Here I am!! Working long hours and wondering how I manage to do it! :o I haven't forgotten you! I think about all of my friends here each day! God bless you all and :grouphug: :grouphug:

Hi ya Wizzy!!!:hug:

I am here! Not very often lately...but I am still around! We have been in the middle of moving our office, and while we have been kicked out of our old space, the new space isn't ready yet. So I have been working from home for a month.

We took a vacation to Maine to hold a memorial service and bury my aunt's ashes back in June. She grew up living in a town called East Blue every summer and passed away back in December. She wanted to be buried in Blue Hill with her parents. We managed to make it out to Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, to a Red Sox game at Fenway, and out to Acadia National Park along the way.

Among all that other stuff that kept me from hanging around here, I finally got serious back at the end of February and changed the way I was eating to avoid going diabetic like the rest of my family. Since February 22, I have lost 59 pounds and I am 18 pounds from reaching my goal of 190 pounds. I am now lighter than I have been in about 15 years, and my diabetes control value has already lower than it has been in the last five years. I was able to get off of one blood pressure medicine, and will likely get taken off my other BP med in the next week or so. I have gone down 4 inches on the waist of my pants and I am about to have to go down another size.

I am still riding my bike and doing spin classes. Rode 36 miles in a little over 2 hours last Sunday in preparation for the Katy Flatland Century ride. Probably doing the 42 mile route, but we will see how the heat treats us. We are starting around 6:45am, so hopefully will be done before it gets too hot. I hope all of you are doing well and staying active where you can!

Way to go Batman!!!

I'm here too. Have been away from home off and on, looking after my step mom and helping my Dad out. Talk about the blind leading the blind. Even so, I'm in better shape than she is at this time and it is too much for Dad (80 years old), to take on being a care giver 24/7. She suffers with sclerodermia and chronic interstitial lung disease because of it.

I've been coming home, harvesting things from the garden, preparing them into dishes, freezing them and then taking them down there so that they have good nutritious food to eat. By the time I get my own place back in order, I'm getting ready to head down to be with them again.
What a summer!

It has been hotter than normal in our region so there are lots of wildfires. They have them in their area too, so there is heavy smoke in both areas. The smoke is a problem for my step mom so she is needing to be on oxygen.

The smoke isn't great for me either but I've been coping OK. The biggest problem that doesn't seem to be coming around is ongoing spasticity on the left side of my body from a mild stroke that I had a while back. For the most part, the rest of the problems that I was having have been gradually settling down. Not much I can do about the ongoing spasticity as it doesn't respond to Baclofen and I can't take much Ibuprofen for pain these days either because of the risk of ulcer recurrence. At least I can still walk and drive.

We finally got some rain yesterday and that took the smoke down a bit. It was so bad on Thursday that it was actually snowing ash; leaving a light dusting of the stuff on everything.

I'm heading back down to my folks in a couple days and will be gone for a week or so...unless they get an evacuation order. They were pretty close to getting one on Thursday because of a fire that started in the forest behind their subdivision. No such risk at my place so far.

Hope that everyone is doing OK.
Miss all of you and I'm hoping that everything settles down at my end so that I can sit back, relax and chat on here like I used to. But for now, my focus is on helping my folks and taking care of myself so that I can do that.

With love, Erika

Hey TX..:highfive:..Nice going on the weight loss. I didn't know that
you were overweight.:eek:. How did you ride that bike so well?

Erika, so sorry about your Parent's problems and your relentless
spasticity.:(. Just so glad that you can find the time to check in,
now and then.:) Hope things get better and slow up a dash for
you..:hug:

I know I have been gone for a long while. I have been sleeping my days away and up all night. I picked up an old hobby, crocheting and now I'm making everyone afghans. I'm going broke doing that but now I'm addicted to that and when I wake up that is the first thing on my mind, not food.

My DR now have me on the 40mg of copaxone and it is ok if I don't forget to take on Monday. Lol

Erika, wow-what a summer for you:hug:
Hope your step mom can get some comfort and relief from her sxs...and does your area allow use of cannabis for spasticity? It really does help. It would be better to use edibles for long-term relief than smoking it IMHO...in any case, I hope you can get some relief as well...:hug:

Hello and lots of :grouphug: everyone!

I've been SO busy... returning to full time work, bought a house with hubby, we're now packing and getting ready to move the end of the month.

Life's crazy. Hope everyone's been doing well (or as well as possible!).

Hi Laura. Welcome back. Missed you.:hug: