Jan. 13, 2003

I got to work for 4 hours this afternoon at the cafe'. They are doing some remodeling and and had just got too involved in it to do much dishwashing. I am so glad for the hours. Somehow those hours give my days more purpose. I do love my job.

We must have had about 3 inches of rain yesterday evening and last night. The sump pump was running all night and is still at it. Every few minutes we hear it again. The level of water in the ground is so much higher than our basement that this is a problem for us. Mostly in spring and summer tho, not winter. Fortunately the soil can still soak up much of the water and at least on must of our place around the house there is little runoff. There have been flood advisories out for some parts of our county and a couple others joining it. Mostly low lying areas where there are low water warning on the roads.

I'm praying that we can get the baby degus and the one adult who has turned out to be a male sold next week. Or at least quickly. The female who was given us already pregnant(unknown to us)is already back in heat so she and the babies-except for one precoscius little male baby-are in one cage, the 2 males are in one cage, and the runt that no one but me likes is in a 3rd cage. Hopefully after the babies are gone and the males are no longer around I can get the momma and the female runt to get along and be in one cage. The runt(Marion)would love to have friends, it is the others who pick on her.

Jack and I are both sticking to the diet fairly well. I prepare the meals, more or less measuring portions, and cooking low fat, serving more veggies and fresh fruit and Jack is staying away from a lot of the crackers and cheese snacks. He is being very good about eating the veggies I serve so I am encouraged about that. If we just stay on this we can beat this weight problem. I need to lose about 20 more and Jack needs to lose 30-50. Today they had chicken fried steak/cream gravy, baked potato and carrots for lunch so I ordered a carry out for us. We split the meal. I used Parkay no fat spray on the potato so we could have some sour cream on it. That is a rare treat for us. We rarely do SC on anything. I try to keep fresh fruits in the house all the time. Jack eats mostly apples, oranges, & grapes. I eat those and kiwi.

GOD bless and keep each of you.