Good morning ladies. It is hot and sticky as usual. I will sure be glad for some cooler fall temperatures, but doesn't look like it is happening anytime in the near future.

Cheryl: When are you planning on going to Vegas? If you want a cheaper hotel that is very nice, check out the Orleans. I will send you a couple website addresses to help you out. As you can see from my ticker, we are leaving the day before 4th of July and staying a week. We were going to stay on the strip, but decided to save about $400 and go back to the Orleans. We always rent a car to get around so transportation is not a problem. We found it was cheaper to do that than to pay cab fare. One of the nice things staying at the Orleans, though it is off strip a couple miles is that they have a shuttle that goes to their sister properties and one of them, the Barbary Coast is dead center the middle of the strip. We did that the first year we went. We didn't rent a car, but would take the shuttle to the Barbary Coast then walk to the strip hotels, halfway one day, halfway the next. Let me know if there is anything I can help you with as I am an old hand at Vegas now. Definitely go Gardunos. The food is really good there and if you are there on a Sunday go for the Margarita brunch, it is like $12 a person I think and is all you can eat and drink. As I said, I will give you some addresses by PM that you can look at and get some great ideas.

I need to hope to it girls. I have lots of work to do today.

Faye

Hello Ladies...I have been so busy since the girls have started back to school, I feel guilty that I haven't been here for a few days. Trying to get back on program and stick with it. I have good days and I have not so good days. I hoping my hubby will get the VHS player hooked up tonight or tomrrow so I can start workout out again. I need to get this body moving and shakin.:carrot: :carrot:

Faye...We are planning on going to Nevada the end of July. Jim's brother lives in Wells, Nevada and our niece lives in Las Vegas. If we don't make it to Vegas, we will be going to Reno for "Hot Augest Nights". It's a large car show and we are hoping to have our 57 Convertible ready by then.

The last couple of days I have been busy cutting out two twin size quilts. Yesterday I cut out the baby quilt and today I had it together in about two hours. It is really cute. I just need to buy the backing and batting and get it off to the quilters. I just might have it mailed to my daughter-in-law before the baby is born.

We are having some cooler weather, but it's still humid. We are suppose to be back up to the 90's by next Thursday. Tomorrow we have a picnic to go to at the lake for Foster Parents and their kids. I just got done making a Sweet and Sour salad. It's really yummy. It's made with tri color pasta, chopped red onion, tomatoe, green pepper, cucumber and a dressing that is made with sugar, vinegar, ground mustard, garlic powder and salt. It chills in the refrigerator overnight before you eat.

Linda, Rosie and Brandy, hope you girls have a real nice weekend.

Cheryl

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.

My son won the bronze medal at the Gracie world tournament. We are thrilled at he had recently gotten a belt promotion and hadn't fought in any tournaments against anyone in his belt color. He is a heavy weight and as such has to fight anyone over 195 lbs. He said in his first round he choked the guy and won, but broke his finger and the guy cracked one of Jay's ribs so he had to fight the rest of the tournament with a cracked rib. In the third round he had to fight what he called a 280 lbs gorilla! :lol: He didn't get a pin, but won on points. He lost his last round, but he said the guy who beat him was the overall winner of the whole tournament so the fact the guy beat him on pts and not a pin made him pretty puffed up.

I need to get hopping and get chores done. Everyone have a good Sunday.

Faye

Morning Ladies...Just got done feeding Jim his breakfast and thought I would pop in for a few minutes before going up and doing some sewing before we have to leave for the lake. Have to miss church this morning, which is a bummer, but we wouldn't make it to the lake in time and this is the start of acquiring the hours we need to keep our license up to date for foster care.

Faye...I first heard the cecadas last year when we were in Dallas, TX. Noisey little critters. Your squirrel story reminded me of the big grey squirrels we had in Salem, OR. They knew just how far Peaches leash would go. They would tease her, she would run after them and and practically hang herself. One day, I let her out without leashing her. They started to tease her, she took off and she almost had squirrels. She was so proud of herself, and they never bothered her again. LOL

Congrats to your son for his award. How proud you must be!! OUCH!!!! to the crack rib and broken finger!!

Hey! I've got a couple carpets you can come and clean if your in the carpet cleaning mood. HEHE!! Really, I need new carpet in my whole house, but it will have to wait till we are ready to sell in a couple of years.

Well I best get busy. Have a good one gal's.

Cheryl

Evening Ladies...Thought I would pop in and post some pictures from vacation and also the quilts I made my son and daughter and a picture of me. The first picture is of crater Lake and the second one is of Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, Oregon. See you tomorrow!

Good morning all! Jack left for work about half an hour ago and I need to get going on my dusting and vacuuming for the day, but thought I would peek in here and post first!

Cheryl: Great pictures, beautiful quilts and gorgeous woman! We desperately need the carpets replaced but money is the big issue. I told Jack that next year when we get back from vacation, if we have to, we will do one room at a time. I want hardwood/pergo type floors in the house. I hate carpets with pets. These carpets are old and stained from previous owners and their pets. I have the living room carpet covered up a lot with big navy plaid throw rugs. They take up a big part of the carpeting and at least cover the places that are really bad. The dining room rug is in pretty good shape except for pet smells. We shampoo to keep it from getting bad, but you can't do much about what is already in the pad and there was a dog that lived here before we bought the place and peed all over.

We are gearing up for this heart catherization on Thursday morning. I keep trying to tell my self it is not going to be too serious etc etc. I thought we were done with the heart stuff after his heart attack 3 years ago, but guess not. Guess you always have to stay on your toes after the first one happens.

Since Cheryl posted those beautiful pictures, I am posting one of me in front of a fountain at the Bellagio. Cheryl, hope it gets you excited about planning your trip!

I need to get hopping. Time is slipping away. I am doubling and tripling up on cleaning this week so I have everything done by Wed since we will be at the hospital all day on Thursday and from there who knows?

Have a great day girls!

Faye

Hi Ladies...Busy day today. Had to take Jim to the doctor. He hurt his back on Saturday and it has just gotten worse and he looks like a 100 year old man when he walks. Jim is off work for the next week and has some heavy painkillers to help with the pain. He start physical theapy on Wednesday, so that should help him also.

Faye...You Southern beauty, you!!! Nice to have a face to put with a name. Beautiful back drop, can't wait to go to Vegas. When we were last there, which was about 1989, they where just starting to build the big resorts on the strip.

Faye, I will keep Jack in my prayer that everything goes alright on Thursday. Hope he has a good report back.

Well I need to go and see how Jim is doing. Have a good evening.

Cheryl

Good morning ladies! I am in a bit of a rush this morning so I hope you don't mind a bit of recycled news. I am copying and pasting from the other thread I post on.

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.:bomb: 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. :crazy: 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! :mad: 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.

Cheryl: There is definitely huge changes in Vegas since you were there last. There are big changes since we were there last year right on this date in fact. I remember sitting in our room watching the news thinking here we are having this great vacation and people are being swept away by flood with Katrina. I hear that the Aladdin has been bought and is changing to Planet Hollywood and a couple other places have added on. You could go to that city, spend a week, have a great time and not put a penny in a slot machine or a dollar on a table. I think that is what I like about it. We love to gamble, but it is NOT the only thing to do there. Another thing is all the FREE stuff to do and look at.

I need to run. I have stuff I need to double up on with cleaning so I have the house all done before the hospital visit on Thursday. We don't know what is going to happen with that and I don't want to be stressed out about my house too.

Have a great day gals!

Faye

Hi Ladies...Just time for a quick pop in. Just got back from the FD's first Vollyball game. They loss, but she did pretty good. Hubby is still the same.:( Tomorrow is his first day at therapy, and I know he can't wait to go. I have weight watchers first, and know the scales will not show a loss, but probably a gain. I'm back on track as of today.:carrot: Had a nice long talk with myself and the fact that it is only 38 weeks till my granddaughter graduates from High School. This Granny would like to be way below 300 lbs, so I best kick my behind in gear!!!:kickbutt: Worked on sewing the stripes for the twin quilt this morning. I missed counted somewhere, so I'm short two stripes and I'm out of fabric. Looks like I will have to hit the fabric store tomorrow and hopefully they have it. I'll be back to do personals tomorrow.

Cheryl

Good morning! It is finally a little cooler and much less humid this morning. We got a bit of rain yesterday and that finally did help.

Cheryl: Sounds like you are going to be busy. We are just waiting to go and have this heart procedure done tomorrow. I just want to get it done so we know what we are facing if anything.

I bought the South Beach diet book and have decided to give it a try when we get back from Indiana. Sooner if we end up having to postpone the trip because of Jack. It doesn't matter as we aren't going to be able to use the baseball tickets anyway. My son can't get off work that day. He will have had a trade show for 8 days and his boss wants him to wrap up sales from the leads on Thursday and Friday. I am not upset about it except for the $100 I spent on the tickets and even then it doesn't matter. I just need to get away from here for just a few days and relax. With no vacation this year (we were on vacation last year at this time) and we haven't taken any trips this year, I am pretty frazzled.

I better get out of here and get to work on my upstairs bathrooms and get them done and my upstairs dusting.

Have a good day girls!

Faye

Evening Ladies...Another busy day and tomorrow looks the same as well as Friday. I can't wait for the weekend to get there so i can just stay HOME. Today was weigh-in day at WW. I was up 2lbs, but no surprise. Have given my self a swift kick and decided to stop counting points and do the core instead. I followed the core plan for dinner and felt much more satisfied. Jim had his first therapy session this afternoon, and can almost stand up straight.

Faye...Hope Jack's procedure goes well. Will keep you both in my prayers tonight and tomorrow as well.:hug: Wish you good luck following the South Beach Plan. You can do this!!

Well I need to get a few things done before I go to bed. Have to be up by 6 and get the girls moving.:carrot: Chit chat with you all later.:hug:

Cheryl

Well gals, things could have gone a LOT better. The blockage is below his current stent and as such they could neither get a good ultrasound nor could the doctor even get a 1 mm wire through the catheter and the blockage so he has to have double bypass surgery. I guess the doctor said because he couldn't see to put another stent in he would be doing it blind and that would be too dangerous.

He sees the vascular surgeon on Tuesday for a consult. He had to have his neck veins ultrasounded too to make sure he has no blockage in his neck so he doesn't stroke out.

The money situation is going to be ugly, but looks like my dd and sil are going to pay our mortgage for a couple months until he can get back to work. With this, we may be able to eek it out ok if I make no mistakes and pay all the bills ahead through November. Thank God for the Navy Retirement or we would be totally sunk. We just have to get the doctor to wait until the 11th to do the surgery, which is a week from Monday.

Thanks for the prayers lady, I sure do need them. I am so ashamed that I have totally fallen apart with this and I wanted to be so strong for Jack and take as much burden off him as I could.

Hugs to you all! :hug: Faye

Faye..im so sry that your hubby needs surgury..and money is always an issue isnt it..my dh has had 5 surg in the last few yrs and each one was a nightmare but even tho hes diabled now hes getting along fine.. the point is i know just how you feel would a hug help((((((((:hug: ))))))))) it will work out fine..arnt we lucky we live in a time were they can do these amazing surguries..i will say an extra prayer for you both and u are strong..nothing to be ashamed of..u are just a concerned wife and have to look at all the possibles..if you need to vent we are here.. take care..rosey :wave:

Rosey: Thanks! I am just so darn scared.

Morning Ladies...I'm starting a new thread for September/October. See you there.

Cheryl