Good morning ladies! I have to take Jack to work this morning so I can go to the eye doctor. With what is going on, I am not particularly in the mood, but I am down to my last pair of contacts and have to go.

Gloria: The story of your grandson was priceless. My grandson is a character like that also. I think I told the story of the time my dd was in kindergarten and for show and tell told the class about my husband's vasectomy, telling them that "mommy killed daddy's electric fishies!" I got a phone call about that one! Sounds like you had a lovely time with your family.

Susan: We don't have any kind of contraption with regards to his stent. What is Stan's for? I guess this waiting and not knowing how serious it is causes a lot of angt on my part. I can buck up and stand things when I know what I am facing. It might sound shallow, but one of our huge concerns is if for some reason they find a blockage and can't use a stent and he needs surgery. He would be off work at least 6 weeks and financially we would be in BIG trouble as he doesn't have any kind of disability insurance. He only has 5 days sick time left and the 3 days vacation he is taking to go to Indiana, which we could cancel and that would be it. We would have no pay for the rest of the time. Right now I am just a mess with all this stuff going on at once, the Tricare issue, another financial issue (fight) we are having with a company, the cat and the sneezing issue, the car is acting up, this thing with his heart. I am about ready to go round the bend. I try and remember the Bible saying God won't give us more than we can handle, but I think my pitcher is just about at the top!

Jean: I am wondering if it could be either his cat litter (which is the same brand, but they somehow changed the formula and I wonder if he is having an allergic reaction to it ) or because he has taken to opening the door to the hall closet and going in and sleeping in there on the blankets and has had dust get into his system. The closet is under the stairs and I would imagine anyone climbing up or down would shake dust loose. He has taught himself how to open the darn door so I am going to have to sit something in front of it I guess to keep him out. He has no other symptoms except the occasional sneezing. I checked several cat boards and they all said cats can get colds and they can have allergic reactions to things so I am going to watch him close and if he shows signs of discharge, not eating, drinking, using his litter box, or the board said to watch for hoarse sounding meows too. If he seems lackadaisical I will get him to the vet or if this goes on more than just a few days or seems to get worse.

I need to get my chores done. You ladies have a wonderful day and be good to yourselves.

Faye

Good morning ladies! Looks like another hot one here. It was 100 degrees here yesterday. I kept the car so I could go to the eye doctor and I would get soaked with sweat just going from the car to a building and back to a car again. My eyes are a-ok, no change in my prescription either.

Looks like my kitty is back to being ok. He is not sneezing now so I think whatever he got up his nose, he finally sneezed it out. I have put something in front of the hall closet so he can't open the door anymore. I don't want to be going through this again. One problem solved.

As for this thing with Jack, we can't second guess, all we can do is wait. I have read tons of stuff on bypass and for them to do something that drastic, he would need to have a lot of damage that couldn't be fixed with a stent or involves more than one artery. Since the dr and nurse practitioner indicated it looked like it was in the same artery farther down, it is likely placque broke off somewhere. We will face whatever it is when it happens and until then just relax about it.

I got a notice yesterday that they are moving our mail carriers to a different post office. {{{SIGH}}} They screw up badly enough now without moving them. They said it is to improve service. Well, I guess that may be true because it can't get much worse! Everytime we go on a trip and I stop the mail, they screw it up and don't stop it and I have to go in and fix it. I learned my lesson a couple years ago and so now I stop the mail at least two days early to make sure it is stopped.

Today we are shampooing the dining room carpet. Jack wants to get it done first thing this morning, which is fine by me. I just know it needs to be done.

We went out to dinner last night, which was nice. Went to TGIFridays. It isn't my favorite place, but they have a decent flat iron steak I like and that is what I got. It was nice to just sit and visit kind of away from the animals and phone and everything.

Jean: No, they don't have a sick bank at his work. We have thought about taking on short term disability insurance at his work, though in case this would happen again. He couldn't sign up until October and couldn't use it until after the first of the year and we don't know the cost either. He will just have to try and build it back up, but that will be hard, because after next Thursday, even if they don't find anything serious enough to do anything about, I am sure they will have him come in 3 months out and check him to make sure it hasn't gotten worse. You didn't think I caught the "spic and span if GMA comes to visit," but I did! I truly never notice other people's homes and they don't bother me. I do have to suppress myself from going into like my kid's homes and picking up etc if like T has made a mess or something. It is impulse that I have to slap my hands and say "Bad Faye, very bad Faye." I do it to help out, but I know if someone came in and started doing somehting in my house I would be freaked out that they thought I was dirty so I try to just sit quietly!

Well, I want to go ahead and get morning chores done so we can have breakfast then get the rug done.

Have a great Saturday and have fun!

Faye

Good morning gals! I can sit here and hear the cicadas making noise outside. We have them kind of bad this year and they are such nasty looking bugs. They are so huge! On top of that, I have an ornery squirrel that wreaks havoc on my deck and is braver than the thing should be. I let Fortune out a few days ago and the thing just sat there. I do NOT like any kind of rodents or rodent family and I yelled at Fortune to come back in then finally shooed it up a tree so he could go out.

Boy, yesterday was hot. I went shopping and out to lunch with my dd (without my grandson along ) then came home and Jack and I had to go out and do some shopping ourselves. It is so miserable to step out of the car into the heat then into a cool building then out again, etc. It makes me pretty nauseous so by the time I got home, I was kind of green and miserable.

We finally got two of Jack's PT claims that have been PAID so maybe they finally got the stupid thing straightened out. I don't know if I told you that I contacted the main office regarding the rude woman who called Jack at work, but I got a response from someone and she told me she had forwarded my email to the person responsible for the local office and if I didn't get satisfaction to email her back and she would help me. I haven't heard a word and if I don't I am going to email her. She was a very nice master sergeant in the Air Force.

Nothing much else going on. I am going to get that rug shampooed this morning since I bought another kind of rug cleaner. Jack wants to go over it twice, once with the pet rug cleaner and once with another type of the same brand. It just needs to be removed and replaced, but that is just going to have to wait.

Everyone have a good Sunday.

Faye

Good morning gals! Well, Jack is off to work this morning. He didn't look like he felt too well, but he said he was ok. With this thing coming up, I am now being a worry wart I guess.

We got the dining room carpet finished and it smells so nice in there. We did a full pass with the pet rug shampoo then I bought the same brand in a fiber cleansing that had a nice smell and we reshampooed with it. Now you walk in there and you smell green apple (my airwick air freshners) and not cat or dog. We need to work on getting the living room rug done and then tackle the upstairs again, but it might have to wait awhile with all that is going on.

Jack called his sister yesterday. I tried to talk him out of calling his sister until after we knew what we were looking at with his heart situation. She is a long time cardiac nurse and freaks out every time he calls her about anything to do with his heart. She started talking about flying out (heaven help me left with her for hours) and thank goodness he talked her out of it. She wanted his cardiologist's phone number etc, but Jack dodged that too saying he hadn't given them permission to release info on him. She is the head of the nursing department at her hospital so she has some pull, but she is also one of those people that has to feel superior and this would give her a kick to be able to nose around in his medical records. He got mad at me because he said I told my sisters. I told him that HIS sister has no contact with any of our family so wouldn't have accidently found out, while MY sisters do if my son let it slip to his cousin, who is a close friend AND the son of my sister, who would then contact my other sister and tell her. I said that if I could have kept it quiet until we knew what was going on we would, but I doubted that would have happened. Sheesh, what a mess just to keep up with the family issues.

Jean: That sounds like some house. Think of all the places you could store stuff in THAT house! Before we moved down here, we had to stay with my sister and bil for a week after having to turn over our apartment and they had a security system. We set the darn thing off, when we couldn't get the key pad to take the code. It was horrible and we couldn't get ahold of either of them. The whole neighborhood was being screamed at by this thing. Understated is still in so it doesn't surprise me they went with neutral throughout. I find it boring and my house looks like a rainbow and I don't care. I pick colors that make me feel good and I like. A beige or tan would depress me being in all the rooms. Sorry you didn't get to see the little ones. I emailed Thomas and asked him if he would like to go with us to a pumpkin patch in October. They have one in Hernando Mississippi that has a restaurant, hay rides, petting zoo etc. and thought he might like it.

Well, I have dusting and vacuuming to get done this morning before it gets too hot. Have a great day!

Faye

Good morning, ladies. Stan's procedure went about the way the doctor expected - thank God the infection is still just in his foot an ankle so a below the knee amputation will be done. Waiting to hear about when that is scheduled for. Stan asked him to do it as soon as possible - doesn't want to know anything about it or the prognosis. Turns out Dr. knows head of Stan's home health care and he said he'd get that straightened out - nurse came Saturday full of positive outlook for getting along after the surgery and not more of this "I can heal it" crap. You can see the bone in his heal. It about grossed me out but I can't let him know that. It looks like raw meat in there. He tolerated the procedure well - after he came around again he informed me he wanted to go to Denny's when we got out of there - he slept another hour or so and then they discharged him and we went to Denny's. He ate his food and finished mine. Then I took him home and he slept most of the afternoon and evening.

Faye, I know you are on pins and needles. I'm praying for you and your dh. Stan has a card with the bar codes for all his stents on it that we have to carry at all times and show to any medical person so they know the position of the stents when they are doing anything with him. Maybe it's because they are in his leg? Don't know. Too bad you can't say this is from stress on his job and get workers comp to cover his time off. Usually disability insurance is not very expensive.

Jean, maybe the people think they'll be selling that house in a year or two so kept the decorating subdued? Who knows.

Waiting to see where the Hurricane goes ... we could sure use some rain but I don't want the weekend to be spoiled since it is the last days for Busch Gardens, Water Country, etc. They all go onto weekend only for September since all the kids who work there have returned to college.

Good morning everyone! It is the most humid day so far this year. Jack left his work truck keys and I called his cell and he came back to get them. I walked out to the garage to give them to him in my nightgown and was sweating when I got back to the house. It is awful outside. I thought the rain we had last night was supposed to cool things off, but it made it much much worse. I will definitely be staying indoors today!

Have you ever felt like you are on a merry go round and everyone else on it with you is dumb? I think I have solved one problem and another pops up. On Friday we got another medical authorization from that stupid local Tricare office for Jack to have physical therapy. Now you ladies all know he is all DONE with his PT. Yesterday I got a call from a woman at the SAME PT facility wanting to schedule Jack for his appts! It was not the same woman I usually talk to so I had to go through the WHOLE thing with her about how he has already had all 13 treatments etc. I then contacted a MasterSergeant who had taken my complaint about the local office asking her for help. I haven't heard back from her yet. THEN........last week I mailed in Jack's new prescriptions and the forms they require to fill them to Express Scripts, which is the mailorder place Tricare uses. I checked yesterday to see if they had gotten them and started to fill them because Jack is out of one of the meds. Well, yes and no! They were filling three and the other one was no where to be found. I contacted them by email asking where it was because all 4 were in the same envelope! I used the order number, gave them as much information as I could and got an email back they needed to know more information! GRRRRRRRR! Will it never stop????? The hospital did call and pre-register Jack on the phone last night for his hospital visit, so at least that was done correctly. We also got our co-pay refunded on his stress test as I am assuming you don't pay a co-pay for the procedure.

I got my South Beach book yesterday. I can follow the thing fine, but I am going to have to get some other recipes because I hate asparagus, I don't like salmon and a few other things in the Phase I recipes included in the book. I will hunt some out here to replace. I may sneak some of these past Jack, but the truth is, I am not going go be able to get him to go on Phase I because he won't give up all the carbs and he eats a limited amount of veggies so he would be repeating them constantly. I will work it all out so he eats healthy and starts dropping lbs again and so do I. He made a promise to me that he will start getting on the treadmill on Friday night, Sat and Sunday, which is fine by me. If he would do that for half an hour each of those days it would work out fine. There is no sense trying to do this until we get back from Indiana though.

Jean: Actually, I don't think the carpets get dirtier faster. It is more the smell we continually keep after. My dd's dog lived her a couple years and peed all over the place and of course, though we shampoo our dog can still smell it and will occasionally decide he is going to go in the same spot. The only time we have a problem is when the heat of the day really comes in the windows in the dining room. We clean the carpets about every 3 months religiously to keep them from getting dirt ground in. Jack takes his shoes off right after getting in the house and we don't wear shoes in the house so it is all pet stuff. Vomit is a pistol to get out of carpets even with my good spot remover. It stains until I can get it shampooed. I am thinking about buying one of the handheld style of my machine to do spot cleaning. Lord have mercy, if my sil lived anywhere near me I would have to kill myself! I must say though, that when they came through here a couple months ago she came through the door and gave me a big hug and told me how glad she was to see me as did her husband. I about fell over! She has always disliked me because I took her brother away AND I had the first grandchild AND her father and I were really really close. In other words, she was horribly jealous and for no reason. Of course, my siblings are no prize either. They are totally self absorbed.

Susan: I am so sorry Stan had to go through this mess again not to have it come out well. I agree with him. Get it done asap so he can get on to getting completely well. It is great that he seems to be eating well though. I have a ??? about South Beach. The recipes don't give portions for like meat servings that aren't part of a recipe. Should I stick to the 4-6 oz rule or what?

I hear that the washer is finished so need to go stick stuff in the dryer. Have a wonderful Tuesday girls!

Faye

Faye, SB is eat until you are satisfied, not full so I start with 4-6 ounces of meat. If I'm still hungry (seldom) I'll have a few bites more. I love veggies but this wasn't always the case. I used to be corn, peas, carrots, green beans and iceberg lettuce. WW taught me to eat a wide variety of food and now I love all of them except artichoke hearts.

I like the newest SB cookbook a lot better - 30 minute recipes and they are simple and more like I cook. I find a lot of recipes in Light and Tasty and you can get them on their website. You can also get them at Kraft website and a free recipe magazine that comes out quarterly. It's well worth signing up for. Kraft has a SB section, too.

Jean, I couldn't stand not having something in my hands if I had to sit with those kids. I always have something - usually quilting or applique - going when I am sitting.

Good morning ladies! It is a bit cooler this morning and not so humid, which is nice. Yesterday was awful. Jack came home looking like a limp dish rag. I ask him if he was unwell and he said no, just hot and sticky. He took a shower before we even had dinner.

Susan: Thanks for the info. There are veggies I really dislike like asparagus and squash, but I like most of them. That won't be a problem. I found some good recipes here at the site for breakfast and stuff. Do YOU eat regular eggs or egg beaters? I just noticed there was a lot of eggs on the phase I and wondered about cholesterol in them.

Jean: I can top that. We have bike or walking accidents where the person is BLACK and then wears all dark clothes. I have come close to hitting a couple crossing the street walking in all black in the dark. You absolutely can't see them until you get on top of them. It is a total lack of common sense. Did you get the new Penney's fall catalogue? It has some good stuff in it. I got my bedding on sale and I noticed they have it about $50 less than that now! I want to order a pair of roman shades for our bedroom to compliment the new bedding. They have a red and gold striped that will be perfect in there. I just have to get Jack to do the measuring so I can order them. I have until December though and with the hospital stuff, I just need to concentrate on that for the moment.

Well, we will know tomorrow what is going on if anything with Jack. I just want to get it over with so we know what is going on. It is tough waiting. I talked to my sister yesterday and a lady that we worked with at the law firm has a husband who only has a 10% working heart!! He refuses to go on the transplant list because he is having to work consultant and if they find out about this, he won't be offered a permanent position so they won't have any insurance. I told my sister you can always find someone worse off than you and be thankful for what you do have.

I need to get going and get my bathrooms started and the upstairs dusting done. Have a great day today!

Faye

Faye, I alternate eggs, oatmeal, and cottage cheese for my breakfasts although you can eat anything for breakfast. I had some leftover ham and sliced tomatoes for breakfast this morning. I like 3/4 cup lowfat cottage cheese + 1 T. chopped walnuts and 1/2 cup diced celery - tastes like waldorf salad. When I use eggs, I use 1 whole egg and 2 egg whites, either scrambled or over easy. Since I'm on phase 2, I can also have oatmeal which I make with skim milk and chopped walnuts and a few blueberries - YUM!

Still waiting to hear when my husband's surgery might be. Talked with the doctor yesterday and he said they were getting it scheduled. It's really starting to depress me that he has to go through all this after he's been through so much. Hopefully this will get him back on his feet and enjoying life again.

We're finally getting some rain - off and on since last night. Expecting it to keep up all weekend but since we are having a drought it's needed.

Do any of you do Suduko puzzles? I love them. Keeps me busy.