BJean

Way to go Eddie!!! I knew it would happen for you! Persistence pays. mjsafari: I don't know much but I know what I like.

Denise: I only have a problem with getting stuck when I begin eating my meal too fast. Actually it doesn't seem fast because it is how I always used to eat, before the band. But now I know that I have to go very slowly when I start a meal because I never am really sure how my body will react to whatever it is that I'm eating. It isn't always the same. Like I can have a baked potato one day and have absolutely no problem but a couple of days later I can't eat more than a couple of bites before I have a problem. So if I don't get in a big hurry I can sense a bit of tightness and slow down or stop eating completely. That's what happened to me today at lunch. I had to bring all but 4 bites of my food home. I got 4 bites into a baked potato and had to excuse myself from the table. I was very hungry when I sat down and the potato looked and smelled great. I just got in too big a hurry. I keep forgetting that my bites shouldn't be larger than half of a carrot coin and that it should take me 30 minutes to eat a meal, not 15.

I apologize. I honestly thought because it is in the Rants & Raves section that you were wanting debate. There's certainly nothing wrong with having peaceful coexistence. It can be like a breath of fresh air!

All cuts of camel or just certain ones? Or are you referring to the cigarette?

When I lived in Fla I tried alligator. Not at all memorable. But the Conch fritters could be addictive.

MzAngel: I agree. I was going to ask Green which kind of pepper she used, black or red? Driver: With an additional 12 inches, your name would certainly be appropriate!

If he is homosexual, he's buried very, very deeply in his closet. He remarried - a girl who looks like me and has my same name. They had a daughter and supposedly are living happily ever after. But I'll qualify my answer with the the fact that he's a total right wing Christian and if he were homosexual I doubt if he could handle the ostracizing his church would do to him. Or the lightning that would strike him, sent from God. :omg:

Green if you like your meat mooing, you'd probably love Buffalo. We prepared buffalo burgers for some guests the other night. We've had them in a restaurant but never cooked them ourselves. The one thing we knew for sure is that if you overcook it, it is lousy. Well DH did his mastery with the grill and they were great. None of our guests had ever had buffalo before. The butcher told me that if you want to have a really fantastic steak, buy buffalo. Same deal goes, you can't overcook it. Buffalo burgers have lots less fat than ground sirloin or ground chuck or ground round and that's why you can't give it too much flame, it dries out quickly. :hungry:

Bon Jovi night? Geez. I can't imagine that being any fun to watch. Only Bon Jovi sings Bon Jovi as far as I'm concerned. That would almost be like having them sing songs of "The Boss" - whatever happened to him anyway?

I see what you mean, Wheet. The thing that would burn me is if he spent more on clothes and spa treatments than I do. That would describe my first hubby. He even liked to pick out MY clothes and shoes. I shouldn't complain, he did a very good job of choosing things that complimented my frame and coloring. He is an architect and artist - guess that explains it. He certainly wasn't frugal though and that was a problem, especially since his career was just begining to take off. Naturally it skyrocketed as soon as our divorce was final and the child support was set. Oh well, it didn't matter anyway because most of the time he couldn't be bothered to pay it. But that's another story... the point is, you could definitely describe him as metrosexual.

Wheetsin: What's wrong with a metrosexual guy? Am I misunderstanding the term?

Missy: The Jack Stack barbeque site is cool. We have a friend who would love to receive something like that for his birthday in June. Do you have a recommendation for a particular meat product of theirs that is your favorite? I've always heard that the barbeque is good in K.C. Btw, if I'm not up to making my own barbeque sauce, I always buy K.C. Masterpiece. You have a great arrangement with your DH as far as I'm concerned. I was never able to earn as much as my DH so I was the wife by default. If I could have chosen your arrangment, I definitely would have.

karen: I like that quote at the bottom of your post. I think I should stick it to my 'fridge and pantry! Michelle: the 40 lbs. I lost was pretty darned easy. That's what makes this so hard to come to terms with. You've hit the nail on the head though. A lot has to be mental, since we know we can exist on many fewer calories than what we're used to. My doc says to keep in mind that people in China live on a double handful of rice a day and thrive. I can't eat rice but I'm trying to think about how much food that is. Certainly less than what I'm ingesting if I'm gaining weight. Saying you can do it, repeatedly is a very smart idea. The subconscious is listening!

lethea g: whatever floats your boat is fine with me!

As long as no one comes here and speaks to the horrors of this administration, it will continue to be a nice friendly thread. Right? No one is debating here, are they? It's a love-in. That's great, but are you learning anything or just feeling all warm and fuzzy?

Carlene: These things have been suggested and spoken of indirectly, but now the administration is going to have to face the music for real because the people who were directly involved are willing to come forward. That's how lousy, rotten and wrong the whole thing is. It stinks to high heaven and somebody just has to do something! Now if we could also have more folks come forward about the voting machine fiasco, maybe we can actually have an honest national election in this country. What in God's name brought us to all this? Just money and power or are there more complicated issues that we aren't aware of? I know the Republicans who are pro-Bush will tell you it is for the greater good and that they are proud and happy with the results. The fact is, they hated Bill Clinton and all he did while in office so much, it appears that they are willing to turn their heads to the serious consequences and accept the current administration and declare that it is an improvement. We better hope to hell this isn't as good as we can expect to get in national politics.

I've had 6 fills. My doc is very conservative so he doesn't add much when you get a fill. The last one left me nicely restricted. Only problem is that since I couldn't eat much at all during meals, I wound up getting so hungry that I started eating the stuff that goes down easy and is very satisfying. Like chocolate and other high calorie foods in a very small package. I've actually gained weight!!! I don't know how to achieve this "sweet spot" everyone talks about. It's like my body says I must have X number of calories and it's going to get it no matter what my head tells me to do. I was banded 9/11/06. I had lost 40 lbs. and then the past 2 months (or more) I've been fighting it every step of the way.

Eddie you're one phunny phellow.

Jack that was very nice of you re: my bushwack post. I'm amenable to keeping the lines of communication open if you are. Somehow I sensed you were a decent bloke.

Wow Jachut! I'm extremely impressed. Where do you market them? You may be getting ready for a really big jump in demand for them. People are beginning to become more aware lately. As much as people have scoffed at Al Gore's inconvenient truths, it seems to be making some of us acquire a bit of a conscience. When I used cloth diapers, I handled them just exactly as you described. Not as distasteful as the young girls would like to think. What's a flannel for wipes? Just a flannel cloth that you moisten before you use it or do you keep a wet one in the diaper bag? A dry pail... how about that!! You're really giving me an education on this. Keep up the good work. I am quite blown away. I had no idea there was this movement (excuse me) afoot.

airwayman, you might consider getting Carlene give you the recipe for the Chocolate Marshmallow Cake so that you can prepare it and slather it all over those rough sheets. Then you could drift off to dreamland all smothered in soft, sweet bedded bliss. It would be just my luck that in the morning all the cake would be missing and I'd have gained 5 lbs.! Seriously, I think the general consensus was that Pima cotton, 400 thread count sheets are the best. I had always heard that Egyptian cotton was the best choice, but all I know for sure is that I have some with a satin finish that I love. They're very soft! They are relatively heavy weight though and I won't be using them for summer. You have to be very careful buying anything that boasts anything over 400 thread count. Some of the lying bastards count their threads differently than the norm and they do not turn out to be better than the 400 count ones, in fact not as good! (In spite of the price point.)

laurend: A very good friend of mine spent well over a year compiling and loading all of her favorite recipes for a cookbook. She's an excellent cook and she always had so many people (and her two daughters) asking for her recipes she decided to publish a book. It was time consuming, but simple really. Once she got them photo ready on the computer, including some graphics, she had a publisher print and bind them. They turned out very well and in fact, she printed so many that she wound up selling them to the other women in our women's league or giving them as birthday gifts, etc. If you have time, I think you'd be very glad you did it. My mom gave me a binder filled with blank cookbook pages that were all lined with space for the ingredients and directions. Most of the time when I discover a recipe that's a knockout, I manually write the recipe in that book. It is becoming a compilation of great recipes that I can easily put my hands on without having to dig through several cookbooks or old Bon Appetit magazines.

Carlene: You MADE MARSHMALLOW from scratch? Huh? How long did that take? I don't think I've ever seen a recipe for homemade marshmallow... And I thought I was doing well today by making my own pie crust and coconut filling and meringue. BTW, it was better than I had remembered it from years and years ago! Hated having to leave what was left of the pie at the MIL's. But as a bandster, it was a blessing. I'm sure I would have been able to figure out a way to finish it off. BTW, how did the cake turn out? Give us a report tomorrow. The thing sounds interesting. Was it too gooey to hold up a candle? Or 87 of 'em?

airwayman: That sauce you said you put on your pork is very similar to the one I make for most barbequed items. You're right! I've had to slap my grandma to hell and gone when I've used it. (The sauce even looks purty!)

Betty Crocker, the original, rocks. The later versions suck eggs. I got one of the originals when I married the first time as a shower gift. That was 40 years ago, so Green, your 30 year remark was probably conservative. I've given both my kids a B.C. original because they tell you all about the basics. Even how to boil and egg. I inherited a couple of my mom's cookbooks, some are so old they have odd sounding names for different ingredients. Never use them but it's nice to have them with a few of her fingerprints scattered throughout. Ok MSDad, so Ina Garten seldom has a str8 guy over for dinner. But in her defense, they always bring the flower arrangement or a side dish or something. So how dumb is she? Besides, she can have men to her house all the time without her husband (who is always in the city) getting bent. What've you got against fag hags anyway? Sounds like extreme bias to me. Hummmph!