Well i don't know why but blogger will not let me edit the blog below... i thought i was unable to blog at all but it looks like it is just the one entry??? Anyway as a result i can't make any changes to the mistakes in font etc. and i can't finish answering the questions... too weird. I guess i could try deleting it and starting again or something... probably won't bother though. Hope everyone had a good weekend and a good Canada Day for those of you in Canada :)

posted by susi 10:27 PM

I decided to delete the entry for this date re. the monday mission for now but left the date because there were some yaccs comments attached.

posted by susi 9:45 AM

More Random Babble

Had another good workout yesterday and gained another 2lbs... threw the scale out of the upstairs window this morning... ;) lol. Oh well my bodyfat % is going down... so it's all muscle right?... lol. Life just isn't fair. :)

Went to my 3 yr old's year end preschool concert this aft. It was crowded and hot but it was short and they are adorable. Taking pics at the end was near impossible. My oldest daughter at that age would do exactly what you told her... stand here... click...move over there... click... smile... click... smile again. My little one is running all over like a lunatic and won't stand still for more than five seconds. When you finally catch her and drag her over to where you want to take a pic she will rarely smile.

One more event tonight and we're off for the summer... woooohooooo. :)) We've got my 8 yr old daughter's piano recital at 7pm. After that there's no more getting up early... school is done... all extracuricular stuff is done... 2 whole months of sleeping in... mmmm mmmmmmmmm... :))

posted by susi 3:06 PM

Random Babble

Well i worked out 3 times yesterday for a total of two and a half hours and gained two pounds this morning... lol. That sux. :P

Another perfect day... 30C/86F :)))))) Was a little less than perfect when the a/c stopped working in my truck yesterday... ha!! Got the tiburon today though so it can get as hot as it likes. Made the guy with the brain tumor take the truck without the a/c... ;) ... lol.

Speaking of which the eye-brain doc just called and everything is still on for the fourth. He says the tumor in hubs neck is just a lipoma... a little fatty benign tumor.

posted by susi 11:47 AM

Ugggh dunno what it is but i get incredibly tired around this same time everyday... 930ish. I don't know if i'm not getting enough sleep or it's the radiation still or what? They do say you can be tired for more than a year after rad. Guess i won't know till i start getting more sleep. It's getting annoying having to lay down every morning for an hour or two... there are so many other things i'd rather be doing. Oh well i gotta go nap for a bit... i just can't help it... i get so tired it's like torture trying to stay awake... sorta like when i used to work nights.. ;)

posted by susi 8:33 AM

Had a great run last night... i'd ran out of calories again and i wanted to eat so i went for a run. Did a half hour up the hill and a half hour on the streets. G*d summer is so great now that it is finally here... the weather is perfect... it's been 30C/90F during the day and it was still 20C/70F and light out when i went for a run at 10pm. Took the dogs with me. Of course after running i didn't feel much like eating which is what usually happens.

I'm lucky i can workout at all cause i sliced the back of my leg and foot open the other day on the screen door. Something like this always happens to me when i'm just getting into a good, consistent workout routine. I haven't been able to wear runners since saturday when i did it. There was no chance of checking out different pairs of runners to see if some wouldn't rub cause it goes from the bottom of my leg all the way down to the bottom of my foot at the back.

I got lucky with an old pair of hiking boots though... and i've been able to run outside in those. For some reason they rub and hurt more on the treadmill which is fine cause all the dirt on them would wreck it anyway. I did the treadmill in socks on monday which i've tried before and it flippin hurts... it gives me blisters on the bottom of my feet... so this morning i wore 3 pairs of socks and that wasn't too bad.

posted by susi 7:59 AM

Medical Schtuff

Hubby had his ultrasound done and the lump in his neck is just fatty tissue... so it looks like the brain surgery is still on for July 4th.

posted by susi 8:54 AM

Friday Five (.org)

1. Do you live in a house, an apartment or a condo?

A house.

2. Do you rent or own?

Own.

3. Does anyone else live with you?

My hubby... my two daughters: 8 and 3yrs old... and my two boxer dogs.

4. How many times have you moved in your life?

Six if you don't count moving to Edmonton for a year then moving back into the same house we were in and are still in now. I've only moved cities four times... London, England to ---> Swift Current, Saskatchewan to ---> Calgary, Alberta to ---> Edmonton, Alberta to ---> Calgary again

5. What are your plans for this weekend?

Umm well i'm a little late doing this but i didn't really have anything planned once my 8 yr old's dance stage show was finished friday night. Ended up having friends over saturday night for supper etc... both are kids were gone for the night again :)... dim sum sunday morning.... swimming in the outdoor pool finally!! :)... and took a couple walks up on the hill.

posted by susi 8:25 AM

The G8 summit starts today here in Calgary... well tomorrow actually but everyone arrives today. There are troops and police all over downtown and Kananaskis... no fly zones... a few blocks of downtown shut down for the week... and it all cost $300 million bucks... would have actually guessed more. The massive security operation is apparently the largest in Canadian history.

posted by susi 8:14 AM

Hubby goes for his ultrasound tomorrow...and hopefully someone will have a look at it pretty damn soon so they can decide on a biopsy and get that looked at before July 4th when he goes for the brain surgery.

Had a good weekend...got through my 8 yr olds year end dance show on friday. It's turned into an 11hour extravaganza over the years down at the Jack Singer Concert Hall. It used to be this little production at the university theater.

It's pretty damn good i must admit but we're just about dead by 11pm when the show ends. The actual show runs from 7-11pm but if you have a kid in the show it starts at 12 in the afternoon what with getting ready and rehearsals etc.

The 3 yr olds in the show are absolutely adorable and basically do nothing when they get up on stage 'cept look cute in their little outfits... the teenagers are getting absolutely awesome... all the kids love it but i think the 5 hrs in the dressing rooms is really getting to the younger ones.

posted by susi 11:56 AM

Hubs spent friday morning at the hospital doing the preop assessment thing. As soon as he walked in the door of the doc doing his physical the guy asked him how long he'd had that lump in his neck. Lump in neck?? Umm that kinda got missed. So now they've gotta get an ultrasound of this lump PDQ and possibly a biopsy as it could give them the diagnosis they have been looking for. The brain surgery may not be necessary and it's less than two weeks away.

Sarcoidosis was one of the last things the docs came up with as a possible diagnosis. They could not confirm this through a lung biospy etc. The lump hubby has in his neck could be a sarcoid lump. I've read about sarcoidosis though and he doesn't seem typical of someone with the disease... not from the little i've ready anyway. On the other hand sarcoidosis does seem to be a catch all phrase for unexplained inflammatory responses. He goes for the ultrasound on tuesday and depending on whether it is solid or not they may biopsy it.

posted by susi 9:50 AM

Well i don't know why the big pic of the diet power startup screen didn't work but i tried it again and now it works. Go figure. The rez is pretty poor but at least you don't need a magnifying glass to see what it is anymore.

I didn't have time to fix it up this morning cause i needed to grab a half hour nap before my bestfriend from high school dropped by. I only got 5hrs sleep last night... ugghhhhh. She brought me a Starbucks frappuccino... omg those things are evil... i'm glad Starbucks isn't as close as Tim Hortons.

posted by susi 8:24 PM

There are two kinds of discontent: the discontent that works and the discontent that
wrings its hands. The first gets what it wants; the second loses what it has. There is
no cure for the first but success; there is no cure for the second.
­­ Gordon Graham

posted by susi 8:37 AM

I was so p*ssed off yesterday i worked out for 2hrs. I gained a half pound according to the scale yesterday morning after eating healthy and working out the day before and it just p*ssed me right off. Besides that i drank so much frickin coffee, cream and 6 tons of sugar yesterday it was workout or no supper...lol.

I know it could be any number of things that prevent a little weight loss but i know from experience that more cals out than cals in = less poundage and for some reason it just didn't work yesterday and i set myself up to expect it. Course i didn't lose any today either cause that tends to happen if you workout too much... well no such thing as too much but you know what i mean.

Anyway, i've worked out everyday for over a month now so i think i can safely say that's a habit i won't be breaking for awhile. Now i just have to sort out the eating deal so i can lose some more weight. I put the whole fitness thing on hold for the last year since i had my surgery. Not intentionally... i just didn't have it in me to be consistent enough to accomplish anything. That's a whole other story to do with the cancer and misinformation etc. that i can't be bothered to talk about right now.

So i guess i'm at that point where i'm coming to grips with the fact if i want to lose weight i just can't eat as much as i want to dammit... lol. This is exactly the same point i was at a couple years ago when i lost the last 30lbs... only i could smoke instead of eat back then... *grin*. I've been eating real healthy but unfortunately healthy doesn't necessarily mean less cals... one step at a time though.

I use this great program called Diet Power... i'm not crazy about the name... it's a fitness and nutrition program... and i love it. I found it about two years ago i guess. You plug in what you eat and what exercise you do and it figures out the calories in and the calories burned. In addition it is constantly calculating your metabolic rate based on the information you are giving it everyday. Then it gives you the amt of calories you can eat that day based on your current metabolic rate so that you will reach your goal weight by the date you set.

The other thing i really like about it is the fact it calculates how much of each vitamin you've consumed as well as minerals, water, fiber, carbs, protein, etc etc. It is just so kewl if you really want to make sure you are getting everything you should be from your diet even if you don't want to lose weight. The food logs are huge so they have just about anything you could imagine eating so you don't have to guess or go to great lengths to find the food info and enter it. Well enough about that... as you can tell i think it's the best fitness program out there and well worth the money to buy it.



Well here's the starting screen of DP... this is another part i think is so kewl... with this you can see exactly what you're doing and where you're going. Some info has been obliterated to protect the innocent and the fat... which in this case is me... lol.

posted by susi 8:06 AM

A wise woman will always let her husband have her way.
­­ R.B. Sheridan

posted by susi 7:17 AM

Monday Mission 2.24 via PromoGuy.net

1. What does Father's Day mean to you personally?

Jeez well not really sure what to say. Father's Day doesn't really mean a whole lot to me. Trying to find the perfect gift... the perfect card... just stresses me out like all the other days in the year where i'm expected to provide some "thing" that is supposed to convey how much i care about someone. My dad is one of the best dad's in the whole world and he has got to be the best grandfather there ever was... i guess if anything it gives me a chance to try to tell him this. This year was kinda kewl though because i know he thought the pc i fixed up for him was kewl... and i thought it was kewl not because of what it was worth but because of the amount of time it took me to fix it up and that to me means more than blowing a bunch of money on someone.

2. Was there a Father, or a Father Figure in your life as you grew up?

Yep for sure. My dad was quiet and not very demonstrative but he was always there ready to help with whatever it was i needed at the time.

3. If you are a parent, is the father of your child(ren) involved on a daily basis? Is that even important?

Yep my hubby is involved on a daily basis depending on what you mean by involved. I always say he'd make a great weekend dad if we ever split...*g*. He's always the good guy... doesn't discipline... never says no... never does any of the bathing or putting to bed... he gives them the chocolate and the icecream... he does all the stuff they love and none of the stuff they dislike... but he does cook them supper almost every night... and i think he truly enjoys spending time with them on the weekends... taking them swimming and to movies etc.

4. With Rosie, Callista, Jodie and Camryn all raising children without Fathers, Hollywood seems to be sending a message that children do not need male role models. Do you agree? Are these "stars" sending a good message to the young adults who admire them?

I think ideally anyone would benefit from some type of positive male role model in their lives... whether you can accomplish this without actually having a father figure in the same household i don't know... probably. As for the stars... hmmmmm... i guess that depends on whether you think a male role model is essential... i don't know if it's a good message but i don't think it's a bad message... they want to experience being a parent like a lot of us and they have the financial ability if nothing else to do it alone.

5. Do you think the absence of a loving, caring father in the life of a child could have any influence on their sexual preferences when the child grows up?

Nope.

6. Was there ever a time when your father became "uncool." Or maybe embarrassed you?

Nope.

7. Are you ever too old to kiss your Dad?

Nope.

posted by susi 9:41 PM

Oops just a little late with my Father's Day greetings.

posted by susi 11:46 PM

Well go figure it looks like Scooby Doo was the top movie of the weekend. Wouldn't have to worry about blood and gore with that one.

posted by susi 11:19 PM

Friday Five

1. How often do you do laundry?

Jeez i dunno... lots. Sometimes everyday... sometimes not for days... usually depends on my mom being around cause she makes me do it... lol.

2. What's in a typical wash load?

Ugggh... clothes?

3. Front or top loader? Powder or liquid detergent?

Top loader and powder... well those little tabs... way less mess.

4. Do you use fabric softener in the rinse cycle?

Nope... used to have one of those downy balls but then i got some kind of allergic reaction to something... was never sure what caused it but i stopped using the fabric softener in the washer.

5. Dryer or clothesline?

I'm much too lazy to use a clothesline... doesn't really matter anyway with 8 out of 12 months being winter here.

posted by susi 11:14 PM

Spent most of the weekend fixing up one of my old pc's for my dad. There was so much cr*p on it... took forever. Basically had to just save anything i wanted to keep and delete anything incriminating... :) I've been meaning to do it for quite awhile now and Father's Day motivated me to get it done finally.

posted by susi 10:08 PM

Went to see Windtalkers saturday night. It's the first movie i've seen at the theater since The Perfect Storm... and that was the first movie i'd seen in years... so that makes two in about ten years.

Well the general storyline of the movie was good, Nick Cage i always enjoy watching and i like war movies but OMG i can't take over two hours of killing and gore and blood and guts anymore. On average it felt like ten guys died every 5 seconds... well dead wouldn't have been so bad but bits and pieces were flying off guys all over the place... it was too much. I know that's what real war is about but the guys that come back from those things are f*cked up enough... i don't need to know exactly why they are f*cked up and go experience it for myself.

I have no idea if it's because i've seen enough of that kinda thing working as a nurse or i'm just getting old and i've hit my human suffering blood and guts limit or what... but sitting and watching that stuff makes me want to sit and cry... and i don't mean normal at a sad movie crying... i mean i wanna sit there and cry my eyes out for every human being that had to go fight a war, for every guy that had to watch bits of their friends being blown off, for every one that died fighting and for every human being that had to come back after going thru all that sh*t.

I guess the thing that gets to me is knowing this all really happened... someone really went thru all that... lots of people really went thru all that.

posted by susi 1:34 PM

Drove the kids to Banff friday night where i got to deposit them with my parents for another whole weekend...woooooohooooo. Both kids gone for the weekend. :)) Gotta love that.

The weather has been great. Summer has finally made it. The drive up was a lot more pleasant than last weekend but no where near as much fun cause i took the truck...ugghh.

It's funny driving into the campground cause they have this sign that says WARNING: carnivores are in the area... and then pictures of wolves and cougars.. with all the dinosaur movies i've seen lately i half expected pictures of raptors... makes me feel like i've just entered a scene from Jurassic Park or the kids cartoon movie Dinosaurs where they have those carnotaur things that eat up the stragglers... lol.

Dunno about the kids... i think it's me been watching too much tv. Anyway, not sure why they have the sign up cause it's a national park in the middle of the rockie mountains... course there's carnivores up there... i suppose they've actually been spotted in the campground?

They've had to chase a lot of the elk away...cause there were just too many of them all over the campground. It's pretty kewl to see them all but it gets kinda freaky when you can't go to the bathroom cause there's 30 of 'em 2 feet from the door of your rv or worse yet your tent... lol.

People underestimate the danger of the elk... and so a few people get hurt every year walking up to them to take pics... especially when there's little ones about or they are in mating season. They've been letting off fireworks to scare them back into the bush.

Same thing happens with the bears believe it or not. Don't see too many bears these days though... not on the highway anyway. They've put up like an invisible fence along both sides of the highway all the way through the park so very few animals wander onto the road. I'm not sure if it was to protect the animals or the tourists...*g*... both no doubt.

Ten or more years ago you'd see 15 or so cars pulled over to the side of the highway... about 30 or 40 people wandering around... and a family of five standing ten feet in front of a bear eating berries at the side of the road... with someone else taking pics of them. OMG don't they read those books they give you as you drive into the park??? Don't see that anymore since they put up the fence.

Funny though... now i think of it i don't remember anyone ever getting attacked at the side of the road. It's always hikers or people tenting and usually in fairly remote locations. One thing is for sure you won't ever catch me tenting in national parks with bears and carnotaurs...i mean carnivores.

posted by susi 9:04 AM

There is one thing over which each person has absolute, inherent control, and that is
his mental attitude.
­­ Clement Stone

posted by susi 8:17 PM

Either i have heart disease, lung cancer or my workout top is too tight... but i am definately noticing some SOB when i workout. Maybe i'll try different attire tomorrow... hmmmmmm.

posted by susi 6:16 AM

I've rediscovered Campbell's vegetable soup... omg that stuff is good. I had to find something that was good for me and without a ton of calories cause i've been sooooo hungry lately. Dunno if it's the working out or what. Maybe it's all the shivering i've been doing in front of my pc lately?

I've been spending far too much time working on a new blog template. I discovered that what i wanted to do with my template requires at least a basic understanding of CSS so alot of time has been spent aquiring that. I love it when i get obsessed with something new. :)

Despite my latest obsession i've managed to maintain some control over my life and fit other more important things into my day... those things i'm constantly striving to incorporate into my life... maintaining that perfect balance between fun, responsibility and plain old work... yea right well ok like i said i'm constantly striving.

In other words... i'm working out... eating healthy... making the kids eat healthy... keeping my house reasonably clean without bein excessively anal... (don't think i've been anal about my house since i discovered computors in 1992 much to my mother's neverending disappointment)... getting the kids out to the park... (thanx to cell phone messenger chat and email i can now leave the house without getting all sweaty and shakey...wooohoooooo)...

ummmm what else... oh yea the nitemare organizational task of getting the kids from school... filling them full of vegetables... enforcing the homework laws... running to dance classes... piano practise... dinner... bath time... fillin 'em full of fruit... so i can get them to bed at a decent time... in order to have time to do laundry and clean up so i can spend all the next day at my pc... ;) This has got to be one of my bigger challenges in life especially since i'm so laid back.

OMG too much vegetable soup...i am sooooooooooooo full...lolol.

posted by susi 11:48 AM

What color should your hair be?!
;

Created by Vurui!

Why do i feel the urge to do these little test thingys when i see them??

posted by susi 1:54 PM

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