Monday

There are a lot of great things about living out here on the river and out in the country, but only 10 minutes from the city. The thing I love most is the wildlife that is a part of our landscape. Sometimes there are wild turkeys wandering around in the street, deer walking in the woods, or like today, I looked out on my neighbor's pier and saw this Blue Heron just hanging out enjoying his morning!

Today was a busy dental day! I had to go to Baton Rouge this morning and get my permanent crown put on. It was painless and i'm glad I got that over with. Then, this afternoon, I took Cameron to get his braces off!!! I was worried that his teeth might look stained, and there are a few spots on a couple of teeth, but nothing serious. He goes Thursday to get them cleaned, so i'll see if the dentist suggests doing anything or just leaving it alone. His teeth are so straight and nice looking! He got permanent retainers on the top and bottom, so thank God there wont be any aggravating him to wear them or, like when I had retainers, losing them everytime you have to take them out to eat! I'll try to sneak a picture of him soon, but he's pretty uninterested in having me do that!

I lost 2 more pounds for a total of 6 since Thursday! I'm back where I was before the cruise and i'm determined to keep going. I stopped at Taco Bell for Cameron on the way home from the orthodontist and figured I would get me a taco salad to eat before dinner. Cathy & Brent are home from a trip and invited us over to eat salad and red beans & rice tonight, so I figured i'd eat a little something first and then just have salad at their house. Anyway, I got home with the taco salad and realized I forgot to ask for it without beans, which I HATE, besides the fact that they have carbs, so I went on Taco Bell's website to see how many carbs so I could decide if I wanted to eat it anyway. On the 1st phase of the Atkins diet you eat between 12 - 15 carbs daily, so I was pretty sure the beans were bad, but figured I could eat around them. Surprisingly enough, WITHOUT the beans (or the shell of course), there are STILL 11 carbs in the taco salad!! This totally explains why I stopped losing weight during my Houston trip because I ate a taco salad on the way there thinking there were few carbs, which you should expect from lettuce, beef, cheese, and sour cream! So, no taco salad at all. I got out some leftover chicken from last night and ate some string cheese!

So, we did have dinner at Cathy & Brent's and exchanged stories from our vacations! We also watched the world's most awful show, "Moment of Truth," which we are all addicted to! It is beyond me why anyone would go on that show and expose their awful truths for money - and most of them only hurt their family and friends and leave with NO money! It's crazy!

Otherwise, it's been a really stormy evening tonight and the power was off for awhile. Living in hurricane country, many of us have backup generators installed at our houses, so we aren't ever really without electricity, but it's still annoying to have to reset all the clocks every time the power blinks! We built our house after Hurricane Katrina and decided to install a backup generator after spending 2 weeks with no power and it was a great decision. We've been lucky since then and haven't had any hurricanes hit our area, but of course, we're still rebuilding from Katrina's damage. We live about 40 minutes from New Orleans and you really have to see it to fully understand it or believe it. But anywho, we are just hanging out at home. Bryce is off of work for 2 days, so i'm sure he'll be camped out here with Cameron until his days off end and he has to go home. The great thing is now that he lives down the street, I don't have to go get him or bring him home anymore!

Have a nice night!