OT April Chit Chat

[agate]

Hi Everyone,

I came on a couple of times yesterday and didn't find anyone at all, so I just got huffy and left. Actually, I went over to Rose's and read her post. I did my exercises yesterday and the day before, but only one time. I am supposed to do them two times, but it takes me between 40 and 45 minutes and I just don't think I need to devote that much time twice a day. Well, actually I do need to, but I don't want to.

Today I had a lazy start and did not get out of the house until 4P.M. I went to Harris Teeter and bought most of my groceries. I spent over an hour there. Then I went to Fresh Market and got my yogurt since Harris Teeter has not been carrying the kind I like lately. Then I went to Panera where I got my usual pick two a cup of soup and half a sandwich.

As for food:
Breakfast has been for a long time - one boiled egg, about 5 oz of diet cranberry juice
Lunch - 8 oz of low fat or fat free yogurt, one piece of dove dark chocolate
Afternoon snack - a banana or honey covered almonds or occasionally an avocado
Dinner - varies a lot. Sometime I make vegetable beef soup which I eat a couple of days. Sometime I make beef stew which I eat a couple of days. This week I am going to have chicken made with Sunshine's recipe of pesto, tomatoes and cheese. I sometime have a Marie Calendar frozen dinner such as Roasted Turkey with stuffing or Turkey with sweet potatoes or even her chicken pot pies.
Desert is always a Yasso frozen chocolate yogurt bar

Snack - A piece of gouda cheese with Strawberry preserves or peach preserves. If still hungry another handful of almonds.

This week I am doing something different. I bought cereal for the first time in a very long time. I also bought skim milk. So I will have cheerios with milk in the mornings.

I sometime eat peanut butter and crackers for night snack.

Actually, my diet is a little more varied than this because right now I can't remember what all I cook, but I know that sometime I fix things in the crock pot such as pork loin or potato soup. I started to make chicken soup this week, but decided that since I have to go out Monday I will wait. Also, I often fix salads with lettuce, tomato, red onion and then when I put it on my plate I add shredded cheese, Kalamata olives and the dressing.

Agate, you have a diet soda for breakfast!! I couldn't do that. I drink almost no soft drinks, mostly just water. However, I did leave one thing out, I have a cup of hot herbal tea when I have my night snack of cheese with preserves.

I'm thinking of dropping in at mealtime, Virginia. I'd really get some good food.

The diet soda is something I sip on all day until about 9 PM. Maybe it's doing for me what coffee does for others--the caffeine seems to help me to be less groggy. I can't do hot liquids at all--no soup, tea, or coffee because I'm too apt to spill them and get burned, though I did remember that I sometimes have a thick soup for dinner (McDougall's split pea or lentil soup usually). Not so easy to spill a thick soup.

[Virginia]

Suze-Q and Nuthatch sometime come on during the week-end. I wonder where they are. Also, I don't think we have seen Cat around lately,

By the way, did any of you realize Peg said SNOW and more of it to come. She also had rain. What is she doing wrong in Iowa? We are in the 70s. Springtime is definitely in this part of the country.

It is bedtime, but I just finished opening my mail, so I think I will take a break and drink some tea before going to bed.

[agate]

So sorry about your husband's aunt, Peg, and it's too bad it's such a long trip for her memorial service. At least it isn't likely to be snowing anywhere, not even in Iowa, in June.

nuthatch, Tula's natural curls are just beautiful. They look like the kind of curls that will be with her forever and not turn into straight hair as she gets a bit older, the way some kids' curls do. My son started out with straight hair but it got very curly by the time he was about 10. You just never know what hair is going to do.

[nuthatch]

I'm here. Just don't have much to say of interest most of the time.
Went to see the doctor today, the one I had been seeing before he left the "group" two years ago, when he started his own practice. I had become very dissatisfied with the "group" doctor.
I had been to see the nurse practitioner a week ago for the results of the ultrasound. He said the lump appears to be a lipoma (a fatty tumor) and nothing to worry about.

I went to get reestablished with my "old" doctor whom I loved, and also to get his opinion. He is open on Saturdays and Sundays for now, since he is in LA Mon. thru Wed. with his new wife until she relocates up here. I jokingly asked him when he is going to start doing home visits and to my surprise he said he was soon! We talked about how needed they were for a segment of society. He is sending me to a surgeon to be looked at and to decide what to do about the lump, if anything. So it's still a wait and see thing.
In the meantime, MS, lymphedema, being totally wheelchair bound and all the symptoms that come with those issues are my constant companions. On a good note, the pressure sore is nearly gone and doesn't hurt anymore.

Poppies are starting to bloom in the front yard but aren't nearly as robust as they were two years ago. I'm sure that's because hubby laid weed fabric beneath the wood chips last year in an effort to keep the weeds from taking over. The poppy seedlings can't get through the fabric to Mother Earth! But those poppies are determined . . . there is a tiny little plant with a flower on it growing between the pavers on the driveway and several more poppy plants popping up in the small cracks between pavers!

agate, you're right about never knowing what hair is going to do! I went from curly as a tot, to strait as a child, to wavy/curly as a teen, to really curly as a young mother. Of course I hated curly hair as a teen. Straight was the "cool thing" at that time and I remember using big rollers and straighteners, even an iron, to rid myself of the dreaded curls. All it took was a little moisture in the air and I was back to square one.
So who knows what is going to happen with Tula's curls, but we love them now! Everyone comments on those curls!

Hungry for Virginia's potato soup even though it's not cold and rainy. Peg needs potato soup! We put bacon into it . . . yum!

[agate]

nuthatch, that's good news about the lipoma and probably correct that you don't need to do anything in particular about it just now.

Would the poppies be those lovely orange California poppies? In WA state I sometimes saw vast expanses of them, and they were quite beautiful.

[Sunshine]

For some reason, I got logged out of BT...hm... Back in now.

I will be meeting with VNA soon to see what services, if any, I need at this time that they deliver to people. Will report in once the appt time is established.

Today will take Ativan, a powerful SPS muscle relaxant, and will go out for a nice lunch, and maybe to a store to shop for linens that are hard to get on line since you can’t feel the sheets and towels on line...DH will take me with R2D2.

Struggling with SPS and extrusion of L5 disc.

[Cherie]

Just waiting for the filtration cycle to end on the pool so I can do my exercise, get dressed and be off to church. I noted the comment that there were people on but not posting. I never log out but I think it's been three days since I have been here so perhaps there aren't as many folks as it may seem. Still no call on urine culture but as of the 24 hour read on it there was no growth.

Have to go to Macy's after Church to get jackets for the Boys before the Cruise. Heather got a couple at Marshalls but Kristof's sleeves are way too short. She got a 40 R and he should be in a 38L. She got Gregory a 38R and he should be in a 36R. Macy's has them for what she paid but I have coupons that will take about $20/jacket so it's worth a trip to the store.

Reading the Harry Potter series for the first time ever. In the last couple of weeks I've read the first 4 books and started the 5th last night. Grandkids have been kind enough to loan them to me. Good life lessons taught amidst an implausible fantasy background.

Agate, I read through your menu and could never follow it. Too much gluten, dairy and salt but it seems like a simple way to get your basic nutrition. We had two friends over for dinner last night and I did a tenderloin roast of pork, baby potatoes, fresh beets and asparagus broiled with fresh minced garlic.

[Howie]

Good morning all! Here I am calling CVS.....AGAIN. I get a text message from them that they have 3 prescriptions ready for pickup. That's great, but it should be FOUR.

So I called them, and they said there was one that hadn't been filled, and they would have it ready in an hour. I told them I would just pick it up tomorrow.

The person that sends the text needs to get things straight so the customer doesn't have to do it. I seem to have trouble with CVS more and more lately.

Well, that's my rant for today. I feel better now.

Everyone have a great day!

[Howie]

I went to CVS after they sent a text message, and it was four like it was supposed to be, and the same copay I've been paying. So maybe Humana didn't enter the picture.

But I'm glad everything went well, and I can now relax and enjoy the day.

[Lazarus]

I am here,, checking in,, we had 2 inches of snow this week,, and a inch of rain,, plus next week, they are talking more snow and rain ,, farmers are going to be late for field work,,

We went and bought groceries, and found out 3 of Joes sisters and hubbys are driving to Oregon, in June for a celebration of Aunt Marys life,,,she died in Dec.,{Joes 98 yr old aunt}, in June they will go, I would love to go "if" we flew, but not driving that long,,

later,, don't let the bed bugs bite,,

Hello,
John just plowed two of our fields. I love the look. We are late planting peas as it has been cold and windy here in western Massachusetts. I bet the crop is already doomed as I expect we will go from this cold to incredible heat.

We did not save any of our potatoes for seed. It was such a disastrously wet year last time that we wanted to start with clean seed potatoes. We are cutting down on how much we plant. Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and even great organic sections in the local grocery stores have eaten into our sales. Maybe someday soon, too soon, our food will all be grown in high rise buildings under lights...like I have seen in Programs about Japan.

I am glad I will end with the century that still had farms and tractors and dirt and neighbors that helped each other tinker with things.

[Virginia]

Nuthatch, good to see you and know that you are now back seeing a Doctor that you like and it sounds like you can trust. So interesting that he said he was going to start making house calls. Been a long time since I have heard that. By the way, you have as much interesting stuff, and sometimes more, than the rest of us do. But we just like to keep in touch with everyone. You've got flowers and I've got nothing but green pollen all over my house, my deck and my car.

Sunshine, let us know when you find out about what kind and how much help you might be getting. I do hope you had a good day today after taking the Ativan. I hope the lunch was real good and that you and hubby enjoyed the outing.

Cherie, your dinner sounds scrumptious as usual. I fix tinder loin sometime and would do more of it, but I have to throw so much away. Right now I wish I had some of the potato soup that Nuthatch was talking about. The next couple of weeks will probably be just cool enough to have it, although I like soup all year. Wish I had thought of the ingredients when I went to the store. Hope you had a nice afternoon of shopping for the boys.

Howie, you are going to get CVS straightened out yet. I think you have to learn to deal with all of them.

Linda, I always enjoyed the food more from our farmer's market than from Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. However, I no longer can get to the farmer's market and walk around out there so I can't go. I don't always find everything as fresh at Whole Foods as I think it should be. I buy some things from the organic section of the grocery store, but since learning that much of the e-coli got started from organic foods that are trucked in, I am just not as interested. At least this is what a man that is very high up in the agriculture dept at N.C. State College told me. He said when organic food first started out it was real good, but then some of the people that were farming it were no longer using the right stuff to fertilize, etc. By the time it got to the stores he said it was not always that good. I think the farmer's market is still good and wish I could go there again.

I went to eat with family tonight. We went to a restaurant that we have not been to in a very long time. The name of it is Piper's and I like to go there, but I ordered something today that I will not get again. I got Southwestern Chicken Salad. It was a whole platter of greens with black beans, corn, a little tomato and a dressing that was so hot I could not eat it. I ate just a little bit and then ate two of one of my sister-in-law's nachos to fill up. Another sister-in-law got what I did and ate every bite on the platter. I will have my cheese and preserves and hot tea in a little while.

Dizziness was back this morning, so I am unable to do exercises today. I still think it might be pollen related or at least positional, so I am going to wait another week or so before returning to the Doctor. I had stopped the Flonase for a couple of days, but will return to it this evening.

[Virginia]

I sure wish we could get more news from Jeanie. I miss her and I am getting concerned. Seems like a long time since she last e-mailed Agate.

[agate]

Virginia, I don't know whether Jeanie can read the posts here. I hope she will contact me again soon.

[nuthatch]

DH goes to the local farmers market almost every Saturday morning. He gets blueberries there, among other things, regularly. They are so flavorful compared to the blueberries we get at Trader Joes's or the other markets. Fresher too. He recently bought a blueberry plant and planted it in the back yard. I'm not sure it will do well here, we'll see. Any tips, Laz?

Weather clouded up here again, so I guess it's soup weather after all. Soup is cooking in the crock pot . . . smells so good! Maybe the soup cooking in the crockpot is responsible for the weather change???

[stillstANNding]

Echoing concern for and about Jeanie.

ANN