Not thirteen. Just stuff.

Dear Diary,

I've found a middle ground for eating that seems to be working for me. It's kind of low carb but not quite. I'm removing simple carbohydrates, including flours and sugars, and keaving in whole grains. Each morning when I work out I have a small bowl of steel cut oats with fruit and then almonds or walnuts. The rest of the day, when I'm mot working out, I have lots of vegetables and protein. It's kind of Mediterranian, but not quite. It's not extreme, and I have enough energy. My task has been to bring my fat level down a bit, but it too much, while getting enough protein. In the graphs on the right, the red is fat. These are my graphs for Sunday through Wednesday.

The turning point seemed to be when mini Baboo moved out. Since then, I sleep easily, like a rock. Suddenly, I no longer crave food. I feel full. I'm eating small meals all day long, food I love that's healthy, and not running to the store for kettle-fried chips.

The shin splint on the front of my leg, or irritated tendon, or whatever it was, is finally faded. I've been working out 2-3 mornings a week, 30 minutes power walking with the incline set to 10, and 20-30 minutes running with the incine set to 2. I use my heart monitor since nobody seems to know how to calibrate the speed on this thing and When it says 15 minute pace I am about to have a heart attack. On weekends, I do a short run, like a 10k, and a hike into the mountains.

I feel like I am starting over from scratch. I ran a 5k on Thanksgiving day at a 11:30 pace, which included stopping once or twice and walking. My cardiovascular fitness is there, but my endurance isn't.

 

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Last week on the way home I was inspired afresh to decorate with dead things from my yard. Not animals. I mean twigs and sticks. I have decided that the only thing that differentiates me from Martha Stewart in the area of creativity is the willingness to tie together bundles of twigs and sticks and call it art and stare down anyone who disagrees.

 

So, I headed for Hobby Lobby, which is in my way home. The fact that I got out of this bastion of Godliness without being chased by the mobs with pitchforks trying to see if I sink or swim, is testament to my ability to "pass".

 

As I, a recovering Southern Baptist (not that there's anything wrong with that) now teetering on the brink of Buddhism tiptoed warily through the store looking for spray pain (red, green silver, gold, go figure) I was struck with how our cultural norm is to embrace all cultures--but only the parts we like. Not the weird parts. So, there were lamps and such that were clearly Moorish in influence, but I'm sure that if you explained that to anyone they would just fix you with a blank stare. But anyway. So I went home with spraypaint and a bunch of red raffia, and wrestled some dead plants out of the yard and stuck them in jars.

Et, voila:

See, the difference between me and Martha, other than she's stinking rich and hard-working, is that I'm lazier, but way nicer.

 

The first picture is the stalk from a Century Plant (google it), spray painted, with red raffia bows tied around the stems, lights, all stuck in a bucket of rocks.

 

The rest are dead plants from my yard stuck in various vases, and then some silks stuck in with those so that I wouldn't have to find a place to store the silks.

Some of them I painted. Some I didn't.

 

 

 

I've heard about tumbleweed trees. Maybe next year.

 

 

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