Hey everyone - Not much to report, progress or otherwise. I've managed to keep things rather moderate over the past few days. Christmas, of course, is running me ragged. My son and daughter spent the weekend with me, and haven't really set a date to go back to thier dad's. They are supposted to go back before Christmas, I know that. Then they are back with me for a week until New Year. For those of you who knew me before I can say that a LOT has happend over the past year, and things between my kids and I have improved 110%. My son is even talking about coming to live with me. Oh - and the ex got married. Life is GREAT. My fiance' and I haven't gotten married yet. We're still waiting for enough money to go on our honeymoon. It will happen when it happens. Until then we're happy, and in love. We will have been engaged two years on New Years, and most people have stopped asking when the date is. We're more committed to each other then many of the married folks I know, so I can't see how a piece of paper can change anything.

Healthwise I'm doing ok. I've gained a lot of weight back, but I've got a plan in place for that. I've also got an awsome inspiration. Last night as we were laying in bed discussing Christmas Nigel and I started talking about gift for each other. I mentioned that I've really struggled with what to give him, just because he's such a hard person to buy things for. He pulled me close and said, "You know, one of hte best gifts you could give me would be for you to lose this weight and be happy with yourself" Ok - I know some women would be completely offended by something like that, but if you knew my sweety you would know that he would only say something like that with the deepest of love in his heart.

So he and I started talking about my goals. I told him that I've figured out that if I started full bore in January and kept with it, I could reach my goal in time for Thanksgiving. So he said. I'll tell you what, if you reach your goal, then as a celebration we'll go to New York City and watch the Ball Drop next New Year's Eve. He also promised me a shopping spree which, belive me, I'm going to take him up on.

One of the things I'm going to do as an 'investment' in my goals is I'm going to hit up a store and buy 6 pairs of jean - from size 16 (my current size) to size 6 (my goal size) all the exact same brand and style. That way I'll have a true impartial measure of my progress. I'll easily be able to measure how close I am to the next 'goal' without being side tracked by the difference in size between brands.

I'm looking forward to the coming year and the challenges it will bring.

Happy Holiday's to you all! and thank you for the welcome back!