Saturday

I wish I could come up with some witty titles for my blog posts but it just seems pretty practical to post the day that I am writing them. It is six in the morning and I am wide awake. I went downstairs to get the aloe vera gel out of the fridge to put on my peeling parts of my body ..since it is itching something fierce and then since I was already down there I decided to get a cup of coffee to bring up while I blogged and listened to my book. (Crazy Horse. It is for a class) So, speaking about coffee : we got a Keurig about a year ago or maybe just a bit longer and we LOVE it. I bought the nice big model that you just put in a huge amount of water at once and then press one of two buttons to get a full cup or a half of cup and it works great UNTIL it started to not work so great about a month ago. It was not fully getting the water and so you would have to open the water part and hold your finger over the tube or just get a half cup of coffee. OK now here is where it gets interesting. When I go on the Keurig website to buy coffee I get points and since I buy lots of coffee I have accumulated a ton of points since we have had our Keurig. I saw that they had single serving Keurigs and we have been thinking of getting one to put in our upstairs living room and then maybe one for the office. I went ahead and got one but since I have been gone and lazy when I am home I just opened up the single one and sat it next to the broken one on the counter and we have been using it instead. Tom keeps telling me to go buy a new one. The big one is much better for two cups of coffee and much quicker. I like the single serving one. I can see where it would work out great in the office but we will see. Maybe I will just order one this morning from the website using some more of my points and then before I even think of going to the store to buy one it will already be here :) Pretty good idea !!!

I have been having some challenges with my dystolic blood pressure. It has been in the 90s pretty consistently for the past few months. I stopped taking blood pressure medicine back in May and do not want to start it again. My systolic pressure is fantastic ... it averages about 105 each day ( we have a great machine that we use at  home to keep track of these things ) anyway Dr. Brooks and I decided back in July that we would wait for me to finish another round of HCG to see if the weight loss would help it go down. Well, it did and it did not. It was in the high 80 and low 90 which was  not much improvement. So then we decided to figure out what was causing the problem without me going on pills for it. Apparently (for those of you that do not know) dystolic is when your heart does not fully relax on the outbeat and it is not really that common. Most people have the opposite problem but it can be harmful if left unchecked. What we decided to do was cut my salt intake for 6 weeks and see if that made a difference and then the first week in Nov I am starting another round of HCG so the lowsalt combined with more weight loss should do that trick. The only other problem I have is that my feet swell when I fly. I  mean swell where it hurts and I can hardly walk so he told me not to be flying very far until we can figure that one out. (we were going to Atlanta in two weeks but after flying to Seattle and then the 4.5 hour trip to Atlanta would kill me right now. .. not literally .. but sitting and you can hardly move around a plane anymore for any length of time.

Renae had an adventure yesterday. She picked up Rainey and they went for a drive out to Mud Lake (Renae loves the outdoors and does all this exploring to find these really cool places) so off to Mud Lake they went .. to enjoy the fall colors and the great day. However when they went to leave Renae's truck would not start. So, she had to sit there and wait for a friend to come help here and apparently it still did not start so they will go back out today to figure it out or we will have it towed. Looks like the suburban gets someone to drive it for a few days until Renae's truck gets fixed. It actually does come in handy to have an extra vehicle. It just makes your yard look like a used car lot !!

I got in 12 miles yesterday. I think I am an exercise addict. I just enjoy the relaxation part of it. I know most people do not consider exercise relaxing but it really is for me. I also like to break it up into 2 different times in the day. Morning and later afternoon are my favorite times. I do most of my exercising here at home downstairs in the dojo( which was a term given to a 2 car garage that we do not use as a garage but instead put in a wood floor, mirror and exercise equipment and of course now it is filled with toys for Rainey to play with while I exercise.But we also have the gym across the street and since we have the family membership it comes with free daycare and the daycare is full of toddlers which means I can exercise and Rainey can play and it works out great for both of us. That way I can use some other equipment besides my treadmill. I am also a Nike.com addict. I like my gym clothes to match from shirt, jacket, shorts and shoes.. It just gives it a sense of style as well as some structure. It is like playing golf, you have to look the part when you play golf.. at least everywhere but in Alaska. In Alaska you just put on jeans and a shirt and off you go but at the nice courses you have to have the correct clothing to play. It is very civilized looking just like gym clothes. I hate it when I go in and people are in their old shapeless teeshirts and shorts and old tennis shoes. You feel better about yourself when you look good. Clothes can make you feel good.

Book club tomorrow at Darlenes. We hare having mexican food. Good thing I just wrote that because I had forgotten that I was supposed to bring a 7 layer dip. I have never made one in my whole life but I will try and see how it turns out.