I'm going to head out today.

I have been having panic attacks for a few weeks now. I've nearly got em whipped again. However, today I really need to get out and go to the grocery store and take the girls to the Mall as India got money for jeans and gift cards that she would like to use.

I can think of a few events that helped trigger this round and those have now passed. I think for good, so I shall venture out and see how I do. I went out a week or so ago and had to turn right back around. It was in Wal-mart right before the Holiday last few days rush but still. I thought I was going to faint right there in the store. Things have calmed down a bit.

It was a pretty warm day today compared to how awfully cold it's been lately. Dan and I went out to find a cache. It turned out to be frozen under some water and leaves that had accumilated in the hiding spot (it was put back wrong by the last finders) and turned out I couldn't log it after all.

However, when we first got to the spot it appeared that there was no easy way to the cache but down the side of a hill. Back in 2003 on Dec 9th I ended up in the hospital and then suffering from horrible panic attacks due to having set my difibrillator attempting to climb back up a hill very much like the one I saw today. It scared me and I suggested that I just stay in the car. Dan immediatly put the car in gear and wanted to leave and snapped at me about not wanting to do the cache by himself. I felt just awful.

I got out of the car and pretty much figured that even if I set the dang thing off I was going to do that cache no matter what. Come hell or high water, I had a point to make. How stupid is that. I really wish that I didn't have this stupid defibrillator. No one understands how much it hurts when it goes off. I can't explain to anyone how scary it is. I feel like the biggest loser when I can't do the things I used to be able to do. Much like the gingerbread man above, I am damaged goods. :(

On a lighter note, after finding a better route the cache and not finding it (the cache owner called me later to tell me he had to dig it out of hiding) upon getting back to the car, a black dog came racing over to me. Have you ever met one of those really smart dogs that you can tell is trying to talk to you. She would look at me a little frantic and then sniff the ground. She was asking for help...she was lost. I opened the car door and she gort in. We drove around the park a few times and tried to see if she recognized anyone out for a walk. We also drove around the neighboring homes to see if she responded. Once during the ride around the park, I opened the door and she hopped out. There was a woman there with two black dogs and she stood next to me while I asked the woman if the dog might be hers. Of course she wasn't. The dog didn't run to the other dogs and when I asked her to, she got right back into the car.

I noticed a rabies tag on her collar and called the vet. I got an answering machine that told me if there was an emergency I could call this other number. I did and a man answered. I apologized for having to bother him on Christmas Day and explained to him that I had found this beautiful black dog and she was so well behaved and intelligent. He drove into his office and looked the number up and called me back. He said the owners didn't live anywhere near Deming Park where I had found her. We took her to the vets office where he is keeping her until the owners return his call. If they don't call him back in a couple of days, I am going back to get her and she will become mine. :) She was so sweet. So although I didn't find the cache today, I might have found a new friend. :)

There is a factory in Northern Minnesota

which makes the Tickle Me Elmo toys.

The toy laughs when you tickle it

under the arms.

Well, Lena is hired at The Tickle Me

Elmo factory and she reports for her

first day promptly at 8:00 am.

The next day at 8:45 am there is

a knock at the personnel manager's

door. The foreman throws open the

door and begins to rant about the

new employee. He complains that

she is incredibly slow and the whole

line is backing up, putting the entire

production line behind schedule.
The personnel manager decides

to see this for himself, so the 2

men march down to the factory floor.

When they get there the line is

so backed up that there are Tickle

Me Elmo's all over the factory floor

and they're really beginning to pile

up. At the end of the line stands

Lena surrounded by mountains of

Tickle Me Elmo's. She has a roll

of plush red fabric and a huge

bag of small marbles. The 2 men

watch in amazement as she cuts

a little piece of fabric, wraps it

around two marbles and begins

to carefully sew the little package

between Elmo's legs.

The personnel manager bursts

into laughter. After several

minutes of hysterics he pulls

himself together and approaches Lena .
"I'm sorry," he says to her, barely

able to keep a straight face,

"but I think you misunderstood

the instructions I gave you yesterday..."

'Your job is to give Elmo two test tickles.

It's chilly in my office. I would simply turn up the heat but the electric bill came in for Nov and it was over 500.00 and I feel bad turning up the heat. John would say otherwise I am sure but I just can't do it.

I went to my sisters house last night and we set up her tree. She has been feeling under the weather and I think she either had a cold or a touch of the flu and her stomach was giving her fits as well. We started out with like a 4 or 5 foot plain fiber optic tree and when we finished her whole living room area was quite pretty. I enjoyed hanging out with her, just she and I, for a few hours and we even watched a little TV together and I showed her a couple of cool video's from my church.


I can now access both facilities from home. I can see who's come and gone through the gate. I can take credit card payments "live" (in other words running the card info at that moment as to not have to hold it and wait until I'm in the office again). I know who's been bad or good. I just found out through a series of phone calls that we have OWNED a piece of software for the past 4 years that I wasn't aware of. I call our management software company to purchase a 499.00 module and it turns out that we have owned it all along. I wasn't in the picture in the very very beginning of the North location. Apparently, during that time some paperwork was never filed to finish activating this particular part of the program. Being we have paid 499.00 bucks for it, I hate that we haven't used it but at the same time I'm glad it was already there and paid for :) All I have to do is file that paperwork!

I have gifts hidden all over the place. Some at home in one closet, some in drawers, others in a really high closet and still yet others at my North office. I will be heading over to the North office when I am done here and taking what I have there home, so I can wrap it.

Rented a move called 88 seconds that I was able to keep for 5 days. Had to return Step Brothers again for the second time without watching it. I plan to watch 88 seconds tonight and I'm wondering if it wouldn't pay to join Net Flix or Block Buster again. I liked BlockBuster but they shut the one down near my home. I never get movies back in time and if I join back into one of these, I won't have to worry about returning the movies on time anymore either. :)

I did this project a little over two years ago for a neice who was wanting to learn morse code. She ended up getting her Technicians license but I am not sure of her progress on the cose. I need to find another project like this to do. Heck I got a plunge router for Christmas and I haven't done half the stuff I meant to with it either :) I was just now thinking of all the really evil things I could do for geocaching with that router.

I should know better but it's ever the same.

I fought the law and the law won and it just keeps on going.

I fought all day today with a door controller. Tried reconfiguring etc to never find a solution. It ended up being a problem with the software never being configured in the first place for that particuliar controller. Grrrrr..... so new software is on order and all should be well when it comes in.

I need to figure out what I'm going to do about signs for the doors telling people to not pull an ID-10-t error and actually close the door behind themselves or it defeats the whole point of security on the doors.

I believe tmw I will go out and sweep the climate control units out and they should now be ready to go.

I was hoping to get to go out caching but it seems that is not going to happen this weekend either. I have way to many things to do and very little time to get them done in. I even found out that I scheduled two things on the same day. When my mind isn't idle things feel better.

It would be nice if it were THAT simple.

This is me!

Never seem to get everything done I want.

I got Elise's Christmas shirt ready. They are having a Christmas program at school on the 11th of December. I'd like for her to look festive. I think she ought to wear the white turtleneck under it but she is going to fight me the whole way on that.

I found a really sweet Advent Calendar for Elise. It is a Littlest Pet Shop calendar. The first day had a LPS Penguin behind the door. Day two had a little stocking cap for him. On the Third was a little flower clip that goes on any of the LPS bobble heads that have big ears..like the rabbits. It's sitting the on the back of the kitchen table.

I found the perfect nerd gift for a friend of mine. The place that I got them from is all out now and as far as I know, they only lastest a few days. I would imagine he will have nerdwood over this.

I am getting ready to place a cache that I will call Knee Deep. In the late Spring, Summer and early Fall the cache will be in weeds that are Knee Deep. However, here is the container. Go ahead say the name of the cache quickly. >:)

It's going to be a log only cache which I rarely ever do. I dremeled a whole in his butt and the tube fit perfectly. Should be very water tight.

That's it for tonight! Going to try to get a little bit more sleep than I have been getting the past few nights. But also want to go to bed in time to read a little Duma Key before I fall asleep.

Elise got home after spending a couple of days with her dad and we put together the tree. For whatever, reason this seems to take hours to do each year. I think the tree looks more natural then those that just pop up like an umbrella.

We got 700 lights on it and tmw we will put on the decorations. Elise got tired and wanted to go to sleep.

I also decided to try to take a picture of the wreath on the front porch.

I had a great day and got several new rentals today. It was a pretty productive day, all around.

I actually completed everything on my list. Elise's room needed cleaned and it is now done!

Well lets see what actually got done....

1. Clean Elise's bedroom.
2. Change out the cd's in the player for Christmas music.
3. Replace the few nails that were removed in the frontroom where I hang my garland every year.
4. Hang up the garland and balls from the windows.
5. Figure out where to put my "bent" during the time the Christmas tree will be up.
6. Drag in all the dusty boxes from the garage and sort out some decorations.
7. If it gets warmer outside I will go out there today and put up lights outside and just not plug them in quite yet.
8. Remind my boss, who just called, that he TOLD me to take the day off :)

Everything in red got done....the biggest and yuckiest job has not yet been completed. It is still early though...only 7:20. I might very well go on in there and get to it.

I played a game of Scrabble with a friend of mine today but he had to stop early due to some emergency at work. I was sooo totally kicking his butt. Good thing he had to go. If you are on Yahoo Messenger and want to play Scrabble...ad me xxgiggerxx .

While I was hanging out light today I had a bit of help....

Just finished my oatmeal and banana breakfast and now I will have some energy to do some stuff.
What I would like to get completed today.
1. Clean Elise's bedroom.
2. Change out the cd's in the player for Christmas music.
3. Replace the few nails that were removed in the frontroom where I hang my garland every year.
4. Hang up the garland and balls from the windows.
5. Figure out where to put my "bent" during the time the Christmas tree will be up.
6. Drag in all the dusty boxes from the garage and sort out some decorations.
7. If it gets warmer outside I will go out there today and put up lights outside and just not plug them in quite yet.
8. Remind my boss, who just called, that he TOLD me to take the day off :)

Let's see by this evening just how many of these things I actually get done.

7 More People Took The Dip!

Another 7 people got baptized tonight at church. It was a very very very cool time. I keep thinking "tonight would be a great night for someone new to visit this church. they'd be hooked" and then I think that the next time too :)

FFH is this weeks band of the week for me. Elise has been having me look up everything they have on You Tube since we heard one of thier songs in the car.

I'm having to scan my laptop because I noticed that there was a pop-up screen attempting to come up every time I boot up the system. Some program attempting to conect to the web automatically. I'm sure it's for some "truely remarkable product" or some spy ware.

Can't wait to weigh in tmw to see how much all the starving and working took off over the weekend.


Elise got a beautiful cross necklace that Dan got from a Odessy Posse cache.
Time to think about getting to bed on time.

I need a good screw.

I still didn't get my new sign on the door because I didn't have a single metal screw in the office. The only metal screws I could find were like 3 inches long and would have come out the backside of the door. So I still have one thing that needs to be done signage wise at the office.

I got my keyboard holder attached to my new desk. It totally sucks to have to have the keyboard way up around my armpits. I have to sit my chair on the lowest setting at work anyway and having the keyboard up on the top of the desk a "pain in the neck" literally.

I'm watching the Hulk right now and funny thing they do a cameo of both of the previous Hulks on the TV he is watching.


I would have liked to have gone caching today but I had to work. The house needs cleaned up tmw and I'm a little behind on that, so I will make an effort to do the whole house tmw. I guess I won't be getting any caching done this weekend. It's been a long time.

I am in my new office and working on getting my merchandise set up in the new office. I am attempting to comparison shop between these two companies where I'll be purchasing my stuff from.

It's been fairly quiet in this office today except for the fact that the dead beat customers that haven't paid in three or four months are just now beginning to come put of the woodwork again and only now are freaked out about losing their stuff. Pay the bill each month from the beginning and you never have to go there.

Random thought: Shopping carts are fun!

It's been several months since I've updated the blog. I just got away from it is all.

My work has become alot more work :) with two offices to run now. I love it. My days always went by way to fast the way it was. Now it feels like the days are two hours long. I have gotten tons of stuff done in the past two days though and that's always rewarding.

Lots of fun stuff happening right now. But to some it up:

Lots of Stuff Coming Up

Our annual Amateur Radio Field Day is coming up. I plan to take a bunch of pictures. We have a very organized event being planned and it seems like everything is coming together.
I have volunteered to bring so much stuff that I will most likely have to make two trips to get it all there. I don't know if I am going to be able to bring a nice soft chair or not. I might settle for cushions on a folding chair before it's all over with.

We are completely full now at work. Each day if one comes open I immediately rent it back out again. I have a sale coming up soon, I think Ill have it the first week of June...that will empty about 4 more units out for me.

Flood waters stand in places for the first time ever...

Well I guess I can't really say ever....but at least in the past 100 years or so and in some cases perhaps back to the day of the ark. I will make an attempt to post some pictures, however it has been very busy around here as of late. Spent several hours as liaison for the Red Cross and then some time at one of the shelters where people had to stay due to their homes being flooded. Mine, thankfully is fine. I have a few friends that were directly effected by the floods and a few customers are here now because of them as well.

The diet has totally went to the way side so although I really haven't gained anything at all I haven't lost anything either and there is plenty of room for that.

Semi-Busy Day Ends With Shopping

Today I was partially busy but had some time to finish cleaning a mucky mess out of the bottom of my last remaining storage unit. Which I have reserved for a women who is coming to fill out the paper work at 3:30 PM tmw.

198.4 so a total of 8 pounds in about 3 weeks I think. However, in my journal there is no May 1,2,3,4 like I wasn't dieting. Not too hot on losing the weight. I know 2 pounds a week is great blah blah blah but its pretty hard to stay motivated when you look like a beached whale and it's taking too long to come off.

Progress Soup 2 120
Pudding 2 60
Turkey Breast WW 4 210
Chip 1 45
Granola Bar 2 110
Appple Sauce 1 50
Veggie Delits 6" 4 230
Light Lays 1 75
Ice cream (bad girl) 6 390
23 1290
Still under what I would have to still lose but with more exercise needed and 23 points in the right count on the WW points. So who the hell knows.

I need to get in the shower and get more sleep than yesterday.

Just checking in....

First get the food crap out of the way....
Pregresso Soup 2 120
Steamed Veggies 4 240
Turkey Dog 4 148
2 Turkey burgers 8 320
bread 2 120
Pretzels 4 220
24 1168

Oppps pudding 2 60 26 1228

Wow that totally sucks. A little heavy on the day.

Dan cut the grass...I ran the weed eater around the yard and also the leaf blower to clean off all the sidewalks. I also got 60 Gladiola bulbs in the ground too. That was the last of the planting that I had. I already got all my seeds planted in the garden last week and the week before that was all the plants.

Tonight I picked up some movies for us to watch. The Golden Compass, The Bee Movie and Stephen Kings Mist. I plan to pretty much veg out in front of the tv tonight.

Weird how just one bunch of pretzels can put on 220 calories to the day. I should have chosen some veggies or something instead of those pretzel sticks.

Well I am out of here. I think that Elise is biting at the bit to get her movies started. Ill check in again later.

Late in the day and finally logging in......

Had a nice evening. Its been quiet around the house, as Elise is at her sleep over for her Birthday at her dads house (and yes one little girl was able to come over and stay with night) She was apparently having a good time. She will be back sometime on Saturday. India is going to be coming home around midnight. I'll go over and pick India up when she is done at her friends house.

I had today...
Progresso 2 120
Pudding 2 60
Turkey Breast 4 210
Apple Sauce 1 50
Granola Bar 2 110
Grilled Chicken 5.5 249.7
16.5 799.7

I looked up the Grilled Chicken Salad and I am not 100% sure on the numbers but the numbers are so low today it would be fine if they are off a little. I have plenty of room to play today.

I think it will be a pretty good weekend food wise. No big eating social occasions and I am thinking that I am getting really close to 10 pounds thus far. :)

Oh I also got some beautiful flowers today from Kristen for Mothers Day. The card simply said "I love you- Kristen"

Later that day......

Rained off and on the entire day. Not sure what tmw will be like. I know I am not going to have water for a while.

Todays food was
Progresso Soup 2 120
Pudding 2 60
Broccoli and Cheddar 4 220
Apple Sauce 1 50
Peas 5 280
2 Dogs 4 214
18 944
I was trying to watch The Office and I had to turn it up to watch really loud because the girls were being so LOUD! Just now a commercial came on and it nearly blasted me out of the room :) Yikes.

Its kinda ironic that they have Scrubs and ER on on the same night. I have to run Christina home soon (one of my daughters friends) but The Office is on. I was just watching my dog, the Rottwieller (can't spell it close enough for the stupid computer dictionary to recognize it) watching tv. She seems to like the commercials better than the actual program.

Apparently, we are going to Springhill Wholesale so that our friend Scott can make us some shirts for Dayton. We are getting our calls and our calls and names on them.

Elise's Birthday

I got home last night and took Elise out shopping after running India to an errand. Thus the Subway for dinner. Elise was able to get everything she had wanted for her Birthday. :) I have been doing okay on money recently especially with there being such a huge credit on my gas bill. The credit is from way back when I it was shut off (during my married and trying to make ends meet with yet another person in the house)over $500.00 had to be paid in order to get it turned back on. Now part of that went as a credit on the account and I have not had to pay a gas bill for two months. I am half tempted to send something anyway so it can keep the credit going for next winter when all hell will break lose on the gas prices. It might cost so much that no one will be able to even heat their homes by next year. I unfortunately have to keep my heat way down already and it's pretty high some months.

I has continued to rain as I thought it might and the gardens and planters are not going to be needing watered for a couple of days. However, the sun coming out sometime soon to help the plants actually grow would be nice. :)

Elise is to go to her dads house over the weekend for a sleep over, well technically to the girlfriends house, and I hope that some of the little girls are actually able to attend. I am sure that if for some reason they can't make it, I will somehow get the blame for this through some conspiracy plot.

It's raining again......

I won't have to water the plants probably tmw either as it looks like the line of rain storms coming through is going to last perhaps even into tmw. Can't really tell yet.

Went to Subway tonight while I was getting a few things for Elise's Birthday. I found some chips there that were even better than the baked Lays. Soooo.....

Progresso Soup 2 120
Pudding 2 60
Sweet and Sour Chic 3 140
2 Skinny Cow Cones 6 300
6" Veggie Delite 4 230
Light Lays Chips 1 75
Pudding 2 60
20 985

Another very good day on the calorie front. I can't remember off the top of my head ...but I believe that the My Pyramid Gov site had me at like 2000 calories if you exercise 30 to 60 minutes a day and 1800 if you lay around on your ass all day. So I figure at the rate I am going I should be able to lose at least a little every week. I will have to be super careful when I try to do maintainence and switch to anything but starving myself.

So far so good.

Not a real busy day yet. No food temptations. My friend Roy came over and we talked and talked. After work I plan to take India out for a moment to run an errand and then back home to take Elise and India over to Wal-mart. We are going Birthday shopping for Elise. She has a big day planned at her Dads girlfriends house for her birthday. I will as always send juice and cupcakes to her school to celebrate her birthday and we will have cake and ice cream at home as well. She has several items in mind that she would like for her birthday and hopefully they will be in stock tonight when we go out.

Other than working....not much has taken place yet today. I have had two customers that were supposed to come in and settle up their debts and move out but as of yet...nothing heard from either one.

Alrighty then....

I did rather well on the food and on top of everything I wasn't a bit hungry.
Preogresso 2 120
Pudding 2 60
Teriyaki Chicken 4 230
Peas 4 280
( I didn't eat all the peas but I am too lazy to measure out the peas I didn't eat)
Dogs w/bread 4 214
16 904

Not bad at all. If I could keep that up all the time, man I would be down to nothing in no time. I wish that there was some kind of pill that could totally kill your appetite and you never get hungry again. :) It would be so cool if you had to actually remind yourself to eat occasionally.

I stopped off and tanned on the way home, took Elise to family night at the book fair at her school, fixed dinner when I got back, washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen and then went out to the garage and painted all the trim that goes in the girls room. While I was cooking dinner out on the grill, I watered the flower garden and the garden/garden.

Tomorrow should be another busy day and at work I have had a ton of units rented out. I think I only have 3 units left. It would be really super cool if I rented those out before the end of the week.

Okay I missed a day or two.

My schedule has been uber busy! I kinda messed up on the diet on Saturday evening for dinner when brauts were cooked and pizza and bread sticks brought in...however, I still lost weight for the week. I just need to not do that because thats not always the case.
A total of 1120 calories and 23 points for Monday. I am in a tiny bit of a hurry so I am not going to take the time to write everything out but there you have it. Dinner was with a guest over and I probably shouldn't have had any chips and found a veggie instead. :) But still under on points/calories so I won't beat myself up over it. 6.8 pounds thus far with yesterday being the one week mark.

I had a medical emergency with my middle daughter. She is the only one that does not have insurance. She was taken to the hospital Saturday night and is doing fine now. However, I have no idea how this is going to turn out. The important thing is that she is doing fine and all is well again for now.

We were out at Cory at the time all this happened and had to rush back to Terre Haute. At the time all our antenna's and radio equipment were everywhere. I believe every thing is back and accounted for. As it ended up getting slit up between three different people. Here are a few of us up and taking a break from the radios. The bands were in terrible shape earlier in the day and we worked for every contact we made!





I might check in again a little later to post todays menu or I might do it first thing tmw morning. Just have to see how busy my schedule is.

Wowser!

I can't believe how busy we got yesterday. At one point in time there were 8 contracts for new rentals sitting on my desk waiting to be keyed in. They came in so fast in such a short period of time that I couldn't get them keyed in until they all left. I had to just open the gate and leave it open for a bit so people could come and go until I got their numbers keyed in. It was hectic but fun at the same time. I know I am nuts but I find it a challenge to try to keep it all straight and get every bit of information and paperwork that I needed in a friendly effecient but fast manner. I have to say.... I think I did pretty good :)

Hmmm food for yesterday.....
Soup 2 120
Pudding 2 60
Oriental chicken 4 230
Apple Sauce 1 50
Chicken Portobello
sandwhich from Apple bees 7 360
Pudding 2 60
totals 16 880

I think I was too dang busy to worry about food. I ended up eating my Porobello chicken sandwich and fruit in the car on the way to the grocery store. During all of this the kids and Dan are with me at the store and eating snacks and crap in the car...and I was just fine with that. When I got home...I had a sugar free Pudding and that was good enough for me. :)

I have no idea if today is going to be as hectic or not....but if it is it will only make the day go faster. It's already 11:52 and this is the first chance I've had to sit at the computer for a moment and get yesterdays information keyed in. Good thing I'm keeping a log. I am now under 200 but I am not going to post the total again until Monday that way it will have been a week since the last one. :)

As I suspected....

Another very busy day. I figure by next Monday the kids should pretty much have settled for whatever they are going to do with their storage situations and probably won't be calling much after that. Things will settle back into a steady good weather pace then. It's looking like right now I will have 5 or 4 (<--- India's way of putting it)to sell off around May 20th or so. I hate to do that but one just simply can't pay and the other three have vanished from the face of the earth.

Of course we have to type of the exciting word on what Ginger ate today:
Progresso Rice and Veggie 2 and 120
Apple Sauce 1 and 50
Pudding 2 60
Oriental Chicken 4 230
Hot Dogs 4 148
Mixed Veggies 4 240
Pudding 2 60
Totals 19 908

Very good day and pretty healthy choices. The dogs are 98% fat and made of turkey...so no fatty floor scrap dogs there. Yeah I ate the whole bag of veggies but with 0 fat and all those nutrients I am not going to feel bad about filling up on veggies. :) Very good day....wasn't as active as I probably should have been and unfortunately I don't think I'll get a walk in tonight. I have promised to do some sewing for tonight.

Just have enough time for a quicky!

Very very busy day and really didn't have a chance to sit down and type anything. Going to stay busy while we are preparing to open the new place. Lot's of new customers and unfortunately because it's the end of the month I have a bunch of move outs too. So lots of cleaning up and sweeping as well. Of course I come in and someone had left some junky ass cabinet laying out in the lot and I had to haul it around. That is one of the many times I wish we had video camera's around there so I could bust who ever did it and call them on it. If they have just moved out, then I can keep the 25.00 security deposit for it.

Todays intake was in a nut shell:
Soup 2 120
Pudding 2 60
Sweet and sour chickent 3 140
apple sauce 1 50
2 turkey burgers 8 320
2 bread 2 140
peas 4 100 probably not but I'm going high because I dont want to dig the package out of the trash
puddin 2 60
Total 24 and 990 calories.


Not a bad day and not counting the yard work I did when I got home, 8683 steps for the short time I had the counter on. Need to work on 10,000 every day.

Nothing much to report. Thursday, Friday and Saturday all have lots of stuff scheduled for the week so I'll be busy.

What a dreary day!

I went from 206.4 to 200.00 today one week later. I am sure a lot of that has to do with water loss too but I have drank enough iced tea to surely make up for some of that.

It's been extremely busy at work and I am glad for that. I wanted to have as many of those units rented out as possible before the other building was complete. I don't have as many students as I might have thought I would get but I guess in a way that's a good thing because they all leave in August and I have to make up for those that leave. I got a ton of calls today asking for prices from the college bunch. Not sure how many of them I will get tmw.

Today food was.....

Progresso points 2 Cals 160
Chicken Oriental WW 4 230
2 Apple Sauce 2 100
GTP Co. Chick Wrap 7 353.3 This is based on reg ranch and I had fat free ranch on mine
Black Bean 3 180
Fruit Cup (didnt finish) 1 91.2
19 1074.5

Still a little higher than I would like on the calories but the WW watcher points are down there where they belong. I won't sweat it too much as long as it keeps working.

Today while I was at Grand Travers Pie Company for dinner, I asked for their nutritional chart. They didn't seem to have one but did have one printed out from a local guys website. He collects all this data and puts it on his site at
He had a ton of stuff on there and all the local restaurants as well. I had a hard time finding anything on the web for GTP CO.

My arm is feeling a ton better after all the work Sat and Sun and by tmw night I will be ready to get out there and get the rest of the seeds in the ground and get the garden area finished up. With a little bit of tending, it should grow quite well. Much of the dirt out there in that garden spot was as black as coal and very rich looking. It should do well.

The pictures I promised.

First off....here is a shot of my kitty walking along his newly edged sidewalk...the very sad thing is ...once we cleared off the side walk out front of the house it was obvious how bad of shape it was in. Last year the city came around and marked and replaced all the side walks that it thought were in bad shape. They thought mine were fine apparently and very few people actually got their's replaced on my street. Mostly the ones right off the main street was done. I guess for looks.

Look at all those breaks in the concrete! I replaced my "personal walk" but I think the city should do the ones that everyone uses.

Here is the old gate and fence that was in front of my garden area. It was constantly falling down and actually had two saw horses holding it up and the dogs were constantly getting past the fence/gate. Obviously, not doing it's job anymore. It was long past time to replace it.

After it was removed Dan began work on a new fence.

Working right along...

and the final results. This is one solid gate and the hardware is nice and sturdy this time. I am glad we didn't try to salvage the old ones.

While Dan worked on the new fence and gate. I got to work on this area.

and worked on getting these in the ground.

and here they are getting watered.

As you can see I only got a couple of things done that I wanted to do. I will keep working on the list every night until I get caught up. I have an outing on Monday night. Thursday night at the radio station and Friday night will be a Club meeting night and the Indiana QSO Party/Bison Stampede too on Saturday.

Hopefully, I'll survive it all.

I am just too dang tired!

I have a ton of pictures of the stuff I'm doing around here right now but I am too tired to pull them off the computer and upload them. I just don't want to mess with them right now. I held a shovel,pick fork,broom,spade etc etc far too much this weekend and even my upper arms are hurting.

Today was a heavy calorie day:

Shredded Wheat 2 160
Milk 1 45
toast w/preserves 1 70

2 turkey burgers 8 320
salad dressing 2 50
apple sauce 1 50
pudding 2 60
2 bread 2 140

broccolli WW meal 4 220
chicken breast 2 60
Total 23 1175

I have worked like a dog though and I am not going to worry about it too awful much.

I have tons of pictures of the work and projects that are going on right now around here but will end up posting them twm. Today I am just too tired.

Busy, busy day.

Work was relatively quiet. Got in a few payments that were WAY past due and that was great. I got one rental while I was there and later when I got home, we ran an errand, came home and got dinner in the crock pot and the phone rang. It was someone wanting to rent and although we had been closed for a few hours at that point, I ran back to work and rented a unit to them. I didn't mind. For one they probably wouldn't have gotten anyone else to answer the phone and secondly that brings me down to only having 3 left. WOOOT!

After that I came home and started working on my yard. I began working on the side walks out front. Clearing all the grass out of the cracks and cleaning them up and hadn't gotten very far with it was time to grab a bit to eat. While doing that my brother and his wife and daughter came over to visit and drop off some shirts they wanted embroidered. Well after visiting for a little bit, I excused myself because I had a ton of stuff I wanted to get done or as much of it as possible. My brother and his wife come outside and start helping me. Pretty soon Joe (my brother) runs home and gets his power washer and leaf blower and before too long, my yard looked like a professional crew had come in and worked over the yard. It was fantastic. They worked just as hard if not harder than me. I ended up getting the sidewalks all cleared, blown off and then power washed. The flower beds were completely weeded and are prepped for bulbs and flowers. Then Joey rakes everything up and we put away all the tools etc and go in for a nice glass of ice tea. In the meantime, Dan is in the backyard building me a new fence and gate for the front of my garden area that is just gorgeous. He wouldn't let me pay him back for the supplies either. 80 bucks just to build that 10 foot section with gate. Everything is coming together very nicely.

Todays food count: (I know how exciting)
Progresso Soup 2 120
Piece of toast
with rasb.perserves 1 70
Chicken Oriento 4 230
Pudding 2 60
Apple Sauce 1 50
2 Dogs w Buns 4 224
Lemon Lime chicken 3 156
Totals 17 910

NOT bad at all and I felt like I'd eaten like a pig but really I didn't do bad at all. Super busy day as far as exercise. I am so sore right now and so tired, I could just drop. I hope that when I get up in the morning my hands and my arm won't hurt near as much as it does right now. I am thinking that the heating pad on my shoulder tonight while I'm sleeping....might not be a bad idea if I want it to be lose enough to work some more tmw. I have a ton more things I'd really like to accomplish tmw.

I am going to start using my pedometer at work and make myself get in my 10,000 steps or darn close to it each day. It's a little tough when it's raining out but most days it will be fine. If I keep up like I am doing right now...Monday should be a good weigh day. :)

I'm still here

Did really well yesterday. I need to look something up on the subway menu but here's the day as far as food is concerned:

Progresso 2 120
Apple Sauce 1 50
BBQ Chicken 5 240
Apple Sauce 1 50
Pudding 2 60
6" sweetonion
chicken 7 370
Sun chips 3 140
Totals 21 1030

Okay a little high on the calories probably due to the sandwich mostly but I appear to be down to 201.8 as of this morning. So I believe that from a few days ago and 206.4 Im heading in the right direction anyway. I can't believe Im actually typing that weight for all to see. When I was married I wouldn't even dream of letting him know what my weight was. It was bad enough that he could see me and judge me I wasn't going to give him any ammo.

My crazy neighbor here at work has not yet contacted me again so I think that all is quiet for the time being.

Today I plan to go get some garden plants for the garden area. Tomatoes, cucumbers, zuccinni and some peppers for sure to start with. I don't have a huge area but it would really be nice to have a few fresh veggies through mid summer and fall. I need to sit down here in a moment and figure up the bills and make sure I budget myself. I need to buy supplies also to build a new gate to keep the dogs out. It's really cooled off outside today from near or a little over 80 yesterday to 48 right now. If nothing else it will make working outside not so hot and muggy. I still have that huge pile of mulch to clean up too. It's a little damp right now but should dry out quickly. We had some storms come through last night but the wind and lightening were much worse than the rain. No hail and very little rain...just tons of electrical activity and wind.

Interesting Day - 204.4 from 206.4 water probably

Tonight we are going out to the radio station. We always go out to eat afterwards. I plan to have a salad or nothing at all and try to eat before we leave the hosue. I am figuring on perhaps cooking a couple of dogs (turkey 2 point jobbies) on the grill before I leave and then a salad with fat free dressing to top it off. Should work out okay.

So todays food intake will be.... showing quanity in () then WW points then calories

Progress Soup 2 120
Apple Sauce 1 50
Turkey Meal 5 240
Ice cream (2) 6 300
5 baked lay chips 1 40
Salad Dressing 0 60
2 turkey dogs 2 74
totals 17 884

Should be an over all pretty good day. Okay 2 icecreams were a bit much but they were Skinny Cow and really good :)

Today I got a call from a person that lives near by the facility who proceeded to tell me they had heard some banging sounds outside and were pretty sure, "Because I've seen enough episodes of CSI and COPS" to know that there might be a person locked in one of the units facing their house and is being help captive and are trying to escape. Well noone from that side of the building were even in today and when I went out to listen...apparently who ever was in there decided they liked it there now and didn't want to be let out (ie they were being very quiet) or they just didn't exist at all except in the head of the very disturbed man next door. He proceeded to tell me not to really trust anything the other neighbor says because he "drinks quiet a bit, but that's neither here nor there." NO SHIT you are nuttier than a fruit cake yourself there buddy and just how is that better or more reliable than the drunk? OH MY! What an interesting day it has been. Oh by the way...I switched lines and went over to talk to the boss on the other line and the man proceeded to walk on over and talk to me in person. My friend Jim says I was too close to the gate and he could have grabbed me but it is always best to keep a position/stance of dominance and not act all meek and scared. Jim was out there with him for a while and he even called Jim a liar when he told him I was on the phone with the boss and would come out in a bit....he didn't get mouthy with me and I was able to defuse the hieghtened hysteria he had worked himself into and get him to hush and go back home relatively quickly. Assuring him that I would keep my eye out for any suspicious behavior. :) Wowser!

Okay...what I ate today

Well it was a bit more than I wanted to:

Points Calories

Progresso Lite 2 120
WW Tortilla Chick 10 480
Pudding 2 60
Granola Bars (2) 4 220
Turkey Burger (2) 8 320
plain Total 26 1200

Okay that was a little heavy on the calories. I'll have to cut back on a couple of items. Like I could have easily done without the second Granola Bar and the Jello sugar free pudding and that would have brought it to under 1000 calories for the day.
I'll work on it tmw. ♥☻♥☻♥

Day 1 ☺

I woke this morning with my head hurting...I am sneezing like crazy, so I can assume it is allergies. I'm here at work with a nice cup of coffee (my first for the morning) and I took two Alleve in hopes that Ill be fine in a bit. I plan to take it easy for a bit anyway and not go out and start weeding or working with the planters. I have perhaps 20 pages of Stephen Kings Insomnia left to go. The plan was then to read something a bit lighter but right now I have way too many good deep books that I want to get into. This is my favorite time of year to read. I love to sit outside and read.

I'll post first thing before I got to bed or first thing the next morning as to what I consumed. I have a ton of the Progresso soups which are too high in sodium but I'm going to finish them off all the same. Lunch will be from the Apple Bee's WW menu. I have been using Altern (Splenda off brand name) in my iced tea and it's great. You can't tell its not sugar because it is made from sugar but your body doesn't recognize it's moleculiar make up and thus doesn't process it. 0 calories.

My big downfall is not during the day. Breakfast and lunch go along without a hitch. I have what I brought and thats it. I don't keep food stockpiled around so I'm fine. It's when I get home and I am tired or don't feel like making something or what I have to make is not healthy but fast and easy. I need to utilize that slow cooker!

We went out last night and cleaned out the garden area. It was a good 4 or 5 contractor bags full! Dan said he didn't think that there it could look that good back there and in such a short time. Just Sunday it was PILED with brush and all kinds of crap that the dogs had drug in there. Now it's very neat and clean and ready to be tilled under. Gotta get those plants out soon. ♥

Fat

I went out yesterday to buy a couple of t-shirts for the summer. I always like to have a few to switch in between for the summer and those full length three way mirrors are hell. I looked like a big ball with arms sticking out the sides.

About a year ago I weighed 42 pounds less than I do now. I went through a divorce, and a couple of surgeries and began dating a nice guy named Dan. A combination of having been on a diet (Weight Wathers 23 or less points a day depending on what my weight was at the time) consisting of about 900 calories. Not much. No wonder I was able to lose 50 pounds in just 7 months or so. It showed alot in my face but it came off of course all around. I got quite a few compliments too. I threw out all my really huge clothes which must have been worn a few pounds heavier than when I started the WW program. One of the reasons I think I might have started WW was due to my lack of self esteem. I had a husband that liked to let me know that I pretty much grossed him out and was no longer worthy. He told me that the reason he viewed porn on the internet day in and day out was because I had packed on pound after pound after pound. I decided I didn't want to be disgusting any more. Not for his sake or any other man for that matter actually...just for me. I was tired of being that fat.

I kinda let up a little on the diet during two different MINOR surgeries that I had during that time and during that time removed the person that thought so little of me from the household. I suddenly had WAY less stress in my life. I kinda kicked back and began enjoying myself. One social event after another, now that no one was around to ask me when "exactly" I was going to be home and make me feel bad that I had a life outside the house. I also began dating a man who LOVES to eat. Every outing with him is an event and occasion to celebrate with food. :) Lots and lots of fun but MAN it wrecks hell with a diet. Now since my body had become adjusted to eating about 600-900 calories a day....when I began to eat even 1500 (what would have been a normal amount or there abouts) I packed the weight on as quick as you can imagine.

I have restarted this diet just about every single week for the past year. I can't seem to stick to it for more than a few days. I am happy with my life and apparently hitting rock bottom and being so down on myself and disgusted with myself really helped to motivate me the first time around.

I am currently grasping at straws I think. Attempting to find something that will motivate me into losing it. I know there are a million health reasons that I need to do it. I don't want to wait until I have a heart attack or stroke to have my health motivate me. Right now I am up to a whopping 206! At only 5 ft tall what a porkprincess. I look more like a weeble right now than a person. Going to Dayton and walking around all day long is going to be tough carrying around all this weight. It will feel like Ive got a huge back pack on. I just need to get myself into a routine and stay with it.

I think that I am going to keep my food diary as I have including any indiscretions I might have and post them here as well. I wasn't paying a bit of attention to the calories and just going with the points which worked but it was amazing recently when I started paying attention to it....I was consuming a very very very low number of calories a day. Of course my body after about 7 months of that thought I was starving to death and just wasn't very efficient at burning calories.

I now have a recumbent bike that I should be riding each and every chance I get...and if I can't get that done there is NO excuse for me not to get out and walk every day. I really need to get myself motivated!!! I will begin to post each day and see if accountability helps. Of course when you go to WW classes (13 bucks a week and about an hour and a half a week of your time, being in front of everyone, even though noone see's what you weigh and or how much you have or haven't lost...my competive nature made me want to be one that lost 5 or more pounds as often as I could so that I felt I was accomplishing something. I DON'T want to go back. For two reasons, I don't want to pay for what I KNOW I could do myself if I could just find my nitch...and also because hell I gained the weight back and I'll be darned if I'm going to put myself on display for it. I guess I'm a little to vain for that. I know its wrong and unhealthy but I so wish I was 6 weeks out of stomach surgery right now and doing okay with it.

By the way....here is me...now big and fat. Arms sticking out at my sides and looking generally nasty.

Here is me a year ago....yeah I got my hair cut and it's not straightened today...but here I am. What a difference a year made.

How depressing.

Okay I have a few more things.

Today we created a huge pile of mulch in the yard. My friend Roy was over with his chipper and we must have run and entire tree through that thing. It was neat but time consuming and noisy. We needed to chop a bunch of a tree off that was shading our garden area. I haven't been able to have a garden there because of it. I still need to clean the area out where the actual garden goes....meaning raking it out and smoothing it and tilling it. I still need to rake up all the chippings and put them in bags. I will take pictures of my garden as it comes along....I might even take a picture of the mess before I rake and clean it out.

When I walked into the house yesterday, my little one had been playing with her littlest pet shop toys and had two of them on a skate board. It was totally innocent in her eyes but I laughed my head off. I HAD to take a picture.

I went out caching with my friend Marvin and introduced him to using a gps. He did really well. I was able to get three new ones that I didn't have, so it was a double bonus. I think he really enjoyed himself.

Is this cannibalism?

I always get all kinds of comments and compliments on my car seats. I have seat covers with frogs sitting on top and lilly pad embroidery with dragon flies on the butt part. They are very neat and I've not seen them again since I got them. My girls bought them for me several years ago.

Lastly, I took a picture of my youngest daughter and her sister thought it would be funny to act spooky and get in the picture in the background. Little did she know just how spooky it would turn out. It looked like something out of The Grudge or The Messenger. :)

Okay thats it for now. I'll write more later.