Ok, so 24 either executed the most astounding plot twist yet, or jumped the biggest shark in the ocean. If you are unfamiliar with the term "jump the shark" check this out - note, particularly the origin of the phrase :-). By making last season's mysterious Graem (that's actually how they spell it - I double checked) -- the man who was ultimately behind the entire plot last season -- Jack's brother, the writers have just joined together an infinite number of storylines - assuming that they had any idea that they were brothers before they wrote last night's script. Unfortunately, 24 writers, amazing though they are, don't tend to plan ahead very well. Only time will tell if they actually planned to make this turn ahead of time or if this was a crazy idea that they had while smoking crack one night. Either way, the next 19 hours should be fascinating!

2nd post in one day. . .

. . . it's a miracle!

Here is my chart for the week:






Unfortunately, I don't know exactly how much weight I've lost in the last two weeks because I just bought scales on Thursday. I estimated my starting weight using Mom and Dad's messed up scales. Based on my estimated start weight and my current weight on my new digital scales, I have lost about 15 pounds in the last two weeks. I find that a bit hard to believe, but I know that I've definitely lost some weight, so I'm gonna go with 15 :-)

Here's to a good week!

Well, I got up an headed out this morning to shovel the driveway. We decided to skip church due to the 7+ inches of snow. I spent an hour and a half shoveling snow. I have decided that snow is evil. I don't have any before shots (except what I posted yesterday), but here is the after:


It's clear down to the ice that was left over from last week! The good news is that, according to SparkPeople, I burned 864 calories in an hour and a half, so that was awesome!

Tomorrow there will be snowmen everywhere. . .

There are few things I hate more than disturbing newly fallen snow (of course, I also hate disturbing vacuum marks on the freshly vacuumed carpet). It looks so clean and pure and usually even (stupid drifts). Unfortunately, this afternoon, my distaste for disturbing snow was in direct competition with my love of US Mail - if it's here, I can't leave it in the box. Disturbing the snow as little as possible, I headed outside to collect the mail. It should be noted that the snow is still falling fairly heavily and is expected to continue for several more hours. I'm seriously doubting our ability to make it to church tomorrow morning. When I made it back into the living room, the tops of my boots were covered in snow - I'm guessing there's easily 6-7 inches already in the front yard.


The unscathed back deck and yard. Show is stacked up along the deck rail and against the shed. The breeze has blown quite a bit of snow off the rail, but it's still pretty high.


A closeup of the deck rail - so pretty with the snow all stacked up.

Here is the pampas grass that is between my house and my neighbour's house. It's a bit out of place covered in snow!

Finally, the stairs on the front porch. I really hated to step on them, they looked so cool!

Shane's always wanted a monkey. . .

. . . now I know why!

Arkansas Zoo Chimp Escapes, Raids Fridge, Cleans Toilet
Wednesday, January 17, 2007

LITTLE ROCK — An escaped chimpanzee at the Little Rock Zoo raided a kitchen cupboard and did a little cleaning with a toilet brush before sedatives knocked her out on top of a refrigerator.
The 120-pound primate, Judy, escaped Tuesday into a service area when a zookeeper opened a door to her sleeping quarters, unaware the animal was still inside.

As keepers tried to woo Judy back into her cage, she rummaged through a refrigerator where chimp snacks are stored. She opened kitchen cupboards, pulled out juice and soft drinks and took a swig from bottles she managed to open.

"Then she went in the bathroom and picked up a toilet brush and cleaned the toilet," primate keeper Ann Rademacher said. "Her technique was good enough to make me think she must have done it before."

Judy, 37, was a house pet before arriving at the zoo in 1988. Rademacher said that also might explain why Judy wrung out a sponge and scrubbed down the fridge.

The chimp accepted a strawberry yogurt laced with a sedative, but that didn't work so keepers waited until she was distracted by more food and they injected her. Within five minutes, she fell asleep on top of the refrigerator with half a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread she had pulled out of the freezer.

The zoo veterinarian gave Judy a drug to bring her around and she seemed groggy but otherwise fine, Rademacher said.

Zoo spokeswoman Susan Altrui said there was no danger that Judy would get out of the primate keepers service area and onto zoo grounds.

Well, it's been a productive day. I got up about 11:00 and was greeted by sleet bouncing off the windows and piling up on everything in sight. Fortunately, I knew it was coming and was planning to spend the day inside. I was in the mood to cook, so I spent the vast majority cooking and freezing truckloads of food. I started with oven-fried chicken tenders and tabouli salad for lunch. The tabouli was a box mix that I grabbed at Wal-Mart. It was disgusting - I just don't get along with Moroccan/Indian spice combos - my palate just doesn't think that mint and lemon go together. After lunch, I took a break then made some hummus, toasted pita chips and homemade tomato soup. I portioned everything out into individual portions and put some in the freezer. By then, it was time for supper, so I made a hamburger, heated up some leftover couscous and had some of the hummus & pita chips. Not a bad day's work, all-in-all.

As you all know, I have been doing the SparkPeople plan along with Shane, Rich, Mom and everyone else in our little cyber-community. I'm both loving it and struggling with it. It is the easiest "diet" that I've ever done - which is also why I'm struggling with it. I'm just not quite sure that it will work - although, it seems to be working very well for Shane. I am still able to eat fast food, chocolate, snacks and anything else that I want - as long as I stay within my prescribed limits. I've also been working out a bit - something I've been thinking about starting for a while. I actually began making some lifestyle changes about a year ago. I drink 3-5 liters of water a day and started eating low-calorie snacks twice a day to keep my metabolism going. I also refuse to eat anything after 8:00 pm. I'm enjoying tracking my food intake via sparkpeople.com - it really makes you think about every single thing that you put in your mouth. I tend to obsess over things and this week, if I didn't know exactly how many calories, fat grams and carbohydrates were in something, I didn't eat it. Today, as I cooked things, I tracked all of the nutritional information for each ingredient, added it all up, divided it into the appropriate number of servings, input it to SparkPeople and then portioned out the food accordingly. Math and cooking - it was great.

I was going to post my weekly summary, but Shane's going to have to show me how :-)

Ok, Shane told me. . . gee, why didn't I think of that? :-) Here is the week that was:

This is simply awesome!

As is this.

For those of us counting the minutes (literally) until this Sunday's 2 hour season premiere of 24, this just might come in handy over the next 5 months. How long will it take you to yell "Bingo!" ? Or should you yell "Jack!"???

I decided that I wouldn't watch this season of "The Apprentice" because of the unceremonious firing of the two best reasons to watch the show - George and Carolyn. However, due to a total lack of anything else on TV and my love of watching very intelligent people make complete fools of themselves, I ended up watching the season premiere. I don't know if I'll continue watching after tonight or not, but I definitely got to see smart people act very, very stupid.

After church and lunch, I went on a shopping spree and polished off the last of my Christmas gift cards. Earlier this week, I used the card that Candy gave me to buy "Be the Miracle" by Mark Lowry and "The Early Years" by dcTalk. The same day, I used a card that Mom and Dad got for me LAST year to get "Into White" by Carly Simon and "The Living Room Tour" by Carole King. The first two purchases are SOP for me, but the latter two are a bit out of the norm. Today, I used the William-Sonoma card that I received from Harold and Diane to get a Microplane Rasp Grater, a lovely bench scraper (it's very shiny) and a small vegetable chopper. I also hit Bed Bath and Beyond and got a salad bowl to take to work, Wal-Mart for workout clothes, a pedometer (1100+ steps since I got home) and two workout DVDs then Big Lots where I found 3 flexible cutting boards for $2. It was quite a day!

BTW, I do, indeed, see the irony in the fact that everything that I bought was either to lose weight or cook food. Look at it this way - if I cook it at home, I control the portions and ingredients and I don't have a deep fryer, so I won't be making french fries like McDonald's!

This is wicked-awesome!!! But I minored in Psychology. . . FYI - I didn't see the change in the link within the article - do you?