1-8-14 Wednesday (Guess What Day It Is)

Christmas day was nice.  Beth and her family hosted.  We had appetizers galore followed by beef filets on the grill.  Yummy.  We had a great time.

The day after Christmas, William and Craig, friends from Michigan, stopped at our house for the night, en route to Florida.  With them, their German foreign exchange student and his friend, made for 4.  They arrived late evening, we chit chatted for a few and then went out to Intermezzo, a Serbian restaurant.  Unfortunately they departed fairly early the following morning.  They did manage to stay long enough for pumpkin waffles and sausage though.  All in all, other than Facebook contact, we haven’t since them in over 10 years.  It was a nice visit!

New Years Eve was spent with friends at Beth’s house.  It was appetizers galore.  Everyone brought something.  It doesn’t feel quite as fattening when I’m grazing on bite sized foods.

So, a couple of months ago I explained what Jim’s employer does.  Jim works for A but underwrites for B based on contracts.  Several times, we’ve had a scare where company B’s contract expires and they don’t renew.  This leaves Jim without work.  Typically when they know a new contract is coming up, they keep him on until it’s ready to go.  This time, there were no upcoming contracts and Jim was terminated.  They kept him on the books for a few weeks as a form of severance.  It’s been a scary few weeks. He’s job hunting.

Back pain update: I went for my MRI Thursday 1/2.  They actually did it in the evening. It was a seated MRI.  Sounds easy right?  Well after 20 minutes, my back felt like it was on fire from the pain.  It was hard to sit still but I did it.

Above: That’s not me in the photo.  It may not even be a real patient.  It could be a model or perhaps a struggling actress (or I think it’s politically correct to call male and females actors) from Hollywood.  California, not Florida.

The following Monday (1/6) week I gave my chiropractor the disk with all of the images.  On Wednesday’s appointment, they hadn’t received the MRI reading report but my chiropractor was able to interpret some of it for now.  I have a bulging disc.  The photo below is my actual MRI. 

She feels that it can be treated without surgery using some device, the DRS Protocol.  The machine link is from my chiropractor’s website.

I actually see 2 chiropractors, husband and wife team.  Her name is Dr. Pepper.  Really.  She’s the cutest size zero (I saw the tag on her lab coat).  He’s Dr. Wolf.  They’re a 5 minute walk within my job’s complex.  Nice and convenient.   They both think I need to lose this gut.  Yeah, working on it.  Since October, I’m down 15 pounds.  I also need to strengthen my core.  I’ve been told to do planks and some other exercises.

The chiro emailed me the report, here’s a blip of it:

It’s pretty much what she saw already.  We’ll go over the results on Monday’s appointment.

On a lighter note, here’s a Christmas card we received from our Augusta friend, Paul and Jeff.  It’s fit Jim and I (more Jim) perfectly and is hilarious.

In other news, we received these in the mail. Great marketing carried over from TV to print.