lblanchard: (swannfountain)
Down another three and a half pounds. Between a morning ride for groceries, the walk to the Y, and the treadmill time I figured I should put in while I was there, I about have my steps for the day. We have lovely leftovers for dinner so all I have left to do is a load of wash once I have changed my clothes.

EDITED TO ADD A RANT: I know my dieting food choices aren't for everyone. I can tolerate a high degree of monotony and choose my foods carefully, for maximum nutrition at minimum calorie content and cost. My typical day includes a breakfast of an omelet with two jumbo eggs cooked in 1 tsp canola oil; a lunch consisting of 2-3 oz cubed chicken in a sauce made of 1/2 c Greek yogurt, 1 tsp oil (usually olive or sesame), vegetables, and a range of flavors; and a dinner of 4 oz meat, a small serving of starch, a huge bowl of vegetables with 1 tsp of butter and perhaps some concentrated chicken broth. Evening snack is either fruit or fruit-and-yogurt, if I want it.

I don't feel deprived. I feel energetic enough to walk those 10,000 steps and I'm beginning to think about doing something to strengthen my upper body and abdominals.

If I were going to Weight Watchers, I'd be enduring innumerable lectures about the perils of cutting out carbohydrates and the pitfalls of losing weight too quickly. Today it has occurred to me that every time I lose only a pound instead of three, it means two more weigh-ins at $14 (or would if I weren't a lapsed lifer). Makes me wonder. And sitting through those meetings! Listening to the poor tortured souls going on about their cravings, and their shame and guilt at backsliding, and then the leader talking about Weight Watcher Double Fudge Sundaes as a healthy treat, bah. No...better that I go to the Y, get exercise and no lecture with my weigh-in.

Well, that's my rant for now. Watch me sing a different tune if/when the cravings start, or I start to pack the pounds back on, or the rate of weight loss slows to a crawl.
lblanchard: (swannfountain)
Sunday I was pretty active and logged upwards of 11,000 steps on the iPhone pedometer. Yesterday I was pretty shaky -- felt as though I'd consumed an incredible amount of caffeine and was also a little dizzy.

Might be cause and effect, but this morning I looked at my third cup of coffee and said no thanks.

Roy is out of town till Wednesday evening. Yesterday, before going out, I carved up that whole pork line into eight chops and two roasts, and roasted one -- very simply, with a sprinkling of marjoram and black pepper and a skootch of dry vermouth in the bottom of the roasting pan. That will make lunch and dinner until he gets home and a nice cold dinner when he does. (Clearly, I can tolerate a high degree of monotony in my diet.)

I hit Peak Garden last week. This week the coleus are geting leggy and trying to bolt.


Cuttings will be taken this weekend. The hippeastrum will get a shot of Death To Everything next weekend and turned on their sides so that they'll begin to dry out in preparation for fall dormancy.

Inside, I gave BabyMax and friends a shot of dilute Miracle Gro and I swear they've all doubled in size. There are third leaves emerging from many of BabyMax now.


They will need to be potted on soon, in deeper pots. The ones on the right aren't so far along.
lblanchard: (Default)
Today I got into, and zipped up, the smallest pair. I was surprised to check the label and see that they're nominally the same size as the mediums, but they're decidedly tighter. Could it be that they'll relax and truly be another "size medium"?

I think I may have a couple pairs of thinner trousers packed away in Anderson House -- ones that I put away in the late 90s when it was obvious that the perimenopausal weight trend was upwards.

If not, there's always the tape measure. Which says, by the way, that I've lost four inches off the hips, three inches off the thighs, five inches off the waist, and maybe an inch off the chest. If I snug up the tape measure, I'm within spitting distance of having the first digit of the waist measurement be a 2.

Tomorrow is our election and I believe I'm with that tearful four-year-old who sniffled that she was "tired of Bronco Bama and Mitt Romney." I've reached a point that the clever LOLcats-style graphics on Teh Facebooks annoy me whether they tickle my isms or not.
lblanchard: (Default)
Exercise: 5.5 miles on the bike, 1.3 miles on my feet plus an hour standing around at a party. Not terribly strenuous but better than being a couch potato.

Food: a perfect day on program. I guess I really have lost my appetite for sweets. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania threw a party for its head librarian's 20th anniversary, and the President spent the entire weekend baking the entire spread -- cakes, cheesecakes, cupcakes, pies, and cookies. I'll pause to let you get your arms around the concept of the president of a big cultural organization personally catering a staff party. I admired the look of the items, enjoyed the scent of the items, and had absolutely no interest in picking up one of the items and eating it. I had a bottle of water.

Callus maintenance: three times up and down the fretboard plus a couple of tunes. Say 45 minutes. I have a band-aid on my left ring finger, down by the nail, because I have an Evil Hangnail that may be slightly infected. That does not contribute much to dexterity. Last night was also the first time I'd played the Martin since we ripped apart the downstairs to accommodate the dining room work -- say two weeks. After two weeks on the beater guitar I really noticed the difference. I guess I won't put it on Craigslist quite yet.

2.5 out of 3 ain't bad.

Someone asked Tommy Emmanuel what his favorite chord was in a Reddit AMA. He replied with a Soundcloud file. It's an E maj 9 and he says "yummy." I have played a muddy version of that chord on the beater for the past couple of weeks -- it came out clear as a bell on the Martin. Yummy...

http://soundcloud.com/tommyemmanuel/fave-chord

(It's the real reason I've been playing all those cheater chromatics -- to strengthen and stretch my fingers so I can play a chord that has a four-fret spread.)

My stepson the Guitar Hero is coming up with his family in early-ish December, so I have a goal -- be able to play for two hours without raising blisters. We'll jam with him playing real stuff and me playing simple chords behind him. Hard to believe that when he was a stripling I was teaching him...
lblanchard: (Default)
"Size medium" is now comfortably loose and I could wear them out in public if I wanted to. Unlike size large, they're not dangerouslythreadbare at a critical seam. They're mightily well-worn but not apt to spring a leak at any moment.

Took about ten weeks to go down a size. Not bad at my age. If I make it through the minefield of Halloween / Thanksgiving / Christmas / New Year's, I could be bragging about reference jeans Size Small in late 2012 or early 2013. Wouldn't that be a Christmas present to give myself?

Now I shall pedal off to Weight Watchers to see if I've also crossed the borderline between obese and merely overweight. I should be getting close, I think.
lblanchard: (Default)
During the last U.S. presidential election season, I lost a couple of LJ friends of the liberal persuasion in the course of heated debates -- one by his choice, one by mine.

This year I am determined that this is not going to happen, partly by refraining from airing my political views on Teh Internets.

I read something somewhere (FB, I think) in which someone commented to the effect that "your snarky political observations aren't going to convert me; they may momentarily make you feel gleeful but they will essentially lower my opinion of you." That resonated. Boy did it resonate.

Yesterday I had jury duty and missed my daily afternoon dose of caffeine. I fell into bed before the thrilling conclusion of the Team Blue convention, even as I had during the thrilling conclusion of the Team Red convention.

Yesterday being jury duty day, all the bike ride I got was about 2.5 miles to and from the Criminal Justice Center, plus a short walk on my lunch break, plus my sit-ups when I got home. I upped the ante on the sit-ups by extending my legs fully rather than bending at the knee. I have limited patience for exercises and would resent time spent doing more than 30 of the wretched things. Tomorrow is reference jeans day and I'm looking forward to seeing a little bit of progress after another perfect week of following the Weight Watchers program on my own and getting the requisite 28 points of exercise.

On, and plant news for [livejournal.com profile] clindau -- I stopped counting Schlumbergera seedlings when I got to 20. I wish I had equally good news for [livejournal.com profile] halfmoon_mollie, but all the willow wands I started at the time I started hers have gone belly up, including hers. I'll start one again in the spring, or possibly ship you an unrooted wand in Feb, which you can place in water in a sunny windowsill, if you have one to spare (do you?). I brought in some willow cuttings one February and they were beautifully leafy by the Flower Show and had rooted heroically as well. I think that [livejournal.com profile] kightp took one home with her, and possibly [livejournal.com profile] karenkay and [livejournal.com profile] clindau as well.
lblanchard: (Default)
2011-01-20_01teacupAlthough I'd love to have space to grow butter beans, it's also very nice to be able to walk to a store that sells mugs and tea like these. I bought this mug because it reminds me of the illustrations for Monkey Subdues the White Bone Demon, although I didn't find Monkey, Pigsy, Sandy, or the monk once I got it home.

The tea is oolong and not my favorite. There's a tea-shop about a mile and a half from here, but it's not convenient to go to it in the winter because of the short days and the snow. But I just found out that they do mail order! For the cost of two bus tokens I can have my Earl Gray/Darjeeling blend and my Blue Eyes sent to me! The deed is done.

boring windowsill and food stuff )

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