Filed under When Wood Comes Alive
Last week we received the regular follow-up email REAL FOOD CO sends after we pick up our order, asking for feedback. This time I wrote a comment that I would really like to order the olive bread, rather than waiting for it to show up on the website as an offering for the week.
Stacy ANSWERED, asking me how many half loaves I wanted to order! I replied, and we can pick them up next Monday! HOORAY!!!!!
We went from having only restaurants – and most of them having to offer mainly take-out – to having TWO places who offer frozen meals that are good for you and taste good, too.
The other new place is STU’S CLEAN COOKIN’.
Between the two places, we are very happy campers. We have a frozen meal as our main meal of the day. The controlled portions and convenience makes it easy to stay on our new way of eating 5 days per week.
The other meal is tuna fish salad with a side of sweet pickles for my husband and green or black olives for me.
My husband has several snacks each day. I try to LIMIT mine, drinking lots of water instead, in an effort to lose my lard.
The other two days we eat something I cook. This week I’ll fix “Keto Chili” with a recipe by Suzanne Ryan of Simply Keto. That will last us all weekend.
I still have a long way to go to get to my goal weight, but my husband has pretty much reached his goal.
Filed under DIET!, getting the lard off, taking care of yourself
It looks like night outside. It is 44 degrees F. (wind chill of 38), and is raining a LOT. UGH. I am very thankful I have a warm, dry house and don’t have to go out.
That said, it’s a lovely day for inside stuff. I am planning to play in my art room today. I dreamed about cartoony ‘animals’ made from old jewelry on a hard canvas board with a colorful, painted background around them. Even if the idea doesn’t turn out at all, it’ll be fun to try… :0)
I am also starting to gather things to add to my booth in town. Next week I will change the Halloween stuff for Thanksgiving and Christmas things. It’s fun to change the whole look of our little booth. I’m hoping people will find something they like and will take it home.
I may be totally UN-technical, but I managed to make Firefox my default browser on my computer yesterday. I have moved most of my stuff from Chrome to Firefox now, and am working to put all the posts I’ve written since WordPress did their upgrade into categories, now that I can SEE them and ACCESS them again. This will take awhile, because, as you know, I write several posts each day, but I’m hoping to be caught up soon.
I had a nice chat with our son this morning. He lives in Thailand, renting a house in the country there, and simply loves it. He has privacy to meditate, do the work he needs to do for his client, make music in his music room without bothering anyone, etc. He is living his dream and it fills me with joy. I feel lucky that he is such a good communicator. I can almost forget that he is across the world from us.
I’m still laughing that Amber, our 95-pound yellow lab, was FINALLY persuaded to ‘get DOWN’ out of my office chair with me. She was just outside. My husband let her in, not bothering to even run a towel over her, and she came straight for me. She was halfway up into my chair before I could react. Now “I” will have to run a towel over BOTH of us to make us acceptable to be in the house…
I hope that you are having a fun day today.
Actually, there is quite a bit of food that is ‘good to eat,’ BUT …
My husband and I loaded up the back of the truck with our trash and drove down to get our mail and leave the trash for the wonderful people who come, no matter what the weather, and whisk it away.
We came up to find that our 95 pound yellow lab, Amber, had been busy. A transparent cookie container was on the floor – open. It was the box we bought at the grocery yesterday of no sugar added oatmeal raisin cookies for my husband.
Amber has perfected a ‘I haven’t been doing anything – really’ look and was wearing it when we walked into the kitchen. She had the gall to sniff at the empty container avidly as though she were starving.
My husband was NOT amused…
It’s probably a good thing that we are eating lunch very soon.
Filed under Amazing Animals, DIET!, Family
The second tee is a ‘redo,’ since I forgot to seal the paint and it all came off in the clothes washer.
Both tees are ones I painted because I’m a slob. No matter how careful I try to be, I end up with stains that won’t come out. Instead of pitching the tees, I paint them.
Filed under playing in my art room
Ever since WordPress (my blog host) ‘improved’ their website, I have not been able to see or choose categories for my posts. They have all been ‘uncategorized,’ lumped into the great mishmash in the sky, never to be found again.
I had looked and looked, not even able to figure out how to talk to a real person, much less find where my categories were listed, or if they even HAD category options anymore. Yesterday I finally found a CHAT and talked to a nice man who gave me URLs to the information I needed. They didn’t work, though, and he showed me screen shots of what HE was seeing.
It finally dawned on me that some other websites I use, such as my bank website and Amazon Handmade, among others, weren’t happy with my Chrome browser. I have the latest version of it, but I had to use Firefox to get to the sites that wouldn’t accept Chrome anymore.
When I was able to move my blog website to Firefox, I was suddenly able to SEE and ACCESS my categories again. I am in the process of editing each of the posts I’ve written since the WordPress upgrade – a laborious process, but it will give my posts a home.
Along with this, I decided I would finally move ALL my stuff from Chrome to Firefox. I now have Firefox as my main browser, moving each thing from one to the other, making sure my usernames and passwords work. This is a huge, scary project for an UN-TECHNICAL, almost Luddite, like me. I am looking at this as another of life’s character-building exercises.
I DO feel good that I figured out what was happening and am on the road to getting my act together again. HOORAY!
Filed under Challenges, Changes, character-building exercises
Filed under When Wood Comes Alive
I got angry with my husband a couple of nights ago because he got grapes and two cookies to eat before bedtime. We had been in the habit of eating something before bed, but usually I brought him something or he brought me something. This time it was ‘every man for himself.’ He told me he was trying to help me with my diet.
I bit him about it, stomping into the kitchen to get myself some cashews.
Last night, he was suddenly standing beside my recliner with a small bowl of cashews in one hand and his snack in his other hand. THIS time I was frustrated because I had not had any snacks all day and now here he was, handing me one.
OKAY. You can easily see the reason for the confession. I’m a mess and should be shot.
I have been thinking about it ever since and finally have figured out what my problem is – I am childishly resenting my husband’s situation.
I’m the one who took responsibility for his Type II diabetes and figured out things he could eat and drink while cutting out as much sugar as we could. He simply griped a bit, but ate what I fixed or bought. He is now on board with avoiding sugar, though he still denies he is diabetic.
He was overweight, but not nearly as much as I. Plus he’s taller, and I resent THAT, too – weight-wise. He is almost never hungry while I go around with my stomach – which thinks my throat has been cut – growls. He is right about where he wants to be weight-wise now while I have another 30 lbs to go. He is now at the point where he can have snacks whenever the thought occurs to him while I try to satisfy myself with another bottle of water.
I’m finished ranting now – or at least I THINK I am.
It is NOT his fault that I stuffed my face for far too long. It is not his fault that he loses weight more quickly than I – even with my efforts to exercise daily – or has less to lose. It is not his fault that I’m not taller. My resentment is misplaced and unfair.
I am now picturing my ‘mental tantrum’ – and deciding that this is something I will change.
I will change the cashews to an apple tonight. I might even share it with him.
Filed under DIET!
I just came in from about 20 chilly minutes outside. It’s not really that ‘cold,’ (52 degrees), but it’s raw-feeling and quite overcast and the wind is whipping around, making it FEEL a lot chillier.
I am planning to have several short sessions outside while it’s not actually raining, since we’re supposed to have rain tonight through Thursday.
This first time I gathered the few ripe tomatoes on the vines and then was caught up by some pretty blooms on our Rio Samba rose bushes. We also have a couple of twice-blooming iris, but I haven’t decided it I’ll bring them in or not. :0)
Even at mid-week, I was having to put on a sweat band to work outside very long. Not so today! I wore a much-used down vest and still got cold.
I will fix us some lunch and then see if I can get the irrigation system controller off the agricultural faucet next.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Filed under When Wood Comes Alive
We will have cold, wet weather the next few days. It’s not raining right now, but it is REALLY overcast and gloomy. My initial reaction is to go back to bed – and if not that – at least spend all day in my recliner under a throw with a heat pad, making a nice warm nest with coffee beside me and a good book in my hand.
The change has been pretty sudden. We had the doors open enjoying bright sunshine with a nice breeze in the middle of the week. A 30 degree drop in temperatures has really changed things.
If the weather cooperates, I’ll see if we have any last tomatoes, maybe pull out the plants, get the irrigation control off the outside agricultural faucet, and talk to my husband about shutting down the irrigation system.
Mother Nature has my attention.
Filed under Mother Nature
I guess I ate lead yesterday. The scales scoffed at me this morning, announcing loudly that I had GAINED TWO POUNDS. Ugh.
We are still doing our new eating program of using a frozen meal from Real Food or Stu’s Clean Cookin’ in Greenwood as our main meal of the day. We have tuna fish salad for lunch and maybe a snack. A careful snack.
Mostly this is resulting in some slow, steady weight loss for both my husband and myself. (He is losing faster than I am though he eats more snacks. :0( )
I am trying to be adult about this, realizing that some days my body will retain water. Sometimes the scales are in a mood to scoff at me. Sometimes I’m not holding my mouth right when I get on the scales.
Today I am fixing our regular tuna fish salad lunch, and then cooking bacon-wrapped hamburger patties for dinner. We will have spinach on the side.
I will drink water until my eyeballs float. I will work outside in the yard some this afternoon, and then will do at least half an hour of yoga stretches this afternoon.
I will try to simply ‘keep on keepin’ on,’ doing what I’m supposed to, trusting that whatever caused the scales to go in the wrong direction will correct itself tomorrow morning. I will hope that the measuring tape will show some improvement at the end of the month.
BUT I WISH THE SCALES WOULD PAT ME ON THE HEAD MORE OFTEN.
Filed under DIET!
Filed under paper art
It was close to 70 degrees F. when I awoke this morning. Now it’s about 59. We have a cold front moving through, with possible thunderstorms, and a forecast temp of mid-40’s by the afternoon. Wow.
Yesterday we had doors open to a lovely breeze and bright sunshine. Today we have gusty winds and flying hairballs. Mother Nature is laughing at us.
We are due to leave for Lunch Bunch and errands in 20 minutes. It looks like we may blow away or drown.
Enjoy your day!
Filed under Mother Nature
creativeartworksblog 