11/17/12 G.L.A.D. Chronicles Week 7 – Progress, Peace, Squirrely Friends, Recipe For Thanksgiving

What a chaotic few weeks I’ve had… busier than a frenzied flea at the SPCA. I got to feeling like the doggie in the photo after a while.

What I felt like after this week!

Fortunately, a little sleep, (I might add that sleep, for me, is a marathon event between myself and Buddy the cat. He starts with the event Pillow Takeover: positioning himself above my head with claws strategically placed near scalp. Wait until human is asleep and then … CHARGE, out pop the claws, scalp moves south to get away, and Buddy gains a little more territory. After a few hours of this, he moves on to Butt Borders… placing himself down under to hog the warm spots and contort human even further. It’s a regular gold medal victory for that cat every night!) a few walks in the fresh air, hot coffee and decent food… I started to resemble the lassie with the cup of java….    

Feeling right as rain!!

                                                                                                     

Thank goodness I’m a resilient squirrel in a (lately) extraordinarily nutty world. Seriously! Have you caught the news at all? Some days, I think the entire planet has lost their marbles. And that’s saying something, coming from me. 🙂  But, I’m not here to wallow in reality, this is MY blog and I’ll make it as lilac-shaded through my glasses as I want to! In this little corner, things are okay.

I‘m back to eating well, taking walks and sweating to workout videos, getting to bed at a decent hour. I created a new Excel program at work that SHOULD make life easier. I can do a lot of things on computers, but I’m not a geek, so… I go through a lot of coffee and lotsa nuts before it’s just the way I want, but I DID IT! Squirrel tail salute to me!

Speaking of my furry friends, I’ve found a delightfully daffy fellow blogger who’s as loco about them as I am. This blog provides me with many smiles and a cheerful person behind that squirrely curtain: http://evilsquirrelsnest.com/2012/11/17/squirrel-butt/  Squirrel, said I’d raise a paw to you today!

On to other silliness, I post the following picture, courtesy of my friend Rick Gordon over at Facebook, who probably posted it courtesy of another FB’er. This week, we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving. Like it or love it, be it the meal, the games around the table after the dishes are cleared, or even those insane Black Friday sales, the following piece of wisdom is surely correct for some human mutant you’ll meet during the holiday season. 

 

I’ve told Rick I’d like to have this put on a t-shirt. For now, I’ll suffice with a 5 x 7 print out for my board at work. Coworker ticking you off? Pop the picture out… it’ll speak volumes!   Back to the holiday meal, I’m making a light, fluffy dessert I found on www.allrecipes.com 

Strawberry Fluff

Ingredients:

2 (3 ounce) packages sugar-free strawberry flavored Jell-O

1 (16 ounce) package low-fat cottage cheese, blended with a mixer for smoother consistency 

1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed 1 (20 ounce) can crushed pineapple, in its own juice, drained

Directions: In a mixing bowl, combine the gelatin powder, cottage cheese, whipped topping and pineapple. Mix together well, refrigerate until chilled and serve.  I personally prefer raspberry, so may make that if I can find the sugar-free variety.

Well, friends, that’s about it for now. Just remember, when your annoying family members are causing you to have dangerous thoughts, manslaughter is still illegal in the state of Ohio! (where I live) And probably in the area where you live too. 🙂

Happy Thanksgiving!

05/19/12 Losing Weight, Books, Elderly “Senior Prom”

Life moves faster than I can, some weeks. This has been one of those times. I saw my son off to his class trip yesterday morning, getting up at 4:30 a.m. to get to the chartered bus on time. My internal clock still hasn’t adjusted to that! Lots of coffee and I’ll eventually be fine. 🙂 Here I am with ten days to be “just Sue”. All of you are only getting my attention this morning, as I plan on taking a break from a lot of my internet business for the next week or so, in favor of real life: reading a real book with paper pages: Elizabeth George’s newest Inspector Lynley novel “Believing The Lie”. This book has 608 pages. If Ms. George wasn’t one of my favorite authors, I wouldn’t be reading this. Time is a rare commodity for me at the moment.

I went to a festive gathering for Little Brothers volunteers last night. We sat outside on the patio overloking the city. May I tell you, I was in Anglophile and book lovers heaven, sitting next to Cathy One and Cathy Two, discussing books, British royalty and their weddings, British movies, television series, etc….. I finally understand how Nascar fans feel when they sit and talk endlessly of those men who only make left handed turns while driving. The fine wine made and brought by one of Little Brothers own volunteers added to the cheery feeling. 🙂

My book club has chosen “Fifty Shades of Grey” for this month’s reading. I knew nothing about this book and looked it up on Amazon to read the reviews. What a completely mixed bag of opposite spectrum opinions and critiques are offered. It appears this is a book one either loves or hates. Anyone reading this read the book yet? What are your thoughts? I have it on request from the library, hopefully it’ll be back in stock before our next meeting June 26th.

Did I write about a prayer session at church I took part in on April 10th? The type of prayer is called SOZO. My session lasted three hours and was truly life changing for me. A lot of my buried garbage was unearthed, dealt with, and I’m now experiencing the loveliest freedom from things that have hounded me for decades, in some cases, my whole life.

One of the most noticeable is my food habits and preferences. I’ve lost the taste for sugar, soda pop, most junk carbs, etc. If I’m having a bad day emotionally, now I look the emotions in the eye, instead of eating my way through it. For a lifelong emotional eater, that’s too tripped out to even fathom. The excess weight is coming off. I wouldn’t have believed this possible if it wasn’t happening to me.

I can’t take credit for it. My gratitude is entirely to God and the Holy Spirit seemingly doing a great deal of internal housecleaning on this girl. Thank you God. I can’t describe how surreal the freedom feels.

My pedometer has been attached to the waistband of my pants forty five days straight. I do think wearing one encourges me to move. Logging the steps on my phone calendar every night has become a ritual. I raise the bar on how many steps are my minimum goal periodically. In the beginning, I walked 1,000 steps a day. The current minimum is 3,000 steps daily and usually 4,500 to 6,000 is the accomplished range now.

www.myfitnesspal.com is one of my favorite sites now. I’ve made friends with a lady there and we’re meeting up tomorrow to walk through Eden Park. I’ve enlisted my Facebook friends to walk at Veteran’s Park and I hope to visit Fernbank Park soon.

My breathing eases up a little bit more all the time. I still sweat like a pig at a pig roast, but really, I’ve done that my whole life. My poor mom, she was one of those creatures who didn’t sweat and couldn’t take the heat so well. I’ll take sweating. That’s why God made showers and deodorant. 🙂

One last fond memory of the past week. On Friday, May 11th, I drove three elderly friends to Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly “Senior Prom”. It was a blast!  These folks definitely know how to enjoy a lovely evening. Two of the volunteers shown, Colleen and George, are part of a wonderful team from Macy’s that helps the prom in various and tremendous ways. I can only tell you that I kidded with Betty and George, thinking they were old friends, only to find out they had just met that evening. George was exceptionally gracious and treated our guests like elegant princesses at the ball. It was  truly a beautiful night!

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04/27/12 Sweating Inspiration!

What a great week it’s been! Getting outside everyday and sweating, I forgot how much enjoyment is in “glistening” with odoriferous perspiration! Walking has turned from torture a week ago into still huffing and puffing (fractionally less!), a lot of sweat and a feeling of accomplishment that moi hasn’t keeled over and is still going!

Two WordPress blogs have inspired me: Joyful Journey and Fabulous 50’s. They’ve managed to make fitness and perspiration seem desirable and not something to avoid at all costs! For that, I am grateful!

Joyful Journey talked about the website www.myfitnesspal.com  It’s got the nicest phone app that allows me to download my exercise, food, notes, lots of cool things. Very motivating and FREE! I love free lately. 🙂  It mimics the features of other well-known sites that do not offer such services for free and it’s extremely easy to use on my Motorola Droid. Gotta love that, no notebooks to tote around for journals, food diaries, whatever.

I can’t get away from it. Over at Facebook, different friends are writing about training for events and the accomplishment they feel moving from walking to running and busting a move in general. Emily and her mom Joanne lead the pack of inspiring women in their posts about “Girls on the Run.”

My brother Jon and his wife Marcia are in on the act. During the last family gathering at Easter, unlike me, they didn’t look like they’d been up close and personal with an air hose planted up their bums! I can’t hiss at them, as I know they work out and don’t eat like rebellious children.

My book club friend Deb, definitely a long cool woman with a blonde mane, also inspires me to move. She’s about as slim as they come and breaks a sweat regularly.

Obviously, I can’t beat them, so I wave the love seat lizard’s white flag.

I’m ready to join them, call Cecil B. DeMille and tell him “I’m ready for my glistening close up, Mr. DeMille!”

Drops of sweat (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

04/23/12 Walking Through The Park One Day

Big Bad Wolf (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I took the plunge yesterday and headed to Veteran’s Park. Meeting a friend after church, we walked the track for two miles. Truthfully, not a pretty sight! This is the first real walk I’ve taken in a couple of years, I think.

The lungs can get very lazy from non-use over such a period. Each time we hit the slight upgrade of the track, I believe other walkers thought a delirious female version of The Big Bad Wolf was lurking in the park! I’m glad no little piggies were around, they would have squealed all the way home. 🙂

It’s interesting to note that in the past, I didn’t like walking with other people at all. Moi was very content being an island unto herself. Now I appreciate the company of others. It made me get my tail out there when I’m sure I’d rather have been at home reading a good book.

However, I don’t like that my breathing is so compromised lately. Funny how you take breathing for granted until it becomes a chore. Then one learns to appreciate it for the gift it truly is. I want it back.

I’m willing to huff and puff until I walk this girth off. Please warn any nearby piggies!