I can’t even go a day without seeing headlines about Iran, Iraq or Muslims. Damn, it gets old!

Got yet another DVD I won. Maybe you really do get the DVDs you win after all.

I also received a surprise win notice via postal mail from a sweep that ended a couple of days before Christmas, yet another reminder that I might not hear about my New Year’s wins for another couple of weeks or longer.

Tom left a note saying I’d hate the win, which should arrive in 4-6 weeks, but if it’s what I think it is, I don’t think I will. It’s from a site that sells fruits, nuts chocolates and flowers. I won’t care for oranges or other citrus items, but I wouldn’t mind the pears and pineapples. I won a 3-month Favorites Club Collection worth $74. I don’t know if this means I’ll get things once a month for 3 months or exactly what the items will be, so I sent an email asking about it. Hopefully, I’ll get a response.

When I think of what I’ve been eating I think I should be losing weight like crazy, but not with this metabolism. I’m obviously not going to lose anymore, but at least I’ve been holding steady. The Claritin isn’t working as well to suppress my appetite. Perhaps this is because I’m getting too used to it. Maybe I’ll take a break sometime, hope not to make a pig of myself during that time, then return to it and see how it works. For now, I’m still a fleshy 122-pounder, and it’s a struggle just to stay 20 pounds overweight, let alone to try to lose anymore.

Here are a couple of things I don’t want to get my hopes up over, but that may prove to have favorable results. At least I hope so!

I got to wondering if perhaps these headphones, which I got shortly before my ear began acting up, might be the cause of the pressure I sometimes get. Maybe the pressure and the popping aren’t connected. These headphones are a pretty snug fit, so I removed the pad from the side of the bad ear, which helps to seal in the music and keep other sounds out (unless it’s a barking dog just a few feet away from you) to eliminate some of the pressure and vibration. I also threw off the speaker balance a bit, too. So far so good, but this could be just another one of those times when I’m teased with thinking the ear’s on the mend. I’ve learned, though, not to jump the gun just because I have a couple of good days. I need to go at least a week before I’m convinced it’s tied into it. Wouldn’t that be ironic if we paid him $150 just so I could be the one to eventually figure out the cure for my problem? At least the Claritin saved us more in food than we paid him thus far.

The other thing I’m wondering might add an extra grand or so to our income is if I joined a paid survey site. I read a survey site review, and while most of them falsely promise you’ll get rich quickly, you can make a little extra money if you know who to join. I figured that just like becoming a premium member of OLS upped my wins, well, maybe I’d have better luck skipping the free survey sites, which only enter you in drawings, and paying the one-time fee that some of them have which ranges between $30-$60. As they said, I won’t be bombarded with survey invitations right away, but the more time I put into it, the more I can slowly build it up. I thought I’d let Tom check into it some more, then maybe start with one of the sites they recommended and see what happens. The only other hassle would be getting paid because I’d have to set up a PayPal account as well as open a savings account. The membership buys you into their database of companies offering money for surveys and they each have their own payment methods. I hope to do just surveys. I don’t want to download software to test or to test product samples in which I’d have to pay the shipping/handling charges.

Later…

We learned what the win is all about. Once a month for 3 months I’m going to get something different. The first month will suck cuz it’ll be 5 pounds of oranges. The second month will be great – a pound of chocolates. The third will be so-so with pineapples.

We also had our own private little sweeps again with the football tickets, and I kicked his ass a second time. If he had won I’d have gotten him a wheel. But because I won, he has to buy me a survey membership as long as our research proves it’s worth it. If not I’ll settle for a Barbie.

I am so sick of OLS’s problems! It just goes on and on, even in the daytime.