I'm still here..

For the last several weeks I've been preoccupied, I'm helping my sister get her house ready. She's going to be moving back to SC after living 12 hours away for the last 8 years. I've missed her being nearby and I'm super happy she'll be just an hour drive away.

Sadly, she lost her husband to lung cancer on November 1, last year. She decided to buy a house near me and our baby sister. Her current home is in Illinois, but we live in Charleston and Columbia. The house she bought is a handyman special, since she was on a tight budget and it's smack dab in the middle of the two of us. She and I had very little outside help getting the repairs done, so it took a very long time to do even the simplest task. She paid her son-in-law to replace the roof, and another son-in-law to put in new windows. The two of them actually do those things for a living, so she got a great deal on supplies and cheap, professional labor.

We did the rest. The floor joists had to be replaced in most of the kitchen, all of the dining room, and a majority of the laundry room. If you don't know what that is, imagine the studs that run under the houses with a crawlspace. They hold up the sub-floor. So she and I ripped up the flooring, the subfloor and one by one, replaced all of the rotting joists. It was truly back-breaking work. We worked day and night, for weeks. I'm so proud of us, because when she left to go home 2 days ago, 2 of her daughters are living in the house. We got almost everything done. The only thing left to do is a small bit of painting in a few bedrooms. We replaced or repaired: 1. floor joists, 2. replaced leaking water lines, 3. subfloors, 4. about four wall studs, 5. drywall, 6. ceilings, 7. mudded and painted the drywall, 8. painted the whole house, 9. And finally installed new kitchen appliances.

Needless to say, I was too tired to worry about opening my laptop!! LOL

To be totally honest, I ate very badly during the last 4 or 5 weeks, but I did try my best to remain protein forward. I'm happy to still be 118 lbs. despite my terrible diet. Thank Goodness for the honeymoon period. I have 2 months until my surgiversary and I'm going to do my best to reach 110 lbs during that time.

I love being able to come back and read the posts, even when I'm too tired to post myself. I'll do better. :)

That's so impressive!!!!

I have a friend *****cently purchased a very damaged property. I will likely be helping him do a lot of those same things! His house had five feet of water sitting in the lower level for a week or so and the previous owner had stripped it to the studs below the flood line. It's hard to tell if the sub-floor is badly warped, or if the joists need to be replaced, I'm guessing it's a little of both!

I'm impressed you got this work done together, I bet you were burning a TON of calories every day!

That's the hard part. You just don't know until you get the nasty stuff ripped up. Just remember to keep hydrated. It's easy to get so wrapped up in what you're doing that you forget to take care of yourself. Happened to me once or twice.

Oh and btw, nuts are super calorie dense and make a great energy pick up when you're working hard! After the first week I bought a big variety and kept them in the little cooler we brought to the house with our bottled water.

That's awesome that your sister is going to be closer to you.

Sounds like you are a woman of Many talents!!! I don't do physical labor....LOL. Even though you ate bad you probably burnt a lot of calories doing all of that hard work.

I was very happy to see 118 this morning too. My "Good" weight span is 118-120 and recently I've been bouncing between the 120-121 range. I blame my higher numbers on not eating enough so I increased my Protein calories and it worked. It hasn't upset me terribly but it was nice to see the scales move in the right direction.

I'd be perfectly happy to settle around 118, but I know I have to take rebound into account. I'm going to do my very best to get under 110 before that happens. I don't think I'll be happy back up at 130. I plan to keep my "happy place" between 110-120, but I'll narrow that window down once I reach maintenance.

In my youth I was comfortable between 105-108, but I don't think that's a reasonable expectation at my age.

I'm the same height as you and I got down to 98 pounds and then Stupidly decided I was low enough. I would try to go as low as you can. I really liked 112 when the scales started back up but I have settled in the 118-119 range. At least try to get the 100 lb. loss apple for your signature....I'm so jealous of those!

LOL! The minute I walkedasd into my surgeon's office weighing 83 pounds, I'm pretty sure he'd admit me to the hospital upstairs. Haha. I was truly a lightweight when I started. My high weight was only 183.