It is late and I am tired but I had to come and read the posts and share that at TOPS weigh in I had 2.25 lb loss. I am pretty excited about that.

Happy: I am so sorry to hear about the car issues. I hope you get good news on at least one of them.

Michele: I am sorry to hear about your friend. I will say a prayer for him. It doesn't matter what you say or don't say to him, what will matter is that you are a real friend and listen when he needs you to and just go ahead and do for him when you see he needs something. Just support him when you see he needs i


I will do more personals in the morning. Good night!

Good Morning...It's Friday...Payday...my trash actually got picked up from the curb...the roads are 95% better...all but my neighborhood....have not had mail all week at the house...can't say that I miss it either, lol. I am meeting Sissy at the doc appt today to corral lil man, she is doing great so far. She was 30 weeks this past Tuesday. She is getting a little nervous as you may or may not remember, lil man was born at 32 weeks. So far, no signs of preeclampsia (sp). AMEN and a big THANK YOU JESUS for answering prayers.

I will have to give the house a thorough cleaning this weekend as I have been lazy lately. Between snow tracks and the HEAT (ice melter) we spread on the drive, walks and patio that has been carried in, my floors are just grossing me out. Lots of mopping and vacuuming on the agenda. I have kept up with the laundry and only have about a half load in the basket.

In answer to the moving people doing the moving. Yes they did it originally, but placed 4 associates (me included) in the wrong places. So either I wait days for them to return (cause they moved us over the weekend) or do it myself. You all know what happened with that. I was so teeeeeeed off about it that it didn't take me long to do it. I am very quick about things when I am angry. lol. Things are smoothing out, several associates have not been back to work yet to unpack so it is a little messy but not bad. None of the printers worked so it took me about 2 hours to get that figured out, yah me, they all work. I have all my pictures back up and look at my family when I get frustrated and that makes me happy.

CHELLE...I am so very sad and sorry about your friends cancer. I really do not know what to say as HAPPY did not either. All I can tell you is I pray daily for my brother and my cousin. Seems to be unfair however the more I pray the better I feel about things. Hugs to you my sister. I will add your friend to my list.

HAPPY...bummer about BOTH cars being on the fritz and possibly ready for the junkyard. I, like you and CEEG, absolutely love Toyotas. My son got the little Camry I gave him that he had the accident in repaired and it looks like a brand new vehicle. Other that it having about 180k miles on it. She is purdy tho. It is a 2005. Long live the Toyotas. I love my new Toyota Rav4.

SUSIE...wowser on the WL....way to go and as we used to say several years ago....go SUSIE it's your birthday! I used to love that saying. I am very, very proud of you! Keep up the great work. Fabulous!!

CEEG...without having to go back and read, what is MFP? Now I have thought of many things to go with those initials but am sure it is not what it means. lol.

LAURA....what day is your WW day at work, I can't remember? Shuwee on the squats, I don't think I could get through 3 much less two days worth. Stay warm up there sister.

SHADDIE...are you getting all settled in and back to work. Hope things are going smoothly for you. YEAH on the electric bill! Hope it is right this time.

Getting lil man Saturday nite for a sleep over at Nanna's house. My idea, seems like forever since I have had Nanna/Jacob time. Altho he was carrying a fever yesterday, so we might have to delay the slumber party.

Have a great Friday....today I am thankful it only took me my usual 22 minutes to get to work and not 1:10 mins.

Love and hugs.

Susie
Congrats on the 2.25 pounds loss.

Happy
Hopefully the cars will not be to expensive to repair. Thanks for adding me to MFP. Daddy always taught me to start the car and let it run even if I don't use it. Keeps every thing going. But with the frigid temperatures you have been having don't think any thing could have saved that from happening.

Annie
Best wishes for Sissy's doctor's appointment. I think we will all be ready for Spring this year. MFP is my fitness pal. Several of us are going to log our food there.

Michelle
Sad news for your friend. And yes I was off yesterday. I slept most of the day due to a migraine. I try to fight things like this by not taking any meds but I ended up taking something at midnight. I went back to sleep and this morning up with only a mild headache. I'll take some more in a few minutes.
Think this was due to all the stress this week at work.

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I didn't log anything yesterday and I've started off in my old pattern of anything goes. but will log every thing else I eat today. No exercise yesterday either due to the migraine. I did wake up long enough to go pick up my pay check and even the boss mentioned that I looked sick. They remember my migraine that sent me to the ER from work.
I need to get some things ready to take back to Walmart that I can't use.
It's raining today. Rather have the rain than the frozen precipitation any day.

Morning all! TGIF!!!

Ceejay – Yay, another MFP user. I’ll try to find you. I was a bit worried about frozen pipes, but we actually have none on the outside walls except in our basement, which is below grade and I should think the foundation and soil is plenty of protection against freezing. Sorry the migraine took out most of your day off yesterday. Hope you can enjoy the rest of your weekend and the warmer temps!! I’ll take rain since we’ve had enough snow for quite a while, but now I’m concerned about flooding. The water from the rain and melting snow will have nowhere to go since the ground is frozen. Fingers it’s nothing severe.


Michelle – So sorry to hear about your friend’s bad news. Being there for him, like you have been, is what you can do for him. Re being hungry – I’ve been there the past couple days. Trying to time my snacks to avoid hunger. I want to eat something filling and satisfying, but I’m trying to avoid nuts because even a single portion can be high in calories. I’ll have to tweak my snacks and meals to fit those in. I also want to boil some eggs to have as snacks, but we’re waiting for them to be not quite so fresh because that helps make them easier to peel. Sounds strange, but it seems to help. So we’ve got a couple dozen sitting in the fridge. In the meantime, I think I need to finally try one of those egg cup recipes where you mix up eggs, veggies and maybe some cheese and/or meat and bake it in a muffin pan. They can be frozen and microwaved as needed.

Happy – Sorry about both cars needing to be towed to get serviced. Still hoping there’s a bit of life left in both or at least one of the vehicles. Two car purchases at once would be mindboggling! How frustrating about all the different answers you received re the towing coverage/reimbursement. Re being stranded and inadequately dressed…I know that perhaps there can’t be adequate dressing for some of the extremely lows temps you’ve gotten up there, but please be sure you keep extra warm clothing items in your cars! It drives me nuts to see people dressed lightly in cold weather just because they’re in their cars and don’t expect to be out and about - or stranded. Re St. Jude – I forwarded you the e-mail I received. Let me know if you received it. And if anyone else is interested, I can forward it along, or you can check out the site at this link: https://stjudesranch.org/about-us/re...-card-program/. Hope that works.

Susie – Good job on the loss!!! You should be excited about that because the holidays are soooo difficult – a loss after all the parties and meals, etc is GREAT!!

Annie – MFP is My Fitness Pal, a website where you can track your eating and exercise, as well as blog. Users can friend each other and follow their progress and offer support. Glad the roads are better for you. Yeh, not getting the mail for a few days isn’t a huge deal - I’m quite okay with the future elimination of Saturday mail delivery…Times sure have changed. Glad to hear Sissy’s pregnancy is going well. I’ll keep her in my prayers that it continues to go well!! Hope you can have the sleepover with the li’l guy on Saturday. Re the office move – I can see just going ahead and fixing the issues yourself – you can’t wait around for the movers to come back when there’s business to be done! And I imagine you’re the one taking the heat for this, so it’s best to fix it ASAP.

Shad – Yay for a more reasonable power bill!!! I hope this is the end of it! Enjoy your weekend.

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Nothing much to report. Yesterday was a rest day for my challenges. Didn’t do much last night except some tube-watching.

Plans to see a band tonight at the casino the next town over have fallen through, but I’m not all that upset. We’re going to get quite a bit of rain and I don’t mind just staying at home. Bf wants to go out for some Mexican food… a challenge to my weight loss progress. I will skip any alcohol and drink water and watch my portions. The restaurant we want to go to is a bit upscale from the usual “side of rice and refried beans”, so I can probably find something on the lighter side. And control portions, of course!

Saturday I’m meeting a former co-worker for breakfast. That will actually be more of a challenge to me than Mexican food for dinner – I always look forward to a big salty breakfast with a side of pancakes instead of toast. I won’t go the oatmeal or cereal route tomorrow, but I will stay away from the pancakes.

Other than that, no other plans this weekend. I will finally return a sweater I bought that ended up having a hole in the sleeve. I'd bought it at an outlet mall in WI last month and can return it to the store at the big mall near me. There was no way I was going over there during the Christmas shopping rush!

As for exercise…my challenges await, and maybe a trip to the gym on Sunday.

That’s it for me. TTFN!

Lil man has strep throat. I am taking this afternoon off to go babysit while Sam goes to her doc appt. Poor lil guy. Love him so much!!

Awww, poor li'l guy - strep is painful. Grandma will make it all better!!

Sigh...another headache. It's my first week on the new job so going home ill is not an option, and I've got a poker game tonight, and my friend (who has cancer) is counting on me for a ride. I just took two Excedrin migraine and those normally do the trick if I take them early enough...and hopefully I did.

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Susie - Congrats on the great weight loss!! I'm so happy for you.

Ceejay - I hope your migraine has gone away.

Annie - I'm hoping that your DD's doctor appointment goes well. I know what you mean about how the snow, ice melter and all kinds of stuff tracks in during the winter. I'll be doing some cleaning this weekend as well. Getting more stuff sorted and organized, and maybe bringing over stuff that was in my step-mom's attic. I won't be emptying storage out anytime soon, as D's house is pretty full of furniture. But we do need a more efficient organization system.

Happy - You had me all with the towing cars here and there. I hope you're able to get them all sorted out soon, with not too much expense.

to Laura and Shad!

Thank you all for the prayers and suggestions about my friend.

Much love to all,

Annie -- I'm so sorry to hear about Lil Man's strep throat. That's no fun. I hope he feels better soon and that you and your DD don't catch it from him.

Laura - have a nice evening at home, and fun with your friend tomorrow. I've never been a big fan of pancakes, but I love Eggs Benedict with lots of Hollandaise sauce.

Morning all,

Happy Friday to you. We are supposed to FINALLY get out of the deep freeze and maybe even see 30 degrees today. DH is waiting on Enterprise (car rental) to come and pick him up and take him down to go pick up the rental car. I realized this morning that we left both garage door openers in the towed away cars. DH said it's no big deal to get out and open the door - oh yeah I said, just wait Now that the garage is empty I feel I should go get at some boxes and clean them out but it's still darn freezing cold in there and I have PLENTY to clean in here by gosh by golly. Was talking to Mom last night and she launched into a 20 minute diatribe about her friend's wife's cousin's son's kids really? so I just let her go on and I put the phone on speak on the counter and went and took the ornaments and lights off the Christmas tree. DH took it out this morning - it will be repurposed into shelter for the birds outside. I guess there is an icy glaze forming outside - sometimes a warm up is not always the best thing on top of lots of snow. I hope it doesn't get wretched out there - don't need Annie's conditions.

Ceejay - that's ok that you didn't exercise yesterday, you had a valid reason. Just consider it your off day and get back into the swing of things today. I guess a migraine is a good reason to avoid any drama at work.

Susie - congrats on the 2.25 weight loss Excellent work!!!

Annie - good to have you back with us again. Do you live in a gated community? If so then you need to be calling up the homeowners association and getting on their case about cleaning the streets. Yay for you for doing I.T.'s work and getting the printers working again. You are the woman - most unappreciated but always in demand I'm sure. I'm glad to hear that Sissy is doing well in her pregnancy - hope she gets to term with no problems.

Hello to the rest of the ladies I need to get cracking here. later chicas.

Guess I missed some of you while I was taking a break and vacuuming pine needles off the rug

Sorry to hear of all the illness running around - 'tis that time of year I'm afraid. Hate to hear of Lil Man with something as nasty as strep throat. POPSICLES!!!! and :hugs:

Michelle - hope you caught the migraine in time. I'm sure your friend is counting on you for poker so it will be way better if you don't have to drive in blinding pain. I hope you can have some time this weekend to reorganize. I am just tired of seeing stuff lay around - sometimes neat and tidy is it's own reward. I like pancakes - occasionally - but give me a good eggs benedict any day! yum - now I'm thinking about that. Good thing I don't have a car to go anywhere

Laura - thank you for the link - I see they want all sorts of greeting cards so that's good to know. As for the eggs - can I get geeky??? - you are right about older eggs being easier to peel. As an egg ages, the white inside shrinks and leaves an air pocket. Just a little bit of air makes it easier to peel - I HATE stubborn hard cooked eggs where you rip half the egg off with the shell. I have also heard that adding a bit of salt to the water also makes them easier to peel but I'm not sure if that does anything other than add more sodium to the egg.

Ok, now I'm going to go look at cars online. Maybe I'd better take an aspirin first or dizzy pills too many choices.

Been out blackberry and raspberry picking today. Have some in the freezer now, yummy. The blackberries are big, fat and juicy. The raspberries, well lets just say that not much will beat the punnet of raspberries that Chris and I ate our way through in Scotland. They were just THE best.

Beautiful day today, but it probably won't last long. Summer is very patchy so far.

Ooops phone. I will be back.

glad to hear that you FINALLY had an opportunity to enjoy outside AND get some lovely berries to boot Shad. Yum.

One of our cars has a cracked radiator - we give them $400 and they will give us back a running car early next week.

We are probably going to replace the 4Runner. They say they can't get to look at it until later next week, I have played "the dance" with the new car salesman today wheeling and dealing prices. I was proud, I held my ground and I generally detest that kind of stuff. But I laid the groundwork for DH. We both have headaches from information overload trying to decide what is best. Anyway we will be off tomorrow taking a test drive and checking out the 2014 models.

Have a good weekend ladies, I will be back later to catch up with yahs.

Hi Everyone. We are final out of the deep freeze her in Ohio and had little bit of rain so that salt on the roads (and it feels like everything else) has been washed away. I didn't make it to the car wash yet, but will go tomorrow.

I didn't make it here yesterday as work got crazy. One of my managers decided that she has to go to the plant in Mexico next week for 3 days,so I had to rearrange her calendar for next week and even a couple of weeks after that as she wantd some of next weeks meetings rearranged.....and it goes on and on. I also have complex HR subject going on with one of our employees and that took a lot of calls and emails too.

I ended up working from 8-7 p.m. and then we went to dinner (more about that in a bit), came back home around 9 an worked until 1:30 a.m. But I'm n good shape for Monda morning.

We are friends with a family that has 4 girls, the last two are twins. I was in deliver with my friend when she had all 4 girls. They call us Unlce and Aunt and I love them like we are family.

Anyway, one of the twins has a palet spreader thing in her mouth and one of the brackets broke on one side, so it was hanging in her mouth. We don't have a childern's orthodonist in town and so ths appratus was put in a Children' in Cincinnati. My friend called them and they told her to try and get the apparatu out of the bracket on the other side, and if not, she would have to bring her in (a hour drive each way)...well of course, she couldn't get it out. Her huband was out of town and driving back but was aout 6 hours away.

So, we took the other 3 to dinner with us, and they stayed all night. The told their mom it was a great night. My friend didn't get back with with her other daughter until around 1 a.m. Kind of a cray night.

For those of you on MFP, my weight loss there showed 1.8 lbs instead of the 2.25 I reported here because I hadn't changed my MFP number and I had gained a bit back from that numer, so that is why it was different. Now it is all current.

Ceejay: I will add you to MFP. I need too back and look up your name. If you don't see a request from me, please feel free to add me. I'm SusieChaney on MPF.

I was doing the same floor cleaning that you were today. The floors were a mess with all the snow, and the ice melt and wet shoes on the floors all week. It feels good to have it all cleaned up.

I hope your migraine stays away. I get them sometimes and they make me so sick...it even hurts to breathe. Hopefully your work week this weeik will be a bit smoother.

Annie: I hope your grandson is doing ok. I get strep very easily and it is so painful. Both my newphews has had it over the past 2 weeks. You know how one gets it and passes it on.

Michelle: Sorry that you had a migraine too. Did your friend and you make it to poker?

Laura: Thanks for the link. I had heard that about the cards and I thought I would do it this year. I still have the cards we received for Christmas so I will now be able to get them sent to were they need to go.

How was your breakfast with your friend today. I LOVE pancakes..you will see them on my food diary on MFP a lot. I just try to eat 2 instead of 6 now!

Happy: I don't envy you doing car shopping. We bought a new car 18 months ago and I know that "dance" you are talking about with the salesman. And it does make your head spin sit down and talk " the deal". But when you get into the new car, it all sems to disappear...until the 1st payment is due! lol

Glad to hear you were able to get your tree down...how smart of you to make good use of the time during your phone call with your mom.

Shad: It seems so odd to think you are in the summer season...I'm envious!
You have summer and fresh berries! Blackberries are my favorite!

See you all tomorrow. I'm going to get up an hour early than I usually do so that I can get my walking DVD in and done for the day tomorrow.

I didn' work out on Friday or today as I felt my body as really tired but I'm ready to gt back to it tomorrow. Bye bye for now

I have had a good day with my uncles. My cousin from Little Rock was up today and it's always fun to talk to him. There was a picture going around today that I don't remember seeing. It was a group picture of my mom's family at my grandparents on Mothers day in 1953. My baby sister was 5 months old. I was asleep on my dad's lap but not all of me was in the picture. I like seeing these old pictures.
I also made good food choices for lunch but haven't entered it on MFP. I also rode the bike but only for 20 minutes.
I've got my tablet charged up and am using it again.

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Michelle
Hope your migraine didn't fully develop so that you were able to go play poker.

Annie
Give the lil man a hug for me. I feel for anyone that has strep especially a little guy. But I know that he's in good hands. Hope dd doctor appointment went well.

Happy
Which vehicle did you decided upon-another 4runner. 400 dollars is not a bad price to pay for maintenance. And a smart choice in putting you phone on speaker to do other tasks around the house. I should remember that the next time I have a lengthy conversation with my sister.

Shad
Yum, blackberries. I love them, don't enjoy picking them though.
Glad you had some quality time with your friend.

Susie
Thank you for adding me to you MFP list. How nice that you kept your
friend children!

Evening all,
Gotta report an NSV today. (non Scale Victory). A couple of weeks back I bought some new jeans. It was a minor celebration that even though they were made in China, the correct size could actually be zipped and buttoned (just) - although got to admit to some muffin top here and there. Yesterday I got them out for the first time to wear over the weekend and wacko, I could button and zip with no problem whatsoever. So something must be working.
Yesterday I went picking fruit as I told you. I packed them all and froze them last night and today I went looking for some form of storage for my underwear. This place is somewhat light on storage that I can reach easily. Anyway, I now have put it together - with great difficulty and 5 non necessary fastener parts, and one missing necessary part, and also something that I suspect fits on a bicycle. Well made China indeed. I did make a couple of mistakes with the unit, but it is hanging together so far. It won't carry heavy loads and I am extremely grateful to the lady in Bunnings who suggested I get a rubber mallet to belt the fastenings into the fittings. It would still be in pieces without that. The bloke in the storage area, when asked about needing anything to help put it together, said and I quote ' Yeah Nah luv. Piece of P*ss to put together those things'. Yep, nah right.

So having walked all the way up to the hardware store ( about 2.5k) and having stopped off to get my veges on the way, and having gone to a kitchen/ bathroom store before the hardware store, I had fruit, veg, hairdryer, scales for the bathroom, scales for the kitchen and the storage gizmo. Took stock and called a cab to get me home. I might be able to carry a fairly heavy load, but I am not stupid.
Got home, put the food away, created the storage unit and then went to the supermarket for the usual stuff like laundry washing stuff and meat. So I have done my exercise for the day. The wind blew me around all the time I was walking as well.

Happy - new car, nice. Hope you are as happy with this as you were with the old one. Love what you did with Mum's rant. Always something to do while you are on the phone.

Annie - Hope the little one is over the Strep throat. The office sounds like the normal stuff ups. We have to go through that in the next couple of weeks. Nice thing is that the new office is 5 minutes downhill from here.
I can roll out of bed and down to the office.

Michelle - did you get the friend to the poker game?

Ceejay - nice that you had a good weekend with the family. Some of the old family photos are really fun to have and to keep. You can put them with the family tree and in the family album.

Laura - Hope you managed okay with the Mexican and the meeting with the friend. It's always a challenge to find something that will not blow the calories out of the water

Susie - You're going well with the program now. 1.8 loss is great. Now that I have my scale, I will be changing things as well. I took the original figure from that which I weighed some month or so ago. We've had Christmas and New Year since then.

Okay, better move along. Back to work tomorrow and I have to make a dent in the huge log of stuff I now have to do. Should be able to get some of oldest stuff sorted.

Where did the weekend go?