Tuesday, July 30, 2013

A rainy Tuesday...



   (This picture makes it all look so small!!  It's not. 5 beds 5' x 24' )

Pretty much rained all morning. Good because we could use the water in the gardens.  Bad, because we didn't need monsoon torrents of rain beating the bejeezus out of everything.  Can't win...lol  But you can see how green everything is.  And how unkempt it is as well.  


  I feel almost as if a switch has flipped inside me...ever since we started talking about moving.  Distancing myself...thinking, how do we move all these canned foods and not break everything and why should I bother if they're all going to be destroyed.  (Ridiculous, I know).  We still have to eat this winter, and we don't even have a concrete plan in place about the move.  Almost like the idea has stalled, and so have I .  And I think I am subconsciously distancing myself from people too.  Interesting, all this.


 The garden is in limbo. The temps the past week or so have been early fall temps. It's supposed to be heading back up starting tomorrow, we'll see.  The past few days have been 70 and below.  Lows at night in the high 50's.  Crazy.  There are tons of green tomatoes out there and none of them are even attempting to ripen. We dug potatoes on Sunday, got 15-20 pounds of the most beautiful red potatoes we've ever grown.  Dug up a few Kennebecs--same deal. Perfection in a potato. Not a blemish on them. Not a sign of bug or critter or blight.  The Kennebecs are not quite ready to come out of the ground...but we were curious. So, there's still a whole bed of Kennebecs plus 2 boxes of fingerlings.  The sweet potatoes (Beauregards) are magnificent. Hoping they look as good below ground as they do above.  The butternut squash are treading water. I didn't go look at them today...they are in the bed in the side yard, and it was entirely too wet to go there.  We'll see what happens, I guess.

  On Sunday I start the Earth Literacy retreat...cooking supper for the retreatents.  May attend a session or two, but may wait until next year and just do the whole thing.  I'd hoped to have more of my garden done than I do before this started, because it's going to eat up a lot of my time. Oh well...no timetables for Mother Nature...lol


  The food program is going well.  I'm not losing real fast, but I am feeling vastly different in regard to my energy levels and general body stuff.  I joined an online forum for support and that has helped a lot. I was venting my frustration --doing everything by the book and not losing as much weight as my husband who is not really doing it all...except at suppertime when he eats what I eat. AND--I got him off the sugar and wheat too. Several women told me that metabolic repair is a slow process sometimes and that I need to hang in and not give up.  And I know they're right...I didn't get this way overnight and I'm not going to get rid of it overnight.  But still...lol.. They also said--Do not ever compare your weight loss to a man's.  I knew that too, from Weight Watchers years ago.  But I forgot and it was good to be reminded.  SO, bottom line is, I'm sticking with it and not giving up and am going to quit looking at the scale for while. This is week 3 for me. One thing is that because of my physical disabilities, I can't exercise as much as I need to.  Can I count running to the chicken coop 8 times a day, walking around in the garden and vacuuming?  lol


  Tonight's supper was a yummy turkey chili. The weather was perfect for it, and it was really good too. The next 2 days are more of a high protein/low carb days...some people think they're the hard days, some people feel more comfortable there.  All the foods and meals are pretty balanced, and there's plenty of food.  I have one more glass of water to drink tonight before bed. Lucky for me I'm a big water drinker anyway. It's the eating 5-6 times a day that feels like it's killing me. lol  BUT--the past few days I am feeling hungry. Like my body really WANTS to eat. And having little bouts of  hot flashes that feel different from the regular hot flashes.  Is it my metabolism revving up ?  I hope so...


    I did a little furniture rearranging and removal the other day...got rid of one of the loveseats and  pulled a wing back chair out that is so much more comfortable for me to sit in.  That opened up the living room like crazy.  I went into town to the little antique mall/ thrift shop  and found a small cabinet that would fit on the wall between the entertainment center and the aquarium  for only 22 dollars. It has sliding doors on the bottom of it. SO, since we were packing up the satellite tv receiver, I cleaned all that mess--(good lord, the dust on those shelves inside there !) ~  The top shelf of the entertainment center (over the tv) had videos and dvds double packed in it. So I went looking for the smaller cabinet to help make that stuff more easily accessible. And found the perfect one. It has 3 shelves and the sliding doors at the bottom.  And the price was right. Since we got rid of the phone/satellite package, we're watching more movies.  Today I watched a video of  3 Sopranos episodes, part of a boxed set I picked up somewhere.  Perfect way to spend a rainy day...and thought about how much I will miss seeing James Gandolfini's face. He died exactly one week after my anniversary...such a great actor...

  So glad to hear that Miss Beth is at home.  Keep those prayers coming for her, please. She's a wonderful woman facing a tough deal.  She's been brightening my days for over a year now...


  I'm currently reading a book by Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi...called  Virgil and Beatrice.  So far it's keeping me interested. I'll let you know. (We just got Life of Pi from Netflix and watched that too, lol).   I have finished Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver, and reading it does what it always does to me when I read anything by her or re-read something---I want to go back and read everything she has written because I love her.  lol  (Another plus to not having tv...I read more. I always read some, but I really read when there's no tv...like I did when I was a girl.  Voraciously.  lol


  Well, it's getting late and I should be going to bed.  Not too much happening around these parts, though I do have to make a run and get some more canned cat food, as we are doing round 2 of antibiotics on one of the cats for a respiratory infection. It's pill form and the only way to get it down him is crushed and in canned food. So be it.  He thinks he's suddenly the favorite son because he's getting canned food.  lol  He's eating up the attention.


  The rain stopped and it's supposed to be mostly sunny the next few days, so maybe I will get some garden work done.  Maybe.  (Hey~~it could happen !! )

   Sweet dreams, all...



Namaste.
 

6 comments:

DJan said...

I am so glad to hear that you are feeling somewhat better and that you are on a good regimen for your body. The first month is always the hardest. You do so much around your home that I do indeed think it can be counted as exercise! :-)

Susan said...

I vote that even THINKING about vacuuming can count as exercise...double for thinking about dusting! Our weather, too, is more fall-ish than summer-ish. I have no idea how my potatoes will turn out, but I'm not even peeking until September. Everything else is early and I'm scrambling to find a place to cure the onions and garlic.

p.s. I love your posts - it's like sitting down with you and talking!

Akannie said...

OMG...Djan and Susan--you are both such enablers !! lol I did a lot of weeding this morning out in the squash bed--that HAS to count for something. lol

Thanks DJan for the encouragement.

Susan--we didn't have very good luck with our onions this year. I'm wanting to really focus more on onions and garlic than I have in the past. Do you plant yours in the spring or in the fall ?

Susan said...

I plant mine in the spring. I've had the best luck (so far) with Burpee's Big Daddy onions - but not as much with their other types. Mine were huge this year!

Mariodacatsmom said...

I'm happy you are feeling a bit better too. Hang in there with the new eating menu - it will pay off in the end. Your garden looks beautiful to me - lots of work tho, and yes, things ripen of their own free will!

Anonymous said...

Changes -- moving?! Well, I must get used to the idea and I think your garden looks like a green cornucopia right now.