Category Archives: Acting Like a Grownup

November 25, 2016 · 12:30 pm

Hard Head

XciteFun.net

XciteFun.net

I have a hard head – I’m really slow to learn a lesson at times.

About 3 weeks ago I started doing yoga. I chose a 2-DVD set called, “Gentle Yoga” because it was geared toward women 60 years and older who had never done yoga, might have health issues, and who might be intimidated by the whole idea – a perfect description of me.

I was surprised that after doing the “Head, Shoulders, and Neck” section, I not only was able to do everything the good teacher asked, but I felt encouraged. She is very accepting. She stresses that there is no perfect yoga pose. Even if you’re only able to START to stretch in the direction she’s showing you, it does your body good. With time and practice, your body will learn to ‘give,’ and you’ll be able to stretch into the poses more and more, your body becoming stronger and more flexible. She asks that you do SOMETHING from the videos every day, even if it’s only for 5 minutes.

I THOUGHT I had listened and absorbed everything, and yet I found myself thinking I would ‘take a day off’ yesterday, since it was Thanksgiving. When mid-afternoon came, I then decided to go ahead and do my yoga. I did the “Lower Back” and “Overall” sections.

By the time I was finished, my back didn’t hurt. I’m working on being able to ‘sit’ on my feet with my knees bent. Each day I can do it for a couple of seconds longer. (My feet tend to cramp and my thighs really don’t like this). I’m determined that one day, if I keep practicing, I’ll be able to do this comfortably.

I even told my sister-in-law that I had learned that I really felt better when I did my yoga and that I was surprised by this. Yesterday I had to prove it to myself again. I’m trying to get to the point that I do two sections every day routinely, rather than making the conscious decision to do it.

emb-jenscreativemediablog

Jen’s Creative Media Blog

I have NEVER found an exercise where I felt better and more relaxed when I finished before. Even hard heads like me should be able to learn this lesson!  Today I’ll do “Spinal Health” and “Overall.”

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November 21, 2016 · 3:19 pm

Getting the Lard Off – Progress Report Nov. 21, 2016

Pinterest.com

Pinterest.com

I’m happy to say that I am FINALLY back on the getting the lard off road! I lost my way for a bit, but – with the addition of yoga poses done daily – I’m starting to lose again.

My husband – who is a newly-diagnosed diabetic – and I are eating a low carb diet, substituting sugar-free candy, pudding, and tea for the things he’s missing the most.

 

Bored Panda

Bored Panda

The biggest change is that I’m doing two sections of my yoga DVD set daily. Today, for example, I’m doing “Joint Mobility” and “Overall Flow.”

Yesterday I ALMOST skipped the yoga because I had some sore muscles. I went ahead, grimly, and found that my soreness disappeared! Let this be an ongoing lesson for me!!!!!

I’ve been doing the two sections daily for a bit over a week now, and I decided to see whether my measuring tape was impressed or not.

It was! To date, I’ve lost 21.75 inches and 40 pounds. (Some of these pounds have been regained and now lost again. I’m looking forward to breaking into new territory soon.)

Yesterday I was doing the ‘fold-yourself-into-a-paper-airplane-and-twist’ pose. I end up with my leg bent and twisted over to the side across my body with my knee on the floor. The opposite arm is stretched up above my head. See what I mean about folding yourself into a paper airplane?

Anyway, you get into the pose, holding it while you breathe in deeply into the stretch, and then exhale several times. When I was doing the last deep breath, my fingers touched the floor! Just barely – but they did!!!!! Only on one side, and only for a second, but HOOORAAAAAY!

The only other exercise I’m doing right now is sitting on the exercise ball while watching TV.  This is supposed to be good for building up my ‘core’ muscles and strengthening my balance. Since I need both, I spend some time bouncing around each evening.

I’m going right now to do my yoga sessions.

Hope YOUR day is good, too.

 

 

 

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November 12, 2016 · 4:57 pm

Prepping for Winter

Autoweek

Autoweek

We have a 2006 Honda Ridgeline truck like this one, except ours isn’t as clean and shiny as the one in this picture.

Today, as part of our preparing for winter list, we changed the tires in our shop.

When we bought it, we bought 4 extra wheels and then bought snow tires. We had the tires mounted and balanced on the wheels and brought them home to store in our shop.  (This is really important because our driveway is STEEP, and about 650 feet long.) The driveway is on the north side of our property and is shaded all the way down, so we still have ice and snow when the rest of the planet has thawed and forgotten the storm.)

Twice a year my husband and I change the tires. Today we took off the regular tires and put on the snow tires for winter.  This is a laborious process, and it definitely takes both of us, but we save about half a day and about $80 doing it ourselves. We have this down to a routine. I’m the go-fer, moving tires around, finding the wheel nuts and special tool we need to get the regular tires off. I hand my husband the tools and parts he needs, and he then hefts the tires up and on the car. We have an air compressor so we can check the tire pressure when the tires have been changed to be sure the pressure is right for the truck. Today we discovered that our emergency spare, which is supposed to have 60 psi pressure, only had 48!

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My husband keeps a log of when we do major stuff. He found that the battery on the truck is only 2 years old, so should get us through the winter nicely. The oil was changed last month. We should be fixed now for safe travel in the winter. The only thing we need to finish the job is putting our emergency bags in the car if we’re going on a trip or any significant distance from home.

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Another thing we did was get the fireplace ready for winter. We have discovered we chose well when we bought our fireplace insert over 30 years ago. It’s called a “Country Flame” fireplace insert. It burns really cleanly. We had our chimney checked a few years ago, feeling guilty that we had NEVER had it cleaned. The guy thought the house was new! Lucky us!!! We are now set up to burn our first fire when needed, with wood, kindling, etc. ready for a lighted match. We had to get a new rug to protect our carpet this year because we moved the old one into the utility room to give our older dog, Bambi, more traction when he tries to get up out of bed.

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The third thing we did today to get ready for winter was change the LED insert for the light outside the shop. It’s on a timer. When we get ready to walk back to the house, we can turn on a timer which lights the light for however long we’ve set so that we can see easily to get back to the house. It lasted a long time, but we had to take out the little bitty flashlights we have on our key rings last time because the insert had finally burned out. We had a replacement part, and so were able to get out the ladder, take off the front glass of the light, and put in the insert. (My husband went up the ladder and changed the insert, since I tend to freeze when I go up a ladder. I held the ladder for him, then the front glass of the light, handed him the insert, then the light front, then held the ladder as he came down.) He’s the brains. as well as brawn – I’m the go-fer. It’s SO much easier to do stuff like this in the daytime, when the weather is glorious, like today, than during sleet. We’ll get a replacement insert tomorrow when we go to town so it’ll be there waiting the next time we need one.

It’s almost 5pm and I did not get out in the yard to do the leaf mulching. Bah. Humbug. Hopefully, we’ll have another nice day tomorrow and I can get that done.

The days go whizzing past my head….

 

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November 9, 2016 · 12:34 pm

Getting the Lard Off – November 9, 2016

Pinterest.com

Pinterest.com

I’m still trying to curb my after dinner eating. I’m getting better, though the problem is not yet completely solved.  For some reason, it’s almost as if I had a tapeworm. I feel hungry soon after eating dinner, though our dinner is low carb. That’s some kind of emotional hang-up that I’m determined to stop.

Yesterday I cooked up a storm.

  • I hard-boiled a bunch of eggs for my breakfast and our snacks
  • I made a batch of sausage balls for lunches and snacks
  • I made sugar-free banana pudding for my husband (He loved it!)
  • I made a low carb meatloaf that my husband raved about (I’ll share the recipe later today)

In-between I was cleaning up and running the dishwasher again, plus washing clothes, stripping our bed and working in the flower beds. I had a really full, satisfying day.

Today I tried two new sections of my 2-DVD-set of “Gentle Yoga.”

Bajiroo.com

Bajiroo.com

The first was for “Legs” and the second was for “Balance.” I’m feeling a lot more relaxed now and I’m happy I bought the set. Tomorrow I’ll try the “Overall Flow” section, the last in the set. My goal is to do some yoga each day. My body is feeling looser and more relaxed and this will improve as I practice. I really like and trust the teacher of these poses, and I feel that I’m getting in touch with my body in a way I have never done before. It’s wonderful.

Doctor appointments for both me and my husband tomorrow afternoon. We’ll see how we’re doing, discuss where we’re trying to go and ways to get there, and keep on keepin’ on.

taolife.com

taolife.com

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November 2, 2016 · 2:15 pm

Trimming the Edges…

HubPages

HubPages

I’m trying to clean up the edges along the civilized part of our back yard with the weed whacker.  Some of the weeds I’m trimming come up to my chest!

So far, I’ve done 2 half-hour sessions and have killed one weed whacker. The cap that holds the weed whacking cord came off,  the tabs that hold the cap on broke off, and the spring, cord roll, and cap pieces fell all around me.

I brought that weed whacker in the garage, along with all the pieces, thinking maybe we can order another cap for it.

Meanwhile, we have an older weed whacker that is working, so when I go out again as soon as I’ve cooled off, drunk more water, and gotten my breath back, I think I can finish the job.

Earlier today I was planning to do this trimming, create leaf mulch, and do two sessions of yoga….. Maybe not so much……

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November 2, 2016 · 11:08 am

Getting the Lard Off Progress (?) Report – November 2, 2016

Amy Adenoro Terrell-www.keyword-suggestions.com

Amy Adenoro Terrell-www.keyword-suggestions.com

I’ve been on a roller-coaster since about the middle of October. At that time my husband finally got serious about trying to avoid sugar. That might sound easy, but it’s been pretty traumatic around here. He LOVES sugar and was in denial about his problem and its inevitable consequences. I’ve been scrambling to figure out what we’re eating while trying to find something he can drink instead of soda, something to eat besides candy, and then some kind of dessert for him to look forward to.

I’ve also found, in my research so far, that simply trying to get sugar-free everything isn’t the answer. First my husband is REALLY sensitive to any alternative for sugar aftertaste. This week we’ve finally settled on Arizona Peach Sugar Free Tea, after buying and trying at least six other things. We found sugar-free hard candy easily enough, but he’s finding out the hard way that eating too much sugar-free candy has its consequences. He’s cutting that back on his own now. We’ve found ‘no added sugar’ pies that are good, and he likes a kind of cobbler that my wonderful cousin-in-law/friend Murray gave me.

I also discovered in my reading that, even if you cut out all the sugar you can, your body uses carbs to manufacture its own sugar! He tried giving up his cold cereal, but was unhappy, so we’ve done the next best thing – Special K is the best one for diabetics, since it’s not made from wheat.

Since low carb eating is also good for diabetics, I found a low carb for diabetics cook book. This is an ongoing process, but it took my attention and motivation away from my own challenges. In the past week I’ve gotten serious again, trying desperately not to eat after dinner, except for my orange dream bar as I used to do. This has been remarkably hard to do, since I’m staying up until at least midnight because my husband’s restless leg problem is better if he goes right to sleep, rather than our reading in bed as we’ve done for a hundred years or so. I found that delaying our dessert until 10:30 or so helps with my eating anything in sight…

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I’m finished with the excuses now. I’m back on my “low carb and exercising” horse again. With all the flailing around for almost a month, my weight loss is now 41 pounds. My inches loss is now 18.25″.

I started yoga (for old broads, 60+) about a week ago and I have to say I enjoy it. I’m not in any danger of becoming a gym rat, but I don’t dread doing yoga and really do feel relaxed afterward. Today I’m planning to do the last two sections on the 2nd DVD: “Legs” and “Overall Flow” (I think it’s called.)  The DVD series is called, “Gentle Yoga.”

We’re supposed to get rain late tonight and into tomorrow morning, so I’m planning to do weed eating across the back yard where we have to clean up a bit after wonderful Shane cut down a bunch of stuff to open up our view again and create a fire break. I also plan to create a lot more leaf mulch while the leaves are dry, harvest lettuce, etc.

I’m disgusted with myself that I allowed myself to be thrown for a loop over the changes needed in our lifestyle. I excuse myself a bit because I’m very fond of my husband and want him to live – feeling better and better – for a good, long time. That involves finding replacements for the important luxuries in his life. He seems to be adjusting pretty well now after some depression. He still threatens to stop all the good efforts if his sugar numbers don’t get lower as fast as he would like. That’s an ongoing discussion as well…

I feel good that I’ve stayed on my low carb plan really well the past two or three days now, and some of the regained lard is coming off. The yoga is making me feel looser and stronger, though I did have a bit of leg aching last night. I think I’ll feel better and better as I continue my practice.  The last two sections today, plus my day doing yard work, will be a really good amount of exercise for me today.

I hope that you, also, will try to

taolife.com

taolife.com

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October 28, 2016 · 4:43 pm

Master Bath Cleaning/Reorganization Project is Finished!

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One set of shelves

 

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Second set of shelves

 

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Main part of bathroom – vanities are on the right. Closet is to the right, as well. Shower to the left.

 

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Vanities with now clean/organized drawers!

 

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Shower room – shower is to the right.

 

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My closet.

The project took several days, but we spent several YEARS stuffing things into drawers and shelves. We can find everything now. Nothing falls on us when we open a door, cabinet door, or drawer. We actually have lots of places we can put things! It will take us a bit of time to get things as out-of-control as they were. The trash man will be impressed with the amount of ‘stuff’ we’re getting rid of this week. :0)

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October 28, 2016 · 3:30 pm

Getting There…

Time Management Ninja

Time Management Ninja

I’m into the home stretch now. The shelves have been cleaned out and reorganized. The drawers were completely emptied, cleaned, and reorganized. The shower has been scrubbed.

The whole bathroom and closet have been vacuumed.

 

vacuuming-deviantart

Deviant Art

 

 

Duffel Blog

Duffel Blog

I have now mopped the floors and am waiting for them to dry.

The last steps will be to finish a bit more scrubbing, put the rugs back in, and vacuum them.

It will be good to have things clean and organized, at least in one room…

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October 28, 2016 · 2:06 pm

Heavy Duty Cleaning – Master Bath – Session 3

Environmental Services Ltd

Environmental Services Ltd

The drawers are cleaned out and organized. A BUNCH of ‘stuff’ has been thrown away.

Now we’re down to the cleaning –

  • Dusting first
  • Then scrubbing of facilities above the floor (scrubbing bubbles, comet, soft scrub, Clorox Cleanup with bleach, occasional dynamite)
  • Then I’ll vacuum the shower area, main bath area, and my closet floor
  • Then I’ll mop everything
  • Then I’ll put the rugs back in
  • Then vacuum the rugs

Assuming I live to tell the tale later today, I’ll share pics. Then, I’m hoping to do more yoga – but if not, there’s tomorrow…

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October 28, 2016 · 12:31 pm

Arrrgh!

Oprah.com

Oprah.com

Our master bath area has a main part, with vanities and a whirlpool tub, my walk-in closet, and a combination toilet/medicine cabinet/shower area. It doesn’t look QUITE this bad, but you get the picture of what a mess things are upstairs. I’m trying to gather my motivation to attack the problem as I type.

Yesterday I took EVERYTHING out of three large drawers beneath my sink. I’ve been stuffing things in the drawers for years, only getting appalled recently. I procrastinated for another long while, thinking about the fact that it was long past time to go through things.  This week I did the two sets of shelves and the medicine cabinet, throwing away LOTS of stuff and reorganizing the rest.

I pooped out yesterday, running out of time and energy, and warned my husband that things were quite a mess in there, but that I would tackle it again today. He was amazed at how much ‘stuff’ came out of the drawers!

This morning before we joined our friends for Lunch Bunch, I pulled up the three smaller rugs and one larger rug, the runners under them that keep them from ‘traveling,’ and then got everything else up off the floor. I brought in the vacuum cleaner and brought up the mop and mop bucket in preparation.

I’ve run out of time to procrastinate, so I’ll finish this post and get to it.

I’ll try to post pics later today, assuming I’m successful in making sense of everything up there.

I hope that your day is filled with fun stuff today.

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October 27, 2016 · 4:03 pm

Impatience

Laila Ali via Akiva Huber

Laila Ali via Akiva Huber

 

I’m going to print this one and hang it up so I see it over and over.  I’m impatient by nature and have to really talk to myself (I know – I’m nuts) to keep going, whether I’m trying to lose weight and build strength and flexibility, undo several years worth of ‘stuffing’ things into drawers or onto shelves in our master bath, or get our garden and yard under control.

I’m looking at this as a character-building exercise, something that will make me a better person in the long run. I AM making progress on learning my own limitations as I age and modifying my expectations of what I can now do in a day. I still tend to overdo, spending the next day trying to recover. I’m learning to do projects in ‘sessions,’ stopping when I’m feeling overwhelmed, then doing another session until the job is done.

With my weight and strength, there is no time limit. This isn’t a ‘diet.’ It’s a lifestyle change. Now things are complicated because we need to do low or no sugar for my husband. It’s a worthy goal to achieve because it’ll do both of us good. I want my husband to live as long as he is able, feeling as good as possible. Scrambling to learn what I can do to help is something I really want to do. An example, I’ve discovered that avoiding gluten for him is counter-productive, since the gluten is offset by alcohol sugars and other additives. We MUST do a good job of reading labels!

On the master bathroom going through/throwing out/reorganizing/cleaning project – right now it looks as if a bomb exploded in there again, since I’ve emptied out my three large drawers and put things on the step that goes around or bathtub. I’ve already thrown a bunch away and plan to do more of that before deciding what do to with what’s left. Assuming I can finish that today, I’ll plan on the last session tomorrow – pulling out the rugs and doing a deep cleaning of the whole area, including the tub, shower, vanities, floor, and rugs. If I falter, I’ll reread the reminder above…

 

 

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October 25, 2016 · 2:17 pm

Happy Tuesday!

amazon.com

amazon.com

My husband and I took advantage of early voting this morning. We only had to wait about 5 minutes after checking in. I LOVE it that we don’t have to stand in line for hours waiting to vote!

When we got home, we put our groceries and other stuff away and relaxed with a cup of coffee. Then my husband went out to the garden to work on the irrigation system for the new raised beds on the north side of the garden.

While he did that, I got some chicken breasts in the crock pot, trying out a new recipe for tonight. I particularly love getting something in the crock pot before I start a bit project. I’m just not in the mood, when I’m hot and tired, to try to figure out what to have for dinner, much less cook.

Today I’m taking advantage of our really wonderful weather to try out our new WORX leaf mulcher. We used something else last year, but we had to put the leaves through it twice, and it was a real hassle. This one has been set up and waiting for the right time. :0)

I love making our own mulch. We can make as much as we need, on our own schedule, not having to go buy it. Our weather has been such that we’re not having much color this fall. Our leaves have fallen as much from not enough water as from the changing season. Anyway, I have lots of material to work with, so I was excited to try it out today.

 

worx3

This is the WORX leaf mulcher. You can see that the black shredder is up in the air, sitting on a round frame with legs. There is a large leaf bag on the frame, right below the orange part. I rake up some leaves, use the yellow ‘hands’ to dump the leaves into the pop-up tan canvas barrel, then take the barrel over to the WORX. I put in about a third of the leaves in the top of the leaf mulcher, make sure the leaves are down into the black part nicely, then turn on the shredder and wait a few seconds. I turn it off and the black top is empty, having shredded the leaves into the black leaf bag under it.

You can lift the black thing a bit to see how full the leaf bag underneath is getting. It took me about half an hour to fill the first leaf bag. I took it to the garage for storage until I use it in the flower beds, brought another leaf bag out with me and got it set up again. I’m finishing a break now, but I’m delighted with our set up. My body will probably complain this evening, but I’m happily making mulch!

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October 24, 2016 · 11:37 am

Purging and Reorganizing – Master Bath – Before

mbr10

I really have little excuse. I’m not Suzy Homemaker who puts things where they belong as they are used. I wish I were! Instead, I clean things like our sinks and the counter between them, stuffing things in drawers or on shelves. As a result, we have another area that desperately needs attention. It’s on the second floor of our home, so no one sees it but us, but enough is enough.

 

mbr11

This is one of two sets of shelves in our master bath. This mess has essentially been years in the making. This one acts as a linen closet, medicine cabinet, and cleaning supplies place.

 

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This second set of shelves is cosmetics, soap, lotions, potions….

I won’t show you my drawers (if you’ll pardon the expression :0) )  But I will show you some close-ups so you’ll have an idea of the job I’m undertaking. I can imagine you shaking your head in disgust, or feeling good that YOU don’t have this mess. It’s okay. I ALWAYS have excuses, other priorities…. I would have to clean and reorganize before I could get people to come and try to clean my house!

 

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The above pic was the end of the pics for the first set of shelves. The remaining pics are for the second set of shelves.

 

 

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So, now that I’ve again admitted that I’m a slob, I’ll get started doing something about it. I’ll need to do this in several sessions over at least a few days, but when I take breaks, I’ll post again – unless I get completely buried. (My husband is concentrating on straightening out our genealogy records on the computer and may not even notice I’ve been buried until he wonders why I haven’t brought him food yet….

Encouragement is definitely appreciated!

Have a wonderful day!!!

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October 23, 2016 · 4:42 pm

Supplies Part of Pantry – After

spafter6

Well, it’s about 4 hours later and I’ve finally finished. I HOPE you can see a difference here. I threw out a bunch of stuff. relocated other stuff, and reorganized what was left so that the things we use most often are the most accessible.

 

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I also tried to organize things so my husband can find what he’s looking for easily.

 

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My husband noticed that things were ALL over the kitchen when it was time for me to fix lunch. We managed amid the complete chaos. He then noticed all the stuff that was in the kitchen had made it ‘somewhere else.”  He made one suggestion on moving the instant pot to the place I had the salad spinner, “since I never used that anyway.” I shooed him out with a big smile and left them where they were…

I’m feeling much better since I found some things I had lost. Everything is much cleaner now, and I think I have things where I want them. If not, I have a GREAT start on another move-around!

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October 23, 2016 · 1:03 pm

I’m a Slob – ‘Supplies’ Side of Pantry

 

I’ve admitted before that I’m a slob. Some people have tried to excuse this for me, saying that I’m too busy ‘creating’ to bother with this. To this, I thank them for being kind, but say, HOGWASH.  Every once in a while, my clutter and stashing bothers even me, and that’s when I finally do something.

I showed you the food side of the pantry that I finally cleaned up a few days ago. The trigger for this was that my husband needs to eat as sugar-free as possible, so we are getting rid of a lot of foods that neither of us should no longer eat, clearing the decks for a new emphasis on making condiments, sauces, etc., that are not filled to the brim with sugar. Due to the purging and reorganizing, I can now find things quickly and easily, concentrating on the MAKING, rather than the FINDING.

 

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I hate to have to admit I’m such a slob, but with the glorious supplies side of our pantry, I have now stuffed and jammed as much as the shelves will hold – and more. I’m going to take a good, long look, get rid of a bunch of ‘stuff,’ and reorganize the rest some that we don’t have to climb into the shelves to get things, hoping nothing falls on us.

 

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Even UNDER the shelves is jammed full.

 

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All I can say is, “What a mess!” I’m determined to make sense out of this, though, and hope to be able to report significant progress by the end of the day.

Strength – don’t fail me now….

 

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October 20, 2016 · 3:26 pm

Food Part of Pantry is DONE!

foodpantry1

The high carb or high sugar foods have been boxed up to give to the local food pantry or relegated to the lower shelves where ‘out of sight – out of mind’ reigns. I threw away a lot of half-used things from the pantry and the fridge. I went through all the containers to make sure all was good and then wiped down all the shelves with Clorox Clean-up.

 

foodpantry2

My husband feeds the dogs twice a day, and his only request was that I keep the shelves clear where he is working with the dogs and bowls. Otherwise, he just said, “Wow! You’re getting serious, aren’t you?” when I was about half way finished.

 

foodpantry3

All is clean and reorganized now so that I can find the ingredients I need to make our low carb, low or sugar-free meals. I’m going to be trying to find recipes for the condiments we use most often if I cannot find good sugar-free alternatives.

Tomorrow I’ll start on the other side of the panty where we keep supplies. Right now it looks as if a bomb went off somewhere near… :0)

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October 20, 2016 · 11:54 am

Cleaning Out the Pantry

The Spadina Monologues - WordPress.com

The Spadina Monologues – WordPress.com

I’ve spent about an hour so far in our pantry. I’m making progress, but it’s VERRRRRRY  slow. Thus far, I’ve discovered that

  • almost NO condiments, such as A1 Sauce, Tartar Sauce, Ketchup, BBQ sauce, etc. are good for our low carb/as-little-sugar-as-possible lifestyle. ( I did find a mayonnaise made with olive oil that’s good, a low-sugar ketchup, and I made sugar-free BBQ sauce a couple of days ago. I’m going to need to do lots of research – particularly in the area of tartar sauce for my husband – and do some good replacing, or making more of my own.)
  • I’m not at all sure my husband can be switched to low sugar or sugar-free jelly. (But then I also realized that we’re not going to be eating bread!)
  • We have LOTS of fruit in heavy syrup :0(
  • I’m going to need to get lots of boxes from the shop to hold all the stuff we’ll give to the local food pantry. (NOW I feel guilty that we’ll be giving families the stuff we KNOW isn’t healthy…)
  • My husband ordered an entire CASE of Krustees Snickerdoodle cookie mix – I’m hiding this in one of the back corners of one of the shelves so that I can treat him on his birthday and Christmas…
  • SOME of the things I’m finding I ordered in order to use it for particular recipes – but I don’t remember WHICH recipes. I’ll have to look up the ingredients on the net to find out if I want to keep these or not.
  • Cleaning out and reorganizing the pantry should be at LEAST an every-six-months job so that I’m not completely overwhelmed by the size of the job

It’s a very good thing that I’m not on a strict schedule for completing this job. I’ll do hour+ sessions, resting in-between, until I’ve finished.

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August 29, 2016 · 12:43 pm

Reach Up! Reach Up!

I just finished doing about a mile and a half with the “Women of Poundage” DVD with Leslie. (That’s not actually the name of the video, but I call it that, “Walking with Annoying Leslie,” or other less kind names, depending on how hard it is for me to keep up.)

I have proved to myself over the past year that using this video regularly seems to do me a lot of good, once my hips stop screaming so much. I seem to use different muscles doing this than anything else I do.

My husband was in his recliner reading when I went in to exercise. He’s good about letting me put in the DVD and exercise, saying it doesn’t bother him. He usually tries to be supportive, too, saying, “Good on You!” when I leave the office, announcing I’m going to walk with Leslie, annoying or otherwise.

Today he spoke up to say, when I had made it to the Mile 2 part of the DVD, that I wasn’t moving my foot out enough on the taps. I answered him tersely, saying that I was doing well to just be moving at this point. I lasted another 10 minutes or so, but then stopped.

He then repeated his opinion about the tapping. I told him that next time, he could stand in front of the TV and I would stand behind him. We would then do the DVD together, and I would try to match his steps.

I got no answer…

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August 21, 2016 · 1:55 pm

Taking it Easy Today

Yesterday I worked from noon until about 6:30 in the evening finishing pressure washing the deck.

 

pwdeck7

My husband took this picture of me while I was working on the outside of the deck. Here are some before and after pics –

 

pw-backsidewalkbefore

This is our back sidewalk BEFORE pressure washing.

 

backsidewalkafter

And AFTER!

 

pw-onesetofdeckstepsbefore

One set of two stairs to the deck BEFORE –

 

westsidesteps2

And AFTER!

 

pw-upperpartofdeckbefore

Part of the upper deck BEFORE –

 

upperdeckwithSmoke

And AFTER! (With Smoke supervising) You can see to the right of the pic that I haven’t started on the main part of the deck yet…

 

pw-deckbefore

Part of the main deck BEFORE –

 

eastsideofdeck2

East side of deck AFTER!

 

westsideofdeck

West side of deck AFTER!

 

westsideoutsidedeck

Part of outside of deck AFTER!

Part of me is embarrassed to have shown you what our deck looked like before I started pressure washing, but that’s what 25 or so years of NOT pressure washing does. The deck doesn’t look new, but it sure looks BETTER! :0)

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August 18, 2016 · 1:01 pm

One Year in the Life

Emily Davis, trendingly.com

Emily Davis, trendingly.com

Almost exactly a year ago – mid August 2015 – I came home from my doctor’s office and changed my life. My quarterly blood work, where we monitor my thyroid dosage, was high, high, high. I had again told him, looking him right in the eye, that my husband and I were trying to eat in a more healthy fashion and I was trying to exercise. Bah, humbug. Lies!

I MEANT well, but I was lying to him and myself, and not fooling either of us. Whenever I tried to do better, my husband would sabotage me, trying to protect me from another disappointment, in a long line of them.

This time was different. I decided that day I was either going to actually seriously change my lifestyle or I was going to quit lying about it. I was disgusted with myself, didn’t feel well, and wanted to change.  I decided to try low carb. I had had a little bit of success with this in the past and talked to my son on chat (since he’s in Thailand) about it. True to form, he was super supportive. He suggested that I try to eat 40 grams of carbs per day, staying at 1200 or fewer calories. I found MyFitnessPal.com, a wonderful site where you can list your goals, record what you’re eating (and change it if you find you’re going over either the carbs or calories), plus track your exercise. You can do this in solo fashion or interact with others on the website. (Yesterday I checked in for day # 365).

I found Dana Carpender’s wonderful low carb recipe books. This is the first set of recipe books that uses mostly ingredients you can easily find, giving you simple, GOOD tasting recipes that even my husband likes. I bought one book for slow cooker recipes and another for 15 minute prep or less. I love both of them.

I dug out my ‘Woman’s Walk’ DVD by Leslie Sansone that I got when I was doing NutriSystem years ago. I also found 3 lb weights in the closet, and printed off some really basic lower and upper body strength exercises to do with them. I also wiped down the elliptical trainer in the garage, and found an MP3 player with earphones to use with it.

One year later I have lost 45 lbs and 22 inches.  Slow and steady is the name of the game, as far as I’m concerned. As long as I keep on keepin’ on, my weight is going lower (even though I get in 3 lb loops, where I gain and lose the same three over and over).  I developed a bit of a digestion problem, due to my lack of gallbladder and a difficulty in fully processing fat) a couple of months ago. I talked to my doctor about it this week and he gave me some sample pills that he thinks will solve my problem. :0)

  • I feel better, with more energy than I’ve felt in years
  • When I am good about exercising regularly, I have much less pain in my hips and knees!
  • My blood test numbers are in the NORMAL range in all categories for the first time I can remember. (Isn’t “normal” a beautiful word?)
  • I’m down 3 sizes in jeans so far.
  • I’m receiving compliments and support from people I see regularly, plus amazement from people I only see occasionally.
  • Even my husband is supportive of my efforts this time. He knows I’m serious, and he’s actually told me that he admires me for my persistence.

I’m hopeful that as I begin another year, I can reach my goal of my weight being in the normal range for my height, healthy BMI number, even better blood tests, and getting more fit. I’m hoping that my joint pain will continue to lessen, my blood pressure will get into the normal range and I can stop the medicine I now take, and that I can plan to take long, wonderful walks with my husband without looking for someplace to sit down!

My mantra is

taolife.com

taolife.com

I hope that you’re doing good things for yourself, as well.

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July 12, 2016 · 4:57 pm

My Day

products.geappliances.com

products.geappliances.com

This is what our fridge looks like, except ours is black.

We bought it about 7 years ago, and have been really happy with it.

Lately, though, the gasket in the freezer at the bottom has become brittle on the sides, allowing air to get in and causing ice to form. We found a repairman who is ordering another gasket for us as soon as it arrives. Today, though, it was all iced up and desperately needed attention.

We got our styrofoam coolers down from the attic, spreading them out all over the kitchen. I emptied the freezer, tossing out things that were old or we don’t eat anymore. Then we defrosted the freezer that usually doesn’t have to be defrosted, using a hair dryer, a fan, and keeping the drawers open.

We just finished cleaning it all up a few minutes ago. I’m going to start returning things to the freezer in a bit.

While we were waiting, I cleaned out the rest of the fridge, finding FOUR jars of cherries. My husband tried to look blameless, but didn’t pull it off. :0)  I know have the regular part of the fridge cleaned and rearranged.

It’s too bad that it takes something like the freezer filling up with ice in order for us to do a thorough cleaning. I think almost anything takes priority…

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