Hey girl....

You're right--Florida is LOUSY with New Yawkers! Especially right now!

And I agree--Catherine did awesome last night. But my man, Tayor, was fabulous as well! I think it's either Melissa or Kevin (a/k/a Chicken Little) that will go tonight.

Hey Gals... just wanted to let yah'll know I'm still alive! I've been busy with work, spending time with Josh.. and getting a darn appointment to get my toe fixed. I am going today... I will work for 2.5 hours, get surgery on my toenail and then return to work for 5 more hours. Aren't you all jealous? I will let yah know how it went either tonight or tomorrow after work.. I'm sure it'll be fine.. I'm just crazy nervous. I'm soaking it now so maybe they'll say it's fine... I am a dreamer! Talk to yah'll later!

-Aimee

Well, I lived, and it wasn't as bad as I thought. The needle itself was worse than I thought actually.. but it's all done. Josh was there to hold my hand thankgoodness... so I get to hear tales of what the doctor did. Eek! One more shift left of work.. I shall post more when things are so hectic on this end!

-Aimee

Thank goodness I havent had any foot ailments (knock on wood!) Sounds painful!

So far, I'm doing well on the liquid diet. I haven't been off plan at all for three days in a row (some kind of record for me!) This morning, the scale shows me down 6.5 lbs from Monday. It's pretty common with a diet like this to lose really big the very first week, since most of it is water.

Jen, my neighborhood here in Brooklyn is lousy with native Californians (including me). They come here, and the New Yorkers go to Florida. Ha. Do you think Taylor will dye his hair? I'd be sad to see the gray go.

Congrats on sticking with the liquid diet and losing the weight. I'm right in the middle of TOM so, well, that's that!!

Hey, Aimee. I can't believe you have to work 5 hours after having toe surgery. You're going to have to play crane and keep one food in the air. Josh is a good guy (here in Brooklyn we say "mensch").

I hurt the muscle in my Achilles tendon about a year ago and it was painful to walk, took forever to get rid of that. Hurt like ****.

Well, better get some work done, the day goes fast.

Oh man! I just looked at my toe! The nail looks so slender, I should get this done more often It's really not THAT gross either, but definitely not something I want to repeat..

Jill - they did put two needles, and the guy put one in, and then turned it.. Josh said it almost came out the other side.. they were both pretty painful.

Marge - He's a good boy He took offf the bandage for me, I just couldn't handle looking at it at first.

I may have repeated most of what I've said before.. I'm just crazy right now!

Jen - congrats on the weight loss

I am off to work... my last shift for 5 weeks!

-Aimee

Ooooh, free woman. When do you leave for your brother's, Aimee? Your talk of toe-jammin' needles made my toes curl.

Wednesday, when Howie and I walked at Dawes arboretum, this one particularly nasty hill kicked my and I begged off finishing the walk with him. Instead, I stopped at the half-way point and enjoyed about a half hour of just sitting on a little island, listening to the water lap against the rocks and watching the Canada geese and ducks swim. It was very windy, but the sun was out and I had on my warm coat (thank you yet again, Land's End!).

Today we took the same trails, but in the opposite direction. So, the -kicking hill was a downhill walk for me. The other hills were more gradual and I was able to walk the whole time with Howie. We walked for a little over an hour. Gosh, it felt good.

Tonight we went on a Mystery Guest secret shop at Smokey Bones restaurant in Columbus. We split an entree of sliced smoked turkey and 1/4 BBQ chicken along with steamed asparagus and green beans. We also got two tomato, cucumber & onion salads with feta cheese and white balsamic vinegar. The salads were HUGE - we could have split one of them. It was a wonderful meal and we'll be reimbursed for it. Yippee.

Tomorrow I'm setting my drafting table up in our office, re-arranging the other furniture. We're going to put in adjustable shelving so I can have an area to work on crafts and artwork. I sit in this recliner and get complacent, just putter around online and don't do anything creative at home. That's changing. Tomorrow. The recliner's going out in the living room and I'm going to do some living in our office.

Sounds like a plan, Kimberley! It helps to have the right set-up furniture wise to get the most creativity out of you!

Smokey Bones is a great restaurant! They have a chicken portabello wrap that is quite tasty!

Someone brought donuts today and it is taking all my willpower to stay away. I'm NOT gonna let it get to me, though!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day Guess what's happening in NY? That's right! a parade. And next month there will be another parade. New Yorkers like their parades. heh heh.

Enjoy those 5 weeks, Aimee. Yahoo! At least the toe ordeal is basically behind you now.

Kimberley, it all sounds good. I can't wait until it warms up a little here so we can get out more. The sun is so bright today. Rob has a pepper plant he keeps inside the bedroom window and it's sprouting veggies this week, because of all the extra sun. I love it.

We went out to lunch today, got a couple of movies (do you see a pattern forming? heh heh), did a little shopping, took a short walk. I need to spend some time learning to cook fish. We eat very little fish and I think that would be a good change for our diets. We get into food ruts pretty easily.

Have a good one! (the new deli down the street is selling green bagels today, heh)

I am down to 199 again! It was teetering between 199 and 200 so I'm going for 199.

We walked today, but I pooped out early. If you take the circuit one direction, it's not too bad. This direction today, though, kicks my heiney. My knee started having sharp pains with each step on one particular incline. I just couldn't do it, so I sat in the sun at a picnic table and awaited the van. Actually, by the time he came around to get me, I was stretched out on top of the table, almost dozing off. Gosh the sun felt good.

I've got a killer headache and think I'll lie down for a while before tackling any furniture re-arrangement.

YAY Kimberley! Welcome back to ONEderland!!

Woohoo Kimberley!

Marge - I'm strangely nervously excited.. my stomach hurts! I gotta remember to breathe!

Well I am off to Seattle! Talk to you all in a day or two!

-Aimee

Good Sunday morning!!

It is a beautiful day here in FL. Headed to see some friends in a bit. TOM has arrived, bringing three extra pounds with him--the JERK!! LOL

Well, not tryin' to jump on Jen's bandwagon or anything, but I bought another pack of Slim Fast Optima today (Rich Chocolate Royale). I have been WAY off plan lately, and with the whole calorie cycling thing, I'd ended up not eating ANYTHING all day and then coming home and just eating dinner with Jeff in order to lower my calories enough to balance out the insanely high-cal days--NOT a good plan, but it's happened on multiple occasions. To get myself out of this cycle without going to the extreme opposite end (stuffing my face all day long), I'm going to try having a Slim Fast for breakfast and another for lunch and then still have a normal dinner with Jeff at home (I believe that was the original Slim Fast plan, actually...from the commercials: "I grab a shake for breakfast, another for lunch, and then a sensible dinner!" Good advertising if I remember that ). I looked for the AdvantEdge shakes (since they only have 100 calories each), but they didn't have chocolate (I'm afraid to try the French Vanilla or Strawberry--I've only ever had luck with chocolate shakes in the past), so I got these instead. The Rich Chocolate Royale have 190 cals each, and the other chocolate flavor I got have 180. I don't want to use them for too long, though, since they apparently have some trans fats hidden in there (hydrogenated soybean oil is one of the ingredients, so I KNOW there's trans fats even if the label says 0 since they don't have to include it in the label if it's less than .5g).

One thing I noticed was that I went into Fitday to put the shakes in as a custom food. It says on the label that they have Vitamin K, but there's no place to put Vitamin K in Fitday, but then when I go to the report for my nutrition for the day, it says I have zero Vitamin K Guess it's not the most reliable report--oh well, at least I KNOW I actually am getting most of my vitamins, even if it doesn't show up in Fitday.

Jen--Yeah, TOM is a jerk, but if you were already down over 6 pounds, then an extra 3 for a few days shouldn't be too bad

Aimee--Hope you're LOVING Seattle!

Congrats on getting yourself back into ONEderland so quickly, Kimberley!