Good morning everyone! I am a little stuffed up from allergies so thought I would just get up. We have to get up and shower and stuff anyway at 5:30 so we can be at the tire place by 7 to get in when the first open. We have the dreaded commissary to do and then to Walmart's to get frozen meals for Jack.

Boy, my hormones have to be totally screwing me up. I was up 2.6 lbs this week. I have stayed on my points and walked everyday. You can actually see where I am losing weight now so I was upset for a bit because I knew I was not doing anything wrong but then told myself that next week would be better. I think one thing is the stupid woman that weighs you. The other woman isn't working there any longer and this woman gives you attitude in her voice when you gain like you committed a crime or something. She says things like, "Um, you are up this week, need to do better." Stuff like that. Irritates the heck out of me, but it is the only convenient place to go and the only day that is really convenient. They are all night meetings and I don't go out at night by myself around here.

Jean: Oh my gosh! I knew something was bad wrong with you. I kept thinking yesterday that you may be really sick. I hope your dr can get you all straightened out and get you to feeling better. We are having beautiful weather here. It was almost 70 yesterday. I even wore sandals!

Maggie: Hope your chili party goes well and you guys enjoy yourselves.

Everyone have a great Saturday and enjoy your day!

Faye

GOOD AFTERNOON MAGNOLIAS

The party was so fun and the food was yummy. Several different kinds and degrees of chili and mine was the favorite. Not too hot but with a tad heat to it and had lots of flavor they say. My mini one point cornbread muffins were a hit also. I only will have to use a few of my flex points today and am glad I have them to spend.

FAYE I know how you feel. With your exercise and being OP with food you should have shown a loss. Our bodies do that to us and we have to not let it get to us (even though we do) because the weight will come off. That weigh in lady should just keep her mouth shut for she can run people off that way. Speak to your leader about her and maybe she will put a stop to it. The scale does not always reflect what our week has been like and we don't need to be told to "do better" when we have done our best. Slap that lady up side the head. Did I say that? Here is a hug for you Let's have a good week my friend. See I am reaching out to you.

JEAN Hope you are doing better this day. Know that I have you in my prayers.

Have a lovely afternoon all.

Good morning ladies! Today is clean the downstairs day so I am opting out of my walk this morning. The NASCAR race is in the mid afternoon today so I want to get finished before then so Jack isn't disturbed. He doesn't mind, but I do.

We had tons of rain yesterday so my house is a mess. We did the commissary and Walmart runs so we tracked in with wet shoes. I have ugly white linoleum so you know what that looks like when you get shoe prints on it.

I am in a crabby mood this morning. I don't know why, just feel like a grump. I am still having hormonal issues as I have a body indicator that always tells me when they are in a tizzy and when they are back to normal. I would say with what is going on, I am still at tizzy level! I told Jack last night to count his lucky stars he is a man and doesn't have to deal with bras and sore breasts! Sheesh!

Jean: I sure hope they get a handle on your infection and soon. I feel for you. Jack bent over the sink yesterday morning to wash his hands and did something to his lower back just standing there. He wore one of those heat wraps all day long. We went out to Walmart's last night to finish up the shopping and bought two more in case it hasn't gone away. It is a more controlled heat than he seems to be able to get with the heating pad or the Ben Gay type creams. They always burn his skin.

Maggie: Glad your chili supper was a rousing success. I may have told you this story, but it is worth repeating. My sil is a quiet man, with a warped and wicked sense of humor. You never see it unless you know him well, though. At one of the places he worked several years ago, his office had a just for fun chili cookoff. Everyone was supposed to make their favorite chili and they had "judges" for the best chili etc. Anyway, my sil comes home and had WON! Unbeknownst to even my dd, Tom had gone to Wendy's and bought a huge number of their cartons of biggy chili and put them in a pot and claimed it as his own! The man thought it uproariously funny that he won having submitted fast food chili! Now anytime I have chili from Wendy's, which I actually like quite a lot and it isn't bad on points for a lunch either, I call it "Tom's" chili.

My little LJ's overalls are done except for picking up stitches and knitting on the straps, putting on the snaps and sewing on the buttons when they get here. I found an adorable blue and tan striped onesie with a little dog on it saying, "Puppy Love" that looks great with it so I think it will be cute. I am not fond of how the thing is made, really, but I hope it will be ok for LJ.

Everyone have a blessed Sunday and if you are having inclement weather, stay warm and dry!

Faye

Good morning ladies! I just did a mile walk, half of it uphill so I am pooped! It is around 40 degrees right now, but supposed to warm up into the upper 60's today, which I will gladly take!

Jean: I hope you are feeling better this morning. I chuckled at your cabin fever. After the kids left home, I worked because I was bored at home. Now, I told Jack on Saturday, I am becoming quite the homebody. I get lonely once in awhile, but for the most part, I enjoy being home and knitting and reading and such. I opted out of Red Hats because I wanted to do more than a once a month luncheon with a bunch of ladies who have their own little cliques and you sit there like a bump on a log. I am pretty outgoing, but when I would talk, I would get ignored or some short answer then they would turn back to each other. To heck with that!!!

Susan: Hope you had a nice time with your quilt retreat and Stan is coming along ok.

Maggie and Gloria: Hope your day is coming along well!!!

I finished the little overalls and they are so cute. I am waiting to post a picture until I get the buttons to put on them and the little shoes I bought to match. I have to find little doggie socks to go with them. On Saturday, at Walmart of all places, I found the perfect little onesie to go under it. It is baby blue and tan striped and on the left corner is a little dog and it says "puppy love." It looks really cute with the overalls. The only thing I don't like is the straps curl because they are stockinette. I pressed them with a steam iron and pressing cloth and even washed them, but they still curl. The ends of the strap curl up too. I hope the buttons are heavy enough to hold them down some.

I am back to knitting on my sweaters. I now have the back done on the peach one and am starting the front today. I want to get it done and maybe wear it to Indiana IF the weather decides it will warm up. It is very cold, snowy and icy up there at the moment.

We had a spectacular weathr weekend, getting into the
70's at one point. We took the car to get the new tires on and were there before they opened. We were the first customers of the day and after 90 minutes, Jack went to see what the holdup was as other customers that came after us were already gone! Well, first off, the idiot that was doing the job didn't read the service order and put the black temporary rims back on with the new tires even though the guy had written to put the new rims that were in the trunk on. The guy doing the job got mad at Jack when he complained! He had the service bay door open and closed it so Jack couldn't see in, so Jack promptly told the manager he wanted the door open so he could see that the guy didn't screw up again. Secondly, the tires they quoted us on the phone, they didn't have but one, then the tires they substituted for the quoted ones, they didn't have, but they never told us and put on Goodyear instead of Hercule tires, which were $20 apiece more. I was ready to go another round with a service guy like I did with the Firestone guy, but he said it was their mistake and he gave us the original quoted tire price. So, now we have new tires and all matching rims and the car looks nice again.

We went out shopping on Saturday night to Walmart's. We rarely go out at night here anymore. I just don't feel comfortable and I don't do it at all by myself unless I am going to someone's house like dd's. It was kind of weird being out at night! I felt like a vampire! We always get our frozen WW and Lean Cuisine there because they have a really good selection and we buy our little WW ice cream treats there too. I only like Diet Pepsi in bottles because I think cans make diet taste weird and I get those at Walmart too because the commissary only has cans. I also have to get my ff soft cream cheese at Walmart's because the commissary nor Kroger's has flavored ff cream cheese. I do wish they had something besides strawberry though. I did buy a light vegetable one and an onion and chive though for a little snack with pretzel sticks or something once in awhile.

Well, I am going to get the front of my sweater started then eat some breakfast! Everyone have a great start to the week!

Faye

Hello, ladies, I'm back from the land of Quilting - and in need of a rest! So you know it was a good time...we went all day, everyday. Classes were also good and I enjoyed everything - and didn't buy hardly anything. Just didn't see anything much I wanted to invest in. Got some applique and quilting needles with big eyes, 2 pair of earrings, a new thimble, and a carry along size of glue baste for my applique. There were 2 booths selling jewlery and one had bins with stuff marked down to $1 so I got 2 rather nice pairs of earrings for $1 each, regularly $6.95 and $9.95!

Faye, could you sew some elastic (without stretching), grossgrain or seam tape to the underside of the straps to keep them from curling?

I didn't do very well sticking with my food plan - it was buffet for lunch or subs, and stuff like that. And I saw a Snickers that just shouted my name on 2 different days...

Really missed my workout so will be glad to go to Curves tonight.

I got the buttons so I sewed them on the overalls and finished it up. I am including a picture of the shoes I bought to go with the outfit. I think they turned out cute.

Good morning ladies! Another day come and gone and a day closer to that baby's birth. We are getting so excited about it and looking forward to seeing the kids in a month.

Jean: Hopefully spring is just around the corner for you. We are having some beautiful spring weather already and I am hoping to get enough gumption to get out today and blow out the remaining fall leaves, spray the deck and set up the patio furniture and bbq grill. My sister is coming down here in three weeks, ugh, and I would like it to be set up. She is a smoker and I won't allow anyone to smoke in my house ever at all. It is bad enough I have to not only strip the sheets she leaves but wash the comforter, pillows etc too from the smoke on her skin. I keep hoping she will decide not to come. It is only for the weekend, but that is all it takes to drive me nuts, nuts, nuts. It is going to be a pain anyway because she is riding down with her dd, sil and granddaughter in their car and they are staying at a hotel with her soccer team. We will have to drive her all over to the hotel, to the soccer game, which is way out in Collierville, etc. I don't know why she couldn't have just stayed at the hotel overnight. I am not sure when they will be here, but Alycia has school so I would imagine they will leave on Friday at the earliest and then go back home on Sunday. Ahh well! I hope your "booboo" is getting better and you are feeling up and at 'em.

Maggie: I am really not a big Walmart fan, but it is the only place to get a good selection of WW, Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice and the like. I hate dealing with the big mess Walmart seems to be and half of them seem so dirty. There is a local northern chain called Meijer's that I like a lot. My dil is a pharmacist for them. They are the size of a Walmart's but better, much better and most of them are a lot cleaner. They also have a very nice bakery, fast food little diner, salad bar stuff, etc.

Susan: Sounds like you had fun even though you seemed to have a Snicker's stalking you! I hope Stan is doing well and feeling better.

I see by the clock it is almost time to get out and walk. I did do a mile yesterday and am going to aim for that again today.

You ladies have a good day.

Faye

We have sunshine! and 60 degrees - maybe winter is moving on finally. Do you realize we change the clocks ahead March 11! Soon we'll be complaining about the heat.

Faye - the picture actually came up on my computer for a change. The shoes and overalls are adorable!

Jean, I hope you get rid of that infection and back on your feet soon - I just hate to think about someone enjoying herself at home when I have to go to work!

So how much snow did you get, Maggie? I don't care if I never see snow again.

Stan has a "bug" - threw up his dinner last night and still felt upset stomach this morning. Or it could be because the renal failure is progressing. Dr. B said that is a symptom.

Social Security has screwed up my pension. I was supposed to get my first check the 14th - guess what, they never got my claim out of the local office. The lady said they would have to processit manually and then she would call me and let me know when to expect a check - that was a week ago and still no call and no check. So we are short on money since I cut back on hours. I have never seen anything as inefficient as a government office.