2017--This Year is Our Year!!!
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We arrived in Western MD about an hour ago. Once we cleared the DC area, the country was really pretty. there are a lot of farms along our route. I've been to eastern MD and the Baltimore area but we've never been to this part of the state. I was surprised how rural it is. We'll head over to Gettysburg in the morning. I still haven't figured out where we want to stay tomorrow night. A friend suggested Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame. We'd enjoy that but I think it will be too far west and thus make too long a drive home on Thursday.0
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I didn't make it to the gym today but I will try to go tomorrow. Today I had my annual visit with the retina specialist who repaired my detached retina 5 years ago. He pronounced my eyes healthy so I'm clear for another year. I always hate this appointment because I hate having my eyes dilated and because it's always at least a two hour stay for 5 minutes with the doctor. Invariably, it is a bright sunny day and we are driving home facing the sun, so I dread the trip home with dilated eyes. Even with my darkest sunglasses, it's painful. Luckily, since DH is retired I do have a chauffeur.
Tonight we had a taco salad for dinner. I tried to fill my plate with lots of veggies, a moderate amount of meat, beans, and a sprinkle of cheese and tortilla strips. DH always does pretty much the opposite, so his plate doesn't look as healthy as mine. He could stand to lose 10-15 pounds, but I need to loose about 30, so I try not to say much about his eating habits. His doctors haven't told him he needs to lose weight but mine have told me I need to.
Tomorrow I hope to go for a pedicure with my friend whose husband was so sick earlier this year. He has improved greatly since coming home, but he still needs a lot of help. She has been reluctant to leave him alone, but the occupational therapist is encouraging her to start doing so for brief periods of time, so we are going to try to meet for pedicures tomorrow if he's doing well. I'm looking forward to spending some time with her and I know getting away and doing something for herself will be good for her.0 -
Pam - good news on the eye appointment! I hate the ophthalmologist too. Especially the field of vision test. DH has been buying bigger jeans so I guess he's put on a little weight but it's so little compared to me that like you I can't really say much. Enjoy your day today!
Helene - hope you enjoyed Gettysburg and made it home safe and sound.
I'm going to give myself a little break today and take a field trip to a couple of the fancier grocery stores around and see if I can find anything on my "can't find" list.
The good news is that Jessicat doesn't seem to mind the awful organic maple ham I found (and I guess the second good news is that it tempts me not at all) and she even ate some of DH's roast beef (I make him hot beef sandwiches). She and Jack are both on prednisolone (spell check thinks that word should be "predisposition" LOL!) and it does give them an appetite!
We may have a new cat at one of the colonies. Saw him/her for the first time yesterday. If so, this will be the first time since I started helping with these colonies. It's heart breaking when it happens. I've alerted everyone so hopefully he/she can be scooped up and vetted. If adoptable of course he/she won't be put back. Beautiful long haired black cat.
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Gettysburg was fascinating. We spent about five hours there. It's 6,000 acres and they have 1,400 monuments on the grounds. I did a little online research the day before and found out that one of the gift stores sold a 2 volume CD that you could use for an auto tour. We stopped and bought it and it was worth every penny, It came with a map of the battles so you could see where you were on the drive. They organized the tour by the dates of the battle so we back tracked over some of the same roads but it put the battle into context. DH knows more about military history than I do so he mentioned several times that he remembered people and battles from the movie Gettysburg. We want to watch the movie again with the site knowledge we now have. It was 93 degrees there so I was glad to be in our truck with the Ac running. We left there at 6 and arrived at our hotel in northern NJ at 10 pm. We stopped at a Wendy's drive thru for chili and a baked potato. We split the potato and had the chili after we checked in.
I was also impressed by the ride through western MS and eastern PA on the way to Gettysburg. There were lots of farms and the mountains were in the distance. What gorgeous scenery. I had Rachel Ray on while packing and she had pairs of viewers with tips on weight loss, DIY. fashion and cooking tips. The audience selected the one of each pair with the best tips. The 4 weight loss tips were save the frozen entree containers from WW or other companies. Use it for portion control. The woman had lost 150 pounds and she said she did it by eating half the portions she used to eat without using any special foods. She put spaghetti in one half and she put Parmesan kale chips in the other half instead of garlic bread. The guy had lost over 100 pounds and his tips was invest in a food scale and serve your dinner on a dark colored plate. I hadn't heard that one before but I guess it made a smaller serving look more appealing against the dark color.
We arrived home last night about 6 PM after a full day of driving. I didn't get up until 9:30. and I already started portion control. I was toasting half a pita pocket for breakfast for breakfast. When you cut one apart, they are not equal thickness. I put them in the toaster and incinerated the thin half. So basically, I had a quarter of a pita for breakfast. I'm going to start the half portion plan today and see how that works out for me.0 -
My DH would have loved the Gettysburg tour. He loves history and is currently rereading Shelby Foote's books on the Civil War. He is also a big fan of anything related to WWII, particularly anything related to submarines.
The weight loss tips sound interesting. I usually don't think food served on a dark plate looks very appetizing, so maybe there's a psychological component to that particular tip. I do like the idea of portion control using smaller plates. I often ask for a to go box at the start of a restaurant meal and box up at least half of my meal before I even eat my first bite. I've noticed that I'm completely satisfied with only eating half of my meal, plus I have the other half to look forward to for another meal. The last time DH and I went to our favorite barbecue restaurant, he even followed my example and admitted that he was fully satisfied by eating only half. Maybe there's hope for him after all, lol!
I haven't made it back to the gym this week. I have no good excuse other than I just haven't felt like going. I have tried to work on making healthier choices and portion control and my weight has come down a little this week so I suppose it is working. I need to drink more water, too. That's always a struggle for me.
This afternoon I'm going to Happy Hour with my friends and I'm looking forward to it. It seems like it's been awhile since I've seen most of them. I had my pedicure with my friend yesterday and enjoyed that. She's usually quite the chatterbox but she had laryngitis so I got to talk for a change. She wanted to hear all about my niece's wedding and our trip, so I had a lot to tell her fortunately.0 -
Pam, my husband would have a lot in common with your's. He's always watching military history on TV; especially WWII. That's a good practice boxing up half the meal. we did that yesterday at a diner we ate oat on the way home. The portions were bigger than you could have eaten without feeling stuffed. We had the leftovers today. We spent the day doing errands like picking up our mail, going to the bank and the market. I need a manicure badly. The polished lifted all but 2 nails. I think the tacky stuff she put on to make the powder stick must have been no good. I never had that happen before. If I was still in FL, I would have gone in and asked her to fix it. Hopefully I have time to go Monday.0
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Jean, I hope your stress test went ok yesterday. Let us know how you're doing.0
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Jean, I hope all went well too.
Maryanne, did you catch the new cat? How is your food logging going? I fell off track writing foods down. For some reason, it's always been something I resist doing. As they say, I'm my own worst enemy. I gained about 8 pounds while we were away. Too much company and not enough exercise. I need to log to keep myself accountable. I'm alternating between real food with portion control and finishing up the remaining NS items I still have left.
Pam, how did happy hour go?0 -
Happy Hour was fun. Almost everyone was there so it was nice to catch up with what everyone has been doing lately. Lots of traveling has/will be going on in this group! It started out as just the women getting together, but over the past year easpecially, the husbands have started joining us and seem to enjoy it as much as the ladies do. We seem to be a very congenial group and even though all of our backgrounds are different, we find lots to talk and laugh about.0
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Hello, everyone! As often as I've been in the Gettysburg area, I've never been there. For some reason, I'm not often attracted to historical sites.
The stress test went well andd took 3 hours. They said I tolerated the Lexiscan chemical better than many of their patients. They said some said they woiuld rather do the treadmill as to deal with the Lexiscan side effects. Personally, I think the Lexiscan is the way to go. I have no idea how the test results will turn out.
Talking about portion control, I read one of those women's magazines while spending 30 minutes waiting for the dye to circulate in the system. One woman lost over 100 pounds by using the containers from what turned out to be the 21 day system. She could not do the exercise dvd that comes with the program so she just started walking.0 -
DH can't sit still for a whole program on tv. Drives me crazy. He'll sit down, turn on the tv, click on a program in the middle, 20 minutes later walk out of the room.
Jean - I'm glad you tolerated the stress test. I had no idea there was such a thing. I hope the results are good!
Pam and Helene - good ideas on the food/diet front! All suggestions gratefully accepted!
Haven't seen the new cat at the colony again. Could be someone's cat. There are residences nearby. We'll keep our eyes out for him/her. Did see a deer there. Also saw a deer at Pep Boys. That one perplexes me. It's a fairly small area and it's fenced. I guess they can jump?
I'm still working to keep DH from feeding what he's starting to think of as "our fox". With my luck it's a girl, he'll start feeding it, it will dig under our garage, have a litter and then he'll want them gone. I could write that scenario.
I'm doing pretty good tracking my food and getting on the treadmill. Maybe those lab results gave me a kick in the pants!
Interesting excursion Friday to some fancier grocery stores (not in our area). Boy, they are all difficult to get to and have horrid parking. How the other half lives? I visited a Trader Joe's, a Whole Foods, and Eddies (local). Found a few interesting things including whole wheat pancakes at Whole Foods but they only had one box so I couldn't stock up. Also found gorgeous cherries which I am really enjoying, and chicken bacon - 30 calories a slice. I like knowing the calories on things and picked up several packets of sliced chicken breast and roast beef with calorie counts. Also picked up a box of high protein cereal and a couple boxes of different looking instant oatmeal (checked the dates as those will likely get put aside for next winter). Didn't find Jessicat's maple ham but she seems okay with her substitute. Didn't find fat free mozzarella (that seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth). Didn't find any interesting looking/different frozen diet dinners. Did find a couple flavors of Halo Top and splurged on those.
One of these days I'll check out Wegman's and Graul's (local).0 -
What is Halo Top?
Jean..Glad to hear the test went well as far as tolerating the chemical. Fingers crossed for good results.0 -
Halo Top is high protein low calorie ice cream. Don't know if this link will work without a password: http://ns-refugees.freeforums.net/thread/1918/halo-top-ice-cream
The scale scared me this morning. Looked like a gain but luckily I noticed it's error code. The weight without an error put me down a pound and a half. Whew! Two more pounds to be merely overweight.
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Thanks to the link to Halo Top. It led me back to the NS Refugee site which I'd lost my way in finding. Michelle sent me a reminder a few weeks ago that I hadn't logged in for a long time. Once I found them through your link, I logged on there too. They always had nuggets of good info and tips.0
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That board isn't very busy but there is sometimes some useful information.
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Michelle mentioned in her post that it was the 2 year anniversary. I would have guess the NS boards were gone longer than that. I was at Stop and Shop today and looked for Halo Top there. None there and it's the same company as your Giant chain. I'll be in Hyannis Thursday for DH's cardiology appointment so I can check the Who foods there.0
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I was trying yesterday to pull out all my Iris Johansen books (all unread) and checking them against the list of her books to see what I have and what I'm missing. I'm so far behind on everyone except the real biggies (e.g. a new Prey book just came out and that won't go on the "later" pile) these days that that's what I have to do with each author when I'm ready to get caught up on him/her. DH asked what I was doing. I said "looking for a book". He sort of looked at me like I was speaking Swahili. I can see why - I have books tucked EVERYWHERE. SO far behind. Most of the "holes" in my books are ones I've lent that haven't been returned. I've started waiting to lend until after I've read something unless I'm asked specifically.
Anyway right now I have The Kept Woman (Karin Slaughter - the Sarah Linton/Will Trent series) in the car CD player and John Sandford's Golden Prey ready to start on paper. Then I think I'll try to catch up on Johansen. We'll see. LOL!0 -
I got excited when I read the title of the Karen Slaughter book. I really enjoy her series. I was all set to request it from the library. I read the blurb and realized I'd read in in FL this winter. I'd forgotten the title. I used to read the Prey books but they got a bit too violent for me. I like the Virgil Flowers books better. I've read many of the Eve Duncan books but not the whole series. We have similar taste in reading.0
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Helene - that's funny that you already read that one. Yes, I'm behind! We do have similar tastes but not identical. Just like my friend Bonnie and I. We have a core of books we trade off but each have "outside" interests. E.g. she reads historical romances and paranormal stuff. The most recent author we've discovered that we both like is Mary Burton (only the second half of her career; first half was fairly typical "romance in the west" stuff). I haven't read the most recent Virgil Flowers even though he's usually on my "must read immediately" list. I don't remember the details now but something about animals being killed made me set it aside for now (violence against adults okay; against animals or children not so much). Eve Duncan has gotten a little more "out there", paranormal wise. If Johansen goes too far down that path, she'll lose me. Although some of it I'm okay with - like the Noah Bishop books. They treat it so matter of factly, it's like scientific almost, rather than "woo woo....".0
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I've not found Halo Top anywhere despite Kroger supposed to be one of those that carry it. I've tried the other brand of Arctic something or the other. It was ok but many of those ice cream substitutes just trigger a desire to eat more whereas a serving of regular ice cream will satisfy me. I rarely eat ice cream.
I heard from the stress test today. All factors they were considering were within the normal limits, so apparently I don't have any blockages.0 -
Jean - that's great news!!!!0
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Helene - that's funny that you already read that one. Yes, I'm behind! We do have similar tastes but not identical. Just like my friend Bonnie and I. We have a core of books we trade off but each have "outside" interests. E.g. she reads historical romances and paranormal stuff. The most recent author we've discovered that we both like is Mary Burton (only the second half of her career; first half was fairly typical "romance in the west" stuff). I haven't read the most recent Virgil Flowers even though he's usually on my "must read immediately" list. I don't remember the details now but something about animals being killed made me set it aside for now (violence against adults okay; against animals or children not so much). Eve Duncan has gotten a little more "out there", paranormal wise. If Johansen goes too far down that path, she'll lose me. Although some of it I'm okay with - like the Noah Bishop books. They treat it so matter of factly, it's like scientific almost, rather than "woo woo....".
The Virgil book was about abducting the rare tigers for Eastern medicine. Since you read the back first to see how the book ends, I'll tell you one of the 2 tigers survives. You could skip over the details of the tiger that dies and read the rest of the book. I read it in FL You mentioned it back then and said you hadn't read it because of the tigers. I enjoyed the story, ignoring the tiger details.0 -
Jean, that's wonderful news. It's too bad you have to go through stressful tests to find out nothing was wrong. DH goes for a follow up cardiologist appt tomorrow. Hopefully, she'll be pleased with his progress since she saw him in December and will set him up for cardio rehab classes. That's where we were last summer when he failed the stress test. He had the treadmill and chemical versions and his BP dropped very low during them. They discovered 2 stents had started to block and he was having bypass surgery within days. I applaud her for figuring it out before he got really sick and getting him the surgery very quickly. He's 9 months past surgery and doing very well.0
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The Virgil book was about abducting the rare tigers for Eastern medicine. Since you read the back first to see how the book ends, I'll tell you one of the 2 tigers survives. You could skip over the details of the tiger that dies and read the rest of the book. I read it in FL You mentioned it back then and said you hadn't read it because of the tigers. I enjoyed the story, ignoring the tiger details.
That rings a bell! That's what I should do as I do like Virgil!0 -
People used to mail babies - http://pictorial.jezebel.com/people-used-to-mail-babies-through-the-us-postal-servic-17955030800
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I confess I'm enjoying Downward Dog (new tv show): http://themuse.jezebel.com/downward-dog-is-the-most-tender-sitcom-ever-to-feature-17955166920
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Indy saw the ophthalmologist today. They are very pleased with her eye. Just a slight bit of conjunctivitis remaining in the bad eye. No corneal ulcer or anything else ugly. We're going to keep doing the one medication that's just three times a week and which she tolerates well.
One funny - she doesn't yet see the carrier as safe haven. They opened the carrier door at the end and expected her to dash in. She didn't. Only took her a few minutes back home to settle back into her routine. She seems to have forgiven me.0 -
That's wonderful news about Indy. You've invested so much time and effort into getting her healthy. My 2 cats would dive back into the carriers as soon as the vet let go of them. DH did well at the doctor too. She was very pleased with how he looked. Ashe said his color was much better and his heart sounded normal. We're starting the evaluation for the exercise classes all over. He has an echo cardiogram and a stress test scheduled. His failing the stress test last summer was what led to the bypass surgery. He had treadmill and the chemical test last year. Hopefully this time he just has to do the treadmill. There's a waiting list for the class. I'm hoping they have an opening before the summer is over since it lasts 32 weeks. It's in Hyannis, about a 20 miles drive for us. It's a big time commitment but I want him to be in the best shape he can be in so well make the time for it.0
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Helene - that's great progress that your DH has made! Here's hoping the exercise class works out.
I did a bunch of errands today, from heading to the storage unit to pay the "rent" to picking up photos at Rite Aid (what a hoot; the young clerks have NO clue about photos); to a couple grocery stores. Then I spent HOURS on CROM paperwork. Have to buckle down and work this weekend but I just wasn't in the mood today.0 -
Happy Holiday Weekend everyone! Nothing special going on here but it's a beautiful day. I fed the colonies, went to the post office box, and stopped at the grocery store. Now lunch and work!0
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