I'm on a new diet that works great. I lost 6 pounds in the past week. I ate normally and hardly worked out at all. Want to know the secret? Mix 2 parts stress with 1 part caffeine, throw in insomnia, and there you go. Instant weight loss. Although I should mention, I'm positive this isn't doctor approved.

See, we're moving. Cross country. Going from the West to the East Coast. It's somewhere around 2000 miles. So if that isn't stressful enough, we're going to sell our house. Yes, I said sell. We'll give it 6 months, then rent it out if we need to. It goes on the market tomorrow and we're getting the pictures taken today, so for the past week I've been doing nothing but painting, cleaning, painting, organizing, painting... you get the idea. Did you know that you burn 230 per hour of painting? I had no idea it was that high. And figure I spent at least 15 hours painting. Well, there goes a couple days worth of calories.

Balance getting-the-house-ready and figuring-out-what-needs-done-so-we-can-move with trying-to-keep-things-relatively-normal-for-the-kids and you get stress. Lots of it. Which makes for quick, easy (ish....) weight loss. But I don't advise it either.

I came downstairs this morning to find that our dog had literally eaten my kid's homework. It was in the homework folder, inside the backpack, by the front door to grab on our way out the door. That means he managed to get the folder out and then proceeded to eat both. Hmm.... No one is up but me yet, but I'm pretty sure there is going to be an upset little kid when they come down and see this. The good news is that there are enough pieces that we can prove the homework was complete. The bad news is that, well, he ate it. Guess we're taking pieces in and I'm talking to the teacher this morning.

The culprit? Morgan, our puppy. Well, not so much a puppy anymore. He's a golden retriever and he's 14 months, which is golden land, means he's more like an older teenager. But he still gets in to mischief and has his moments of destruction. To date he's eaten multiple toys, stuffed animals, and at least 1 shoe from each family member to include my favorite flip flops! Bad dog. He gets destructive when he feels ignored. We have friends whose kids are terrified of dogs, so when they come over I put the dogs outside, and Morgan gets upset (because he's not part of everything. He's a golden- everyone is supposed to love him) and digs up the yard or eats the plants. I was cleaning and put him in a room- with a baby gate so he could see me- and he ate some craft that was left out on the table. Sigh. All we can do is wait until he gets a little older adn grows out of it. Supposedly golden's are adult dogs at 18 months, so only a couple more months.

Isn't this great? I'm so pleased how it turned out. It took me about 6* months to do. I plan on using it to hold my current crochet projects. Right now that's (still) the ornaments. I sent a couple of finished ones to my mom and she loved them, so I'm debating making a bunch to sell at the school craft fair to raise money for the PTO. Either that or abandon the ornaments (I have some for our family) and move on to a new project. I have a really cute pattern to make a Christmas Elf, but it's a bit too advanced for me and I'm not sure I have the patience to be frustrated with it right now. But check out this pattern. How cute is that?

http://www.allfreecrochet.com/Christmas-Crochet/Colorful-Christmas-Elf/ml/1

*I had to take 3 months off for the broken arm, then 1 month of procrastination before I got around to making a liner for it.

Got this e-mail from a friend. Just something to consider:

Blue Fridays.

Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing blue every Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the "silent majority." We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or overbearing.

Many Americans, like you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of America supports our troops. Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday- and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that every red-blooded American who supports our men and women afar, will wear something blue. By word of mouth, press, TV- let's make the United States on every Friday a sea of blue much like a homecoming football game in the bleachers. If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, coworkers, friends, and family, it will not be long before the USA is covered in BLUE and it will let our troops know that once the "silent" majority is on their side more than ever, certainly more than the media lets on. The first thing a soldiers says when asked "What can we do to make things better for you?" is "We need your support and your prayers." Let's get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example, and wear something blue every Friday.

Tomorrow is the first day of school. Shool starts so early here! The only good thing about it starting the beginning of August is that the kids get out the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. But for that whole first month of school, it doesn't feel like it's really school time, if that makes sense. Especially since it's still so hot outside. Back to school is fall, not mid-summer.

About 5 years ago there was a Staples commercial where a dad was back-to-school shopping with his 2 kids and he was singing "It's the most wonderful time of the year." I never really got that until my kids started school. When they were younger, before they started school, I never really understood why friends with older kids were thankful when school started back up. Now that the kids are in school, I totally get it. By the end of summer I am worn out with summer vacation and ready to send them back. Not that they are ready to go, but I'm ready for school to start.

I'm a very focused, driven person. I will always reach my goal if it is at all possible, so I think really hard before making goals or decisions, because once they are made, I'm not going to change them and will do everything I can to reach that goal. Sometimes to my detriment. One of my New Year's Resolutions this year was to work out 260 days, which sounds like a lot, but really is only 5 days/week. I was doing great, but then I broke my elbow and that put a cramp in my style. It took me until the end of June to catch up (which entailed about 2 months of working out 6-7 days/week) and get back on track so I can make 260 this year.

About 6 weeks ago, in my quest to catch up on workouts, I pulled a muscle behind my knee. Or at least I think that's what I did. I'm hypersensitive about knees because I tore mine a couple years ago and had to have surgery. But did that stop me? Nope. I've continued to muddle through runs and not give it a chance to rest. I figured it wasn't a real injury, because it only hurt when running and then stopped hurting when I stopped running, and some days it didn't hurt at all. But then it started hurting sooner and sooner in the run, so I had to cut back to running once a week rather than 3 times.

And all that was well and good, until this morning. I ran for 45 minutes and it didn't bother me at all until about the last 5 minutes, so I was congratulating myself on it finally starting to heal, but then I got home and wouldn't you know it? It still hurts. Drat. So my question to you is this- do you baby yourself when you're injured or just push through? How much time do you take to recover and heal?I'm more of a push through person, which sometimes gets me in trouble (like the knee that still hurts 6 weeks later!) and never seem to give myself time to fully heal.