Author: Dackel Princess

A Year Ago…

I was sitting in my chair with the pups vying for a spot, thinking about my unhappiness with my weight. I’d put on weight during our cruise through the Panama Canal. I came home and then began making preparations for a wonderful Christmas Season! I baked and baked and put gift boxes and trays together of all the different cookies I’d made. But, I’m afraid I also ate a lot of the cookies too. There was also the Peppermint Bark candy, but we won’t go into that. Suffice to say, Christmas 2007 was full of excesses!

Yes, I was unhappy with my tight jeans, and the fact that both my foot and knee doctors suggested losing weight to alleviate the pain I was in. I was too heavy. They knew it and so did I!

So, I made a New Years Resolution. I think every other resolution I made I had somehow broken by February, but this one, the one I was about to make had many provisions.

1. I decided to go to Weight Watchers to lose some weight.

2. I would go each week and stay for the meeting.

3. I would not miss a meeting unless I was in Intensive Care at the hospital.

4. Even if I had bad weeks, I would not let that stop me.

So I went to the first meeting after New Years. I remember that first night, going and weighing in with Tami. I cried. Tami has been a friendly face each week when I step on the dreaded scale!

So what have I learned this last year?

1. That the meetings are incredibly important. Not just for the accountability of weighing in, but for sharing your feelings and listening to others who are also on this road of self discovery.

2. I’ve learned to be honest and true to myself. There were so many times I could have missed a meeting, or eaten something really horrible for me, but I knew where I was going and how to get there.

3. I have learned that I am not the only one who loves to cook, and loves to eat what they cook!

4. I have learned new ways to cook healthy meals for Hubby and me.

How did I learn all of this? Because I went to class.

New Years Resolutions can be empty promises that you never live up to, or they can be really helpful ways to boost your own morale so that you can get going and accomplish a really tough thing.

I know I will be involved with Weight Watcher classes for the rest of my life. I need the classes to help me remember who I am.

I’m a great cook who loves to eat, and unfortunately at the age of 50, has the metabolism of a turtle. If I stay true to myself, then there isn’t anything that I can’t accomplish!

Oh and remember Tami? Well, she weighed me in when I reached my goal weight too, and she was the first person I hugged!

Good-bye 2008, Thanks!

Welcome 2009!

Holidays

Yay!

Today Emily came for a visit! It’s Christmas break for the schools here and so she is on vacation. I picked her up this morning at her parent’s place in southern New Hampshire and first we went shopping before heading back to my place in central New Hampshire. A little bit of a drive, but oh, what fun we had!

The doggies were so happy to see Em that they went nearly insane!

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Jacque lives here and she came over to enjoy the evening with Em and Hubby and me. We started off with a fondue dinner.

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Since I was away when the puppies had their birthday we also decided to have a small party to celebrate their 2nd birthday, complete with candles and a cake!!!

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Watching “Mama Mia”.

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It was an entirely dog friendly cake (no chocolate), and the doggies ate most, leaving small bits for Hubby and the girls. I abstained. Then we opened Christmas gifts and watched my Christmas gift of “Mama Mia”, which I could watch over and over, if for not other reason than to sing to the soundtrack!

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Did someone say, “open presents?”


Emily with her Arnie.

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The evening ended with Em and Arnie snuggled up together. They are both crazy about each other and it was terrific that they got to spend time together.

I love holidays!

Anneliese

Each dog that I have owned has had their own very unique personality. Anneliese is no exception. In fact, if anything, she has one of the most interesting personalities.

Anneliese can be fierce. She can be shy. She can be silly as anything and then the next moment quite loving. She is smart, athletic and determined. All of this and yet she still has such a good nature that makes her a wonderful member of our doggy family.

Now here is the little thing that she, and only she does, that makes her even more precious!

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When Hubby is sitting having his breakfast in the morning, or his dinner at night, Anneliese sits in front of his table and as you can see, she rests her nose on the table rung and waits and watches, in hopes that he will see her adorable face and find a smidgen of food for her!

It is just the cutest thing I have ever seen and each time I see it, it makes me quite happy that we kept this little girl!

Anneliese is a little love!

Strangers?

A package arrived today from my friends in Sydney, Australia. Two surprises were inside for me. I was thrilled because I didn’t expect this. After all, I have never personally met Bernie & Louise, but we have become friends by sharing our lives on our blogs.

It’s a strange thing, isn’t it, how close you can become to people that you have never met, but read over time.

I started thinking about this as the day went on. You see, as we write our blogs, and share our lives, our sadness’s and our happiness’s, we do develop friendships that are not stifled by the miles that separate us.

What a wonderful thing that is.

You learn so much about about other countries, traditions, cultures and see the most beautiful pictures too! But best of all, you begin to understand that as different as we all are, we share some very basic things.

The love of our families and friends. The enjoyment of the world around us, and the beauty of the nature where we live. By sharing these things we see just how much we are alike.

So if you are a stranger reading me for the first time, welcome!!! I hope you will take some time, read more and check back.

And for those of you who already know me, thanks for being such good and faithful readers.

There are no strangers here, just new friends!

The Day After

I woke this morning with that groggy, achy, “been up too late the night before”, feeling. I tried pulling the covers over my head in the hopes that the dogs and Hubby would ignore me and let me sleep, but between Hubby preparing to go skiing, and the dogs jumping up and down on the bed, I finally gave up and got up.

It was cold this morning and I quickly put my big, fluffy bathrobe on and my warm slippers. I staggered to the kitchen in search of coffee, and after pouring it in the cup and adding some splenda and cream (fat free of course!), I sat down in the family room feeling ready to go back to sleep.

Hubby was rushing about, acting 20 years my junior, rather than 20 years my senior, as he gathered all the things he needed for skiing. With a kiss and a wave he was off, and I sat here looking at 4 forlorn faces (the pups) and decided that we needed something energetic to bring us all around.

I put on my Christmas present copy of “Mama Mia”, and though I didn’t really watch the entire thing (I actually started moving, doing some cleaning), I listened to it and sang to it.

I stopped working in the late morning, long enough to go and get the mail and pay our taxes (Merry Christmas, ho ho ho!!!), before returning and finishing up.

Hubby was home shortly after noon and we had the leftover appetizers for our lunch.

The day was rather anticlimactical after all the preparation for the “big” day. Still it was a nice day as I looked back at a wonderful Christmas day with Hubby, Mandy and M.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree…

Ever notice that it is nearly impossible to get a good picture of your Christmas tree? I mean, I took this picture the other day and although it looks interesting, it lacks the magical quality of the tree with the lights blinking and bubbling at night.

I sit here in the evening, and I look at the tree and I see how lovely it is, in fact I think it is the prettiest tree we have had in a few years, and I smile.

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But in the picture it looks too bright and just not right. You’ll have to trust me on this. The tree looks beautiful and definitely brightens my family room up.

Maybe putting a filter on it would make it even more magical. What do you think?

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The fun part was actually decorating it. Taking out the ornaments that I have collected over time or were gifts. I remember each and every one. Like an old friend. Little pieces of the past. I have put together a few that are my favorite.

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This is the Angel that has been on the top of my tree for 22 years. I love her very much and I think you can understand why.

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This is a gingerbread man that Uschi gave to me a couple of Christmases ago.

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This little guy is just the cutest thing. Makes me think of the children’s cartoon “Chip and Dale”.

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This was one of the first ornaments that I bought when Hubby and I got together. As you all know my husband is a real apple grower.

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This is Snicker and Doodle. It made me laugh because my favorite cookies are Snickerdoodles! The recipe can be found in my archives under cooking!

The last few years I haven’t put up a tree because of the puppies and then I was worried that Arnie would use the tree as a….well let’s put it this way, Arnie hasn’t seen a tree that he hasn’t wanted to water. My solution for this was to put up my old artificial tree. Surprisingly I am thrilled with it! And Arnie? Well, let’s just say he doesn’t care for artificial trees!

So the tree is up, the presents wrapped and the food for Christmas Day purchased. I’m ready and life is good.

Pass the hot cocoa, please!

Pfffft!

We have had 2 feet of snow in the last few days. Yep, that’s 24 inches of the wet white stuff. Normally this isn’t a big problem for us. Hubby goes out and plows at various intervals, keeping our driveway clear and safe and easily navigable.

However, our big, fabulous, snow blower died the other day, leaving Hubby with a much smaller, and less effective blower to do the drive. Needless to say, the driveway is not pristine, and is not easily navigable without 4 wheel drive.

I’ve told Hubby to go and buy a newer one so that once the good one comes back from the shop, but he can use that one  and I can use the one he will buy now.

But…..he hates the thought of spending money. I told him that if this winter is like last winter we better get the machine.

For those that do not recall, my driveway is 500 feet long and to get to my house it is all down hill. Naturally this means that to get out of here you have to drive 500 feet up hill under somewhat treacherous conditions!

Tomorrow he will blow the driveway again with the older machine. You see besides the 24 inches of snow that we got, we’ve also had 36 mile an hour winds blowing this stuff around.

I do love winter, but I like it best when all the machines are working, making the clean up easier to deal with.

Are you ready for Christmas??

Christmas, Snow & Shopping

I woke early today and watched the newsman announce that we would have a dry morning before a good snowstorm began in the early afternoon. I thought to myself that this might be a good time to go off and do the grocery shopping and the last minute Christmas shopping before the flakes began to fly.

I went in and sat on our bed and woke up Hubby. I asked if he also thought this would be a good idea, then, I let the dackels in to kiss and jump on him until he was wide awake.

We both dressed and put coffee into a thermos and off we went.

No sooner had we gotten to McDonalds, where Hubby was getting a Sausage Egg McMuffin, than the first flakes of snow began to fly. By the time we drove 10 miles south and stopped for gas it was really snowing. I thought perhaps we should abort the mission, but Hubby assured me that it was actually a great thing because the stores would be empty and we would be able to get a lot done.

And we did! In fact at one point Hubby insisted that I try on some nice clothes for me. Since I have no dress up clothes I really need something pretty, yet dressy to wear when/if we go out.

I found a pretty suit. It has black slacks and a bright blue jacket and fits like it was made for me. But what really amazed me, was the size! (Size 8!)

Hubby found a few things he liked, we replaced a frying pan that had lost its ability to remain non-stick and through all of this, we remained calm and un-phased by the fact that it was snowing like crazy outside!!!

We went to the grocery store and bought all that we will need for Christmas (except the vegetables) and after we schlepped it all to the car and drove home we worked putting it away.

December Snow

Hubby is currently out trying to snow blow the driveway, and it is still snowing. The weather man said today that it is now the wettest year in our state’s history!

Meanwhile, Hubby just came back in and informed me that we have another foot of snow out there (it is still snowing), on top of the 12 inches we got yesterday! Even Fritz doesn’t want to go out!

Me either. Glad I got my stuff done today!