RV'ing

5-22-10 Saturday (Walk The Green Carpet)

Yes, another mention of Weight Watchers. I was hungry. I decided to have a 1 point english muffin. Yesterday, having a little “light butter” added another point. Last night while surfing diet tips websites, I read that using “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” spray is 0 calories. I have that stuff! I bought it shortly after trying it at Peggy & Brenda’s house. Peggy called it “I Can’t Believe It Doesn’t Taste Like Shit” and Jim and I will never forget that.

As usual, internet research shows varied info about this. I’ll go ahead and take .5 points I guess. Weight Watchers program shows 3 points for 1 Tbsp. I realize everything has calories. So now it’s bothering me enough to go to the kitchen and take out several measuring spoons to figure out how many sprays is equal to what. Jim says I’m nuts. One rule I’ve learned is measure, measure, measure. You’d be surprised at what 3 oz of this or that really is. A found that a 1/2 a tsp is 15 sprays. .5 points is it’s final value. I’m done obsessing about the dumb spray.

Jim had to work today. He’s trying to make up some of the time he’s taken off. He was happy that the office was fairly empty today which made for less interruptions.

For dinner Jim wanted Ryan’s Buffet. You don’t have to tell me that’s a bad idea when dieting. I did fine there with Atkins and I was determined to do well this time. To journal my food I took some photos so I’d remember for later. I barely ate that pork rib as it was a boneless 80% fat slab o’ick. The shredded pork was good. The chicken was roasted and I did skip the skin. I was loving the roasted chicken from there when I was on Atkins and still loving it. You can see the chickens spinning on the rotisseries. The other object is a battered piece of fish.

I ate a huge salad, another piece of chicken, a little more shredded pork, 2 pieces of cantaloupe and then some banana pudding.

I was over 1.5 of my daily points which were subtracted from my weekly points.

We walked off some of our dinner at Lowe’s.

I spotted these hideous rugs and thought to myself, “Some are missing. That means people bought them.” I shuddered.

There were a couple of low point smoothie recipes I wanted to make so we stopped at the grocery store. It was sometime after 9pm so the smoothies will have to wait for another day. At least I have the ingredients.

We went to a mining museum and walked around Bisbee some more. This day had so many funny photos. What an odd town. Click here.

5-21-10 Friday (Wassup Chuck?)

First let me tell you about a few things I forgot about yesterday:

Friends Mike and Dave are planning to visit us! We’re going to see them next weekend in Asheville for a couple of days! Maybe we’ll see the Biltmore Gardens again. Maybe we’ll just relax. Whatever it is, I bet we’ll have a blast! We’ll most likely see them Saturday and possibly Sunday depending on some plans with Mike’s Dad.

My regular dentist of Esthetic Dental called to remind me of a follow-up cleaning appointment. I told the woman about 2 root canals that would need to be permanently filled in and I added “I just want to be sure there’s no charge for that.” The actual dentist, Dr. Kyle Taylor himself called back and said it was normally two—hundred-something less a discount he gives for teeth he just worked on leaving me to pay $145.00 per tooth. He says he needs to put a post in, describing it as rebar for my tooth even though I’m not getting the crown right away. I thought it was strange that he was a little defensive of the price. He explained that he doesn’t have to do that, it’s just a courtesy. That sentence put be in defense mode. I didn’t say anything except thank him. I’m very angry with the whole situation.

I got my “Toilet Humor” collage framed. Isn’t it lovely:

Jim and I got our anniversary date wrong. Long story short, it’s May 28th, not June 28th. Yeah, we feel dumb. We’re not changing anything with the wedding date though. No big deal. Or is it? Sigh.

Today’s events. Nothing much really. I did get over to Trader Joe’s for some wine. It’s nick named “Two Buck Chuck” (named after the winery – Charles Shaw). The sign in my store had the two crossed out and it’s now “Three Buck Chuck”. I asked if the price had gone up and they said not for a long time but prices are cheaper on the west coast due to a messy divorce or something like that.

Above/Below: I bought an assortment. Some for Mike & Dave’s visit, some for the DC trip.

I’ve just recently taken a liking to red wine. Funny, during my typical blog research, I came across this MSNBC article. I giggle, because that’s all me. Cheap starter wine for me.

Weight Watcher’s update:

I earned some activity points doing the elliptical for 45 minutes. Once daily points are used, followed by weekly points are exhausted, activity points can be swapped for more food points. I plan to stay away from that happening. It’s best to ignore the activity points.

I don’t plan to share my status with you everyday. For now, it’s exciting to me and something different occurred today. Today I was careful.

I saved 1 point by having Nance’s Sharp & Creamy Mustard on my sandwich rather than mayo.
I saved 2 points by switching to fat free half and half for my coffee.
For a snack, I chose an multigrain English muffin with light butter (I measured and even used less than the Tbsp) instead of 6 Triscuits. Same points – more food.
Thanks to friend Jim Jordan, he gave me a list of 0 point foods which inspired me to Google and therefore found tons of suggestions from people who have been using Weight Watchers for years.

While we toured around our country, Jim’s mother held our rings for us. The rings were loose fitting because of all the weight we had lost prior to our RVing adventure. Now? They fit. Sad. Anyway, she brought them with her to Asheville. I missed my ring. We bought them a few years ago while on a Caribbean cruise. The stone is called Ammolite. Jim and I saw and it immediately loved it. Years ago, we tried to have it resized and found that some jewelers never heard of it. That made it that much more fantastic to us.

Click here if you want to see a collage of Ammolite samples.

Last year I bitched about TV. I bitched about Chinese food. I bitched about a movie. Click here to read about the bitchin’.

5-20-10 Thursday (Overages)

This morning started out like most days. I ate oatmeal for breakfast. Somewhere between breakfast and lunch, I decided to start the Weight Watchers program by tracking my foods. It took a lot of time today for set up. On most items I wanted to input the nutrition values and obtain points values rather than just pick from a list. I just wanted more accuracy. I really liked their online tools. I think they’re very powerful; I’m contemplating taking over the world with them.

My daily allotment of points is 30. I get an extra 35 for the week to use for overflow or special treats or whatever. They don’t carry over to the next week so I won’t be able to get the rest on a Michael C. Fina Gift Certificate. Go figure.

By the end of the day I used 36 points (30 daily points + 6 weekly).

I think I could have done better if I had started the diet in the morning. I would have used fat free half and half which would have saved me 2 points. I would have skipped or limited some of the meatballs I ate as a snack. It’s OK though, tomorrow is a new day.

Some of the hunger I was having may have been because I’m dieting. You know, the brain knows there’s a diet and is now hungrier knowing it can’t have this or that.

Time to “reacquaint” ourselves with the gym. It’s been over 3 weeks since we’ve gone.

We toured some caves today. Amazing. The gift shop had a book that fit our theme. See it here.

5-19-10 Wednesday (Toilet Humor)

There’s a big empty space in there across from the toilet. On Saturday, prior to taking my mom to the airport, I decided to create some art for that empty space.

Above: Click the photo to enlarge.

I took all of the humorous photos from the trip, selected any photo that had to do with toilet humor and made a collage with it. I took it a little further by inserting the city, state and date. I’ve printed it out and we taped it to the wall so that over the weekend I’d be able to decide on some changes. Above is the final copy. Last night I reprinted it. Today I’ll look for a frame for it.

In unrelated to toilet humor news, I’ve joined Weight Watchers online today. I found a coupon code online to get 3 months for $54.00. I’ve read through their program. I’m sure there’s stuff I’ll need to reread. I bought a digital food scale in preparation.

The temperature in the house got hotter and hotter. Eventually I discovered that even though the A/C was running, no air was coming from the vents. At 9:35am, I called the property management company, Henderson Properties, got their answering machine. I left my name, the property address and my phone number. I turned off the A/C, showered and went to Walmart. When I came back, I tried the A/C again. It worked. No call from the property management. I left at 1:30 for a dentist appointment. I got home at 5:30 and the house was hot. No air flow again. It seems like maybe it’s freezing up. I called the maintenance emergency number (5:49) and left a message. An hour later I got a call back. The guy (tech on call?) said he may not be able to handle it until tomorrow. I fussed about the whole experience. He said he’d try to get someone out and would call me back. As promised, he called me back and had dispatched a tech. It was found that the freon was 3 pounds low. He charged it.

Jim and I had dinner plans with Deanna that we had to cancel (rescheduled for next Wednesday) at the very last minute. In a professional world, a call made in the morning should be returned by noon and an after noon call should be returned by business close. It would seem that every time I have to deal with these people I have issues. Henderson Properties sucks. There. I said it.

Let me tell you about my lovely 3 hour dentist ordeal. Today was 3 hours! Did I mention, 3 hours? It was to finish up root canal on tooth #1. I mentioned I was told that the canals were very long and narrow and would have to be widened to accommodate the permanent fillings (rubber fillings). Being so narrow, being so twisty, being so long (deep), and being it’s me all created the 3 hour ordeal. Luckily, no pain. I still have to get this tooth filled by my regular dentist. I also still need root canal #2 finished so stay tuned to that which is my dental woes.

Yes, that is really a picture of me. The “sunglasses” are a splash shield. I snapped the photo while the doctor was prepping something. The assistant laughed.

I explain what’s so “charming” about the town. Dasher has a run-in with an aggressive dog. We toured tombstone. It’s amazing how you can use a toilet to decorate your yard. Interesting adventures. Check them out here.

5-18-10 Tuesday (Meow, Meow, Meow)

Before I get into today’s non-adventures, I want to mention a restaurant.com. I mention them from time to time. They are running a special. $3 for a $25 certificate. How does it work?

You buy the certificates at restaurant.com using coupon code “SAVOR”.
After you’ve made your purchase, they will email you the certificate numbers.
When you want to use one, find a participating restaurant on the website and redeem the certificate number. Pay attention to any restrictions.
Print the certificate.
Go to the restaurant.
Order $35 worth of food. Sometimes $50 depending on restrictions.
Present certificate. Pay $10 or more for your meal (usually excludes alcohol).

In the end, a $35 bill would have cost you $3 for the certificate + $10 difference = $13.00. Got it? I recommend that prior to purchase, you check what restaurants are in the various zip codes you’d be interested in to make sure there are restaurants you’d go to. If you have any questions, ask me – we use it a lot.

OK, now for today. We ate breakfast with the gang and then said our goodbyes to Aunt P, Ann & Morgan and Tonia. We returned to the RV, moved it to a “storage site” and then hit the road. A 2 hour drive from Asheville to Charlotte hearing Clea meow. We let her roam the Jeep but she still meowed constantly.