Marie wish you were there too! It was a fun weekend with the girls. I loved seeing all the beautiful trees which are turning to fall colors. It wasn't peak though a bit late this year most likely a week or two it should be even prettier. I saw the deer just walk through the village without a care in the world. We did manage to see one bear. And I got my girlfriends mom whom is 79 to go on the ski lift. We went up the McCauley mountain. The sceenery was breath taking she was so grateful afterwards that she did it. I said you have to live everyday to its fullest and try and enjoy life when the opportunity knocks. She was grateful afterwards for my encouragement and it will be the talk of the trip to her friends.... I enjoyed being out on the lake we stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast. The house was an old colonial and spotless to say the least. You had the run of the whole house. The guys waited on us and gave us a super breakefast no dieting that time. Pumpkin pancakes, homefries, sausage, bacon, fruit cup with a bit of yogurt on top and crumbled granola. Then they had mini muffins, toast, etc..... extras if you wanted it. The tables were set in china. It was beautiful. I enjoyed getting out on the Moose River to kayak after breakfast. I needed to burn a few calories. We did a lot of walking but mostly in and out of little shops. Got a few christmas presents to put away.
Tired sounds like your trying to get a handle on your feelings? That is a good thing! I think writting childrens books would be great fun. Good luck and keep me updated with that. Sometimes we get wrapped up at work with others and their thoughts or feelings. I have tried to stay away from some of that lately. It has been better for me. I am trying to go in do my best for my clients, meet the needs of my job and not get overly in to the rest of it. Sometimes its hard and I have been right in the center of it all before. It just doesn't make for a very happy Carol. It makes me stressed and I overeat! I also need to take in some special treats for myself that are healthy. I didn't overeat this weekend except for breakfast and that took care of two meals for me.
Judy hope your doing well and did we loose everyone else again? Where is Skinny Butt etc.?????????????
Take care and have a good day I am going to try to eat healthy today. On tues. I will work out at the gym..

Morning everyone, well today will be a nice day - I have it off from work. I'm taking every other Monday off, and today is one of them. The room is basically done and the kids are moved in. So DH and I can do whatever we want. Actually, he can't since GF's car is broken and DS1 can't fix it - he's tried for two weeks so now it's time for DH to step in. DS1 starts his senior year at college today. I hope he takes this year seriously since he hasn't since he was a freshman. I don't know what I'm going to do for the day. I think I will take the time to wash all the counters (under the appliances) since it's so dusty here.

Tired, go for you on trying your hand at writing. I think you'll be very good at it. I have to make myself re-edit one of my books and then submit it to an agent. I found an agent I'd like to query, but I really hate rejection. I never started writing with the intention of trying to get published - it was just for me. But there's one manuscript that I really like and have had thoughts about it. Good luck with the writing.

Carol, your weekend sounds wonderful. The bed and breakfast sounds beautiful and I wouldn't have dieted through that breakfast either. Good for you in getting the older woman to go on the ski lift so she could see the beautiful scenery. When I read that, I remembered taking my parents river rafting last year and they're in their upper 70's. At the time I thought I was nuts for doing that, but they still talk about it.

Hi Judy, hope you're doing great.

I will talk with you all later.
Marie

Marie thanks for your kind words. It was a fun time. You should put your book in for review it would be good for someone to take a look. Live everyday to its fullest don't put things off we never know if we don't try! Get into it and take the bull by the horns! Even if it has to go to more than one spot before someone realizes it need to be published. Sometimes they want things rewritten a bit no biggy you won't know unless you try! Good luck with it and keep me in touch with the progress if you go forward.
Tired and Judy hope you having a good start to your week.
I went over a bit on calories yesterday more like 1600 when I recalulated. I bought my lunch and it was chinese good but not that good. Should of taken my own stuff. Oh well should of should of! Today will be different I have preplanned my day. That helps me so much even if I put a change in it in the long run its better!
B=Kashai Cereal 170
S= apple
L=goulash 350/ apple 80
D=grilled steak w/ garlic and onions, sweet squash, baked small potatoe w/ little marg.
yogurt90

Hi all,
Carol, your trip sounds wonderful. Marie, I hope you had a good day off. Judy, I hope things are going well for you.

I'm off today since I have a doctor visit. It's a good thing because I'm exhausted. I worked late last night to catch up.

Good plan
breakfast - cereal and yogurt
lunch - something healthy
dinner - again, something healthy

Hi, all--

Sorry I haven't been checking in. Things have been very busy, more meetings and after-work commitments than usual, but it's all good. My second Pilates class was fine. I tried to take notes, which was hard while stretching out doing the poses, and I can barely understand what I wrote I had a very busy weekend, culminating in nearly finishing up with filing or tossing a backlog of material in my home office. This has been hanging over my head since the spring, so it feels great to know that the end is in sight.

My weight hasn't budged, but I feel lighter, and the pants I'm wearing today are really just too big. Yaay!!! although I do love these pants, we've been through a lot together these past few years.

I'm trying to keep this coming weekend free of commitments so that I can focus on being selfish. I'll be at a conference in Oregon 10/7-12, and in Boston for a few days the following week. In between I'll have lots of work and volunteer projects to move forward, so I want to remember to make the most of my precious free time when I can.

Marie, I hope the move was relatively painless!

Carol, your weekend was lovely!

Tired, get some rest!

judy

Hi everyone,

Well I made it through a day at work - a major accomplishment lately. I truly hate to be there so coming home in a good mood is nice. I'm trying not to let my job ruin the rest of my day. I think it helped that I cut the amount of trazedone that I'm taking so I can sleep through the night down to a quarter of a pill. I wasn't as tired today. Hopefully, a quarter of a pill will continue to work. I hate not sleeping but then I was sleeping during the day too much.

The kids are settled into their room. Everybody is gone right now at either work or school. So I have the house to myself. I plan to ride the exercycle. I got my new Garth Brooks Live in Central Park video in the mail (I ordered it on Amazon) so I'm going to peddle to that. I'll crank the stereo up loud and enjoy the concert. I somehow lost my old copy so I had to buy a new one last week.

It's a beautiful day here. It's sunny and in the seventies. I was outside for a little, but I wanted to write here so I came back in.

Judy, wow!!! Your going to have to retire some clothes. That's a great thing. Enjoy giving to Goodwill. I know I love giving the big clothes away. I hate giving the smaller ones that I grew out of out. I haven't gotten my Pilates machine, but Amazon finally shipped it yesterday.

Tired, I hope the dr. visit went ok and that you got some rest today. I had yesterday off and slept for 3 hours in the middle of the afternoon. As I mentioned earlier, I needed to tweak the trazedone amount. I was sleeping too much. I feel much better today. I hope you do too.

Carol, I will start re-editing the manuscript tonight. If at some point you want to read it, just PM me your email and I'll send it to you. And 1600 calories isn't that much. I think I'm staying around that at this point. I'm not losing but I'm not gaining. Right now, I'm aiming at maintaining, then when I'm not as sleepy and feeling better, I will get back on a more rigid calorie limit. For now, maintaining is all I can do. That and exercise.

I brought my lightbox to work - didn't get to use it today but I did set it up at the end of the day, so tomorrow I'm going to start using it again. It's close enough to October for using it. And I've been a bit depressed lately (although not today - again I think it's the trazedone thing).

Well, I'll chat with you tomorrow.
Marie

Hi all. Judy, I did get some rest today since I had a medical apt. I wasn't sure about the results - but the conclusion was that there was nothing wrong! Terrific! Funny, I didn't think it was bothering me but when the doc told me there was nothing to worry about I felt relieved. Must have been some worry back there somewhere.

So I rested a bit the rest of the day and then did the usual p/u and drop-off routine. It went like this p/u at school, p/u soccer supplies at store, go to soccer, go home to find one son is still not home, go to high school to p/u - he's not there, after a phone call or two I locate him (he was fine), drop off at football, p/u at party, p/u at football and now I'm writing. Crazy schedule but I'm glad that the boys are involved in so many healthy activities - it's good for them. What's best is that so many great adult coaches and supervisors are involved too - really makes where I live seem like the "village" one refers to when they say "it takes a village."

I've really got to get on track. Last year I read the Dr. Phil book about weight loss (I recommend it) and he said to throw out all those old "fat" clothes and I did - now I'm squeezing (literally) into last fall and winter's newer skinnier clothes. Not all is lost as I can still squeeze into them (provided I have the right undergarments on), but I want to enjoy wearing those clothes and not buy bigger ones. I want to be slim enough that I don't feel the flab - what a relief that would be.

today's eating wasn't great though but I'll post
- nuts
-cereal/milk/yogurt
- very healthy smoothie (strawberry, nonfat yogurt, banana, low fat milk) - this was the single best food for helping me lose weight last year. Non fat milk and yogurt really help with weight loss.
- glass of red wine (good benefits as long as you drink only one)
The nuts put me over the cal. limit unfortunately. Back to work and healthy eating tomorrow. I've got my Brazil trip (April) and 25th college reunion (I'd love for those old boyfriends to see a slimmer (sexier) me!!!!! What fun that would be)

Hope you're all doing well. Hope I can be a better team mate on this journey in the coming weeks.

Take care.

Judy sounds like you deserve a break this weekend. Your one busy lady! My daughter does a lot of volunteer work as well. She does thing for the Peace Council. Last week she did photo's for the anti war protest. I told her not to get arrested and she informed me what she does is not illegal. Thank goodness! Your most likely losing inches and thats not a bad thing.
Marie that medicine your right can make you really sleepy. Cutting back isn't a bad thing as long as you can still sleep at night. Sounds like your trying to get a handle on work. What kind of work do you do ? Only answer if you want to no presure I just wondered.

Tired your village sounds like a great place to raise kids. Being involved with the social events and sports keeps you busy. I reflect often to the days when my son played football. The games in the mud, snow, rain you name it. But the memories are positive ones and I enjoy having them. I hope your feeling better. Reading that Dr. Phil might not be a bad thing to do. I always have to look back on some readings to keep myself motivated. Sometimes we get sick with just having our weather switch seasons. I am off today from work I have a doctors appt. for my big squeeze its that time again. Then I have to go to another appt. So off I am but busy. I am taking my workout clothes and going to finally stop at the gym.
I noticed my intake yesterday was off I actually felt hungry really hungry. I looked back this a.m. and I think it was from having pasta. That is an area I cut way down on and it made me really crave more foods..... I will see today if I feel differently. Pasta is going back on the bottom of my list if so. It was the only differnce I have added in lately.
hAVE GREAT DAY EVERYONE!

Carol, I'm a database manager and web master for a school district. I really like the work, but schools are so cheap that it's frustrating. Like right now I'm trying to set up a message board and "they" want it to be a free one. So I'm trying to make MYSQL, PHP, and PERL work on our webserver. Oh, I can't reboot the webserver since it's being used by others. So make it work without rebooting - very frustrating. I wanted to install this bulletin board program (since I'm so familiar with it) but it was $110 for the license. No, no, no. Use a free one. I'm so frustrated since freeware has no support documentation. Anyway, it's just 8 hours out of my day... I will get it to work, but I'll probably mess up the webserver in the mean time.

Tired, good luck fitting into the clothes. I know why Dr. Phil says to get rid of the old clothes but it's not very economical. Maintaining is hard when you've been overweight all your life. I decided to keep my old stuff that I brought this spring because you never know. If nothing else I can try it on next spring and enjoy watching them fall off my body. BTW, I don't know about you, but if I'm wearing tight, uncomfortable clothes, I feel fat and that makes me eat. If you're like me, I'd suggest buying a few comfortable outfits until you gain total control again.

Carol, I love pasta and it's my main type of food that I like to eat. I read your post and thought, no, I couldn't give it up. But it's not protein so it probably would be a good idea. I just know that I could do it. I love pasta so much that I have my own pasta machine. Lately spaghetti is a constant craving.

Okay, back to my webserver problems. TTYL.
Marie

Marie wow your job thank goodness is only 8 hrs. I used to work at a school district myself about 7 years ago. We had to fight for every little raise. Good luck! I agree pasta tastes so good. But with South Beach it was pretty limited and then afterwards I had adjusted to not having it very often. Homemade oh my would be so good. I would have to limit myself or I'd eat it all! I still carry with me some of the ideas of south beach even though I don't really follow all of it. I have decided to create my own dieting and so far I am doing okay. I take a little info. from different diets and just do my own thing oh and with counting calories. Years ago I did fiber and fat counting it was called the Tfactor diet. I still have the book and reflect on the info. once in awhile. We all lose differently and therefore need to find out what makes us tick and what works for us. I know preplanning is another biggy for me. I need to think ahead of time to make it all work out in the end. I still love fried haddock and a few fries. I know that I can have what ever I want in moderation and counting. Thats what I like by doing it this way. Good luck!
Tired hope your having a good week.
Judy hows that exercise class going?
I have been skipping out on the gym. Yesterday I had every intention then got groceries with my sister inlaw after my appt. Well I had to come right home to put the meats away. I live a bit far out with gas prices to go back in. My meeting went well it was a Comp. meeting about the loss in my wrist. I had carpal tunnel surgery in 2003. I went in without a lawyer. It was a bit scary but it went smooth. I hate any type of meeting like that. I just used a poker face and answered the questions. In the end it went fine and to think I almost canceled. Good thing I didn't. But I think I was a bit stressed about it and maybe thats where my weird eating came from this week. I just ate differently than I have been maybe it wasn't the pasta after all?
Have a good day! I made stuffed cabbage last night ahead of time to plug the crockpot in this a.m. and let them simmer all day. Thats one nice thing about fall weather we tend to use the crock pot. Its nice to come home to a meal waiting for us.

Good to hear from everyone. Lots of good advice. Still struggling here. It's amazing how easy it is to back track. I'll move forward again though - hopefully soon. Take care.

Very quickly: I'm home sick for the second day with something very like the flu: dizzy, sore throat and inner ears. I've had somelow-lying sinus headache for several days, so maybe it's turning into a sinus infection. But I'm doing a fair amount of work, and on the phone a lot, between naps.

I have to get on a conference call in a few minutes, so I'll back for personals later on. But Carol, I did want to say that I was at the protest, too. Maybe your daughter snapped a picture of me!

judy

Hi. Judy I hope you'll go to a doctor if you continue to feel bad - sinus infections can be bad news and meds clear them up quickly.

October 1 is a good day to start fresh. It's supposed to be a low key weekend here so I hope to get organized. Take care all.

Judy, I hope you feel better. Seems like a lot of people I know are getting colds/flu already this year. Take it easy and don't work too hard.

Tired, good luck on getting a fresh start. Enjoy the relaxed weekend.

Carol, good for you standing up well in the meeting. Those types of things can be very intimidating. Sounds like you did great.

Well today we're going into town to buy supplies for the shed. All of the stuff in the front garage (kid's addition) is stuffed into DH's workshop/garage so we're going to build a shed. Oh, what fun. So we're going to go shopping at Home Depot. I swear we're they're best customers. I need to stop at Walmart since last month I ran out of TOM supplies and forgot about it. Guess who's visiting...

Work was okay on Thursday and Friday. Today is better since I don't have to work at all.

Other than that, I'm just plugging along. TTYL.
Marie

Feeling a little better today, thanks. I lingered in bed, dozing and finishing "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" until almost noon. I'm not as dizzy as I have been, but the vague ache in my sinuses is still there, and maybe a bit of post-nasal drip. I keep threatening to go to the clinic, but I don't feel quite sick enough to go...but since I have to fly to Seattle on Friday, I do need to for whatever this is to be gone.

Carol, the Pilates class is only one day a week. I'm not sure that it's enough for me to really learn to do the moves on my own. Plus I haven't worked out at all since Tuesday. The class is fine, the other ladies are nice and the instructor keeps things moving. I love stuffed cabbage, by the way. My mom used to make it when I was a kid. I've been thinking about buying a crockpot. I love things like beef stew when the weather turns chill.

Marie, I love pasta, too, but I rarely eat it now, since I can consume mass quantities of it and not feel full. I figured out that one of the reasons I love pasta is that I love tomato sauce. Last night I made "meatball surprise"--precooked turkey meatballs I simmered in a rich sauce and served over spaghetti squash--and that does the trick for me.

Yeah, Tired, it's a new month, a great way to start anew. My weight loss is stuck again, so I'm not going to reach my Columbus Day mini-goal of 222. So I'll focus on a new "micro-goal" of 225 by October 16. Have you thought about what you want to accomplish this month?

I hope everyone is having a positive weekend. Stay centered!

judy