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I just bought tickets for Power Ball, Mega Millions, and I’ve been entering the PCH Sweepstakes daily for the prize coming up soon.
My husband and I have all sorts of great ideas for what we would do with the money. We haven’t actually made a LIST yet, but we’ll have plenty of time for that after we win.
We already won the lottery on family – even with our doggies providing me with such a day of ‘fun’ yesterday. Since we have everything else with each other, our improving health, our son, our pets, our lifestyle – we figure winning these three things would definitely be icing on an already-delicious cake.
BRING IT ON!!!!!!
Filed under Attitude, Bright Ideas, Good Thoughts, opportunities, quality of life
dogster
dirtydogs.biz
These aren’t actual pictures of our dogs, but close enough.
By last night, I was having to remind myself why I thought it was such a great idea to have a houseful of pets….
Molly and Amber ran off yesterday afternoon. My husband and I weren’t communicating well (imagine THAT!) and he let Amber out without checking to see if Molly was already out.
They came back about an hour later, finally, covered in ‘stuff.’ It was cool outside, so I wet a micro cloth and used it on Amber, since she wasn’t as bad as the doggie above. I was able, after umpteen times of rinsing the cloth out and using it again, to get Amber to the point where she could stay inside with us.
Molly was a mess from head to toe, so I put her in the kitchen sink and scrubbed her. After using two bath towels to dry her, I was exhausted and decided she was dry enough to finish on her own. (My husband said she was still damp when we took them out for their final outing for the day last night).
Meanwhile, Amber showed us another result of letting the dogs out together by puking on the carpet. I found this out when my husband started cursing loudly and putting her out. We got things cleaned up and just settled down when Amber barked to come in. By mutual agreement, we put her behind the gate in the utility room where she sleeps. The rest of the afternoon and evening I cleaned up more – and more, but it was on the tiles of the utility room floor. We fed her only water the rest of the day.
This morning there was another spot, but it was from last night. We have fed her and put her back in the utility room until we learn if she’s keeping her food down or not today. We’re hoping she never finds whatever she found yesterday again!
Meanwhile, I called and scheduled Molly to be shorn as if she were a sheep Monday. It’s cool outside, but she usually doesn’t stay out long – particularly if her owners are smart enough not to let Amber out with her – and she’ll be much easier to clean for a while.
We love our pets. We just wish WE were smarter in dealing with them.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Challenges, Family
Madeleine Jacobs
Recently I’ve been clicking on ads, particularly in Facebook. I found one for really happy tennis shoes. The price was good. It was a buy one, get one free thing. But in checkout, they added on $20 for shipping!
Another ad was for a set of new kind of watercolor brushes with a built-in water reservoir. It said, “Free shipping.” I put the set in my cart and found they added, “$4.99 for insured shipping” with no way to opt out of it.
A third was a pair of earrings. They were really nice. When I put them in the cart, they added $8.00 for shipping. Even with priority, insurance, and tracking the cost of shipping wouldn’t be half that.
Now all are sending me emails, acting like I abandoned my cart because I got ‘distracted.’ There was actually a way to reply, so I did, to all of them, telling them why I didn’t finish the order.
I like good deals. I realize it costs something to ship things. I had my own website, made arts and crafts. Some of them cost a bunch to ship. I always paid for insurance and tracking. I priced my items so that I came out all right with listing ‘free shipping,’ because I felt people decided on the main pages whether the price was reasonable for the item.
I don’t even mind paying a reasonable shipping charge – if you’re not advertising ‘free shipping.’
Bait and switch, or killing the deal by charging WAAAAAY too much for shipping brings out my hostility!
Filed under Pet Peeves
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“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.”
―
Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.- Ashley Smith
Filed under Attitude, Dreams, Encouragement
“Squeak” – Laurie Schnurer
Leo Sewell’s “Teddy Bear”, mixed media (photo courtesy of William Benton Museum of Art)
Westville Art Blog
Filed under Art From Found Things, Creativity
Spooky Little Halloween
“Died Bride, Doomed Groom” – Hallmark Ideas
“Slow, Slow, Slow…” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
Rollin’ France-YouTube
I guess we started really trying to lose the lard about a year and a half ago. We were doing low carb. I was cooking a lot, we were losing some weight, but not steadily enough. My husband’s blood sugar was better, but not good enough to qualify for insurance that required a health exam. The policy we had was going to skyrocket in premium on his birthday in November (Happy birthday to you…). He was still having bad symptoms from his diabetes.
I have been overweight for quite a while. I don’t like it. I got better with the low carb diet, but I need to lose a significant amount of weight to be healthy. We were kidding ourselves, SAYING we were on a low carb diet, and then ‘splurging’ on a regular basis, eating our favorite fast foods out once or twice a week. We finally got serious last April and signed up for NutriSystem. My husband is almost at his weight goal now. He just tried on some new, smaller jeans this morning. Better, but still too large. He has now ordered the next size smaller. :0)
Best of all, our doctor is patting us on the head. We’ve been going to quarterly doctor appointments, with blood tests for our various problems, for a long time. Last time we went, my numbers were so significantly better that she put me on 6 month appointments. My husband has one more quarterly appointment next month, and we’re hoping he’ll come back every six months, too! He qualified for a 10-year level term life insurance policy for twice as much insurance as we had. They jacked the premium up because of his age, but no one can control that, so we’re grateful to be covered now.
I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet on my lardage loss, to help me see the big picture, particularly when I don’t see much change for a week or two. The big picture shows –
Weight loss with NS is 28 pounds. Total loss since my highest lardage is 40 pounds.
Inches loss with NS is a bit over 23 inches. Total loss since my highest lardage is 39-1/2 inches.
Results at doc’s office –
It feels good to be actively doing things that will increase our overall health. We’re eating right and learning to eat outside the program without throwing things out of whack. We are not feeling deprived, with fast food items floating in front of our faces, as they used to. We are more active. I’m trying to get on the elliptical trainer at least every other day. I’m doing yoga stretching almost every day. I’m actively trying to ‘move more’ with specific chores I would like to do each day, such as housework and working in the yard. I write a post or two for my blog :0) and then I get up and either do a chore, or exercise, over and over, throughout the day. I’m encouraging my husband, who is trying to do sit ups, to do more than ‘intend to,’ though I’m certainly no role model.
We ARE making progress – particularly when we look at the big picture. Seeing this is motivation to keep on keepin’ on.
taolife.com
Filed under Attitude, Challenges, DIET!, exercise, quality of life, taking care of yourself
Carl Jones – Temple of Thai
Don Quixote – Ruby Lane
Etsy
Highland Hare – Barbara Franc.co.uk
Filed under Art From Found Things, Creativity
treatshappen.com
My husband and I are just starting to be able to acknowledge and enjoy the fact that there is less of us than there used to be. I’ve lost almost 30 pounds and almost 28 inches now. It’s only about half way to my goal, and to be honest, other than going down a size or two in jeans, I haven’t seen much difference in clothes.
This changed, finally, with my cleaning-out-the-closet project, switching warm weather stuff for cool the past several days. I forced myself to try on everything I had moved to my closet, finding a really full leaf bag full of tops that were too large. Not just really roomy, but falling-off-the-shoulders and exposing-my-whole-front type too large. :0) I showed you some pics recently of the sweater/jacket I am finally able to wear after several years of moving it back and forth, always way too small, and now it FITS.
I’ve seen a change in my husband, too. Not only can I see a difference looking at him, I’ve noticed that he’s taking more interest in his clothes now. He just ordered some new jeans, asking me to measure him to be surer of the size. (We’re in a mystery area right now. We KNOW we’re smaller, but tend to still order as we did when we were larger. Even though I tried to use the charts provided at an online store, I found the clothes were too large when they arrived.)
Anyway, he’s wearing some new shirts, some brighter colors, and tries to think about which of his flannel shirts he’s wearing over the tee underneath, where it was haphazard, at best, before. I’ve been complimenting him, and it’s delightful to watch him try not to show how pleased he is. Now I’m working on encouraging his efforts to do some exercise…
We’re both trying to change our eating habits. When my husband finally got serious about giving up sugar to try to get a handle on his Type II diabetes, I gave up salt. I didn’t just add salt to almost everything, I even added salt to salty things. We figure that losing the weight and getting healthier is a good trade for our former addictions.
One new addition – we’ve been having a salad nightly, along with our Nutrisystem entree. My husband has been enjoying this, and was even pleased that I’m adding cherry tomatoes to it. When I added a touch of chopped walnuts to the mix (thanks, Mary Lou) he liked THAT, too. I’m adding a few garbanzo beans to my salad, and my husband still nixes that, but he says he looks forward to our salads in the evening.
We’re still working on portion control. This is a really alien concept, since the two of us apparently have routinely been eating for ourselves and several other folks at each meal. Now we’re learning to have ONE portion of something with a side of veggies or salad. I told you yesterday that I was learning to divide my meal from a restaurant in half, bringing half home to eat some other time. It’s a process, but one we’ll build with exercise.
By the way, I FINISHED the closet-clean-out project yesterday, organizing the warm weather stuff in the guest room closet so it’s ready to move easily next time. Hopefully, by the time we’re ready for warm/hot weather stuff NEXT time, I’ll be able to fill another leaf bag!!!
Chicago Tribune
After we had run most of our errands this afternoon, we stopped at The Dari for lunch. Last time, I ate like a pig, doing everything except lick my plate because it all tasted so good.
THIS TIME, I thanked the waitress for bringing my plate, and asked if she would bring me a doggie bag. She asked, “Large or small?” I said, “Large, please.” She brought it right out. Before I touched a bite of anything on my plate, I divided each thing in half, putting one half of my meal into the doggie bag. THEN I cleaned the plate.
I don’t feel stuffed now. I didn’t exceed my quota for lunch calories. I don’t have to feel guilty. The doggie bag goodies are now in a freezer-safe container marked with my initials + ‘dinner’ for another day.
taolife.com
Filed under building good habits, DIET!
Brian Mock – Colossal
Corey Collins – The Daily Courier
Creative Funny Webshop
Filed under Art From Found Things, Creativity
Elizabet Scott via NUSTBookClub.wordpress.com
I finished re-reading the 46 books from the “In Death” series by J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts. I have to wait until December for the paperback of “Leverage in Death” to come out, so I downloaded “Year One” of a new series by Nora Roberts and wanted more when I finished it. Now I’m re-reading (for the umpteenth time) a trilogy by Nora called, “The Inn Boonesboro Trilogy.”
I love finding new authors, but I have to say that diving again into a series you love feels like getting into your most comfortable, snuggly clothes and reclining under a warm throw. Enjoying truly memorable characters, laughing again at the bright humor, opening your heart again – regardless of what is happening in your ‘real’ life – is one of life’s luxuries.
NoBiggie
Ang-enuity.blogspot.com
“The Golden Hour on the Bank of the Dambovita” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
I found this sweater/jacket 5 years ago or so and simply loved it. Sadly, it was too small, but I TOLD myself that I would lose some weight and finally be able to wear it. I’ve moved it back and forth from the guest closet to my closet, trying it on once a year since then, with the same result. Even with my determination to get rid of things all over the house, including clothes that don’t fit, I just COULDN’T part with it.
Deep purple is my color. Whenever I see a group of things, all the same except for color, I’m drawn to the dark purple one. The fact that this sweater-jacket had leather on the front, with cut out flowers, made me drool (though I was careful NOT to on the sweater!)
This is the back. It can be worn as a top or added as a jacket.
Here’s a close up of the flowers.
I haven’t lost poundage or lardage this week. The scales are still flirting with 30 pounds off, but I’m not there yet. My measuring tape is unimpressed, showing the same as last week, even though I’ve been working, cleaning, and exercising. The one thing that stands out is from my switching from summer to winter clothes and trying things on.
I have a full leaf bag now of tops that are too large AND my sweater/jacket finally FITS. YES!!!!!!
I’m about half way to my goal in weight loss and inches now. It may take the rest of my natural life to get there, but I’m on my way!
The two plants on the left are the small iceberg head lettuce plants I bought recently. They’re still alive, but I can’t say they’re thriving. The plants on the right are the tomato suckers I gathered and planted last week. As you can see, they’re still alive, too. :0)
These are the longer, leggy-looking iceberg head lettuce plants I found several days later. I planted them as deeply as I could, trying to have the soil support the plants as much as possible. They seem to be doing really well. I’m watering the saucers under the plants, rather than the plants themselves, thinking the plants will draw the water up if they’re thirsty.
This is looking down at one of the lettuce plants. I’m so pleased so see lots of activity.
The outside temperature this morning is 45 degrees F. The temp in the greenhouse was between 55 and 60. I still have the electricity hooked up, so the exhaust fan can turn on if it wants to, but I’m not expecting that any time soon. If we’re having anything beyond a temporary cold snap, I’ll probably disconnect the extension cord that runs all the way across the yard from the greenhouse to the back of our home.
In another day or two, if things still look good, I’ll harvest a few leaves of lettuce for our dinner salad!
Pesquisa Google Pinterest
Actually, yesterday was the biggest push on this. My closet is as organized now as it ever gets – cool and cold weather clothes in there now. I filled a whole leaf trash bag with clothes that were TOO LARGE yesterday – my reward for the day. I’ve spent SO many years moving too-small clothes back and forth, ignoring the problem. The past couple of years I’ve only moved the ones I had SOME chance of getting into by the NEXT season, or things I really loved that I just couldn’t face giving away. As I told you yesterday, I’m still grinning that a deep purple sweater with leather front decorated with leather flowers finally FITS!
The remainder of the closet project will be done today, since it’s STILL raining and too cool outside for comfort (45 degrees F.) I moved the warm/hot weather clothes into the guest room closet. I’ll get them arranged a bit better, with room for our son to hang stuff up when he visits (sometime this winter!) And THAT will finish the closet project.
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