That Four-Letter Word...

Snow, of course, what were you thinking?  They are calling for it overnight tonight here in Spokane, yuck!  Even though they are really only calling for "up to 1/2 an inch", it's still coming and preparations need to be made ASAP!  So, after my 2-week post-op appointment today (where I got the all-clear and told I can skip the 6-week appointment unless we'd like him to be our "we-want-a-baby" doctor), I ran around town in preparation for snow and my being out of town in the near future.

Yesterday my shoes started falling apart, and I mean literally...chunks fell off the sides of both shoes!  So, my first stop was the mall to pick out a new pair of shoes, in fact, I got two pair.  Payless (as always) is running a BOGO sale, you know, where you get the second pair for 50%.  So I picked up a new pair of Champion "Fitness" (I wore through a pair of these over the summer, but they are so comfortable!  These are ones that have the "yoga ball" styled toes and heels, so you kind of rock while you walk.  I liked them and they were on sale for $24 (normally $35).  For my second pair, I spied a pair of Champion "Activelite".  They have a flat sole, but are designed for walking in and were on sale for $19 ($9.50 with the BOGO deal).  Since I have been going through shoes so fast recently, I suppose that means I'm more active than I was a year ago, half off a pair of shoes was well worth it in my opinion!

Next was the grocery store for a couple of reasons, first of all, I was starving!  I didn't cook this morning and had planned to grab an Atkin's bar on my way out the door, but forgot it.  Since I needed to pick up some more needle caps for my insulin, I also stocked up on bars and shakes for when my sister goes into labor (any day now, so trying to be as prepared as possible before hand).  I also got a package of Grape Tomatoes, they are so yummy!

Last stop before heading home was another trip to the feed store.  After researching online, I decided on the bucket and bird bath heater to keep the chicken's water thawed this winter.  Usually I can find better deals online than in store, but this time, Aslin-Finch beat out Amazon!  For $34, I got my de-icer and got it installed today!  While there, I also picked up a bag of Cracked Corn (corn is like a nutritional space heater in the girl's bodies, the energy used to process it keeps their body temps up, therefore warmer chickens!  Since the suet cake went over so well on Sunday, I bought several more as well as a suet feeder, which was harder to figure out how to use then it should have been.

Then it was home to start the "winterization" of the coop & run.  All that really meant was "get something up to keep snow from blowing into the coop".  For the most part, it's protected, but there is that one spot, to the left of the staircase down off the porch, where the coop has a hardware cloth "window" built into the coop.  That was easy enough to protect and took the least amount of time of anything out there today!  I had saved the old shower curtain a few months ago when I replaced mine.  After running it through the washing machine with a light load of clothes, I hung it up to dry over the railing and then folded it up once dry.  Today, I unfolded the curtain, grabbed my staple gun and got to work stapling it up!  I wanted to still allow air flow through the window, they'll need the venting to keep the moisture from breathing down in the coop as the temps drop, so I tacked it up on the last beam, about six inches from the coop wall, and then down one side.  On the side actually under the stairs, I added a few staples to the coop to angle the curtain in and help try to protect that open window.  The curtain still had "flow" and is not tacked anywhere along the bottom, that way it hopefully has enough give to not get torn down too soon!  However, we do buy the cheap liners ($3-6), so replacing it won't be too hard to do.

After getting the plastic curtain up, is was time to "pretty up" the rest of the coop and run!  They got fresh pine shavings in the coop, as well as fresh Orchard Grass in the nest boxes.  The Alfalfa Hay that was in the boxes got dumped into the run for them to pick through.  They didn't eat it in the boxes, but once it was on the ground, they have been having a ball finding all the bits of leaf and such in it!  Anything to keep them busy and entertained...  Here's a good view of the lights I got strung up over the weekend too, I forgot to reset the timer, but will get that done this afternoon as well.  They have all been spending more time in the boxes since hanging the lights, but I think we're having a water issue now that is holding up the egg producing.

With the purchase of the de-icing unit, hopefully the girls will again have unlimited water flow!  It was simple to hook up too, just lay the unit flat in the bottom of the bucket and plug it in!  Of course, to do that, we had to drill a new hole and get a new hanger positioned where the short 6-foot cord could reach the outlet.  The water is now hovering over the sand box turtle...but at least they'll have water!

We've had to punch out two cord "holes" in the cover over the outside outlet now...the lower cord is for the light timer (an outdoor-rated extension cord) and the top for the water heater.  That was much easier to do the second time around, when I figured out how to get the cover off!

Doing the clean-up in the coop meant a few added treats and storage options as well.  To the left here you can see the relocated water system, the old hay that is a new found toy, and the Cat Litter container.  That container is full of Cracked Corn!  Weather proof, and most animal proof too!  There's even a bowl I use as a scoop in there for a fast treat!  I cheated and sprinkled some corn into the hay for this photo op...

I love reusing these Litter containers...the one in the front actually has the extra extension cord wound up in it!  This keeps the girls from pecking at or pooping on it.  The two containers stacked behind it are full of Chicken feed.  With ouring about a cup r so straight in the feeder, a 50-pound bag of crumbles fills three of these litter containers.  The third one resides in the black garbage con to weight it down a bit, the hay, pine shaving, Oyster Shell, Grit, BOSS, and Meal worms don't weigh all that much!

One last "treat" to keep the chickens happy, healthy, and entertained through the colder weather months was the Suet Cakes.  On Sunday I gave them a "High Energy" Suet cake, which they still have part of laying under their feeder, however, the dirt on it bugs me to no end!  So, I picked up a $3 suet holder today, along with several more suet cakes, they're on for a good price and at one or two a week, I wanted to have enough to last!  I know it's really hard to see here, but the black wire thing near the concrete pillar is the holder, holding a Suet Cake.  I have hardware cloth on this corner of the coop too (covering a one to two inch gap), so it was a easy spot to hook the Suet hanger to that kept the cake away from outer walls were other "wildlife" (squirrels and wild birds) could get at it.  The girls are a little afriad of the cage at the moment, but I'm sure they'll figure out there's a yummy treat in there soon enough!

Remember how I said I went to the Mall today?  This really disgusts me...only because I'll be so freaking sick of it by Christmas!  They have already begun decorating the Mall for Christmas!  November freaking 2nd!  Okay, it isn't overboard (yet), and there was no Christmas music being played...but come on!  Those strings of lights hanging are covered in bits of ribbon, bows, and those little Mylar "fireworks" looking things too.  I could handle the lights, and [probably wouldn't have even noticed them, but the big red bows with fake pine greenery?  Ugh.

In other news...my blood sugars have finally decided to cooperate with me!  My surgeon was very impressed with my recent readings, but I think he was even more impressed by my being able to wake up with a sugar reading of 36, get up, and treat it myself.  Like most people who aren't Diabetic, they go by the numbers others have told them are the "coma thresholds" and are impressed to see people up and moving at anything lower than that arbitrary number.  (Case in point, once when I was at camp, so we're talking 20 years ago, one of the camp counselors had a low blood sugar at one of the "dances"...she had a blood sugar of 9 and was still up and active!)  At any rate, we did discuss the size of my fibroid (the parasite living off my body for who knows how long) and decided that it may have been contributing to my insulin needs as well. 

Below is a photo of my logbook for this week.  [I really liked my "free" logbooks I got at a conferrence a few years back, they are made by drug companies to be given away at these sorts of things...I have no idea how to get my hands on more of them!  Lilly makes the best logbook, followed closely by Sanofi Aventis!  What I have now is the best substitute I could download and print off the internet...]  If you look to the far right near the top, you see that 52 at 4am?  That was the result of taking 5 units of Lantus before bed the evening before!  Prior to surgery, I was taking 26 units every night before going to bed.  Now, back in the left most column...138 is still a bit high for a "normal" person, but when have I ever claimed to be normal?  For me, this is a great reading!  This morning was even better at 103.  However, lunch today, even without eating anything other than an Atkin's bar while out and about, killed my average for the day! (Yesterday too...this afternoon isn't pictured here.)  I'm going to give it another day or so before I start messing with my morning Lantus, but it appears I may need a bit more in the morning to hold me through lunch and into dinner.

Speaking of the size of my fibroid, it was impressive all in it's own right!  My fibroid weighed in at 455 grams (1.003 pounds)!  That's just barely over a pound, but that isn't even the part that makes it sound big!  An "average" Uterus weighs 70 grams, making my fibroid 6.5 times the size of an average Uterus (making the combined over 7 times the size it should be assuming anything about me is "average")!  The doctor told me I am still very swollen and will notice that going away over the next several weeks (possibly a few months), but there was nothing he could do to help with the "skin sag" I have going on. 

On the weight front, I have lost all of my "surgery weight" that I gained thanks to a sugar-filled electrolyte IV bag!  I've even gone down "unofficially" (since it isn't Friday yet) a few more pounds!  This morning I weighed in at 254.0!  I was sitting at 256.8 the morning of my surgery.  Little steps...my next mini goal is fast approaching, 247.2 will be 50 pounds gone forever!  Only 6.8 pounds to go!  Since I have switched to wearing exercise shoes already, I'm not really sure what my reward to myself is going to be...my original plan had been a pair of Sketcher's Shape-Ups, but having tried them on and compared to the Champion brand ones, I prefer the less expensive shoe.  I still want to keep the "exercise" theme going because 50 pounds gone was my "start point" for really working more activity into my weight loss.  I can't lose 150 pounds on diet alone!  Maybe a DDR game for my Wii?  The issue there is that I still haven't found a decent spot to keep the Wii where I'll actually use it!  I already have Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus, but they haven't been touched in almost a year...and the Wii Fit was the entire reason I bought a Wii in the first place!  In January no less when the balance boards were worth their weight in gold if you could get your hands on one (we lucked out and the Circuit City 2 blocks from our house got a shipment in and my other half went down to grab a ticket 2 hours before the store opened for me...they only got 6 in and were basically raffling them to the first 6 people that read their paper and got there before 8am.)...it only took me 2 weeks to get one, but some people had been looking since November for them!  (I've had my Wii for about 2 years now, so this may or may not be the case come January...plan your fitness needs well in advance of the "Resolution Rush"!)

I'm tempted to get a gym membership, but I don't like being the "fat girl at the gym who can't keep up"...and jump ropes are out because my bits giggle way too much for that!  I've even tried getting in a simple walk for the exercise, but that was lonely alone and the other half just isn't all that motivated to go with me, it lasted about 3 weeks.  If I could get a super deal on one of those sit-up machines (padded metal frame that assists you in "proper form"), that might be an option, but I don't think I could justify another piece of equipment when I am so bad at using what we already have!  Maybe just an alarm to remind it's time to get up and go use the Wii, lol.  Any suggestions?