Lisa - caught the ultrasound pic on your journal. So awesome! Congrats on things going well. Sorry about your kitty. I could go on and on about having to put my childhood cats to sleep when they were 18 (I was around 28 at the time - can remember it like it was yesterday) but just wanted to say that my thoughts are with you.

Sara - thinking of you also. We lost D's mom in November. I truly cannot imagine how one deals with this...even having seen him and his family struggle with it these past 10 months. My thoughts are with you as well.


As far as PP goes: I've been on a summer "maintenance" plan trying to keep my weight as is while working, traveling, and negociating a lot of family BBQs. I plan to go back to counting carbs and protein in September when I also plan to give up dairy for a few months. I've been on this odd dairy craze of late: low carb milk, cream, tons of cheese...I think its not only stalling me out, but that I've got some addtional bloating and intenstinal distress because of it. Want to see what happens when I totally eliminate it like I did 4 years ago (for different reasons).

Things are good. Work has calmed down and I'm catching up on some things I've put off. My younger kitty has a cold, but seems ok (other than the sneezing and tiny cough that woke me up a dozen times last night). We've put our household on a tight budget for the next three months (as a test) to see if we can pay off some lingering debt and have the kitty's teeth cleaned of tartar buildup (400$ yikes). I've pledged to cut around 150 dollars out of the household expenses which is a real challenge for me since cooking is my only hobby these days and we eat nearly entirely organic. Only 80$ is coming from the grocery budget - so I warned D that we are going to be eating a lot more chicken and less pork and beef. I'm ok with that - I also stopped eating red meat for a while and adapted fine. D gets a bit surly when I serve chicken more than two times in a week. lol. This weekend I found some of my personal care items on the internet for half of what I have been paying retail - this will help a lot too. Most of the budget cuts are coming from entertainment and meals eaten out - this is D's contribution since he likes to eat out so that he can have a carby pasta meal now and then, and while I'm fine with a movie night at home with a DVD, he really likes to see first runs in the theater with a giant bag of popcorn. To compensate a bit, I'll be cooking some special request carby meals for him on weekends and I may be watching more Michael Mann films and Godfather DVDs (for like the 10th time! lol.) on movie night.

Jen