Tuesday April 6, 2021

Not much going on other than good weather here. We went to the beach yesterday then continued with golfing lessons. I started to do fairly good driving off a tee, but not so great with an iron - lots of divots and missed shots. Practice continues this afternoon.

Little sleep last night due to a previously constipated Justice jumping all over the bed several times requiring a walk at 1 am, then pooping on the floor in the bathroom and in the closet. Yuck!

This morning I read a new installment of letters on this site: https://foreverfrank.family/ A friend of mine is transcribing letters written in WWII from his father to his mother. Really lovely letters with a bit of humor. Their son (my friend) is much like his Dad I think.

Have a safe and healthy Tuesday!

Happy to report the weight is still dropping with only moderate attention to calories, but a lot of attention to portion, food choices and satiety. I'm down a full 8 pounds now from January. Okay, slow going, but painless. Now that I seem to have gotten in the groove, I'd like to focus on dropping another 5 to get below the 260 mark. I still find myself getting a bit hung up on the number. Have to really remember that one of the things I want to be able to accomplish is increased flexibility - especially in daily activities like tying shoes.... I hate that tying my right sock and shoe takes strategic maneuvering.

I became aware yesterday while finishing my taxes how just that little bit of stress triggered grazing. I was not at all feeling stressed about my tax situation (though I do hope the new administration will change the tax laws, because I have had much higher taxes since the new tax laws under the Trump admin - not kind to homeowners in CA). Just the act of doing taxes seemed to trigger the grazing. For someone who did not consider himself an emotional eater I sure have discovered how almost all my eating dysfunctions revolve around the emotional aspects of my eating disorder! Gotta love therapy!

Not much else except my back still hurts like a son of a gun! So, so annoying and inconvenient.

What happened to your back? All the driving, or dog wrangling, or both?

Weight: ugh. I am not doing well with the decrease in calories. This feels like dieting, which I know most of us loathe. It seems to have triggered some binge eating. I think I may need to bump them back up for a while to resettle myself.

I got my first shot yesterday! Hallelujah. And I appreciate both our past president for getting the ball rolling on vaccine creation and procurement and the current one for getting it widely distributed. I realize how lucky we are having both the developers and manufacturers here. I think Covid has shown from testing components to PPE to vaccines how important it is to have sources for these things in your own country. Sharing with other countries is important too, but sometimes they either don't want to (China hoarding PPE early on, India halting vaccine shipments to the UK) or can't (Italy not able to produce testing swabs) in a crisis.

I was really worried about getting the first one in time so my second would be while I was still in CA. No sense complicating things with cross-state shot sourcing. And my second will be early enough that I'm protected while flying back to MI and I won't bring any germs to my dad. My arm was slightly tender this morning, but I've felt that worse with flu shots. I was surprised how high up on my shoulder she did it. I guess they want muscle and not fat. And boy do I have arm fat in spades.

I'm thinking of heading out for a walk as the weather is perfect today and I have nothing to do.

Peps, I agree with you on the SALT (state and local tax) deductions. That hit CA hard (me included!). Great job on the weight loss!

Shirl, fingers doubly crossed you get good news on the job front!

DD, good luck back at school!

Liz, the joys of dog parenthood, right?

Hope you all have good days. If you have spare good eating mojo to share, I'll take some!

Despite good vaccination numbers both Minnesota and Michigan are seeing jumps in Covid numbers, apparently the variants are tearing through the 20-40 age group. So hurray you're going to be vaccinated before you arrive!

School was exhilarating, crazy and sometimes frustrating. The WiFi crashed before noon, meaning our students who were joining us via webex didn't get to finish class, and in person students couldn't access Google docs etc. We're working on a review guide tomorrow, and decided to print up numerous hard copies so we have that option if it crashes again. But I loved, loved, seeing students and chatting with them, so much better than grey boxes in a webex meeting.

How long will it last? Who knows? One of the driving forces behind our infection increase appears to be youth sports. Basketball season just ended and numerous teams ended up being quarantined. Most spring sports are outside, so hopefully that helps. And the kids weren't doing too well with their masks. I'm not optimistic that we won't eventually need to quarantine again. But for now, I will happily show up and enjoy all the energy those kiddos bring to the building.

I am definitely in "on a diet mode". I don't know what else to do. Trying to be more moderate resulted in little weight loss. I don't like it, but I think it's what I need to do to get the fat burning started. Probably not sustainable. But then, am I really suffering all that much? Physically, not really. I have plenty of fat to burn, and a sleeve that doesn't eliminate hunger, but sure reduces it from how it gnawed at me in the old days. So today's success: I was offered to donut at an afternoon meeting. I declined, reminding myself that they were probably purchased in the morning, and had already been sitting around for over 8 hours. I wanted a million gold stars!!

And you deserve a million gold stars!

Liz, awesome on the golf progress! On our 4th Christmas together, DH bought me clubs, because he wanted me to learn how to golf so I could play with him. Very sweet, but then I got pregnant, and then we couldn't really afford a babysitter and green fees x2, and then we loaned my clubs out... but maybe 30 years later I should try again.

Good Morning All

Little late for pop in as I have been busy getting the slow cooker on and working. Have chinese beef in slow cooker and it should be yum. Will serve with rice and stir fry veggies. Made extras so I can do some freezer meals for mum.

Just work today and then have to pop into town to get some more takeaway containers and labels. I have done so much cooking I have depleted the stash up here but thats not a bad thing. Another lovely day - gorgeous sunshine and an office with a view. I am going to miss working from here very much

Waiting to hear re the job news. Every day that passes I get more anxious but reminding myself - what will be will be. Still waiting on sale contracts to be finalised. Im hoping to hear re new job so I can "resign" and know what Im doing. I really dont want to go to the new company at all but its a plan B if needed I guess.

Sending some Aussie Sunshine to you all

S

Waiting for news like that stinks! I always start optimistic, then begin leaning toward pessimism as the days go by.