[gma22]

Good morning to all you lovely ladies. Jack's new laptop will be delivered sometime this morning so I had to get up with him and get dressed right away. He had Dell build him one so it has taken 3 weeks. Bless his heart he is practically giving away his old one. One of the men at work is divorced and his dd wants a laptop but no way can he afford a new one so Jack is selling him his for $150. Jack's is only about 4 years old so it isn't ancient and will do the girl well for school projects and such. Can't say I relished the idea of him getting a new one with bells and whistles, but I told him he was not getting another one for a long long time so he better make sure this was what he wanted. He is like most men, a little boy at heart wanting his toys. Only problem is Jack's toys are expensive.

Susan: Our condo is about 1850 and it does have a full garage and a full attic to store stuff, but the cabinet configuration in the kitchen is bad. They are either one door and narrow or the two door cabinets are not really very deep. I guess I just have too much stuff. I have to store all my small appliances (ie food processer, blender, rotisserie, etc on top of the pantry that we have in the dining room. It is a pain to haul them down and back up again so you tend not to use them as much as you would otherwise. I have a bunch too. Besides your normal toaster and can opener, I have a sandwich maker and tea maker and my big Kitchen Aid mixer in the kitchen. Then there is the electric skillet, the food processer, the blender, the bread maker, the rotisserie all on top of the pantry. The microwave is on a baker's rack in the dining room. So, I have plenty of kitchen gadgets! lol I just finished the whole series of "Sisterhood" books by Fern Michaels and they were great. She has a spinoff of them I want to read now. I also just finished Domestic Affairs by an author I had never read before and it was pretty good. I read fast so I can consume books sort of like slurping spaghetti! lol Sometimes, belonging to a book club for me is not such a great idea!

Jean: My new towels are still putting out a lot of lint in the dryer. The worst are my new sheets though. Gosh, the lint filter is crammed full when I do a load of sheets. I grew up eating veggies, but Jack didn't so he doesn't like them and refuses to eat most of them. I don't keep a lot of salad fixings because I can't eat them up fast enough. So I usually order salad when we go out to eat. Hope you get your rain, but not too much just a nice sprinkling to water grass and flowers. We have had little rain here. I told Jack I think I am going to start back to the pool during open hours. I haven't checked to see if they changed locks or whatever but since they have a policy where you have some kind of card or something to prove you live here, I don't want to cause trouble going outside the open and close hours until I know a little more. We should go to the monthly association meetings, but we don't.

Not much else going on here. I am just going to be sitting here waiting for the delivery man today. Hope you have a good hump day!
Faye

[QuilterInVA]

Good morning, ladies! Another great day as far was the weather goes. I hope August is this nice.

Faye, I know you are looking forward to swimming again. I read a lot, too and listen to books on CD or tape while I do housework or quilting. I have library cards for 3 different towns. Fortunately being on a peninsula they are all within a few miles of my house. Being a chef, Stan had very definite ideas about what he wanted in the kitchen and we made changes to the original plan to get it. We put a nice sunroom that opens into the kitchen and use it for eating and that freed up more space for the kitchen. You should try those green bags they advertise on tv - I got them all Walgreens and I've seen them at Rite-Aid and Walmart - they really do work. I can keep a head of lettuce for a month and it's just as good as the day I bought it. Great for strawberries . Actually all the fruits and vegetables have kept much longer. I got 20 for $9.99 and they are reuseable. I chop up lettuce, cabbage, romaine and spinach, carrots, celery and then put it in a bag. Cheaper than the bagged salads and it keeps longer.

Jean, did you get rain? I had some towels that put out a lot of lint - so much I finally got rid of them. It never seemed to stop. I started Beck on Monday. The first day we had to make a list of all the reasons why we wanted to lose weight and post it several places around the house and make a copy for our purse. Yesterday was read our list and choose 2 diets. The idea with 2 is if you get tired of one, you can do the other and not give up. I chose WW Core for my primary and WW Flex for my secondary. Then, and I found this to be interesting, we had to think of what changes we'd make to our plan so that we could stick with it for life. Since Flex let's you eat anything, I had no changes there. But for Core I'm adding bread, nuts, and reduced fat products to the Core list of foods. Today we are to begin eating all our food sitting down...no tasting while we cook, grabbing food and eating it while we do something else. She gives lots of helpful suggestions for overcoming dieting obstacles. Good so far but isn't it always that way at the beginning when we are all enthusiastic.

Have a great day - I have my quilting bee tonight.

[Jean]

Good Morning, Flowers! It is going to be another hot day today. So far we haven't gotten any of the 20% chance of rain that was predicted. My car is back in the shop so I am stranded at home until they bring it back. If I don't have it by late this afternoon we are going to ask for a loner. I have a lunch date with some other teachers tomorrow! I've written some cards and letters this morning plus filling a grocery bag with paperback books to take to the Catholic SOS (Save Our School) store. They take in used items to resell and the money goes to their school.

"Gma" -- I hope the delivery man comes sooner rather than later today. I hate waiting around for someone thinking they might come and I would miss them. We have a doorbell and it works, but I just hate the waiting. You do have a lot of cooking gadgets! I have just the basics as I never do anything too involved or fancy. I hope you are back to swimming soon. I know that you have missed it. Is Jack's back and your neck better today? I hope so!

Susan -- When our family was together for the 4th Beth had some fruits and veggies in the green bags. I asked her if that was what was advertised on TV and she said to ask Maddy about them. Maddy proceeds to tell me that they will keep your food fresher longer and they won't turn icky brown! Beth said that Maddy had watched the commercial on TV and bugged Beth about getting some. Beth found her's at WM. I'm going to put them on my next shopping list! I would love a sun porch/3 season room. We have a deck that we don't use much and have talked about moving it over to make room. We have a huge yard so have the space. I think I may order the Beck book -- it does sound like it is a good one. Keep us posted!

I need to keep moving and do some more sorting. I took a pile of magazines to MIL last night. I don't know why I take so many except the kids sell them at school for the yearbook, and I can't say "no" if they ask politely.

Have a great day! Remember the choice is yours and smile!

Jean -- from Iowa!