bitteroldhag

Lucy -- Maybe you can advise me on my driveway. I'm going to get it fixed because water runs onto it and I have to wade to my car. But I don't know what to do. I am considering just digging some holes for drains. If it fills up too much, I can drop a sump pump in there, but it usually evaporates pretty fast. My garage also floods so I'm thinking of putting a drain in there too. What do you think?

I put a thread on this board but no one answered me. Thanks a lot. So I'm going to try again. I have been banded for 16 months and lost 40 pounds which is not as much as I wanted to lose but is better than nothing. The problem is that my band which is a larger one has 4.5 cc in it. That has worked for almost a year but lately, my pouch seems to empty awfully fast and I get hungry. Also I seem to eat more than I did to fill it up. I suspect it is stretched a bit, but if I don't eat exactly right, I throw up. Yesterday, I was so hungry that I ate the wrong way and threw up 3 times. Today, I ate prime rib, baked potato and a piece of bread!!! That is three, count them, three, exclamation marks. Do you think I should get another fill? I don't know what to do. I didn't think I'd have to have a fill 16 months after I got the band. Help!:rose:

I remember that we would go all over the place on Halloween --without our parents. One couple, who lived a mile or two from us, used to cook hotdogs and stuff in their garage and no one ever worried about them poisoning the kids. We would come home with grocery sacks full of candy and stuff. We would even get popcorn balls and cupcakes! Now, no kid goes trick or treating without a watchful parent and a lot of them have to go to Halloween carnivals so the parents can be sure they are safe. I often wonder when people started thinking life is safe. It isn't. None of us are getting out of this alive.

I love, love, love interior design. I am an HGTV addict. I renovated my house a few years ago and added on a room with plenty of dog laying room. People absolutely love my house. Even men comment on it. I'm so pleased. What style do you like? I live very cozy rooms so I use dark colors on the walls. I'm going to redo my bedroom in an old gold color because I got this great deal on Croscill bedding and it's just beautiful. It's sort of a silvery sage green and has little rosebuds embroidered on it. Man, I've never had such a fancy bedspread. Anyway, the old gold goes with the bedspread. My living room which so many people like is painted in Sherwin Williams Copper Mountain. It's burnt orange, but people love it. Weird! Tell us your style and I'll be glad to pitch in. I've been known to buy furniture for people so I can do the design. Now that's really weird.

I am terrified of heights. I went to a conference in Houston and they had those elevators on the outside of the building. My room was on the 26th floor. I went up the elevator several times by studiously looking at the floor but you could see light in the crack between the elevator and the floor. I would also make people stand behind me. So I got on the elevator with one man standing behind me. He got off on the 3rd floor! I had to ride 23 floors by myself. That's when I called the hotel folks and found I could ride in an enclosed elevator that the service people used. It was a lot better, but I will not go to a conference with that organization again.

I only score high on the language part. My musical part was almost non-existent which is true. But I guess I'm not very smart overall. I wonder how I got that Ph.D. and have been such a popular teacher for so many years. I guess other people are just as dumb as I am.:biggrin1:

Painting is a drag, but it's the cheapest way to beautify a house. My living room is painted a copper color and people just love it. I got a new comforter and junk and I'm going to paint my bedroom which has been maroon for years. I love the maroon, but it's getting pretty crappy, so I'm going to pain the room an old gold color. I'm not looking forward to it, but it has to be done. There are all sorts of websites about painting, but once you do it, you'll know a whole lot. If you are very careful, you can use a paint pad to cut in the top of the wall. I use a good cut-in brush and take it very easy. It works pretty well. Good luck with your painting.

Thanks for all of this advice. I will take it to heart and do something. I notice that my pouch empties pretty fast so I'll try to quit drinking during meals. But I may need a little fill, maybe 2 cc. I'll call my nurse and check it out. Also I will try to get some liquid medicine, though I have to take so many pills in the morning, it's ridiculous. Heart trouble, high blood pressure, many, many allergies, etc. But I really appreciate you all.

Panic attacks are not caused by a fill. Try Zoloft. It blocks panic attacks and I've been using it for 14 years. I went off it for a little while and had panic attacks in class. I can't recommend Zoloft enough for panic attacks. I never, never want to have another one.

I have had the lap band for about a year and 4 months and lost 40 pounds with no problem. I haven't lost anything in at least a year, but that's okay. But lately, I've been getting hungry. I have 4.5 cc in my band which is supposed to max out at 7.5 cc. I often throw up, but that's my fault for eating too fast or taking bites that are too big. What I'm wondering if is I should have another fill. I've done well with the 4.5 cc until recently. Is it normal for one to have to have a fill after over a year? I often have problems with my pills, some of which are big. But now, they go right through and I get hungry. Any suggestions?

That's about it. I have had about 4 fills and was well restricted until just lately. I wonder if one's stomach adjusts and allows one to eat more.

<br /> <br /> Naturally I don't do all of these things. I have to drink during meals or nothing goes down. I can't eat 3 meals a day because my pills stop up the hole and I can't eat until about 2:30 p.m. That's one of the problems. My pills haven't been stopping up the hole like usual. I figure I have a bigger hole there than I did. I have been eating in about 20 minutes though I always eat protein first, etc. I do exercises for my back and take vitamin supplements and I drink a lot. Maybe I do need a fill. Rats.

My nurse practitioner must have poked me about 20 times on one fill. She kept sticking my stomach muscles and that hurt. Finally, I suggested I get an xray so she could find the stupid port. I did, to the tune of $800,but it worked. Now, after losing 40 pounds I can feel the port really easily though it has moved. I just hope it hasn't flipped over. Good luck with the fluoro.

kacee -- You lucky devil. My hair is also white, but it looks terrible with my skin so I dye. Everyone else in my family had dark hair that grayed beautifully except for my cousin. She and I had crappy hair and look terrible with white hair. Of course, she doesn't look terrible anymore since she's dead. O.D.ed on cocaine. But I guess I'll dye forever or at least until I retire.

Green -- Thanks for the book ideas. I will check them out. I still need another book or two for the course. I got a couple of novels, one from Africa and one Japanese one, but they are too old. I wanted this course to cover the last 30 years or so. I have tried just about everything with mother, but maybe she would like a tape recorder. She seems bored with telling how things were when she was a child, but her stories are fascinating. I particularly like the one about the gasoline stove they had which caught on fire and they had to throw it in the yard. I will keep working on it.

I can't eat in the morning due to my pills getting stuck though I have an Unjury shake. I get really, really hungry about 2 p.m. so I have breakfast. I don't seem to have head hunger. I'm really hungry. So I eat breakfast at 2-3 p.m. and then dinner at about 6-7 and then I'm hungry about 3-4 hours later so I snack late at night. I eat nuts, cheese and protein except for the ice cream cone I have every night. I love that ice cream cone. I don't care if it's fattening. But that may explain why I lost 40 pounds and stopped. I have weighed the same for a year--no further weight loss. I figure it cost me about $250 per pound so far. I'd really like to lose 10 more pounds so it will only have cost me $200. But on the bright side, I only take 1/2 of my diabetes pill now. If I take a whole one, my blood sugar drops too much. Things are better.

Twenty pounds 5 weeks post-op is Good!! I also hate exercise, but I've been doing some exercise that the physical therapist taught me for my back. They flatten out my stomach. I did them for a while and then my back quit hurting. But it has started hurting again so I'm doing them again. Amazing how a flatter stomach makes a difference in clothes sizes. But you are not alone. I absolutely hate exercise. Rather than worrying about that, congratulate yourself on your weigh loss. You are doing very well.

Boy, I wish my post-nasal drip, which is really a river, would do that. I've had allergies all my life. But if your allergies are really terrible, see an allergist. I find that steroids help with my allergies when they're really bad and I'm sick as a dog. But I only do that maybe twice a year. But I don't think your allergies have anything to do with your lapband. Some people develop allergies later in life and they can be a real pain. Hope you get better soon.

It has been raining here in Oklahoma for 2 months. It rains almost every day. I'm getting really irritated with all of this. Mildew is everywhere and moss is growing all over everything. I feel like I live in the tropics. Well, the plus side is that it's pretty cool. The minus to that is that the humidity is about 90%. I think we're all going to have to strip off like the Indians in South America because it's about 75 to 80 degrees, and everyone is sweating like champions. Usually it's about 100 degrees at this time of the year, but it is dry. We still sweat but we're not all nearly dead from allergies to mold and mildew. The weather this year has been really crappy. First we had the ice storm which destroyed many of our trees. I lost my last apple tree this year. Then we had a weeklong freeze that destroyed all the budding trees. I lost another, very expensive, weeping mulberry tree to that. Then it started raining and my red-tip photinias are dying of a fungus. It never clears up long enough to spray them with the anti-fungal stuff. I figure that the weather this year is going to cost me about $5,000 to repair all the damage. And I'm really grouchy. Constant cloudiness makes me grouchy. I went to Colorado for two glorious weeks of sunshine in May. Otherwise, I'd probably be suicidal. At least it hasn't flooded here like it has on the plains. Texas has those terrible floods just about every year. But Oklahoma has flooded too. Since I live on the side of a hill, I don't have problems with flooding except in the garage. The garage is where I have stashed the 6 or 7 puppies that a neighborhood dog had. We seem to have varying numbers of them. No one was feeding her and she was so terribly thin that I fed her. Well, she moved all the puppies to my house and has moved in herself. She's a lovely German Shepherd mix, but those puppies, while incredibly cute, are awful. Everytime I open the garage door they run into the house and hunt for places to poop or pee. They hang on their poor mother's boobs and the little devils have teeth. She has serious knockers what with feeding all those greedy little devils, and they are cut from the puppy teeth. Also they are covered with ticks since it has rained so much that no one can mow their yards. This is the worst tick season ever in my 16 years living here. I pick off about a dozen ticks from the mother dog every night and the little ones also have ticks, but I can't put tick killer on them because they are too young. So I pick ticks off of them too. I am a great lover of the garbage disposal because I can just grind up the ticks and they don't return from the dead. Next week I get to take 6 or possibly 7 puppies for shots and worming. Clearly I'll be broke after that and then I have to get shots for two older dogs and the mother. She'll have to have heartworm tests. Lord, charity can get expensive. Mother, who is now 87, thinks I'm crazy, but I just can't let a perfectly good mother dog die of starvation even if she does have obnoxious kids. But she's a problem too. Yesterday, we had company from Illinois so I had a big spread to feed them. I had a buffet set up on the bar in the kitchen. Angua, the mother dog, ate the potato salad in its bowl on the bar. She's tall and can reach the food. So I had to toss the potato salad. But that's not nearly as bad as the time my old dog, Jasper, ate two filet mignons off the counter. It takes a lot of potato salad to equal the cost of those filets. Well, I'm feeling better. I hope the folks in Texas and in the flooded areas of Oklahoma are doing okay. Maybe someday the sun will come out and we'll really get to sweat.

And go to my bedroom. This is sort of odd since I own the house, but I can get away. She is so bored. It worries me, but I have tried all sorts of things to get her interested and she won't do anything. My latest idea is scrapbooking. So I bought about 20 scrapbooking magazines, hoping to get her interested. It won't work, but I try. Mother told me today that when she dies, assuming that happens in this century, I shouldn't think I haven't done all I can for her. Of course, I've done all I can! She implied that she's bored but I've at least fed her well. God. I've only been doing this for over 6 years. My life has been on hold for that long. But there are good things. I have great house paid for with her money. That's about it. I still love my bed. I was sick for 2 days this week with some sort of virus that is going around school. Well, everything has suddenly become italic. At any rate, I slept a lot and read "Smilla's Sense of Snow." It's okay. Aha! I hit something that returned everything to normal. Anyway, I intend to cover that book in my new class on Contemporary World Writers. The problem is that most world writers haven't been translated into English which limits my list of world writers. I'm going to do "Alias Grace" by the wonderful Margaret Atwood. Thank god for Canadians. Not that you are interested but I'm also going to cover "The Bone People," "Satanic Verses," "The Kite Runner," and a Chinese novel about bound feet. Also I'm doing Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart." I was going to do "Life of Pi" which is really strange, but I ran out of time. And I'm going to cover the great Isabel Allende's "House of Spirits." I just love Isabel Allende. I have read all of her books and they are a gas, even the one where her daughter died. The only problem with her is she's really petite and thin. I hate that. Well, I've bored you enough. I'll go away now.:clap2:

I am in love with my new mattress. The only problem is that I go into my bedroom to escape from my mother and the mattress is so comfortable that I go to sleep. I have slept a lot lately. God bless latex.

Well, hey. I'll look up the Brennan's recipe. It's good and does NOT include a bay leaf. No good shrimp creole contains bay leaf. Good French scalloped potatoes contains about a half a bay leaf. I'll look up the recipe and send it on.

This week, after finally getting rid of 7 puppies and the mother(Yes, I gave away 8 dogs), I bought a new, used car. I shop on eBay for cars so that I don't have to run around and spend money on gas hunting a car. I bought my Cadillac on eBay for $6,000. It's old but has very low mileage which is what I wanted. Well, I turned 60 YEARS OLD (!!!!!) a couple of days ago and I thought I should get a car that will last so I can retire in about 4 years. I checked eBay and found a RAV 4 at a nearby Arkansas dealer that looked good. So I contacted them, sent them all my financial data, etc., and went over there on Monday to get the car. The salesman informed me that I was lucky because they were going to send the car to auction that day! I was seriously pissed about that because, since I sent them all my information, I assumed they thought I was serious about buying the car. Also the web guy from the dealership promised to have all the paperwork done so we could be out of there quickly. Well, we were there from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., mostly sitting around waiting. I got to drive the new car about a block and that was that. Then I waited some more. I was supposed to attend a birthday party here at 6 p.m. Missed that. We finally got home at about 8 p.m. We went to Applebee's and got their sirloin steak. I had to throw it up because it was so tough I couldn't chew it small enough. Lord! What a day! I am seriously hoping that the new car lasts until I die or get put in the nursing home, whichever comes first. I don't care as long as I never, never, never have to buy a car again. The new car is fancier than my old RAV. It has electric windows. I nearly had two wrecks trying to get the windows in the right spot. Also it has a moonroof. I had to read the manual to figure out how to open it. Once I figured it out, it turned out that the manual isn't exactly correct. You're supposed to punch a button to get it to open up. So I punched the button and the thing scared me half to death because it ratcheted back the little cover and opened up like greased lightning. But I wanted to get it to raise up so the car wouldn't get hot while I was at school. I finally figured out how to get it to do that, but when I returned to the car, I couldn't get it to close up. It's in the 90s here with about 90% humidity and I didn't want to leave the thing open. I finally pushed the button enough times to get it to close, but I still don't know how I did it. I have the feeling the moonroof will be useless. It also has this big thing that is supposed to cover up your luggage to hide it from thieves. I figure that if you have the thing on, thieves will immediately assume there's something to steal. I will have to throw that thing away. It has some sort of curtain too. I don't know what the hell that is for. Some folks told me it was a shade curtain, but I don't know where to hang the thing. We thought that the car didn't have a jack because the salesman was too stupid to find it. It has a jack though I'm familiar with Toyota jacks and I can't work them. They offered me $1200 to trade in my old car. True, it's 11 years old and has almost 105,000 miles on it, but Toyotas are supposed to last forever. They guy told me my old car had been wrecked. I was very surprised. He figured this out from the paint inside the hood. I said I'd like to know the trick on that so he showed me where there was a paint line inside the hood and said that usually the nuts had lost their paint when the fender was replaced. The nuts still had paint. So he popped the hood on a brand new car. It was a hybrid, but he didn't know that. Amazing that the sales guy doesn't know a hybrid when he sees it. Anyway, the paint was exactly like the paint on my old RAV. It had never been wrecked. What a dunce!!! Later, he told me to ask $4500 for my old car. He thinks I can get that. Jeez! So now I have to sell my old RAV. I'm asking $5,000 and figure I'll get around $4500 for it. But I had a terrible time buying that new car. Next time, I'll just buy one on eBay and have it shipped to my like the Cadillac. That was a very good deal and it wasn't nerve-wracking in the least.

Well, I have gotten used to the new RAV. It has electric everything like the Cadillac. I wonder when I got so lazy. But I like electric everything except the driver's side window which winds all the way down it you press the button too hard. That's a serious drag. I finally figured out how to get the rear seat belt to retract. It doesn't retract all the way but at least it's not in the rearview mirror. By the way, the rearview window fell off the Cadillac, so I had to glue it back on. One wonders why anyone buys American cars. Still, the poor thing is 13 years old and I guess it's normal for stuff to mess up. The tires are low so I have to fill them up. Luckily my dad left me a little air pump thing so that shouldn't be a problem. If I can just fix the mirror, I will be happy.