[annie175]

LAURA...nothing wrong with her heart or any other part. Just simply her heart quit beating. Probably she went up and we are the left behind...lol I mean it was the day before the prediction.....Yikes.

[diyana]

Laura - I actually did get a good night's sleep. Took a couple Nyquil and went to bed early. Slept right through until my alarm went off at 6 am. That's good about your friend...meeting people, yet taking things slowly. There's really not much of a draw to the Inland Empire, so I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it. The only draws that area has for me is that's where my sister and her husband, and my grown nieces and nephew live, and it's less expensive than Silicon Valley or San Diego. I think I'll probably rent Django. i did like the movie Inglorius Basterds. As for an immersion blender...I bought one on sale to make smoothies....and it's still in the box unopened and unused. I use my regular blender for smoothies.

[annie175]

Here is the management update:

We are the right size office for our needs for 2013. There will be no more lay offs this year. My thought: well yeah, we are all doing 3 to 5 positions at the moment. Who would do another 3 or 4, we cannot. Thank you, I guess.....

We have to be out of this building and suite by Jan 31st, so get rid of everything we can by then so the move to the TEMPORARY office will be less...What a temporary office you say? Yes, we could not find a suitable place in the past 18 mos. (as the Michigan managment dropped the ball) and did not give the Louisville office enough time to deal with it. (6 mos). OK...Right, too much to even think about...equipment, computers, phones, email, agents, brokers, sold groups. OMG...talk about stress for the next couple of months.

Cut all spending down, really, are you kidding? We are working with less than the homeless people...Sorry ladies...but thanks to Obamacare, 2014 will even be worse for those employed...especially health insurance companies. I will be the homeless person on the corner begging.

On a brighter note..yes, I still have a job, at least through 2013. We got a great free lunch from management at a nice establishment.

Sorry if I sound negative...but I have suffered enough of the CRAP I am dealt from the govt.

Goodnight from me and Sassy...xoxo

[annie175]

On a further note: CMA Awards.....I am sick, sick, sick, of Taylor Swift and all her Oh Whoa is me, lost in love cause I am an idiot...gets an award....puke...just IMO....sorry if it offends....

[happy2bme]

Howdy peeps,

Sorry I didn't get in here. Yesterday we went up to Duluth to see the specialist. DH liked him alot. He concurred with the original cardiologist - namely that DH has a strong heart in excellent condition. He does have atrial fibrulation but it is not a danger to him for now. If he choses to do anything, it is a personal choice. For now they will increase the dose on the palpitation medicine to see if that helps. I told him that the next step - ablation - is very invasive and he needs to think long and hard about whether he wants to do that. They run a catherer in your leg artery up to the heart and basically electric shock the heart to kill heart muscle and create scar tissue. DH's problem is all electrical and apparently scar tissue will not conduct electricity. I guess it's the one time scar tissue is a good thing. We left there and he was relieved so it's a good thing.

While up there I wanted to stop for an early dinner. There are chain restaurants they have up there which is a nice change of pace from our usual fair up this way. We went to Applebees - eatin' good in the neighborhood - just like our house for the animals I had the bbq ribs (totally FORGETTING that I just bought some ribs to make for dinner this week) and DH had steak and shrimp. We both enjoyed our meal. Took a walk around the mall - nothing of much interest there - I was hoping to find something to use my gift card I received my my boss at the popcorn shop. I just picked up a small candle on clearance at Bath and Bodyworks but paid cash for that.

Got a call from the boss - I will be working the next 3 days straight Been a change in the other girl's schedules so we had to switch some things around. Pretty soon going to be just me and the boss. Since I will be working the next 3 days I tried to get some things done around here - a bit of cleaning, some laundry and I did get a bunch of great recipes from the heart clinic yesterday - they had a special display. I will share with Sis so we can set Mom up with some good stuff and change of pace easy meals. They are heart healthy so good for us to eat too. I find that WW requires alot of up front planning to be successful. I need to add some discipline back into my life this year.

Annie - I was watching the People's Choice awards tonight too and was disappointed that Taylor Swift won also. I chalk it up to the public's skewed views of what they think is interesting. And at 23 dating an 18 year old boy, she is now creepy and desperate. I'm sorry about all the changes at the office - that is the new corporate America now - you do 5 people's jobs before they figure out how to send your job overseas. As for Obamacare, I'm not sure how a good concept went so terribly bad. I am paying a FORTUNE for health insurance, and even after paying that, I pay 30 to 50 percent of the cost of my health care bills. And I hear that companies will be dumping health coverage for their employees, the first wave being the retirees in 2014. I think they want us all to get sick and die off early. But if that happens who will take care of the seniors and the baby birds who never learned to grow up? It sounds like your job is going to be horribly stressful as the months roll by. I can't help but wonder how much management bonuses will be while the working stiffs get by with less than the bare minimum. Be glad you have heat and an indoor toilet missy You were probably better off at CVS - just that you can't make enough money to live in at a job like that. I really don't know what the answer is any more I guess you get numb, go in, do what you have to and run out of there and try to relax and with the good things in your home life. That's very sad about your niece but in cases like this, I have to believe that there is a plan for everyone and sad as it is, your niece was done doing what she needed to do here and so she moved on to the next "part" of life. My Mom has one of those high toilets. We call it the throne and I actually love it. She hates it. Of course she's 4 foot 9 so maybe it's too high for her but I think it's way better on the back and legs. Hope your Dad will like it, especially since guys tend to use it for longer periods than we do.

Michelle - glad you got a good sleep - Nyquil is good for that. I didn't realize until I looked at 2 bottles side by side that they have 2 kinds - one for coughing, one for cold and flu. Both are wonderful at knocking you out for a good sleep. Sounds like you have a couple of options for relocating out west. Never been to SD but I hear it's gorgeous. Great weather. Expensive though, but where in CA is it cheap? Guess availability of work would be one of my biggest decision factors as you can't do much of anything else if that one falls through. Are you going to have to wean Santa off his playmates one day as you get closer to moving? Kind of hard to explain to a pup why things are suddenly different.

Laura - let us know how the pickles and sausage comes out. There had heart friendly recipes for both of those items believe it or not. I might just have to try them. I have an immersion blender - bought it 100 years ago when I was doing Slim Fast/Carnation Instant Breakfast at work and it was great for getting all that powder blended well into the milk. I do like it alot for cooking. It stirs things fast but is not a substitute for a blender. I use it to blend soft foods like my homemade cream of broccoli soup but anything with hard bits like shredded carrot it won't blend too well. So it would be good for the soup puree you mentioned. I also have a special salad dressing made with oil, vinegar and sugar and a few other things for a strawberry spinach salad I make. I usually do it in the blender but it's really hard to get the gooey dressing out of the blender cup so I tried using the immersion blender. It did ok, but does not blend the oil in as well as a blender would do. You could do a smoothie in it, provided you didn't use any ice chunks. I still think it was a good investment. While we were at the library the other day I picked up the book Room and started reading it while waiting for DH at the doctor. It does kind of grab you. We'll have to have a book discussion. One of the recipes the dietician made yesterday was sloppy joes with lentils. I tried some and it was really good. I've never had lentils before. Will have to start cooking with them. Everyone who saw the movie D'jango seems to like it alot. Hasn't come up this way yet.

Ceejay - hope you didn't get that much rain today. 3 to 6 inches is an awful lot. The approaching storm could also be affecting your arm with aches and pains. How about just soaking away your aches in a nice warm bath with some epsom salts? I'm partial to eucalyptus myself for the aches. Sometimes an electric blanket on low helps you feel better too.

Mel - Great Caesar's Ghost??? Shades of Superman. But then again, you ARE super girl. I would like to whack people who are sick going out in public - there is so much flu going around. However, in the work world, you are expected to show up no matter what so that doesn't help everyone else. Sorry your finger has a boo boo. Are you shooting the bird at people again? Or just the darn paperwork? When will you get your new chair? DH could have used the recline feature when he was upside down installing some glass racks in the dry bar the other day. It was a killer on the back. Are there some pads on the legs though? It looked like those bars in the picture might get uncomfortable.

Shad - hope your day wasn't too miserable. Funny and true about the attitude and personality quote. You can start the day with the best of intentions and then some idiot comes along and stuffs it up.

Hello other worldies

Even though I took a little nap today - did not do anything for my headache, I still need to get a few hours of sleep in as tomorrow is an early rise day. I did get an appointment with the podiatrist, but not until the 21st. I'm hoping I can pull up a stool at work and sit for a while. Might work on the website a bit or take some pictures for page updates.

Anyway, probably won't get here in the morning so have a good one all. Night night.

[annie175]

HAPPY...I think Obama makes lovely speeches. As for Obamacare, it sounded good however many did not delve deep enough into what was all involved. Therefore, we got what sounded lovely....too many people jump on bandwagons without first investigating the situation thoroughly, I probably would have too, however working for an insurance company, we got down to the nitty gritty of things as management made sure we were aware of it all.

Did you also know that if you check into some of his bills he is proposing, one of the things he wants to do away with is our mortgage exemption on our taxes. SHOOT ME NOW. If you don't have a bazillion kids and head of household on your taxes, look for a major screwing.

If I had the body, I would wear a bikini on the beach and sell hotdogs from a food wagon.

Good morning my worldlie friends....guess I had better come back with a better attitude...later gators

[MELODY525]

GOOD MORNING CHICKS.
OUR PROMISED WEATHER IS NOTHING TO BRAG ABOUT.
THE TEMPS WERE MILDER BUT NOT LIKE THEY FIRST PREDICTED.
FIRST...THE FINGER COULD BE MILD GOUT.
IT'S PASSING AGAIN BUT NEXT TIME THE DR WANTS A URINE TEST.
SECOND...THOSE FOOTRESTS DEPICTED WILL NOT BE ON MY CHAIR.
THEY ARE MOTORIZED AND WOULD GET IN MY WAY WHEN I TRANSFER.
MY FOOT RESTS WILL BE SMALLER AND MANUAL.
I ONLY USE THEM WHEN I GO TO THE DOCTOR'S OR THE MALL.
CAN'T USE THEM FOR SHOPPING CAUSE THEY KEEP ME TOO FAR AWAY FROM THE SHOPPING CART.
DON'T USE THEM IN THE BUILDING CAUSE THEY GET IN THE WAY FOR TURNING IN OFFICES AND MY OWN APT.

LAST NIGHT WAS ONE ANNOYING DOORBELL AFTER ANOTHER.
I SWEAR THERE MUST HAVE BEEN 10 IN LESS THAN 2 HOURS.
JUMPED ALL OVER MY BOSS ON THE PHONE.
THEN HAD TO CALL BACK AND APOLOGIZE.
SHE DID TOO. SO I GUESS WE'RE EVEN.
NO ONE WANTS TO WORK HERE ANYMORE.
SAD THAT THEY CANNOT SEE THEY BROUGHT THIS ON THEMSELVES.
OH WELL.
I LOVE MY APARTMENT MORE EVERY DAY





HAPPY.....I LOVE YOUR BIRDIE! HE IS ADORABLE.
I FORGOT TO SAY THAT YESTERDAY.
I AM GLAD DH FEELS BETTER AFTER THE VISIT.
HE GOT MORE INFO THAN I DID. LOL
I HOPE THE MEDS AND A GOOD DR WILL HELP HIM FEEL MORE AT EASE.
TOUGH SITUATION TO BE IN WHEN IT COMES ON.
LUNCH AND SHOPPING....SOUNDS GOOD TO ME.
HOPE 3 DAYS OF WORK FLIES BY.
EVEN THOUGH IT WAS FOR THE DR VISIT,
I AM GLAD YOU BOTH GOT OUT FOR THE DAY TOGETHER.






ANNIE.....NOT SURE JUST WHAT THAT FINGER IS DOING IN MY SLEEP
I AM EMBARASSED TO ADMIT THIS....
BUT I DON'T REMEMBER YOUR NIECE PASSING AWAY???
I AM VERY SORRY TO HEAR THAT.
SHE WAS SO YOUNG AND NATURAL CAUSES??? OMG.
SORRY ABOUT THE MOVING OF THE JOB TOO.
GOING TO BE A BIG PAIN I AM SURE.
THANK GOD THE JOB IS STABLE FOR ANOTHER YEAR.
JUST KEEP SMILING IN LOUISVILLE'S DIRECTION!!!




CEEJAY....GOOD LUCK NEXT WEEK WITH THE OTHER DOCTOR.
HOPE HE CAN SEE WHAT'S GOING ON WITH THE LEFT ARM.
HOPE IT FEELS BETTER TODAY. DIDN'T THE PILLS HELP??
YES....GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST WAS FROM SUPERMAN'S BOSS
REMEMBER THE OLD BLACK AND WHITE SHOWS?
I LOVED THEM.





LAURA...MAYBE WE SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE ORNAMENTS UP.
AFTER ALL WE'LL ONLY NEED THEM AGAIN IN 348 DAYS!!
GOOD IDEA ON THE IMMERSION BLENDER.
I CAN'T SEE MYSELF LOADING IT ALL INTO ANOTHER BLENDER EITHER
TOO RIGHT ABOUT YOUR SHOULDER VS THE BAGS.
BUT THEN NEITHER BAG IS GOOD FOR THAT SIDE.
I'LL JUST HAVE TO COME AND STAY WITH YOU FOR AWHILE.
I'LL BE THE BAG CARRIER.





MICHELLE....SO GLAD TO HEAR YOUR SESSION WENT SO WELL.
EVEN BETTER THAT YOUR HEAD IS THINKING OF MICHELLE FOR A CHANGE.
WE GET TOO USED TO CATERING TO OTHERS & TRYING TO MAKE THEM HAPPY.

[MELODY525]

THERE YA GO ANNIE...NOW START SELLING!!!
WE NEED MONEY TO BUY THE COMMUNE!

[annie175]

MELLIE...If I looked like that, I would definitely do it...GREAT PICTURE!!

[annie175]

Thanks to the new tax tables...and the government (Demos and Repubs) my paycheck is now 38 dollars LESS each pay....Poke me in the eye with a stick.

[Karen3]

Good morning Happy...just had to tell you that I am scheduled for a transesophageal echocardiogram tomorrow at 8am and if there are no clots a cardioversion for my Afib. I'll pm you what it's like and stuff. I am a Golden Girl on 3FC. k3

[happy2bme]

Morning chicks,

I just have to comment that I am amazed (although I shouldn't be) at Mel's ability to find a picture about just about anything Love the hot dog cart picture. Not a single part of me from head to toe that would match anything in that picture now so I'll just hid UNDER the cart and fetch supplies and connect the propane tank

It's funny that you say that Annie - about the cart. A bazillion years ago DH and I got the opportunity to go to Santa Monica - I was at a conference and we stayed at an amazing hotel right on the beach. We went for walks in the evening and of course wound up at the famous Santa Monica boardwalk/pier. To this day I remember telling DH that we should sell everything we have and open up a small hamburger stand on the pier. Perhaps that's part of the American DREAM - right up there with selling everything, buying a big RV (mobile home) and spending the rest of your life touring the country and seeing all there is to see.

Also regarding Obamacare, I remember reading right after they starting talking about it that companies would eventually use it as an opportunity to save themselves money and drop insurance as a benefit altogether. I remember that specifically because each year my company was jacking up our premiums higher and higher. One of the benefits ladies inadvertently showed me some numbers as we were having a discussion and I noticed that we were paying almost 60 percent of the total cost of our health insurance premiums. A friend at work and I both had Blue Cross insurance. I took mine through work, she was on her husband's policy - he worked for a major drug manufacturer (the legal kind ) We had exactly the same coverage - family policy, same deductible - what I was paying well over $600 a month for - she was paying just slightly over $200 for. Companies are crying now that they will be forced to provide insurance for those employees who opted not to take it. To that I say B.S. I have never known anyone who totally opted OUT of health insurance altogether. I do know alot of people like myself who were married and compared rates and went with the partner who had the best insurance at the best price - which for us was generally sticking with IBM's coverage for DH. For the better part of 25 years, I didn't cost my employer anything. They pocketed that extra money they didn't spend on premiums for me, never gave me anything and now that they have to pay, they are moaning about it. At one time at IBM they'd actually give you a small stipend if you declined your benefits. Sorry to seem like a whiner but - yes I am cynical, because I got to see how they squeezed blood out of us turnip worker bees yet found the money to be overly extravagent with the so called "management" staff. Obamacare started out as a response to people who had no insurance and used the costly hospital emergency rooms as their "doctor" and now the way it's going down, I think that's exactly what's it's going to drive people to. I know we won't be able to afford these ridiculous rates we are paying for much longer. I think we are slowly turning into a third world country

Mel - for a minute I thought you might have dug out the pencils and did a quick sketch for Annie That makes alot of sense with changing the footrests on the chair. You want the best mobility you can get living in a world that many times is not too accomodating and roomy. I hope you don't have gout in the finger. I thought that was more of a guy's problem but I guess anyone can produce those acid crystals. I hope not - it's a very painful thing. Sure it's not arthritis?

Can I say that I really don't want to go to work? Pout, pout. We are at the tail end of some milder weather. Supposed to maybe hit 40 degrees today which is downright balmy. Hasn't really been warm enough to melt much snow other than the blacktop on the roads. Sunday the temps will drop sharply back into the teens again. I'm sure the bars are fretting over the lack of snow and therefore lack of eating and drinking snowmobilers and skiers. I hope we get some - there's enough places up this way for sale because shop owners can't make a go of it. Would not want this place to turn into a ghost town.

Guess I'd better get my butt out of my bikini and into my popcorn t-shirt and jeans Have a good day everyone.

[happy2bme]

Hi Karen - good luck with your cardioversion. My Mom had that done in September last year and sailed through it like a champ. Thank goodness it's kept her heart in rhythm and she's doing great. I don't know why they are not recommending the same thing for my DH - perhaps because his problem is more electrical. Anyway I hope you do well - let us know how you make out.

Annie - apparently they rescinded the drop in social security taxes they implemented a couple of years ago. That one I never understood - they said they are at a deficit for social security funding, yet they lower the rate people were paying into it???? Everything goes up but your paycheck, right? We would be better off in the commune. Gotta start looking for a Dr. Quinn, medicine woman to join our group. Other than that, I think we're pretty self sufficient.

[annie175]

HAPPY...I hear ya on the insurance costs...I am right there with you. I have a 4800 deductible, plus pay premiums for the insurance I have...and I work at an insurance company. So far they have paid nothing and I have 1700 left to meet my deductible...which starts over in July as our coverage is July to July. I will never make it unless I get put in the hospital for something. On the other hand, they did pay for my pap, b**b squash and one of my two colonscopies. I will just say AGREED!

[annie175]

and we got an email from corporate that said this is just the start of more tax deductions from our check, they are not finished. Oh Yah!