What's on your Wednesday menu?

Jalapeno cheese anything, yes! Hence, the popcorn in the car the other day.

Mornin' All!

Rally was great yesterday - I'm so glad I went (and no - I couldn't go to both the rally and class. Rally doors closed at 1:15 and no one else was allowed in after that, and my first class starts at 1:20). I made the right choice, though. Obama, especially, was fantastic. I hope to find a video of his speech online so I can watch it again. There was so much loud and enthusiastic cheering that I missed some of what he said. At least the crowd was psyched!

I've got another film discussion group meeting this morning. I'm also going to call Costco's hearing center when they open to see if they can get me in this week for a hearing test. I'm assuming I may need to get a hearing aid, but my regular medical clinic can't get me in for a hearing test until late January (and I made this January appt about two months ago! they are really booked up!) Since DH has to have his health benefit stuff for 2025 in by this Friday, that's way too late. The FSA stuff is due on Friday, too, and if there's a good chance I need a hearing aid, I want to put more than the usual amount in to cover it - or at least some of it. If they weren't very expensive, I'd just put the $$ in the FSA account to cover it regardless, and use it for something else if it turns out I don't need one - but those things are crazy expensive. Not sure I could spend the extra $1000+ on other things if I don't need to get a hearing aid. So...fingers crossed I can get an appt at Costco this week.

QOTD: I do eat carbs, but the good kind. It's not that I never eat the "bad" kind (donuts, cookies, etc) - but I try to limit that to special occasions or parties. DH likes that kind of stuff, so I make him hide it if he brings it in the house.

coffee with half & half

skyr with 2 T SF apple butter, thin slice of Danish rye with butter & cloudberry jam

1/2 pack of Loma Linda southwest burrito bowl on salad greens topped with plain Greek yogurt & salsa

protein muffin or protein ice cream

celeriac soup and some kind of protein

ex: too windy to bike and not much at the gym today, so I'll probably walk or do some cardio video

have a great day, everyone!

I have been wearing hearing aids since 2012. When I purchase from a hearing aid specialist covered by my medical insurance, they pay for one hearing aid a year and the cost for one is about $3,000. Because I wear two, I then pay another $3,000 for the second hearing aid. They last a few years, then start having problems and I replace them.

This year I decided to try Sam's Club instead. We don't have a Costco close. Sam's does not take insurance, but two hearing aids there were $1800 for the pair and they are working better than the $6000 ones I had been buying. I would highly recommend Costco or Sams.

Hearing aids do not improve the clarity of the words. They make them louder. It is like turning up the sound on a radio. For me they do not work well when many people in the room are talking or in places like resturants or in churches that have echoes. But in a the right enviroment, preferably talking to one person in a quiet room, they are wonderful.

I found it well worth to pay whatever extra cost is involved to get them with technology that works with WIFI. Then they can work just like earbuds to listen to your phone or other devices. When they do the hearing test and demo the hearing aids it will be in the quiet and ideal enviroment, so you really don't know how well they wor****il you wear them in different places. They should have a 90-day no questions asked return period for you to see if they are right for you. Also make sure you have insurance in case you lose one.

The hearing test at Costco will be fine. Their techs are well trained and their hearing aids are ranked excellent by users.

my insurance will cover up to $1000 for a hearing aid (although I'm not sure if that applies to Costco - it may just be at the audiology clinic affiliated with my medical system). My FSA can cover the rest, but of course only if I have enough $$ in it to cover that. We have three Costcos in the county (and it sounds like their hearing aid thing is exactly the same as you had at Sam's Club - price, return period, etc...). I called one of them and they don't have any appts until December. Tried the other two in case they had a cancellation or something, but no answer. They may be at lunch. I'll try again later - but I'm guessing they're also scheduled out pretty far. Crap. I may just get it all done there rather than bother with the test at my medical clinic. Costco's hearing tests are free - plus yes - the hearing aids there are pretty reasonably priced....way cheaper than getting them through the audiology clinic.

If I can't get in anywhere soon, I'll just put an extra couple hundred bucks in my FSA to help with it. I'm hesitant to put in $1000+ without knowing if I even need them or not, because DH plans to retire next year, so we won't be able to carry anything over into 2026 - we'd forfeit whatever's left in it. I guess I'd rather pay a chunk of the cost with my credit card (and only cover a smaller chunk of it with my FSA) rather than risk losing hundreds of dollars. There's only so many bottles of Tylenol and Miralax I can buy with $1000 extra dollars in my FSA account without raising suspicion!

I saw Obama speaking on the news last night and I was looking for you!

a couple other people said they were looking for me, too! I was pretty far up, though - unless the cameras were scanning the audience, you wouldn't have been able to see me. My sister did spot DH though a couple of weeks ago when he was at Kamala's rally! Given there were over 10K people there, that was pretty incredible!

Hi gang. Quick drive by. It's about 2pm here. Busy, busy week. I'll give a full update next week. We just left the Roman coliseum in El Jem. I had no idea there were so many different ancient Roman sites here, and how extensive they were.

Food is all over the place, and it's too confusing to track. Lots of bread this week.

QOTD: There are foods I'll always eat, and foods I'll never eat. I only make things off limits when I want to rein it in and lose some. And then I don't cut food types, just calories. And it's easier to cut calories by trimming sugar and fats than by cutting protein. But my bottom line is always simply my calorie budget.

Here is me, my brother and my daughter at El Jem.

I don't see a bandage on your hand, hopefully that is good news.

They said I could unwrap the rest of the hand by yesterday, so I did. It was looking pretty disreputable. I've still got the pinky wrapped. They'll take that off next Monday when I go to the orthopedist. It's really stopped bothering me much, but it's probably ugly under there.

I had no idea they could suture two halves of a fingernail. That was remarkable to watch.

Watch????