I had a fantastic weekend. We spent yesterday noon with son & his family & inlaws having an Easter lunch & egg hunt. Then we went to daughter's for dinner & did the whole thing again with her family. Life is good! :) Saturday we went to son's house & watched the Passion of the Christ with his inlaws. It was just a really good weekend. We still have a couple of sick dogs though & I'll be glad when they are feeling WAY better! :)

Hope to see everyone posting this week! Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend! Patti :)

BJ~I'm SO sorry I missed your birthday! I kept saying I knew it was someone's birthday. UGH!!! My sincerest apologies. I hope it was a great one.

Hi Suzanne!

We had a great weekend at the in-laws. Too much food, lots of laughs. Glad to get home though.

Finally I have one day - one - day of weather to dig in the garden and get some veggie seeds in (cool weather crops). It's slow going to flip and weed the dirt but I'll be happy to make some progress today and at least have my onions in.

Did manage to plant the spanish onion bulbs, a long row of cabbage, mixed rows of beets and carrots. All in all did a 7x12 foot bed. Extremely slow because of the many rocks of various sizes. It's worth it now to do as much as possible to get those rocks out. Each spring rocks will heave up from the soil. I have a lot more veggie garden to do. May is rain, no rain, rain, rain and more rain then no rain. I'll take whatever day I can.

Good workout today.

How was your day today?

Peggy, rain, rain, rain all day! Saturday we had 4" of snow and Easter was lovely and the snow was all gone overnight. Today, rain.

I hear you on the rocks! I have the same problem. This is called the Granite State for a reason. There is no end to rock picking!

I am waiting for a dry spell to plant my kales and lettuces. Don't usually plant peas but would like to plant Sweet Peas this year but I better get them in soon or it will be too late.

Hey BJ...thanks for the exuberant welcome!! Felt good.

I wrote a long post, but then didn't want to post it. I will, though.

among other things, Suzanne, I wanted to say again how I love your pictures. I love wilderness and you seem to have a lot of it there. Love the animals, too.

Just bopping in for now to say I'll try again tomorrow. I'm glad you are mostly well and hanging in there.

- Amy

Good Tuesday all,

Today is my beloved Sweet Pea's 16th birthday. We have been together for over ten years now. Today she is going to get extra pampering and I am going to braid her mane (I think I am not good at it!). She deserves so much after the winter she has had.

Amy, yes, lots of wilderness here and I love sharing it with you all! Glad you enjoy my photos.

Here's the birthday girl now:

I've been missing for a while but doing all right.

I had a really nice week-end too. I spent one afternoon out of town with one of my step sons and spent Sunday with my daughter, son-in-law and family, thanks to my grandchildren picking me up. A big day.

Back to treatments to-day. A total of 20% finished to-day.

All the best to everyone.

ivamae

Hi again. I'm not exactly organized these days, but I'll post anyway. Suzanne, happy birthday to Sweet Pea. :) What a good friendship you have with her.
BJ, happy belated birthday to you, too. Hard to believe so many are still here from when I first started in ... when... 1999 or thereabouts? I came to Hawaii in 2001.
Patti, it's good to hear you had such a good time with your family, and I'm glad you are still active and getting around.

BJ, you asked what movie I was watching. I've been watching a lot since I can't go out much. And I like art and creativity and sci-fi and lots of things, so it works for me. The last few days I've been watching the TED talks on Hulu and enjoying them. Also watched the recent Tron movie.

Today my home helper came to help with things I can't do for myself. My provider recently cut my weekly hours from 19 to 8. I can get by with it though. One of my social workers told me that one of her other clients got a similar cut, but she is paralyzed, lives alone and can only move her two thumbs. I don't know what she will do. Fortunately, I'm still mobile. Seems like the older I get, the more I am aware of how many things can go wrong with a body.

My eating is good. I haven't eaten sweets since I first started SSing - about 12 years ago. I do try to eat healthy and wise, but my metabolism is still not good. My body seems to have adjusted in some ways to the way I was eating while losing weight, so that I'm not losing anymore. And if I reduce calories, instead of losing weight, I just get cold and tired. I don't know why that happens, but it seems to.

More tomorrow :)
- Amy

Good Wednesday all,

Another rainy day here and I am hoping to see a little sun by days end.

Ivamae, I am happy to see you post. Glad that you had a nice weekend too. You deserve alot of great days!

Amy, that seems like a severe cutback but I am glad you can do okay with it. I feel for the other woman - I am not sure how they expect her to survive. It's a sad state of affairs. When I reduce calories I get very cold and fatigued too. I wonder why that is?

I just watched a good movie about an autistic woman who was born in Boston. Her name is Temple Grandin and the movie name is the same. Autism was not understood when she was growing up and the doctors all encouraged her mother to put her in an institution but she did not. Instead she found a school right here in NH very near me, The Hampshire Country Day School and went on to attend and graduate from Franklin Pierce University (now called College) also very near me. She got her masters at the University of Colorado and she accomplished some very amazing things. It was very good. I had never heard her name before but now I will never forget it!

The tom turkeys are out romancing the hens!

Hi all!

OK, Suzanne--that's it!! I am so moving in with you and your DH! I can't believe that you got that gorgeous pic of struttin' Tom! I would so love to be your neighbor! :)

AMY!! No way! Our long lost friend! So happy to see you post! Are you still painting? I hope so; you have such an amazing talent. I still have the notecards you sent me all those years ago. They're too special to send, so I made mini framed pics from them. If I can ever figure out how to post pics, I'll post one--

BJ & Donna--happy belated birthday! I'm sorry I missed them; and I hope you had a great day! (((Hugs!!)))

Beege--I love "Who's Line is it Anyway?" too. Drew Carey's version is fun,but Ii love Clive Anderson's version. Tony Slatterly cracks me up--his expressions are too funny! Josie Lawrence is funny too--who is your fav?

Thanks, Peggy, for the kind words. :) That would be 2008, and that's when I fell off the face of the earth. A bad time in my life, but it helped to get me where I am now, and so it's all good. :) Although, at some point in mid '09, I really wondered.....

Things are nuts here. This is the week before finals, and I swear the profs are out to kill us, or turn us into alcoholics, whichever comes first. I am living on Easter candy and other assorted junk food, and getting about 4-5 hours of sleep at night. But it will soon be over, and i'll have a month off. Yay!!:)

Hope all is well with everyone!

Hugs,

Maddie

Hi Maddie :-) ((((HUGS))))) Nice to see you all, too.
That's funny about the cards. You have more copies than I do then, lol. I sold them all and didn't reorder. I am still painting and trying to get all my stuff organized. I have a lot, but it's kind of all over the place. I've sold most of what I've done, which is nice, but when I look around I feel like I haven't done much. I have a woman who wants to commission three paintings for her new house, but I had to turn her down. It's getting harder for me to paint and I need to finish some things I've started.

Good Thursday all,

Maddie, you can come live with us any time! You would love it here but people who live in cities tend to be frightened of the lack of street lights out here! There are none. It's really funny. No street lights but plenty of wildlife and dirt roads.

Amy, how exciting to have someone commission your work! Maybe you can do it for her at another time.

Jan I am thinking of you.

Where is everyone? Marci, you have not posted in forever! Carolyn, Patty, John (you said you would post brother!), Dee, Besh, you all know who you are.

MY DEAR BJ - Happy belated Birthday - I am so sorry that I missed the party! I hope you know how much you mean to me and even when I'm not here I am thinking of you.

SMART PHONE - DUMB OWNER: I thought I entered all important birthdays (i.e. BJ) into my phone and did away with my daily planner - BIG MISTAKE. There are several that I missed this year because of that. So it is back to paper and pen for me. I also think of my daily planner as my journal, as I jot things down in it and I don't do that on my phone.

I will come back and read everyone's posts, especially Amy's - it's been much too long.

Hi Raeanne :-)
There was talk on a recent page of FB. I am on FB as Amy Lynne. If anyone wants to share your username, I'd like seeing yours, too.

Hi everyone!
We've had a horrific storm system blow through yesterday. Got cedar boards outside for the garden - watched those fly by literally like matchsticks in the breeze. A few are now in trees. Listened to our new home roof creak in the wind - very unnerving. It was about 100km/hr all over parts of Ontario yesterday. The strongest wind I've felt since leaving Scotland (winter was gale force winds normally Jan-Feb).

Been really focused with my usual - plants. Seedlings, seeds and plants. Did I mention my plants? Somehow managed to cook meals, clean the house and do laundry in between. Like most areas this spring - too frigging cold to do the normal plantings of cool weather crops.

Haven't been doing too bad in the food department. Trying to remind myself everyday to drink water more, coffee/tea less. Actually picked up some generic orange juice (can't afford $5.00 per carton and up. Barely afford coffee but we've given up so much with soaring food prices there is a limit. Cooking better meals again. And still maintaining my weight in the healthy range - overall pretty happy with the efforts of the last 5 years. I'm the turtle in the race. Every winter focused on smaller goals and then maintenance until next winter. My success so far has been applying a gradual weight loss and making healthier habits lifestyle.

And now - The Royal Wedding
I woke up at 7am EST and caught the event live just as Will & Kate were returning from the church. My goodness she chose a beautiful gown - very classy. I couldn't help but smile the whole time watching and they kissed twice! So happy. The queen was even caught smiling a lot. Kate sure has a beautiful family. Her sister looked smashing too. They look in love. I wish them a bright future. I'm looking forward to the pitter patter of little feet too.

Such a wonderful day.

I popped onto the thread with newbie Cathy8091 - I'm hoping to coax her into joining our Merry Band! If you see her thread - please feel free to jump across and welcome her. We all need support and this is such a big family with big hearts!

Have a fantastic day everyone. I'm putting another log on the fire - we're due for round two of the rain storms - can hear rumblings.

Hugs to all my friends,
LOL
Peggy

Rabbit! rabbit! I can't believe I finally got in here. My computer doesn't want to let me post here anymore, no matter what I try to do.

Hope everyone's doing well. Happy birthday wishes to Donna and BJ! I posted yesterday with wishes, but I don't see it anywhere, so it didn't go through after all.

Have a good Sunday, everyone!

Okay - I'm going to have a great Sunday - OUTSIDE! It's sunny today so I'm digging dirt while the weather is co-operating! Whoooooo Hoooooo at last!

Speaking of diets - I'm refreshing myself on motivation. Gone to my SparkPeople page to catch some latest health news, read some maintenance articles and others. With all the rain outside of late I have to be careful I don't slip up - and I actually enjoy just reading the articles.

I'm taking water outside today (in a lidded travel mug to keep out bugs and dirt). Picked up another water jug for the fridge - want to start making green tea and cooling it in the fridge with lemon juice. I'm not a pop drinker at all - always feel like I'm washing my teeth in sugar. My friend does cucumber water - she slices cucumber and puts it in her water jugs in the fridge - actually does give it a mild, lovely flavour if done in the morning or day ahead. Never thought of that one. And I'm going to get off my butt again and peel/slice some carrots to nibble on. Haven't done that in so long they actually are appealing again. I love the crunch. Was getting bored with my veggies - I've been nailing canned beets and pickles lately. My friend gave me the beets. I've planted lots of beets to hopefully do my own canning this year. I'm new to canning.

Seriously, is anyone finding they need a diet refresher? Have you thought about it lately?

It's May - let's shake things up again!

Remember we can do this! Continue putting one foot in front of the other and keep on moving forward. Don't worry if you slip up - just get back in the saddle, let go of the past moment and live. Breathe. Let's have some spring forward out there!

Cheers,
Peggy