Filed under Amazing Animals
Yesterday I dashed out between rain storms to gather our first harvest of the year from our raised bed, square-foot-garden. I harvest just part of the leaf lettuce that’s ready. I’ll harvest more so I can share some with our friends this week.
This is the first of the spinach. I hope to have a large enough harvest that I can serve some in salads, saute some as a side for dinners, AND freeze a bunch for later. Greedy, aren’t I! :0)
I’ll check on the garden, plus our two planters of tomatoes tomorrow. I’m feeling a little bit under the weather today, so I’m taking it easy and resting a lot.
I hope to harvest more lettuce, plus watch the video of how to prune my tomato plants for more yield and less greenery this year, then go out and see if I emulate the video..
The rain finally stopped and the sun is shining brightly today.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I’m word playing off the title of the Demi Lovato song, “Sorry, Not Sorry” in the title of this because I’m “eating, not eating,” a lot of what I used to eat. Some I’m just giving up until further notice, if not forever. I’m substituting ‘acceptable foods’ for other things I don’t want to give up completely in my quest to get and stay healthier.
An example of this is that I now make spaghetti sauce for both of us as usual, the only change being that I look for the one with the lowest carbs I can find. I make macaroni for my husband (he likes that better than actual spaghetti) and make ‘zoodles’ (spaghetti substitute make from zucchini) for mine. This is okay because I really like meals with pasta and will go for a lot of things that are supposed to pass for spaghetti, noodles, and rice. I also use spaghetti squash and plan to make more of the spaghetti squash and zoodles soon and keep individual portions in the freezer. I’m not as fond of ‘cauli-rice,’ (a substitute for rice.) I’m TRYING to convince myself I like it.
Each week my new regimen of low-carb eating and a lot more exercise gets a bit easier. I now write out what exercises I’ll do each day for the week on my desk calendar. I give myself a star for each part. :0) For example, I consider the videos I’m doing daily (warm up, stretches, and one of two weight videos) as one star. A second star is bestowed when I do my elliptical or 30-minute video workout on alternating days. A third is earned when I do my 30 minutes of stretching yoga. It feels good to see all the sparkly stars on my calendar. :0)
Filed under DIET!, exercise, Keto Eating Plan and Recipes We Like
Filed under Lewis Art, Lewis Mailbox Decorations, love
“There’s always a hidden owl in ‘knowledge’.” – E.I. Jane
“Owl is the grand and rather clever old man of the forest. He can also spell Tuesday.” – A. A. Milne.
“Don’t count your owls before they are delivered.” ~ J. K. Rowling.
“A wise old owl sat in an oak. The more he saw, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Why can’t we be like that wise old bird?” – Edward Hersey Richards.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Favorite Quotes
We’re supposed to get another 1-3 inches today and this evening. Oh, good.
Yesterday, I started weeding one of our planters. The wind was blowing SO hard, it picked up the plastic bucket I was using for the dead stuff I was removing from the planter, threw all the dead stuff into the yard as it whipped the bucket around, and was trying to blow the bucket to the next state. I managed to jump up and catch it between gusts of wind. :0)
These are the ‘after’ pics after the hour I spent. It looks a bit better now, I think, but I’ll spend probably another hour or so thinning out the iris in it when the weather cooperates.
This is the other side of that same planter. The poor iris is choking itself. It gave us a nice display of the deep-purple, twice-blooming iris we love, but they’re finished now for the spring. Hopefully, I can tackle the planter again tomorrow, at least getting out the iris I’ll replant another day.
Today is definitely an inside day. I’m happy that we have a warm, dry home on days like this. The temperature is nice, so we have the door open to the porch.
Enjoy your Sunday.
Filed under .gifs I Love, Mother Nature, Seasons
If there ISN’T such a word, there SHOULD be. I am experiencing it, so I know. :0)
Progress report at the end of Month # 1 on my low-carb eating plan and end of WEEK 3 on my new exercise regimen. –
The numbers –
The feelings –
New Goals –
Filed under .gifs I Love, Challenges, DIET!, exercise
Filed under Amazing Animals, sculpture, When Wood Comes Alive
Filed under drawings, Julie Rhodes
“Bunnies will always have a special place in my heart. They are often discredited as being good pets because they don’t ‘do anything’—ask any rabbit owner and watch how they laugh!” Shenita Etwaroo
“The other day when I was walking through the woods, I saw a rabbit standing in front of a candle making shadows of people on a tree.” Steven Wright
“The dog and the rabbit are telling us not to chase unattainable material goals.” – Kit Williams
“There’s nothing else I would rather do, unless there was a profession that involved cuddling bunny rabbits and kittens all day for money.” – Kat Dennings
“Little rabbits have big ears.” – Virginia C. Andrews
“An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.” -Martin Buber
Filed under Amazing Animals
It’s beautiful here in Arkansas today – a great day to do some work outside. I finished weeding my veggie garden yesterday, and will either cut stuff in the yard down today or choose a planter to clean up. Tomorrow brings “rain and storms” all day, starting early morning and ending late, so it’ll be an inside day.
Our yellow iris are just beginning to bloom now. We have purple ones left, but they are fading.
This is the first bloom on one of our Rio Samba rosebushes. I need to prune them carefully.
I don’t remember the name of these sweet blue flowers. They are perennial and seem to last a long time. Maybe this planter – heavily in need of clean-up, will be the one I work on today.
I feel triumphant today because I have officially broken into ‘new territory’ on my ‘lose-the-lard’ project. A couple of days ago I got back to my pre-pandemic weight which was 30-pounds-down from my heaviest. This morning I lost some more, so HOORAY! I’m setting a goal of another 5 lbs down (which seems more doable with the goal in sight.) Today I’m wearing new jeans which are one size smaller than I was wearing before, so that’s a concrete, satisfying thing I can enjoy while I try to move more and keep my mouth shut. :0)
I hope that you have a safe, happy Saturday.
Filed under DIET!, exercise, Gardening, Thoughts on a ________
I just came in from spending an hour out in my veggie garden, weeding.
This was an almost-perfect time to weed. It’s sunny and pretty outside. It’s 83 – a good temperature, but the direct sun made it seem really hot. The Mel’s Mix in the planter boxes was slightly damp. The weeds were plentiful, but very tender and young and easily to root out quickly. I basically used my veggie garden fork and my baby hand-held hoe.
It took me a little longer than I figured to do the weeding. I was grateful that our automatic watering system didn’t come on when it should have, as I needed the extra time to finish weeding the boxes.
I checked the watering system on the way back to the house. It was flashing. I guess a power glitch caused it to go wonky. I was too hot and tired to do more than a cursory reset. It didn’t work, so I’ll get out the manual and see if I can get it straightened out when I’ve had a chance to rest, get my breath back, and hydrate.
My veggies are looking good. I’ll start harvesting the outer leaves of the spinach and leaf lettuce next week. I’ll try to get some pics later to share.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
We are cornering the market on character-building lately. This time it’s trying to get a phone line rehung that fell down into the yard during the last storm.
After the storm we initially called our electric company, Arkansas Valley Electric Co-Operative, because we weren’t absolutely sure whether we needed help with electrical lines or phone lines. The company sent a service man right over. We couldn’t have asked for better response time. He confirmed that the lines were phone lines, and told us the phone company would need to come out and fix them.
It took us forever (3 or 4 days) of talking to person after person at our current phone company, AT&T, before someone mentioned that the two phone lines we have now were actually installed years ago by CenturyLink.
My husband got mad at this point and was up on a two-story ladder propped up against a telephone pole, trying to rehang the line. He finally gave up on one of the lines because even with that ladder, he couldn’t get up high enough. That didn’t stop him from trying to rehang the 2ND phone line. He had to cut down the branches of a tree in order to get access to the line and managed, after getting bitten by the tree several times, scratching up his arm badly, to get the line hung.
I spent another day trying to contact CenturyLink. This was iffy, since we are no longer their customer. They finally gave me a repair ticket number. Nothing happened, so I contacted them again and they said they had no record of the ticket number. They finally found it, and told us the technician would be out to the house yesterday between 8 and 5. We had to stay home to be sure we were here to receive him.
A little before 5, I contacted them again. The lady said to give the tech until 7pm. We did, but no action.
My husband stayed home from Lunch Bunch and errands this morning so he would be here if the tech showed up. He didn’t.
I contacted CenturyLink again. She told me the ticket was marked, “completed.” My husband went outside to double check, and the line was still down. I told the lady that and she has now generated ANOTHER repair ticket with a “commitment date of 4/23.”
And so we wait again…. I wonder if ‘character’ SHOWS, like building muscles….
Filed under When Wood Comes Alive
I now have enough cooked and frozen into individual serving containers that we can happily switch between them without my having to spend a bunch of time in the kitchen. That really helps me avoid too much of my cooking ending up inside me. :0)
Lately, I’ve cooked –
Each time I either doubled the recipes or made as much as the pan would hold so that I had leftovers. Now our freezer is nicely stocked with individual portions I can pull and simply heat in the microwave. This frees me up to spend more time outside, or take time doing whatever I need or want to do without worrying overmuch about dinner and staying on my new regimen.
Since my husband is almost at his goal, we’re also free for him to eat a dinner from Real Food or Stu’s Clean Cookin’, both places which provide good food at reasonable prices. They are both too high in carbs for me right now, but he can eat one of those while I choose from the other homemade dinners. Easy-peesy. :0)
Yesterday I told you I finally got back down to my pre-pandemic weight. Balloons flew, bands played, and confetti was thrown in celebration. I was hoping that I would break through to new territory this morning, but I just held where I was yesterday. That’s okay. It will come.
I’m hoping that the regimen of low carb eating and exercise will result in some good changes by the end of the month. And if not, by the end of May. We’ll see. One day at a time.
The sun is shining brightly and it’s due to get to the low 80’s today, so I’m smiling from ear to ear. I’ll plan to weed my veggie garden today. :0) We get today, plus part of the weekend before more storms due Sunday.
I’m looking forward to visiting with my friends at Lunch Bunch in a little over an hour.
We’re still hoping the phone line repairman will come to reattach the phone line that fell in the last storm. We waited all day yesterday, but he didn’t show or call. I got on chat at almost 5 and was asked to give him until 7pm. Still nothing. My husband is staying home this morning in case he comes while I go to lunch and do the errands. If nothing has happened, I’ll get back on chat…
I had a dream so realistic last night I’m still reverberating. Short version is that I drove my husbands’ Vette, went over a construction platform into part of a road being reconstructed and covered in thick oil that got all over the tires and into the inside of the car. My husband was ranting about the ‘idiot’ who trashed his car, and I STILL was facing having to tell him it was “I”. I told him about the dream this morning, and then thanked him for being so nice about the fact that I didn’t really trash his car…
Today’s exercise includes –
Happy Friday.
Filed under exercise, Friendship, Thoughts on a ________
Paper Sculpture papercraftermagazine.co.uk
Filed under paper art
I did three short exercise videos this morning – ‘warm-up,’ ‘stretches,’ and ‘weights.’ (30 minutes total)
I JUST finished doing the week’s ‘2a workout’ from morelifehealth.com – 30 minutes.
So I’m patting myself on the head a bit. :0)
Soon I’ll walk out to the garden to see what needs doing, then back out to the tomato planters and further out to where our greenhouse used to be, then back again. I’m trying to do that several times each day when the weather is cooperative to round out the mix of moving more.
Later I’ll do 30 minutes of ‘senior’ stretching yoga to finish off my exercising for the day.
Filed under exercise, taking care of yourself
This is our cat, Abby. She was advertised as a ‘lap cat’ in the paper years ago – an apt description. She has been a part of our family for years now. She tolerates Amber, our yellow lab, allowing her to use her dog beds if she isn’t in the middle of them, taunting her by stretching and yawning and looking as comfortable as only a cat can look. She doesn’t have an audible purr, but if you leave your hand on her, you can FEEL it. :0)
“Cats are smarter than dogs. You can’t get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.” ~ Jeff Valdez
“In a cat’s eye, all things belong to cats.” ~ English Proverb
“Dogs come when they’re called; cats take a message and get back to you later.” ~ Mary Bly
“Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well.” ~ Missy Dizick
“I got rid of my husband. The cat was allergic.” ~ Anonymous
“As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind.” ~ Cleveland Amory
“What greater gift than the love of a cat?” – Charles Dickens
Robert B. Parker is one of my favorite authors. I think I have all of his books.
His “Jesse Stone” series is wonderful. I have the books AND the movies. (The fact that the main actor in the Jesse Stone series is ANOTHER favorite – Tom Selleck – lets me win twice. :0)
“In 1997 Robert Parker introduced the world to Jesse Stone, who comes to the small town of Paradise to serve as police chief, running from a past in Los Angeles where his alcoholism led to a failed marriage and a failed career in law enforcement.”
He’s a flawed man, but honest and strong and admirable. You want him to get through his problems.
I’m re-reading the books now, savoring the way Parker can say things in a very straightforward manner where you forget the ‘writing,’ concentrating on the characters and the story. He has quite a sense of humor, a dry wit, having his characters see the humor in a situation, providing sparkling dialogue that sometimes makes me laugh aloud.
Night Passage (1997) Trouble in Paradise (1998) Death in Paradise (2001) Stone Cold (2003) Sea Change (2006) High Profile (2007) Stranger in Paradise (2008) Night and Day (2009) Split Image (2010)
I will continue to buy and watch the Jesse Stone movies created by Tom Selleck and Michael Brandman, but I consider the ‘continuation of the book series’ by Ace Atkins or Reed Coleman a nice honor, but pale-in-comparison imitations of the master.
Filed under Hobbies, Reading is FUNdamental
I’m in celebration mode this morning. I would love it if you would celebrate with me.
I have finally reached my first goal of losing the pandemic lard I gained. I’m back to my long-time basis of 30-pounds-down from my heaviest, plus an 28.7 inch decrease from my most voluminous. HOOORAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!
This is a huge motivational boost. I was beginning to think that no matter what I did, I would never get control and would continue to yo-yo.
Now I’m breaking into ‘NEW TERRITORY!’
I now know that if I record everything I’m planning to eat for the day on MyFitnessPal.com (and then stick to it) I will stay within my eating parameters. (Tonight we’re having “bacon-wrapped cheesy chicken” – Suzanne Ryan, Simply Keto, plus salad and I will eat a low-carb biscuit and my husband will have a deli dinner roll.)
Though my measuring tape isn’t showing anything yet, I’m hoping it will soon. I’ve mapped out my exercise regimen for the week and am giving myself gold stars on my desk calendar as I do things each day. I am starting to FEEL a difference. My exercise for the day is a part of my ‘to-do’ list now, given 2nd highest priority, right under the ‘have-to’s.’ :0)
Today is –
ONWARD AND DOWNWARD!
Filed under Cause for Celebration, Challenges, Changes, DIET!, exercise
creativeartworksblog 