Good morning ladies! It is crisp here this morning but not freezing. I had to run out with a trash bag in one hand and our new dvd player box in the other for the trash man. I told Jack not to take out the trash today because Monday was a federal holiday and they wouldn't collect today. Of course, they made a liar out of me so here I am in a caftan and hair all over the place trying to catch up to them!

Susan: We will miss you until next week. I can't believe it takes that long to get your work done though. My appt is tomorrow and I have made a list of all the things going on with me and decisions are going to be made. I can't take this any longer. I felt better before I started taking care of myself and going to the doctor for heaven's sake.
Thomas doesn't love all fruits, just specific ones, but I surely could send him some for a gift. He was almost giddy over getting these. His mom had a fit because they are expensive, but I told her we had given him spending money and that is what he bought and the new extension to WII fit. Pretty healthy gifts for himself I would say!

Jean: Jack has been pain free for several days now. I guess the brace thingy the doctor gave him helps a lot and probably the glucosamine may too. He takes two a day. We are so glad you are back safe and sound, but not so glad you had to come back to more snow. I know you have to be looking forward to spring. I am posting a picture I took from our car window about half an hour outside of Chattanooga. Now we left on Friday night and went through this area around 10 pm and there wasn't a bit of any of the ice on the mountain or the trees. This all occurred overnight on Sunday. Luckily, the road wasn't like this.

Selena: It has good omens for you to get married on that date as we have several things in common and I have been married 37 years to a doll. Let's see, my husband's birthday is October 10th, and he is a real peach so a good day to get married, we did the old style of meeting on the internet, snail mail, and got engaged 3 months after meeting in person, a week after Valentine's day (he had duty the weekend of Valentine's Day so had to do it a week later.) I wish you and your future hubby much much happiness. If you are even half as happy as Jack and I you will be blissful! I do so luvvvv Vegas. Ask the girls, I am always talking about when I can go back next. We are going to love having you here with us. We seem to all be on WW so we commisserate together.

I have got to get the upstairs cleaned today. Tomorrow is my dr appt in the afternoon and I take Fortune for his yearly's and grooming tomorrow morning so busy day. Friday is clinic day so I can nothing done that day either. We are going out Friday night and buy a new freezer, just a small one so we don't always have to stuff our refrigerator freezer and not have room enough for everything. I am tired of dealing with that. Then of course, Saturday is commissary day, which you gals all know I love.

The boys ganged up on me on the way home from Chattanooga. Thomas bought himself an Ipod Touch with money he has been saving for quite awhile.It is like the Iphone without the phone basically, anyway he has an "Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader" ap on it and he was playing in the backseat. He asked me a spelling question which I aced and told him I was always a top notch speller in school. His granddad piped up and said, "Yeah, but she stinks in history." I said that I did not that I wasn't too bad in history so of course for smarty pants, that was a challenge, he started shooting US history questions at me, mostly stuff I think he learned this year. Well, I embarrassed myself and Jack just laughed as did Thomas. Of course Jack, who can't spell "cat" right refused to participate in the spelling questions on the game. I did win a million dollars once though! lol


You gals have a wonderful day today. I am going to go and start working on cleaning up the upstairs. Faye

Bringing this back to the top!

Good morning all. Having one of those sleepless nights again so I got up, paid bills and here I am.

Maggie: Good ole Gurney's seed catalogue. They have been around a long time I think. I have never been a gardener, flower or otherwise, mainly because we lived mostly in apartments and I have so many outside allergies. I did plant some beautiful azaleas in front of our townhouse when we lived in base housing in Virginia. Wonder if they are still there and blooming? They used to bloom so beautifully each spring. With all this going on with me, I just have not felt like knitting. It kind of surprises me.

Jean: Oooh, pineapple. I love fresh pineapple, but have a slight allergy to it. My tongue will swell up if I eat very much of it though I do love it. My "trip" laundry is all done and put away and I did get sheets done yesterday. My legs and feet swelled so much I couldn't walk around and clean much. Thank goodness today is my dr appt. I wrote all my bad symptoms down so we can discuss them and I don't forget anything. I am pretty fed up with it I have to tell ya. Hope things are getting back to normal and Ernie is happy his ma and pa are home.

My scruffy doggy goes to the vet today and grooming so will have to take him over after 7 am. Hopefully all is well with him, but he is getting up in years and I want to be sure all is well with him still. He will get all his shots and other tests he gets yearly plus a good bath and grooming which he desperately needs.

Not much else going on here. Like I said, Saturday is grocery day and tomorrow we are going to go and pick up a small freezer to hold overflow, which will be nice.

Have a great Thursday! Faye

Good morning all! I didn't even get in here yesterday to post. We did the commissary thing in the morning, went and got a bite to eat then came back and I had some work to do. I still have lots to get done so when I get finished posting I am going to start on it.

It is great to have enough room now with the small freezer to put everything. Jack eats mostly WW type meals for lunches at work and boxes take up a lot of room. I buy the ww desserts and ice cream as Jack has a real sweet tooth and it keeps him "honest."

I had to go on Thursday afternoon and have ultrasound run on both legs to make sure no blood clots. I am all clear no blockages at all or clots so the dr believes it is from my norvasc, which she said is notorious for causing swelling. It seems to have gone away for the most part, but she had me make an appt for March 1 and if it continues she is going to juggle my meds, otherwise she said to just cancel the appt. I imagine I will cancel as they seem to be back to normal for the most part. It's just sad it had to be so bad when we were in Chattanooga. They are going to do a d and c to remove the polyps. I have to go in on the 11th to discuss the procedure with the gyno who is going to do the procedure. I may then get back to normal. Dr said the weight will come back off gradually now that the hormones are out of my system. At least my bp is really good! All in all, I feel much better than I did. Jack and I had a lot of anxiety over the legs and now that I know what they are going to do for the polyps, I can relax there too knowing it is the least invasive.

I have an appt this afternoon at the eye dr to get new contacts. I am going to go to either bifocals or one distance, one close up. I am going to discuss with her which would be better for me and try out a pair to see how I adjust to them.

Jean: On Thursday, I saw two robins hopping around so I figured spring is on the way for us; one robin a coincidence, two has to be spring! We had temps near 60 yesterday and it was beautiful and sunny. Hopefully, we will have another nice day today. I want to start wearing sandals again! lol Boy, you have gotten slammed this year with cold and snowy weather. Don't you wish you had stayed in Hawaii until spring thaw? I am sure having lived there your whole life, you are used to it, but I just cannot take the cold weather and snow anymore.

Selena: We haven't heard from you! Hope you can post soon.

Everyone have a great weekend. I am off to get some work done. Faye

Good morning to you all! I am now able to sit and type without reading glasses! Hooray! I went yesterday and had my eye exam and now am in bifocal lenses. They are wonderful and she was amazed at how easily my eyes adapted to them. I sat down to put them in and picked up the saline bottle and read the tiny print. She said most can't do it that fast. We also went outside and she asked how my distance was as having bifocal contacts mean you have to sacrifice a bit of clarity either with distance or with close up. I have astigmatism in my left eye only so it always loses a bit of sharpness, but overall they work fine.

Maggie: We haven't been to Red Lobster in quite awhile partly because like Will, Jack doesn't like fish for the most part. He only likes Long John Silver and that is so high in fat you might as well forget the healthier fish choice over something else. He does like Salmon though and will eat scallops and shrimp. I imagine I could put pots out back, but I am afraid the squirrel would go after them. He goes after everything else out there. He is a real pain. I definitely do not have a green thumb though.

Jean: I think Olive Garden is kind of stingy on healthy meals. I usually get the linguine marinara at 7 pts and the pasta fagioli soup, which I think is 2 pt. Sounds like you are going to have yummy pineapple for awhile. Have you guys ever done a cruise?

We are going to shampoo the dining room rug and I am going to get all but my vacuuming and mopping downstairs done today and then finish up tomorrow after the rug dries. I have to put old towels down on the edge of both entrances to the dining room as I always slip coming off the rug until it is dry so no sense in trying to mop and such.

I guess I better tackle morning chores before Jack gets up for breakfast. Have a beautiful Lord's Day gals and talk to you tomorrow! Faye

Good Evening, Flowers! No snow so far today and the sun even came out this afternoon. We spent most of the morning at church and then had a baked potato lunch which was a fund raiser for the Asian ministry we support. I played bells at early service and Bob sang at second service. I made a WM run and have done 2 loads of clothes and read the papers. I sure don't feel very ambitious today. We have 2 water spots on our addition ceiling so Bob went around putting ice melt on the frozen rain gutters. He had to buy a special kind that wouldn't harm the new roof so I hope it works. I really don't want to do a roof repair this spring.
Not much is newsy from my corner of the world.

Maggie -- I've only eaten at Red Lobster once and that was many years ago with a couple of friends who were big RL fans. I do know the biscuits must be yummy because I've heard others talk about them. Talking about finances my BCBS is going up a little over $100 come April. But there is nothing I can do about it and will only have to pay it for 6 months.

"Gma" -- I love Olive Garden and go so rarely that I order what I like and eat light the rest of the day plus the next day. I was so glad to get back to a "real" hamburger -- it seemed like all of the Maui restaurants drizzle different sauces on their 1/2#ers . . . way too much for me to eat and most of the drizzles I didn't care for. We have never done a cruise and after investigating this one, it is in Aug. 2010 which doesn't really interest us. The air fare is extra and if you want a room with a window it is 'bucu' bucks. We enjoy the Gaither shows but not quite that much.

Susan -- We miss you! Hope you are back online SOON!

Selena -- Where are you -- hope we didn't scare you off!

My dryer is buzzing so need to change loads again. Hope you all have a relaxing evening.

Jean -- from Iowa!