Charlotte, I'm always amazed when we actually see one day of sunshine in the fall! It's actually pretty sunny here today. Nice enough to take the dog for a little longer walk than the past couple of days. I imagine that two years ago, you probably thought your house would be up and running by now, so it must be totally dispiriting to see what's left to do. But. . .it WILL happen! I'm so sorry the young woman you knew from church was killed--how awful for her family and those of you who loved her. It's tragic to think of someone dying so young.

Well, SunnyD, we'll have to agree to disagree on the outcome of the election. I'm a bleeding heart liberal and proud of it, but some of my best friends are Republicans. Actually, my best friend and her husband ARE Republicans. I'm still waiting to hear if Washington State is going to make history. If we elect the woman governor (my choice), then the top three elected officials, the governor and both senators, in my state will be women, which has never happened before in any other state. It's still too close to call, however. I do hope that both parties can work together to strengthen the economy and make healthcare more affordable for all.

My DH and I had to laugh because we predicted that yesterday would start the Christmas advertising, and indeed we were correct. So now instead of political ads, we'll get Christmas ads. I do wish they would go back to starting Christmas ads after Thanksgiving.

Well, I'm going to try to get another 2 miles in today. The downside of exercise is that I seem to be hungrier than usual. Hopefully it will all balance out at the scale.

Hi Jacquie and Bluet! Hope you feel better, SunnyD, and hope Thursday is a lot better for you than Wednesday, Charlotte.

Hello,

Oh no, Sheila you' re not a bleeding heart liberal, say it isn't so I have have been a staunch Republican my whole life Ms Ultra Conservative, that would be me. Ah, the American dream, the right to be what and who we want to be. I agree with you, may they make up with one another and work together for a better place for us to live and fix the health care issues. We shall see what we shall see.

I had a bummer of an evening, when I got home from work I mentioned to DH that the refrigerator wasn't making it's usual thrashing machine noise, just a steady quite little hum. So unlike the beast. Well, the compressor went out on the thing. We have had it 18 years and it was a lemon from day one. Just the loudest noisiest thing. So off to the appliance store we went and bought a new refrigerator, which will be delivered tomorrow between 11:00 and 12:00, so I will have to come home from work during that time. Everything was defrosted in the freezer and I had to make all the chicken and salmon I had in there, plus a pizza, the rest I threw out. We also have had DS and DIL wedding cake top in the freezer from two years ago, but it is thawed out and sitting on the cupboard right now. I will have to call them tomorrow and ask them if they still want it We bought two bags of ice on the way home and all our perishables are now sitting in coolers on the kitchen floor. It is 10:45 and there are still dishes to do in the kitchen, but I am going to bed as soon as I am done here. Well at least the walls and floor got cleaned behind the refrigerator for a change. My what an expensive day for us.

Charlotte, I am sorry to hear that your friends lost their lives in an accident. You really don't need anymore sadness right now. I hope SIL can get his head straight and find work, before it is too late. My how we worry about those kids. That is a cute phrase your used "touchous" I have never heard anyone use that before It says it all doesn't it?

Sunny, beautiful graphic your sent today. What is a Republican girl doing living in a strong Democrate state? Oh, who cares right? Hope you are feeling better by now and thank you for your address.

I know you all hear this from alot, but I am tired and I need to go to bed, Thursday tomorrow, I hope it goes better.

Bluet

Hi, ladies!!

Oh, shoot, Bluet! All that good food gone to waste--what a bummer. So why do people keep the tops of cakes? I mean, after two years you can't eat it, can you? My DD used to keep her dance corsages in the fridge, but I always ended up throwing them out (and she never noticed) because what in the heck do you do with an old dance corsage? I guess I'm just not sentimental that way. Did you get a fancy fridge with bells and whistles? Hopefully this one won't be a lemon.

That is a beautiful angel, Charlotte. Your GD has good taste. Yeah, I've seen arguments on BBs, too, and it's disturbing. While we're lucky to be able to express our opinions, name-calling shouldn't be part of that, and that's what I've seen too much.

Anybody want some goodies from Omaha Steaks? My dad has gone on a spending spree. I had to tell him that he couldn't order anymore because I don't have room in the freezer. A couple of days ago, we got three boxes of pork delivered, to add to the four boxes of steaks. Then today the UPS guy brought a huge box with 9 items. I had to quickly cook the frozen lasagna and the potatoes au gratin because I just didn't have room in my freezer. Dad's got a little dorm-type fridge, and he has two boxes of stuff plus I took the "gourmet franks" out of the box and shoved them into his freezer. He doesn't get the concept that I don't eat a lot of that stuff so he gets a bit hurt when I tell him (and because of his poor memory he never remembers me telling him) I can't eat stuff like lasagna, potatoes au gratin (those things are like lumps of fat!), and hot dogs. I won't even go into the aplets and cotlets incident. I did tell him he could buy a fruitcake for Christmas. I'm about ready to throw away any catalog that comes his way!

Weigh-in tomorrow. I've been working really hard because I want to get into the 170s this week. I don't care if it's 179.9, I just want it to be in the 170s. I've been doing too much exercise, though, and my body is saying STOP. I kind of know how you were feeling, SunnyD. I do sleep pretty well, though, after doing 110 minutes of exercise a day! My goal is to be able to wear my size 10 jeans in public (I don't like really tight jeans--they may be in fashion, but not for this 51 year old body) before Christmas, and that's probably going to be another 5 lb. loss before I do that.

Always love Thursday night--good TV! Hi to Jacquie and SunnyD, who I hope is feeling okay. And, Fatpuss, wherever the heck you are, I hope you're okay! We miss you!

Hello,

I just got a simple white side by side a Whirlpool. All my other appliances are almond. I don't know about me, and DH let me get away with it too. I want to remodel the kitchen in a few years when we have some money saved up for it, and I want all white appliances. So even though I have almond appliances in my kitchen I went with the white refrigerator. I should know better, from the days when I had an avocado green washer and a white dryer, and a white refrigerator, and an almond dishwasher. I had to wait forever until I had all my appliances matching. Now I have started the trend again. Some people never learn. When I had that really ugly avocado washer in the laundry room, which is next to the kitchen I had this gosh awful wallpaper on the walls. It was all vegetables it had a white background with huge avocado's and other huge vegetables on it. I only did one wall thank goodness. But every birthday picture I took of the kids back then I have them standing by thier birthday cake with that awful, awful garrish wallpaper behind them. I don't like loud flashy stuff, so WHAT WAS I THINKING????
Or not thinking? I also painted my living room orange at that time with orange carpet. I was really young and naive, of course we have hundreds of Christmas family photos in that orange living room. Now all my walls are white, and no matter what, they are staying white. Gee, I didn't think buying a refrigerator would send me off on such a tangent.

Well, what did you all think of Survivor? Told you the women would all stick together. I wonder if the two women that were in an alliance with the men will regret their decision tonight down the road sometime. What's up with CSI, they seem to be hung up on maggots. Well, at least CSI wasn't as riskque as last week.

Sheila, do you remember that I mentioned that I don't get out much? I don't know what aplets and cotlets are . I am sure I would enjoy the story, can't be any worse than some of mine. Gee, I hope you reach your goal weight. That would be so cool for you. Nothing makes one feel more on top of the world than fitting into a good looking pair of jeans. I love fruit cake, you could always have Dad send one to me.

Charlotte, that is the most beautiful angel. That would make a beautiful Christmas card. Do you feel better now that you got yourself all beautified
up? You are very pretty anyway, so they didn't have to work too hard at it at the beauty parlor. Do you always have the same person do your hair? I have natural curly hair, and wear it short, so I always have to look very hard to find a good stylist, and when I find one, I hang on to her/him forever or as long as they stay in the business. I always tip really well, cause there is nothing worse that a bad haircut.

Sunny, guess your down and out again Hope you get to feeling better soon, because it is almost the weekend again and you always have big plans on the weekend. Take care, we miss you.

Sandra, if you are out there please let one of us know, we are all worried about you tremendously.

Tomorrows Friday Yea, eight more hours of OB and I'm outta there. Have a good Friday all!

Bluet

Hi all!

Just checking in.....Now I know what it is like to loose a post.....FRUSTERATING !! to say the least. I had just about finished my catch up post and all of a sudden it was gone....lost out there somewhere in cyber space!

I will check in later...I'm off to get my hair cut and will post again when I get back

Later.......Jacquie

Hi, all--

Bluet, I was going to say the same thing about the maggots! Although you have to admit it's kind of interesting to know that you can cut open a maggot and get DNA out of it. I was reading that, like leeches, there is a medical use for maggots. Eating gangrenous tissue or something like that.

Here's a URL to a place that makes aplets and cotlets. If my Dad accidentally sends me more, I have your address, and I'll pass them along.

http://www.libertyorchards.com/newac.asp

Isn't it funny what we thought was cool in the "old days?" I mean, avocado green--what were we thinking?!?!? And shag rug of any color. The first house we bought had shag rug in the family room, and my daughter was in the Play Doh stage. Needless to say, once was all it took and Play Doh was banned from the house. I always felt like I should mow the shag carpet. A side-by-side sounds good. I have a very small refrigerator because the area for the fridge is small. I'm looking forward to the day when I have my own house with my own refrigerator that is wide and shallow with a freezer drawer on the bottom. Our fridge is narrow and deep, and although it has pull out shelves, when you pull them out, anything in the back falls down to the next shelf so we end up never using the pull-out feature.

SunnyD, glad you're feeling better. I wonder if you had a little virus. Glad the sun is shining where you are. We had two glorious days, and now it's kind of foggy today. So where in Maine do you go? I really enjoy the Maine coast. Are you driving or flying? Sounds like you're going to have a lot of fun with family.

Jacquie, bummer on the lost post. I've never had that happen to me, but others have mentioned it before.

So we got a call the other day from the alarm company which was contacted by the police because we've had six false alarms in the past six months or something like that. I said I didn't think that was correct. When the technician got there, he showed me that there HAD been six, although one had been cancelled. Except for the cancelled one, they all involved my Dad's place, and they all happened when my DH and I were out of town. I tried to talk to Dad, but he kept insisting something was wrong with the alarm, and he never had any problems. Then he said it must have been us, but my DH pointed out that we were out of town when the alarms went off. Boy, he didn't want to hear that at all. Add dementia to your general stubborn old coot, and it's quite interesting.

I didn't make my 179.9--I was off by .2 lbs. Do you believe it?!?! I am down to my driver's license weight, however, which I've actually never weighed before. I weighed 147 until I got pregnancy in 1978, and I've never been less than 184 since then. Twenty-six years of baby weight! I don't plan to ever see that prepregnancy weight again, however, but I guess after 26 years that's okay. When I was at my Weight Watchers meeting today, I made my leader feel my arm muscle, which I discovered yesterday. I'm so proud of being able to see muscle even when I'm not flexing my arm. I know that's kind of whacky, but I've been working really hard on that.

Hope everyone has a fantastic Friday! Hi, Charlotte!

LOL! Love that, Charlotte. We know that you never really look like that top graphics, but always like the second one. You have to put your eyebrows on, and I have to have mine ripped off every three weeks. I envy people who have great eyebrows, don't you? Sounds like you've had quite the birthday celebrations--what fun!

We thought we were going to have to call a plumber on Saturday morning. Friday night my DH put onion skins down the garbage disposal, and it backed up the sink in the kitchen as well as the sink in the utility room. Pretty gross stuff. He put some liquid we got from the plumber the last time he put onion skins down the disposal, and that worked overnight so they were all clear in the morning. Good thing, too, because I would have been mad about paying weekend rates.

Did some online Christmas shopping. My DH got $250 worth of "points" from his job that he could use for gift certificates so we decided to get each kid a $50 gift certificate from places they like--Borders for my stepdaughter, The Gap for my daughter, Home Depot for my oldest son, American Eagle Outfitters for my son-in-law, and Fred Meyer for my other son. I'm finding the "points" a lot easier to take than what I call the worthless stock options.

My DH got home from grocery shopping this afternoon, and I was putting the stuff away in the pantry. I opened the door too hard and it hit my shoe and bounced back and hit me in the face. The area around my eye is swollen, and it hurts like heck (can you break the bone around your eye?). I told my DH I can't go to the doctor because if I tell them I ran into a door they'll think he hit me because "I ran into a door" is a euphemism for spousal abuse. He said he thought about that after I did it. I'm hoping it doesn't give me a major black eye--if so I'll have to come up with a more creative excuse than running into a door.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I tell you, I haven't eaten so much red meat in ages. I'm just hoping that my Dad didn't order more Omaha Steak stuff and forget that he ordered it. I've got defrosted steak (and lots of it), and leftover pork tenderloins plus part of a lasagna that I had to cook because it wouldn't fit in the freezer. I'm glad I took that cholesterol test last week instead of this week!

Charlotte, you and Paula look like you could be sisters. And your son is so handsome. What cute little granddaughters! I love pouting photos. I have one of my granddaughter pouting, and it's the cutest thing. You can show that photo to Carly's future husband--those are always winners.

Where is everyone today? Recovering from exhausting weekends? Hopefully Bluet and SunnyD got some much-needed rest and recovery time.

Same old, same old around here except that my DH is in DC for a couple of days. He left at 4:00 am, and between the time he left and my daughter woke me up with a phone call at 7:25, I had two nightmares and one nice dream. Of course I was in the middle of the dream when I the phone rang. I went to water aerobics, then noticed the massage lady was there so I got a massage after class. I was back at the Y again at noon to attend a talk given by an Alzheimer's researcher, which was pretty interesting. Took the dog for a short walk in the fog. He doesn't like it when I take him because I let him lift his leg twice, and then he's walking fast the rest of the way. I hate it when dogs stop, sniff and have to mark everything.

Hope everyone had a decent Monday--any snow yet?

Hi Everyone,

Sheila, you know better than to even bring that topic up! Snow is a four letter word where I live. No snow, but it is getting colder at night now. Twenty-nine degrees last night. That is down right CHILLY. I am back to wearing a sweat suit, turtle neck and socks to bed, plus a couple of quilts. I was really cold at work today, finally I put my old white sweater that I keep in a drawer at work over another sweater I was wearing. OB, insists on turning the boiler way down to save money. He isn't even the owner, just another employee like the rest us. Well, not just like the rest of us, he is really annoying. If I was .2 off my goal weight at Weight Watchers, I would have just started screaming at the top of my lungs. What is that all about, you can't even count .2. What is .2? NOTHING, that is what it is nothing. So there got that off my chest. How is your eye doing Sheila? Hope it didn't turn all purple and stuff. Man, you are a hard task master, there is no fooling around when you go for a walk, pretty soon when you go for the leash "Little Dog" is going to run for cover.

Charlotte, what lovely pictures of your family. All the girls are so pretty and you son is one handsome dude. I see you have some angels scattered here and there. The girls baby dolls look like they are well taken care of and the girls are really proud of them. Really looking forward to the pictures of your house. I hope eventually I can get a digital camera, we have spent enough money for awhile, so it will have to wait a bit. Carly looks like she dressed for someone's wedding, I love pictures of little girls all dressed up and little girls with their dolls. That is a really nice tractor DH has, looks like he has the right idea for hauling those big round bales, they are hard to manage, if you don't have the right equipment.

I still do not have any energy, and I still have a head cold. It is two weeks today, that I came down with this whatever it is. I did get a little rest on Sunday, but had the grandkids next door on Saturday. DD was scheduled to work, even though she asked the Clinic not to put her on this weekend. SIL is in Montana hunting, but due back tomorrow, he has been gone for 8 days. Grandkids really miss him. I really don't see what those guys see in stalking elk around in Montana. If it is not a warm state, then I am not going, I'd rather stay home.

Not too much else happening around here either. Nice for a change. Sunny, how are you all doing tonight? Hope you come back soon, we miss you. Sandra, we miss you too.

Take care everyone. Time for bed.

Bluet

I'm really dragging........needing my treatment. Well, gotta wait until next Monday.
I suppose one reason we haven't heard from everyone is because of the site being worked on. I came in earlier, & it was so slow, I gave up. There's a notice on the threads at the top. Maybe it'll be super better when they're finished!
Thanks for the compliments. Actually, Paula is my youngest daughter (31) People do (sometimes) think I'm the sister of one of the twins. They'll be 36 in January. I wonder if they get upset at that. They say they don't...that they're proud of their mother. I remember, though, my oldest sister being upset when people thought our mother was her sister. A man asked my dad in a grocery store, once, if he could date his daughter. He was talking about my mother! I guess young looks just run on her side of the family. Our son has to show his license to buy cigarettes! He's 25. He shouldn't be smoking, anyway!! I use to look young for my age, but, I think I look older now. I've been through too much stress the last couple of years. It's aged me.
Yes, I have a few angels out. I also have a van full of them, from the angel shower my MIL gave me last year. I told DH if he didn't get the house finished soon, I was getting them out, & my new bedspread & drapes!

Bluet I hope you get your energy back, soon. That's a major part of my problem when my Remicade wears off. Prayers your way!

I think I'll put the pics of the house in the other way. It doesn't seem to make the thread load so slow.

Ok....first pic is of the front view of the house & garage. The garage is what's being worked on now. There's black paper on the garage roof, now.
Second pic is view of old roof in front part of the house....meeting new roof in back. The tarp is where all the rain is coming into the house.
Third view is just another shot...oh, that big yellow truck is DH's work truck. He lays floor covering. Hardwood, ceramic tile, etc.
Fourth view....is the inside of garage. The ceiling is now all finished with the plywood. Looks much better.
Last view is ramp DH built to walk up to the roof to work on it. He never ceases to amaze me!
I'll show you the inside soon. Yes, it's getting done...just slowly.