Dackel Princess

The Friday Five

Here we are, the first Friday of the month of February! We all know that February is a quick month and I know it will go fast because it is filled with appointments. Anyway, here goes for this week.

This week was not overwhelming. Probably because this week the only appointment I had was to go to my WW Class.
Speaking of WW Class, I am really enjoying it. I simply adore the ladies in my class. They are so supportive and caring and each week I feel they are cheering me on!
So, here is how I am doing on the WW Green Plan.

I like the “Green” plan because it has forced me to plan out my meals and count my points. As you can see I am doing very well.
I have been doing some Spring cleaning. I deep cleaned the kitchen recently and bought new carpets. Well, that spurred me on and I ordered new carpets for the master bath. They arrived today and I deep cleaned the bathroom. Twice a year I wash down the walls as well as the usual stuff. With the new rugs, it looks rather splendid!
We had snow on Thursday and it appears today we will have a combination of snow and ice. Ugh. Truly, I am ready for Spring!

Cruising

Back in 2005 Jack and I took an Alaska Cruise. I had never been on a cruise ship. But when some friends of ours asked us to join them, we decided to go.

We set sail on The Diamond Princess. It was the largest ship that Princess Cruise Lines had back then. I recall getting lost a time or two. But we had a great and memorable trip.

I was so sorry to read the news below when I got up on Wednesday Morning!

The Diamond Princess cruise ship is seen anchored off the Yokohama Port in Japan. Ten people on board have tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus.

Ten people a Japanese cruise ship that has been quarantined near Tokyo since Monday have tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus.
Medics started screening all 3,711 onboard on Tuesday. Nobody can leave the ship for the next 14 days.
The ten infected people, who are all over 50 years old, were taken into isolation at a nearby hospital on the Japanese mainland.
They include two Australians, three Japanese, three Hong Kong citizens, one American, and one Filipino.
The Diamond Princess was quarantined because a passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong on January 25 tested positive for the virus on January 31.

Here I am, cruising Tracy Arm, Alaska on The Diamond Princess. It was a beautiful ship and I found I really loved cruising.

I simply cannot imagine being confined to the ship for two full weeks just waiting. I hope that they do not have more Coronavirus victims.

Chewy

I love the company, “Chewy“. I go on their website and I order the dog food I will need for 6 weeks. Then like magic, the food arrives via Fed-Ex and life is good for my furry friends!

Today my order arrived. I knew it was coming and I mentioned to Jack to see if the order had come. Yes, it had. The Fed-Ex delivery man had placed two huge boxes containing crunchy food and canned food and bottles of breath freshener, etc right outside our garage door. Had we not looked and simply backed up, both the boxes and our car would have been damaged.

Since the bottle cap had broken on one of the bottles, it had made a liquidy mess all over the cardboard box, I called “Chewy” to let them know.

They are gracious people and were very kind to me. A new bottle of breath freshener would be sent out and I filed a complaint about Fed-Ex with them. “Chewy” has always helped out when something happens to my order.

After the call, I set about putting all the food away. My little poochies now have plenty of food for the dreary month of February!

One note. I’m in a very rural area. I have not had great luck with Fed-Ex here. Things have been broken, drivers are ill-tempered and not at all helpful.

That being said, I LOVE my UPS Deliveryman. Kevin will walk the entire 600 feet of my driveway (since his truck wouldn’t make it in inclement weather) in a raging snowstorm to make sure I get my delivery. He is kind and helpful and I appreciate everything he does for us. In fact, I will see him next week when my new bathroom rugs come!

Happy Wednesday!

Happy Birthday, Grandma Honey

February 4th would have been my Grandma Honey’s 122nd birthday. It’s difficult to imagine her at that age. She passed from this world into the next 36 years ago. She was a very important woman in my life and taught me so much. Even now, I miss her like crazy!

Here she is, Mary Frances Daniell the day she married my Papa, Frederick Carl Prussman.

Here is a picture of Mel and me with our much loved, Grandma Honey, at Goodwill Park.

Grandma Honey and Papa Fred. Theirs was truly an epic love story! They met when they were less than ten years old. Grandma was friends with Papa’s sister, Katchen, and spent a lot of time at the house teaching Katchen to speak English. The family had recently arrived from Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, and aside from the eldest sister, Hedwig, who worked as a Nanny, no one spoke a lot of English.

Anyway, Papa always said he fell in love with her then, and as a teenager, he would chase off any beau that tried to court her. My great grandfather eventually allowed them to become engaged but insisted that Mary finish college before they married.

They were married until Mary eventually passed from this life to the next. He joined her 8 months later.

The Weekend Wrap

This was a busy weekend for me. I went down to visit, play with, and enjoy my grandchildren and their parents. Before Mandy and Matt went out for dinner and a movie, I sat talking with them. I love that. It is always interesting to hear their views on things and they always leave me with things to consider.

They departed and I went up to the Lego room, where the three of us played Legos for well over an hour. Mandy also has Alexa and I admit it was very fun to ask “Alexa, play Magic by David Paton and Pilot”! And she replied “Playing Magic by David Paton and Pilot” and the song played. I asked Savannah if she had ever heard this song, and she said, she had on a commercial. Smart kid!

Dinner was fun, Mac & Cheese for Savi and Quinn wanted chicken noodle soup. Chicken noodle soup? I didn’t even know he knew what that was! But he did and he loves it!

I ate something new. Italian chicken meatballs. They were 3 points for 4 meatballs. So, I cooked 8 thinking 6 points wasn’t too bad for the protein portion of my dinner. Then, while eating with the kids, Quinn asked if he could have one of my meatballs. He loved it and had two!

I always love being with the kids because I learn more and more about them and I feel that special bonding.

This time was so wonderful. In the evening, Quinn covered my legs with a blanket and then climbed up and sat right in my lap, snuggling.

Quinn and me. Well, that’s my sweater behind his head!

I have never been one of those grandmothers that demand affection from their grandchildren. When they want it, I am here. Well, this time Quinn wanted me and I was there. On Sunday morning as I was getting ready to leave he told me how much fun it was to hang out with me! Friends, that was the frosting on my grandmother’s cake!

I stopped to get some groceries and arrived home to dogs who were happy to see me. In fact, Arnie hadn’t eaten much while I was gone. After a bit, they were all back to normal.

We got some interesting news from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

Punxsutawney, Pa. – The results are in: On Groundhog Day 2020, in Gobbler’s Knob, Punxsutawney Phil could not find his shadow. And as the legend goes, this means we’re in for an Early Spring.

Courtesy MSN

The Pennsylvania Groundhog isn’t the only weather-predicting rodent in this quirky American tradition, but he is the most famous.

And according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, his opinion is the only one that matters.

This is only the 20th time out of 124 in his recorded history (there are 10 years where no record remains) that Phil hasn’t been able to find his shadow.

Even so, Phil is usually wrong, and meteorologists aren’t too sure Phil’s suspicions are right either.

But it is fun to watch all the same. There is a funny movie with Bill Murray called “Groundhog Day” that will make you laugh.

So, that was my weekend. A good one all around.

I’m Off

Taking a break today so I can go down and see my grandchildren. I’ll be back Sunday and hopefully, I will get something up.

Meanwhile, everyone, have a great day!

The Friday Five

It’s funny, but after doing a Thursday Thirteen, doing a Friday Five is a tad tricky! Since this is the last Friday in January, here we go!

I have found a group of ladies who do Vlogs on Youtube. Mostly they are focusing on the Harry and Meghan situation, but they also cover various other things happening in England and Canada. Call me intrigued. I listen to their entries nearly every day.
A friend mailed us a Christmas gift from Hamburg Germany in the middle of December for Christmas. The package, with a beautiful teacup and teapot, arrived today! And people say our Postal Service is bad. In any case, the tea set is beautiful!
I made another batch of Vegetable and Chicken Soup. This is so easy and so good. And only 1 point a serving!
I watched a little TV, but then noticed that in less than one week the dust I worked so hard to rid my house of, was back! Out came the dust cloth and my house is once again dust free. Well, for another few days!
My new prescription came back in my much-loved glasses frames. It’s amazing how much better I can see! Call me one very happy lady!

So that is all for this week. I am off to see Savannah and Quinn over the weekend and I can hardly wait. It’s been far too long!

My beloved, Mr. Arnie!

Thursday Thirteen

As predicted my Wednesday was a long, busy day. So, this week I thought I would do a Thursday Thirteen. Here we go!

I woke up far too early on Wednesday. 5 AM! I wanted to go back to sleep, but my nerves got me, and I got up.
Although I do not eat or drink anything until after my weigh-in, I made the coffee and sat down to catch up on my email and Facebook.
I wanted to watch “This Is Us” on-demand, but I didn’t quite have enough time, so I put it off until Wednesday night.
Eventually, I showered and dressed, made my breakfast, put it in the thermos and by 7:45 I was out the door.
I arrived at WW Class. I am almost always the first one with the exception of the woman who weighs us in, Tami.
As you can see I have done very well for the month of January.

I am so proud of all my hard work. Losing weight is not easy, but if you really work on it, it can be done!
After class, I felt like I was walking on air, and I did a little grocery shopping and then came home. I didn’t have a lot of time to kill, but just enough so I could make take-along lunches for Jack and me.
We drove down to Manchester, NH and after a series of about six turns, we arrived at Dr. H.’s Office.
I was put through a series of preliminary tests, a complete medical history was taken, and then I was led into another exam room where I met with Dr. H.
She is an amazing doctor, and she did a complete exam before ordering a “Field of Vision” and a picture of my “Optic Nerve“.
After those tests, I was shown into her other office, and she completed the exam and then went over the results.
I have Intra-Ocular Hypertension. It is the beginning of Glaucoma. So far the tests indicate that my “Optic Nerve” looks okay, and the “Field of Vision” was close to normal. I am starting drops and hopefully, this will bring my pressures down (currently they are 26 in each eye) and I can avoid any other problems.
I go back in one month for a recheck, and it is hoped that the daily drops will do the trick. All in all, the day was busy, but with only really positive results!

Another Day

Today will be a busy day. I have a WW class in the morning, with a new weigh-in, and then in the afternoon, I will be going to see the Glaucoma Specialist, Dr. H.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about the eye doctor’s appointment. My stomach was in knots all of Tuesday. I’ve tried to remain calm, but it just isn’t working. Oh well, it will be what it is and I will simply have to do what I can to control it if I can.

The microwave is not too bad. I typed out a cheat sheet for the powers and the directions and so far so good. Because it is a higher-powered machine we will really need to be careful.

So, I am off to accomplish great things on this Wednesday. I am hopeful I will have great things to report tomorrow!

My New Microwave

For several days Jack and I have been grousing back and forth about the need for a new microwave. Our old one is 20+ years old and has all sorts of little quirks that make me nervous to live in a house with it.

One of the quirks was that the blasted thing would turn on an hour or two after being used. I kid you not. Yesterday we were sitting here watching the TV and all of a sudden the microwave turned on.

Well, that just sort of did it for me. I went on a measured rant about how this thing was going to cause a fire and we would all die!

I know, a little over the top. But honestly, this twenty-year-old machine that we bought for about $75.00 owed us nothing!

In the late afternoon, Jack was going to Lowes for some hardware to fix another household project, and I said, listen if you see a microwave that’ll work, why don’t you just buy it!

We took measurements and off Jack went. He called a while later and gave me a model number to lookup. The machine looked good. I said to go for it. However, he never said yes or no.

A while later the garage opened and I heard noises that indicated he was trying to carry something up the stairs. I opened the door and assisted him with the huge box!

Our new machine is installed and working great, with the exception of a rather curious coded way to run it. Apparently, in the modern world, we now live in using the words START and STOP are things of the past. They now use:

This is what you use for Stop

This is what you use for Go.

Now, I’d like to think I am fairly bright, and usually I pick these things up pretty easily, (I was able to set the clock easily!) but the operation of this microwave is pretty convoluted. Tomorrow I will type up a cheat sheet for the things that Jack and I use a microwave for. Like full power. You’d think that would be Power 100 right? As in 100% power. Wrong. It’s Power 10.

However, it weighs less than the other machine by about half, does not turn itself on without programming and It really is much stronger power-wise than the old one. (That was a 1000 watt microwave and this is 1200 watt.)

Our next thing to learn is actually how to set this to reheat. I’m sure the setting is there, but who knows what series of keys I will have to strike for that?

The machine is nice and pretty and actually fits the space better than the last one did. So, all in all, I am happy about it and in six months I will have it all figured out.