Today was the first Lunch Bunch since our waitress, Susan, retired. We are all happy for Susan, giving her a good send-off last Friday, her last day, before she started taking care of her grandchildren. She has spent many years working hard, getting up early to go to work, do the prep necessary before opening the restaurant, making pizza dough, cutting up veggies, all the things that need to be done to have the place run smoothly. She’s still getting up early every day, but now will fill her days with life flowing from the plans of the grandkids. She grinned from ear to ear last Friday, clearly relishing the change of focus for her life.
So today we gathered once again. Mikey, our other treasured waitress, took our orders. We talked about the fact that SHE kept feeling that Susan was “just on vacation,” and would be back at work soon. WE kept thinking she would come out from the back, drying hands on her apron, smiling and joking with us.
One Green Planet
Things change and we must change with them. Susan has our permanent invitation to join us at the table for Lunch Bunch. We HOPE she’ll take us up on that some Friday very soon. Happy for her, sad for us, resistant to change…
I have such wonderful memories of Halloween when I was a child, back in 1492…
It was before the world changed. Back when I was free to walk by myself half a mile to my friend’s house to play for the day. Back when we actually Trick-or-Treated, dressed up in handmade costumes and going out at night with a group of friends – no parents – to spend a couple of hours gathering as many goodies as possible before we wound our way back home, half sick from eating our ‘spoils.’ :0)
I never wore a costume bought from a store. One of my favorite memories was figuring out what I ‘would go as” (meaning what type of person or character I would emulate) and then figuring out how I could make a costume. My friends did the same.
I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma on one of two streets that ran parallel to each other and were one mile long, called Johannson Acres. Each house sat on an acre and a quarter. Some of my friends had horses, though I never learned to ride.
My friends would meet on Halloween evening and walk to the neighborhood behind us, where the houses were closer together with lots and lots of porch lights on, welcoming us. My favorite treat was a mini-chocolate bar, like Snickers. A close second was anything baked by a wonderful mom.
We would come home laden with goodies, legs tired from all of the walking, grinning from ear to ear, full of stories about our adventures. I was shocked one year to hear that we needed to cut apples in half before eating to make sure there weren’t any razor blades hidden in them – the first memory that the world as I knew it was changing.
Since we now live on top of a ridge line, up a steep driving outside the town, we don’t get any trick-or-treaters. Churches have get-togethers for the kids, or create scary houses for kids and their parents to tour. If you go to town during the festivities, you might see a small group of children, but they are closely followed by a mom in a vehicle. Everyone seems to be in a costume bought from the store. Kids are taught to wait to eat any goodies so that parents can go through everything, throwing out anything baked, or anything that might be suspect before the children get their goodies back.
My ‘celebration’ of Halloween nowadays is search the Net to find the absolutely fantastic job people do on pumpkins and decorations. I am in awe of the creativity and talent shown and will share what I find with you. I’ll also look for children’s costumes that I find clever and creative.
Lately, I have been letting my yard work stand for my time on the elliptical trainer, and just doing my yoga. I’ve sloughed off the exercise with weights, as well. I tell myself that I’m up, working hard in the yard, and that should count for something.
Maybe it DOES in the larger scheme of things, but I DO feel a difference. The yard work is good, but it really doesn’t make me feel like I do when I’ve spent 20 to 35 minutes on the elliptical or done my arm exercises with the weights.
I read about endorphins and the people who wax eloquent about how great they feel after exercise. They are energized, high on life, etc. Sadly, not so for me.
The yoga does stretch me out, something I need more and more as I age. I don’t fold myself into a paper airplane, pretzel shape, or stand on my head, but I DO go through a routine that stretches every part of me. It makes me more flexible. My pain diminishes. I feel good about my efforts and that’s good.
I realize that I may never actually feel an endorphin. Right now I don’t think I would know one if it slapped me in the face, but that’s okay. I would like to look forward to my exercise – at least a little bit – instead of doggedly adding it to my desk calendar and giving myself a gold star when I actually do what I should.
Each day is a new day, though – a new chance to eat right and make myself strong.
I lost 2 of the pounds I gained from our splurge of the fish lunch from the grocery deli this week. I’m HOPING that I continue to go DOWN now instead of the up-again-down-again results I’ve been getting. Today we’re ending the month before starting a brand new one tomorrow. Maybe that will add to my motivation. I like this quote –
Simple Nourished Living
I just finished a nice chat online with our son. The fact that we can touch base whenever we would like, even though he’s across the world from us, means everything. He sent me some pics of a really nice place he found to hike with his friend. Good for body, mind, and spirit.
He’s trying to get me to meditate. I have tried to do it a few times. So far, I sit down in the proper position, close my eyes, and immediately start thinking of what I need to do, start worrying about something, etc. I may be hopeless.
Our weather is glorious today. We’re supposed to have a high of 86 and a chance of rain this afternoon. I’ve been out murdering weeds, spraying with KillzAll. Once I finish with that, I’ll start trying to clean up our flower planters. I hope we have a good, long fall this year, instead of going from too-hot-and-humid to be outside to too-cold-and blustery to be outside. :0) I’ll try to get some pics to share as I go.
My husband and I will start our newest mailbox decoration soon – Wonder Warthog – a favorite comic book character of my husband’s.
We have a different image, but you get the idea.
My to-do list is long today. I’ll try to get the most important stuff done first, in case I poop out before all is accomplished…
We watched “Those Who Wish Me Dead” last night and thought it was a good movie. The main star was Angelina Jolie, and she did a good job. I was more impressed by a couple of people I didn’t know – Finn Little and Medina Senghore.
Medina played a policeman’s wife. She dominated every scene she was in. I would like to see more of her movies.
Finn was amazing. He was a child – and usually that’s just an ancillary part, but he was the main point of the movie. The synopsis of the movie is, ‘A teenage murder witness finds himself pursued by twin assassins in the Montana wilderness with a survival expert tasked with protecting him — and a forest fire threatening to consume them all.’
“Never stand between a dog and the fire hydrant.”—John Peer
500px.com
“The average dog is nicer than the average person.”—Andy Rooney
Sarah Regan Snavely-greyhoundsculptor.bigcartel.com
“The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.”—Charles De Gaulle
sculptgallery.com
“Properly trained, a man can be dog’s best friend.”—Corey Ford
wire art-holy-smoke.co.uk
“The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.”—Samuel Butler
“Rich, fatty foods are like destiny: they too, shape our ends.”
“I am in shape. Round is a shape.” ~ Garfield
“Inside me is a thin person trying to get out, but I can usually sedate her with 4 or 5 cupcakes.”
______________
thedietchat.com
NotSalmon.com
My personal weight loss efforts are like a trampoline. For quite a while now I’ve been losing the same 4 lbs and then regaining them.
I’m happy that I’m down 30 lbs from my heaviest weight and that I’ve lost almost 29 inches, but I would like to go to the next level. My husband has made even more progress and is holding his own against being a Type II diabetic.
The reason for the latest gain is fried fish calling to us from the deli at the grocery store. We were in there with a careful list – and their special for Mondays is friend chicken (so we thought we were safe) but they had just finished a batch of as we walked in. The fish started calling and we answered. And so we’re up again.
It’s harder when there are two people involved. I can’t blame my problems on my husband, for sure, but it would help if we were feeling strong at the same time.
“I’ve decided I’ll never get down to my original weight. I am OK with that. After all, 6 lbs., 3 oz, is just not realistic.”
“I am not overweight. I am just nine inches too short.” ~ Shelley Winters
“I tried every diet in the book. I tried some that weren’t in the book. I tried eating the book. It tasted better than most of the diets.” ~ Dolly Parton
“Diet is wishful shrinking.”
“I am on a 90-day wonder diet. Thus far, I’ve lost 45 days.”
I’m about to fix lunch, and then I’ll go do a bit in the yard.
Today I’m going to mix up a container of KillzAll. I mix two gallons at a time in a nice sprayer. I’ll lug it out to the garden and see what needs to be sprayed. If I’m not totally pooped after that, I may mix up another container full….
creativeartworksblog 