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CAROLFAITHWALKR's Recent Blog Entries
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Thursday, December 17, 2009
Today's Quotes:
~Surrender is NOT the answer.
~Failure is success if you learn from it. - heard on the radio
~Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. - Charles Dickens
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Said by Children
"Close the curtains," requested our 2 year old granddaughter, sitting in a pool of bright light. "The sun's looking at me too hard."
My friend asked our grandson when he would turn 6. He replied, "When I'm tired of being 5."
Seeing her first hailstorm, Mary Sue, age 3, exclaimed, "Mommy, it's raining dumplings!"
As I frantically waved away a pesky fly with a white dishtowel, my granddaughter observed, "Maybe he thinks you're surrendering."
A friend's grandson, 4, was reading with his granddad about Adam and Eve. He asked, "Is this where God took out the man's brain and made a woman?"
Announcing to daughter Lori that her aunt just had a baby and it looked like her uncle, she said, "You mean he has a mustache?"
When I asked our grandson if he could name the capital of Florida, he fired right back, "Capital F!"
Shampooing my 4-year-old, I noted his hair was growing so fast he'd soon need it cut. He replied, "Maybe we shouldn't water it so much."
My daughter told her 5-year-old that their van was going to be fixed. Instantly, the small fry assumed, "Oh, it's going to the tire-o-practor?"
Impressed by her 5-year-old's vocabulary, my friend complimented the young scholar, who nonchalantly responded, "I have words in my head I haven't even used yet."
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Today's Quotes:
~Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling. - Margrart Lee Runbeck
~It's not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.
~Exercise isn't just good for your body - it's good for your soul. If you feel a bit down, get up and get moving.
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Wow I typed "Christmas" into SparkRecipes and got 83 hits! Great to scan this list for ideas, such a wide variety here:
recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipes.asp?
food=christmas&anyall=ALL&c1=0&c2=0&c3
=0&c4=0&c5=0&calories=0&prep_time=0&to
tal_time=0&sort=number_of_ratings
My SparkFriend Mary has this link on her blog, Quick, Easy, and Inexpensive Christmas Decorations:
www.doityourself.com/stry/easyxmasde
corate
And Christmas decor videos from Southern Living, also courtesy of Mary:
www.southernliving.com/home-garden/h
olidays-occasions/christmas-decorating
-ideas-00400000059525/?iid=newsletter|
20091117&PromKey=XET
And helpful SparkArticles, pages, and misc:
www.sparkpeople.com/myspark/search_r
esults_google.asp?q=site%3Asparkpeople
.com+-site%3Ababyfit.sparkpeople.com+c
hristmas&sa=Search&client=pub-42565962
92467410&forid=1&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-
8859-1&cof=GALT%3A%23008000%3BGL%3A1%3
BDIV%3A%23336699%3BVLC%3A663399%3BAH%3
Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3AFFFFFF
%3BALC%3A0000FF%3BLC%3A0000FF%3BT%3A00
0000%3BGFNT%3A0000FF%3BGIMP%3A0000FF%3
BLH%3A50%3BLW%3A600%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2
Fassets2.sparkpeople.com%2Fassets%2Fdi
et4%2Fwbs_search_google.gif%3BS%3Ahttp
%3A%2F%2Fwww.sparkpeople.com%3BFORID%3A11%3B&hl=en
        
 Merry Christmas
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Today's Quote:
~Should you find yourself at a loss, wondering what life is all about & what your purpose is, be thankful. There are those who didn't live long enough to get the opportunity to wonder.
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An unexpected, and LOVELY chore today: I'm washing and then putting into a donation bag, some winter corduroys that are TOO BIG. They are falling off of me and I can't pull them up any higher than they already are. Also I noticed Christmas tops are hanging; they seem to have "grown longer" while in storage this year and now hang loosely completely over my tummy and all the way down to the top of my thighs. Woo Hoo! Small victories really make a difference! Christmas tops unexpectedly hanging loosely, and donating pants that are too big, are unexpected sources of joy!
***************************
Here is my story of fantastic bargains at Goodwill:
I need some things after moving, but don't want to buy anything until after I have a job. Posted to freecycle for dining room table chairs, and a baker's rack to use as a plant stand, didn't get anything yet.
In Nov I got a stool for $5 at a Pennsylvania Goodwill when visiting a friend in PA. Now it's at the kitchen table; later when I get real chairs, I can use the stool for a plant stand.
Sat night found a $4 chair at my local Goodwill that I'll use at my desk, and move the desk chair to the kitchen table. I had been moving the one chair back and forth between kitchen and living room. Neither of the two chairs look like a kitchen table chair, but I'm happy.
I was also rewarded for taking the Leslie Sansone videos out of my cart at Walmart and putting them back about a million times during the past year, as Sat night at Goodwill I found new, still-wrapped-in-cellophane Leslie Sansone VHS for $1 each. I didn't notice til I got home that two are for Abs, which I really don't care about at this point as I have so much to lose, but since they are Leslie's I would have still bought them. The third is "Walk Away the Pounds 3 Miles". These look like younger pictures of her so they must be older. I still need the starter one for beginners but still don't want to pay $10, and will make do without it. Also Amazon has good WATP specials too; but it's too tempting to bump it up to spending $25 to get the free shipping; I'll just stay away from the temptation of Amazon. Also got Charlotte's Web VHS, Dances With Wolves, and 2 Natl Geographic. Plus sci fi I love but have never owned, and many of these movies I have only seen parts of: ET, Dune, Independence Day, and Star Gate.
I "had a wonderful Christmas" for myself Sat night at Goodwill, unexpectedly, and for less than $20; all because I needed kitchen table chairs.
Previously I had looked at 6 stores, just so I could get a stability ball that was purple. It was $28+ all told; almost thirty bucks. After all that effort, and paying full price as it wasn't even on sale so I could get it in purple, to my surprise I didn't like it. There was nothing wrong with it. But I was going to use it for a desk chair as many sparkers do, and it turns out the height is too low for my knee joints. Probably would have been fine as a desk chair for younger or less obese people who have more flexible joints. I had repacked it and set it by the door for the next time I went out, so I took it with me Sat night to return it. So now, I'm happy it didn't work out, since I replaced it with a $4 dollar chair from Goodwill. So I spent $15+ and was refunded $28+; I unexpectedly came out $13 ahead! Just like WAITING for the Leslie Sansone tapes; being thrifty paid off.
Monday, December 14, 2009
This story made me cry. I read it slowly and savored it all the way to the end. Merry Christmas everyone.
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091214/ap_on_h
e_me/us_med_healthbeat_kidney_dominoes
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Ever notice how you "like" doing a progress report when you've made significant progress? And you don't like it the other times? Yeah there's no question (but then there never was) that I'm definitely human!
So here we go, here's This Week's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:
A major victory this week was changing over from nights to days, in preparation for the day job I am seeking. I am a hard-wired night person, have been since early childhood/earliest memories. When the sun goes down, my spirits go up, I come alive, am wide awake, and feel happy and feel physically good for the first time that day, become jolly and an extrovert. So it's extremely very easy for me to mix up nights and days.
Of course I thought I could do this in one day, two if needed, to reset my days & nights. But it took 4 days that almost killed me of staying up long hours to work it around to sleeping all night. The first night I slept all night and woke up naturally at 4am, I was a zombie but happy I finally got to that point. Still sleep deprived though so I got tired early that night. Second day I felt better and more like myself, still woke up at 4 again naturally. So now it's been 5 days of waking up naturally, early in the morning - plus the initial 4 days equals 9 days - this that the majority of everyone else takes for granted is a "BIG DEAL" in my life, a huge, humongous deal. It must be God's grace that I was able to do it this time, and also feel good or normal in the morning at the same time.
My best friend has heard this story a million times and was tactful but I know she doesn't believe I changed. However, this time it really did change. I can't explain it but I can feel the change. It's like I'm a normal "day" person. Still not Miss Mary Sunshine in the morning, but, not in a foul black mood and I don't feel drugged for 5 hours after I get up, either. I actually WAKE UP when I get up. This is a miracle.
I solved some financial bottlenecks which were lessons in perseverance, ditto for landline problems (remind me to never do business with Verizon when I have the option - example I'll go with someone else for cell phone service). Also solved some ISP and modem problems, bank issues due to moving, lots of issues STILL, issues leftover from moving from Iowa to Maryland.
While all the sleep disruption was going on, I still lost weight using the NO S Diet, even though I only used it loosely, and the weight has stayed off as opposed to temporary water weight. Even with the holiday season and sleep disruption. Yippee!!
I am still eating carbs at this point, but spent time learning about low carbing and lurking in lots of new teams to learn from other sparkers. Checked out the Atkins site which I learned existed for the first time - wow! There are online lessons there I want to take but the session was full. I want to go back to that later. Low carbing might not even be necessary for me to do, if NO S Diet keeps working; but since I have so much to lose, one whole person to lose, I want to learn about low carbing so I have that as one metabolic weapon in my arsenal in reserve. I'm sure the day will come when I need to bust through a plateau, for example, and you know how our bodies like us to change things up.
In all the moving boxes' "glory", I found the Christmas CDs and set them up in living room and started enjoying Christmas music. Wrote a letter for Christmas cards, which really helped me see things about my life I'd never seen before and was unexpected very helpful to ME, before I ever mailed them! Finished the letter, and do you know I could not find pretty printer paper. HOW HARD CAN IT BE!!!!!, but several stores were out, finally went to Kinkos, yeah they're higher but it would have been cheaper for me to have went there first. For the actual cards themselves, only made a lame attempt at doing the Christmas cards; have to get real and actually do them today so I can mail them tonight so they'll go off Monday morning. I know where the box is that has them in there; have to address, stuff, stamp, and find everyone's addresses that I've been collecting; when I moved I thankfully found lots of "lost" addresses I'd squirreled away, but I put them all in one place, and I will update my address book as I go this year. Also took down TG Autumn decors, but have yet to put them away and get Christmas decors up. If Lowes still does the $5 tree thing, I'll have a tree this year; otherwise I've decided not to do a tree. (Fake trees are not for me.) But I have a ton of other decorations and lights that I'll use. So mixed bag on making holiday progress; alot yes but not Good yet.
My Goodwill Haul last night was definitely GOOD - I was rewarded for being thrifty and waiting. You can't believe what I got for $15.90, at a net cost of +$13. I'll post that in another blog due to length of this one.
Bad: no Christmas cards mailed, no further headway on unpacking, job hunting precluded by ISP problems.
I'm going to enjoy the coming week very much. Still job hunt, yes of course, but bake and cook and decorate and sing Christmas Carols outloud in the house and celebrate life.
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Member Comments About This Blog Post:
on the salt reduction, I've found salt to be a real weight gainer! Plus it just makes be feel so bad from the swelling & bloating. 
