Busy Saturday!

Good morning sistas,

I'm up (barely) and waiting for the perfect storm of Benny and Budder to hit!  Not quite as severe as that big snow storm on the East Coast, but just as intense!  Oh, not sure I'm ready for this today.  I think I could have slept a few more hours.

I had another big day yesterday.  Got my lake house listed with the Realtor.  Should go on the market about next Wednesday.  Please please pray or swing chickens or whatever that it sells fast.  It costs me over $1000 a month to hold onto that place.  It's time to let it go.

I really like my Realtor, Jenny, but it was a little stressful doing all of that anyway.  However, this is my third time to work with Jenny and I think of her as a friend.  She understands my situation and I think she'll do what she can to move the house quickly.  I told her she can call me a "motivated seller" in the ad.  LOL!

So it was a big day.  I did get up and blitz the house before she got here.  I even got my floors mopped.  Like I said, give me a deadline to meet . . . Otherwise I just tend to let things slide.

So I have the boys all day today and tomorrow.  It's inventory time at Hobby Lobby.  Very intense hours.  But tomorrow I have to go out to the lake house, so I guess Benny and Budder will have to go with me.  My neighbor is going to clean the leaves off my roof and mow my grass, etc.  I have to pay him.  And he's going to help me hook up my little trailer and load one of those new queen sized mattress sets on it.  Carrie finally decided (at the very eleventh hour, I might add) that she DOES want one of the 3 brand new queen sized beds we bought for the lake house.  So on Monday, I'll be carrying it (along with several other things) up to Waco.  Since I'll be there with the trailer, Carrie has some of her guy friends lined up to move the new mattress in and quite a bit of old things OUT of her duplex.  And then we can FINALLY set up the baby's nursery at her house.  Like I said, eleventh hour!

I'll get to go with Carrie to her OB appointment on Tuesday morning.  It will be her last ultrasound.  I'm so excited to see little Caralee again!  And maybe get some idea of when she might arrive.  Not that I put too much stock in those types of predictions.  Babies come when they want to!  LOL!

It's finally really cold here this morning.  We still didn't get a freeze, but there's frost everywhere.  I think it did freeze up in the Hill Country, but my back porch thermometer says 37 this morning.  

Those special tick collars came and I put them on the dogs yesterday.  The package says they start working within 24 hours and last for 90 days.  Lord, I hope so!  I just couldn't bring myself to check the dogs for ticks again last night.  I didn't want the creepy crawly feeling all night long again last night.  But I'll check them today.  Hopefully I got them all off the other day and now the collars will keep them GONE.

Well, my babies will be here any minute, so I'd better close.  LOVE you ALL!

Good Morning Vickie and OFF,

I hope you survive the Blizzard of the Grandsons.  I understand how it is when chasing two young boys.

My chickadees back East are safe at home right now.  Chris was in the Philadelphia area yesterday for his grad school class, and Casey was in Minnesota.  He took a taxi from his class to 30th Street Station to take Amtrak back to Manhattan.  His class was not close to the station.  Then, Casey got the last flight out of Minnesota to New York, and flew over the storm, but landed safely in New York, and got home.  They both got home as the storm was gaining steam in New York.  

FedEx guy just dropped off my new crock for my crockpot.  My old crock had cracked, and it saved me a few bucks to just replace the crock.  I have a programmable crock set, and they cost a lot more than the regular ones.  I didn't want to spend $30 more for what I wanted when all I needed was the crock.

I have tidying and crocheting to do today.  Not sure how much of either I'll get done.  My goal is to finish Lincoln's bedspread sooner than later.  I've been working on it on and off since before I moved here three years ago.  Problem is baby blankets keep being made, because family and friends keep having them.  Oy ve!

Worried about our sweet Connie.  I tried calling her Thursday, and it went straight to voicemail.  I sure hope she's okay.  

Vickie, I hope your lake house sells.

Jeannie, I hope your shingles clear up fast.  I have had them once, and was on the anti-virals and spent two days in bed miserable.

Mary, I hope the storm goes out to sea, so you don't experience what Massachusetts did in 1978 around this time.

Must scoot.

Love and Hugs,

Trish

Hugs,

Trish

Trish, 

I am so happy everyone made it home safe before the storm hit. We are getting a little snow flurries here and there but most of our weather is the extreme cold and wind blowing through the mountains...last night, the wind howled and I thought it was a coyote but we stepped out on the porch and it was the wind blowing through the trees....it is so cold. 

These are the craziest shingles that I've ever had. I had this excruciating pain on my belly for about a week and thought I was going to have a million blisters from all the pain but I've had only about eight blisters and I got on the antivirals right away so they didn't get all messy like in the past.  They were red, burning, and itchy and still are but they are drying up from the inside, which is weird....they never popped and every day, they are looking more and more like a bump and not a blister.  The pain is manageable now...Shingles are awful, and if I could take the vaccine, I'd do it but I responded to the test they did to see if I was allergic to the compounds in the vaccine...they do that with all vaccines they give me and I reacted violently, so they said it would be too dangerous to inject the vaccine in my skin...but, the good news is they are trying to make one for people allergic...hopefully it will come out soon. 

Sit and crochet...I love crocheting and love making baby blankets...they thread is always so soft...

Have a good day...enjoy your morning. 

Good Morning Vic and Ladies,

Vic, you are going to be going at a fast run all weekend.  I hope the kids are having  a good day today and tomorrow. And, I hope you sell the house soon. We have two houses in the valley and we tried to sell one but a friend lives in it and she cannot afford to move...so we were going to sell it to her at a real low cost but she couldn't get a loan...I would give it to her but we have a gas well on it and also a phone tower thing...and when we had thought about selling the house, we would have to make arrangements for the leases we have with the phone company and with Halliburton who is getting the gas out...plus, they want to put another pump out there but we have sort of said no because it would mean digging up the back of the yard....it's so complicated when they find gas on your land, they drive you nuts trying to get you to let them drill...but the drilling, we found out, involves building muddy pits...it's awful...so we don't care what they offer, we are not letting them put another pump out there....and that is why it is hard to sell the house because we would keep the mineral rights and it's just very complicated...then my daughter lives on our little farm and she is always trying to get us to let them drill there or let them put up a tower because she thinks we could just give her the money...but as you know, you cannot just give away money...We did tell her she could let the turbine people put one windmill up so they are doing that...she won't have to pay electricity and the electric company will buy the left over electricity and I doubt it is very much money so we said they could make the check, if there is a check, out to her.  We hired an attorney to make the wind turbine a part of the lease of property so she can get money for that without us paying taxes... and we let her dig a well for water so she has no water bill, which is finally nice because we were having to pay all her cut off fees...you know. We did get her propane hook up and we fill the tank once a year or maybe twice...it's a huge tank. So, she has no rent, soon no electric payments, no water payments, and no gas...you'd think she would love me to death....not so much. 

It is so cold, and I am very happy that I don't have to go outside...Yeah! The kids have ball games today so we aren't picking them up,  and DH is working. DH has OCD so freakin' bad...He and the other guy who do the data base stuff (I have no idea what that means) work every other Saturday because they can shut the web support thing down...hell, I don't really know why they have to be there every other Saturday,  but I do know he is working and I was very happy for him to be heading out and me home alone to enjoy being still, so  I am sort of rushing him out the door and I said, hey, don't forget your lunch (black beans with picante sauce and cheese layered under a veggie burger made with tofu, greens, and chick peas) and he says, now stop...I have to follow my routine or I will forget something...his routine!  He was standing by the table after taking his meds, he had taken his eye drops, and the last part of his routine was putting on his coat....geeze the older he gets the harder it is to manage him...and, many of you will agree, that we do end up managing these men...manage their diets, their activities of daily living, their medical management.  Well, today is one of those days that I am tired of being the manager.  Can you tell? 

My sister is worried about my shingles and she keeps texting me. Apparently, one of her friends, had "the shingles" so bad they had to put her in the hospital and then her friend ended up in intensive care and having a stroke...I had to remind my sister that her friend is 90 and her friend had other issues like a heart valve replacement and on and on...you know these little old ladies.   (that isn't us).

I know I've told you about my *****es, right? Well, I adopted a cat from the animal shelter about 10 years ago....she was never going to be adopted and was set to be put down...she looked like she was barely 6 weeks old, but the vet said she was at least 6 months old but was malnourished probably from being so afraid of humans. She had been born in a ditch and some mean ass kids found the mother and her kittens and they tormented them for days...even carrying the kittens off and almost letting them die before bringing them back to the mother...a stranger saw this and collected mom and her kittens up and took them to the shelter...my cat, Ginger, was so afraid of humans that no one would adopt her so I did.  Then, I rescued Penny Candy who was born from a stray...we found homes for all her siblings, but I could never catch mama cat...then we rescued a kitten (about 9 months old) that a crazy woman had abandoned but not before she let the toddlers at her day care play with it as if it was a stuffed toy, and if she scratched one of the humans, she got slapped and thrown...then they moved and left that poor baby in the house with no food or water. I heard her meowing and kept looking for the source of the meow and finally figured out they had abandoned her and I called the police who finally broke in the house and let me rescue her...she was weak and so pitiful...she was in the vet clinic for a week before we could bring her home and she has been the best cat ever...she is about 9 now and she never scratched the kids (wonder why!) but she is very obese....like 40 pounds obese. I try my best to put her on a diet but I just cannot let her go hungry.  Then, about five years ago...the stray mama cat came back and had five kittens in our shed and she almost died...we brought her in the house with her kittens and nursed her back to health...bottle fed the babies until she got her strength back and we tamed her enough to get her  to the vet and get her spayed and we found homes for all but one of her babies and we kept the one kitten, and my sister took the stray and she lives in the barn on their dairy farm..she is fat and sassy and gets a lot of love from my brother in law, sister, and their grandkids.  But, as a result of my soft spot for abandoned or mistreated animals, I now have the four *****es and they control my life.  So Ginger, the older lady, is dying. She has never been healthy and the vet even said she is mentally retarded and partially blind from her tormentors, no doubt. But, we have had to put her on this very special high calorie food that is canned.  Sometimes it takes her an hour to eat her morning serving so my obese cat goes nuts wanting to eat some of that high calorie food too.  We have tried every thing we know to do to keep Ginger and her high calorie food away from the other cats but finally we bought a huge dog pen...not a crate because it is really a wire cage. We put Ginger in the pen early in the morning and give her the morning serving of food...we let her rest in there and when she meows to come out, we let her out with the others and we repeat this in the evenings.  My obese cat and the other two hate that she has to go in the pen and they meow and worry about it and they try to break her out. I thought it was to get her food but a couple of times we put her in there because we really thought she was dying and we don't want the other cats messing with her and they went crazy trying to get her out.She is the first cat so I guess the others see her as the alpha cat and they worry her to death, trying to sleep next to her and they try to bathe her...it is really comforting to a degree, knowing that they are with her when we are at work.  But, today, I am finally getting to the story, she was in her feeding pen and the other three were going crazy, wanting her out, so I let her out and put her on her little bed that had been fitted with a new kitty blanket (yes, they have their own little blankets) and the other cats got on their little beds and the obese cat went over to sniff Ginger (the sick older cat) and I guess Ginger was tired of being messed with and bless her heart she started hitting the fat cat on her head...no claws out...but it was kind of cute.  Ginger is to weak to hurt anyone but Wanda hissed at her...well the other two cats jumped up and got involved and were trying to fight the fat car...how cute is that...the poor fat cat hadn't done anything but they heard her hiss and just jumped to the old cat's defense...so, I jump up to stop the cat fight and get everyone settled down and their tale fur back to the right size and when I went back to my chair to finish my coffee, I guess in my haste to save the cats, I knocked over my coffee cup and it spilled and the coffee landed on my iPad, my favorite coloring book, and a white poncho I was crocheting for a friend...These *****es....here I am trying to enjoy my stillness and they just won't let me be....now, I've cleaned everything...ipad is fine, coloring book is sort of fine and I'll spot rinsed the poncho and hope after I fini**** there will be no stains...if so, I will try to tie die it or something....all is quiet...the *****es are all asleep so I can go back to being still again.

I hope you guys have an uneventful day and I hope my long, long stories didn't drive you guys nuts.  Sometimes, the easiest thing in the world to do when I'm trying to be still is for me to write...I should work on that novel...

Hello again. I'm going to vent just a bit about my mom. She really ticked me off this morning. And she kinda hurt my feelings too.

So last night, after all the stress of selling stuff for the past two days, I decided I wanted a cookie. Or maybe two or three...  Anyway I had some break n bake cookies in the frig and I baked a few.

This morning my mom says, "I see you baked cookies last night.  Did you give up on your diet?"  I realize that doesn't sound so bad but it was the way she said it. All smirky and I-knew-you-couldn't-do-it.  My mom is so tiny and has never had a weight problem in her life. I always feel like she is judging me.

And one more thing. I have told her repeatedly that I am giving up meat, but she continues to offer it to me. Grrrr. She makes me nuts!

And on a completely different note, the tick problem continues! So far this morning I have found and killed FOUR of the nasty little buggers.  In the house! This is freaking me out!  Maybe they are dropping off the dogs because of the new collars? Or maybe they have just infested my house. Either way it is gross!

Okay rant over. Thanks for listening.

Vic,

Your mom reminds me of my older sister. And, that is why I didn't tell anyone in my family about my WLS. My older sister has never been an ounce over weight so she would be just like your mom....when I had surgery and began losing weight, my sisters couldn't stand it and began trying to figure out a way to sabotage me...and like your mom, my sister cannot stand that I've given up meat...her latest attempt was a phone call telling me she killed a hog and she had them put me some bacon and ham up and I could pick it up anytime...I reminded her that I am not eating meat and she said, well, you are going to gain all that weight back eating all those carbohydrates....yep...she did say that with that same smirk...you know what I mean.  You can eat a cookie or five because there isn't a finish line and if you have to stop and catch your breath, do it and then get back on the track and run some more...it's your journey and you will travel it your way...and it looks as if you are doing great....

My mom does that to me, too, Vickie. If I see her and we're out eating (not anymore, because she doesn't go out), she'll say, "Is that on your diet?" And when I first told her I was going to have WLS, she said, "Well, you'll just gain it all back. That person on TV (she meant Carnie Wilson) did. You always gain it back." Which is why I hate that I've gained some back (but not all) and I'm determined to lose this regain (not for her, but for me). 

Lost another 1.7 pounds. Down almost 9 pounds. And, oh, I still have my dark chocolate kisses and an occasional cookie. Don't beat yourself up for having a cookie. Tell your mom to mind her own business.

Good Afternoon Vickie. Trish & Jeannie plus all who follow!

We are snowed in...literally. Can't get doors open to go outside, and they are predicting another 5 inches! We have about 9, but the winds are steadily picking up so the drifts are higher. We have had more snow in the past,, but this is wet and heavy.

I drove my afternoon route yesterday as the storm moved in, and it got nasty fast. There were areas where it was a white-out, and my last half hour the interstate was crunchy from the wintrymix-cars could only use one lane and were going a max of 40mph in a 65 zone. I was glad to get home...nerve-wracking!

I had yet another experience at work that reminded me I am not as young and sharp as I used to be. The teens who ride the van are not allowed to bring any kind of bags in which they could hide things. A 14 yr old somehow smuggled a bookbag with a BB gun in it..the hospital staff found it. Since these kids have serious mental health issues we have to be on guard. I was called in regarding this...I did point out the boy was carrying his heavy winter coat and sneakers so maybe it was hidden under there and that is why I missed it.Still, not good! The world has changed since I last worked with adolescents 20 years ago...

I am still tired everyday and having trouble keeping my carbs and calories under control. Only 25 pounds gone since surgery 3 months ago. I think I need to get back in therapy. Why I am sabotaging myself after losing 100 with only 50 to go ****** me off!

I wish I could manage getting on everyday, but I can't so I can't remember everything! I will do my best to respond...

Vickie, my mom never had a weight problem, either. Actually, neither parent did or my siblings. My dad made some very hurtful comments over the years as did my brother who passed. But really, nothing had to be said verbally...I got the message. I have had to accept this problem is part of my journey, and I guess I am supposed to learn how to more effectively deal with all that goes with it. It still hurts, though. I am sorry you have to hear it...

On the other hand you are blessed with the resolve to make positive changes! It takes a long time to change our relationship with food. I am beginning to realize it is going to be a lifelong process in my case!

Good luck with having the boys all weekend...wow! Also with getting the house sold!

Trish, you are really doing great with your recovery. Hopefully by Spring you'll be back to your old self. Sorry to hear about the church gossips. That is one of the reasons I moved away from formal religion. I don't know why it offended me so much given there are gossips in any given group, but I just found it hard to take from a church setting.

Jeannie, I envy your success with your dietary changes. I have been wanting to buy veggie burgers ever since my daughter introduced me to hers by scratch, but always forgot to look for them. Your post on making yours motivated me to buy some....yum...a new food...next I plan to make them from scratch!

Mary, sorry you were going thru the blues over choices you made while with Jim. Don't beat yourself up. Easier said than done bc I ask myself why I ever allowed my ex in my life, to father my girls, etc, etc. But that bad choice also led to me becoming a better person so I try to accept that dark period in my life as meant to be. Sometimes, we are just good ppl making not so good choices....

Arlene, the FB pic of your daughter is beautiful! I certainly see the resemblance. And your sense of humor is right up there with Judy's... you just don't have as much material!

Judy, glad you got thru testing and all looks good. Does that rule out the internal bleeding issue?

Julia, hope you are enjoying your mini-break. Sad news about your friend. I think I would consider Jeannie's route if terminally ill and in enough pain, but I believe suicide...passive or otherwise is a sin so it would be torture either way.

Connie, Connie. Connie...sounds like we are ALL missing you and hoping all is okay. You are the heart of this group and we go into afib when we don't hear from you! I am glad to see you posting on FB. Take care...we love and miss you!

Yvonne, sounds like you keep yourself busy and are committed to your daily exercise. What do you do?

Well, I am off to do some stuff around here....

Kathy,

You are doing great!  Twenty-five pounds in three months is a little over 8 pounds a month and that is great.  Weight lost is different for everyone and you may lose like 25 pounds over three months with most of that weight coming off the first few weeks and then you will stall for a little while so your body can adjust and then you will drop another big bunch of weight. 

You are doing great and never look at your weightless as just 25 pounds but as OMG, I lost 25 pounds!  You drink your water and try to get your protein in through the foods you eat (try plant first) and as you regain your strength, do a little activity and increase it every week or two...you will have that weight off in no time.

Kathy,

I do walk away the pounds dvd in the winter. Then when it warms up I'll be walking outside.

Yvonne