Category Archives: Challenges

December 28, 2016 · 4:23 pm

Concentrating on Shutting My Mouth…

Huffington Post

Huffington Post

There are lots of good reasons for trying to keep my mouth shut.

Most of the time it’s a good idea to keep me out of trouble for saying the wrong thing in the wrong company. This time – keeping the other in mind – my efforts are focused on not eating after dinner time. I made it last night for the first time in a LONG time.

I followed that with an hour long session of yoga this afternoon emphasizing “Joint Mobility” and “Overall Flow.”  I had a talk with my husband about helping me carve out an hour either in the morning or in the afternoon for my yoga practice. He is seeing how much better it makes me feel, and was encouraging about my efforts today.

 

Michelle Cazares

Michelle Cazares

 

I’m re-reading The Shift by Tory Johnson

shift

the book that initially got me excited about trying to get the lard off and get in better shape. I’m happy to say that it’s beginning to do its magic on me again, motivating me to stick to my guns and start impressing the scales and my tape measure again. I’m about half way to where I think I would like to be weight-wise. If I’m successful enough to get there, I’ll decide if more is needed or if that’s enough. (I’m trying for the middle of a healthy BMI weight range for my height.)

Our low carb lifestyle and our new low or no sugar emphasis should help both my husband and me feel better.

*2 new finds! –

  • Swiss Miss Sensible Sweets Light Hot Cocoa Mix. (It’s 25 calories, 4 grams carbs and 2 grams of sugar per serving.)  My husband really loves hot chocolate and he says he cannot tell the difference between the awful mixes he WAS using and this. Hooray!”
  • Arizona Zero Peach Tea – My husband used to drink already sweetened iced tea mix, drinking several LARGE glasses per day. This is 0 calories, < 1 gram sugar, <  1 gram carbs. It’s delicious and we both drink it.

In a little over a year I have lost 40 lbs. and 23+ inches. Albeit slowly, I AM making progress on being as healthy as I can be. I look forward to seeing what 2017 brings!

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December 15, 2016 · 4:48 pm

Getting the Lard Off Progress Report 12/15/2016

AnimalWallpapers - DesktopNexus

AnimalWallpapers – DesktopNexus

I’m finally getting my eating after dinner until better control, though I have to admit it’s a fight, one night after the next.

I’m doing a combination of

  • re-reading the books that got me motivated in the first place
  • finding better low carb snacks to eat
  • finding more active things to do to distract me before bed
  • drinking more water after dinner

My scale is beginning to show a downward movement again, although I’m still re-losing the weight I thought was gone.

I’m feeling good about my yoga practice.

Bajiroo.com

Bajiroo.com

Most every day I’m doing two 1/2 hour sections of the DVD set “Gentle Yoga.” Today I just finished “Legs,” and “Overall Flow.” I’m beginning to feel looser. I’m beginning to be able to sit with my knees bent, feet under me, without my feet cramping so much, and without the tops of my thighs screaming. I may never be able to bend over and touch my fingers to the floor, but I’m stretching the right muscles to do so. When my back is hurting, I now know that doing yoga will make it feel better. I’m also learning to relax at the end of the sections for 5 minutes, something I feel REALLY hard to do at the beginning. AND, I can now lie on my back on the floor and put my hands over my head and touch the floor behind me – something that was impossible in the beginning.

I’m pairing the yoga practice with some exercises for my abdomen. I’m hoping all this will come together gradually to impress my tape measure, too.

Today I made a new recipe for dinner – Low Carb Minestrone.  My husband came in while I was avidly chopping up veggies and said he thought it was good I was making Beef Stew. I told him it was Minestrone. He said, “But it has beef in it, doesn’t it?” I told him it didn’t have ANY meat in it. He looked disappointed, and asked, “But COULD it have some beef in it?” At that point I relented and added some leftover roast beef to the mix. I’ll let you know what we think tomorrow.

I hope your day has been fun.

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December 9, 2016 · 3:32 pm

Dog Bed

Orthopedic Bed - SerenityHealth.com - 3 Shades of Dog

Orthopedic Bed – SerenityHealth.com – 3 Shades of Dog

One of the three dog beds we have looks much like this one. At least it DID, before the dogs made holes in the cover on both sides and began pulling the foam out and spreading the fuzzy side of the cover all over the house…

Today we found some denim in the basement. We had to go back to town to get lots of large diaper pins – a hard thing to find in this day and age. We just finished safety pinning the denim to the top of the bed. It doesn’t look pretty, but Bambi, our pit bull, immediately got on it  and settled down for a nap.

Dog-approved, maybe the bed will last for awhile longer.

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December 8, 2016 · 6:06 pm

Battle of the Books

Libraries & YA - WordPress.com

Libraries & YA – WordPress.com

I spent the whole day moving stuff.

My husband was suggesting that we should have a clear demarcation between office supplies and supplies to USE in our office shelves. I had just moved a bunch of cookbooks INTO those shelves in order to make space in the living room…

I went upstairs and looked at the built-in shelving in the guest room. I decided that these could be used to hold a lot of books. First, I had to clean THEM out, moving my out of season shoes and purses. When those were empty, I started the big reorganization.

Since we’re eating low carb and low or no sugar now, I have a lot of cookbooks we don’t use all the time.

I looked up each one on Amazon and found several I could put up for resale there. The ones I couldn’t went into two places: the place in the foyer where we gather books we take as a fund-raiser to our local library. The ones I wanted to keep I put on the stairs.

When I finished with Amazon and the give-away groups, I lugged all the keepers upstairs and put them in the guest room bookshelves.

Then I started on all the books I’ve gathered for running a small business, plus some art and craft books. I did the same series with all of these, listing some for resale, put others in the give away pile, and the rest on the stairs to go up.

I now have all the  books out of the office! Tomorrow I’ll start reorganizing the office shelves so that we can both easily find whatever we need…

I can tell you first-hand that lugging books around and up and down the stairs is great exercise!

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December 7, 2016 · 5:02 pm

Getting the Lard Off Progress Report 12/7/2016

Funny Animals Pictures Images

Funny Animals Pictures Images

I’m actually moving backwards lately on trying to get the lard off.  :0(   I’m having problems not eating after dinner. It used to be that I would eat my orange dream bar and that was it. Lately, it’s like I have a tapeworm or something. I’m hungry.

My weight loss right now is 35 lbs.

I’m now doing better on adapting to trying to cook for my low carbs and my husband’s diabetes. I’ve decided to basically serve low carb meals and then make sugar free puddings for dessert. I’m trying lots of different recipes. We’re experimenting with a lot of low carb, low or no sugar foods. Some of them are good, and we’ll incorporate them into our eating plan. Others we try and try to forget. We’re working our way through, resulting in many mistakes and resulting hunger.

Sometimes my husband is being strong and eating only what he should. That helps ME do better, as well. Sometimes we both fall off and indulge.

We’re concentrating on figuring out what we’re doing wrong and making changes that will work for the long run. If we figure we can NEVER eat bread again, we tend to obsess about it, feeling sorry for ourselves. We found a wonderful low carb, sugar free plain bread recently. It’s expensive, but we found it great for turkey sandwiches – one of our favorite parts of Thanksgiving, and then enjoyed it with sugar free jams and jellies as toast with bacon and eggs. We won’t eat our weight in it, but it’s terrific for the morale to be able to eat bread occasionally again.

So, with all the above excuses, I gained 5 lbs of the weight I lost. :0(

The good side is that with the exercise I’m doing, there are 26 inches less of me!

The new concentration is continuing the exercise and controlled snacking after dinner. Hopefully, next week I can report another weight loss!

I realize that each day is a new chance to do well. Each meal is a new chance to make better choices. I’ll concentrate on my mantra –

taolife.com

taolife.com

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December 5, 2016 · 9:14 pm

“If You’re Human, Press One”

Save On Phone

Save On Phone

My husband is trying to write a computer program that will work to screen calls for us. Our son tried to do this for us a couple of years ago, but the hardware wasn’t reliable and the software tended to degrade, so the project was given up.

It’s still complicated, but supposedly we can get the system to answer the phone before it rings in our home. It says, “Hello? Hello? Hello? If you’re human, press one.” Assuming you are and you did, the next thing you would hear is one of us picking up, if we’re here, or a chance to leave us a message if we’re not.

On our end, we don’t hear anything until the caller has pressed one. If it’s a robo-call, the system hangs up. If they don’t press one, it hangs up. We aren’t bothered unless a salesman is brash enough to press one. If he does it, we can blow him off and then add his number to a black list that won’t allow him to call again. We can also build a white list that allows people we know to not hear the press one message at all.

I’m amazed that my husband is learning a new computer language called, “Asterisk” in order to talk to a test phone and build the program. I heard a built-in message when I called the test number today. I pressed one, so our test phone rang.  That’s a huge Step One.

We each have cell phones, so you ask, “Why don’t you just stop having a house phone and then you won’t have the problem?” That’s an excellent question. We do it because

  • a lot of our financial stuff is based on our home phone number.
  • long time friends call us on our home phone number.
  • even 911 likes it that it can figure out where we are if we call it – MUCH better than if we used our cell.

If my husband can get this all to work, we’ll really save a lot of time and hassle. It won’t stop all crank calls. We know that. My husband just cleared six crank calls off his cell today. But it’ll give us the illusion that we can control one small thing in our lives. A very welcome feeling. :0)

 

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December 5, 2016 · 2:29 pm

Problem

toomanytabs

Growing Bolder.com

I definitely have too many irons in the fire lately, and it’s causing my normally reasonably pleasant personality to devolve into sighs and snaps if my husband points out something that is ‘in process.’

I’ve just spent time doing laundry, paying bills, pulling plants out of the garden. I come in and sit down at the computer and he makes a comment about my desk being buried under piles of stuff again….

The reason for this, other than the fact I’m a slob and anything fun comes before cleaning stuff up, is that he wanted me to clean out all the cookbooks that were in the kitchen and the living room. I brought them into the office, putting them in some of the shelves.  Boxes of Christmas cards went from the shelves to my desk.

Then he wanted me to separate the office supplies from the ‘stuff we want to use’ (such as the many rolls of different types of tape we use to box things up) – separated from the envelopes, etc.  I haven’t tackled this yet.

The reason the Christmas cards are on my desk, along with stuff that needs to be filed – is that I haven’t figured out where to put them.

I going to try to sell some of the cookbooks. I’m going to send some of the Christmas cards. I’m going to box up the Christmas presents for my friends that are there, file the paperwork – while my husband sits, working happily on a project….

ARRRGH!

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November 17, 2016 · 4:55 pm

Prepping for Winter Continued

Essential Hardware

Essential Hardware

This afternoon my husband and I prepared the fall garden for winter. We fixed a hose that needed to be relocated in the fall garden section, draining the hose and reattaching it where it needs to go. Then we took off the irrigation system controller that fit between our above the ground agricultural faucet and the hose that goes out to the garden. Now we don’t have to worry about the brains of the system freezing. I took the batteries out and stored the system in the shop.

We also had our geothermal heat and air conditioning checked out by the expert who checks things spring and fall to make sure we don’t have any problems, and we changed the big filters. We then discovered that the exhaust flexible hose from the dryer to the outside of the house was loose and we could see sunlight! We got that fixed pretty easily and THINK it’ll now stay put.

We’re now pretty well ready for winter. The garage now has dry wood up the wall below the cat cubes where the kitties can stay warm. We won’t have to get out into the weather if we need to replace the firewood we have ready to light in the fireplace. (We didn’t actually need the fireplace last winter, but we love to light one, anyway, just for the comfort factor of being in a nice warm house when it’s yucky outside.) :0)

We have a big list on the fridge of what we need to finish in order to be ready to get snowed in. I think there are still a few things to go, but they’re minor things.

One of my friends in Denver said she was watching it snow outside today! I told her it was 86 here today, but that we were supposed to get rain tomorrow along with a stiff cold front, bringing freezing morning temps Sat, Sun, and Monday. Hard to believe, but we know it’s coming.

I’m ready to put sheets over my fall garden plants tomorrow night – hoping to keep my plants alive as long as possible.

Are you getting ready for winter?

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November 15, 2016 · 8:31 pm

Unexpected Driveway Improvement

We were leaving for errands this afternoon when a guy in a truck stopped at the bottom of the driveway and offered to help us fix our driveway with blading, plus tar and chip application. We said we were in a hurry, but we talked with him about options. We finally said we would allow him to blade the bottom of the driveway where we have the most problem. If we liked what he did, we would consider the tar and chip application for the lower part of the driveway because there was no way in the world we could afford to do the whole thing.

When we came home, there were three trucks on the road in front of our house. We saw that they had really improved the lower part of the driveway – in fact, they had bladed almost the whole length – 650 feet! They were ready to do the tar and chip. We told them we had not come to any agreement on anything and wanted an estimate of how much 100 feet up our driveway would cost. We finally came to an agreement on the price, saying that we would not pay anything more than this.

We are really pleased (and relieved, to be honest) that they really did a good job for us.) My husband went down to see for himself. It looks as if the whole bottom section of the driveway as been newly graveled. They laid down two coats of tar and then covered it with fine gravel, using a heavy roller to imbed the gravel into the tar. Then they put a lot more gravel on top of that. They made the driveway entrances on both sides flatter, so hopefully, the UPS man, who comes up our driveway from the ‘wrong side,’ should have a much easier time getting traction and hopefully won’t cause so much damage to our driveway. We really like him, and we like having UPS delivery, but we’ve been spending a fortune trying to fix the ruts he makes as he tries to make it up our driveway. Here are some pictures of the bottom 100 feet of our driveway –

driveway-bottom1

This shows you a view from across the road from our driveway. The saw horse is there is discourage anyone from using that part of the driveway until it has a bit more time to set. This is the direction from which the UPS guy comes. There used to be a kind of hump just past the saw horse, but the guys bladed it out.

driveway-bottom4

This is the opposite side of the driveway – the direction we use most often.

 

driveway-up1

The improvement (blading, tar, and gravel) go up to several feet past the owls.

 

driveway-down1

This is a few from up past the owls looking down toward the street. We got about 1/6th of the driveway done. This was the hardest part to keep in good shape, so we’re hoping that this will help us a bunch. Fingers crossed!

(I DID make sure that we received a written receipt of what the job entailed and what we paid when the job was finished.) We saved a lot of money by being ready to act when all the trucks, supplies, and equipment were in the area. I don’t think we could have afforded what we had done today if we had simply called the company, had them come out and give an estimate, and then come out to do the work.

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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 3, 2016 · 2:27 pm

Expensive Lesson Learned

face1

I saw a post on Facebook about two products by Dermalife that might help my skin, and an offer to get samples at almost no cost. I got on the website and ordered the two samples for a total of $10.94 on August 10th. I received the samples from a company called Healthy One out of St. George, Utah. As is usual with promises vs actual results, I was less than excited after using both for a week or so. I thought that was the end of it.

But NOOOOOO!

We got our credit card statement on 8/24 and had been charged four charges we didn’t recognize – one from GreenCoffee for $89.95 and the other from Garcinia for $92.53 – both companies out of Utah.  We marked these, but didn’t file a dispute until we got another charge from each company on 9/10!

The disputes went back and forth. The companies then produced paperwork showing that I had, in effect, signed a “contract” by ordering the samples, saying they could send more any time they wanted and charge me, unless I called them within 10 days to cancel the contract. There was nothing on the website that I saw, and I wouldn’t have gotten the samples if I had seen this. There was nothing on the receipt I received for the samples, either.

Since the companies were able to produce my credit card number, etc., and their paperwork about the contract, the credit card company told us that they were closing the disputes in the companies’ favor.

I called both companies involved today, asking them to be SURE my ‘contract’ had been cancelled. A guy from India told me that the contract had already been cancelled. I called the two companies (two different phone numbers, of course) but talked to the same Indian man both times.

I then called the credit card company back, asking what recourse we had, if any, if either of these companies chose to send – or not send – products and charge me for them any time they wanted. I had no actual proof that I had called and canceled.

I admitted that I felt dumb for not checking for the catch on the samples offer, but that having four different names involved in ordering of two samples bothered me. Since the disputes had been closed, I asked if a note could be put somewhere not to accept charges from either of these companies again.

The nice credit card lady did some checking. She reopened the disputes, gave us one permanent credit (I don’t for how much) and told us they would call if they needed anything more from us.

I don’t know how we’ll come out on this, but I wanted to warn everyone not to order samples online without reading every bit of fine print on the website. Check for any catches in the offer. Make sure you know what the name (or names) of the company are, and keep the receipts. File any dispute early and stick to your guns until the matter is settled.

 

 

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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…

________________

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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November 1, 2016 · 4:19 pm

Folding Myself into a Paper Airplane, and … – Take 4

funny-yoga-pics.co

funny-yoga-pics.co

Today I started on DVD # 2!  I did two sections: one on “spinal health” and the second on “hips.”

I’m delighted that, for the most part, I can still keep up with what the teacher is asking me to do.

Exceptions are –

  • when she asks me to sit on the floor with my legs straight and spread out as far from each other as possible, and then to bend the top of my body from my hips toward the floor in front of me. OOOH! Do I feel THAT stretch!  She tells me, though, that as long as I’m making the attempt – and breathing into the stretch – eventually I’ll “open up.”  I just hope I don’t crack and break first…
  • the other position giving me some trouble is starting on your hands and knees. Move one leg forward as far as possible while stretching out the other leg behind you…
  • lying on my back and relaxing. It takes me a minute or two, pushing my low back down to the floor over and over, before I can do this.
  • I feel a tightness across my back right beneath my shoulder blades that complains when I’m doing some of the poses.

Tomorrow I’ll try the “legs” section and the last one, which is called, “overall flow.”

My eventual goal will be to do DVD # 1 one day, and DVD # 2 the next.

So far, even though I’m trying all this for the first time EVER – my body is feeling ‘looser.’  It’s a vague feeling at this point, but I feel less tight in my hips and back, and I’m feeling my hip bones when I walk, separate from my torso, if that makes any sense. I’m more aware of different parts of my body and am consciously pulling my shoulders down away from my ears.

I’m not kidding myself. I’m doing a lot of really good stretching and deep breathing that are really good for me, but I’m not doing anything like standing on my head against the wall or folding myself up into a pretzel shape. I may never get to that, but what I’m doing is really good for me and I’m grateful that I found this 2-DVD set called “Gentle Yoga” (for people 60 years old and up).

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October 29, 2016 · 4:06 pm

Money Well Spent

back1

When we were looking for land on which to build our home over 30 years ago, we wanted a lake, a nice creek, or a great view. We found that we couldn’t have all of them, so when we found this piece of land on top of a ridge line in Greenwood with a great view to the south, we jumped on it. When we were sitting on our porch several months ago, we were dismayed that we could no longer see down the hill into the valley due to a huge surge in growth of what we call, “weed trees.” They come up like a rocket and grow no matter what. They’ve particularly enjoyed the wet spring we had and the fairly mild summer.

We were also upset that we had lost our ‘fire break’ that might protect our home in the case of wild-fire.

We hired a man who works in Greenwood, handles several people’s lawns on the weekends, and agreed to take on the project of cutting our weed trees down. We agreed that he would come when he could and would pay him by the hour until the job was done.

He finished today and we’re delighted. This is our view taken while I’m sitting in a chair on the porch.

 

 

back2

Here’s another shot from another chair on the porch.

 

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Here’s a pic taken while sitting on the deck.

 

 

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This one was taken standing in the yard.

 

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And another. You can see that I still need to use the weed whacker to clean up the edges between the ‘civilized’ part of the back yard and the hill, but that won’t be too large a job.

 

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We’re delighted to have our view back, plus we now feel safer that we could protect our home in case of a wild-fire.

 

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Money well spent, indeed!  THANK YOU, Shane.

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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 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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October 20, 2016 · 10:23 am

Ahhhhhh!

s-media-cache-ako.pinimg.com via Cathy Ruggiero

s-media-cache-ako.pinimg.com via Cathy Ruggiero

Isn’t this picture WONDERFUL? This is just how I feel this morning. The front came through late last night/early this morning. Yesterday the high was 91. Today it’s supposed to be 71. AHHHHHH!

I’m happily wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt as I type. The doors are open, front and back, airing out the house. We may actually have to close a door if it gets TOO cool. How great is that!!!!

Since working outside may not be an option, at least until later in the day, I’m going to dive head-first into our pantry and see what good I can do. Since my husband is serious now about trying to avoid sugar, or things he eats that cause his body to MAKE sugar, I’m going to get together a huge group of things to go to the local food pantry.  (When we had our home built almost 30 years ago, we devoted the room off the kitchen to be a walk-in pantry. We have huge, heavy-duty built-in shelves going from wall to wall with a place for a 2nd fridge. We live on top of a ridge line. Sometimes we get snowed in up here and can’t get down – or back up – our STEEP driveway until the snow and ice melts – once for 14 days without power or public water.)

If you don’t hear from me, I probably got buried in there.

 

cliparting.com

cliparting.com

 

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September 30, 2016 · 12:06 pm

Good Morning!

"Yaaaawn" - cutestpaw

I set our alarm for 9:30 this morning, thinking that it was a silly thing to do. Of COURSE we would be up and around by then…

It seemed like the middle of the night when the alarm went off. My  husband and I had met downstairs last night/this morning when one thing or another made it so we were having a hard time sleeping. I read for about an hour and went back up. My husband stayed downstairs longer.

On Fridays we enjoy Lunch Bunch with our good, long-time friends of about 30 years now. It’s a time to catch up with what happened during the past week and share plans for the future. Everyone was doing well today, so we had a very happy lunch time. (breakfast for us).

Our to-do list is long, so I’m going to get at it soon. But I MIGHT try to sneak in a nap this afternoon…..

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September 24, 2016 · 5:59 pm

It’s So Hot

The Crone's Grove via Desiree Angelique Hackett

The Crone’s Grove via Desiree Angelique Hackett

 

Today it was 95 plus a heat index – MUCH too hot for old folks like us. We went to help our good friend move some super heavy duty shelving in boxes from her garage to her new storage unit and then set the shelving up. We were happy to help her, but things didn’t go quite as we planned.

There was a definite learning curve on figuring out how the shelves went together. We were working in the direct sunshine, even inside the storage unit, and the heat made it really hard to think, much less get much done. None of us was smart enough to bring any water. We got one set of the three sets put together. They’re really good quality shelves, and we think she’ll get good use out of them.

We were all too hot – and probably dehydrated – by the time we finished the first set. We dragged the other two boxes out of the truck, into the storage unit, and called it a day.

A few minutes later we were laughing as we met each other again at the grocery store, all looking quite bedraggled. :0)

We came home and I made us some lunch and got us a bottle of water. We ended up taking naps in our chairs in the living room.

We’re finally up again and half way functional again. Supposedly, a cool front is supposed to come through soon, bringing us much needed rain and significantly cooler temperatures. We couldn’t be more ready.

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September 24, 2016 · 11:06 am

Best Seat in the House

Zen to Zany via Cathy Ruggiero

Zen to Zany via Cathy Ruggiero

We had a wonderful time last night, having one of our long time good friends over for grilled kielbasa and veggies. We got to catch up on what’s been happening – or not happening – sharing several good hugs in the process.

This afternoon we’re going to her house to help her take heavy shelving to her new storage spot and get it set up.  She’s looking forward to getting a bunch of stuff in her home out from under foot. I’m happy that she’s excited about making changes that will be good for her.

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September 21, 2016 · 11:41 am

Beautiful Words!

“Negative”     “Normal”    “Unremarkable”   

At first glance, these words sound like words Debbie Downer would utter, don’t they? Nothing could be further from the truth!

 

seniorcitizen.travel

seniorcitizen.travel

 

We all realize that we’re mortal and we won’t last forever, but it’s not a part of our everyday lives. At least, it isn’t until you get older and your body tells you you’re not as young as you used to be. Even if you try to take care of yourself, get the lard off, move more, etc., your body ages and things start acting funny or going on strike.

When we got up this morning, we had a message on the answering machine.  The message was from the doctor, himself, wanting us to call him back. We did immediately, but he was in with a patient and we had to leave a message.

 

 

 

He called again about 30 minutes later. My husband talked to the doctor, but I was listening, too. My heart was in my throat as I listened to him speak. Finally, he said the magic word, “Negative.” I almost cried with relief.  We will see him again, as scheduled in one month, or before, if things get worse again. I’m still feeling myself relax a bit more as I absorb the good news.

Test results can change your life in an instant. I never used to even think about my few tests. My husband and I have had more and more tests for things as we’ve gotten older, and I unconsciously hold my breath until I hear the results.

Today is a wonderful day. “Negative” is such a lovely word!  I’ve learned that I truly appreciate the words, “Normal” and “Unremarkable,” as well.

I hope that YOU hear these one of these three words each time you have a test!

 

 

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September 17, 2016 · 12:12 pm

Chuckles – Take 14

c15

Thanks to Bill Lites’ email.

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September 13, 2016 · 2:22 pm

Happy Tuesday!

Live Life in Color

Live Life in Color

I’m celebrating today because Pinterest finally was able to resolve my problem loading my favorite pictures to my boards there. I was going into withdrawal. I love being able to share things with you on my blog, and then I go to Pinterest to save them there, as well. It’s been about 2 weeks since I was able to do that.

Each day I went to the site, tried to upload a pic, and then went away, disappointed when it wouldn’t work. I contacted the support people at Pinterest. Since I didn’t complain daily, they marked my issue ‘solved,’ but emailed me to let me know. I immediately wrote again, giving them as much information about exactly what happened when I tried and failed.

Today I tried to upload THIS picture and voila! it worked!!!!! I tried to reply to the last issue ticket, thanking the support team for their good help, but they sent me an email saying that I would have to start a new ticket if the problem was still alive.  Since I don’t want to bother a probably overworked support team, I’ll just tell YOU.

I love working on computers when things are working. I have NO patience and feel completely DUMB when they don’t. I’m very grateful that there are knowledgeable people behind the websites I frequent who can make things right again.

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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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July 7, 2016 · 11:07 am

A New Beginning – Asking a Favor

coolprogeny.com

coolprogeny.com

I’ve spent most of the day deleting blog posts.

I now have what is known as a “Business” account with unlimited space and unlimited pictures. I have to admit I feel split right down the middle emotionally right now. Half of my feels sad, disenfranchised, a bit angry at having lost over 6 years of posts and pictures due to lack of communication between me and my blog host, WordPress. The other half, though, feels a bit ‘lighter,’ purged of old baggage, old thoughts, obsolete things, etc.

I’m still going to be working on fixing things. My former blog posts are gone now, but the former categories remain. I’m assuming if you click on any of them, it will show you an empty category. I’m going to try to get rid of all the categories, too, having a new beginning there, as well.

Finally, I’m going to try to redo the pages at the top of the blog.

I would like to ask you a favor.

If you can make the time, I would love to know what you like about the blog, categories you enjoy, what you would like to see more of. I also would be very appreciative if you would let me know what you’d like to see less of.  Don’t worry, I can handle it. This blog is for all of us. If I’m doing something you would rather I stop, please say so. This is a chance for me to get more in tune with the people who signed up for the blog.

I’m grateful for your readership. I love writing this blog. I hope to bring you more of what you’re enjoying.

Thanks very much!

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