just 10 more

Yes, Yes, Yes!!!!  The vet has seen Rachel and we don’t have to pack her legs in ice every day—-that’s over, she’s been fitted for some special horseshoes but is still confined to her stall.  Going out tomorrow to just visit and maybe groom.  She is getting near to going in season again so getting in the stall with her will totally depend on her mood; I don’t need any more bruises.  Never thought I’d be keeping track of a horses’ period!!!

Let’s see what else is new–I know I haven’t made it on here to record food but I’ve been pretty good this week.  Skipped gym on Wed.; my calf was just too sore but it seems to be slowly getting better and I went today—did tm and ladies lite aerobics.  I think I probably was sore from one of those awful leg cramps I get during the night.  I did watch it closely and toyed with the dr. idea. I also have been left with a lump the size of a marble under the skin where my huge “Rachel” bruise was.  Falling apart, I am!

Been busy planning and getting ideas and buying decorations for the first orchestra concert.  It’s fun but I’m having fears that people won’t bring the snacks and finger foods we’re hoping for to serve afterward.  Still have to write a few rah-rah blurbs for the orchestra newsletter.  May have to help with alterations on a few of the gowns I measured the girls for, only one was so off it had to be re-ordered which is fine; I thought there’d be a lot more.  Spoke with the woman who did the measuring last year and she said she didn’t exactly listen to the teacher’s instructions about ordering by bust size alone.

News flash—–we had a drive-by shooting in my neighborhood—-2:18am one night this week, other side of the street and three doors down–3 bullets through the front of the house.  Supposedly one of the boys in the family is into the drug scene.  I am SOOOO PISSED at them for bringing this to MY neighborhood!!!!  We are middle class as they come and I never dreamed this would happen…….I often take the dog out front for her last pee around midnight…..I don’t need this.  The shooting was directly across the street from the friend I walk dogs with, her huskys went nuts that night.  She told me a whole list of people in the neighborhood who have begun a closer relationship with their weapons; somehow this does not make me feel better.  There’s a 357 around here someplace and I’m a very good shot with it but I’m pretty sure we don’t have any ammo and I’m certainly not about to turn the place into an armed camp; especially not with a teen living here.  I hate seeing people carrying in public; other than police of course.  Makes me very nervous.

Got some lovely pansies today; now i gotta find time to get them in the ground!

Bfsk: 1 pkt. instant oatmeal, made with water……….lunch: chicken, brown rice, mushroom soup, light yogurt, piece low fat cheddar………….dinner: about 3oz. of prime rib, 1/2 baked pot w/a little sour cream and butter, sm. Greek salad.

G’nite chickadees!

Morning off kilter–had to deliver needed forgotten homework down to the school and that ended the possibility of time to do tm, so I just did ladies lite aerobics.  rest of the day blah—A. got progress report today; not great, I think (as I have all along) that she’s in over her head.  I worry about all the pressure she insists on putting herself under. Two kids at a neighboring h.s. killed themselves over the week-end–WHY can’t these kids see that a set back is NOT a reason to end their life????  Not sure if their actions were connected with the impending progress reports but suspect there may be a link.  So bummed about such waste.

For some unknown reason, my right calf is just killing me today—doesn’t feel swollen, bruised, can’t feel any lumps, no heat, no red streaks (thank God)..just super, super painful!!!  Not good.

Bfsk: Lo na V8, Grape Nuts Flakes w/skim………snack:1/2 Wasa w/1T. chunky p.b., 1/2 orange, about 10 pistachios…………..lunch: very small square turkey shepards pie, yogurt, 1 80 cal. Reeses pb cup…………….dinner: 1/4 Calif. Pizza thin crust white pizza, and then blew it (this is after I saw the progress report) 2 more Reeses AND a dark Milky Way

Off to put my feet up, watch a little t.v., read and try to shake the bad feeling left by the day.  G’nite, chickadees.  Take care.

Quiet day—didn’t get back out in the yard but there’s always tomorrow.  Slept in till almost 8:30!!!  Read ALL the Sunday paper.  Went and volunteered at an elementary school race—-my favorite kind, these little ones really enjoy running their mile and all the families are there cheering them on—making memories.  Got caught up with some people I haven’t seen for months. Decided it was too late to start yard work so picked up a bit and made a big pot of my chicken, brown rice, mushroom, and garlic soup…..yummmmmm.  Took A. out to ice Rachel’s legs—went smoothly.  Vet sees her Wed. so maybe we’ll be done.  On to food.

Bfsk: lo na V8, 2 pancakes (6″, whole wheat blend, Aunt Jemina) w/ about 1 tsp. each maple syrup, 1/2 orange…………lunch: salmon, brussels sprouts, 1/2 can tomato soup made w/ skim, 1 piece white wheat……..snack: 1/2 Wasa, 1/2 banana, one bite of a York peppermint patty………….snack: lo na V8, 1 wedge skinny cow, 3 cracked pepper and olive oil crackers, about 20 black grapes, mug of warm milk (skim)

Two meals and two snacks—not the usual, but I think I’m done for the day.  Gym tomorrow.

G’nite chickadees!

Well, I’m in a better mood.  I behaved myself all week and managed to lose 2 lbs. as of this am.  I KNOW how to do it; I just eat way too many treats and sometimes get overwhelmed by the “you gotta behave FOREVER” part and have to SEE if I still have to cut out all the stuff I love (in great quantities).  And the scale kicks me in the butt EVERY time.  I thnk maybe, boring as it is, that I need to start writing everything I put in my mouth.  So, here goes.  I’ll try to do this every day.

Bfsk.:  Lo Na V-8,  Grapenuts Flakes w/skim,  1/2 banana, decaf tea w/ skim……..lunch: 1/2 can Progresso French Onion Soup w/a piece of toast on top sprinkled w/ melted lo fat Mozz., turkey shepard’s pie, an 80 cal. Reeses peanut butter cup………dinner: 1/2 multigrain Wasa cracker spread with scant Tble. chunky peanut butter, 6oz. light lime yogurt, a plum………..evening snack: about 10 pistachios, 1/2 Wasa, 1 slice Alpine Lace Swiss cheese, decaf green tea

I volunteered at a race (5K) finish line this am, then ran home, picked up A. drove her to her pony walking job (they had 3 kids parties today–she’s exhausted!!).  While she was working, I took clippers to the front bushes which are REALLY out of control and made 8 large plastic bags of what I trimmed today with more to be done tomorrow,  Then I picked her up and we drove to the stable and iced Rachel’s legs.  The vet comes Wednesday, hopefully we’ll be done with this.  I am READY for my shower and BED.

G’nite chickadees!  sleep tight…….

OK  I finally got on it Sunday……….and I was up 10lbs. from my lowest. 10lbs!!!!!  I’m low, low, low these days. It’s one thing to blithely chat about it “not being a diet; it’s a lifestyle” but the reality of that statement and the “foreverness” of it just sucks.  Part of me wants to just give up; honestly, a BIG part of me—-now I have almost 20lbs. to reach goal which I’ve only come within 8lbs. of at my best, and that was OVER a year ago.  It’s depressing.  I see quite a few other long timers here falling by the wayside and that certainly doesn’t help either.  My 30+ lbs. gone is slowly getting chipped away.

I’ve been bruised, sore, and battered for just over a week.  Rachel was in season and slammed me into the doorway of her stall when she went ballistic when they ran the other mares out to pasture by her.  A. got semi-pinned against the stall wall during this.  We both ended up at the dr.–I wanted to make sure she didn’t have a cracked sternum or ribs and wanted to get my huge bruises checked since I take daily ASA.  I repeat,  “I AM NOT A HORSE PERSON”.  In Rachel’s defense, since she’s “lead mare” the stable people should have known not to run them by her like that; it was pretty dangerous to both A. and me.  We have LOUDLY made our position clear on this. Hopefully there will be only one more week of icing her lower legs and the farrier can fit her for special horse shoes.  I told her owner that we can’t make it 3 days this week and it’s his job to do those days.  If she’s not in season, it’s not been too bad.

I have made it to the gym—tm is ok but I can’t do all the exercises (especially those involving  my right arm and shoulder which took the brunt of Rachel) so I just do what I can.  Will try for a half hour on the bike in the garage today.

Other than that, been quite busy with things at A.’s h.s.  Worked a big race in pouring rain last week-end; an 8K. 

See ya, chickadees.

The East coast progress of a friend from our local running club can be found at runnerssociety.com……..this is Tommy, a neat (albeit crazy) guy I’ve known about 10 yrs.  He’s running from Maine to Florida, on his own, pushing a baby jogger with his supplies to raise money for Ronald McDonald houses and staying in the houses along the way.  He and his wife lost a 2 yr. old girl to cancer and he never forgot the comfort afforded by the Ronald McDonald house at their hospital.  Last year he set some kind of tm record to raise money for them.  Check it out and maybe consider running a bit with him if the route comes near you; he loves company.  Or…even better, give a few bucks if you can!  GO TOMMY!!!!

Late last night I had one of those “moments”; I realized it was Sept. 19 and the 17th anniversary of my dad’s death.  Brought back some memories, it did.  He died the month before I got pregnant; how he would have loved A.

Food was good today except for 3 candy bars, which kind of erase the good food part.

Made it through another ice pack application on Rachel w/o getting killed.  I told the owner he needs to do the ice Mon. and Tues. evenings as I have meetings (partly true)…….he really needs to get in on this “fun”.  Tonight the stable owner came out as we were getting beat up by her and said his wife sings to her when they do it during the day………so, there I was, singing to a horse.  Note: she does NOT like “Puff, The Magic Dragon”……..does like “Happy Birthday”, “500 Miles”, “Amazing Grace”, and “Do, A Deer”.  Any horsey song suggestions, anyone?

A. has a nasty nose thing going on; not sure yet if it’s alllergies or a cold coming on.   She worked today and she’ll do a couple hours tomorrow too pony walking  at a church party.

Well, I made it here 2 days in a row!  Got to make this a good habit again if I can. G’nite chickadees!

Maybe that sounds too depressing.  Well, anyway, besides rain (we had about 6 in. one night),  A. was clearing the table at Panera’s last week and managed to knock her root beer into my lap.  Then, on Monday, I was having lunch with the exercise ladies at Olive Garden and the server lost control of his tray and I had ice water  and ice down my back.  Poor kid, he was sooo horrified that he did it.  What are the chances of something like that happening to anyone twice in a week?????  On the bright side I now have a $50.00 credit there.

Big thanks to Patti for the pic instructions; I promise to use them to actually try to do it one of these days.  I do enjoy seeing everyone else’s.

We have been chainsawing limbs and cleaning up major debris that fell into the yard from the latest storm.  Heavy, tough work.

I have all the orchestra girls measured for their new gowns……..went smoothly.  They seem to be nice kids.  The teacher wants the order based on bust size; well, hmmmmm, I think some of them are going to be able to SWIM in those dresses cause some of those girls are little except for that.  We’ll see.

The news on Rachel is bad, in fact, awful.  She has laminitis; from what I read I think this is what finally did the great Barbaro in.  The stable owner is packing her feet in ice every am and we are going out and doing it at night.  She’s on medicine—right now she stinks to the high heavens as the stuff is excreted through her pores.    AND, on a starvation type diet to try to take weight off quickly.  I feel bad for her but she was a pistol tonight; trying to get her to stand still in the ice packed boots we made for her (blue jeans legs sewed shut at the bottom with bungee cord over her back to keep them up) was just about impossible and she’s supposed to be still for 15 min. when all she wants to do is circle the stall which she’s confined to.  I am not a horse person, I’m scared to death in that stall, but A. can’t do this on her own so I’m drafted as her owner is not about to.  I hover as close to the door as possible ready to make my escape.  Don’t know how long this is going to go on and I resent being put in this position.  I think a lease on a different horse is needed; or none at all.

We had a dr. appt on A.’s osteonecrosis; dr thinks the area looks a bit more diffuse, possibly a good sign…go back for another x-ray and visit mid- Oct.

The air show is here–Blue Angels have been buzzing all over the past few days and the noise is triple what the jets from the base usually make.  I  hope noone is killed this year.  No, we won’t be going.  I’m one of the very few people who never saw Top Gun—why should I pay to hear jet noise???  Get way too much of it for free.

I’ve made it to the gym all three days for the last 2 weeks—-2 perfect weeks; but just doing tm and ladies lite aerobics, have to get back to weight machines and rower yet.  Food—-one step forward, then I blow it.  Can’t seem to get back on that horse (bad choice of word).  Have not been on scale yet.

That’s the news update, chickadees; have good week-ends everyone.  I’m not having time to keep up here as much as I’d like although I do think about y’all every day; hopefully this will improve.

Off kilter the last few days—nothing major, constant slight headache, a little lightheaded/dizzy, maybe slight temp off and on…..keeping up with things, just getting fed up with it.  Slowly getting caught up with most everyone’s blogs.

School started very smoothly this year, same bus driver for A. and pick-up about 6:30, so a little extra time to sleep, even.  Orchestra teacher asked me to volunteer as her parent rep.; I like her, should be doable.  We’ve had one meeting with interested parents……..I think 5 women showed up, at least 2 of which never said a word the entire time.  Hmmmmmm.  I’m spending part of 2 days measuring new girls for concert gowns next week so we can get them ordered.  I’ve reserved time for one fundraiser—-gift wrapping for  donations at Christmas at a local book store.  Have a meeting next week with 2 of the speaking women to brainstorm about concert receptions–food, decorations, etc.   Will chaperone to local out of school concerts and competitions but not the big 3 day trip (A doesn’t want to go).  Can’t help with lighting/special effects.  Don’t want to be in charge of the newsletter—but I will contribute to it.  That’s about it.

Rachel gave me a good bump with her nose last night; guess I wasn’t paying enough attention to her.  Almost knocked me over.  Bad horse.

Sorry, I can’t post pictures; my computer abilities are minimal—this is about it, other than email and using google.

Food is very slowly getting under control; however I’ve developed a fondness for 80 cal. peanut butter cups…..problem is, one leads to another etc.  Trying to have 2 cups of decaf green tea every day.  Been too high on the sodium too, lately.  Have made the gym twice this week and planning on tomorrow too.

Keep wondering if any of the butterflies in my yard are my two.  Good day, chickadees.

We are back and I’m doing mountains of laundry and trying to put the house  together after having dh here on his own for almost 2 weeks (a nightmare, believe me).  I think I’ll probably have to spend a good part of the next month getting caught up; as if one EVER does.  We ran into some heavy rain from Faye (?) on the way home.

The trip was fantastic; no fights or even little tiffs with my daughter.  We got along great and made some wonderful memories. The dog proved to be a super camper (of course SHE was the only one who had her bed along).  First night we stayed in Falling Waters, WVa.; lovely little campground.  Camped right on the bank of a stream (I kept having visions of a flash flood); only drawback was that I could hear some of the trucks from the highway.  This was where I learned that tall tree stumps look just like bears in the middle of the night when you have to crawl out to pee.  I also learned NOT to drink after 5 pm and avoided this problem the rest of the trip.

The next evening we arrived at Knoebels and set up camp there and spent a lot of time in the park.  We used it as our base to visit relatives and friends (most of whom thought we were crazy not to accept the invitations to stay at their homes) and had some visit us at the campground.  One day I took A. to see where my father grew up; a small town called Glen Lyon.  It was very sad for me; my grandparents home is in terrible shape—really hard to see it that way.  I visited my parents graves; weeded and watered the geraniums.  We went for drives, saw Amish people and hex signs on barns and went to World’s End State Park.  We had some chilly nights where it got down in the 40’s.   We had a campfire, toasted marshmallows, etc.  I swear we were the only 2-person tent anywhere; everybody either had RV’s (thought about you, Patty!!!) or huge tents with multiple rooms that sleep about 9.  Since all we were doing was sleeping in it, the tent was fine for us.  Only one morning of rain and the tent did leak a bit—–well, my dh did buy it back in the 1970’s overseas and it’s just been stored in the garage.  Anyway, no problems sleeping; in fact, one night, I slept over 10 hours—got to be some kind of record.

On the second day of the trip back, in the rain, we stopped at a horse show in Warrenton for A.  Betsy was terrified of the horses.

My butterflies (black swallowtails) emerged today within hours of each other and I set them free, so glad I got here in time to see them do it.  I have one left of the three in the house and it’s still in cat stage.  I set up a cat observatory for my neighbor tonight; she’s got a couple fat ones that she’s been protecting in her yard and wanted to see the whole process w/o having to run into her yard to check on them 50 times a day.

Good to be back, chickadees!!!!  Have not been NEAR a scale; don’t even want to talk about it.  Will get caught up on blogs over the next few days!  Hope everyone is doing well.

RubyJean was writing about fascinating and favorite words; well this is one of mine.  I have always been fond of the way it just kind of rolls off the tongue…..and it’s sort of a happy word too. Makes me smile. Right now I have a plethora of swallowtail butterfly caterpillers on my parsley.  In fact, since giving them some simple protection in the form of window screening they have decimated my parsley and I’m buying bunches at the grocery store to keep them happy and growing.

Things with A. are still not right; it’s like living with a thunderstorm.  I realize she’s acting out about the no running and limbo of the status of her foot but that doesn’t make it any easier.  I’m updating here now cause I don’t know when/if I’ll get another chance for a couple weeks.  We leave Monday on our epic wandering camping trip…..A, me, the dog and a 2-man tent.  Ultimate destination: Knobels Grove Amusement Park; mid-eastern Pa.  Talked about taking the laptop along and the verdict is no from dh who won’t let go of it.

A. is working at a birthday party as a pony walker right now.  When she gets home, I’ll take her to one of her mowing jobs.  She bought her first bikini yesterday; always had one pieces for swim team.  She did OK; bought 2 tops and one bottom, at Target, pretty conservative considering what I thought she’d end up with. 

Made it to the gym yesterday: tm and ladies lite aerobics.  Food has been so-so; still not about to get on a scale yet.  Bought a large cooler for the trip so I will not starve; yeah, like there was EVER any danger of that happening.

Have to show dh how to care for the caterpillars, how I water the garden, how to mix the sugar water and clean the hummer feeders——hmmm, it would be easier to just stay home as I know I’ll worry about all this.

Take care, chickadees, and think of me at night and please send out a wish that the ground I’m on is not too hard as you all snuggle in your nice comfy beds.