Don’t forget, today is Club 17 check-in day! Have you done your Breast Self Exam? Check-in HERE!

For those unfamiliar with Club 17, it is a reminder system for the female blogosphere to do their Basically it’s a reminder for the female blogosphere to do their monthly Breast Self Exams (BSE). It is recommended that women begin BSEs at age 20.

Also, word to the wise - don’t overdo it on Turkey Day! It’s OK to eat smaller portions, and make sure you are still exercising! While these are good tips in general, it is especially important that women maintain a healthy diet and exercise to decrease their chances for breast cancer.

This week, after almost a month of following WeightWatchers (again) and being good about cooking my own meals here at home, I have totally gone off my rocker. Half of this week my meals have consisted of Starbucks drinks and pastries (which, as delicious as they are, are not good if you eat them every day!), and the other half I have ordered delivery . . . chicken fingers, pizza, and tonight, the worst . . . Chinese.

This is a problem! Why did I lose my motivation? I was doing well, and all of a sudden it just seems like too much effort.

Does anyone have any advice or tips to offer me? How do you keep your motivation? HELP ME!!!

I just spent the past hour and a half chasing down every last reference I could find to something that I saw mentioned in passing on a website . . . The Baby-Sitters Club.

I LOVED these books. I was a member of the fan club, so I got three new books every month, and a newsletter, and all sorts of cool BSC fan-stuff . . . stickers, keychains, the works. I eventually owned all the books, and I had the movie (which I remember being disappointed in - my first book-to-movie disappointment!). I got Red Cross certified to be a baby-sitter, and I even tried to start up my own baby-sitters club (which failed miserably due to a lack of fellow baby-sitters).

Man, I was obsessed for YEARS. Those books came with us on vacation, out to dinner, to school - I remember my teachers telling my parents that I was reading them in class when I was supposed to be working (even though I’d finished my work). My parents had to put me on a “book diet,” monitoring how much I read. Now, keep in mind, I read LOTS of books, so this wasn’t BSC specific, but having over a hundred of these babies sure didn’t help.

I still remember when we donated my entire set of books once I was in high school. It still makes me sad to think that they’re gone, and even though I know that now others can enjoy them, a little piece of me still wants them for my own.

Did you read Baby-Sitters Club books? Or any others? The Boxcar Children and Little House on the Prairie books were also favorites ;-)!

Thirteen Things about LINDSEY

1. As you can see, I am back and ready to go! There was a bug in DirectAdmin, the software that the server uses, and it allowed hackers to manipulate anything running on PHP, especially WordPress. However, my host ROCKS, and in less than a week she had physically replaced the hard drive on the server, re-set up EVERYONE’S accounts, restored all the databases (in mint condition), and all websites were back up and running! She’s my favorite :-)!

2. As much as I hated the site being down, and as much as I missed blogging (I was gone less than a week, how pathetic am I?), it was probably good that I couldn’t blog. Last week we did an intense business simulation that absolutely consumed my week. I literally had time for NOTHING else. And that was supposed to be the easy week between sessions! I don’t know what they were thinking!

3. Speaking of . . . school is killing me. The further I get into this program, the harder and more intense it gets. I have NEVER had this much work for school. And it’s not easy work. Some of it makes sense . . . a lot doesn’t. I’m working hard to grasp the concepts, but there are SO MANY new ones that I feel like I’m lost. The schedule is crazy, the work is hard (and in high volume), and my brain doesn’t like to work this way.

4. One nice thing is I FINALLY have a roommate ;-)! Ben finally moved up here this past weekend, and it’s been really nice having him around. He’ll sit around and talk about artsy things with me, which apparently my brain is craving. It’s amazing how an intellectual conversation about something artistic makes my constant headache GO AWAY! Plus, Ben gives me hugs, which I was quite deficient on after a summer of living alone!

5. This sounds so trivial, but one of the things that has made school be so exhausting has been waking up MUCH earlier than I have been the past 4 years. I have to be up around 6AM and be sitting in the classroom ready to go for class at 8AM.

6. One of the things that has gotten me through those hard mornings is coffee! Yup, I was able to cross off #93 on my list of 101 in 1001 - I’ve switched from Diet Coke to black coffee in the mornings!

7. Another thing that gets me through the mornings - breakfast! When I was waking up at 11AM every day, it as easy to skip it, but now I eat it every day! Mark #18 off the list!

8. This past weekend (I didn’t have much homework) I was able to finish watching all the DVDs that I own. I had a couple of TV shows to go, but now I’m good! Cross #82 off!

9. As I posted in my post about backing up, I am now backing up both my websites and my hard drive regularly, knocking off #67 and #68 on my list!

10. Tomorrow my parents, brother, and cousin are all coming up here. And on Friday Bo (my brother) will be moving onto campus at Elon University, 45 minutes from my apartment. He’s growing up so fast, I can’t believe he’s starting college!

11. Along with all my family, the puppies are coming to visit! And since they’re all gonna be busy moving Bo in (and my parents will be staying in a hotel), the puppies get to live with me for the weekend! Woo hoo!!!! I’m so excited, they’re so adorable, and I miss them so much! They are Cavalier King Charles Spaniels - the black one (Tricolor) is Olive, and the tan one (Blenheim) is Ella :)!

12. After browsing around blogs yesterday, I found a post about FlyLady - and decided to join. We’ll see how it goes!

13. Before the crash I did a lot of blogroll checks for Thursday Thirteen, and now that I’m back, I’m gonna pick up where I left off! It was actually a lot of fun because I visited a lot of sites that were newer to the blogroll, so I hadn’t seen them before. But goodness, we’ve got a lot of participants now, LOL!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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