I'm Feeling A Bit Lighter Already...

Okay, everyone remember that lovely ticket "situation" that happened a few months ago.  Well, I finally decided I would put down the last of the three payments (first one to the tow company, second for the overdue tags, third for the actual ticket itself).  What REALLY motivated me was a little card I received in the mail a week ago saying that my licence would be suspended beginning September 1st if I didn't cough up $154.  If you noticed, I received that card a week ago.  I took me this long to decide if I REEEEALLY wanted my license back.  I was kind of looking forward to a "forced" break from being everyone's cabbie!  I finally decided that it would just be entirely too cruel to Scott to take on all of the driving, and would break his bank account instead of his spirit, so I went and paid the ticket.  Here is what I find tremendously humorous; They broke my ticket down into 16 DIFFERENT CATEGORIES of where the money was going to!!  They ranged from $38.50 (for the "State Share") down to $.50 (for "Highway Worksite Fees")!  And, just for the plain fun of it, let me share with you the other break-downs (and my interpretations thereof): 

• Automated Record Keeping Fee- $7.00; This is the cost for turning the computer on.
• City/Town Share- $17.50; This is the amount that is split between the city councilmen depending on who wins the Fantasy Football League this season
• County Share- $14.00; This is for the councilmen who don't play FFL- it goes straight towards their end-of-the-year "didn't get caught with a prostitute this year" party
• Court Administration Fee- $5.00; This is for the lady who signed the receipt.  She deserves a good lunch from McDonalds.
• DNA Sample Processing Fee- $2.00; Either I have mothered children I am not aware of, or I am paying to figure out who fathered half the town of Butler.
• Document Storage Fee- $2.00; Since hard copies are no longer kept, this would be an additional fee for pressing the POWER button on the computer.  Or this cost goes towards purchasing their garbage bins.
• Highway Worksite Fees- $.50; This amount is quite reflective in how well they take care of the Highways and those who work on them.
• Infraction Judgements- $14.50; This is the ACTUAL PENALTY for me being late on my tags. 
• Judicial Insurance Adjustment Fee- $1.00; This is to help offset the hike in the courts insurance fees when they realized how many of them actually drink and drive.
• Judicial Salaries Fee- City- $4.50; This is the portion of the city judges salary I promised to pay by breaking the law.  Apparently if we all obeyed the laws, our judges would never get paid.
• Judicial Salaries Fee- State- $13.50; Same as above, the State judges just think more highly of themselves.
• Jury Fee- $2.00; The amount I pay to help hardened criminals get off scott-free because most of the jury is composed of people who think this is "good money"
• Late Payment Fee- $25.00; The amount of money I had to pay because I didn't have enough money to pay to get my tags renewed, which then cost me extra money in towing fees, which meant taking food out of my children's mouths and straight into the...
• Law Enforcement Continuing Education- $4.00; Because it's not enough just to know your ABC's anymore, now they want them to know which end of the gun to point at a suspect.  (This money actually helps to offset the cover charge of the officers to get into all of the off-campus parties).
• Public Defense Administration Fee- $3.00; This purchases gum for the Public Defenders to chomp on while the judge pounds out "GUILTY" for their clients.
• State Share- $38.50; If I'm reading this correctly, they should be handing some of this BACK to me...it does say SHARE after all.

And there it is.  All $154 broken down.  Sad, isn't it?

The Weight-Loss Battle Continues...

 Well, you are probably wondering how my weight-loss "strategy" is going (that is if your life is sooo exciting that you feel you really NEED to follow mine).  Well, the first day I did pretty good.  I had myself a bunch of oatmeal, with a little sugar.....and maybe a little cocoa....and perhaps some milk and butter.  Okay, perhaps my oatmeal was in the form of no-bake cookies (better known as "doo-doo cookies" at our house).  But oatmeal's oatmeal, right?  I haven't been keeping track of ANYTHING I eat, so that part is going pretty crappy, BUTT (and that's still a big butt if you noticed) I have been walking every morning at 6am (7am on Wed)(oh, and not at all on Monday, Saturday and Sunday).  Okay, so now that I type it out it doesn't sound quite as impressive as it actually FEELS.  AND I even went for an evening walk on Wednesday night- granted when I went to walk on Thursday morning,  I was pretty sure that there was a miniature pirate strapped to each calf stabbing me with a sword the entire time, so our 40 min walk turned into a 20 min walk and a 20 min nap in the van.  I went on a walk again tonight with Aidan, Kate and Ava.  I'm hoping for LESS pain tomorrow morning....eventually, I reason, my body will stop rejecting my pathetic attempts at excercise and just work with me.  We shall see.
 
By the way, our new kittens caught (and presented us with) a shrew this morning.  Did you know that a shrew's heart beats approx 800 times a minute!! Their metabolism works SO fast that they will die of starvation if they haven't eaten for ten hours.  I'm feeling very shrewish lately.  If only my body would metabolize my food that fast!!

What would YOU do for $500?

 I signed up through my health insurance for a program that would GIVE me $500 if I lost 10% of my body weight, and an additional $1000 if I kept if off for a year. Does being overweight PAY?  I guess in this case it LITERALLY does.  How could I NOT go for this one.  I'm already dreaming up what I'll use the money for....a new bed, a used bedroom set, Propane to keep our heat on for the winter...Of course I'm daydreaming about all of this while eating poached eggs at 1 o'clock in the morning.  Why am I eating poached eggs?  Because there is no ice cream and someone ate all the Doo-doo cookies Scott made this afternoon.  Great start, eh? 
 
I went to my Physicians office who told me that it would be totally easy (said by someone who has never battled a weight problem themselves).  All I needed to do was keep track of everything I eat, then figure out the calories and keep it to under 1200 a day (I think that's right...well, either 120, 1200 or 120000...one of those), and excercise more (or in my case, excercise).  Well, gee doc...why didn't you tell me that 100 lbs and 5 kids ago?!  Of course, the fact that I have to figure in my 12 meds, including a steroid, miiiight add a little to the issue, but let's face it, I was looooong gone before the steroid ever came into play.
 
So, here's my plan.  Enoch and Amelia start Seminary on the 24th.  I plan on driving them to Seminary, walking with a friend of mine from 6-7am, then coming home.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to hit the YMCA a couple of days a week as well.  I'm REALLY hoping that I start to ENJOY the feeling of being fit and losing weight and really go to town on this.  I just hope that I recognize that feeling when I get it.  I'm not sure it's ever been with me before.  As for writing down everything I eat, that sounds like a great idea...in theory....in REALITY I'm lucky if I can get my kids schoolwork graded.  Of course, then there's having to find a pencil (that has lead) or a pen (that works) or a crayon, and something to write on (other than their homework...."Mom, why does my math homework say 2 gallons of ice cream?"..."uhhhh. Oh, I was .... uh, going to write you a story problem...."
 
I'll try to keep you posted and up-to-date on how this is going.  Everyone and their brother (just about literally) has enough tips and information they want to share with me.  I'm just hoping to get up on time the morning of the 24th!

THIS is what I've waited for?

I CAN'T FIGURE THIS NEW BLOG THING OUT!!!! AaarrrGGggghhHHHH!!!!!


Okay, so perhaps I'm just a taaaaad frustrated today.  We finally have our internet "working" for the first time in around 4-6 weeks (we'll see if that really continues). THEN, I finally get on here to update my blog, and everythings.....well....MESSED UP!!!  And I KNOW it wasn't me, 'cause I haven't even been in here for weeks.  I'd blame it on the kids, who make a mess of everything else,  but I don't think they even know how to get onto it...so that leaves me to believe that the lovely "blogspot" has decided to 'tweak' things up to make them "better".  Okay, well in my uninformed condition, "better" officially sucks.


Okay, so that isn't even the power behind the angry frustration I've felt today, just another 'fly in the ointment' (which is a completely DISGUSTING phrase, by the way, and I don't even know if I'm using it correctly). Here is the main reason:


Doctors.  'nuff said.


Right, like I could leave it there.  Well:  I finally returned to our "million dollar question/answer guy" the NEPHROLOGIST.  This is who we have waited a year and dozens upon dozens of tests for, to give us a qualitative answer to 'Where the heck are all of these kidney stones coming from and How do we stop them'.  Are you ready for the million dollar answer (as if you couldn't guess by now):  His response (quoted) "Humprh.  Would you look at that.  Everything looks normal, in fact BETTER than normal.  Well....I wasn't really expecting that."  Really?  I was.  Okay, maybe not for certain, but it fits in with the way most of the other doctor's appointments go....and I could've told you that for about $25,000 cheaper.  He types on his computer for the next 8 hours...clickety-clack...clack...clack...clicket- clickety-clickety-clack....."Hrmph. Yep, there's your graph."  Thanks for showing me that, doc...as if I can make heads or tails of it....wait, yes, now I see....the lines are forming words....t.h..i..s....d..o..c..t.o..r....i.s....a..."As you can see," yes, I see clearly now..."everything looks just fine.   Well, I'm going to put you on this medicine anyway.  I was going to put you on it if your cratamakglfoikin counts were high, but they're just great.  Perfect, in fact.  But, let's go ahead and try this medication out anyway and see if it gets rid of any stones (oh yeah, and I'm getting a HUUUUGE vacation from the drug company for pushing this particular medication).  When would you like to come back?"  How about the day after Hell freezes over, doc?  Or when I feel like flushing another $25 bucks down the toilet......or perhaps when I feel like the 12 drugs a day that I'm taking are CLEARLY not enough for me, in fact, I ENJOY spending more on my meds each month than my family's entire grocery bill.  "3 months okay?  Go ahead and get some more blood work and another round of KUB's and sonogram before your next appointment.  Then we'll see where we're at."  I know exactly where I'll be.  On the brink of insanity, glowing from radiation, where I've been for a while now....