A few pics of Irene

 

It's like this all over Long Island and other places Irene hit. As for my house, there was little damage, thank God. We were without power until 11 p.m., not too bad. Actually, compared to so many others, we were very lucky. Katherine still does not have power and has been coming here for her hot showers.

No cable or internet for a few days, either, but obviously I'm on line now.

On the day of the hurricane, we listened to the clock radio off and on, since it has a built in battery. We took a few drives around to see the damage. Katherine showed me a picture of the parking lot in Northport, which was half-covered with water. I've never seen that happen before. 

That evening, still without power, Mike and I watched "DUNE" on the computer DVD. Since we had no Cable we watched a few more movies on the television. 

The first thing we did watch as soon as we could was Sunday's episode of "True Blood," one of our favorite shows. Katherine and Erick came down to watch it, too! 

Getting Ready for Irene

 

Mike, the boys and I spent about an hour getting the outside of the house ready for the hurricane. Most of the stuff was either taken into the garage or carefully secured. I thought Mike's duct-taping of the grill was pretty funny.

I carried what I could lift and also took down the netting around the gazebo. I also helped Mike when he put extra screws into the gazebo frame and  did whatever else I could. Mike and the boys did the heavy stuff.

Irene is supposed to be the worst hurricane we've had in decades. It's at 100 mph now and is supposed to hit late tomorrow, I believe. A lot of areas have been evacuated. We live on the North Shore so, happily, we can stay put. 

I usually do my weekly shopping on Friday when I drop Nick off for work. Frankly, I wouldn't have done it today but I realized we were out of cat food. And the kitties have to eat. So I picked up some fresh fruit, bologna and juice, too. We have plenty of food as I have a good stockpile (being a couponer). Good thing...the peanut butter shelf was empty. Honestly, you'd think it was the end of the world the way people were piling up their grocery carts. Me...just a few items. I'm proud of my stockpile! 

The only thing I don't have is D batteries. I usually buy AAAs and AAs because we use those the most. But at least my maglite takes AAs, so that's okay. I also have my mini fan in case we lose power. I hate heat. Hopefully, it will stay 'pleasant' as far as heat is concerned. It is so beautiful out today you'd never know what was coming up the coast!

Tremors

Nicky asks me, 'why are all the lamps shaking?' I said I thought maybe a truck had rolled by? I was also hearing a rattling in the kitchen.

Then Mike comes up and tells us there was an earthquake down in Virginia (they evacuated D.C.)! We felt it all the way up here!

Now I've got Carol King's song "I Feel The Earth Move Under My Feet" rattling through my head.

Cool for us, but I hope no one down South was hurt.

WW and K in Utah

Katherine is in Utah (of all places) attending the wedding of a friend she grew up with. Kelly and her family used to live down the block with us. It is pouring rain here on Long Island, so I'm glad she isn't coming in by airplane today. I hope they had nice weather down there in the Southwest for the wedding.

I was afraid to weigh myself this morning, but I'm glad I did. I lost another pound and a half by the Wii Scale! That's 3.5 pounds lost in about 3 weeks! And that damned line that marks my BMI has finally started to drop.

There is hope for the future.

Wow

We went to the Outback today for my sil's birthday. Katherine and Michael were there, too. (James and Nick had to work.) I looked up point values before I even went.
And I still ended up with the largest point use in a day so far! 47! That's almost the 49 for the week. Good thing there are daily points, too. I still have well over 30 for the week. So all is well. And I did do 18 minutes on the Wii, too.


The other wow: I saw Katherine's first pick for a dress today. That's another post, since I'm going to try to find a picture of it. 

Weight Loss

I planned on only weighing myself once a week, on Sunday, but I decided just to see how I was doing yesterday. I've lost 2 pounds total now! That's not bad for 10 days! Yay!

I went to Patty's with Mike yesterday to get my hair cut. Patty told me Mike said he was very proud of me. I could tell he was impressed when I told him about the weight loss, but he didn't say much to me about it. Frankly, it means more that he's bragging about me to other people. I think he's even more impressed that I'm sticking to this. I'm not much of a stick-to-it-er. I keep thinking of all the other things I'd rather be doing.

This is the last day of week 2 and I still have 16 weekly points left. I had extra food yesterday because I had so many weekly points to use up. Today, I need to hit the farm stand or at least get some fruit at the grocery store.

My other plan-of-action is using my new WW cookbook. I picked out one recipe from each section to try in the next week or so. I have a huge grocery list, mostly produce.
I had all the ingredients (except blueberries, alas) to make sour cream coffee cake. It costs me 6 points but it is really good. I had it twice yesterday and for breakfast today. Next time I'll have to be sure to put fruit in it, too. Somehow I have a plethora of strawberries but no blueberries in the freezer!

Mike is out putting gas in my car (a chore I hate) and I am getting him iced coffee. Signing off for now...

New Kitchen Curtains

I bought some new kitchen curtains. They are an off-white color with slightly darker ruffles that have a cherry design on them. I got them from the Country Store catalog on line. It's one of the treats I promised myself I'd get with each paycheck. 

Hanging curtains, btw, is a p.i.t.a. But I wrote it off as an activity on WW. This also involved moving things and completely clearing off the kitchen table. Now I have to put things back again, but I'll probably do some rearranging. I'd like my kitchen to look less cluttered than it does.

Next thing I buy might be a tall 'potato bin' or something like it. I mean a wooden box that is usually for vegetables, but I plan to put the bags of dog and cat food down into it. Right now they are in a trash can under the table and it looks yukky. There has to be a better way. 

WW Update

I'm using the Wii Fit for weighing in and am happy to say I lost a half pound. Not much, but a start! I'm being very faithful to the plan and don't feel deprived at all.

Katherine and Michael both came over for dinner last night. Mike made sauce. It was a little spicy for me but good. Alas, the meat disintegrated to almost nothing and what was there wasn't so good. Mistake to remember: never put frozen top round in sauce. I had it cut up in pieces and took it out the night before but it didn't thaw enough. Next time I'll take it out a few days ahead of time. If Mike doesn't make sauce on Sunday, I can always use it for chili.

I have been using my muscle relaxer at night. They told me to take it an hour before I go to bed, but I have to take it 2 or 3 hours ahead. I have a slow metabolism, I think, because if I take it as instructed I'm 'out of it' all the next morning. All I can say is it makes me have really vivid dreams all night (last night, I dreamed I had to write an essay for some college class. I wrote it on creativity, LOL!) and also makes me get up a pee a lot. Annoying!