Phantom print...

Just a note to all you bloggers out there.. if you want to pick a layout that doesn't cause temperary blindness.. stay away from a black/extremely dark background with white print... it takes me at least a minute and a half to dispell the phantom print from my corneas... just sayin'.

The Waiting Game

My computer hard drive crashed.. never to return.. my son had resurrected it back to a working condition only to have it spin out of control once again.. so off to buy a new hard drive online.. waiting for a week to ten days for the new one to arrive I decided that I may as well order a new graphics card while I was at it (only to discover that my power supply wasn't heavy enough being only 300 watts to the video card's 350 watt requirement).. so I'm contemplating the outlay of more money for a new power supply.. meanwhile the hard drive arrived only to be proven as a dud.. so back it goes and a new one ordered.. only to have to wait all over again for the replacement, not knowing if this one is also a glorified paper weight.. and in the meantime my fingers itch to get back to my passion and obscession.. (no not that one.. my other obscession and passion) poser... and to top it off I'm at home with a severe arthritis flair up, without my distraction.

The storms that almost were...

We've had our hopes raised by the all knowing(?)and revered voices from the weather channel who have promised us days of immense accumulations of either snow or more excitingly anticipated.. freezing rain.. where we have visions of snuggling in front of the wood stove on the day of days.. a STORM DAY.. only to be awaken by our alarm clocks and stumbling to the window to observe the rage of nature only to be greeted by a slight wind and a spinkling of snow... How fair is that?... but come the weekend we can expect gale force winds and snow drifts only to be disappointed because the storm can't be expected to stretch over more than a day.. and the day is always Saturday only to be followed by warmer temperatures and rain by Sunday evening, leaving the roads clear and passable by Monday morning.. Damned weather persons.. how you mock us

What a Waste...

On Sunday what a whopper of a storm... high winds .. snow.. freezing rain.. power outage for a couple of hours.. but to have it on a Sunday..what a waste of a good storm.. when we could have basked in the glow of a storm day.. could have slept in and then could have stood around scratching my butt all day.. *wait a minute.. that's what I do at "work"..*

Poor Missy our little Poodle held out as long as she could, in fact her eyes were floating by the time she insisted that we let her go out.. then she stood bracing herself against the battering wind as her ears twirled like helicopter blades on each side of her head.. then when she "went" I pray that she was facing the wind and not with her back to it.. if you get my drift.. *why does the line "don't shit into the wind, and don't mess around with Jim" seem so appropriate?*

The money pit that is our dog..

Our dog, Missy, has been having some problems with her girl parts.. she's been itchy and the fur around there has been coated with her urine and has become all gunky.. eww.. so we took her to the vet and got her looked at and also to have her nails trimmed.. $75.00 later we found out that she has an infection down there.. also her breath is really bad so we have to take her in to get her teeth cleaned again.. That can be really expensive because she has to be put to sleep to do it.. when she's out we want to have some moles removed from her ear, and legs (Poodles are prone to those type of growths) so I would imagine we won't get away from that particular appointment for less than $200. or so.. but she's our baby and we can't let her get sick with gum infections.

Also we are still trying to get some weight off of her.. so we decided to increase her dry diet food a bit and cut out her evening wet food and drastically cut back the amount of wet food we give her in the AM.. just giving her enough to put her glucosamine tablets in. I was surprised and how quickly she realised that she wasn't getting any table scraps from me any more.. she's a pretty sharp cookie.

Deleted My Other Two Blogs

I decided to give my other two blogs the old heave ho.. gotta get lean and mean..

Money..

They say money can't buy happiness and money is the root of all evil.. but I'd like to try and prove them wrong.. anyone have any money that I can use for this very important experiment?..

Our mortgage is opening up again and we have the option to borrow some money against the value of the house to consolidate some of our bills.. but we are unsure on whether to do that or not.. granted the interest is lower overall but we would be spreading it over a longer period of time and there are costs to getting the money (around $750.00) and we would only be able to get enough to pay off some of our bills, not all of them.. so we are on the fence about the whole thing.. On one hand it would ease some of the money stress but would be be trading it off for a long term debt, say for 10 years.. but then again we aren't making too big a dent in the debt but are slowly paying it down so I don't know.. We have a few weeks to decide because our mortgage opens up the end of March.

The Definition of Love...

With Valentines day come and gone I've been contemplating the meaning of love.. I would say that I'm in a loving relationship.. me and my partner, R., have been together for what will be 7 years in July.. that's longer than a lot of marriages.. so the day of St. Valentine got me thinking.. Why does R. love me?.. and he obviously does because he puts up with my whining which has become more frequent and loud since my various health problems have put me in a snarky, whiny, moaning frame of mind of late.. what's the attraction?.. I had gained over 25 pounds since we met (and so had he come to think of it).. we've, since this time last year, managed to take off the 6 years of blubber we had accumulated due to showing our love through our stomaches.. I guess if my love for him hadn't diminished because of his growing waste line then why should his for me?.. but I have observed that men are more visually stimulated then women.. but I guess my limited knowledge of the opposite sex is just that .. limited.. and the meaning of love is beyond my grasp.. but not the love itself.. so I guess I shouldn't over analyse it or I might miss out on the actual experiencing of it..

Took a storm day...

Was supposed to go back to work today for at least half a day.. but it was storming and they closed the schools and some of the Gov't offices (not ours but since I live in the country I thought.. ain't gonna happen)... I figured that the drive in would tense up my hip and set me back so I took a storm day.. so I've been off of work for two weeks and a day.. and I realised something.. I could retire tomorrow and not look back.. I'm beginning to hate my job again... this happens every few years.. I have a love/hate relationship with my place of employment.. and presently I'm deeply in hate..

Was talking to one of my sisters today and was informed that I have cancer... hmmm... that one slipped past me completely.. apparently another one of my sisters heard from one of my nieces who heard it from her mother (who I was talking to) who I apparently told that I was full of sores all over my body and this final sister at the bottom of the chain figured out that I had cancer... ever play that game when you were kids where you whisper a sentence in someone's ear and have them whisper it in another's ear down the line and then get the last person to repeat what they were told out loud and laugh about how much the story had changed?.. well I ain't laughin'.

Our family loves to gossip.. I have honestly been trying to break myself of that habit but old habits die hard. Sometimes I hear myself telling someone something I overheard and feel that old adrenaline rush of "the secret". Then afterwards shake my head and feel ashamed of myself. Why do I do that? Spilled secrets have a way of returning to you and biting you in the butt.. hey.. maybe that's what's wrong with my hip.. my karma turned around and bit me.

People do this willingly?

The doctor gave me some "good" drugs for my hip... I say good because they are so powerful that they make me deathly sick.. I was so sick that I thought that I would die.. and then I was so sick that I was afraid that I WOULDN'T die... and some people take narcotics on purpose??... but being that I'm afraid to take another one I guess that it forces me to heal myself.. lol..

I went to physiotherapy yesterday afternoon.. they laid me on a hot pad and put electrodes on my back and zapped me for half an hour.. it wasn't too bad and I could regulate that strenth of the current myself.. the only problem was that the heating pad got too hot on my butt.. and that was even after she put a second folded towel between me and the heating pad... but I found a huge difference once I finished with the session and my bum cooled down... I go back on Friday and perhaps back to work on Monday.. we'll see on that one..

I take back everything I've ever said....

I take back everything I've ever said.... about my brother's sore back. My youngest brother M has a bad back and my sisters and I have been known to poohoo his pain thinking it's all in his head.. well.. now that I have a sore hip it's a different story.. I can relate to his pain.. I've had an excruciatingly painful hip for the last week and have even taken to using a cane to get along.. so M if you're reading this, I take back the snicker, the "oh sure's" and the head shakes... do you forgive me?

Is Planning Necessary?

Do you think planning in life is necessary? It seems the more we plan and structure our lives the more likely we are to have the rug pulled out from under us and tumble our well constructed house of cards down around our ears. But it seems that the people who just take life as it comes and ramble along day to day sail on calm, unruffled waters. Why do you think that is? Are you better off climbing the ladder higher and higher only to have a further fall when everything goes astray? Or are you better off taking small steps and not risk the chance of failure. They say that people who have never had wealth or fame don't miss it because it's out of their realm of experience. So therefore people who have experience wealth, etc, are going to really miss it once it's gone. What do you think?

It's An Ill Wind.....

It's an ill wind that doesn't blow someone some good.. the "benefit" of being sick is that I've lost another 2 pounds so this morning I got on the scales and I weighed 168.4 pounds ( broke the 170 bracket.. yeah).... I'll take it any way I can get it. My mouth is feeling a lot better today and most of the redness is gone and just the tip of my tongue and right behind my front teeth on the bottom is still a bit irritated. I still have to eat soft food and I'm getting tired of bread and eggs and mushy stuff but it looks like I'll be able to put my bottom partials back in by Monday. I still have a weird taste in my mouth which has curbed my appetite quite a bit but I think I'm on the mend.. Thank you God.. I don't ask for much but it looks like you came through this time.. Now if only my hip would improve.. hmmmm I guess it's back to the praying board..

My weight plateau..

I find myself at a plateau.. I can't seem to break the 170 pound mark to move into the next 10 pound bracket.. I fluctuate between 170 and 172 depending on the time of day.. I would advise you never to weigh yourself right after getting out of the bath.. it's amazing how much water your skin soaks up.. From some of my Weight Watchers meetings I realised that all along I was in the wrong mind set like a lot of people that try different weight loss methods and fail... I had focused on the amount of weight I could lose over the course of a week so that I sometimes would not eat until after the weigh-in (and then proceed to go out to a fast food place after the meeting because I was so hungry.)..

Now I think about the long range plan and how to not only get the weight off but to maintain my way of eating so that I don't put it back on again.. that is such a major breakthrough in my thinking (and excuse me if I keep repeating it) that I find that there is no major struggle and I've been eating healthy for so long that it's just second nature.. and if I over eat like a I did at Christmas and gain 3 pounds then I don't throw in the towel and say "what's the use, I can't do this!"... instead I say.. "I enjoyed myself and now it's back on track".. not that I don't enjoy myself eating healthy and I find that the foods I really craved like sweets are not as attractive to me any more.. and I find that I can take a little sliver of cake instead of two or three huge pieces.. but I know myself well enough to know that I can't have a lot of that stuff in the house.. I'm not a complete fool.. lol.

My partner,Ron, had lost about the same amount of weight that I have, he cooks supper every night and we shop together and he's keeping an eye on his weight as well.. between us we have lost over 4o pounds and when we hug now our arms go further around each other. Ron has been off the cigarettes for over a year now and I'm so proud of him. Even our dog had lost some weight.. but she's such a hog about food that she eats the bread crumbs that we throw out for the birds.. ppphhttt... little piggy poodle.. haha.

A Lesson in Not Reading Medical Journals

I'll set this up for you.. on Thursday I went to the doctor with a urinary tract infection (again) and was perscribed a sulfa drug to treat it.. that night I started to notice my mouth was a bit tender and the next day I noticed little spots starting and thought, great I'm getting thrush again.. over the weekend the sores got worse and all under my tongue was beet red.. hmmm I thought that's not good.. also I had a couple of red rash like spots on my body and I was feeling nauseous and headachy.. and my eyes were burning slightly.. also right hip is aching like crazy..

I phoned my doctor's office yesterday and she's not in on Tuesdays but the receptionist gave me an appointment for today.. (which is a coincidence because the receptionist is for the other doctor in the office and she said she usually doesn't answer my doctor's phone).. anyway I went into the doctor's office and when I described my symptoms she excused herself from the office to go check her medical journal (my first clue that something was amiss) and she told me that she didn't think I had thrush but that I had a rare condition called Stevens-Johnson Syndrome... having not heard of this condition before I didn't know if I should panic or what but when she told me she wanted to see me again on Monday I knew that it wasn't all sunshine and roses.. she also told me if the rash spots spread or get like blisters or if I get a fever to get to the hospital right away.. hmmm that doesn't sound too good.. she also told me that if I do have Stevens-Johnson Syndrome it was a rare reaction to the sulfa drugs and to tell my pharmacist to put a note on my file not to perscribe that to me ever again.. also if that's what I have I would be the first patient she has ever seen with it..

She also scheduled me to go in and have my hip xrayed.. but as luck would have it the power went out just as I was changing into the lovely gown and after sitting for half an hour and being told the power outage was Island wide (they were running on auxillary power and didn't run all their xray machines and nonessential equipment until they got full power) well I decided to take my paper work and go home to come back maybe tomorrow to get the xray done..

So I toddle on home feeling like shite and our power is out so I couldn't get onto the net to check out this condition to see what it might be.. it would have been better if the power had not come on because when I did read up on it it scared the bejesus out of me ... this condition can be fatal or can cause blindness .. both which are states of being that I would rather not consider.. especially the death part.. but hopefully if that is what it is then it was caught in time and I can carry on with life as normal.. whatever normal means at any particular time .. lol..

Come to think of it the last time I took this particular medication I had the mouth sores too and passed it off as thrush mouth and even went to the walk in clinic and that's what the doctor there contributed it to.. but that time I didn't have the rash or other symptoms... and I survived that time so maybe I haven't developed a full fledged allergic reaction .. I'll keep you posted on how the appointment goes on Monday.. keep your fingers crossed that now that I've stopped taking the drug that the symptoms will clear up in a few days..

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.