Hot steamy days and Cool Autumn nights

*259* <---that is right. Not a typo!

    A warm September Sunday brewing. Not sweating but it could happen.  I do not care because the air conditioner is going out of the window. I want fresh are to blow through until I have to close up shop for the winter. We are getting a new to us couch to replace the disgusting dog love seat. Ruby killed it through her puppyhood and now it is a sad stinking mess. It is going out on the back patio with the AC. We will be doing a dump run probably sometime in October. Someone we know has to leave their apartment because they cannot afford it so they are giving us their couch. It is not spectacular but it is good enough until we have the floor done and replace it. If it has good springs in it, we will keep it for the basement man cave.
  I am in a good mood today. I am going to re-arrange the living room to accommodate the new couch. I have plans on Friday to buy the paint for said living room with all the crap you need to paint. Need to get it done. Floors in October hopefully. The living room is going to be a slate colored grey and the kitchen and dining room are going to be like a peacock blue. Something really out there. I like bold colors with white trim.
   The journey of health is doing well. I have lost a total of 15 lbs in a month. I had a couple slip ups. I learned my lesson though. I have purified my gastrointestinals to the point that if I eat certain things, I will be spending the better half of the day on the crapper. Blue cheese dressing is one of those things. Basically I have deemed all commercial salad dressings off limits to me. I will stick with my red wine vinegar and sometimes a small bit of olive oil. I had a pumpkin iced coffee and asked for one pump of the syrup, no sweetener, and two creams. There was way more than one pump. I had to take a shot of insulin when I came home. I still have not eaten any junk food or take out food at all. I have tested the waters (and failed) with some things that would be deemed ok with me. I tried those small corn tortillas to have tacos with..FAIL. I tried a low carb pita thing made especially for low carb eaters...FAIL. I tried brown rice...you guessed it. I am thinking I will have to wait until I have lost a significant amount of weight before I can introduce low carb options when it comes to rice, bread, and pasta. Maybe after I lose 100lbs.
  I will have the cash next week to buy sneakers and sign up for the gym. Once I introduce regular exercise into the mix, the pounds will drop the fuck off. 15 lbs in a  month with no real exercise but just moving around more. Imagine what that will be with an hour of formal exercise a day at the gym plus the stuff I do around here.
It will be so amazing..I hope.

  I need to wrap this up. I have some cleaning to do before the new couch arrives. You have a great Sunday!
 

Coffee Day and a Fruitful weekend

Remember the coffee grinders at the check out stands?

*261*

  I am off the diuretic. Thursday night was it for me. I am laying in bed, watching tv, and my heart starts racing for no reason. It stopped thankfully. I did not take the pill yesterday and I called the Dr office. They told me to stop taking it too. I felt so much better yesterday. I mean, I still feel like donkey shit but not big heaping piles of it that I have to dig out of. Big difference. So I will find out what is what at my appt next month.  I need to keep on the trend of not eating as much as I was before. I was eating my meals but no snacks. Plus, I have been eating less because there are other people to feed in the house.
  I made a nice big pot of coffee this morning and drank two cups in honor of National Coffee Day. This should be a solemn occasion with parades and fan fare. But spending it at home with my favorite mug is good enough.
  This weekend is the last of September and I am going to enjoy my time of not feeling shitty. I am up to my armpits in family packs of chicken. Chicken legs were 77c a lb and whole breasts were $1.49 a lb. Now, I hate chicken legs with a white hot passion but at 77c a lb, I cannot ignore. Hubby wants me to make Chicken Cacciatore for him and his friend for Sunday football watching. I went out and got an extra pack of legs for them so they can eat like kings. I never liked it growing up as a kid. I am pretty sure it tasted amazing but I do not like dark meat chicken. But I will learn to deal with it because it is cheap and cheap is good!
 A friend of ours helped us out with some stuff around here and part of his payment besides cash was I am going to make him some jam. He wanted habenero jelly but I am not burning my eyeballs off for that! So I compromised and I am making Strawberry Jalapeno jam. It is basically the same recipe for standard strawberry jam but you are adding a cup of processed jalapenos in there.
And I will attempt the Rosedale. Busy weekend ahead for me but I sit here on my ass. Oh well.

Okay..I am going to do the chicken now...Going.....Going.....Going.....Poof!

I can smell it!

*264* <---Yuppers!

   It smells like Autumn! (i have the air conditioner on though)
    I am not one that considers today or this weekend the end of summer. If it is September and 80 degrees out, I am going to go swimming. We are hoping we can go this evening and get our swim on. It is going to be gorgeous all weekend long. It is the end of the summer lobster boy too. There is this cute kid (in his 20s) that sells lobsters, clams, and fish near the docks here in our city. Only on Thursdays and Fridays. I went there once in July and the lobsters were meaty, tasty, and very reasonably priced. Around here you can get them for like $5 a pound. So I decided yesterday that I was going to go. Good thing I did. He is going back to school. This weekend is the last one till next summer. See...end of summer! So I bought 3. I dispatched them last night and today I am going to make lobstah salad to go on rolls. Now, you may be thinking I just ranted about money. Yes, I did. But paying $20 for three little lobsters twice in the summer is not going to kill us. Plus, I was able to procure 4 very large whole chicken roasters for $3 a piece (this is the meat surge I was telling you about). I got hamburger, london broil, boneless chicken, local kielbasa, and the fryers for cheap cheap cheap! I only spent $30 over what I usually spend a week.
    I like to have an over abundance of food when I have extra cash because I feel safe. I found out today that labels me as a Prepper. There is actually a movement of people that are prepping because they fear there may come a time where we as the human race may have to fend for ourselves. I have been slowly catching on to this. There is a site I saw on Blogger called Prepper.org. I have not jumped completely into the site with two fists yet but I will. It is alot of information on how to prepare foods, how to survive without electricity, and etc. There are lots of sites out there like this one.  Homestead Survival is another one I like to read from time to time. I am not all into the paramilitary stuff that pops up but hubs and i have considered maybe possibly taking some classes, learning how to shoot, and buying a gun. But that is just flippant talk right now. We do not have any extra money to procure any weaponry. Take a look. The second site has some great ideas on how to repurpose things and lots of cool recipes.
  I have known about the drought and the food prices for some time. I went to the bread store yesterday and I do not know how the conversation turned to it but these four women had NO clue the reason why meat was so cheap all of a sudden. I told them and they all thanked me profusely. Yes, the bread store. All of them had closed down for quite a few years. Around the late 90s to 2000s. I grew up going with my Mom to the bread store. I know how much of a savings it is. Then last year, the Wonder bread store opened back up. It is about a 15 minute out of the way drive but I can buy all the bread for the month and they have this specialty soda we like on the cheap (Polar) and I put the bounty in the deep freezer. That bitch is packed full right now. FULL! It has not been that full in a long time. I need to actually take some time this weekend and go through it and organize it better.
    What else...Oh, the kid starts school on Tuesday. Hopefully if she applies herself like she says and the counselor told her too, she will have her diploma in June. There is too many loose ends from last year that she cannot finish in December. She was disappointed but she now knows she has to just finish so she can move on with her life. I am proud of her.  The other kid has got another job. She has two part times and she is working with kids in a program that pays her a stipend that is coming from fundraising. Still not enough to actually live out in the real world but she is taking those steps.

 That is about it. I have the lobsters to crack open and make the salad, laundry, and I am going to pick a room to clean. This week I have to clean the entire house, one room at a time with the help of Natalie. Then on Thursday we will steam clean all the carpets and the livingroom rug. All of this while I feel like donkey shit. I am taking care of that though. On Friday I go to the ENT. Hopefully he will give me something to combat the dizziness. I fear the Meneire`s is in my other ear. If it is, I will take that as it comes. But we will go to New Haven, appointment, pick up the kid`s friend, bakery, and home. When we bring him back to New Haven on Sunday for the train..we will go to Ikea (the only one in the state!) I need some more utensil hooks.

I hope you have a great and safe Labor day holiday and if you do not celebrate it, hope you have a great weekend.

Ahhh! September!

*266*

 Ahhhh Choo! My allergies are kicking up again. Fall is coming. I can tell. I will be okay. Once all the leaves are bagged and stashed up in the top yard, I will be right as rain.

Natalie signed up for school on Monday. She starts on September 4, the day after Labor Day. She is going to school in the mornings, not early, so that she can finish quicker then when she was taking them at  night. She just wants to get it done. Her guidance counselor told her that is she stayed the course and got alot done this first semester (Sept-Dec), she could finish by June of next year. So this year and she will be done. YES!

   For some strange reason, I have had some bursts of energy this past week. And it is not knocking me down like it usually does. I wonder if it has to do with my hormones or that my sugars are in balance more now then ever. Or a combo of things. I have been nesting dammit. I haven't been like this since I was a younger Mom. My house was never perfection but I always made sure the living room, kitchen, and the bathrooms were clean for sanitary reasons and when people came over. Always. Plants were always watered, kitchen was basically clean. Now the bedrooms could be another story but you can close the door. Now, I have not moved into my former self and I would NEVER say I was in remission cause that would be a big letdown if I wasn't...I am just enjoying the *manic* of the moment and know that it will not last long.
 Both of the girl`s have man friends and one of them is going to be coming to the house in the second week of September. I am not saying who cause that is her business right now. But yeah, so every day I have been doing something around here. Deep fucking cleaning. My house is no where near perfection and until I get the subfloors replaced and new flooring, it will always smell like dog (it has since we moved it, worse now). So that embarrasses me. But I digress. The dude is coming. Nothing I can do about that.

  I have been having issues with my Meniere`s Disease lately. I was diagnosed about 6 years ago. It has always been on the mild side but not anymore. It has slowly been creepying up on me the last 6 months or so. I have done really well for years in controlling it but watching my salt intake. I would have like one attack a year, if that. Now I am dizzy alot. I do not have true vertigo, thank goodness! But the ENT warned me that it would get more intense.
 The kicker for me was I was sitting here at the computer, I heard a loud noise outside, and it triggered me to feel like I was moving when I wasn't. It was a weird feeling that I cannot describe. I stood up and for a second I thought maybe we were having an earthquake (they happen here) but I looked out the side window and saw my neighbor. He was pulling metal patio furniture across the cement patio (scraping). That was the noise and that triggered my *attack*. I had not felt well for days and I thought I was getting sick with a cold or something. I even puked.  I just couldn't shake it off. Then this happened. Afterward, I realized it was a MD attack and I rested and I felt better after a couple hours. You can read all about Meniere`s Disease<----here. So I have an appointment with my ENT in New Haven on the 7th. We will make a bit of a day. Go to Dr, go to Ikea, go to lunch, and the bakery, and Oh..Pick up the man friend from the train!

  I have another bit of news. I knew about this back in May but I did not know for sure until this week. I am going to try to  go back to work. Sometime this week I need to go over to Social Security and inform them that I want to try their program. You can be on disability and go back to work. I discussed it with my boss and I think I can reasonably work 3 hours a day Monday-Thursday. I do not want to over do it. This is me putting a baby toe in the pond of the workforce to see if I can do a small, non stressful part time job. It is a small shop, I will be answering his phones, and doing some work in the shop (prepping stuff). When there is down time, he is going to teach me how to play guitar. I already brought ours over there. He is going to string it and tune it and I will be all set. It is part of my employment. LOL I always wanted to learn, so I am taking the chance. 
 It took awhile to transpire because the city that the shop was in was making him and his partner jump through hoops to open. They finally got the signage okay on Monday. He has to get some work in to build up the money for the business (he is popular around the area with what he does) and I can start work mid-end of September.
I am uber psyched. He knows I am on disability and he told me the job is not stressful on your mind, body or soul. Since I do not need more hours or insurance, that saves them.  I will be able to make enough to replace the money that was lost when Natalie turned 18, and if I only work so many hours, I can collect and work indefinitely. If I find that I could work way more, and make way more, then I will and we will see what happens to SS. I am not going to go down that road right now. If you or someone you know is on Social Security Disability and is thinking they want to go back to work, there are tons of different publications online that will point you in the right direction.


  I am going to a BBQ with old high school friends on the 1st. There will be Mojitos. I just need to make sure that I keep an eye on my carb load, my alcohol consumption and my sugars. I will be a good dooby. My friend does not live in the same town so I will have a bit of a drive home if I start feeling shitty. Oh and do not worry about me. I never drink and drive. Ever. I am a huge stickler about that shit.
The only other thing that I can think of about next month is Sept 1st the Cider Mill opens. And you all know how I love me some apple cider, pumpkin bread, and cider donuts. Oh and they make cider slushies too. Sooooo Gooood!


That is all that is fit to print. Lots of activity around here. I want this house to be as clean as it can for this strange man child that is coming to court our daughter. Fred is ready to scare the shit out of him with his mean face. He has already scared off one dude. One did not like at all!


Now where is my Magic Eraser???

September is here!

*269*<---Dr office says 277 <sad face>

I see Blogger has a new interface. I have not decided if I like it yet. Give it time to grow on me. We have not went to the gym because I have been tired and busy with storm clean up. I am in the middle of cleaning the bathroom behind me. The tub is luxuriating in a lather of Ajax. I figured I would pop on here and let you all know what has been going on. I have just been busy. I am not ignoring the blog.
 I had some female trouble that I needed looked at this week. All is good. Nothing to worry about. Just some cyst issues that I had never had before. It can happen to women in their 40s. *sigh of relief*. I had my physical with my GP the week before. I told him how I have been extremely tired lately, coughing, and intermittent chest pain. He listened to my chest, took some blood work, raised my insulin, and gave me a tetanus shot and sent me on my way. I guess he does not think it is anything. I think that I have to be dragged out of bed at noon when I went to bed at 11pm is kinda not Heidi..but oh well.
  We went to the cider mill in Mystic this afternoon. First batch of cider and donuts of the season. I will go back many many times before they close at Christmas. I have been drinking cider from B.F. Clyde`s Cider Mill since I cannot remember...like very young. My advice to you is this: Do not go on the weekends!!! If you want to go for the whole kit and kaboodle touristy bullshit, go in October on a Saturday. You will get to go into the mill and learn how apple cider is pressed. It is very interesting and kids love that shit. Then you can go to the store and spend money on sweet cider, hard cider, wines, canned goods, baked goods, donuts, etc etc etc. If you do not want to deal with the bullshit, just come during the week and go in the store and get your goodies. I wait for this time of year, every year. I took the Jeepo to the car wash ($18 to watch it go thru and then the guys cleaned and dried it) and then went to the cider mill, drank my Cider slushy, and then we went to a diner in Mystic for lunch. Now I sit here...taking a break from cleaning the bathroom. Not even the bathroom I use!
 I sure as hell is talking huh?
Milo is getting big. I need to call up the Team spay/neuter van to find out when they are going to be in my area this month. I want him fixed before the winter.
 Okay, this ginger cat is climbing and purring all over me now. I need to get back to my wifely duties.
Oh yeah, speaking of that..life sucks. Fred has been working overtime at hospital cause he is covering for the woman on days (she was in car accident), then on his days off, he works at the shop for 8 hours or more. Then when he gets off work at hospital at 11pm, he goes to the shop for another 2 hours. So I see him a grand total of NEVER. 5 minutes here and there. Then he gets a new phone and switches back to Virgin Mobile. Guess what? He cannot get any bars in his area of the hospital like he did with his Gophone. So now I cant even text him anymore. So I do not see him basically at all. And anybody that wants to pipe up about I am lucky he is working..I do not want to hear that. Okay? I have been with this man for 25 years and when I have not seen him longer then 5 minutes at a time for 2 weeks, that is a problem.
Okay..now I am done.
Back to bathroom duties!