Happy Day

Today I felt like celebrating. It's the end of the month, tennis has been on tv all day, and the day wasn't a total washout - there were plenty of nice breezes and periods of no rain. I overate today and I'm drinking way too much pop, but that goes with celebrating.

I took the puppies out for a walk today. 35 minutes outside. They sniffed everywhere, pranced around the cat. PJ caught a butterfly three times and three times it escaped her. They like their walks. It's too bad I don't have much time in the evenings to take them out during the week.

I think it's finally going to warm up enough during the nights that I can take the plastic down off the windows and start having them open during the day. I need to get the fans cleaned up so I can use them.

This week the new Diana Palmer book was released. Fearless is its name and it's a pretty good book. I like the notion that the female lead had that the male love interest could have actually been the assassin sent to kill her. I'm getting really tired of every female lead of Palmer's books being an abused child with medical problems. Hopefully she will change it up with the next book. I wouldn't want to live in Jacobsville, Texas if all that child abuse goes on.

Sick but Sunny

I have had a cold for the last two days and I feel pretty miserable at times, but I still went outside today and got some sun. I wasn't missing this beautiful day for anything. I've been eating everything in sight because for some irrational reason I think that eating will make me feel better. I'm hoping I'll feel better tomorrow. Usually, I feel really bad just one day and then I get over it.

The Naked Gentleman

I picked up the romance novel, "The Naked Gentleman" at walmart earlier this week and read it. I was thrilled to find out that it had no political intrigue, no dastardly villains set on killing the heroine. It was just a pleasant, fun historical romance novel. No stress involved in reading it whatsoever. This is a very good book and if all of Sally MacKenzie's books are like this, then I'll be reading them all. The one drawback was that there were way too many characters to keep up with. I guess I should have started with the first book of this series, maybe then I would have known who everyone was.

Extended Holiday Weekend

I called in sick today and stayed home from work. So, my weekend has started early. I spent some of the day in bed and my dishes still haven't been washed but I'll get to it. I got the two books I ordered from Amazon.com and read the self hypnosis diet one. I skimmed the eyesight book. That guy writes with a lot of technical jargon. I listened to the hypnosis cd. I need to listen to it repeatedly, read the book repeatedly and try not to go to sleep while the cd is playing.

Tomorrow I go to the bank and the store. I was going to go to the bank next weekend but since I have Monday off too, I thought I would go this weekend while I have more time to be home. It's supposed to be really sunny and warm Saturday, Sunday and Monday so hopefully, I'll get to spend some quality time outside.

Update

Well, I've eaten a whole jar of peanut butter in 3 days. I'm hoping to just get sick of it and not want it anymore. That worked with chocolate. I ate so much hershey kisses and other types of chocolate that now I just look at it and I get sick and that was months ago.

I've been doing pilates lately. I'm trying to get rid of my flabby arms. I'm also planning to get back to the exercise starting tomorrow. Well, that's a little misleading. I went outside today and walked for almost an hour. But as for following the whole diet/exercise plan, that starts again tomorrow.

Steffi has not been eating well lately. Averaging about one meal a day if that. I follow her around trying to get her to eat, whether it's bologna, turkey, chicken, dog food, cat food. Tonight she ate some grilled chicken strips and a little bit of turkey.

Yesterday when I was shopping at walmart, I found a shirt on clearance that had actual sleeves. Not these fake ones where the top of the sleeve comes over your shoulder, but there's no bottom of the sleeve and you are left to expose your armpits if you raise your arm. I didn't know if I needed to wear a small or a medium in that shirt so I bought one of each and brought them home. I didn't want to take time to try them on in the store, especially since you probably can't find a dressing room attendant manning her post at 7am when I was at the store. I found out that I take a small in that shirt so I'm planning to go back to see if they have any in different colors. And I bought a nice Armitron watch that was on clearance too. It's silver with a blue face. I needed a silver watch to go with some of my outfits.

Dad says our local mechanic won't work on head gaskets so Dad thinks I should just nurse my car along for about another year and then just buy a new one instead of spending about $800 or so to pay the dealership's mechanics to fix my car. I don't know. If I can pay $800 to keep my car for two more years or longer, then I have to wonder if that wouldn't be a better plan. It's not as if the car's falling apart (knock on wood). I hope I didn't just jinx myself. Well, wait a minute, my air conditioner cuts out when I accelerate. That's a bit annoying.

I did some internet shopping as well. I got my Bargain Books catalog and inside there were some books on imroving your eyesight through exercises. So, I went to amazon and searched there to see what I could find. I found a book that had some good ratings so I ordered that one and then I've been thinking of getting a hypnosis cd for weight loss. I've watched that think and lose weight infomercial a few times and I think that guy hypnotized me into thinking I needed to buy a cd. So, I checked that out on amazon too. I ordered a book and cd by some guy who Andrew Weil recommends. Weil writes for Prevention magazine so he shouldn't be a quack.

I've also been thinking about getting a workout dvd, but I have to wonder if I would actually watch it. I don't think I'm ready to spend money on that yet.

Healthy Eating Weekend Interrupted

Yesterday Sergio Garcia won a big tournament in the world of golf - so I celebrated with a bunch of food. Today, I went shopping and ate at the Pizza Hut buffet - this was a good buffet with plenty of food to choose from unlike the last time at the bad restaurant. I plan to get back on the diet tomorrow to keep my bagged lettuce from wilting.

Shopping - I bought two pairs of pants and two shirts that were on clearance at Walmart. I needed some new clothes. I bought a new pair of tennis shoes to wear when I go to the golf tournament in a couple of months. And I bought a jar of peanut butter. So, it's not as banned as the potatoes. My theory is that I wouldn't be craving peanut butter if I was getting everything I needed from my diet. I dug my measuring spoons out to try to control the servings. I went to the bank to redo my CD. I got a depressing rate of 2.9% for nine months.

Healthy Eating Weekend is Extended

Since I'm also off Monday and Tuesday this week, I'm doing the healthy eating plan for all four days. I went to Walmart this morning for grocery shopping - their bagged lettuce was all slimy and wilted. I had to go to another grocery store to get it.

I've had the puppies out for a walk a few times this week. PJ really likes to go out and Winnie likes it once she's out. Monday is Homecoming Day - one year ago Monday I brought the puppies home from the seller's house. I think we are going to do a bit of celebrating tomorrow and Mom and Dad's house. Monday is also the day I need to go to the bank to take care of my cd. It matured today and I have ten days to cash it out.

Today I went out and walked outside for an hour. I was trying to get a tan and we don't have many sunny days when I'm off from work. I need to get a little more exercise this evening to try to offset the short little nap I got while I was laying on the couch with the dogs watching golf. The nap was only about 20 minutes so hopefully that didn't derail any weightloss. I'm still losing weight. I've got about 13 more pounds to go to get back to where I was in July 2006. Since November 9th, I've lost 23 pounds. And that is with all the holiday eating and just the usual, falling off the diet wagon eating.

Another Weekend of Dieting

This weekend I added some meat and eggs to the veggie and fruit weekend diet. For breakfast I had a smoothie and some sliced turkey breast. Then I had a snack of carrots and string cheese. Then for lunch I had a bowl of salad with tomatoes, grilled chicken, kidney beans, fat free cheese and some nice wholesome wishbone bountifuls salad dressing. Then I skipped the afternoon snack and ate scrambled eggs with cheese and finely chopped spinach with a side of tomatoes for supper. In the evening is another smoothie.

Observations: I ate about 850 calories yesterday, didn't feel a bit hungry, worked out for about 40 minutes and got an hour's worth of grocery shopping in, and gained weight. I don't know how that happened. Today I'm planning to eat a little more than 1000 calories, haven't felt hungry and have worked out for a total of 60 minutes. The smoothies are better if you put a little diet sprite in them.

As for the past week, I stuck to the regular diet of slimfast bars and canned soup. Instead of a poptart in the evening, I ate an apple. I did manage to lose about 4 pounds I think. That was also with working out every day except Wednesday evening.

I got to see Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer play for a title this weekend in Spain. The Tennis Channel covered it.

Dad says my car's problem is a head gasket. You know, the problem where I have to keep putting water and antifreeze in the car because of some kind of leak. Dad says it can wait until after I go to the golf tournament at the end of July. Sure he thinks it can wait, he's not the one driving to Akron and back.

Glub, Glub, Ugh...

I just ate too much. I ate a big bowl of salad and drank some water and now I feel yucky. Aside from two hiccups (not celery induced) I have stuck to the all fruit and veggie weekend. Last night I ate a bag of popcorn and today I ate some biscuits. The biscuits weren't that good so I didn't eat very many. And I guess you could call it a hiccup when I put some diet sprite in the strawberry smoothie I made earlier today.

I took the puppies out for a walk today. Fritz came with us. He brought in at least three ticks. I don't know what the puppies might have brought in. A tick jumped onto me while we were out but I saw it immediately and got him off. I put some more flea drops on PJ and when I can manage to catch Winnie, she'll get some. Fritz will get some when he comes in. He got another haircut today.

I ordered tickets for a PGA golf tournament that will be staged in late July. I still need to make hotel reservations. I have to wait until I get a prepaid calling card to do that. I don't have long distance service on my phone and I don't want to use my cell phone for that because I can just imagine the hotel person not being able to understand me.

Something Different

I decided sometime on Thursday I think that I needed to reboot. A complete restart on the diet thing. For the last week I had overeaten and eaten the wrong foods. So, Friday night I stopped at Walmart on the way home and bought a bunch of fruit and vegetables. When I say a bunch I mean quantity, not variety. There aren't many fruits and vegetables I'll eat out there. But I had decided to do only fruits and vegetables this weekend and the start my diet again on Monday. So, what did I buy? I bought apples, oranges, watermelon, strawberries, tomatoes, salad mix, carrots, celery, and two cans of chili beans. I'm making smoothies out of the oranges, watermelon and strawberries (I had to buy a blender for that). The smoothies aren't bad but they aren't sinfully wonderful either. But they are the only way I would ever get strawberries into my diet. I won't eat them. Around 9am this morning I decided that peanut butter was either a fruit or a vegetable. I had to have some kind of protein so I ate about three tablespoons of it. For lunch I had the salad mix, some tomatoes sliced up on it, and the chili beans (more protein). Oh, I bought a green bell pepper and an orange bell pepper to chop up and put in the salad. I don't eat those either so I minced them pretty good and stuck them in the beans when I heated the beans up. I just finished another smoothie and there's still dinner and evening snack to go.

Do you realize this will mean that for two days I won't have any chocolate to eat???? Boy am I crazy.

What have I been doing today? Well, I got out at 7am and walked outside for about 20 minutes. Then at 10am, the sun was out, I went out again to try to get a tan. I walked and walked for about an hour. After lunch I went out and washed and waxed my car and I finished just in time because not long after that did it start raining. I watched some tennis this morning and golf's on now. Oh, and I rolled up some more change since I bought more penny wrappers when I was at walmart. And I called the credit card people and activated my new, pretty, credit card. I signed up with an online account for the sole purpose of getting a card that had a pretty picture on it. This one has a Monet painting.

I don't know if the fruit and vegetable weekend will result in any weightloss or anything. But it can't hurt any more than the pizza I ate this past week did.

I'll let you know if I go the whole weekend without quitting or cheating.

This Quiz is Completely Wrong

I don't think there's anything in this description that's me. I got the quiz from Kari over at "I Struggle and Emerge" (Her blog is in the blogs of note section).

Border Collie

The Achiever

You've heard about this "second-place ribbon" thing, but really don’t ever plan on getting one. Not a chance. Highly competitive, you keep one eye on the Best in Show prize and one on the rest of the pack, making sure you're always at least one paw ahead. You love your family and enjoy the company you keep, but you'd trade all of them in a heartbeat for a corner office and some meaty stock options. When you're not licking your professional coat, naked skydiving and triathlons keep you entertained. You idolize the top dog and will do so until you sniff out a way to take over the company and do a little "restructuring." Learn more »

FAMOUS BORDER COLLIES: Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Martha Stewart, Barbara Walters

LIKELY PROFESSIONS: CEO, Banker, Manager, Astronaut

Work Crap

Here's a work story:

I had some things I had to go over with a co-worker. For an hour and a half I sat there in his office while he did everything BUT discuss those things with me. Then he had the nerve to suggest I ask the boss to stay a half an hour late to go over them. I work 8 to 4 and he works 8:30 to 4:30. I thought "why do you think I would be dumb enough to believe that you might actually do anything between 4 and 4:30?" So, I said no and I went home. And my other co-workers are just as guilty. They see me sitting there in a chair in front of his desk and they still come in and ask him questions and interrupt him. It's ridiculous.

Next time he wants me to look at something, I'm going to give him the same consideration he gave me today. We'll see how he likes it.......

Sleepy Sunday

Another day off the diet and with no exercise. It will be easier to start again tomorrow when I'm at work.

I rolled up some change I had laying around the house. One of these days I'm going to have to exchange my rolled up change for paper currency.

The puppies got a bath today. I tried putting some flea and tick drops on Winnie and she got mad. But later I did sneak some on her.

Didn't work on the new story yet. I might work on that tomorrow too.

Mixed Up

I feel mixed up today. Usually, the puppies visit their grandparents on Sunday and then I go to work the next day. But, today the puppies went to see their grandparents. So, for the rest of the day, I've been feeling like I have to go to work tomorrow when I don't. That sucks.

I didn't get back on the diet or the exercise today. Hopefully I'll do that tomorrow. I even made biscuits when I didn't even want any. I just felt I had to do something with my hands. I ate four and froze the rest of them.

I had started a new story a while back but didn't get far at all with it. I just started writing and didn't have any idea what it was supposed to be about. So, tonight I typed up some character notes. I have them on the laptop which isn't connected to a printer. So, I have to save the notes to a flashdrive and then plug that into my desktop pc and print from there. One of these days I'm going to buy a printer to go with the laptop but I don't know when. I would like to get a wireless printer. Anyway, I want this story to be a murder mystery. Something quite different than anything I've written in the past. I always thought I couldn't write mysteries because I don't read enough of them. But I've been reading the Nero Wolfe books and I want the main character of this story to continue on maybe with other books down the road. With romance novels, the main characters are pretty much limited to that book and don't continue on as main characters in other books. I'm having real trouble composing on the laptop. I like being able to flip back through handwritten pages to see what I've written. On the laptop I have to push the arrow keys. I feel like I have more access to everything if it's on paper. So, I figure I can write it longhand and then type it up on the laptop. If I want to transcribe it in the family room instead of here in the living room, then the laptop and the handwritten pages are portable. I'm hoping the murder mystery plot will help me cope with sucky work experiences. People I can't stand at work, I can take some qualities they possess and give them to characters in the book, then make the characters do things. I will, of course, write nothing about the type of work I do or anything like that. The book is supposed to be an escape from everyday reality so I don't want to keep thinking about work while I'm at home. But, to give an example of what I'm thinking about: Kathie Lee Gifford used to talk about her kids all the time when she was on the Regis and Kathie Lee show and people hated that. So, if I hated that, I would write about a character who talked all the time about her ....... pets, or her plants. That kind of thing.

What did I do today other than work on these notes? I cleaned part of the refrigerator. I brushed Fritz. I washed some towels. Watched some golf. I got to the store and back by 7:40am this morning. I was happy about that. I bought the dremel rotary tool to use on the dogs' nails. I had it on, letting everyone get used to the noise and Winnie came up to sniff it. She got her nose so close to the sandpaper it scared her. I actually got PJ's nails on it for a few seconds and then I got Steffi's nails on it. The nail dust flew up into the air. Why did I go to Mom and Dad's today instead of tomorrow? Because dad had to take my car to get it inspected. On his way back, he stopped and bought a radiator hose to put on my car. I think I wrote previously that there's a leak somewhere. I don't know when he will put the hose on the car. Like I said to dad, he's just so busy not having a job to go to, he just can't find the time.

I was going to record Top Gear today so I would have a couple of episodes to watch in case BBC America decided to take the show off. But I watched golf instead. There should be a couple of episodes on Monday night I can record.

I'm thinking I need to stay up later at night. I've been having active dreams and I want them to stop. So, maybe if I stay up late, I'll be so tired that I won't dream at all.

Glad It's Friday

I'm very glad it's Friday and I have two days off. The week was ok at work until about 2pm today when I got a sucky email. I may have to play my leave the work at work self hypnosis tape I made tonight when I go to bed.

I have lost 3 pounds in the last week, but today I had to go off the diet. I attended a meeting today elsewhere and after the meeting we all went to Pizza Hut. Since I never go to Pizza Hut, I ate. Not as much as I used to though. So, that's good. I didn't work out either. I figured if I was going to go off the diet, then I might as well rest the body too and pick up both the diet and exercise tomorrow. I did take the puppies out for a walk this evening. Dad came up and mowed the grass today and the puppies were able to walk in the yard without disappearing. And the shorter the grass the less likely the puppies will be to pick up ticks.

I've been in the mood to read cookbooks and watch cooking shows. I have to grow out of that or else I'll start buying cookbooks and I don't want to spend my money on that.

Speaking of money, I finally signed up for direct deposit at work. I don't know if it's going to work. I'll find out in a couple of weeks when I get paid. As I mentioned previously, the 911 people are going around giving everyone new addresses. I wanted to make sure my paycheck wouldn't get lost so I did the direct deposit.

Speaking of deposits, my bank has changed their lobby hours. Now they will only have the lobby open from 8 to 4 Monday through Friday and 8 to 12 on Saturdays. I work 8 to 4 throughout the week. So, the only time I will be able to go to the bank is on Saturdays. That sucks because as you know I like to get out and get my shopping done and get home by 8am on Saturdays.

Steffi's feeling mixed today. She had runny poo this morning but she ate all of her breakfast. Then when I got home I found one more spot of runny poo from her and she didn't eat supper. But she did walk all over the yard tonight while I was out with the puppies.

Sunday

All that work yesterday paid off, I lost .8 pounds. After many weekends of either holding steady or gaining weight, I managed to lose. That's good. Today I took it a little easier. I did get on the treadmill twice and I walked in place for about 15 minutes. I did some sit-ups and leg exercises and did some arm exercises. I have to try to get rid of the flabby arm thing.

Steffi wouldn't eat this evening when I offered her bologna so I gave that to Winnie and PJ. Later, Steffi got up and got a drink and then begged for treats. So, I gave her a couple of chicken treats and she ate those so I gave her a couple more. I would have fed her the whole bag if she wanted them but she stopped and wanted to go out to get some catfood. So, I fed her some catfood too. As long as she eats. I didn't feed her a whole lot, just in case she might throw up.

Busy Saturday

Here's how my day's been so far:

Half hour of walking in place in front of the tv this morning right after I got up.
Walmart shopping.
Vacuumed and cleaned the dining room and living room carpets again.
Cut Fritz's hair and brushed him. (I've picked about 6 ticks off of him this week)
Walked outside for 25 minutes.
Ate lunch.
Walked outside for 20 minutes.
Cleaned a bunch of kitchen dishes and utensils and cabinets and drawers - finally cleaning up from when I had the mice problem.

Steffi is once again feeling bad, like she did a few weeks ago. But she did eat this morning.

I haven't gotten any mail in a couple of days. I wonder if the 911 mapping project that's going on (where the 911 people are giving us all new addresses) has changed my address and no one bothered to tell me. I know other people have been having trouble getting their mail.

Outside today I saw fritz toss something up in the air and play around it. I went over to him and saw that it was a squirrel. A dead one. I don't know if he killed it or if he just found it, but it looked like a recent death. I had to put the dead squirrel on top of Dad's stock trailer so Fritz couldn't get him. If I just throw it into the pasture or something, Fritz will go get it.

A Great Sunny Day

Today was really pretty with a lot of sun and good temperatures. I went out in shorts earlier to get some sun, walked around in the driveway for about 15 minutes.

I worked out again today and so far I've stuck to the diet. I don't think the three hours I laid around yesterday did the weight loss goals any good. I haven't taken any naps today.

I've got dogsitters in place for the week of the golf tournament this year. So, I might go to the tournament again.

I also signed up to have the electric bill and the phone bill paid by electronic transfer. The 911 people are in the process of changing all the addresses in the county and I figure when they do all of my mail will get screwed up. I'm going to start having my paycheck direct deposited too.

Yay, it's Friday!!!!!!!

I'm ready for another weekend. I didn't work out tonight, but I did stick to the diet. I stopped at Walmart tonight on the way home and got some eye wash to put in my eye that's been bothering me. It helped for a bit. I'm going to use it for a few more days. It came with a cup that you hold over your eye. Well, I'm having trouble opening up the eye to let the wash in.

Almost Another Week Gone

This has been a long week. I'm glad it's almost over. I've been having problems with my right eye. I either have some kind of bad allergy or I've done something to the eye. I'm trying not to rub it or scratch it or anything. My eye doctor told me once that I should never rub my eyes because it will make the astigmatism worse.

I got back on the diet and exercise program on Monday and I've stuck to it all week. Tonight I was on the trampoline for 20 minutes (with little breaks after every two minutes of jumping). I find that my ankles get pretty tired if I go for more than 2 or 3 minutes so I have to take the little breaks. The breaks are getting shorter in duration than when I first started jumping on the trampoline. So, I'm improving.

I checked the weather forecast and it looks like it's going to start getting warm now. I think maybe next week, I might start taking the puppies outside. I don't know how I'm going to fit that into the evening schedule but I'll have to find a way to do everything.

What happened to the tennis? Earlier, the Tennis channel was showing matches at the Sony Ericsson event in Florida, but it seems like as soon as the players got to the quarters or semis, the Tennis Channel stopped showing it.

I'm reading Nero Wolfe novels right now, waiting for the new Alex Rider paperback to be issued. It comes out I think on April 10th. I'll have to try to find it.