FW, how was your weigh in? Don't beat yourself up - just kick the dust off your feet and keep going forward! Wasn't it one of you ladies who recommended the little oreo crisps in the 100 calorie packages? Well I tried them and they're good! I also picked up a couple of boxes of the WW snack bars in two different chocolate flavors and was surprised at how good they are - the peanut caramel snack bars are 2 points and definitely just like a candy bar. Except they cost more. :( LL, Have really only been in Ojai when my son was there playing basketball a few times and we had time to kill in between games - very touristy. The Ojai Valley Inn and Spa is supposed to be great if you and some girlfriends ever want to get away for some quality spa time... some frineds of mine have been there and they love it. You can do an actual spa program for a week, or just go for a day or a weekend of pampering. Maybe you can switch over to the flex plan for one week! Is that allowed? I love teas, if they come with a glass of champagne and those cute little finger sandwiches. Will you be wearing a hat? FW what do you do for work? I actually eat more at work because I'm sitting at my desk with the opportunity to snack all the time. And I always kept snacks since I'm so afraid I might get hungry, and then, gasp, starve! So this past week and 1 day I've been rediscovering what hungry feels like and I've been amazed to find it hasn't killed me yet! Have a great day ladies, and thanks for sharing!

Zinsser is neither more nor less effective than the Killz. One coat MAY do it, but two DEFINITELY will. Even if I were using the Zinnser (whichever way that goes, two n's or two s's, LOL!) I would still use 2 coats. It's better to just bear down and do what you KNOW will work than to take a chance thinking one coat MIGHT do it. I have no brand loyalty. Either will work. I chose the Killz because it is easier to find and costs less in my area. Coming along and claiming that "TSP will cause paint failure" and providing absolutely no evidence to back that claim up isn't going to fly. For every "pro" who claims TSP is awful there are others (professionals) who have used it properly and successfully for literally decades. Dirtex, btw, provides absolutely no deglossing whatsoever. I don't think it provides much in the way of degreasing to speak of either. TSP does both. However TSP can damage tile and grout so we'll be using something else in the bathroom once the tub has been hauled out of there. If TSP has caused paint failure for you, it wasn't the TSP that caused it. It was your incorrect application and use of it. Proper use can be finicky and time-consuming from the point of view of a professional who just wants to get in there, slap the paint up, and get out. However it is very effective and well worth the effort when you are the one living with the paint job and you don't want it to peel, blister, or otherwise fail to adhere in a few years. When we get around to doing the exterior, I WILL be washing the entire house down with TSP. It is the best thing I've ever found for getting rid of that chalky residue. I can't use a power washer or any sort of wire brush, nor sanding, because the exterior is clad in 60 year old asbestos shingle. So me, a bucket of rags soaking in TSP, and a regular garden hose will be doing it all. I've seen other houses in the neighborhood that are peeling, blistering, and have the new paint flaking off because the professionals they hired to paint didn't bother to prep, or didn't prep properly. MY house won't look like that when I'm done. I have had well over 50 years of success with TSP when prepping old walls for paint, between me and my father. I'd say 100 years, but I don't actually know how long its been on the market, LOL! @dchall_san_antonio - you did your paint prep with stuff I wouldn't have used nor would I recommend using it, especially for mitigation of cigarette smoke residue, but if it worked for you, great. And OF COURSE you had to prime - even using the correct cleaning methods and substances, you will never get all that stuff off. Any encapsulating primer will do. The 2 with which I am familiar are the Killz ORIGINAL (not the other primers they make) or the Zinsser BIN. You used the latter. I'm not surprised it helped. And I'm not surprised nothing worked until you primed over it with an encapsulating primer. I am surprised you got away with cleaning just the 2 rooms. There is tar and nicotine in every single room in this house, even the one no one ever smoked in because there was a parrot in there. They kept the door to that room closed. There was LESS of it, but it was still there and still not something you want to try to paint over. In the room where the chain-smoker lived (all 3 adults in this household smoked but one was a chain-smoker), I thought the walls were yellow. The same shade of yellow. They weren't. 3 walls had been painted a peachy cream, and the 4th wall was (supposed to be) white. That was tar and nicotine coating the walls, floor, ceiling and baseboards, ever surface in the house has this guck on it. Trust me, you are VERY lucky you got away with doing as little as you did, LOL! Good on you for taking the job on and seeing it through. @jn3344 - I thought that might have been what you meant. Nope - still working my way through this project. My son was too tired to go out yesterday or the day before so we've had a 2 day break, but we're off to the races today. I get tired too, but he's not used to this type of physical labor and we've both got a thing about heights, which makes doing the 10' ceiling kind of nerve wracking even on the scaffolding, LOL! So I'm careful to be extra meticulous up there. The only time I've seen the kind of blotchiness you're talking about was my very first paint job on my own, when I let a sales guy talk me into their one-coat (allegedly) primer/paint combo to go up on brand new unprimed drywall. Sure enough, it soaked right into the drywall like it was a sponge and looked awful. It was pretty obvious it was NOT working right away so I didn't waste much time or material on it, just went out and got a good primer, double coated with that (its a habit of mine to double coat with primer on new or very old walls anyway but this REALLY needed the double coating). Years later the new owners contacted me through friends to find out what I had used because they were just now getting around to repainting it and wanted to know what I had used that held up for over a quarter century, LOL! Hopefully we will finish the washing and rinsing today or tomorrow. Then I'll go around with the orbital sander to get the worst of the paint runs and any other problem areas while my son comes behind me to clean up the dust. Then I'll be stripping trim. Then priming everything. Then we'll be in the homestretch. In some ways this is the hardest job I've ever done, between my general debility these days and having to clean tar and nicotine off (that's a first for me, I've never seen this before, lucky me, LOL!) In other ways, its the easiest. This is the first time I've ever been able to paint a completely empty house. It makes a lot of things lots easier.

Now there is a doctor I wish I have. Must check on some of his book. he makes so much good sense. Still trying to find page 4, no luck so far. Thanks for the many quotes.

I was very happy with Tony winning. I would've liked it if Natalie had won as well. I was SO happy Sarah didn't make it to the final 3 so we didn't have to listen to her drone on and on. I liked her in the season she won but not so much this time around. I actually felt sorry for Michelle not getting a vote. She was the easy choice to take to final 3. Michelle seemed like she was making fire easily. I think the only thing Nat could've done differently was to pick Sarah and then make Michelle & Tony battle out the fire challenge. Boston Rob is crazy for saying Nat should've taken her chance beating Tony in a fire challenge - no way should anyone give up their guaranteed final 3 spot ever. There's no way he would have done that so I was disappointed he'd say it. Natalie did have a huge part in the game. When she re-capped all the advantages she sent back into the game, I was impressed. But I think Tony did play the better game and he's certainly entertaining to watch! The time he thought he had an advantage that turned into a disadvantage, his reaction as he was reading it was my favorite part of the entire season!