Transportation Update

I got my car back today. It needs to go back next week.

When my mechanic started explaining what he did, I said oh cool, so you pulled out the 3rd row seats, pulled up the carpet, yada yada yada. He did a double take. (Yes, I research the shirt out of everything. Google is my bff.) He said “...yeah, where did you find out about that?” Piloteer.org. It’s a forum for Pilot owners. I also belong to OdyClub.com for Odyssey owners. That’s  where I found out how common transmission issues are. Anyway, we chatted about the repair, he’s ordering 2 parts and will finish next week. We also talked about the Odyssey. He’s going to see what he can do to get that running. That would be awesome. I’m tired of making payments and seeing it sit in my driveway. I think I had maybe 2 months from when I bought it that we got to drive it. 

The bill was much less than I was expecting considering it was real labor intensive. That was a nice surprise!

Our mechanic is awesome! 

Lola’s Diner cc 2008-2019

Diets/Losing Weight

Are you doing any of the diets that are written about everyday, all kinds of information, misinformation?

I’m talking about Weight Watcher’s, Vegetarian, Flexitarian Diet, Pescatarian, Keto, Paleo, Whole 30, Mediterranean Diet, Low Carb.

Any of them with intermittent fasting?

When I was a teen I did a program similar to Weight Watchers. It’s not for me.

I went vegetarian for 2 years and lost a lot of weight. I quit because at the time my knowledge about the wide variety of ethnic vegetarian dishes was zero. Cooking for a family of 4, with 1 refusing to go along made it challenging with my heavy work schedule at the time.

Keto, Paleo and Whole 30 confuse me and all seem similar. I belong to a couple Keto pages on Facebook. I’m just a looky-loo. It’s wild some of the things people post.

I’m basically eating Low Carb. I don’t do fake sugars of ANY kind. When I need a sweetener I use a small amount of organic honey or maple syrup. I have virtually given up regular soft drinks. I will have a sip occasionally, or will down 1 or 2 when my blood sugar is way too low. I don’t drink diet soft drinks at all. I do drink every variety of no sweetener added sparkling water I can get my hands on. It has to be cold and over ice. My favorites are Dasani, Bubly, Ice Mountain, Target’s Simply Balanced. Any flavor other than coconut. To me La Croix’s flavors are weak in comparison to the others. Right now I’m on the hunt for Cola Sparkling Water and Rootbeer Sparkling Water. La Croix sells Cola if you can find it, but I’ll pass. Fizz and Shasta sell both Cola and Rootbeer...if you can find them. After my nearly complete review on Sparkling waters I will say that they do keep me away from regular pop and I do enjoy them. I drink coffee black or with cream, and I drink a variety of teas. The thing about going Low Carb is I do go through periods of craving carbs. At thanksgiving I went overboard on cauliflower as a sub for pasta and rice. I am just now starting to go back to it to sub for rice. I got a large bag at Sam’s Club today. I see Cauliflower Rice Sushi this weekend (I’ve made it twice, turns out great). I go for dark chocolate or berries or apple slices with almond butter if I want something like a dessert. I’ve tried sugar free vanilla Klondike bars by accident (son grabbed it by mistake for the rest of the family). They are actually not bad. I’d buy them on purpose. Lol! I actually had a serving of pasta (according to the package), 2 weeks ago and was ok with it. I’m Italian, a serving is generally a plateful. I do simple net carb counting. The glycemic load counting just confuses me.

I can’t do the intermittent fasting. It is said to kick start weight loss when you are stalled. Being Type 2 Diabetic, I can’t do it. There have been days filled with appointments and errands where I don’t eat a meal after breakfast, or I have to fast for blood work, and I forget my snack bag and find myself in a very bad way at 7pm. I keep protein bars (16-30 carbs) in my snack bag. I also keep a stash of Jolly Rancher hard candy in my car. (Not helpful when I was in rental cars for a week.)

I have lost about 40 pounds since October. My wardrobe is very limited. I have 2 pair of jogging sweats and 2 pairs of Old Navy Khaki’s I must wear with a belt. I really need to have one of my kids help me with my closet. I know I have pants the next size down. They just need to be found. I keep my variety of sizes wardrobe because I cannot afford to keep buying new clothes when I go up or down. People say not to do that, that it’s like a security blanket, that if you keep them you’ll gain the weight back. That’s a crock of bullshirt. You gain weight because you eat more calories than you use. Not because you keep your fat clothes. Every time I type or say I have jogging sweats I laugh. I can’t jog, run, and I can’t walk very far. I walk with a cane.

Are you doing any of the diets above, or something different? How is it going for you? Any tips or tricks? Recipes?

Lola’s Diner cc 2008-2019

The burbs are so different.

When I lived in Chicago I went for over a year without a working vehicle. It was easy. Public transportation and cabs were literally 30 feet from my door. 

There was a Osco Pharmacy that was my neighbor across the street, and a Dominick’s Foods in the next block. If I needed a few groceries I just crossed my street and Osco’s parking lot. When the kids got older they went to pick up a gallon of milk for me.

I walked less than 1/2 a block to catch the Lincoln Ave bus going N/S, or the Foster bus E/W. The Foster bus was a short ride to the CTA El to go downtown. It was convenient because I worked at 900 North Michigan at the time.

I managed grocery shopping with a flimsy cart. I’d stop on my way home at the bodega for produce and then catch the bus home. Occasionally I took the bus West on Foster to the Jewel. I did my holiday shopping at Dominick’s. Trying to manage the cart fully loaded, carrying a turkey with one arm, pushing the cart with the other, and keeping 2 kids wrangled was some feat.

I missed driving during that time, but I could get around very easily. When I didn’t have the kids on the weekend I’d take the bus to the bar and a cab home. It was only a $7 cab ride with tip back then and definitely worth the money to not have to stand on the street corner waiting for a bus after midnight.

I am in the burbs now. There is no public transportation. No buses whatsoever. Yes, we have a Metra station less than 2 miles from my home, but I couldn’t walk that far if I needed to take the Metra.

I feel trapped like a rat in a cage. But it’s only til noon tomorrow. Thank you Enterprise for weekend rates! I rented an Intermediate size car. I think that will be the same size as the Nissan Sentra I had for 2 days courtesy of the body shop. (Btw, my tailgate is finally fixed and useable...well once the other repairs are done. It will be so nice to use it again and not hear all the latch assembly parts rattling around between the inside and outside panels of the tailgate. I had to duct tape the latch assembly opening shut to keep from losing parts. I brought my Pilot back 5 times complaining about the rattling. Funny how when you call up the big guns they finally listen.) Secretly hoping I get upgraded to a luxury car. That upgrade to a Cadillac in December was sweet! I purposely did my reservation at the small Enterprise by my home so I could easily get a pickup and because their inventory always seems to be heavy on the larger and luxury sedans, and SUV vehicles.

The whole family has plans for the weekend! My daughter wants to take us to breakfast in Kenosha on Saturday and my spouse wants to visit her Dad on Sunday. Being able to go outside the city limits and drive the highways is making all of us crazy for adventure! So adventures we shall have!

When the Pilot is repaired we will plan another adventure.

Movie trivia quote-what movie is this from?

“I'm shaking the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I'm gonna see the world.”

Ok, where I live isn’t crummy, it’s quite nice actually. I’d just like to get out for a bit.

Lola’s Diner cc 2008-2019

Ahh memories...

I think it started Saturday. A Facebook post, ‘Name a song that reminds you of someone every time you hear it’. Something like that. It literally took seconds before I burst into tears recalling a song that came out the month my Mom passed away. It hit the Billboard Top 100 THE day my Mom passed away. It was constantly on the radio.

Anyway, it has been a few days of remembering Mom. Things popping up that bring back memories. Do you know what this is?

I’ll clue you in at the end.

Before my daughter left for her house she needed some seams and hems re-sewn and darning done. Yes, I should teach her, but today was not the day. The photo above is a folded card containing sewing needles. It’s from Japan, 1940’s. (I found the same one on EBay.) This was my Mom’s. I have several of hers.  It took me back to when she would hem my pants and re-sew seams. I watched my Mom do them, that’s how I learned. I learned how to cook by sitting at the Formica kitchen table while she made meals.

I made a beef roast on Sunday. I don’t know what possessed me, I should have made half of it, but didn’t. Now we have an entire roast leftover. Yay! In my house growing up, leftover beef roast meant beef chop suey the next day. I haven’t made my Mom’s beef chop suey since the kids were very little. (Back when we actually had leftovers, lol!) I asked my spouse to stop at the Jewel on the way home to get Chop Suey Vegetables and Franco American Beef Gravy. 

It exists, but the Jewel doesn’t carry it (Wally World does), so she got Campbells. I don’t buy gravy, unless I’m making this. I always make my own for everything else. This is my Mom’s recipe, so it has to be canned gravy. This was one of the few dishes my Mom made that wasn’t really from scratch. I bet it was a nice break for her, and we loved it. I’ve had beef chop suey from Chinese restaurants, but it’s not as good as Mom’s.

It was a stressful weekend, but I think memories of Mom made it less so.

Lola’s Diner cc 2008-2019

You take the good you take the bad...I’m needing more good

Turns out that nasty looking twisted metal was a brake dust shield and it does not need to be replaced. Our mechanic made sure he removed it entirely.

The power steering leak was because a clamp broke. So our mechanic just to replaced the clamp.

Total cost $ 0.00. My spouse asked why, because he obviously did work on the car. He replied “Can’t I do something nice?” I’ll be looking for a way to pay it forward. 

We recommend him to all our peeps in the area.

Some bad news though. We’ve been putting off replacing the drivetrain, because of the cost. Turns out there will be no long car trips in our future. We need to replace it soon. The parts are hard to come by, I had him search last year and the couple that he ordered arrived damaged. So it looks like we will have another BIG car expense in March. 

My daughter will have to reschedule her far away doctor appointment. The “referral department” didn’t process the referral, so now they will have plenty of time. I was going to spend tomorrow on the phone trying to get it taken care of, but now I don’t need to. I can continue working on our taxes. I’m in far enough that I usually have a good feeling about the end result. Yesterday I wanted to 🤮! No joke. I’m hoping as I dig further in I will find a silver lining. I did a quick and dirty (accounting speak) calculation on the IRS website, thinking I entered something wrong, or there was a glitch. Nope.

My daughter wanted to rent a car like we did for her last appointment at this doctor. My car was IN the shop then, and there was some other reason we had to have a car. I laughed. I tried to stifle it, but part of it came out. She really has no concept of how much things cost.

Found out some other bad news too.

I really need to catch a break. I need to find some fun, some joy.

Lola’s Diner cc. 2008-2019

Good news and bad news...

The good news...it was a fairly good weekend. On a scale of 1-10, I’d give it 7.5. My daughter really made an effort. It took a lot of coaching, not gonna lie, it was a bit exhausting.

Coming home from the Jewel I heard a weird metal dragging noise from the rear on my SUV. Got home and had my spouse look under it, because I can’t bend, and had my son take a photo. 

That’s something rusted and broken off the driver’s rear brake. Now we have zero cars in the middle of bum forking Egypt. Might as well be. There is no bus service. It’s only been a couple of hours since this discovery, but I already feel like a rat trapped in a cage.

My daughter has a doctor appointment in Chicago on Monday. That’s not happening. Unless we win the Lucky Day...

My spouse seems to think when this happened to the front driver’s side it cost ONLY $130. That’s great! I paid all the bills, so my bank balances are a joke. And I made the forking car payment on the van that hasn’t moved in 2 years. We have a roof over our heads and utilities, we just can’t leave the house. We have friends telling us to just let the van get repo’d, but I can’t do that. Morally I can’t, and I can’t wreck my credit when it’s been steadily improving.

Now my spouse can’t get to physical therapy this week, or her MRI and mammogram appointments on Thursday. I have doctor appointments and tests all next week too. Gah!

Can we please have 2 months in a row with no bad financial surprises? ...So we can set a little money aside for when things go kaploowie? I would wholeheartedly welcome a good financial surprise!

Last month I looked into donating plasma (the blood kind, not the tv kind, our tv already went kaploowie) but I can’t donate because I use insulin. 

I’m just venting here. If I don’t I’ll explode. 

Lola’s Diner cc. 2008-2019

Calgon...take me away...

It’s been an awfully long home visit. In fact it seems much longer than that Super Bowl game. I think we had 1 day of abnormal. Meaning everyone got along. Very uncharacteristic of what’s been going on lately. It didn’t last. It was much appreciated, but, sadly didn't last. Going to think on it and see where we went right.

Super Bowl eats were good. Ended up just having apps.

Watching “Russian Dolls” on Netflix. I’m on the last episode of Season 1. I’m going to need to rewatch it. Too many interruptions. Just finished watching “Groundhog Day” before I started binge watching it yesterday. Weird, but interesting. Natasha Lyonne is very good in the lead. Amy Poeler is one of the writers.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80211627

Weird, very loud noise. Explosion-like about half an hour ago. According to the local Facebook pages it’s been heard all over here, edge of Joliet and Mokena and downtown Tinley Park. Really loud. I told my spouse maybe it’s the mothership come to take us home. Ha! 

Long, ugly, exhausting week ahead. All doctor appointments and tests. Please pray I get through them with the outcomes I choose.

Back to the show...

UPDATE:  Where was my brain when I scheduled today’s appointment? Got all the way there and...it’s for March 5th. I have never in my life done that.

Lola’s Diner cc 2008-2019