Wilferd A Peterson via Lisa Bearnes Richey
Filed under Attitude, Challenges, Encouragement
Jeff Jett – LinkedIn
Catherine Lee – LinkedIn
“Rudimentary Stone Stairs” – Paul Militaru Photography
“Stairs to the Hill” – Paul Militaru Photography
“To the Secret Place” – Paul Militaru Photography
KimberleyJanePryor – wordpress.com
I’ve reported to you that my husband and I have each lost about 30 lbs and several inches on Nutrisystem. Lately though, we’re on yet another plateau from Hell. We’ve been including flex meals, as Nutrisystem would like us to, and we’ve maintained, but not lost, any more weight and it has been at least a couple of weeks now.
The last time this happened, I was advised by one of the counselors to switch lunch and dinner entrees. That helped for a bit, but not long term. We’ve been eating large salads for dinner. I’m beginning to suspect that we need to scale those back. I know that salads are an area where you can unconsciously pile on more calories than you meant to.
The other thing I’m going to do this afternoon – while the weather is forecast to be yucky – cold, and an 80% chance of rain – is to reread my notes and the articles I saved from Nutrisystem to see if we’re glossing over something that is causing this aggravation. My husband’s response is to stop eating anything except grapes, apples, nuts, NS cookies, and the salad we have for dinner, other than our flex meals. I’m trying to talk him out of this, since NS advises not to skip meals, and to eat what is on your plan – but this is falling on deaf ears at the moment. I’m doing better about staying on the plan, but my results aren’t great, either, so I can see why my husband wouldn’t put much credence in what “I” am telling him he ‘should’ be doing…
So – I’ll do some reading and see if I can figure out why we’re not losing the lard lately. Wish me luck?
Catherine Lee – LinkedIn
Title is mine. Gorgeous photo is by Catherine Lee.
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography, Catherine Lee
Kinderling Kids Radio
I just came in from my third session in the yard cleaning out planters, pruning, etc. I’m about to do some SERIOUS eating (lunch) and RELAXING for awhile. I might even nod off.
I feel good that I finished out in the yard – though not even THINKING about the leaf mulching yet – because we have an 80% chance of rain all day tomorrow with colder, yuckier days after.
Filed under Gardening
Angie’s List
We aren’t doing anything special for Thanksgiving this year. We are thankful to be enjoying what we call a “main meal salad” this evening.
Today we have the PERFECT day to be outside cutting down things that froze during the last cold snap, pruning plants, and cleaning out for the winter. I’ve done one session out there so far today, cleaning out the brick planters that run across the front of the house. Now I’m working on the trio of 8 foot brick planters that go between our yard and the top of our driveway. I’m hoping to finish that, plus cleaning up and winterizing the planters on the deck before I run out of time, daylight, and energy today.
It’s supposed to be rainy tomorrow, followed by colder weather. so I’m pushing myself a bit to get the pruning and cleaning out done today, saving the leaf mulching for other days after the leaves dry out again.
The sun is shining, the doggies go outside and play with each other or scurry around, finding interesting things to smell, dig up, or otherwise chase, plus bringing bones of deer in the yard for a good chew. (I never know where they find them, or what happened that the sweet deer are gone, but the doggies never fail to find the bones and bring them home, chewing on them until MEAN OLD MOMMA takes them away and disposes of them.)
I’ve been resting awhile after my first session outside. I’m about to do another.
I hope you’re enjoying your day, too!
Filed under Gardening
Jeff Jett – LinkedIn
Catherine Lee – LinkedIn
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography, Catherine Lee
Kings County Politics
“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~ Melody Beattie
“Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.” ~W.T. Purkiser
Have a wonderful day, everyone!!!
Filed under holidays
I’m only halfway to my weight loss goal, but a few TANGIBLE things are helping motivate me:
I showed you several weeks ago that I am finally able to wear a sweater/jacket top that I’ve moved back and forth between closets for several years now.
Today I was finally able to wear a snuggly, soft, furry vest that my husband bought me years ago in the Grand Canyon Gift Shop.
And I’m actually able to zip it up without a problem! It has coyotes, bears, moose, evergreen trees, half-moons and other things all around the bottom third of the vest. I loved it when he bought it for me, and now I feel as if I have a ‘new’ vest. I love it again!
We were talking about our efforts on the way to town to do our errands this morning. I pointed out that it was a big deal that my husband has been able to change his 38/30 jeans for 34/30 currently, and soon will need to go to 32/30! TANGIBLE differences make you feel as if your efforts are worth it.
AND I’m going for a gold star on my calendar today for doing my session of yoga! :0)
If you have things that have motivated you in your efforts to lose weight or exercise, I would love it if you would share them with me.
“Dance of the Water” – Paul Militaru Photography
“Elegant Dance of Water” – Paul Militaru Photography
Well, I threw away things, put extra supplies in the pantry, and reorganized the rest, having the things I use most often easily accessible now.
Our driveway beeper went off just before I took these pics. It was our wonderful Tri-Hill bug guy, on a follow-up trip to treat the outside of the house that he couldn’t do due to rain when he treated the inside recently. I found out that his last work day this week is today, and he has until Tuesday morning off!
While we were talking, I again noticed a BUNCH of frozen, dead foliage around the porch and in the planters, plus a gazillion dead ladybugs on the front porch. I was embarrassed that our outside was such a mess, so I’ll put in some time out there this afternoon. I’ll get rid of the poor ladybugs, cut down the dead stuff, and maybe get started on the leaves all over the front yard. I want to make mulch for the flower beds. If they’re dry enough, I might get started on that today…
I hope that YOU are having a wonderful last-day-before-Thanksgiving, too!
Believe it or not, this is a very nice double pull-out drawer inside one of my kitchen cabinets. The bottom holds cooking vessels of various kinds and stays in good order. This, however, is a horse of a completely different color, to coin a phrase.
Ziplock bags, sandwich bags, aluminum foil, etc. are stashed in here to the point it’s hard to get one thing out without other things coming with it.
So this drawer is today’s project.
Here it is from another angle. I would be embarrassed to show it to you – or admit that it’s MINE – except you KNOW I’m a slob and that I’m on a mission this year to go through areas one at a time, sometimes – in this case – one DRAWER at a time to declutter, give away, throw away and then reorganize our over 30-year-old home.
My husband, thankfully, is oblivious to my slobbiness, and I overlook his championship pack-rat skills, as well. While this makes for a happier marriage, it results in messes like this.
The first step was taking everything out of the drawer, cleaning and relining it.
This is one view of what came out of the drawer.
And here’s another. Hopefully, later in the day I can show you a much-improved supplies drawer – putting it all on the island insures that I won’t leave it until later. We can’t fix lunch unless I clean this up! :0)
“Sky” – drawing by Niki Firmin, LinkedIn
Filed under Amazing Animals, Creativity, Niki Firmin - Pet Portraits
Jeff Jett
Buzz Feed
If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that my husband and I are on NutriSystem, trying to get the lard off. Since we were on it the first time, many years ago, they’ve added lots more food choices, plus frozen foods, plus a new emphasis on making this a lifestyle change, rather than a ‘diet.’ They are including ‘flex’ meals, one breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack each week to help you learn to function in the real world.
By trial and error, mostly (on our part) we’re learning to –
Eating out takes the curse off of dieting for us. We’re happy enough with the Nutrisystem meals, but since we can eat out, we don’t feel deprived. If we want to share a meal with friends, they don’t even have to know we’re dieting. Eating a real-world meal is a quality of life thing, making it much more reasonable for us to stay on Nutrisystem until we both meet our goals.
We’re also learning how to modify our cooking so that we are building healthy eating habits with a much better sense of what a ‘portion’ is.
Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, building good habits, Challenges, Changes, DIET!, Healthy Eating
Style Domaine
Filed under Creativity, playing with your food?
http://www.belcastroagency.com via Quote Master
My husband and I both love the Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Sadly, Stieg Larsson died. We love the books and we have the movies made from the books.
We thought the series would be over, but David Lagercrantz offers a book called, “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.” We avoided reading it for a while because our experience is that people who try to honor the legacy of a famed writer often produce a pale image in comparison.
Not so with David Lagercrantz! My husband read the book and passed it on to me. We agree that Lagercrantz does a fine job of continuing the series. We got the book because we saw that a movie has been made of it already, staring Claire Foy. We fear that we’ll be disappointed by the ‘new’ Lisbeth Salander (rather than Noomi Rapace in the other three), but we’ll find out. In the meantime, we are pleased that the series continues.
Filed under Book - Movie - TV Reviews
Hannah Kirk via Morning Coffee With Abba Ltd
We took Amber, our 93 pound lab ‘puppy’ with us in the truck as we did our errands yesterday.
Amber
She goes nuts when she hears the words, ‘go,’ or ‘car’, so she followed us out and jumped up into the back seat of the truck as soon as we opened the door for her. She doesn’t care where we’re going, she just wants to go with us.
We were almost home when FOUR does ran across the road in front of the truck. Three went across in a small parade and then one was hesitant. She followed soon after. We’ve passed deer beside the road before, but Amber didn’t notice them because they didn’t move. This time she got all excited, wanting to go out and play with them. She didn’t bark to scare them.
The deer got safely across the road and we continued on to our driveway, feeling lucky to have shared such a beautiful sight!
Filed under Amazing Animals, Mother Nature
“The Sea Early in the Morning” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography
The Salvation Army has a program called the Angel Tree program at Christmas time each year. The trees go up in your local town and people who qualify come and asked for their child to be added to the tickets on the tree. People choose a ticket and go and try to buy as many things on the list as possible for that child. The gifts are returned unwrapped by Dec. 7th to the people handling the Angel Tree and they and the Salvation Army handle the rest.
The child’s name, age, and gender are listed at the top of each ticket. Practical gifts, such as clothes (with sizes) are listed, plus a few ‘fun’ gifts on the wish list.
Each year we peruse the tickets and decide which one fits well with our ability to buy the things on the list. We have visions of an ‘idyllic’ beautiful boy or girl happily opening all the gifts, ecstatically happy with the choices with a wide open grin and whoops of joy. Reality is far different, probably, but we LOVE the idea of brightening a local child’s Christmas each year.
Last year we didn’t know where the tree was in time to participate. We were both really disappointed, so I wrote on my calendar this year to call City Hall in Greenwood to see if they were sponsoring the tree this year and when the tree would be up.
KVC West VA – KVC Health Systems
This year our choice was “Braden,” a 10-year-old boy. We got clothes – pants (jeans) , a shirt (Flash), a puffy blue coat, boots, and then a remote control car and batteries. He’s into “paleontology stuff,” so we got him a big fierce-looking dinosaur. The “pokemon” cards he listed featured dinosaurs. We also got “Jurassic” hat, scarf and gloves set.
We took all the bags and the ticket, plus the receipt so that the mother would be able to exchange anything that wasn’t right back to City Hall and left them with the nice lady from the water department who is handling things.
It seems weird that we’re doing the Angel Tree before Thanksgiving. I guess that’s why we missed out last year. I guess they need the time to post all the tickets, gather the gifts, deliver them wherever they go, etc.
I love that the Salvation Army thought of this program and runs it, making it easy for local banks or government offices to administer it. I love that families can provide for their kids at Christmas will a bit of a boost from folks in the community. I love our ‘visions of sugarplums’ and the chance to give.
Filed under Attitude, Bright Ideas, Dreams, giving, Holiday Gift Ideas, holidays, kindness
Jeff Jett – LinkedIn
Jeff Jett – LinkedIn
Jeff Jett – LinkedIn
Jeff Jett – LinkedIn
Jeff Jett – LinkedIn
I am almost finished with the DVD project. These are the remaining DVDs that are my personal collection. These are the ones I want to keep, regardless of whether they are on the new, fancy movie storage thingie my husband got, and that we are enjoying now via Roku. Roku has made noises about not offering the access port after the first of the year. We’re not sure if this means they won’t offer it to new members or are doing away with it altogether. We’re hoping that since we have it now – this change won’t affect us. Since we have been on the wrong side of percentages in the past, I’ve elected to protect MY group by keeping the physical DVDs.
Now we have four empty shelves on the left side of our TV,
and at least 3 on the right side. It’s nice to have the freedom to rearrange our ‘stuff’ now. :0)
Meanwhile, I THINK I can finish going through the remaining DVDs in the office today, either listing them on Amazon (we’ve sold 7 so far) or bagging them up for a donation to our local library for their next fundraiser.
If all goes as planned, we’ll be making donations to the Veterans Thrift Store in Fort Smith, and the library in Greenwood tomorrow.
After Phase 2 of my decluttering/reorganization efforts, I now have a whole column of cubbies free.
I put three pairs of boots on the shelf above my tops and scarves, but the whole shelf on the other side (not pictured) is empty, as well.
After getting into my ruthless mode, I am donating 12 pairs of shoes to the Veterans Thrift store. I still have more shoes than any two feet can wear, but – HEY – I’m worth it!
Phase 3 of this effort will be putting things ON the shelves above my clothes and the empty cubbies, but that is a low priority thing.
creativeartworksblog 