Sunday, January 27, 2013

Peace, love and a little grass

I bought some organic oat grass seeds for Tabbie Hoffman last Sunday, planted them and we've been watching 'em grow all week. 

Today, he got to eat some!  I didn't let him eat much because I don't know how it'll do his tummy but what he did eat, he lost his ever-lovin' mind over.

 Here he is checking it out.

 Gotta smell it first!

 Let's see how it tastes.

ZOMGNOMNOMNOM  I just LOVE this picture!!  He couldn't get enough of it.  He was making such a fuss over it that I tried some, too.  It's pretty good.  Really good, actually.  Like I-want-to-chop-some-up-and-put-it-in-a-salad good.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Radioactive!

Well, at least noise came out of the speaker today.  :)

This is the radio I'm building in my Advanced Circuit Analysis class.  I thought I'd post a picture showing its progress from time to time so y'all can see what I'm doing. 


We're building the AM side first, then we'll build the FM part.  What we've done so far is solder in the battery bracket, the ON/OFF volume knob, the FM/AM switch, the speaker, the earphone jack and assorted resistors, capacitors, an integrated circuit and a couple of jumper wires.

Pretty dang cool if you ask me.  

Monday, January 21, 2013

A day off

I don't believe I've ever had MLK Day off.  Not once in the 30 years since the bill was passed to make it a holiday.  What started as a remembrance for the man on his birthday has become more of a day of service.  A day when you can honor Dr. King's desire for peace, understanding and solidarity to do your part to make an impact in your community and help to bridge barriers together.  Today was also President Obama's inauguration to his second term, the second time that they've happened to coincide on the same day.  The first time was Bill Clinton's second term.  A very fitting coincidence, I think.

Finally, I have this day off.  :)  Another perk to being a government employee.  So, I'm watching CNN's coverage of the inauguration and washing clothes.  

In other news, I have a door darter.  Two nights last week, Tabbie Hoffman darted out the front door as I came in after work.  The first night, it was POURING down rain and he goes lickety-split straight through the bushes and right under the next door neighbor's RV!  Like he'd done it a hundred times.  I had to crawl under there in the mud to get him.  The second time, I was in my pajamas and I went out to take the trash out to the curb.  I opened the door to come back in and there he goes.  This time, he doesn't stay under the RV but ventures out to the guy's pickup truck.  And the closer I got to him, the further he got away from me.  I tried to lure him with treats because they usually work but not that time.  It's 36 degrees and I'm out there in pajama pants, a cami top, barefooted, holding a flashlight in one hand and a bag of treats in the other.  Looking like a straight fool calling this cat who believes with all of his little angsty teenaged heart that "outside" is the same as crack.  

GOTTAHAVEITGOTTAHAVEITGOTTAHAVEIT 

AHHHHHHDIRTANDGRASSANDWHATSANACORN????!!  

He's still super scared of cars, trucks and loud noises and just as soon as I'd had enough, was almost in tears and praying, "Lord, help me get this cat", here comes a car that scares the crap out of him and he runs back home.  I'd left the front door propped open just in case.  Good thing.  GODDDDDDD.

Larry and I both racked our brains to come up with a solution and I went to Lowe's and got two baby gates to stack one on top of the other.  I made an enormous amount of unnecessary noise setting them up while Tabbie Hoffman watched and bolted and came back and bolted again.  I tried to make it as scary as possible for him.  They seem to be working.  I only have one of them up but he won't go near that door.  I'm sure once he gets used to it, we'll be back to square one.  But maybe not.  I'm collar and leash training him now.  We go outside every day.  I just feel that it's cruel to keep him pinned up in the house all the time.  It's his natural instinct to be outside and smell dirt and bite acorns.  He's just doing what God told him to do.  I just have to do my part to keep him safe while he's doing it.  We use a natural, herbal spray and I have not seen the first flea.

And as of this morning, I've lost 12 1/2 pounds!  I'm eating lots of chicken, vegetables and snacking on almonds and protein bars.  It's working!

He had a dream


I'd like for somebody to say that about me, too, Martin.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

What up, Buttercup?

So.  Last week I went back to school to take my specialized communications classes (advanced circuit stuff, radar, fiber optics) that were scheduled for 8:00 am - 12:30 pm.  I didn't know HOW on earth I was going to do that after working until midnight every night but I was going to try.  Well, in His usual fashion, the Lord worked that little problem out for me, too.  The five of us co-ops ended up in a class that starts at noon and gets us out of there in time for us to be at work at the base when we're supposed to be.  So, yeah, sleeping until 9:00 every morning is totally working for me.  :)

Working at night has been quite an adjustment for me.  It's different if you stay up past midnight at home doing stuff, which I do, a LOT, and working until midnight.  Very different.  Plus work is so slow, there's not much to do, and that makes for some very long nights.  But when there is something to do, sitting on top of an F-15 underneath a blanket of stars is pretty cool.

I changed my gym time to just before our supper break so I can go to the gym for an hour.  Uncle Sam gives us three hours a week (2 1/2 if you're part-time like I am right now while I'm in school) to go and DO something.  Go to the gym, walk on the track, bowl, whatever you want to do.  However, what 99% of the people out there want to do is just go home early.  I changed my gym time to when the gym is actually open so I can take advantage of it to help with this 40-pound thingy I've got going.  So far, so good.  I've lost 9 1/2 pounds!  The guys at work are absolutely killing me, though.  I LOVE the pizza from Pizza Depot (the pizza place on base).  There is something about that cheese they use.  OMG.  Anyway, they deliver and every night, somebody gets a pizza delivered!  So I'm sitting over there lookin' all pitiful eating my broccoli and cheese while they're inhaling greasy, salty, cheesy pizza.  Ain't fair.  But that's all right.  I've had that pizza before.  :)

Pretty much my schedule right now is go to school, go to work, go to sleep. But I'll be finished with the co-op in May and I'll only have five classes left to get my degree.  (And they're all online!  Yay!!)  And THEN, there'll be the next degree to start on.  I'm thinking aviation management sounds pretty good.  :)

Thursday, January 3, 2013

There is nothing you can't come back from

Tabbie Hoffman peeked out the patio door this rainy morning and said, "Good Lawd, Mama, look at all them leaves!"  He'd never seen so many in his life.  Since this is my tenth fall/winter living here, I don't think that looks like a lot at all.  :)  AND they've all fallen so that's all there's gonna be this year.  Yay.  Plus it's rained so much lately, it's gonna be a lonnnnng time before we can start raking them.  :)  I came home New Year's Eve and my sweet neighbor had raked the leaves in the front yard.  He does that for me sometimes.  

So, here we are, January 3rd.  I started a new shift at work and so far, it has been so boring that I have very nearly died from it.  I sat and read for two hours last night.  I finished my book!  (I'm telling you, if you're looking for some funny, sexy romance that you just cannot put down, you need to try Katie Lane's Deep In The Heart Of Texas series.  I have loved all four of them!  And now there's gonna be a fifth coming out in July!  I can't even contain my excitement!!)  A guy I work with who's been out there for 28 years told me last night to "get used to it" and bring a book.  Okey doke.  I can do that.

Three years ago, I started the South Beach diet and it really, really worked for me!  I lost nearly 60 pounds in six months.  Since diets don't really work unless you STAY ON THEM, I've gained 20 of those pounds back.  And they killin' me!  My goal way back then was to lose 80.  I lost 60 (or thereabout) and gained back 20.  So the way I see it, now I need to lose 40.  You like how I did that math so quick??  :)  I absolutely love and admire Ruby Gettinger and loved her show on Style Network.  At one time in her life, she weighed 716 pounds.  She lost over 400 pounds, some of it we got to share with her on her show.  Well, she started gaining again and gained 60 pounds and for some reason, Style cancelled her show.  Because she struggled and gained some weight back?  I was so mad that I cancelled Style.  It's a reality show, right??  Well, slipping back into your old habits and gaining weight back IS REALITY.  Anyway, I follow Ruby on Facebook and she lost those 60 pounds and then her brother died and some other life stresses hit her at the same time and she gained back 80.  I've done the EXACT SAME THING before.  Lost 60 and gained back 80.  I've been a chunky butt all of my life.  I came into the world weighing nearly 10 pounds at 6:00 in the evening looking for some supper!  And at my highest weight, I was 252 pounds.  I don't want to be there again.  So I'm doing something about it!  And I'm telling y'all about it so you will hold my feet to the fire!  :)

Ruby posted this on Facebook last week and I just loved it. 

There is NOTHING you can't come BACK from.

What a concept!  It's a new year full of all kinds of new possibilities and dreams!  I know my knees and my poor ankle will appreciate me taking 40 pounds off of them.  Especially when I have to climb up on top of an F-15!  (Which is waaaaay cool, by the way!)

So this is where I am.  I started eating better yesterday and I've lost three pounds.  I fully expect to lose 10 or 15 pounds pretty quick since those are the last ones I gained.  That's what I usually do.  Then it's gonna get hard.  But I'm ready!  46 is looming in June and I'd love to be around 150 pounds by then.  Like I said, FULL of new possibilities and dreams!!  :)

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

2013

Wow.  Happy New Year!  If you're of the resolution-making kind, I hope one of yours is to be happy in this new year.  If you're not happy, please, please, please do something about it.  Life is so short and we're not guaranteed tomorrow.  Do what you can with what you have and make sure you laugh!

Cracker Barrel sho' let me down today!!  I have a New Year's tradition of going there and getting a to-go plate of the usual New Year's must-haves.  Black-eyed peas, collard greens, ham, not that I'm superstitious or anything.  I don't eat the peas for luck so much as I eat 'em 'cause I love 'em!  I don't look at things that happen to me as luck.  I look at them as blessings.  God-given blessings.  And He sure blessed me in 2012!  

Not only did Cracker Barrel take 45 minutes to put together my order (my super easy order of stuff they surely had to have plenty of today!!), but everything tasted like it had not even been seasoned.  I had to fix everything once I got home.  Grrrr.

And to add insult to injury, I was really looking forward to picking over their Christmas clearance and this is what they had left -- three li'l raggedy chipped ornaments and a sock monkey.  Guess what they DID have???  Easter stuff.  Yeah.  EASTER.

I go back to school on Monday and this time, I'll be going to school during the day and working in the evenings, the opposite of what I did before.  Not a big deal, though, and since I'm limited by the co-op agreement to the amount of hours I can work while I'm in school, I'll have a day off every week.  Most likely Fridays.  :) 

If you've been reading my blog for the past two years, you know how very hard it was for me to land this job at the base.  I met one obstacle after another until I was just about ready to give up on it.  This is where those blessings I mentioned come in.  Now I know I've been blessed since the day I was created, I was just too hardheaded to see the blessings for what they were.  For a long time, I felt like God had abandoned me and Larry, forgotten all about little old us, left us to fend for ourselves all alone.  Waaaaaah.  I was wrong.  Dead wrong.  He was with us the whole time.  I know you hear that all the time, but until you LIVE it, you don't believe it.

When I decided to just give this job thing over to Him, things started happening.  I quit worrying about it and I went on that interview, fully expecting to not be selected.  These jobs are so highly competitive.  So much so that they're saying my group is going to be the last co-ops selected for a while.  But I was selected!  In God's time, not mine.  When I began to LIVE that instead of just say it, stuff started falling into place.  It's been pretty awesome to watch.  Goosebumpy at times.

I believe 2013 is going to be pretty much the best year of my life.  Things are really happening!  And now I recognize my blessings every single day for what they are.  Even when everything doesn't go exactly my way, that's all right.  I know it's going God's way and I've learned to just keep watching to see what He does with it.

I hope you all have a wonderful 2013!  And I hope you ate your black-eyed peas today just because you love 'em!