Granted, since my weigh-in is at noon, right before lunch, that fraction of a pound could have been one well-timed bowel movement last week, or a mistimed glass of water this week. Even so, I agreed that I would put money into an account for every week I gain at Weight Watchers this year, so I did that this evening. I set up a new savings account at ING Direct, and called it "Goal 170" — when I hit my weight goal of 170 pounds, I'll take that money and buy some new clothes for myself. (I wonder what size they'll be?)

My Weight Watchers leader, Linda, took a good hard look at my numbers after she wrote down my weight this morning. She paused, squinted, and asked me, "Can you do 20 Points this week?"

For those of you not familiar with the Weight Watchers plan: I currently get 25 Points per day, plus 35 per week to use whenever I want. A Royal Red Robin Burger is something like 30 Points by itself, while I can have one of those Weight Watchers meals at Applebee's for around 9 (for an entree plus soup).

I've been spreading my Weekly Allowance Points across the entire week, eating about 30 Points a day. Cutting down to 20 a day is going to be a challenge. But, like I assured Linda, I don't have anything special going on this week that I need to save them for. So, here we go.

This, my friends, is a diet. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Turns out that Linda used this tactic on another member today, who just happened to sit next to me at the meeting. She's been stuck within the same five-pound range since October. Even though my plateau has been considerably longer than that, it does make me feel validated (vindicated?) to know that I'm not the only one a.) having plateau issues and b.) having to cut way back this week.

The other two people who sat down by me today are Lifetime members (meaning they've hit their goal weight and stayed near it for a goodly amount of time). Between my fellow plateauer and the Lifetime folks, I really felt like I was experiencing a sea change in my diet attitude, just by association.

Dinner tonight was an iceberg and spinach salad with strawberries, onion, black beans, and fat-free poppyseed dressing (1.5 pts); a 4.3-ounce baked chicken breast with 1 tablespoon of nonfat vanilla yogurt, plus thyme and rosemary (4 pts); and carrots with ginger and garlic (2 pts). Those seven-and-a-half Points were about the most filling Points I'd eaten in some time. Plus, I actually sat at the dining room table to eat my meal, rather than watching the news or playing a game or even browsing on my iPhone. I focused on my food, enjoyed it, ate slowly, and was comfortably sated by the time I was done. Dessert, a couple hours later, was a small glass of fat-free milk with zero-calorie chocolate sauce (Walden Farms; surprisingly delicious).

If I continue to plan ahead, treat myself to food that's tasty AND healthy, and not give in, I can turn this thing around. Tomorrow is our team lunch at work; I can easily be good enough for lunch that a large salad and a chicken breast will be sufficient for dinner.

No worries. I'm looking forward to this.

Linda, my Weight Watchers Leader, was featured on 13abc last month in their "4 Ways To Lose 100 Pounds" series. In this interview, she shares her before and after pictures (which still amaze me) and a very abbreviated overview of what losing 120 pounds meant to her — and how she did it on Weight Watchers.

(Incidentally, the interviewer, Rebecca Regnier, was also in one of Linda's Weight Watchers meeting groups, so I understand.)

On Megan's Facebook fan page, she posted a poll: "Grade the opening episode of 'Who Do you Think You Are?'" I rated it a B, and left the following comment:

There were very few things that rubbed me the wrong way about this episode; mostly, I enjoyed it.

First: I was always taught that the family name or surname is capitalized, not the given name. If the show is trying to encourage non-genealogists to start researching, the graphics should have reflected standard notation. (Unless I learned wrong.)

Second: I'm wondering if the entire series will be focused on finding "famous" or "influential" people in the subjects' lineages. As a standard Heinz 57 American myself, I have no such expectation, and have only ever found one mildly notable person in my line. Of course, if they didn't find someone interesting, and only found Average Joe Farmer back for generations, I suppose that wouldn't make good television.

Third: Would a library really permit a patron to view an original document without gloves, and to point to it with a pencil tip while reading?

Apart from these small issues, I LOVED the show. I live in Ohio, and much of my family is from the Cincinnati area, so that was a pleasant surprise. I also appreciated the personal nature of the research, really getting into who these people were. It's so easy sometimes to define our ancestors by their dates (hatched, matched, and dispatched), and the suspense of what happened to each ancestor, while sometimes excessive, was good television.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing the upcoming episodes! My own research has been sitting dormant for years; I expect that this will help rekindle my interest.

That said, I've already set my What's On TV? iPhone app to remind me of next Friday's episode. I'm also seriously considering making Friday night genealogy night.

As seen from The Comfy Chairs at the Starbucks in Levis Commons, Perrysburg.

I should be clear: I rarely let stress affect me. I'm generally very good at seeing the Big Picture, taking a deep breath, and realizing that This Too Shall Pass. It's not until I start falling behind on work, missing or pushing back deadlines, or negatively affecting others' work that I really start to feel it.

When I worked in Lockbox at Sky Bank, the stress came from being forced to stay at work until ALL the payments were processed; that would often mean an 11-hour workday on Mondays, which eventually translated to physical and mental exhaustion.

My current gig, thankfully, is much less physically and mentally stressful. Generally. Right now, I feel like I keep screwing up, getting things done later than management wants them done, missing simple fixes, asking too many questions about how to do my job. I've been told explicitly that "time is of the essence." Knowing that my shortcomings are keeping others from doing their job on time — thus increasing THEIR stress — well, it stresses me out.

I'll be glad once I get these reports done. Or once I go on vacation. Whichever comes first.