Category: My Life

Today was cooking day here at The Dackel Princess House! I wanted to make a recipe that I’d gotten at Weight Watchers for points free vegetable soup. It has just about every vegetable known to man in it, and actually required very little work putting it together. I did, however, have a helper! Sarah was over early today and she worked with me all morning to prepare the soup, and then stayed for lunch. During our cooking preparations, she peeled her first carrot! I must add that she did it perfectly! She also helped measure out the spices and stir them into the pot! Oh, what fun we had!!

It was so much fun having a helper in the kitchen again. It’s been a long time since I had a child that small to work with and keep me company. And she worked hard on this soup and then enjoyed every bite of it once it was cooked.

After lunch we colored in some new coloring books and played with the dogs. Sarah climbs right up on the sofa with the pups and hugs and kisses them. Needless to say, they love it!

By mid afternoon we were both pretty tired, so Sarah went to her house for a while and I fell asleep in my chair with Greta and the two puppies. What a warm snuggly feeling that was! I slept like a baby for about 30 minutes.

The Sarah and her sister Kimmy were back for a while before they headed home for the night. I’m tired! I’d forgotten how wonderfully exhausting six year olds can be!

This week I decided to use the Weight Watcher web site to track my points. I didn’t realize how good their on-line tracker was. Since I am back and forth on my computer all day, it works out quite well. I go to the tracker page, enter what I eat, the amount I eat and the computer figures out the points used and the points left for the day. It just doesn’t get any easier than that.

The result of my efforts was that I lost 4.6 pounds! Also, I lost 10% of my body weight and received a key-chain! At the meeting many of the other members asked me questions about what I am doing, how I am staying motivated, and if others supported me in my endeavors. I was sort of the star of the show for a little while and I felt special!

I still have a lot more to go, but when I look at how far I have come 19.6 pounds down, I feel very proud of myself.

The program is fairly easy to follow, but I admit that there are times that I am weak and have a tough time. The thing is, I plan to stay with this for life. I want a nice healthy, trim body and I know Weight Watchers is the way to do it!

Here are thirteen things about me, that all begin with the letter A.

1. April. That is the month that Hubby and I promised to love, honor and cherish each other until death shall part us. Our anniversary is April 9th and we will be married 20 years this year!

2. Amanda. My daughter with my favorite girls name!

3. Apples. Hubby owned a large pick your own apple orchard and I helped him the last season it was open. Now we have our own small orchard in our yard.

4. Arnie and Anneliese. Products of Greta’s first litter, which was her A litter.

5. Arrivals. Hubby was a pilot and I remember spending a lot of time waiting for his plane to arrive so I could either take him home or rendezvous with him for a romantic weekend.

6. Arrangements. Over the years I think we all make a lot of arrangements. For me, I have enjoyed the arrangements I have made for our wedding, trips, or even just a meal.

7. Avocados. One of my favorite things to eat. Hubby seems to have a real knack for picking out the very best and yummiest Avocados!

8. Artichokes. Love them. Either freshly steamed or marinated.

9. Apple pie. I have a great recipe for apple pie that uses Splenda.

10. Architecture. Many of you probably don’t know that I designed our house. I did take my plans to an Architect to have him design the structure, but the floor plan was all mine.

11. Auf Kirchen. The town where our dear friends live in Germany. These are the friends that helped us to find Shubi!

12. Abby. The name of my grandniece.

13. Atmosphere. I try to have a quiet and tranquil atmosphere here in my home. I hope I am succeeding!

Two years ago I went in to have my hair done. I wanted a light trim and a little color, to perk me up. That day changed the way I was going to look at my hair for the foreseeable future!

The hair stylist, and I use that term lightly, butchered my hair. I had literally an inch left all over my head! I cried. I came home and Hubby didn’t know what to say. Both of us knew though, that it wasn’t good. I cried some more!

That day I called another hair stylist to correct the color. Her name was Margarita and she has been doing my hair ever since. She knew I wanted to grow it out, and so you can see how in two years things have changed on my head! I love Margarita and I love how she is helping to keep my hair shaped while it grows.

I’m still not done growing it out. I want to grow it another 4-6 inches. I want really long hair again. When I first met Hubby all those years ago my hair was nearly down to my waist! I don’t think I will let it get that long, but…

you never know!

We were up early and after breakfast Hubby drove me in to see the doctor. He examined me, wrote out orders for x-rays and three for prescriptions and sent me on my way. He says it is sciatica, Now what is causing it is still a mystery. If the x-rays show something, he will call. If I am not a lot better at the end of the week I am to call him.

Meanwhile, I wait. I have a back brace I am wearing, which is like the worst girdle you can imagine, and anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants and pain pills. Yes, I feel a little whacked out tonight and I wish I could say, also pain free, but I can’t. Just a little like, I do not care.

While driving to the doctors and back, I was amazed at how high the snow banks are. It seems everywhere we went the snow was piled high, high, high! And guess what?

More snow tomorrow!

However, none of the forecasters can agree on how much will actually fall. Some say 6 inches some say 10. After the winter we have had, I say, what will be, will be!

Well time to go curl up in the fetal position and pray for springtime!

Yes, my back is still bad. In fact I’m getting a little testy because, well, lack of sleep will do that to you. I seem to sleep for about 45 minutes then wake with the back pain, and then the cycle begins again.

Hubby stepped in today and told me to call the doctor. I’m sort of stubborn that way and until something totally stops working or falls off I tend not to go to the doctor’s office. However, after 5 days of little or no restful sleep, I decided he was right and I should go.

Hubby himself had back surgery years ago, so when he spoke to me about this, I really had to listen.

Meanwhile, I have four wonderful and skilled nurses.
Fritz

Greta

Arnie

And Anneliese

The pups not only are trying to nurse me back to health, but they are amusing me at the same time. Hubby has been wonderful helping me with various household and doggy chores, and I am trying to be as quiet as I can so I don’t make things any worse.

Hubby takes me in the morning, and I sure hope the doctor will have some good news for me, like “Ta-Da, you are well”! Now wouldn’t that be nice?

I had ordered two things from LL Bean on sale. A new shirt for Hubby and a berry pink fleece robe for me.

I was excited when I got a tracking number, letting me know that my package was on the way and would be delivered today.

Once again we have terrible weather. When I went out today to the hairdresser’s, I took the Jeep and there were a few times I did have to slip it into 4 wheel drive to get through the miserable snow/sleet/rain combination that fell all morning.

I checked my computer when I got home from being beautified, and saw that the package from LL Bean was still on it’s way! Great!

They are forecasting 6-8 inches of snow overnight tonight, so I asked Hubby if he thought it might be good to get our groceries today. After lunch we headed out to stock up.

We arrived home a couple of hours later, and I quickly put all the groceries away, fed the dogs, and made our dinner. We sat down to eat and once I got the dishes done I decided that perhaps I should check in to see where my “package” was.

The report from the delivery agency said that the “package” had been delivered to the mailbox. Now, we don’t have a mailbox so I knew this was bad.

I tore out of here in a flash, and drove up to the top of our driveway to see what was going on. There, tied to the tree next to the sign that says our name, was the “package”!

It was in a big plastic garbage bag, tied there in the drizzling rain. So I took it down and brought it home and opened the package. All was well, but I was still pretty angry about it.

So I Instant Messaged LL Bean and chatted with a Customer Service woman and explained it all to her, gave her the tracking number and was assured that if anything happened to my items they would have been replaced.

But that isn’t the point! The point is, it shouldn’t have been left there. It turned out okay this time, but what about the next?

I’ve had my say now and the people at LL Bean can do with my grievance what they want.

Meanwhile I am enjoying my new bathrobe, and the shirt is a perfect fit for Hubby!

I don’t claim to be perfect. In fact if I ever used my name and the word ‘perfect’ in the same sentence my friends and family would all burst out laughing! But today I topped even some of my finest moments. Here’s how it went.

I woke up and grabbed my robe, silly medical boot and my rain boot and put them on. I hobbled from our bedroom into the family room. I had expected to see rain coming down, as the forecast from the night before said “RAIN”! This is what I saw:

In the end we had 9 inches of fresh, heavy snow!

I bundled myself up and walked the pups and came in and after the coffee was done, made breakfast for Hubby and myself. I mentioned that I’d take the Jeep today because I had a hairdressers appointment, but when Hubby looked outside and saw that it was starting to ice, he said he wanted to take me.

My appointment was for 10 o’clock, so about 9:15 we got the three dachshunds into their sweaters and got into the Jeep to go to the next town where my hair dresser has her salon.

It was such a pretty ride, and we got there just before the appointment. So we sat waiting for the salon to open. But no one came. Finally Hubby asked if I was sure my appointment was at 10. I opened my purse and took out my pocket calendar and looked. The appointment was for the next day at 10AM!

Silently, Hubby started the car and we began to drive home. I could tell by his silence that he was annoyed. I smiled weakly and said, “Well, look at the nice ride we had with the dachshunds, and we got to see the beauty of this snowy day!” I’m not sure he was thinking along those lines.

We stopped down town and picked up the mail. Today we did not have to work at finding a parking place as there were no other crazy people like me on the street. We also stopped at the dry cleaners and picked up Hubby’s suit, and the hardware store to show off the pups, before coming home.

Then Hubby got busy with his ancient, but mostly reliable snowblower, and worked over our 500 foot driveway.

I did redeem myself this evening though, while cooking dinner I was able to find the problem on Hubby’s computer and get it fixed for him.

I’m not usually such a space cadet, honestly.

Maybe it was the snow!