Won A Blog Prize!!!

Yippee and thank you Kelly at I Have a Notion. http://ihaveanotion.blogspot.com/ I have won an autographed copy of Pat Sloan's Quilt the Seasons, Book 2. I am sooo excited. Isn't that a gorgeous quilt on the cover or what?
I realized that I didn't give an exercise/weight loss report yesterday. I meant to but got carried away with other things. Looks as if I've lost NINE pounds. I never dreamed that I would have exercised for six weeks and have not lost ten pounds yet. Sigh. But that's the way it is. I need to take a photo of my exercise outfit. You'll laugh. But waiting in the wings. Waiting for that "official" ten pound loss, I have a reward. I've purchased another outfit. Getting rid of those XL men's shorts and XL t-shirt. The new outfit is ONLY a large.

I have ditched the treadmill for the elliptical. Groan! Back in the dark ages when implements of torture were kept in the dungeon. Masks with spikes. The rack. Shudder. If you'd been there back then, between those two devices of horror was the horror of horrors. Yes. You guessed it. An elliptical exercise machine. Bwahahaha.

I have accomplished the miracle of miracles. Yes. I have worked up from 30 seconds to --- drum roll please --- FIFTEEN MINUTES.

Oh. How sweet. Y'all did the wave for me. Bless your little hearts.

Weekly Report

The last two times Jonathan has visited, he's been eyeballing the small covered crocks on the top of my wall cabinets. He wants one for his sourdough starter. I have nine-feet tall ceilings and a space above the cabinets. I REFUSED to cover the top of the wall cabinets with silk leaves and flowers or even baskets. Everything up there can be taken down and washed. And everything really, really needs to be taken down and washed...but that's for another day. ;o)

I found this at an antique/junk store in Longview. I think it's perfect! No one has to climb a ladder and then stand on my countertop either. What say ye, Jonathan?Guess what I did yesterday? Yep! LOL Got the car washed. After the gym, I watered some trees. I've got a crepe myrtle that's really heat distressed. I carried two buckets down to that tree three times...about 10-15 gallons. Then, I gathered pears. I felt something crawling on my left shin. I looked down. A RED WASP was crawling up my leg. ARRRGGGGHHHHH! What to do?! This is the second time a wasp has landed on me! First time was in a restaurant. Sam thumped it off my shoulder then stomped it.

This time? What to do? Nearly frozen, I looked around. Saaaammmmm. Where are you? Hmmm...In the shop. In my left hand, I held a bag filled with pears? Nope. A broken twig on the pear tree? Hmmm? I broke the end off the twig, took a deep breath, swiped the wasp off my shin. It landed on the ground. Hallelujah! I ground the wasp into the ground. And felt not one bit of remorse!

No Surgery Required!

Yippee! The October surgery finally healed correctly. The surgeon is turning Mama over to a pain management specialist in his clinic... (Texas Spine & Joint Hospital in Tyler) ... There's just going to be a certain amount of pain because...her back is older than her. Dr. Danielson compares her to a classic car. ;o) On the last visit back in May ( http://keepyouinstitches.blogspot.com/2010/05/long-day.html), he looked at me and said, "Your mother is one tough lady."

If you remember, back then, I asked you to pray for a miracle. Thank you!

It was however, a looooooong day!

Monday I walked the three blocks from the office to the post office. I always do my walking errands in 'downtown' between 10:30 and 11:00 a.m. That's when the food has been prepared at Blessings, the senior diner. It's prepared that early to be packaged and sent on its way for Meals on Wheels. Mama wants to get there while the food is hot and not held over an hour. So...I check for her car and if it's there, stop in for my hug. Monday, we made arrangements for Tuesday. I thought the x-ray appointment was 1:30 and the doctor's appointment at 2:30. She said that the appointments were 12:30 and 1:30.

Tuesday morning (after the gym and shower) I was at her house about 9:45. On the way to Tyler, she opened the appointment reminder letter. Guess what. We were going to be an hour early. ;o( I was correct. Once we got to Tyler, we found a restaurant at 11:30 and had a leisurely lunch at Cafe Ole. When we finished the fajitas that we shared, the waitress brought us over complimentary sherbets! So we lingered longer. Still got to the x-ray appointment early...but they got her in pretty quickly.

The doctor's appointment was another matter entirely. The nurse finally called her name at 5:30!!! If he wasn't such a great doctor/surgeon...AND caring!!! ... When he came into the examination room and apologized...I asked him if Mama was his last appointment. He said no, and he still had to go see his patients in the hospital section. (Great place to be!! Doctors' offices and hospital in the same building!) I told him that if she had been the last appointment that he would have to take us to dinner! LOL He looked a bit shocked for a moment then smiled and said that he'd have to take a van for all of us! LOL

We stopped at the Dairy Queen in Gilmer for a light snack. I finally got home about 8:15. Only 45 minutes shy of being gone for 12 hours!!!

Mama called just a few minutes ago. Her appointment with the pain management doctor is September 3. She said she slept fine and didn't feel any worse after yesterday's sitting and waiting and riding in the car!

Too Much Exercising!

I forgot to change the photo in my banner last month! June stayed up for two months and into August. August is there now. Here's the one you missed.I've taken off work tomorrow. Mama has an appointment in Tyler with her back surgeon. It breaks my heart that she may be facing yet another surgery.

I'll get up in the morning most likely at my regular time and go to the gym then come home and shower. We'll leave town about 9:30 or 10 a.m. We'll hit Tyler in time to have an early lunch. X-rays are scheduled for 12:30...the doctor's appointment follows in 30 minutes to an hour...I don't think she told me. But it doesn't matter...we'll sit and wait until they call her name.

The really good thing about my job...the directors are very lenient with time off for just about any reason. Next week I'm taking Thursday off. (Office is closed Fridays.) I'll be driving Tomball to a quilting retreat. Yeah! Of course it helps that one of the directors is a quilter too! She wants to see photos.

Pears...OH MY! Texas Size!!

Finally! Sam severely pruned (as in cut ALL the limbs off!!) our two pears trees a few years back. After a few years of no pears...then one or two pears. WE GOT PEARS! TEXAS SIZE PEARS! And some little ones too. These are not the mellow eating pears but are 'hard' pears. They make the best pear preserves ever. But, yes we do eat them. They are so crunchy, sweet, juicy, absolutely delicious! We got not only pears today but a bit of rain. Just a bit. Hmmm...this photos barely shows it, but here's where it splattered on the porch. I stole...er, I mean...borrowed this photo off Facebook. This was the second place I worked. If I've posted it before...sorry. The first place was Pic-A-Rib. Dang! How'd you guess a barbeque place? You must all be psychics. ;o) The owners of Pic-A-Rib next started running F & F Root Beer. We kept thick glass mugs in the freezer and filled them with fountain root beer. Root beer ice would form inside the mug. It was soooo good.

I started working for the Fletchers when I was 14 and worked up through most of my senior year. By that time they had moved on and some self-important big shot came to town and purchased the business. After a few months of work, constantly listening to his illusions of grandeur, he split leaving us with two weeks worth of bounced payroll checks. His sister or cousin or whatever she was came in to run the place, but not with most of the staff he had shafted.

NOT Daddy Bashing...

...But... For a very long time I felt that I had been fat ALL MY LIFE! Granted. I was a little dumpling at 9 months.
Awww...look at those fat legs. (Brother BJ isn't all that little either is he?!)
...round face and chubby cheeks...
First grade photo with face not quite as round and those pretty Cherokee cheeks... (Don't look at the bangs - Mama said she cut them short so she didn't have to cut them as often - sheesh!)
WHAT?! My least favorite school photo. The 3rd grade with my hair pulled back in a ponytail and my head looking like a skinned onion.
One day, looking back at old photos...I realized...I WAS NOT FAT all my life. Not in those few school photos...not in 1966 at Garden of the Gods in Colorado.
Yes...my high school graduation in 1971 - and I was larger in 1970! I suppose it was during my high school weight battle that Daddy started calling me Crisco.

But look what happened to me in the mid-1970s!!
This was just a few months after Jonathan was born.
Then almost too skinny here.
1996 after Ron died...not bad...
Now...well...seven pounds and some odd ounces ago back in April.
What brought on this reminiscing about weight? I just finished reading Jennifer Weiner's Good in Bed. No. No raunchy sex scenes.

Not much mirrored my life.

Then, on page 364 in the next to the last chapter, I started to cry. The main character's dad was cruel and mean. He actually poked his daughter with a tennis racket and told her that she was fat. "Men don't like fat women." My dad never did that, but he did call me Crisco. Is that the same thing?

I was the only girl with three brothers. I don't think Daddy really knew what to do with me. Sometimes he really didn't know what to do with his sons either...but that's their story.

His term of endearment for me...Crisco? A term that instills confidence in one's self??? I must've missed its intention.

Weiner's character writes a magazine article and states: "There were a thousand words that could have described me--smart, funny, kind, generous. But the word I picked--the word that I believed the world had picked for me--was fat." That's when I cried.

Then she writes: "The truth is this--I'm all right the way I am. I was all right all along."

I'm still on the exercise/diet program. For my health, I need to shed about 30 pounds. For me. No one else. Because...I am all right the way I am!

Why Stop...

...if there's no stop sign? Sigh. Poor old lady. I was at my stop sign. She stopped and waited for me to cross. Riiiighhht. And if she accidently stomped on her accelerator and plowed into me...guess whose fault that would've been?! I waved her on and she turned left...the exact same direction I was headed by going straight. She stopped at every intersection. Never mind that she had the right-of-way and no stop signs. THEN! At the post office, a vehicle was backing out inch by inch. She swung out in the oncoming lane and stomped on her accelerator. The guy driving the other car did stop...but it seemed to have scared the pee-waddle outta him. He pulled back in until I got passed him...only for me to see her stop at the non-existent stop sign at that intersection. I slowly drove along while I watched to see if she actually stopped at the sign on the street she turned on. LOL She did...but I really did not expect her too. Poor darling.

Speaking of poor darlin's. A government agency rents an office from the Chamber. As you can imagine, due to privacy laws, her door remains closed 98% of the day. She asked me to come listen to a voice message...she could not understand it. I realized that the lady was crying. Every so often I could grasp a phrase. The poor lady is burning up. She can't even sleep at night. She didn't know how much more she could take. Our overnight temps are hovering near 80 now. Yesterday it was 104.4 at my house at 6 p.m. Poor darlin'. She's already been in and given her information and the paper work has been submitted...but 'it' just doesn't happen overnight. And around here, there's just really no place to go hibernate for a few hours while it's so hot. No mall to sit in. No matinee at the movie theatre. Made me want to invite her to my home. I suggested that she call her boss and play the message for her/him.

Jonathan got home just fine...without incident. Well...he had one incident. Between Diboll and Shepherd on Hwy 59 he passed a pickup and noticed a BMW motorcycle in the bed. He'd no sooner pulled back in his lane that the pickup sped up and pulled along side him. He looked over and the guy was saying something and motioning for Jonathan to pull over. Jonathan thought that they were going to talk about BMWs. Well. They did. The guy had burned the motor up in his bike, and it was old enough that he was taking it to sell for salvage. He noticed Jonathan's milk crate zip tied to his luggage rack with his backpack and stuff in it and a small cargo net stretched over the top. The guy said that he wouldn't get any more for his bike with or without the 'trunk.' They cut the zip ties off the milk crate and cut or took the bolts off the trunk mount. Placed the trunk on the luggage rack. Filled it with the stuff Jonathan had in the milk crate and set the milk crate on top of the trunk. Then they took the cargo net and stretched it over all to secure it. Jonathan was given a trunk with the keys. The BMW trunks run $480 - $920 depending on size. Jonathan's new trunk is an in-between size. He is tickled pink. Oh wait...he's a guy and probably doesn't get tickled pink. He is very, very happy.

I haven't posted a photo in like...forever! Here's one I copied that the local museum had. The lady said that they were told that the lady of the house kept flowers out all the time. This is one of those grand homes that no longer exists. This town has lost way too many old homes because of neglect.

Too Busy!

Had a great weekend! Jonathan rode up on his motorcycle, a BMW, and spent the weekend with us. He didn't have to go to work until tonight so left this morning. But he did stop by the office so that I could see him one more time. I gave him a neck cooler made with those water absorbing polymer crystals. A short while back he called and had stopped for fuel for the bike and himself. He said that he got the best gas mileage ever...46 mpg! And that it was so hot that he really couldn't tell if the neck cooler made him feel any cooler and it kinda got in his way when he turned his head. I told him to loosen it a bit.

He rides with a padded jacket. But it is denim and even though it has air vents, I bet it gets hot! I know that I purchased a mesh jacket (with padding - they call it soft body armor) for summer riding...which I haven't done any this summer. Shoot. I haven't been on a bike since June a year ago!

I received a cute e-mail this morning. I changed part of it to suit me...

Where I work, I can name my own salary. I named it, Sean.

;o)

Oh...slowly...and slower even more. I've lost about seven pounds. July 28 was my first full month. So I wrote a check for another month. I skipped the gym Saturday to wash linens for Jonathan's bed (we had company the week before and I hadn't laundered the sheets) and to do my weekly wash so that I could spend my time visiting with my son when he got here. Then I also skipped exercising after work yesterday because he was still here. Today though...I'll be going to the gym..

I'm Glad I'm a Texan Living in Texas

Just last week when I had the oil changed in my car, the young man who is a co-owner with his brother of the lube place that I use...he called me "Sugar." He is young enough to be my son. LOL Today I called the a tourism business about some up-to-date vacation guides. When I thanked him, he replied, "You're welcome 'hon'." And from his voice...he could've been the age of an early in life son. LOL

See! It's not just the southern (and Texan) women who say "Sugar," "Babe," "Honey," or "Hon." It's the men too! I love it!

As long as...I'm not in the office and some guy says, "How about getting us some coffee, Sugar." ...not a request... The reply then becomes, "Sure 'nuff, Darling." With a snide smile. There's places for it...and places NOT! IF I OFFER (or it's part of the job like setting up for a Board meeting), then I'll go get the coffee. Last place I worked was a large company, the son (future 3rd generation soon to be owner) was setting up for a meeting. This was a GOOD company to work for! He asked where the coffee thermoses were (those vacuum type with the pump). I was at a stopping place and told him that I would locate them, fill them, and deliver them to the meeting room. He said something like, "You don't have to do that." I replied, "I have time to do it." He thanked me and went on about his business while I brewed fresh coffee...

TTYL Darlin's. :o)

Ta-da!

About 6 pounds. In three weeks. I don't have a digital scale so have to guestimate.

This blog is getting plumb boring! No photos. No quilting. No sewing. No flowers. No gossip or information about anything. Just talk talk talk about exercising and slow weight loss. blech!!

I was watering my plants Friday. Had my back turned when I heard something. Turned around. One of the fern pots had slipped out of the plastic clippy-type holders and fell right smack dab on top of the mother-in-law's tongue/snakeplant/sansaveria. And broke several blades. Sigh. I keep the two pots on the floor of the porch directly under the two hanging ferns so that the water dripping out of the fern pots drip into the others. No more. Now the ferns are on the porch floor until I can get a better hanging pot.

I had an e-mail from Jonathan first thing yesterday morning. "Happy got hitched day." My heart went to my throat. I thought he'd run off and got married! To who?! Or whom?! About the third or fourth read-through...I finally got it. Sam and I celebrated our 13th anniversary yesterday. ;o) That was our first acknowledgement. MOF The ONLY acknowledgement from anyone else.

Love you Jonathan. But don't you EVER startle me like that AGAIN! Remember...THE Will?!