American Idol again!

I thought Chris didn't do his best on Tuesday and I understand why he was voted off but come on America, get real. Sanjaya needs to go. It has now become a huge joke and he is playing up the hair thing to the end. What next week? A shaved head? That'll do it cause then he won't be able to play with his hair anymore. Okay, now for something I thought I would never say....Sanjaya is actually getting a little better each week. He certainly has a great following with the little kids. But two things remain the same 1. he still sucks even though he is getting a bit better (a BIT mind you not a lot) and 2. I will be PISSED if he goes much further. I give him 2 weeks more at most!

Diet is going good. I am in a groove now and I have more energy than before and I am totally afraid to eat anything not on the "list". I gave up corn dogs and baked beans and applesauce cake today at work. So I know I am gaining a lot in willpower!!

High School Friends

My high school class reunion is coming up and it will be our 20th! I can't believe it has been that long but I remember our 5th (the last one I went to) and I felt like it was too soon as most of us were just getting out of college or still there or in grad school. Not much had changed and we hadn't really started to plow a path through life yet. But now, 20 years later, I am excited to see everyone!

I recently got back in touch with some old friends and had a great conversation last night with a dear old friend. The amazing part was that immediately as soon as I heard his voice it was like we had never lost touch with each other. I find it really neat (lack of better words) that no matter how long you have been away from great friendships forged long long ago that you can pick up where you left off. Those friendships I know will last a lifetime.

It makes me even more excited to see everyone again from high school.

Atkins - Day Three

So I have made it through day three. I feel like a Prilosec commercial! This was a tough day. We woke up earlier than usual so that I could fix myself breakfast (as well as the rest of the family). It wasn't so bad and I actually got to work earlier than usual. Lunch was fine. I had a Tendergrill Chicken Salad from Burger King. It is just at the end of the street so it is an easy grab. I looked at the carb count on the light salad dressing and it had 4 CARBS! So I didn't eat that and this was for the first time a pretty good salad without dressing. The chicken made it though and I made sure that I had a bite of chicken in every bite. Then came the hard part. It is my new step-father's 65th birthday today and he and my mother came over to the house for dinner and CAKE! Well, it was hard and I have no will power but I managed to fix a pretty hardy meal (all on the plan) AND I cut and served cake! I didn't have one myself and my husband the wonderful soul he is chose not to have any either. Instead we opted for a hit of whipped cream (NO CARBS!!!) The whipped cream actually gave me a bit of sweet in my mouth and I didn't sit there and stare at the cake wishing and wanting. Afterward, I packed up the cake (mom had brought it) and sent it home with them. The entire thing. Otherwise it would have been calling my name in the middle of the night or really right before bedtime.

I am very proud of myself for such will power I never knew I had! You should comment on how well I did!! Yippee me!! I am jumping for joy.

The new me.....well....not yet...but soon!

Okay I have survived one day on a diet! Yes, bring on the applause. I don't do diets. I just eat my way through the day and then plan to start the next day. The kids don't help at all when in the morning they say, "Let's have pancakes!" or "Let's have waffles! Mommy, your waffles are the BEST!" Which I got this morning too. So I found a frozen waffle from last weekend in the freezer and presto Nicholas had a waffle. I didn't even snitch a little piece. So then I found some pancakes in the freezer for Alexandra. Bingo, two down quick. I mix up a couple of eggs for an omelette (yes they are on my diet) and think about the cheese and ham that will be inside. Put away the yummy syrup quickly. Done! Now for the omelette, oh no I have another child to feed. Caroline wants cereal, yippee it is quick and easy and not hard to stay away from. Bingo in the bowl milk on top, Done! Back to the omelette. Sausage is done too. I put it on the table. No carbs yet. Wow, I am doing good. I could like this diet. So far I have been awake 35 minutes.

Lunch was interesting. After 4 hours at the soccer fields we are all starving. I am afraid to go home, there are brownies on the counter that I made a few days ago. On the way home there is a Burger King. Did you know they will put any hamburger/sandwich in a bowl for you without the bun? Well, now I do too. I didn't want a salad I wanted a burger. "Double Stacker with Bacon in a bowl please". Wow, this diet can be okay. I go to the grocery this afternoon and I buy steak, sauerkraut, bratworsts, cheese and salad stuff! All on the diet!! String cheese for snack and tonight for dinner, well I couldn't let the steak sit and we had a heaping salad, sauteed onions and mushrooms too. All on the diet!

So I survived the first day. We will see how I do tomorrow but they say with alcoholics "one day at a time". This is my Lent turbo-charged! If you haven't guessed I am trying to do the Atkins Diet. I feel like I give up bread and sweets and fruit for a little while but I get to eat meats, burgers, sausage, and bacon instead. And Diet Coke is allowed!! My thought is that I can do it for two weeks and see where I am. My goal is 10% of my current body weight. That is a little over 20lbs. I should be able to do that. Then I will consider another goal, or not. So I weighed myself today to get a baseline, but I am telling you I am feeling skinnier already!!

I will keep you all up to date with how things are going. 20+ lbs, that is all. Tell me it will be easy!! Any suggestions or words of encouragement are welcome!!

Men and their toys!

So here it is. Last summer, in June, we went to an antique tractor and farm festival on an historic plantation about an hour from here: Chippokes State Park. While we were there we saw many great antique farm implements and tractors galore. We even watched a tractor pull and the kids took part in a toy tractor "petal pull". Alexandra won first place in her category. Back to my story. While we are there Kenneth falls in love with the old tractors. We spend two beautiful but hot days there and since then he has been trying to find a reason to buy a tractor. He started with all kinds of excuses, mostly rediculous. But he finally wore me down this January. So he looked on ebay and found this one at a reasonable price and he bought it. He went to Pennsylvania and picked it up last week. He is so excited about this tractor. And I am happy for him. We plan to have a BIG garden which I am sure you will hear a lot about in the coming months. But, wow, the bigger the boy the bigger their toys!

American Idol again!

So Sanjaya didn't get voted off again! He is obviously the worst singer and I don't understand this campaign to keep him on the show. We are picking off great singers. Yes, eventually they would end up leaving too but give them another week. They deserve it. This Sanjaya Malakar guy is horrible and his last rendition of the Kinks song really sucked worse than his attempts at singing Stevie Wonder.

Put the guy out of his misery! He needs to be let go. Next week if he doesn't get voted off I am going to do something drastic. I don't know what yet but it will be something.

Oh, by the way, if you read my treatise on John Edwards yesterday you probably thought, "wow she is really worked up over this". Well I still am but after I finished my blog on him I emailed his campaign suggesting that he stop campaigning. I know it probably won't ever get to him but there is always hope!! I am still mad at him.

Kenneth's Peculiar Title

Grand Duke Kenneth the Fifteenth of Old Throcking in the Hole

My New Name!!

This is my peculiar aristicratic title. From now on please call me:

Honourable Lady Whitney the Formidable of Featherstonehaugh St Fanshaw

If you want to find your's click here.

John Edwards

I watched John Edwards' press conference on CNN today at lunch time. I was impressed by his wife and his ability to remain so composed during the discussion of horrible news. I was also glad to see that they decided to get this all out in the open and have her doctor there to answer any medical questions the press had. It was very noble of them and I appreciate their honesty and openness in such a stressful time.

Now, what surprised me was the fact that he did not announce that he was quitting his campaign. What in the world? Does he hate his wife? After 30 years of marriage he said, they have been through some rough times and they know that they must hold their head up high and keep looking at the positives. FINE! GOOD! WAY TO DEAL! But anyone in their right mind and anyone who loves their wife so dearly would have quit no matter what. I don't care if Elizabeth said keep running. I don't care if she said she would kill him if he didn't continue to run. He is being a fool if he thinks that it was the right thing to do to keep going.

SHE HAS CANCER! BONE CANCER! IT IS INCURRABLE! Do you know what that means? SHE IS GOING TO DIE! It may not be tomorrow and it may be many years to come but she is going to go through chemo again and have other treatment and she is still going to die. The right thing to do is quit the campaign and stay home with her. Her time is limited and he is a selfish fool if he thinks that he has plenty of time with her. Her days are limited.

Okay, let's play this out. He continues and wins let's say. Then we have a president who is worrying about his wife while trying to run the country. AND I hear it is no small feat to run the US. And we will have a president who is distracted? Nope, sorry you lose my vote right there. I can't have a president who is distracted and not totally focused on our country and able to make sound decisions. What if she gets sick while they are in the White House? He will so regret not having the ability to spend time with her in her healthy days before she got sick. Now let's talk about the campaign itself. It is a tough and gruling road to the White House. We have seen candidates collapse from sheer exhaustion. She has to be there with him and campaign next to him. Her days are going to be gruling too. Won't that stress affect her health? Yup it will and she is a FOOL if she doesn't think so! Let's say they campaign to the end and he loses. Then she gets sick and he will again regret not being able to spend time with her while she is healthy because he was so selfish and has no presidency to show for it.

My suggestion to you Mr. Edwards, quit the campaign. You are third in line for the Democratic ticket right now, you lost the last campaign with Kerry, and in recent polls when Al Gore is thrown in the mix you are behind HIM who is not running! You need to bow out now while Elizabeth is still well, enjoy your days, weeks, and months, and years with her and your two little kids and have no regrets when she dies.

You won't get my vote this time. I can't in my right (or left) mind give my vote to a man who doesn't want to spend every living waking moment with the woman of his heart who's days are numbered. May that number be high and you have many happy years together. Just do the right thing.

Is anyone else having trouble creating a blog?

I have created two blogs and then went to publish and low and behold they are not there. I find out that when I click on create blog my screen comes up with errors mainly the top bar that gives me the ability to boldface or italicize type, link to other sites, and add pictures, etc doesn't come up and then when I hit publish it doesn't post. Anyone else having trouble or is it just me?

American Idol

I certainly hope that this week's American Idol will be better than last week. Now we won't get the results until tomorrow but I was so upset to hear last week that the votes were rigged by those in an "underground network" and publisized by Howard Stern on the radio to vote for the WORST contestant not the best. This troubles me that others have to ruin a nice thing for those who want to participate in a fun contest and not be thrown off by people who want to just screw things up. They even have a website to campaign for this kind of voting!!!

Finally A Project Done!

I have finished the blanket that I was crocheting for Alexandra. I started it in November and I have now just finished it. I have posted a picture of it!! It fits on a twin size bed so it is fairly big. I crocheted it using a medium weight yarn and an H hook. I used a shell pattern and I am very pleased with it. It took a long time because I took about 3 weeks off of working on it. Nightly I could get about 3-4 rows done while watching my favorite TV shows.

Alexandra is excited to have it finished and she thinks she has waited a long time for it. I finished Nicholas' before hers and his was quicker to complete as it was done with a thicker yarn and was completed in blocks. One thing that I learned was that I needed to leave longer tails when changing colors. Shorter ones were harder to weave in and longer ones stayed weaved better.

Caroline's blanket is next. I am thinking about doing squares with hers as it will be easier to manage but I like the pattern of Alexandra's. So I am at a quandry. Any suggestions from anyone would be helpful. She has asked that it be purple, white, and green.

I am an official busy mom...

Crap, when did this happen? I just woke up today....well it was about noon and I actually had been awake for a while and at work but I woke up to the world... and realized as I am reading five emails that I had gotten this morning concerning my kids and their activities. Wow, we are busy. The first two emails are concerning the last basketball game for my son and a pizza party after the game. (I was nominated to bring drinks and napkins.) The second is for my daughter and her last cheerleading at a game(no not the SAME game as my son - that would make it toooo easy) and a party for their squad. Yes on the same day and within an hour of each other. The next three emails were the days and times of practice for each of the three soccer teams for this spring. No we weren't lucky enough to be able to be practicing at the same time on the same day. And soccer practice starts next week. This Saturday they have a clinic but we can't be at three places at once so we will have to miss the optional soccer clinic. So now on Mondays Nicholas has scouts, Tuesdays Caroline has Art and Nicholas has soccer, Wednesdays Allie and Caroline have soccer, and Fridays Allie has Art. Saturdays we have three soccer games. This will continue until June. So much for using our travel trailer this spring. It will have to be short overnights Saturday afternoons to Sundays if we go anywhere this spring. ugh!

The Oscars are a JOKE

Okay, I admit from the beginning that 1. I don't watch very many movies in the movie theater and 2. I didn't watch all of the Oscars. I do like Ellen and I am sure she did a good job. I did like Billy Crystal better though. Okay so I realize that the Oscars are on and I flip the channel and start watching right at "best animation". The choices are Monster House(which I did not see), Cars, and Happy Feet. This past year we have seen most all the animated movies in the theater. My kids loved Over the Hedge and Cars. They got bored with Happy Feet on the second half of the movie because it was the same thing over and over again and the same dancing and singing. Cars kept their attention the whole time and my husband and I, too, were rivited to the screen. We couldn't believe the animation and the storyline and characters were AWESOME! We have purchased the movie and have seen it a zillion times. Each time we watch it we are fascinated with it and find parts that we hadn't noticed before. ALL of it is awesome! While watching the Oscars I told my husband that Cars definitely had it in the bag. Low and Behold, Happy Feet won. I was SHOCKED! THE MOVIE SUCKED!! THE ANIMATION WAS ONLY AVERAGE, NOTHING SPECIAL! THE PLOT SUCKED!

Since when does the Oscars have a part of the vote that is politically based. Cars got the Oscar stolen from them! I am boycotting anything Happy Feet! Go away Mumbo, Gloria and the others!

Oh the Testosterone.....or maybe it was Estrogen

Today my son had his regional pinewood derby competition. It was held in a cafeteria of a local private school. He had won first place in his Cub Scout troop for the Wolves. His car was created from a block of pine wood (get it) and the stock axles and wheels. His design was a pick up truck painted to look like his Daddy's.

Now we all know that a 7 year old can not use power tools and can not engineer a car to do well with the logic and skill needed. So he had some help, well, a lot of help from his Dad. All the boys did. So when we got to the competition you can feel the testosterone of the males competing against each other. They pick about everything. The competition is triple elimination and you have to have raced on all three tracks to make it all even.

I am sitting there watching the racing that is going on. Cheering for my son's car (truck) and trying to keep my kids from standing up in the front and getting in the way of the other spectators. While sitting there I realize that there is something else going on. Yes the normal testosterone running through the room but there is something else this year. I realize that there is some estrogen floating around too. The lady next to me cheering with her son is accused of cheating when others think that her son is using a car from last year. (Hey, when you have a winning car you tend to duplicate it). The more she and I talk I realize she had helped her son make his car. Our neighbor comes in and picks up her son's car which she had helped build. And there are others.....

We came in 15th out of 23 cars. Our neighbor's son came in 16th so we are still first in the neighborhood rivalry!! It wasn't a bad showing.... but there is always next year.

How long does it take for your front teeth to come in?

Just how long DOES it take for your front teeth to come in? That is the question that my son, Nicholas asked me the other day. Poor guy hasn't had any front teeth for almost 8 months! We thought we could see them back in November and I assured him that by Christmas time he would have them. Christmas came and went and no teeth were discovered. He has to bite anything with the side of his mouth. He can't eat corn or apples real well. He has learned to live with them not being there but just when will they come in?

I remember I lost both of my front teeth together and they were missing for a whole summer but I don't remember it being this long.

Kids say the BEST things!!

Tonight Caroline was cuddling with me on the couch. She turned and kissed the front of my sweater in the middle of my chest and looked up to me with her big eyes and said, "Mommy, I just kissed your heart."

Boy did she make me melt! I looked back at her and told her, "Baby, you kissed my heart the minute you were born!"

Kids say the BEST things!!

American Idol

So last night we watched the American Idol. We got hooked on it two seasons ago and really only watched last season from the middle on. We haven't paid attention to it from the beginning like we have this season. So last night while watching I decided to pick my favorite male singer. Now I know that my first choice of Blake is probably a popular choice but here are my reasons. First he was the only one last night who didn't look nervous from the beginning. He seemed very much at home sitting on the stage and singing. I also liked the song choice AND I liked his clear voice. I watched him several times back to back with Jared (My second choice) and the last guy with the bald head. My problem with baldy is that he was nervous from the beginning and his voice faltered some. He needs some practice. Now Jared, I like too because he has some variety of genre and I liked him better on his Hollywood week when he sang Cupid. (Great song!!) Back to Blake, I think that Blake has a varied talent and no matter what happens on Idol he WILL get a record contract. But I do expect him to go to the end.

Now I am off to see the women. I am at this point not really impressed with any of them. Maybe tonight will jog my memory of what the did during their auditions and their Hollywood week.

Who are your picks?

A Wicked 48 Hours

So today is a holiday, thank goodness! Friday night Caroline got sick, just started throwing up and couldn't stop. She is such a trouper though. We eventually took her to the doctors at 9:30 that night because she couldn't stop throwing up. Two hours later we were out of there with a perscription for a anti-vomiting med. We get it filled and head back home. That night Nicholas was supposed to have a friend over to spend the night and we had to call and cancel. Nicholas was so upset about this that Kenneth called his parents and asked if they would take him for a spend the night. (That is what we call it). The next morning Caroline was feeling much better and by 6:30 that evening she was bouncing off the walls like nothing had happened. Nicholas spent the night over a friends house that night and the next day (sunday) we get up and Kenneth is sick. I start feeling ill about 11:oo am and by the evening, Kenneth, Alexandra, and I are all sick. We send Caroline and Nicholas out to spend the night at Kenneth's parents again in hopes that Nicholas doesn't get it but low and behold he gets sick in the middle of the night. Now we are all on the mend. Kenneth is feeling 100% better, I am at 90%, Alexandra is right behind me but still feeling weak. Nicholas is the only one still in the bed and still running a fever.

It is amazing how such a healthy family can be completely crippled by a silly 24 hour bug. And it is 24 hours on the nose. Kenneth is currently cleaning the family room rug with the rug cleaner borrowed from Katy (Dad's widdow). We had two of the three kids vomit on it. I am about to do some laundry and hopefully get this virus out of our house.

We hardly ever get sick. This doesn't include colds because we pass those around the house like a hot potato but sick sick is rare! This one put us all in the bed.

Well while being laid up I managed to get most of my tea towel done and am getting much better at knitting right handed. I think I am getting brave enough to tackle a simple sweater. But before I attempt that I have to finish Alexandra's blanket I am crocheting. I hope to get a picture of it and will post it if I can figure out how to do it.

Knitting Backwards

It occured to me a week ago that I have been knitting backwards for many years. While this hasn't bothered me and in fact I haven't even noticed that I was doing it backwards, I now feel the need to correct my wrongdoings. For all this time I haven't knit anything other than scarves for my family and friends. So by knitting basically rectangles this backwardsness hasn't affected my projects. But recently I was reading a blog from another knitter and they mentioned something about teaching a lefthander to knit was no different than teaching a right hander. So as I read on I realized that I did it backwards. By backwards is that I knit from left to right. Regular knitting knits from right to left. There is a big problem when you read a pattern and have to transcribe everything backwards to make anything other than a rectangle. Bear with me here. So if I am knitting a sweater for example then I would be knitting along and then realize that I have knit it inside out(basically).

So the perfectionist that I am, I am reteaching myself to knit right handed. It is no real big deal but it feels so funny. So as a practice I knit a washcloth. Not a bad project but it is all knits and I get to practice my increases and decreases. So I am knitting along and low and behold I screwed up. The washcloth is knit on the diagonal so instead of my washcloth looking like a square when it is done mine looks like a kite! Yes a kite!. So I put that one down and have now started working on a dishtowel. Yes it is a rectangle. I am using a bit of a pattern with it and making three thin stripes going up the towel. It helps me practice moving from knit to purl and back again.

So the reason for me to switch from left handed backward knitting to right handed knitting was to be able to make sweaters and stuff. But all I have accomplished is making more rectangles and squares. Aggghhhhh.....