I do feel better today. I still am not 100% (still have that burning occas), but that’s to be expected. I always hope I don’t pick up a companion bug when I have to go to the doctor. I was hungry this morning. Not ready for the ediet yet since I had to go grocery shopping first. I did go and had an elaborate shopping list which I left folded up on the table! I did forget some things like brown rice and tofu (wonder why?), so we had a stir fry for dinner. I wasn’t really going to go to the store, but since it warmed up to around 40 I headed out.
I had a piece come off the front of my lower tooth chip off last night. Darn-I was just at the dentist a week ago today and think that’s where I picked up the bug I had. It’s a filling right next to the gum line. I wondered why it felt like a crater near my gum and some ugly brownish tooth was showing there! So I made an appt to go on Friday to get it fixed. Sometimes the dentist will fix a tooth and if he feels he was the one who messed up, then he won’t charge. I’m not holding my breath though.
We got a letter from ‘Pillsbury’ with the Delaware Valley College address. Seems the Vice Prez of Operations went to the same school and is recommending this. I would have loved to get a little doughboy as a gift from him!
Speaking of college-Sean is pretty sure he is attending Penn State down near my mom’s in Delaware County in the fall. He will have to get a car and he wants one really bad.
Did you happen to see Oprah’s miracle show yesterday? It was really neat. One couple met because the guy was the woman’s only match in like 5 million to be her bone marrow donor. She had leukemia and was given about 9 months to live. Well, Diana and David met, became friends and fell in love! That is truly a Valentine’s Day story. Imagine falling in love with the only person who could save your life! Pass me the chocolate please! : )

This wasn’t exactly the best day for me to join a diet group, but seeing the scale at the doctor’s office made me realize I need to at least try something. I saw the commercial for ediets on tv over the last few days. One thing I wouldn’t want to do is get weighed in front of a group of people and losing weight in the privacy of my own home sounded better to me. ediets.com is less than $12.00 a month. You have to stay with them for at least 3 months. I like that you can change your diet plan, etc. I had the first printed out that included
milk and dairy. I can’t hack drinking milk, never could. So I took off the milk and added a few meals of fast food. I have chosen packaged foods and
meals you have to prepare from scratch. What’s nice is that you can print out the meal plans, the recipes and the store list-yippee! And the meals sound pretty good. I’ll keep you posted on when I actually start. I have a weigh-in on the 1st of Feb. hope I at least lose a few pounds. I told them it was going to take me over 6 months to lose 40 odd pounds. I need to start exercising more too. All this food talk is hurting my stomach. I had a grilled chicken sandwich from McDonalds for dinner and that was on the list, but had milk companion. I had ice tea.

I had burning in my gut like I swallowed a match this morning. I did sleep well though, but when my stomach was really empty it started to bother me again around 7:30 am. I did everything a person can do with a GI problem-belch, toot, have belly gurgling like a brook, but no cookie tossing-thank goodness! I bit the bullet and went to the doctor because I swear I have an ulcer that acts up when I have tummy trouble. The doc said no ulcer, but a tummy bug! So I have to watch what I eat and drink ‘the pink stuff’. I have no fever and my blood pressure was fine. Weight wasn’t cool. I don’t know where those numbers come from especially when you’ve been in my predictament.
I screwed up my eBay listings last night. The form was set for 1 day auction, so all of the new ones end today. I am hoping there are some cross stitchers out there who want some new leaflets!
Off to make some soup.

Those are the moments that will always remind me of Johnny Carson. I loved how sometimes he would crack up before he blew the envelope open and read what ‘The Great Karnak’ (see the comparsion in the link) said. His skits were almost like ‘Laugh-in’ type humor. Although I like Jay Leno, there was something about staying up late and catching Johnny Carson on ‘The Tonight Show’ when I was a kid in high school. How could you not remember when he said ‘he’d give a whole year’s salary’ to get a peek under Dolly Parton’s top! Wonder if she let him look?
It was a show where Johnny and his guests all smoked like chimneys. Too bad it took him in the end because emphysema is a nasty thing. I guess they went ‘HERE’S Johnny!!!!!’ at the pearly gates. (I saw this blog at the beginning of Feb. and all the comics did this-put Johnny at the pearly gates!)

I have to admit I felt lousy today. I don’t like Mondays as it is, but my gut was doing some ‘house-cleaning’. I tried all the remedies so far except Maalox. That is coming next so I think. I am trying to keep busy and all. I took a shower and was standing at the sink and just had a funny feeling go through me. I sure hope whatever isn’t happy in there has moved out!
My friend just wrote in my MSN group about the 24th being the worst day of the year. Isn’t this a young year though? I guess they mean ‘the season’ of winter. Her BBC blip was full of math and my head was spinning. Thanks for sharing Charlotte…

Misery is expected to peak on Monday, as 24 January has been pinpointed as the worst day of the year. January has been long regarded as the darkest of months, but a formula from a part-time tutor at Cardiff University shows it gets even worse this Monday. Foul weather, debt, fading Christmas memories, failed resolutions and a lack of motivation conspire to depress, Cliff Arnalls found. GPs say reading up on depression and exercise are ways to beat winter blues. “Yes, we do see lots of people with depression and anxiety in the winter months. “The message is it’s not a terrible disorder, people do get better,” Dr Alan Cohen told BBC News. JANUARY BLUES DAY FORMULA 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA. Where: W: Weather D: Debt T: Time since Christmas Q: Time since failed quit attempt M: General motivational levels NA: The need to take action “Exercise and bibliotherapy – reading a number of books to allow people to understand their own symptoms and how to control them,” were initial treatments, he said. The formula for the day of misery reads 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA. Where W is weather, D is debt – minus the money due on January’s pay day – and T is the time since Christmas. Q is the period since the failure to quit a bad habit, M stands for general motivational levels and NA is the need to take action and do something about it. GPs say exercise will boost spirits Dr Arnalls calculated the effects of cold, wet and dark January weather after the cosiness of Christmas coupled with extra spending in the sales. He found 24 January was especially dangerous, coming a whole month after Christmas festivities. Any energy from the holiday had worn off by the third week of January, he said. By Monday, most people will have fallen off the wagon or abandoned the nicotine patches as they fail to keep New Year’s resolutions. That compounds a sense of failure and knocks confidence needed to get through January. The fact that the most depressing day fell on a Monday was not planned but a coincidence, he said. BBC news

Go iggals….I mean EAGLES!!! 

Over the weekend we got dumped on with about 12″ of snow. That’s a good deal of snow for us. We’ve had more in the past, but you’d think we had a major blizzard the way the news aired all day Saturday with updates. It makes me a little nervous. First I think of what happens if someone is sick and needs to go to the hospital? Then I worry about the power going out since we’ve lived without power for a number of days, but not in this kind of bone chilling weather.
The most remarkable thing to me about snow is how quiet it gets. Especially having a snowy weekend. Yesterday, hardly any cars went down our usually busy connecting road. It was nice. Just looking at snow is nice, it’s like icing on a cake when it first covers the evergreen branches and tree trunks. It can melt whenever it wants though. : )
~~~~~~
Of course I have to give a shout out to THE EAGLES!!!!! It’s been 24 years since we’ve been in the Super Bowl, back when Ron Jaworski was playing. A little remembrance of that time-my mom worked in the career office at Widener College where the Eagles use to practice. One day ‘Jaws’ came in the office for something and saw my photo on my mom’s desk and remarked that I was pretty. Ah, a football moment.

The other day I was hustling down our long hallway and something caught my eye. There were red dots moving on the wall! An extraterrestrial? Now we have hardly had any sun in 2 weeks, so this was even more dazzling to me. What it turned out to be was my grandmom’s necklace! It was hanging down from the front of a birdhouse on a stand I have in our bedroom. Mom decided to give me these round red crystals for Christmas. I’d say they are at least 2 feet or more long, so you can wrap them around or leave them hanging long. Mom, my grandmom and I have all worn them for special occasions. The thing is, the clasp is weak and I am afraid to wear them until they get fixed. So I hung them on this stand on the perch area. On the roof is this jeweled bodice that I found over at my f-in-law’s house that belonged to Brian’s mom. It’s definitely from the 1940s or50s. It’s my favorite color mostly of teal/aquamarine with pretty beadwork, etc.
Speaking of Brian’s mom, she is in my dreams every once in a while. She passed away in August, 1996. Now the men here had no memorial service or anything, so to me there was never any closure like we had for my grandmom. The dreams are so weird. I tell Brian I think his mom is trying to tell me something. She just shows up and I ask her where she’s been. Then I feel strange because I have some of her possessions like jewelry that Bri’s dad gives me for almost every holiday. Then I wake up! Dreams are funny things. I talked to my great aunt not that long ago. I found this…
Dreams of Grief 2 Patricia Garfield
Are these dream images of the dead simply memories of them, infused by
our imagination, to help us cope with grief during bereavement? Are they part of
an internal process we employ to adjust to loss and assist us in solving daily
problems? Or are dream images of the dead actual encounters with the spirit of
the deceased? Elisabeth Kübler-Ross thinks they are, calling dreams about the
dead “true contacts on a spiritual plane.”1
There is no way yet known to prove either position: that dreams about the
dead are “real” contacts; or that they are images conjured by the dreamer to
meet psychological needs. Regardless of what may be the facts, we know that
bereaved people dream about the lost person; that their dreams are
exceptionally vivid, emotionally packed, and may dramatically alter the life and
belief system of the dreamer.

So the snow is coming. Over a foot maybe? I went to the food store yesterday, that was a smart move! Mom went today and had to wait in a mile long line. I did run out to mail off some eBay stuff and get a few things at the drugstore. I plan to clean while cabin bound.

Sean is finished his midterms and stopped by the video store and rented out three movies, one of which is Garden State. I have Zach Braff’s blog over on the side bar there. I like Zach. He reminds me somewhat of a Jewish version of a guy I had a major crush on in college. The guy turned out to be gay. (I still think about him, darn you John!)We watched the movie and it was pretty good. Gee, I’m almost a Jersey girl, ya know? Sean is watching the bloopers now. They were pretty funny.They said the ‘f’ word way too much. Why is that word so popular? Call me old-fashioned, but as my mom always said, and I agree, it shows a lack of vocabulary. Not to say it doesn’t slip out of my mouth once in a while, but I feel guilty saying it afterwards (is it a mom thing?). Anyway, the soundtrack is awesome. And now I want to see Natalie Portman in the movie version of the book I’m reading-Where the Heart is.

This is from a lovely book I have.
Amaryllis means:
~~PRIDE~~
The dazzling splendour of the amaryllis in full bloom has often been compared to a haughty, beautiful woman, in her prime and fashionably dressed, who eclipses the quiet attractions of those all around her, although their beauty is often destined to outlast that of their proud and disdainful rival.
“When Amaryllis fair doth show, the richness of her fiery glow,
The modest lily hides her head; the former seems so proudly spread
To win the gaze of human eye, which soonest brightest things doth spy.
Yet vainly is the honour won, since hastily her course is run;
She blossoms, blooms-she fades, she dies-they who admired, now despise.”
A humbling lesson to the young and vain. The word amaryllis signifies splendour in the Greek language.

My flowers in the winter-amaryllis. I didn’t think they would sprout. A little African Violet food ‘woke them up’. Two stems and 6 blooms!