Y'all are so sweet! Wabby, I know you can do it! I'll at least join you in trying! I did my 15 minute treadmill run/walk and some Pilates today. I'm a little off because of losing a day when we went up to Kansas City to get the laptop.

Good to hear Peachy is doing well. Is she still doing that detox thing?

I've clicked on the cleanie forum... but wanted to post this before I got distracted.

Hi Cherry! What Pilates stuff do you do? Do you have any equipment or are you using a tape? I bought a Pilates book, but by the time I was through reading it, I couldn't figure out much of anything I could do without taking a class or buying equipment.

We watched a video tonight -- City by the Sea with Robert deNiro and Frances McDormand. Not bad. Not great. So-so. Kind of like a TV cop show with better acting

DD is going snow-tubing again tomorrow. She had a blast last time she went. Costs $10 and the ski mountain provides a big tube to ride on and a tow rope and separate hill for tubing. Personally I'd rather read a book, but the kids love it.

Kiwi

Wabby and Cherry, I'm in. Cherry, if you're going to do this 15lb challenge with us, you have to come around. We should post how we're doing on each aspect of our program....exercise and diet. I'm also trying to make sure I get enough sleep.
I want to go to June 18, my 49th birthday. That gives me 10 extra days, which I need because I'm an old saggy hag.
Here is how I clean. I have a 6.5hp shop vac. It pulls the color out of rugs, it is so strong. I have my new steamer, which is supposed to work without cleaners, but not here. I need chemicals to get anything to budge. I spray...usually 409 but sometimes The Works or cleanser, then steam and scrub with the little brush on the steamer then I suck it all up with the vac. This place was filthy... I'm 80% finished. Now it is just 20% filthy. In the process of doing that, anything that is in my way, I throw out. Hence the 50 ft.
I threw out Bob Dylan's Tarantula. I haven't read it since 1971...I don't think I'm going to be looking to it as a reference. I threw out Ram Das' Be Here Now I did read that in 1972 but due to circumstances at the time, I don't remember it. So, it is gone. I threw out 2,999,770,790,699 get-organized books and 3,592,384,297,593 diet books. I could have sold them on 1/2.com or ebay, I could have given them to a worthy cause, but I didn't. I'm lazy. I bought four new trash cans just so I could throw away stuff that I will never use again. Like size 6 clothes. I kept my mother's and grandmother's fur coats...why? My mother's arms are at least 4 inches shorter than mine and my grandmother's were 6 inches shorter. Not that I would wear these dry rotted pieces of dead animal. But it just seemed wrong to uncerimoniously throw them out with diet books. I thought I would give them to my mom's aide, but how would I feel if a PETA person threw red paint on her for wearing fur?
I do live in a neighborhood, the houses are far apart, but those other people are still here. I don't like to talk to them. For example, Patty up the street: I know her kid deals drugs..should I tell her? Linda and Gina are boring...worse than me. Aleta is a former tenant and many years ago I evicted her with her four kids. She doesn't hold this against me, but I feel it is awkward. She lives in Gina's house. Should I tell Gina that in the end she stiffed me and left the place in a condition that violates even my standards of housekeeping? There is a group of men on this street who have lived on here for 80+ years. I like them, but once they get talking, I'm finished. You see?
I'm tired, but the dog laid on my comforter while she was wet from being outside. I had to wash it..now it is in the dryer. I can't sleep without it. I got it at Walmart and it must have some weird kind of polyester in it because it allows no cold air to get near my cozy little self. I used to sleep with 33 blankets trying to keep warm, but now I have this one thing that I paid $12. and it keeps me warm. I'm thrilled. My (not in this case so) dh sleeps with a ceiling fan on so I'm always cold. But when I tried to sleep without the fan I discovered that stale air is worse than being cold. Now both problems are solved...happy ending.
June would not approve of my disrespect for the sleep rule. Please don't tell her.

This time we can do it!! My birthday is May 25th. That should be doable. Still feeling queasy - lost 4 lbs - it's only water but who cares. Can't decide what the official start weight should be.

My house is messy *and* filthy right now. I'll never get it right.

Oh, the posterboard top hat was a grand success. I'm thinking of going into business.

Now I will either go clean something, or I'll lay on the couch and read a magazine.

Me too, me too! (I'm just a big copycat)

My philosophy is that your most recent "high point" is your starting weight. Thus, I am counting the 6 pounds that I lost within the past few weeks as part of my 15. Not fair? Hmmpph. As we all know, it could all come back in a fit of Doritos and beer, so I think it's fair enough.

I'm with you, Sugar, my house is messy and filthy too. And if I sit here and look at the computer screen, I can hardly see any of it. Good job on the top hat project. Isn't it fun to do that stuff? One year I made crowns for all the kids at dd's party by meticulously cutting out posterboard in intricate designs. What a job. Then the kids decorated them. I always spend too much time on these things. At least birthday parties get easier as they get older.

I am reading about a very interesting school lunch program they began in Wisconsin 5 years ago (click here) . You should all read about it. Maybe if we followed a plan like this, we could not only lose weight, but we could get SANE!

Here's the horror of my diet:
The primary problem is my schedule, which is so messed up I have doubts it will ever straighten out. I get up at 7:00 AM, make lunch for DD and walk her up the driveway to the bus stop, bring the newspaper back, make coffee, and eat cereal with skim milk, and orange juice and coffee. So far so good. Then I read or watch TV until DH gets up, at which time I go to bed! I nap for hours to make up for the sleep I lost the night before, then I get up, skip lunch, drink more coffee, get on the computer, do about 1/10 of the housework I intended to do, make dinner, ferry DD around and crash in front of the TV to compete with DH for biggest couch potato. Then, when all good girls should be in bed, I start eating. Leftovers, popcorn, sweets, cheese and crackers, chips, salami, whatever I can scrape together. When I'm good and full and exhausted, I get ready for bed, get the d/w going, and...get on the computer. Occasionally I get to bed by 2. Usually not. On weekends, I just skip the 7:00 am/breakfast part and stay in bed until 11.

Isn't that just awful? Pathological. I really was planning a transformation in January, with my new exercise program. I was going to have more energy, go to bed earlier, and eat healthier. That was before the invasion of the DH. So I've done none of those things, and sleeping half the day is how I'm coping with him being around 110% of the time.

The good news is that I actually only eat 3 "meals" a day, which I guess is why I've lost some weight recently. Dinner, midnight snack, breakfast. I suppose if I just made midnight snack an actual meal, with real, healthy food instead of junk, I might even be ahead of the game. But eating 2 meals before bedtime, that's got to be some major bad idea, right?

Oh he**. Aren't you glad you asked?

Kiwi

Do you drink? Nowhere did you mention drinking all night. And there are no other men. That's good. How about crack? No crack, you aren't a drug addict. No, you're doing fine. I don't think there is a thing wrong with your scenerio. You get your kid to wherever she needs to go and you stay out of your husband's way. Isn't that really all that is asked of us?
Sugar, be happy for me...I have the stomach virus, too! This will be a great boost on my 15 and there is no moral dilemma because my body was considerate enough to get sick after the 15 pound challenge was issued. I am the luckiest person I know.
My new cleaning board is closed..do you believe it? I joined Organized Home for today, but it isn't the same. These people seem organized...at my old/new board they were as bad as me...well probably not.
I'm going to go get some rubbermaid containers and finish DS11's room by shoving everything he owns into opaque bins and stuffing them in the back of his closet. I'm a natural.
Gotta go do something, virus or not.
L

Hello! So, are all of us trying to lose 15 pounds by when? Mid-May? Mid-June? Anywhere between mid-May and mid-June? My goal date for my goal weight was DH's birthday, June 15, but that ain't gonna happen.

Kiwi, I laughed so hard at your diet! Hehe! The Pilates tapes I do are by The Method-- Precision Toning and Target Specifics. They don't need any equipment. That equipment scares me.

My schedule looks like:
Wake up at 4am
Drink coffee until 6am, when I have time to nuke a bowl of oatmeal (no sugar)
Handful of nuts or pretzels at 9am
Lunch at 11:30am, with DH, usually leftovers or peanut butter sandwiches
Workout at 1pm
Spoonful of peanut butter & some toast
Dinner at 7pm
Bed at 10pm

NO SLEEP!! I would have to go to bed at 7pm to get enough sleep, but that's when DH gets home from work.

Lush, you are lucky to become sick after the challenge was issued. DH is sick now, so I might be as lucky soon.

I'd better go. We're going to the park with the kids and the dogs, so that will count as today's workout.

Thanks for your support, dahlings! Really, you're the best. You make me feel like less of a freak.

The latest on the homefront: DD's gone with her friends until late, so DH and I were going to watch a movie: The Importance of Being Earnest with Rupert Everett, Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon. We got into it about 20 minutes and I started hearing noise in the kitchen. I tried to ignore it (hey, it could be the cats playing. Or the wind. Or um....) but we had to go take a look. The ceiling has a steady leak again -- this time it is coming out through the light fixture! This strikes me as both dangerous and depressing. DH thought it was funny. But he decided to go up on the roof and shovel some more snow -- it's been melting today, so a lot of water is trapped up with the snow.

Wish us luck.

Kiwi

I'm telling June. Cherry is only getting 6 hrs sleep a night.
We've had water through the light fixtures. Dh didn't laugh, but he didn't shovel snow off the roof, either. That sounds hard.
I'm doing the challenge to Mid-June. Paul's and my birthday is June 18. We'll have a quiet day remembering George.
I'm going to go look at what Kiwi is selling.
What is the Beverly Hills Diet? I don't think I ever tried that one.
I am throwing out books. Wasn't it nice of Kiwi to make me feel guilty and lazy for throwing my books away?
Now I'm going to bed. June is serious about this. Don't make her come here to supervise you, Cherry.

Oh heck, I've had most of those books for sale for about 2 years. You are not lazy; you are smart. AND your house is not full of books you don't want, waiting for someone to offer to pay you a quarter for them. I'm a twit.

Right now I'm putting more stuff on eBay. It takes me hours to list something.

Kiwi