[Jean]

Good Evening, Flowers!
Another day is almost done and I am glad! We got some bad news this afternoon. The bank that hired Jason to run their insurance dept. decided to let him go today and their reason was that they are down sizing. It's sure not the best timing with a baby due in 3 weeks. I'm hopeful that he will find something quickly; he is young and has his college degree plus all of the insurance licenses. I'm not so sure that insurance is the business to be in right now though. The good part is that they haven't sold their house nor bought another one in the town where the bank is located. Keep your fingers crossed!

Gloria -- I wish we were as ready for winter as you are. The leaves look like a carpet in our yard and there are more yet to fall. DH has been out on the farm helping his friend get the harvest finished. He is hoping they will be done in another week. The area elevators are shutting down because they are full so the the farmers have to wait until more grain is shipped out by rail cars. Once the harvest is finished we will get ourselves ready for winter. I hope we beat the serious snow!

Maggie -- It's good to hear that your ear is feeling better and Will is the same way. I'll bet Turn is hoping he doesn't catch what either one of you have had! I think the "smell" was from the hot oil they used to make the egg rolls and crab rangoon. I didn't notice it today so they must have aired the room out over the weekend.

Bubbles -- CONGRATULATIONS on the 1.6# that is gone forever! I'm glad you enjoyed your workshop. I can't imagine weighing 500+ lbs. although tonight I've wanted to eat anything that was loose.

I need to do some ironing so had better keep moving. Have a terrific Tuesday, Flowers!

Jean -- from Iowa!

[Jean]

Good Evening, Flowers!
Where is everyone? It was such a nice day today . . . got up to 56 degrees and the sun was shining brightly! I could take this weather all winter long.

Nothing much newsy to report from here. I skipped WW last night; just wasn't in the mood to go. I'm hoping this will be a better week as far as keeping closer to the program goes.

Hope you all are having a good week!

Jean -- from Iowa!

[Maggie]

GOOD EVENING MAGNOLIAS

JEAN nice weather you are having. I love this time of year. It was in the 70's here and a nice sea breeze.

I got about 16 inches cut off my hair today and it is sure a differance. Tomorrow is my frist day at my new WW center at 9:30 am meeting and I am really looking forward to it. My points eaten average say I should show a loss and I can always hope. My ear continues to get a bit better each day but I still can't hear out of it - hope I don't have any permanent hearing problems. I guess this is a virus that is going around....Phil Collins on the news tonight said he had to halt his tour because he has it also. I have to work on drinking more water ~ since it has cooled off some I haven't been drinking as much as I did in the days of real summer.

Have a great rest of the week Flowers

[graybubs]

Hi Flowers,

Did anyone other than I see Oprah yesterday? It was really a good program. The thing that I took away from it was, "I'm an addict, and my drug of choice just happens to be food." How true! After hearing that, I took myself to the gym and signed up for their new program. I go to orientation at 10AM tomorrow. After seeing people who had lost over 100 lbs., and their problems with loose skin, I'm going to do whatever I can to avoid that. I also want to build up my upper body strength so I can get out of my kayak in June without having to roll out into the water.
We have 19 new members at our Hospital group, but we lost 23. Since they roll over every 10 weeks, and the next rollover will be Jan. 7, we feel lots of people decided to take this session off so they could go crazy over the holidays. It'll be interesting to see what happens in Jan.
Jean,
How's Jason doing? When my son, Mike, was laid off two years ago, he immediately got a job temping. No benefits, but the pay wasn't bad. As it turned out, that's when we discovered his heart problem and he wound up back here. He's going to Scranton, PA tomorrow with our High School Band to compete in the National Finals. Mike is a Percussion instructor. I think when it's his time to "go to Glory", he'll be buried in a Theta Chi T-shirt with a pair of drumsticks in his hands! My mother used to hope I'd outgrow my love of horses, and I didn't. I pretty much feel that way with Mike and his drums At least it gives him a bit of a social life, which is good.
The sun's supposed to come out tomorrow.......YEA!!!! The gray, damp, cold days are getting to everyone. We haven't had much of a fall........we went from hot to cold without much in between.
Happy Friday youall,
Bubs

[Maggie]

GOOD EVENING MAGNOLIAS

Went to my new meeting place today and the leader is the best ever. She has a great personality and I know that I am really going to like it there and lose lots of pounds. I made a crack to one of the ladies behind the counter that was taking our money about how it looks like WW is getting rid of all those water bottles and it is a good thing. There is a promotion going on now to get one free if you bring a friend that joins. Anyway I said that mine sweated too much so I didn't think they were insulated enough. Well after the meeting when I was at the door to leave one of the ladies came up to me and handed me a brand new container and said to try that one. My friend standing by me said, "See, Maggie, that just proves they are trying to get rid of them." We all had a good laugh and I got a free container. Yep, I am going to like it there. Hope this container doesn't sweat tonight. I showed a gain of .4 ~ could be because of my lack of enough water but I am not goning to obsess over it ~ just do a good week.

BUBBLES the extra skin thing is something that can happen even if one does exercise but we have to do what we can don't we. I have a plan to have my skin removed if it doesn't shrink since my insurance company now will pay 60% of the removal bill. It is nice that came about when they decided that obesity is a stand alone disease. My skin so far has shrunk nicely but I shall have to wait and see what the next batch of pounds lost produces. They say swimming is a great exercise to help the skin shrink. Stretch and tone and do what we can. Good for you for taking the step to join the gym if that is what will help you.

Have a good evening ladies.

[Jean]

Good Evening, Flowers!
My computer is giving me fits!!!! It seems that it has a glitch "somewhere" and every so often will tell me that there is a program error and shuts down. I've tried everything I can think of; so if I disappear, it's because I bought a new computer and am not smart enough to get back here. I did make a copy of my address book!

It was a beautiful day here again. I love this weather!

Tomorrow is Friday but I am almost dreading the weekend because it will be a busy one and we won't be home much. Tomorrow night we have a dinner for church -- they wanted us to be in charge of it as we were three years ago but I had enough sense to tell them NO when they called in August. Saturday we will spend some time with the kids and probably go out to eat. Saturday night we are going to a harvest dinner put on by a little country church, Sunday is church and a potluck which I think we are going to pass on. Whew!

Maggie -- I would think you would have shown a loss just because you had your hair cut! That's a lot of hair! I'm glad you like your new WW leader and meeting. A good leader makes such a big difference!

Bubbles -- I don't watch Oprah as much during the school year but try to catch the reruns during the summer. I think I would enjoy the gym if I had someone to go with. I lost the most with the least amount of effort when I walked with a neighbor. She moved away and it's been a struggle ever since. Jason is and feels like he got a bad deal. He is trying to regroup, update his resume, and make a plan. They offered him two weeks pay to hit the road and said they'd rather he didn't seek unemployment. I don't know the rules and regs about that but I hope he can "put it to 'em" in that respect. The main bank owner lives in our town and I'd love to give him my thoughts right about now. Of course he lives in a big fancy house on the lake and his kids go to the private Catholic school in town. GRRRRRRR! Actually, we have found out that he's not too well thought of in the business circles. Oh well, like I told Jason, it's probably for the best in the end and to just be glad that they hadn't moved yet. Did Mike have heart surgery? Heart problems are always so scary. We have some friends who had a pet horse and when the horse died they buried it -- standing up no less.

It is time for bed! Have a fantastic Friday, Flowers!

Jean -- in Iowa!

[Maggie]

GOOD MORNING MAGNOLIAS

It is raining. Yep! Raining seriously ~ how wonderful, how marvelous ~ rejoice with me.

JEAN I was having that same type of problem. To cure it I e-mailed my provider - which is Earthlink - and they e-mailed me the instructions on how to fix it. I ran a "repair" on the Internet Express system that stopped that nonsense. Seemed it had developed a glitch and needed prompting to repair itself. Your provider should be able to help you out with that. My problem went as far as to prevent me from clicking on any of the blue underlined internet address sent to me in my Outlook Express Mail system. Which ment that I couldn't just click on the address to get here to this sight when I was notified that someone had made a post or go to any of the sites folks sent me to look at. It was a real bother for sure and I didn't have a clue without help to fix the problem. It was a process before I did get it fixed for the first set of instructions they sent did't work but the third ones did the trick. Now Cowboy wants to buy me a new laptop for Christmas and he will take this one. I rather like that idea. More space is very attractive.

Have a good weekend folks - be safe and have fun. Life is a challenge so treat it as an adventure.

[graybubs]

Happy Friday one and all,

Maggie, while you're having rain, we're having a glorious fall day with sunshine and cool temps. Just returned from a 4 mile walk on the trail with my friend Tom and Jimmy..........if we took all the detours the dog does, it probably would be closer to five or six miles We would have been crawling by the time we reached the car.
I can't imagine losing 16 inches of hair! Mine probably wouldn't amount to that much cut in three years! How long is it now? When mine gets to 4", I start getting a little nutso.
Congrats on the weight loss. I gained Tues, but think it was because we had been weighed in the morning on Saturday at the workshop. Let's hope that's what it is.

Jean, I hate to hear that about Jason. Unfortunately, banks seem to be notorious for that stuff. The banks here have just laid off a bunch of people. Got one of the VPs whose wife is ill, and only had a year or so until retirement..........they obviously didn't want to pay his retirement, the snakes in the grass.
My son had quadruple bypass surgery in June, '01..........we were really lucky to have caught it. It's congenital, as his dad died of athrosclerosis at 42, and my brother in law has had bypass surgery as well. I've had a stress test in addition to the routine blood work, and passed it with flying colors Hope things continue to be good for me.

I still have a long way to go before I have to worry about loose skin............

Have a great weekend youall. Mike's gone til Sunday, so it's just me and the critters.
Bubs

[Jean]

Good Afternoon, Flowers!
I am sneaking up on my evening with the church folks. Three years ago we started a major fund raising campaign to remodel our sanctuary and add a "gym" which they are calling the Family Living Center. That part of the deal has caused many unhappy people in the church as it added much expense to the project. So now that we are basically finished with the project, we need MORE money so that we can pay the loan off at a faster rate. The dinner tonight is a precommitment dinner and we will fill out pledge cards so that at the all church dinner they will have a kick off amount to be an incentive for everyone to dig a little deeper and give more. The gym has turned out to be a monstrosity in that they peaked the roof to match the rest of the church (and accomodate the basketball hoops!) so it echoes so bad you can't have a conversation with another person let alone a whole bunch.

Maggie -- I dumped a bunch of stuff last night and then defragmented the "whatever". So far I've been able to get where I wanted to go today. My server put in a junk mail filter and it catches some of the stuff I'd like to read while it lets some of the bad stuff on through. I give up! It takes twice as much time to sort through the list now!

Bubbles -- When you said critters I pictured possums and raccoons! I'm glad your tests went OK and that you passed. Those kind always make me nervous . . . I don't do good around the medical stuff. Does Mike have to be careful or did the surgery correct the problem? I hope so.

We are going car shopping tomorrow. We have a 4 year old car with leather seats and the heating element on "my" seat quit working. To replace it will cost $600 -- that's after we replaced a water pump and the power steering pump. I think it should have been painted yellow! Iowa is not the best place to have cold buns!

Have a nice weekend!

Jean -- from Iowa!

[graybubs]

Hi Jean,
Happy weekend. Been through that fundraising deal at church on more than one occasion..........not fun. People tend to take sides and that's always a mess. The Methodists here beat anything I"ve ever seen.......they built a huge addition and completely remodeled the Sanctuary, about 5 years ago,and burned the mortgage in Sept! They don't turn in pledge cards either..........the Church Council, or whomever, sets up the budget and they have faith that the money will be there. Lord, in the Lutheran Church, we don't leave nuttin' to chance

RE: Mike's health............who knows? They replaced the clogged arteries, and he was good as new, but was supposed to follow a low fat diet and exercise. Unfortunately, he loves junk food.......wonder where he got that Being a nonmedical person, it would seem to me that if 4 of the arteries were clogged at age 35, there would be a reasonable likelihood that he is predisposed to that and it could happen again. He knows that, but is in denial.........and I ain't no therapist! The counseling courses I"ve had were not designed to be used on family

Went over to visit with my friend with Rheumatoid Arthritis last night........hadn't seen her in a week. She's had one dose of the Remicade and has her second the 14th. She's like a different person! Can get in and out of a chair, is driving her car around the neighborhood, and is playing the piano to help with the stiffness in her hands. Amazing. She wasn't supposed to see any results of the infusion until after her second dose, but she certainly has. She was terrified she'd have a reaction to it, as she has several drug allergies, but not so. An answer to many prayers.

Happy car shopping. I have a Honda Odyssey with less than 25,000 miles on it, which is two years old, and I hate it. It's too big for me. I had the old Odyssey and loved it. The sliding doors on this baby have never worked well, the passenger side seatbelt doesn't give the way it should, and you have to really slam the tailgate to get it closed. I've had Hondas for years, but I"m really not happy with this one. I'm thinking of trading while it still has low mileage. We'll see.

The clouds are rolling in. We're supposed to have rain starting tomorrow and continuing until midweek. With all the folks in drought situations, I'm not complaining.

Bubs

[nanacas]

[SIZE=huge]GOOD AFTERNOON MAGNOLIAS[/SIZE]

MAGGIE: Pleased to hear that your ear is on the mend! A new laptop sounds like a wonderful Christmas present. Being in a trailer it must be much more convient to have a laptop than a desktop PC. DS stopped by while on a business trip and showed off his laptop. It had all the bells and whistles that he needs for his new job I think I will be satisfied with my desktop! We are connected to our local electric co. and have been renting a modem from them for $10 a mo. Just found out that I could by my own and return theirs and they will take tat $10 off the monthly bill for the Cable TV/Internet connection. Bought my own and today installed it, as you can see, successfully.

JEAN: Good luck in your hunt for a new car. I know what you mean about the heated seats. We have them in the Avalon and they are great. Hope the church campaign works out. There is always onething or another looking for money. We have requests for money from the local church and from the Archdiocese.. it never ends. I hope Jason can find a job soon especially with the new baby this month. It is a very stressful time for them. Jean, by the end of the month you will be a grandmother.

BUBS: It is wonderful when you have someone to walk with and especially when the weather cooperates. WOW! 35 is young to have had a quadruple bypass! He will have to be more careful but as a Mother it is hard to keep our mouths shut when we think our advise is good.
are so much tastier than

Gloria in MA....getting ready to go the Christmas Bazaar and our church. Christmas already!!!!

[Maggie]

GOOD EVENING MAGNOLIAS

Rain in abundance ~ great! Went to my mom's today for lunch for my sis and her husband were there and are planning on moving to this area next year. That will be great for they promised my folks that they would do this one day and looks like the day is arriving.

JEAN hope you find a nice car that suits your needs. Isn't your grandbaby being expected around the same time Cindy's is? She is expecting on the 26th.

BUBBLES are you thinking of buying a USA made car next? That is such good news about your friend doing so well on those meds. I do hope she continues to get better with ongoing treatment. That is so neat.

GLORIA I currently have a lap top that I am totally happy with and am seriously thinking of talking Cowboy out of getting me a new one. I would like some more space but I look at how much these little babies cost and don't really see the "need" for it. I really like this lap top much better than any desk top models I have had in the past and even if I lived in a regular house (or cabin in the woods in Montana) once again ~ I would opt for one of these. No I don't get a comission and this and it really isn't an advertisement . That is neat that you found a way to save that ten bucks a month! You go girl.

Have a great Sunday ladies.

[graybubs]

Good evening all,
Gloria, you're so right about 35 being young for bypass surgery. My husband died in his sleep at 42 of athrosclerosis, so Mike gets it honest. I was Mike's age when his dad died.........scary thought.

Today was amazingly warm! We took Jimmy to the trail, and it was packed with people(everything being relative, of course, we probably saw maybe 30 folks and 10 dogs), taking advantage of one of the "last days of summer". I was wearing a short sleeved T Shirt, and was wringing wet when we got back to the car. We're supposed to have severe thunderstorms tonight and tomorrow.........they have a Tornado watch for the counties west of us until 11PM.

Got a call from our Thurs. night leader saying her dad is dying and she's going to stay at the hospital to give her mom a hand, so I'll be doing a "weigh and go" Thurs. Last week I did a W&G on Tues, had 3 people who wanted to join even knowing that our leader was away, so I went through the Getting Started book with them. The other clerk told me I did a good job, and that it was pretty obvious I'd been a teacher. I didn't feel like I'd done very well, and thought of things I should have told them after the fact. Hope they had a good week. I encouraged them to call me if they had any questions, and haven't heard anything, so I'm assuming they were OK.

Off to bed with Nicholas Sparks' new novel "Rodanthe" something. A quick and easy read.

Enjoy Veteran's Day.
Bubs

[nanacas]

Good Morning Magnolias:

It is raining today, and quite windy. Nice day to stay cozy inside. However, this morning DH has eye appointment and we must go out.

BUBS: What a difficult event that must have been for you to lose your husband so young. Now, you have that concern for your son. DD#1 lost her husband 7 yrs ago at the age of 37. She was also 37. Had moved to Texas 2 yrs before and had an 11 yr old boy and a 2 yr old boy. He also had a heart attack at home. She has since moved back to MA and is doing well. I say this to let you know I know what you have been going through all these years. You are a strong woman and should be proud of yourself.

Gloria in MA....I hear DH and I must get ready to brave the elements.

[graybubs]

Dear Gloria,
What a nice note, and I thank you! It was tough, but JJ didn't suffer, and I firmly believe in the Resurrection, so it wasn't as tough as it could have been. I also had wonderful support from family, church, and friends, which also means alot. When I think of the people I know who've had to watch a loved one suffer, although JJ's death was a shock, it could have been worse. I was never concerned about him, because I knew where he was, thanks to our belief in Baptism, but I must say I was scared to death for myself. I had flunked out of the Univ. of Florida for overcutting, so there I was with a 10 year old, and all I could do was teach swimming, tennis, and horseback riding! But, I went back to school, taking one course the first quarter, and gradually working up to a full load. When all was said and done I had my Bachelor's and the equivalent of two Master's degrees........a Master's plus 45 hours when I retired. I loved going to school as a "grown up".......too bad I didn't feel that way when my dad was paying for it:~} It sounds crazy, but my husband's death was the most enriching experience of my life. I"ve never felt so completely enveloped by love.
Off to the hardware store to pick up an adapter plug........there must be at least three of them somewhere in this house, but I sure can't find 'em.
Hope the visit to the dr. went well.
Bubs