Thread: November Tracking

Hi guys!
Thanks for all the positive feedback on the hair cut and nose thing. I jumped the gun a day or 2 early on the makeup thing yesterday, but dang, I was tired of that bandaid on the schnozz(sp?). Anyhoo, the big *cover up* took a while to do, and I still felt pretty self concious about it when we went out on our dinner date last night, but I guess I didn't get to many weird looks...LOL.

Alida, so sorry you felt under the weather yesterday. Are you better today? I'm hoping your abscence this morning is just because you didn't have time to post and you went to your DS's first sermon. Tell us all about it, OK?

Teel, so sorry you were afflicted on turkey day as well. Hope you are fully recovered. That kind of illness is sooooo unpredictable; you can feel better, eat a bite and then it sometimes starts all over again. Glad the gatorade and saltines helped. It's truly amazing what a little NaCl(salt) and potassium can do for the body.
Congrats on the new soon to be installed floor. Will it be in by Christmas?
What will you do with the kitties?

Barb, WOOHOO for doing the convertible cruising with the Christmas tunes playing. You and I think alike on that one! I've been known to crank up the volume and play Christmas music while baking or gift wrapping. Nothing gets me in the spirit faster! We also had a pretty warm day yesterday, but the wind was awful. Our neighborhood assoc decorated all the lamp posts in our sub division with green garland and huge red velvet like bows. Guess what was is my front yard when I went to check the mail? Bingo...a huge red bow from the lamp post one house down. I brought it into the garage and I will try to call the NH assoc tomorrow and see if I can drop it off to them. I also noticed this morning on my way to the grocery, several more lamp posts were *bow-less*. <sigh>

Bren, how are you feeling today? Hope that nasty migraine is history by now. Do you have any particular thing that triggers them, or do they just seem to be more random? It seems like you do have more than your fair share of them, girlfriend; bless your heart! Here's hoping you have a beautiful day and feel just as great

Judy...LOL at going back to work to get a vacation from the vacation I know that feeling, believe me. When will you get out for Christmas vacation? I think our schools will be out from Dec 19th until New Year's, but I'm not exactly for sure on that.
So, do you have to get the grades in by tomorrow? Good luck; hope it all goes smooth and you can whip it right out and mark it off your list. "Whippin'" that list down always makes a soul feel good.

Peg, girl, you are on the *home stretch*! Wow, you have been on the road almost all month! I'm glad you had a good visit with DS and DDIL. So will you get to spend Christmas with your DD and grandkids? That will be sooooo much fun! And woohoo for those phone calls on your BD! OK....you know we want pics of the elusive Terry and you together...LOL. I know you both are excited about meeting up. I am LIVING for a OOOOklahoma get together in the spring...just can't wait!

Ilse, are you all decorated for Christmas? I can remember decorating our new house the first Christmas we were here. Zowie! I think I spent more $$$ on the decorations than I did on all the gifts that year. But, the decorations have lasted a long time, so I do look at it as an *investment*...LOL...yeah, I know, I look at a lot of things as investments

Donna, hope you are not working your fingers to the bone this weekend!
You are on the home stretch as well...just hang in there and hang tough with DH on the decision to hire the rest of the job done. You so deserve it!

Rachel...hope you are well! Can't wait to hear how your visit went, and the job interviews or assignments and where you will be traveling next. Spain for Christmas, right? Then where? Girl, I just can't keep up with you

Well, I need to move along and do some chores and then head to the gym. They don't open until 1200 on Sundays; I wish it were earlier, but that's the way it is. They have a *silver slippers* class on Sunday at 1300, and boy do those little ole folks get physical! Hope I am in that good of shape when I get to be that age...some of them are in their mid 80's!!! They rock!!!
I'm sure I'll pop back in after while.

later, chickadees!

Shell

Hello all! On the 28th of December I will have been doing this WOL for exactly one year. Since I have met my goal, hopefully, I will be able to join your thread. While a year is nothing compared to most of you .... it is a landmark to me to be able to loose all the weight I felt I needed, as well as maintain it and a healthy lifestyle permanently.

In any event, wanted to wish all your wonderful people a wonderful Sunday and hopefully, your work week will not be too taxing!

Texanflowr/Rhonda--you are certainly welcome to call yourself a "veteran" any ol' time you choose! Your Atkinsversary is something to celebrate, and we'll cheer along.

Hi Rhonda! Always delighted to see a new face in this thread. Congrats both on reaching goal (WOOHOO!) and on your upcoming Atkinsversary. Hope you'll feel comfy enough here to pull up a chair around the fireplace and join us.

Welcome Rhonda, Feel free to jump in. It's generally fast and furious around here. Are you originally from Texas? Where?

Today's project for me was to finish (or get reasonably close) the school cr*p that had to be done so that I can at least survive tomorrow. We have cleaned up from having company and it is so nice to have all the decorations up. Well, back to the grind tomorrow.

Barb, Our TV Guide lists "Felicity:An American Girl Adventure" on The WB Tuesday night. It comes on at 7:00 Central. It might be something that you could tape for your doll lover. Just think, the next time she comes to visit and brings her dolls, you could have the movie, too.

Monday, Monday. I'm learning to check the Birthday list on the front page, and I see that Alida is online right now, too, as usual.

We had a couple of fierce storms blow through last night. Apparently some tornadoes touched down in the KC area, but I'll have to wait for the newspaper to find out where. The winter is sure to bring freezing rain--which is way worse than snow. Sorry, Texanflowr. Can you carpool with somebody who owns a Hummer?

Judy, thanks for the heads-up on the Felicity movie. I'll probably end up owning the DVD. While I don't own the Felicity doll, she was the character I wrote for when Hallmark had the product license, so I'm very fond of her. Besides, she's a "feisty redhead" so I relate personally.

I'm back in the LC groove today. I'll admit to sticking my hand in the mixed nut jar more than is good for me lately. Not the worst snack carb-wise, but too many extra calories. LC is not "diet-like" for me in the way lo-cal used to be. On LC, it's easier to eat comfortably and do "the right thing." But there's still no room for carelessness.

Everybody try to relax and take it one day at a time! One hour even!

Good morning!

Ack. It's Monday.

Barb, thanks for the consolations. There are spots of sun and spots of gloom. But going to Mark's first sermon yesterday was definitely a bright spot. His "flock" is very small, but they were all warm and welcoming. His sermon was very good but with a little TMI about our Thanksgiving and how last year's was a low carb feast . . . if you can imagine! That did get a laugh from everyone, though. Afterwards we watched the Chiefs on a big screen TV in the Friendship Hall while eating hot dogs and chili. A few people from Village attended to hear Mark's first sermon at First Presbyterian. That warmed my heart.

Mannheim Steamroller is my favorite Christmas music, too. Love playing it while decorating and baking, just like Shelley! About 4-5 years ago we went to their concert. They requested song suggestions for a new Christmas CD to be posted on their web site. I made a few suggestions and when the new CD was released, they sent me a free one! That was fun.

Rhonda: Congrats on your upcoming 1 year anniversary. You really look fantastic. Please join us any time. We are a very chatty bunch . . . about everything!

Judy, glad you got the school cr*p out of the way. That really was a bummer on the Administration's part . . . pushing the date up just enough to make you do "work" during vacation. My decorations are up, too. Now I have a ton of empty boxes in my office waiting to be put away. Still some "fluffing" to do with the decorations. Bob always laughs at me. I'll be sitting down looking at the tree, then jump up to move a couple of ornaments. Being anal can be a PITA.

Donna, I forgot to mention Survivor . . . I missed part of it, but did catch the immunity challenge and tribal council. Poor Gary. He really may have been the "best" survivor but had the bad luck to be on the dwindling tribe. It is amazing Lydia (the fishmonger) is still there!

Brenda & Peg: I finished Monkeewrench! I did NOT guess the culprit. You both said you did . . . so my question to you is what tipped you off? That really was a great book! Barb, you like mysteries. Get this one from the library.

Shelley, I do feel better. Thanks for asking. You jumped the gun on the make-up, eh? I probably would have, too. I looked closely at your picture, too, and did not see a thing . . . just your beautiful hair, skin and sparkling eyes!

Terry, I hope your bout with the tummy bug is history. Feeling better? When do they start on the floor? And yes, what will you do with the kitties?

It is Monday so I guess I'd better do work-related stuff. Bunch of people to call and quotes to do. But first I've got to get all these boxes out of my office and put away the Thanksgiving dishes that are still piled on my worktable.

Have a great day!

Good Morning Everyone!

I scanned through all your posts. Lot's going on with everyone.

Thursday, I was laying there at around 4am, trying to figure out how long to cook a 21 pound turkey. I decided it should be about 7 hours. so I put the turkey in at 5am. I package said 5 1/2-5 3/4 hours. I set my timer for 5 1/2 hours. It went off at 10:30am.. (we had people coming at noon). I lowered the temperature of the oven, covered the turkey, and waited. Dinner was fine. We got lots of compliments from our guests. Everyone was gone by 3:30pm. In the evening, I look at the ads, trying to figure out what was on sale Friday.

Friday, at 3:30am, my DH asked me if we were going to go shopping for stuff. I pulled out the ads and wrote down what store opened when and what was on sale there that I might want. We went to Best Buy. They opened at 5am, but the store opened 10 minutes early. We got there at 5am. I felt grateful to get a parking spot relatively close to the front door. My DH managed to find the main thing we went there for, a LCD TV. While he was in line, I picked up a couple of other things as well. It took a while to pay, as the computers kept going down. We also went to Office Depot. They only had two registers open and computer problems as well. It took a long time there. We also went to Carson's. My DH stood in that line. We got a Swarovski snowflake and an outfit for my DGD. We stopped home to unload the car. We did buy some Christmas lights for the outside. In the old house, my DH never wanted to put any up. We also went to Target for Christmas stocking holders, as they had some on sale.

Saturday, we went shopping again. We ended up at Spring Hill mall. I got new tires for my car. The wait was ridiculous. They said it would take an hour, but it was really three hours. If they had said three hours, we would have arranged our mall time differently. We got some clothes for our DGS at the Disney store.

Sunday, we stopped at Wal-Mart out in Algonquin. Brenda, did you see the Trader Joe's going up on Randall Rd at Algonquin Commons? We had brunch with my parents and DD and family at Port Edward. We asked our DGS to ride back with us, as his Mom and Dad were heading to our house. While we were driving through our previous town, I remembered the dinosaur exhibit was there. We walked around looking at the various exhibits for about 1/2 hour.

That was pretty much the jist of everything. I ddn't pay attention to being focused on any diet plan.

I hope you have a great day.

Hey, Alida ... (((((hugs))))). That sucks about DH's other job. I'm so sorry. What a time for that news to hit!. Maybe that's why he was so insistent on getting the portfolio trades done last week? I was really pleased to hear how well DS's first sermon was received by his congregation! What a great moment for a parent - to see a son successfully embarking on such important work.

Originally Posted by Judy

Peg, I cracked up when I read... "Quote=Peg: She didn't "recognize" my voice. Ha! I think what you meant,Terry, is that I don't sound like you thought I would." endquote. I think we had the same conversation. I bet Terry doesn't have my Texas/Southern accent though.

Hey, I don't speak with any accent, of course! LOL! As kids, my Wisconsin cousins and I used to trade off accusing each other, "NOooo, ~you're~ the one with the accent!" Actually, I don't think it was Peg's "low" voice that was unexpected, it was the cadence. For some reason, I expected her to talk fast, whereas she speaks more slowly with distinction on each word. Of couse, as a public speaker, that makes sense, eh? Anyway, I'm quite excited about tomorrow's visit!

Last week, because Safeway had turkeys on sale at $8 each for store club members; I bought two 12-pounders for the freezer. DH, who normally won't even make a tuna sandwich, decided to cook a turkey on Saturday. He really liked his mom's way of making dressing balls, and was checking with his DS, DBs all week to see how she made them. Ha! what a comedy! He doesn't know the kitchen or that much about kitchen basics, so he was bombarding me with questions. And, arguing with most of my answers, even simple aritimetic. You should have heard the ridiculous discussions on measuring equivalents. I finally had to drag out a cookbook and prove my calculations were right. He had enough bread cut up to make dressing for 30 people (most of it now taking up much space in the freezer}. He decided there wasn't enough room in the oven to dry the bread so he was going to use soft bread. So, I propped a hair dryer over the tubs of bread to dry it out. It worked quite well, actually. The turkey was good, but the dressing balls were way too salty. Which wasn't his fault, as the typed recipe he was using distinctly said 3 T salt, and it probably should have said 3 t salt.

Well, must go do some chores before I head out to the reading lab. TTNF

A few snowflakes in the air today. And yesterday all I had to wear was a sweater. Typical for KC . . . along with the storms and tornadic activity that Barb mentioned earlier.

Yikes! Ilse, when I read your post and saw 7 hours for a 21 pound turkey, I cringed. Glad you got to the directions! My 20 pounder was done in 4 hours, but that was without stuffing. Congrats on the LCD TV! Is that a gift for yourself? Can't imagine how your knees held up with all that shopping. You must be exhausted.

Funny turkey story . . . Bob was carving. All of a sudden I hear: "it's still red inside!" OMG! I run over and he moves aside and I look. Turkey looks fine. He goes back to carving and hollers again: This Thing is RED!" He moves aside, I look. It's fine. Ends up he was wearing a RED shirt and the reflection of the shirt was showing up on the turkey!

Terry, I had to laugh at your DH and his turkey! Three TABLESPOONS? That's a heck of a lot of salt! I did that with a casserole once, too. Dumped in the trash.

And yes, in retrospect, that's why he wanted to sell some of our stocks. We will buy a few . . . but leave a nice cushion there just in case. And yes, it SUCKS.

I know we are all jealous of your visit with Peg tomorrow. Have a great time! Wish we were all there.

Speaking of accents, when I first met Bob I had a hard time understanding him. We were going to New York and he told me we were going to visit "my uncle." So I asked him if his uncle was his mother's or father's brother. He looked at me kinda funny. Repeated we were going to visit "my uncle." (Who's on First?) Ends up he was saying "Malcolm" . . . and old friend.

Brenda: How's the migraine? Do hope you are feeling better.

Got a lot accomplished today. Hope you are all having a good one.

Okay, does everyone have their tissue handy. I've got a tear jerker for you. On Sunday we decided to go to town to do some shopping. When we got near our sons home I started looking in all the ditches thinking I might spot their missing dog. No sign of him. 15 minutes after we had driven by, they went outside with their other dog and their was the missing one laying by the back fence. We have no idea where he was...he'd been gone for 5 days. But, he literally dragged himself home. Talk about loving his family. They took him to the vet and he has a broken pelvis and broken hip. Poor little baby! The vet is letting him go home today and they have to watch him for 3 days to see if he can go to the bathroom properly. If not...well, he'll have to be put down. That little guy must have been through so much in 5 days but his love for his family was so strong. I'll be back later with more.

Oh, gosh, I love the DH stories, TB and Alida. The dressing balls (heh heh! ), the red turkey (what a hoot), and the Malcolm. Thanks for the laughs!

Alida, boy that really sucks big time about your DH's other job. This is such a lousy time of year to hear that kind of news--well, it's lousy any time, but you know what I mean. I suppose the positive note, if any, is that most companies' fiscal years are the same as the calendar year, so there should be more job openings for you after the first of the year. So many employers don't even bother to advertise at this time of year anyway, unless for seasonal help.

On the subject of dressing balls, the last really good tip I saw on dressing was to bake it in large muffin tins. A great idea if you like the crusty part like I used to. Perhaps that's the idea of dressing balls?

Gosh, I didn't talk to Peg beforehand, so I didn't have any preconception of her voice. When you meet her in person, and think she and her voice are a perfect match. "Old lady now" LOL, I think not! If Peg had any thoughts about my accent, she was kind enough not to mention it :o TB and Peg, have a wonderful time!

Oh, Alida, I'd wanted to say congrats to your son, too, on his first sermon and new congregation. You all must be very proud of how he's chosen to use his life.

Ilse, ack! I would be totally nuts if I'd done all that shopping! You must have been in and out of Carsons before I even got there, LOL! Yes, a new TJ's! I'm hoping they'll publicize their opening--I also hope it's a bigger one than Lake Zurich.

Judy, I was hoping that by returning to your school schedule you'll actually have more time here--after the reporting period, I know. You too, a super shopper.

Barb and Alida, I like Mannheim Steamroller, too They had some of the first albums that gave a workout to my first "good" stereo system. Of course I'm talking about those flat, black antique things Aren't they from the KC area?

Shelley, back to work for you today. You'll wow them with your new "do!" However I know these next few weeks are tough. Hang in there!

Donna, missed seeing a post from you today. Hope all is well. Your drywaller is coming over to give you an estimate today I think?


We've had such drastic weather changes here the last few days, which generally accounts for the migraines. Thanks for asking, all. They seem to be abating--just a little twinge this morning, so I'm grateful....

I tried to catch up a little today, made a trek to Trader Joe's, took furgirls for quite a long walk, and started supper just before DH called to say he wasn't feeling well so don't cook anything. No problem! Looks like it's chicken soup and saltines for him tonight. Also trying to get a few things together here for DH's trip to Florida Saturday.

Rachel, Rhonda, and anyone I've missed, see you all later, kiddos!

OMIGOD DONNA! I just saw your post. I am just in tears, and so grateful to the Bountiful Universe for helping that little one to come home. I am praying that all will be well with him, after showing so much courage and love.

Flash visit--- again. (I'll try to get back later.)

Today's find -- An original 1972 hardback version of Dr A's book. It was in our high school library. It hasn't been checked out since we computerized the books several years ago, and from the looks of things it probably hasn't been checked out too many times since 1972. I tried to talk the librarian into giving it to me and just taking it off the inventory. She told me to keep it until May and see what happens. Reading the original again may be just what I need to get back to basics. I know there are some recipes that I want to copy. I can't believe that I sold my hardback version in a garage sale circa 80s. Silly me!!!

Donna, your happy-sad news gets the day off to a good start. Even if the outcome is tragic, at least your family will know what happened to their baby. We'll hope for the best.

Judy, when you mentioned Dr. A's book, I went straight to my bookshelf, and found my own original 1972 PB edition--still in good condition, although the pages are yellow. Glancing at some of the intro pages, I see references to tv shows and celebrities that are most certainly not included in current editions.:lol: But I will check out the recipes!

Back then, the best/tastiest artificial sweeteners contained cyclamates--but these had been banned by the FDA in 1968 for causing tumors in rats. Plus ca change...the more things change, the more they stay the same!

Glancing at Dr. Atkins's statement to the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs (April 112, 1973), I definitely want to read on.
Later today, I'll see if I can find it online for you somewhere.

At the time I started Atkins (this time around--2003) the concept of "net carbs" (as in subtracting fiber) had not been determined, so it was a lot harder. That's why I relied so heavily on pork rinds to fill in the gaps. I don't anymore!

Gotta run. Oh, there are so many more interesting things to do than get ready for work.