Another Cretia???

Week #100 - 111.8

Since my new Weight Watchers meeting is at an actual WW store, they have a computerized system. This morning a big ol' "below healthy BMI" warning popped up on the screen when the lady was recording my weight. 

I wasn't able to eat breakfast before I went and I wore my normal clothes without thinking about it. I weighed the same on my scale but didn't think twice about them possibly giving me a hard time. 

My WW leader in Houston and the ladies checking me in had gotten used to these numbers and knew I was healthy regardless of any number so I stopped trying to artificially inflate my weight for weigh-in.

I like what I weigh now...I like how I feel...I like how I'm eating. Actually, I LOVE how I'm eating!! I don't want to change that just to hit some arbitrary number of someone else's design as to whether I'm healthy or not. 

So now I just need to remember to wear my overalls and eat a big breakfast and keep my phone and keys handy in case I need to add "weight"  = )  I'll report the real number here so I have a record of it.

I do have some frustration over the whole "healthy weight" concept anyhow. I know I've talked about it before. I just read an article on Serena Williams. Amazing athlete...with a majorly atypical body type for her level of success in the tennis world! 

She's taken lots of gruff for being too heavy, too fat, too big, over her "healthy BMI" number. And it bothered her for awhile and she went on a diet to lose weight...just to change her looks or numbers to make someone else happy.

Then she said, "forget it! I know my body, I know when I'm at optimum health, I know when I feel strong. I know when I'm feeding my body correctly and when I'm not and that's not tied to any kind of number."

So I say the same thing! But I don't want to constantly be getting lectured at WW weigh-in so I'll artificially inflate my weight to make the computer happy. Anything below 113 is the danger number now.

And I still REALLY want to go to the WW meetings! I was thinking on the way there how effortless maintaining my weight has been for the past several months. Well, since the end of December when I started following Simply Filling. 

I know I've had the stress of the move and haven't been living my "normal" life for awhile so I don't want to get too cocky or over-confident about the ease of maintaining my current weight. Time will tell after I get totally settled in here whether I will start struggling again.

So...it was love at first sight with this lady this morning...hahahahaha  In a room full of Golden Girls, this one just exuded the "typical Florida older Jewish lady with a New York accent retired and living a life of leisure in the Miami area" vibe  = )

I just HAD to introduce myself and tell her how CUTE she is!! Her name is Rae, she's 95 years old, she's a spunky spitfire who lost 40 pounds 6 years ago and never misses a Saturday morning meeting!

I asked her if I could take her picture and she said "shu-oar" (say that in your head with a heavy NY accent). I told her I wanted to introduce her to the people who read my blog and she said "isn't that nice?!" hahahahahaha

I love the round glasses for some reason! And I love her attitude and zest for life and even though she asked me my name 3 times in 10 minutes, I'd love to get to know her better  = ))

And she made me miss Cretia BIG TIME  = (   Some of you will remember my AWESOME friend, Cretia...Carol Crabtree's mother-in-law. She also is in her 90's (97 I believe!) and has a spunky spirit and a zest for life. 

I think the thing I love and miss most about Cretia is that she always wanted to learn new things...me too! We had SOOOOOOOOOO much fun investigating and researching about anything and everything...anything that popped into our heads that we'd like to know more about.

She would tell me what she knew already, what she'd experienced in life, which was ALOT, and then I would read up on the subject, write down what I'd learned, write down questions to ask her and then we'd share what we'd learned at our next weekly lunch date.

A new subject would usually come out of the old one and we just went our merry way along from idea to idea, history to history, indulging our love of knowing stuff...maybe not even useful stuff but just the knowing and discussing was a BLAST!

I've never had another friend like her...I doubt I ever will...but Rae looks promising = ) 

Petey's off on another flight but should be home about 2am. This week has gone by much faster and now I get to go to church again! We haven't decided which church to go to tomorrow...we have 3 to choose from...the one Baptist church we visited already and then another Baptist church about 5 miles away and a Calvary Chapel that is 3/10ths of a mile away. 

I would LOVE to be able to walk to church! Memories of my gramma in Kentucky...

We're asking God to give us direction on where HE wants us to learn, worship, serve and fellowship. 

Guess I'd better go do some kind of work now. I sure have enjoyed unpacking my craft room! Touching all those neat things, thinking and dreaming of the possibilities for future fun. I also need to unload the dishwasher and I could stand to vacuum...so maybe real work before pleasure work?

= ))

A new way of life to learn...

Wow...we never stop having to learn, adjust, adapt and accept, do we? I'm not that old but I'm old enough to want stability, sameness, simplicity...I want the same thing day in, day out, day after day...after day, after day, after day!

A new realization hit me an hour or so ago...this new job of Petey's with it's new schedule and new location and the big move and everything else also means a new way of housekeeping and scheduling of the day for me.

Let me 'splain...as Desi would say...

With Petey's old schedule, he would often arrive home jet-lagged and sleep-deprived. He would sleep some and then try to stay up to be able to go to sleep at our normal bedtime. He would try to get on Texas-time and home schedule as quickly as possible. 

Then we would both be on the normal sleep-wake cycle for the 2 weeks or so that he was home until he went to work again. My daily schedule pretty much stayed the same all the time except for the occasional middle of the night or really early morning drive to the airport to drop off or pick up Petey.

So Petey gets home about 10am this morning. He's flown all night long, only sleeping a few restless hours here and there. I could tell he was tired but he had an important doctor appointment so no time to sleep now.

He was nodding off in the waiting room...made it through the appointment ok...we've found a GREAT doctor for his psoriatic arthritis!! I insisted on driving home...he promptly fell asleep in the car and slept the whole way home.

I fed him lunch, which he kept nodding off during, and then put him to bed. I just woke him up at 5pm cause I thought maybe he'd like to be awake for awhile before our actual bedtime. I was talking to him a little while he sat on the couch and his eyes were rolling back in his head as he was falling asleep while I was talking to him. Back to bed you go!

Then it dawned on me...he leaves again tomorrow night and flies all night long to Amsterdam. There's no reason...no incentive...for him to go to bed tonight at our normal bedtime. It would actually be better if he slept for the rest of the day, was awake for most of the night, slept during the day tomorrow and then he'd be on the right schedule for flying all night tomorrow night.

While he's been sleeping I've been working hard to do quiet things and keep the dogs quiet. I've thought of a number of housekeeping chores I need to do but they make noise and might disturb Petey's sleep.

And that's when it hit me...this isn't just for today...this is how it's going to be! He's going to be in and out of here on a regular basis...a day gone, then home, then gone a couple days, then home, then gone a day or so, then home...not like with Evergreen where he was gone 2-3 weeks, then home 2 weeks.

So I'm going to learn a new way of ordering my days! When he's awake, I need to make it a priority to do the noise-making chores like emptying the dishwasher and vacuuming and such. 

And when he's sleeping, I'll do my quiet activities...which are awesome! I just sat and crocheted for an hour...ahhhhhhh  = )   I've been unpacking my craft room and I can spend hundreds of hours in there doing quiet things. Pretty please!!! hahahaha

But I can also pay bills online and straighten and polish woodwork and other quiet chores...doesn't have to be just fun quiet stuff. 

And doing this blog too! That's quiet...I should start a list.

Anyhow, I told Petey I wouldn't wake him up again...he could sleep until he woke up naturally. Even when he worked at Evergreen, he rarely slept more than 4-6 hours at a stretch. His body has been trained to sleep when it's tired and be awake when it's not and we've learned it's much better when he doesn't try to fight either of those conditions. 

The question now becomes, can Petey stay quiet when I need to sleep??? Might need to invest in a really good, comfortable pair of ear plugs!

Found a neat nature trail today

It's 1.5 miles from the house. There's only 1 mile total of trails but it's kinda neat. I didn't do any of the exercise stations. 

Still...kinda pretty and it did provide some shade. The wind in the pine trees sounded great!

Yeah...lots of rustling made me wonder about snakes!!

Sunset pics...a special gift from God!

The house all to myself...

....well, and with all my babies too  = )

Petey's gone on a flight...he should be back early tomorrow morning. He left a little after midnight. I'm finding it interesting just how much I'm missing him! He hasn't even been gone 12 hours and I was asleep for most of that! 

Guess that's a good thing...to be missing him...except that I'm missing him...hahaha

I have had a productive morning though...emptied the last box in the bedroom, the last one in the living room and unpacked another one in the craft room. It only had a few crafty things in it...it was mostly Longaberger baskets and that's what I was after.

Yesterday we went on a 3 mile walk in the morning and a 2 mile run/walk in the evening with the dogs (minus Buddy). I was a little sore from our 4 mile run/walk on Monday so I'm trying to work the soreness out.

Today I'm still sore and I'm fixin to head out on another long walk. Not sure how far I'll go.

Yesterday was more like a normal day...nice for a change! We got to play lots of rounds of Rummikub. Dingo got 2 frisbee sessions  = )

We ran a couple errands...I couldn't resist the bug to plant just a little "something" here so I got a bag of dirt and a Heatwave tomato plant from Lowe's and put that in the pot we took the palm tree out of. I also planted some yellow wax and green bush beans around the tomato.

We got LOTS of stuff hung on the walls! I posted the pics on Facebook but let me see how hard and/or slow it is to post them here now...

This is the view from the laundry room. I turned around yesterday and it struck me that this looks very much like a country kitchen! I love country kitchens!! This kitchen is bigger than my old one in Houston even though the house is half the size.

Here's my garden for now  = )   I'm planning on a raised bed for October planting. That's the main planting time around here but the stores are selling transplants right now for the 2nd planting. It's the reverse from Houston, I guess. Interesting!

This is all just stuff we hung on the walls and such. It does make it feel much more like OUR home now. 

We had a beautiful sunset last night but Blogger isn't letting me post more pics after this last batch. I'll post them from my phone after this.

Lunch is done and I'm fixin to head out to walk...

All downhill after this...

Getting ready to head out on our first bike ride in Florida...

Yay!! Reunited with Merri!! That's the name of my bike, for those of you that don't know...

I thought that you would be able to see all the stained glass in the windows but I was too far away. You can see the palm trees in the garbage though! hahahaha

Here's the norfolk pine tree...this is my first view every morning...and, yes, there's usually a cat walking in view somewhere! Pretty bad stray cat problem here = (   Talked to the neighbor across the street and she's supposedly working on it since it was partly her parents who are to blame.

This day went downhill after our wonderful bike ride. God brought to mind Paul's words... "this light and momentary affliction". The problems and frustrations and even pain that we're going through right now doesn't compare to what Paul went through and it's just a blip on the screen of eternity. 

I'm working hard to not make a behemoth out of a blip (mountain out of molehill??). It's just been a day where everything has felt hard. The jumping through the hoops has felt like I'm physically jumping through all these different hoops!

The blessings from today...

- I REALLY like the wall color in our new house...a beautiful creamy yellow that matches everything!

- Petey has worked hard hanging my pictures and artwork and things. There's lots of love and great memories associated with each one so that's been very nice. I'm going to take a picture of each one and tag the "giver" on Facebook where I can...to let them know just how much their gift is appreciated and treasured!

- I'm still winning at Rummikub  = ))

- the only boxes left to unpack are 2 in the master bedroom and the ones in my craft room. I ordered special banker boxes that will fit the large shelving unit I have in there so I'm waiting for those boxes to come on Thursday before I tackle that room. Petey leaves tomorrow to do a flight so I'm looking forward to having lots of time to play in Pony's Playroom. I've named it that and I'm gonna make a sign!

- we have food in the house for today and tomorrow and for many tomorrows...we're cool and dry and are not living out of our car or on the street

- looking forward to a sunset walk tonight with my boys!

Some pics for you!

This is our family heirloom cookie jar...the lid of it is a teapot. Mom made us a big batch of applesauce cookies to fill the cookie jar with when we got here. That's exactly what I did as soon as I unpacked the cookie jar and found the box with the cookies!

This is looking down our street towards a beautiful sunset. Most evenings we have a nice pink sky in the west. There are lots of trees around us. I need to take a pic of the norfolk pine!

Our new home. I think it will look REALLY GOOD with a big ol' red Texas star on the front there...really! Just need to figure out how to get one  = )  The place does look more homey now that I have all my Texas stained glass hanging up. This was mid-flattening boxes so sorry for the trash there...

There's actually quite a bit of space under the kitchen sink, as you can see. That's 6'2" Petey under there!

Even in the midst of uncomfortable install work he has a smile on his face!

And there's the result! I can't believe I finally have my dream sink!!! The faucet is awesome too and it's really nice to have the garbage disposer. I've had one continuously for the past 20 some years and all of a sudden, I didn't know what I was supposed to do about the food scraps! Well, I should mention that neither sink had the little drain basket so that was the biggest problem. But now I don't have to worry about it at all...yay!!

Here's Petey at the start of hanging the stained glass. I haven't found all of my Longaberger baskets to fill up my tower yet...

SOOOOOOOOO happy to have found this trail!!! It goes for miles and miles and is so pleasant! We did 4 miles this morning...we even had some shade in spots. Looking forward to riding our bikes on it so we can go farther than when we run. The bad thing is that there's no water along the way...made me miss my Bear Creek Park  = ((   Gonna have to get in the habit of carrying water with me...

Cooler temps this morning!

It was nice to have the windows open for a bit before leaving for church. I keep thinking that we've almost got the cigarette smell eradicated and then we come home after several hours away and I can still smell it   = (

We woke up before the alarm this morning...good thing we had extra time because the cats had dumped over Slinky's cage and I had a mess to clean up! I moved him to another location, thinking him safe, only to discover him dumped over AGAIN when we got home from church! 

This time the cage was on its side with the lid off and Slinky was enjoying the warm air that blows from under the freezer. He was reluctant to leave his safe, warm and cozy spot between the freezer and the wall but I convinced him. And now we'll just leave the door to the gym shut! hahahaaha

We visited Grace Bible Church in Plantation again. We wanted to see how the drive felt to us and imagine doing it every week. It's 22 miles and a little over 30 minutes. It feels farther than we really want to drive to church every Sunday...plus, they told us about another church closer to us where their ladies just went to a conference. We'll probably visit that one next week. 

Or maybe I'll go to Wednesday prayer meeting. I looked forward to church ALL WEEK and now it's over and next Sunday seems so far away! I'm certainly feeling the need to fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ!!

We went to Costco after church. BAD IDEA!! I think everyone else had the same idea! We stood in line longer than we shopped. It sure felt good to be pushing the cart OUT to the car and ready to head home.

It was a nice, quiet day of rest today with only a wee bit of work. After putting the food away and rescuing and cleaning up Slinky, I laid down just to rest a while. Yeah, right! hahaha  I didn't wake up until 5:43!! Felt really good to take a Sunday afternoon nap though = )

I called my mommy to ask her a question and then we headed over to Lowe's (closes at 6pm on Sunday!) and then to Home Depot so Petey could get a small piece of pipe that the new garbage disposer needed.

Then home to do that bit of work I mentioned...Petey put the pipe on and I did pooper duty, 2 frisbee sessions and got more boxes broken down and the rest of the trash out. I think the trash might come later in the day so we plan on cutting down the 2 small palm trees in the front yard in the morning.

They're nasty to mow around and I'm not a big fan of palm trees in my own yard anyhow. There are plenty of them around here to enjoy...and I don't have to clean up after them  = )  I really wanted a norfolk pine in place of the palms but they get REALLY big and Petey thinks that's too big to be that close to the house. 

I agree...I'm thankful that the neighbors down the street just a ways have one in their front yard and it's the first thing I see when I look out my bedroom window in the morning. Another blessing to be thankful for!

We played Rummikub after I worked outside...I won the page!!! Petey's just now rinsed all the dishes and I need to go load the dishwasher and then I'm going to sit on the couch and do my Quiet Time...ahhhh...then bed.

Definitely planning on going for a run in the morning!!!!!!