Miscellany
I haven't written much of anything for a while, so here's what's going on:
Will-ness: I'm not making any progress right now, which isn't all that surprising because frankly I'm not trying very hard. Unfortunately, my "cushion" is starting to disappear fast, so if I want to stay on schedule for the bi-monthly invoices to go out, I need to start re-focusing. I've just been concentrating so hard on losing weight for the past few months, my mind finally wanted a break from worrying about the numbers. Of course, we have a visit with our nutritionist scheduled on Tuesday, so that should snap me out of my malaise and help get me back on track. I wanted to weigh 155 pounds by BRF Opening Day; I'm not sure if I can make that now, but I should be in the ballpark as long as I start applying myself again. Currently I'm wavering between 161 and 162 pounds, so at least I'm not gaining a significant amount of weight back.
Cycling: We bought Carl a new bike. The one he had didn't fit him well enough for him to want to go riding anywhere, and since I'm not likely to want to load up the bike and drive to the forest preserves on my own, we needed make it easier for him to ride with me. We've had a few rides around the neighborhood, rode to Tastee Freez for dinner and back (about 7.5 miles round trip), and hopefully we'll be able to go on some longer rides soon. We were planning on riding around the outer perimeter of the Chicago Botanic Garden on Monday, but as it turns out, the bike path doesn't go all the way around the Garden - it goes past the Garden all the way to Peterson Avenue! That's a much longer ride than either of us want to undertake right now and besides, if we're going to go all the way down to the Garden, then I want to see the all stuff they've got planted there up close and personal, not from a distance as we ride away from it. I'm really getting excited about cycling now that Carl and I can do it together. Spinning on the trainer was OK, but actually going somewhere is WAY better than sitting in my office/studio spinning my legs off. Here's to logging some serious bike mileage over the course of the summer!
Gardening: The vegetable garden is in, although some of it isn't doing very well. I think our red cabbage is dead in spite of all the watering we did, and the watermelon and cucumber vines are languishing as well although they do still appear to be alive, though just barely. We've gotten several of the fence panels constructed and installed so that we don't have to keep reaching over the wire rabbit fencing to get to the plants. So far we have:
19 tomato plants
9 pepper plants
5 tomatillo plants
4 green cabbages
64 garlic plants
18 bibb lettuce plants (they're not big enough to count as actual heads of lettuce yet)
36 potato plants
9 cucumber vines
6 summer squash vines
3 watermelon vines
8 blueberry bushes
... and way too many strawberry plants to count since we kind of let them get out of control last year and they have completely burst out of they're planter and have sprawled to completely cover an area approximately 3' X 12'. We're trying to stay on top of the runaway runners this year and hopefully we will get them back under control before they take over the entire yard. If I can find some red cabbage plants, I'll try re-planting them since I really wanted some pickled red cabbage this season, but if not, we'll just have to buy some at the store and pickle that. I had a lovely Reuben Sandwich yesterday with the homemade sauerkraut we made last year, and boy was it tasty! I hope this year's harvest is a fruitful one as well.
That's all for now. Stay tuned for more updates!
Will-ness: I'm not making any progress right now, which isn't all that surprising because frankly I'm not trying very hard. Unfortunately, my "cushion" is starting to disappear fast, so if I want to stay on schedule for the bi-monthly invoices to go out, I need to start re-focusing. I've just been concentrating so hard on losing weight for the past few months, my mind finally wanted a break from worrying about the numbers. Of course, we have a visit with our nutritionist scheduled on Tuesday, so that should snap me out of my malaise and help get me back on track. I wanted to weigh 155 pounds by BRF Opening Day; I'm not sure if I can make that now, but I should be in the ballpark as long as I start applying myself again. Currently I'm wavering between 161 and 162 pounds, so at least I'm not gaining a significant amount of weight back.
Cycling: We bought Carl a new bike. The one he had didn't fit him well enough for him to want to go riding anywhere, and since I'm not likely to want to load up the bike and drive to the forest preserves on my own, we needed make it easier for him to ride with me. We've had a few rides around the neighborhood, rode to Tastee Freez for dinner and back (about 7.5 miles round trip), and hopefully we'll be able to go on some longer rides soon. We were planning on riding around the outer perimeter of the Chicago Botanic Garden on Monday, but as it turns out, the bike path doesn't go all the way around the Garden - it goes past the Garden all the way to Peterson Avenue! That's a much longer ride than either of us want to undertake right now and besides, if we're going to go all the way down to the Garden, then I want to see the all stuff they've got planted there up close and personal, not from a distance as we ride away from it. I'm really getting excited about cycling now that Carl and I can do it together. Spinning on the trainer was OK, but actually going somewhere is WAY better than sitting in my office/studio spinning my legs off. Here's to logging some serious bike mileage over the course of the summer!
Gardening: The vegetable garden is in, although some of it isn't doing very well. I think our red cabbage is dead in spite of all the watering we did, and the watermelon and cucumber vines are languishing as well although they do still appear to be alive, though just barely. We've gotten several of the fence panels constructed and installed so that we don't have to keep reaching over the wire rabbit fencing to get to the plants. So far we have:
19 tomato plants
9 pepper plants
5 tomatillo plants
4 green cabbages
64 garlic plants
18 bibb lettuce plants (they're not big enough to count as actual heads of lettuce yet)
36 potato plants
9 cucumber vines
6 summer squash vines
3 watermelon vines
8 blueberry bushes
... and way too many strawberry plants to count since we kind of let them get out of control last year and they have completely burst out of they're planter and have sprawled to completely cover an area approximately 3' X 12'. We're trying to stay on top of the runaway runners this year and hopefully we will get them back under control before they take over the entire yard. If I can find some red cabbage plants, I'll try re-planting them since I really wanted some pickled red cabbage this season, but if not, we'll just have to buy some at the store and pickle that. I had a lovely Reuben Sandwich yesterday with the homemade sauerkraut we made last year, and boy was it tasty! I hope this year's harvest is a fruitful one as well.
That's all for now. Stay tuned for more updates!