My diet goals are primarily to reduce the bursitis; I have a set of therapy exercises for the greater trochanter muscle that causes the discomfort, but the first thing on the list of remedies is to lose weight. So, like you, it takes pain to make me cut back on the sugar and carbs.

I would love to have a wood-burning stove, but my fireplace is so poorly built that it lets cold air in winters and hot muggy air in summers. I finally filled the fireplace with a box I made of the pink insulation stuff and sealed the front with a large piece. I now have a mirror on the hearth blocking the entire thing. I imagine when I get ready to sell the house I will have to buy a glass door and install it again. One of those cast iron fireplace inserts would be nice, but the chimney would require work first.

I sold the old smart phone on eBay; it was listed less than 24 hours. I listed it via "buy it now" at the highest price for the phones I saw that had already sold that had the same features, though one in an auction went for about $70 more. I won't second guess, I got my price, but when they go so quickly, you wonder. I looked up the buyer, it turns out he buys used smart phones all day long so he must have a business reselling them. This was the last phone of this type with a removable battery, a desirable feature, and I liked the sized better than my current phone, but what really made me switch is the changing telecommunications offerings - after the end of the year many calls on that old phone won't go through as the lower end of the cell phone offerings (the 2 and 3g channels) are being turned off and re-used by the FCC. I wanted to sell it before I couldn't sell it. I mention this because those of you with older smart phones will likely have to replace them at the end of the year and it may be the number of buyers mean there will be fewer sales or discounts. Here's some information.