Hear that sloshing sound?

That apparently is what we call "water retention". But 4 pounds of water???

Yeah, the scales were cruel to me this week - up 4.2 pounds. I didn't think I did TOO badly last week. I didn't go over my daily points until the weekend, and even then I still had some of my flex points left. The only thing I can think it may have been was that I hit the diet sodas pretty hard toward the end of the week - Kroger has a version of an extreme Diet Mountain Dew. The name escapes me right now - Big K Diet Drop Dead Extreme? Something like that. Plus I had a lot more coffee than usual. I dunno.

Well, hopefully I will be able to drain the water and have an improvement in the scales next meeting.

A dilemma I have now is the next meeting. Since we usually meet on Mondays, and the next Monday is Memorial Day, we won't be having a meeting. They were going to have one on that Tuesday instead but the church where we meet is having a blood drive that day. SO, do we skip a week and go the next or try to make one of the meetings in Savannah? Can't do it on Tuesdays or Thursdays because of teaching cake classes in the evenings. (meetings start at the same time my classes do....). There's a meeting at 6 on Wed., we could go to that one but that's just going to get us home later than usual. Tal may just have to go to one on his own if he wants to. My schedule is just too screwed up to work one in next week.

Anyhoo....that would at least give me two weeks to get back on track! :-)

Well, got to get back to work! I've got to walk to another building to do an errand, so maybe I'll take a long-cut on the way back and work in some activity points!

Mid-morning in the garden of good and Seraphim

While Tal snoozed away in the bedroom, Puddy and I had a lovely and peaceful breakfast picnic this morning.

It was soooooo yummy - an omelet, lite multigrain English muffins, sliced apples, and herbal tea. The omelet is Southwestern Egg Beaters to which I added a couple of diced, fresh mushrooms (from the store), fat-free sharp cheddar cheese, and some fresh basil, oregano, and chives from my garden. The basil plant (left) is looking a little thin now, because I had the same breakfast yesterday too, without oregano (right). Good thing they are growing so quickly!

As you can see, Puddy was eagerly awaiting a bite or two. How can you ignore such a cute little beggar?

During breakfast, we had a little visitor. I called him Sebastian. Not quite sure why - it just seemed to fit. He sat by quietly watching while we ate.

We didn't have a picnic yesterday, even thought it was just as beautiful in the morning as today was. The reason was because we had not gotten the new patio bistro set until later that day. Isn't it cute? I saw it at Lowe's and just fell in love with it. Wouldn't you know it, as we were looking for the box the set was in, we came across a stockperson loading up the last two on a cart for two ladies! He said we could buy the display, but we asked them to check the stock of another Lowe's nearby and they just so happened to have 5 in stock. We were hesitant about getting the display because 1) there was no assurance that it was put together properly, 2) who knows who has sat and does God knows what to it while sitting on it, and, 3) we weren't sure it would all fit into Rupert (the SUV) fully assembled. As it turns out, with the other stuff we had in there, the box with the unassembled set barely fit!

We were heading over to that area of the other store anyway, so we went over and picked it up after lunch. We were pleasantly suprised that not only did they still have plenty in stock, but it was on sale! We got it at almost half the price that was on the tag at the other Lowe's! Woo HOO!! :-) Of course, since we didn't buy the display which was already assembled, I had to put the entire thing together. It wasn't TOO difficult, instructions were pretty clear and there weren't a whole lot of parts to piece together.


So, after Puddy and I finished eating the wonderful breakfast (what is it about dining al fresco that makes everything taste SO much better?!?!) we checked out how things were growing in this year's garden. Last year's plot didn't pan out so well, so we decided to just limit our growing to pots on the patio this year.

So this year we have - as you have already seen - basil, oregano, and chives, as well as mint (bottom) and snow peas:


We also have tomatoes and peppers:


Green onions (still growing and have a little more to go....) and buttercrunch lettuce (yeah, I've already hit the lettuce, too!):



We have 2 strawberry plants, too. I've gotten a few berries so far, but right now it's not producing. Actually, there are about 3-4 blossoms, but they are all hiding under the leaves right now. Maybe as the summer progresses we'll start seeing some more production:


Here is one of the strawberries (out of about 3) that I got earlier. It was really sweet and very good. Much better than the bland, watery, almost tasteless strawberries that they offer us at the local grocery stores.


In another corner, we have eggplant (both black and white in the same pot), yellow squash (both straight and crookneck varieties together in one pot), and zucchini. The squash and zucchini have developed powdery fungus spots and the leaves started turning yellow and brown. After doing a bit of internet research I found that the best remedy for this is a milk bath. Yeah, at 1 part milk to 6-7 parts water solution sprayed on the leaves is a natural anti-fungal. Believe it or not! I made up and sprayed this mixture on the leaves last night and I swear they are looking 110% better this morning! Here's hoping. Anyhoo, here's how they all look now:

There are no eggplants growing just yet, because it's a newer plant. I have a few yellow squash developing, and a couple of minute zucchini, too:



And last but not least, presenting - Okra Winfrey!! OK, sorry, lame joke I know. The okra plant is also a new plant and has not started producing any offspring yet but I am hoping it will. I think I might need to put it in a bigger pot, as I currently have it in a smaller pot I was just wanting to fill with something.


With all this picture-snapping going on, Puddy was getting a little jealous of all the attention that was NOT getting paid to her. So, we had to get a few shots of her-highness.




Well, I guess it's time to end this post for now. The sun is taking over the patio and it won't be quite as cool and pleasant without the shadows.

Besides, I've got dishes to wash.......



.......and Puddy's allergies are acting up.........


......so I bid you a fond adieu. I hope the remainder of your weekend is a pleasant one and the week treats you well! Hey, next weekend is Memorial Weekend! We're looking forward to it because Tiger is coming for a week-long visit and we've got lots of fun things planned. We'll try to get lots of pictures!

Ta-ta for now! Will report on this week's weigh-in either tomorrow night or Tuesday morning.

Love to all,
Sera

Evens for the odd couple.

Well, I did quite well at weigh-in tonight. Better than I thought but and I am very pleased! 4 more pounds down for a total of 24 lost! Which leaves me with only 15 more pounds to make it to my first goal - 39 by 39! So I now have until July 24 to lose the next 15 pounds. Can I do it? I hope so - if I keep up this momentum I will. Lessee....that's about 9 weeks. If I can lose about 1.6-1.7 pounds per week I will reach that goal easily.

I said I wasn't sure about a loss this week. I was hoping for at least a couple of pounds. I went over to Albany this weekend for Mother's Day. We went to Ryan's for lunch on Saturday and had all kinds of goodies at the mother/daughter tea we went to at my grandmother's church that evening. Although, I have to give myself credit - I did just nibble at a few things and did not go back for seconds. That was a pretty good accomplishment for ME! :-)

Unfortunately, my grandmother was unable to make it even though she planned to be there. The 90 year-old woman decided that she wanted to climb up into her attic to retrieve a hat to wear to the tea, and on the way down she missed the last step and fell, cutting up both her arms and twisting her back. Good news is that she did not have any broken bones, but she did need to have 21 stitches. My aunts had to take her to the ER to get her patched up (luckily, they were there at the time!) and Mom, Sis, and I went on to the tea. We stopped by Grandmother's house afterwards to check on her (they had just gotten back from the hospital) and she was in pretty good spirits, so we all put our hats on and ate some of the tea sandwiches she had made to take to the party, and drank tea (or wine, or rootbeer - I had water :-)).

Well, time to hit the hay.....it's been a long day! Oh, and in case you did not see Talmadge's blog - he lost 6 pounds - for a total collective loss this week of 10 pounds even!

I've lost a toddler.......

....well, not literally!

So, the great news is that I lost 8.6 pounds this week! Yeah, I nearly fell off the scales Monday night at weigh-in. I was hoping to have at least lost the 2.4 I gained the week before plus a bit more to at least have a total loss of 15 pounds. But I well-exceeded that and made it to 20 pounds even! So, I not only got ONE 5-pound sticker to add to my bookmark, but TWO! Woo-hoo!

20 pounds down, but still so much more to go. I try not to let myself think that is just a drop in the bucket compared to how much more I still have left to lose - 20 pounds is nothing to sneeze at, I know! One of my co-workers had a good comparison for me, though, to put it into perspective. She said I lost about the equivalent of a one year-old child. That made me feel pretty good, because I have carried my nephews around when they were babies and they get heavy after a while! :-) Goal is to lose an entire preschool class! LOL!

I really stuck to my Points last week, some days I still had one or 2 points left and there were a couple of days that I went over and dipped into the 35 extra points. (Saturday and Sunday I went over by 4 and 5.5, respectively - WEEKENDS are killer!).

The weekdays are OK, because I'm not around the house most of the day. My usual thing is to bring breakfast and lunch to work - breakfast is usually either a banana, yogurt, and granola or an Egg McMuffin with fruit and walnut salad; an apple or other small snack mid-morning; a frozen Healthy Choice or WW meal with carrots or other raw veggies and maybe a yogurt or pudding; and a mid-afternoon snack (like 98% FF popcorn). Tuesday and Thursdays are crazy these days because of teaching cake classes in the evening. Sometimes I will save some of my lunch or mid-afternoon snack to eat before class and pick something up after class (last night, I had TWO Chick-Fil-A grilled chicken deluxe sandwiches - only 5 points each!) or I will walk around the corner from the store and get a footlong Subway (Subway Club on Honey Wheat loaded with veggies - no cheese - sweet onion vinaigrette - fabulous! - and 13 points!) and eat 1/2 before class and then the other 1/2 when I get home. I feel like I am eating all the time! I've discovered another love - the WW barbecue-flavored pretzel thins! Mmm-MM!



Mmmmm....it's lunchtime now. Time for WW lasagna florentine! Off to get rid of some more toddlers! (I have this visual image now - like those Promise Activ commercials where the word CHOLESTEROL falls off of people - I imagine little kids falling off of me! LOL!)

Onward and downward! :-)

"Pop" goes the vein.....

As many of you may have read in Talmadge's recent blog entry, we went in to give blood today. A local business was sponsoring a fundraiser/blood drive to benefit the victims of February's Sugar Refinery Explosion. They had a little carnival set up, complete with all the little inflatables that my fat butt isn't allowed into for fear of deflating the inflatable. And in the midst of it all was the Red Cross Mobile Blood Donation Rent-Me RV.

Unlike Tal, I had a pretty good breakfast - sliced banana with lite raspberry yogurt and 1/2 cup of Kashi Mountain Medly granola (for a free sample, go to Kashi.com - and once you receive your sample, email Consumer Relations and let them know how much you liked it, and they'll send you some coupons!) - because I have experienced just what the guy who had the fainting/seizure spell at the blood drive did.

This was back in 1988, and I had only had a banana for breakfast. I gave blood, then was sitting on a cot eating my cookies and drinking my juice when all of a sudden the edges of my vision started getting dark and fuzzy. I looked toward one of my classmates and she says, "Amy, are you OK?" Only she sounded like she was tallllllllllkiiiiiiiiiiing in sloooooooooowwwww mooooooooootion. I thought I was going to be sick, so I jumped up and ran to the bathroom, locking the door behind me because I didn't want everybody see me do that! I was sitting on the toilet leaning against the sink. Of course, I didn't get sick because I didn't have anything in my stomach. The nurse and my classmate are outside banging on the door, "Unlock the door, Amy!" I was feeling better, so I opened the door and walked out. Boy, the nurse reamed me good for doing that! "What if something bad had happened to you? We wouldn't have been able to get the door open to help!" And she took me back to the room and had me finish my juice and cookies and rest a while.

So, anyway, to avoid the same thing happening to Tal, we drove up to Bluffton's Golden Corral for some lunch (a big-ass salad for me!! - more on that later). We also made a short stop at the Salvation Army up there because I wanted to look for maybe some gloves, wacky hat, costume jewelry, or other things for our annual mother/daughter banquet at my grandmother's church. This year's theme is "Tea Party". Well, I found not only a pair of long gloves, but also a Pyrex pie plate, a nice and heavy tea kettle, and a pair of Kenkoh Japanese Massaging Sandals.....ooohh, heaven for the feet!! All for a grand total of $9.00 (such a spend-thrift I am!). The lady at the counter is all like, "$5.00 is a good deal for those gloves, because they're antiques." Yeah....whatever.........

Between I-95 and Rincon, we did some videotaping of Hwy. 21 along that route. There's so much developing going on the the scenery is changing every day. Talmadge videotaped the same area a few months ago. We'll probably do it a few more times, just to be able to compare the growth and development of the area. One day, we'll be telling our grandchildren, "I remember when Hwy. 21 was nothing but woods the whole way into Effingham County!"

And so back to the Red Cross Mobile Blood Donation Rent-Me RV. It was pretty neat to walk in after lunch and see Congressman Barrow sitting there. He's a nice guy. Tal was in the "interview room" and didn't hear the Congressman say to me and a couple of others who were waiting, "Well, here's a unique opportunity for you. Congress is always sucking the blood out of the people - here's your chance to witness the blood getting sucked out of a Congressman!" LOL!

Then it was my turn in the "interview room", or I like to call it "The Room of 100 Pointless Questions". No, I haven't had sex with anyone who has visited Africa between 1977 and 2007. No, I have not visited a foreign country in the past six months (and NO, going to Alabama does not count - and apparently the lady interviewing me didn't think that was very funny). No, I am not currently pregnant, nor have I been pregnant in the past three months (no uterus - remember?). No, I do not know the way to San Jose. And, yes, I do really want to hurt you.

So, once I'm finished with my inquisition, I go back out and get sent to one of the beds. I WANT one of these things!! It's like a contoured recliner, really comfy. I'm sure Tal was wondering if they were about to perform surgery on me as he watched from his recliner. First, they blood pressure cuff wasn't long enough to fit around my bulging bicep, so they had to tape the darn thing on. Then they were having trouble finding a big enough vein to tap. Then finally, when the nurse poked me, blood spurted out on my arm (which answered my earlier curiosity about the "Caution: Blood Spray Zone" signs they had posted here and there). I got a little woozy when that happened, but then recovered. Man, that was a BIG FREAKIN' NEEDLE!! Tal had already filled his bag, got his juice and cookies, and was standing in front of me (with ice water from the juice dripping on the floor), "Are you doing OK?" he asks. "Yeah, I'm good." was my replay. So he goes to eat his juice and cookies while I fill my bag.

And so, with bag filled I am sent on my way with apple juice, Lorna Doons, and Fig Newtons in hand. Now, to decide which movie I want to watch first - Juno, Nanny Diaries, Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story, or The Sasquatch Gang. Decisions, decisions! Well, at least I know what I am going to have to eat later.

Oh.....yeah, I promised I would talk about my salad at Golden Corral! So I loaded up my plate with mixed greens (love the spring mix!), shredded carrots, broccoli, green pepper, black olives, cherry tomatoes, a sprinkling of shredded cheese, and a sprinkling of real bacon bits (probably about 2T. each of cheese and bacon), and a spritz of red wine vinegar over the whole lot. In a soup bowl, I mixed a cup of cottage cheese and 2T. of the regular ranch dressing, and would get a tiny bit of that on my fork then spear some of the salad. I think that was probably the best salad I've had there! After that, I got a bit of the Bourbon St. Chicken, 3 meatballs, a little BBQ meat with sauce (the sauce is good with the chicken, too) about the equivalent of 3 small red potatoes (I wanted a baked potato but they just had baked sweet potato which I didn't want - I love red potatoes anyway) and some steamed sliced squash. My splurge was a slice of chocolate chess pie with some sugar-free whipped topping! Not too bad!

With all that, I don't have a whole lot of Points left for the day. I've figured out that tonight I can have 1 cup of Egg Beaters, which I am going to make omelet-style with some fat-free cheese and some chives (from my patio garden - woo hoo!), a multi-grain light English Muffin, and some Spring Mix salad with tomato, and red wine vinaigrette spritzed on. YUM!!

Dunno what Tal is going to have............ ;-)

Sneaky, sneaky me!

This is an addendum to my previous "tripped" post. Confession time, if you will. :-)

Monday night, after my WW meeting, I stopped by the convenience store looking for something to eat. I was still feeling bad and I guess just needed some comforting. I ended up buying a pint of 2% milk - which I guess is much better than a soda! - and one of those Little Debbie fried cherry pie thingys (hey - it's got fruit in it!). Took it to the counter and paid for it. As I was leaving, I caught my reflection in the glass door - and realized that I was still wearing my Weight Watchers' name tag! That was a really profound moment for me. I mean, I still ended up eating the pie and drinking the milk before I got home, but that moment weighed heavily on my mind (and stomach). I couldn't help but wonder what the cashier thought. Here I am buying junk, and wearing a WW name tag! That REALLY made me feel bad - but in a different way. In a way that made me even more determined that I was going to do better and turn this "lapse" around.

Usually after the meeting, we will remove our name tags, fold them, and put them in a box. The leader then does a drawing for whomever to get one of the mini-bars she has. Well, she had 6 to give away that night, and there were 6 of us in attendance so she just gave them to us. And that is why I was still wearing the name tag and forgot I had it on!

Well, I have been doing MUCH better this week! I've only dipped into my 35 points a tiny bit (0.5 used, 34.5 remaining). The online Points Tracker is great. I pretty much plan my day first thing in the morning when I get to work because I already have my breakfast, lunch, and snacks with me and then pre-plan supper and maybe an evening snack. Today, I've even planned in a piece of cake for one of our work study student's graduation party we're having this afternoon. And supper at Carey Hilliard's tonight! Woo Hoo!

I have a feeling that next Monday night is going to be MUCH better! Not only because I know I will have done better - but my dear husband has decided to let the government pay for his WW fees (the restitution checks!!) and will be joining me at the meeting Monday! Yay!

If only I can get through the weekend.................. :-)