When I was growing up....(1955-1969)

When I was growing up .....

• cars did not have air conditioning


• the doors to my house were never locked


• my bedroom was on the second floor of our cape cod style home with no air conditioning


• we had a 24 ft. round pool


• I lived in a suburban neighborhood


• I never took public transportation


• I had a record player


• then I had a tape cassette player


• I rode my bicycle everywhere


• there were drive-in movie theaters


• President Kennedy was assassinated


• my favorite TV shows were Bonanza, I Love Lucy, Candid Camera, Gilligan's Island, Car 54, Gomer Pile, Star Trek, My Three Sons, I Dream of Jeanie, Mr. Ed, Leave it to Beaver, Lassie, Green Acres, Outer Limits, Patty Duke, The Carol Burnett Show, My Favorite Martian, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Three Stooges American Bandstand, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched, and so many more.


• I spent a lot of time with my Grandparents (on my Dad's side)


• My aunt (my mother's sister) lived just down the street and I would play with my cousins Carol and Sherry. Carol later passed away at the age of 18.


• I saw my brother start to self destruct with the use of drugs. To this day he is addicted to pain medications.


• I would go camping with my family (I can still smell the bacon and eggs cooking on the Coleman stove)


• I rode a horse


• Man landed on the moon


• I had a Poloroid Instant Camera


• I loved Christmas


• Marilyn Monroe died

Summer is Almost Here

It's May and summer is just around the corner. I thought I would be further along with my weight loss but I have only lost 5 pounds this past month. I thought I was doing everything right. Perhaps more exercise is required. It's so hard to move some days with my back and ankle the way it is. Some days I just can't get out of bed because I hurt so much. I need to be very careful with what I do. I started walking my dog for 30 minutes tonight and I hope to continue this daily. It felt good but I don't think it will be enough to lose the weight I want to because I can't walk too fast or hard. I have work out videos I can be exercising to but my knees kill me when I work out to them. Oh what a physical mess I am. Who am I kidding. My mind says I'm 30 something....my body says I'm old. I guess I just need to do the best I can.

This coming Tuesday I will be meeting with a recruiter with a temp agency. It's time for me to go back to work. If nothing else but to keep my sanity. And the extra cash won't hurt either. There are so many things I want to do around the house and I can't do them on what my husband makes. He has enough to worry about without me spending money we really don't have.

I've discovered that life's journey is all about change and adaptation. One of these days I'm going to live life my way. One day.

Another new beginning

Let's see....my husband left yesterday for orientation in PA. He hired on with Shaffer Trucking. I really hope this works out this time. Our finances are a MESS! We just can't catch up. He sold his beloved 1971 LTD Ford Convertible last week. I was very sad about it but it needed to be done. With the money my husband decided that we needed to buy food storage and silver investments. So....we ordered the food storage which has an 8-10 week delivery. I surely hope we won't need it before then. Next on the FOR-SALE list is his tool boxes and tools. We will not have any income for at least 2 weeks. I hope the wolves stay away until then. I am so afraid of losing my home.

I was on a diet until my husband lost his job. While he was home for the past two weeks it's been really difficult to stay on plan. Now that he is away I will begin again. I really hope for a day when ordinary and boring is the status quo in my household.

What Now??

Can someone please tell me when is my life going to get easy? Why is it so damn difficult? My husband was fired from his NEW job on Monday due to a misunderstanding of policy. I had to travel 550 miles both ways to get him home with all his stuff from his truck. I had just started my new diet plan and that was shot out of the water! He has gone through so many jobs! I know this gets him down but good grief! When is this going to stop? Now neither of us are working and we have a total of $154.00 in the bank. We were just starting to get caught up on our bills and this happens. I just can't take it anymore. I try to be strong and say "everything will be alright." I've even mentioned that I would go back to work even if just a temp but he said noooooo, keep my spiritual routine going. How can I have joy in the ministry when I have all this chaos going on in my house? I'm 400 miles away from family and I feel so alone and so discouraged. I'm really very sad. I'm not sure if writing this silly blog even helps. It's not like anyone is reading it. Nope, just me. I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!

IT HAS ARRIVED!

My Food Lovers Diet System arrived today! YAY! Like anyone receiving a wonderful gift I hurried to open the box to see what exciting things were inside. I quickly took everything out and scattered them on my livingroom floor. A single DVD instructing me to "watch now" caught my attention so I placed it in my DVD player and begun watching. This gave an overview of the program and how to assemble my book. I am now ready to begin my weight-loss journey. But first I must do a lot of reading of this material to make sure I do it correctly and that I understand the science behind it. There are many recipes to follow which I am thankful for.

I have not informed my husband of this, yet. I want to see if he notices that I have lost some weight when he returns from his over the road job. Since he doesn't come home everyday I am certain he will notice! Tonight I will read the materials, Friday I will do the shopping and cooking of any meals that can be prepared in advance and on Saturday I will begin. My husband is due home soon, I think. I hope I can pull this off without too much suspicion.

Why don't I tell him??? Because I have tried other programs in the past that I give up on. I don't want him to think I will give up on this one and have him be disappointed in me. I know they say having a good support system in place when dieting is good but everytime I tell someone I am dieting, I fail. So I figure if I don't tell anyone that I am doing this plan, perhaps I will succeed! And once I am really on my way with the plan I will let them in on it. Also, in the past, if I eat something that may not look like it is part of a diet plan I get the comments "that's not on your plan, is it?" So, to avoid all that I have decided not to say anything to anyone and if they ask me what I am doing to lose the weight I will just say, "eating healthier." Sounds selfish, doesn't it? I call it "self preservation."

A New Outlook

Ok....today is Wednesday, March 23, 2011. I decided that it is time for me to get healthy. I am tired of being fat. I look at myself in the mirror and don't even recognize me anymore. I know I am older but good golly do I need to look like this??? So....I have been researching diet programs and decided to order the Food Lovers Plan. It is suppose to balance the fast and slow carbs and proteins. I thought Michael Thurmans' program did that but it was so much work to figure out what goes with what and how. So in researching this plan it appears to have it all layed out for you. I will give it a try. I will make this work. I have the time to plan and exercise. I just have to do it. One foot in front of the other they say. Baby steps. One day at a time. Breathe in and breathe out. I can do this.

Japan Earthquake

Its been 4 days now since the horrific 8.9 - 9.0 mag earthquake hit Japan. I watched from my easy chair the devastation taking place. The sunami that hit the coastline tossed cars and trucks as if they were toys and the buildings that were in its path destroyed like matchsticks. I can't imagine what those people are going through. As of today the reports state thousands have lost their lives; most, swept out to sea. Bodies are now starting to wash upon the shore. The nuclear power plant is about to have a meltdown. Japan....you are in my prayers.

Monday Blues

This morning I said good-bye to my husband as he leaves to hit the road in the truck. He'll be gone for a while. Not sure when he'll be back. It was nice having him home for a day. I don't know how the military wives do it. Not seeing their spouse or loved ones for months at a time. It makes me sad that he is gone for probably weeks if not months this time.

I just watched a video on You-Tube of the 911 attack. I sat here and wept. At times uncontrollably. Seeing those towers fall and watching those people just throw themselves out of the windows because hitting the pavement below would be better than burning alive brought back all those emotions as if it were yesterday. How soon people forget that this was an act of terrorism on our land. On our home. The home of the FREE and the BRAVE. Every one of those firefighters, policeman and women, and good Samaritans that lost their lives on that fateful day are true heroes. And all of us looked on in disbelief and horror as Muslim extremists attacked our country.

May God be with our brave soldiers abroad and let us all pray for them to be brought home safely.

Cats & Dogs

This is Toby. He is a cool cat! He adopted us when we first moved to Columbus in 2000. He was a chubby boy there for a while but as he has aged he developed hypertyroidism which puts his metabolism in high gear and he has become very thin. Hmmmm....why couldn't that happen to me? Anyway, he wakes me up every morning by putting his paw on my eyelid and then gives me sweet licks on the forehead. He has lost some teeth which has given him a real bad case of bad breath. He is always ready to claim my lap whenever the opportunity arises. He was on the last truck with us and he was a trooper! He just hung out and took everything in stride. Such a cool cat!


This is Cocoa. My pooch. She is the best! Sweet and loving. Always follows me wherever I go. We adopted her 5 years ago or so from the Humane Society. We know nothing of her past or what breed she is. It really doesn't matter...we're just so happy she is with us. She traveled with us on both trucks and absolutely hated the last one. Too rough and loud for her pampered taste. If she can find a spot in the sun, she will lie there for hours. She loves to go for car rides every chance she gets, which is nearly everytime I leave the house. She traveled with me when I was a courier and loves hanging her head out the window to get a whiff of whatever is in the air. She is truly my second best friend (my husband is my first!).

Bio-rythems

3:12 am.

Hello world! Can't sleep. I think my bio-rythems are all out of wack. Too much on my mind me-thinks. The financial and economic world we live in today is becoming very stressful. The news reports that our "unemployment" numbers are on the decrease....ARE THEY KIDDING? How many people have stopped looking for work because after they have been layed-off from a company they have been with for a number of years find themselves in competition with the "young and perky" 20 somethings? Don't get me wrong; they need jobs too. Don't these companies realize that us mature, hard-working individuals have a wealth of experience to give? And the income they are offering these days is the same I was making in the early 80's!

Since the trucking jobs were hard on my back I find myself again without employment. So I am again asking the same questions as when I was layed-off in 2008. What now?

Today, March 3rd...my daughter's birthday

Hello, I'm back again. Today is March 3rd, my middle daughter's birthday. She is 35 years old. Where did the time go? I look at the clock and I am taken back to the day of her birth. My back was just killing me! I didn't have the normal labor pains but knew it was time. She was delivered naturally as all my girls were. What was I thinking? They had epidurals back then! I looked at that 9 pound bundle of joy and was in love just as I was when my oldest was born. It seems like yesterday I was a young mother; never realizing today would come so quickly and the world we live in would be so different.

I look in the mirror and see what once was a some-what attractive woman aging quickly. A woman in her mid-50's getting wider in the middle, saggier in the neckline and I find a new wrinkle every day it seems. So I guess I'm on track! I have a 35 year old daughter.