Christmas Is Zipping Closer

Well, my weight is finally starting to come off , with a crowbar-like slowness, but I'll take what I can get. I make myself get up and exercise every morning, even if I just have time to do a little - it's so hard to get into a routine and so easy to get out of it, isn't it? But it is paying off, I can get into my jeans and breath at the same time so I'm getting there. I'm trying to make sure the house is full of fruit and vegetables instead of Crap and Stuff - with the holidays coming up it's a little hard to stem the tide. Someone gave me a box of candy at work but it was peanut butter so I handed it off to David - I'll open the maple sugar candy at Christmas (thanks Dad!!) and horse it down then when Adam is here to help out. Adam will be arriving Monday - after going back and forth and wondering if it's too late to give him up for adoption we finally got things straightened out. He called last night around TEN PM to let me know he had leave and no way to get here. I know they don't know if they'll have leave or not until the last minute but that doesn't mean you can't at least investigate if there's a flight available or a greyhound bus with a reasonable time schedule - AARRGH is all I have to say. So his christmas present will be a plane ticket. David and I have to go out shopping tomorrow to pick up Crap and Stuff for the Sea Monkey - I may not want it but I'm sure he does. It will be a quiet visit whether he wants it to be or not, I'm working everyday but Christmas and I'm oncall christmas eve and the day after. But there's stuff to do here and the Hostess With The Mostess will be giving it her Holiday All as she hasn't had a visitor in a few weeks to entertain.

I had to do one call this morning, I meant to get out a bit earlier, but it took me quite a while to dig my car out - thank goodness I had the foresight to park near the road or I would still be digging! I got there in good time and out - I drove over to where we'd gotten our haircut the last time we lived here - and it was a takeout food joint. Hmm. So I headed for the mall - MasterCuts was double timing it so I went across the hall, that place was equally as busy. I thought I'd ask and good thing I did - her 10:00 appointment was a no show so I didn't even have to wait, we just went straight back! I love my new haircut, she did a great job and yes I can say that without being a show off. Due to my thin hair I've been subjected to a variety of bad haircuts so believe me, I can tell when I got a good one. I did a little bit of shopping but by then it was heading towards noon and the place was getting packed , so I headed home

David and I will go early tomorrow and finish up once and for all. Pearl has been out several hundred times, the snow never seems to lose it's appeal to her. I left a message for Jackson, we haven't heard from him in a week or so, he's been pretty busy and so have we. I have his christmas stuff here waiting for him, I hope he gets home before he ships out. I ordered a new set of knitting needles for me - good thing they're in stock or Pearl would have to die a VERY painful death. I was cabling the other night and put one needle down on the arm of the couch at the exact time Miss Pants decided to chase the cat and she - I don't even know if I can relive this-

jumped right on the needle and snapped it in half! And yes it was one of my new Harmony Wood needles from Knitpicks - I could have torn her heart right out, but that would have been over reacting I suppose. So I just yelled at her and she went and hid under the bed for a few minutes while I re-ordered. And then since I was online I ordered a couple of skeins of yarn, a couple of books and reserved another.....so one pair of knitting needles are costing about $80...Happy Holidays!

I had to leave work early today, I finished my three visits and called the office and they said just to head back home. We're expecting about a foot of snow and I'm on call tonight - whoopee is all I have to say. The drive home was awful, I have to get new windshield wipers as my filled up with ice as fast as I could remove it so I had to pull over repeatedly just so I could see out the windshield. We're having a Christmas party at work on Tuesday - I'm making an apple pie - I'm tempted to try something new and exciting but A) this is Pennsylvania, not Easthampton and B) your first time out of the box it's best to stick with what you know works than to be crying at 10 pm with something flat, stinky and unfixable. If nothing else, age has taught me that. We're almost ready for Christmas, Adam has decided he'll be coming home on Greyhound so we're back and forth with him. I love him dearly but he'll always pick the ticket that lands him in the bad part of town at midnight (80 miles away) and then not understand why you're so upset. It took me awhile to get over the flight he booked in a city 4 hours away from where we were living - at SIX AM THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS. Didn't think that one through I guess. Jackson will definately not be home for Christmas and we can't send him anything because he'll ship out before anything arrives there. That sucks - I wish he could have come home but Im sure he does too. When I talk to him he sounds fine, he's bored but he's made some friends to hang around with which I'm glad about. We had wanted Ray to come out, but with this large amount of snow I know that isn't going to happen so I had David mail his present out today - I know he waits for it and I would hate for it not to be there for him. We can't do too much for Christmas as I'm oncall the day before and the day after, but we will be going to my mom's the Saturday after and then leaving Sunday morning. It will literally be just dinner at Mom's but it'll be enough for now.

Vincent is not happy with the current surroundings, since he's FROM here you would think he'd be acclimated and all of that, but no, he is not. Do you like his crabby face? He went out for about 17 seconds and then I made him sit there for an additional 6 so I could take his picture - some days it's a good thing he doesn't speak english. One of the bright spots today is I found an asian market - they have bodegas here but no asian places, or so I thought. I just caught the sign as I was going down South Main and I had a little time. It's hilarious how they're all the same where ever I go - fish in buckets, suspicious refrigeration, things piled and bare bones decorating - but the prices were good and I found everything I missed so much - whoo hoo. And the owner happily pointed out everything I needed - they had taro root, baby bok choy, the works.

I'm of course still working on my sweater, I have about 10 more rows and the back is done. It seems to be taking a long time but it's a lot of cabling - I enjoy it so I'm not complaining. I'm still exercising, I'm a pound off what I'm supposed to weigh, ten off what I'd like to weigh. Since I didn't gain it in a week I suppose I won't lose it in a week and I'm trying not to weigh myself more than 2 or 3 times a week. I find when I weigh myself I either get discouraged if I gain even a pound and if I lose I think I can eat what I want which leads to being discouraged. I have to work a little again tomorrow - the nurse oncall is swamped so I volunteered to do my own patient. I'm not crazy about doing it but if you don't help out, you don't get helped.

I have to run out to my car and get some paperwork, eeww - I parked near the road so I won't have to dig that far. Our driveway here is pretty small compared to WV, there's a benefit. David is busy tiling the kitchen floor and will be doing near the front door, the carpet stays until Summer I think. It's obnoxious, but not hurting anything. But I'm glad to say good bye to the carpet in the kitchen - it was astro-turf green and stained all over with pulled threads just to give it that je nois se quoi effect - it certainly set off the banged up oven. Sigh. Pearl is whining to go out again, I swear she's part husky - we go out and she eats the snow, rolls in it, snuffles it, and you have to make her come back in.

Winter Has Come. Again.

As you can see from the pictures, it's not raining anymore. The temp is now a balmy 19 degrees but with the bad comes the good and along route 247 it's amazing. All the trees are covered with ice from top to bottom - the pictures don't do it justice. I was out early this morning, I had a visit and got to use my PT/INR machine again -it's my new favorite toy. If you take coumadin, which is a blood thinner you have to have the blood levels drawn - and I have a machine that does the same thing but it's just a little finger stick for a drop of blood. My patients with poor veins are loving it and so am I as I get the results instantly and it requires no trip to the lab. We have started to decorate the house for Christmas, we are missing some stuff I think. David brought up the fake tree from the basement that had been left by the previous owners. He set it up and we stood back - then I asked if it was possible for a Christmas tree to have a bad hair day, because this one certainly was!! David tried bending the thingys but that only made us laugh harder and the tree look worse so it's now residing on the side of road with a "Free" sign on it, we've had no takers so far, but I'll let you know. We really wanted a real tree anyhow. David is going to take over the christmas shopping next week, I just can't do it. Work has picked up as it always does in the weeks leading up to Christmas, the patients want to be home and the doctors want them to be home and out of thier hair.

My stupid pager has been going off all day so between that and Pearline whining to go out, I'm a wee bit stressed. I did get some sleep last night, I think I was so tired there was no other option possible. David bought a used woodstove and has that set up, it's nice to have one even if it is in the basement. He had to reblack it and get new pins for the door, but all in all it worked out very nicely. He's been busy making rooms downstairs and it looks very nice. He hasn't fixed the shower in the prison bathroom and thinks I'm crazy for wanting to use it - I think since I own a prison shower I should use it at least once, don't you? And since it's in my house I don't have to worry about dropping the soap.

So there is my day - I think everyone has that sort of thing going on now. Nothing really major but you feel like you're just running all the time without a break. I do try to knit a little each night and I've gotten much better about exercising, I'm not all the way back into my routine but I'm certainly making progress. I just wish the pounds came off as fast as they went on.

Soaked To The Skin

All of my coats are draped over various pieces of furniture - the rain continues, on and on with no end in sight. You could just sink down to China in the yard it's so soft and squishy, I feel like I'm playing Giant Step all the time when I walk Pearl in an attempt to avoid puddles and mud slicks. We heard from Jackson last night, he has finally gotten his orders and will be shipping out to San Diego California in the beginning of January - he's been having a little bit of trouble finishing up in A school so hopefully we'll get to see him before he goes. Of course him calling at 11 last night didn't help my insomnia, I just can't seem to sleep through the night anymore. This was not helped by Vincent visiting - if he was quiet it would be one thing but he insists on purring quite loudly and parading around the bed, taking over where our Mr. Lee left off. THEN we got up around 6 am - so we thought - the electric must've gone out at some point during the night so I'm not sure what time it was, just that we had been up for quite awhile before we realized it wasn't even 5 am. Arrgh. I'm on call all weekend and it looks like I'll be running the entire time, but the extra money will come in handy this time of year. I'm hoping to get some stuff done with the decorating end of it and will at least get the christmas cards out. David has been busy with the basement renovation, he has used up all that discounted sheetrock from Home Depot which he's still gloating about and has been happily rewiring the whole shabang. We haven't heard anything from Adam as to whether he's coming home or not, I guess that will just be a big surprise to us all.

Today's Forecast: Snowrainsleetsunwindcoldwarm

The wind picked back up again last night, but so did the temp so we now have driving rain. Lovely. Pearl is harrassing me to go out (I don't think so) Vincent was harrassing everyone to let him back in - typical morning around here. The Two AM Girl has been visiting me quite often these days, there's not much going on so it gives me plenty of time to stress out about this and that. I know I should try to find something to do, in WV I had my yard, my pool, the walking trails, a few friends but here I have none of that and winter is not the time to do it. I'm on call all weekend so that should give me something to do. A lot of this is just transistional, I know that we've had a lot of changes in the past 6 months and it will probably take that long - if not a little longer - to figure out what we want to do.

I don't know if staying in WV would have been the answer, like anything else in hindsight you tend to forget the bad and overstate the good but I don't know if here is the right place for me. Of course after the last move I don't think I want to repeat that experience again! My stomach just goes in a knot thinking about it. ARRGH! So I will be sitting back for a while, eating tofu and rice and mulling over my life in general. In other news I haven't gotten any further with the christmas shopping, I'll just muddle around a bit more and then everyone will get gift certificates. I still haven't gotten any decorations up, we have a neighbor down the road that puts everyone to shame - from the lighted candy canes lining BOTH sides of the driveway to the Santa and Sleigh, plus outlining his entire house in lights we are in sorry shape indeed. But there's always one in every neighborhood, isn't there?

I'm making wonderful progress on my sweater this time around, the sleeve binding is right, the cables are uniform and since I weeded through the yard it's entirely one shade of green. Sometimes you can fix that - I made a lavender sweater that happened with but the off color was right near the bottom so it had Subtle Striping throughout - I just added the striping as I went along and it ended up looking like I meant to do that. I work on it a little each night and then after that I will be trying to use up my stash, setting the world record for knitting I suppose. Maybe I can make a House cozy......

Hmm. A Bit Of Chill In The Air.

Pearl has spent most of the day whining gently in my ear, she wants to go out all the time. I don't mind the cold (I have a full length down coat good for up to minus 50 so quite naturally, I don't mind the cold) - I do, however, mind the wind and it was whipping big time today. And standing in a wide open field with Miss Pants frolicking about gives new meaning to Wind Chill Factor. However on the upside if you throw the rubber chicken in the direction of the wind you could probably qualify for a spot on the NFL. This morning we set out fairly early about 8:30 to beat the weekend shoppers, we had a few errands to do and some christmas shopping to do so I hit AC Moore's first just to peek around. Then off to the bookstore, Best Buy and then grocery shopping. That has gotten interesting, it seemed like we spent a lot today because we also hit Sam's Club but as David pointed out we now go to Sam's once every 4 - 6 weeks instead of weekly and the supermarket, if the bill is over $70, it's a lot these days.

I bought a lot of fruits and vegetables, since we moved I had slid right back into bad habits and hadn't been exercising at all and am well on my way to gaining it all back. That is upsetting given I've kept the weight off for a few years and as I get older it gets harder and harder to get back to ground zero. I have been good and have lost a few pounds, I know I'll go off the wagon due to the holidays but if you're dieting and exercising to begin with you won't at least, gain as much. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I did find the christmas decorations in the basement, some are a bit more worse for the wear, some seem fairly new, but I think we have enough to make it through the holidays.

I'm back to work tomorrow with the rest of hoi poloi, bastards. My back tire is no longer self deflating so that should make it a bit easier to cruise around. David had a good time with Roman and the vodka - Roman is better at it than he is and can ingest a fair bit. When David refused a 3 (or 4rth shot) because he told Roman he didn't want to drive home drunk Roman kindly offered to drink him home. David felt that since Roman had started before him that would be sort of like the pot driving the kettle back (haha). Anyhoo, my mother is still residing in Mather Hospital waiting for her INR to go up so she can go home, but she sounds fine and is using the time wisely by knitting and watching TV (she probably feels like she's in Pennsylvania.....)

Brrrr! Pennsylvania is NOT called the "sunshine state" for a good reason. It should be called the "Freeze Your Butt Off" state - I am eternally glad I'll never have to use the outhouse, two seater or not. I gave it one more good sweep and then propped the door shut to keep future snow and rain out of it. I think I'd like to keep the outside as is and then do the inside. It appears to have been subjected to occasional attempts at fixing it over the years (unless that's Colonial Plywood I'm looking at!) so I can't hurt the historic value. Anyhoo, outhouses and ice aside, my car made it's weekly visit to the car shop, this time for an oil change and for another repair to the tire but the Yellow Light issue has been resolved for now. David and I did a quick trip to Honesdale which is a little town down the road from here -they have cool little stores including a health food store, a bookstore that specializes in used and out of print books, knick knacky things, a gun shop, stuff like that.

We did a little walking around and poking here and there, nothing to write home about. We hit Home Depot on the way back - I bought a big planter as I have a plant that desperately needed to be repotted. David went back in for something and came out with a cart - slightly damaged sheetrock, the entire cart for $12.03 - it was about a dozen sheets and the 'damage" was a little bend at a corner here, a little paper off there - but since it usually cost about $8 a sheet David felt he could live with it. He's currently finishing our basement in his spare time so it was, as Martha would say, A good thing. We have to go shopping tomorrow and get what gifts we're buying bought now so we can send them off. I don't think we'll be seeing Ray for awhile as he doesn't like the cold weather at all and refuses to travel in it. I called my mom today at the hospital, she's currently in Mather with DVT and isn't enjoying it at all. Hopefully she'll be back at home soon appreciating the unique knitting opportunity a blood clot can present.

David's off visiting Roman who called to tell him that they are friends and David owes him a visit so they can have a drink together. Roman is funny because 7 minutes after he initially called he called again wanting to know whair my friend Davie is, I have bean waiting and waiting. I am just sitting and he is not here(you would have to hear it with the heavy russian accent to truly appreciate the conversation) - so there is someone with less patience than me apparently. But since I haven't recieved any more calls about someone's friend Davie I'm assuming he got there and they're complaining about politics, the economy and other assorted indigities. I'm just relaxing, I'm on call all next week so I take the time when I can and we all know what channel I'm watching (can you hear the screaming??)