Hi world,

Today I'm flying west to do some filming that I was going to do over Memorial Day but had to put it on hold because of family items.  It is something that I'm very proud of and will show you snips of on here.

As far as my eating, I'm doing good.  My goal is to lose two pounds a week and I know that the scale will soon start catching up to me.

My bras have all be tightened to their limit and I have been able to put on several pairs of pants that were out of reach a month ago, so things are going good.

The garden is getting HUGE with green peppers, tomatoes and zucchini hanging all over the place.  When I get back on Sunday I'm hoping to be able to have some.

My time is going to be incredibly tight but I'll try to get on and update and perhaps have a few pictures posted!

Do great things, take care of yourself and make your dreams come true.
Priscilla

It isn't great, but I am one pound down from last week.  I would have like more, but I will take the pound.  At least the scale is going in the right direction.

On the same subject, with daily gardening, I am getting so much more flexible and feeling fitter.  The weight will have to follow and I am not going to get discouraged, realizing that I can't lose 7 pounds each and every week.

My thinking is that I have to step up my water intake and my daily exercise, adding a 30 minute daily walk.  More exercise, more exercise, more exercise!

Great things people, are within our reach...we just have to keep grabbing for them!
Priscilla

It always seems to be that I'm on the wrong side of the ocean at the wrong time.  My one sister lives in England and I have another who is going over next month and I'm helping her put together a list of "must see" castles, natural beauty spots and small charming towns that look like they are postcards come to life.

If only I could go along!  It is sad to say, but myself and my two sisters have never even had a lunch alone together (without our kids) and it would be brilliant to have a girls trip.

For the moment I'm needed in Pennsylvania, helping with my lovely grandchildren and of course, trying to get a proper home sorted out.  Not sure how much more of the hideous apartment living Morton and I can bear. 

Oh well, at least they will take loads of photos and there is always next time!

Today I weigh in and I can't wait!  It has been a great eating week except last night I had a fifth of a piece of chocolate cake (it was very small) and then I had a small piece of blackberry pie with 1/2 fat ice cream.  I did opt for the little piece rather then the big one.  I'm sure it won't wreck that much havoc on my weigh in.

I'll keep you posted!
Priscilla

Families are great.  Mine is wonderful (most of them anyway) and we all have this passionate love for food.  While some can control it, there are a few of us (I'm raising my hand here) who have a serious weight issue and a compulsion to eat until we burst.

As my family got together this weekend I was determined this wouldn't be a repeat of Thanksgiving where I binged.  There is the usual trip to the grocery store where I managed to just skip the shopping for the food orgy that was going to take place and instead ate a plate of sushi, California rolls with brown rice to be specific.  It was my lunch and dinner was going to be a salad.

But then it happens.  Conversation flows.  Things are set out.  Dark chocolate covered almonds, garlic bread, warm Brie but there are also good things too.  Fruit of every description.  Vegetables for the chopping.  Salad makings.

The evening melts away and although I made a small plate of cheese and garlic crouton slices, I also had fruit on it.  My hand only found its way to the chocolate covered almonds three times, each time just taking three of them.  It wasn't as bad as I imagined.

To set some sort of record for my family, there were two lovely blackberry pies that remained untouched, still setting in my daughter's kitchen this morning. 

I'm pleased to say that I survived the weekend.  I survived the temptation to binge.  The thing that really helped keep me in line is the thought that tomorrow I am PAYING to step on a scale.  I do not want the numbers to get stuck because I'm doing stupid stuff in the kitchen, or living room or even on the porch.  I want to control portions, food and really enjoy it, not feel guilty over it.

I think I have turned a corner...bring on the scale!
Priscilla

Since Morton and I are saving like mad at the moment to move, today we face a dilemma of him having a day off work and we want to do something free that is different.

I vote we clean (oh-so-fun) and start packing (after all, we WILL be moving eventually) the things that are just sitting around from our displaced bedroom (where the ceiling is still down and the leak from the bathrooms above us is still happening) and try to get a jump on organizing.  I'm not sure if I can sell Morton on the idea that is fun.

We are getting a lovely three week visit from Morton's parents from Scotland in July and the state of our apartment (from the ceiling falling down) is just unreal.  We have to juggle rooms, since that bedroom is out of commission and Morton and I will be using the pullout sofa in the living room. 

My eating has been great, no binges, no pig-outs and I can't wait for the weigh in on TUESDAY!  I know the scale will be VERY good to me.

Do something fantastic today and remember that housecleaning DOES burn a heck of a lot of calories!
Priscilla

Today has been a real eye-opener to just how fleeting our lives are.  Two very public figures, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett both passed away today.  One was unexpected, one was very unexpected.

After a day spent in the garden, enjoying time with my grandchildren and eating 100% right, I turned on the television to find out that the only thing we can be sure of in life (which is death) still takes us all by surprise.

This is a big wake up call to not wait one more second for making your life count.  Do not think it is too late to follow your dreams, or like me for decades, just not caring enough about myself to take care of myself.  You need and I need, to wake up and enjoy our lives right at this moment.

Blink and it is over people...do not take anything for granted, love the ones you are lucky enough to have in your life and chase your dreams.
Priscilla

What is that one thing that you want to do, I mean REALLY want to do?  For me there have been many, but losing weight has always been at the top of my list.  Now I really feel I'm on the road to successful weight loss and maintenance, I have actually had time to ask myself what is next on the list.

Since my whole family is musical and the only thing I can play is a CD, I decided to take piano lessons.  I'm doing this for me, for the sheer enjoyment and satisfaction of it.  It is not something I plan on doing professionally or expect to sell out concert halls, I just want to be able to sit down at the piano and play something other then chopsticks.

My first lesson was last night by a lady who is fresh out of college.  It is going to involve learning to read music of course and I was a bit nervous about the whole thing.  After just five minutes at the bench in front of her shiny black piano though, I really felt like I was understanding what she was saying, what the music was saying and it really surprised me from how much I remembered from music classes long ago in school.

There was this giddy excitement inside me that I felt a bit hard to contain as my fingers made my way from middle C and out.  I was finally going to be able to play piano!  Not tomorrow, but with daily practice, by Christmas I should be able to belt out a few carols for the family to sing to.

At 46 years of age I'm learning more every day then I did as a child.  I'm learning that I can control my eating.  I'm learning that I can change my weight.  I'm learning that as long as we are willing to TRY, there isn't anything we can't do as long as we stick to it.

My new teacher said I'm to practice at least 30 minutes each day.  I'm going to make it something that I do when I come in from my evening walk that I'm taking.  It will become a habit, a great habit.  Come the end of this year I will be able to say that I can play piano.  I'll also fit on the bench a lot better.

What is it that YOU want to do?  Why are you waiting?  What is stopping you?  If you don't start now, you will never know if you can do it!  Get out there and grab your dreams.  It is rare when our dreams knock on our door and find us, we have to chase them to catch them.

Keep me posted and I'll do the same!
Priscilla

Today was a good one, even though the scale said I was UP 1.4 pounds.  I know that this isn't accurate, or anything to worry about, because my week of eating was good (I ate under my daily points) and I have been moving loads.

There are many things that it could be, the biggest being water retention.  My wedding ring is stuck on tonight and it is usually loose and I just feel fat and bloated.  I mean, I know I AM fat and bloated, but more so then usual.

This is NOT going to bum me out or give me a reason to eat my way to miserable happiness.  Instead I'm going to step up my game, make sure I eat all my points (so my body doesn't think I'm trying to starve it) and I'm going to work hard on drinking all my water.

I really wanted at least two pounds gone, but the scale said I was up 1.4 pounds, so not this week.

Tomorrow I plan on being outside and sweating at LEAST 1.4 pounds.  This is a terrible feeling and I never want it to happen again, though I cross my heart, my eating has been fine.  MUST LOSE WEIGHT!

Priscilla

Hi world,

My weigh in is tonight and I can't wait to step on the scales and see what they say.  My eating has been great, could have exercised a bit more, but I'm pleased with the past week.  We shall see what the scales have to say...

Stay tuned - I'll be putting a big post up after the weigh in!

Eat right, move more and LIVE longer & better!
Priscilla

Yesterday was a good one.  It was spent in the morning with my husband and grandson visiting a mega sporting good store to see the "big deer, bears, wolf, fish, elephant, zebra, lion" and all the other animals that my little guy loves so much.  These are all stuffed, a bit morbid maybe, but at almost two years old, my grandson does not even know that yet.

We took our time, saw what he wanted to see, ate lunch (I ate the guts of a tuna fish sandwich, no bread) and then had the car ride home again. 

The back of my mind and sometimes the front, I just kept thinking about my dad.  Every cute thing that my grandson said or did (and he does hundreds each day) reminded me of how much my dad would have loved him.  It was thoughts that made me smile, not thinking of "what if" but rather thinking how lucky I was to have my dad for 44 years.

Back home again, Morton chatted away to Sarah who was holding our little Maggie, sleeping curled up like a little egg on her chest, Alexander napped and I headed to the garden.

All the bamboo we had gotten earlier needed to be stuck in the ground and tied up to make the grid to hold the tomato plants up even in heavy winds and rain.  Carrying all fifty-three pieces from the porch to the garden I felt a work out coming on.  This wasn't going to be a five minute job and that suited me just fine.

While pushing the poles in the ground, tying the twine to form a spiderweb design that would require no tying of the actual plants, I would think of my dad every time I would catch a whiff of the lovely smell that tomato plants produce.  I could just hear him saying, "There is no perfume they make that smells that good!"  He of course, would have been right.

After a while Morton came and said goodbye, kissing me while I stood barefoot in the soil, over the little fence I had put up to keep Alexander from running wild in the garden.  He was off to work and my plan of us riding the bicycles together would have to wait until another day.

Wringing wet with sweat I pushed open the front door and asked for a glass of water.  The sun had came out and I was in desperate need of a drink.  When I got it, like some sort of odd time machine, my thoughts went back to a specific time in the garden the last summer my dad was alive.

Dad would spend at least an hour each day in his garden.  Straw hat shielding his bald head, jeans on no matter how hot it was and his white sleeveless t-shirt.  He would go out in the heat of the day and on this particular day that my mind just recalled, it was wicked hot as I looked to the garden from the shade of the porch.

Going to my parents sink I let the well water run, then filled up the biggest glass in the cupboard, a quart mason jar.  No ice, just water.  I carried out past their pond that dad had stocked with fish he would catch and release, remembering past fishing trips to Canada where we would eat all that we caught. 

Dad didn't see me until I was right behind him.  He was busy using the hoe to remove the weeds that were ever trying to take root in his vegetable patch.  He was singing a song as he worked, a hymn that he loved.  I thought for just a second that I didn't want to give him a fright, but he turned around just as I was thinking it, with a big smile on his face.  Of course he had seen me walking up, he never really missed a trick.

After saying thank you to me for fetching the water, dad drank as if he had just crossed a desert.  He finished the quart, handed it back to me with a muddy hand print on it and just laughed when I told him to not stay in the sun too long.  He said the garden wouldn't take care of itself and when he was done, he would get a shower and we would go in to see mommy, what he always called my mother.

Blinking a little tear out of my eye I could pretend it was the sweat rolling down my face that caused it.  No one in my daughters living room was worried about it anyway as I handed my glass back to her.  She turned it so she wouldn't have to touch my muddy hand print and asked if I wanted any more.  That was enough for now, I had to get back to the garden.  After all, it doesn't take care of itself.