Good morning everyone on an overcast day here in Sydney.

We had a great weekend, went to the cooking course on Saturday which was a lot of fun and we learnt quite a bit. I have heard you all talk about tuna steaks but had never tasted them, well they were very yummy. We still don't like mussels but I didn't mind the calamari (or squid) (dh loves calamari )
Sunday we went for a drive and for a walk in a National Park near the harbour and we bumped in some people we knew in Adelaide, what a small world!

Ann Your party sounded like a lot of fun. I am not familiar with the characters you dressed up in, tell me more

Someone asked about a 'mini series' for WW. I don't attend WW but used to many years ago. I think it is a good idea so you can really explore the different topics. Some would only need the one meeting but others could certainly benefit from a lengthier discussion and make going to meetings a lot more interesting.

Have a great day/night all,
Cheers
Maria

Karen: I like they way they are doing the meetings now. You get more input I think.

Ann: Your party sounded so fun!

Maria: Squid, Yuck! My DH loves it also. But I just cant eat it. Think its to rubbery

Peggy: Platoon Leader? I dont go to ediets very often. Is it a challenge or what?

Best get busy. Have a good day!

I'm glad you guys like the idea. I think it's going to be a once in while thing. Self-esteem is so important that I'm glad this is the first on we are having to tackle.

Ann- I've always told my members that we weight fruits and vegetables the way we buy them with skins and peels. But I did e-mail my Trainer to ask her for sure. I'll get back to you on what she says.
Karen

Hi Everybody Another weekend over. My DIL's kids were in a dance recital from the school she teaches in. DH, son, and our grandchildren all went to the concert hall to see the kids. She had 7 different classes dancing and the little kids were so cute. One of her classes is a group of 3 year old little girls, that were just adorable. Everything was just lovely. She did just an excellent job with the teaching, and choosing the the fabric and designs for the costumes. She is one smart little cookie....happy she is "MY" DIL.
Karen I don't actually remember our WW Leaders talking about weighing fruits or vegs with skin on or off, but I remember one time our Leader told us that sometimes Kiwi and the Christmas oranges are so small that you get 2 for 1. She called them "two-ffers". She said when buying them in the Supermarket just weigh a couple and you will know which would be "two-ffers". LOL LOL I know by that, she did not mean we should peel the fruit in the Supermarket.
Maria the cooking class sounds like it was a lot of fun. I like almost all seafood......in fact I was trying to think if there was anything I didn't like, but I don't think so.
We quite often have mussels (when we can find them in the market). I just take about 2 lbs of the mussels and put them in a 5 qt. pot with 1/2 cup of white wine (or water) with 2 tbsp diced celery, and 2 tbsp diced onion. Cover, and steam over high heat until mussels open (about 5 to 8 min). You can squeeze fresh lemon juice over the mussels if you want and serve with melted butter for dipping. I don't know how you had the mussels, but these are great when steamed like this. YIKES.....I saw some at the market a couple of days ago and now that is exactly what I feel like having. I am going out to Costco with Trudy and her DH later on, maybe I'll see if we can stop and pick some up. I'm not doing as well with my weight loss this week, and that would be a perfect thing for me have for dinner this evening. (ok ok maybe not the melted butter)
Well gals, my ironing is calling me, so I better get to it. I'll stop in later. Bye now.

Hi Everybody
Boy all Maria had to do was mention the word "Mussels" and guess what we are having for dinner this everning. They had them at Costco. LOL

G'day all,

Slavika I am glad I spurred you on to have some mussels, rather you than me!!!!! In our cooking class they were cooked on the BBQ with a butter sauce. I will bring in the recipe and post it for you, what I remember it was predominantly butter, great for loosing those unwanted pounds
I didn't realise that you should only use 'live' mussels and that if you find one open, a tap on the bench will tell you if they are alive or not by if the shell closes or not, I guess you all knew that but it was news to dh and I.
The concert sounded lovely, made me remember the many concerts/plays/sporting events etc we attended when our kids were little

Lily I agree, squid yuck but.....I now know that cooking them very quickly they taste OK. The lecturer told us that there are three stages of cooking squid, quick = tender, too long = rubber bands, really long as in baking stuffed squid = tender again. Now I am merely passing on what I have been told She also said when cleaning squid to preserve the ink sack, it is used to colour risotto and it always gives it a 'wonderful' taste, again I am just passing on information I was told........

Karen I agree self-esteem, I think, is THE most important thing. I know I joke about my 'work' but this doing nothing all day does very little for the self esteem. I am pleased that I do not have to pretend to be busy and that they are more than pleased for me to bring in my own laptop. Discovering the tutorials on the net is really 'saving' me, and I now feel I am back on track again.

Talking about tutorials, I must get back to them
Have a great day
Cheers
Maria

Hi: Maria- Our party was based on the little town of Dogpatch, in the southern Mts, Whaat we would call hilbillys. It came from a comic strip written by Al Capp, and had lots of funny characters. He actually was quite political in some of his strips, and poked fun at the establishment a lot. If you want to read a bit more about it go to www.dogpatchusa.com and you can read all about them. It was a lot of fun, and I think everyone had a good time.

Karen: Thanks for checking. It just seems strange to me to weigh something and count points for skin that y ou don't eat.

Lily: I/m with y ou, Squid-yuck Rubbery, And even if it was cooked to be tender, it would still have that fishy taste that I don't like.

Got to go chata with my DD on line. Talk to you all tomorrow. Ann

I was home yesterday, not feeling so well, when I watched one of the last shows for Sally Jessie Raphael. She had Richard Simmons on and talked about the people he has helped on the show. I saw several of the extremely obese people. O dear! Whenever you feel that you can't lose weight or that it is so difficult, we should just feel so blessed not to have 500 pounds or so to lose. That is always such a shock and I feel so extremely sorry for them and grateful they have someone who might help them.

Maria - all your seafood sounds yucky! The idea of boiling something alive is just creepy. Some of you souls are so adventurous!

My DH had his 62nd birthday on Friday. He will work 3 more years so it wasn't "that" birthday. I took him to Tulsa and we shopped and ate out and went to a movie. Had a good time!
Glenda

at least in my honest opinion. I don't like mussels either. But Maria cooking lessons sound like a fun thing to do together. Are you taking any more? Ann are you glad your dogpatch party is over? What's your next adventure? You are always doing something fun. It is so pretty today after a nasty cold day yesterday. I am planting the flowers I bought over the weekend. Can't decide where to put all of them. Hope it is still not too early. We had to have a big maple tree cut down last week. It was in the front yard and now it looks so bare. I want to plant another tree but can't till next year when they get finished widening the street. I was thinking of a dogwood. Lily the Diet War was a challenge. I do an Olympic Challenge every three weeks. It is helping the pounds come off slowly. On the off week we do something else and this time it was a diet war. It is fun but I am more of a follower rather than a leader. I admire Karen to be able to get up in front of people and motivate them. That is hard work. Glenda and Slavika and Trudy, Hi. See you all later, I am going outside.

Better Than Sex Cake
servings 20
estimated POINTS per serving 3

1 yellow Jiffy cake mix (25)
8 oz ff cream cheese (8)
1 large box sf vanilla pudding mix (8)
2 cups skim milk (4)
20 oz can crushed pineapple, drained (4)
8 oz tub ff cool whip (8)

Prepare cake mix as directed & spread in 9 x 13 pan.
Bake about 15 min.
While cake is baking, mix pudding mix, milk, & cream cheese; and allow
to set in fridge.
Once cake has cooled, top with pudding mixture (you may
have to mix it a little when you take it out of the fridge to make it
smooth), then top with pineapple, then top with cool whip.
Store in the fridge.
Cut into 20 pieces.

Special Notes:
Total points 57 divided by 20 = 2.85pts, I rounded up to 3.

Also, if you can't find Jiffy cake mix you could probably use half of a
regular yellow cake mix (it needs to be a thin cake to allow for the
other layers) and make cupcakes out of the left over cake mix, but
you'll have to refigure the points.

G'day all,

A beautiful sunny autumn day here today. Being the first of May, May marches are planned and walking into work this morning it was noticable that there is already quite a police presence
The stock exchange building, a few buildings down from where I am, is one of the main targets.

Peggy thanks for the recipe, another one to file away for when I am home permanently It was good fun doing the cooking course but we haven't planned any more....yet! Our next thing is doing our basic 4x4 wheel drive course on 18 & 19 May and the advanced one on 1 & 2 June. Haven't planned anything after that.

Glenda I so agree with you when you see really obese people , makes the pounds I need to loose all a bit trivial.
I was horrified when I found out the mussels were alive when thrown onto a hot bbq plate but I guess crayfish, prawns, yabbies etc are all cooked alive in boiling water, I just don't want to see it!

Slavika I looked up the recipe for the sauce with the mussels, it is really only 100gr of butter, 2 cloves of garlic and chives. The people who liked the mussels, raved about the sauce which made me think it was a bit more special than what it actually was

have a great day all
Cheers
Maria

Hi everyone;
Interesting that so many of us think squid is like eating a rubber band.:

Maria: were the marches on May 1 as you expected? Your cooking classes do sound like a nice thing to do together.

Slavika: Did you enjoy your mussels? There is a restaurant near us that fixes mussels, and my dh likes them. I have tasted them, but they don't do a thing for me. I'll take shrimp any day.

Trudy: Haven't heard from you in a while. Hope all is well.

Glenda: I agree with you when I see someone who is so obese. Even just starting to want to lose weight has got to be very difficult for them. Richard Simmons has helped a lot of people. There is a young man in our church who was forced to lose weight if he wanted to live. I think he was over 400 lbs. And he has worked at it faithfully and what a difference. Much improvement in his health.

Peggy: Did you get the plants all put out? I would like to set out a few more, but it is so dry here right now that it is a losing battle.

Hope eveyone is doing well. Talk to you tomorrow. Ann

This must be a busy time of year. The postings are light. Maria must be working hard. Nothing too exciting is going on here either. I went to Indiana and bought a lot of plants. Then it got cold so I put them on the porch. Then it got warmer so I planted them. It seems like it rains every other day. At least it is nice and green. I am going up to Dayton today with a friend. Glenda I saw a huge woman in the grocery store the other day. She was in a riding cart. I was getting in my car when she was getting in her van. She could hardly walk. That makes me thankful that I can. She was in front of me in line and she was also cranky. See you all later. Can you beleive that it is May already? Peggy

Peggy - When you see a really morbidly obese person, you get a new perspective on weight, don't you? I think I have always been sort of a shallow person, noticing what people have on and their hair, etc. But lately (as the years roll by) I have noticed when doing the people watching how many people have trouble walking, just walking. And then (we eat out a lot) I notice how many truly overweight people eat such huge meals and have trouble walking into a restaurant. Just a different perspective on losing weight as the health part of it seems to be so much more important than the small size clothes now. I truly want to be able to walk and do things with my husband and grandchildren. It is such a blessing!

All, you will truly understand a blessing that is going on in my life right now! I have you all and another website that I have made friends on--my ovarian cancer website. I have known some people there for years and years, but never met them face to face. Well on May 13th one of my friends from Tennessee is coming through Oklahoma in a motorhome and is making a 2-hour detour to come to Stillwater to meet me! We will take them out to eat and visit. My husband thinks I am bizarre to be so excited, but I truly believe there are some people you would be friends with if you just knew them anywhere. I would be greatly excited to meet any of you too.
Glenda

Glenda that is so exciting. I am happy for you and your friend to meet. I would love to meet all of you. Especially at Slavika's at tea time.