A brief pop-in at the moment but I must say LMV and MITM, you two are doing so amazingly well. LMV, you must have made an absolute assault on that Christmas weight to shift it like that and MITM, despite the slip into the peanut butter jar, you continue to maintain that ambitious goal you have set for yourself. I am doing OK but my basement exercise room is still not set up as there have been delays with the fellows doing the work. However, some progress has been made as on the weekend the new ceiling tiles were put in and along with the lighting which was installed earlier it makes an amazing change. The flooring is the big issue but some progress is being made. Peter who is doing it has been working on the floor preparation. He is very meticulous and since the floor is quite old, it is not completely level. It was not such a problem when there was carpeting but this tiles need a more exact level so he is doing some renovating with cement - quite a job. In fact he has come after his regular job tonight to do some skimming as he calls it; it seems to be a process of sanding down the cement that he poured a few days ago. I have continued painting and am getting near to finishing what I've planned for now. Today I put a second coat of paint on the last wall to be done and finished three cupboard doors and primed a small window. I hope to finish it tomorrow and the other window. Then I'll just have a door left to do but the old one has to be replaced first. Oh, I forgot I'll still have some 1" trim that goes around the baseboards but that is not a huge job.There are cupboards and a closet that need to be done inside but I am not going to worry about doing that so quickly. Well, I have run on about my painting and now I must just run. Regards.

Evening Crackers,

A very, very quick pop in....

LMV I just wanted to wish you before you leave, a fantastic trip and that I hope you will be returning after your 6 week break. And a huge well done for getting back to your pre-Christmas weight!!!

I'm madly busy at the moment, don't know if I'm coming or going but potatoes are coming out my ears!!! Although having said that I have managed to keep up my 3 times a week Max and I'm averaging 10,000 steps a day.

Bracken - your basement will be wonderful upon completion. I too LMV got that email and I also thought immediately of Bracken!

Right sadly I must go as I have another long day ahead....

Be good Crackers!

Afternoon Crackers,

Well for me personally this little group, aside from all the ongoing interesting conversations that we have, it is all about accountability - for some reason it keeps me on the straight and narrow!

So with that in mind I decided as today, was the day that I finally managed to lift my head from the sand, where it has been 'cemented' this past month.... Or more likely it was wedged in with potatoes I would 'report in'.

'Your life doesn't get better by CHANCE, it gets better by CHANGE.'

It's not just my work load (and it's due to snow again tomorrow) that is getting heavier, too many orders/potatoes, too many house guests, too many birthday celebrations, too many calories = too many EXCESS pounds!

It's time for change and I've drawn the line in the sand (again), faced the scales and I've got to plan ahead as my work load is not going to get any lighter this month and nor will I, if I continue to eat rubbish to console myself. I know from experience 'a little progress each day adds up to great results' and I want to be back at my target weight for when I go to the UK and escape the potatoes in 5 weeks time which is all doable if I just get started!

Be good Crackers!

P.S. I'm hoping BM that you are in the UK for February to recharge.

Afternoon Crackers,

Bracken I am so pleased to hear that you have finally completed your painting. I know what you mean with the snowy weather. This year is the first year that I can recall feeling cold at night in my bed, no matter how many layers I'm wearing! In the daytime it is sunny but still bitterly cold.

My diary quote for February is 'if you want to get ahead, just focus on yourself' which I have been thinking about a lot. I can't do that with my 'work' but I can when it comes to my diet and exercise, so this past week I have thrown myself back into planning. I have ate well and exercised and I have been rewarded with a pound loss. My hardest ever lost pound! I've watched the scales go down 2 ounces a day... still at least they continued in a downward pattern!

On Sunday with the husband we did our usual trek uphill. It's a perfect sledging track which means it's hard work to climb up. So I had my eyes firmly on the ground for my next step and all I could think about, as we hiked was the size of my thighs which kept coming into my vision! I'm aware I can live with my thighs at my target weight of 133 pounds, in the lead up to Christmas when I exercised for a month and hit 131- I actually 'liked' my thighs and had to buy them a new pair of jeans in a smaller size but alas at my present weight I detest my thighs! My excess pounds are sat on my thighs and equals 4 inches all over of fat on each. So knowing that happiness and tolerance can be experienced if I just shift the remaining 3 pounds is my current motivation!!

Bracken well done at keeping your pre Christmas weight loss off, no mean feat! And good luck with the writing competition what is your story about? Well I must go and count my schlipfkrapfen... and hope my fingers don't freeze in the basement.

Be good Crackers!

Afternoon Crackers,

After losing the hardest ever pound last week, I gained the easiest pound this week! And then this headline caught my eye 'The Big Fat Lie: Britons eat 50% more than they say.' I think this is starting to be my problem, so I need to go back to basics AGAIN and start counting calories.

I'm not working until Friday so I have time to dip into my new book 'The 4 Pillar Plan' by Dr Rangan Chatterjee how to relax, eat, move and sleep - your way to a longer, healthier life. Apparently about 90% of your health is determined by your environment, not your genes that is news to me!

Bracken - thank you for forwarding on your story, I really enjoyed it - and I didn't snack at all after reading it!!

Right I'm going to 'move' and exercise now.

Be good Crackers!

Just a quick pop-in. I have been thinking of everyone I know in UK as it seems there is some terrible winter weather going on causing many accidents and disruptions. A milder spell is here at the moment but snow forecast again for later in the week. My writing group was to meet today but was cancelled at the last minute due by the woman who was hosting because of flu in her house. I have taken the chance of good weather to finally make an appointment to get my hair cut- quite overdue again because of weather. I had an unusual bird at my feeder today. I looked it up in my bird book- a purple finch. Not really purple but very pretty. The head, breast and a strip down the back are red and the wings and tail look like a common sparrow so the bird does seem a bit cobbled together! However, it always enjoyable to have a new bird at the feeder.

Hello Crackers. MITM, I have been seeing a lot of "Beast of the East" news here with pictures of dreadful accidents and people stranded for long periods on the highways. I hope you are coping better now as it is a few days since you posted but I note that -20 is something I can really sympathise with as we had many days like that and some worse in January. Bitter as you say. Now it is a little below zero and a little above but still feeling cold to me. I think part of it is a general weariness of winter weather that has worn down my resilience. That said, today I heard a robin singing and then saw him high in a maple tree. I so love the sounds of birds. A couple of my friends in the country have had a flock of them land on their lawns, fresh from migration and not yet dispersed to stake a claim for individual territory. When I see the first robins, I am so happy about it I do speak aloud. I'll say. "Welcome back" or "Thanks for making the long journey back." I suppose if anyone heard me they might think I was a little strange! Today we had a Writers' Group Meeting but half the members were away because of illness. There have been a lot of flu and respiratory infections here; I have not entirely escaped but have avoided the worst of it. But a lingering cold/cough really drags one down.
I had a call last night from the woman who used to board my horses asking if she could pass on my number to a mother who is looking for someone to tutor her daughter who has problems with reading and comprehension. I did some of that kind of work with my friend's grandchildren some years ago and she and her daughter were pleased with how the boys progressed. However, I am not an expert in that area as being a teacher of senior high school English I dealt more with the academic teaching of literature and writing. I will try to help the girl and have been able to borrow some resources from an elementary teacher that my sister works with. I just hope an overnight miracle is not expected.
MITM, have you mentioned the name of the new book you are reading? Is it a novel or a health and wellness book- always interested. Regards.

Afternoon Crackers,

Well there's no place like home! But I've had a lovely break from the potatoes - caught up with my daughter, family and friends and indulged in so many hot cross buns of all varieties, I don't desire another until my next trip home.

I monitored my weight daily and the scales stuck at 137 at the same weight as I left Austria. I ate something everyday I wouldn't normally eat but I walked 20,000 steps most days simply because of lack of transport and whilst 'window shopping' which I don't do up my mountain!

I returned home Monday evening and yesterday I spent the day 'cleaning' and faffing with Easter decorations and managed to do 10,000 steps without even leaving the house! This morning I stepped on the scales after my first sensible day of eating in 14 days and the scales are back to 135.8 so I'm not sure if my eyes or scales are playing tricks on me, hopefully neither!

Have a good Easter Crackers - I'm making an Easter egg cheesecake but we have family visiting so hopefully I will just have one slice!

Once again, my post above was posted without my knowing it so this is a continuation....
The last thing I was going to say about my student is I see here twice a week at her parent's request. Her mother is assuming we will meet all summer too. It is good that they don't expect huge chance in just a couple of weeks.
I have recently submitted two stories to different contest. That kept me busy during the worst weather of Jan/Feb. Both contest as really large and draw around 2000 entries so the chances of winning are rather low. However, there is the satisfaction of completing a project. And maintaining credibility with my writing group! (actually the group is very supportive and would never be critical if I had not completed any work.
Easter Sunday Nellie and I will be at my brother's in the country for dinner. We all bring some dishes for the dinner so he and his wife are not left with all the work.
Must be off for now. Easter good wishes to all. Regards.

I had to leave the last post to talk to Adam. He has determined that the post was a scam whereas I was thinking it was simply an error on the part of Pay PAL or the company sending the dress. I am so glad I did not touch any of the links on the site and it is now deleted.
This was the second frustration of the day. I woke up to find that the yard was completely covered in snow- several inches. It was thick, light snow which I might have appreciated more were it not April 6! A lovely patch of cocuses have given up and some little budding daffs were looking very bedraggled. I did take a couple of pictures with Nellie who didn't mind it at all and happily played with her soccer ball. As for the poor robins that have been around my yard I can't imagine what they are eating. I saw a couple the other day trying to pull something from the grass although I can't imagine that worms are near the surface yet.
I am trying to be positive about spring and gardening. I recently bought a package of heritage tomato seeds. They are for a variety called Sicilian Saucers. A couple of years ago I bought that variety from a local farm and thought they were the most flavourful tomatoes I had eaten. They are a very large, very irregularly shaped tomato, a pink/orange colour rather than bright red. That farm has now gone out of vegetable production and turned to corn and soybeans. Last year I tried to find the seeds locally but had no luck. I found them on the internet from a place in Manitoba that specialises in heritage plants. There were more than the few seeds I need so I have given four of my siblings some and issued a Green Thumbs Challenge- I will give a nice money prize to whoever produces the best specimen. They are all on board- my brother who teaches horticulture has access to a greenhouse at his school. My two sisters are very competitive and both said they would be seeking internet advice before seeding (they are also good gardeners) and my brother in Alberta also has a small greenhouse and is keen to
compete. My family is very competitive so it should be quite fun.
I had hopes of getting on my bike this week but no luck so far.
Hope all are well. Regards.

Hello Crackers. A belated Happy Birthday greeting to you, MITM. Still no real spring here- lots of snow in the air the past couple of days, and today, though it has not stayed on the ground. I still have not been on my bike but remain hopeful that tomorrow or the next day will be the day. In the meantime I have done well this week with spring cleaning unlike last week when I had no motivation to do any. I've been doing a lot of wall and floor washing and polishing so hope that counts as some exercise and a lot of up and down stairs to organise things and declutter.I need to keep at it as next week we have our first yard waste garbage pickup and there is a lot of work to do outside- many twigs and branches.
Perhaps news of the horrific bus crash in Humbolt, Saskatchewan is familiar to you. I checked the Guardian on-line and there was a lot about it. Briefly, a bus carrying a junior hockey team (ages 16-21) was struck by a huge truck, killing 15 people and seriously injuring 14 more. Our news has been full of the details ever since Friday. A vigil held in memory of those killed was broadcast on the CBC. Two woman in Humbolt started a Go Fund Me Campaign which has raised over $7.5 million dollars, one of the biggest amounts ever. People from all over the country and internationally have sent money. It is terrifically sad, of course, so many young lives lost but it is interesting to wonder why this particular tragedy has resonated so strongly. Humbolt is a small town of 6000 in north east Saskatchewan, not far from where my sister and her family lived. They know people directly connected with the incident. There have been some heartbreaking individual stories. One young player, turned 21 a few weeks ago and had signed his card to be a donor. Because he was still alive and died in hospital, his organs were retrieved and were to be used for six people. Another family was told their son had died but it turned out he was alive but badly hurt and another family thought he was their son but their son had died. On social media, someone posted about a neighbour who put out a hockey stick on her porch with a sign that said something like 'in case you need a stick up there.' Now many people are leaving out sticks on their front porches as a memorial gesture. There are all sorts of smaller fundraisers too. The Prime Minister attended the vigil and Trump, The Queen, and many well known people have sent condolences. It must be quite overwhelming for the people in that small town who are both grieving and unused to the media spotlight. It was interesting too to hear that the two women who started the Go Fund Me have said they will turn it all over to a committee of professionals to decide how to a lot the money to the families of the deceased and the survivors who may need years of medical rehab and special treatment. I think people have responded to the close sense of community that binds small towns, something they may not have in their lives in large urban centres. Well, I have gone on about this so hope have not bored anyone. Regards to all.

A very quick pop-in! Because of the nasty weather I am housebound and working on my income taxes- not the most enjoyable way to spend Saturday. Will do them over several sessions as I am slow but still can do them. When I started, I looked out the window and saw t droplets of ice forming on the tree outside my den. Now an hour later, after having my back to the window, I see the droplets have become a glazing along branches. Ice is so destructive of trees- and on April 14.Poor birds too.

Hello Crackers. MITM, your spring flowers sound as if they will be a truly beautiful sight. I'm sure you put a lot of work into preparing them. And those chives- what a lot you have to care for. They seem to be a hardy plant. Despite our weather my single chive plant has sprung some green shoots.
Well, after working very hard on Friday and getting all the twigs and branches ready for pickup, if you looked out my window today you would never know I had done anything! Saturday and Sunday we had a terrific ice storm in Ontario with huge winds. So my yard is once again littered with branches and twigs. But I won't be dealing with them today, nor did I yesterday, as again it has snowed and my yard is again completely white. And it is cold. I felt very sad to see the wind had blown over a birdhouse on a pole. It lies now on the ground covered with snow. I had recently seen a pair of sparrows going in and out and expect there were eggs if not young. I'll have to have it taken apart and renovated. I should not complain if that is the worst I had happen.Even on my street a neighbour had a very large tree completely
destroyed. Toronto was hit much harder and there was a lot of property damage to houses and vehicles from falling trees- not to mention the loss of these great old trees themselves.The police had to deal with over 1500 collisions on the weekend in the area because of icy roads. I have been trying to get walking more. Yesterday I took Nellie out but only managed 2500 steps because of cold. I did another 3000 walking around a couple of big box stores but I am far from the recommended 10,000 steps. I am trying to be more detailed with my diet journal and that has been going OK. The Beck workbook sounds interesting and I would be interested in hearing more about it. Regards.

Hello Crackers. It has been some time since I've posted obviously. Spring finally arrived and we have had some lovely days. Because everything has seemed to be later, I feel as if I am constantly behind. It has not been helped but some intermittent bad weather between the spring type days. Every year I begin with yard cleanup from the winter by picking up many twigs and branches. I mentioned this in the previous post and the ice-storm that put me back to step one. That was followed by a terrific wind storm that again led to another complete cleanup of twigs and branches and other debris. It seemed to take for ever but one day we had a proper spring rain and almost over night the grass turned green and bushes sent out their leaves. At last the large trees are leafing, although not completely out. I have had some lovely spring flowers, particularly my Canadian woodland flowers-the red and white trilliums, the bloodroots with their large scalloped leaves and the may apples as well as large clumps of white, mauve and yellow violets. The fish pond is finally cleaned out and refilled but the water has been quite cold. However, I am hoping to put the fish out tomorrow. This weekend I bought some lovely hanging baskets of begonias (yellow and pink) and some pink and red geranium baskets, all of which we on special price so well worth getting now although I may have to take them into the garage a time or two before all danger of frost is past. I still have a lot of garden work to do- some hostas to divide, some planters and window boxes to plant, the vegetables to do. I am trying to tell myself to cut back on the number of planters I fill but it is hard! The birdhouse that was overturned by the windstorm was righted with the help of my brother and the bird pair almost immediately reoccupied it.
Because I did not ride my horse through the winter, he is out of condition so it is a rather slow process bringing him back to working form- not to mention the rider! I am also finding tutoring the student twice a week is quite demanding at this time of the year when there are so many other demands. I will be volunteering for the horse show as announcer again and have been to organisation meetings for that. My writing group continues without a summer break. I really enjoy it. I do quite a lot of editing for some members who love to write but who do not have as much formal background as I do. My own writing has been put aside a lot for spring jobs so must get back to that before the next meeting in early June. Spring also has several family birthdays (three recently) and a drama presentation at a niece's school that she wanted me to attend- very impressive for the ages of the students who are in their last year of elementary school, grade 9 next year.
Time to let Nellie out for a pee so off for now. Thinking of you, Crackers. Hope all all well and presume are also busy. Regards.

Morning Crackers,

I too didn't realise it had been so long since I last posted. I have been madly busy with work as my husband has a very busy season ahead with lots of weddings, so we have been working around the clock stocking up. We also had our biyearly village clear out of household items. My husband after last year fighting to keep 3 industrial sized broken coffee machines - this year he cleared the entire basement of all items that no longer worked or were broken and we removed everything from the loft we don't use or didn't want. The old settee from the kitchen downstairs has finally left the building - it was like moving house! But I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders all this useless clutter, most that wasn't even ours! What I did find and was mine, a neatly stored collection of jeans, some 20 years old! Just why I was hanging onto them I don't recall but surprisingly as is the way, fashions do eventually come back round and I can still get into them. Maybe because they were jeans from my 'slim days' I kept them as there were none from my 'fat days'! They will come in handy for gardening and painting. After the hard winter I have lots of windows that need retouching up again.

Bracken your garden as always sounds like it's looking lovely! Spring is probably when I consider my front garden beds look their best, full of clusters of tulips and tall purple alluims. I splashed out and put in lots of new bulbs last Autumn as many failed to bloom last year. But the last time I did this I realised was 7 years ago when my Mother-in-law was dying and I escaped to the garden, when the nurses made their daily visits to plant up. I don't have the names but the garden is a sea of different shades of pink, some have like crown petals and many 2 tone. They have made me very happy in a rather wet May.

This weather has me all confused as to what I should be doing. After a very warm April when I cut the grass twice most unusual and the chives (all 160 bunches) were cut and frozen, it has been a very disappointing May. It turned cold and has rained at some point most days. The garden has loved the rain and the fields are full of flowers, everything has had a rapid growth spurt and yesterday when it didn't rain until the evening but was still cloudy and miserable I spent 9 hours in the garden weeding, mowing and cutting back as the moon was in the right position according to my husband!! People are only just putting up their balcony flowers due to the cold temperature. I didn't even buy mine until last Friday. I thought it too early in April and then May felt like April and then it suddenly dawned on me with June just around the corner, if I didn't buy them soon there wouldn't be any left! I am only doing 4 window double boxes and pots on the terrace. At the moment they are planted up but adjusting to the climate, sheltered under the solar terrace. It is absolutely pouring today heavy rain and if Noah and his ark made an appearance it wouldn't surprise me, so had I put my plants out they would be swimming now!

It does not help when I know that the UK is basking in glorious sunshine! However I was pleased that the weather was perfect for the Royal Wedding and the crowds. I thought Windsor Castle looked lovely, the church flower displays were exquisite, the dress very elegant (but she would look wonderful in a sack!) the tiara beautiful as was her jewellery but I do find it all very strange, that you only have 2 family members you can invite to your wedding but Harry is clearly besotted and I hope they will be very happy.

Finally I am delighted to report I am just 0.2 pounds away from my target weight again hurrah! Last seen at Christmas.... However 5 weeks of following Becks and 4.8 pounds lost.

Be good Crackers!