Hi ladies,

I have been eating so badly this week. March is always hard for me. I think it's because by now I am so fed up with Winter and this year it doesn't look like the winter is going anywhere. I also had a few problems and my hormones have been acting up. Ah well, I should have a fun weekend. Here's the thing:

Am I the only one here who gets slightly depressed over fun weekends since I know I'll eat not as healthy as I should? I hate thinking this way, but I sometimes let the guilt ruin my good time. I wish I didn't think like that.

JK: I have found exercise so much more meaningful having goals that are none weight related. At first exercise was all about losing weight, now it's about having fun etc and working towards the goal. When I exercised while losing weight I could be as slow or as tired as I wanted, now since I want to perform well I have to eat more, means the weight loss has slowed down. Ah well, not a bad thing.

Belle: I like talking about baby stuff too. I went to a baby shower this weekend. I LOVED shopping for it, so much fun. I am so happy for that friend since she has PCOS and they didn't think she'd be able to, but now she's less than a month away from giving birth.

Cheers!

Ali

Ah, I love miracles like that. My best friend tried forever too. they has some firtility probs but after a year got pg. The baby was born on my wedding day (you might recall). I saw her last night she is SUPER smiley (moreso with DH than with me) and happy.

Well, we have a baby of sorts for the weekend. A baby Basset Hound - Horton (after Tim). He is coming from Sat- Sun. It think it's a great test run for our old dog to see if she likes haveing a puppy around. If she really doesn't, we might wait til she is gone to bring in a new dog. But if she seems to like a buddy, we might get one while I am on mat leave. Barney has been gone for almost a year (March 24 is a year!) and I think we're both ready to introduce a new dog into the family. But we'll see how it goes first!

Ali, I do get depressed re: fun weekends that will def involve eating out or just plain eating. I guess it does sort of suck that we think that way, but you know, it's just one of those things that we'll have to deal with in our life-long struggle. Your comment did make me think - I dont' know how it feels to have summer approach and not worry about wearing shorts, tanks and swimsuits!

I have to run but BBL...

Yesterday was a sugarfest and today I'm paying for it HEADACHE! I had a meeting this AM which was bull and did some cleaning last night
in re to the baby topic While I'm not ready for momdom in the least I like hearing about small pink things that gurgle they're sweet!
bbl

Hey guys - I saw this article today, and I thought it was fitting for us. Note that all the quotations were upside down question marks, but I am not going to fix them...darn MSN!

The healing power of female friendships
07/03/2005 12:05:14 PM

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New studies are providing strong evidence that female friendships are vital to a woman's health and may well prolong her life.


By Kathy English (Homemakers)

Gail Gillespie and Jane Lang share that kind of bond. The two Peterborough, Ont., school teachers met 13 years ago when they were both assigned to the same school. As Lang, 55, tells it, the two ?just clicked? and a great friendship was born. The women have stood by each other through many crises, including the deaths of Gillespie's parents and the end of Lang's marriage. This past summer they faced their greatest crisis together when Lang was diagnosed with a rare form of skin cancer. ?The skin doctor basically told me to go home and die,? says Lang.

Gillespie, 51, now a school principal, was devastated. ?It was horrible, awful. I've lost both my parents and my husband's parents but I've never experienced anything like how I felt when I found out what the doctor told Jane,? she says.

But neither of these strong women was about to give up without a fight. Much of their teacher's summer off was spent on the highway driving between Peterborough and Oshawa with Gillespie at the wheel delivering her friend to countless medical appointments.

Gillespie regarded all of the time spent with doctors and lab technicians simply as ?our appointments? and makes it clear that there was ?nothing noble and nothing kind? about what she did for her friend. ?She's so important to me, so perhaps a part of being with her was selfish as well. This level of friendship simply transcends.? And, it seems this story has a happy ending. By summer's end, Lang's prognosis was positive, with surgeons telling her they believe they have removed all cancerous cells.

Toronto individual and couples therapist Carole-Anne Vatcher routinely seeks to find out if her clients have good friends in their lives, because she is certain those who do have ?much better coping skills.? ?I have the sense that women's friendships help keep them sane,? she says.

Certainly many women would agree with this. ?I can say with absolute certainty that my best friend Heidi has likely helped me stave off several bouts of depression and insanity in my time,? says Vancouver writer Gwendolyn Richards, 26. ?No matter what crisis I am going through ? and believe me, I seem to go through a lot of them ? I can call her and she will calm me down. If she is away and we have no contact, I feel like my arm has been cut off.?

Over the course of our lives, our friendships with other women become increasingly important. As we move into our middle ages, the only sure thing we can expect is change and challenges ? illness, divorce, the empty nest, our parents' deaths. ?It is our friends who keep us anchored and grounded amid the sea of changes within us and around us,? says Patricia Gottlieb Shapiro in her book Heart to Heart: Deepening Women's Friendships at Midlife (Berkley Publishing Group, 2001).

While scientific and anecdotal evidence leaves little doubt that connections with other women are immensely important, time-crunched women often feel duty-bound to push friendship to the back-burner of their lives in order to juggle work and family pressures. ?Women can't help but see friendships as the ?treat? they can allow themselves only after the business of the day is done ? if it's done,? write Goodman and O'Brien.

Taylor hopes her research into women and stress will convince women how important it is to commit time and energy to their friendships. ?Friends should not be something we attend to after everything else is done. If we don't make a strong effort to build friendship into our lives we won't have the protection, solace and support we need.?

Perhaps we could all take a few lessons in tending and befriending from Margaret Campbell of Alliston, Ont., who celebrated her 90th birthday in August with her dear friend Winnifred ? her friend for more than 80 years ? at her side. The women met in Sunday school sometime around the second grade and though Winnifred and her sister moved to the U.S. in their teen years, they've remained close through most of the 20th century. For many years they visited each other annually. Campbell says Winnifred always showed up to support her through the good and bad times of her life ? her wedding (Winnifred was a bridesmaid), the birth of her children, the death of one of her children and the loss of her husband when she was 62. ?At times, we've been busy with our own lives, but we've always kept in touch, always phoned and sent Christmas and birthday cards,? says Campbell. ?I think we just became a part of each other and now we're bonded for life. It's like having an anchor to the past. We've both just turned 90 and now we've decided we're going to head for 100 together.?

So what are you waiting for? Go call a girlfriend now. You'll definitely feel better. And you might add years to your life.

Hey all, Sorry I haven't been around. I've got a nasty cold BTW the Billy Klippert & Soul Decision concert was awesome on Tuesday! After the show Billy took me & my friends and DH into the green room backstage and he gave us a little private concert of three more songs! He did it to thank us for being such devoted fans! What a super nice guy! Anyway not much else going on. I've been feeling lousy ever since & so has DH. We're both sick yet I have to be the functional one b/c he thinks he's dying or something! Argh. I hate men when they're sick-such babies. Luckily I haven't had to miss work yet. It has been horribly slow this week and so treating one or two clients a day was manageable. I'm off today & the weekend. No plans, just resting. Well that's not true we're still dealing with the stupid car insurance people and need to go test drive some vehicles this weekend. Its exciting to get a brand new car when we've never ever had a brand new one. We've been doing research on the net and think we're going to get a Hyundai Accent. Not the cutest car but very functional and amazing gas mileage and a nice low price. We'll see though how it test drives. I'm pretty tall and some of those sompact cars have limited headroom and I hate that. We'll see.

Ali, congrats on ring shopping!

Belle, thanks for sharing that article. I think we knew it all along just didn't have the science to back us up hey? Enjoy the gorg weather in Calgary today! I'm jealous!

Kier, hope you're h.a. goes away.

Well I'm off to do my books up while I lay on the couch and watch a moive. SOunds fun but when you'd rather be up and outside it sucks.

Hey gals,

Sorry I haven't been around a lot lately. We ended up having an offer we put on a house get accepted and we signed the purchase and sales agreement today. Now the buyer just has to sign. I'm very excitied

Midterms were this week and I finished them up last night. I get 2 days without having to think about schoolwork (yay!). Tomorrow night we are going to my SIL's house. Muy neice's 1st b'day was March 1st. The party is this Sunday, but we're going up there the night before. Its a 2 hour drive. Should be interesting. My nephew is 2 1/2, and SIL is having some medical problems (she has to have surgery in April). She asked me to come up and help her out for a few days after her surgery, so I'm going to be going up there again next month for that.

Aside from that, work is hectic. I gave two workshops this week. Yep! I was the teacher, and all my students were at least a decade older than me haha I was only supposed to give one, but that went so well that I ended up giving another one yesterday.

Hope you all are doing well, I don't have any more tie to write unfortunately. I'm hoping I can catch up with the threads tomorrow.

I had to include this for Rina-

I used to have a Kia. Kia and Hyundai are owned by the same company. I HATED that car. It had so many problems. I will NEVER EVER buy a Kia again. I think Kias and Hyundais are supposed to have gotten better over the past couple of years, but I suggest you try the Consumer Report website first if you are thinking of a Hyundai.

Thanks Lori,

We checked the Consumer Report website but it costs money to learn anything. We did find several other sites that are free that give consumer info that is supposedly non-biased. They all had good things to say about it. Its such a huge decision. Hopefully we're making the right one. Anyway we're going to test drive some vehicles tomorrow. Should be interesting.

Congrats on the house! Very exciting! Have a nice trip too.

Hey ladies, just a quickie before I run home before heading to the plant. I normally don't run home before heading in, but TOM started (surprise!!) and I've made quite a mess. You'd think that by now, I wouldn't have problems like these, but of course I do. And of course, I have it on the weekend that Top-Secret-Work-Boy is leaving for Canada, so that puts a major damper on my plans. (Sorry, I know that whole paragraph was way more info than anyone wanted).

Since I'm not sure where TSWB and I are heading (there's been some talk of us getting together in Canada in May), I've also been crushing on this other guy, Mr. Really Hot Butt. He's gorgeous and has a really nice body. I've been spending a lot of time hanging out in the shop where he's working, drooling all over him. Finalyl, I mentioned it to a friend who doesn't want me to sit and wait for something to happen, and she asked him if he was available. Of course they can never just answer the question and always want to know. So, she told him I was interested and he said that I'm "a cutie" and "a doll", but he does have someone at home in Washington. She is a lucky, lucky woman because he's really something wonderful. He's gorgeous and nice and down-to-earth and honest and just actually amazing. He has now set the standard for what I want from a man.

I've lost another lb, whoohoo! So, that makes 8 lbs in the last week. Unfortunately, the menstrual monsters have been out of control and I've eaten more in the last two days than I have in the last two weeks (perhaps a slight exaggeration). Darn it!!

Ali--Congrats on the the ring shopping!! That's awesome (and I'm a little bit jealous--I've never really been one to want to get married, but suddenly that's what I desperately want. I can't explain it). I don't get depressed about fun weekends because, for me, eating is what makes them so fun. (I'm a sad, sad creature, I know.)

Belle--I can't believe it's been a year since Barney died. It seems like it wasn't that long ago. Hopefully your old dog likes having Horton around and you can get another puppy. I can't imagine life without Daisy Thunderpaws and I've only had her for a few months. The only thing I want you to think about (stepping into Mommy shoes here) is whether or not you'll have the time and energy for a new puppy in the house while taking care of baby and yourself. There will be potty training/paper training (for the dog, hehe), chewing, digging, etc. Just make sure that you can devote proper time and energy into both baby and puppy and most importantly, YOU. Otherwise, maybe wait a couple of years. (Stepping out of Mommy shoes).

Kier--I'm in the same boat as you--not really into momdom (and probably won't ever be), but I sure do like other people's kids. I like babies, too, but I don't think they like me. I think that they can smell fear and I'm really afraid of hurting them--they seem so frail!

Rina--That's fantastic that Billy Klippert is so cool!! Stuff like that is what makes people fans vs. major fans, ya know? I still haven't ordered his CD, I need to get around to it.

Lori--That's wonderful about the house!! Is this the same house that the people were hesitant to sell to you guys? I hope so!

OK, kids, I gotta home and change pants (I'm such a loser!) then I'm heading into the plant. I'll try to pop in tomorrow night, since I'll be on a 12-hour shift (ick).