phyllser

I think we have to leave Seattle the 23rd to get there on the 25th. Then leave the morning of the 28th, 8 hours to Chicago... about a 6 hour layover there and then I think about 12 hours to Buffalo. Coming back, about 3 days. We've done it before.... when we were much younger, but enjoyable way to travel and I am going to book a roomette for the overnight segments. I was hoping to get another July bandster from Oklahoma City to come on our trip, too, because her DH is a good buddy of my DH, but she says they can't make it. Well, the internet was supposed to go down a couple of minutes ago so I'm living on borrowed time!!!

Now that the internet has been running great for the last couple of days they are taking it down at 8 a.m. for 24 hours for "maintenance"! It probably won't work again after that! I looked up the Homewood Suites at Mall of America last night and it looks pretty nice. Has a pool, exercise room, includes breakfast, sounds like they have a "Happy Hour" type thing... no alcohol but food every afternoon, too, that is complimentary. We're going to combine this with a trip to Buffalo to see my Mom & sisters, etc., so DH will be with me and will have to figure out how to amuse himself while I am "busy" shopping and hanging out with you guys! We're taking the train from Seattle to St Paul/Minneapolis, stay there for the weekend, then continue on to Chicago & then Buffalo. Haven't traveled by train in almost 25 years! No airport hassle and enjoy the scenery!

Isn't it interesting how we notice things like that now. I never noticed how my DH scarfs his food down... eats way too fast and big huge bites!! I keep telling him to slow down. Then the people sitting next to me at the Easter potluck yesterday blew me away with their two huge plates of food... and then they sat there and ate ALL of it!

I put sugar free Raspberry Davinci in my chocolate protein drinks and it was soooo good!!

Citracal Chews... Caramel, lemon and chocolate. I did a little research on the internet... all those other calcium chewables are calcium CARBONATE rather than Calcium CITRATE and as Janet said, the Calcium Citrate absorbs MUCH better than the Carbonate. The Citracal Chews can be found at both Rite Aid and Albertson's. You just might have to bug the pharmacist a bit about keeping them in stock. I prefer the chocolate. First time I bought them Rite Aid only had Caramel, so I went through a box of those and in the meantime I found them at Albertson's. I bought the only two boxes of chocolate that they had and when I went back for more several weeks later they had NONE in any flavor! When we get home I will make sure our local Rite Aid carries the chocolate for me! I take the Centrum Silver Chewable when I can find them. I have been able to swallow multivitamins and even my Omega 3's lately.. I found a smaller version of the Omega 3 somewhere... I think it was Rite Aid, too. I'm afraid when I get another adjustment next month, I may not be able to swallow all this stuff I'm taking right now. I found some smaller Citracal tabs, but they made the stupid things SQUARE!! Can you imagine??? Why... if you're going to try to make something easier to swallow would you make it SQUARE!!???? I'm getting them down, but only because I couldn't get my Citracal chews. When they're gone... I'm going on a new search for the chewables... like I say, hopefully my local Rite Aid!! Right after surgery I used Shaklee liquid multivitamin and it was the most awful stuff I ever tasted!! I kept taking it because it cost me an arm and a leg, but I couldn't wait until it was gone!!!

Hi, Lynette, Mall of America is in Bloomington MI, about 30 miles from St Paul/Minneapolis, I think. So far those going are Janet, Peaches, Linda, Jackie, Stephanie & Phyl. Do you think you might be interested? It's the weekend of July 25-28.

I was good...no kids around, no chocolate around, dinner was potluck after church... they ran out of ham, so I only took a tiny bit and some small amounts of side dishes. Scale is going down so slowly & I would love to get to 75 lb loss by the time I see my dr's pa next month!

We'll be keeping you in our thoughts and prayers for sure on Wed.!

Online this morning!! Yippee! Never know how long it will last!! Yes, it's good to see Lynette & Chim back again! Watching people eat.... an eye opener, huh??!! We had a potluck after church yesterday (AGAIN). I did pretty good.... I'm very selective at these things now. Unfortunately, they didn't anticipate how many people would show up and had only 2 hams for over 200 people, so I had only a very small piece & by the time DH went through the line it was gone. So I took about a tsp of a couple of kinds of veggies, teeny bit of potatoes, salad, etc. and DH brought me a bite of carrot cake... I left most of the frosting. So I'm sitting there slowly eating my little bit of stuff when this couple sits down to my left and they each had TWO plates of food!! Regular size plates! One was filled with almost all desserts! And the othere was piled about two inches high with stuff. Her potato salad alone was more than I had on my entire plate. And as we sat there and chatted, she ate the WHOLE thing.. and him, too! They both cleaned BOTH plates! Unbelievable! At my worst, I don't think I ever ate that much at a sitting. She was kind of overweight, but not morbidly so. We are all made of the same mold, I think... Cadbury Cream Eggs....Oh, my!! And green shakes from McD's.. two of my very favorite things. No temptations around here this Easter weekend... no chocolate, and just that potluck lunch, so I had a healthy weekend. Never mind... it was a very tiny piece of carrot cake!! Almost time to go to water aerobics. I better get off the computer soon!

You did good. We need to figure out how to get that avatar to where you want it!! And, no, I can't get rid of the glasses for you! I like them!!

So can you get your fills in Vancouver?? Do you ever have to go to Toronto for followup?? My exercise this winter consists of water aerobics. When we head home I have to figure out how to get the exercise in... public pool? May see if my knees can handle treadmill and mayb try weight machines at our condo. I think they may frown on me doing water aerobics in the condo hot tub!! Our oldest daughter has an above ground pool, but can't imagine the water will ever be warm enough to get in before about August!!! :cheers2:

That's great news!! I am anxious to see my PCP when we get home and hoping for the same.... drop a BP pill & maybe one cholesterol Rx, too!! Congrats!! You're doing great!

Good Morning!! Well, you were up and "running" early this morning, as usual! We slept a little later than normal and took our time reading the morning paper and having some coffee, so we just finished breakfast 1/2 hour or so ago. No plans today except for the Seder Dinner at 4 pm. May go to the pool between now & then, but no vigorous exercise... maybe jog in the water... shoulder is feeling better so I'm going to pamper it a bit this weekend. Wanted to start using the weight machines but that might not be too easy on the shoulder either! Did grocery shopping yesterday and have lots of seafood for the next few weeks!! That Mahi Mahi on the grill was sooooo good! Did you see Green's post this morning...I think on the 50+ thread. Throat cancer... so sorry to hear that.

Hi, Doddie, Welcome! Jump right in... yeah, we take Canadians!! The more the merrier here!! Us old chicks gotta stick together!! So, am I understanding that you had your surgery in Toronto?? I grew up in Buffalo NY so quite familiar with Toronto. In fact, probably more so than Vancouver which is so close to where we live now. As you probably figured out, we are down in Southern California for the winter in an RV park where there are LOTS of Canadians... from BC, Alberta, mostly. There are around 2700 people in this park during the peak winter months and a very large majority are the Canadians, and folks from WA state, Oregon and a smattering from Idaho, Montana, ND and even a few from Alaska. But, people are already starting to head back north and there will be a traffic jam at the front gate on April 1!!

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd150/phyllser/Peaches-Avatar.jpg I think if you go to the page where you edit our avatar & click on this link it should work.

Is this what you wanted??

Well, pasta is one of the things I really miss and it was a good substitute, though not as good as the real thing, but a nice change from our usual french style green beans. I might try some whole wheat pasta, too, to see how that compares to this. Atonement... I wondered if that was worth going to see. We'll need a list of movies to go see when we get back up to the rain!! :cheers2: Someone on TV said last night that squirrels are just rats with good PR!! :smile: We'll all be thinking of you on Friday!! Hope all goes well! Your new picture is great! You are sure lookin' good. My suggestion for making it smaller... upload it to PhotoBucket... they have tools there to do it. But, in the meantime, I'll see if I can copy/paste it and maybe I can do it with my photo software.

Lookin' GOOD, Kid!! My, you are YOUNG!! You really look great... how far to goal??

Green, My heart sunk when I read that. I'm so sorry! Your husband has really stepped up to the plate. That's a real blessing, to have him supporting you like that. Our thoughts and prayers will certainly be with you as you go throught this treatment. Keep us posted. We missed you!!

Those last few pounds are being stubborn, huh?? Stick with it... they'll come off. You're so close to your goal!!! That's great!!

I was looking at my rings today in the hot tub... thinking they will never get too big because my knuckles are swollen from arthritis. In the past, when I lost a lot of weight the rings would fall off!! Not any more! Yes, I think we had some of the pasta the next night... forgot to tell you. We had spaghetti sauce in the freezer so we had the pasta with that. It was very good! Thank you!

Hmmmm, that was yesterday...my memory is foggy but I think I got an email request. It is a boring evening here, too. Could've gone up to hear a barbershop quartet, but went shopping all afternoon, then wanted to sit outside on the patio for a while. So we had dinner late. Mahi Mahi on the grill with lemon & onion slices.... it was yummy. I don't think we ever cooked Mahi Mahi before. Very nice white fish. Also bought some smoked salmon for snacks and omelets. And, of course, scallops! Didn't eat enough fish this week, so we made sure we have plenty for the trip home. Messianic group/Christian Jews is doing a Seder dinner here tomorrow so we got tickets. Should be interesting. We went to one a very long time ago. I think normally lamb is served, but this one is going to be chicken.

Wow!! Very nice! You look great! We should've had Earl take a picture of the two of us last Saturday!

That's funny!! How old is he?? I have a nephew like that... but he's in his 30's. He loves the snow. Sitting on the patio with DH's laptop this afternoon! It's around 85. Weather report from home today is 34 degrees, snow, sleet, rain, hail!! Yiippee!! We will take our time driving home!! Maybe by mid April it will improve!! Daughter just says WAH, WAH, WAH when we complain!! It's been quite a winter up there! she & SIL are escaping to Cabo as soon as school is out. She works at the high school. We're supposed to "babysit" 18 & 19 yr old!! Yeah, right.... like nailing Jello to a tree, right!!???

Hey! Where is everyone today?? Haven't been able to get online most of the day, but sitting outside on the patio with DH's laptop now & pretty strong signal. Hope everyone is having a great day, and a GREAT Easter weekend to all. Bought the book "Eat This, Not That" today. Has anyone else read it?? I was reading it on the way home from Costco because we got stuck in contstruction traffic. I'll share little tidbits as I read it. Interesting info on calories, fat grams and sodium on favorite menu items from all the major restaurants. I was making a wrong choice at Panera Bread... Sierra Turkey sandwich is not as healthy as I thought it was! surprising stats on other places, also. five consecutive days of water aerobics took it's toll on my joints this week. I often have a day off if we go somewhere during the week, but lately we've been at the pool every morning. Last night I was having a lot of pain in my left shoulder. Had a rough night trying to sleep and struggled through my hour in the pool this morning. A little better tonight. Hate not being able to take NSAIDS!! So I bought some Glucosamine/Chondroitin today at Wally World. We'll see if that helps. I used to take it a long time ago but didn't seem to give me much relief.