A tale of thyroids, dolphins, and earrings

It's been quite a nice weekend. I don't know quite where to begin so let's start with Friday:

I got a call at work from my doctor(actually, her nurse) with my test results on Friday. Good news is that I don't have diabetes, however she said my thyroid levels were pretty high and wants to have an ultrasound of my thyroid done. Puzzling - I've never had issues with my thyroid before and I've been tested time and time again since I was young due to my weight and female troubles. I've got this appointment today at 3:30. Maybe after this is all resolved (hopefully no big troubles there - fingers crossed) we can get back to the foot issues.

Saturday morning, Tal and I woke up early. Tal left to head for Birmingham around 5:00 a.m. I got dressed and headed to Wal-Mart - where I picked up some bait, tackle, and snacks - drove to Savannah and picked up my friend/co-worker Rosie (who likes to read my blog so let's give a shout-out to her!) and drove out to the Lazaretto Creek Pier for a day of crabbing and fishing. We didn't have much luck - by the end of the day (which for us was aroud 4:00-ish) we had caught one stone crab, several oyster toadfish (if you've ever seen one, it's an ugly little mother....they were sent back to the briny deep), and a croaker which we gave to another fisherman to use as bait. But it was a pleasant day. The sun was out, but the temperature was pleasant. Just as we were about ready to leave, a couple of shrimp boats came back in to dock with a herd of seagulls, penguins and dolphin trailing behind them. One of the boats docked right across the creek from where we were, and I got some good footage on the camcorder of the shrimpers feeding the dolphin. One of the dolphin tours came back in right about then, and so the shrimpers gave them a good show by holding fish up for the dolphin to jump out of the water and catch.

Finally, Rosie and I packed up and headed for home. I dropped Rosie off at her apartment and started to head back to my house when I decided I wanted to take a detour through downtown. As I was passing through, I decided take adantage of an "actunity", parked my car, and took a walk around downtown Savannah. I walked around to City Market and purused some of the shops. I stopped by "Kitchens on the Square", which is a store I've been wanting to visit. I found out while there that this is indeed a "you break, you buy" type store. As I was turning around, my purse caught a porcelain magnet that was on one of the shelves. It fell, and some of it got chipped. Coincidentally, the salesperson had some super glue and we were able to piece back together to almost perfect condition. I think perhaps it was fate that this magnet came to be mine.......it says, "Sexy Women Have Messy Kitchens". If you saw my kitchen these days.......

After I left "Kitchens..." I walked around the corner, passed by the lines outside of Lady and Sons across the street, and stopped by another favorite store, "Metal and Paint". It's a jewelry store that carries a lot of glass beads and silver. We discovered this store a few years ago while a group of us was waiting for a table at Lady and Sons. I've been back there a few times for Christmas gifts but never bought anything for myself before. SO, I decided to stop by and see if there was anything that interested me. I ended up buying three pairs of pretty earrings! By then my feet were starting to hurt so I decided to make my way back to the car. On the way, I stopped at Smoothie King for a delicious, low-fat smoothie. Then to my car, and back on the road home I was. I wanted to look for another place I'd heard about, but came across a BBQ restaurant I had read about, so I stopped there and got some BBQ for supper. Got home, ate supper, then went to the grocery store for some cake supplies and to stock up on ingredients for my gingerbread project. By the time I got home, I was wiped out. This was a good thing, because I slept well which is something I don't usually do when Tal is gone.

Sunday wasn't as eventful. I cleaned up a bit, and made a big pot of vegetable chili (Dan Good Chili from "Hungry Girl - Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World" - 2 points per cup and it's SO GOOD!!) and another pot of my favorite veggie soup, which is nothing more than a can of V-8, a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, and I threw in about 1/2 cup of orzo toward the end and a little garlic salt and black pepper. I haven't figured out the Points value for this yet, but it can't be much per cup. I've put both soups up in the freezer in 2-cup containers for easy portion-control! Yeah!

I love the Hungry Girl book and website (www. hungry-girl.com). The recipes in the book does have nutrition info but not the points value - but they're easy to figure. However, Lisa DID post all the Points values for the book's recipes online. When I have time I will actually go through and write all the PV's in the book. So many other recipes in there I want to try!

So now here we are back to Monday and a busy week ahead. I've got a tree-shaped cake (this one's going to be 3-D, not flat) to do for this coming weekend, cake classes on Tues. and Thurs nights, Weight Watchers on Wed. night (and Tal is coming back on Wed.!), and of course my full-time job (the one that helps pay the bills!) which thankfully is kinda slow right now. And still working on plans for the GB Project.

I still haven't cleaned the garage, which I've said I was going to do for the past two months! Ech. Oh well.

So, will post any results from the ultrasound, Wed. night's weigh-in, and pics of the tree cake as the week wears on!

Happy Monday, and have a great week! Life Is Wonderful! (clap-clap-clap-clap!!!)

-Seraphim "Hey - who emptied the coffee pot???? Oh...it was me....sorry." Gleck