G'day all,

For me there has been good news and my liver function appears to returning back to normal. My doctor says that she understands my anxiety but there really is nothing to worry about. I also went to a naturopath and he more or less confirmed what the doctor said. He also suggested a very strict eating plan, no meat, chicken or dairy foods and only fish twice a week. He makes a distinction between alkaline and acid foods, we should have 80% alkaline foods (mostly pretty boring stuff) and 20% acid foods. It makes sense what he says and I will certainly take his advice in account however I cannot see myself eat a platefull of vegetables every meal!!!!
I am feeling very much better which is a great relieve.
My gum is healing nicely where the tooth was removed, only now causing slight discomfort.
I doubt if I will go for an implant, the cost is quite ridiculous and the removed tooth was right at the back of my mouth. I prefer to spend the money on the teeth that can be seen!!!

I was sad to receive Slavika's email this morning with her news. After such a great holiday it must be very hard to cope with this latest turn of events on returning home.
A lot of these inspirational type presentations I find a bit over the top but the one this morning that Slavika received from her brother is a definite keeper, quite beautiful.

Take care all,

Cheers
Maria

I agree Trudy...I will try and modify my diet somewhat but going totally vegetarian or more correctly to a vegan type of eating is a little bit too much.
I am not the world's best cook and it has taken me 61 years to get to this level of expertise and now I have to change it all again

I like the bellydance you did for Glenda and Gloria's birthdays

I have never been a'camping' type of person but I am really looking forward to getting away from everything for a few months.
I am so pleased I am feeling so much better and the added bonus has been that I have lost a bit of weight and fingers crossed this will continue.

Cheers
Maria

Slavika you sound much better . Am glad you have your head on straight now and can focus on being a positive influence for your DH. You can count on us to listen when youm need to vent!

Maria I glad you are better and that you have no real trouble with your liver. I agree on the new diet thing yuck. I know I could never eat like a vegan and I truly hate fish. Am going to go call my Mom . Talk to you all later

Back to the lamb. We are both fond of lamb and a restaurant we go to often has lamb shank. Very good and I get lamb shoulder chops. The last ones I got came from Australia. A good leg of lamb is very expensive for just the two of us, so we go along with the substitutes.

Belated happy birthday to you gals.

Maria: I'm so glad that your problem is better and that you will be aable to enjoy your vacation/camping trip. I amde a similaar decision about a back tooth I had to have pulled. And I still am able to chew etc, okay. I think I could be a vegetarian without too much trouble. but since DH loves his meat, I would find it harder, always cooking two meals.

Slavika: you are sounding more upbeat in a most difficult situation. I'm glad for both of you that you can work together as before. Great support for each other, and somehow I have always felt that women are the stronger sex. That's why we are the ones who give birth. So you will be strong for your David. And of course we will all be there for you the best we can, long distance.

Karen: Hope things are going well for your Mom. How are you doing? I want to get back to WW but I have had to miss 4 Sat. in a row, because of other committments, and this week too. So I have been very lax and have gained. So of course, phychologically I don't want to go back and admit I have fallen back to my old ways. It sure does get frustrating.

See you all later. Ann

Slavika, when you start making jokes and being more yourself, we all know you have had time to process this latest development. I have a theory--it is that most of us cannot stay in that strained, scared, miserable state for long because we get too tired and we start thinking about getting there from here. Glad your son took him out for lunch and you lost FOUR POUNDS! WOW! Your family in the Easter play made such a memory!

Maria, I am so happy for you! You are right--after you have had bad news, you always are more gloomy about tests "at your age." I am vegetarian, not vegan. I think that would be very, very hard, because I love dairy and eggs. I actually love the fake bacon and fake corndogs, etc. I even love veggie burgers, actually better than the real kind because I know they aren't flesh. I am weird, but enjoying this.

Regarding my son and his roof, it wasn't from a tornado, but from his sawing on a huge tree in his backyard. We are still in a burn ban, so it hasn't rained nearly enough. And my awful face: went back at 12 weeks and agreed with the lady to go 6 more weeks. I have 3 more after this week. I am so tired of red, scaley skin, but inbetween the cycles I see a huge difference, I think. Don't know I would have done this at the outset if I had known 18 weeks.

Karen, you are getting back into things, I know. Your blue fairy was beautiful.

I couldn't sleep last night, but I sure could now. it is now 2:30--at 5 I will crash.

Be good and keep smiling. Maria, how much have you lost?

G'day all,

Still sitting here in my pijamas at 11.30 am!
I am about to have a shower and get ready to go to see some friends down the coast, about 1 hour drive.
these friends were supposed to have come with us on our trip but they cannot leave when we leave and we cannot when they do!!!!! so hopefully we catch up with them somewhere up North. We will discussing our likely route. We have radio contact and we also have a satelite phone for emergencies.
Next week will be our last week home, dh has to go to Sydney for 3 days, I have doctors, dentist, hair appointments
It will be pretty full on next week. We really don't go out that much but next week we are out Fridaynight, Saturdaynight and off to a 60th breakfast on Sunday morning.
I will be glad when we finally hit the road on Monday.

Glenda that is a long time with this face peel, no turning back now, I am sure it will be worth it.
By the way, I have lost a little over 5 pounds these past few weeks.

I am a bit like you Ann, I could quite easily be vegetarian, I eat little meat but my dh also loves his meat. Lamb shanks are pretty cheap here however short loin chops are very expensive and of course, our favourite We often have a roast leg of lamb with heaps of roast veggies, the kids always look forward to coming for a roast at least once a forthnight.

Off to have my shower,

Have a great weekend all,
Cheers
Maria

Well my chairmanship of our Hoe Down evening is over and I am recuperating. It did turn out to be a success, and everyone had a good time. There were about 6 of us that made potaato salad, cole slaw and beans for 158. We purchased the ribs and chicken. And volunteers made cakes. It was sort of like a dinner theater, and the 'actors' did a lot of funny stuff, and sang and just generally had a fun time. We did it to raise money for a local charity called Adopt a Nursing Home, inc. They do all sorts of things for the nursing homes and assisted living facilities around here. Take ambulatory patients to shows, and that sort of stuff. do gospel sings in the facilities, provide craft materials over and above what the facility provides, and also gives Christmas gifts. Quite a worthy cause. I am happy to say that we could give them $600 and we still cleared all of our expenses with a very little left over.

Maria: I am so glad you are feeling better and that your Dr. assures you it was not something to be overly concerned about. I hope your camping trip will be most enjoyable for you both. I imagine you will have some awesome pictures. Will you be able to have any email contact, or are you going to be in the 'boonies' where that is not possible? We don't get the small loin chops, they are too expensive here too. But we do get shoulder chops and they are good.

Karen: Loved your 'Blue fairy" For some reason the email didn't get to me, but I was able to see it in one of the replies.

Slavika: Congrats on the #4. lost. I hope I can get back into the swing of things and regain some lost ground. I have just not cared the last few weeks. And since I have had ankle problems I can't walk and that has make a big difference.

Glenda: I hope you will be truly satisfied with your facial treatments when they are all over and done. You have had quite some sessions. We ginally got rain today, and yesterday, and also on Friday. I was at the Cancer Relay function on Friday and thought the Survivor walk was going to get rained out, but by the time we finished with dinner it had cleared and the program went off as scheduled. I sold my daughters Bracelet of Hope and Survivor bracelets and did quite well for her and the American Cancer Society. It was a fun experience.

Gloria: I was reading about your DH and his love of kids. Mine too, and when we go out to eat he is always wanting to talk to kids. One time a little girl said to him. 'I'm not allowed to talk to strangers". We felt sad that they just couldn't have a little fun. The world we live in is a hard place to raise kids.

Peggy: I suppose that it is back to school now for the last few weeks. I always looked forward to summer vacation time, for sure.

Trudy: Hope you and your DH are both feeling better.

I am still tired from the weekend, and so will say goodnight for now. Ann

Hi Everybody.....we have had all this "talk" in our emails about clotheslines and I recalled something that happened when I was abour 9 years old I think. My Mother of course had a clothesline like everybody else in the area and I remember her bringing in the clothes in the winter and they would just be stiff from the cold. The clothesline we had was a metal line, actually two lines that worked on this round kind of pulley thingee. One very very cold day my Mother asked me to bring in a few things from the line for her. I went out to get them, and GEEZ I don't know why I got this stupid idea but I wondered if I put my tongue on the metal line if it would stick. Now gals ........picture this. I'm only nine and can barely reach up to take the clothes pins off the clothes and in order to get my tongue on the metal line I had to stand on my tippy toes and really strain and stick my tongue out as far as I could for it to reach the line...BUT I managed. Of course I started to panic almost immediately because when I "tried" to get my tongue off the line I quickly realized it was really STUCK. I still have the cold damp clothes in my arms, I'm still on my tippy toes, I'm starting to get really cold, my tongue is stuck and I can't yell for help. Finally I just "PULLED" my tongue off the line leaving parts of it stuck to the line. I think I talked like I had a speech impediment for about a`week. My Mother was so mad at me and I kept saying "I'm tho thorry ". LOL LOL I guess she knew how much it hurt because years later she told me stuck her tongue on a metal gate.
Memories.......

Slavika Like Mother Like Daughter?

Slavika, what a memory! So, you were one of "those" kids who had to learn the hard way. I always just cringed when I heard those stories. I am just so happy not to have to contend with the wind, dirt, and wet clothes!

Ann, this show sounded like a lot of fun. You are always through with a chairmanship of something just smack in time to do another. And what a great cause. Years ago when I volunteered for Hospice I was saddened by the nursing homes and the patients who had no one to care for them.

We had a weekend with one day of babysitting the little boys, Austin and Jackson. Sort of an emergency--their parents had a chance to make some money on Saturday. Anyway, the littlest guy is such a "Paw-Paw" boy. When I walk in, he just stops short and insistently asks for "Paw-Paw." Then he plays more with me. Never have understood that. We had a Sunday in which we rested. DH then got ready for his new shed. Getting rid of the old one was a job. And what a bunch of junk we had to throw away! Anyway, in months of a drought, the one day he was waiting for the shed, we had a downpour, but he got the shed in before it got too muddy. Last night my highschool friends from my hometown actually looked out the window and saw a real tornado pretty close. It blew away the some of the airport. I didn't even know they had an airport. Anyway, Oklahoma had some fiece weather. Guess not getting a perfect day for the shed wasn't so important afterall.

Maria, good for you with the 5 pounds. I think I have lost some too. The pants I am wearing today could come off without unzipping. But I haven't weighed and don't plan to. I sure hope you will have access to us occasionally.

Got to go. I am going to walk around the lake with a friend. We might freeze to death. A week ago it was 102 degrees. Go figure!
Glenda

Where are you guys? Are you all planning a big weekend?
Glenda

G'day everyone,

This will be my last post for a while.
Thank you all for your good wishes for our trip, I just cannot wait to just get going after it being just a plan for so long.

Today is Matilda's first birthday, I cannot believe that it is already a year, it has passed so quickly.

We are going for a bit of a birthday party this afternoon.
Tomorrow morning a 60th celebration for breakfast at the Hilton Hotel and then packing all the last minute things for a reasonably early start on Monday.

Stay happy and well all, you will be in my thoughts as we watch the sunsets in the desert.

Cheers
Maria

Good Morning!

It is cool and very rainy today and possibly for the next few days. Doesn't seem like May!

Maria must be off on her trek across Austrailia. I hope she has great weather, clear roads and a great time.

Not much going on in my neck of the woods, just the same ol' laundry, cooking and cleaning. With the gas prices soaring I doubt we get to do much traveling this summer but maybe just a time or two at the beach. I don't believe we will be spending the 4th of July at my friends place on the Cape as she is still recuperating from her stroke and this week had a bladder infection and when she took meds for it she broke out in blotches and then a high fever. They had to call 911 to get her to the hospital and is now in a nursing home til she is strong enough to get on her feet. It is tough on her husband as he spends all day with her and then home, alone, for the night.

No one has posted for the last few days so I hope that means you have all been so busy with your lives.

Gloria