We are properly ready for our "dangerous chemical" inspection and another room got cleaned to boot! There is not a man in the office with a smile left on his face and they all went home tired. Wonder if they have little dolls that sit in wheelchairs that they keep sticking pins in. No wonder my neck hurts!! The "chief" is on vacation and a "surprise" inspect. is coming Wed. I have to go to the Dr's that day so the work must be done now. We did it all today and I will go food shopping tomorrow. The eyes are good and on Wed. the Doc will not be able to see anything!!. Maybe lookong at the skin will show him what is going on. I'm tired but was rewarded with wash $$ so I'm happily tired now!!
Shaker~ Happy Oscar!!! I did not watch but figured it was a done deal!! Great movies and I cannot wait to see #3. I have the dvd of the other 2. I read the Hobbit series many years ago and fell in love then. Hope the "shawl" thing works and I'm sure you will look lovely!!

Shad~ Yes pics!!! Needing new ones in order to exercise properly!
Between the roses and sweet potatoes.... I would love you too!!! maybe yopu should have brought some on the trip and paved your way to get some loyal subjects!! I really hoe this trip fares better. Take care!

Happy, I will be right over for the BBQ! I'll even hold the umbrella next time!! No problem!! he bought it so he would never have to eat the white veggie again! Self defence is a great motivator!!! Poor DH will be doing most of the cooking for a long time just to be sure WHAT'S FOR DINNER!!
How is the SBD going? I was thinking of giving it another try this summer but the scale is starting to move a little and I'm still happy. I had tried it awhile back from a friends advice and with all the dairy I started to gain. So I went back to the old one. Let me know what's going on.

Teel~ Sorry to hear about the back. I know it is hard to wait for others to do the heavy stuff and sometimes I lose my patience and do something crazy. Like dragging a heavy bookcase from one room to another. i rearranged some of my stuff last year and realized I won't be doing that again anytime soon!! Paid a big price for that no brainer idea! Hope you will be feeling ok and get better sleep. Gotta be tough with that combo. Hang in ther kid.

Ate dinner and took the shower and all that is left is to lie down and watch the boob tube. Hope something is on other than the shopping channels!!! Sleep tight my friends and to the other friends....Good morning when you arise!! Tomorrow...I will try my best to go by the cookie aisle and just keep going!!

Teel, I know what you mean about bending behind the stereo wondering what could be amiss? Been there myself and you think just one little reach and you've got it except you hear that "pop" as you're reaching and it's oh oh Hope you're feeling better. Let the music relax you. Lose your thoughts in a good book. Take a fantasy adventure in Shaker's Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I wish I had more time to read for pleasure, it always has been a nice get away from the real world.

Mel you asked about South Beach. Well, here's the honest truth. I'm a pretty good cook and I like variety in my meals. I've found low fat cooking to be much easier than South Beach. However if I compare how I feel (my body aches disappear when I am avoiding the carbs and I'm not as sleepy) and I seem to lose better on low carb, low fat, it appears I should stick with SBD. However I have had to learn to re-adjust my cooking ALOT. I've always been open to trying new recipes. Yesterday we had baked Flounder or Floun-dah as you people out east say (my husband is from Rhode Island and after all these years the accent occasionally comes out). I thought the floun-dah was rather salty. Today we had Pork Satay with Peanut dipping sauce. Not bad but don't know if I'll make it again. Might be better on the BBQ than baked. In general, I struggle to put menus together and overall I can't say I'm totally satisfied in a yum this tastes good kind of way. Some things like yogurt & berries with a bit of flaxseed and the famous apple wedges with peanut butter I really like as treats but you can't eat them all the time. There's alot of cheese in this diet if you like but the cut back of fruits makes the diet "binding" if you will. But it's for my own good - I would not do well with the WW flex points program so I'd best keep plugging at it, whether I like it or now. Or, just accept that I will be a fatty forever which I don't want.

Nothing else exciting going on today. We had one more day of beautiful weather and this afternoon the skies got black and we got a monsterous hail storm. We have a pair of mallard ducks that have been coming to our house for years in the spring (we put out bird seed). They feed here until it's time to lay eggs then we don't see mom for a while and then one day it's mom, dad and a whole bunch of chickies that come trotting across the street from the pond where they live. My heart is always in my mouth as there is a good deal of traffic but everyone is courteous and stops for them. Even the punko teens. Mom and dad came waddling down the street just as the hail hit. I guess hunger got the better of them tho they seemed to be wondering why they were getting beaned on the head by pea sized hail all around. Not even leaves on the trees to shelter them yet. So that was my day.

Best get going now a read a few pages in my class workbook. That will be enough to send me right to sleep! Talk to you tomorrow.

Short note: I've made it to WA. It's a lot cooler over here. They are having bad weather north of here with two cyclones in the area. However autumn appears to have hit south WA.
Late night last night. Flight was 40mins late getting away and was fairly rough on the way over. Watched a movie called Love Actually. Sometimes funny.
Anyway time to go. Need to think of a way to get to the gym tonight. Catch up tomorrow.

Hi Ladies, help me I am having a heart attack here, I just got the bill from the dressmaker $200 for a dress I hate.. shall cry now.. I will definitely have to sell it afterwards.. flippin eck that is a shocker!! Well I have a busy day so just thought I would drop that bombshell... now I have to go pay more for a wrap for it.. damn damn damn.. maybe I had better tell her I can't acutally afford that much!.. the bride that is not the dressmaker.. boo hoo am off to worry about how the **** I am going ot pay her!

Yay and at last the pooter has behaved itself so I can post. I was here about 10 hrs ago but I could not get properly on and everything kept freezing so in the end I did the un-forgivable and switched the darn thing off at the wall. I know I should never do that but at the time it seemed like the only option. Seems to have worked though.
Very tired tonight so I apologise in advance for this rather small post.
Shad, I want to see "Love Actually" as I am a bit of a Hugh Grant fanatic...I really like Notting Hill and Four Weddings & A Funeral. I was a bit put off though when it was on at the cinemas round here as people said it was not as good as it might have been.
Holly has already gone to bed....mine, of course.
So I think it is about time I joined her.
Sorry this is short....do you think we have frightened Gosia away?
Hello to everyone!
Night night...or, have a good day!

Why is it that men can rent their tuxes and shoes and probably their undies EWWWWWWWWW and women have to shell out all this money for ugly dresses and dyed to match shoes and heaven knows what else? It's a racket I say.

Shaker, you need a bit of a laugh to ease the tension - here's a website to look at - just point us to the page of your dress and charge your fellow attendants $5 a pop to see this (will help offset the horrible cost - perhaps you can use it as a tax write off????)
Ugly Bridesmaid Dresses - the website Could be worse - check out the pregnant prom dress.

And that also brings me to another rant of mine that's been stewing for a while. I had a quickie wedding - DH and I had made plans about 3 years into our relationship to marry but put it off when his mom became ill with cancer. 2 years later we were still dating - I was getting to be an old maid of 22 and decided it was time to commit. So I told him one day - ok, marry me or hit the road - make up your mind. (Honest, those were my EXACT words to him - call me a hopeless romantic) We were married 2 weeks later in a small but intimate ceremony. No one threw me a bridal shower. My best friend was excused because she had a total hysterectomy one week before my wedding when they diagnosed her with stage one uterine cancer. None of my other friends did anything for me. When it came time to marry, they had huge affairs and not one but in some cases up to 3 showers which I gave and gave and gave to. At the point the last one was getting married, I finally had enough and said no, I couldn't afford it - which was the truth. I must admit I harbored a bit of resentment that she did nothing for me and I was not about to spend $500 or more for that. And in the stone age when I got married, you had a shower to help the couple just starting out. Nowadays, people marry later in life and are generally well set up in their own flats - why have a shower?

Mum always said I was too generous. Over the last 30 years I have given what must be thousands of dollars to various office collections - babies, weddings, illness, etc. And I am finally tired of it. The corker came at my office recently when they were taking up collections for 2 of the young girls who are marrying. A note went about saying "So and so is getting married - we are collecting for a gift for her. We want everyone to give $10 for a gift certificate". I thought my but isn't that CHEEKY to tell people what to give. And we recently had a baby shower for one of the other girls (not her first baby). I couldn't attend but bought a small gift as I like the person. Do you know I have yet to receive an acknowledgement? What ever happened to the courtesy of manners and thank yous? For all I know the gift is still laying under the desk of the woman I asked to take it to the shower.

Sorry to rant, this has been stewing in me for a long time. People should act like me - I had a small wedding - my brother and SIL were our only attendants and I told her to wear whatever dress she liked as long as it wasn't white (probably the only person in history to reuse a bridesmaid dress). My thank you cards went out a week after my wedding. My wedding "gown" was lovely but store bought off the rack (no lacy poofy big giant phoo phoo dress that my mother wanted me to get - ) and my mom made my hat and veil. And she stuffed a fan of lace down my dress because she said it was too low cut. Didn't matter that I was so skinny I had no chest at all

Ok, I'll go take a few deep breaths and calm down and beat something for supper!

HAPPY YOU DID MAKE ME LAUGH WITH THE DRESSS THANKS.. MINE WILL BE PHOTOGRAPHED AND PUT ON THAT SITE.. I am going to pick it up tonight, after I have robbed a bank and then will get some evidence and even if I e-mail it all separately you WILL see the dress. I am also a very generous person happy and know jut how you feel.. yest I went and got the bride a lovely pink garter to go with her NICE dress, and then get hit with the bill today.. bahhumbug! For my wedding DH and I went alone to Jamaica and had a great time and had a big party when we got home, hired out the league club and our parents put in $1000 each and that covered it.

Now onto a nicer thing last night DS made a nice apple crumble for after dinner, we had salad and roast pork and then dessert, was lovely it was out of those Simple123 books, if you want the receipe let me know because it was VERY low fat, and we had ww ice-cream with it which was nice. My freezer still has a problem and is cold enough to freeze meat but not ice-cream.. how weird is that???.. so we had to eat the whole tub but I only got one of those cardboard bucket ones, do you know what I mean???.. about a litre I think.. I am assuming that in the usa that is all they have where-as we have the plastic 2litre containers.. anyway I don't buy ice-cream much because of the freezer so was nice for change.

Happy, I am so totally with you. People should say thanks. Most people in todays world already have it all, they just get greedy and want more. I don't believe in and don't go to showers and if I don't go, neither do a send a present (how mean is that) anyway, that's me. I don't like showers etc so don't often go. It can cost you a fortune to go to 2 showers, buy and engagement present, buy a wedding present and get an outfit to go to the wedding as well.
My marriage was small, celebrant, registry office, on a Wednesday etc. I wore a dress and jacket in my favourite colours (red, white and black) and carried a matching orchid on a black clutch bag. It was good. We then rang our friends and invited them to the pub for a drink after work and told them what we had done. No presents, not fuss. Easy.
Anyway gotta go. Catch up soon.
Like the sound of that dinner Shaker.

A few hundred genteel smilies coming everyone's way I think!
I am just on my way out....back later so will tell all then! No don't get too excited, nothing to get too over-joyful about, hee hee!!

Now I want EVERYONE to calm down a few dozen centigrade.......ok?

Oh my pooter is playing sillies tonight and it won't let me click on the smilies to use them...I have to type in the :confused: thing!!!!

On day four of my OP to lose all the weight I know I have put on... I have cooked another dinner....just call me ...er....Brian Turner! or Anthony Worrel Thompson!!! I had white Basmati rice...(sorry just cannot do the brown stuff) with a wok full of sweet capiscums, mushrooms, sweetcorn and Quorn in a sachet of Hoi Sin Sauce. It was SCRUMPTIOUS!!!! And I made double the quantity to use the whole sauce sachet and the whole quorn "thing!" that I had found in the freezer. As I said earlier I would fill you in with what I had been up to...well...ready???? TODAY I JOINED A HEALTH & FITNESS CLUB!!!! ha ha ha ha!!!!! I have wanted recently to go to a nice swimming pool with a good jacuzzi next to it as opposed to on a different floor entirely ( like it is at the council pool) and someone from this fitness club rang me (ME!!!????) I suppose as part of a promo and I agreed to go along and have a look. I went today and had a quick look round and a free cup of coffee (memo to self...don't have another cup, it was only luke warm ) and took the plunge.ha ha ha ha ha that was a good one! The pool is always divided length ways for mum and todler sessions and the aqua-aerobics sessions (these I want to try) and it is all one depth, not like the old days when it was 2 foot at the shallow end and 6 foot at the deep. I would like to do loads more in the water... last time I felt very disheartened because I could only swim 2 widths and it was terrible to remember that in my youth I did gain my 2 mile certificate.... Well on Tuesday next I am going for my first swim and will fill in the forms. The place is literally 10 minutes drive from my house and looks quite impressive. All I can say is WATCH THIS SPACE!!

Where is everybody today? I am waiting for my computer fixer to call. I seem to have a gremlin in my e-mail. Cannot send or receive at the moment. What a pain.
Ah well enough for tonight. Bye for now.......

I haven't posted cause I was getting down on Monday. I went to see the old and the new Dr and it is ocular rosacea and the rosacea is not in remission yet and I must undergo antibiotic treatment schedule now. Those pills will play havoc with my chemical imbalance problem. But I gotta do what I gotta do. So today I will feel sorry for myself and go on from there. It is as I feared a lifetime problem and whenever it flares up it will have to be treated. BUT the 2 Drs are not in agreement with the amount of pills or the length of time. I have decided to take the less agressive treatment recommended by the eye surgeon. One even said I may be on the pills forever! The other one almost fainted when I repeated the story. I was in tears and he poo pooed the idea and gave me a tissue and said not to worry.He also said it was good to see the emotional tears still work!! I will see him in 30 days. But after a long talk we agreed that I need to disentangle my sorry *ss from the office. Stress is playing a large role in all my conditions. He will want to see me once a month for awhile. I also must keep the appt. with dermatology on the 22nd and ask for advice with the skin. The good news is that the eyes feel better with the weather change and a technician came over and asked me if I am losing weight and he asked how!! I told him about the "plan" and he was writing every word down! LOL He is overweight. I told him he made my whole day and he said considering what was going on, I deserved a smile! I will catch up with you all tomorrow. Hope you are all well and smiling. I will be too by dawn!!! Sometimes I wish there was a smiley in a wheelchair crying! Sweet Dreams!

More quick posts. I seem to spend my life just talking these days. Being good here although I haven't made him to the gym yet. But I am doing stretches and exercises etc and walking/running every morning. This morning did over 4 kilometres not because I wanted to but because I couldn't get off the path I was on until I got to the next bridge. Silly me had to run to get back to the hotel, get washed and dressed for work and get to breakfast on time.
Here comes the next victim

Don't you just hate it when you're enjoying a walk along a path and you think you can make a quick turn only to find your only option is to double back? Sounds like you are one woman on the run Shad. But you do seem to be getting lots of exercise.

I have steered away from prescription medications as much as possible because I hope to never get into a position like Mel and Teel whereby one medication causes side effects that need another medication, etc. etc. My heart goes out to you ladies. I can imagine your frustration Mel with the eyes. I think I could deal with the wheelchair much more easily than losing my vision. My mom has macular degeneration and I am very diligent about getting that checked and I also do some preventative measures. Please don't get down in the dumps Mel - sounds like you need to find yourself some activities that keep you busy yet reduce the stress and bring in wads of cash. I will think on it for a bit

Teel the pool sounds lovely. I'm sure that will work out quite nicely to allow you some non stressful exercise and the jacuzzi will hopefully do wonders for that poor back of yours. You will have to regale us with tales of the gym.

Shaker, you never did say - least I thought not - what color your "lovely" dress is. You are a brunette, right - so you can wear most colors?

I had some good news today. Went to the grocery store at lunchtime to pick up a few items and the pharmacy was having cholesterol screenings. I have mine checked about once a year because it's high and I've been trying to bring it down. Was 233 to start with 2 years ago and 222 last I got it checked. I had not fasted like you're supposed to because I didn't know they were doing this but I figured the small mozzerella cheese stick I had for a snack might not hurt too much. End result - 207. Still above the 200 level but it's snaking it's way down. Guess the oatmeal, fish oil pills and eating salmon once a week has done me some good.

DH is grumpy. He has to get up at 5am tomorrow - just him and the will be up. He has to take the train downtown into the city because he has JURY DUTY! - hah little do they know they don't want him sitting on ANY jury. I get called periodically but they want to send me to one of the worst areas of the city across from the criminal jails and I say no way. Got mugged at gun point once in my life and that's enough. Told them if they wanted me to come 32 miles they could send the sheriff for me. They were not amused. The thing is, I live 2 miles from our area's court buildings. Why they insist on assigning me to the inner city is beyond me. Some day I may be held in contempt of court and I will be mailing my letters wearing a striped suit and chains We will see how DH fares tomorrow. I'm sure he'll miss his SBD snacks as he insists on leaving each day with his little cooler bag of snackies.

Must get back to the homework now. Hope you all have a better part of the day to come.

Oh and we fired up the new grill tonight. Didn't matter that it was 45 degrees outside and we had to run the food in quick. Had grilled boneless porkchops, fresh mozzerella and tomato salad, and a bit of real mashed potatoes. It was so yum. Can't wait till the weather gets warm enough to do this all the time.

Good morning. At least it might be somewhere. I really don't know what is happening to my weight. I seem to be going up and up. I am 12 st something and I hate me, my bmind and my body. There that is enough for now on that subject...oh I was going to say that I remembered that last time I put on loads with me not eating everything out of house and home was when I was in uncontrolled heart failure. Thats scary as if I were to need a heart transplant now, I would be too obese to be accepted...by a mile. and I am scared of not being around for ever and ever and ever........
Mel have you got room for two in tears, in that wheelie-maker of yours???

Now we can have a "silly" moment .. ..I was thinking Shaker, with a lovely brunette head of hair...what colour "fantastic dress" could we imagine for you that can't possibly be as revolting as the one you are having to parade along the aisle in...? I was thinking of a sort of lime green 3/4 length with of course matchng shoes....now what goes with lime? Well, lemon if it is in a drink!!!Hmmmmm, perhaps a lemon chifon dress with lime shoes? Nah! Chuck the shoes!!!
Mel, are you awake, chuck?? I am so sorry you are having a really miserable time right now...all I can feasonably do is send over a load of these... sometimes I find it is worth giving way to tears for a while and letting them flow, cos then you might feel a bit more calm...no not collected or better...but breathing more in control and not the deep shuddering sobs variety. It is SO DARN ANNOYING when even as little as 2 doctors cannot aggree with each other on a treatment plan...you end up trusting no-one. I found this out recently when I was in hospital and STILL I have no unanimous decision as to what the cause of the chest pain is, I am simply taking a painkiller to get it under control. And NEVER feel bad about letting rip on the thread....I do it often enough. ...hee hee.
Happy....DH on JURY DUTY!!!!! Oh deary me, I hope it is a short case or he could be held up for an age! Sorry to read that you were mugged at gunpoint in years back. Horrd and a more scary thing I cannot imagine. Oh and well done on the lowering cholesterol level.
Anyone heard from Gosia? Guess she can't keep up with all the gassing us lot do, hee hee, especially with having that to keep her busy!!
Well I have physio this morning....better go shower and do all the things a woman has to do before facing the outside world...men? They seem to be ready at the drop of a hat!!! Oh, I have put in a brill picture...it looks like Holly on full sprint rounf the garden.....but it isn't! but it is a great picture from last years calender.....ummmmm!!!!

Oh. WHere has it gorn then!!!!