary all the and I can!

Dagmar

me too.

Oh, I do not like those infections acquired in hospitals. At all. So I am wishing Gary all the best, and missing his voice on these boards, his infectious good humor, his openness to sharing of himself, his seriousness, his good common sense, and his testimony of love for his wife, his God, his life. And most of all how he reminded me to slow down and enjoy my life. I wish him many more years to enjoy his own life.

Just plain old missing Gary right this moment.

I sent healing wishes to Gary this morning via Facebook where I read Angie's update on his page. I miss him here as well as on Facebook. We'd "talk" some days when he was having his chemo treatment.

Yes, Steph, Mama is another office cat, although much more feral. She is Culley's mother. He was one of two kittens in her first litter (she probably wasn't even a year old at the time). Her second litter had 3 kittens, but none survived. Then we caught her and had her spayed. Culley is settling in quite well at the office. My assistant wants to keep him an indoor cat forever as she's afraid he doesn't have sufficient hiding spaces at our new place. We'll see how that goes.

Well my party was a success! I had about 15 people in all. I should have made only 2 batches of risotto instead of three, but leftovers will be fine--we'll have it with some BBQ chicken tonight after golf. The only "casualty" of the night was when I was attempting to demonstrate something to DS which caused me to drop my fork--right into my wine glass which broke and spilled. So now I'm down to only 6 red wine goblets (and 8 for white). I bought this set 9 or 10 years ago at a huge after Christmas sale. I got home and did the math--each goblet cost me 16 cents! What a deal!