Rob, it was 34 here this AM.

Brrrrrrr, it's cold now!!!!! I have to finish putting on the last of the insulation on my heat ducts. This weekend we are going to take the two window AC units out of my kitchen and diningroom and retire them for the yr. Then I will put 3M plastic on 5 of the downstairs windows that are in horrible shape and seal them up. DH will put on the new storm door on the backdoor tomorrow. That should seal us up pretty good. Since putting the insulation on most of the ducts now, HOT air is coming out of my heat vents. NI-I-I-I-I-I-CE N toasty. I will see if the new door cuts down on cold air pouring in. If not, I am going to make one of those door cozy thingies you put at the bottom.

Noel, it's great Xander will "help" you exercise. How cute!!! I know, I hate the time change!!!!! I hate that it's dark out an hour earlier now. GRRRR

I went to a town with a road with every store imaginable on it today and swung into the Curves that my friend Nancy works at. She used to work at the one here. I surprised her. So I did a good workout there and gabbed the entire time to her and new people. She works there MWF next week, so I will prolly swing in there one of those days. She's such a sweetie, I miss her at the one here, so I have to go get my "Nancy Fix" once in awhile. She and I will have to do lunch sometime. I stretched afterward.

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Had a nice day off on Friday (Remembrance Day is not a holiday here) went out to lunch with my mom to an Italian restaurant and had grilled calamari with cooked vegetables. I asked them not to put the chips on the plate so I wouldn't be tempted.

Went to a a city stage of the World Rally Car championship in the evening. Lots of walking from the car park to the venue (there was a shuttle bus but I figured I needed the exercise) so I'm over 20,000 steps this morning and walked just over 15 kms all total. Didn't stay to the end as my son only had a thin jacket on and it was very windy and cold for this time of year.

Today is actually warm for a change. I will try on my swimsuit later to see if I fit into it as there are now a few signs that the weather may actually warm up enough to go swimming.

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Noel - It's best when you start a new exercise regimen to do it slowly. First week I started walking I started with one mile. Then second week 2 miles and kept that up for a couple of months. I was 270 pounds at the time so had to protect my joints more than now.

Colleen - great going on 15 k! That's more than 9.25 miles for those metrically impaired.

Had to go downtown and that always means Salem lake. Did a nice brisk 4 miles. Weather was much nicer than thursday. same temps just without the wind.

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5 miles at Tanglewood yesterday.

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After the great start to my weekend, I have basically done nothing since. Very tired and my cough is bad again. May have overdone it a bit on Friday.

Rob - Good on ya.

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It was chilly last ngiht when we set out to walk so I put baby in the car and went to walmart. We walked for an hour around the garden center as it was empty...not even any employees. The man watching the security cameras probably thought I was nuts. We would walk through the Christmas aisles and then into the garden center and around there and then back again. Never went into any other part of the store and left without buying a thing.

Today I raked in the back yard but not too much. Just getting that first bunch up. Tonight I will do WATP.

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Noël


Worry doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrows, it empties today of its strengths.

Howdy Taters!!!! Yowsa, what a weekend!!!! Saturday I got out and blew leaves (the weather helped with that some too!!!) Then DH rigged up a HUGE tarp to the riding mower and we raked the leaf piles onto it and I hauled the leaf laden tarp out to the back forty and dumped the leaves. The tarp is soooooo big, I couldn't just drag it and flip the leaves off, so I had to rake them off. What a workout!!!!!!!!! (My hips hurt Sat. night and I felt like an old lady.) Then it decided to start raining, so I had to knock off. But I put a good 3 hrs in on that and I didn't even put a dent in the amount of leaves to get rid of. Now winter is beginning here in earnest and I don't know when I will get the rest done, maybe when and IF we get a bit of a warm up. THEN, Sunday, the winds were so high, a tree was knocked down across the street from my house, which ripped electric and phone lines down. So we had no electricity all day sunday until later that night around midnight. We packed up food and stuck it in our extra car, packed up over night stuff and headed over to DS-S's house for the night in case it stayed out until today. We went to a movie with DIL and swung by our house to do all the stuff and when we were leaving to go back to her house we saw the electric co. scoping out the damage. So we decided to come back home last night and our electric was back on. I guess over 200,000 Chicago area customers lost power over the weekend. We were able to get a little stuff done on the house yesterday, but we lost the light and had to stop. The place looked like a tornado hit it on the inside yesterday, so I spent the whole day today cleaning it all up. So needless to say, I didn't make it to Curves today. But I will go tomorrow.

It's really CREEPY when your power goes out!!!!!

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Colleen - Rest up and get better soon.

Noel - I've done that walmart thing myself on occasion. Heck Just doing legitimate shopping I've walked about a mile. I park as far away as I can and make sure I do a few circuits of the store.

Barb - I guess they don't call Chicago the windy city for nothing. You had quite enough of a workout with all you did last weekend.

Amazing weather we've had lately. Broke some records. Yesterday the temperature reached 76. Walked 6 miles at tanglewood.

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I was without power momentarily last night and it got my thinking so I got everything ready in case my power did shut off so I would know where everything was...flashlight, lighters, candles.

Our weather took a turn for the worse last night with snow but it will be 50 tomorrow so no worries.

I did the walmart thing last night but did get some shopping done as well.

And Sunday night we walked outside. The last night we can do that for while. But on the weekend we should be able to go early in the day as it will be in the 50's.

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Noël


Worry doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrows, it empties today of its strengths.

Tonight I bummed up my workout and did 2 miles of the 3 mile WATP tape. It adds a ton of arm movements (more than the regular 2 mile) so I am raising my heart rate a great deal.

I stretched for a long time after during Biggest Loser. Gonna try for the same tomorrow, but will at least do 1 mile.

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Noël


Worry doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrows, it empties today of its strengths.

Noel - glad to see you progress so well in the Watp! It's challenging workout.

Rained yesterday and I was going to use that as an excuse. But I got a shot of ambition in the afternoon and decided I'd walk even if I had to carry an umbrella. But the sun came out and teh rain stopped 10 minutes into the walk. Did 4 miles along Salem trail.

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walked 5 miles at Tanglewood yesterday. The challenge will be today since the high will be 24 degrees cooler than yesteday's high (76).

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Think I'm back on track now. We finished the challenge at work on Tuesday morning, but I have decided to keep going and wearing the pedometer.

Steps are counted at 9 am every morning:

• Wednesday morning 16,576 steps. I had part of Tuesday off work and attended a protest rally - lots of walking. The hot weather decided to arrive just in time for this with the temp reaching 34C (93F) in the middle of the march. And of course it has been cooler since then.
• Thursday morning 11,010

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Hi All,

I got my house somewhat in order and went to Curves Tuesday. I need to go today. I just have to find some motivation to go out and brave the cold. It was 15 degrees F this morning when I woke up. (don't know what that is in Celsius.) Yesterday I spent a LOT of time going up and down two flights of stairs hauling laundry baskets. I will be doing some more of that today. I went up to my upstairs livingroom to fold a bunch of empty boxes and got distracted by the storm window sitting up there. I decided cleaning it and putting it into the bedroom window was more of a priority. So I took down the curtains, threw them in the wash, washed down the insides of all the windows (storms and all) and got that all set for sealing up. I'm glad I did since the thermometer plummeted last night. I HATE WINTER!!!!!!! I still have to finish insulating our heating ductwork.

Noel, it's not a bad idea to have a little "emergency" kit made up.

Sounds like you all are doing great. Keep up the good work.

Now that my livingroom is done and I have a nice big TV in there, I should dig out my WATP DVD too and get back into doing that.

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I am going to get organizing in the basement very soon. I need a set of shelves to put water, canned food, candles, sterno, flashlights, a portable radio, batteries and anything else I might need in case of an emergency. Growing up with tornadoes we had a nice place in the basement to go when the sirens would go off. There aren't that many here but there have been some. Better to be safe than sorry. But mostly I would like to be prepared in case we are stuck indoors like after the 34" of snow in a day a couple years ago.

I did one mile of the WATP and then was going to do another after baby went to bed but did laundry and cleaning instead. Then Invasion was on and I grew some roots.

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Noël


Worry doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrows, it empties today of its strengths.