I just have to join in on this book conversation. I have always been a very avid reader. I remember as a young child my mother asked our dr. what she could do about me as all I wanted to do was read...would rather read than go out and play. He backed me to the hilt and said...let her read, she will never be lonely! I have been reading ever since. Since I got the computer which is about 5 years I have been tracking what I read....mostly because I hate to get a book that I have already read. I have a Books Read, Books on Hand and Books wanted llists. I have about 20 books on hand but most of these are older books that I was given while I was working by a friend who worked in a book warehouse. My list of books read is up to 1,340 and the books wanted list that I compile by going to book stores and listing interesting books that have just come out is at 1,193. I will never get all these books but at least when I have an opportunity to pick up a book I will know what I am looking for. I will read most anything, romance, mystery, intregue, almost anything. I do have authors that I look for including Nora Roberts, James Patterson and too many others to list.
As a young kid I, too, enjoyed Nancy Drew and The Bobbsie Twins. I have given GD (13) a set of the Nancy Drew books when she was 9...she loved them.

As for your Chili makings....we will pass...neither of us cares for it.

I may not be able to join your October birthday club but I will beat you all on age....April 17, 1933. That, somedays, is older than dirt.

We are expecting a very cold couple of days so I think we will be hibernating and eating the chicken soup I made today. I will try to add a variety of items to it so it is not the same every day.

Stay warm or in the case of you, Maggie...cool.

Gloria

Good morning ladies! Well today is the day! I thank all of you for your information and advice. I will take your advice Jean and keep going to meetings until I find a leader I like. Nothing worse than someone that bores you to death.

My chili is simple, mainly because my husband had this real thing about "authentic" chili. First off, in his mind, NO BEANS. He says chili with beans is chili con carne, which he is correct on that. Secondly, he doesn't like tomatoes so no chunks of anything. Beginning to sound boring isn't it??? Well, I discovered I could make a great pot of chili for him with a large can of tomato soup, minced garlic, chopped onion, salt and mexican chili powder. That's it ladies, boring but it is tasty. I like Wendy's chili actually. I also like vegetarian chili if it is done correctly. When I worked for the law firm I used to go to this little kooky hole in the wall restaurant called Cornucopia and they made the best vegetarian chili. The restaurant is long out of business, but if you google the restaurant you can actually still get the recipe for the chili, of course it will feed a bazillion.

Gloria: I like the "in death" series Nora Roberts writes under the name JD Robb. They are unusual, but very interesting. I am a big murder mystery fan and like that genre of author, but just finished Barbara Taylor Bradford's new book and it was ok. Took me awhile to finish, mainly because I have knitting projects to get finished.

Susan: I do have a "gender specific" now don't I!!! I spent part of the day looking at little boy's clothes online and found such cute stuff. I found a site I think was called Gramma's Attic and soldl vintage baby clothes, like Polly Flinders! I hadn't heard that name in eons and they had such cute stuff, but nothing today's mother's would put their little boys in because they would be consider sissy clothes. My favorite thing to see a little boy in are what used to be called rompers or sunsuits and they call shortalls now. I found the cutest pair of red plaid ones with a little t-shirt underneath that had a picnic scene on the front. I LOVE seersucker on little boys too. My son had a little blue and white seersucker shortall and I guess that is what I see when I see them.

Maggie: Thanks for the WW info. I am sure I will figure it all out. Congrats on the loss.

Jean: Getting closer to the weekend gal! I know you have to be looking forward to that!

Well, I need to go, unload the dishwasher then Jack will be up and I can get showered and dressed. I am keeping the car today so I can do a bunch of errands.

Have a great Friday and a great weekend!

Faye

Hello, ladies. It's only 27 degrees at noon today so I am freezing. Had to take Stan for his tests this morning. I really hated for him to have to go out when it was so cold. Now to wait for Monday for the results.

I missed my Curves workout last night - got stuck in traffic for 1-1/2 hours! Today I really feel stiffer than I've been. Anyway, going tomorrow and also to the after hours Yoga class.

I love chili. Do any of you make white chili? I never have been I'm thinking about trying it. I've had it out and it was really good.

I'm so glad the weekend is here...maybe I'll be about to get some quilting in!

Thanks, Maggie - I have all that in the pantry and freezer so we'll be having it for supper tomorrow!

Good morning everyone! Well, first day on WW. I had screwed yesterday up because I missed lunch completely so decided to wait until this morning so everything would come out correctly. I like the time I go as there are not tons of people there, but a nice group. The group leader is nice, though it is mostly a talk session. She kind of throws out the topic, talks about what you should be doing, etc and then others join in. You know me, never one for keeping my mouth shut so I joined in! I think I am going to like it just fine.

Right now I have a sinus headache. I took a couple Advil and it will probably go away the longer I am up. I had a runny nose all day yesterday and it wasn't from the cool weather so something was bothering me in the air yesterday and last night I had a bit of congestion type stuff so I assume there was just something.

Jean: I did the 6 week prepayment and it cost me $76. If I pay by the week I can get a military discount and pay $10 a week I think or it might be $12. I will probably stay with the prepayment plan and just do it on paydays month to month to make it easier. They didn't have the free registration so that was included in the $76! What a rip off that was that they weren't including our area in the free registration like most of the country. You could do a free meeting though.

Maggie: Thanks for the white chili recipe. I am trying to think what restaurant has white chili or used to. Jack would never ever eat it. I would prefer just eating navy beans as I love them! lol Our leader is a nice lady and I like her so I am probably going to stay put.

Susan: Hope you are able to get back to Curves. You are probably really close to goal I would imagine.

We received very sad news last night. We called Jack's favorite aunt and uncle (hid dad's sister) last night to tell them we will have a Jack the IV. His aunt has really missed her brother even though he has been dead over 30 years now. She was thrilled when we named Jay, Jack, and we wanted to share the news with them that there would be another Jack in just a few months. We tried their phone and got no answer, tried their son and left a message, then called the other aunt and she told Jack that Aunt Liz passed away two months ago. She said Uncle Buddy was living with his dd now and their son was living in the house. She gave Jack Betty Carol's phone # and he called and talked to her. We couldn't have gone to the funeral as Jack was still recovering from open heart surgery, but we could have sent flowers as a family. I guess she wrote our phone number down wrong and they couldn't get ahold of us and didn't have Jack's sister's number. My poor husband cried on the phone he was so upset he hadn't been able to be contacted. She and her husband were wonderful people and whenever we would go through Mineral Wells, Tx we would stay with them. The last time we saw them, we flew out there with Kelly and Thomas and I think he was around 3. She was in her late 80's so had a long life. It was such a shock though as we usually called them each Christmas and didn't this year because of Jack's stuff going on. We just forgot.

Well, we have filed our taxes so we will get our refund in a couple weeks and I can buy the airline tickets for our vacation. We are going to have a bunch of regular maintenance done on the car too, like brakes, shocks, etc, etc.

Jack has decided to go with me to Indiana for the baby shower so I am glad about that. I don't mind going alone, but it is a 10 hour hard drive, 12 if you stop and so it is nice not having to go alone since my dd can't go. My dd has offered to give her what is called a blessingsway shower, where important women in the mother's life get together to give blessings to the new baby. They do some kind of bead ceremony where each one provides a bead and a written blessing from her that is strung on a a necklace for the mother. They then wash the new mother to be's feet. They also a lot of times bring meals that are frozen to give the family easy meals for a few days after returning home. I think it is a nice idea actually. It sounds kind of hokey, but it was a generous and sweet thing for my dd to do and you know there have been a lot of hard feelings with regards to her and her brother and stuff so I applaud her for trying. She feels really really badly she can't go to the shower, but it is the same weekend as the aquisition of her company and she is having to work 3 weeks straight 7 days a week to go through this I guess.

Well, gals, I want to get some knitting done then get out and get a good walk in. I didn't get one yesterday.

Have a great Saturday everyone!!!

Faye

Good morning everyone! I did fine on day one! I even have Jack on board. As we use something and figure pts, we write the points on the box so we don't have to figure it everytime and I am making a list of stuff we use all the time like the cereals, the ff beef broth, my brand of yogurt etc.

Maggie: I have a 1 pt french bread recipe that makes great bread dough in the machine and we had that with beef stew last night. It was yum! Jack and I stuck to one piece apiece and sprayed it with the Can't Believe It's not Butter spray rather than using margarine or whatnot and it was very tasty. I make "egg" noodles using egg beaters instead of eggs etc so you can do all kinds of things if you are willing just to put in a bit of effort. May I have the recipe for the rolls? You can pm or email or post, whatever you wish.

Jean: Below zero! No thanks, I want you to enjoy it, you don't have to share. I don't know why they weren't doing the special registration, but that's ok, it is done with now and I am a member. I had some points left last night so I had a couple of the WW chocolate candies made by Whitman. I had the mint patties and they are just like eating junior mints, which I love. One pt apiece and sure satisfies the candy urge. I bought a bag of each type except the coconut stuff UGH! I am amazed Jack is willing to do this with me. I just hope he sticks it out. He isn't doing the meetings and such, just the program, but even doing that he will lose the extra weight. He wants to lose 35 lbs and he can be at his goal weight well before our vacation if he tries. Well, we have a Maui, a Las Vegas, do we have another vacation being planned? I know Maggie is talking about being on the road again.

Susan: How is Stan doing? I think about the two of you so often and what you are having to go through day to day.

Well, today is the you know what day...My dreaded trip to the commissary. Jack is coming with for some reason. I have told him repeatedly he doesn't have to, but I am not mentioning it anymore.

Jack and I went to the new open air mall in Collierville yesterday (he had me leave the rest of my housecleaning to get cleaned up and go and I had to come home to it.) He wanted to buy the baby an outfit from Granddad. Here is what he chose. It looks huge in the picture, but it is actually 3-6 month size and the shoes are itty bitty things. We saved about $50 on the whole thing. I can't believe parents have to spend $100 for one outfit for a kid to have nice clothes. This was at the OshKosh store. I would never have been able to afford to buy my kids clothes from these kinds of stores like Gap Baby, Gymboree, Childrens' Place and such. It is sad, really.

Well, I am going to clean out the cat box, wash my hands and put away the dishes from the dishwasher and knit until I can get my socks and shoes on and go out and walk.

YOU GO MAGGIE! I want to see a perfect week of walking for you!!!!

Have a great Sunday all!

Faye