10 March 2010

Spiffy, eh?

Nice and bright and shiny and very red.

Normally, I love getting spiffy, bright, shiny, very red things. They appeal to my inner 8 year old.

What doesn't appeal to my inner 8 year old is having to get a new washer because the old one decided to die a miserable death mid-load. I don't think appealed to the Spouse Thingy's inner anything to have to get his soaking wet, half washed clothes out of the washer and take them to Dixon's only laundromat to rewash them. Me, I stayed home... Hey, they weren't my clothes. And I was busy. Doing...something. I forget what. But it must have been important.

So yesterday, instead of driving back to Tahoe to give skiing another try, we went appliance shopping. Yes, I made him go with me, you can imagine the sheer joy he felt in having to go multiple places, finding the right one, waiting while the sales clerk started the paperwork, then finding out it might be weeks before it came in. I'm sure he was ecstatic having to go yet another place to find something similar.

But hey, it was about a hundred bucks less, so he had that going for him.

Now if only the tax refund would show up to pay for the whole thing...

5 March 2010

Something we learned on our little snow adventure: South Lake Tahoe apparently closes at 2 pm on Mondays. The first hint of this came when we discovered that the restaurant next to the the hotel had a "closed Mondays and Tuesdays at 2 pm" sign on the door.

Not a problem; I whipped out my iPhone and used Yelp to find reviews on nearby places to eat. Less than a mile down the road was a place that sounded promising, so we headed out, and along the way it seemed that there were quite a few darkened storefronts.

And then the restaurant we'd driven to was closed.

Just wonderful.

In the same parking lot was a KFC, and it was open, so we parked in front of it and went in, reasoning that one fast food meal wouldn't hurt. Well, we hoped it wouldn't, but I brought plenty of Immodium, so it wouldn't hurt too much.

Then on the drive home the next day, both so hungry we considered peeling pleather off the dashboard and munching on it like beef jerky, we stopped at an In-N-Out.

And later that night...well, the pizza was a deliberate choice. And it was freaking good.

My diet this week was fairly craptacular, so I wasn't surprised when I got on the scale and was up a pound.

Hell, I was grateful it was only a pound.

The only downside is that now I'm 2 pounds from hitting 50 lost. I'm not moping about gaining it; I knew when I was shoving crap into my mouth that I was likely going to gain a little this week, and I was fine with that. I'm trying to lose weight, yes, but I'm not trying to "diet" so much as I'm trying to change overall how I eat, and once in a while a person caves to the lure of the junk.

And that's ok.

But now it's back to eating sensibly, because I don't want to find myself feeling like the crap I'm eating, and I really want to hit 50, and then move on to hitting my final goal.

Hey, when I get there, I might even admit what weight I started at.

Trust me, you'll be appalled...

2 March 2010

Don't we look spiffy? Almost like we're standing there, knowing exactly what we're about to do, and thinking we have it freaking nailed.

It didn't work out quite that way.

I mean, it started well. I snapped my boot into the ski binding like I'd done it a thousand times, but then it all went downhill from there.

Or more accurately, it didn't go downhill.

I had issues from the start. First, I am so damned out of shape that just getting up the tiny hill was hard work and I had a hard time catching my breath. Then while everyone else was doing that wedge down the little hill, I was stuck. One ski wanted to move, the other was plastered to the snow. So I fell. First person of the day to go down like a sack of potatoes. It wasn't embarrassing, just frustrating.

So because everyone else had wedged their way down the tiny hill successfully, we were pointed toward the lift chairs.

You know, the chairs that take you up a freaking mountain.

Getting on the chair was a snap. Getting off, not so much. Almost everyone got off that lift and fell flat on their asses. Since it was the lift to the top of the bunny slope, the attendant at the top was prepared, practically ripped skis off left and right and moved them out of the way, so that we could easily scramble, lest we trip up the more experienced skiers.

And then my day got worse.

My right ski, it wanted to slide. My left ski refused to budge. We were supposed to wedge our way across the hill, but the snow was sticking to the bottom of that left ski, and I was going nowhere fast. Well, other than the right side of my body, which wanted to take off.

I finally took the skis off, wiped all the snow off the bottom, and got back on, but by then the damage was done. I'd had a little too much time of my right side moving and my left side not, which does not favor old knees.

Forty minutes in, I was done, lest I rip my knee to shreds. I took my skis off and walked down the rest of the way.

You know how hard it is to walk down a mountain in ski boots, carrying skis?

It's not that freaking easy.

The Spouse Thingy went on another run, and he didn't do half bad. But by then the winds had whipped up, snow was falling hard, and we were worried about the worse weather that was headed our way. We'd already checked out of the hotel when we learned that tomorrow called for baby-blizzard conditions, deciding to forgo a second day in the snow on order to get out of the mountains.

We still have lift tickets, though. We may try it again next week, but with skis rented from the pro shop and not the ski school...I got screwed on my unwaxed sticks, and feel like I'm damned lucky I didn't really do some damage.

Still...it was pretty, and we had a killer view from the hotel.

1 March 2010

Across the street from our hotel room



Not a bad view, eh?

28 February 2010

As soon as the Spouse Thingy gets up tomorrow--well, as soon as he's awake enough--we're hitting the road and heading for South Lake Tahoe. Everything is packed and ready to go, I just need to go gas the car up in the morning and probably clean the crap out...because we're taking his car, and I'm not sure he's entirely grasps the idea that just because you drop something onto the passenger floorboard, that doesn't mean it has to stay there until you carry a passenger....or more specifically, a passenger other than one's wife, because he doesn't seem to care if my feet are bothered by his used Kleenex and gum wrappers.

We're taking our laptops--the hotel has free wi-fi...free y'all!--and a digital camera, so hopefully we can post a few pictures. And hopefully the pictures won't be of me bent in odd angles, hanging off of a ski lift.

You know if I'm dangling off a ski lift, he's going to take pictures...

The cats are curious about what's up...the bags are already by the front door, and I put food and water in the master bathroom, figuring that closet is where Max is going to hide from Butters. The Boy will be here while we're gone, protecting the premise from out little town's gang of thugs. Which, basically means he'll sit here and watch TV while he does laundry, because our little town's thugs are mostly teenagers who cut school once in a blue moon to go to Burger King for a Whopper...presuming they don't get kicked out, because random kids in the fast food places during school hours are pretty much ratted out.

But...WooHoo, we're going skiing! Yay for the Spouse Thingy having a schedule with a couple of weekdays off.

But the cats may never forgive us...

25 February 2010

One last shameless pimping of my son...

In two days he's jumping into icy cold water, possibly while wearing a shiny striped cape and mask, and he'll do it SOBER...all to raise money for the Special Olympics.

He's this close to raising $1000.

So yeah, I'm tossing it out there one more time hoping to raise a few more bucks.

2010 Polar Plunge. If you have a buck or two in spare change lying around, please consider a donation that funds not only the Special Olympics, but the joy I will have in knowing my kid is shrinking all his favorite parts for charity.

Edited to add:

 

My pride and joy

This alone is worth a buck.

24 February 2010

Today's random thought: I would eat a lot more yogurt if Yoplait didn't insist on so many chunks of mushy fruit in every cup...

21 February 2010

Next week, this will be me.

Repeatedly, I'm sure.

For years, the Spouse Thingy and I have talked about giving skiing a try. Talk is all we've done, though, even though we live just a couple hours away from at least a dozen premiere ski resorts.

So now that the ski season is damn near over, we've decided to give it a whirl. He has a couple of weekdays off instead of weekend days--which means he doesn't have to put in for time off, which seems to be kind of hard to get right now--so we're counting on there more being a royal crush of people, and we're going to head up to Sierra-at-Tahoe near South Lake Tahoe, take a cheap beginner's class that includes equipment rental, and we'll try to not die.

You know what's going to happen if we don't die, right?

We're going to love it. And then the snow will melt within two weeks, leaving us until November to be able to do it again.

If you're a NorCal skiier, and there's a sudden heat wave, I apologize. It's our fault.

18 February 2010

The Spouse Thingy and I have been making major efforts to lose weight; we started back in late July with Jenny Craig ( he's still on the JC program; they kicked me out in September) and have both made some decent progress. I'm down 49 pounds and he's close to the same. I'm thrilled to be down 49, but...

It's not 50.

Today is my "official" weigh day, and I had really hoped the scale would have inched down another notch, but it was exactly the same this morning as it was last Thursday.

Granted, this week has been hell on my body water-wise; I had a water weight swing that totaled 10 pounds, skipped meds a few days early and peed off 7 of it, and skipped them again last night hoping that would take care of the rest of it. But, the breakthrough wasn't as strong as I hoped, I didn't get up as many times (like earlier in the week) but theoretically I didn't have as much to shed, so that's not surprising.

Still, I'd hoped to get on the scale and see it down a pound from last week.

I'm getting frustrated. My week to week average has slowed down and it feels like I have too many weeks where I don't lose anything. I can look back and see that I did lose weight, but it sure as hell doesn't feel like it. (Cue my inner toddler having a temper tantrum.)

I can't eat less than I do; I'm at 1200 calories a day and I know better than to routinely go below that. It happens; there are days when I look at what I've had through the day and I'm 100-200 calories short, but for the most part I take in 1200-1300 a day. I should be able to sit here and drool and still lose weight at that intake.

Drooling burns calories, right?

Yes, I know what the logical answer is. Just because I know it doesn't mean I want to do it. I want to sit here and drool and drop the poundage, not exercise and drop it.

Meh.

We went out yesterday and bought a treadmill; it'll be delivered tomorrow and hopefully the Spouse Thingy can put it together for me early next week. I don't want to sweat, but at least I can sweat and watch DVR'd Dr. Oz (whom I now see with pointy ears and pointy shoes, thanks to my son who pointed out that Dr. Oz looks kind of like an elf...)

Next week, barring medication complications, that scale will show a drop and I'll hit 50 pounds lost.

Hold me to it.

Then it's only 35 pounds to goal.

Sheesh.

15 February 2010

I'm over the cold for the most part, at least I'm not coughing my head off and not plastered to the sofa wondering where the hell the cabana boys with my Popsicles and chicken soup are. I got whammed while I was suffering with (let's be delicate) with the mother of all female-type problems, which didn't make things any easier, but gave me lots to whine about about.

Lucky Spouse Thingy.

Then yesterday, just in time for Valentine's Day, I got whacked with a killer headache. It rode on the coattails of my DDAVP working a little too well...yesterday morning I was 9 pounds heavier than I was just a couple of days before, a nice sign that I'm retaining enough water to quench the thirst of an entire football team for three or four days.

So I did what I usually do. I skipped my meds last night and resigned myself to a night of getting up every 30-45 minutes and measured drinking of fluids, typically 64 ounces. I could suck down a whole lot more when my meds wear off--I will steal the soda right out of your hands when that kind of thirst hits and I probably won't apologize because I'll be too busy trying to find something else cold and wet to suck down--but the idea is to shed the water weight.

Only problem is that I only got up every 90 minutes, and drank all of 3 ounces. Good, but not ideal. It wasn't until after noon today that I was obviously free of DDAVP, peeing like a maniac and drinking like a fish.

Shut up. I like my similes.

As the thirst ramped up and the water weight started to come off, the headache--untouched by Motrin--began to abate. It's still lingering, little fingers of watery death poking at my brain, but it's getting better.

I need to ask my doc to switch my meds, I think. This is happening more and more often, although typically without it being quite that much water and without there being a pounding headache.

But! The weather is awesome and looks like it will be over the next few days, so we're taking the bikes out and riding tomorrow. Maybe even Wednesday, too.

Sorry to point it out to the snow bound, but it hit 70 here today.

70!

With sunshine!

Life is good when you've peed all you can pee, and there will be riding.

10 February 2010

In a Nyquil-drenched dream last night, the Boy threw open my bedroom door and gifted me with a life-sized likeness of my own head. Wrapped in foil. Face covered in soot. With bedhead. So that I could "remember what the nursery was like."

No, I don't understand it at all.

In other news, I think Death frenched me as I slept last week, and I've spent the last 7 days with a blowtorch burning in my throat, a nasty cough, and fatigue that's starting to feel like part of my DNA.

:::coughcoughcough:::

You're welcome.

9 February 2010

It's totally me, right?

 

Really, I think I'll buy two of them. Or four, so I can have one in each color.

The Awesomeness of Amazon...

8 February 2010

Hungry? Tomorrow from 6 am - 2 pm you can get a free Grand Slam at your local Denny's (that's Tuesday, Feb 9th, 2010.) You'll still have to pay for your drink, and don't forget to tip on what your total would have been, but otherwise...free!

It's not exactly diet-friendly fare, but we're thinking about going anyway. One big meal will not kill the diet. It just might mean that I won't hit 50 pounds lost this week. I can live with that.

3 February 2010

Clearly, IKEA was created by minions of the devil.

There is no other explanation.

First, they trap you in the maze; you enter and begin to browse, but you have to follow the designated path to get from point A to point B, lest you miss any of their fine, fine furniture and textiles. Oh there are "shortcuts" but those are always blocked by little old ladies on scooters with dead batteries, or groups of non-English speaking tourist who don't grasp "May I get by you, please?" Nor do they get, "Move you ass before I drop kick it."

So you walk. And you walk. And they tease you with blue signs with arrows that proclaim "THIS WAY TO SELF CHECKOUT," and since you're thinking "I damn well need to check my self out of here!" it's a welcome sign.

But alas, it only directs you deeper into the maze. Because without the maze, you might miss the fact that you can buy MALM chests of drawers in FOUR DIFFERENT SIZES! or 523 different brightly colored duvet covers!

Eventually, you realize you are almost there. You're waking through the warehouse of boxes, with the checkout registers RIGHT THERE, and you know that you'll be able to pay for your treasures and get the hell out.

But then.

THEN.

Then you are tortured with the aroma of freshly baking cinnamon rolls. And your mouth begins to water. And you want one. So badly you want one.

But you're dedicated to losing weight.

But they smell so good.

So you do the only thing you possibly can. You pay for your stuff, step just beyond the cash register, drop to the floor, and curl up in a ball of quivering, hungry, dieting flesh, and then your head explodes, because they never intended to let you get out of there anyway.

31 January 2010

Yesterday I plastered myself to the love seat in front of the TV, tuning into HGTV for background noise, parked my laptop on my lap, and over the course of the day tapped out 15 single spaced pages of the manuscript I've had brewing in my head for at least 8 month.

I've learned over the years to back up everything I write, lest something really bad happen. So as I wrote, I saved to a thumb drive, and when I was done for the day I grabbed it and headed back for the desktop computer so that I could save to that, too.

But I plugged it into the computer...and nothing. The desktop system didn't recognize it on any USB port, and the little green indicator light on the drive didn't come on.

After a few choice words, I went back to the laptop to save it to the hard drive there. But no...it no longer recognized it as a drive, either.

I didn't realize thumb drives (or flash drives it you will) could die. I figured with no moving parts that I know of, my data was safe.

But now I have the beginning of a book stuck on one, along with God knows what else. I've saved a lot to that drive...and it looks like it'll be stuck there forever. Dammit.

26 January 2010

Dear Kathleen Anne Thompson,

Please stop giving people my email address as your own. While I applaud your purchase of a 2009 Honda, I really don't want to keep getting service reminders from your dealership. I especially did not appreciate that your car showed up under my Honda motorcycle account, and even though I removed it, I'm still getting those dealership emails.

It's nice that you're involved in Cub Scouts, but I don't wish to hear about that, either. And all your friends that have prayer circles? Goody for them, but I'll be honest with you. I'm not praying for them. Little Jimmie's ingrown toenail will have to be cured without my input. And every time you request a password be sent because you can't remember it? Well, be grateful I'm not a loser who wants to peek into your personal stuff. I've fired back emails to the forums/companies/whatever involved, but they don't seem to care.

Please...pay attention to what you're handing out as your email address. It's not kathompson @ gmail. com, no matter how badly you wish it to be.

Oh, and you have a confirmation on a dinner reservation tonight. It sounds like an expensive place, so you might wanna shave your legs today, because whoever's picking up the check might expect a little sumthin-sumthin afterward.

25 January 2010

My five year long love/hate relationship with the Temper-Pedic® bed is over. While it was good for all the tender points FMS hath wrought upon my body, it was horrible for my back. You know all the commercials that point out how it conforms to your body to provide excellent support? What they don't say is "Oh yeah, you'll sink into this mattress like a stone, and you'll feel all comfy...until to try to roll over. The memory foam--surprise!--will remember your form and take a long-assed time to spring back, which means you'll just fall back into the hole and be stuck in the same freaking position all freaking night long, and a few months later that form will be permanent, and your ass will sink a little lower even, leaving your back in so much pain that even Vicodin won't touch it. But hey! It's frakkin' MEMORY FOAM! So it RULES!"

Yeah. That about covers it.

I think giving it five years was long enough. Last week the Spouse Thingy went out with me--in pouring, pounding rain, I might add, which might mean he kinda likes me a little bit--to go bed shopping. The first place we went is a decent enough place to buy a bed, and the old guy there is helpful enough, but the "best" bed on the floor was a brand I'd never heard of, and while it felt like a bed I would love for a long time, I wasn't quite ready to slip a ring on its box-springy-finger and commit.

So, we went elsewhere and looked at a Sealy--which was decent enough--and then home to scope out the first bed online.

Surfing for reviews on the Chateau line of this company's beds didn't turn up much, but on the company itself...very mixed reviews. Too many people hated them, which seems normal with beds as they're either a love them or hate them kinda thing, but I got the impression trying to get help with warranty issues was a PITA.

If I'm going to commit to many years of my life with a mattress, and part of them bare assed nekkid, I want the assurance of a little support, you know?

Shut up. You get nekkid in bed once in a while, too. Sometimes you're not even alone. I hope.

So the next day we drove across town to scope out a friend-recommended bed brand; I didn't have high hopes for the place we were headed to first--any place with "discounters" in the name tends to make me think of cheap bug-infested crap--but the sales guy there took a lot of time with us and didn't try to steer us towards the pricey merchandise just because he could. He actually asked a ton of questions about sleeping issues, took note that I needed something firm for my back yet soft for all my tender points, and had us try out at least 6 different mattresses...and once I'd declared "I think this is the one" he had us go back and try them all again just to be sure.

You know, there are limits to how you can try out mattresses in public? Lesson learned.

The one I thought was the right one turned out to be the one recommended to me, but at least the guy gave us tons of options. Better yet, it was nearly a grand less than I'd seen online and he threw in the bed frame (not a cheap one either...though I know all the stores will throw it in "for free, because I'm the manager and I can do that") and delivery.

I was not at all sad to see the delivery guys haul away the Temper-Pedic...I'd had high hopes for that bed and it dashed them every night.

Four nights on the new bed...very nice. My back isn't miraculously cured, but it's also not screaming at me from the moment I wake up.

Better yet, the cats seem to approve.

And face it, without kitty approval, it means nothing; it would just be an expensive lump in the middle of the bedroom floor.

22 January 2010

I'm not on Team CoCo.

I'm not on Team Leno.

I'm pretty firmly ensconced on Team WTF People It's Just Late Night TV And Doesn't Really Matter.

But I have paid attention to all the hoopla because 1) I don't have a life and 2) Who the hell can even get away from it? It's not even limited to tabloid TV; the entire NBC screw up is being dissected on the national news. People are talking about it on the radio, in newspapers, and blogs. I know way too much about it because we're being beat half to death with it.

People blame Leno; he's selfish and should have just walked away from NBC when his prime time show tanked.

People blame Conan; he couldn't pull the ratings he needed, so he should have just walked away.

People blame NBC affiliates for whining about their lost ratings and revenue that came with having Leno in the 10 p.m. prime time slot.

So let's blame Leno again.

How about we back track and lay the blame at the feet of the person actually responsible for the entire fiasco? All those people upset by Conan leaving and Leno taking back the tonight show, just go find NBC head honcho Jeff Zucker and pull his hair until he cries. Because in reality, it was his idea five years ago to take the late night ratings leader, give him an end date, and move Conan into the slot. It was his move to not let Leno out of his contract, dropping him into the 10 pm slot.

Don't blame Conan for wanting out after they wanted to push him back to 12:05; that wasn't the gig he signed on for. He was given The Tonight Show not Hey Let's Follow Jay. He wasn't given time to rebuild an audience, either.

Don't blame Leno for wanting to take the Tonight Show back; he didn't want to give it up in the first place and he was the ratings leader. If you were a workaholic and had his contract, you'd go back, too.

And if you were on Team CoCo and are super pissed, pull Zucker's hair a little harder, because in the end it was all about money; they got Conan out the door for $45 million; it would have taken $150 million to get Leno out.

When you're done pulling Zucker's hair, you might want to find out why the hell he's still in charge at NBC, because he's made some really stupid choices.

And then get the talking heads on TV to stop making such a big deal about it. Six months from now no one will give a damn. It's not news. It's not remotely news.

20 January 2010

My LOL moment of the morning:

19 January 2010

When the Boy told Max his plans, Max leaned back and said "Shut yo mouth! No way!"

Ok, no. But he might have. You know, if he could speak.

Next month the Boy is going to engage in what is fondly known as The Polar Plunge. He's going to jump into some extremely cold water for the sole purpose of helping to raise money for the Special Olympics.

Fine, there might be a girl woman involved. And perhaps beer. But mostly, he's trying to raise money for a really good cause.

Because I would really like to see him freeze his nads off, I'm trolling for sponsors. A buck here, a buck there, it all adds up. And if you can't sponsor, it would be awesome if you could spread the word for him.

Curt Thompson's Donor Page

If he can raise $10,000, he'll get to repeat the plunge in some nice snow-runoff water in March. And that would totally be worth it...

17 January 2010

Bullets 'cause I'm boring

• Y'all know that church sign picture was likely created with a generator, right? It's not like the First Baptist Church of Haiti actually put that up...
• Over the holidays I didn't obsess about my weight and figured a couple of pounds wouldn't kill me. It did not, but I am just now down to my pre-Christmas weight and annoyed that it took this long.
• Memory foam does not return as well as the commercials suggest and indents too easily; I have a love/hate relationship with the TempurPedic bed, and lately there's not a lot of love there.
• That did not come out the way I intended...
• I watched 8 episodes of Heroes over 2 days this weekend, and it actually felt like I had accomplished something.
• Clearly, I need a life.
• I've had fun teasing Murf about his graying hair, but after today I obviously need to stop, as evidenced by how much gray was on the floor when I got my hair cut today.
• Now I'm all itchy because of the tiny pieces of hair that wound up down my shirt.
• I need to stop watching HGTV before it compels me to rip my kitchen apart and cause thousands of dollars in damage.
• I'll give $2.50 if someone will come fix lunch for me and then clean my kitchen.
• No? You people are cheap...

14 January 2010

Pardon the French:
Not my creation, but I am down with the sentiment...

11 January 2010

OK, deep down I'm 12. Or maybe 8. And because of that, I've been reluctant to swallow the horse-pill sized supplements my endocrinologist requested I suck down on a daily basis.

But then I discovered these.

Gummis for grownups. All the Calcium and Vitamin D an adult needs in two not too little chews.

Behold...I was willing to take my supplements. Because what could be better than medicinal gummis?

But then...then...A friend told me that the Viactiv chocolate chews I used to hate now taste a whole lot better, and I might find them more palatable.

Damn. She was right.

Another source of Calcium and Vitamin D. A chocolate source.

And THEN... I found some Caltrate chewable tablets

These taste like SweetTarts.

I am totally set to meet my RDA of Calcium and Vitamin D...and then some.

Can we say "hypercalcemia?" I knew we could.

This isn't a give the blogger a freebie review...it's not a paid review. I bought 'em all and tried 'em all, and lemme tell you, if you don't take Calcium and Vitamin D (both of which I am low on, but have had more than one doc tell me most people should be taking) because those damned pills are so freaking big, these are a really good alternative.

But while you're indulging your inner 8 year old, keep them out of reach of the real rugrats, because they're that good. Let's not OD the spawn...

11 January 2010

Quote of the Day:

I want to marry Air Supply and have little cheesy music babies with them.

Unfortunately, I was trying to swallow some diet Cherry Dr. Pepper as I was reading that, laughed, it went up into my sinuses, and I'm in some real pain right now... So thank you, Loralee...

7 January 2010

Proof you can get anything at Walmart:



Sorry about the picture quality...I was laughing and kinda shook my iPhone while I took the picture.

Guys...don't strain anything on your mad dash to get to Wall World...