I'm back on the WW wagon!

I broke out my Weight Watcher charms tonight, dusted them off and took a good look at them, remembering how far I've come on this journey.  The 3 on the right are the most meaningful.  I got the keychain when I lost 10%, the silver washer is for 25 lbs and the gold washer is for 50 lbs. 

I signed back up and tonight went to my first meeting since right before I had my hysterectomy on July 11.   I was up close to 10 lbs!   

That's what I get for using exactly ZERO self-control.  Entirely too many Tim Horton's Pumpkin Spice Ice Capps happened this fall. 

Actually, I'm not sure how I really feel about it.  My clothes weren't really fitting any different (except for my jeans) so that gave me a false sense of everything being OK.  But then I wasn't liking how I was looking in the mirror when I was getting dressed.  

I was getting fluffy.  

So when I got the email about a 3 month deal, I was right on there signing back up.  The receptionist asked if I wanted to do what they called a "Fresh Start" and I said yes.  So when she printed out the sticker with my weight to put in my book, it had today's weight as a beginning point instead of showing that huge gain. But my account on the website still shows from Day 1. 

 And she gave me all the newbie information again.  It's good to have a refresher, and I stayed after the meeting to hear the schpeel from the leader.

Next week I'll be back at the Tuesday meeting - the leader is nice enough on Wednesdays but I like my Tuesdays better.  According to the website, Rosa is still there, so yay! 

So wish me luck as I pull off the shoulder and get back on the highway to health!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Seriously tho, I hope you all have a fantastic, drama-free day, no matter how you choose to spend it.

I'm thankful for many things, among which are beautiful sunrises!

Girls Night Out!

I guess you could say it was kinda of a Girl's Weekend. 

First of all.  Friday night.  We went to see...Girls Night Out! 

This had the potential to be a lot of fun....

....but I was not the only one in our group who was disappointed.  

Yes, to make it clear, it is an all male revue.

First of all, we learned that Diesels concert venue is in a bowling alley.  And it's a dive.  It is a really small place and they seriously oversold their tickets.  One of the "entertainers" did a Facebook Live event before it started and he said there were between 350-450 people there. It was insanely packed.  it had barely started when the woman behind me poured her drink down my back. She apologized and told me it was just soda water, so at least I didn't smell like a booze factory after that.  I don't think any of us had more than 2 beers and Laurie & I had a shot.  

We got there when the doors opened and got to choose our seats.  We had 11 people in our group, so we got in the 2nd & 3rd rows. Apparently the guy doing the seating forgot there was supposed to be a VIP section in the first couple rows!  They kept announcing that those rows needed to be cleared, but nobody actually came and told us directly, so PPPPBTH!  Screw the VIPs. 

It was all about us!

The show started an hour late.  They announced that you could actually be on the stage during the routines - and the stage was mobbed with women signing up.  They didn't however announce that it was $30!  Then after each routine, they did "hot seats" where you could go on stage and pay $20 to let the "entertainer" grind on & manhandle you for a minute or so.  

So there were 4 guys & the announcer.  Which is good, because they'd do a short "group" routine, then the spotlight guy of that set would do 2 partial songs, then there would be 20 minutes or more of the hot seat business.  It got old.

And the woman who brought her significant other out with her & her friends.  Really?  Why would you make a guy go with you to something like this?  And why would he want to go?   There's a story behind that and I probably don't want to know it!

They had the Navy guy.  The "Cowboy", the Cop, the Fireman and the biker announcer (Mr. Nude North America 2015 & has been on the cover of Playgirl, but I'm not sure when. He had to have been close to 50!) 

I was distracted on how many things I saw WRONG with this uniform!  

If you're gonna play Navy, make it authentic! (I know, I'm a dork!)

None of the guys could dance.  That guy ^ ^ seemed like a jerk.  He looked bored and gave off a negative vibe & a lot of arrogance.  He was really rough with those poor drunk chicks.  None were particularly attractive - but one we decided was "cute", like a puppy. He actually smiled & looked like he was having fun.  One guy was pretty good looking and of course we saw him the least.  The guy on the right up there had a phenomenal bod.  Like WOW.  

Laurie, Linda & I were the last of our group to leave - and we still left before it was over.  Linda dropped me off at home shortly after midnight.  

  We had a heavy frost Saturday morning.

Saturday, Randy flew out to Arkansas.  We went to breakfast & I drove him to the airport. Then I came home, grabbed Angel and we met up with Mom & the sisters at the craft show we go to every year.  I was bummed that I didn't really see anything I wanted or needed this year.  I got a neat bird-seed wreath for the mother-in-law.  And I always buy something from this little old man who sells awesome hand-turned wood items.  I found a beautiful keychain that holds toothpicks made out of several types of wood.  Then I got the cats a catnip mat.

 

This was hilarious!  I tossed the mat down.  Soon after, Chester showed up, sniffing the air until he found it - then laid across it.  Next came Daisy (look at her face! Dying!) also sniffing the air as she came around the corner.  She didn't know what to think of it, so she was more cautious at first.  Lastly came Maddie - following her nose.  Needless to say, it was a hit.  Until they started to get rambunctious & fights broke out.  I took the mat away and had to hang the rug outside! 

Saturday afternoon, I dinked around in the yard, cutting flowers back & cleaning up the flowerbeds.  I was surprised by this big ol' praying mantis.  I felt kind of bad for cutting down his flowers, so I had to relocate him onto the bush. 

 

 The trees are waiting until Thanksgiving to drop their leaves!  The far one is turning yellow & losing some slowly, but the closer tree is still mostly green. 

It's going to be pretty quiet without Randy for so long.  He comes home early next week.  I'm going to finally get the house de-halloween-ified.  Aw hell.  I won't even bother with the fall stuff, other than what's out already.  I'll start with Christmas stuff after Thanksgiving.  

Speaking of Christmas - I put some stuff on layaway tonight.  I'm getting a late start this year!  I have no idea what to get for anyone, other than the usual socks & underwear package and some clothes.  Angel just texted me a pair of shoes she wants and she mentioned tickets to a Red Wings game (getting 4, she's not going without me!!)  But I have no idea what to tell Randy for me, and I haven't heard anything from him yet.  This is a struggle. 

How's your holiday planning coming along?

Parting is such sweet sorrow!

So yeah.  My beloved holiday, Halloween, is over. 

I didn't plan well and it took 2 solid days to put stuff away instead of the 6 1/2 hours it took Randy & I last year.  My mistake was that I tried to fill up totes & rearrange the garage instead of just dealing with the cemetery.  But he wanted to run some wire in the garage while the skeletons were out of the way and that meant moving ALL the holiday totes, too.  Then Sunday I was de-cemetery-ing while he installed a new garage door opener, so I was pretty much on my own. 

Then Monday was spent rolling extension cords & cleaning mouse destruction from the shed & putting the totes away, etc, etc, etc.  

But finally.....

the evidence was removed.  This was actually Sunday evening.  I haven't touched the lawn yet, but look!  At that time there were no leaves to rake!  There's a light layer out there now.

I kept hearing a weird sound that I thought was someone power washing their house, but it was a hot air balloon!  I haven't seen one of these in years! 

We had a casualty.  He was in bad shape before, but he fell apart before even getting into the cemetery.  After laughing at this, I had an idea to use this broken skeleton, so I retrieved the top half of him. Randy chucked the old garage door opener on his legs, so they're goners.  

This is where the skeletons go in the off season. 

They just hang out!

I also switched out the blowmolds - I put the H'ween guys in the shed and left the Christmas ones out so I could clean them up.  Then they'll wait patiently in the garage until after Thanksgiving.

Randy was watching TV last night and heard scratching on the screen - which is pretty creepy since nothing could easily reach the screen!  Even one of the cats was staring! 

I hope this video works!

But the inside?  Still looks like a Hallownado struck.  Even tho all the totes are labelled for ease of rounding up items to pack away, there still seems like a whole lot of stuff still floating around.  I don't get it.  I'm going to have to buy another tote or two. 

I don't normally get all political and I still won't.  We all went to vote last night and with a clear conscience, voted third party.  We knew it was highly unlikely that our candidate would win, but we put our opinions out there.  Who knows?  Trump may (fingers crossed) or may not, end up being an awesome president.  We won't know unless we give him a chance.   We will deal with it and hope for the best.  No *one* candidate is going to make all people happy, so I don't get why all these protests are happening all over.  Suck it up people!  And I confess to having a rousing discussion with Randy about the merits of snowplows and the pros & cons of the shape of the front end of each of our cars......

We watched (Ok - Randy watched, I fell asleep) the election coverage on the CBC.  The Canadians are a lot more interesting with their news than the biased US stations.  I learned a lot more from them about how it all works. 

That being said, Miss Angela was pretty funny with it came to voting.  She's only voted so far in the local election earlier this summer, so this was a big thing to her.  I stopped by to get her after work and she told me she didn't know about going to vote because it was so confusing! I had a sample ballot to look at and we chatted about it.  She thought she had to do every single section, all of the Supreme Court Justices & UofM regents & MSU trustees & school board, etc!  She was relieved when I told her she didn't have to.  I told her at the very minimum chose her president and look at the township sections and the local proposals.  We got to our polling place a little after 4 and walked right in.  She was at a booth right next to mine, so I was able to help her out.  

I had to make a trip to the dance studio tonight (and got the guilt trip about having not done Zumba since before my surgery in July!)  Costume deposits were due and it was nice popping in to say hi and catch up on the gossip.  Also found out some stuff that was not communicated very well to those of us who aren't there every day anymore.  Since there aren't that many older girls anymore and the large group of middle-aged girls (around 11-13) is combined with them, the ballet teacher is offering pointe again.  They did it 2 years ago and there were only 4 girls in the class.  Thankfully, Angel's feet stopped growing when she was like 13, so her pointe shoes still fit.  It was just a question whether they were still "good".  

I got a peek at the props for the production number, too.  They're doing a medley of songs based on the board game Clue.  The big girls are the main characters (Angel is Miss Peacock), the next younger ones are the weapons (for example, Alayna gets to dance with a wrench), then the littlest ones are maids & stuff like that.  Angel was telling us about being concerned doing a back-walkover on the dining room table while it's being pushed across the stage.  I got the impression she refused, but they were telling me tonight that she did it just fine!  Apparently all the girls are a wee bit afraid of that table, it's not the sturdiest creation ever! 

Sunny & 65 during the first week in November?  

Yes, thank you!

Anyhooo, I'm going to sign off for the night, I didn't sleep well with the TV on last night, so I should be turned in long ago!

Holland Ponds / Skywatch Friday

I took advantage of a nice day to take the dog for a walk around Holland Ponds near my house.  

Here's the link if you want to read more about it, it's pretty interesting history.

Heehee, I looked back thru my posts to find that link and I've written posts almost every year, full of pictures!  What can I say, it's a neat place?  Nature-y. 

Saw lots of turtles this time.  At least 2 different kinds. 

The oaks were so colorful!

There was a new road built in the far back, it goes to a random manhole in the woods and that's it.  Jack and I walked down there and I happened to look down just in time to see this pretty guy!

Saying he was 12 inches long is probably a stretch. 

These guys looked like army helmets!

I had stopped maybe 200 yards from the car to take the pics of those last turtles.  

Until then, Jack had stayed nice & clean.

  And then....

It's been such a dry year that the ponds are really low - so when he jumped over the log, he landed chest deep in smelly, muddy sludge!  I laughed & took pictures until I realized he was struggling to get out. 

He doesn't look too bad here, but he was gross. 

And he tried to wade in here, too!

Luckily I was expecting the trails to be a lot muddier than they were, so I'd come prepared with a towel.  Glad I had it!  But he still reeked.  

Linking up over at Skywatch Fridays - it's been a while!