Annie ~ Yeah your right

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Woke up at 4:00 a.m. this morning, I've woken up at 4 a.m. for the last couple of days, Not sure why. I need to vacuum my room and the front room and clean the bathroom and work out today. I had an appt. this morning. It went good. I hope everyone is having a wonderful day. Take Care Everyone

Ohhhkayyyy just come up for air and it is getting on for 9pm so bed is on the menu shortly.

Hope you are all doing okay. I've been reading the posts, but replying is pretty hopeless since 12 hour days are the norm. I sincerely hope that they delay go live, not just because it will give me more money, but because the system really is nowhere near ready to go live yet.

Forgive me for no personals. Just wanted to let you know I hadn't expired and had returned from Adelaide (freezing) to Auckland (even colder) and reports of heavy snow and ice in the South Island.

Okay - bedtime calls. See you all.

HAPPY TUESDAY!!

Day 3 of healthier eating and moving more. So far so good. Last night was shrimp cocktail, with of course more shrimp since I did it at home and broccoli/cauliflower mix. Made baked tater rounds for C. Was in bed by 9 pm. Sissy did an excellent job on my hair color, as she always does.

So Sissy posted on FB asking for suggestions on where to get a great wedding cake. One of her besties from high school came back with her mom still does that on the side and as a wedding gift she and her mom would do the cake. I about crapped my pants. Amen what a savings. I told her to post everything she needed. lol.

SHADDIE....hey glad you are still kicking. No worries on the personals, you know we just love to hear from you. Peace sister.

Hello to all the rest of you fine ladies. Hugs

Morning all.

Annie - So you made it through the storms yesterday! Great that S's cake is all taken care of. How nice of the friend/her mom.

Shad - Sorry you're working such long days. What a bad feeling to think they could go live before the system is ready for it. Bad for morale. No worries about not getting here - use what there is of your spare time to get your rest!

Terra – That is way too early to wake up!! Hope you get into a regular sleep routine soon. How's your week going?

Happy – You had quite the adventure with canning the other day! My mom recently replaced her microwave above the stove. She doesn't like it there, but that’s the way it was & she'll be selling the house soon so she didn't bother setting up another arrangement. Do you have trouble lifting things into & out of it when it's up high like that?

Ceejay – Sounds like you had a busy weekend. Your food sounds tasty. Things get difficult when you have to control the plant manually - getting to the valves, etc. I bet retirement is looking better & better! !

More later, the train's pulling into the station.

Hey ladies...

Work is still very busy (in a good way)...and I was busy over the weekend. I'm going to be housesitting for Bob's sister Debi starting Friday night until Wednesday night. She doesn't get back until Sunday...but she's got another friend taking over starting Wednesday night since I have to get home, and get ready for my trip to So. Cal for the family reunion (weekend of the 24th).

Shad - I can relate to the work busy-ness and running up against deadlines.

Annie - Wow, those were some mighty big storms you had. So proud of you for the healthy eating and moving. So nice that your DD's friend's mom is going to make the wedding cake!!


I've got to get back to work. Maybe I can do more personals later.

Much love,

Good morning ladies,

I seem to be having issues with this site based on the ads. I have seen this in the past. Can tell because of the way the moving smilies all of a sudden slow down or stop totally. When they stop everything freezes. And it is the ads.

Yesterday I puttered around the house, did a bunch of laundry. Went into town and got some pork chops, fresh tomatoes and a few deli items from the Menonite store and the farmer's market. I stopped by the egg lady and she was thrilled that I brought her 6 empty egg cartons to recycle. Today I want to stop at the thrift shop because I want to talk to one of the pricing ladies who cans a lot. I am concerned that my peaches are still a bit sticky around the rims even after I cleaned them off. The seals seem to be very tight - I just want to make sure everything is ok. I also need to talk to the one lady who knows the cash register well. We are having a special sale on Saturday (trying to move excess goods) and I need to know how to work in a 25 percent discount on sales in a specific category. It's very overcast and downright cool today - only 70 degrees. We talked about a road trip to take pictures but it's breezy out so that doesn't make for good photographs. After I come back home today I am going to work on the fundraiser for the Humane Society as I need to get that going.

Michelle - bet you are looking forward to your trip and seeing the family.

Laura - I actually like the microwave where it is - I can easily watch things like melting butter or boiling water to make sure they don't spill over. And I can easily reach a hot casserole. The only bummer is that I can't reach the back of the oven to clean it without either stepping on a small stool or asking DH to give it a wipe. I have had an over the stove microwave since the 1980's when they first designed them so I am used to them. The only time they were ever really a problem was when I had a super tall pot like the canner. I can count on one hand all the times I've had to use that. I guess one of the other complications with canning is that you are not supposed to use a canner pot on a glass top stove - that's what I had in Memphis. I just got a book from the library - The Cherry Harvest. It's about how during WW II they used German POWs to work the orchards in Wisconsin (Door County) when all the "boys" were shipped overseas to serve in the military. The lead character is kind of unlikable although put in time perspective of 1944 it is true to character. I can't say if I totally like it or not yet.

Annie - how wonderful of the friend to donate the cake as a gift! As you say - that is boo-koo buckos there. And I'll bet the cake will be absolutely delicious. I see these things on tv and they are works of art but far too much frosting / fondant for me. My MIL used to make wedding cakes too - no bakery can touch the homemade taste. The wedding seems to all be coming together nicely. Yay for you for sticking with the plan on the clean eating. Proving that you can still eat yummy, delicious food and eat clean.

Shad - thanks for checking in - was getting a bit worried about you but figured you were inundated. Oh my - 12 hour days AND heavy duty cold weather. That has to make for one exhausted trainer. Life has got be be all about work, eat, sleep and that's about it. Hang in there and don't burn yourself out.

Terra - 4am? I'm just turning over and flipping the pillow to the cool side at that time. I hope you didn't decide to vacuum then

Hellos to the rest of the chicks. I just looked out the window - it's looking like it wants to rain so I'd better get a move on her before it's too late to meet the people I need to see.

Have a good Tuesday all.

Good Afternoon All....

Just ate my leftover shrimp and cauliflower/brocc mix. Quite yummy. Tonight is Mucky Ducks with Leanne. Hmmm, pub food. May order a burger and ditch the bun or grilled chicken, if they have it. And drink water, no alcohol. Wow I sound like a barrell of fun don't I? lol. It will be great to catch up.

HAPPY...let's see, me thinks I would just purchase someone elses canned peaches no matter the cost, just seems like too much work for no more than you get. Don't know how my Gma did it back in the day. She canned everything, tomatos, tomato juice, apples, peaches, this that and the other thing. I think if Gpa got in the way, she would of canned him too, now granted that stuff was da bomb as far back as I can remember. Nothing like it. My momma canned jelly with the wax melted on top to seal it. Crab apple jelly is all I can remember. Gma made grape and blackberry jelly. I got some brown eggs from the neighbor lady who says she gets them when she goes to the farm for the weekend. I really don't know what "farm" she is referring to, if it is her own or talking about the prision. Fresh and good. 2 bucks a dozen, is that a fair price? I would not even know. It is hot a gooey here. More rain is expected around the state, don't know if it will hit Indy or not. I am starting to believe the Indians did one to many rain dances.

TERRA...I was up at 3:30 this morning. Guess I was done sleeping, so I did some laundry.

LAURA...my microwave is also above my stove. No problems for me. I don't have any pots that tall and I am tall enough to reach inside to clean. I am satisified with where it is. Beats the old cabinet type in all my other homes. Took up too much room.

CHELLE...you are so much more busier than before and also more active. Very good. The Atkins diet is very much like the bariatric way of eating, at least the first phase of induction. That is what I am following for now the phase of induction, and will probably continue with it since is compares the the B way.

I think I am caught up now. Make it a great day/night.

Happy - I hope you get good info about your canned peaches. And I hope you and your DH will get out for picture taking when the weather improves.

Annie - I never thought about Atkins being essentially like the bari diet. So we (bari patients) should stick with Phase 1? I know that I've been eating way too many carbs, and...duh...when I eat oatmeal (with Splenda) or a bagel with cr. cheese in the morning, I get a blood sugar crash around 10 am because I hate too many carbs and not enough protein. Today, I had a protein shake and a hardboiled egg at 7 am, and I just had a Dannon Greek yogurt. Of course my tummy is rumbling...probably saying, "Hey lady...where are the carbs - even though the yogurt has a few grams of carbs). Hopefully I won't get a blood sugar crash today. I'm very proud of you for sticking to your program and for making plans as to what you can eat at Mucky Ducks.

Well, lots more to get done on implementing the redesign as more changes came in from the designer, so I have to get to it.

Hi ladies.

Michelle - Your trip to S. Cal. is coming up soon! I bet you're soooo looking forward to it.

Annie - I just have the microwave on the counter because our kitchen is old. Even though I'm tall and would have a height issue with a microwave above the stove, I'm glad I don't because I wouldn't like to have to take the dish out of the microwave every time I needed to stir something. Good for you getting back on track with eating and exercise!

Happy - That book sounds interesting - does it give you a good feel for that time/place? I'm hosting book club on FRIDAY and I'm barely half done with the book I selected, and it's slow going because I'm not liking it all that much. We'll see if any of the other book club gals read at least some of the book and if they liked it. Sometimes it's a better discussion when we didn't like the book, LOL. Re colonics - when you mentioned that it reminded me of the older movie "LA Story" with Steve Martin. Sarah Jessica's flakey character was a fan of them.

Susie - Don't work too hard this week! I hope you get your exercise this week in spite of having a lot to do at work. Re the colonoscopy, my options were Tues & Thurs, so I chose Tuesday.

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I got a bit of housework done over the weekend. Still not sure what to serve as to food and beverages for Friday's book club. The girls do bring food and beverages as well, but it would be nice to have a beverage other than wine on hand. Neither bf for I really drink hard liquor/mixed drinks, so we don't keep any on hand. I have some wine and that's about it.

I had lunch with a friend on Sunday and that was nice (and she treated me for my birthday, a week later). Otherwise it was kind of a dull weekend. Aside from yesterday's doc appointment, I was sort of bored. We did get a great deal on Kleenex at Staples - 4 packs of the 160 count for $3.99. We stocked up and will buy some more this week. We went through a lot when we had our colds and depleted our stock, LOL.

Yesterday's gastro appointment was short. He got a brief medical history and explained the procedure and that was about it. My appointment is next Tuesday, and I already picked up the prep rx from the pharmacy.

I'm on day 8 of my ab/squat challenge and already did the squat portion of it. I'll do the ab stuff tonight. Tomorrow is finally a rest day.

Bf's mom is coming over for dinner - bf is making pork tenderloin, the breaded/fried kind. It's tasty but certainly not light. But we all like it, and we only have it a couple times a year, so fine.

Gotta run!

Hi ladies,

Posting now. Going to be a busy day tomorrow. DH and one of the other suffering husbands have been initiated to help re-do our pricing room at the thrift shop. Thank goodness they are troupers. We are currently utilizing office / cubicle furniture left by the other tenants and it's a total disorganized mess. I went in today and got a hold of all of the pricing people. We had a good discussion, I made sure everyone got their 2 cents in and we are going to be replacing junk with shelving. Fortunately there is a big garage sale this weekend and I sincerely hope that we can unload the office furniture there so we don't have to get rid of it otherwise or we'll be stuck. We have to move out some of the stuff in there now (would be nice if they cleared out the room for us today but I'm not counting on it). So going to be a long laborious day.

And then this morning I was flossing and I popped out one of my back crowns. The tooth has been wiggly loose for a long time now and I actually thought a part of it cracked. I think what happened is the stub of the original tooth rotted and cracked off. It's a very old root canal. The edges are very sharp and of course one's tongue just has to keep going there. I am not having pain (thank goodness) other than my tongue is getting shredded and it's difficult to eat since there's a hole there and things are getting stuck in there. I stopped at the dentist hoping I could just get them to take a look - maybe we could just cement it in??? It was the end of the day - receptionist was not being cooperative. Gave me an appointment for next Monday afternoon. A week away??? She said she'd call if she got a cancellation. Of course this was before I realized I was having difficulty eating and my tongue was getting sore. It is REALLY frustrating that there are 2 dentists in 5 days a week and you can't get an emergency appointment. I have a feeling when I talk to the dentist he's going to say I should not have had to wait so long but what can you do when the receptionist controls everything? This is the bad part about living here and the city - you wait for stuff. And when we get heavy rain, our phones don't work so good for a day or two.

Laura - the one reason I was happy to give up the book club was I had a difficult time reading a book I didn't like - and many of them were not that interesting to me. I agree with you that it makes for a livelier discussion when people didn't like it. Then again we had moms in our club and oftentimes they would talk mom stuff and not the books that we were there for. Hope you enjoyed the pork tenderloin. As for food and drinks - I skewered watermelon and cantelope chunks on 6 inch wooden skewers - about 4 good sized chunks per stick - they went over well. Or you can do pineapple or strawberries and blueberries and grapes. At one of our fundraisers the ladies did cheese tortellini on a toothpick with a small 1/2 slice of salami and an olive. Or watermelon chunk and feta drizzed with balsamic vinegar. Easy hot weather stuff you can make ahead. Or go get a tray of those tortilla roll ups from Sam's Club For drinks make a lemonade and let them toss a shot of Amaretto in it. Yum. Or we made a simple punch when we did customer appreciation - 2 each 2 liter gingerale or 7-up mixed with 2 cans of frozen lemonade. We added ice and thin sliced lemons, limes and an orange. The punch calls for ginger ale but I missed that and picked up 7 up for extra servings and we all agreed we liked the 7 up version better, especially when the ice diluted it a bit. Or just do a raspberry iced tea for something different. Oh joys - the colonoscopy is scheduled. Yay. are you having it done at the hospital?

Oh and I was assured that the peaches were ok because everything indicates the seal is good and tight and I boiled them for the time I was supposed to. Canning itself was not that difficult - yes, time consuming peeling the fruit and slicing it but the worst part was not knowing all the steps and being unsure of myself. I would totally do this again. There is a world of difference in the way the peaches taste compared to the canned stuff. Like comparing a winter tomato to one fresh picked from the garden. I would not go gung ho and can / freeze everything I grew like my friend does, but it's nice to preserve some stuff. This year I have also become more and more aware of what I'm eating and all the junk they are putting into food. The local stuff is so much fresher and tastier. I'll be sad when winter comes but then I can make soups and stews to blend flavors. And I'll have to find out where the Menonite egg lady lives to see if she will sell eggs in the winter I had 2 this morning - golden colored and delicious!

Michelle - I never could do carbs for breakfast without getting ravenous an hour later. I would do eggs and some fresh fruit (instead of juice), a small breakfast burrito with eggs, cheese and pre-cooked peppers (like they have at the fast food places) or Greek yogurt with a spoon or two of granola for crunch or just some blueberries and maybe some sliced nuts for protein. And then sometimes darn it I NEEDED A PANCAKE and suffered through the carb sugar drop later It tough when you are working and have to grab things on the go. I hope work is going ok with all the changes.

Annie - I paid $3 a dozen for huge eggs - bigger than jumbos. Must be some mighty big chickens. Our local cage free eggs (not in the grocery stores) run 3 to $3.50 a dozen. We do pay more because they are small family farms but the quality is so worth it. My Mom said she just paid $3 a dozen in the city at the store. They had to kill 46 million birds due to avian flu which they say devastated the chicken population. Sorry but I say that is 46 million birds that did not have to suffer in horrid factory farm conditions. But anyway - I guess the cost of both beef and eggs are higher because of critter specific "flues". I think I paid $1.99 a dozen for eggs at our local gas station - they sell really good dairy products, some produce and snacks for good prices. So I'd say 2 bucks for farm eggs (even if they are prison farm ) was a good price.

I think I need to get to bed. Got to check the litter boxes and refill cat water dishes which puts me off 15 minutes. Morning will come soon enough. Have a good hump day all.

Hump Trash Day! I declare a company holiday today due to NO rain, sunny and mild temps...oh if only I had that authority we would never work.

Had a great time at Mucky Ducks last night with Leanne. We blabbed for 4 straight hours and still not done, but it was already 8:30 and needed to get home. So did she, we both work early. I had boom boom shrimp. Spicy shrimp, quite yummy. Thinking they were trying to replicate Bonefish Grill's bang bang shrimp. Kind of pricey for no more than I got, but ok with that since I rarely do that kind of thing.

Came home, got comfy, was in bed by 9:30. C was already snoring away so getting to sleep was a little bit of a challenge.

HAPPY....Hope your day goes smoothly and all that needs done gets accomplished at the shop. The farm eggs I get are probably med to large eggs, so 2 bucks is probably a good price. Seems like the dentist would keep a spot open for such emergencies. He probably would of taken you, but seems receptionist like to flaunt authority. Hope you still have a tongue by Monday.

LAURA...I was in a book club one time for about a minute. I didn't care for the first two books they chose so I dropped out. I have to really enjoy a book to read it, otherwise I put it down, I cannot trudge through it like you and HAPPY do. Kudos to you and HAPPY. Make it easy on yourself. Serve iced tea, chips and salsa. lol. You can use my freezer salsa I have.

CHELLE...hope your day goes well.

Make it a great day. Hugs.

Morning ladies
I tried to post yesterday but it said I didn't have the authority to do so!

Yesterday we had a bad storm. It really got dark. Went from 96 to 76 afterwards. The plant lost power and I think half the city. So I had a busy afternoon. It rained very hard too, and of course we had flash flooding.

Text with my cousin again last night. She has her hands full. This is the cousin who has an autoimmune disease.

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Terra
Good for you in logging your food for 10 days straight. I was going back to FitDay to log but it would not let me in. I will try again today.
Wow 4.30 is very early but sometimes our bodies have enough sleep by that time.

Happy
I hope I can find something to do with my spare time when I retire next year. My mom and grandma canned. I remember my grandma canning sausage. They were so good. She would let me put the sausage,after she fried them, in the jar and the she put a spoon in the jar and then poured the hot grease into the jar. This would be after the meat in the smoke house was done. My grandpa made the sausage. I loved that time of the year. I can still remember the smell coming from the smoke house.

Michelle
I know you are looking forward to the reunion. Are you taking Santa?

Annie
It's always good to meet with friends and have one on one time with them. That was so nice that S's friend offered to bake her wedding cake.

Shad
Right now some of that cold air would feel nice. But guess I can't complain as long as the ac works.

Laura ~ Yeah 4 a.m. is very early to wake up but today I was able to sleep until 5:30 a.m. so thats good. My week is going good. How is your week going?

Happy ~ Yeah LOL. I hope I dont keep waking up at 4 a.m.

Annie ~ Yeah when I wake up early I try to go to back to sleep but when I cant I just go ahead and get up.

Ceejay52 ~ I didnt realize you were following me on MFP. Thats cool though, What is your username on there? So I know which one you are. Yeah I suppose when I wake up in the morning its my body telling me to get up for the day, It just sucks that its been at 4 a.m. here lately.

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Woke up at 5:30 a.m. Its now 8:47 a.m. Chances are I'll stay home today and go to school next week but I am gonna go to cooking class tomorrow though. The reason why I'm staying home today is because Scott is getting a package today that wont fit in the mail box and He's worried about it getting stolen if it stays on the porch so I decided to go ahead and stay home so I can drag it inside when it gets here. I'm gonna make sure I work out before the morning is over and again before bed tonight. I hope everyone has a wonderful Wed.

Hi ladies,

You're right. I'm really looking forward to the reunion and spending a little extra time with my aunt and uncle. I fly to Southern CA a week from Friday (the 24th), and I'll fly home on Monday the 27th. I've also made some more travel plans...to visit my friend in Las Vegas in September, and to go back to Southern Cal to spend Thanksgiving weekend with my sister and her family.

Since I have plans with a friend today after work, I had to do my group training workout at 6 am. The good thing about exercising in the morning is it is over and done with. It's too easy to make all kinds of excuses why I can't (or don't want to) exercise after work. Of course, it's really difficult to get up by 5 am to make it to the 6 am class, and I almost went back to sleep this morning, but then I realized I didn't shower or wash my hair last night...and I'd have to shower this morning. Aw heck, I might as well go workout.

This morning's breakfast was a Premier Protein shake from Costco before working out, and now I'm enjoying cottage cheese and fruit. Hopefully it will hold me over 'til lunchtime.

Sadly no time for personals....I've got so much work to get done in such a short timeframe.

Much love to all,

Yeah me too Michelle.

Must have done something really wicked in my lifetime for the gods to come down on me like this. Still..........its cash in my hip pocket and will come in handy somewhere along the line.