Sunday Weigh-In August 12, 2018

[Barb135]

Good morning... How's everyone this morning?  It looks to be another hot day in my world, so I'm not sure there will be a lot of excitement going on...

I've been in the process of taking up a new hobby, so I've been busy collecting tools and materials, watching "how to" videos, etc this past week.  Because it's been so hot outside, I've been working in the house rather than in my shop and I don't really have any place to do this kind of work, so I've set up a "workstation" in my dining room on an extra desk.  That means I have a mess... lol  I've tried to consolidate all the tools and supplies as well as I can, but you know how that goes!!  Anyway, I do need to fix up a spot in my shop for this stuff and move it all out there when it gets cool enough or maybe even before...  :-)

Anyway, because I've been sitting on my duff watching training videos and researching/ordering tools, I haven't been moving around/exercising like I should be, either.  We know what that means, don't we?  :-)

I have been eating better - so I thought.  Yeah, really I have - more veggies and fruit, not the pasta and bread, potatoes, etc that we ate on vacation.   We went to Sam's Club the other day and I bought one of their rotisserie chickens - tasty and easy to slice up, heat and toss on the table quickly, right?  Yeah, right!!  I noticed after a couple meals of it, my feet were beginning to swell again and it took a while to figure out what caused it - yep, you guessed it - the chicken.  I stopped eating it and some of the swelling went down overnight, but my fingers are still very swollen and painful... I can't believe how susceptible I am to salt/sodium - especially, regular table salt, though I can use the pink Himalayan salt lightly... how odd is that?

Anyway, I'm only down 1 pound from last week, so I'm not very happy with that.  This is still vacation weight/swelling/bloat I'm trying to get rid of and I didn't think it would take this long to do it.  We've been home for 10 days - of course, I can't really count the day we got here (the 2nd) since it was late in the day and I can't count today since it's early morning - can I get by with saying I've really only had 8 days to get back on track?  lol  Admittedly, even at that, I should be doing better than I am... So here's new resolve to kick it in gear and do better this week.

So... that's me - how about y'all?  What's going on your lives and how are you doing?  Some of you are in full swing getting kids back to school.  I know tomorrow is starting day for many in my state but I think some states don't start until after Labor Day; I suppose there are quite a few in between... Anyway, let's hear your story; I hope it's better than mine...

~~Wishing everyone a wonderful, successful week~~

[dominosarah]

That's whats going on now with the old varnished wood showing thru.....

[AnnieBrooke]

Bliggers. Sometimes it's worth it to try to strip everything back (sanding or even using one of those heat guns) to a relatively consistent surface even if not bare, and then to sand lightly with fine sandpaper to give a grip for the paint. We did that on our exterior window trims, taking back layers of paint. They weren't down to bare wood when we repainted, but they were smoothed, filled and matte. Other times, it's more worthwhile just to sand, fill holes, sand again where the filler is, and then use a good, sticking primer and cover up everything there. There used to be a primer called "Zerolac," it may still be around. We've gotten good results with it. Also, our painters did a kitchen for us recently, taking oak to white on the cabinets, and I'll bet the primer they used s was epoxy-based because it stunk to high heaven and took a while to dry, and it seems to have stuck. Anyway, good luck, the end result (white trim) is totally lovely and fresh looking.

[dominosarah]

White it is then!  Thanks AB!

[AnnieBrooke]

If you're painting over varnished-wood trim, be sure to sand lightly to a matte finish, and/or use a shellac-based primer. Nothing is more irritating than the paint chipping and the old varnished wood showing through.

[AnnieBrooke]

(Well, probably *something* is more irritating, but when painting trim, prep is more than 80% of your ultimate success.)

[dominosarah]

I always have the coffee on!!  I can even round up a Dr Pepper if need be!!

The salsa on rice sounds pretty good but everytime i think about rice i get a gut ache!!  It will have to wait!  lol

I am really hungry for potato salad but i know it isnt the best for me.  Summertime food is so much better than winter!  Still havent had any sweet corn.

The parts of my living room that i have done so far looks pretty good.  Need to figure out what to do with the windows and trim.  Do i want to paint them white?  I have hardwood floors.

[AnnieBrooke]

I have white trim all over in the upstairs of my house, it looks great with our lichen-green bedroom walls. We kept the downstairs trim natural, but I actually think it would look fresher in white as well.

[dominosarah]

I lost 1 lb this week.  I didnt feel real good for a couple days this week.  Think i over loaded myself with brown rice!!!  I made a big batch and added cilantro to the mix and ate it like it was the last batch of rice to be had!  Had it for 3 days!  lol

Have i got a deal for you ladies......I am painting my living room so if you both would like to come over and help i would make some chicken breasts!  They are the amish chickens and man are they good and meaty.  The butcher gets them from some of the amish farms over by Rochester MN.  They know how to raise some good food and all natural!

Still humid as hell here.  It is hazy from the fires in Canada so they have been issuing warnings for people with breathing issues to limit their outside activities.

My daughter is having her permanent implants put in on the 18th of Oct.  I will be there and stay with her for a couple days.  Onco appt on the 20th.  Chemo will be decided and probably started.  She had a liver test to see how she metabolizes things and it came back as "poor metabilizer" so this may throw a wrench into the picture.   I still have a hard time with all of this..uggh.

Annie, i hope the memorial service for your dad was comforting, or as comforting as it can be given the fact it was a memorial.  That is never easy.
Electric car....how long can they run before you have to charge them?

We ordered our tickets for Tesla and Lita Ford today!  They are playing at the Grand Stand at the Clay County Fair!  You remember that dont you Barb?  I am pretty excited as i love going to concerts!

[AnnieBrooke]

This one goes about 180 miles on a charge. Since it would replace my husband's little old dangerous  convertible, it is obviously not taking the place of the family SUV in which we go on trips around the state to inaccessible places without charging stations. It isn't even going to be a daily driver, since a lot of my husband's work is done out of state (i.e., flying) and he doesn't go into the office every day even when in town. So rationally, it should be just fine. I guess we'll get past "range anxiety" soon enough (the saleswoman assures me).  Mileages are creeping up on all the electric cars, and there are more charging stations than there used to be (still not enough, in my book, but apparently you get used to keeping your eye out).

The memorial for my dad was good, thanks for asking. It was a concert in his honor, since he had done a lot of work in the formative years for a particular chamber music festival that is now in its 21st year. The music was good, very professionally handled, and the speech from the director of the festival about Dad was from the heart.

Glad to hear your daughter's situation continues to go as well as possible. Try to eat something really fattening this week. :) No more puppy butt for you.

[Barb135]

Well, if you're going to eat rice, brown is the type to have because it's whole grain... my problem with rice is that the way I really like it is with gravy, which defeats the purpose of having brown rice!!  But then I  I do make brown rice using chicken broth instead of water and it's yummy with cilantro in it.  I don't know if I could stand to eat it for 3 days straight, though; that seems like a little overkill... lol  :-) :-)

Congrats on your loss of a pound; it looks like we've all done okay.  

I'd be happy to come help paint your living room, but I'm not the best painter in the world...now if you want wallpaper hung - I'm your gal... I didn't realize there were Amish by Rochester; we always go to the Amana Colonies when we visit my sister in Iowa City.  They have some good food. When we visit my other sister in South Dakota, we often go to the Menonite Colony to get chickens, eggs, etc.  Those are really good, too.  I could pretend I paint well just to get some good natural food... lol

I didn't realize it would take so long for your daughter to start chemo and get the permanent implants, but I guess they have to give everything a chance to heal and her to get her strength back, don't they?   I'm sure they will be able to work the poor metabolism - that's why they do those tests, so they know what problems they might be up against and can plan for them before they get started.

Wow - you go to the Clay County Fair in Spencer?  Do I ever remember it!! We went to that every year, too.  It was right in the neighborhood, so to speak.  My daughter showed horses so she was there throughout the whole fair.  The fair was kind of a highlight of the year... lol

[AnnieBrooke]

You know, brown rice is too sweet for me. I would not be surprised at all if cilantro made it much more palatable. We sometimes put salsa on rice, even if it's cooked with chicken or beef broth. It's a nice kick.

I'm a good painter! Too bad I'm not in the neighborhood, I like to paint rooms.

[Barb135]

Cilantro does give brown rice a little "something" extra.   I sometimes brown ground beef and onions, add a can of tomatoes and tomato sauce, then add brown rice - almost like a goulash with rice instead of macaroni...

I also have a good recipe for broccoli/rice and cheese casserole...

I hadn't thought of putting salsa on my rice - I bet that is good...

Well, gee - it's just a hop, skip and jump from OR to MN, probably about the same distance as from FL to MN... It's about 1800 miles for me and if I hadn't just gotten home from that neck of the woods I'd sure be game... lol  One of these days when I get up there, I'm going to make a point of getting to Sarah's city so I can stop and have coffee with her...

[AnnieBrooke]

Good morning! I'm at the farm, and the imprecise old scale in the bathroom tells me I am down a pound or perhaps a pound and a half, this week. I think this is not just a fluke of the scale, because my trysts with Dr. Pepper are much reduced, and I haven't been eating fast food. (Where we were last week, there are no fast-food restaurants.) We did eat at restaurants, but they served normal food, not laced with chemicals, preservatives and salt. For example, one dinner, I had a super delicious Caprese salad, sitting looking out at a lovely view. This beats hamburgers along the side of the expressway in all ways. :)

Barb, I think a lot of the places that sell  rotisserie chickens brine them. (Costco does -- that's why they taste so good.) But if you're sensitive to salt, ya gotta just buy a natural chicken from Trader Joe's and bake it yourself. The salt is bad enough but who knows what else they might put in the brine?

Anyway, all our commitments for the summer are ticked off. We made it to zen camp on time, and met our reservations to catch the ferries on and off the island for my Dad's memorial service, and got my son to a big math test he needed to take [I had had visions of arriving and them saying the test had been the previous day], so now it's relax-time. Meaning, as it turns out, cleaning out the garage. My husband wants to buy an electric car, and we need to put in a charger thing, and the electrician is never going to be able to get past all the boxes of junk to do the install.  :P

[Barb135]

Hmmm... I could have sworn I commented on your post yesterday, but it's not here so either I typed it and didn't submit or MH is playing games/having issues.  I'll try again and if one from yesterday shows up (probably won't at this point), we'll pretend I have a stutter until I can get the mods to delete one...  :-)

Your old, imprecise scale seems to be doing well by you.  Stick with the 1.5 lbs down; I sure would since you're working on giving up the relationship with the good doctor and not eating the fast food.  You're probably right that it's not a fluke.  It doesn't take long giving up something like Dr Pepper and fast food to drop a pound or two... Eating in restaurants isn't always bad if you're frequenting those at which you can get "real" food that's not laden with sugar, bad fat, salt, etc.  That Caprese salad sounds yummy...

I didn't think about Sam's Club brining the chicken before they put it on the rotisserie, but I'd say you're probably right about that...I'm sure there's also plenty of salt in the spicing they put on the outside, as well.  Unfortunately, the closest Trader Joe's is about 50 miles from me, so I only go there a couple of times a year - usually when my "winter neighbor" is here from OR.  There is one north of us and one south of us, so we pick several places to go, then make a day of it and head one direction or another to shop/play... But you're right - I need to bake my own chicken, for sure.

I'm glad you've got all your commitments taken care of; that's always a relief... The trip to the ferry sounded like a wild ride, but I saw your comment to dominosarah that the service went well, so that's good.  Golly visions of the math test being the day before must have been disconcerting; I bet you're glad that's over with.   Your husband is buying an electric car, huh?  I'd be good driving one locally - to the store and back, etc, but we don't see very many charge stations around here, so I'd be afraid to go very far and have to charge while I'm out.  Perhaps you have more charge stations out there than we do.