It is a gonna be a two coffee pod kinda day

This is Julien. Kid #1 calls him Bashir. Shout out if you get reference 

*236* <-----eating things I shouldnt it. Make it STAHP!

  It is 932am est and I have been up since 530ish am. We are in the midst of another Nor`easter here on the shore. They are saying we could get a foot of snow when it is all said and done. The snow was impressive earlier but no so much now. Unless we get some more banding going on, I think the thought of epic snowfall is a bust. We shall see.

   Again, I have missed too many weeks in a row and for that I am sorry. My past couple weeks have been very stressful. It always seems like shit storms comes in threes. I will break some of these things down, some I will not because I have to keep a little air of mystery about me. I will try to add a positive at the end of each thing because that is how I am trying to live my life. Except I have no postives to say about my computer life. First the iPad died. I cannot afford to replace it. Now I found out that this HP Stream that I bought for myself is a $200 piece of garbage. Windows 10 is too large for the gigs on this things so it has already out of memory (bought in January). I cannot update it at all. I cannot upgrade the memory because of the kind of memory it has. And you guessed it, I cannot afford to replace it. I still have the Chrome book as a back up when I can no longer use this one. No positives for this declaration at all. And we do not get refunds so a computer will not happen then. Oh well. Maybe the Apple Fairy will gift me. Probably not.

Can I get a discount card on Cat Litter?

  First up, you have probably seen the pictures of Julien on the IG feed. He has been Kid #2 and my secret this past month. This lady came into the office with her cat and the litter. The office was going to adopt one of the litter when they were ready because one of the vet cats passed away. All the girls (3 left) are very much older and they wanted to bring up a youngin while the girls were still around. Kid #2 asked me to come in and see the kittens cause they were so tiny. Julien is the runt. He had to be mine. We received him two weeks ago during the last storm. We also found out this week he contracted round worms from his mother (the whole litter did) but he had his first de-worming and he will be fine. He is a little spit fire. He leaps. He runs like the wind. Last week he weigh 1.86 lbs. He is too small to be so fearless but he is. It took about a week but everyone has adapted. I am now OFFICIALLY a crazy cat lady. I had no plan at all to get another cat. We had three. Dont need another. But it happened and we are happy. He is very lovey to everyone. He is black but he still has a bit of his fever coat. That will go away as the months go by.

 I am the IV queen

 Last week I had the upper endoscopy. Nothing impressive. No ulcers. I still have gastritis, esophagitis, and he noted my hiatal hernia. Biopsies were taken. I have not heard anything back so that tells me that all is well with that. But, the hernia is probably the reason I am having trouble swallowing. It can get it the point where it pushes up a little higher in your chest and can make you have difficulties. I am supposed to take care of my Acid reflux but I cannot take PPIs because of the Cdiff.  I will just deal with what I have gut wise. If the hernia ever gets too bad, I will have the surgery. But as for now, no no no.
  Yesterday, I had my Mammo and my boob MRI with contrast. That all went well too. Of course they cannot tell me anything. I have an appointment with the boob surgeon next week. Lets hope I hear NOTHING before that appointment. I want no phone calls about the scans. All is well and they found nothing.

 When one door closes, Another one opens

We found out that hubby`s last cleaning job was given to some other company. Nothing do with him or his performance. Just company restructuring. That left us with alot of money a month out of our budget. I lost it. Completely lost it. I remember my friend (and mechanic) said he had someone that had a cleaning company. Long story short, we will be making approximately 2/3rds back. Still money missing but not catastrophic. We can work with that and hopefully there will be more to come.
The paid internship fell through. They could not work around the rules of paying me so that fell apart. I had decided that I would never get my hopes up for a job again. Now I have a chance at maybe another paid internship with our local cable company. That is actually the first job I applied for and had not done so well on the phone interview. Not bad. Just inexperienced at it. Now I know how to do all that. The company actually does participate in internships so we shall see. They need workers. I need a job! Wish my ass luck cause I am really tired of applying for stuff.

Girl, you need to stop

Because of a bunch of stressful stuff, I have not been eating right. Bread. Noodles. Rice. Potato. Junk. Pizza! You name it, it is going down. I have to really do it now. My doctor is gonna raise my insulin at my appt in May. Now it is the middle of March and I have not lost a significant amount. I have a plan. I am going to slowly slack off from now until Saturday. Saturday I will be taking my first Methotrexate shot..did I tell you about this? let me look....I guess I havent. The rhemy changed my methotrexate from a pill to a shot so it does not effect my gut like the pill did. I had to wait till this cold was all over before I can take the first shot. So, Saturday will be the first shot and the first day back on LCHF fully. All the junk in the house will be gone/ I will have set myself up with good for me snacks and I will be ready to go. I have to lose at least 10 more pounds by the beginning of May. I will do this. I need to do this! As i eat a slice of leftover pizza for breakfast/lunch.
Crap! 49 days until May 1, 2018!

Housework sucks

  Since I am *snowbound* today, I am going to get some cleaning done. I have to change the hose on the sump pump (it sprung a few leaks). I have to water all the plants. I will do the plants after I finish up on here. They are priority. I have a few that cannot wait for Spring so that I can repot them. When you have a boisterous kitten, you realize how dusty your house is. Pulling stuff out and vacuum underneath is going to happen in the livingroom today. Has to be done. I will polish all the furniture in the there and I will be good till next week. Okay. I ate one small slice of pizza. I think I am going to throw the other two away. Not gonna eat them. Going...going...gone. I tossed it in the trash and smushed it in the trash. Not that I would ever ever never eat that now but I felt it needed that extra Fuck you for being there so that I would eat it.


Okay...it is really time for me to do some stuff. I hope all is well with you. Stay out of the snow if you can help it. And I will be back next week.

March Bleezard 2017

Picture courtesy of Southern Connecticut Weather on FB

*22-something* <---I have been eating better but I haven't weighed so I have no idea

    Fucking Blizzard! Are you kidding me? I am not in the mood for 18 inches of anything right now. Because of there we are on the map, we will get dumped on. Like 20 inches locally they are saying. Not in the Mood, I tell ya. We did find some rock salt at the last place we called. We have a bucket on the porch that is always full. It is down to the dregs and that would have not been enough to satisfy me for this storm. We have food and flash lights and kerosene just in case. I am going to go to the store super early so that I can pick up foods for cooking. We are going to do a roasted butternut squash soup. Part in the oven, the other half in the crockpot. We will roast a big chicken with potatoes and carrots. Also mashed cauliflower. I will pick up some raw veggies and dip and we need a couple boxes of tea for when it is blowing cold and we want to sip while we look out the window.

   Of course the new furnace is acting up just before a storm. We have four zones. The zone to the first floor is not clicking on. We do have the basement zone though so the heat can rise up to warm us up. It just sucks. I texted the furnace dude to see if he can come around tomorrow before the storm, if he is available. It is much warmer up here now. i went down there, turned up the heat, pulled stuff away from the registers, and did some laundry while I waited. I came upstairs after about 15 minutes and it is not as cold as it was. I was wondering why it was so fucking cold when the heat was on, the furnace was kicking on, and we have oil. It seems we have more trouble with the new furnace then we do when we had the 30 yr old one. Isnt that always the way?

 Our new fridge came on Friday. We did have some snow earlier in the day but it never stuck to the pavement so the drivers were able to bring her. She is a Frigidaire Gallery Stainless Steel baby. We went with a local appliance place so we did not pay as much as Home Depot was charging. She is beautiful and she purrs like a kitten, sort of.  They took away the old one and I am happy. The old one did us justice but she was freezing stuff in the fridge. I had tried to fix that by unplugging the fridge to see if a line had frozen. It would work for a little while but then it would freeze up again. It was time. We have the money to buy it so I just pulled the plug. Surprisingly, the floor underneath was not that horrid. Lots of bottle caps from the cat but it didn't make me want to run screaming from the room.

  My stretches and not using more then one pillow has helped alot with my arm falling asleep and hurting. I am not saying it is 100% cause that would just jinx it but it feels damn close. Getting rid of the high pillow for a flatter one has helped the Hubs too. If you suffer from neck pain, think about going to just one flat pillow. You will be surprised at how you feel. I also have to say that I am liking the new electric toothbrush. It is making my teeth nice and sparkly. I have to also keep my blood sugars down more. I am eating less crap but I have not cut out completely. It is like I lose my mind when I am hungry. I really need to just eat more fat. Eat more fat. Eat more fat! EAT MORE FAT! Ugh. I think the stresses of life are part of the reason I cannot fully commit to LCHF at this time. But I have to do it. I have to. I dont want to lose my teeth. I do not want to lose my eyesight. I just have to be stronger. It sounds insane and unhealthy to some but I have to really analyze every mouthful for awhile. If I do not eat enough fat, I will fall off the wagon. I will hard boil some eggs and fat bombs tomorrow.

  Otherwise my health is good. I feel okay. I am moving along in my life. I have been walking more. I can do a mile in 25 minutes. As it gets warmer, we will want to add on and do two miles. I will map it out online. If you have not seen it before, I have used Walk Jog Run for that. You can map out walks in your town and know how far it is. They even do stuff like the grade of the walk as to how many calories you are burning. It is pretty cool. The mile was easy. Two miles will be a little harder. We shall see how far we can get by the Fall. I want to go slow so I dont kill my feet. I need to buy some inserts for my sneakers too. Just to be on the safe side. I am really trying to get myself into better shape so that I can live a bit longer on this Earth. Plus I get to spend time with the kid and she gets healthy too.

  That is about it. I have no gardening stuff to talk about because of the snow. I am doing more decluttering but nothing amazing. A book here or there. A knic knac or two. They all go to donations and hopefully happy homes. I am done with the clutter. I dont want my family to have to figure out how to get rid of all my shit. So I will do it for them. It is my gift to them. Hopefully I will have more garden and plant talk next Sunday or Monday.  Have a great week and if you are gonna have some snow, I hope you are safe!

Cheeto Cravings

*228* <---I weighed this past weekend. I still have some weight to go.

  I ate a half a bag of Cheetos. I had a stress filled day of doing stuff and I caved. But I dont feel badly. I only ate half. I could have devoured the entire bag. Oh. I ate a donut too.
 This is going to be a short post because it is 815pm, I have to change my clothes, wash up, and go to bed early. I have a 8am dentist appt cleaning. I HATE getting my tartar scraped. It is right up there with migraines. Dont like it. Dont want it. But I will do it. We have insurance until the end of April. We are cramming in all we can before it is gone and we have to go on State (until one of us gets a job with benefits).

  We ran around today and got stuff done. Made appointments for all at the dentist, Kid #2 for the eye doctor and primary. Drove hither and yon to get it all done. Dropped the nissan off at the mechanic to have her worked over. She needs all four of her shocks replaced. She is also going to get two new tires. We are getting stuff done that has to be done so that we do not have to worry about it.

  I have been paying all the bills down to 0. I have not had a 0 balance on anything in years. It feels good. It feels adult. Look at Me! I am adulting. It takes a tragedy of job loss to get me to do the right thing. LMAO Not really . We just have the cash on hand to get all these things accomplished. We are going to have all the plugs replaced this week on the 1st floor and I am going to start painting the living room. I promised myself, I would not pick a color for the kitchen until the livingroom is done. It has to be done. It has waited to fucking long. I did the trim before the winter so now it is time to paint the walls. I have been doing alot of decluttering. Every week, I pick a few things and donate them or toss them. Some things do not deserve to have another owner. It feels good to purge. And I have been good to not add to the herd.

   It is cold. It is cold. It might snow on Sunday (BOO!) and I am dry and itchy. Other then the complaint side of that and the bloat from the Cheetos, I am doing ok. I know I said I am sticking to the LCHF and for the most part I kind of am.  I do not want to gain weight. I am bargaining with myself. I think I need to send out my intentions to my higher power to help me be stronger when it comes to my food choices. Junk is the enemy. I have to stop. I feel good when I eat whole foods. I dont want to feel like garbage. But I keep falling back into it when I have a stressful day, like today. Or I have others trying to influence me. I should not completely blame them for my choices because again....I am an adult. But you all know what I mean. I need to be stronger!

  I have not heard from the job for an interview but that is because the hiring person was on vacation last week. I have faith that I will hear something. If I do not hear from them, I will look for something else that is comparable. But I have a good feeling. I feel like I could get an real life in person interview. We shall see.

Okay. yeah. I am bloated from the Cheetos. I need to go stretch out and bitch at myself for my poor choices. At least my dinner was compliant. Baked chicken, steamed broccoli with cheese, and a big salad.

Gonna go now. If anything fun happens this week, I will add an extra posting.

Keep warm!

24 years of wedded bliss

*222* <--stuck there for a couple weeks

 **I have had a issue with the app for Instagram on here. I have tried to figure out how to get it back on but it hasn't worked. I will not give up but just not in the mood to fiddle with that shit right now**

   Today is our 24th wedding anniversary. I have sauce cooking while Italian sausages are braising in it. There are two small spaghetti squashes roasting in the oven. Those are for hubby and I. The girls will eat spaghetti. I have not made sauce in awhile and I was in the mood. Wedding anniversary is just as good a time as any.

    I am on the new laptop. It is actually a Samsung Chromebook. It is much smaller then what I had before so it has taken me a few days to get used to it. Do you know I still act like I dont have a letter N sometimes? Look at that capital N. Isnt she the sweetest thing you ever did see? I have transferred over all of my bookmarks and photos that I wanted to save. The clunker is sitting on the table, awaiting it`s fate. I have to figure out how to pry it open to get pull out all the pieces. There is alot of information on that hunk of junk that I do not want anyone getting ahold of. All and all, it is a really nice little computer. It gives me what I need and I have not sworn at it once. It took less then 2 minutes to set it up. That is crazy. Remember when you would get a new computer and it would take a solid hour to get it set up? That included getting the internet working. Times sure have changed.

 We did get some snow for Saturday into Sunday. I would say it was about 6-7" max. It was a very light fluffy snow so it was easy to shovel. I drove around in it the next day in the Jeepo without much trouble at all. The city sanded the hill so I have no worries at this point. It will jack up to the 50s later this week and we might get another storm on Saturday. Hopefully it is just rain. Only two months and 11 days until the first day of Spring, so says Alexa. I ordered a couple blueberry bushes through our community garden. I am HOPING to have garden beds in front of the house this year. HOPE HOPE HOPE!

      Yes, I did shovel. It is weird how my back and sciatica have been. Just really weird. I could feel like I am losing my grips with my lower half of my body and sometimes my arms and hands at the same time. Then it is like all is right with the world. I cannot explain it. I do still have lower back pain. Right now most of my pain is really low like my tailbone. But there has been no sciatica in either leg. No spasms. No awful electric shocks. Not a damn thing. I am not dumb. I know it hasnt gone away. It is still there, waiting to make me suffer once again. But for some reason, I get these *arthritic* reprieves. I guess I could dig into the internet and try to figure it out if I really wanted to.  I see the local neurosurgeon at the end of this month so I hope to get some answers.

Beef bone broth

I made this over the weekend during the snow too. My first batch of bone broth. I am so Martha Stewart right about now. This is the recipe for it.  I used bone marrow bones only this time around. I think the next time I do it, I will use marrow and oxtail bones. You can do this with pork bones, chicken bones, and fish bones too. You just roast whatever, eat the meat, and use the bones to simmer for hours and hours with veggies and such. This made it to the 12 hour mark. Somebody turned it off in the night so I did not get to do the full 24 hours. I told them the next time not to touch the heat. It tastes really really good. Now, it is not salted. It is bland as fuck but that is what broth/stock is supposed to be. This is something to use for making soups or just drinking a hot cup (with a bit of salt added). I put them in the freezer. I have to get over my fear of the pressure cooker. I could totally can these so that they can go in the cabinet. I will do some major research before I do it. I cannot believe I have never done this before.

  Okay, I just whizzed this post thru in no time. That is what happens when you have a proper keyboard. You do not feel like murdering your Dell cause it keeps deleting your thoughts. I have to go now anyhoo. Kid #2 will be done with work soon. I have to go out in the dark cold night to fight her. Then I will come home to try on my first pair of Lularoe leggings. Yes, I fell into the LuLa hole. These are what I got. Arent they sweet?
Have a great week! Try to make a snow angel if you get a chance!

 

Snow Bound-ish

*225* <---I thoroughly admit I ate stuff. Back on the wagon!

    I hate this computer. I really fucking hate this old ass Dell laptop. It deleted 1 and 1/2 paragraphs. Poof! Those thoughts are just gone. I wish I had a rich aunty so that I could have a fresh new Mac sitting in front of me. A huge ass desktop. It is like I am talking about it so that maybe Santa is real and will bring it to me. I will die holding my breath!


  Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you. I am posting on a Saturday. It is snowing at a steady clip out there so we are in the house this morning. It will start to warm up (60s tomorrow..What!) and rain and melt. So we are gonna do our Saturday stuff tomorrow. I figured I am sitting here drinking my coffee, I could get this week`s blog post up. I am on my first cup so we shall see how coherant I actually am.

  I blame the weight gain on December and I had a coat on when I weighed myself. I have a local friend that eats Keto too and we had a good discussion about it. You eat healthy for all your meals and all day every day. But if something crosses your path like say a home made chocolate chip cookie..you eat it. Most keto people would blast me for that but that is their path and I have mine. If i do not relax about my food, this way of eating will become a issue for me. Hubs and I eat LCHF for all of our meals but since it is almost Christmas, if we are offered a small little something or I have to taste test a bon bon again and again and again, that is okay. For us. On another note, I can feel my collarbones. Yay!

  I have talked about Christmas dinner on here before but I have to type it out so I can look at it. I am getting no help with decision making. This is like a list that I can stare at and add to. I already have the ham. Yesterday I picked up a shrimp ring and that is in the freezer. We talked about doing brie cheese with crackers. This may or may not be wrapped in filo dough.  I also will do a small veggie platter with bodacious onion dip. I want a small batch of my pasta sauce with sausages braising in it. Mashed potatoes and mashed cauliflower of course. I am gonna probably do garlic green beans. We all want a repeat of the roasted bacon and brussel sprouts. ummmm. There was talk of a small veggie lasagna but that is too much work. Maybe for the new year. That is four sides. I will only eat like two of them cause I dislike green beans. I need to figure out another veggie side. 

  Of course, because of the work that we had done on the Jeep, money is tight this month. TIGHT! I have to wait till Friday December 23rd to go shopping for our dinner. Yup. And that is the same day that I go to Providence for my follow up with the transplant gastro. The train leaves at like 536am. I get into Providence at 7am. My appointment is at 830 am. It is just a follow up so that could be a half hour or so. I take a Uber back to the train station. The mall is right across the street. My train doesn't leave until noon so I will see if I can find a gift or three. Home by 1pm. Then I have to go to the grocery store and the pharmacy. I will be okay. I will have a list! I have shopped during worse times. I do hate too many people all in one place though so I may need an extra Ativan later.


  Oh yeah, the appt with the gut doctor. First off, his scales are off by like 8lbs and I love that. I weighed 215 at his office on Monday. I know they are wrong but it boosts your ego a little bit. So, he says that we have to wait for the cdiff to be gone before we can see if I have MC. When you are infected, a biopsy cannot tell you if it is UC, MC, or colitis from the cdiff. He showed me the results from a biopsy before that he gave me, before cdiff, and the MC was negative. It doesn't mean it isn't positive now but I have to wait for a clean biopsy. So probably sometime in January, we will do a colonoscopy and upper endo to check to see how everything is. I do feel like mega shit with foods. It could be colitis or it could be the healing process. I will have to just be patient.

 This Monday, I go to the spine center. I know that I will have to do another MRI but on my upper spine and neck. If whatever I have wrong is not immediately dangerous, I want to do PT, anti inflammatories, walking, and swimming if I can find a place that is close. That is all I will say on this for now cause I have no clues as of yet. 

  I miss Lu but it is getting better. It was hard this morning cause she was my little snow bunny. Perl wont go out. Ruby will just go out on the edges by the house to do her business. Lu would go right out in it, walk around, poop and pee, and come back looking like a dirty snow ball. I don't want another dog to replace her. I am leaning towards a kitten but not now. It will be a long while before that happens. But I would like another black cat. We haven't had one in 5-6 years. It is time. 

Coffee is cold, dishes are dirty, and I have said enough this morning. I hope you have a great Saturday. Get your shopping done!

Oliver looking at the storm