Heyall. Chachee, way to go on the coupons, lady. Impressive. I need to do more of that. Also, congrats on stepping up. I need to do that as well. I need to make my health a top priority, and not something I can just ignore when I get stressed. If I don't take care of myself, I won't have anything left. So, no more missing workouts. I need to stop the stress eating, and stick to my menus. I need to try to get more sleep. And most of all, I need to focus on one thing at atime, and not start jumping ahead and worrying about things that haven't even happened yet.

Well, I talked to the vet clinic today. My dog's blood work looks good, so we are doing the test next Tuesday, to determine if it is indeed cancer. Keep your fingers crossed folks. Any extra puppy prayers are appreciated.

Take care everyone, and good luck with all the battles you are fighting.

Hey Chachee, I'm with you. I'm tired of the crud too. Time to get the ball rolling. I mean, what am I doing on a weight loss support forum if I'm not even trying to lose weight? (Except that I really like you guys and appreciate your kind words and friendship...) I finally have a schedule nailed down for the next month and a half and I should be able to get an exercise program started around it and 5 pounds down soon!! Go for it!
I did well eating today. I mean I ate like a normal person for the first time in a couple of weeks.
Whoa all of a sudden I can't keep my eyes open. Good night!

Hi everyone!
Not much exciting stuff to report from New Hampshire, other than another foot of snow. Well, NH is a state that depends on tourism for something like 80% of it's income, so this will bring many spring skiiers in our direction. But, for those of us who are tired of the snow and would like spring weather, it's getting a bid tiresome.
I plan on 40 minutes on the treadmill today and snow shovelling. I have to counteract the dinner I am planning tonight - a turkey. I bought it on sale right around Thanksgiving and I have a huge freezer in my garage. Time to cook it, but that doesn't give me permission to pig out. But, on this snowy day, it will smell good. I will step up my activity and I will try to eat very low point meals earlier in the day.
Jolly, what is your dog's name, I will mention it in my prayers.
Linda

Jolly I'm thinking about you and Justin, and holding you both in my heart.

Derry - Turkey! Yum! And good for you, too. Maybe I'll do one of those.

Apple - I've been going through that for a long time, too. I even stopped posting for a long time because I felt like an idiot posting here when I obviously was NOT doing anything about losing weight. In fact, quite the opposite, sad to say.

Ok. Like I said earlier, I don't even want to really go into how much I backslid... suffice to say I've dropped 4 pounds this week of the monumental tonnage I'd managed to put back on in the last 6 months or so. *sigh* All that just by getting the food under control and getting water into my system. I've got a lot of catching up to do, but at least progress is being made.

If it isn't one thing... I had my wallet stolen last night at WalMart. Cancelled the atm/visa check card as soon as I found out. Just try writing a check for groceries without a drivers license, eh? I was already in the checkout lane when I noticed it was missing. Bless their hearts, they took my check with me giving them my SSN. This morning, the wallet was found, and they are holding it for me. Of course, minus the $60 cash that was in it. *headache face* That's a LOT of money for me. I the greater scheme of things, I guess I'll deal, but why do people have to do this kind of thing? I just sincerely hope the person who did it REALLY needed the money. And shame on me for leaving my purse unattended long enough for someone to lift my wallet. I feel rotten about that, and from now on, it stays ON MY PERSON, regardless of how much of a nuisance it is. *shakes head* To my credit, I didn't go nuts with the food. *pats self on back* I stayed in line, and today I need to go out and pick up a lean cuisine, etc. Of course - Richard had to fund it, because.. I'M BROKE! And no card to get money. Argh. It will be a week or so before I get my new card. I'm ok. I really am. I'll be fine. *twitch*

Hi guys. I'm sitting here debating whether I should get out to the stable and ride or whether I should stay home and use the time, so valuable, to do the myriad of other things that need getting done. I'm not feeling well, in all ways, and not seeing my horse makes me feel guilty. But getting out there takes a ton of time that could be used to get things done and thus make me feel better about other things. Hard call. . .

The eating here too, the exercise, is so bad. I have stayed off sugar, but don't feel good really unless I exercise and I just have not felt like I had the time for that. I've been wearing the pedometer these past couple days and was appalled at how little I was walking. It seems I've found ways of reducing the number of steps I take in a day to a quarter of what I would easily do before. Oh, it makes me angry to have been reduced to this state. Yes, a lot of it circumstance but a lot of it not. One thing fuels the other, one thing leads to the next. Not moving becomes easier than moving, being active in one sense, such as work, work, work, doing work for money for ME but the work is nonetheless for others, makes me then do less and less for me where it really matters. . .

Well, let's see if I can pull out of this downslide. I sure hope so. . .

Raven -- Glad to hear you're getting some of the weight back off. The same has happened to me so I do know how you feel, except that with me it's the exercise that has gone haywire and because I don't change my eating, I gain and on top of that I'm losing muscle so I feel like ****. Sorry to hear about the wallet getting lifted. People just do it because they can I guess. Maybe they did need it badly. Let's hope so.

Well, I've got to go. Thought I had more time. Will try to catch up later.

Bye for now.

Hi. Today was kind of a wacky day. I started cleaning out our shed and tried to get some yard work done too. I am embarrassed by the state of our back yard. The baby took a long nap and my husband is home too, otherwise I would only completed about a third of what I did. Eating went OK, except I stress ate a bowl of ice cream. But I think I burned enough calories today to allow myself that treat.
A friend of mine stopped by tonight after dinner.I was embarrassed by the state of my messy house too. Everytime that happens (someone dropping by unexpectedly) I feel awful and angry at myself and I just want to throw everything away and start all over again. GRRRR.
One of these days I'll get my act together.
I'm having brunch with my mother tomorrow and they always serve roast turkey. One of my favorite meals....
Sorry about your wallet Raven. Huge pain in the butt, isn't it. Plus losing alot of money too. Creeps....
Hope your chin is up, Red. It's so hard to stick to good habits when there are so many bumps in the road. But when you think about it, if you could do it, it would make you feel alot better, right? Easier said than done, I know.
Well, lets keep trudging along eh? Raven's onto something, lets follow suit! Onward!!!

Hi Apple, Glad to see someone posting. Was sitting here feeling very lonely. I have two hours to get out and I am soooo tired. I did go riding. Don't know why really. It was a horrible lesson. My horse is kicking out at the whip and she broke the plastic pole that holds the cones together in the ring and the owner got pissed at me. Jerk. I even said I'd pay for the damned thing and he just walked out without even replying. Like it's a big deal. I don't know. The world seems against me. I feel grateful for the smallest kindness. That's the low my life has fallen to. Not that feeling grateful for small kindnesses is a bad thing, it's just that any sort of gentleness is so missing in my life that I can start crying over some little nicety. It's the pits. . . I'm supposed to get together with a kind of friend in from New York tonight but I feel awful and they are not going to help. She's well-off and happily married (the last time I saw her was when I flew in just for her wedding two years ago and the whole thing wasn't a bit of fun, she was very strange and here I'd come all the way from Tokyo to go to the thing) anyhow, she's passing through and said she wanted to meet me so I said OK, "sure, great to see you, how've you been" blah blah, lot of empty debutante kind of small talk. Oh God, what I am doing? Why do I have so many rich friends when I'm living like a struggling artist? Maybe they enjoy slumming. . .

Well, enough of this. I have been eating crap I just realized, and too many beers for the week even if it's only one night out. I think my liver is on the rocks or something. I feel so dragged out, or like something dragged behind a car then left in the road and run over a few times. . . My nerves are shot too. This morning I get ready to go out and go to pick up bag of carrots off the floor for the horse and my nerves flip as I see a dead mouse the cats must have brought in. Oh god, I hate to see dead things, let alone almost touch it. . ..

OK, enough!!

Apple Blossom -- such a lovely name, really. The plum blossoms are all out in bloom here now and they smell so delicately sweet. The sweet Daphne is out too and I love that stuff! In about three weeks the cherry blossoms will be out and they are unbelievably beautiful. I will think of them and remember what is wonderful about being in Tokyo.

Apple, don't fret about your backyard or your home. A friend comes to see YOU. You're what's important, not the state of your house.

Well, ok, I will try to turn this all around. I must get to work now. . Ciao!

Well, Ash Wed. was Feb. 9th and the Lenten Challenge is still alive and well for me. However, yesterday I was dying for something chocolate, but I didn't have it!
Raven, I am so sorry about your wallet. Some people are just amazing, aren't they? No matter how poor I was, I don't think I could ever resort to stealing someone else's money. You've got to wonder. I would ask Walmart if they could review their security cameras for you. Maybe the theif will show. They keep track of everything, pretty much, and if you know what time of day that you were there, it could help put this person in the hands of the authorities. I tend to shop with my purse in the seat of a shopping cart and I try to be careful not to turn my back on my purse/cart for more than a second, but I have heard of this kind of thing happening often.
Just letting you all know, I won't be back here until tomorrow evening or Tuesday. I am leaving later on today to go to my parents and will be taking my dad in for cateract surgery and waiting for him tomorrow. My mom can't walk, let alone drive, so I'm "elected" to do this. I always get depressed at my parents house, of late, as they are really both not in good shape and when I am away from them my memory slips and I remember them as they "were" vs. how they "are". Hope that makes sense.
I "slipped" yesterday afternoon and had cookies, by the way, so my day was NOT a great day for eating. But, at least I was on the treadmill, and shall be again today before leaving.
Wish me luck driving in the snow, we have more than a foot of snow here and where my parents live, I hear about 20 inches. Isn't it supposed to be spring soon?
Linda

Hi guys. It's me again, back from meeting my friend. It was actually quite nice, were in a part of Tokyo that had a lot of nice memories for me and we were at a very traditional Japanese restaurant. I didn't have anything to drink and they had prepared a special vegetarian dinner for me. My friend was back to her old self so maybe the wedding had just been a bad time for her. Well, actually, no, it was all kind of stilted but still, it was nice to see her. It's always hard with a new guy on the scene because, well, the friendship didn't start with both of them, it was just me and her, so one can't expect us to be great friends, which we're not. Still, I left wishing we could have caught up more.

And I have a confession to make. I slipped off my no-sugar challenge. Had a cookie. It was great. But it's back on now. I really thought Easter was next week and when I realized yesterday that I had yet another week to go I think I lost some resolve.

I don't know what was wrong with me this morning and for most of the day. I felt really awful, really depressed. But now I felt better. Got 13,000 steps in today so maybe that helped. But I had felt bad until right before I left to meet my friend. Oh well, so many reasons but I hope I can truly pick myself up and move ahead soon. Raven, I sound like I'm going through what you were went through recently.

Derry, take care out there on the roads. I wish your father the best with his surgery too. I can certainly understand your getting down about thinking of your parents as "then" not "now" but please try to enjoy them now as the people they are. You will have your memories of them for ever but not them. I say this because I am over here and of course my father is getting older. He just turned 74. My mother died in '83 when she was 51. I almost never see my father. I still miss my mother horribly. Enjoy them now, please. Good for you for working out on the treadmill. Don't sweat the cookies.

jolly -- that sounds promising with your dog. Let's hope for the best. Is his name Justin? There's a new horse at the barn and that's his name. And animal support forum or not it's all legit. Everything affects eating and exercise so feel free to come here and talk about anything, please!

Chachee -- I want to step up to the plate with you but I think I need some more practice in the batting box. But soon.. . I too want to get this weight off. Sticking on the pedometer is one step and I've done that for the past three days. Today I made 13,000 but on work days I was as low as 2,500! Couldn't believe it but that's how little I move because all my day is spent sitting in front of the computer. It's horrible. Well, good luck on your challenge. I hope you get some nice weather. That always helps. Pajama weekend sounds wonderful. So relaxing. Hope you're enjoying it! Thank you for your understanding with the work. As it was I had a long talk that morning with the company after I wrote that post. I almost gave up the work but then compromised and will get paid 2 weeks later than I wanted but still 2 weeks earlier than they were saying. Now to get the work done. Oh yes and congrats on saving that $130! Bet those people who ripped off Rave never thought of using coupons. You mention the commissary. Brings back memories. I was never in the military but I worked for the military newspaper over here, Pacific Stars and Stripes and had access to all the bases and commissary and so, hotel, restaurants and such that are in Tokyo for the U.S. military. Could buy magazines and even had dental work done for free at the air force base. Had a U.S. post office box. It was a lot of fun because I was living in Tokyo and getting paid in dollars. Of course, the fun ended along with my job when the dollar plunged and they had to lay off the local hire. That was back when the dollar was 260 yen. Now it's about 105 yen. Just some memories there.

Ok all, catch you later. Hope your weekend is going well. I'm wrapping up Sunday here.

Hey all. Just a quick post here. I am kind of depressed after hearing about a shooting not 15 minutes from me, at a church service no less. It all seems so crazy and hopeless. Why??? I can't seem to stop watching the news about it, even though I know I should just stop.
I know I need to step up to the plate with everyone too. the bat just seems to heavy right now. My eating is bad. I didn't make it to the gym today. I just can't seem to get it together. Even though I know the overeating is physically just making me feel worse. Craziness.

Good luck to eveyrone - we all seem to be having issues right now. Congrats to everyone who is hanging in there! YOu are all great.

Red - Yeah, it does sound like you're in much of the same kind of head space I was in for a while. Just be kind to yourself, dear. Really, I mean it. Stop agonizing about the shoulds and have tos and supposed tos and really just let yourself be for a while. It's not easy for us to do that, I know. And there are some things we CAN'T let go, but it's amazing how many things we can turn loose of for a while, till we're ready to pick them back up. And you'll know when you're ready. Chill, chickie. Take a couple deep breaths and step back. And stay back for a while if you need to. It's ok. I sometimes think that riding when I'm in a bad mental space is just asking for trouble from my horse. That's when I usually don't ride, I do grooming, ground work, hanging out and skritching their butts... they like that, and it brings peace to my soul. In this world today, peace is a precious thing. *warmest hug* I get really lonely sometimes too. I'm kind of an isolationist, I've been told I push people away when I really need them the most. It's difficult for me to invite people in, and I don't like asking for help of any kind. *rolleyes* And so I end up hurting myself more than I need to. People who bug me in e-mails once in a while are a godsend to me, becaues it reminds me that people care, even if I'm off in self-absorbed land.

Jolly - Did you hear about the guy in Atlanta Friday? Those security photos they took .. he was in the parking garage where my boyfriend works. Too close for comfort. And people wonder why I want out of the city. I suppose horrible things can happen anywhere, but .. I dunno, I'm just not a city person, and too many people around me make me nervous.

Derry - *hug* I'm sorry about your parents. That's rough - my mom died 10 years ago after battling hepatitis for a long time, and my dad is in a long term care home up in AK now with alzheimers, alcohol related dementia, and stroke damage. Can't really call him, because he doesn't know who the heck he's talking to anyway. It's hard. The cookie might not help the situation, but it's also not going to be the downfall of a healthy eating plan. Don't sweat the little stuff. Just don't eat all of them at once.

Apple - *lol* My house is a regular disaster area. There are some days I care, most I don't. I have so many things going on and so many things I'm trying to accomplish that I figure if the state of my house bothers someone, they can leave. Course, who visits me anyway!?

Oh and .. last but not least... I hit the 5 pounds lost mark this morning. Yay me. Five more pounds and I'll be back to where I was after I gained the weight back that I'd lost last year... wow. Ok. Very distasteful this having gained weight back thing. Makes me grind my teeth in frustration. BUT!! I will let it go, I will keep doing what I'm doing, and soon enough (is three months soon enough?), I'll be back to 172. *nodding* So there.

Great job on the loss, Raven!
Thanks for all your kind words about my mom and dad, guys.
Jolly, I heard about the shooting on the news, seems so senseless to me. Between someone stealing (so minor comared to the shooting, but not in a way) Raven's wallet and that situation, you really have to wonder about people!
Red, what would they serve at traditional Japanese places and do you use chopsticks, or is that only Chinese. Sorry I am so ignorant.
Well, off to have lunch and then shortly afterwards I'll be hitting the road.
I might be able to use my dad's computer and post to you guys, not sure, but don't expect me.
Linda

Thanks mates! (I'm feeling British this morning! or something weird ) No really, thanks for the support. I've got my nose to the grindstone here. Gotta get this story out! Later, all!

Thanks mates! (I'm feeling British this morning! or something weird ) No really, thanks for the support. I've got my nose to the grindstone here. Gotta get this story out! Later, all!

Hey all. The site ate my early post. The computer must be PMSing!

hello to everyone. Raven, I didn't realize the Atlanta thing had hit so close to home for you. I am glad your boyfriend is safe. This world is crazy! What are we coming too? I just don't get it. One more reason why I don't think we should be in Iraq - we have enough messes in our own backyard to clean up.

Enough soap box. I really admire everyone who is staying with their Lenten goals, and pulling themselves back on the bandwagon. I know how much that takes. Kudos! Congrats on the weight loss, Raven. I need a swift kick in the butt too. My goals for this week are to 1) work out daily, including weights, 2) stop buying candy, and 3) I know the stress eating is kind of a fixture right now, but I want to at least grab healthier snacks, in hopes of being able to slow down the avalanche. Then, we will go from there.

Derry, have a safe trip. I hope things go well - my thoughts are with you. Red, I agree with Raven - take some time to chill and find some peace. YOu deserve it.

Have a great day everyone.