Super Bowl is over. Congratulations to the fans of Seattle. I didn't use it for snacking to oblivion.

There were few avocados in the supermarket on Friday. It took me a minute to remember why. According to Urban Legends 69.6 million pounds were sold for Super Bowl last year - second only to Cinco de Mayo. Somebody out there got my share.

February is my longest month. Sunday was a sunny and warmish day so I got outside. My head conjures a whole month of not leaving the house - snow bound eating beans. (My head also believes that there'll be no snow or cold after March 1st.) My head doesn't always tell the truth, LOL.

My head really wants to believe your head re March Bill. My head also wants to believe I can lose the winter weight by watching TV and eating jelly beans

I think I'll need to start looking for a new head.

Our house will be filled with anticipation/dread until we finish the bath enclosure this week and find out if it leaks or not . We are desperately hoping for the former as we don't know what to do if the latter is the thing that happens. We have no "alternate" bathing facilities - I know this by personally trying to wash in every sink in the house these past days.

Dagmar

Snow is falling hard, schools are closed, we're supposed to get about six inches of snow, so I'll be working from home -- guiltily, as I ought to drive into CT. Today is my first day back at work, after a week of semi-vacation.

It wasn't a true vacation, since I checked email every day, and spent part of last Tuesday allocating raises and bonuses, after we were given just 24 hours after the numbers were released to turn around that info, and I could not afford NOT to do that.

I going to try to keep off the two pounds that I lost in just one week off from work by dint of sleeping well, not feeling excessively tense, not sitting in an Aeron much of the day and not snacking.

I keep thinking when I come back from a vacation, "Are there any lessons that I learned from relaxing in my time away that I can apply to my day-to-day life, to handle stress?"

The answer is usually yes, there are, but I revert to old methods of coping in about a week's time. Hoping I can do better than that this time.

I'm glad to put January in the rear view mirror and adjust my SAD light timer down 2 minutes. February has brought a little bit of much needed rain. Today marks 5 months on maintenance. I'm still experimenting with what is a good weight for me, but feeling less white-knuckled about hanging on to better habits. It's a long learning curve, but a fun one thanks to 3FC. Thanks everyone!

Our weekend golf plans were thwarted by the weather. Saturday due to high winds and Sunday due to frost (which delayed all tee times, so we just bagged it). I did manage a walk with the dog on Sunday but it was shorter than I had wanted because MIL tagged along and she didn't have proper footwear.

I ate very well on Saturday but not so much on Sunday. I won't be counting today's weigh-in as I'm hoping it will return to Saturday's low by tomorrow.

I'm participating in a month-long wall sit challenge. Starting with 10 seconds you increase by 10 seconds every day until you get up to 5 minutes at the 30 day mark. 10 seconds was a breeze, 20 not so much but interestingly 30 wasn't too bad this morning. I'm not sure I'll make it to the full 5 minutes! Last month it was a plank challenge but I didn't participate because my shoulder screams in pain when I attempt that. I think I have a torn rotator cuff on the left. It's bothered me off and on for about 5 years and I really don't want surgery.

My fingers are crossed for you Dagmar!!

Our weekend was nice. Our foodie walking tour of Napa was quite enjoyable. We tried some new spots and some of which we never would have tried otherwise. Food wasn't healthy but it was just tasting. We just ate veggies for dinner and the scale didn't rebel too much. It's up a tad today so I need to buckle down and make sure I didn't give up grapes for nothing!

Today is dh's birthday. We bought a single size cake in Napa from a bakery so he will eat that tonight while I sing Happy Birthday. He's feeling old and kinda down. I think China is taking a lot out of him. He sees his doctor later this week and I'm pushing for labwork-- maybe his iron or Vitamin D is low-- I'm thinking Vitamin D as he almost never goes outside when he's in China.

Hello to everyone-- and wishing you a wonderful week with great scale progress. I'm debating my exercise tonight. I've been going to bikram almost every day and I really ought to do weight training today-- probably will but I will miss my relaxation that I feel after bikram.

And don't forget the groundhog saw his shadow.

We had plenty on Saturday morning and afternoon, when I visited a conventional grocery store and then a produce market -- but at the grocery store, they were $1.25 each and even the produce market priced them at $1 each. They're not decorating the tops of my salads till they get down to 88 cents, which is how they were priced two weeks ago, before the runup to the Super Bowl.

I DIDN'T EITHER!! And i live in WA state!!! It was the thrill of a lifetime and i didn't deviate off my calories

I'm not sure how much I believe these stats. I heard that something like 350 million pitchers of beer would be consumed during super bowl. That's pretty much one for every man, woman, and child in the US. Sounds a tad steep to me. As I and younger dd don't drink, and older dd barely does, dh figured he needed to drink 4 pitchers. I don't think his two beers he did have will add up.

I'm here, I promise! Instantly busy, down to the mattress to lose the last chunk of weight, doing very well overall. Sorry I've been AWOL on chatting.

Alinnell, have you seen a doctor about the rotator cuff? I ask because I tore mine several years ago and recovered without surgery. Obviously that would depend on your specific injury and I'm no doctor, but it CAN happen. Although some exercises do still cause some discomfort.

I live in WA state, so Sunday was a big day for us, and I carefully ate below my calorie goal on Thursday and Friday to make wiggle room so I could indulge, and pre-decided how much guacamole and sour cream I would have on my baked potato. Then as I was on my way out the door, my dad called with some serious news about a friend, and I was so upset and frazzled that I lost my appetite (it came back) and didn't have the excess I thought I would. So then of course today I was starving and ate like a health-oriented hobbit (breakfast, second breakfast, etc.).

I've been trying to get my running buddy to pick a race we can all train for. We are in a small town, and there are not many options that are more than 5K. Or even many 5Ks. To make matters worse, my buddy has a religious issue with running on a Saturday, so there really are not a lot of races we can do together. But today she suggested bloomsday, a 7-mile race in Spokane, so I think we have a plan! Although spokane is a few hours away.

Swan~yes, I've discussed it with my doctor although it was years ago. He gave me some tips for when it flares up. Usually when it is really bad I can immobilize it and use heat. I've found that a Thera-Wrap for the lower back actually works pretty well to do both for me. It makes sleeping weird, but I manage. Right now the pain isn't bad but from time to time I make what seems to be a normal movement with my arm and I'm faced with searing pain. I know not to do certain things that will make it hurt more, but sometimes it's as little as lifting my arm straight up in front of me and yet other times I can do the exact same thing with no pain. It's quite weird.

Good morning! We watched the first little bit of the superbowl before going to bed. After that terrible start for the Broncos we figured there was no reason to be tempted to watch the rest.

Yesterday I took Carter to the vet and the girls to their 9 month well baby appointment. The good news: Carter and babies are healthy, babies are growing well, Carter is doing as well as is expected for an old dog (and he is officially a senior citizen now). The bad news: the vet said the only thing to do to help make sure Carter never bites the babies is to keep them separated at all times unless being very closely supervised, and the pediatrician said we should let the babies cry it out so that they sleep better. Sigh.

I was hoping for something more encouraging from the vet and it was very hard to hear that. DH says that vets can't tell you anything else for liability reasons, which is possibly true as well. In any case we were planning on gating off one room in our house downstairs to use as a baby playroom so that we don't have to worry about crawling/toddling babies hurting themselves on furniture anyway, so we went ahead and got out our gates last night and set it up. This morning I sat in there playing with the babies for about half an hour while DH was in the shower. Carter came over to the gate, whined a little, then wandered off and took a nap on the couch. Success! I think we will have more success with gating the babies in a confined space than if we tried to gate Carter anywhere.

As for letting the girls cry it out . . . we have really mixed feelings about this. We kept thinking they would just figure it out on their own eventually, and while C sleeps pretty well most nights A was up every 2 hours last night again. She is so tired during the day because she doesn't sleep well at night. I am just concerned that if her nighttime wakings are for actual legitimate something-is-wrong reasons (like constipation making her tummy hurt or something) then letting her cry won't really help anything.

In other news my mom is coming out to visit next week! She won't be able to help out much with the babies as her shoulder is still recovering from the break so no lifting with that arm, but at least she will be able to play with them some.

Sorry Jessica but I have to laugh - gating the babies instead of the dog.

Dagmar