The Funny Beaver
I’m working on Day Four of doing what I’m supposed to do on my eating and exercise plan. I just put the fourth gold star on my calendar for the week, starting with Wednesday.
I’ve lost 3 pounds this week and have exercised every day since the magical Wednesday.
One thing I did that is helping me stay on track is re-sign-up with MyFitnessPal.com. There are fancier food and exercise tracking sites, but these people have the easiest food tracking system I’ve found. I don’t have to put in EACH ingredient in a recipe, for example. I can check-mark a repeated food each day without having to enter it again. I’m trying to stay under 1200 calories per day, but I’m combining that with recipes from my Keto book and other low-carb books, so I’m not as worried about it – just trying to keep myself honest about what I’m stuffing into my face.
I’m also trying to do
Both of these things make me feel I’m accomplishing something, plus keep me moving.
So far, it’s working.
I’ve lost 40.6 pounds and 43 inches so far. My goal, at this point, is to lose another 30 lbs. I want to be in the average range for my height (and I’m getting SHORTER, rather than taller) on BMI charts, and fit into some reasonable size at a regular department store for clothes, rather than having to hit the fat section of Walmart forever. I want to be as healthy as I can for my age (72) and not be restricted so much on what I can do without my body complaining.
One day at a time – today I’ve done my exercising, cleaned the back porch, and now I’ll head out to do some weed whacking.
I hope you’re having a happy day.
Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Attitude, DIET!, exercise
Saverio Scoleri – LinkedIn
Saverio Scoleri – LinkedIn
Saverio Scoleri – LinkedIn
Saverio Scoleri – LinkedIn
“Bean” – Saverio Scoleri – LinkedIn
Filed under drawings, Saverio Scoleri Art
Filed under Bethany Kerr, drawings
indulgy.com
I just came in from my third session of weed-whacking this afternoon. To say I’m done for the day is an understatement, but I’m glad I made some significant progress on neatening things up. My husband mowed the lawn a couple of days ago, and it was only fair that I get out and do the trimming. He actually came out with me the third time, hooked up the water that will go to the bird bath and then held the cord for me, gathering it up when we finished for the day.
Weed whacking is one of those jobs that is never finished. You know you’ve made some progress, but there are other places all around the yard speaking to me as I get near, saying, “Look at me! Look at me!”
We’re supposed to have several days of good weather, so I’ll plan to get out and do more tomorrow. Next up – around my greenhouse and around the garden.
Filed under Gardening, Housekeeping - Maintenance
The Age of Enlightenment via Janet Melendez – LinkedIn
Filed under Attitude, Encouragement, giving, kindness
“The Water” – water variation 19 – Brooke Chapman
Marina Syntelis – LinkedIn (Marina said this still ‘needs a few highlights…)
These two paintings are beyond amazing. I’m so proud to live on the same planet as these two fine artists.
Filed under water paintings
Terrance E Stock – LinkedIn
Filed under Attitude, Encouragement, Family, Friendship, quality of life
The purple iris bloom first. As they fade, the yellow ones start.
This is now my husband’s favorite flower, so each time the blooms are spent, I split some and plant them in another place in the yard.
The wisteria has given us a nice display this year. We’re trying to get it to go up into the tree on the opposite end of the wood pile. We actually saw some blooms up there this year! Our rose bushes were looking sad at the end of the season, so I cut them WAAAAAY back, figuring they would either like it or croak. They seem to be happy with lots of buds right now.
We have some yellow blooms since this picture was taken. I’ll see if I can get a pic to share with you later.
I love this time of year!
Filed under Mother Nature, Seasons
Beautiful Wildlife – Lettie De Winnaar – LinkedIn
Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography
Depositphotos
We had strong storms last night with lots of lightning and thunder. Quite impressive. I was relieved to see that we had no discernible damage this morning. It’s raining now, but a quiet, soaky rain that will benefit everything – though my husband is grumbling because he can see the grass growing and he JUST mowed…
I’ve switched to INSIDE stuff today – regular household chores, but I’m going to make some breakfast and then do a session of yoga this morning so I can add another gold star to my calendar. :0)
I hope that the weather is nice where you are and that you’re enjoying your day, too.
Filed under Mother Nature, Seasons
Daniel Wall via Elena (Livia) D. – LinkedIn
Alina Ciuciu -“He Reminds Me Blue Eyes” – LinkedIn
Andrey Shishkin via Elena (Livia) D. – LinkedIn
Anna Sokolova via Elena (Livia) D. – LinkedIn
“Autumn Morning” – Grigoriy Myasoyedov via Elena (Livia) D. – LinkedIn
My broccoli is a bit scraggly-looking, but it should be tender and flavorful. I’m going to use it to make soup.
Unless something bad happens, it looks like we’ll have the best lettuce ever. This was harvested today – the outer leaves from just three of our plants. This filled two gallon fridge bags. We’ll sure enjoy some of this for our main meal salad dinner tonight!
Southland SOD Farms
We been outside a couple of times so far today, with more to come. We’re kind of under the gun today, since strong, possibly severe storms are forecast for late tonight and into tomorrow morning.
I showed my husband my cleaner-and-better-organized greenhouse, and he showed me his cleaner-and-better-organized shop, and we each oohed and ahhhed appropriately. :0)
We just came in from a first session on getting our irrigation system for the flowers going. We have a couple of blowouts we’ll need to fix before it’ll be working correctly, but we got a start on it today. I have a timer on our outside faucet that goes to my veggie garden set up already.
As soon as I catch my breath, I’m going to go out and gather the first lettuce harvest of the spring! We’ll enjoy some of it for our dinner tonight.
I will also do at least one session of weed-whacking. I’ll probably need to do some every day until it looks like someone cares in our yard.
We’re still hoping to find a bricklayer who will rebuild our two collapsed planters in the front yard. Fingers crossed.
I’ll take pics of the harvest and post them later.
Have a great day!
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Kveller.com
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m up 5 pounds lately, so have lost 38 pounds and 43 inches from my lardiest. I want to lose 32 pounds more and whatever inches go with that. I’ll try for 2 lbs. per week.
My husband and I have made several decisions as to how we want to eat now. We are STILL trying to eat all the remaining Nutrisystem food we have on hand, even though we stopped deliveries a couple of months or so ago. We were thinking of changing to A La Carte and then decided we have learned all we’re going to from the program and it’s time we did our own thing.
We’ve learned a lot about portion sizes (we were each eating for about 6). We are eating a lot more veggies, mainly poultry or fish as entrees, lots of salad, fruit and nuts. We are eating as little sugar as possible and have also mostly given up salt, except for a little bit in recipes. I’m drinking a lot more water and my husband likes Arizona Zero Peach Iced Tea for cold drinks. I still have my coffee (black) and my husband enjoys Sugar Free Alpine Spiced Apple Cider mix for a hot drink. (He is a Type II diabetic, but is doing super-well with his blood sugar now.) We have mostly given up rice, pasta, and potatoes. My husband is gravitating toward eating lunch and dinner with some snacks in-between. He is almost to his weight goal.
I’m continuing to TRY to exercise daily, but I am the best excuse-maker who ever lived. Today, though, I finally got back on my elliptical trainer in our garage and did 35 minutes. I had to go more slowly, since my right hip was ‘catching’ a bit until I finally loosened up, but I feel fine now, and I put a gold star on my calendar for the day. :0)
My goal is to exercise daily, but I tend to beg off if I’m working in the yard much of the day. I’m going to TRY to do the exercise in the morning, rather than waiting until the day is in full swing.
Wish me luck?
Filed under DIET!, exercise, getting the lard off, taking care of yourself
Ecuen Images
We’ve had a good day.
The temperature is 79 and the sun is shining. There is a nice breeze.
My husband mowed the lawn while I cleaned out the greenhouse and started more spinach seed. (Always optimistic!)
Then we changed the tires on the truck from the snow tires to our regular tires. We’re glad we don’t have to do this more than twice each year, but we save money doing it ourselves. When we bought the Honda Ridgeline, we bought 4 extra wheels and snow tires and had them mounted. We keep them in the shop. In late November or early December, depending on the weather, we change from our regular tires to our snow tires. In April, we change them back.
We’re getting a bit long in the tooth for this, but my husband says each time we do it, my help is better and better. :0)
Today we celebrated all the good things we accomplished by splitting a seafood platter at The Deli for lunch!
A truly wonderful day.
Filed under Cause for Celebration, Challenges, Gardening, greenhouse, Lewis projects
This is the greenhouse we built a couple of years ago. It has withstood all kinds of storms and gusty winds and I’m very grateful.
Lately I’ve tried several times to get spinach seeds to sprout so that I could transplant them into our square foot garden on the opposite side of our property. So far, my moniker, “Serial Seed Killer” remains applicable. All I’ve created in here is a mess.
Today, while my husband mows the lawn using our lovingly refurbished, very old riding mower (WEARING A HAT, I hope!) I’m going to be cleaning things up in the greenhouse, armed with a fly swatter and wasp spray.
When he finishes mowing, I’ll string the extension cord across the yard and plug it in at the outdoor receptacle at the house so I can run the exhaust fan. It’s hooked up to a thermostat that turns it off and on depending on the temperature set, to try to cool things off. This works pretty well in the spring, but we give it up in the summer. Even with the exhaust fan and the one on the table going, plus have the door at the opposite end propped open, it gets too hot in here.
I’m basically trying to extend our growing season as much as possible, growing new plants to put in the garden at the proper time.
I have lots of good supplies. I’ll try to get things better organized and ready to plant more seeds.
I try to plant things on this side of the greenhouse, and I keep the water here.
I’ll feel happier when it looks more like someone has a plan in here, rather than everything just being ‘dumped.’ :0)
Poor Amber was bitten/stung by ‘something’ yesterday. The whole side of her mouth was swollen, but she didn’t seem to be in any pain. I have no clue what we’re dealing with.
She is better this morning, with much less swelling. She had a good appetite this morning and drank some water. I’m monitoring her. She’s in Molly’s small bed, seemingly comfortable, sleeping off and on.
Since she’s somber (but still wagging her tail) I’m hoping she learned to stay away from whatever it was in the future that stung or bit her.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Impatiens in two saucer planters and in the side brick planter in the shade of the front porch.
Purslane – Yubi – Portulaca in concrete planters at the end of the garage, by the driveway, and beside the shop door.
Periwinkles all over the place – here on the other side of the driveway –
And four of the “Emu” planters beside the driveway –
And on the back deck
Wave Petunias on the deck
More periwinkles on the deck
Wave petunias.
Impatiens
And more impatiens.
Filed under Favorite Things, Gardening
We had some really hard rain off and on yesterday, with more this morning, so I was a bit worried about what I might find in our raised bed square foot garden.
We built 6 ‘boxes’ that are each 4 feet by 4 feet, installing them on metal supports about my chest high. This enables me to enjoy adding soil, planting, weeding, and harvesting without having to get down on my hands and knees, or bend over double. You can see 5 of the 6 boxes in the photo above.
I planted one whole box with sweet red onion sets. I’ll leave these alone until harvest, other than weeding and maybe thinning out as the bulbs grow.
This is a combination of broccoli plants and radishes that have just sprouted. No sprouts from the spinach yet. :0(
Here is some of the lettuce plants and more radishes. I’ll start harvesting some lettuce leaves tomorrow.
This is what I call the NOOK planter, since it is cradled by the back of the house and the end of the back porch. The tomato plants are quite sheltered from the wind here, plus get more shade.
And this is the second tomato planter. It is more exposed than the other. It seems to depend on the year whether the tomatoes produce better in the sun and wind or relative protection and shade.
“Simply Purple” – Paul Militaru Photography
“Another Point of View” – Paul Militaru Photography
“Purple Petals” – Paul Militaru Photography
“Purple -The Color of King’s Passion, Romance, and Emotion” – Paul Militaru Photography
Inna Kashkovar – LinkedIn
It’s still rainy here this morning, but it’s supposed to clear this afternoon. Isn’t the .gif above amazing? Inna Kashkovar does beautiful work.
My newly planted annuals, as well as my garden veggies, got a hefty drink yesterday. I’ll try to get out later and take some pictures of things – hoping they all enjoyed the water, rather than getting washed out.
After planting 5 flats (180 flowers) Friday afternoon and evening, and then helping my husband mount a humongous nut and bolt bin on the horizontal support beams on one wall of the shop yesterday, my husband and I are enjoying a much quieter day today.
He’s going to go out to the shop and enjoy organizing and labeling the slots of his new bin today. I’m not sure what’s on tap for me, but I’m thinking about playing in my art room. BOTH of us are looking forward to seeing Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 1 tonight.
I hope your Sunday is wonderful.
Filed under .gifs I Love, Mother Nature, The Art of .gifs
rivamonterobots.com
robindavisstudio.blogspot.com
Vintage Pencil
WalYou.com
Filed under Art From Found Things, Creativity
shutterstock.com
When we passed Greenwood Veterinary Clinic, our wonderful vet’s office, today we laughed aloud at the sign –
“A Lannister always spays his pets.”
Greenwood Veterinary Clinic – 806 W Center St, Greenwood, AR 72936 – (479) 996-4046 – Dr. Matthew Singer and caring staff.
Filed under Creativity, Funny Signs - Humor
Walmart
My husband found a nuts and bolts bin like this at an auction Thursday. It’s big and heavy and GREAT for organizing the gazillion sizes of nuts, bolts, and other thingies needed to make things in the shop. The picture above looks like what he got, but add several years, dings, and a lot of dirt and labels that need to be taken off as my husband arranges things the way he would like. He got it for a good price, though he had to wait a LONG time for it to come up for bid.
I thought he might add heavy-duty casters on the bottom so he could roll it around. OR, that he would make a base that it could sit on against a wall. He decided that he wanted to mount it to support beams on one wall of the shop. Since we had some trouble getting it out of the back of the truck and onto a dolly to move it into the shop, I knew that this would be quite a job.
He spent much of yesterday making a heavy metal mounting ‘shelf’ for the bin to sit on and welded it onto one of the horizontal support beams on the wall. He also made some metal straps for securing the top of the bin to another horizontal beam up higher.
Soon after we returned from getting rid of our metal scraps this morning, he headed for the shop. I didn’t want him to try to do this project by himself, so I went out to the shop soon after. An hour and a half later, we finally have it up on the shelf with a strap securing the top. He has more securing to do, but the big, difficult part is done. In my next life, I’m determined to come back as a man with lots of strength and a lot of know-how on project stuff, with the vocabulary that goes with it. I really wish I were a better helper in projects like this. I do the best I can and am very thankful, though frazzled, when the job gets done and no one is hurt.
We’re about out of wall space in the shop now. We are both very pleased to have a good, dry place to work with good lighting, heat or air conditioning if needed, the tools we need and enough space to do our projects without having to move a lot of stuff. I’M glad he has the smarts to decide to do something and then figure out a way to get it done!
Filed under Lewis projects
Jeff Jett – LinkedIn
Usually, when the forecast says, “100% chance of rain,” they’re pretty sure. And they were right.
The twice-a-year opportunity to take hard-to-get-rid-of ‘stuff’ to either the city recycling center or the rural folks is today until 2 pm. We watch for this in the paper because we ALWAYS have metal scraps or other things the regular trash people refuse to deal with. I think the city is wonderful to offer this. I think, otherwise, we might see unsightly stuff dropped off beside the roads. I particularly appreciate it this time, when the men are having to work in the rain.
On cue, the minute we started backing up to the shop door, the rain started. It wasn’t a downpour, so we continued. The rain got harder as we went toward town. The city center had a BIG line of trucks with their beds all full, so we decided to drive farther to the rural center. Happily, there wasn’t a line there and we left our stuff quickly. We got our mail on the way home and are now happily in our dry house.
KFSM TV
Greenwood is just southeast of Fort Smith. As you can see, we have lots of green, yellow, orange, and red blobs in our future today and tomorrow – about 2 inches total. I’m hoping that the rain will be steady and reasonably gentle, giving our new flowers and veggies a great drink, but not washing them out of the ground.
I hope the people south and east of us stay safe today. It looks as if they might get more serious weather than we.
Filed under Mother Nature, Seasons
Topsail Beach, North Carolina – Mary Lou Lewis
One last look at the glorious beach from my sister-in-law, Mary Lou, before she heads home.
Topsail Beach, North Carolina – Mary Lou Lewis
It’s been a wonderful feast for the eyes. Thanks to her, we’ve enjoyed a couple of stunning sunrises, lots of waves, one small glimpse of a sandpiper (they weren’t feeling cooperative this trip), a treasure trove of ‘goodies,’ and lots of relaxation.
Thank you, Mary Lou. Safe trip home.
Filed under vicarious enjoyment
LifeBuzz
I am really bushed.
After Lunch Bunch today, my husband and I went to a local nursery and bought 1 flat of impatiens, 1 flat of portulaca, 2 flats of periwinkles, and 1 flat of wave petunias.
When I checked the weather website, it said 100% chance of heavy rain all day Saturday, so I got busy, doing three sessions of planting. I just came in a minute ago and I can happily report I’m finished – both planting all the flowers and depleting my energy. :0)
Impatiens – Burpee.com
I planted impatiens on our front porch, and to the side of the porch, since this area is on the north side of the house and receives little sunshine.
Periwinkles – commons.wikimedia.org
These went in several places – on the back deck, in the ’emu’ planters to the side of the driveway, and dotted around for color otherwise.
portulaca – purslane – yubi
We have four concrete planters that live in places hard to include in our irrigation system, so these flowers will handle getting dry much better than others. We take a sprinkling can around to these. We have two outside our garage, one beside the driveway, and one beside the door to the shop.
Wave Petunias – Burpee.com
I planted these in four large matching planters on the deck, hoping they’ll spill over the edges and grow down the sides of the planters.
When the plants have hopefully survived the ‘heavy rain’ tomorrow and possibly Sunday, I’ll try to get around and take some pictures.
I hope you had a great day, too.
Filed under Favorite Things, Gardening
creativeartworksblog 