My Life – Page 142 – The Dackel Princess

By A Nose Par Deux

Today I met Dr. S. A nice man a tad older than me. He examined my schnozzola (nose) and gave me several options. First his diagnosis is more than likely Basal Cell Carcinoma. Not a big deal as it is very common for people “my age” to have these lesions appear. It is also very treatable. He gave me three options as to how to resolve this. First to have the lesion excised in surgery, which would leave a small line on my nose. The second is to do a “punch” biopsy, which would leave a scar and might require more surgery later, and lastly to scrape the lesion for a biopsy, and that also can leave a scar, and would require more surgery if it was positive. I opted for the first option. I’m going in next Wednesday for out patient surgery. They will do a frozen section on the tissue and we will know then and there. The scar will be a simple line and will fade quickly.

I also got the results of my “Glucose Tolerance” test. I am Hypoglycemic. This will require a change in diet, and a more careful monitoring of my blood sugar levels. I was a bit miffed at how on earth I could improve my diet, after all I am following Weight Watchers, but the doctor told me I need to cut out simple carbohydrates and starchy foods, like pasta, white bread, sugar, etc, and opt for whole grains, more protein and vegetables. He also wants me to eat 5-6 small meals a day. “Graze”, he said. “Graze”.

So, I am feeling a little old. I’m sure once I get things under control I will be okay, and it won’t bother me so much. I guess it’s just another adjustment that you make as your life goes on.

A Day With The Dackel

What an ordinary day today was. Well, except for the strange man, who caught me in my back yard in my pajamas early this morning, while I was walking Greta. I mean, aside from that, it was pretty normal.

Yes, a strange man appeared while I was outside walking Greta. It was such a lovely morning that I had slipped over to the garden to check on my crops. I have the tiniest Summer Squash, and all the other plants are flowering, so hopefully I will have zucchini and cucumbers soon…

I digress.

The man was hired by my neighbors to cut down a bunch of trees. These trees are not on our property, however the woman that owns the house next door is a tree fanatic and actually sued another man for cutting a tree down on her property line. Her husband had assisted the tree cutter, so we all thought that by the time it got to court it would be thrown out. That didn’t happen and the poor tree cutter had to pay her $5000.00 for that one tree! So while I stood there in my pajamas, feeling practically naked, even though I had perfectly nice pajamas on, I warned this man about her.

He disappeared and we have not seen him or heard his chair saw since.

I was actually quite productive after that because I ran inside, dressed in work clothes and proceeded to clear up some things inside the house before heading back outside and weeding in the garden.

In the afternoon I tossed down my gardening gloves and came in and whipped up one of Hubby’s favorites. I made “Stuffed Green Peppers” for dinner. There isn’t much that I cook that Hubby doesn’t like. He is so easy. The recipe is in the extended entry.

Yes, it was another day and another meal at the Dackel Diner!

Continue reading “A Day With The Dackel”

The Dackel Weekend Review

We are having a party here on Friday. It’ll be for the 4th of July. Independence Day! We’re doing the usual barbecue, but instead of hot-dogs and hamburgers, we’re going to do kabobs. Steak, chicken and shrimp. Should be good, right?

Well, it will be providing we have decent weather. You will recall that last year we started outside and due to rain quickly had to head in and eat our barbecued food under cover.

So, this year I am planning ahead. Although I will hope that we can enjoy this holiday ritual celebration outside, I will have our screened in porch and dining room cleaned up and ready for immediate occupancy. I think I’ll get Emily to help me this week do that ~~major~~ little cleaning job.

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My test appointment on Friday was……well interesting. Interesting in that I was ~~forced~~ asked to drink a container of orange liquid, which reminded me of Zarex, a kids drink from the 1960’s which is probably 99% sugar. Then they ~~held me down and~~ took blood every hour on the hour for three hours. At the end of this I had a severe low blood sugar attack, which felt like my body had been slammed into a brick wall. I crawled into a “Subway” restaurant and they fed me orange juice and a tuna roll up until I was stable enough to leave. Ah yes, it was a fun day.

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It appears that Bloglines has gone crazy. I check my feeds and I find I have several thousand new posts. Now come on. It’s the summer. It’s a Sunday. No one is writing their blogs, but me. What gives?

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I was in the yard with the dogs when our neighbor’s cat came waltzing across our front yard. He stopped took one look at the dogs, and ran. They in turn ran after him and I in turn ran after the dogs, yelling like a banshee! Not a pretty sight. The owners of the cat managed to pick it up and then yelled at me because my dogs were chasing their cat. I didn’t say much of anything because after all, my dogs simply chased the cat out of their yard. However, I must say it was terribly exciting at the time!

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And lastly, my daughter was up today with her boyfriend “M”. He is a very nice man, very handsome and entirely entertaining. I just love his sense of humor. I promised not to write too much about their visit on my blog, but I will post this one picture of them together.

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I hope everyone had a great weekend!

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~Bright~

This & That Friday

Poor Hubby came in today carrying some of the baby apples he had culled from our trees. On June 22nd we had a terrible hail storm and in his hands he carried the results of the hail on his fruit trees. Although they are not all lost to this damage, a fair portion of the baby apples look like this:

I feel so sad about it and I know that Hubby does too, but what can you do. The storm was out of anyone’s control, and there was nothing we could do to protect the trees. I guess we will be making a lot of applesauce this year!

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I had a wonderful surprise today as my two Viking’s called me to say hello from the land of the midnight sun! Renny and Tor are together at Tor’s summerhouse and they wanted to share a hello with me and with Hubby! Here is a picture that they sent to me taken at about 11 PM!

It is wonderful when blogging helps you to connect with other people in the world who share your interests. Thank you again for calling!!!

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This is the day I will be having my Glucose Tolerance test. I think that is a poorly named test. You see, you have this test because your body is intolerant of sugar (glucose). The test takes three hours and requires you to fast before you go. Then they take your blood, make you drink some hideous sugar syrup and take more blood at timed intervals, over a three hour period.

Oh this should be fun! (NOT!)

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Now that I have been growing my hair for two and a half years I wanted to give you a shot of it from behind. Remember, two and a half years ago I looked like this:

And now here is the back of my head. You can see how much it has grown.

It sure makes me happy, as I have wanted to grow out my hair for a long time and lacked the patience. It wasn’t until my old hairdresser butchered me, that I was able to get the steely determination for growing it out.

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So TGIF everyone and have an excellent weekend!

Pups & Pounds!

I started to do a Thursday Thirteen and I realized that I was tired of that, so you have just me sitting here writing about a few little things.

Like Anneliese. Isn’t she just the cutest little thing?

She is so sweet too. Hubby and I were talking about this the other day and we are quite amazed at how truly wonderful the two pups are. I imagine we are incredibly partial having had them since the very moment that they were born, but to us, Anneliese and her brother Arnie are just the best! We have watched them grow, and learn to play with each other, and to become part of our little dog pack.

Here is Arnie with me.

He is my little snuggler and at night he sleeps down by my feet happily wound around them. Anneliese now sleeps by my tummy and Greta is now sleeping between our pillows. Yes, we have a full bed each night when we settle in. Only Fritz sleeps on the floor, and all I can say to that is, Thank God!!!

When my cousin, Janet was up visiting for her birthday she took this picture of me in a new outfit, showing off my weight loss. Yes, showing off, because after losing 40 pounds, I am enjoying showing off just a little!

I have about 8 more pounds to go to get to my goal weight and then the real work starts ~ maintenance! I think that will be the real challenge.

Meanwhile I’ll keep working on Weight Watchers day by day, a little at a time.

By A Nose

I went to the doctor’s today to have him look at my nose. I’ve been worried about it because a red spot magically appeared on it back in March and despite my tender ministrations, it has not healed. Even my mother noticed this thing the last time I saw her.

It doesn’t hurt, but it did start to bleed the other day, so I decided that since I am not stupid, it was time to get it checked out.

I arrived a bit early at the office. You see I am habitually early for everything. I blame my father for this as he also suffered from this affliction. I call it “Early-itis”.

I sat in the waiting room, waiting, when a man in the next section of the waiting area started talking to me as though we were long lost friends. I was puzzled by this, but I try to be nice and friendly and I spoke about the weather with him. Right now everyone is talking about our weather because it has been so bad.

Anyway, I was starting to run out of things to say to this man when the nurse called my name, thus saving me from a fate worse than death, running out of chit chat.

She weighed me, which used to make me crazy, but since the weight loss, I actually look forward to. Then took me in and did my blood pressure and pulse. Folks you are looking at one very healthy girl! Both were perfect!

The doctor came in and peered at my nose. He tut-tutted and looked again. Well? He wants me to see a Plastic Surgeon to have it removed and biopsied. That will be done on July 1st. The chances are that it is some sort of skin cancer, but not melanoma. (Thank you dear Lord!)

Then he asked if I was well, and I mentioned that I’ve had some low blood sugar attacks that I have documented with Hubby’s meter. He didn’t like that at all, so a glucose tolerance test has been ordered for this Friday. Three hours of drinking sugar syrup and having blood taken.

Does the fun ever end?

I was thinking as I drove home that as I approach my 50th birthday it seems like my body is breaking out and falling apart. Now how the heck did that happen?

So, I’ll get the blood tests done and then get the nose fixed. I’m just hoping that my nose doesn’t resemble Michael Jackson’s nose when they are finished!

Papers, Papers & More Papers

First off, I hate to file. I am one of those people who truly believe that this world would be a better place if we never had to file one, single, document, form or letter. Whoever came up with the idea that saving pieces of paper for the “future” should have been summarily punished for the deed!

That said, after almost a year of taking these pieces of paper that need to be saved, and tossing them carelessly into a Coldwater Creek shopping bag, today I decided that I simply had to revamp my little office filing cabinet. It was jammed full of paper that I have been saving for several years. It was time to remove the old files and start fresh, collecting only 2008 documents to save.

So I got out a cardboard box and placed the old files in this. They will go to our larger file cabinets in the basement to live out the next seven years. Then they too shall be trashed.

Then I began setting up new files to accommodate the current years documents. I sorted things from the shopping bag around me until I realized I was sitting in the middle of the floor with papers scattered all about!

This is bad because…..I have 4 dogs, who chose that moment to come running into my office to “give Mama some love”!

I managed to get them out before true disaster struck, and I worked a total of four hours today (still not done) but I’m hopeful that tomorrow I will get it all finished up. At least the upstairs office part.

Then the hard part begins, as I go through the downstairs files and thin them, add the files I just removed from the upstairs file cabinet, and make things neat and organized.

Does this paperwork stuff ever end?

Not Too Much & A Bath

So what’s new?

Today was one of those days that I can safely say, not much.

Oh, I did the usual three meals, and the cleaning up of them. I fed the dogs and walked them when they told me it was time, but for whatever reason, I just didn’t feel like doing much.

It could be the headache I have had most of the day, or perhaps the hot-flash that started at 1 AM and lasted until nearly 5 AM. Oh I just love menopause! (She says, words dripping with sarcasm.)

Last night before bed I was watching reruns on the tube when I noticed that the three ~~dachshunds~~ Amigos all smelled extremely foul. So there I was in the shower with three stinky fur children, at 7:30 last night, giving them all baths. Thank goodness I did, as they all decided to cuddle up to me last night in bed. (Yes, this did make the hot-flash much, well, flashier!)

I guess everyone needs one of those days once in a while. A day when you just lay low and chill out.

I must note here that the day was not a total loss. I found my first eggplants on the Japanese Eggplant plant (redundant, yes?), and here they are.

My tomatoes and peppers are doing well, too. We have been having afternoon rain showers that have really helped the garden. Some of our plants we have kept in large pots on the patio, and then of course we have the regular garden. That seems to be quite a bit behind the potted plants. However, I’m really pleased with the results, especially the eggplant!

Tomorrow is Weight Watchers day and perhaps a trip to the grocery store for some fresh vegetables. I think this will have been a good week weight wise, which makes me want those fresh vegetables all the more!

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~Emotions~

I have said many times how happy Hubby makes me, so many of my pictures of emotions have to do with my sweet husband. The first was taken when I took Hubby to meet my parents the first time.

This picture was taken after we said our marriage vows twenty years ago. That was such a happy day and full of emotion!