Saturday, January 10, 2026

Best Friends Animal Society

I have finally hit another milestone in my two years of efforts to lose the lard. As of this morning, I am down 90 pounds, to 115. My goal is to lose another 5, to give myself a good maintenance range to stay in the rest of my life, concentrating on exercising to continue to build muscle, stamina, flexibility, and balance.

I have a routine follow up doctor’s appointment next month, and I’ll see what she has to say about where I am at that time and what goals I should set.

In the meantime, I’m doing the following –

• walking on the treadmill one mile every day, trying to continue to retrain my brain and body to improve my balance. I’m now walking without holding on, concentrating on relaxing while I’m walking, increasing the speed and the incline % as I can.
• On alternate days, I’m either doing a half hour or so of yoga stretches (including sit ups, a plank, and a ‘reach-up-stretch-and-then-bend-over-to-try-to-touch-my-toes’ several times). My plank is pathetic so far, but I’m working on it – OR I do half an hour or so of arm exercises with water bottles (also including the reach up and then bend over with the bottles.)
• Next week I’m planning to add stairs to the mix. I’ll start by walking down 5 flights of stairs – carefully, so as not to fall on my head and break all my bones. Then I’ll mix that with trying to see how many flights I can walk UP…. (Balance, stamina, and breath control, as well as building some muscle.)

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This morning we visited my husband, Harvey, in the nursing home. So far, all is going well with the new nurse. Her name is Khun Archiang (pronounced, “Coon-ah-chi-ahng”) She is very sweet and seems to be doing a good job of taking care of Harvey.

He was still asking us to find his jeans and shoes so he could make a break for it, but we distracted him by talking about taking a wheel chair ride this afternoon to see the doggies and ‘take in some rays’. It is getting harder and harder for the staff to get him into the wheelchair, so the trips outside are getting fewer.

He happily ate the pineapple pie Brian brought and drank the no sugar grape drink without problem. He has an appointment later this month with the doctor. We are hoping he will be able to have the nasal feeding tube removed at that time.

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This afternoon, I’ll finish writing my blog posts, probably paint at least one of the remaining two sketches in the old sketchbook, continue working on my jigsaw puzzle, and continue reading my Kindle book. as well as put on my headphones and listen to YouTube music tonight before bed. Such a hard life I lead!

I am full of gratitude for all I have now. Life will always have it’s challenges, it’s hard spots, but ATTITUDE is ALL.