Glad to see you @Avidkeo ! It seems to have been a tough year, weight wise, for most of us. I'm up over 10 pounds from where I want to be and about 6 pounds from where I was last year. I'm hoping to lose at least 5 pounds this year - love to lose all 10, but don't want to be too ambitious.

I'm glad you and the person who accused you of harassment have had a heart to heart and also hope it all stays in 2022.

Yeah for getting started with your Master's program. That's exciting!

Congrats on that speedy 5K! That's a fantastic time.

Morning guys, and Happy New Year! It's officially 2023 here lol.

@quilteryoyo definitely a challenging year for everyone

@shanaber yes there were 2 mediators, however I handled it well myself. Each tu. E she interrupted me I would stop and ask if I could please finish what I was trying to say. Or I would just let her continue. It made her look bad. The mediators were our direct manager and the department Manager so they saw it all. I debriefed with our team leader after and she thought I handled it very well.

I will definitely keep you up to date with masters! It's such a steep learning curve.

Watch today calls for a recovery "run" which is paced at a fast walk. Way we'll do it, will see how I feel.

Mum is taking the kids for a night tonight so that will be nice

Morning all. Lovely night last night. Got Thai food and ate at home in peace and quiet without squabbling kids or having to nag them to get things done. Was fantastic.

No plans for today, I'll go for a gentle run soon - I've left it pretty late so can only be gentle as its getting pretty hot here. Then will probably just relax and do some crafts

@AlphaHowls you are definitely welcome to join us here. We do talk about a LOT of different things that are going on in our lives and affect our progress and how we are feeling about ourselves and life in general. I (and others) have in the past set goals weekly/monthly/whatever food goals and then update here, if that is something that helps. We all have our struggles and it is nice to have a place to discuss amongst us where there is no judgement.

@avidkeo - glad you were able to have a nice quiet dinner!

I weighed myself today to start the year and while I am down a 'whole' pound I have 14 more to go to get to goal weight again. 10 if I just want to get to where I started 2022. The positive is my scale seems to think I am doing well with lean mass so that is good... I think.

Welcome @AlphaHowls I also have that same beast that I just let roam unchecked the last half of 2022. I'm day 9 today of the beast back in the cage and it feels good. I had an extremely stressful 2022 looking back and I'm sure that's my biggest trigger. Currently no stress and feeling great. Now to figure out how to deal with the stress! Like you running is my mental health, but I wasn't able to do it for so much last year.

Hey a non scale victory to celebrate, my biggest hangup my whole life was my midsection. Now I'm 40 (oh yeah that happened at the end of November) I realise I don't give a f anymore. It's hot here. And I go running in a crop. Because its comfortable. I wear dresses that cling, because they are comfortable. So yay!

Good morning everyone!

I was so glad to see all the new messages...gives me time to procrastinate from my "to do" list at work that gave me a pang of anxiety when I was going through my emails.

We had a quiet Christmas. I caught an annoying cold around the 22nd and it knocked me down for a few days, luckily I was off work anyway and could wallow in my own self pity LOL. DH and I planned a few nice dinners and I took advantage of the time off to go thrifting. I have quite the backlog now LOL. New Years was about the same, I honestly forgot several times it was the last day of 2022 LOL...that is how much I care! DH and I have been really enjoying the show Elementary on Netflix and have finished nearly 6 seasons. I had all the plans to deep clean the house and do sort stuff for the now move THIS YEAR! I managed 1 drawer in my dresser and cleaned the bathroom. My motivation is just not there.

I guess a few updates:
PD did not file the appeal and so we moved forward...I thought we were done but alas the county sent me a 10 page document of "additional questions"...something about legless lizards and random trees...seriously?

The troublesome member of my unit I did my report on was let go. I am not sure under what status but they allowed him to take his PTO so I it was not on overly bad terms. I just don't know if he was fired or a supported resignation.

DH ran into the issue where State Farm was going to cancel our insurance because his TX license was expired (had been for 5 months). Under TX law military and spouses licenses do not expire. However it seems they do not actually update anything in the system and we got some cranky underwriters. I higly doubt we are the only ones. Renewing his license was a 2-3 month ordeal and State Farm gave us 10 days. In the end he had to get a California license. I was concerned about taxes but it seems as long as I stay a TX resident, we are ok.

Black and Grey cat are having some issues. Grey cat looks like he ate the Christmas roast...big old pot belly. I am concerned he is retaining fluid from his heart failure. Need to schedule an appt for him. Black cat is still loosing weight, he is bones again. He has an appt in 3 weeks for an ultrasound.

This year I am going to try to be more organized. I bought a planner. I am thinking about journaling. I need to loose weight. Mabye start running again. I have so much on my plate this year with retiring, moving, building, selling the property, and the final push on my reselling business...I am trying to prioritize and be gentle with myself.

210 days left of work...and the stupidity continues...so much so I am going to make a count down calendar.

I hope everyone has a great start to the year!

@CMorning99 Sorry you were sick over Christmas. Sounds like things are moving along other wise, except for the legless lizards (aren't those called snakes or worms?) in random trees. LOL And, that's crazy about your DH not being able to keep his car registered in TX. But glad you have it all worked out now. Glad to hear that Black and Grey cat are still hanging in there. I hope you can figure out how to work some running into your schedule. It should help your mood and your weight loss. Countdown calendars are fun. You should do that and put all of your retirement appointments on it. It's nice to have a visual.

@Avidkeo Congratulations on 10 days of eating well and exercising! That's awesome!

@Avidkeo I can imagine that would be really hard to keep on track when you work late like that. It throws your whole system off. Taking your own snacks is a great idea, both for nutrition and financial reasons.

@CMorning99 - I am glad you are feeling better but it does suck to be sick when you are off and could have used sick time and especially at Christmas.
Interesting that PD didn't file the appeal. Guess calling his bluff was the right thing. Also aren't legless lizards snakes? So weird but I am sure it is all the CA environmental reviews just in case there is some endangered critter or plant.
Will you have to get a new driver's license when you retire? Also I have heard that State Farm and Allstate have been taking some pretty cranky actions all around recently. One of my friends used to work for State Farm and even the retirees and employees have been hit. People randomly inspecting the outside of homes and coming up with a list of 'issues' that have to be remediated in 15 days or they will cancel your policy - things like that. So I am not surprised the issue you have had. I am not sure if the people are trying to justify their jobs or what... My friend uses the SF credit union and they closed all the actual locations - the only one available is in Texas now. She had a large settlement check to deposit and they wanted her to just endorse it and mail it to them... She took early retirement because they moved all of their people out of CA and she would've had to move to AZ. What's weird is she was a lead investigator which required her to physically be where the claims/people were and also to go to court here. Not sure how you could do that remotely.

@avidkeo - when I used to have to go into work at night it was like my mind thought it was a 'special occasion' and time to eat whatever I could find. I always figured it was from the early days of my career when we would do implementations and everyone would be together from all the company locations and would bring all kinds of snacks, making it feel almost like a party. I always tried to bring my own and keep to them but it was usually a fail. Great job making your lunch too!

This afternoon I am going to sit down and write out my fitness goals for 2023. I have been mulling the around for a bit now - since last month actually and if I don't write them out soon I know I won't.
One that I am going to add to my list for sure is taking the word 'try' out of my vocabulary as much as possible. It is too easy for me to say 'I am going to try to get in a workout' and then not. If I say 'I am going to get in a workout' it is much more like a commitment. Semantics but I think mentally it might help.

Oh - also we have finally cleared out most all of the leftovers and junk. I cut up the ham and froze some of it and took the bone and made soup in the IP. We had it last night with some fresh sourdough bread and it was delicious. It tasted especially good because it was really storming out. Why is it that soup always seems right when it is cold and/or stormy?

Good morning folks!

Rain Rain! Too bad most of our rain runs right into the ocean. But glad the mountains are getting a good fill so they can fill our well aquifers.

All is well though here. I adulted like a boss last week and did EVERYTHING on my to do list! I replaced all my phone calls with appts so now I have to deal with those LOL.

The weekend went well. We helped a coworker make "family movies" for their private adoption portfolio, and black and grey cats had their arthritis shots. We are trying a newly approved drug, it binds to to the pain nerve receptors and blocks pain. They don't know how long it takes to work but I feel grey cat is doing a lot better after 24 hrs...he is very talkative. But the literature says it can take 2 months for full effect. I did my usual thrifting on Sunday. The Goodwill was crowded. There were a lot of women field hands in there and they are really rude. They just stand by the door where the racks come out and when they do they just grab hand fulls off the racks. Then they take the clothes over to another area and look thru it and then just toss what they don't want over other racks and make a total mess. IDK how the employees deal with it. The Goodwills up north don't let you touch the new racks. I got a decent amount of stuff but sales are still not where I want them.

This week we have appts. Grey cat has his vet appt at 7:30 tonight for why his belly looks like he ate the Christmas roast. That is so late for us LOL. I also have a meet and greet with a tax lady to help us with my business taxes.

I think we are to have rain most of the week. I only managed 2 walks during work last week out of the scheduled 8. We ate ok and actually tried to make better choices. Last night though we gorged on pizza. I think the scale went up maybe a pound over the holidays.

Well, not much else interesting to report I guess. Have a great week.

I have not had time to get back to here, but realize it would really help if I did. Really struggling, eating more than I should. Last week I at a whole bag of splenda. This week not looking any better. I have already blown my calories for today. My feed beast is stress/fear triggered. At this point, it is pretty much centered around my mother's health.

It can be something simple in her manner, like this morning, asking me if I am going to work in the morning (which I do every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). Not even 5 minutes pass and she asks me again. I answer the questions, repeatedly, realizing she has no clue she just asked me. The decline in the last two years has been frightening. I want to break down and cry to my mother! But, I cannot, I have to pull through and show her I love her and will care for her till she leaves me.

I have been hiding from my eating, ashamed because I am eating things I do not like, just to quell the fear inside. I know that grief cycles can start before a loved one dies and I fully understand now, just watching the decline in her wrenches my heart to the core.

That is all I can write for now. I am feeling gutted, ashamed and tired.

@CMorning99 - great job getting to everything on your to do list! I hope all is well with grey cat. It is good he is so talkative but I hope the belly issue is nothing serious.
@avidkeo - glad you are able to stay on track even with being on call! I hope no one else gets sick so you are even more shorthanded. Chasing supervisors to get letters is like herding cats. It is always so hard to get them to commit and actually get it done.

@AlphaHowls - there is no reason to be ashamed! I just wish I knew more to be able to offer a coping mechanism. The only thing I know that worked for me in an entirely different situation was to stop before I ate anything and ask myself 1) was I really hungry, 2) was what I was going to eat something I really wanted and 3) was it worth it. If nothing else it made me think for a moment before eating even if sometimes I went ahead and ate whatever anyways.
I started listening last year to a podcast by Anderson Cooper called 'All There Is' that he started when he was going through his mom's things 2 years after she passed away. It made me cry at times but I also learned a lot about my feelings about my mom's death and how that made me worry about losing everyone around me.
One of the episodes is specifically about 'anticipatory grief'. You might want to listen to it as it is an episode with a woman going through something similar to you and your mom. Maybe it will help?
https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/all-there-is-with-anderson-cooper/episodes/73c062a8-cc0f-475b-8a09-af2c001b85fc
In any case sending you lots of hugs. It is just so hard to see someone you care so much about, just drift away.

Heavy rain here until Wednesday so we are having lots oof soup and I am getting ready to make bread again. The starter will be ready to go to bake bread on Saturday when it is raining again... I am trying to fit some running around the rain as much as I can. I'm also working on getting several things reupholstered. The place I want to use no longer has fabric so I need to find the fabric <sigh>. They will also repair our leather loveseat but again I need to find the leather. I'm not even sure where to look or what I would need to buy there are too many different kinds.

Good morning!

@shanabar We have recieved nearly 6 inches of rain here in the last 30 hours...and we got the light end of the storm. Just north and south of us got slammed. All the schools are cancelled today and lots of roads closed. The road to mom's ranch is blocked too. Makes me think about PD, his road is our other access point...or maybe the cliff broke off and it is gone <evil laugh>.

Rain has been crazy...not soft constant rain...just frequent torrential downpours. I cancelled grey cats appoint last night and it is rescheduled for this evening.

Obv no exercise. I ate a bit too much dinner last night, not sure why...it tasted good.

Rain again this weekend. I have to go up to the ranch on Friday, hopefully it is dry enough that I can check for any damage or erosion issues.

@AlphaHowls biggest hugs. Dementia is one of the worst diseases I have ever seen. I work with dementia patients all the time and my heart always goes out to the family who support them. I want to say don't be ashamed, and I remember that shame well. I am also excellent at hiding my eating so no one can see it. And the shame drives me to eat more, to fill that hole. And nothing does. Viscious cycle. I have found keeping busy helps, and atm I'm chewing gum when the craving strikes. That's been working for a couple of weeks...

Always remember to ask for help. How advanced is she?

@shanaber @CMorning99 We are also experiencing rain here, and it's windy today. And yet still very hot. I hate humidity.

Call again last night, just one call so I'm reasonably rested. Hoping to relax a bit today before going to see a comedian tonight - Jimmy Carr if anyone follows British comedians. We are very much looking forward to it.

Night out was great. Nice to have a good laugh.

Shift again today and tomorrow. Supposed to do a recovery run, I think I'll just have a rest day. About to take the kids bowling!