15 + 5 = 20

Good morning, dearies!

Three days and one new computer monitor later, I'm back in business. My monitor's been acting up for a couple weeks now, but it gave up the game yesterday. When I couldn't get online, I actually started feeling a little worried. Would I be able to keep up the hard work without my dear readers to help me through the rough patches? As soon as I'd finished my workout this morning, eaten my breakfast, and powdered my nose, it was off to the store to pick up a new monitor. Whatever it is about this blog, it's been an absolute necessity to me in this journey and I haven't the time to hem and haw about repairing the old monitor. Now if I can just get used to this extra wide, new screen...

As you can see from the title to this post, I had some wonderful news from the scale to compensate for the computer issues. It was 2 lbs. a few days ago and 3 more this morning, leaving me at a weight of 174. That's 20 lbs. lost since April 9!!! I'm not sure why - you know firsthand how hard those first 11 lbs. were - but the last 9 have come off fairly quickly.

Is it the humidity?
With temps in the 90s and 100s every day, I am sweating an awful lot more when I walk than I was in April or May. (I'm also continuing to drink 64 oz. of water per day to make up for that.)

Has my stomach been shrinking?
It's a strange place indeed to find myself, but I've actually had zero temptation to snack lately. I watched my co-workers gorge themselves on tres leches cake yesterday and it didn't even cross my mind to have a taste. Hit one of the bars last night for happy hour and drank a diet soda (which is rare in and of itself for me). Didn't have the remotest interest in sampling all the appetizers that were being shared around the table. It wigs me out a bit to think of the quantity of food I used to eat. Even just a month ago when I was still eating peanut butter cups for dessert after dinner. There are a few minor changes I've been making lately --- buying skim milk instead of 1%, using two sugars in my morning coffee instead of three. That kind of thing. Maybe these little changes are making a difference.

Am I working out with more intensity?
I'm not sure. I can tell you that I'm beginning to look forward to my walks these days. (Could you have imagined me saying that three months ago?) I've even felt impelled this morning to break into a jog a couple of times. Crazy! One of the limbering and stretching exercises that I do each day is a leg lift in bed first thing in the morning. I do it just five times each morning - and what I noticed a few days ago is that while my back used to really do the work, my abdomen has taken over. I can actually feel some strength in my core which I never in a million years thought I'd feel again. I had open abdominal surgery several times during my late twenties. Cut open from stem to stern. Sliced right through that abdominal wall. I never thought I'd be able to rebuild any kind of strength or power in that area.

Or could it just be that crush?
Yep, you heard it here first. Little Miss Jitterbug has a good old-fashioned, butterflies-in-the-tummy, weak-in-the-knees kind of crush! He's a man who works in the same building as I do, though he's in a different department. Probably a few years younger than me, but he's got a 3,000-watt smile, the kind of curls they write songs about, and - from the few conversations we've had - seems like a super sweet person. *swoon* Nothing will probably come of this, but it's been a looooooooooooooong time since I even had a crush on somebody... so I'll take whatever loss of appetite comes along with it for as long as it lasts!

Now how 'bout that bedroom. I've got some housework to do! I'll check in later this weekend to share my adventures in bathing.

My Daily Constitutional

It's an unusually cool, breezy Saturday, and I'm sitting down with a cup of coffee before embarking on my housework today. Here's one sign of how much my habits around the house have changed since November: I bought a tall container of creamer maybe a year ago. You know, the dry, powdery type. Well, it made sense at the time. I couldn't see keeping these big cartons of milk about the house when the only thing I was using milk for was my coffee. On the few occasions I make coffee at home, I would sooner than not find it had already gone bad. Flash forward five months. I haven't touched that creamer in weeks, at least. It sits at the back of a cupboard waiting to be of service again, but I always have fresh milk in the house now. I need it for my breakfasts, I need it for my vintage dinner on the weekends... what a change!

I remembered to pull out the scale yesterday morning and did a rare weigh-in at home. So here's my official starting weight for this new mission: 194. I'm planning to weigh in once a week - on Friday mornings. I dutifully drank my glass of water yesterday morning and walked for 29 minutes during my lunch hour. This morning, another glass of water and I'm planning to walk at the park today for 30 minutes (+ 6 minutes to make up for my short walks on Thursday and Friday). I also cleaned about 2/3 of my kitchen last night, so I need to finish that this morning, go to the park for my workout, then head to the supermarket to do my weekly shopping. Here's the menu I'm planning for my 1945 dinner this weekend:

Stuffed Cabbage Leaves

Tomato Sauce

Buttered Peas

Carrot Sticks

Baked Caramel Custard

The Stuffed Cabbage Leaves recipe sounds very interesting and possibly delicious. We'll see! The whole menu feels very springlike - apropos for a supper on Easter Sunday. I'm even going to shell some fresh sugar peas for the hot vegetable dish...

One of the challenges for me when it comes to walking is definitely going to be timing. If I don't walk as soon as my lunch hour begins, I know that I won't have the willpower to get out there and do it halfway in. Been there, done that. Once I'm sitting comfortably at the table with my feet up in the next chair reading a magazine and eating my lunch --- there's no way I'll get up and go out there to walk! I know myself too well to take that chance, so out I go at 12:00 p.m. This is where those hearty vintage breakfasts are going to come in handiest. I need that long-term energy that's going to last me from 7:00 in the morning 'til I'm finished with that mid-day walk. A growling tummy doesn't make me any happier about postponing lunch for another half hour!

I'm trying to keep a brisk pace. I certainly ought to start stretching my calves beforehand, though, because my shins feel very tight during my workout and that could probably be alleviated with a little stretching. It's much too sunny to be outdoors at high noon without a hat or cap and/or some sunblock, so I need to give some thought to keeping some of these things in my office. I'm really trying to head off some of these minor discomforts that could otherwise end up as excuses for skipping a workout, do you know what I mean?

One of the biggest things I tend to do to sabotage an exercise plan is to start worrying about how I'm going to be able to walk outdoors once we're experiencing full-blown summer here in the desert. (These walks give me way too much time to think!) In about a month, temps will be at the 100-degree mark everyday and there's no relief even in the mornings and evenings. It's relentlessly sunny here, so there's not even the occasional cloudy day to enjoy outdoors. You're trapped inside 24/7 from about the end of May until the first of October. It's not even comfortable outside at midnight. I've been trying to come up with some exercise options for the summer - and I think I've come up with a few possible solutions - but the trick is not to let worrying about what's to come in a month keep me from exercising here and now. No matter what kind of challenges I'm facing come May, I've got to enjoy the privilege of being able to walk outdoors for as long as it lasts.

I'll talk to you later. My kitchen is calling...

Sun and Air

My sister is home at last, so my niece is in good hands again - and I'm sick. I think I caught whatever virus Kitten was coping with, so I'm glad it held off until I could be sick on my own time. My routine took a hit on Thursday evening (I didn't get home until 1 a.m.) and again on Friday morning (just barely made it to work), but I'm taking it very easy this weekend. Trying to get lots of rest, but moving slowly through my accustomed chores. Did a little bit of Wednesday's marketing last night and this morning have just begun Thursday's weekly cleaning-of-the-bedroom.

Cleaning the bedroom isn't exactly a fast-paced chore. After stripping the beds and hanging the covers out to air, you tote your bric-a-brac out to wherever you're going to dust or polish it and bring your cleaning equipment and fresh linens into the bedroom. Then it's just a matter of waiting for fresh air to do its part of the job. You see, the mattress and pillows need to be aired, too. Now, if you were cleaning several bedrooms, you could probably work the timing out so that you were getting things started in each of your other rooms while you were waiting for the first room to be properly aired. Here are some guidelines from the manual for putting that fresh air to work:

Mattresses

Innerspring:

Sun and air once a week (strip off the bedding and open the windows wide for at least an hour).

Pillows

Air pillows at least once a month by placing them on chairs near an open window.

Bedding

Bedding should be aired at least once a week. Spread it over two chairs near an open window and leave it there for at least an hour. An occasional airing out of doors over a line is good for it. Choose a day when the weather is fair to warm.

My bedroom window is open and the blinds have been pulled so the mattress and pillows are getting as much fresh air as possible. I've hung my quilt and blanket over the railing outside on my landing, and I'll give them a good shake before bringing them inside. Get all the dust out. Apartment Land is not an ideal place for doing these kinds of chores - what I wouldn't give for an outdoor clothesline!!! - and I live in a city with a lot of crime, so I'm always a little worried my bed covers will disappear while they're airing!

Unless my appetite takes a nosedive, I'm going to try the first of my 1945 dinner menus this evening:

Steamed Rice

Buttered Carrots

Celery Cabbage Salad

Steamed Molasses Pudding

This is a weekday (Monday-Saturday) dinner with a few alterations. I'm omitting the meat course. 1940s home economists believed that each dinner should contain both a starchy vegetable or grain (potatoes, rice, etc.) and a bread. That's way too many carbs for me, so I'm going to have one or the other. Since my dessert is a bready-type dish, I'm going to opt for the Steamed Rice over the Enriched Bread this 'time round. The recommended beverages are Milk and Coffee. Do you drink a full glass of milk with your meals? It's been years since I did so, and though I'm not sure this is a good thing (am I really getting enough calcium?), the thought kind of icks me out after all this time. Coffee at breakfast is more than enough for me, so I think I'll just go with a glass of ice water at dinner. This time, anyway.

My hour is up and it's time to get to work making up the bed. Hey, if I'm going to be feeling under the weather all weekend, there's no place for recuperating like a fresh, clean bed!