I'm never going to be 97 pounds again and I'm okay with that, but . . .

I was 97 pounds when Hubs and I married 16 years ago.  I ordered a size 3/4 dress and had to have it taken in 3" on each side.  I was in college and working two jobs.  Kent is  a campus with bus service, but I found that walking got me to places faster.  When I started college, I lost the freshman 15, I didn't gain it.

Fast forward 16 years.  I am not that 97 pounds.  I'm quite fine with that.  I am, er, many pounds more than that and it would be okay, but I am absolutely telling you that my metabolism is celebrating my milestone birthday a bit earlier than it should.

I think that my metabolism has stopped.  In fact, I dropped my wedding band off at the Mom and Pop jewelers to make my band 1/2 size larger.  I couldn't get it off for about a year and I gave up.  If it was a different ring, I would have cut it off.  Being my wedding band, I was a bit more sentimental.  I was able to get it off and my $20 wedding band cost me $35 to resize it.  Oh well.  I've needed to do it for some time.

I've started doing something I've never had to do-- I'm actually (out of curiosity) counting calories.  You see, before I could do a minor tweak, roll some walking in and voila!  An easy 5-7 pounds would roll off.  Not so now.  My metabolism laughs and adds on a few pounds just to mock me.

Ugh.

We've been walking nearly every night.  We walk about 2 1/2 miles and since glaciation is our friend here in these parts, it is absolutely up and down hill all the way.

I have skirts that are tighter than they were when I bought them.  I didn't buy them with room-to-grow, but they were a little loose.  So sad.  They aren't now.  Pants need pulled up not because they are falling down because of loss, but because they are shimmying because of force.

I'm not really delighted with these changes.

I've been busy taking a hard look at what I eat, how much I eat and when I eat.  Y'all, I spend a lot of time hungry.  My husband would tell me to make sure that I'm eating the right things because I don't want to cannibalize muscle.  I'm with him on that.  I've been paying close attention.

I've also dumped drinking pop (or soda or Coke-- whatever you call it.)  I miss it.  I've come to the conclusion that it is the bubbles, but I've found that my head doesn't have that spacey feel.  I was drinking the dreaded diet pop (or soda or Coke) and it wasn't doing good things for me.

Yesterday, my lunch bag was a little sparse.  :snicker in hunger:  Today I have leftovers of what I made myself for dinner-- whole wheat Israeli couscous with lentils, split peas and orzo, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms and sweet red peppers.

I've been on the quest to make the waistline smaller.  I've got to change my efforts.  Hopefully, I'll figure it out.

Have a great day!

Tales from the Trenches: Yellow hello!

The pollen.  Oh dear me.  The pollen.  My vehicle is a lovely red.  Well, it was.  Now it is a yellowish orange. 

Pollen.

My people are taking their allergy meds (thank you God for those) and sometimes pollen is just too much for what the meds can do. 

:snuffle:

I understand.

We still do our 2 1/2 mile walk/ride each night.  K- has now started taking the neighbor girl with us, which is a great motivator for K-.  When we have no E-, there is a lot of whining.  I'm glad to take E- any night she wants to go.  Yesterday, we had high winds.  The girls pushed with their little leggins up the big ole fat hills against the wind (yes, you can thank me for that Bob Seger earworm later) and no whining whatsoever.

I do think that they probably slept well.

Hubs and I have found that keeping up with the girls has increased our exercise level and dear sweet love, I was walking like an osteoporotic woman yesterday because my hips, butt and thighs hurt so badly.  Good times. 

My foot started hurting.

We pressed on. 

In other news, I've found plenty of other volunteer tomatoes in the beds.  Of course, I didn't realize what that batch of "weeds" were last night until AFTER I plucked most of them.  Oops.  That's okay.  I left the 1/10 behind that I didn't get in the first swipe and even gave them a lovely watering. 

The seeds that I planted in my greenhouse last week are coming up.  So far, the Marvels of Peru are winning.  I still have portulaca that I seeded sitting on the wait to be transplanted.  Ground cherries, nicotiana and some pear tomatoes are peeking up.  I'm still waiting for the jasper and sweetie tomatoes, as well as the mini bell peppers.  They will all pop up in time. 

Now if you'll excuse me, my bathroom required a bit of a bleach spray down this AM, as the vinegar, baking soda and Bon Ami weren't really going to do the trick on the grout.  Must press on and get it scrubbed before work.

Good day, all!

Yard Sale Day 1: "You got any guns?"



I made this sign last night at midnight so that people wouldn't mistake . . .



. . . this as a party tent.  I came in at 12:10 AM and took a quick tour of the game closet to see what else could be sold. 

These two ladies flitted from house to house today, having a grand time.

The day began with cars beginning to circle at 7:15 AM like vultures.  These are, as we all know, the yard sale die hards.  They race up, sometimes quickly glancing at your offerings only to ask for the following items:

"You got any instruments?" 
"You got any hunting or fishing equipment?"
"You got any old or broken watches?"
"Do you have (this one was proper) a snow blower?"  I told him that the gravel drive pretty much put me out of the running for owning one.
Then, there is my favorite.  "You got any guns?" 

Here's the deal.  The tent was 10 x 20-- two Easy-Ups cable tied together.  You can see that it wasn't the most roomy place in there.  A three second look would tell you all you need to know.  Now, I realize that they were probably hoping that I would go to every cook and nanny in my house (not nook and cranny here-- sorry) to dig up some wonderful treasure for them. 

Nuthin' doin'.

Besides, we are a peace-loving house and in our home, we have no firearms.  The heaviest hitting item we have for self defense is a bubble gum pink aluminum kid-size baseball bat.  I'm good with that.

I had to laugh at the people who shopped ONLY the free box and didn't bother to look at anything else.  A guy came toodling up with his own shopping bag in hand and announced, "This is exactly what I was looking for!"  Grant you, I'm happy to have dispensed of some not necessarily quality items in the free box. 

I had people park in the end of my driveway this morning.  Where I'm sure that in most cases, that would be okay, but we were working with the fact that Hubs was going to need to go to work.  Since street salers tend to stay for a while, I told the gentleman, "Sir, I'm so sorry, but my husband is going to be leaving for work soon."  "WELL, IS HE GOING TO BE LEAVING IN A MINUTE?!"  "No, probably in about 10."  "Well, I'm fine then.  I'll be out of here by then."  It was only the before open crowd that did that and he was the only rude one about it.

I had a lady ask her husband, who was at the side of my house checking the workability of an orbital sander, to bring her some of my tomatoes since the deer ate all of hers.  He didn't, but I did send K- to pick her one.  I told her that it was organic, heirloom and and not genetically modified.  She looked weird at me.  "Well, it won't make you grow a third eye!"  "We'll just have it with our lunch."  Alrighty then.

I had a woman puzzled by K-'s snowshoes that I have for sale.  "What are these?!"  "Snowshoes!"  The look that she gave me was as if I had a third eye.  "Well, we like to snowshoe and hers are too small.  We ordered her new, but I just don't think that people typically snowshoe around here."  Again, she continued with that look.  They are purple and aluminum and I suppose if you are used to the idea of snowshoes being giant tennis rackets, these probably look like weird outer space junk. 

So how did the day end?  We made $45.00, but we've decided to buy the hammock stand that the neighbor has, so now we are down $25.00.  That's okay.  It'll make our hammock experience much better.  We installed the clothesline post a little too close to the fence post, so when we hang in the hammock, we're about an inch or two above the ground.  We suspect that we'll get much more use out of the (as we call it) hamhock if we have the stand instead.

Onward to tomorrow.  I'll try to report back about my progress tomorrow. 

Smiles in my day:
-  There is something that warms my heart about putting out a sign, having people willingly show up to your house, look at your discards, be willing to take them away and will actually pay you for them.  They pay you for junk you no longer desire.  There was a ton of work involved, but I think that it is grand that we make money off of things unusable to us.
-  K- biked the whole way on our walk today, up and down hills, and did great!  I didn't even have to break out any of the band aids that I squirreled away in my pocket.

Being up until 1:15-1:30 AM for the last three nights, then working full days has taken a toll on me.  I'm having a hard time typing.  I'm going in reverse a lot more than I should have to.  I need sleep.

Have a great day!

Tales from the Trenches: Readying for the street sale.




We're not selling the street.  It's not ours to sell.  However, there are many of us getting ready for our second annual street sale.  I've just spent hours measuring and pricing fabric I got stuck with after a business venture with someone went south.  Rrrr. 

I'll be out this week.  I'll be busy making quarters.  (Not minting them, but earning them for all of my hard work cleaning and bagging my items.) 

Have a great week!

Clip art credit to funtobeukrainian.com

Does it count if I say my kid did it? Well, and other fine things to blog about.

I was a wienie.  Yup.  There you have it.  I had to skate out of the Shred yesterday.  I felt like a truck had plowed me over, but I was pretty well convinced that it wasn't all Jillian's doing.  My throat was sore and I was sore in a way that was other than getting a 22 minute butt kicking. 

My child?  So excited to exercise, decided to Shred on her own.  I sat and watched.  She did work up a sweat. 

Does that count? 

I've sucked down a few Oscillo over the last 24 and I'm happy to say that I'm back up and on track.  Because I don't want to have my husband see me flopping all over the floor, I'll wait to Shred until he leaves for work, but I've already logged in 2 miles of walking today.  I'll bust out 2 more miles here in a bit when I go to retrieve said child. 

In the meantime, I'm back up and functioning at full speed.  I admit that I'm still a little Jillian sore, but it's all good. 

Other things on my mind:
1.  The bumper sticker on the car in front of me yesterday that said, "God fearin', Gun packin', CONSERVATIVE."  Okay, well, they have me on the God fearing part.  I'm not a gun girl and I'm not conservative, much less in capital letters.  Well, that's unless you count conservative in a few different areas such as environment, excess in home life and whatnot.  Definitely not what they were speaking of.  Still, I'm not a fan of the concealed carry law.  It makes me extremely uneasy to know that people are walking around armed (law enforcement excluded) and in the same places that my child, husband, I and my family occupy/visit.
2.  Why is there a man going around and protesting being gay at funerals of servicemen?  Julia and I discussed this yesterday.  (It was on NPR.)  Is it within his rights of free speech?  Yes.  Is it socially acceptable?  No.  Has he considered how he would feel if someone did that to him?  I'm sure that he's been asked and he probably fluffed it off.  (I've not researched this, so feel free to call me on it.  You know I'm always good to hear the other side that is constructively stated.)  This is where my not being conservative in capital letters comes in.  I'm an artist with many people I'm friends with that are gay.  Does that bother me or my husband?  No.  I understand that there are people who feel uneasy about people and sexual orientation.  It's a fact of life.  Still, not so cool to do what he is doing.  I feel it isn't right at all even though his rights dictate that he is lawfully demonstrating and doesn't that fall under "judge not, lest ye be judged?"  Why funerals much less military funerals for people who died for our country?  Wow.
3.  I had the most thankful children in work yesterday that I've ever encountered ever.  They were in with their grandmother and they definitely were the sort of folk to visit the touchable art.  Financially, purchasing didn't seem to be a doable thing for them.  (Okay, I hear you about the judging thing above.  Just hear me out.)  Grandma bought them two little things from the toy room.  It was well under two dollars, but it made them so happy.  Then, I gave them some chocolate coins that we had left over from the buyers market we just went to.  Those two children thanked me time and time again and enjoyed those chocolates as if they were the best thing they were ever given.  It made my heart so happy.

Smiles in my day:
-  Seeing Mr. Jim (the crossing guard) in the mornings again while on foot.  So happy to be back to walking again!
-  Trying to get myself on the road to exercise.  Not one of my favorite things at all.  I'm trying. 
-  Crock-pot red beans and brown rice with turkey sausages for dinner.  We have a 4 PM dental appointment about a half hour away and Hubs works late tonight.  It'll be me and K- and our sausages. 

I have a house to clean.  Must move on.  Have a great day!