The Vet's Office

I had to take Steffi to the vet after work today. I got home and discovered that she had thrown up all over the house. And I mean ALL OVER. She had gotten into old rotten bones yesterday and they made her sick. She's had this once before. The vet's office was adventurous. It was packed with a boxer puppy, an australian shepherd, a great dane puppy, a jack russell puppy, a two year old pug, a basset hound, a poodly-terrier thing and one that looked like a papillon. Steffi was pretty good. She only growled a couple of times. Usually, chihuahuas are snappy, cranky little dogs. So, the vet gave Steffi a couple of shots and some pills. It will be a chore trying to get her to take her pills. Used to be, Mom and Dad and I would all participate in giving Steffi medicine. I would hold her and Mom or Dad would shoot medicine down her throat with a syringe. But there's only me here now. I'm hoping she will lap up her medicine if it's mixed with ice cream or chicken broth.

Weather

I wish this weather would make up its mind. Either be warm or cold. I'm catching a cold because of Mother Nature's fickle nature. I've been sneezing for the past two days and I have a sore throat. And I think my tiredness that I will explain more about in the next paragraph has something to do with getting sick. I'm doubling up on the Vitamin C.

The Olympics will be over after tonight and I will finally be able to get back to a routine for working out. I took these last two days off from the diet and exercise thing. Yesterday, I worked out for a half an hour and just felt really tired afterward, so I decided to rest up for the rest of the weekend and eat more.

I now have the Tennis Channel on my satellite dish. I didn't know there was such a thing. But I watched it some this morning. Maybe it will inspire me to work out more if I keep seeing skinny Maria Sharipova on tv.

Mom got me a pasta strainer and I got it in the mail yesterday. I've been wanting one like this ever since Mom took hers with her when she moved out. It's plastic and you hold it up against the pan and pour the pasta water through slots in the strainer. I think this one is even better than Mom's. It's easier to clean and it's stronger. Mom also ordered me a potato ricer with her prepaid Mastercard. I paid her back for that purchase. I've wanted a ricer for years ever since Martha Stewart told us viewers that you could have no-lump mashed potatoes by using it. Walmart never had them, but Mom found them on Target's website.

Well, I wore my new clothes to work this week. I like them. Not much has been happening around here. I've been watching the Olympics. Bode Miller's pretty exciting to watch. He may not have had medal winning results so far in the competition but making the team is an achievement in itself. How many people out there (me included) can't even ski to begin with? I heard this woman I work with say "That Bode Miller hasn't done squat for us." I guess I missed that part of the news that said this woman paid for Bode's transportation, room and board over there in Torino and is paying him a salary to compete. Oh wait, she ISN'T spending a dime to support the Olympic athletes - she's even a Pepsi drinker, not a Coca Cola supporter. People like that really irritate me.

Mom emailed me tonight to ask me what the Dish Network people were doing with two of our channels and one of the local channels. I have no idea. Right now if it isn't the Golf Channel or the Olympics, I'm not watching it. LOL! And even though the Olympics are on the local channel that's in question, I still have a broadcast tv antenna that I can use to watch the local channels. I think it's stupid for Dish Network to make me pay for local channels that I can get with the regular antenna anyway.

Since Monday

Since Monday morning, I've lost 3.2 pounds. I went shopping this morning and bought a couple of pairs of pants. They are tight so I will need to lose more weight to fit into them. I'm hoping this snow we got this morning will go away. The local weather woman on the news said it would be a dusting. I'd hate to see what her house looks like if she calls this a dusting. The sun's out right now, but who knows how long it will stay out. I will probably walk down to get the mail later so I might take a broom along and help speed up the snow's departure from the driveway.

USA's Olympic Ice Show

Okay, Andrea Joyce asked Johnny Weir what happened in his performance. He told her what happened. But, Scott Hamilton, the Canadian Pairs people and Mary Carillo all said he was 'making excuses'. What??!!?? If they didn't want to hear what Johnny had to say, they never should have asked him. And they didn't even air the part of his interview with Andrea Joyce where he said he didn't feel his program was worthy of a medal because the elements weren't there. The USA channel people made him seem like he was whining and making excuses when he was just answering Andrea's question. No wonder he is the man he is, with the media manipulating and twisting everything he does and says to fit some pre-packaged mold they want to sell to the public.

One more thought - That Evan guy is allowed to have the 'excuse' of the stomach flu, but apparently nothing is allowed for Johnny Weir. The USA show people just love Evan, oh the poor guy he's so sick. I like Evan and his program is pretty good. But the treatment by the media of him versus Weir is very blatantly biased. And it's only because the story of Evan and his stomach flu and good free skate is one of those marketing 'hero' type stories that they do tv movies of the week about.

Cheney Story

My take on the Dick Cheney Story: If he had just had his people say that they were waiting until the victim could be stablized at the hospital or waiting for all the victim's relatives to be notified before announcing the story to the press, people would have bought it. Cheney doesn't have the smartest people working for him apparently.

Two More

I weighed myself this morning and I've apparently lost two more pounds since Monday morning. I'm down to 123 pounds. I just wish the two pounds had come off the belly.

Turning back the clock, not really

I am now back to my pre-holiday weight of 125 pounds! Yay for me!!

So Depressing

I know the Olympics are supposed to be inspiring, but when they have these male ski jumpers who are 5 ft. 10 inches tall and weigh 132 pounds, that's just too depressing to someone trying to lose weight. Men aren't supposed to be as skinny as women.

The Kind of Snow I Like

We got some snow last night. But, thankfully, not much stuck to the driveway. And when the sun came out today, it melted most of the snow. We've had a couple of snow showers today, but they didn't amount to much. Hopefully, we won't have much snow overnight tonight.

The local weatherman interrupted the Chocolate segment this morning on the Today Show. You can bet he's not too popular after that.

Today, I worked out, did a load of laundry, and cooked a turkey breast for Steffi.

A Productive Day

So far today I have vacuumed the big bedroom where the treadmill is, the dining room and the living room. I dyed my hair. It's now only two colors, the really old color on the ends and the color I want it to be. No more roots. I went down to get the mail and hung up the No Trespassing signs. I worked out on the treadmill. Dad has lost 20 pounds on a soup and salad diet. So, I got a couple cans of chicken noodle soup. I added some cooked chicken to it for more protein and made four good meals out of it. I need to find a substitute for crackers. You can't have chicken noodle soup without crackers and unfortunately, the only ones I have are reduced fat Triscuits.

Steffi didn't eat this morning. She acted sick. But she's begging for alpo treat now so hopefully she is ok now.

I was all set to watch the olympics today and what did they have on? Hockey. I don't watch hockey. Oh well, I think NBC has other stuff on in a little while. I watched some European Tour Golf this morning.

They have chocolate on the Food Channel today. Everything made from chocolate. It's nice to look at, but it would be nice if they actually told you how to make some of these desserts. Some of the good desserts they just show and don't explain how they are made.

Channels A La Carte

On Showbiz Tonight they are reporting that the FCC thinks that buying channels ala carte instead of package deals from cable companies would be cheaper. Well, that might be, but for me, I like the option of having all those different channels to watch. I may never watch MTV, but then again, I might. I counted up about 30 channels that I watch more than once a week. That's probably a lot. Granted I would have liked to have just been able to buy the Golf Channel, but I'm happy with the other channels I got when I upgraded to the 180 channel package. I think Dish Network should get rid of all the audio music channels they offer except the Sirius channels. I wonder how many people actually 'watch' the audio music channels.

Olympics

It's Olympics time again. The Opening Ceremony is on tonight in a few minutes. I plan to watch it. I hope to see a lot of Italy during these next few weeks. If I can't go there, at least I can watch it on tv.

Pre-Cabin Fever

We are expecting anywhere between 3 to 6 inches of snow this weekend. It hasn't started yet, but I'm already suffering from cabin fever. Whenever I get snowed in, I get this horrible urge to start cooking and baking. It was bad enough when my parents lived here, but now that I'm alone, if I cook and bake, then there's only me to eat it and I can't afford to eat anything that's not on the diet.

Well, I've been back on the treadmill steady this week and I've been on the diet for two whole days! I had to eat the rest of the fudge I had Monday night, but after that I am back on the wagon. Mom must get tired of hearing the word 'treadmill'. I talked to her tonight and told her I was going to get on the treadmill. And dad is using his treadmill quite a lot to lose some weight.

I heard what sounded like thunder a little bit ago. Which I think is impossible as it's really, really cold and snowy outside and it isn't supposed to get any warmer.

I've really heard too much about Brittany Spears and the baby in her lap story. When I was a baby there were no car seats and I survived. Heck, until they stop letting people ride in truck beds I really don't see the difference between babies out of car seats and people in the truck bed riding down a highway going 50 mph. How is it a baby's life is more valuable than any other human being's life anyway?

Changing Things Up

Well, I switched my workout time from mornings to evenings starting today. I was getting pretty tired of getting up at 4:40 am workdays to work out.

I gave in to the peanut butter fudge craving last night and made a batch. I took half of it to work and gave it to Tony. He loves fudge. But at least that craving is over now. I think I've run through every craving except the potato craving. I haven't had that one yet. So, hopefully, I can get back on the diet and get things back to normal.

Barry Manilow was on Martha's show today. Mom was even wowed by him. He's done a cd of 50's music. Mom likes what she heard. I knew I wasn't the only Fanilow in the family. LOL

overdoing it

I'm guessing I overdid the workout a bit. My leg is killing me today. At least I managed to work out this morning. In honor of the Superbowl, I started watching the A-Team while on the treadmill. What's the connection? The A-Team debuted in the coveted hour after the Superbowl back in 1983 and it was a huge success.

I've been writing a bit. I have a story started and I've been working on a golf thing. Who knows if either will go anywhere.

Squeak, Squeak No More

I caught the mouse!! I had to dig the dried cheese out of the trap and replace it with peanut butter. But it worked! Yay! Hopefully, he is the only one I had. I may clean out the drawer, put the wooden spoons back in there and see if another one shows up to munch on them. I'd hate to bait another trap and waste it if I don't have another mouse to catch. It was easy to pop the dried cheese out of the food hole, but I don't know how easy it would be to replace the peanut butter if it dries in there.

A New Website

This website, Cute Overload, is wonderful. I'm going to add it to the side-bar.

Postscript to the Tree Saga

My Dad told me today that the man who owned the tree and did not remove it from the phone line for a week went after Dad when he removed the tree. The man was yelling at Dad trying to order him around and then started asking questions about how if my parents have moved out, then no one must be living here at this house now. I'm going to Walmart Monday morning to get No Trespassing signs to post on our property. If the crazy old loon comes up to the house while I'm there, he will be told once that he has violated the No Trespassing sign and that he is to leave and if he doesn't, then heaven help him. I'm sure he doesn't want to see his name in the Magistrate's Report section of the newspaper for trespassing and whatever other charges I can accuse him of and still not be lying (I work with an attorney, I'm sure he knows all the laws this man might break by coming to the house and harrassing me). Dad said the old man was all red-faced and didn't look that healthy. I imagine he's nuts due to the medicine he's taking, but that's no excuse.

Deja Vu

I unpacked the new tv tonight and had a sense of "been here before". The tv is practically the same as the old one. The remote is exactly the same except for the brand logo that's on the old one. I have a feeling that Sylvania and Durabrand are owned by the same company. I just hope Sylvania gets all the good parts and that Durabrand uses second hand stuff. I'd hate to have bought the same freakin' tv again.

TV

I bought a new tv today during my lunch break at work. We have a sears close by. It's another 13 inch tv but it's a different brand that what I had before. Hopefully it will work. I may have to move my treadmill closer to the tv so I don't have to turn the tv up so loud.

A Compliment

I got a compliment from a man at work today. Most of the men I work with are afraid to say anything of a personal nature for fear of being sued for harrassment. But this guy, my regional manager's boss, didn't have a problem telling me that I looked great since I've lost the weight. He kept asking "Are you trying to disappear?" LOL I said, "It's harder for the boss to find me that way."

TV

I figured out that it's the tv that's the problem. I hooked my dvd player up to another tv and it worked fine. Then I hooked the little tv up to the antenna and I had a picture but no sound. So, I guess I'll have to buy a new tv. I only paid $60 or $70 for this tv so there really isn't much use paying that much or more to get the sound fixed, if it can even be fixed.