Monday December 13

Good morning everyone!  Once again I have to catch up on the blogs since I have been away a couple days.  We went up to Lancaster, PA this weekend so I could find my Christmas spirit!  It sometimes seems we have so many tasks to do that we don't take time to just have some fun and that is what I wanted to do.  My husband and three of our boys went with me and we just walked around the little Amish towns, went into craft shops and stopped at a couple Christmas train layouts!  While we were there we went and saw the movie Hugo.  It was just so nice to slow down and have a little fun.   On the way home we stopped at the Christmas tree farm and met my oldest son and his girlfriend there to finally pick out our tree.  We ended up getting this HUGE 9' Fraser Fir.  When we came home we found that my oldest son and his girlfriend had made us dinner and a ton of Christmas cookies.  Christmas spirit found!  I'll post some Christmas tree pictures next post.

Ok, so probably because we did so much walking up in Lancaster I was down a pound when we got back.  I am sure by my actual weigh in day this Wednesday I'll be back up to my usual 168lbs.   For the first time since being on the BFC way of eating, I am having a bit of a hard time resisting... -  it's the darn Christmas cookies!  Ok so I admit to my first major cheat ever - I had one Christmas cookie when we got back and then the next day I broke off a small piece of  Peppermint bark.  So you may be thinking that it isn't that bad of a cheat, but it worries me because I started having thoughts like, "It's Christmas, am I never supposed to enjoy myself again?" "I can't go never having a Christmas cookie again" and things like that.  Luckily I brewed up some peppermint chocolate tea and added some Reddi Whip to it and it seemed to quell my cookie cravings and wild thoughts - thank goodness.   I'm probably going to drink two hundred cups of tea from now until Christmas, lol!  I can try whipping up a batch of coconut or almond flour something  to have also, but honestly, as good as that usually is, it really is not in the running with the regular Christmas cookies.   So hopefully I can keep resisting the good stuff and keep my long term weight goals in my head at all times.  We'll see.   Hope all of you are doing well!

Wednesday Dec. 8th! BFC week 34

Hi Everybody!  I can not believe an entire week has gone by since my last post! December is just such a busy month as I'm sure you all know, there are not enough hours in the day!  I weighed in today at my same 168 lbs.., bummer!  I mean I'm glad I'm not going up in weight but it sure would be nice to start losing a few again.  Earlier this week I got on the scale and it said 167lbs and I got a little excited that maybe I was starting to go down again, but alas, it was not the case on actual weigh in day.  To be honest with you I'm really not going to worry about it too much for the rest of December.  I know I'm eating exactly what I should be eating.  I don't cheat.  I even gave up snacks between meals this week.  I'm just going to keep going this way until after the holidays.  In January I may need to shake things up a bit, we'll see.  I might even get a hormone panel done to see if I'm out of whack there.
So other than the diet my holiday preparations are well underway.  Got my shopping almost finished thank goodness.  We do not buy for extended family except our parents.  It makes things so much easier and keeps the holiday in perspective I think.  We were not able to get our tree early last week like I had hoped because we had to go see my husbands parents over the weekend.  It was is mom's birthday and she has congestive heart failure and lately has been so tired and under the weather.  I thought it might cheer her up if my husband, and all the boys went down and took her out to lunch.  We did that and I think it did her some good to get out of the house, but it cost us almost the whole day, and left no time for tree cutting. This weekend we are doing a little overnight getaway to Lancaster again.  Three of my boys are coming with us and on the way home we will stop at the farm, meet up with my other son, and get the tree.
My dog, that has congestive heart failure, got put on a new medicine this week called Vetmedin.  It was a bit of a risk because I didn't have the very expensive echo-cardiogram done to be certain of what was causing his enlarged heart.  But I think we guessed correctly because he seems to be feeling better.  Yesterday he stole a newspaper and ran around the house with it, and then later stole an empty Doritos bag out of my son's trash can and tore it up.  We were all like, "Buddy, you're being bad, you must be feeling better!"  So today it's all about finding appointments for wisdom teeth removals, and finding a better deal for our self-employment health insurance which is apparently going way up come January, visiting my Aunt in assisted living, balancing the November work books, and getting the last of my online shopping done.
I hope to catch up on the blogs sometime today or tonight and truly hope all of you are doing great!!