Sudokuaholics Anonymous 9A

Greetings sudokuland! Up early to a beautiful sun rise today. It is forecast warm again, way warm for January, but I shall enjoy. Al helped me clean off back porch, it got cluttered during the deep freeze weather, now he says " it looks 3 times as big now". I can get to chairs, and actually sat out a bit late afternoon, way late for sitting out in January. Normally, might sit out in a light jacket mid day. yesterday sat out in shirt sleeves at 5 pm!

I am wearing my smallest pants now, 14/16W and they are getting loose! Next size will be OUT of the PLUS sizes, hopefully by spring! I am still loosing weight, in spite of the slow down from cortisone,

I need to clean out closet again, but still keeping a few of the warmer, larger pants and shirts, cause we are not finished with winter yet. AND I do not want to buy any more things in current sizes, you know?

CYN no thanks, I do not want to entertain an 8 year old, not even for 2 hours. Nice Australia day avatar.

TAMI, stop, take a deep cleansing breath, have a cup of coffee and then get back to last minute list. All will go well, you should relax and enjoy!

Heidi, cannot believe with 900 smilies, you do not have a dinosaur, go back and look again, he is probably hiding.

JUNE, hope Ken arrives and can take over some of the entertaining. You need a break.

Ok, too much typing, I j=mist go and warm my hand then do exercises, then ice it. I do hope all this is helping!

Hugs to all and extras to any who need them.



Broni, wishing I were with you on the boat, that would be lovely. Hope you enjoyed enough for you and me both.

Suzy, adding to your hope that they catch the killer of Koalas. Are they protected there?

All...
Looking for nautical smilies... .... only found a few, and they're a bit odd..... and found a bunch of pirate smilies. There were some I couldn't find, then realized that they are yet-to-be-used avatars.

IH and I both spent bad nights. Bad headaches and body aches, as well as feeling a bit feverish. I just hope it doesn't get much worse.

As a child, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents.... even lived with them for a year when my mother decided that she didn't want me because I was a girl. I never remember them entertaining me. I would either watch them, and learn a lot, or entertain myself on their farm. My earliest memory was of their hired man, Alex, letting me sit on his lap when he was working the corn fields with his tractor.

I spent a fair bit of my time with grandparents too. They used to provide me with things to do but didn't entertain. As a generation we seem to be more hands on in entertaining our grandies (not that I do that much as I don't see the step grandies much as they live many miles away from here)

I grew up in a three generation family. Spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my grandmother. We lived on a farm so nobody had to entertain me. I think part of taking the grandchildren out is to get them away from the TV. Also I do not see a lot of the boys so nice to be able to do things with then when we do. Gives them something to remember when they are older.

Tami, will think of your family on Saturday.
Heidi and Gil, get well soon.

Morning all!
Don't know why I typed that all cheery, I stayed up way past my bedtime last night and am not feeling energetic at all... Ebob starts work in 10 minutes and doesn't drive yet.

One set of grandparents I don't remember visiting without Mum until I was over 18, the other used to take me shopping!

Just remembered - grandparents were the reason we moved back to Australia. My mother is the girls only surviving grandparent. My father and hubby's mother both died before they were born and hubby's father died in 1999. (His parents were older than my grandparents.) We figured they needed a grandparent..

MizT, first your time is taken over by preparing meals and now by exercising!! I hope your exercises work too so we can see lots of you here.

32C at 6 a.m., could be an interesting day...

The talk of growing up on a farm reminded me of a link my niece posted on fb recently. It's about farming and subsidies and is very funny... nope, can't find it, but I did find this one which gets funnier the more you think about it:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/man_gets_life_in_order_for_36

Hello friends...
WE GOT OUR SNOW!!!! (snowing right now)
...but our power has been off most of the night and then went off again a while ago. So I'm just popping in to say "Hi"
Tami - I can't wait to see the pictures from the party...love the idea of the team table theme!
Suzy - We have a stainless steel frig...now THAT'S a pain to keep clean. It has black trim. I think the black will be easier than the stainless. (my hope, at least)
MzT - congrats on the drop in sizes - doesn't it feel great? Yahoo!
OK - I'm afraid the power will go again soon.
Sending love to you all and will check in when the storm passes.

I just did something horrible. I ran over a neighbor's dog. This was an old, blind lady with lots of health issues, just a mutt, and I neither knew she was blind or near me. I was backing up a trailer on the neighbor's property to help him load up some scrap metal, and he was directing me. He got distracted for a few seconds and the dog wandered behind my tires. Her pelvis is crushed in 4 places. I hope they decide to euthanize her instead of putting her thru' the pain of surgery and recovery. At her age, it might take her forever to heal.

Heidi, I am so sorry as I know this must be traumatic for you as well. My husband and I hit a dog on our way home from work a few years back and it was probably a week before I felt up to eating anything. I felt so bad. Bad things happen that we can't help.

I have never hit a pet before. I feel miserable.

Oh Heidi - my heart goes out to you and the suffering pet. I have hit several animals on the road - no pets, however. It has always been very hard for me to recover from these incidents.
Please don't be hard on yourself - you do SO much to care for animals.

BTW - Theresa - where abouts do you live in Canada? There is a small town in BC (Kimberley) that my husband and I almost moved to. We do driving trips up into Canada - our favorites!

Vici, I live just a stone's throw from Ottawa, our nation's capital. So unfortunately almost the other side of the country. I have been to the east coast but never the west ... some day.

Good morning lovely SA people.
Heidi - I'm so sorry about hitting the dog. I know this must upset you. I think we all do that at least once and it is traumatic. I hit a dog when my kids were very young. She was old and ran straight out from the side of the road under my back wheels - she died instantly. I was traumatised, my kids were traumatised and her owners who saw it happen (and didn't blame me) were heartbroken.
By the same token I had a beautiful black labrador once who somehow escaped and ran under a bus - so I know the feeling from both sides - neither is great.

Heidi, mate, I can't even imagine the feelings you are experiencing at the moment. I know it is of absolutely no consolation but you were not at fault. Please try and focus on that and don't beat yourself up.
Please keep us informed as to what they decide to do.

MizT - happy you are losing weight. Nothing better than replacing big clothes with smaller sizes.
Tami - I don't suppose you'll have time to come here but I'm thinking about you and I know all will go well.
Vici's got snow!!! Vici's got snow!!! Woo Hoo!
Hi to Suzy, June, Brenda and Theresa.

Oh hi Gail - didn't see you there.

MixT, your weight loss is inspiring.
BTW if you're looking for your lost weight...I found it, it's here on this puter seat...

I was hiding...

Heidi ((hugs))

Gail... Those neighbors don't have the many thousands of dollars that would be necessary for that surgery. I'm just hoping that they don't let the dog suffer too much before they realize it.

Heidi, I'm so sorry about the dog. How horrible for them and you.

Vici, glad you are finally getting snow. It's HOT here today.

Gail, I've got whatever weight you didn't find... most I've ever weighed in my life - I think that includes 9 months pregnant!

I found the farm link... (Please stop trying to save our family farm)
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33654

The Onion really excels at parody.

It is 39C or 102F today. Cool compared to the temps some people have been getting, but still HOT.

I've had some belly laughs at some of the 'articles' Heidi. I particularly loved the one about life in order for 36 minutes...

Horrendous temps, Suzy. I hope it isn't too humid as well.

Just stopped in for a minute before going to bed. It has been a long night. Mitchell led the services tonight. He did a good job. Finished all the little details that I needed to. Hopefully I can relax tomorrow.

Heidi, so sorry to hear about your accident. I know how you feel about animals. My thoughts are with you.

Good Evening, Fellow Sudokuaholics!

Hello, Vici, Heidi, Suzy, June, Tami, MizT, Broni, CynB, Theresa, Gail, VViv, Brenda and any others I've missed!

MizT and Heidi, I hope your hands are feeling much better!

Broni, have fun on the boat! Hope all goes well when you pick up Dallas next week!

Suzy, I hope Pride and Ally enjoy their performances, especially for Australia Day! Will you be posting on YouTube? I wish I could hear her and them in person!

BTW, we had a meeting Thursday to arrange the move for MIL, but will be moving her furniture and all her stuff tomorrow & Sunday. (Unfortunately, she's an accumulator. As we were in her current room measuring her furniture, I found catalogs, junk mail, and newspapers from the summer and fall. She had written on things "Roger saw these". (R is her son/my hubby. Even though he had seen things, she kept them. I keep trying to convince him that when he "sees things" he should bring them home so we can dispose of them.) We keep telling ourselves we'll be old one day and probably do things that don't make sense to our children.

While reading about state and required testing (Tami, Heidi, Suzy), I am so thankful that I am retired. When the government starts deciding how and when to teach things and requires additional testing, it's usually NOT good news!

Heidi, I am so sorry about the accident with the dog. You and its owner know that it was neither your fault or anything you would ever do intentionally! I hope the owners make the right decision for the poor dog. It really is a shame, but unfortunately unavoidable. And you were there as a good neighbor doing a favor. BTW, hope you and IH are feeling better!

Great long and newsy post, MizT! I hope you didn't over-work your hand! Congrats on the TOPP and the weight loss!

It's interesting to hear how many of us have connections to farms and close relationships with grandparents!

Tami, sending positive vibes that all goes well tomorrow!

Gotta run, now, as we start moving MIL's stuff tomorrow morning.

for all the sympathy, everyone.

I've made Frosty very happy. She's now living in my 55 gallon aquarium with my Guppies some Bettas (1 male, 3 females) and a lot of Cherry Shrimp. Being an aquatic turtle, she's happy there.

Evening all!
The temperature has dropped yay! It didn't feel too humid when it was really hot though there was the odd cloud around.

Julie, I haven't put any videos on youtube but there are a couple on my facebook page. The sound quality really sucks but they give you an idea at least. I'm supposed to both video and photograph tomorrow night.

Tami, I bet you will be glad when you are actually at the bah mitzvah tommorrow and it is all underway!

Heidi, I'm surprised that you found an aquatic turtle hibernating outside in the dirt - even if encased in ice. I wonder where she lived before she started hibernating?

Julie, good luck tomorrow with the move. I'm guessing big garbage bags will be a part of your working tools. My mother keeps no paper at all - gets her in trouble all of the time!

I have been lucky enough to never hit a pet, and the wombat we hit walked away from the accident because we were going so slow when we hit him (combination of low speed limit in that area and hitting the brakes). I did however help 2 girls and the poor young man who hit their dog when it raced across the road to join them at the bus stop. All 3 of them were standing around completely numb and not sure what to do. It was so very very sad.

Suzy.... Aquatic turtles don't breathe underwater, so they have to hibernate on land. While Frosty was virtually in suspended animation, she would still have to breathe while going into and coming out of that state. Like sea turtles, they lay their eggs on dry land, and the young have to find their way to water. But the sliders don't lay eggs too near any water, nor do they have to be in the water all the time. I found Frosty on a hilltop 1/8 mile from a pond and an equal distance from a creek that bisects our property. She just needs some way of getting out of the water to sun herself and to sleep. Right now she has a clump of elodea to climb on to get out of the water. I have a turtle raft on order.

It was a quiet night last night. Only 2 posts from Suzy, and nothing from any others. Broni has an excuse.... Broni.... and Tami is super busy today..... but WHERE IS EVERYBODY ELSE?

Might as well.......