As you can see, I have gained weight over the course of the last couple of months. I can blame it on lots of things, but the truth is, I ate the wrong things and ate too much, and didn’t exercise enough.
We ordered the first shipment of what we plan to be a two-month “get-back-on-the-horse,” “shot-n-the-arm” course of the South Beach diet,
the closest to the keto plan we have not been following closely enough lately. We are hoping that once we see the results on the scale, we will be re-motivated to act like adults and eat responsibly.
One aggravation is that we ordered on June 22nd and we still have not received our order. I got on the chat part of the website and talked to a nice lady who tried to find out what the problem was. She told me that they were waiting for parts of our orders to be delivered to THEM. I know that everyone is having problems with shortages, slow shipments, etc. due to COVID-19. They are probably trying to work with a skeleton crew, and they can’t ship until the orders are complete.
I found out recently that MY order had finally shipped on the 6th, but my husband’s had NOT. That is upsetting because if HE is unhappy, MY life is even more of a challenge. I checked this morning and found that HIS shipment was shipped on the 6th, too – apparently the his account had not been updated when I checked last time. HOORAY!
They use Fedex, but their track your order link isn’t working. I’m hoping we will get the delivery this week and can get started. Fingers crossed!
Filed under DIET!, exercise, Healthy Eating
Rodney Dangerfield via keepinspiring.me
My husband is a genealogy buff. He worked for a long time researching and gathering information and then put everything on Family Treemaker. The company changed hands or something, causing us a large period of time with no support, but they came out with a new version not long ago.
My husband decided that he needed to organize things better, standardizing how names were listed in pictures, for example. He’s been working on that all last week and is still working on it now.
A disappointment is that I don’t know much of anything about my mother’s family. I asked her to sit down with me and tell me about her family. I told her I would make notes. She was always ‘too busy,’ and I wasn’t insistent enough. When she died, I found a whole cedar chest full of albums of pictures, NONE of which was labeled. I had NO idea who anyone was.
When the software has been updated (thanks to my husband’s good work) , I will be able to start with someone in our history and see all the pics and documents we have associated with them!
Filed under Family, Funny Signs - Humor
The zucchini and yellow crookneck squash plants are looking pretty good, though none have started to produce actual veggies yet. I will have to make time to weed out there very soon. The sweet red onions are continuing to get larger.
This is today’s haul of tomatoes. I really don’t know why we’re getting so many little bitty tomatoes, but I’m grateful we can enjoy them with our meals.
It’s really humid out today. It’s 80 degrees now, which would be wonderful, but the humidity is 78%, making it feel like a sauna the minute you go out. We have had the doors open to enjoy the morning, but are going to have to close up, or I will melt into a puddle onto the floor in front of my computer…..
Fine Art Blogger
Stephen Berry
“Sunshine” – Lana Matich Privitera
YouTube
Filed under Watercolors I Love
This is my jewelry findings area now. You can see my wooden ‘thingie’ on the left and the tabletop filing cabinet on the right.
The wonderful wooden thingie now holds earring cards, labels, glue, tootpicks, glue, string, and marshmallow backs for French hooks.
The top of the filing cabinet has my tools, a short ruler, a cup I use for pics, a bottle of glue and some pages of stick-on bling.
GOLD French hooks, straight pins, jump rings, etc.
SILVER French hooks, straight pins, jump rings, etc. + a box of assorted.
Stainless steel studs, backs, clip-on findings, etc., + a couple of rubber stamp thingies that are great for carrying post earrings back and forth.
I’ll probably refine this as I use it, but I now have all the findings together and my table is clear for my calendar and office type stuff. :0)
Levine Homes
For some reason I cannot explain, I like to PAINT earring pieces upstairs in my art room, but I like to put the earrings together, put the labels, on put them on cards, and take pics in our office downstairs. I really don’t have a good place to work down here, so I end up working on top of PILES of STUFF.
It started out where I had a few different kinds of findings, labels, earring cards and tools I kept these in a neat wooden ‘thingie’ I found at a garage sale. Soon my supplies overloaded its capacity and things hit the fan after that.
This is the wooden ‘thingie’ I love. I will still use it for some of the supplies.
Now that you are thoroughly appalled by my chaos, I’ll tell you that I have a PLAN on how to make order from it.
I have this nice tabletop file cabinet that I haven’t been using for awhile now. I have cleaned it out and plan to use it to make some sense out of my jewelry making supplies. I am hoping that between this and my wooden ‘thingie,’ I can access my stuff easily and have it not under foot while not in use.
This is one of today’s projects.
If I have some success, I’ll take pics and share them with you.
Filed under Lewis projects, Organizing/DeCluttering
A.A. Milne via keepinspiring.me
Filed under Favorite Quotes, Funny Signs - Humor
Quora
shettys_art_photography
Edgar Artis – Webneel.com
School District of Philadelphia
Filed under Creativity
I just listed these on EyecatchingEarrings.
There are three hand-painted discs put together to make these earrings. The length of the earring is 2.5″. They have a French hook.
They are super light-weight. I love it that you can almost forget you have them on!
Each is one-of-a-kind.
Filed under Uncategorized
My friend, Marsha, sent me this. I had to share –
If the arrow doesn’t work for some reason, the URL is –
Filed under music
My husband and I had a wonderful celebration for Independence Day.
Chicago Steak Company
It rained off and on all day, but then cleared up. We started the grill on the deck and sat outside, waiting for the coals to be ready. (The potatoes were in the oven). It started to rain. It was a quiet rain, though, so we held our breaths, crossed our fingers and hoped we could get the steaks cooked. (I was ready if we had to use the broiler inside, but they taste better with the charcoal flavor.)
The rain stopped, and then –
It didn’t last long, but the rainbow was absolutely beautiful.
About the same time –
Video Hive
I didn’t get pics of our own, but this gives you an idea. He – or they – (we’re not sure if we had one or two) kept coming back over and over until he/they were tanked up. :0)
We enjoyed a bird singing, and MANY birds coming and going from our feeders. A road runner ran across the yard, and a white-tailed bunny showed up briefly.
We had two squirrels – one on the hanging feeder and the other at the feeder that has a gallon bottle in the window – scurrying around.
Amber, our 95-pound yellow lab, was happily checking out everything in the yard, playing in the rain, coming back up on the deck to be with us, and then doing it all over again.
We went in and ate our dinner, hoping our neighbors would shoot off fireworks later.
The rains came again – really HEAVILY this time – about 8:45. I thought that was the end of any chance of fireworks. But, as we were watching a movie (we are enjoying a marathon of our Jason Bourne movies), we heard the distinctive sound. We went out to the deck. The moon was coming out of the clouds – gleaming brightly. And the fireworks began!
BestAnimations.com
We watched them for several minutes before going inside to continue with our movie.
What a wonderful celebration we had!
Filed under Family, Favorite Things, holidays
Our weather has been so weird this year that I don’t know what to expect on our ‘crops.’ Today’s tomatoes look as if I planted cherry tomato plants. I planted the normal tomato brands and types that are supposed to be happy with the climate of Arkansas (read HOT and sporadic water). We try to even this out with our irrigation system, but it gets to the point that the plants simply boil away when it gets to be too much.
We have lots of green tomatoes coming, though, so I’m hopeful we will get several more regular-sized tomatoes to enjoy this season.
My fish aren’t particularly patriotic, but I thought they would appreciate having a clean tank for the Independence Day celebrations today.
JD Houston via YouTube
We have had a quiet day, other than someone in the valley below us practicing with his gun this afternoon. I was settling down for a cat nap, but decided it wasn’t in the cards when the shooting started. I may get another chance before the evening begins.
The rain has stopped for now, and I’m hopeful we can have our cookout on the deck tonight and enjoy the neighbor’s fireworks.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family, Housekeeping - Maintenance
Green Sparkly Teardrop Earrings
Purple Sparkly Teardrop Earrings
Red Sparkly Teardrop Earrings
Red and White Trapezoid Earrings
Purple and White Trapezoid Earrings
Green and White Trapezoid Earrings
Blue and White Trapezoid Earrings
The new earrings are listed on Eyecatching Earrings
I have a third different type of earring in the works today. I’ll try to show it to you later.
Filed under playing in my art room
Watercolor Painting
“Blue Haze” – Steve B. – ArtRage
Heidi Willis – Udemy
YouTube
Filed under Watercolors I Love
We are having a quite dark, rainy Independence Day so far. I don’t know how long it has been raining, but the ground was really saturated when I took Molly out for her morning walk. I sank down into some mud at one point walking around the back of the well house. We live on top of a ridge line, so it takes quite a bit of rain to make our ground soggy. It’s a quiet rain, rather than a severe storm, so we have the doors open, enjoying a nice breeze, as well as the lovely sound of the rain.
I do hope that it stops by evening, though. We have become quite spoiled here because a couple of neighbors down in the valley behind our home put on quite a fireworks show most years. One of my favorite things in the world is fireworks. I especially love the big orange streaky ones that seem to cover the whole sky. I love ALL of them that sparkle!
D’source
I love snakes and sparklers, too.
GIPHY
A memory that will always fill my heart and make me tear up is a year before my husband and I were married. We were celebrating at my parents’ house. Their house sat on an acre and a quarter of land in a neighborhood of two mile-long streets, 24th Street and 25th Place, that each had the same amount of land between Sheridan Avenue and Memorial Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My dad had bad cataracts and the medical community was JUST to the point where removal of them wasn’t such a huge issue. My dad was living with his, even though he had had to give up a lot of things, not being able to see well enough to enjoy them. The 4th of July was his favorite holiday. He LOVED fireworks. My husband-to-be bought a bunch and brought them with him when he came to share dinner. When night fell, we were all sitting on the patio. My husband brought out the bag of fireworks, a complete surprise for my dad, and proceeded to give my dad the best of all Independence Day celebrations. HE COULD SEE THE FIREWORKS and was like a little kid, joy on his face at each one. It was a hot night and my husband practically worked himself to death to give my dad his personal fireworks display. (I am teared up remembering this. I just went across the room to give my husband a big hug, kiss the top of his head, and tell him again how MUCH that gift meant to my whole family.)
I am hoping that we can cook out tonight. We bought some steak and baking potatoes – a total splurge for us. If not tonight, my fingers will be crossed we can do it tomorrow night.
I hope you are having a happy day, too.
May your day and evening be filled with family, friends, fun, food, and fireworks!
Filed under holidays
Animal Fact Guide
“Well as giraffes say, you don’t get no leaves unless you stick your neck out.” – Sid Waddell
Animals | HowStuffWorks
“I’d hate to be a giraffe with a sore throat.” – Mitch Hedberg
CNN.com
“A giraffe has a black tongue 27 inches long and no vocal chords. A giraffe has nothing to say. He just goes on giraffing.” – Robert Fulghum
“A bit of advice: never read a pop-up book about giraffes.” – Sean Lock
Filed under Amazing Animals, Favorite Quotes
Emily Dickinson-keepinspiring.me
Each time I go up to my art room, I’m filled with the desire to make something I like. My head starts working overtime, swirling with the possibilities of what I can play with.
Lately I have been playing the game of, “Cleaning up my Art Room.” What this ACTUALLY means – unless someone is coming who wants to SEE it – is that I START gathering things up to clear off my drafting table and quickly get caught up by an idea for making something. “Cleaning” drops off quickly as I get out even more things in order to play.
Yesterday the cleaning up stopped as I started a new group of earrings. I found some things I want to try, plus I have a couple of new shapes, so I spent about half the afternoon up there, first painting one side of the earring shapes, letting them dry, then painting the second side. Last night I sprayed the glaze fixative on the side that was ‘up.’ This morning I sprayed the second side. Today I’ll do a bit more work on them in the art room, and then bring them downstairs, here to the office, where I put them together.
I love the fact that I have enough supplies to try a lot of things, ‘dwelling in the possibilities.’ Even though things never turn out the way I envision, my time in the art room is priceless. Possibilities abound. I can escape from any stress. I can lose myself in the joy of the game, ‘What If…”
Filed under Creativity, playing in my art room
APKPure.com
Art & Drawing Community-Trend Today
Buzzz Hippy
Everything About Art
Painting Valley
Filed under drawings
Tail and Fur
We are one step closer to having our ability to take as long a hot shower as we would like.
Our wonderful plumber – Travis Hawkins, 479-461-8347 – came and looked at things. He is looking for a replacement for our water pressure tank in the well house. (It has lasted for over 30 years, so I guess we got our money’s worth.) He will get back to us when he is ready to install it for us.
Meanwhile, he suggested that we try CLR on our shower head, just in case it was clogged, slowing the water flow. (Good pressure is essential for the tankless water heater to function and continue to function.)
The directions said to dilute it by 50%, immerse the head in the liquid for 2 minutes, then rinse thoroughly. I did this three times, then put it back up. We have a rain water shower head, that is large and has a lot of holes. The treatment helped, but we still had a lot of clogged holes.
I took the head down again and this time immersed the head all morning. This seems to have helped significantly. I had hot water for my WHOLE shower this time! The water pressure is still low, though, so we will replace the tank when Travis can find one and install it for us, so that we won’t be on the borderline of functionality.
But CLR is a good product!
Drawing and Painting for Kids
fatima_t_i-Reddit
FAVPNG.com
portugese.fanshare.com
Filed under drawings
creativeartworksblog 