Recommended by Women's Health! (Also HYC check in!)

Under the SWEETS heading of the 125 Best Food for Women, for the category of Dark Chocolate - DOVE! Personally, I like our chocolate covered, cinnamon dusted almonds even better. Soooooo addictive! And if they knew about the products available through Dove Chocolatiers like myself, I'm sure they'd recommend our dark chocolate covered fruit collection as well! ;-)

But the list is for the supermarket and you can't get that collection at the store, only through the chocolatiers.

HYC check in - I'm still bloated in the Texas heat so I'm not going to consider my weight valid until I get back to my mountain and the clean air of Colorado! ;-) I've still been doing LOTS of walking. Friday and Saturday we did Sea World again. Sunday I forgot to put on my pedometer when I went shopping. Today and yesterday did 60min on the treadmill in the hotel's fitness room. I've noticed my heart rate doesn't get quite so high here at the low altitude, so that's a good thing!

Blogging - not so much

I knew something would suffer if I joined Facebook and yeah, blog posts are now few and far between. Facebook is of the devil. Sigh.

Book recommendation and HYC check in

I got this promotional email from Prevention about one of the books I already have and REALLY like. It helped me with changing some habits for a healthier lifestyle. I still didn't lose weight very quickly until I did the Flat Belly Diet, but Robert Cooper's book has a lot of useful info in it. I know the links won't transfer, but go to Prevention.com to order the book or search your favorite online bookstores. :-) One other note on the book - the recipes are fantastic! This is where I got my tzatzkiki recipe and it tastes just like I remember it tasting in Greece. The stuff I've tasted in most Greek places in the states just doesn't cut it! :-)

And for a really cool video of my daughter with the dolphins at Sea World San Antonio, scroll down past this post! Visit my family blog to see a video of me playing with dolphins and one of my kitty chasing ice cubes. :-D

I'm off to the hotel treadmill and will weigh on their scale, then come back and log that. OK, I'm around 183 but it's a different scale and this humidity is definitely making me bloat up. Ugh. Walking LOTS! Logged over 5 miles on Friday and Sunday at Sea World. Saturday was too cold and rainy, so we didn't stay long and it wasn't great weather for walking. The other days, I did a 45 minute power walk as well as the walking we did from place to place. I also bought another stability ball to use here. They are just $9 at Walmart. Will see if one of my friends here needs one when we leave.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Online Reader,

Suppose, for a moment, that losing weight was as easy as...

Taking a few deep breaths...
Enjoying a beautiful sunset...
Calling an old friend on the phone...
Or standing on your tiptoes while you wait to check out at the supermarket...

"Well, of course," you might say. "If it were that easy, no one would be overweight. But it's never that easy. Losing weight is just hard work. There's NO way around it."

That's the conventional wisdom. Yet this conventional "wisdom" has resulted in a phenomenal failure rate. It's been estimated that more than 9 out of 10 diets FAIL in the long run. And I believe that conventional dieting has failed you for one simple reason...

You're Working Too Hard at Losing Weight!

Maybe, just maybe, there's a simpler, better way to lose ALL the weight you want. The better way I'm referring to is explained in a new blockbuster book— FLIP THE SWITCH: Proven Strategies to Fuel Your Metabolism and Burn Fat 24 Hours a Day, by Dr. Robert K. Cooper.

The revolutionary plan in FLIP THE SWITCH teaches you to light the secret fire inside your body, and "switch ON" your body's fat-burning processes inside, so fat melts away with every tick of the clock, 365 days a year.

Follow the simple secrets revealed in FLIP THE SWITCH and your body will have NO choice but to shed excess pounds. The great news for you? You'll get all these other life-enhancing benefits:

Your daily stress will seem to vanish
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You'll awake refreshed and ready every day
Your mind will stay razor-sharp
Your mood will be uplifted

OK, decided I would just add a link since the promo on this book was SOOOOOO long! Click here to go to Prevention's link regarding Flip the Switch by Robert K. Cooper, PhD

Sea World

THIS is why we love Sea World. Quality time with our dolphins. They either remember us or like the way we play with them. I think they remember, they are SMART animals.



Thursday I walked on the treadmill in the fitness room at our hotel. Yesterday I put over 13,000 steps on my pedometer and walked about 5 3/4 miles throughout the day. Today is stormy with flash flood warnings so we are waiting before heading out again.

My laptop LIVES!

So happy! My son's friend took a look at my laptop and got rid of some stuff that was bogging it down. He's a genius! Found the source of an error message that was driving me nuts and cleaned it all out. Sounds like he worked on it for hours so I definitely owe him BIG!

It's been a busy week scrapbooking with a friend. Have finished around 40 pages so far. I stayed home on Wednesday and it sounds like it was a good thing. A tanker rolled over on the interstate, so both directions were closed for many hours. Everyone was taking the back way into and out of CS going north. My friend told me someone said it took them 4 hours to get home from work that day. Ugh.

Dove Chocolate party tonight, hubby gets home from TX tomorrow. On Wednesday we start driving back down to San Antonio. Will be spending quality time with our dolphins and looking at a few houses, plus a friend of mine will be hosting a Dove Chocolate party down there, too! Crazy month!

Period of Mourning

Well, I've had a rough week or two. Cried myself to sleep a few nights. It seems that my time in paradise is limited. My husband has been coerced into a job back in San Antonio. AUGH! Heat, humidity, BUGS, no SNOW! There are a couple of things that still need to happen, but it seems pretty inevitable. If everything falls into place, the final decision will be made in June, then the job starts in October. So once we get the word, we'll put our house on the market here. If it doesn't sell by October, I will stay in CO until it does. But as much as I LOVE Colorado and don't want to move back to the heat, I love my husband more and will follow him where'er he goeth. ;-) (But he will PAY! LOL)

I will confess to doing a little comfort eating, especially with TOM occurring, but it's not too bad. Still taking it slow with exercise because my knee does still twinge quite a bit after I walk or stand for very long. Weight is up a bit this week, but my lack of sleep contributes to that, too. Not sleeping well at ALL!

There are a few good things about moving. We do have lots of good friends there. We can afford more house in TX and I'm requiring a pool. :-) And in SA, they do have really NICE master suites and pretty big kitchens in most of the houses. One of Ken's friends/coworkers has a house with a pool on the market, so we may buy that if he is willing to wait that long to sell. The master bath has two vanities and two walk-in closets. SWEET! Tonight I talked with the realtor/friend who sold our house in SA before we moved here and he and his wife with our former pastor and his wife have been taking ballroom dance lessons, too. And they frequently go out dancing, so that's kind of fun! I had been looking online for a dance studio and didn't see much, but he says they take the lessons from a husband and wife who converted their garage into a studio.

And another good thing, I do have family in Texas. Two of my nephews live in/near Austin and my older sister lives near Houston. And my Dad and younger sister are closer to San Antonio than Colorado. And my younger nephews and niece in AR do enjoy spring break going to Sea World. They spent many a spring break with us when we lived in TX. And my daughter and I love spending time with the dolphins, too. I have missed that! We're going down there later this month while hubby is writing the proposal for this contract. So we'll connect with friends (and our dolphins!) and maybe look at a few houses. I've found 4 strong possibilities if they were to last that long.

Oh, and I'll have lots of work to do getting our house here ready to sell, too. Sigh. That's probably the big part of being unable to sleep! :-P