Good morning everyone,

Yesterday we took a road trip up to Duluth for DH to get some pictures of a lovely public garden that is right on the lakefront. It was just a beautiful day. I am wobbly in the eyes so I sat on one of the many benches they have around the park and just admired the flowers and the gorgeous lake views. Such pretty shades of blue. Lake Superior is just a beautiful body of water. Pretty darn big too. Unfortunately DH was not happy with the pictures - said there was too much light. Maybe he needs to start working with filters. After the park we headed to my favorite specialty grocery store in town. Got my sushi , some deli meat, some nice pork ribs for a recipe DH wants to try, crab cakes, falafel, a piece of lemon berry marscapone cake to share some grilled vegetables and a few other things. I did forget a red onion - the peaches are fading and I need to use them up. Wanted to try an peach salsa. I need a few things from the store so we will have to make a run anyway. We seemed to lose a lot of hummingbirds a few weeks back when we hit a cold spell but they are back in numbers again. DH easily fills 3 feeder bottles a day so we go through white sugar like crazy.

I'm going to go to the Thrift Store this afternoon and work on getting some of the children's books out for sale. I was supposed to work with someone Tuesday but then they changed my doctor's appointment. Yesterday I was able to sit on a small tool cart I have and work on weeding the garden. DH said he will pull the heavy hose to the garden so that I can water. I had him look at the tomatoes that I thought were blighted but it appears that was HAIL DAMAGE from Sunday! The rot I thought I saw (can't see it really well with these eyes right now) was actually where the golf ball sized jagged hail hit the tomato and broke the skin. DH said the ice ball imbedded into the tomato and then froze the tomato. I have never seen anything like it. So he picked off the damaged ones and we decided to keep the garden for a while longer. I did pull out the faded beans, bolted greens and kept the chives, tomatoes and cucumbers. The cart has wheels and puts me at a level where I can easily reach things without extending or bending like I should not be doing. Yes Ceejay - I probably am doing more than I should but I am not one to sit around and if I did I would make DH crazy because I'd be so annoying. You'd have to sedate me

That sounds like quite the summer storm you got. Did you have any damage or just the usual torrents of water? Did you get your walk in among the raindrops? Good for you for tracking things!

Terra - which movie are you going to see?

Shad - good luck keeping your patience! You sound like me towards the end when I just rain out of tolerance for the crap! Counting the days...

Annie - it appears that wedding planning in general is a pain. Maybe that's why wedding planners have become such a lucrative business. Thank goodness you only have one daughter On another note, I am very sorry to hear about your brother. There are no words of consolation. All I can say is to cherish whatever time God feels you have left with your brother. We all hope for the best but who knows what His plan is for all of us. My heart does go out to you and please know you both are in my prayers every night. I also understand how difficult it is to try and pretend a semblance of normal life when your heart is so heavy with sadness and worry. Be brave for your brother.

Laura - when we lived in AH we also have trouble with ants. The way the lot was laid out our neighbors driveway was right off the back of the house. We heard that there were ant colonies under their driveway so we had to be ever vigilant with the ants because if they got a foothold in the house, it was darn impossible to get rid of them. I was always watching for movement on the floor by the garbage can in the kitchen! I'm glad you got the soda all cleaned up. I'm glad you got a more challenging instructor for the spin class. You really put yourself out on the exercise, how are you feeling today? Did you stretch out the soreness?

Oh boy - DH just booked us a cruise on Lake Superior to tour the lighthouses. I have been wanting to do that. Sounds like fun!

Michelle - glad the new CPAP is working well for you! Good luck working around all the dynamic changes while you are getting the website set up.

Susie - did you manage to make it on your bike?

DH announced he is going to mow the lawn today and wants to make the ribs for dinner tonight. And I need a ride back and forth to the Thrift Shop. This will be fun to coordinate - NOT. I hate not being able to drive myself.

Better get off the computer and figure this out. Have a good day everyone.

Afternoon all. The boss is out for a few days and one other department member is out today, so it’s quiet here. And I think a lot of other folks are taking vacation too.

Annie – I can't believe people call you about that report. Do they think you made mistakes? Otherwise, they need to take up their issues with their bosses. What crybabies. Sorry your garden did poorly this year. Nope, hard not to eat chips and salsa while waiting for your food!

Shad – So the countdown begins! Hang in there!

Ceejay – What a pain those storms are when it comes to the operations of the plant. Good job on the steps and food tracking! Hope you have a good start to your weekend and can get outside for a walk. Where would you go if you walked outdoors?

Terra – Enjoy your classes today. What movie do you think you’ll see tomorrow?

Michelle – How do like OA? Is it helping you?

Happy – Sounds like a nice time in Duluth. You mean you didn’t get there early enough to get the perfect light right around sunrise?!? I know once the sun gets higher, the light gets way too harsh. Nice you found a solution to tending to your garden during your recovery. Re the soda – I had to get low to the floor in the kitchen last night and saw a spot on the baseboard under the cabinets that I missed the other night, LOL. I bet I should pull off the fridge's grill and see if any soda splashed there... Thankfully I didn’t get much soreness from Tuesday's spin class, though my pecs were a bit sore from the pushups. That cruise sounds wonderful! Lucky you.

Hellos to the rest of you!!!
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I had a nice lunch with a friend yesterday. So many changes going on in her life, including seeing her son off to college in a few weeks. It had been a while since we saw each other, so it was nice to catch up. With her son being away at college, we might actually be able to see each other more frequently than just the occasional quick lunch. That would be nice.

I got my flight to my mom’s booked yesterday. I’m not thrilled with the cost, and the return is a day later than I really wanted, but it is what it is. There will be plenty to keep me busy out there anyway. I leave a week from today.

Bf went to look at a vintage bike for me yesterday, but it had extremely rusted wheel rims - to the point of corrosion. By now, we're both tired of the issues that accompany "vintage" bikes... However, the seller had another – high quality and newish - bike to sell that she hadn’t posted yet and bf ended up buying it. I had started to go back to the idea of buying a cheap new bike from Target or Walmart, but this one bf bought is a pretty good step above that. But now I worry it’s almost too nice for sitting at the train station all day. The seat and both wheels all have quick releases. I’ll need a longer cable to be able to lock both wheels and the frame (right now I just lock the front wheel and the frame). For the seat, bf will switch out the quick release for a regular bolt. Oh well, it’s a nice bike and we’ll see how it goes.


I completed day 29 of the challenge last night and today is the final day!! Probably not going to do a recplex exercise class tonight – don’t feel like doing both the challenge and a class too - too much. Of course that will put me behind on my punchcard…

That’s about it for me. Off to post.

Afternoon,

Talked with C about doing a sleep study. At first he said no way, but after I told him about Chelle feeling more rested by using it and have more energy, he agreed to do it. Now all I have to do is get him signed up! Taking advantage of already meeting all my deductibles with insurance to get the "extra" tests etc done this year.

Thanks for all the support about my brother.

LAURA...glad to hear you got a new bike. Good for you.

HAPPY...are you going on this cruise AFTER your eyes are all healed or did DH book it during when you cannot see as well? LOL. I mean he is a man, right. Sounds like you might salvage a few things from your garden, we can only hope here.

TERRA...pigs in a blanket, those are fun and tasty.

CHELLE...yeah on the CPAP!!

CEEG...we had a heck of a storm last night and this morning. It has passed through now.

SHADDIE...you came up for air, shall we pitch in and get you an oxygen tank?

Hello to all

Had a restful day. I made a quick trip to the doctor's office this morning. I woke up this morning with blood shot eyes with dark circles under them. Looked like some one socked me in both eyes. And I have a very sore place on the corner of m eye. Thought it may have been m blood pressure. but doc said that it was allergies. Never has done me this way before that I've noticed and I have a skin/staff infection near my eye which is really sore. Thought I might have been bitten by an insect/spider.
Got my first Medicare statement today in the mail. But not going to use the card until the first of the year.
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Happy
I'm jealous about the cruise on Lake Superior. I've wanted to do to that for a long time. Yes I did my walk but it was inside at Walmart. It was nice this morning but still haven't gotten up my courage to be outside by myself.

Laura
Can't blame you for not going to the recplex since you are doing those challenges. We had three different fronts come though last night and early
this morning. What a lightening show! And I'm not a big fan of lightning. I need to do a challenge for my arms.

Annie
Glad that C has decided to go for the sleep test. Do you have to have a referral to do that test? It seems there is a lot to do for a simple wedding.

Terra
Hadn't had pigs in a blanket in a long time.

Hello's to the rest.

Howdie!

So glad it is Friday. Lots to get done over the weekend, mostly to do with cleaning house. bleh. I do need to get to the store to get Miss Sass her special doggie cookies.

I will check in later, I am off to see the wizard....

I'm so glad it's Friday! Dang, what a week! Like Annie, I need to get some house cleaning done. And I have a potluck BBQ / doggie playtime to go to tomorrow afternoon, and another doggie playdate on Sunday morning.

Right now, I'm not feeling all that great. I'm feeling like my heart is about to come out of my chest. Not sure what's going on with that. I was supposed to work out with my trainer this morning, but I just couldn't pull myself out of bed. So I'll workout with her at either 5 pm or 7 pm this evening, assuming my racing heart slows down a little.

Sending lots of love and big hugs and prayers to all of y'all and your loved ones.

The day I decide to type a post directly into 3fc instead of cutting and pasting from Word is of course the day the post gets lost. Grrrr.

Annie - Great that C agreed to do the sleep study!

Ceejay - Some people like to watch lightning, but not me. It's dangerous and makes me nervous. Enjoy the lunch with the uncles and the cousin.

Michelle - I hope the heart stops racing!! Could this be caused by work stress? Be sure to do some stress-busting exercise after work today!

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Finished my challenge last night. Next one might include planks.

I also watched a library dvd - "Foxcatcher". It was a bit slow-moving for me, but it was a good movie and made me want to look up information about the real life situation on which it was based.

I forgot my dang cell phone at home again today. I guess that's a good way to stop being too attached to it, LOL.

It's bf's birthday today, but he didn't seem interested in going out for a nice dinner tonight. Probably because he's invited people over tomorrow and we'll likely go out for a bit and then come back to the house.

Other than that, nothing much going on for the weekend.

Okay, gonna get this posted (successfully) and get back to the grind. Ciao.

Annie - I'm so glad C is doing a sleep study. I think EVERYONE who snores should do it. Sleep apnea is life-threatening. My take-home sleep test said I don't have sleep apnea anymore...but I'm not 100% confident with the results because I was very restless and didn't sleep well at all the night I took the test. And since I still believe I have at least mild sleep apnea (because I don't feel rested without my CPAP machine), I was able to get scheduled for a monitored sleep study and they happened to have a cancelation for Monday night. I'm so glad! When you do an in-clinic monitored sleep study, they hook you up to lots of sensors and have someone monitor you all night. If you stop breathing a certain number of times in an hour, you have sleep apnea. When I did the study about 10 years ago, I hit the threshold of number of times I stopped breathing within about 20 minutes, so they put me on a CPAP machine, and I slept great the rest of the night. I always knew I snore, but I didn't think about discussing it with my doctor and requesting a sleep study until my ex told me that he had to stay partially awake all night because I stopped breathing frequently and he'd nudge me to wake up so I'd breathe again. We'll see what Monday night's test shows...if I no longer have sleep apnea, great! But I want to be sure that the take home test didn't give a false negative reading. Because based on the take home test saying I don't have sleep apnea, my insurance will not cover the cost of a CPAP machine to replace the one I had that broke down. And I do sleep SO much better with a CPAP machine. Anyway, I hope you can get C in for the sleep study soon. You're right, might as well do it now that you've met your deductible for the year.

Not much going on in my corner of the world. Just popped in to say hello.

Happy & Laura ~ We saw the movie Home, At first I didnt want to see it I thought it was gonna be dumb but it was actually really good and I'm gonna buy it on DVD tomorrow.

Annie & Ceejay52 ~ Yeah Pigs in a blanket are good. I dont like hot dogs so I asked if we could use sausage instead, I havent had Pigs in the blanket in a long time either.

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Woke up at 6:30 a.m. Its now 9:04 a.m. I'm cooking chicken to make chicken taco's. I didnt eat anything last night cause I was still full from lunch, I had a big lunch but now I'm pretty hungry, Cant wait until the chicken is thawed so I can start cooking it. We're having chicken tonight too. We are having Shake and Bake Chicken, Pasta Salad and Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits. I hope tomorrow we go to the buffet for either lunch or dinner cause on Sunday's they have dinner items all day. We just found that out a few Sunday's ago. I hope everyone has an awesome Sat. Take Care Everybody.

Afternoon all.

Terra - Glad you enjoyed the movie. I saw the preview & it looked cute. Your meals today sound tasty - enjoy!

Michelle – Good you're getting in to get a sleep study. It sure would be nice to have your insurance cover the cost of a new machine.

Hellos to the rest of you. Hope you're all having a great weekend.
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Didn’t do much last night. Bf made country ribs in the crock pot & they were great. We had them with rice - with the sauce it was yummy.

I lazed a wee bit this morning, then FINALLY finished the front garden bed weeding & spread several bags of mulch. More might be needed, but I'll let bf do that. I'm happy to move on to other things now.

My shower felt so good after that! It was warm out there, but cloudy so at least i didn't have the sun blazing on me while I worked.

That’s about it for me. TTFN.

Terra - thanks for the tip on the movie Home - will have to wait for it to come out on Cable pay per view. Your dinner sounds yummy - don't eat too many of those delicious Cheddar Bay biscuits or you'll have to walk 10 miles to burn them off

Went the Thrift Shop this morning and was able to rearrange the mess someone made out of the books while DH visited with his buddy. "Must Know ABCs" if you are going to work on books. I guess it's possible that some well intentioned folks today would actually not know how to alphabetically file. Computers have changed how we do lots of things!

Afternoon all,

Got today off. It is Sunday after all and I must do my taxes tonight to see how much the Aussie government can slug me for for my work in NZ. Lousy lot.

This morning I went out with one of the team from work. Lovely young man. He is French and he has worked all over the world and now is seeking NZ residency. I may have mentioned him previously. He eventually wants to buy a chateau in France. Anyway, his Australian stuff arrived and last week his beloved convertible sports car arrived in the country - so we took it for a ride to Devonport on the north side of Auckland harbour - millionaire territory and had brunch at an Italian restaurant. Then we went for a walk up Mt Victoria and then up North Head - the weather sucked, rain, shine, hail, we got the lot. Poor JB was very worried about the hail on his convertible roof, but it all looked okay.

So I am now back at home, waiting for the landlord to arrive as the washing machine is leaking water and I don't enjoy mopping it up. I am also in the middle of some house work as well when I suddenly thought I should use this time to make a post. Anything to put off the taxes.

I won't do personals. I need to get on with the rest of the day. Back to the grind tomorrow and the boss gets sillier by the day. Still I am on track and ahead of the schedule at this point even if I don't have much signed off. Usual story - no one wants to sign anything off - they may get blamed for not putting some in or putting something in that shouldn't be there so sign off will come in a big burst over the next couple of week.

So normal service will resume fairly shortly, then we start training in earnest and it will be a mad house again. But it's all done by September end.

Here we are at Monday again! Oh Yippee! The good news this week is I am doing the work sponsored Habitat for Humanity at the State Fair on Thursday then my boss is on PTO on Friday. Splendid!

We had a pit fire on Saturday night and a few of the neighbors came over. Late night for me. We didn't go in to bed till after midnight. It was fun and everyone was just plain silly so we laughed a lot. Next door neighbor brought over her mini-grayhound doggie so she and Sassy played hard, running and chasing. Sassy was plum tuckered out by the time we went to bed. Poor thing didn't move all night long. The two are so cute together and actually Sassy likes her so they get along.

Yesterday was church, C took his nap, then cleaned out the garage. I did errands and was a lump the rest of the day. Heard on the radio this morning it is national be lazy day, so I have decided not to exercise. ba hahahhaha.

News yesterday said the Frank Gifford passed away over the weekend from natural causes with his family with him. Sorta a sad thing. He was one of the last football players that played professional football without facegaurds on their helmets.

For you HAPPY...Perseid meteor shower to peak Wednesday, astronomers predict 'a lot more stars than usual' Supposed to be nature's fireworks for several days and the skies are supposed to be extra dark with minimal moon light, so the meteor shower should be even more visable.

CHELLE...C's doc office is supposed to call me today with the appointment time for C to do the sleep study. My x had one done when we were married. He snored so bad, he didn't have apnea but does have restless leg syndrome.

SHADDIE....glad you had a nice day with your co-worker...wink wink. Sounded rather romatic. Back to the grind.

LAURA...glad you got your flower bed all done. Check that off the list.

TERRA...I have not even heard of the movie Home. I will have to google it here in a bit.

Hello to all....make it a great Monday.

Hugs

Hi ladies,

I have to be quick...have a conference call meeting in a couple minutes and then I've got to kick it into high gear for the project I'm working on. I'm leaving work at 3:30 today for a doctor appointment. Last night I packed my gym bag so I could workout with my trainer before work. I also packed an overnight bag for staying at the hospital sleep clinic tonight.

D didn't have to work Saturday night, so we saw the movie "Inside Out". It's an excellent movie for kids and adults alike. I highly recommend it.

I hope you're all doing well.

Much love and big hugs to all,