I have something of my mother's

I discovered something else about myself as I was looking at that picture of myself.. beside the fact that it's not the most flattering picture of me.. was that I have my mother's hands.. when did that happen?.. I have my mother's hands, my sister's voice and her face as well, my father's talent for painting.. what the hell is mine?.. or do I really want to know..

We tend to measure ourselves by other people's measuring sticks.. and in our own minds we never quite stack up.. why is that?

Self Discovery

As you can see I've updated my weight chart and to this point I've lost 21 pounds (that may be a thing of the past when I get weighted in tomorrow.. I ate sooo much on the weekend at the family get together.. groan.. )..

I've lost 5 pounds in the last two weeks alone.. I think that I've finally clicked into the fact that this is a lifelong thing. Not something to do until I lose X number of pounds but something that's from now on.. and know what.. I'm ok with that. I find I'm looking at the bigger picture now (excuse the pun) and even if I gain a bit I know that I can take it off and more.. I've been lucky that my gains have been small when I've been "bad" as far as eating like I used to.

I also think that my body is getting used to this lower weight and when I overeat it isn't as quick to gain the weight back.. and as I also discovered.. my stomach has shrunk so that when I overeat like I did on Sunday I suffer the consequences for at least a day afterwards.. seriously, it wasn't a pretty picture... and at least on my scales.. I've put on a good 2 pounds to top it off.. but I'm not letting that put me off track.. I know now that I can do it so there's no excuses.. lol..

I started Weigh Watchers on May 07/2007. My starting weight was 193.4 pounds and since I'm only 5 ft 2 inches tall the most I should weigh is 137 according to the WW chart. So I had 56.4 pounds to lose. I started on the point system and now I'm on the core plan.

week 1 193.4
week 2 193.4 - 189 = 4.4 lbs LOST*
week 3 189 - 186.6 = 2.4 lbs LOST*
week 4 missed this meeting
week 5 186.6 -186.8 = +.2 lbs gained
week 6 186.8 - 183.6 = 3.2 lbs LOST*
week 7 183.6 - 181.6 = 2 lbs LOST*
week 8 181.6 - 182.4 =+.8 lbs gained
week 9 182.4 - 181.8 = .6 lbs LOST*
week 10 181.8 - 179.8 = 2 lbs LOST*
week 11 179.8 - 182= +2.2 lbs gained
week 12 182 - 179.8 = 2.2 lb. LOST*
week 13 179.8 - 179.2 = .6 lb LOST*
week 14 179.2 - 180.4 = +1.2 lbs gained
week 15 180.4 - 180.2 = .2 lb LOST*
week 16 180.2 - 178.6 = 1.6 lbs LOST*
week 17 178.6 - 178.8 = +.2 lbs gained
week 18 178.8 - 179.8 = +1 lb gained
week 19 179.8 -180.4 = +.6 lb gained
week 20 180.4 - 178.8 = 1.6 lbs LOST*
week 21 178.8 - 178.6 = .2 lb LOST*
week 22 178.6 - 177.8 = .8 lb LOST*
week 23 177.8 - 177.6 = .2 lb LOST*
week 24 177.6 - 176.8 = .8 lb LOST*
week 25 176.8 - 176.8 = same
week 26 176.8 - 177.2 = +.4 lb gained
week 27 177.2 - 177.4 = +.2 lbs gained
week 28 177.4 - 175 = 2.4 lbs LOST!!*
week 29 175 - 172.4 = 2.6 lbs LOST!! (5 LBS IN TWO WEEKS)


to date a total of 21 lbs lost..
56.4 to lose at start - 21 = 35.4 lbs to go..

I was informed I'm going to hell

My niece, when informed of my plans to make my own Tarot deck, told me that, of course, I was going to hell. I have a couple of sisters who have found God, God lovem' (well, according to them He indeed does). And all sorts of bad habits or lifestyles I practice are to be my damnation. But my way of thinking is that if they think that their God will forgive them for their past indiscretions, then my present indiscretions will eventually be in my past so that all I have to do is play the waiting game and all will be forgiven.. that's my plan at least.

Have been designing my own Tarot cards.. See below.

I've been designing my own Tarot cards in the last little while but I think that I need to get away from the computer for a while because I'm finding it hard on my eyes lately. But I also would like to be more creative with my hands instead of with my mind and since my eyesight is getting too poor for counted cross stitching ever again I would suspect, I thought that rock painting would be in order.. I'll attach some of the Tarot cards here, so far I've created 8 out of a deck of 72 so I have a ways to go.

Who is that dweeb?

I left my partner, R. a voice message the other day and as I was listening to it to see if we had any other messages I realised that my voice sounds different coming from a place outside my head.. and let me tell you, it's not a nice melodic sound like I imagined, but a nasally, whiny, sounds-just-like-my-sister voice.. *shudder*.. when I pointed out to R. that I sounded like my sister L. he said "Yeah, I know" because, I guess, if my voice was coming at him from out of my head and not into my head, he could tell the difference... I further thought "and you're still with me?".. another mystery...

I remember when my, now 13 year old, granddaughter was a baby I videotaped myself laying on the floor and talking to her in babytalk.. I repeated Brrrrrittany, over and over again until I wanted to rip my own tongue out by it's roots.. I think I might have scarred the poor thing for life... I can't stand to look at that video to this day..

Now every time that I talk, especially on the phone, I can hear my own voice.. very distracting and disconcerting to say the least, and sometimes I'm so engrossed in listening to myself talk *and not in the usual good way*, I lose track of what I was saying.

week 1 193.4
week 2 193.4 - 189 = 4.4 lost
week 3 189 - 186.6 = 2.4 lost
week 4 missed this meeting
week 5 186.6 -186.8 = .2 gained
week 6 186.8 - 183.6 = 3.2 lost
week 7 183.6 - 181.6 = 2 lost
week 8 181.6 - 182.4 = .8 gained
week 9 182.4 - 181.8 = .6 lost
week 10 181.8 - 179.8 = 2 lost
week 11 179.8 - 182 = 2.2 gained
week 12 182 - 179.8 = 2.2 lost

Are you noticing the same pattern I am???.. hmmm .. interesting..

My weight loss journey... continued...

I started Weigh Watchers on May 07/2007. My starting weight was 193.4 pounds and since I'm only 5 ft 2 inches tall the most I should weigh is 137 according to the WW chart. So I had 56.4 pounds to lose. I started on the point system and now I'm on the core plan.

week 1 193.4
week 2 193.4 - 189 = 4.4 pounds lost
week 3 189 - 186.6 = 2.4 pounds lost
week 4 missed this meeting
week 5 186.6 -186.8 = .2 pounds gained
week 6 186.8 - 183.6 = 3.2 pounds lost
week 7 183.6 - 181.6 = 2 pounds lost
week 8 181.6 - 182.4 = .8 pounds gained
week 9 182.4 - 181.8 = .6 pounds lost
week 10 181.8 - 179.8 = 2 pounds lost
* yeah I broke the 180 mark!!!*
so as of today I've lost a total of 13.6 pounds which is an average of 1.4 pounds a week.

I've done so well that I've been able to discontinue one of my diabetic medications (with my doctor's blessings of course) and my goal is to discontinue my other.

My way of thnking is that this is going to be a new way of living.. not just a diet and this is a new way of thinking for me.

I'm determined to reward myself for each 5 pounds with a smaill reward and a larger one for each 10 pounds.
When I lost my first 10 pounds I got a haircut.

I'll use this medium to keep myself honest.

Weight Watcher is going well..

I've lost 11.6 so far and I go for a weigh in tonight so I'm hoping that it will be more.. on my own scales I've lost but you never know with those cheap scales if they're accurate or not.

My way of looking at it now is that I'm in this for life, literally.. I've been able to come off of one of my medications for diabetes (with my doctor's blessings of course) and she said I should work towards being strictly diet controlled which is entirely possible if I take off the weight. My arthritis will be more relieved if I take off more weight.. I tend to carry my weight around my wasteline so if I can reduce that it will help me to not be off balance because of the weight on the front (now if I could only get the lower belly weight to move around to the nonexistant butt I'd be happy).

We should hear very soon about our reclass and if it went through.. it's been about a year of work on this and I think they're going to offer us something but what is the question. It's rediculous but I've been thinking a lot about retiring lately and I can't wait for it to happen.. It's going to be torture for the next 5-6 years if I don't stop!!! Maybe I just need a vacation.. another six weeks to go.

My garden is doing great and will post some pictures later. I bought a stargazer lily last week and I can't wait for it to bloom.. well gotta run and get ready for work and weigh in tonight.. wish me luck on both counts.

I'm almost to my 10 pound loss!!!

Just .2 of a pound to go, I've lost 9.8 pounds and once I reach the magical 10 pound mark I'm going to celebrate by getting myself a short, sassy haircut. So hopefully it will be next week because frankly my hair is driving me nuts and I feel like cutting it myself but R (bless his heart) gently told me the last time I butchered my hair that it probably would be better to invest the money into going to hairdresser. Who am I to argue?

My Weight Watcher Journey.. pt 2

I decided to go on the core plan on ww.. in it you eat whole foods like fresh fruit and vegetables, whole wheat pasta, lean meats etc.. You don't count points but you restrict yourself to the core foods and eat only until you are satisfied so you learn to listen to your body and know when you're full...

I'm really enjoying it and since I gained a little, .2 of a pound last week I decided that the points system is not really what I want to do. I'm excited about it because I think that I may have reached to 10 pound mark and to treat myself if I did do it I'm going to invest in a haircut. And plan to buy myself something at each 10 pound mark..

You're Never Too Old To Be Surprised.

These pictures in no way do the scene any justice.

I drive on the same road every day to go to work. I had thought that I had seen everything that there was to see. Although the scenery is beautful in every season here in Prince Edward Island you come to take it for granted. But last week I happened to glance to my right and lo and behold I saw a wonderul, colourful sight before my eyes. A whole field planted with tulips. As a backdrop to a newly plowed Island field in it's red clayed glory, the tulips took on a glow and I imagined I could smell their perfume on the gentle breeze. Now my drive finds me alert to new sights and that makes my mornings more alive.

Ahhh the smell of eww'da Skunk in the morning

Why is it that I tend to awaken in the morning to the odor of skunk? Is it past carma coming back to extract its revenge? And since my cat tends to spend her nights out of doors I'm always a little afraid to let her back into the house since she tends to repeat her bad habit of "playing" with the skunks, perhaps in an effort to make friends? Also, she tends to sleep on my pillow (the cat, not the skunk, although sometimes it's hard to tell but this morning she just smelled like cat). And this morning the humidity lent to the pungent intensity outdoors. Living in the country ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Nature tends to interrupt my sleep lately, from roving skunks to marauding raccoons that are impervious to methods of discouragement like bright lights and loud noise. Sunday night I awoke to loud, weird noise, much like the sound in the city of teenagers driving around with their car radios blaring in the middle of the night. Turns out this was a raccoon giving my cat a piece of it's teeny tiny mind and my cat standing her ground, stupid but brave. I turned on all manner of lights thinking niavely that it would send the raccoon running but no, it stood in my driveway defiant and didn't leave until I yelled at it for a few moments.

Well off to work I go hie ho.

More childhood memories

OUR FAMILY HOME

I was born in 1951 so when I was a child we didn't have inside plumbing or electicity. I remember doing my homework by lamp light (which I contribute to causing my eyesight to be bad), we never played in the house no matter what the season. In the summer we played outside using pieces of broken pottery as dishes, our yard didn't have a lawn, just packed dirt so we would make outlines in the dirt to represent the rooms of our dream house and would play there for hours at a time, we used our imagination to create all kinds of wonderful realities.

I come from of family of 14 children so we never had a shortage of playmates, either my siblings or our friends. We didn't have much but neither did our friends so we thought we were rich.
In the winter we would skate, toboggan and sleigh down the hills near our home, make forts in the snow and snow people. In the winter was the only time we would have jello or great homemade frozen fudgesickles made from coco drink set outside in the snowbank and frozen. We had no electicity and our fridge that we used in the summer had a big block of ice that we bought from the ice truck that made the rounds.

I remember always having a garden to grow our own fresh vegetables and we got baby chicks at Easter that made it onto our table for Thanksgiving but we accepted that as part of life. I remember gathering eggs from our laying hens and taking them, still warm, into our mother to cook for breakfast. We didn't live in the country but our town was pretty small back then and we knew all our neighbours.

There was a pickling plant near our home and we would go there and collect the rejected cucumbers that our mother would make into our own pickles and so I guess we did our own recycling.. lol. My mother always made her own bread, biscuits, and deserts. We didn't have a lot but we were never hungry.

We lived in a small house that is no longer standing (there's a Sobey's built on the land where we used to live. Imaging all us kids in this small little house. It only had three bedrooms, one for our parents, one for the girls and one for the boys. Although there would have never have been 14 kids in the house at one time, I think at the most there would have probably have been 9 or so. Our mother would get up early in the morning and get the wood/coal stove going so that the kitchen would be warm for the crew to get up from their warm beds. I remember as a child, on a cold winter night, our mother warming bricks to place at the foot or our beds, under the blankets, to keep our feet warm.

I also remember that at Christmas we would each get only one toy and we would be so excited to receive an orange or a Red Delicious apple in our sticking with a few hard candies and though we were in heaven. So how was your childhood?

This is the most amazing dog I have ever seen. You cannot believe that this dog would even be alive let alone walk..

Summer memories...

Summer to me meant playing Red Rover, marbles in the dirt, hop scotch, picnics on the beach (my older sister cooked a hamburger soup with sea water that was to die for.. I think the salt air sharpened our appetites.. you wouldn't dare use sea water to cook nowadays would you?), hide and seek, standing under a tree in a lightening storm (what were we thinking?), the stange light after a freak storm, making mud pies with flower for decorations (yummy), the smell of clothes dried in the sun, swimming in the warm Atlantic waters until our fingers were all wrinkly and then dripping water on our protesting parents as they lay in the sun on a blanket... ahhh summer.

Wow.. time sure flies when you're living your life...

The last time I checked in with you I was waiting for the call from the hospital about the catscan.. well they called and I went in and fortunately the stones have passed although it took a few days for the infection to go because of the grinding and scraping of the stones on the way out.. I know ... owwwy... and it was quite painful. But all better now..

I have started walking with my sister L. once again.. I'm on the quest for weight loss.. joined Weight Watchers.. have a bunch of weight to lose and I need to be going to the meetings in order to keep myself honest (with myself most of all). I lost 4.4 lbs the first week and 2.4 pounds that second week for a total of 6.8 pounds in two weeks. I'm suspecting that I won't have lost any weight this week for some reason. Well, I know what the reason is, I haven't been keeping track of my points on paper, just in my head, and you know how that can get.... Oh well, we'll see how much, if any, I've lost on Wednesday when I go to the meeting and if I lost, great.. if I didn't I'll get strict with keeping a points book.. otherwise I'll just keep going as I am.. I should try the core plan where you can only eat certain foods but you don't have to keep track of points. I'll keep you informed of how I do.

I've been trying to get my heart shaped garden all weeded out.. why is it that grass can grow so well in my garden but not so well on the lawn where you want it to grow?.. although this year the lawn is doing better as well... As you can see by the photos above, I've been working up the edge of the garden so that the rocks show around the edges. The rocks were buried under grass and so you couldn't tell where the edge of the garden was and the lawn began. I'm a bit stiff from working on the garden and my wrists are a bit sore from using the garden weasle.. but I now have it 2/3 of the way done and it's coming along really well... will post photos once it's all done...

Waiting for the call...

I'm waiting for the call from the hospital... I'm hoping that the stone/s have passed through and that I'm on the mend.. I know they caused some irritation in my kidney because of the pain and the fact that I'm on antibiotics... and when you're diabetic one of the worse things you can hear is that there's a problem with your kidneys... so for a few days I was running blind with fear... that on top of the pain... but the pain is easing so that I don't have to constantly be on the tylenol and have been able to go for longer periods awake which is good.. so I guess I'm on the mend... here's crossing my fingers that the stones passed when I was sleeping... and zonked out on pain killers...

Oh.. by the way.. I'm still on Weight Watchers...

Even through the pain I'm still doing well... in fact I'm feeling ill and don't feel like eating too much any way... it's an ill wind that doesn't blow some good your way... lol..

Not sore from being out of shape....

Well, on Friday I went to work still feeling sore.. I had been thinking it was a pulled muscle but it really didn't feel like one (I've had pulled muscles before so I can recognise them).. for one thing it didn't hurt to move in different directions but it hurt like hell if I took a deep breath... well as I said I went to work but around noon time I was so sore, sick and with such a headache that I decided I had better call my doctor to see if she could squeese me in.. well, I discovered my doctor doesn't work on Fridays and the walk in clinics were closed but I was feeling so rotten that I had to do something and that something was to face the probable all day wait at the emergency room at the hospital..

The pain was in the right side about mid way down... and since I'm a diabetic and had a brother how lost his kidneys to a disease that could be genetic I decided that it was worth the wait.. all in all it took about 5 hours and the doctor sent me for xrays and took a urine sample... turns out I have kidney stone... and DAMN they hurt.. the doctor said I also have a low grade fever probably caused by infection starting in my kidney from the stones... the xrays weren't 100% positive so he said the hospital will contact me in a couple of days to come in for a scan to determine exactly what I have... well I can tell you it's stones... owwwwyyyy...

But worse than the pain from the stones (I shouldn't say worse because that pain is horrendous) is how sick I get from taking Tylenol3 with codine and antibiotics... this is one sore, sick puppy.. do you all feel sorry for me now?

Day 3 and counting... lol...

I got through today without breaking my diet.. made for sure I had enough food on hand that I could eat.. but unfortunately my back is killing me so no walk today.. I'm not sure what the problem is, but when you're out of shape like I am you can easily pull a muscle and I believe that is what I did yesterday by walking for too long.. I really should have eased into it but being the all or nothing person I am I decided to walk for an hour... now my body is protesting and I wasn't able to go for my walk today at all (but since it's after 1 am I guess that would be yesterday).. I went to bed right after supper to rest and didn't get up until around 11 pm so I'm awake, sore and thinking I really should get back to bed...

Day Two of Weight Watchers

Ohhhh Gawwwwd I was hungry today... so on the way home I picked up some fruit and some salad makings.. tomorrow I'm not going to let myself get so danged hungry... I've been walking yesterday and this morning and boy am I sore.. my back is killing me.. so tomorrow I'll have to take it easy or I'll be twice as sore.. it sure sucks getting old!!!.. but I keep thinking that if I can get some of this excess weight off that I will be a lot less sore... well I'm off to do some more reading of the material I got on the Monday night meeting... and will be making a grocery list for when we go grocery shopping on Friday or Saturday... bbye for now.

Got the dreaded call from the doctor...

I went in for blood tests at the doctor's office a couple of weeks ago and when I went back a week later the results some of my blood tests came back and my overall blood sugar totals for the 3 month time frame was 7.4.. in the high normal and my doctor said she'd call me when she got the rest of the results back only if there was something that needed to be addressed.. well, yesterday I got the call. I have to go and see her to go over the final results and I have a feeling it's not because I'm doing so great.. so before I go to see the doctor I'm going to join Weight Watchers yet again.. I did well the last time I joined and lost around 12 to 13 pounds and then we bought this house in the country and I couldn't afford the cost of the meetings.. now we're in a better place financially and I figure if I can get down to my goal weight of 135 to 140 then I can probably get off most of my diabetes medications and save there plus once you're on maintenance you don't have to pay to go to the monthly meetings.. so an initial cost will translate in to savings in money and health... a win win situation.. and R's good at being willing to eat healthy with me and so that's half the battle.. so wish me luck.

*yawn*.. is it morning yet????

I went to bed at a quarter to 8 last night to read and thought that I'd get a couple of hours reading before I fell asleep.... wrong!! I was asleep by 8pm and couldn't drag myself out of bed when my daughter called at 9pm... also had a hard time getting up at 5:30, my usual wakeup time, so I hit the snooze until almost 6 am... As my late mother used to say "I must have needed the sleep.. ".. well duh. Why the hell do I feel like crap this morning after all that sleep.. or is it because of all that sleep?

Speaking about my mother.. she used to ask my why I never wanted to go to bed.. and I think she hit the nail on the head when she questioned.. "Are you afraid you might miss something?".. I'm like that ... I'm afraid I might miss life as it whizzes by when I'm asleep.. I guess I want to live every minute and not waste it sleeping... Living in the country I usually try to get up between 5:30 and 6:00 each morning but when I sometimes have to force myself to go to bed by 10 0r 11 pm.. that doesn't make for a lot of sleep...

I'm now on FaceBook...

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=650620416 check it out.. I'm just learning how it all works.

Who Let the Dogs Out???

No, I'm not going to sing that terrible song but I know it's now stuck in your head.. you can thank me later.. here is the aforementioned Shitzu with the sleepers on.. he's a weird enough looking doggy with the terrible bite (his bottom jaw is jutted forward) but the added sleepwear ... well, I dunno... and on the bottom is our little butterball.. she really is a poodle.. I promise... and she's been on a diet.. I promise... and she has lost weight.. double promise.. I still say she's not fat.. she's fluffy..

Easter's Almost Over

Well that was an interesting day... we left this fair Island yesterday to clear skies and narry a flake of snow on the ground or otherwise.. only to be greeted this morning on our way back from an Easter trip to Amherst, Nova Scotia to see R's family by white outs and terrible driving in spots.. the trip from Amherst to the Confederation Bridge was not too bad with clear roads and a very little amount of drifting snow.. but once we cleared the bridge and got into North Tryon it was a whole new kettle of fish .. it didn't help that we had a car in front of us that was making the whole experience that much worse and almost made us get stuck a few times because they were driving so slow... but we made it in one piece only to arrive at our driveway to find it packed with snow.. and R finally got to use his snow blower on some real substantial snow.. made him feel like a man!!!

On another topic.. R's sister has a young little Shitzu dog (don't know if that's the right way to spell it but you get the picture) that had his little weewee snipped... well, R's son had told them to put a diaper on the dog so he wouldn't try to get at the incision... that didn't work needless to say because it was too uncomfortable.. so J (R's sister) bought the dog two baby nightshirts with the flap that goes between the legs and snaps on the front and sides.. once they got the hole cut for the tail they had him all set.. looked a little strange but it did the trick and that's the point I guess .. but I think that he will be traumatised because she took him in public like that!!!! Poor little pouchy...

'Tis the Season....

Ello... nottin' on TV so thought I'd spill some brains out here...

I know .. I have few enough so it's not good to be wasting them.. but TV sucks the big one tonight and I've lost my taste for Poser for a while... I've been downloading so much stuff for my Poser program that if I don't stop my brand new computer will grind to a halt because it will be so jammed full of "stuff"...

The above picture is of a sewing/craft centre that R got me a couple of weeks ago.. he got me a sewing machine before Xmas because he was tired of having his pant cuffs dragging on the floor and his mother lives too far away to take the pants over to her.. That unit is really neat, the front, big door swings open and there's a leaf hanging down on the left of the unit that lifts up and the door, when fully open, goes under it to hold it up making a large work surface... the smaller door opens to reveal three shelves and there is a large shelf behind the large door to place your sewing machine... over all a great piece so furniture and the beauty of it is that you can close it all up when you're done and wheel it out of the way...

I finally got the sewing machine to work properly and I was even able to hem some blue jeans.. they are the worst things to hem because they are so damned thick!!! And I got a huge pile of pants hemmed and my next project is the drapes/curtains for the house... I got a bunch of material at a blow out sale and it's just gorgeous but my sewing machine was acting up and I was getting big bunches of thread on the bottom of the material and nothing I did would correct it.. I finally figured out today that it was the thread and the tension... the thread was old and really cheap and kept breaking and jamming up in the needle... so I put in some good thread and decided to correct the tension...

Just a side note here* a woman at work that sews a lot told me never to touch the top tension.. she said that when she buys a new machine she leaves the tension the way it was when she bought it, she changes other things but always leaves the factory setting on the top tension... well, the factory setting on my machine was all the way one way and I couldn't see that working... but was afraid to touch it thinking that I would be doomed to never being able to sew properly again and my machine would be ruined... WRONG!!!! Never listen to so called "experts".. it's alway good to experiment.. and besides in the book that came with the machine (which, by the way, is in four different languages) it says to adjust everything depending on what you're doing but the directions on how to do that are not clear...

But I finally got it working by turning the top tension half way and like I said earlier, I replaced the cheap thread... now I can't wait to get going on the drapes... maybe next weekend.. oh no, next weekend I'll be out of province so that's out... but I will get to it... Promise.. and who knows.. maybe there will be pictures... lol..

Ahhhh pictures.. everyone ready?

Now take your seats and get ready to view some interesting *cough*boring*cough* pictures of our house renovations.... I know.. just let me get this thing set up.. talk amoungst yourselves while I do that... I gotta search back through my pics to find the old ones to compare with my new ones...

Step one is admitting your house is ugly ... step two is admitting you're not powerless over ugliness.. step three is getting off your butt (or in this case R getting off HIS butt) and doing something about it...

Notice the floor covering (vinyl flooring or oilcloth as me mum used to call it) that is less attractive than ... say... bare subfloor... the pukey wall paper, the burgundy and green outdated color combination.. the mint green paint above the chair rail.... on second thought don't look too long or you may get the hives... Personally, I think the lone shoe in front of the woodstove adds a nice touch.. and the dog seems embarrassed that I'm actually taking a picture of this room ... but fear not... things will improve

Here is the new and improved version... as you can tell the laminate flooring adds a touch of class that is complimented by the calming undertones of the rest of the ensemble ... note the muted paint color.. a sort of taupe that is reflected in the texturing in the wallpaper... ahhh yes it is wallpaper.. but such classy stuff... the darker below and lighter above have similar shades of the brown/gray/taupe with small "threads" of gold.. it's a sight to behold... we can all bow our heads in a silent prayer of thanks... aaaaammmennnn....


*notice even Missy is new and improved with her nifty little hair bow.. oh no, we spared no expense... *

What is this thing.......????

What is this thing that sits on my desk with a twirly cord attached to it..??? I hear you can put it to your ear and talk to people far away.. I think it's called a PONE or something like that... been without a working communication device for so long now it's like some kind of alien being sittin on my desk.. and my ear tends to get sore when I talk to my daughter for more than an hour... never used to be like that.. what is with that?... and I forget it's there and when it rings (which is very seldom because people have forgotten me out here in the country since I've been gone from their speed dial) I get a fright at the clanging of it's internal bell.. and the more I've been without the more I think that the silence was great... but for that possible emergency or a need to make a hair dresser appointment (which to me is a call for immediate help).. I guess it's ok to have it around...

Speaking of hair dresser appointments, I have one this evening... my hairdresser was off on maternity leave (and so was my doctor.. hmmm.. strange).. and I found that the other hairdressers I tried have not been up to her standards.. hope it's not a case of remembered things being better than reality.. will let you know this evening how it all turns out... gotta go and go off to the job of jobs... later...

LandDesigner... a piece of crap!!!!

A couple of years ago we got this "wonderful" program called LandDesigner that is supposed to allow you to do a 3D version of your property with all the buildings on it and create wonderful gardens, you can even put a real photo of your house and drag and drop photos of real plants and shrubs into the design and see how it would look without having to dig up your yard, it even is supposed to have a buying guide to track the costs of the various plants etc.. and it is also supposed to have a calendar to keep track of all the things you're supposed to do in each season for your plants and when each is supposed to bloom in your area etc.. and you are supposed to be able to walk around in your 3d design... *notice the "supposed to"?*... well, sounds great in theory and since I have my new whiz bang computer with all the bells and whistles I thought I would break the cd set out and give it a whirl, so to speak..

I got the program loaded and proceeded to go through the first part of the program, laying out the lot dimensions and adding buildings etc.. got the layout done, put the house on the lot, and then tried to go to the next step which is to add barns and other features.. well that's the point where the program went belly up on me... and it did it over and over again at that point... can you say piece of crap??!!! I was so pissed off I could spit... hrrrumph... Oh well, back to the paper and pencil to design my new wonder garden I guess...

How did my new car become a garbage can on wheels???

When we got our new car last fall (A 2007 Saturn Ion Quad.. mmm .. I love our new car.. ).. I vowed to keep it nice and neat and tidy because it's a leased car... well, that little bit of self control lasted about a month and slowly but surely the coffee trays and cups and assorted pieces of paper etc started to litter the floor.. why can't they come out with some kind of a car garbage can thingy that won't top over for us pigs on wheels?.. if they can supply us with multiple cup holders so that we can drink coffee on the road, why can't they take that extra step and give us a portable waste basket to put the empty cups in until we get a sufficent supply to take to the garbage can when we get home? After all they frown on us when we throw garbage out the window as we're taking a nice drive in the country.. Tim Horton cups are made out of paper so are biodegradeable after all, right?... so to appease some idiotic moron who passed a bylaw that PEI can't have carbonated beverages in cans sold in this province, only bottled bubbly and have a law against litter, I allow the crap to pile up and up until I run out of room on the passenger side... then I proceed to fill the space between the back of the front seat and the back seat.. now it's getting to the point where I may have to start on the trunk...

We now are land lined....

After a year of fighting with the phone company they finally sent a guy out to check our complaints about our cell phone service. It's a long sad story but the long and short of it (well basiclly just the long) is that a little over a year ago we had two cell phones that we signed up on a three year contract for and a land line. We decided to cancel one of the cell phones but Aliant in their infinite wisdom told us that in order to do that we would have to pay out the cell phone contract which was $20 dollars a month for three years each phone .. hmmm.. 36x20=$720.0x2phones.. I don't think so Tim!!!...

So we said "screw you" and disconnected our land line.. leaving us with two cell phones... which would have been fine except for the fact that we live in the Burmuda Triangle of cell phone hell... a call can start off at a good signal and almost immediately drop off the map and you would hear the dreaded bleep blida bleep of a dropped call.. So instead of "screw you" it was "screw us" and we spent a year of complaining and being told we signed a contract so we suffered and moaned and basically became cut off from the outside world when we were at home.. our families stopped calling because they couldn't maintain a call for more than a couple of minutes at the most.... we never made any calls to any businesses from home... and heaven forbid if we had an emergency and had to call 911 (who's cost of service is added to our bill each month)..

The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, was last week when we tried to call Aliant about a mistake on our bill.. you know when you phone those places that you have to go through the dreaded automated system where you have to press "1" for this and the "#" key for that.. well they don't have a "I'm going to take this fucking phone and ram it up your arse if it drops one more call" key... so I fumed and cursed and called back again and again.. until in frustration I called them on Skype (that wonderful phone system where you can phone out from your computer to a land line for next to nothing a year but don't have the system in Canada yet where you can receive calls and get your own Skype phone number)...

Anyway, back to my story, I got ahold of them on Skype to straighten the bill out and said at the end of the call that I wanted to make a complaint about our cell phone service and explained my frustration about the numberous dropped calls that evening (leaving out the arse ramming scenerio if you're wondering). They passed me along to their service people who took my information and passed it along to the other service people and asked what number they could call for more information if needed... I told them it's no use calling on the cell phone and the Skype can only call out, so I said to email me and proceeded to give them my email address..

Sure enough, a couple of days later I got an email asking for particulars: our civic address, time of day of dropped calls *like all day every day*, etc... I emailed them back all the info and they emailed back saying they would call me or in my case email me when a service man would be in our area... I emailed back saying "I hope you see the irony of the fact that you have to email me".. A few days later a guy did come out and confirmed our problem and gave us the name of yet another guy would took the complaints and said to tell him that he checked out the service in our area and it is minimal to nill and I thought "hmmmm... smells like a buck passing mission to me"..

But I did as I was told and lo and behold on Friday I got a call on my cell phone from the last guy on the list who is the head honcho for the cellular servic on PEI and he had an offer we couldn't refuse.. he allowed us to disconnect one cell phone with no penalty and would reimburse us back to the first of the year and would hook up our land line with no activation fee.. but the real funny part is while he was expaining all they would do for us, the phone kept dropping the calls.. I was laught myself silly as he called back and called back trying to apologise and grovel and saying he is experiencing our frustration first hand.. ha.. you don't know the half of it baby...

just a little side note.. I emailed him the next day and asked him if the first of the year he's reimbursing me for is the first of this year or the first of last year.. I'm leaning towards a reply of the first of this year but it doesn't hurt to ask eh...

Only have a minute...

Can we talk?.. well I just have a minute before I have to scurry off to the job of jobs.. this Island is whacked when it comes to weather forecasts.. we have a weather warning and we are supposed to have from 1-3 cm of snow!!! And the snow plow driver is going by and preplowing the roads (guess it's to save time later???)... sparks are flying off the blade and I really don't thinks that's too good on the ashphalt... but maybe I'm not up on the logistics of snow storm preparedness... Well I'm outta here.. promise to chat more later.. sorry I've been lax in coming in and filling you in on the fascinating adventure that is my life.. later gator...

Sometimes snow is good.....

I took a snow day today.. and somehow I feel strangely guilty.. as if I SHOULD have risked life and limb to drag my sorry butt through the bitter cold and white outs to go to a job that is OK but it's not TO DIE FOR! if you get my drift.. get it .. drift.. phhhttt.. didn't see that one coming did you?... But I did attempt to go into work.. warmed up the car.. drove about a quarter of the way there and when it got to the point that I couldn't see two car lengths ahead of me I pulled into a service station and called work on my cell phone to say that I was turning around and going back home.. and now I'm looking out my window and thinking that it's not too bad out there.. but as R said.. we are in a sheltered area and it's a bad place to judge the weather... and the radio station says it's supposed to get worse, not better.. so I'll take the storm day, cozy up to the wood stove.. do some knitting (NO.. I'm not preggy.. I'm making my doggy a little sweater so that she doesn't freeze when R takes her for a walk.. ).. I have some sewing to do and I could do some house work if I'm desperate... lol..

I still don't have my computer back.. but they did say a week to fix it.. we'll see.. and I'll believe it when I see it...

I managed to get some before pictures of our den and it's the difference between night and day with the new papers on it.. I wish I had taken some pics of the master bedroom before we took the crappy wall paper off and painted it.. our house is really coming along and when it's done.. wowser.. it's going to be really wonderful.. I liked the house the first time we saw it but now I really love it ... pictures to follow...

Do you want the good news first or the bad news?

Lets rewind to Thursday morning... and the good news..
My new computer arrrived ..
but.. now the bad news..
it doesn't work...
My son, who so graciously agreed to come over and set it up and network all our computers, tried in vain to get it working but it kept overheating and freezing up immediately... when it did work for the half a second before it refused to compute, it looked awesome.. but it kept freezing up.. the keyboard and mouse wouldn't work.. my man R was ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater... My son said it's a hardware problem.. so after repeated tries we called Future Shop and were informed that since it was bought over the internet and it was a net only deal that they would charge us to fix it .. hmmmmm... well my man went downstairs at this point (no doubt kicking the cat in the process)...

my son said let's call the online Future shop and explain the problems.. my son works at a call center for web design and knows a lot about computers and knows pretty well what's the matter with it (he says he thinks it's a bad cpu.. ??).. any way the guy from the help line said that that was probably the problem too and when we told him that the local Future Shop told us that they wouldn't fix it they said.. "oh no.. that's not true.. they are the registered repair people for the on line store".. and they also told him when we take the computer in today that if they give us a problem to call the company from the store and they will set them straight.. and if the company really gives me a problem that they will pay the shipping for us to ship the computer back to them for repairs..

so after work today off we will go to Future Shop and my son will come along and put on the serious-I-mean-business face (cause you know I'm a whimp when it comes to demanding service)...

So that's the whole sad story.. so I'm not too pleased with the whole thing.. but at least since I still have my old computer I'm not computerless until I get my new-not-so-shiny-in-my-eyes computer back.. hopefully working.. *big sigh*..

This also gives me a chance to transfer all my files that I want to keep over to my man's computer over the network because he has 80 gig of free space on his computer.. and once my new computer is hooked up and on the network I can transfer the files onto it.. a lot of file transfering but we'll get it done.. also my son is going to partition my computer so that I can have my files on part of the partition and programs on the other part...

Lets fast forward to Friday...
OK.. after only four hours sleep and almost falling asleep at my work station the day was finally over (I didn't get to bed until 1am this morning because of the problems with the computer and finally driving my son back into town) .. off we went to Future Shop.. my son, Chad, was very prepared ( we had the warranty, the shipping receipt and the phone number of the online help from the store) and he has the knowledge to back it up.. He explained the situation and what we had tried.. the guy that we talked to at first repeated what was said over the phone and Chad told him that he was sorry but he was mistaken and that he had talked to the On Line store and repeated what they had told him..

The guy said he'd have to check with the technitions and see what they said.. then he came back and asked if we had tried reinstalling the operating system and Chad said no that the computer wouldn't stay on for more than half a minute and there were no error messages so he knew it was a hardware problem and most likely a bad CPU.. the guy went back again and said that they could do the repairs on the computer since it was a desktop and that the type they couldn't repair was the laptops..

So we unpacked the computer and left the tower there and took the rest of the stuff back because they didn't want the keyboard, mouse, etc laying around because it could get lost or mixed up with other people's computer stuff.. and he said it's usually a week turn around time for repairs.. and if that's true then that really isn't bad at all..

I was so proud of my son, he handled the whole situation with calmness and grace.. he said later that there is no need to be screaming and shouting at the guy because he's not calling the shots.. he's just a clerk but he did say that if we wouldn't have gotten the results that we wanted we would have asked to speak to the manager.. So all's good and when the computer gets repaired Chad will be back out to complete the process.. thank goodness for children eh.. the parenting process is finally starting to pay off.. lol..

So lets sum it all up...
Well since I don't know a lot about computers and how they work I was a little upset.. more upset than mad.. but my son assured me that the problem is most likely fairly easy to fix and that once it is then I'll have one kickass computer.. and he's going to really put it through it's paces once we get it back to be sure it's all systems go or back to Future Shop it goes.. I've had experiences with cars where something went wrong and I sold it thinking it was a piece of junk and someone else bought it that knew about cars and fixed a minor problem and had it running like a top for years afterwards.. so I'll bow to my son's greater knowledge and hold off on my anger (and I usually don't get angry too often as a rule.. it's not how I operate)... will let you know how it goes in the weeks to come. *big sigh*... guess it's the waiting game all over again..

I'm awaiting the arrival of my new shiny computer.. I can't wait because the one I have now is dragging along on one microchip.. or whatever you call it.. R's not too thrilled about me buying a brand new computer just to do poser with and feels that if I clear out some of the stuff from my present one I should be ok.. (never mind that he got a new shiny computer a few months ago while I have had to contend with a 6 year old one.. *that's 198 in human years!!!*)... but after all it's my money and it's not like we go out and do anything so I feel like I'm working just to pay the bills so a new computer is the least I can do for myself.. I also told him that if I get a new computer it will work faster and I will not have to spend so much time on it.. *I'm not completely convinced that he bought it*... So I'm playing the waiting game with FutureShop.. wanna wait with me?..