And, onebyone, Super Congrats to your Canadian Space Agency who, along with NASA and the European Space Agency, just got the Webb Telescope launched. I know that there are a zillion steps to go and six months before the first pictures for science but it's such a big start.

Good morning!

Yesterday was on plan and weight is down a little. My food plan is written and included 1/2 a reese's peanutbutter tree candy one of my kids didn't want from her stocking. The parentals each took care of a half with our coffee.

Have a nice holiday, everyone!

Good evening coaches,

Too many cookies yesterday. Today I had no cookies, but did have dessert which was a date sticky pudding (really more of a cake) with caramel sauce. My friend and I made a delicious dinner of tenderloin roast beef, roasted potatoes and Brussel sprouts and green beans that were both excellent recipes that I also made at Thanksgiving. We made parmesan rosemary crackers as one of the appetizers with cream cheese and a bit of amaretto, peach and pecan jam on top. There were six of us for dinner and we had a really nice time. I am done with the sweets and back on plan beginning now. I enjoyed every bite of the goodies though.

Tomorrow three of us are hiking Sunrise in the morning, I hate to go more than two days without a good hike, especially when the weather is nice and cool. We had rain all day yesterday and got 1 3/4 inches which is great. Today at least we got out for a good walk.

PennyYay for weight down and even more credit since it's the holidays.

Onebyone Good for you for doing the dancing. I am envious of your snow, even if it's slushy.

Gardner Joy Your Christmas Eve dinner sounds really good.

Bill Your Christmas sounds really fun. How wonderful to have the two little ones for entertainment.

Maryann It sounds fun to think of what you might like to do next. The jewelry appraiser sounds fun and interesting too. I do have a friend who I've known since first grade who became a flight attendant at either 64 or 65. She is a beautiful tall gal and really liked it at first (before Covid). She works for Alaska Airlines and thinks they're great. I haven't talked to her in a few months, so don't know if she is still working.

Curlyjax I hope you've been having a nice Christmas.

It's all been nice and fun to do the baking and cooking, but I must say I am a person who likes a routine and I will be happy to get back to that soon.

billblueyes I was reading a Canadian article today about the contributions Canadian scientists and engineers made to Webb. I think they wrote that we made the lenses so we will all be seeing the the universe through "Canadian eyes".
That could be these eyes or these eyes or these eyes or these eyes, which really we should do it like this since we will be looking directly at The Sun, and/or the light of a thousand suns.

BTW do you know if they will train the telescope on objects we have been looking at in our solar system already like the moons of Saturn or Jupiter or is it only for the very distant things we've never seen before in any detail...?

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Watched the launch of the Webb Telescope from French Guiana at 7:20 am ET. Heart beating fast the whole time with so much hope for future astronomy at stake. Loved hearing the French of Jean-Luc Mestre calling out the milestones of the rocket over the first minutes. And all the French accented voices cheering "Go Webb" at the end. Warms the cockles of a science Geek.

Otherwise we spent a quiet day. Managed not to drive anywhere - which apparently was a smart thing since I've seen many news photos of cars spun off the road in nearby residential streets covered in ice. I have eight new books to read. Trying not to start all of them at the same time. And DW has four; all of which I'm dying to read as soon as she lets them out of her sight. Don't know what the word is for book-gluttony, LOL.

Eating while seated at the table was on plan, CREDIT moi. However, snacking happened from all the stuff brought into the house - some by me: An herb flavored package of nuts from Trader Joe's and dark chocolate covered coffee beans to be specific. The kale chips are still fresh a day later, and still super snack food. The leftover shrimp and cocktail sauce had to be eaten before dinner since shrimp don't last forever. Lunch was a ham sandwich with cranberry chutney. All of joyous taste and some within my plan - but a bunch outside. Realistically, I take solace that the volume is limited and more won't be arriving. Food wise, I'm glad that Christmas only comes once a year.


onebyone - Congrats for your techie victory casting your phone onto your TV. Even knowing all the right words to describe that is a step forward. Love the thought that we'll be seeing deep space through "Canadian eyes." I don't know if Webb will be looking at nearby stuff, like within our own Solar System. Its sensors are optimized for the longer wavelengths, ie infrared, for the galaxies "long ago and far away" that are receding more rapidly. A good visual comparison of Webb with Hubble here. Exciting time to be looking up.

Joy (gardenerjoy) - Neat that you watched the Webb launch. Your Sunbasket meal sounds really good. Kudos for being happy with your food choices.

Karen (karenrn) - Sounds like some first class eating there. Such consistency, "I hate to go more than two days without a good hike."

Penny. - LOL at the "parentals" resolving an unwanted a Reese's peanut butter tree candy. Kudos for being on plan during the holidays.

Readers -

Happy Boxing Day! Christmas Eve was very fun. We went to my friend’s house and had potluck dinner with a total of 5 adults, 6 young adults, two dogs, and a friendly cat. We did a silly yankee swap, and now I have a bunch of old candles I need to get rid of- or save for another yankee swap next year! The kids went off to look at Christmas lights afterwards as I groggily wrapped presents and stockings, and managed to tumble into bed by midnight. Ah, traditions.
Christmas Day was much quieter thankfully. We did presents in the morning then checked in with some family via facebook messaging video. We all did our own thing with food, grazing all day with leftover turkey and ham, plus takeout Chinese food which has become a new tradition- and lots of cookies. I spent the rest of the day chilling out and watching tv.
Today I have to take apart the turkey, ugh, and clean up everything, and probably cut up the ham too; maybe freeze some of that. I really need to eat some greens today!
Onebyone: I am the highest I’ve ever been so I hear you on that, I’m disgusted with myself, but i’m going to let that go. We can only keep going forwards. Glad Caesar cat is still around.
Maryann- your second career options sound wonderful and exciting.
Bill- yay for little ones at Christmas, they really make it fun.
Penny-great job staying on plan during the holidays.
Karen- sounds like a lovely time with your friends, and the food sounds so good!
Gardenerjoy- how fun to play Santa, I’m sure they appreciated it.

Good morning!

Yesterday was on plan and weight is holding.

Everyone has described some delicious holiday eating here. My family had a frozen lasagna and I had my usual.

Big snow dump here and my son is scheduled to work. I did buy tire chains to prepare for it so hopefully we get him there and back safely.

Our Christmas Day was quiet as planned.

I did my usual Saturday vigil. This was the first year since we've been doing them that Christmas and New Year's Days fell on Saturdays. We contemplated canceling one or both, but a couple of us knew that we would be available. I'm glad we did it -- ten of us showed up! And there was more traffic than we expected at our usual 4th Saturday corner. Lots of support and a few Grinches. I wore a Santa hat and held a red-and-green LOVE sign in one hand and one end of our Black Lives Matter banner in the other. A memorable Christmas Day, for sure.

We had a Zoom call with DH's family in the mid-afternoon and cooked a festive supper for the evening -- duck breast accompanied by sweet potato casserole and a fancy roast carrot dish from Sunbasket. I only fixed half the carrot dish. DH wasn't so impressed, so I'm going to fix the rest and toss roasted carrots into my salads for a couple of days.

I thought I might hear from my brother, but we routinely talk on Sundays, so I'm sure we'll do that today.

Exercise +35, 1285/1600 minutes for December

Good Morning, Coaches.

Christmas was lovely with our favorite SIL and BIL. We played games with nephews. I gave them Guesstures - a timed charade game fun for all ages. We also played many rounds of hearts. Food was as indulgent as any Christmas can be but I know how to rebound bound - starting tomorrow. Today is another family gathering in Santa Clarita.

Hoping to travel without too much rain and frost.

Wave to all.

Good evening coaches,

Food was on plan today after a good hike this morning. I told myself I was done with the sweets even though there are some remaining in the house. My husband has been enjoying them like I have never seen before. Once our guest leaves, I hope to dump the remainder in the trash. I must have had enough of them because it wasn't a problem to leave them alone today. I did have my Yasso frozen yogurt bar after dinner which is a part of my plan. Weight is up a couple pounds and I expect that will take at least a few days to leave me, but I know it will.

One house guest left at noon and my other friend will be here a day or two longer. We'll get out for a hike in the morning because we expect rain on several days this week. After that we're going to the movie King Richard with probably our N95 masks on. The movie has been out for awhile and I'm hoping there won't be many in the theater.

Personals tomorrow.

Hi Coaches

Food was 70% on plan. Breakfast and lunch were good. then I had a popcorn snack and then 2 pieces of pizza at supper which were not on plan.

I did the dance workout for 11 min. Up from 7min yesterday and 4 the day before..Credit for moving. I also drank more water today than I have in a while. Credit.

Scale was down 0.6 this morning.

Tomorrow I go get my booster shot aka the third dose. It's tough securing an appointment. My appt is tomorrow at 12:40 and DH goes Tuesday at 1:30. They had to scramble here to reassemble the mass vaccination sites. My last shot was through my Dr who said he wasn't giving the boosters this time. Why not I wondered? I think supplies haven't reached the level they need to be at, or rather haven't been distributed everywhere they need to be. At least it seems that we have vaccines to distribute. That's progress.

Until tomorrow...

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Exercise was walking back the high chair that a neighbor had lent us via a neighborhood email group - a generous act from a stranger. It was an elegant, high end ($300+) Stokke Tripp Trapp, becoming the most expensive chair at our dining room table. Love the notion that folks are willing to be neighborly even in the city - even during a pandemic.

Visit with DS and the (20 mo) DFGD happened at our house since it was too cold for a walk to the park and they needed to go 'somewhere'. Since she'd been here two days before, she pranced around knowing the space. She rode the Fisher Price school bus that both my kids rode around our house as well as every kid who's come by. That thing is indestructible. Called 'vintage' when I found a picture on line. Hard to think of my adult children as 'vintage'. I can understand that Fisher Price no longer sells it since I've been using the same one for forty years - not much profit in that.

Eating while seated for meals was on plan, CREDIT moi. Snacking was off the charts. Big Ouch! Today's goal is to quit digging into all the foods that arrived as if they were all zero calories. I ate enough dark chocolate covered coffee beans that I had caffeinated sleep. Need to remember that caffeine is a drug to be taken seriously - even when it isn't delivered in coffee.


onebyone - Kudos for sticking to your dancing. And Congrats for securing an appointment for your COVID booster - they're a challenge to nail down around here, also.

Joy (gardenerjoy) - Super Kudos for doing your vigil even on Christmas Day. Duck breast is one elegant meal.

maryann - Christmas with extended family sounds neat. Guesstures looks fun. Glad you're not at Tahoe since our papers even report about the dump of snow up there.

Karen (karenrn) - Getting rid of treats seems to be the theme around here this holiday. Congrats for getting in a hike despite being a holiday.

curlyjax - That Christmas Eve potluck sounds fun. Neat that you had a place where your kids could also have a good time. Grazing on Christmas Day seems to happen a lot.

Penny. - Hope you survive your snow dump. Congrats for getting that car in time to plow it through the snow to get your DS to work

Readers -

Yesterday was boxing day eating ie more leftovers. I still have to freeze some ham-DS won't touch it unfortunately-but at least everything is cut up and the dishes are done, credit moi. I went for a walk with a friend and her two dogs which was very fun. One dog is a young pup and excited about everything. I can see where the expression "puppy eyes" came from as she looked at me pleadingly a few times when I urged her away from yet another temptation.
I did not make it to the grocery store so I guess I'll have to go today and hope there is some kind of vegetable/greens left, as we're all feeling a bit lacking in that area. It's been protein and cookies for the most part! I'm really craving something healthy and light.
Gardenerjoy- I've never cooked duck breast, I'm impressed. Then again, I don't like duck so there you go it seems much heavier than chicken.
Bill-https://www.littletikes.com/products/cozy-coupe this was the must have ride on item for my kids generation, minus the creepy eyes. We all swapped them at the dump. So fun to still have a toy your adult kids remember playing on.

Good morning!

Yesterday was on plan and weight is down.

Our snow melted and was fine for driving yesterday. A layer is back today with colder temps. We don't get much snow plow action around here but hopefully it's not too bad for working today.

Food thoughts were creeping in yesterday. Instead of eating, I planned ahead for the next dish that will keep me on plan, and bought ingredients for a Wild rice mushroom soup. I just need my son to buy me some umami seasoning from whole Foods. The perks of having a son work at Whole Foods. lol

Have a great day, everyone!

We had another Sunbasket meal for Boxing Day -- tortilla chicken soup. That was a nice light meal. We're having a second festive meal, tonight, for reasons of not being able to choose just one. So, I'm glad that we got a lighter one in the middle.

Exercise +35, 1285/1600 minutes for December

BillBlueEyes: I enjoyed our local Buy Nothing group on Facebook during the holidays. One person "borrowed" a cup of heavy cream on Christmas Day so that her daughter (who looked to be, maybe, 12) could finish decorating the Christmas cake she'd made. Later, we got to see photos of the completed cake. I was very happy to enjoy the pictures without the opportunity to eat it, knowing that the recipe included a cup of heavy cream.