02/15/2020 Saturday

1. Within Range: NO ! .6 over !
2. Blue SmartPoints: 23 plus 12 Weeklies
3. General Wellbeing: 8
4. FSF: Valentines dinner out
5. Yesterday's Insights: Great lakes promote great squalls. My mother loves Valentine's Day! Constipation can cause UTIs.

We drove to the Syracuse VA (two hours each way) through intermittent snow squalls to meet with DC's urologist as a follow up to his urethra reconstruction and recurring UTIs and kidney infections. We have to go back in two weeks for a scoping to check for strictures, but the urologist said DCs frequent issues with constipation can promote UTIs. Who knew ?! He is now on daily protocol of fiber, stool softener and probiotics with other meds to be added if he has not been productive for 24 and/or 36 hours, ending with an enema if nothing happens by 48 hours. Getting old sucks. We were able to visit my mother and surprise her with Valentine balloons, card and candy. She is 92, and was as excited as a child! We had a great dinner last night. I had some lobster bisque, a delicious seafood risotto (just a few bites of the risotto itself) and thankfully my sleeve precluded even a bite of dessert. Today, the temperature is -6, with windchills in the negative teens. It is too cold to hit the pool at the YMCA, as even the best blown dry hair will still retain enough moisture to make the frigid air painful. Ditto for getting hot and sweaty working out, I'm afraid, so hopefully I'll motivate myself down to the family room for some stretching and hand weight work. I'm determined to get to lifetime this week.

You beat me by 3 minutes!!! LOL!

Sorry it is so COLD there. So sweet that you could surprise your Mom.

Weight 130.2, WW blue points 9 (but a fair amount of zero point foods).

We went to a friends for dinner last night for great scallops. No wine or dessert was consumed!

It is cloudy this morning but sunny later - maybe I will take Justice to the dog beach for walking after my morning walk. It is a bit of a drive, so I will have to think about it.

Happy Birthday Devon!!!

Enjoy your Saturday!

Weight: 138.0
Veggies/Fruits: 3
Macronutrients: Cals - 1,518, Carbs - 128, Fats - 49, Protein - 105, Fiber - 23
Green SmartPoints: 38
Water: 1
Sleep: 6'20"
Exercise: 15" weight lifting (Hey! At least I'm doing something!) and 13,055 steps (including hip-hop dance class)

First of all, happy birthday, Devon! I hope it's a year full of life, love and learning that nourishes both your soul and your body.

DianeO - like I said to DD yesterday, I do NOT get to ***** about my weather. Sorry Chuck's having those UTI issues. As I learned when my mother was with us, they can exacerbate dementia symptoms in older folks, which doesn't seem to make sense, but it's a thing.

And Liz, how did you manage not to down any wine OR dessert at a Valentine's Day dinner? Clearly, my powers of rationalization are much stronger than yours. ;)

Weird eating day yesterday. The library luncheon was shockingly bad--chicken salad sandwich that was more mayonnaise than anything else. I opened up the bread, took one look, and covered it right back up. Ditto the potato salad (make that mayonnaise salad). I ate the dill pickles and tomato slices and then made an executive decision to have two chocolate chip cookies. It was a strange thing for me to eat, but I asked myself the question I've been asking a lot lately: "What are you really hungry for right now?" And it wasn't mayonnaise. LOL!

Then last night after hip-hop class I was hungry again (I'd had a small, early supper before class), so I ate leftover sautéed chicken, a toasted pita bread (only 60 cals, 1 SmartPoint) and 0.6 ounces of amazing English cheddar cheese. It's a very different way for me to eat--what I'm really hungry for. Not sure I can do this all the time or even most of the time, but it's good to exercise that muscle, because it might actually get stronger.

In spite of the wretched lunch served yesterday, the program on hydroponics was very interesting. Afterward we visited the college's agricultural hydroponics and aquaponics labs and saw shrimp, tilapia, tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, lettuces, and blackberries being grown. Plus I brought home two gorgeous tomatoes, which I'll have today for lunch in a BLT sandwich with a LITTLE mayonnaise. ;)

Gotta run ... heading this morning to the Farmer's Market where I learned yesterday they have some killer spinach and grass-fed beef. Then to Walmart and Aldi for the usual stuff. This afternoon I have a pedicure and a facial at my day spa. Sounds like an excellent Saturday agenda.

Yea, weekends!

OceanD, working out at home is the right decision. Last night we walked 3 blocks to our car in subzero windchill. I got so chilled, I could not warm up in bed, I finally held the heating pad on my core and that helped. Like you pointed out, even a hint of moisture in your hair after the gym can be a problem in this weather. Our cold snap is supposed to be short lived, I hope yours is too.

Feel free to complain about your weather Ann. A damp wind at 20 degrees can be as chilling as 2 degrees with no wind. The coldest I ever was in my life was winter in Southern Brazil. True, temps stayed above freezing, but at that time ,1980, even well off Brazilians didn't have central heating, cars didn't often have heaters, since hot season was longer and more intense, houses were designed to shed heat, high ceilings, stone floors, deep eves... I was used to living in a climate controlled bubble. And heat, humidity loving me, I was visiting husband's family in Gooodman MO, in August, that was overwhelming, it was like swimming when we went for a walk. So you deserve a little less brutal winter.

The concert last night was awesome. They had an especially good horn section. Before 1st Avenue became 1st Avenue and Prince's playground when he was starting out, it was a disco. I remember talking our parents into letting us drive to Minneapolis for a teen night at the disco. Still surprised they said yes, because downtown wasn't gentrified in those days, and we lived an hour away. But a big group of us rural evangelical teenagers piled into a van and lived out our Saturday Night Fever dreams dancing on the light up floor. Good times.

Low key day today, we're going to some friends house tonight for snacks and ****tails. I'm still in tea drinking mode. Should probably get up and do something. Or maybe not :)

Happy Birthday Devon. Our tribe has every reason to celebrate the day you graced the earth with your presence!

DD, your life is really interesting to me because (a) it's an interesting life and (b) you describe it so lovingly and vividly.

I swear, the sweet Minnesota lives that you and Garrison Keillor write about make me want to up and move to that neck of the woods, even if it is so cold it sometimes tries to kill you.

Weight 189.2

Well, Parasite. Quite a movie! Class struggle, some humor, some gruesomeness as Liz's SIL aptly put it, and a lot of reading subtitles. Interesting story. Not sure I'd sit through it again, but I'm glad I saw it. Ann, you never know about small town theaters. Our tiny theater in MI (population 6,220) was brought back from the dead and completely renovated with arts grants, private donations, and a push by Michael Moore (not my favorite person, but he has tried to do some good things for MI). It's staffed by volunteers and gets terrific first run movies from the popular stuff to art films. Very impressive. And tickets and snacks are dirt cheap (popcorn for $2!). Here's our little theater I'm so proud of. It's really revitalized the downtown.

Can't say I have plans today. Finishing a book that I don't want to end, walking Fergie, yadda yadda.

Happy birthday, Devon. Hope it's a good one!

Stay warm everybody!

Ceci, what a cool movie theater the Vogue is! That website is also a loving testimony to the value it adds to your little Michigan town.

AND ... Parasite is playing there right now, along with other interesting movies. I also love that they have $2 classics movies on Wednesdays and 25-cent family matinees on Saturday mornings.

Cool beans!

Greetings Peeps, Peps and Pets

Just checking in. Not much of excitement here.

Except here is what I ate yesterday: coffee, glass of milk, 6 pecan sandy cookies shared with dog, a sleeve of Ritz crackers, cheese stick, a slice of pizza, two glasses red wine. Now is that an awful eating day or what? DH brought me the cookies for valentines because they were one of my previous life favorites. Gotta have a talk. And gotta get myself together on eating. Protein or bust.

DianeO so sorry you DH is having more health issues. And don't blame you for skipping the pool. Last I went I didn't stay in the water long. Many years ago I remember having my hair freeze!! sure feels weird. Yeah when you come home cold sometimes you just stay cold. I often come home from the pool and crawl under the down comforter.

Took a whole bunch of travel sized toiletries and such to the homeless project today. Stuff was snapped up in a flash. Took all the fancy soaps people have given us that we never use. Glad its enjoyed. Also took bananas. Anyone who thinks homeless people should just get a job have never spent time with any. Nearly all have some sort of disability - physical, mental, or both. Its heartbreaking.

Hey Happy Birthday Peps. Its ok to be low key. Another time when you feel like it you can have National Peps Day. Looking forward to puppy tales.

Worked at the gallery yesterday. A flood of people getting last minute valentines stuff. So it wasn't too terrible. Except for discovering and eating the ritz crackers.

DD and Bonnie150 I love hearing about midwestern winters since I did 50 of them myself. There is an intense feeling of coziness while being inside during a snowstorm. I do miss that feeling which does not occur in your basic rain storm.

Years ago I got a cookbook designed for WLS patients. I think I will peruse it for shrimp recipes since DH brought some home. Then its trip to studio and to pool.

Cheers all. Diane S

I know there is a lot of controversy about homelessness, and panhandling etc. When we go downtown, we tend to give a dollar or two to people who ask. I don't spend one second worrying about whether they're scamming me or what they'll spend it on. I usually have leftovers, and I'll give those away too. When I visited Chicago, I tried to carry cheese sticks etc. Last night I chatted with someone my husband gave a dollar. I asked him how was he going to stay warm? He said I'll be okay. I offered him my gloves. He said, I can't take your gloves. I said yes you can, I'm going inside. He looked kind of emotional and said, you have some more at home? I told him I did, and he said, well then thank you, and he left with the gloves. I don't know where he was going, maybe he's playing me and he goes home to a nice house with his pockets full of dollars from gullible suburbanites, or maybe he's sleeping on the light rail tonight... but in the end, I'd rather approach someone on the street like that with some compassion, and let God sort it all out later.

How kind of you DD to give your gloves away. We are in a small town so the homeless are very visible. You see the same people and I now know some by name. These people are not scammers. They are broke, sick and hungry. They are victimized by each other and by other people. Not a life I would choose. One woman has a cute dog and today it had a rope for a leash. Next week I will take her a nice leash.