Sugar Free Chocolates

Sooo good. Seriously. Dove dark chocolate ones filled with a lovely ganache truffle stuff. Yum! Russel Stover sugar free caramels. Yes, caramels. Rich, chewy, enrobed in chocolate caramels. I allow myself a couple a day. They are a nice reward for staying on track and it has been so long since I have had candy...

But.

There is a side effect.

Bleargh!

Did you know that luscious, smooth, creamy sugar free chocolates cause stomach rumbling, explosive, offensively stanky gas?

Neither did I.

I sure do, now. So does the rest of my household. I am busily getting revenge on my guys for gassing me out of house and home for all of these years.

Maybe I need to buy a few more bags... :P

In other news, we walked again today. We got a little farther before we had to turn back, thanks to encroaching darkness. It is about time to shift from the lake to the sidewalks along Willow Creek Road. Light is handy, when you are walking at night. I am happy to be walking, again. I feel so much better, already. And I want to stay on track to make it all worthwhile. And I need to stay on track and lose this frakking weight!

My feet hurt. Not too badly... I am going to see if I can get used to these shoes before I go whining for another pair. I just don't need the heavy weather involved in asking for new shoes so soon after receiving the last pair, you know what I mean?

Okay, I suppose I should wrap this up as I have nussing else to yap about. 

Goodnight, chickens.

My Husband is Going to Kill Me

When he finds out that I need another pair of new shoes. I thought that I loved my new New Balance runners. Turns out, not so much. I loved them in the store. I love them wearing them casually. They are fab for running around, shopping and so forth. But out on the trails they just don't work for me. The low profile toe box catches my toenails when my foot moves, the balls of my feet ache terribly, the outsides of my feet hurt and I keep getting blisters on my big toe and my heels. My difficulties with these shoes is one reason why I have been so reluctant to get out and walk.

We got out, last night. Walked nearly a mile and a half before encroaching darkness drove us back to the car. And my feet, this morning are aching. More than they ever did. I think that I need proper walkers for walking. I think that runners just don't have enough cushioning and support in the soles. So, I need another pair of shoes. And William is going to kill me when I tell him that. Until I can get them, I'll just have to make the New Balance shoes work. And take a little extra Aleve.

I did mention that we finally walked again. Haven't since... July? Geeze! No wonder I am sucking big green donkey dicks on the scale. Why I feel nasty and sluggish and just plain shitty. And a little bigger. Oh yeah. Bigger. My jeans are a little tighter. *sigh* But I am getting it back together. And that is going to change. It is changing. It has to. I have no choice.

At least the weather is perfect for walking in the late afternoon and evening. :D

I am working on another dish towel, once it is finished I will start on dish cloths. I love having a drawer full of them, available and ready for the tasks they must perform and not run out between laundry days. Speaking of laundry...

I don't have to do any, today. Yaaaaay!!!

Geeze! I have to pee. Again. Stoopid water.

Time for a blog redesign... I am bored with the grey and white.

Happy Fall!

It's one of the best days of the year. :D

No leaves changing here, yet. They usually start in October and depending on the species go into November. Sometimes we get peak on some trees as late as Thanksgiving. I am so looking forward to the leaves. They are one of the most beautiful things ever. 

You know what else Fall brings? Oh yeah... You know. You know what makes this TV junkie happier than a pig in fresh, wet mud. New shows, baby! And returning favourites. *sigh* I mean, what could make a TV addicted poor fool like me just vibrate with joy? A whole lineup of new stuff to fill my addled brain. This is the season when so much stuff is flooding the airwaves that my DVR smokes. I am test driving new series to see what I think of them and enjoying the season premiers of old friends. Oh! Amazing Race fans, the new season kicks off Sunday nights, check your local listings. 

One of the shows that kicked off this week was of course, The Biggest Loser. I like this show. I make no apologies for that. Hell, I make no apologies for anything I watch... Including the Real Housewives franchise, of which I happen to be a huge fan. But I am annoyed with The Biggest Loser this season. And my annoyance all boils down to two little words. Anna Kournikova.

Would someone please tell me what the high holy hell some second rate former tennis player knows about the physiology and psychology of obesity? Okay, so she knows how to whip herself into shape for rolling around in steamy music videos with Enrique Iglesias, doing Maxim, FHM and Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition  photo shoots and strangely suggestive sports bra adds. But how exactly does that qualify her to understand and even more crucially be able to in any way, shape or form identify with obese persons. Especially senior citizens?

Oh wait. I know. She's hot. Apparently, that is the sole qualifying criteria, nowadays if you are going to be on TV in any capacity. Hell, it seems to be vitally important if you are going to do anything, anywhere. If you are hot you are qualified to do anything. Never mind that her extremely limited professional tennis successes during her extremely short professional tennis career (not entirely her fault... she suffered an injury that cut her pro competitive career short) came on the doubles court. Let's forget that ESPN has named her number one on their most highly overrated athletes ever list and #18 on their list of the biggest athletic flops of the last 25 years. Let us forget, for just one moment that the girl hasn't been educated in exercise physiology. Has she spent even one moment in a classroom? Read books on the subject? Hell, can she even read? 

Okay, maybe that last one was a little harsh.And I don't know whether or not she is educated in exercise physiology. Tho my guess would be a big, fat no. (If I am wrong, I will happily eat a huge, steaming plate of crow. Feathers and all. I am a big girl and I can freely admit when I am wrong. And apologize sincerely for being so.)  And, since I am not a huge fan of the whole everyone must have a degree mindset that has pervaded our culture so thoroughly, I will give her credit for on the job training. But I still don't think that her accomplishments, her credits, if you will, qualify her to work successfully with obese persons. I can't see her getting into the nitty gritty of the complex nature of why a person is obese. I don't think that she has even a clue of how and why a person can get to the point where they need intervention for a severe eating disorder. An eating disorder that has taken them to the point of no return and is threatening to kill them.I am waiting with bated breath for her down and dirty talks with her team. It will be interesting to see if she has any ability to listen, identify, empathize. I doubt that she can. I really do.

But I could be wrong. And if I am, I will, once again munch nasty scavenger bird and shiny black feathers with alacrity. 

Holy shit! I am watching Project Runway as I type this and Oliver just flat out offended his client! The look in Ewen's eyes when Oliver said the nasty things he did about him. I am so sick of Oliver's bitching about big people, plus sized people. Hell, having to dress anyone of normal size. He only wants to work with "model sizes" and waaahhh, waaahhh, waaahhh. I hope that he fails miserably and gets tossed out on his whiny little ass. We shall see.

Yessssss! Little Mr. Whiny I-Hate-Big-People! Pants Oliver is out. Finally.

Well, I guess I have had my catty little bitchfest for the day, hmmm? 

Do I have anything else to natter about right now? Not really. So I am going to go. I have some stuff to get done and I am ears deep n a couple of little projects I need to finish. They both involve nail polish, but they aren't both on my nails. 

Arrr!

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, Mateys!

It is a pretty Monday morning. Sun shining. Birdies singing. Skunk stink befouling my air.

Frakking skunks! Why can't they go spray in the woods?!?!

So, did you see the news coverage of the pumpkin harvest? Stupid hurricane wiped out a bunch of pumpkins. So there is supposed to be another shortage. Gah! I needs my pumpkins. Fresh. In cans. Fro Jack-O-Lanterns. This sucks. The last few years have been miserable for pumpkins. And this year is supposed to be the same.

Okay, that is about all I have to talk about, right now. Yes, my life is lame and boring.

Arrr!

Old Dogs

We can be taught new tricks. Might take us a little while to get it, but we can learn. Yes we can. For instance, I learned, through uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox that it wasn't the program that was the problem. Turns out it was my bookmarks. They had been corrupted when my original  version of Firefox got corrupted and crashed. I saved my bookmarks, thinking that the program was flawed. But every version of Firefox I tried gave me the same problem and I finally figured out that I needed to dump my bookmarks (waaah!!! Now I have to build a new list of bookmarks) and then install Firefox all over again.

And now it all works as it should.

Yepper. Just call me tech support. But don't call me because I can't help you. But now I have this profile attached to this browser again and am able to follow new blogs and so forth, again. Can't do that with Chrome, as that browser is attached to my other profile. Yes, each blog/profile has it's own browser. My profiles are oh-so-exclusive.

So, Frost Princess got out the other day... For a while. Sneaky bitch got past my Dragon. Don't now how. But I caught her and tossed her back in. She had damned well better stay there. I hope that I have a better number on the scale, tomorrow morning. Blech.

I think that the Monsoon is drawn to a close. It is less humid and clear. We have had the first harbingers of Autumn, around here. Cooler night time temps and chilly mornings. I have had to turn off fans in the morning and even closed the windows a couple of mornings. Marley tried to talk me into a fire, two mornings ago but it isn't quite that chilly. lol 

I was up just before six. Couldn't go back to sleep so I got up, did a few little things, got my coffee going, put Sabryna out to do her business, fed the cat... That sort of thing. Made my coffee and Sabryna went into my laundry room to drink water then barfed it out all over the floor. So back out she went and William had to get up and clean the floor. Yeah. Mama doesn't do barf. :P Poor baby girl. Some days her tummy is just urpy. Some days she is fine. She has always been that way. Sweet dog. Good dog. Smart, loyal dog. Has a bad tummy. She is getting so old. She gets tanglefooted, slips on the kitchen floor, looses her balance, the other day she had a terrible time getting up off the floor. She sleeps a lot. More than she used to. She is winding down. I hate it when dogs get old.

Let's see... Anything else going on? Nope. Not really. I have some laundry to do and I want to swatch some polishes for my other blog. That's about it. Yepper. Boring. That is my life. 

Something Pretty... Something Ugly

This weekend was busy and I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. But I did, indeed get on my scale on Saturday and snapped a pic of the number.

But first, I want to show off my pretty, pretty flowers. William's and my 23rd wedding Anniversary was on the ninth and William had a bouquet of huge, pink stargazer lilies delivered to me here at the house. What a surprise!

Aren't they gorgeous?!? I love stargazers and these are really lovely specimens. 

Okay, as I said, earlier, I did, indeed get on my scale.

And I have to tell ya, folks. It wasn't pretty.

Up three. I can blame some of it on puff. But not all of it. My idiocy is to blame. And that bitch Frost Princess. Seeing that number threw a scare into me and I tossed Frost Princess into her tower room, threw all of her nasty junk food in with her, slammed and locked the door and put my Dragon on guard in the corridor. That little sneak isn't getting past my Dragon. If she does, I am screwed. And I don't want to be screwed.

Yesterday and Saturday were stellar days. Two in a row. Time for three. I am back to thinking day by day, even minute by minute, if I must. I let my guard down, I stopped my constant vigilance. It hasn't been working for me. So I needed to get back to something that I know does. *sigh* Still learning, still have work to do to change old patterns. Sometimes I wish that there was a magic... Something that could just poof! And my mental and emotional wiring was put right. Wouldn't that be nice?

It is finally starting to cool off a little around here. But it is stupud humid. We are expecting possible thunderstorms. We got a bit of a blow, last night. Some wind, a little rumbly and lightening and a sprinkle but I have to say, this year's Monsoon is, so far a total bust.

So what else? Not too much, really. Life is just ticking along and. Yeah.

Happy Wednesday, Hackers Suck and Homicidal Tendencies

Hello gang. I hope that you all had a great Labor Day Weekend. Mine was meh. William was sick, we were broke (shocker) and so we just sat in the house, with the A/C on and stared at each other. Or would have, if he hadn't been hogging the TV and I wasn't face planted in my laptop. I didn't do too well, diet-wise over the weekend. I didn't binge or eat burgers, or anything but snacks... Yeah. *sigh* Frost Princess is a bitch and I grow weary of her shenanigans.

Joys. I haz dem.

My abcess is shrinking and the pain is dwindling. Thankful for little mercies, that is I. The antibiotic is doing it's job.

I kicked Frost Princess's ass, yesterday. And am planning to do so again, today. I have a weigh in coming up and I want to see the number on my scale move. In the right direction, thankyouverymuch.

Texas is burning down. Shit! They need rain so much. Maybe we should all get together at an agreed upon time everywhere we are and do a rain dance for Texas. They need it so badly.

Fucking hackers. They aren't just curious sprites playing in Cyber-Land, you know. They are dangerous, offensive criminals and they need to be stopped. Some of our bloggy friends have been attacked and infected. I am not going to bandy names, I am sure that they know what is what and are ding what they can. Hackers piss me off. They ruin things for other people for no better reason than they can.

So, I have this horrid headbanger, today. Every sound, every beam of light makes my brain want to implode and of course, this is the day that some dumb-assed crew decided to do some super noisy work, locally. They started at six in the morning. Banging and crashing and loud heavy equipment engines and beep-beep-beep-beep-beep and jackhammers and more banging and brakes squealing and oh. My. Sainted. Aunt. I am contemplating closing my windows and turning on my A/C just to get some dark and quiet. In fact, I am going to do that, right now.

That's a little better. Fuck the electric bill. I need quiet and dark or I will end up smashing my head against a wall to make it all go away.

What the high holy hell are they doing out there, anyway? It sounds as if they are tearing up the street and bringing in huge loads of metal and rocks and dropping everything everywhere. In between the clanging and the jackhammering.

So, we are getting our first breaths of Autumn. The last couple of nights and mornings have been so lovely and cool. I am talking turn the fans off cool. It is still very much Summer and the heat and so on will still linger for a good while, yet but I am certainly enjoying these few rare gifts of the coming season. It is making me want to get out my Fall decorations and change my blog background. But I am going to wait a couple of more weeks. Then begin redecorating my house. And my blogs. :D

Golly, I love Autumn.

I am lazy, today. I have laundry in a basket asking to be put away and the basket is just sitting by my dresser, ignored. I didn't make my bed. Just fluffed my pillows and pulled the covers up sorta straight. Didn't change the liners in my wastebaskets, dust, vacuum... Screw it. I am not in the mood and my head hurts too much. I did empty my dishwasher. So I can't call myself a total sloth. lol I'll probably change the wastebasket liners and put those clothes away in a bit. Probably the next time I hike downstairs. But they can wait, for now.

I have three dish towels knitted and number four is over halfway finished. This payday I need to obtain a couple more of those huge skeins of cotton yarn. After I finish knitting up as many dish towels as I want, I will start on dish cloths. I need new dish cloths, too.

That is all I have to yap about, at the mo so I will go.

Back From the Doc

And I have just one question...

Why do they have to poke and poke at the sore spot? I mean, first the tongue depressor, sharp edge gouging into my big old abscess. Ow! Ow! Ow! Me, pulling back, recoiling. Then the gloved finger goes in and poke, press, poke, again. Then the fingers, poking outside on my cheek. A couple of times. The "OW!" and the reflexive shrinking from touch isn't enough of a signal that you are hurting me? I mean, you can tell by looking that the thing that it has to hurt... But still, you need to poke.

And poke.

And poke.

Gah!

I know... A doc needs to get the full scope of the situation. And that means poking. I just needed to bitch a bit. lol

I am now the proud owner of a bottle full of Amoxycillin (or howeverthefuckyouspellthat) capsules. I have taken my initial double dose and I am hoping that this kills this infection, fast. And yes, I am going to find a dentist. And make an appointment. And go. I now have no choice, do I? My mouth is trying to tell me something and it is time to listen.

I have to tell you, tho... I would rather have a sleepover with the Evil Triad than go to the dentist. :P

I am a badass black widow stomping bitch. We got home and there was a black widow in a web in the corner of the garage. The big, strong, tough-guy men were standing there, looking at it, talking about Raid and shovels and all kinds of ways that they could kill it without having to actually go near it. About that time she headed down web to go hide in the crack at the base of the wall. When she got closer to the floor, I just stomped on her ass and dragged the black, nasty spider juice out across the garage floor.

Job done.

Black widow vanquished.

Big, strong, tough-guy men safe.

You should have seen their faces. lolol They were fascinated and horrified. And William couldn't believe that I actually stomped the bitch. Hey, I just wanted her dealt with. And I didn't want her making babies that could come crawling into my house in the time it took those two pussies to debate spider extermination tactics. So, I took care of her.

Guess it would have sucked if, instead of stomping on her, she had got up my pant leg...

I am going to get a cup of java and some lunch. I am hongry. And I need coffee. So, I'll talk to you later. :D

Accountability

Image Credit

I got on my scale, this morning. And I took a picture:

(No feet... My pedi is in sad shape and no one needs to see that! lol) Note the date stamp.

Time to kick this pig. I have lost fourteen pounds since January.

Fourteen.

That is fucking abysmal. 

I have no one to blame but myself. No one held a gun to my head and forced chips, popcorn, peanuts or what have you, a handful here, a bowlful there down my throat. Oh no. I did that. 

And it really needs to stop. No more dicking around. No more hiding. No nonsense. 

I will weigh, with my camera on Friday or Saturday morning every week. (Whichever morning I am least puffy, urgh!) And I will post the photograph, date stamped. Good, bad or ugly. Accountability. I do better when I own it. I do better when I am actively showing how things are going for me right here, on my blog. 

 I am going to start a personal challenge. There is no start date, no end date. It is a challenge to remember to be accountable to the most important person in this whole endeavor. Myself. I am worth this and I am accountable to myself for my health and well being. And I am challenging myself to stay on track and stay accountable and stop the nonsense.

You are welcome to join me, if you like. If you want to, grab the above photo (not my eight one...;)) and post it, with a linkback to this post in your sidebar. Lets do this for ourselves! We deserve this. We are worth it. 

Thank you for your sweet messages on my last post. Three years. This one, for some reason hit me kind of hard and I thought a tribute was a good idea. I don't do this every year. I am not a big believer in dwelling but sometimes I need to remember and feel. :)

Okay, I need to run. I have to get my lazy azz in the shower. I have a nasty infection in my gum and it hurts like a sumbitch and my face is all puffed up as if I got hit by a Mac truck so I am going to pop in to the Urgent Care and get me some Godzilla antibiotics to kick it. Then I need to get my procrastinating ass to a dentist and get my teeth dealt with. I hate going to the dentist but I really can't put it off any longer. But I can't hold out with this infection, any longer. Waaahhh!