Well four months later…..

I guess life happened, In March I can’t remember what was going on but I guess it was more than I could handle, LOL I just scanned my calendar I keep by me, if I don’t write it down I would never remember it. LOL It looks like March was vaccine month, we both had our shots, and still lots of stress on going to the grocery store and doctor appointments. April was full of MD appointments and Peter had his second moderna shot, I had the johnson and johnson shot, so I had one. We had no ill effects from the shot. Well I had brain fog for about a week or so. Seemed like I couldn’t remember anything, even why I was wandering around a grocery store. Kinda freaky really. But it cleared up thank goodness. I have recently called the Az Health Dept and asked about getting a booster, I read on the J and J site that at four and half months it goes from being 85% effectiveness to 65% A little worrisome, I wanted to go get revaccinated with moderna, but the informed me that I shouldn’t do that as they have no idea how my body would react to the mix of the 2 vaccines. He was very upfront with me about the concerns, and he did reassure me that all the vaccine makers are working on a booster at this time, so that was something, he said to just keep monitoring the websites. Even thought that mask mandate is over in out state, many stores and places are asking you to wear one, and all medical offices are requiring temps upon entering and mask. Better to be safe than sorry.

I just looked at the month of April and it was full of eye appointments, and ENT appointments and both our kids came out to see us at different times of the month, so it was a very busy time. My husband was getting measured and appointments set up for cataract surgery in both eyes, That took up most of May, I played nurse Nancy with the eyedrops, he had to have them for one month in each eye and the surgeries were 2 weeks apart. 6 weeks of eye drops, 4 times a day LOL Kept me hopping. LOL Peter also had nose polys removed from both nostril’s in the MD office, but it was still a week or more of recuperating. While we were in that office we met with the hearing aide doctor and she ordered new hearing aides for him, and he had to go back to have both ears molded. He know has his hearing aides and loves them. Nose not so much, still had stuffiness most the time.

It was so nice to see our kids, been over a year since I have had my kid hugs, and I was needing them badly. Our daughter came out for a long weekend and it was nice to spend time with her, A week later our son and his girlfriend came out, she was able to stay 2 days before she had to fly back to Minnesota, she works at the college she goes to grad school for. But before she left they went out in the early morning to go climb Pichaco Peak and came back engaged. LOL It was a fun day. My son stayed for another week and then drove back to California where he was taking care of a few things at the house before he flew back east. So really nice to have him here for awhile.

One June 2rd I joined the local gym and signed for a trainer for a year!! I go 2xs a week and get 12 free days, they say they are free but for the amount I am paying I don’t think they are really free. LOL So I have had 12 sessions with my nice trainer Alyssa and that means I have turned from a night owl to an earlier riser. LOL At the gym at 7am a couple to three times a week. I hated it in the beginning, I struggled with the money end of it, and I really hate to exercise, LOL but now after 4 weeks I am starting to look forward to my workouts. I also have a swimming pool I can go bob around in after, very nice. I have shed 8#’s this month, I am hoping that it will start to melt of me from all the sweating. LOL

SO that’s what’s been going on in my world and it hasn’t stopped, LOL

July is the month my husband will have prostate surgery, in fact in just a week. It will be his second time for the same surgery so at least he know what to expect. It will be a rough couple weeks but he has a good attitude about. I did tell him after he finishes his doctoring we are going to go find a big body of water and sit by it for a couple days. LOL

I see the entire US is either flooding or under a heat advisory. We had 11 days of being 111′ or over. All the plants looks so dry and many are dying. We have been getting up at 5a to water the agaves and many trees that need water to survive not being a desert tree. I have lost 3 big agaves and lots of my beaver tail cactus is just withering away, alot of it is old and the heat is just helping it along. Our gardeners were here a couple weeks ago and he stated we had to quit cutting down trees and taking out bushes, the yard will be bare. But if they are dead, they are dead, some of the bushes he just cut off at ground level and i have been watering them and they are starting to send out green starts. Amazing how the saguaros are still standing in the heat. Now they keep promising us rain, and it passes right by, at least its cloudy and we thunder and lightening and the mountains are getting rain. I did see they were giving free sand bags and sand to anyone who wanted it that lived at the bottom of the mountain that burnt all last summer, they are expecting terrible run offs from the rain. I hear thunder as we speak but no rain.

Not much else going, I guess looking back over the past 4 months it has been busy. I will try to get back on here before the end of July.

Hope everyone is safe and trying to enjoy this crazy weather this summer is bring to us all.

Well so much for keeping up on the blog. Seems like my life is going in so many different directions and at the same time going no where!! I believe its the doomed feeling of possible death if I go out shopping. My husband is not in the best of health, lung area, so we are not sure he could beat off the virus, and I am an asthmatic along with other issues so I need to be extremely careful not only for myself but my husband. I go out and shop and wait 2 weeks to see if I caught anything!! I am so careful and use my mask, sometimes I go through 2 or 3 as I change them often while I am in the store, as soon as I think they are damp from breathing I change it. I use my alcohol wipes constantly while I am out. But still in the back of my mind is the 2 week wait. I hate feeling like this. I really miss jumping in the car and going to some of my favorite haunts. Very depressing!! and as far as the vaccine goes, well my husband has his appointment for first does March 3rd at a drive through, and I do not qualify yet, I keep trying to find a place to go but no luck. In Pima county they are fighting over the vaccine when we do get some. I am not sure why the state doesn’t have enough vaccine. I see California is also short in doses. Craxy.

On a happy subject, my cousin came down from Phoenix and we drove up to the top of Mt.. Lemmon to see the snow. LOL We are both from snow country and find it crazy that we are actually going out to see snow. LOL But it was a beautiful day and we sat in the car and watched the folks ski and board down the slops.. It was fun to see people having fun. We drove around the neighborhoods and checked out all the snow everywhere. LOL stopped for burgers and headed back down the mountain. It was a fun day and it felt good to get out and do something.

This shows some of the fire damage from the huge fire from last summer.

Keep smiling

I been on this blog for 6 years. That is a little frightening since I started this blog as a personal journey for myself as I struggled to loose weight. As naïve as I was I had no idea that I was becoming a part of a community of other bloggers. I remember back to when my daughter came over right after I started journaling and asked if I had replied to anyone? I must of had that “deer in the head lights” look as she said I had a list of followers and did I reply to them. LOL Long story short, here I am. I am so happy to be part of this community of people. I know that I am not as faithful as I should be about writing on here, its not like I am doing anything else. LOL So I will try to be more present!

We we got a dusting of snow down here in what they call the valley floor in Tucson, Mt. Lemmon got over 3′ of snow, I am guessing the skiers will be in heaven this week after they open the roads. Sure is pretty.

This is right behind out house. Pretty exciting for desert dwellers!

Well now onto more disturbing note. Its been 6 years since I have started this journey and I can say I was well on my way to weight loss, 70# down in 2018, and then I am not sure what happened! Well it doesn’t take much thought to know that I must of started eating again and not caring. Here I sit 6 years later, I am still at a weight loss of 31#s, but no where near my goal that I set for myself 6 years ago. I am back at it, have been for 3 weeks. I stopped all the craziness that I had going on in my head. Like paying for weight watchers monthly thinking it would magically help, well it might if I actually tried to follow it. I was to busy trying to fudge my way way through it for it make any significant change in my eating habit. So canceled that and put away all the self help books that I have glanced at and told myself that I need to stop the craziness in my life and just frigin get it together. grow up, be an adult and take control of the one thing I have had no control over in my entire life. So I did just that. I have been doing a fast, 3p to whenever I get up and have something to eat. I can drink whatever I want after 3pm as long as its not called food. What I mean is, no hearty soups, or milkshakes, I do have hot teas or broth and I generally have a coffee in the evening. But nothing that would be called food, I have been doing this for over 3 weeks and I am sleeping better and really have only had a couple bad evenings where I wanted to graze the kitchen. I finish up in the kitchen at 3, dishes done, coffee ready for the morning and walk away. This is how I lived my life for years in my younger years. The reality of it all is, you would think I would be starving in the morning after 15 hours with no food. But I am not, I could actually go until noon to have my first and only meal of the day. It really is amazing if we listen to our bodies and not our minds, after all we are just a type of animal and they seem to have no problem with weight when not influenced by humans. I would say 99% of animals are at they’re ideal weight, if they have adequate food to choose from, they don’t overeat or starve themselves purposely. They eat when there hungry and drink when they are thirsty. The only reason, most of what I can see in this world is that they overweight when there is an outside influencer, as a human giving them treats or over feeding, I realize that there always special circumstances but that is the just of it. I have known this as all of you have too since you were very young. So I am trying to get back to basics with my body. I eat what I want, I do not overeat, I could do better, make better choices but baby steps will get me there quicker than head games! It was like a gut punch to realize that it has been 6 years already. I was 58 when I started this journey and I am now 64!! If I don’t get a little seriously I will be 60 in 6 more years and a lot more unhealthy. I have several points against me and I don’t need to give them any chances to set it, like diabetes, it runs in our family and I am overweight and my A1C is in the prediabetic numbers so I need that to get that under control, my arthritis is not going to get any better but I could help myself with weight loss and movement, my father died of a heart attach at age 63, so another strike against me, I have recently started on blood pressure medication, its not high but my BP has always been right at the top of good, 140/84, it was lower when I was thinner, so another issue, I recently ended up with high cholesterol, my MD says that could just be an age thing since I hardly consume any meat products, or weight induced. another issue to work on. Not only is my body for the first time in 64 years yelling at me my skin is letting me know that I am aging, is not only is sagging, its dry and feels old!! My hair, well lets not go there, I used to have beautiful thick, shiny curly hair, down past my waste at one time. Well, thinning, grey dull, looks lifeless to me!! Another reason to try harder. So here at my 6 year mark, I will not call myself a failure, but a procrastinator that has not stopped making excuses for years for myself. I have asked the rebel in my soul to help instead of fighting against me all the time. I will and I am going to make a difference in my life this year!!! My word to myself.

I found if I journaled on here that I was more focused to staying in tune with me. So I will be on here more and keeping in touch not only with me, but all of you.

I hope that your all safe and untouched by Covid. We have been hiding out at home and only venturing out as needed for groceries or MD appointments. I wish you all health and peace in this new year.

I can only speak for myself, but I felt a change in the mental atmosphere of my mind at the changing of the guard in the White House. I do not label myself with a political party, however I follow the better person for the job. I gave Trump a chance and even though he did do some positive things for our country it was out weighed for me by the completer bully and asshat that he is. If he would just taken some direction in how to be a better man for the job and think of someone else than himself, he would still be president. I am sorry for the Republican party, they are good people, but there leader got off the path for America, and he was not thinking about us a nation. His actions proved that. I hope that Biden will bring us back together as a nation if he can. I feel that the tone of the Whitehouse has improved and hearing from the scientist about Covid is a positive move. No one should try to be someone they are not. Okay I will get off the soapbox, but lets give this administration a chance to see what he can do for us, just like we gave Trump the chance.

Welcome to 2021, may this be a healthier, happier, year for us all.

Merry Christmas

I wish you all a very merry Christmas…

Happy Christmas Eve

Wishing everyone a happy, merry, safe Christmas wherever you are this season. We are home alone with each other, and there is nothing wrong with that . The turkey is ready to go on the BBQ tomorrow with all the fixins. So looking forward to enjoying Christmas day with my sweetheart.

Merry Christmas to All

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, fall has finally arrived in the desert southwest, we are still in the 90’s but they keep promising lower temps. We have already had a dusting of snow on the tops of the mountains, up over 8000: feet. So that was a promising start to the fall/winter season. However since then, it feels more like summer than fall. I will quit whining but really!!!

I have been absent from here for no other reason than stress on life! I miss my kids, I miss going to a store without thinking I may bring home the virus. and now with covid increasing at this time. well I could go on and on and on. I am sharing that this is the reason I have not been on here. I don’t have a lot of nice things to say. But I will try!

Life is the same, we have been working hard on the yard, I hired a landscape company to come clean up the big plants and trees full of mistletoe, its a type of it and it kills the trees quickly. Its nice to see the yard cleaned up. My cousin who moved to Phoenix this year, came down and I showed her some of the big nurseries in town and sent her home with several pots of aloe and cactus. So my deck is looking a little better, not so cluttered.

This is what out agaves looked like when they were all cleaned up. I could here them thanking us. LOL

My sister just sent me my birthday box, and I was able to open all my presents early, it was such a special birthday, she started with a not, that said this was from everyone. Well I assumed she meant her kids, lol, however what it ended meaning was from all the family that has passed. I got a couch couch quilt made from blocks my late sister had made and my sister finished it up, I alos got a rock painted by my brother, and then she sent me a wooden box that my parents always had on there bedroom dresser full of this and that, it also contained my fathers leather wallet which was still full of everything he carried in it for at years, like 30. It is full of pictures of all the grandkids when they were little and other fun items. Even an old Sizzler restaurant Senior Card, LOL my parents loved a good bargain and when we lived in Petaluma Ca. they had a local one near them, they ate out there at least once a week if not more. LOL that sure brought back memories. She also made me a pillow from a sweatshirt I bought my mom when I was in our home town Chewelah Washington and the collar she added was from my late sister. So I was a very heart felt birthday, I appreciated it so much. She previously made me a pillow from one of my fathers shirt, even left the piece of gum in the pocket. LOLSO I am surrounded with love from my family, live and those that have left us. I love it.

Well I am rambling, be safe over this holiday season, looks like we have a vaccine in the very near future but it will take a good year for everyone to be vaccinated before we can start getting back to some sense of normalcy.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL

Welcome to Fall

Harvest moons, cooler weather, finally, Christmas in all the stores I have been in. I am thinking they are in a hurry to get onto 2021. LOL

Life in the desert southwest has been good. We broke the record for most days over 100′ this year. Today is only the second day under 100 since, well forever it felt like. LOL Our night temps are dropping in the high 50’s so getting up early to start cleaning up all the cactus that didn’t make it. Seems like we lost several agaves if not from heat then from a beetle that bores into them and lays eggs. I have been trying to treat them but some of my agaves are 6′ across and make it impossible to get close, plus the snakes live under them in the heat, so I keep my distance.

Voted today, that felt good. Not sure what to say about whats going on in Washington, but its scary for sure.

Husband is doing great, dog is happy the days are getting cooler, were able to get out and play ball.

Really not alot going on. Same thing every day!.

so hope everyone is doing well, staying healthy and getting ready for the season change.

later…

Just reread the start of my last post, that was the last time we saw any monsoon storms. Crazy warm to hot hear this summer.

Not a lot going on in my area of the world, the virus is still trying to take over the state, its hot, we are looking into getting a new HVAC, so dealing with that, Amazing at the difference in prices, lol, we will make a decision this next weekend after we get several estimates. Chika is not a very happy border collie, its to hot to run outside and running in the house is not as fun, so looking for new ways to keep her busy. Still hiding out at home, getting my but beat in cards, lol you would think my house would be spotless, lol but its not.

I am on a 28 day challenge, fasting 16-8 I fast from 5p to 9a and then do the calorie counting from 9a to 5p. I basically fast anywhere from 12 to 16 normally, but this is keeping the night eating under control. Isn’t a big change really, well the night eating, but its time I stop doing that!! scale is dropping down so I am happy about that. Now if I started exercising too, it would be beneficial. I am just finishing my first week and don’t feel deprived of anything. LOL

Hope this finds everyone, safe, healthy and happy.

Monsoon was such a nice relief to the heat!! Love the rolling thunder that goes on and on and the nonstop lightening. And then the down pours of buckets of water, pooling here and there and trying to find anywhere to drain off to. Sure is amazing. We had a good couple days. It was only 72 out this morning, HOTTUB weather!! Yeah. Bnnes and joints sure feel better. Been in a few times since the monsoon brought cooler weather. However it is leaving us this morning for temperatures back up in the triple digits. Hopefully not for long!!

Not much else happening in our part of the world. Staying home as our state has lost its mind and gathered, partied and just plain out forgot we were in a pandemic!! At least we are under a mandatory face mask order. I have gone back to shopping at 6am and stocking up so I only have to go once a month. Our freezer is stocked and I generally only going for fruit, veg and dairy. I am certainly restless these days. I told my husband we are going for a drive, have a picnic and then return home. LOL he wasn’t sure he was up to that, but I am going nevertheless.

I miss seeing my kids. My son and his girlfriend are camping 2+ weeks as they drive from California to Minnesota for school. They have reported that all the National Parks are packed with tourist, and no one is social distancing, and many without mask. So they just keep moving through and stay where there are no people. I am a little jealous that they are out on the road, but sleeping on a blowup mattress in a tent, well those days were over for me years ago, LOL not that I am spoiled, but I am!! LOL My daughter and her husband are enjoying there time at home, both are working from the house, he works for the county and does go out to work sites to keep up on what’s going on in his projects. They have been remodeling there home and are finally on the last stretch, they have one bathroom and the kitchen to do. The kitchen is demo-ed out to the studs and I am excited to see the finished product. I have been able to see all the materials they picked out, its going to be beautiful. Wish I could go see it in person!! Someday!

We play a lot of cards, and I have been starting projects that end up sitting on the dining room table, LOL I have a quilt to finish, a whale picture I stared half way done, some clothes that need mending, and a couple cupboard’s that could use organizing. I also have several plants that need to go into new pots and some new pots that need new plants. LOL So I really can’t bitch about nothing to do!! I did get 2 loads of laundry done and flipped my mattress yesterday, lol that was something at least. LOL

Hope your staying safe and getting through this trying time. Nice to see out idiot president finally admit that we have a problem!! But that’s not saying much for him. I say don’t forget to vote this year. We need a change from all the lies, bulling and all the crap going on in Washington. I try not to be political but my goodness its hard to keep your cool when its thrown in your face. Part of the reason Arizona is in the state its in, well it is the reason were one of the “red” states that is in serious trouble is because our governor can’t kiss the presidents ass enough!! Not only did we open when we still have cases going up, he opened everything as fast as possible. The CDC guidelines were never met, not one!! Then letting him come and hold a rally in Phoenix, no masks, no social distancing, I can’t believe how many people put themselves in danger to listen to him tout at how wonderful he is! Well I had better stop as I just had to erase what I was writing next. LOL You can tell I am not a an of the asshole in the Whitehouse!!!

Oh well we all have our own opinions, not that mine is right, but really!!!!!

Have a good end of July, catch you in August….