This being January, and weather gods being notoriously fickle beings, it is now warmer here than in many parts of the country! It was 40 when I got up - though to temper that, we also have rain and high winds. All the schools, including the university are closed. Main roads are fine - just wet - but the side roads, parking lots, driveways, etc. are nasty. Because it's the air that's warmer, not the ground (which is frozen down to 6-8'), the snow melts on top, especially the stuff that's been packed by walking, plowing, etc. and then the water has nowhere to go, so you have 2-3" of water sitting over ice. And of course, it usually goes below freezing at night, so it's all ice first thing in the morning. Don't ya just love winter? :lol:

Had a decent OP day yesterday, including a good 1/2 hour of HIIT on the elliptical. Now to string a few more of these together.....

Lori - glad NO was fun. I've never been, but it's on my list of "want to visit someday" places.

Pat, I'm going to cry, our forecast for tomorrow is a high of 1 (no digits missing, just 1) with wind chill of -30 degrees. That's -30F, not -30C. :cry: :brr: :brr: :brr:

Last winter we didn't get negative at all, and I told myself, see, living in the midwest isn't so bad. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be one of those days I'm kicking myself for moving away from SoCal. The forecast at my parent's house is a high of 83, overnight low 56, and sunny.

Hi everybody!
I did attend the funeral this morning for SIL's grandfather, didn't make it to the visitation last night. Traffic was terrible here and by the time I got out of the city I wouldn't have had to time to make it the rest of the way before the visitation was over. Terrible to say, but I kind of enjoyed seeing all the people I hadn't seen in a while - several didn't recognize me at all! And, I looked really great, I must say - had a new outfit that I hadn't worn anywhere yet. Sad reason to wear it, but got some affirmation at the same time.

Pat - wow! It was warmer where you are than it was here this morning! :o

Lily - I'm so sorry you are having trouble with you SD. If she doesn't pass the lie detector test are they likely to prosecute or just make her pay the money back? And, on the clothes - is this the same school where GF attends? If so, I might ask her if she is okay giving the clothes to a needy person there. I remember teenage girls being weird about that kind of thing sometimes. If not, I think it is an absolutely great idea. Actually, I would probably do it even if it was the same school, I would just warn GF first.

Shane - you may want to change your boss to a different annoying ringtone from your alarm! :)

Megan - I don't think my mom has ever heard of Facebook, but she does shop online all the time now! She started putting pictures to share with people on Snapfish, and is annoyed when I don't put mine up there.

Lori - sounds like a great trip!

I took the opportunity to have lunch with my dad today - we haven't had any solo time in a while. Looks like he is taking a pay cut for the first three months of the year and his company may go under after the first quarter. He has an independent contracting business on the side, so isn't as worried as he could be. I'm glad he has something to fall back on. He is a software engineer - a lot of their current projects are for electronics for cars. American cars. Not a great time to be selling luxury items to car manufacturers...

Hi everyone, I had a great workout again today. Oh man , I am sore!

I learned more today of what is going on with SD. She refused the polygraph and hasn't gone into work at all this week. Her boss called DH (since they are/were friends and DH was the one that vouched for Sam to get her this job in the first place). The company was gearing up to do their taxes and this is how the discrepancies were found. All they would say was it is in the thousands. The boss apologized to DH and says he plans to press charges on Samantha with the District Attorney. Sam is doing her typical avoid/ignore any calls from us or from the workplace. So, DH called Sam's new husband. He hadn't a clue that anything was wrong, Sam had just told him she "didn't
feel good" as her reason for not going to work.

Her previous lies and deceptions with money costed her the first husband and 2 kids. I foresee this may eventually cost her the 3rd child, the unborn child and hubby #2.

Anyway, I'm refusing to let any of this get me down or throw me off track in my quest to be healthy. She's 26 years old and not my problem. That's how I have to treat it or I'd go insane!

Oh, just beware if you live in Ok. cause Sam does have her old job back doing taxes for a well-known tax company here, LOL.

Shannon, sorry to hear about your dad's job. DH and I are software engineers too, him in telecommunications and me in biotech. Neither of us have gotten pay cuts yet, but both are companies aren't giving anyone raises this year. DH isn't getting a raise for the next two years and no 401k match, I'm not getting a raise this year, probably no bonus either, but at least I still get my 401k match. Then again, supplying equipment to hospitals is a much more stable industry.

Lily - I didn't realize your SD had remarried already or that she was pregnant again. Does her new husband know about what happened before? I hope you won't have to deal with her too much.

Shane, I hope your mouth is recovering! I had my wisdom teeth out a couple years ago and I absolutely hated having to use that squirter thingy to rinse out the sockets for weeks. :p

Hi to everyone else!

I don't remember if I mentioned or not but our dog is back in the E-collar. We took it off of him, he didn't seem to be licking his foot much, and it seemed better. We took him for a walk since he hadn't been out in a week (trying to keep his feet clean), and then went to work leaving him alone all day. Well, when we came home, he'd chewed up a DIFFERENT toenail! :faint: He's back in the cone now until *both* toes are better and he's finished his antibiotics, and we're keeping him in the house except for doing his business to make sure his toes stay clean.

Jessica - Bless his little heart! It is hard to get things with the feet sorted out. My parents dog is still chewing the bandage off her foot pretty much every day. They put a boot on the foot over the bandage that they hope she wont be able to chew through. We'll see - she is pretty persistent with the chewing.

Lily - you are absolutely right - she is 26 years old and well able to be accountable for her own actions. Don't let her make you crazy.

27 degrees here this morning. I had a thought to run this afternoon, but I just don't know. It is probably going to be too cold. Also, not sure if it is okay to run two days in a row...

Good morning! Has anyone ever rode a bike while on Oxy? It's... interesting! I still have half the bottle left but am pretty sure I don't need 'em anymore, as now they are impeding my judgment more than anything.

Shannon - Sorry to hear about your dad's job :( I hope his contracting business continues to take off so that he doesn't have to have a slew of financial worries. Does he have savings stashed away and such? If so, I am sure he will be fine. In this economy, it is great (and almost crucial sometimes) to have an additional source of income.
As for my alarm -- well -- thinking my boss is calling me early in the morning sure has a tendency to get me out of bed! :lol: Because I have such an integral role at my job (it's demanding and I work like crazy, BUT at the end of the week, I get a good paycheck, SO no complaints here!), he feels like he can call me at ALL hours, so a call at 5:00 AM is not necessarily an uncommon occurrence.

Jessica - my dentist didn't tell me to use any squirter thingy to rinse out the sockets. Ut oh, I hope they will heal well anyway! I have been following the instructions to the "T" and have actually not had to undergo much pain or suffering at all, so I am assuming they are doing okay! I think my experience with it has been a lot more pleasant than many other people's -- then again, I also have a pretty high pain tolerance due to all my bike injuries, my human pin cushion factor, and the fact I am SO clumsy that I hit my head on a daily basis :lol:
I'm sorry to hear you're not going to get any raises this year :mad: BUT at least you and your DH are not getting laid off... that is a good thing these days, as so many companies are eager to downsize :mad:

Lily - Good job on not letting the situation with Samantha not get to you as much as it could. She is a grown woman and not your daughter. Therefore, harsh as it sounds, she is not your responsibility. Just like everyone else, she has the ability to make her own choices, and some of hers happened to be unfavorable. It is not your problem or your fault :hug: :hug: :hug: I imagine it must be very difficult, though, knowing what she has gotten herself into.

Hi maintainers,

wow, what an incredible amount of posts.
it's too much to get into all of them, so I won't.

One exception for Anne: I recommend reading "every day blessings" from John & myla (sp?) kabat-zinn. It will not stop the kids from behaving like they are inclined to do, but it can help you to stay sane.

I've had some insanely busy weeks and went totally off plan. Time to start back again, and at the moment I'll rejoin the "no second helpings" club. Good thing tough is that I did stop drinking wine on weekdays.

Have a great day all,
Rabbit rejoining the ranks

Shane, were your teeth already out? Mine were entirely sideways and completely under my gums so they had to go in pretty deep to get them. I think if your teeth are already out or not so badly impacted they don't have to cut as deep, so maybe that's why they didn't tell you to squirt them. I remember the day I got mine out, it really sucked. The bleeding didn't stop for hours and I had to pack wet teabags in my mouth to get it to stop (that was what the surgeon told me to do, no home remedies here!). And seriously? Wet black teabags squished in the back of your mouth? Gross! :lol:

Jessica - yeah, they were all out to some degree. I had two soft tissue impactions (the most minor form because they had already emerged entirely from the jaw) and two partial bony impactions (the second most minor and the most common, half in and half out - there was definitely some drilling involved). It only took thirty minutes total. I, too, bled all day, though, and a little bit into day 2 but I was told not to bite down on the gauze during day 2 so I did not. I was told to put wet tea bags in my mouth if the bleeding did not subside, too, but it wasn't severe enough for that and I didn't like the idea. Like you, I thought it was GROSS! :barf:

I also remember starting to wake up 3/4 of the way into the operation and making sure I made that known to everyone around me. I wanted them to give me more anasthesia (did I spell that correctly? eeh, I'm too lazy to check!) so that I wouldn't feel or remember anything. They told me that for a 125 pound person, it took a surprising amount to knock me out :lol: but overall, it went very well. :)

I had to use the syringe to clean out the sockets on mine as well, but all four were badly impacted and had to be cut out. None had started to come through on their own. That is probably the difference between squirting and not squirting! :) And, I had to use the teabags, too. Disgusting! :(

Speaking of syringes, I got this nasty little pus pocket in one of my teeth right next to a wisdom tooth. THAT was what made me decide I needed to get 'em pulled. I had never gotten an infection before (a little teething pain here and there, but nothing major whatsoever) and worried about the possibility of it becoming an absess. Luckily, I was able to kill the infection by taking one of my syringes and extracting the pus from the gum, then rinsing compulsively with Listerine. I wanted to make sure the infection was gone before I got 'em pulled, as I know the oral surgeon would probably have to wait longer if it wasn't.

Since all our body chemistries tend to work together, I wouldn't be surprised if my wisdom teeth were sucking some sort of energy out of me or even weakening my immune system (I HAD been sick A LOT more than usual for the last few months). I am glad those suckers are GONE!

Jessica, yes, Samantha remarried back in September? I think. Anyway her new DH was fully aware of her past problems. He was at court with us the day they took her first 2 kids away. Her XH now has another attorney and is working on getting the 3rd child. She is pregnant again and due on May 8th! (My 2nd oldest SD is pregnant again too and due on April 5th). Also, so sorry to hear about your dog's foot problem.

Shane, you are right. I'm refusing to let Sam's problems become my problems. I do get the trickle down effect though since it depresses my DH.

Shannon, sorry to hear about your dad's job. My DH's company gave their regular quarterly bonuses this year , but cut out their usual extra Christmas bonus. We were forewarned and hadn't planned on that extra money. We are still getting matched on our 401K. I certainly can't complain though since his company is very generous with perks and bonuses and promotions.

I'm looking at a refinance on my home right now. I currently have an Adjustable Rate Mortgage at 7.25%. I can get into a fixed rate now at 4.5% streamline (with no closing costs) and lower my payment by about $200.00 monthly. I think the timing is right , as the economy is surely gonna take a turn soon and my payment being adjustable will go up again. Anyway, my mortgage holder is calling and working on stuff for me. I'm considering a flat fixed rate 15 year mortgage which will pay the house off sooner. The bad thing is somehow now I'm having every mortgage company in the US call my house !

I'm still sore today and plan to get my exercise on the treadmill tonite. Back to the gym tomorrow. It's 20 degrees and very windy here, I'm freezing.

I just need to vent some self induced frustration for a minute...

So this morning I didn't get up AGAIN to exercise. I said to myself "I have time tonight, I'll do something when I get home." Of course now a quick run by Target to drop off a prescription has turned into a trip that involves going home, waiting for DH to get home, then both of us going to Target and then to Babies 'R' Us to try to find a new, bigger comforter for DSSs bed in the hopes that he will stay in it all night this weekend. (Right now he gets up when his feet stick out from under the blanket and comes to have us cover him back up.) I have no idea what we will do for dinner, when we run out on errands DH often doesn't want to have to cook, or wait for me to cook, when we get home so we wind up going out. We'll be out most of the night and there will be no time the exercise. I'm feeling overwhelmed and a little silly for creating the situation in the first place. We've known for two weeks that one of the physical reasons that he was getting up was because the comforter was too short and we stuck our heads in the sand and didn't order one when we had time to get it shipped. (If we order the one we like right now it will cost $25 extra in overnight shipping..)

So, moral of the story - I need to remember why I structured myself to get up and exercise in the morning and get my lazy tail out of bed tomorrow... We have DSS all weekend, so definitely no exercise time other than first thing in the AM for the next three days... And I need to remember that planning is why I was successful at weight loss, when I don't plan I find myself in chaotic situations like this.

Thanks for reading. :)

Hi all! How many of us are bundled up from the cold?? :brr:

I am so glad to work from home on days like this (although I do have to go outside to the shop).

The kitties are heat-seaking lap missiles right now. I can barely sit down without getting an attachment :D