BAH HUMBUG!

NO, this is NOT the same phrase from the other day.

Is it January yet? I HATE Christmas. People don't stop to think that Christmas isn't all gooey, sugar runny, tingly oozy sweet, fun & happy. Christmas is often painful, hurtful reminders of past happenings that destroyed holiday happiness and can't be renewed.
SO, I am staying away from message boards (they're dead anyway) Facebook and deleteing Happy, gooey, warm fuzzy, irritating e-mails about shopping etc. and I will probably go private with this blog, (no one visits anyway)

It would have been my anniversary date on one message board but no one is there anymore, it's dead.

Yes I did fix a Thanksgiving dinner & had people over.

MQOTD

Wow, lots of page views, no comments.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate today. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Can we talk?

So, are you awake at 8:30AM EAST COAST TIME Saturday - Wednesday? If so what are you doing at that time? I start my walks at 4:15 local time, GMT+3 which is equal to 8:15AM New Hampshire time. Sometimes I call my family members to chat while I'm walking, it makes the time go faster. Then there are sometimes when I walk at 9AM my time which at that time, the USA is asleep. Can I call you and you can be my walking buddy for that day? HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Motivational QOTD

Motivational QOTD

Recap

Tuesday - got iPod erased & re installed & working - only took 6 1/2 hours

Wednesday night DH got home from his 2 week business trip.

Thursday went grocery shopping, got 2 turkeys, got a treadmill - Woo Hoo, I love my DH

Friday did laundry, cleaned up & rearranged living room & upstairs bedroom for Thanksgiving weekend guests. Not really happy with the new arrangement though.

Saturday walked twice, once in the morning & once in the afternoon.

Sunday-today, had maintenence come and put in "modern hygienic toilet hoses" in all 3 bathrooms. (women here spray with hoses instead of using toilet paper)
Over at the Needlenook we are having a Holiday Stitchalongathon until the 30th so I got out a project I started last December called Be Merry by Shepherd's Bush and I'm stitching on it today.

One of the message boards that I read was shut down. Apparently this line of floss is going to change hands again, back to the original owner after the current one ran it into the ground. I hope the original owner can bring it back to life again.
Listening to planes fly over & land one after the other again. Deadline for being here for the pilgramage trek is fast approaching so all 3 million of them gotta get here. (Yep, 3 million or so people from all over the world invading and 1/4 of them will stay and try and find jobs or beg on the street corners, happens every year)

Is it June yet?

Have a nice day.

Is it nap time yet?

It's only noon here, 87F, I'm tired, I pushed myself to do my walk this morning. I figured if I did my walk I would be energized, invigorated and refreshed. Nope, I am tired, I want to take a nap. I got home and guess what? All the doors were locked and I didn't have a key. I forgot to unlock the patio door. Checked the laundry room (separate "building" from the main house) for a screwdriver to pop the door but couldn't find one. DH's car is locked, he has the key. Called DH, he said if I checked HIS blazer there was a screwdriver there. Yep, there was, popped the front door and got in. That could have been disasterous!
On the positive side, I am down to 141, 1 lb away from my original goal of 140. 20 lbs since July. Now my goal has changed to 137 by Christmas then maybe 135. Still can't figure where it went to, I am wearing the same size clothes I was in July. No loss in the boobs or belly where I usually loose it. I can feel that I have a waist again though.

I was a BADDDDDDD girl last night though, I had one of those Betty Crocker Warm Delights dessert things. It was a Cinnamon cake thing. It was ok but not that great.

Had a great thing for breakfast. Two 6" tortillas spread with cream cheese, cinnamon & brown sugar with a sliced apple inbetween cooked in a skillet. That was good!

Spot kitty jumped up on my stitching table this morning and looked at me like "Are we going to stitch again today?" Maybe later but I'll make sure he is out.

They walk!

OMG, the black blobs walk! I almost got run over by one today. I started my daily walk later than normal and there were 2 "local" women out walking, all covered of course, head to toe, but I did see sneekers & jean on one & sneekers & sweat pants on another. One I could see eyes through the slits but the other one was fully face covered. She didn't even say hi, at least I smiled and said Hi to one she nodded her head back to me.

DH still isn't home, maybe Monday night. At this rate, I'll be having a can of tuna, brown rice & a can of spinach for Thanksgiving dinner. I do have a can or 2 of cranberry sauce, several cans of pumpkin & pecans. I haven't even thought about what to make for a HEALTHY Thanksgiving dinner other than just use PORTION CONTROL.

I did stitch today again! YAY YAY! I TRIED to do more on my Lizzie Kate October Flip It Stamp. Here is my progress:

So fo lunch today I made a green bean & artichoke "casserole" It was pretty good too. For supper it will be leftover Tofu vegetable curry from last night. It was ok but not the greatest, the veggies were way over cooked to suit me.

TODAY'S THE DAY!!!!!!!!

WOOOOOO HOOOOOOO! Today is my 1 year quit smoking anniversary! I made a year without starting back up! Yep, I'll be honest, between November 15 2007 & January 1 2008 I did sneak a smoke, but it wasn't even a whole cigarette, I didn't like the taste! I am VERY proud of myself! Hmmmmm, wish I could have cake, but I can't.

Another good walk today, it was warm this morning but I made my 1.27 miles. Couldn't get that extra 1/2, maybe later today.

I won!

Woo Hoo, being on SPARK PEOPLE (http://www.sparkpeople.com/) has it's advantages! When you log in every day, you spin a wheel and get that many points for the day. Today I won a SparkPeople exercise DVD! Woo Hoo! Their motivational quote today is:

Good Old Babe Ruth~!
I did my 32 mintue walk this morning around 10. It's like early Sunday morning here, quiet & no body is out. Then I did 15-20 minutes worth of exercises with help from Spot of course.
I haven't been able to sit down much today, up and down doing this and that.

I took a video of wailing hour today. in order to get the full effect of the wailing and screeching from all directions, I had to do a video. This is the holy day so they have an hour long screech speech on Friday at noon. Kind of like the Sunday morning sermon, but here they scream and yell.

I still haven't gotten this iPod thing figured out. I did discover that I do have all my music on the cd's but I can't figure out how to get them all uploaded to one file and then copied over to my Apple iTunes library. It's so fustrating.

Last night I had the leftover Lasagna Primavera. Today I made zucchini/carrot "pancakes" for lunch & grilled tomato, zucchini & eggplant with a nasty tasting home made hamburger for supper.

Wow, these planes are landing left and right, on each others tail winds. It's getting close to pilgrimage time and plane loads of people are coming every day. At least 6 planes landed within 5 minutes this morning, I counted. That means millions and millions of people bringing lots of viruses & diseases from third world countries. FUN!

Anyhoo, I can't sit still any longer, time to get up and walk around.............again.

Happy Birthday Jimmy!

Keep watching this space!

It's a boy! Happy Birthday James Russell! Today is my son's 27th birthday. He was born on Friday, November 13th at 2:55AM in Alabama. I sent him a blood pressure monitor for his birthday. Not much but he really needs to keep track of it.

My internet was down last night. Apparently it was out in a lot of places here.

I am desparately trying to get this stupid iPod thing right. I got one for free from doing surverys over the past several years. I had enough points to I got one in July. It's an iPod shuffle, the itty bitty one. Ok so I had my Dd help me set it up and open an account, added music and away I went. Got a gift card with another bunch of points from another place, added music. Ok so I had to back up the iPod for when I brought it back here. Or at least I thought I did. I had 5 discs of music, or at least 5 discs. Get back here, plug the thing in, set up the account here, start plugging the discs in and the music is all over the place. It's in so many files on this hard drive and i just can't figure out how to get them to my Apple iTunes account. It has junk from files I had no idea I had in this account that have no relevance to music. I'm about ready to delete everything and start all over.

Last night I fixed Lasagna Primavera, it was another GREAT recipe and a keeper.

I stitched a little bit more last night too.

Just gotta laugh

Getting closer!

So I'm rude, snotty & obnixous, know what? I really don't give a shit what some whiners say. Put your big girl panties on and deal with it, grow up, face life. Funny how some people don't want the actual facts on how others see things, they only want you to share their opinon. So now they're all boo hooing and hiding. What a riot, I find it funny. According to some "I am so unhappy and have such a miserable life" well I am perfectly happy right now and very content with my life, so bite me. If "you certain lot" are reading this piss off, run to mama and whine some more.

Well DH called and he won't make it home for the weekend. An extra day with no tv, YEAH BUDDY! Sorry, but I am perfectly content with the tv off. Everything they are showing here is a re run of last year that they keep playing over and over and over and over. I do miss DH though.

I did stitch again today, a wee bit more on my October Flip It Stamp.

I did my walk yesterday, my mother walked along with me. Once a week I call my family and we talk while I walk. It makes for a much more pleasent walk and makes it go faster.

I made some good stuff last night for supper. Couscous tossed with chicken & artichokes, that was damn good and definately a keeper recipe. You could probably use tofu in place of the chicken.

Anyway, time to get ready for my afternoon walk.

My blog is messed up

Soon, real soon! Watch for more details!

Somehow my blog got messed up. I don't what I did when I edited it but the top box disappears into the blue header box and everything else is totaly off center. No matter what I do it doesn't work right.

A month, 30 days. That is how long it's been since I left the real world behind. It's only November and June seems so farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr away right now.

I did stitch some more last night. One of the challanges on one of my SparkPeople groups is to stitch for at least 15 minutes a day so I try to. Still working on my October Lizzie Kate Flip It stamp.

I made a GOOOOOOOD supper last night. Cashew Ginger Stir-Fry with tofu. I got the recipe from ChangingDiabetes-us.com I go to that site to work up weekly menus with the recipes they have listed. Some are good and some are not so good. Last nights was one of their keeper meals. Now if I could just figure out how to get those damn numbers down I would be happy-well sort of.

Watcha watchin?

Remember waaaaaaaaay back when you would see tv antennas on the tops of buildings?

This is the top of an appartment building on the outside wall of the compound. Those are satellite dishes on the roof.

Alone again

It's coming! Stay tuned!

DH has gone on a business trip this week. He left today and hopefully he will be back on Wednesday but he can't get a flight. So if I can get my vacuum to work, I'll be doing my cleaning frenzy which will be good for my workouts.

Last week we had a sandstorm on Saturday, rain on Sunday, nice on Monday, rain on Tuesday, rain on Wednesday, nice the rest. That is 1 1/2 years worth of rain in one week. Don't know of we will get more rain or not this year. It didn't flood here like it normally does though.

I picked up a UFO on Wednesday night and started stitching. I picked up my Lizzie Kate Flip It stamp project and started working on the October square. Hopefully I'll sit down and stitch on that while DH is gone.

GET 'EM WHILE THEY'RE HOT! Get them before the Mattawa conficate them! New, in stores now! Come get your Christmas dinnerware! New this year, peppermint candy style dishes in 2 colors, Red & white and Green & white. That's right dear readers, the Christmas dishes are here. From salad bowls to turkey platters, salt & pepper shakers and gravy boats. I saw a huge display in the store. Of course it's NOT labeled Christmas, but if the peppermint candy style dishes doesn scream Christmas, I don't know what does.

On another display they had complete dinnerware for a Clambake, complete with a huge lobster shaped Lobster bowl/dish! Too funny!

That is about all from here. Have a GREAT weekend!

Here we go again

Get the ark ready, it's thundering, lightening, very dark grey and it's raining. DH called from work at 10AM and asked how bad it was raining here on the compound but it isn't quite pouring yet, raining yes but not the normal 10 minute hurricane like normal.
So much for walking today, guess I'll hve to do an extra 30 minute work out today.

The dumb cats are hiding under the car to keep from getting wet. They didn't HAVE to run out the door in the first place.

Good day to dig through the stash to find something to stitch on.

My recent finished project

This is my finished Halloween project. It's a SanMan tuck kit called Pumpkin Web. It's stitched on 14 count plain white blah aida with SanMan Strands floss.

I did my 1 1/2 miles today in 33 minutes while talking with my sister. Time goes faster when I talk to someone while walking.

Tonight I made Creamy Basil Sauce with chicken for supper. It was ok, needs something but not sure just what.

Remembering Mrs. Day

If I remember correctly today, November 3rd would have my mother-in-law's birthday. I think she would have been 80 something. I knew her from the time DH & I got married in April 1977 until she passed away the end of April 1979. She hated me at first and we didnt' really get along because I wasn't the one she wanted her son to marry, but when I gave birth to her one and only grandDAUGHTER she loved me and her only grandchild. We got along ok, I had to rush to Arkansas in November of 78 to take care of her when she got sick. She had a stroke which left her paralized and barely able to walk. She then went into kidney failure in the later months, went into a coma in early April and passed away. My DH - her only living relative was overseas in Japan in the Marine Corps and was able to come home to visit her for Christmas then had to return to Japan. He then came home when the Dr.'s advised me to call the family. He got home in the early moring hours and was home about 4 hours when we got the call she passed away. He never got to see her before she died. It was difficult trying to take care of her and a 1 year old baby by myself and barely getting by with almost no money. But DD & I made it. I really wish I had gotten to know her better and now I never will. She was the only family my DH had left that he knows of. I miss you Dorothy.

If I didn't know better...............

I'd be getting my canoe ready. The sky is like daylight with bright, severe lightening and continous thunder, the wind is blowing too. It's 10:30 at night, no wonder the winds were up yesterday. If it does rain tonight, the first few minutes will be nothing but mud, cleaning the air & tree tops out. Then after 10 minutes it will flood everywhere.

I did 30 minutes of stability ball, dumb bells, jumping jacks then walked for 30 minutes. My blood levels were down today which is good! Now If those extra couple of pounds would come off it would be great.

I stitched more on my tiny project. One of these days it will be done.
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UPDATE:
Yup, it did rain, the silver car in the carport is eeeewww muddy, the white patio table is brown. It didn't rain a whole lot, just to wash the mud out of the sky, get the ground wet, puddle and stink up everything and bring the nasty bugs out.

I did finish my halloween project, will post pics on Monday.

I found out what the blood grouping is. It's when you go to the hospital, try to tell the desk clerks what you need, go to the lab and get your blood typed! Now both DH & I had this done yesterday, November 1. If by chance he has to renew his driver's licence in 2 weeks, he has to go back and have it done again to make sure his blood type didn't change. This is THEIR mentality, not common sense. Well it's so good to know my blood type hasn't changed since I moved here in 84.

It's still pretty yucky out, not as windy but very hazy and crud in the air yet. I'll have to do a work out in the house.

I stitched for a bit yesterday, woo hoo.

Last night for dinner I made a brown rice stir fry with shrimp. It was pretty good.

Welcome to November

So much for starting the month & week with a nice invigorating walk. The wind is blowing and the sand is everywhere. I work up with a stopped up nose and now it's running, I'm sneezing and just ick. I wanted to walk extra today because I was a BADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD girl last night and ate some Ghost PEEPS. That is the first sweets I have had in almost a month. Well then there was the 1/2 can of Pringles rice chips. I have been so good for so long I just cracked.

Maybe I ate that junk because I was up until 4AM at the SanManville Halloween party. Last night was Sandy's annual Halloween party & fun night. I stayed up, played a couple games looked at cute stitching, and chatted. It was fun and I look forward to doing that every year.

This evening DH & I have to schlep to the hospital to have a "blood grouping" done. I have no fucking clue what that means but it has to do with my new passport, his "Iqama" (working papers), my "Iqama" (residence permit) & who knows what all. It should be entertaining.

So I go to the pharmacy the other day and got a 200 pack of my lancets, test strips, diabetes pills and alcohol swabs, all WITHOUT a perscription! The alcohol swabs were a real surprise, I figured the morons here wouldn't sell them because of "alcohol". Anyway, get home check everything out and the damn test strips aren't the right ones. They assume test strip, read the BRAND and throw a box on the counter, never checking to see if they are the right ones. This is supposedly a REGISTERED pharmacist. So I either have to try to find a pharmacy that has the ones I need or buy a new monitor that works with what they have here.

That's my day/week/month so far