Morning
No freezing stuff yet, but it sure is cold. with that north wind blowing.
Had some mechanical problems happen this morning at work but that has been resolved. Thanks to our maintenance man.
Last night we had some very heavy rain that was pounding the windows and roof very hard with some fierce wind. All at once I heard a loud pop, with the power going out then another loud pop. I thought might as well go to bed but then the power came back on.
I have been busy this morning so I haven't been down stairs to do my rounds.
----
Laura
Medicare doesn't pay for dental and yes I do have the dental/vision insurance at work. But I'm going to keep this insurance when I retire.

Happy
I still see the ads embedded in the post but it's not causing problems now for me.

More later

Morning all. Happy Hump Day.

Happy - Hope the PT session went well.

Annie – Glad your appointment was painless. Smart of your boss to not try to drive through the blizzard. A lot of snow is bad enough, but the snow blowing around makes it very dangerous. You be extra careful driving today!!--- Yes, we like the front loader and we’ve never had any problems with it (until now). No mold issues. Our laundry equipment is in the basement, so it's out of the way and I like to keep the washer door open between uses.--- So now I can relate to people like you with high deductible health plans because I am one of them now. Not thrilled with the possibility of having to keep paying-paying-paying until hitting the out of pocket max. Especially if it starts hitting all at once!!

Hellos to the rest of you! Hope you’re all having a good week.

==

Feeling draggy today. My body's still sore from Monday's Pilates class. And last night my plank challenge was really difficult – 90 seconds. Glad bf wasn’t there to hear me struggling to get through it, lol. I could barely finish it, so I might have to stay at this length for longer than I scheduled.

Well, the storm is coming. I live NW of the city and that area isn’t forecast for a lot of snow, but we’ll see. And depending on when it hits the downtown area, we might get to go home early before it gets too bad.

I think that’s about it for me, unless I get started ranting about the mail order rx company. Nope, not gonna do that today.

So, off to cut, paste, & post.

Hi Ceejay - I'm glad you're getting rain and not snow!! And you're probably feeling lucky that your power came back on right away. The wind is blowing here today too as this blizzard moves in. Last week it was blowing really hard and I was in the hallway of our office at the drinking fountain filling up my water bottle and I heard this creaking sound - the tall buildings here actually sway when it's very windy. Scary to think about, but they are designed and built to do that so they can withstand heavy winds. Oh it's good you'll still have dental insurance after you retire!!

Super quick post. So much to get done at work today. After work, I'm taking Santa to the dog park and then working out with my trainer. Yesterday I went for a short interval run with my friend Mark. My right hamstring and glute have been very sore since working out with my trainer on Monday.

I hope all of you in the path of the snow/blizzard stay safe and warm. I sure don't miss that stuff one bit. This week the highs will be in the mid-70s....of course it does cool down as the sun is setting...making a light jacket and light gloves necessary for a late afternoon run.

I'm taking Friday off since I had to work on President's Day. I have to get D to the San Francisco airport by 4 am (an hour's drive away). After that, I'm working out with my trainer, followed by coming home and back to bed. I need to get my nails done and get a few things done around the house too, including Santa-proofing a few more rooms in the house so that I can trust Santa to be home alone while I'm at the gym or out for a run.

===========
A quick shout out to Ceeg and Susie - I also tried posting the other day and was told I didn't have permissions. I had to log in again. I'll bet they did some sort of upgrade which lost some of the cookies or whatever that tell the system we're already logged in and therefore can post. Luckily, I create my posts in Notepad and then copy/paste to the site so I didn't lose anything.

In fact, the whole permission thing just happened again. Crazy. Save your posts by copying/pasting them outside the website.

Gotta go for now. TTYL

Love and hugs,

Morning all,
Have to be short and sweet this morning since I am going to the dentist at 9.15 and will need to be showered and dressed shortly. Then I have to get in touch with NZ about getting a full birth certificate. I know I have one somewhere, but I have turned the place upside down and still can't find it. Then I have to persuade them to email a copy instead of putting it in the snail mail. It's a pain. I only have to look in the mirror to know I was born!!!

Then Miss Sunday goes to the vet. She is constantly harping on about food and yet seems to be getting a bit thinner - there wasn't much of her in the first place. After that I might have time to bag up all the green waste from the hedge cut last weekend. Had to get the bagman to come out with more bags yesterday. DS2 trimmed the hedge down hard and there is a lot of leaves and branches to clean up. Hence the mid month pick up and new bags to hold more waste. Oh and it is shopping day as well. Not much fruit and veges in the house for dinner tonight.

Then I need to clean up the mess I have made looking through the various boxes for family papers. It seems there is a folder missing with the birth certificates in it since the boys certificates are also missing, but I did find one of the certificates of one of my ancestors that I had been looking for for a while. This is what happens when you have two households combined into one and there are packing boxes in a dozen places. Grrrr

Okay, shower, dressed, to the Dentist I go. Replace missing filling - not what I needed on the budget we have in place.

Hello! I didn't make it back yesterday. Trying this again today.

Shad & Annie: I hope both of you have good dentist appointments today.

Annie & Laura: Our deductibles are high as well (but compared to some not that bad). Our out of pocket is very high. Last year DH and I hit both. Along with those and then adding in the health & dental premiums along with the prescriptions we were over some sort of percentage and we were able to take it all off our taxes...it helped in a very nice refund.

We have one of those accounts where we can put in up to $2,500 a year and then use it for out of pocket items and I use that on our big ticket items. It's like a Health Savings account but my employer doesn't contribute to any of it.

Laura: We have a front loading washer and we keep the door open when not in use to keep it from getting mildew and smelling bad.

I wanted to ask you about the baking pan rack that you picked up. Is it a free standing item or something you use in your cabinets?

Michelle: I know how special Bob was to you. I'm sure you still miss him a lot.

Ceejay: We had a lot of rain here today. I suspect that we will see some snow since I'm smack dab in the middle between Annie and Laura.

Did you have any issues at the plant today with all the rain?

Happy: Sorry to hear you are having some pain issues. Keep up with the therapy and you will start feeling better...I promise. What is good about it is they help you to strengthen the injured area and also help you with that pain by making sure the other parts of your body are cared for while the injured part starts to recover as well. The pain comes from overcompensating in some areas due to the weak area and your body is used to that so it tries to pull you pack in that "protective" over compensated area (Usually pulls away from the pain).

It sounds like you have a good PT.

Nice to be pack posting and spend some time with you all! I hope to be back tomorrow.

Good Morning All....

We did not get all the snow in Indy as predicted. We did get about 1 1/2 inches but it only stuck to the grassy areas, which Sass was not happy with at all, just rubbed her underside perfectly. Squat, jump up, squat, jump up. Took her forever to go potty cause she didn't like the cold snow on her belly. North of Indy is a mess with up to 8" of snow and blizzard conditions. Thank Goodness my boss stayed over in CHI town last night. LAURA I am sure you can agree with that. How much snow/crap did you get?

Have decided there is no **** when we die. We are living in **** on earth. Even when I am being oh so careful with myself not to injure me any more than I do, I do it any way. I stopped at the post office yesterday and on the way out, stepping down the curb, somehow I re-injured my knee. WTH...not as bad as the first time, I am still wearing the brace so I guess it is better than it would of been had I not had the brace on. Looks like I will be wearing the brace even longer. Not to mention my bad ankle on the other leg screaming it's bloody head off about WTH I am putting it through. OK enough on that.

Last night was frozen pea bag on the knee, frozen cheese pizza (baked) for dinner, and a load of dress clothes washed and hung. We watched one episode of 24, then a bit of TV and off to bed. Woke up about midnight and moved to the couch. Sleep is getting worse rather than better, but maybe due to my knee pain waking me.

CHELLE....did you read my post to you about ear piercing for migraines? You might google it or even try it.

LAURA...How is your weather? Did you get a lot of snow? or did it bypass you as it did me? Looks like on the map you got swamped. If I got front loader washing machine I would not be able to leave it open as it is in the path to the garage and would leave no walking room to get there. Top loader it is for me. I couldn't do 9 seconds of planks so you are my hero with 90 minutes.

SUSIE....on a good note, it is February and C has met his deductible and we are on our way to the out of pocket deductible of 4800. He hit 3200. on the last bill that went through, of course, we will have to make payments on that as well as the rest of last years. Such stress.

SHADDIE...hope you dental appt went as smoothly as mine did on the refill filling. I had it done the day before you did. Only took 45 minutes total to drill out the remainder of the filling and replace where the tooth broke off.

CEEG...glad the storm bypassed you and the power came back on right away.

Hello to all gotta get busy...boss due back tomorrow. Need to wrap up some work before his return.

Hugs

Morning all. In for a quick hello. I have a lunch at noon that I'm not thrilled about, but I have to go.

Right before I leave for lunch, I'm having my laptop picked up by IT so it can be imaged and replaced with a new one. Hopefully by doing it during lunchtime (which is scheduled for 2 hours), I won't have too much time without a computer. I spent some time taking some personal stuff off the hard drive and saving it onto a thumb drive. And earlier this week IT finally upgraded us to internet explorer 11, so I also uninstalled firefox (not a company authorized app).

Have a great day everyone.

Hi Everyone. It's lunch time and today all the girls I work with are out. They decided to work from home because of the snow.

I live the furthest away and we had about 2 inches this morning when I left, all on the grassy areas. Here at work nothing is even coating the grass. Oh well, it's quiet in the office.

Annie: your poor knee! how is it feeling this morning?

Laura: I hope the computer upgrade is done when you get back from the meeting. When we have that I always try to drop mine off during lunch as well. I always hate when IT has my computer. I get it back and things just don't look the same and I have to figure it out.

Tonight is TOPS. From my weigh-in this morning it looks like I will show about a 1 lb loss. I have my fingers crossed.

I'll see you all tomorrow.

Getting ready to go to Jonesboro to get my b12 injection. I need to stop by Lowe's for some new vacuum cleaner bags. And may stop by the BCBS office since it's across the street.
Found a shingle in the front yard last night so I need to check the roof to see if I need to call the land lord. It sounded like the roof was coming off the other night.

---
Michelle
Have you thought about getting a baby gate for Santa? Hope the migraines have stopped.

Susie
I have always thought you should have an "expense" account for medical at work. However, my job does not offer that. Glad to see you get back on line.

Annie
Bless you. I now that had to hurt with your knee already being sore. Hang in there, things will get better.

Hello's to the rest.

I need to answer a text that is not mine. Sent to the wrong number.

Good Afternoon....

C just texted me that he had two poo's with no blood today. Miracle. He is so romantic. lololol. Baby steps. He is taking a week off starting March 7 to get some rest. Hopefully it will help. I am taking Thursday and Friday that week to spend time with him. hmmm, maybe we will look at cars then. bleh.

CEEG...what is your B12 level now? Are the shots helping. I like when you post you are getting a B12 shot or getting it checked, it reminds me to give myself a shot. What are you going to the BCBS office for? Just me being nosy, you don't have to answer that.

LAURA...seems like when we get reimaged computers back, nothing works right and half of our stuff is missing. Life I guess. How was your lunch thingy.

SUSIE...goodluck on your WI tonight. A pound is a pound. Fingers crossed. Knee feels like it may be reinjured but not as bad as last week. Yeee.

Thats about it for me at this time....hugs.

Hi all,

Haven't felt like posting. I am grumpy. I did get a cute Disney jacket at the shop last week with a large applique of Grumpy (the 7 dwarfs) along with his picture. I should be wearing it today.

I am Grumpy because I am struggling with WW foods. Everything is so darn pointy!!!! I had Lean Cuisine's for lunch yesterday and today and it's about 4 spoons of actual food and I'm hungry although I had a supplemental veg and fruit with it. Not enough to fill me for 11 points.

I am Grumpy because I will probably show a gain at weigh in tonight even though I have been pretty good but not perfect with food.

I am Grumpy because I am in alot of pain. I am all twisted on the inside - my spine is twisted, my hips are out of line and because of this I am having the pains that I do. It's hard to tell the difference between "workable pain" and arthritis. Workable as in if I strengthen things, I will feel better. Right now everything pulls and pops when I try to do my therapy exercises and she tells me to back off on them. I am so over hurting to the degree that I am. Obviously it also limits my ability to get in exercise points.

And for some odd reason I am getting pimples in my eyebrows - do you know how bad those suckers hurt and what's the point of that???

Ok, stop being a baby, things will work out. One of the reasons I am so twisted is the way I walk outside - like Quasimodo. Right now we are getting wetness on top of packed down ice and snow. That makes for some dangerously slippery conditions. I have good winter boots but nothing short of spikes will help with that kind of surface. So I walk tensed up and clenched sort of shuffling - afraid like Annie to slip and hurt things even more. Which that tense clench is also messing things up in the body. I am also fighting with the insurance company. I pay $600 a year for dental insurance and all they are doing lately is denying my claims. A crown broke off in January at the gumline. Rather than making an entirely new crown (at great expense) my doctor rebuilt the crown - $290 of which the insurance company paid $23. I guess it would have been better to just charge $900 for a new crown. They totally denied another pre-treatment claim also. I knew I should not have renewed the dental this year - I can't cancel it and am stuck paying them for nothing until December. I hate HATE HATE insurance companies.

Annie - I am sorry that you have reinjured your leg. That's the worst part about this time of year - so very easy to slip - even if just a little bit. That's why I said be extra cautious walking. I'm glad you didn't get hit with alot of snow but better to warn people ahead of time than catch them off guard. Sassy doesn't know how lucky she is. Glad C found religion and decided to heed you and the doctors and get on the program. Never fun or easy but a necessity as we get older.

Yes, I agree with you ladies that reimaged computers NEVER work correctly. 2 weeks ago DH was using my computer to get a fix when he changed his old computer and could not remember the password. He used mine to download some program to fix his and in the process decided to "help me out" by upgrading and installing some stuff that now gives me problems. Ack. Even my own IT guy screws up

Ceejay - I hope it's not part of your roof blowing around. I guess you got the bad winds too.

Susie - hope you have a good weigh in tonight.

Shad - hope the dental visit is not too hard on the pocketbook. That's unfortunate you are missing the birth certificate, hope you get a replacement in time for your paperwork. We keep copies here at home because it seems you need them on a regular basis. I should keep them in something more safe than a desk drawer tho.

Michelle - can you train Santa to stay in a kennel when you are out? I know it seems cruel but if they tend to get into trouble when they are bored... I know several of the folks at the shelter do this.

Laura - very frustrating when you can't find reviews for the appliances you need - I have found CR to often have old data so we scrapped our subscription. I have given more creedence to recent reviews over old ones - sometimes they make improvements. We have a top loader high efficiency - has similar issues to front loaders so we were extra cautious after our Maytag molded out and we had to junk an expensive machine after 18 months. So far we are happy with the Sears replacement although it's looking like it might need a replacement by next year. They don't make them as sturdy as they once did. I am anxiously waiting to hear what you think of the steam option if you use it. I have a wrinkle release 18 minute setting which heats on high for about 5 minutes and then cools down and for the most part, that and an occasional slightly damp cloth will refresh something wrinkly. Is the steam for cleaning too? I ask in advance for purchasing the next machine.

Yikes, it's 4pm already. I was going to make Zuppa Toscano for DH for supper tonight so I'd better get a move on since I have to leave for WW at 5:30. I don't eat until I come home. Will have to find some extra lightweight clothes for weigh in tonight also

Talk to you tomorrow.

Afternoon all. The lunch turned out to be fun. All ladies (6 of us), and the talk turned to dating, which I have not done for 28 years, lol. But it was still fun. Of course wine was involved, so that probably helped things along. I had Salmon on top of an arugula salad – tasty. We also had a cheese plate and some brussels sprouts for starters. I won’t say I totally love brussels sprouts now, but the way they were prepared was tasty and sure beats the crummy boiled ones we were served as a kid. Not that we ate them, lol.

So I came back to a new laptop and of course things don’t look quite the same. I copied and saved my bookmarks to a private network drive and I guess now I have to copy them back to the folder they were in before. Otherwise, I think I just need to get some of my most used apps back on the taskbar.

Annie – How sucky you hurt your knee - I hope you didn’t bring yourself back to square one in the healing process. You don’t need to go back to the crutches again, do you? Nice you’ll have some time off coming up in the near future. I’m so sorry I forgot about you doing research to buy a new car. I’ll PM or text you with bf’s phone number and you can pick his brain about it. Awww, poor Sassy getting a cold belly in the snow. We just got enough to cover the grass. Yup, it was our southern suburbs and northern Indiana that got a lot of snow. Indiana always gets a lot of lake effect snow. Re planks – I’m sure you could work up to longer times if you gave it a chance. I do them on my forearms, not on my hands in the pushup position. I actually think doing them in the pushup position takes the focus away from the core a bit and makes it needlessly harder because it works (i.e., TIRES) your arms, and it could strain your wrists and elbows. Just my opinion. Anyway, just get on the floor and try for 15 seconds. I bet you can do it.

Ceejay – Hope you have a good trip to Jonesboro. My new hsa account is used to pay medical expenses for my new high deductible health plan. It’s not optional and it has a monthly service fee of $2.25 per month. But my employer contributes money to it, and it allows me to direct deposit contributions to it and it has a debit card associated with it, so it makes it easy to make payments. It’s still too early to tell, but I hope it’s less of a PITA to deal with than my fsa was.

Susie – Good luck at your TOPS meeting tonight. One pound is great. Unless that’s the total amount lost since January 1st, which is the case for me…. As for snow, we didn’t get much at all up where I live. Enough to cover the grass, but the sidewalks were almost totally clear today. And we’re heading for 50 degrees this weekend, so yay for that!! Re the baking rack – it looks like it might have come with some screws and could be affixed inside the cabinet, but the seller told me she didn’t have the screws. I didn’t care one way or another because it works just fine as a freestanding rack.

Shad – I hope your dental appointment went well. Oh what a PITA to obtain a copy of a birth certificate. I think mine is in my safety deposit box…

Michelle – No doubt you are overjoyed to not be in the Midwest when these storms go through! Enjoy your Friday off work!!

Out of here!

Morning all
Well the certificate is not found. Now I have to get a new one. I will need to ring them to courier it over. They do have a dedicated overseas phone number so that might help with the queue. There are large numbers of Kiwis living abroad, many of them seem to find their way to Happy's place in the woods it seems so that is probably why the dedicated phone line. Kiwis tend to 'get up' (terrorise) public servants if it takes to long to answer the phone. We are not fussy, we do it to the Prime Ministers office staff as well as the janitor at the local school or cleansing facility. So I will let you know how it turns out.

I have beans, corn, lettuces, tomatoes, beetroot all growing in the garden - although not fast enough. For some reason neither the peas or the butter beans seem to be doing well. I will give them another couple of days and then replant if necessary. Some of the corn and green beans didn't sprout but that's okay, I planted plenty of them and I can resow if I want to. The corn is about 4 inches high now or 10 centimetres. I may need to fertilise again soon. They are all gross feeders.

What else! ODDU continues on his 'winning' ways. I get woken with a Ruger kiss daily, then a toy gets shoved under my nose and I am expected to be ready to play in 2.4 seconds. Such energy. He can be very naughty as well. Hopefully he will calm down soon He graduated from grade 2 to grade 3 at the dog school last week, however I wonder if the trainer just wanted rid of him out of his class.

Dental bill - 243.95. Tooth cleared of several old fillings on top of each other and One filling rebuilt. Good to go for a while again. Fortunately this was the tooth that the Dentist told me needed working on sometime back and I haven't been home long enough to fit into his schedule. So at least that is off the list now. I used to have dental insurance but gave that away when it was costing me more than I got back when I claimed and the insurance company told me that they pay on the average listed price of whatever, and I should find a cheaper dentist.

Happy - so sorry to hear that you are in such pain. It can't be easy to get anything done. I hope you can stick with it until the PT rights the wrong bits. I totally understand the clenched body when the world is slippery and dangerous out there. Can't be too long to the spring thaw for you. Apparently the BOM is declaring the end of cyclone season here. Hope Mother Nature gets that note - although whether she will take any notice or not is debatable.

Annie - Good news that the expected snow did not appear. Sassy needs legs as long as Ruger. He just bounces through the water and the grass and anything else he can run around. We timed him the other day. He can get from the back of the section, through the back gate and out to the front gate in 2.2 seconds. Admittedly we don't have a large hunk of land, but that is pretty fast.
Good on C. I'm sure you were very excited about his 'movements' but at least things are improving in that direction.
Sorry to hear that you have hurt the knee again. Maybe we need to put you in a straight jacket and tie up the feet as well.

Laura - lunch sounded really nice. It's always fun to hear how the dating game is going these days. Like you, I haven't had one in years.
Have fun with the 'new' laptop. I am currently trying to sort out the printer one DS's partners machine. I have finally got the document to spool, but it is erroring out, so the next thing is to work out why. Don't you just love things that don't work first time.

Ceejay - sounds like you had some really interesting weather recently. Get that roof looked at before the spring rains come.

Susie - good luck with the weigh in.

Michelle - funnily enough I never had any trouble with permissions etc. when the website changed. Seems a lot of people did though.

Okay, enough procrastinating, to the NZIA site to download this thing again and then ring them. They are probably all out to lunch now. Such fun I have.

Annie
Went to BCBS to find out some things for retirement. And they are having a fitness challenge starting March first, but one can sign up on line. How is your knee doing? Believe me it takes some time for those diverticulum places to heal once they are injured.(that's how I think of it). Maybe this will be the last time for C. to sin with the wrong food. I really have to talk to myself before I eat something now if it's one of my triggers.

Laura
Glad you had a good lunch. I miss my girl's day out at times. Maybe I can get with one of my friends when I go to my sissy's in Missouri.

Happy
Or should I say miss Grumpy. I understand with the pain. Picture Mr Sanford from Sanford and Sons as myself when my arthritis hits like it did last Wednesday.

----
My trip to Jonesboro was good. Got my b12 and was told I could now come once a month. Whew I'm happy about that. I'm getting my mojo back.