Did anyone really think we've been kidding when we say it's freezing in Florida this winter? Well, just take a look at my poor brother-in-law making up his bed in my Florida room. The parka and hat really aren't his pyjamas but they're almost needed.Larry happens to snore so his wife, Joyce, sleeps inside the nice warm trailer on the couch and I sleep inside the nice warm trailer in my bed. I'd thought we'd leave the patio doors open into the Florida room so it would gain some warmth but Joyce keeps them closed...too much noise from Larry.So Larry bundles up under the comforter and makes sure to shut the door quickly when he comes inside the trailer so that Joyce and I don't get cold.Seriously, though, it only hit 52 degrees today and most of our nights in the last week have been near freezing.Poor Larry.
Joyce and Larry, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, should arrive here tomorrow for a 2 week vacation and I'm hoping against hope that my damn cold will be at least almost gone. We've got so much planned for the next few weeks, what with the Bailey family mini reunion plus all the various places I want to take Joyce, that I can't be spreading germs. There are too many older people that might not survive it. I'm willing myself healthy.Joyce and Larry don't like to travel very much except to the east coast but they came down to spend Xmas with me the first year Dennis passed away. That was a kindness I'll always remember. This year is their first trip down here since then and I want it to be a good one for them. Joyce loves to shop so there will be no shortage of great places to take her. Keeping Larry from being bored will be the biggest challenge but I have a chore for him...streamlining my toolshed. I don't even know what's in there and only use a small number of items so I'm sure he can make it nice and roomy for me. The only problem is that job won't take 2 weeks to do so we'll have to find other ways to amuse him.I dusted and polished the furniture today and vacuumed but there's lots more that could be done that I have no strength to worry about. The grass (weeds) could be trimmed but I'm not up to that. I do have to go grocery shopping but that won't take long and then I'll nap. Sleeping a cold away is the smart thing to do.Millie brought me over some Neo Citran this morning and I'll take that tonight. Faye has been running errands for me, too. It's nice to have people care about you when you're under the weather.I'm staying away from cards and games nights so that I don't infect my buddies and anyone who visits has to keep their distance. I feel like a leper.Anyway, tomorrow I will be well.
Well, I gained back 1 pound last week but that can happen. Chris weighed me in and tried to blame the weight gain on the medication I'm taking for my cold but I think it was the buttered bagels I ate last week. We know when we do wrong!Now I'm going to mention something that's been bugging me for a few months. Tiger Woods and his atrocious behaviour!He's a man who had everything...fame, fortune, nice family, and a good reputation but he threw it all away to have sex with a bunch of skanks. This is not the action of a man with a mental disorder. It is the action of a self-centered and selfish man. All the rehabs in the world will not cure a personality flaw like this.I hear his wife is taking him back. Oh well.
14 of us went out for dinner today at a (we thought) nice restaurant. We waited about 1/2 an hour for our drinks and then another 1/2 hour for the dinners to begin to arrive. They came 3-4 at a time so that by the time the last 2 got their dinners the first few were finished.Mine was one of the last and the catfish was almost cold so I sent it back. Minutes passed before my plate was returned with hot catfish but by this time the baked potato was quite cool. I wasn't about to send it back so just began eating my meal. In a few minutes the waitress returned, saw that most of our group were long finished eating and asked me if I wanted mine packed up to take home. Good grief! I held my temper.I was thinking how I'd never return to that particular restaurant but they happen to have an Elvis impersonator coming there next week. That made me reconsider.Dinner and show is $20 and Faye made reservations.
What, in a person's mind, allows them to be terribly inconsiderate to the people around them? I believe that inconsiderate people are simply selfish individuals who have a highly inflated opinion of themselves and who feel that others just don't count.We're in a trailer park where everyone lives fairly close together so it's important not to make unnecessary noise late at night or too early in the morning. But there are people who warm up deisel vehicles at dawn, people who don't clean up their dog's poop, and people who let their dogs bark for hours. What are they thinking? Are all others in the world around them so unimportant?Just last week we were in a lineup at a buffet with about 6 people still behind us. One of our group walked up the line and stepped in front of us. How did he justify this rudeness in his mind? How could his haste be worth the impression he left on the people who saw this? I just don't get it.One lady (actually the wife of the line breaker) never goes to our weekly luncheon but, when she found out it was a free lunch last week, she went and stocked up on everything available. These appear to be people with money so why the greed? And something else I noticed is that inconsiderate people all seem to have a creepy nature. Hmmm!One of the first lessons we learn in life is to be considerate of others so is it possible these people were never taught that lesson? Do we need special lessons to teach us consideration or is it something we should just know is right to do?The inconsiderate ones are by far in the minority but it's still so pleasant to be in the company of polite people. You can trust polite and considerate people but you'll always be wary around the creeps.
I guess I'm doing something right because I'm now officially 10 pounds lighter than I was 3 weeks ago. To be honest, part of my success last week was due to a canker sore under my tongue that made eating a slow and painful process. It was pretty well impossible to overeat.There are a lot of things I do wrong and maybe I'll be able to correct some of them but just eating sensibly is probably all I'll ever need to do. I don't ever expect to be a size 10 but my basic hope is to just lose enough weight to be more comfortable. However much that turns out to be, I can only benefit from eliminating much of the bad stuff from my diet.Having our little group meet every Friday morning is a large part of my incentive to eat well each week but I can't count on that when I'm back home this summer. I'm hoping to start up my own little group back home so any of you reading this should let me know if you're interested. Even a group of 2 could help us both!Today is another day to do my best.
I've been kind of lax this week as far as eating sensibly but the one thing that just might have saved me is the fact that I have a darned canker sore on the back of my tongue. It's painful to eat so I haven't been eating in restaurants as often as usual.I'm using David's canker sore remedy...a swish of peroxide followed by a swish of cleansing water. It really does help and the sore is slowly diminishing. I hope my appetite doesn't come back too strongly once it's gone.It's still terribly cold out for Florida so I'm spending a lot of time sitting on my butt and Swedish weaving the runners for Shelley's Georgia bedroom furniture. In my estimation they are gorgeous! I'll post a picture when they're finished.I've also been a little lax in writing down everything I eat and that's not good. It's as important to record your food intake as it is to weigh in weekly. The good news is that I haven't given up my quest. For me, giving up usually occurs within the first couple of weeks. I think my ability to keep with the program is that I'm not counting calories or fats but just trying to eat sensibly. I have a brain and I'm making every effort to use it.Friday morning I'll weigh in with our weight loss group so then I'll have a better idea how successful my week was.
Sunny, warm Florida. Not so! It's been so darned cold this winter that we've had to hold our Monday morning coffee get-togethers inside the trailer. You can see that these ladies enjoy each other's company no matter how crowded the conditions, though.
Literally twelve months ago a vibrant lady looking years younger than her age was the picture of health. She ate right and exercised regularly. Today she is in a hospice with very little time left on this earth.It is so disturbing to see how our bodies can turn against us and take our lives away with little warning. This lady had some stomach discomfort which turned out to be lymphoma plus leukemia and both diseases proved too deadly for her to fight back.We're all feeling terribly vulnerable because, if she could be struck down like this, then the rest of us are all on borrowed time. Of course we know our days are all numbered but our egos blind us to imminent danger and death. It will happen to someone else, not us. But it can.I've watched way too many people succumb to cancer in the past few years, people who I'll always remember when they were vital and healthy. I hope they're all over on the other side now and enjoying another phase of life.
I'm really confused about my actual weight loss because yesterday morning I weighed myself 3 times within about an hour and the amount was different each time. Maybe it's time to buy a decent scale.Anyway, I thought there was a possible 1 pound gain which is perfectly acceptable in the second week of eating sensibly because the large loss the first week is mainly water. I went over to the weight group and got weighed on the good scale and it showed I'd lost 1/2 pound. Whoopee!That's all good but my food intake since yesterday morning hasn't been. It's time for me to muster up some self control and renew my efforts because it would break my heart to regain what I've lost.Tomorrow is another day and I'll do my best.
Picture 8 senior ladies playing dominoes but we all come from different areas of the country and all play by slightly different rules. Now see how these 8 ladies handled the situation. Did we argue? No.First Gail read the rules that came with the game and each one of us adjusted our concepts of how the game should be played in order to accommodate the actual rules.We laughed and joked and discussed our mistakes as we played, finally settled and understood what we were to do. We played accordingly and enjoyed the evening immensely because it really doesn't matter whose rules you play by, it only matters that you co-operate with each other.We really could bring world peace with that idea. Co-operation is all it takes to bring peace to a dominoe game or to the whole wide world.
Yesterday I was mentioning to my coffee morning ladies that bananas seem to go brown terribly fast in Florida so I only buy 3 or 4 at a time. Dee said that she takes over-ripe bananas, peels them and cuts them into slices and then freezes them for a healthy snack.I did this and just pulled out one of the packages from the freezer to see how they'd taste. They are really good and it takes a whole heck of a lot longer to eat a frozen banana than a fresh one so it's a great snack idea. Anything like this that helps keep us away from high calorie snacks is a good thing!
I know, I know. You shouldn't weigh yourself every day when trying to lose weight but I'm so insecure about my will power that I'm still doing it. In any case, it's still going okay.I'm never hungry in the morning or when I'm busy so the late evenings are the hardest for me to ignore food. Apparently inactivity is a big part of my problem because it leads to wanting to fill the void with food. Morning coffee does it in the A.M. but I can't drink too much in the evening or I'll be up all night going to the bathroom. Last night at around 10 P.M. I was feeling just a slight bit hungry so I popped a piece of gum in my mouth and that satisfied me until bedtime.I've developed some terrible eating habits over my 69 years and they won't change overnight. The one thing I'll really need to change, though, is my fixation with the scale. You only need to weigh in once a week!
I felt that I failed miserably on my "eating sensibly" plan today. Looking back on the possible calorie intake, it wasn't so bad but there was a loss of control that made me angry with myself. I had a meat/protein craving and ate way too much meat but it could have been worse.I don't usually eat much meat at all and it's possible that the craving today came from my body trying to regain the 9 pounds I've lost. It's probably feeling starved even though my meals are quite sufficient. There are more things than just the mind that make it difficult to lose weight. There are physioligical reactions to a sudden decline in calories but they can be overcome in time. The trick is to not accept failure and not give up when your body is fighting your attempts to lose weight.My transgressions were at lunch and now I have no appetite for dinner but I'll go ahead and eat some fruit. One of the tricks to losing weight is to eat 5-6 small meals a day instead of 2-3 large ones. I'm more of a binge eater so eating many small meals is hard for me. Fruit is a good alternative, though, and one I don't mind at any time of the day.I'm still fighting the good fight and I haven't given up.
Did anyone really think we've been kidding when we say it's freezing in Florida this winter? Well, just take a look at my poor brother-in-law making up his bed in my Florida room. The parka and hat really aren't his pyjamas but they're almost needed.
