[happy2bme]

Howdy peeps,

Went outside last night about 8pm to scrape some of the ice off the driveway - at least the part where we get out of the cars. Good thing I did as by the time I went to bed, fat fluffy snowflakes were falling again. We are supposed to get about 6 inches total. It has frosted the pine trees, they are hanging a bit so I guess it's a little bit on the wetter side. Kitty is peeved that I will not be still and let her wrap herself around my arm and sleep. Tough luck kitty - this girl's got things to do. She just stretches out and gives this big old sigh as if to say "oh you people are JUST so frustrating". I am planning on staying in today. Got some beef vegetable soup to make and maybe a chicken tortellini soup also. I want to make a French onion soup but need to get a crusty stale bread for croutons. I like the croutons and onions, DH likes the broth and cheese. I also need to make my Thanksgiving menu - I think I have most of the stuff I need save for the turkey - I hope they have fresh turkeys as I am not planning on shopping until tomorrow. And we round out the day with some housecleaning.

Laura - thanks for the review on the pre-lit trees. Everyone seems to really like them. Lights are getting so expensive that I guess it makes more sense to do the pre-lit kind. Boy I am so with you on your comment about waiting for bananas to ripen and then they are overripe. Same thing with pears. This is the second time I bought pears and they got too mushy before I realized it. I found a recipe for a pecan/banana/coconut bread I am going to try out to use up the bananas. Just a small loaf to try as I only have 2 bananas. That is if DH didn't use up all the milk. Sounds like you had a busy weekend. I find that karaoke gets way too loud for me. It appeals to a certain group which I guess if I was roudy and drinking a lot and younger, I might like it too. I think it mostly gives an average joe with a decent singing voice an opportunity to shine. You are right about the ink cartridges - you can get an inkjet wireless printer for 50 dollars and the twin pack of black and color cartridges cost $56! Reminds me of diabetes testing supplies. They give you the meter for practically free because the pricey test strips is where they make their money. When is you Mom planning on moving back north? Will she be renting something or moving in with one of the family members?

Shad - so you have to travel all the way to Melbourne to see rain? I hope it didn't mess up the travel times. If it stops raining you will know that you're the one bringing sunshine and dry skies

Hello to the rest of the chicks. I probably should get off my duff and get something doing here. The soup will take a few hours to cook so if we want supper at a reasonable hour... Have a good day all. Short work week for many of you!

[annie175]

Hi dee Hoh all...

Let me tell you, my whoha is killing me. Doc did a biopsy of two places and also sent a brush like thing on up in there to get another biopsy of that area. Didn't want to miss anything. Cramping a bit, burning a lot. Yeee. Results in 3-5 days, probably after the holiday, first of next week. Then will decide next plan of action from biopsy results. Bleh.

SHADDIE...welcome back to the working world. Would it be cheaper to just stay there the weekends rather than coming back every week? Would the hotel be cheaper than the flights?

DEE...puppies and babies, oh man I am a sucker for both. The strangest thing tho, they both grow up and be dogs and teenagers. Thumbs down. lol

HAPPY...just keep your snow and cold up there. We had 56 both days over the weekend but too much rain. If it were snow it would of been over two feet. Thank God for rain. Haha, I would of been giggling right along with you about the wooden leg and air passing. I am easily amused.

SUSIE...a guy in our office has a pencil tree that lights up in his office, it is actually quite pretty. It is red and green with white lights. Very festive.

LAURA....I didn't get a lot of shopping done, but did get a few presents for the lil ones. I need to quit buying for them as they are the only ones that are going to have presents under my tree. lol. Jacob is at the age that is so easy to buy for, he likes everything. Even the squeak toy I bought and took over for their new doggie. Sounds like you had a very nice weekend. C and I didn't do much yesterday either. Church, lunch, store and watching the football game. Colts and Broncos won, what a day!

TERRA...it is sad when our doggies get older. Tough decisions.

CHELLE...if you are reading, know that I am thinking of you and sending healing prayers.

CEEG...nice of you to help BF get unpacked. I always tear off my labels and put them in the shredder before I throw away the bottles. Now our church is collecting the amber medicine bottles to send them to the missionaries to despense meds to the poor. Great way to recycle.

Other than cramping and burning and sitting in the office chair, I am doing pretty well. I am down 10 pounds, yes count them 10. Just 20 more to go. Maybe 25 if I stay on the roll.

Make it a great day/night. Safe travels SHADDIE...

Loves and hugs

[annie175]

HAPPY...there you are typing over my head. C and I are celebrating TG by ourselves and I am making cornish hens instead. There would be too much leftover turkey. I was glad to hear the fresh turkeys were coming from the store and not your backyard. lol

[MyChoice2bfit]

Just got in from work. DH has an appointment from 7-8 with a gentleman from our church. They get together every week on Monday's for an hour for some mentoring, counseling etc. This gentleman goes to our church and retired from his practice about 5 years ago. He provides free counseling and looks at it as his service to God.

Two years ago my husband was having panic attacks and counseled with our minister for a bit and then he recommended this gentleman to him. He has helped my DH a lot.

When DH leaves I 'm going to clean the kitchen as I didn't get to it over the weekend. I have chili simmering in the crockpot for dinner when DH get's home.

Work was busy today and I didn't get a chance to get up and walk. (or just didn't take the time, really that is how it went). I will for sure tomorrow..both of my managers are out tomorrow so I don't feel like I need to be "right there" for when they need something.

Annie: I had a biopsy of my cervix once....28 years ago....and I have NEVER forgotten how badly it hurt! I remember that brush I hope the cramping and burning go away soon. I'm saying a prayer for good outcomes of the results.

That is great that you have lost 10 lbs!

Happy: Will it be just your and DH for Thanksgiving or will you have company? Like Annie I too was glad to hear the fresh turkey's were coming from the store!

I love French onion soup. I have never made it at home. I like croutons, onions and cheese on mine!

Laura: We had nice temps over the weekend as well. Today it got colder as the day went by. I don't think we have any snow coming..but the wind has been awful! I read that you were watching Mad Men...we love that show.

Terra: I'm glad to hear that your blister is better. It is nice that you found a nice church close by and still have your other one to attend with your brother and his wife.

Hi Ceejay, Michelle and Dee!

[Terra1984]

Annie ~ Yeah its sad that he's gotten older and that I have to come to that decision

Susie ~ I'm glad my blister is better too and yeah its neat that we have two churches to go too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up at 5:45 this morning, Its now mid-night, I had to wake up and clean out Clyde's cage and take him outside. Now he is sleeping in his spot on the couch. I'll probably go back to bed at 2 or 3 a.m. and then I'll get up at 5 again this morning cause I have appt. at 8:30 this morning. Mom and I are gonna go to Dillions after 2 pm tomorrow. I'm gonna work out before I go back to bed tonight though. Good night everyone

[Shad]

can't post much. Too tired and too busy. Only managed about 3 hours sleep last night.

They weren't kidding when they said there was plenty to do. Have to have some training next week on the authoring tool for the documentation.

Melbourne is at least 10C cooler than back in Brisbane. Quite nice for a time.

[Terra1984]

Dee ~ Thats a bummer that you felt uncomfortable going back to a church you really enjoyed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up at 5:00 a.m. and its now 5:51 a.m. I have appt. to go too, Have to be there before 8:30 a.m. so I'll start watching for my bus at 7:25. I'll get home at either 10:30 a.m. or 11 a.m. this morning and then after 2 mom and I are gonna go to Dillions to finish up our shopping for Thankgiving. I'm gonna work out this morning before I have to start watch for my bus and I'll work out again tonight.

[annie175]

Good Morning My Lovely Ladies...

TERRA...good for you for getting your work out in this morning...I find myself if I let the day go on without doing something, it doesn't get done.

SHADDIE...looks like your work is cut out for you on the new job site. 3 hours of sleep is not much to work on. Hope you get more sleep tonight. Glad it is a bit cooler there than home.

DEE...awww, the pics of the pups are so cute. I just want to cuddle and love on them.

CHELLE....sounds like from your text messages you are doing quite well. Staying up for an hour at a time and drinking 60 oz of water a day is a great start to recovery...YEAH!!

SUSIE...thank you for the shout out on the WL. I am thinking of making a tracker on here. I can always clean better when no one is home. I can play music loud to motivate me.

Hello HAPPY, LAURA, CEEG

The pain from the biopsy is better, however I have a terrible pain in my lower left side of my back that I get when I have gas that won't expel or when I have to #2 and cannot. Yikes. I get it about once a week and is very painful. Hurts to bend over or put my shoes on. Getting old sucks, I guess is beats the alternative, but some days I wonder. I took a how long are you going to live test, and of course you know it is right cause it was on the internet, hahaha, it said I will live to be 98, OMGoodness with this body, I hope not.

Last night I made chicken salad with the left over marinated baked chicken from Saturday. It was very tasty. Added celery, pecans, grapes, green onions, and hard boiled egg. C overate on it, also made coleslaw. It was tasty but not my best. I ate them plain on a plate, C ate it with crackers instead of a sandwich. We have enough of both left to feed a small army. Anyone??

I tell you I am hooked on the eggnog latte's at Starbucks. I have to add one sweet n low. They are very tasty. I limit myself to two a week. The smallest size. SB will not be serving them after the holidays. Thank God.

Tonight I am going to scour both bathrooms and Sissy is coming over tomorrow to clean the rest of the house. Her way of making money for the holidays. She comes over twice a month and does everything, dusting, vacuuming, mopping, emptying the dishwasher, cleans all the mirrors and the sliding glass door, scours the kitchen sink, wipes the cabs and stove down, sometimes straightens out drawers in the kithchen. She is such a blessing.

Not much else going on here, it was very cold and windy yesterday. 40 mph winds, gray skies. bleh. Today is a bit better, winds are down but only 33. Just a little burr. Today is also taco tuesday at Alpulco Joe's. $2.00 tacos, one is plenty for me. I crunch it up on the plate for a taco salad.

Everyone have a great Tuesday/evening/night.

Love and Hugs

[happy2bme]

Good morning everyone,

I overslept and have to do my stint at the thrift shop. Will be back later after I finish volunteering and battle the crazies at the grocery store. Stay warm.

[annie175]

Mountain Dew Apple Dumplings

6-8 apples peeled, cored and cut in half
2 cans crescent rolls
1 stick butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 T cinnamon
1 can Mountain Dew

Preheat oven 350

Grease 9x13 pan
Wrap each apple chunk in a crescent roll. Lay in pan seal side down. Next melt butter, sugar and cinnamon. Pour over dumplings. Pour can of Mountain Dew over the butter/sugar mixture and cover with foil.

Bake till golden brown (around 30 minutes)

[Laura705]

Morning all. The weather turned chilly yesterday and by lunch the wind was gusting and snow was coming down, or actually sideways. Lovely. Thankfully not much accumulation. I got a ride home from the train from bf last night. Today the pavement is dusted with an icy snow. I had to walk carefully. I guess it’s time to have my “spikey things” ready to stretch over the bottom of my shoes/boots.

Happy
Did you get your two soups made yesterday? Sounds good. I haven’t actually had French onion soup in ages. I enjoy the broth, cheese and bread, but not the onions. It can be messy to eat, and if I don’t know if it’ll be any good at a given restaurant, so I just don’t bother with it. And it can be awfully salty! Re pears – we put them in a paper bag to ripen, but the last batch we bought, they weren’t bruised on the outside, but they were mushy on the inside by the core. I just cut away the mushy parts. Re my mom – she just closed on the sale of my brother’s house last month and now we have to get hers prepared to sell. Given that my sister and I are here and she is not, it’ll be difficult to help her with all that needs to be done with her house. I imagine we will need to coordinate our schedules and also try to have a list of to-dos when we travel to my mom’s to accomplish as much as we can. However, my mom can be very indecisive and won’t be rushed in making decisions, so I wonder how that can work. Same for finding a place for her here (she will probably rent a place). LOL re the comments from the other about not considering the fresh turkeys in your backyard for Thanksgiving!

Annie
That biopsy and “brushing” does not sound pleasant AT ALL. Glad you’re feeling better today. Ugh on the gut probs. Hope that passes…literally. Praying that the results of the biopsy are good. I have to say I don’t know the difference between a pencil tree and a tree that’s much less full (in circumference) than the one we have now. I just want it to take up less space, but is still able to hold a good amount of ornaments. Yeh, gifts are a lot of fun to buy for little kids. Picky adults who can buy what they want themselves - not so much. Nice that your church collects the amber rx bottles. They do accumulate after a while… I never know if the lids to those are recyclable! Reminds me that we also have a boatload of dead batteries we’ve been accumulating. Our library takes them for disposal. I should set a reminder on my phone to take them over there. Congrats on the 10 pounds lost!! Our dept admin loves the eggnog lattes, but she said Starbux doesn’t have them this year – maybe it’s a store-by-store thing? So nice to have help with the housecleaning and to be able to help out Sissy. Wish you could send her up here, LOL!

Susie
What a nice resource your dh has for the counseling from the fellow church member. Life has so much going on, and then having medical issues on top of it, it’s hard to deal with it all. I’m glad this man has been able to help your dh. Re getting our activity breaks during work – I didn’t take the time to do my stairs yesterday either. My quads were still a wee bit sore from Jazzercise on Saturday and I just wasn’t up for it. I’ll get my stairs in today and you’ll get your walks in today for sure!! Let’s do it! Yeh, I love Mad Men – love the retro setting/period. We’re only on the 5th episode of season 1 of Breaking Bad and I’m not sure I like it enough yet to stick with it – I’ll watch a few more and see where it’s going.

Terra
You’re keeping both early and late hours! I hope you get enough sleep – it’s so important! You don’t want to wear yourself down and get sick.

Dee
Love the pics you posted. What a great picture with you and the grandkids! I can see how your dh will miss your long hair – very pretty. But it’ll grow back! And who knows, maybe you'll like it shorter! Sundae and the pups are so precious. Do you miss the pups when they go to their new homes? I think that would be difficult for you and Sundae. We got about an inch of snow yesterday – not a lot, but like I said up top, it was wet, so it’s made the pavement icy. Bleh. I like that idea for the newspaper.

Shad
Hope you catch up on your sleep tonight – sounds like you’ll need the energy. The cooler temps there must be refreshing by comparison!

Hi Ceejay!! Hi Michelle!
--
Nothing much to report. I skipped the stairs yesterday and didn’t do any workouts at home. Forgot to wear the dang pedometer today, so can’t say how many steps yesterday – over 6k I think.

Did a load of laundry last night since I was such a sloth on Sunday and hadn’t done any. Went to put the clean clothes in the dryer and discovered a load I’d forgotten about from last week. Aaargh. Have to run those through a rinse cycle again because they are pretty darn wrinkled!

It seems I’m making an apple pie or a cheesecake to bring to Thanksgiving dinner at bf’s brother’s house. Heck, maybe I’ll bring one of each. We’ll see. The apple pie would be easy if I were inclined to use canned filling…which I’m not. I think I once made an apple-cranberry pie. Hmmm. I’ll have to think about that.

That’s it for me. TTFN.

[annie175]

LAURA...you should try the apple dumpling recipe I posted above for Thanksgiving, it is soooooo easy and sooooooooo good!! Use diet Mt. Dew, no one will ever know. Yes I am feeling better today at least I can P without screaming, pretty sure you could of heard me in Chi town yesterday. I did a load of laundry last night also, actually got it dried and hung before going to bed, no wrinkles here. Tomorrow we have early release, anywhere from 1-3, depending on the workload. I am planning on getting everything that needs done today so I can go at 1pm. Have a great night sister!

[miniDoodles]

I'm in a longgg line @ the checkout, on my purse kindle bored. No time for personals, but here's a yummy/easy/quick dessert.

Butter the bottom of a dish/baking pan.
Slice-up a bunch of peeled apples (or another fruit, IF I'm rushed or lazy I use 2 cans of cherry pie filling, which is a big Hit also, but just use a sprinkle of sugar/cinnamon w it) & toss in sugar w a 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon to coat the fresh sliced fruit.
Melt 1 stick of margarine & stir into a dry cake mix.

Put the fruit evenly in a baking dish/pan, sprinkle the cake mixture on top.
Bake @ 350° for about 35 minutes, till top is light golden brown.
Let cool.
Serve warm or cold

Yummy w cool whip or ice cream.

Ron takes this to work for the guys @ break time. This is 1 of the snacks they tell him to bring for his turn.

I'll catch yall later

[diyana]

Hi ladies,

Sorry I've been away. Up until today, it's been hard to sit upright for very long. A lounging position is better. Today, sitting up doesn't bother me quite as much, but I'm not going to push it. I'm doing better. More energy. I see the doctor for a follow up a week from thursday, but I'm pretty much going along as he predicted...a little better each day.

I'm still staying at my stepmom's. But I'm going to go home tomorrow. If I wear the abdominal brace that the hospital gave me, I should be able too walk Santa without problem.

Well, I'd better sign off.

much love to all,

[ceejay52]

Annie
I'm definitely trying that recipe.

Dee
My bf lives an hours drive away. Unfortunately we can't have guns on the grounds where I work. It's not the physical part that I'm afraid. It's the stress of the job when the power goes out and phones start ringing with no time to go down stairs and shut the valves off to the filters. I'm a water treatment plant operator. I answer for all departments except fire and police for the city after 5 p.m.

------
Still nothing going on and hope it stays that way. Rode the bike for 2.5 miles last night. It's getting easier.