Good morning girls! Boy, we could sure have used some of that heavy rain, Jean. We sat down to watch the Cubs game last night and Chicago was getting blasted big time so we turned off the set and I imagine they may be playing a doubleheader today. We haven't gotten more than a trickle for weeks now and doesn't look like we are going to get much in the future. We are very hot (it was 103 yesterday afternoon when we went to Jack's PT appt) and the humidity is just awful. I can imagine what you are going through, Susan.

Jean: I hope they can get your tv all straightened out. We haven't had to buy a new one in several years. Ours has this little "doodle lee do" sound when you switch it on or off and if the animals are in my lap and even before I move, if I turn off the tv and they hear that sound they jump down figuring it is time to go up to bed! They were both in my lap last night and Butterscotch was sitting square on my chest. He weighs like 23 lbs and it was like having concrete on my chest. Not much longer until school starts again, huh? I know Thomas starts on Monday and the city kids the following week. I don't know why the city and county schools don't coordinate their schedules but they fight about everything.

Susan: Yeah for Stan! That is such good news that he is getting up and getting around by himself and even feeling well enough to cook a little, box mix or not. I hope he continues to improve. I am trying to avoid the expense of further testing and the shots and such with the allergies as right now we are having to have some many medical expenses with Jack and we have a cap that I am afraid we may be getting near to this year. If it doesn't right itself soon however, I am going to have to go to the doctor and go to the next step because you can't function this way. Funny thing, I get better when I go out to the pool and swim even though I am out in the air.

Today is election primary day here. The PT place screwed up both of Jack's appts this week so he is coming home at 11 and we can go vote then go to his pt appt. I may or may not go depending on the heat today. I can't do anything but sit there anyway. We have a huge list of people to vote on. We have a state senate district race that has gotten really ugly. It is Harold Ford's seat, who is running for US senate. It has become this ugly racial thing because the district is highly populated black. One of the gentleman running (this is the democrats BTW) is a white jewish man and one of the black men running against him has issued nasty statements against this man, very racial, which I think is funny considering. It is pretty sad, actually. Human beings can't seem to not throw mud at each other for some reason.

We only have a little more than a month and we get to go up and see our dil and son. We always visit with close friends of ours for one day also. They know Jay and Alicia so I think our kids will go with us to dinner with them. I do miss Kevin and Becky a lot. They are just a bit younger than we are, but not much. Their kids are several years younger than ours and her youngest daughter is getting married the Saturday before we go up there. I was so disappointed we couldn't go. I have been teasing her because her older dd is pregnant again. Seems like I am the only one that can't seem to have anymore grandkids but one!

I guess I better go. I woke up to go to the bathroom and found one of my contacts on my chest all curled up so I am trying to "rehydrate" it and see if I can wear it and not have to throw it away. I did that once before and it worked so we shall see. I am down to this pair and one other and I want to save the last pair to have clear vision when I go to the eye doctor's the 25th. Since the stupid city cancelled my vision insurance and didn't let us know, I have to fork out the money and it isn't cheap. You have to pay $80 for the exam and $50 for fitting (even though I don't have to be fit for anything as I already wear contacts and get the same prescription) and then $23 a box per eye for lenses. I can get them cheaper online so I am going to buy a box for each eye then order the rest online.

Have a good day everybody and try and stay cool today!

Faye

Good Morning Magnolias!
Yesterday was so hot we decided not to go the the Cape as the beach would have been just as hot....maybe even hotter with the reflected sun off the sand and water. Instead we went to DD# 2's house. She is on vacation on Martha's Vineyard and we have her dog for the week and since her house has AC we camped out there. Moshup the dog loved it. She spent the whole day lying on the floor right in front of the air register. I slept over last night and had to turn the AC off in the bedroom it was so cold...the air was blowing right across me. DH went home as he can't sleep anywhere but in his own bed. We got a big wind, thunder and rain storm last night right at supper time and it did cool things a bit but this AM it is hot again. We are due for more rain and thunder later today and then the heat wave will be over.

Faye: Sorry you are having so much trouble with the allergies. Hope you can find some relief soon. That is too bad about losing the vision insurance. Those things happen just as you need them. We are keeping your niece in our prayers...that is a lot for a youngster to handle.

Jean: That must be some TV to have a fan that goes on while it is off. Never heard of that. Good luck with the lamp.

Susan: Wonderful news about your husband. It is good that he felt well enough to do all that. I also have a chicken recipe that has done well for me.

Preheat the oven to 400 deg. and either use butter or butter Pam on the bottom of a baking dish. Place the sprayed but empty dish in the oven for 5 minutes....just to heat the butter.

Meantime prepare your boneless, skinless chicken breast by patting them dry and then coating them with bread crumbs. when the pan is hot place them in the pan 'good' side down. Bake for 12 to 15 min. Turn them and bake for another 12 to 15 min. They will be brown and juicy. You can change the flavors with a variety of seasonings....onion, garlic, asian etc placed in the bread crumbs. I like it with parmesan cheese in with the bread crumbs. It always comes out moist. With a nice salad and a veg it is a good low cal meal.

Gloria

Good morning ladies! I am sure ready to get rid of a bit of this hot weather. It shows that we will continue with upper 90's for at least 10 days and no rain! When Jack came home at lunchtime yesterday, we went to the pool for about half an hour and it was really nice. The water was just a tad cool so it felt great. It is a nice way for him to relax from the heat too.

Gloria: I can sympathize with the traveling etc. It is so hot you just can't think about being around sand and more sun! Hope you had a restful time at your dd's. Thanks for the recipe! We have "fried" chicken similar to that but I use cornflakes ground up with garlic powder, paprika, and onion powder all mixed up then the breasts are rolled in that and baked using a bit of Pam sprayed on them or the spray butter to get it going.

Jean: I can't believe you aren't getting any communication back on your tv issue. Keep at it girl, sooner or later someone will hear you.

Nothing going on here today. I plan on going out to the pool in about an hour, then come back and vacuum the upstairs. I have to wait to do it now because their are little kids next door and their bedroom is right next to ours so I don't want to wake them. When the place was empty I would get up there and do it at 6 when Jack went to work. It is so hot here, you don't want to do anything and you have to push yourself to get out of a chair.

Well, gals, I am going to finish my morning chores. You all have a great day and weekend!

Faye

Good morning girls! It is becoming an old story, hot and very humid. I have a headache this morning with the allergies so I gave up and decided to just come downstairs. We are going to be shampooing downstairs carpets today (oh joy) so I hope I can get Jack started on it early so we can get it finished.

I heard a huge bunch of kids over at the pool yesterday afternoon so I am sure it is a huge mess this morning. I usually can't hear anything so when I do, I know there has to be a huge group of non residents over there. It was too hot to go over and get into it with them, besides, I don't get paid to watch over what goes on at the pool. I just hope they didn't tear anything up.

I had to go another round with Tricare yesterday. They are still billing Jack's PT sessions to my son's name and denying them. The woman got snotty with me and told me to lower my voice and I told her she needed to clean out her ears and LISTEN to me! She asked me if my son was in the service!!!!! By this time I had explained it at least 5 times to her and I got mad. I said "NO, you idiot, my son is 33, not eligible and not even the PATIENT!" I guess calling her an idiot actually woke her up because then she got what I was telling her and said she would change it. I told her I had called 4 times and each time the customer service person said they would "change it" and they were still doing the same thing. I told her I had SEEN the paperwork that was going out from the medical facility and no where on it did it have my son's name that TRICARE was the one screwing it up. I guess I am going to have to make copies of all the denials and send a letter and see if that helps. On top of that, I had another issue come through the mail where we had paid the bills and their accounting department was at least two months behind and they were threatening us. I can get instant copies of my checks online from our bank and pulled all of them and the current payment cleared the bank LAST WEEK! I was still upset about the Tricare thing so I had Jack call when he go home and the little jerk they gave Jack to talk to basically told Jack we can do what we want and refused to let Jack talk to someone else higher up. It was not a good afternoon for me!

I am very tired of this horrible heat and it doesn't look to be letting up very soon. You don't even want to leave the house.

I need to get dishes put away out of the dishwasher and put food in the pets' bowls so I need to go. Everybody have a fun Saturday!

Faye

Good morning flowers! I imagine all of us are pretty wilted though! I just wish we could get a good down pour of rain! We need it desperately now.

Jean: If they had the WRONG routing number, how the heck did they take the money out then recredit it to the right account? If they didn't have the bank's correct routing number, they wouldn't have even gotten into the bank let alone your account. Something sounds fishy there. I pay most of my bills online with a debit to our account and what makes me mad is when they take the money out early. I mean, we are ok on money and all that, but we aren't rich and we do live on a budget pretty much. They are supposed to debit on the same day every month unless it is a weekend or a holiday. We are having problems with our home warranty, which is debited every month. It originally started out the 14th and now they are debiting on the 9th and they never let us know about the change. Kind of makes me mad. What if we were on a strict income and had to plan for the money to come out? It is easier to pay stuff this way than to have to write out checks to everyone. I have a few things I have to pay by check, the mortgage, the electric bill and a few others, but most I can pay online, which I like. I don't do the automated debit for the very reason you had trouble. I feel a little more in control if I do it myself month to month. Glad Bob now has his tv back!

I watched this crazy show on the food network last night. I have watched these challenge shows several times where they have to make cakes, sculptures etc for prize money, but this one was a little different. Ten professional cake or pastry chefs, two to a team, had to make a cake together. The teams weren't paired up until the last minute, they were given the theme only 30 minutes before the start of the competition, then for the first 6 hours only one team member could work on the cake with the other team member sequestered, when they changed places they couldn't speak to each other and had to basically come out blind and figure out what had been done. There was one team of two ladies who I thought were going to have a fight. The one lady had trouble with the foundant and when the next lady came out, she ripped it off and did it over, then back came the first and did more and the lady came back and said it was a mess but she didn't have time to do it over, etc. It was interesting and the funny part was the team that had so much trouble won second place!

Well, I need to get some things done this morning. Have a good Sunday everyone!

Faye

Good steamy morning girls! It is supposed to be 98 degrees here today. I pity poor Jack as he is working all alone. There are only three of them, one of them had a motorcycle wreck nearly 3 months ago and the only thing he said was wrong with him was road rash but he hasn't been back to work yet. The other guy on Thursday stepped down off a step and turned his ankle badly so he is on light duty. Jack gets the brunt of it and he doesn't know whether he will be able to keep his PT appt on Friday because the twisted ankle guy has to go back to the doctor. If the layabout isn't back, Jack will have to reschedule his appt. Don't you wonder how someone can be off for nearly 3 months and get paid for it? Let's just say the little jerk has threatened a discrimination suit if anyone calls him on it.

I twisted my neck and shoulder in my sleep last night so I am feeling the effects of it today. I don't know how much I will be able to do in the pool. I may just do some light swimming laps and see if it helps loosen it up a bit. If not, I will just get out and come back home. With as hot as it is, I imagine the pool will be really warm again. I didn't go over yesterday so it is probably a mess and will need to be filled up. It was a bit low on Saturday, but not enough for me to turn on the faucet and let it run, which is what I usualy do. I let it run a slow trickle all night then the next day it is pretty much at the right level.

My son starts his new job today and my grandson starts big first grade. It seems like just yesterday my son was the one starting first grade. I remember dropping him off at school and crying all the way home. Kelly was around 2 I think. Gosh how time flies!

Jean: I have never heard of automatic debits for church! I agree with you that your contribution should be a month to month or week to week decision on your part. The problem is that few members tithe anymore and churches have a real hard time keeping the bills paid. On top of that you put the fact that attendence in churches is low low low, they have a lot of problems.

I need to go and finish a couple chores then go to the pool and get it over with. I want to dust and vacuum downstairs today before it gets too hot.

Have a great day!

Faye

Good afternoon, ladies! Another hot day...but a bit cooler than last week. Still plugging away. I'm determined to get under 150 this month...then there are those days I say why not just eat what I want. Fortunately sanity prevails 95% of the time.

Put stuffed peppers in the crockpot today so supper will be easy. Had a busy weekend getting groceries and errands and lots and lots of laundry, plus the housecleaning and regular daily chores. I did manage to sneak in a little quilting time while I was doing laundry. Making a quilt for my neighbor who helps me so much with my husband. Taking him to surgeon for follow up tomorrow. I don't think the foot is doing good. His whole leg looks swollen.

Just got word that a coworker's mom has pancreatic cancer and one of our tenants wife has lung cancer...not good prognosis with either. My mother-in-law was a large lady (about 275 pounds) who loved to eat. She had pancreatic cancer and weighed 78 pounds when she died. You literly starve to death with it.

Faye, I feel your pain with the insurance companies - been there and still doing that myself. They are quick to collect premiums but slow to pay out.

We watch the food channel at lot. The only one I don't like is Iron Chef. Can't say I make their stuff but it's fun to watch. I like the contests, too.

Good morning everyone. I can't imagine what my electric bill is going to be like this month. It was $230 last month. Oh well, I am not going to roast in my own home, so I will just pay it. I have enough trouble with allergies without having the AC off.

Susan: Hope you get a good report on you dh. I can't believe you guys can't get a break with his darn leg. Bless his heart, he starts to feel really well then boom something starts acting up. I watch all sorts of stuff on the food network, but like you don't make it. I hate iron chef. We watched it a couple times, but it gags me to see them make dessert out of squid or something. I like to watch unwrapped and the secret life of... I think those are fun shows and I have always liked to see how things are manufactured ever since I was a kid in BlueBirds. Most of them have kooky twists to food so I don't bother to go online and get recipes, not counting how fattening they are. Good luck with getting under 150. I KNOW yo can do it!.

I just read a great new book by Robin Cook. It is called Crisis and if you are into medical or legal who dunit sort of things, you will like this book. It has a tiny twist at the end. Unfortunately, I am now out of books and my new ones won't be here until at least the end of this week so I have to find something else to keep me busy. I started a sweater for my dil, but it is too hot to knit all that fuzzy yarn. I am just not as dedicated to it this year as I was last.

Every year for Christmas, I try to find something unusual or special to do for the kids for Christmas. I don't do much for dd as she is picky about what she likes, but I do try to do something for my son and dil. This year I found this great place on line that does color caricatures. They are animal lovers, had 3 cats and a dog and one cat passed away a few months ago of some horrible bloating disease. He was a beautiful and sweet cat and I know it upset my dil a lot when they had to put him down. So, I decided to have a color poster done of the three cats and dog and have it framed for them for Christmas. I thought it would be a nice memorial and something cute for them to have of their pets. I have a friend that does stained glass work and I have a project for her for my dd, but I haven't been able to get in contact with her and she lives in the Sierras of CA. I met her here at 3fc, but her husband is doing some park ranger stuff and they have moved into the darn woods with no electricity. I can't find her mailing address to send her pictures of what I want her to do. My son is into jujitsu and my dd is a pharmacist so I had her make a little village with my son having his own dojo and my dil having her own pharmacy. They were so cute and my dil's had a little light in it.

I better go. I hear Jack upstairs showering so he will be down for breakfast in a couple minutes and I need to go upstairs and make the bed and straighten up the bedroom.

Everyone have a good day.

Faye

Good morning ladies! Hope you are all doing well. Jack just left for work. I sat and paid bills this morning so now it is pool then bathrooms and dusting upstairs for me today. I should try and get it done early since it gets so hot and no matter what you do, the upstairs eventually gets hot.

Jack and I went over to the pool yesterday afternoon and there was this guy fully dressed talking on the cell phone inside the pool fence. I heard him say something about, "Yeah, come over and swim no one is over here." He saw us walk up, said hello, left the pool area and stood in the street like he was waiting for someone to show up. When Jack and I got finished I locked the pool up and called one of the board members to tell them what I did. I figured, you can't get 'em one way, get 'em another! I bet he was mad as a wet hen when he brought his posse to the pool and it was LOCKED!

Jean:I was in a hurry yesterday so posted to one thread, then copied and pasted it here and discovered what I said about Maggie. Thanks for her address. I am supposed to be taking pictures of my dd's house, but I am never over there and I need to do it when she is not home and not have some cop show up and want to arrest me for stalking the house or something! I never thought churches being part of an overall organization was a good idea. One of the problems is how much control they have over your church. People just don't or won't put money in the collection plate like they used to. The last church we were at where all the fiasco occurred with the pastor, our church had shrunk from 250 members to around 50 with probably 15% tithing and only about 4 families had any quantity of money. We had 4 missionary families at the church either serving in the area or on extended furlough for family illness so they weren't able to tithe much, then you had the young families who didn't make a whole lot. They stripped the missions budget so they could give the minister a whopping 25% raise, plus he got a car allowance, house allowance, paid medical, paid auto insurance....The church was going under, but his family lived in this very very very nice 4 bedroom home and got lots of extras besides his $35,000 a year salary. I think his salary and benefits were almost $60,000 a year and all those idiots kept doing was taking money from this or that to keep up with his salary etc. We needed a new roof and had leaking around the foundation and put that off because we couldn't afford it. The church at that time, which was 6 years ago, was 80 years old and needed some work. The congregation still have their heads in the sand about this man and though we have good friends there, I will not darken the door of that church. Last time we visited, the pastor was just this side of rude to us because we dared go up against him so I told Jack, no more!

Susan: Hope all is going well with Stan and your continued situation at work.

Gloria: Hope you are keeping cool up there. If you are cold, we could send you some of our weather. We are baking like Christmas turkeys down here!

I need to go and put laundry in the dryer. Have a good day!

Faye

Bad news at the doctor - the infection is still in the bone and no better after 2 months so the foot will have to be amputated after all. We go to see the surgeon next Tuesday and the doctor said he'd probably want to get it scheduled within a week after that. He'll have to go to rehab after the hospital if he needs IV antibiotic therapy. If he doesn't, he can go home with the skilled nurse and home health care aide he now has and stay there until they can fit him with a temporary prosthesis and then we'll have to take him for physical therapy or he can go to rehab for a few weeks until he gets to walking again. We'll get through it but it's still very difficult for him to face. I'm going to go ahead and file for my Social Security to begin January 1 and cut back to 6 hours a day for sure, maybe less. Then I can be home more with him. Right now he hs 3 hours in the morning and 3 in the afternoon where he is alone unless the nurse comes during those time to do his dressings. My neighbor is home all the time and will come if he calls but he hasn't had to so far.

Meanwhile, I'm having a really hard time getting back with my diet program. Need I say more. It doesn't help and just adds to my misery when I don't eat properly.