Well, now it's officially MY radio

When I first started building my radio, I wondered if it would ever play my beloved Alabama.

Guess what???

Yep. :)  Right station at the right time.

Free is for me!

We used to say that all the time when I worked at Citigroup.  I think Rita Garrett started it.  It's funny and SO TRUE!

I did not know that you can turn an empty bag of Starbucks coffee in at any Starbucks store and get a free cup of coffee.  I got some of the Blonde roast for Christmas and I turned the bag in today and got my free cup.

Starbucks coffee is waaaaaaay too strong for me.  I don't like strong coffee.  That's why I adore the Blonde roast!  I like my coffee as weak as Popeye without his spinach.  But today, my free cup was STRONGOMG.  I came home, divided it and added my own hazelnut creamer.  Ahhhh, much better.

Today is six weeks and three days since I got back on the South Beach diet.  And so far, I've lost 20 pounds!  Again.  Ha!  I swear, one day, I'm gonna lose those 20 pounds and they're going to stay lost. 

What does my inspiration, Ruby, say about weight loss??  It's a JOURNEY, not a DESTINATION.  It takes forever to get there, your entire life's journey.  It's not a trip to the beach, that's for sure.

Anyway, speaking of spinach, I tried one of these Spinach Feta wraps while I was at Starbucks.  A. Ma. Zing.  I had no idea I was making such a great South Beach choice, though, until I got home with it!  I did pretty good.  6 grams of fiber!  19 grams of protein!  Wooo hooo!!

Spam

No, not this kind.

I've had a spammer on my blog this week, posting comments that pretty much made NO sense.  Check out my site at blackceilingfan@TheSnowChild.  What the what??

Sooooo, I changed the settings to let me monitor the comments before they post to the blog.  If you don't see your comment right away, that's why!  

I'm with Sweet.  Ain't nobody got time for that!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Look what my Valentine sent me yesterday on our anniversary!!  Gorgeous roses and daisies.  Daisies are my favorite flowers and he never forgets to include some in arrangements he sends me.  Ain't he a sweet 'un, though??  

These roses smell incredible, too.  Got my whole house smelling gooooooood!!  They were such a wonderful surprise.  He had them delivered to the college while I was in class so I got to show 'em off a little.  I was so excited!!

 Tabbie Hoffman got his very first Valentine this morning, too!  A Bouncy Mouse.

He like him.  :)

Did somebody mention something about a radio??

Thought y'all might want to know that it's finished and it WORKS!

Here's proof.  :)

Fourteen

Larry and I have been married fourteen years today!  In my heart, though, I married him the day I met him, 25 years ago.  He is the love of my life, my best friend, my loudest cheerleader, my rock.  He has so much faith in me and still loves me even on those days when I'm not very lovable.  He thinks I'm beautiful, he thinks I'm a genius and he honestly believes that there's nothing I can't do.  He supported me, encouraged me, when I decided to go back to school when I was trying to get that job at the base and now, three years later, I'm STILL going to school and he still wants to know about my test grades and he's so excited about my radio!

Any couple who's been together 25 years has had their share of heartaches and disappointments but I think Larry and I pretty much have "any couple" beat.  We've had our share and somebody else's, too.  Through it all, though, we've become stronger, more in love and more committed to each other and our marriage.  The best is indeed yet to come.

I just love this song by my cousin, Roy Clark.  



In a heartbeat, sweetheart.

Updates, ice picks, diets and such

What the what is an ice pick headache??  Until today, I'd never even heard of them.  I think that's what I have.  I left work early Wednesday night with an awful, throbbing headache.  I'd had it all day but by 10:30, I was read' to GO LAY DOWN SOMEWHERE.  So I came home and got on the sofa, after lovin' on Tabbie Hoffman and removing a very uncomfortable item of clothing first.  After about fifteen minutes, Tab comes over there and starts popping me in the face with his paw, like, "Mama, Mama, get up."  Such a sweet wittle kitty.

The headache got better yesterday after I started eating Excedrin Migraine caplets like candy and then this afternoon, the ice pick nonsense started.  Sharp, shooting, are-you-freakin'-KIDDING-me-rolling-around-on-the-floor-howling pain.  Sharp little pains that last a second (maybe) and come back every minute.  This went on for hours.  I consulted Dr. Google and I was (am?) convinced that my trigeminal neuralgia was a brain tumor the whole entire time and I have months to live.  Or it could be stress.  :)

It seems to be better now.  The stabbings fewer and farther between.  That's got to be good, right?

Last weekend, we had a birthday party for Ami and Audra and as usual, Mama prepared a spread.  Homemade chicken salad with whole wheat crackers, homemade pimento cheese on multi-grain bread rounds, hummus, salsa, celery sticks, cucumbers, carrots, green pepper strips, pigs-in-a-blanket and two gorgemous cakes.  Chocolate with fudge icing for Ami, Upside-Down-Pineapple for Audra.  And we had ice cream.  Most very South Beach friendly!  I ate carefully but I ATE.  And somehow or other, gained four pounds.  When I weighed myself Monday morning, I was pissed!  I could've had CAKE!  If I was gonna gain FOUR POUNDS, I could've had CAKE!!!  Do you people KNOW about my mama's chocolate fudge icing???!

So I spent this whole week getting those four back off and losing one more.  I've lost 16 pounds now.  I'd like to lose 30 by Easter.  We'll see.  No rush.  :)

I'm almost done with my radio.  I have one little part to finish on the FM side and then we'll tune it and test it.  I had some technical difficulties with the AM part this week and was down a day and a half while we troubleshot it.  It turned out to be a bad IC chip.  

Sunday, I get my WG-5 promotion and raise!  Nearly $2 more an hour.  It's really crazy that I've worked eleven months at the base and I'm making more than I did after working (and bitching, begging and then finally pitching hissy fits to get equal pay for equal work) SIXTEEN YEARS at Citigroup.  There are rumors flying about layoffs and furloughs, depending on what Congress does with the budget.  I'm not the least bit worried.  God is in control.  Always has been, always will be.  He brought me to this job, delivered me from a situation that made me miserable and has done nothing but pour blessings down on me ever since.  We good. 

And, hey, the ice picks have stopped.  

Loggin' out for Lent

That's right.  I am giving up Facebook for Lent.  From next Wednesday, February 13th (which happens to be my and Larry's 14th wedding anniversary.  Woo hoo, go us!!) until Easter, March 31st.  

I was raised a Southern Baptist.  We don't do Lent.  We don't do anything that would require us to give up something.  We go jukin' on Saturday night but still make it to church on Sunday morning and we believe that one reason Jesus came was so that we could eat pork.  And I'm pretty sure some of us feel that we can get into heaven as long as we bring a covered dish and a gallon of sweet tea.

A few years ago, I started really paying attention to the Lent thing.  And not the stuff I clean out of my dryer filter after every load either.  Last year, I gave up fast food, which was becoming waaaaay too easy for me with my school and work schedule.  That worked out great.  

I've been going to a Methodist church since October and I really, really like it.  I've struggled with some things over the past several months and I feel more at peace now than I have in a long, long time.  So this year when I started thinking about what I can give up for Lent, I immediately thought of Facebook.  While it's fun to read what's going on with everybody, some of the things that people post should really be kept private.  And besides, Facebook is such a time sucker.  Time that could be spent doing more productive things. 

Lent is supposed to be a period of self-denial, prayer and repentance, a time to prepare us for the cross, Jesus' ultimate sacrifice for us and His glorious resurrection (which always gives me goosebumps when I think about it!).

So I'm logging off Facebook on February 13th and I'll be gone until Easter.  I'm still planning to blog and my blog posts automatically show up on Facebook so you'll see those.  But there won't be any status updates, 80-point words played on Words With Friends and there definitely won't be any political rants!

Refreshing, huh?  I'm really looking forward to it.

The Snow Child

If you want something to read during all this cold weather we're having, I highly recommend The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey.  Or if you want something to cool you off when the weather's warm again, I highly recommend this book.  What I'm saying is you really need to read this book.

I could not put it down.  I read 180 pages of it at work.  That should tell you how glued it was to my hands.  

It's about a childless couple, Jack and Mabel, who move to Alaska in 1920 to start a new life following the stillborn birth of their son.  A HARD new life.  A COLD new life.  An unbelievably harsh life they live in a land that is impossible to farm and their very survival depends on whether or not Jack can get a moose for the winter.

One night, during the first snow, they build a snowman, a little snow girl.  Jack sculpts her a beautiful little face and Mabel wraps a scarf around her neck and adds mittens to the ends of her stick arms.  The next morning, the little snow girl is knocked over and the mittens and scarf are gone.  AND there's a little white-haired girl running around in the woods.

This book is so beautifully written, it's both haunting and magical.  I could almost feel the snow on my face and taste the endless meals of moose and potatoes.  It's happy, it's sad, it's tragic, it's full of hope.  I absolutely loved it!

Radio Update!

  
I finished up the AM side of my radio today!  And guess what?  It works!!  We're going to take them outside Monday and tune them and then maybe it'll pick up an AM station.  

I know just the one I want to listen to.