Inventive kidlet....

When kidlet was young...3 or 4, he was obsessed with the movie, "Wind." It's a movie about sailing and he watched it over and over and over. I guess that was a preview of things to come. He enjoys sailing at the river, either on a little sunfish, or the windboard and he talked his grandfather into bringing the old sunfish from the river back to our house. We have a 4 acre pond, not great for sailing, but better than nothing.

Well, yesterday he combined his love for sailing and his creative, inventive ability. We live along the Carolina coast and there is a "storm" (experts disagree on exactly what kind of storm it is) sitting off the coast causing it to be very windy here.

He started thinking out loud (a trait he's inherited from his father) and the next thing I know he's taken his wagon, built a frame over and under it, attached 2 brackets and has me out there holding it so he can attach his sail (an old sheet).

I wasn't quite sure how it was going to work so I made him put on his helmet and cut him loose.

It worked!!!!!



His father was so proud and impressed when he got home from work and saw kidlet "sailing" back and forth across our farm.

Now they're trying to figure out how to make a boom, so he can control the sail and keep the wind in his sail, even when he turns. I don't think I was that smart when I was 13. Hell, I'm not sure I'm that smart now!

So how about you? Do your kids, nephews, brothers (or sisters) do this type of thing?

Queen for the Day....

Okay, I need to give an update but it'll be short and sweet. I didn't lose any weight last week, but I didn't gain either and that's a huge accomplishment, considering all I did was eat, sleep and play cards (and lose money playing cards).

But I have something much, much more exciting to share with!

The Soapbox Queens - Jennifer LeBrecque, Rhonda Nelson and Vicki Lewis Thompson - have given me the opportunity to be Queen for the Day!!!

Join me tomorrow at www.soapboxqueens.com where I'll share the story of my secret writing life and use my power as Queen to make your secret dreams come true as well. Hey, in the castle anything can happen!!!

Hope to see you there!

National Body Challenge Update

Ugh....that's all I know to say! lol

I'm in Myrtle Beach on vacation and eating has been a top priority since I arrived last night. We had dinner at a New York Steak House and between the shrimp cocktail, filet mignon and 1 lb. baked potato that I split with hubby I was miserable when I finished.

Then for lunch today we went to Johnny Rockets - hot dog and Oreo milkshake!! OMG - how many calories there must have been in that meal.

I decided for dinner I was just going to get a salad. Really, I'm still full from dinner last night and lunch today, I have no room. Unfortunately, they have no salads at Thoroughbreads. So.....shrimp cocktail, prime rib, mashed potatoes. I brought at least half of the steak and potatoes back to the hotel with me. I think I hear them calling my name.

Tomorrow we move from our hotel to my uncles condo. I was there today...I saw the chips and cookies and mounds of junk food piled high on the counter. I'm going to be a freaking whale when I leave here...maybe I should walk home.

Please tell me you guys are doing better than me!!!! Paula, welcome back to the jungle, glad to hear you're doing better!

Make it a wonderful day, everyone!
Alannah

B&N will never be the same

Anyone who knows me knows I can't go past Barnes and Noble without stopping. It's an addiction of sorts, and I truly have to force myself to not stop if I'm in that shopping center.

Today I had needed (notice I didn't say wanted, I needed to go to B&N) to get the book, The Answer. I have it on audio book, it's phenomenal and I want my husband to read it. I'll never, ever get him to sit down for 6 hours and listen to the tape, but if I have the book available I might be able to get him to read a snippet here and there. But I digress.....

I picked hubby up for lunch, we ate our sandwiches, and then I ran to B&N. He sat in the car while I ran inside. I was in there less than 5 minutes (because he was waiting I couldn't wander and check out all the new releases) and then I ran back to the car.

As I got in the car hubby says, "Look at that vehicle."

"What vehicle?"

"That white Expedition next to you." (there was actually an empty space between it and my car)

I look over at the Expedition and it's rocking. I mean ROCKING! I started laughing and said, "Maybe they're listening to Sweet Home Alabama and jamming like you were."

He gets this you've-got-to-be-kidding-me-look and says, "Uh, no. There's something going on in that vehicle."

I laugh it off and since the parking space in front of me was open decided I'd pull straight through. That way we could look into the front seat of the Expedition and he could see the people singing and dancing. OMG!

They had a sun screen over the front windshield and there was nobody visible. But that baby was still rocking! We both burst out laughing and hubby says, "Now that's a lunch hour!"

Who the hell goes parking at B&N in the middle of the day and parks that close to the store? And the worst part is, I'll never go to B&N again without thinking of that Expedition getting its groove on.

Hope it was as good for them as the laugh we got out of it was for us!!

Ack...I forgot to update!

I completely forgot to do my weekly National Body Challenge update...and I have good news!!!

Down 5 pounds! Yippee!!

I didn't take any measurements because I'm sure it's just water loss, which is what always happens the first couple of weeks of a new diet for me. But I don't care what it is...I'll take it!

Next week will be tough...we'll be in Myrtle Beach on vacation. I don't do very well at eating healthy on vacation. I also won't have my scales (thank goodness!) so I won't be able to do an update on Monday. But I'll do an update the following week.

So....how's it going for everyone else?!

It's that time of year again!

I'm not talking football, or the final NASCAR cup races that will determine who this year's champion is going to be. I'm talking hurricanes.

The last couple of years we've been lucky along the Carolina coast and haven't had to deal with the "is it going to hit us or is it going to miss us" question (and I do recognize our luck has been the gulf coast states and Florida's bad luck). The reason that question is relevant is because we have property along the coast and when a storm gets too close we need to take our boat and jetski out of the water, pull up the pier and empty out the fridge, in case we lose power.

Hanna looks weak, disorganized and not much of a threat. But she will still push a bunch of water up the river, which causes our pier to float up and our boat to slosh around in the boat house. So, as is always the case about 48 hours prior to landfall, the seemlingly endless phone calls and conversations that lead to nowhere begin.

Every single person in my hubby's family owns his/her own business. Contrary to popular belief that when you own your own business you can set your own schedule and leave when you want to leave, the opposite is usually true. Trying to arrange it so we have enough people (men who can lift the pier) and drivers (some who can drive the boat, some who can drive the truck and trailer) usually ends up being a major production.

But I think we have it all worked out for today and in about an hour we'll head to the coast to do our annual thing. The good news is: the sun is shining, the storm is still far off, the water isn't pushing the pier up as we're standing on it trying to unscrew it from the stringers, the wind isn't blowing so badly we can hardly get the boat out of the boathouse without beating it on the sides, and there isn't a driving rain that stings like crazy when it hits you. You can guess how I know about all of those scenarious! lol

I'll keep you posted, and honestly, Hanna isn't the one we're worried about. Very few of the hurricane prediction models show Ike turning back out to sea, so it appears that someone is going to have to deal with that storm in the next week or so. And that won't be pretty.

Peace and Love,
Alannah

National Body Challenge Update

I said I'd be checking back in every week with an update on how things are going so here I am.

Still the same size and still the same weight!

Last week just didn't go as well as I had planned but every day is a new beginning and this week is a new beginning and so....I begin again! I hadn't taken in to consideration that I had a birthday last week - late happy birthday to Paula, also - and that I was going to be on a mini-vacation.

Hubby's family has a river cottage and we were there with his mom and dad, his sister and her husband and their two kids. With the hurricane season heating up we decided we needed to go ahead and empty out the two refrigerators so that if we have to go back down and do hurricane prep at the last minute, we wouldn't have to deal with any of the food.

So, what do you do when you need to clean out a refrigerator. Many of you may simply throw the food in the trash or put it in a cooler and bring it back to your home. That might have been the sensible thing to do, we decided to eat and drink our way through them.

But I've done much better today! Hubby is in agreement that he needs to get back onto some sort of a diet (his new medicine has caused him to put all the weight he lost back on) and so far today we've been back on track!

Thanks for stopping by and encouraging me and I hope you've had better success in the past week than I have. Next week, I'll have a much more positive report!!

Oh, I'll also have a new website! I can't wait for you to see it and please, tell me what you think!!

Peace and love (do you mind if I steal your line, Paula, I absolutely love it!)
Alannah