Pam - congratulations on the new addition to the family! That is one large baby all right! Good luck on the 17-day diet! I need to get serious again too1

Ah, middle school, never missed it for a minute! I actually taught in a junior high for all but my last year. The seventh graders would come in all scared and would be good at least the first couple months. I figured once they built the middle school that the seventh graders would be old hands by day one. The first year was okay, because the seventh graders had still come from elementary school. But I saw the writing on the wall and spent the year plotting my escape. Never dreamed we'd land in Baltimore. OR that I'd fall into something I'd do the rest of my life.

I think I solved the mystery of why my code worked. I was busy that day and didn't get around to trying it for a couple of days. By then, they must have worked out the kinks. I'm having a good day so far. I've logged in breakfast, lunch and snack and I'm doing good with the water. I decluttered for 90 minutes and took the box I accumulated right to the thrift store. I have trash ready to go but it's closed on Tuesdays. I've got a long way to go but it's nice to see a little progress.

Jean,,,If I get to Outback, I'll have to look for the tilapia. It's sounds delicious. I did my WI this morning and I've lost a pound. As a goal, I slected losing a pound a week so I'm happy I made it. If I want to do better, I need to talk myself into exercise. I did walk around the shopping center today so that;s a small start.

I got home a short while ago from a trip to the dentist. You may recall that my dentist is in CT a 3 hour trip away. We left home at 8:3- so we could visit the family plot and trimmed the bushes around the stone. I strolled around the grounds a bit while DH worked. I'm logging my foods since I wasn't home to do it earlier.

Maryanne...I hope the vet visit went well.

Jean...I'll have to watch that clip tomorrow. Anybody watch Extreme WL this week. Chris worked with twins. It was really inspiring.

Helene, I watched Extreme Weight Loss this week. I agree, it was very inspirational to see how hard those two young men worked to lose the weight. In the end, they looked fantastic and seemed to have made all the right internal changes as well to be able to maintain the losses.

We had an interesting night. As most of you may know from the news, Texas has gone from a condition of extreme drought for the past five years to now having all of our lakes and rivers filled to the point of overflowing and flooding is occurring in parts of the state. And the rain keeps coming. Fortunately, we don't live in an area that is in danger of flooding, but we've had more than enough rain. Last night, another storm rolled in just about bedtime and we were supposed to have rain for several hours. DH woke me up around 1:30 by turning on the overhead lights in our bedroom because he had heard water dripping. Turns out we have a roof leak right over the foot of our bed. So we were up for the next half hour or so with him crawling up into the attic to determine the source of the leak and getting a bucket under it until he can make repairs. It was hard to settle back down and go back to sleep after that. I'm still amazed that he heard the drip since it was landing on a soft fleece blanket. I probably wouldn't have noticed anything until I woke up because my feet were cold and wet! So if he can hear that, why can't he hear me when I tell him something, lol?

Jean...The twins in EWL were abandoned by their dad at age 13. Their mom had gone to prison for drugs. They didn't tell anyone that the family was alone and their raised their 10 and 7 year old sisters. They made sure everyone was fed, clothed, in school and getting good greats. The weight they gained was the price they paid for their sacrifice. It was such a good episode. You can probably watch online.

Sorry to be AWOL! Where does the time fly? In addition to the vet appointment, I also had to see the retina specialist and today I go to the hairdresser. At least the hairdresser is fun. We've "been together" at least 30 years and she's a hoot! I was also working on approving an adoption application for the cat my sister found in her yard and trying to cobble together a solution for a mother cat and 4 kittens that were taken in by a church custodian who lives in an apartment that doesn't permit pets. Normally I think churches should be ashamed of themselves for not handling something like that themselves (and I've told more than one of them exactly that over the years) but this is an inner city church that feeds hundreds of people in their neighborhood every week. Came to us through someone who just adopted two kittens from us - both with heart murmurs. They have made the somewhat sudden decision to move back to Minnesota to take care of her dad. I've been researching veterinary cardiologists and cat vets in MN (there are a couple but they are all in one place - guess the rest of the state is out of luck - but luckily that's where they will be). She's volunteered at this church for years and the custodian called her. I can't bring anyone here because Jack is immuno-suppressed but I think we've found a solution.

Got Jessicat and Lola to the vet. Jessicat needs a dental but is otherwise fine. They want me to give Lola eye drops so I had to stop everything and get a cage set up. Only way I could possibly do it. I was really worried but finally last night she ate and used the litter box. I probably should have boarded her instead but I knew she'd be at least marginally happier caged here. I think I finally turned the tide on getting her to eat by taking down some of the plates we use for meals upstairs. Crazy me was thinking she'd maybe use paper plates in the basement.

Jack finished his eye drops yesterday. He was very good about it. His eye looks good.

Retina specialist was quite pleased with me. Boy do they overbook her. I was there the best part of 2 hours and they were actually telling people who came in that it would be two hours. I can't gripe because after all my whole retina repair was something she made time for in her obviously super busy day but others were certainly griping. Hard to find any quiet for all the griping. I go back in 6 months. I teased her about me now having two ophthalmologists and that they are as specialized as we are. I guess I was basically trying to make myself a "person" in her eyes (pun intended) if this is going to be a long term relationship. She strikes me as one great lady. Amazing that most of my female doctors are.

I haven't watched this week's Extreme Weight Loss. I still have several of last summer's on the DVR. My mind works strangely. Instead of watching one to try to get re-motivated I'm "saving" them to watch once I'm back on track.

I recently discovered Shark Tank and The Profit and have been watching those. Also watching the Marquesas season of Survivor. Keeping myself occupied between winter shows and summer shows! I read the other day that reruns are rapidly become obsolete. I guess that bodes well for summer couch potato time. Tuffy will be thrilled.

I've decided my next project is catching up on the Pendergast books (Preston and Child). I looked up the reading order (that is so readily available any more) and ordered used copies of the two books I'm missing.

Next weekend we are committed to a flea market and a cat show. Spreads us a little thin. So this weekend I really need to get some paperwork done. For sure I need to deal with some memorial donations we've gotten. I appreciate it when people put CROM as the charity to donate to in an obituary. I really do. I just wish they'd tell you they did it. I'm left here puzzling over these donations, trying to figure out how to contact the family to acknowledge them, etc. Luckily one of them came through on paypal. Paypal gives you an email address. So I'm going to try to email that person and see what I can find out. But I'm still working on how to word the email.