Hot tub....sounds like a little piece of heaven. I am envious!

Ro, it is great to hear from you again.  I was worried about your thyroid problems.  Glad that you are doing better.

Betty, I am enjoying your updates on the kittens.  Sounds like you have a really fun home now.

Riley, welcome.  Nice to have you join us.

I have had a ridiculously busy week.  Putting in alot of overtime, trying to get everything caught up and beyond since I have no idea what next week will hold for me and my family.  We are all giddy with nerves awaiting the birth of my grandson on Sunday.  My daughter said that she had a panic attack a couple of night ago just thinking about the dangers she faces with the clot and blood thinners and the delivery in general.  We are all just hanging in there, keeping the faith.

Have a great day and weekend (if I don't have a chance to check in again).  Cheryl

Hi Everyone,

Cheryl, I will be thinking of you and your family this weekend and wish you all the best for a safe delivery of your grandchild

Glad you are doing okay Ro and able to get out there and garden a little.  I use a lot of mulch to help me with the weeds.  I am going to add some photos to my gallery today.

All is good here, raining today and suppose to on and off this weekend and be HOT.  We are going to look at a place for my daughter to have her wedding this Sunday, she wants to get married on the beach and well those places are a bit pricey, we found one that isn't too bad so we are all going to check it out. 

Kittens are doing great and so cute, they decided that getting up at 3-4 this morning was a good idea... hmmmm not in my book so I am very tired today but... I just finished the Leslie "walk and kick" DVD OMG.... am I tired.  It is just about a half hour.  It has kick boxing in the workout with the usual walking.  It is a workout let me tell you for upper, lower body and cardio, whewwwww...

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Betty

Hello everyone,

I'm glad to hear everyone is doing well.  Ro it is good to hear from you again.  I hope you continue to feel better.

Betty, I bet those kittens do keep you laughing.  My dogs have me laughing at them all the time.  And Cheryl I'm thinking of you and your family this week.  We're all waiting to hear the good new of the arrival.

My week has been very hectic.  Both of my kids graduated yesterday from college.  It was a wonderful day.  I'm so proud of both of them.  My Daughter gave the commencement speech for her class.  I cried.  No only because she was speaking but because she talked about her journey and the obsticles she's had to overcome with being a single parent.  I now she'll be fine.  My son graduated with honors and he looked so tall and handsome up there.  I can't believe they're both  moving on to the next phase of their lives. 

I got on the scale Thursday and I'm down must under another pound.  Slowly but surly I'll get there.  I really want to check out the walk away the pounds DVD's.  My knees don't appreciate the work out I'm putting them through.  I just need to take the time to find them.  I went out shopping today for cloths.  My cloths are too big and don't look to good on my.  I'm down 20 lbs. now

My husband and I are leaving a week from today for a two week cruise around the Norwegian Fiord's and Ireland.  I'm soooooooo excited!!!!  It'll be a challenge to keep up my workout routine and watch what I eat but I'm determined to lose this additional 30 pounds. 

I'll try to write before I take off.  Have a great week.   Becky

Hi all,

It's official...I'm a grandmother.  He was born at 4:12 this morning.  Her husband, mother-in-law and I were in the delivery room with her and I got to participate in his birth and watch him being born.  That was the most awesome experience ever!  The doctors had an ultrasound done of the two blood clots in her left leg and, miraculously, the small clot is totally gone and the large clot has dissolved all but a residual amount that is adhering to one side of the vein wall and is no longer considered a threat.  The blood flow is very good.  No one was expecting that to happen.  This took most of the danger out of the delivery.  See...God does answer prayers.   I appreciate the concern expressed by all of you and I won't forget your kindness.

Hope each of you have a wonderful week.   Cheryl

Congratulations Cheryl, what a wonderful experience.  I'm so happy for you and glad to hear your Daughter is doing so well.    Becky

Good Morning Ladies,

Congratulations Cheryl on being a grandmother, I am so happy everyone is healthy.  That is amazing about the blood clots.  It sounds like it was an experience of a lifetime.

Becky I hope you have a wonderful time on your cruise it sounds great, can't wait to hear about it.

nothing new with me, just busy with work as usual, trying to fit in exercise doing okay with that, and with this heat wave drinking lots of water and not doing anything outside... have a great day everyone

Betty

Good morning everyone.

Cheryl I hope your daughter and grandson are doing well. 

The weather here hasn't been that great.  We really didn't get any spring weather and now I'm wondering if we're going to get summer weather.  Lots of rain though so everything is green.  I know I shouldn't complain about the rain with all those families in floods and losing their homes.  My heart goes out to them.

I've had a good week with my plan.  I'm down 3 pounds.  Yeah!!!!!!!  The tough part will be these next two weeks.  My plan is to maintain.  We're off tomorrow for two weeks.  I'm so excited.  Like I said it's been a crazy week getting everything ready at home and work for this trip but it'll be worth it.  I'll crash on the plane.

I hope everyone has a great couple of weeks.  I'll post picture of my trip when I return as long as I can figure it out.   Becky

For you MY Online Friends:

 None of that Sissy Crap

Are you tired of those sissy 'friendship' poems that always sound good,

 but never actually come close to reality?

Well, here is a series of promises that actually speak of true friendship.

You will see no cutesy little smiley faces on this card-

Just the stone cold truth of our great friendship.

1. When you are sad --I will jump on the person who made you sad like a spider monkey jacked up on Mountain Dew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. When you are blue -- I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.

3. When you smile -- I will know you are plotting something that I must be involved in.

4. When you're scared -- we will high tail it out of here.

5. When you are worried -- I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining, ya big baby!!!!

6. When you are confused -- I will use little words.

7. When you are sick --Stay away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have.

8. When you fall -- I'll pick you up and dust you off..

9. This is my oath....I pledge it to the end. 'Why?' you may ask -- because you are my FRIEND!

Friendship is like peeing your pants,

everyone can see it,

but only you can feel the true warmth.

Hey, Cheryl, Betty and Becky:

Sorry I've been missing in action this week.  My home computer has died! It is only 14 months and 5 days old when it passed away.
Phoned techie support and was told, "Sorry we stole your money and gave you a piece of crap. But hey that's life. Have a nice day!  grrrrr

Well they didn't really say that-but it's true anyway.  So now I am without access to the net until we return from Oklahoma in September.  I can only access my account while I am (ahem) working  

Cheryl: wow a new grandson! I'm soo very happy for you and your family.  And the double blessing of your daughter's healing just makes my day. Looking forward to seeing pictures of your grandson.

Betty: I LOVE YOUR GARDEN!!  It is soo beautiful and serene. Mine is still a work in progress.  We've built 2 new flower beds in the back yard, working on  one for the front section and attempting a vegetable garden this year. 

Becky: 3 pounds! Awesome!! I can't wait to see your pictures either! And I'm so happy to hear your husband is doing better.

FYI- the phone company allowed me to upgrade my defunk phone (it too died) and so the week has not been a total loss.

My weight continues it's normal pattern . . .I have come to the conclusion that scales are demons.  At least mine is.  It lurks in the bathroom just waiting for me to step on it.  I can hear it now. . here she comes shall we make her smile or cry today? he he he. . . sigh. .but that's okay I'll keep it locked in the bathroom until it agrees that I am in all actuality a very svelte and totally toned woman!  LOL

Have a good one everyone!

Good morning ladies,

Della, I LOVED your poem I need to cut and paste it to save and email to ALL. It is great.  Sorry about your computer that sucks.

Things are the same here, no changes good or bad so no complaints, feel normal this morning no cramps so I plan to work outside in the garden I will finish my coffee go exercise "a little" hey garden work is exercise! and go outside.  It is a beautiful day here a little muggy but I do live in New England after all known, for this weather. 

My son will be here today working on my wall he is building (he is a landscaper, mostly hardscaping building a huge retaining wall for me by the garage, I will post a pic of it when he is done it is truly a masterpiece).  And my daughter and her fiance will be moving HIS things into the upstairs of our new garage hmmmm... no... they are buying a house  and storing his things here until they close in August unfortunately she will be further away :( about an hour it is 30 minutes now.   So it will be a wonderful day with all of them here for dinner.

I hope you all have a great weekend, gotta go garden.  Betty

Oh I posted a pic of my kittens they are soooooo cute and crazy running everywhere and getting big...

Hello everyone,

I have heard it said over and over again not to rely entirely on the scales as the measure of your weight loss success because they only tell part of the story.  As someone who has been dieting off and on for the last 35+ years, I could not accept this.  I have always measured my size exclusively by what the scales say, and in my darkest moments, they not only told me my weight but also my worth.  In the midst of everything else going on this week, I discovered that the scales are only part of the equation after all.  Last Saturday, my daughter laughed at the way I looked in my baggy blue jeans.  They were so baggy that they made me think of M.C. Hammer in his penguin pants (minus the sequins), so I went shopping.  I ended up walking out of the store in size 12s.  Now, 5 years ago I weighed 5 lbs less than I do today but was wearing size 14s.  Less pounds but more flab. 

My husband and I went to see the grandson and company today.  That makes 3 round trips for me to Louisville this week, equalling approximately 12 hours travel time and $100 in gas, but it was worth it.  They are all doing great.  My daughter said they are learning as they go, just like all of us did.

Della, I am so sorry about your computer but glad the phone wasn't a total bust too.  I also loved the post you made about friendship.  How true.

Betty, can't wait to look at the kitten pictures.  They have to be adorable.  I know how you feel about your daughter moving farther away.  Been there, done that.  Just load your ipod with all the songs you love and connect it to your car stereo with an auxiliary cable and cruise down the road singing at the top of your lungs.  That half hour will pass before you know it.  That's what I do.

Becky, I am so proud of your 3 lb weight loss.  Way to go.  Have a great vacation.  Looking forward to the pictures.

Take care, everyone.  Cheryl

Hi everyone!

 I am 42, female, new to the sight, and trying to lose that 20 lbs I gained over the past year.  I would love to have a few on line buddies to connect with for weight loss support and friendship.

I have been married  and have 3 kids ages 14, 16, and 20.

Hi Karen.  You are welcome to join us.  The more the merrier.   Cheryl

Morning Ladies!!  Thought I'd check in with the group.  I went through some major Thyroid problems, mainly because of the medication Synthroid.  That's some wicked stuff and for someone that doesn't tolerate it well, it made problems even worse!

I ended up slowly creeping up in my weight, couldn't exercise at all because of severe muscle cramps, my moods were horrible and migraines were a daily occurrence.  I kept telling the doctor of all the side effects (for two months), but he just said to hang in there.  Well, I finally had enough and dumped him AND my primary care and found a new doctor.  She said "Obviously, the Synthroid is NOT something you can take and we'll go a different route."  She said she was amazed I didn't gain all the 30 pounds back as bad as my system was going... but I told her I was staying on the B12 Lipotropics and it was keeping some of the hunger and pounds at bay, I guessed.    She said she had no problem with me taking that and I gave her all of Dr. Gates and MyDietSolutions' information so both of them will stay in the loop as to my care.  That was such a relief!  She also changed me to Armour Thyroid which is an all-natural prescription for Thyroid Supplementation and I've not had the headaches like before!

Plus... I LOST 1.2 POUNDS this week!!  I'm so excited!!!  So I'm going towards that goal of 152 again and at least now I feel like the Thyroid meds aren't going to fight me this time.  Whew!

As for the hot tub... I love it and so does the family.  I'm a major neat-nick, so I go bezerk if the water gets cloudy and such (in fact, even wanted to take it back LOL).  After I settled down and figured out that there had to be another way to keep the water from clouding, I drained and refilled it and then got some Sparkle Clear to use when it clouds.  Found out that the clouding is actually our bodies detoxifying!!  The spa opens up the pores really well and dumps all the junk out of them, especially when you let the large hydrojet do your feet!  I'm sure you gals have seen those commercials for those patches that you put on the bottom of your feet and take them off in the morning and they're black.  As each day goes by, the patches clear up... those are detox patches.  Wild thing is... the jets, since they massage the back and the kidney area, actually caused stones that were high in my back to pass on through!!!  I felt them move, then sure enough a couple of days later they passed on out.  WOW!!!  That saved me a major hospital stay and surgery this time!  I usually go through that every summer, but last year my water intake was HUGE, so I didn't have the stones.  With the Synthroid making me so sick and nauseated, I got dehydrated so on came the stones.  So the Hot Tub was more than just a luxury I guess LOL!!

Well, take care everyone and have a blessed week!      ~Ro~

Evening everyone,

Ro,  I am glad that things are looking up for you.  It is not easy to change doctors, but it sounds like you made a very wise decision.  Congratulations on the 1.5 lbs lost.  We are all struggling but with your thyroid condition, you have an even bigger mountain to climb. 

We have been a quite bunch this week.  Either we are all very busy or just don't have anything new to report.  I just finished my "Four Fast Miles" workout and posted the calorie expenditure and thought this was a good time just to say hello before hitting the shower.  I hope everyone is having a good week. 

Cheryl

Good Morning ladies, welcome to the group Karen.

sorry I haven't posted I have been soooo busy with work it is just crazy for me.  But as always I will not complain because in my business you just never know and you have to take it when you can get it.

Ro, I am glad things are looking up for you, I will agree with the hot tub cloudy thing ughhhh... We use bromine instead of chlorine for the water and use a self dispenser we just keep in the water and take it out when we are in there, it works great and you don't get that chlorine feel on your body, it makes the water a green tint color but it is always clear check it out.  Congrats on the weight loss.

Cheryl, I am so jealous of you "four miles" ughhhhh I can only do two, I am such a lightweight.

Well off to garden this is my only day I actually have some time to do that and I have been missing it a lot.  Have work this afternoon but want to get some mulch spread while I have time.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Betty

Good Afternoon,

This lifestyle change/weight loss journey is becoming a roller coaster ride.  Last week I weighed 173 and today I weigh 168.5, my lowest number yet.  I am happy to see the downtrend, but these fluctuations are baffling.  This has to be a water retention thing.  On the weeks I have gained, I have had days when I ate more than my 1,200 to 1,300 calories, but not over my maintenance allowance of 1,850.  I am chalking this all down to being a perimenapausal 50 year old who has been under alot of stress.  Please don't think that I am being a complainer.  This has been a very enlightening and rewarding journey.  I look and feel better than I have in ages and I'm enjoying wearing size 12s for the first time in over 2 decades.  I'm not whining, just pondering.

I am working at a fundraiser that our community is having tonight.  There is a precious little 8 year old boy here that has been blind since birth with some kind of congenital thing.  It can be fix with stem cell surgery, but since that isn't allowed here, the family has been accepted for surgery in China.  They leave sometime in July and it is going to cost over $40,000.  This will be the third fundraiser in the area but the first in my particular community.  The whole area is rural with small towns, but this child has touched the heart of so many, I am sure the final tally will well exceed $40,000.

Enjoy your weekend.   Cheryl

Finally... I've had time between filling ice packs (daughter had foot surgery Thursday), helping daughter to the bathroom, trying to pick up around the house... to sit down and POST!!
Forget about calories, water, and (ha! ha! you must be kidding) exercise LOL!  Hopefully I'll get back on track with my posting and logging foods in (and.. cough. cough.. exercise).

She's doing really well!  Not much swelling (if any) and not a whole lot of pain either.  Thank you, Lord!  Biggest thing is keeping the Sheltie Collie away from her foot when she's laying down... omgosh, can you imagine the scream if she lands on her foot?!

Can't believe the rain and weather we've had here... our grass and flowers LOVE it.  Funny thing is, the other night the wind blew so hard it blew the bark off our tree!  There are pieces all over our back yard... I was like... whoa!!

Betty... we use both the chlorinator and the bromine tablets (in a dispenser).  I finally got the water figured out.  It was the fragrance that makes it a bit cloudy.  The fragrance is just scented and colored epsom salt... guess that's why I always feel so good when I get out... epsom salt really detoxifies you.

Cheryl... Thanks for the congrats on the weight loss.  Unfortunately, this past week it went up (can't imagine why.... stressssssss!!!!!!!).  Let us know how the fundraiser went!  Sounds like an awesome thing that they're doing... what a blessing.

Cheryl: Size 12!! Wow, how wonderful that must feel.  You should and must be very proud of yourself.  You've made a commitment to yourself and your seeing the results.  Way to go!  Have fun with the fund raiser! They are very enlightening life experiences.

Betty: How's the gardening?  And your kittens are soo cute!

Ro:  Welcome back girl! You've been missed!

Well I've had my computer to the experts and the obit has been written for my computer-it's dead-not worth repairing and 2 months outside of it's warranty.  so I am just sh** out of luck.. I'm not going to get another computer until we return from Oklahoma in September. 

My weight has continued it's up and down journey-last week I weighed in at 197 pounds!  The lowest I've ever been-this week  202 pounds

I've been hauling mud by wheel barrow and shovel for the last week.  Working outside for 3 hours during the weeknights and over 6 on the weekend.  I've burned more calories and used muscles Leslie never told me I had.  And my weight still fluctuates. Go figure. . but on the plus side all my vegetables are in the ground, I have a brand new flower bed waiting for some plants.  My neighbor and I have been trading plants and advice and all my beautiful birds have returned for the summer.  So (with the exception of the weight) I am very happy and content woman.

Take care everyone!!!! 

Your online friend and buddy~ Della