Steampunk Sculpture – Igor Verniy – Bored Panda
“Cat – Gatto” – Steampunk Sculpture – Igor Verniy – Bored Panda
Steampunk Sculpture – Igor Verniy – Bored Panda
Filed under Art From Found Things, Creativity, metal art
We started Nutrisystem on Thursday of this week, the 26th. So far I’ve lost 3.6 lbs.
The Nutrisystem people stress that you shouldn’t weigh yourself every day. They suggest once a week. I’ve always weighed myself every day, though, and I need the feedback that I’m going in the right direction, or at least staying reasonably steady. Even though this is just water loss, I feel happy that I have a good start. I have a long way to go, but losing weight is a great thing to be doing with my time each day. :0)
They also stress not to do any exercise the first week. Well, that’s all well and good, but I’m getting lots of exercise getting up to go to the bathroom all day (and many times at night, too.) Plus, life goes on, and I need to get things accomplished around here; so, no formal exercise until next week, but I HAVE been being active.
Example – since winter FINALLY seems to be over, we took the snow tires off the Honda Ridgeline yesterday and put the regular tires on. This is a laborious project, but after doing it twice a year for several years now, we have it almost down to a science. My husband does the heavy stuff, like getting the tires onto the “wheel studs.” (I just had to ask my husband what was the actual name for those. I hate to call everything ‘thingies.’) I’m a pretty good go-fer – rolling the snow tires out of the way, rolling the regular tire over to my husband, handing him the wheel nuts, bringing him tools, putting things away, etc. It takes us about half an hour now, when the first time it took us twice that.
I also planted a 6-pack of tomato plants and several squares of radishes yesterday. Since we don’t have our irrigation system going yet, later I got a hose hooked up and watered them. I rolled up our big fireplace rug and stored it under the stairs in a storage place and then vacuumed the living room, foyer, and office. The big thing yesterday was washing the two large dog bed covers, airing out the innards, then putting everything back together.
Add to that setting a timer so that we stay on our program for the day, eating every 3 hours, and you have much of our day yesterday.
My attitude is better since we’re finally on the road again to getting the lard off. I’m hopeful that as the extra weight comes off, we’ll feel better and better.
Steampunk Sculpture – Edouard Martinet – Bored Panda
Steampunk Sculpture – Arturas Tamasaukas – Bored Panda
Filed under Art From Found Things, Creativity, metal art
sayingimages.com
We made it through Day 1 of Nutrisystem. We have to say that they have improved a lot since we tried it years ago. I am eating and drinking out of the ‘magic red box’ (Turbo 13) in the Uniquely Yours for Fat Ladies program, and my husband is in the Diabetic Uniquely Yours program. His reaction yesterday was, “This isn’t half bad!”
Honestly, we were so busy eating or drinking at the proper times we hardly had time for much else. :0) We weren’t hungry. We did have a pang after dinner when we would usually have an ice cream sandwich or an orange dream bar, but we can have an after dinner snack NEXT week.
I drank the 64 oz of water, plus a couple of cups of coffee, so I got my exercise running to the bathroom during the day and four times last night…
We have Lunch Bunch today. We’ve done this for a hundred years or so, seeing good friends and catching up, and we’ll continue doing it regardless of what eating program we’re on. Starting next week, we can have Lunch Bunch be our flex lunch, as we’ll have our ice cream after bowling be our flex snack. Today I’m going to have a salad and write it up as the one I would have had with my lunch later, as one of my 4 servings of veggies per day. I’ll try to keep my husband on track for the rest of the day, but he’ll make the decision whether to cooperate or not.
I’ve started losing the expected water weight, so my body is recognizing that things have changed. Good start!
“White Lion” – Lucie Bilodeau
“Persevere” – Amy Hamilton
Filed under animal paintings, Creativity
We bought three different colors of iris from Nana’s Iris Garden in Charleston AR about three years ago. We have several like this blooming now. I think they’re wonderful.
And when I was pruning our new Rio Samba rose bushes, I found this ‘volunteer’ right beside the front planter! If it’s a remnant of one of the bushes we had to cut down, we’ll try to nurture it and see what happens.
You probably already know this, but a lady at Sharum’s Nursery in Fort Smith showed me how to prune rose bushes to encourage more blooms. Ever since I learned this, I have SO much better luck with roses! –
PRUNING ROSES
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature
Green Hand Sculpture – Bored Panda
Green Hand Sculpture – Bored Panda
Filed under Art From Found Things, metal art
“Stretched” – Kimberly Santini
“Surprised Kitty” – Olga Shvartsur
Filed under animal paintings, Creativity
“Lights and Shadows” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
Yesterday I showed you the first harvest from our spring veggie garden. I’m delighted that everything seems to be happy so far.
The raised bed square foot garden consists of six 4’x4′ wooden boxes about my chest level filled with Mel’s Mix (a combination of peat moss, vermiculite, and three or more kinds of compost.) The boxes are divided into ‘squares’ by stretched string. I have opted to space things out a lot more this year because I lost a lot of produce by having the plants growing into each other. I decided to opt for a lot more air and space for each plant and see what happens.
We also have tomato plants in two converted brick planters on the other side of the house. We’ll plant another group of tomato plants soon so that we can space out our harvest and extend it as much as possible.
In the picture above you can see broccoli plants, spinach, iceberg head lettuce, romaine lettuce, and onions. I’ll add some radish seeds soon (as soon as I get the squares weeded) and also celery (when the ones I started in the house are large enough.)
Each box has a sprinkler in the center that are connected by pieces of hose. These are all tied to a main hose that connects to a rural type outside faucet. We put a timer on it so that the garden is irrigated each morning.
I’m going to wash spinach, romaine, and iceberg lettuce for our salad today harvested yesterday from the garden. I hope that one day we can eat our own broccoli!
Today is our first day on NutriSystem. I’m on the Uniquely Yours (for fat ladies) program and am eating from the Turbo 13 (magic) red box. My husband is on the Diabetic Uniquely Yours for Men. I ate the Maple Sugar Oatmeal breakfast and my husband ate the Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal. I don’t care for oatmeal, but it was easy to fix and I found it palatable.
We essentially eat and drink all day –
8:30 breakfast
11:30 Snack One (first week a shake)
2:30 Lunch + veggie
5:30 Snack Two – (first week a nutrition bar)
8:30 Dinner + veggie
+ at least 64 oz of water (I’ll try for a 16 oz bottle of water for each main meal, and then one sipped during the day.)
For exercise, we’ll run back and forth to the bathroom from drinking all the water!
I have to tell you that, since my husband and I tend to use “National Tissue Week” as an excuse to go off our good eating plans, having meals (and especially portions) will be a great wake up call for us. I don’t seem to have the proper whatevers that are supposed to tell you you are full. I could eat a full meal and then eat another an hour later, so I’m also looking forward to only having to go three hours between eating.
The last time we tried Nutrisystem several years ago, they didn’t offer frozen food, and the variety of foods was less than we would have liked. Now it could be months before we can try everything! I’m also hoping that they won’t start discontinuing the options my husband has chosen, as they did last time. That was the thing that made us stop. Now they have as a major focus teaching you what is healthy to eat, what a reasonable portion is, and have you practice flex meals once each week from Week 2 on. This gives you a chance to not only learn how to choose what to eat if you eat out, but guidance as to what to eat for home-cooked meals so that you can learn healthy habits from the outset.
This morning I started NuMi, a food tracker to guide you through the program. You can input your goals, monitor your progress, record what you eat and drink, etc. One of the first questions was where I was in the program. When I input that this was my first day on the Turbo 13 week of Uniquely Yours for Fat Women, it immediately came up with what I was supposed to be eating today. I input my maple sugar oatmeal and it told me how many more calories I had allotted for the day, and showed me what else I would be eating.
I went through the quick tour, then immediately screwed up. I hit the ‘fast entry’ button for breakfast, and then decided I wanted to actually type in what I ate. I had a time getting the first entry off, but finally did it.
I hope that this program will help us, indeed, get the lard off, and teach us how to KEEP it off once we reach our goals. My husband will reach his goal before I do, but I’m hoping he’ll keep me company, continuing to use the program, or be satisfied with my new cooking choices and techniques.
Our frozen stuff was just delivered by Fedex. It was nicely packed in large styrofoam coolers with dry ice, the whole cooler shrink-wrapped and clearly labeled whose was whose.
We have just finished putting things away. It turned out that our frozen snacks went into the freezer in the pantry. Mine fit in one gallon sized ziplock bag, so I didn’t have to mark anything. Of the three trays I had cleaned out in the chest type freezer in the garage, my husband’s frozen stuff filled two of them to the brim. I put some of my stuff in the third tray, and put others in gallon ziplock bags. It’s really clear whose stuff is whose, so I didn’t have to mark those, either. :0)
Today is our last hurrah of ‘free eating.’ I’m not sure how we’ll spend it.
Tomorrow morning will start the first day of our Nutrisystem plans.
Any time you change your eating habits violently, there will be snags. We have Lunch Bunch Friday. I’ll go to visit with my friends and have a glass of water, opting to religiously stay on the program until I get a ‘flex meal’ NEXT week. My husband has opted to get his regular chicken fingers for Lunch Bunch. One meal off the plan in the first week won’t be the end of the world. He has agreed to do this, so I’ll work on getting him to go with the program as much as possible.
Tomorrow I’ll make us a salad bowl – two cups each for each of us , so all we have to do is dip out the servings when it’s time to eat lunch or dinner. I’ll also plan to serve us a cup each of broccoli with our dinner. (A serving is one cup of raw non-starchy veggies or 1/2 cup of cooked veggies, so this will be our 4 servings for the day.)
______________________
“Here is a quick glance at what you’ll eat during your first week on Nutrisystem:*
Source: NUTRISYSTEM
(Exercise is taken care of from drinking the 64 (at least) oz of water each day. Our eyeballs will be swimming, and we’ll be running to the bathroom a lot. :0)”
I hope that you are finding ways to take good care of yourself. Hopefully, this will be the start of our getting the lard off, moving more, and feeling better and better.
Filed under Attitude, Challenges, Changes, DIET!, exercise, getting the lard off, Healthy Eating
Bernard Meltzer – SayingImages.com
Filed under Encouragement, Favorite Quotes, Good Thoughts
“Silly Face” – Lucie Bilodeau
“Smile” – Sean O’Daniels
Filed under animal paintings, Creativity
pinterest.com
We’re having scattered showers today. I decided to go out to the garden and bring in some produce for the salad we’ll enjoy tomorrow. Of course, the rain started when I was just starting to snip…
PurifyouPremiumReusableMesh
Since Nutrisystem suggests that you NOT wash produce until just before you eat it, and also suggested that produce will last longer in these mesh bags, I took three of the bags out to the garden with me and harvested the produce right into the bags: one for spinach, one for iceberg lettuce, and one for romaine lettuce.
1st Harvest – Spinach
1st Harvest – Iceberg Lettuce
1st Harvest – Romaine Lettuce
Even though my efforts at growing a garden don’t save us money, the produce we get is so fresh, and it’s so much fun to go out and snip the ingredients for salad from your own garden!
quotesgram.com
Amber – April 2018 – 13 months
I grabbed my camera to take a picture of the entertainment center and the winterized deck for the previous post. Amber, of course, wanted to come with me.
We ended up walking all over yard, taking pics of flowers, veggies, etc. Amber would watch me, then run off and do doggly things for a while, and then come back on her on, or when I called. We did this over and over, walking out to the greenhouse, then all the way across our land to the square foot garden, then back around the house.
Amber is a really sweet, wonderful dog. I particularly enjoy her when it’s just the family here. She responds eagerly – probably in anticipation of a ‘cookie’ when we go back inside – but is truly fun, affectionate, curious and playful. (It’s when others come here, or we go out in public that she tends to go ‘maniac,’ requiring all our tools, skills, and dubious intelligence to handle things. We have agreed that we need to invite more people here, and put the no-pull collar and leash on her when she is allowed to get out of the car on our outings, giving her more occasions to meet people, LISTEN to us, and hopefully, do what we say.
As to what we saw on our walk this morning –
The deep purple iris is fading, but the yellow iris is all over the yard in clusters. My husband is less than impressed with the yellow ones, but the display is very impressive to ME. (Each pic displayed here is a different clump of iris, plus there is more going down the driveway!)
Filed under Amazing Animals, Arkansas, Favorite Quotes, Gardening, Greenwood
Title Wave with Sue Fitzmaurice via Cathy Ruggiero
Actually, it isn’t QUITE as bad as this, but it’s a close thing. :0)
Today’s plans involve three things, now that our errands for the day have been done:
THING ONE: put our produce in the new mesh bags I ordered YESTERDAY from Amazon. They came today! I have no clue how they do that, but I love it. The Nutrisystem plans have you eating 4 servings of veggies per day, along with the other stuff. We love salads (and I’m growing two kinds of lettuce in our raised bed, square foot garden – ready to start harvesting). I also have some broccoli I bought from the store. (Later, I hope we can harvest from our broccoli plants.) A “serving” of veggies is one cup raw veggies or 1/2 cup cooked veggies, as a general rule of thumb.
An article on the website suggests that we use mesh bags to store our produce – that they keep the produce fresher and they last longer. I thought it was worth a try. I’ll move our stuff into the new bags later this morning. I bought these
The set includes 3 sizes of bags with drawstring tops. They seem to be well made. They are machine washable.
THING TWO: Our deck is still in winter mode. It finally quit raining and the sun is out! I’m planning to start uncovering pots, emptying or filling pots, as necessary, to prepare for our buying mandevilla for the 4 large pots, and a combination of favorites for the rest of the pots on the deck. I’ll also start figuring out how to get our hummingbird birdbath going. This is a pretty large project, but I’ll take pics as things come together.
THING THREE: We have a wall of built-in shelves on one end of our living room. We use it as an entertainment center, housing speakers, DVDs, books, TV, etc. I’ve been ignoring the fact that this area needs some purging, as well as re-arranging and cleaning. I’m going to try to at least get a good start on that today.
I hope you have a fun and/or productive day planned. Our weather is so nice right now we just opened the front and back doors to air the house out. :0)
“Hidden Among Flowers” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
I received the emails today that the frozen part of our first order from Nutrisystem is supposed to be delivered by the end of the day on Wednesday!
Immediately, my husband said, then we should start the program the following Monday.
We were on the way to Fort Smith to take our donation to the Veterans Thrift Store, so I sat there, thinking. On the way back I finally asked him, “Why do you want to wait until Monday to start?” And he answered, “Because it’s more symmetrical than starting in the middle of the week.”
By the time we got home, I said, “I really want to start on Thursday, since we’ll get the rest of the food we ordered on Wednesday and I can get it organized and stored.” (Since it has taken so long to get the two parts of what we ordered, Order #2 is scheduled to be shipped on May 13th. Starting Thursday will give my husband a chance to try several of his choices and we can still make changes until 6 pm on the 12th.)
We agreed to start on Thursday morning (assuming we get the delivery as scheduled.)
Hooray!
Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Challenges, Changes, DIET!, taking care of yourself
Yesterday I was really good.
I scrubbed our kitchen within an inch of its life, moving everything, wiping it all down, scrubbing the stove and running its parts through the dishwasher, scrubbing the dining table and its lazy susan, the go-out table, the buffet, etc. and finishing up by vacuuming the pantry, kitchen, dining area, hallway, utility room and two half baths.
Later on, I listed the office supplies we were donating to the Veterans Thrift Store and bagged them up to take to Fort Smith today. I also continued reading the articles on the Nutrisystem site in an effort to know all I can before we start.
I’ve made up for my efforts yesterday by basically being a slug today. I haven’t accomplished much at all and even took a nap after we ate a late lunch.
The sun is finally shining after several days of really dark days with some good rain, so I’m feeling my spirits raise, as well. I hope you’ve had a good day today.
i.pinimag-originals
“Crab” – Artist Unknown
webmail1k.orange.fr
Filed under Art From Found Things, Creativity, metal art
“Little Wolf” – Amy Hamilton
“Molly” – Pat Saunders-White
Filed under animal paintings, Creativity
XciteFun.net
The rain started just after we got into the car in the Walmart parking lot early yesterday afternoon, and we’ve had showers off and on ever since. It’s very overcast and looks like another one is coming any minute. No severe weather this time, and for that I am truly grateful. (I tend to get nervous when the weather alert is flashing red and the weather guys on TV are telling you to bend over and kiss your nether end bye-bye…)
THIS rain is one where you can almost hear all the trees, plants, and grass saying a collective “AHHHHHH!” A nice, soaky, healing rain.
It makes my husband cranky, though, because his only thought is that we’ll have to mow the lawn again soon, when we JUST finished doing that this past week.
I have mentally switched from my “OUTSIDE to-do list” to my “INSIDE to-do list,” both of which are longer than my arms right now. I know I’ll never actually get either list finished – that just never happens around here. I just keep plugging away, telling myself that it’s better now than it was before I started, and make myself content with that.
I’m looking forward to getting something accomplished today, enjoying the rain, taking a break and curling up with my current book, and maybe even catching a nap this afternoon.
GrowingBolder.com
Have a wonderful Sunday!
Filed under Mother Nature
Chris Kircher.de
“ShovelBug” – unknown artist
Filed under Art From Found Things, Creativity, metal art
creativeartworksblog 