Friday Quote Day

The discipline of writing something down
is the first step toward making it happen.
~ Lee Iacocca

Studies have shown that keeping a food journal is one of the most powerful tools in the dieter's arsenal.

So why don't I keep a food journal?

I bought a nifty software program that I used for months (not that it helped me lose any weight or anything), but as I have shifted my diet toward eating more whole foods and fewer processed products, the program has become more cumbersome. In order to calculate the nutritional data in my Friday night pizza, I have to enter each ingredient incorporated in the crust and each topping, then divide by six or four, depending on how big I cut the pieces.

Much more time-consuming than just clicking on one of Pizza Hut's menu items or one of the frozen selections at the market.

I liked using it, 'cause I'm geeky and 'cause it did all the calculations for me. It even created a pie chart (mmm, pie!) displying the breakdown of protein, fat and carbs, which was very helpful when I was following a low-carb/high-protein plan.

As my meal plans have moved toward real food, I'm leaning toward using a notebook and a pencil to record my food data. But I'd still have to calculate the data for Friday night pizza one ingredient at a time.

So the ultimate question is: How badly do I want to be thin? What am I willing to do? I'll admit I haven't put my heart and soul into this lately. After three years of slowly gaining and/or staying the same, it has become more and more difficult to stick to a plan that feels like no fun at all.

I'm reading The End of Overeating, and have finally gotten to the last few chapters where the author really gets down to the nitty-gritty of developing your own personal plan for weight control. And while he says it must not feel restrictive (because restrictive diets are doomed to fail), I have to admit my mind isn't ready for such a complete overhaul.

But I wrote this stuff down, so maybe I'm taking the first step.

Glad I'm not the only one

Actually I'm sorry any of us has to deal with fruitflies, but it does help to know I'm not alone.

I spoke with my self-sufficient friend (one of these days she's going to start a blog and then I'll link to her) about the subject yesterday. (I never had fruitflies until this year. And I haven't had a garden here until this year. Coincidence? You make the call.) She said Hot Shot Flying Insect Killer works very well.

Denise's sticky tape suggestion also is a good one. Our Amish neighbors have clear pieces of plastic, sticky on both sides, adhered to all their window panes, which do a great job of catching all kinds of flying insects. When I asked Mrs. Yoder where she bought them, she said – are you ready? – Wal-Mart!

I'll be near a Wal-Mart on Saturday and I plan to buy all the insect ammunition they'll let me carry out of the store. Heh.

When I started my walk yesterday, I knew I wouldn't be walking the whole way. Indeed, I started running halfway down the driveway. I do my hill workouts backwards; Runner's World suggests running up the hills and walking down. I'm so not there yet. Yesterday I ran all the flats and downhills and felt great!

Until I walked into the house and started swatting fruitflies again. Grrr.

We had a great dinner last night, a simple curried squash stew served over rice from the current issue of Martha Stewart Living. I can't find the recipe on the website, though. There are tons o' butternut squash recipes, but not this specific one.

I didn't use butternut; my friend's (see above) husband gave me a couple of beautiful orange turban-shaped squashes, the name of which I conveniently forget (they were French, I remember that). I feel funny (as in I don't want to violate copyright laws) reprinting the recipe here. If I ever find it on her website, I'll be sure to post the link (looks like they archive previous issues when the new one hits the newsstands). If you have the magazine, it's in the Healthy Living: Fit to Eat section.

The recipe says it has 279 calories. You can deduct 200 from that total after you've wrestled with the squash. Cutting a hard-shelled winter squash should count as aerobic activity. By the time I'd cut, peeled and seeded them, I'd worked up quite a sweat! Fast food this isn't, but it was definitely worth the work. And it's better than sitting around eating bon-bons and watching soap operas. Heh.

Frustrations abound

You know how in those first few morning minutes between asleep and awake, you sometimes get a sense of what the day will be like? Some days you're feeling calm and serene, while other times you want to rip someone's face off before you feet his the floor.

Today is a rip-someone's-face-off day. Actually it's a rip-the-computer-out-of-the-socket and throw-it-out-the-window kind of day.

I've been having trouble sending e-mails with attachments, so I had to set up a gmail account for that. Beginning last night, I couldn't send any kind of e-mails at all. I'm trying to use the webmail account to reply to an e-mail – that usually works – and the half-drawn screen just sits there. And sits there. And sits there!

The e-mail I'm trying to reply to is a forwarded message I've received previously from a different caring, Republican friend. If you happen to be one of my Facebook friends, you've already read this rant: If you decide to forward something, please have the decency to check out its accuracy prior to sending it. Snopes.com is there for a reason.

The hell of it is, the person who forwarded the lie to me is a caring, Republican, Facebook friend. Grrr.

My e-mail troubles may be one of two (or more) things: The server is acting up (I have no control over that), or my e-mail application (I use Apple Mail) is corrupt and needs to be reinstalled. I've investigated that option and am not sure how I can reinstall without losing what I have. (The version I will be reinstalling is a step backward from the current update which now lives on my hard drive.)

I love technology, I do, I do, I do. But instead of spending my birthday gift certificate on a new fancy gadget, as my husband wanted me to, I bought books. Real books made out of paper and ink.

My other frustration is tiny in size but great in numbers. I have a fruitfly problem and it's driving me insane! Good thing I married a shrink, eh?

I've tried everything, but perhaps I'm just not patient enough. The internets suggest two solutions. One is to put a mixture of dish detergent and vinegar in a shallow bowl. The pesky little insects are supposed to dive in and drown. The other is to put a piece of a banana in a jar, securely cover the top with plastic wrap and poke a couple tiny holes in the top. The critters will crawl into the jar to eat the fruit, but will be unable to get out.

I have both methods set up now and I'm still swatting the stupid things.

While we're being frustrated, my lawnmower died its annual death a couple of days ago. (For the past three years I've had to replace a starter module. Planned obsolescence? They just don't make things like they used to, do they?) The local mower repair guy promised to pick it up and keep it for the winter, to replace the module and the brakes and the clutch and anything else it needs. Has he been by yet? Nope – the mower is sitting, covered by a blue tarp, right by the garage. I'd like it to be a little more protected from the elements. Actually I'd like it to be fixed.

And finally, since this is, after all, a weight loss-fitness-"diet" blog, I get on the scales every two or three days now, just to make sure that my healthful meals and daily walk are working. Yep, I'm staying within the same two-pound range I've been in since July.

I think I'll throw myself off a bridge. With the current state of frustration, though, I'd probably just break a leg.

Welcome, autumn

I love living in a state (West Virginia) where we have four seasons. Just about the time I'm tired of the heat, fall marches in with its low humidity, cool breezes and colorful vistas. There's nothing prettier than our mountains when they're wearing their red and gold fall colors. The leaves haven't turned yet, but our front-yard maple has been dropping leaves for a week now and I couldn't be happier about it.

My husband and I went to an end-of-summer picnic Sunday, which was a lovely way to transition from summer to fall. Their garden is producing fall stuff – squash and corn and pumpkins, things I've added to my "must plant" list for next year. We made new friends, visited with familiar ones and came away thinking, "What a nice way to spend an afternoon."

Better than football. Seriously!

I'm back on track with my five-mile walks, I have a couple of freelance design jobs to do and cooler weather makes me want to put a pot of soup on to simmer all day. Nothing could be finer …

Yum.

I read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this summer and that experience, along with meeting some self-sufficient friends and watching Food, Inc., changed the way my husband and I eat.

My garden isn't as big as the one in the book or the one my friends maintain, but I was able to go to my back yard and pick dinner for a good part of this summer. It will be twice as big next year. It started out as an economical thing to do, but turned out to be a most enjoyable hobby, and one I'm loathe to give up for the winter.

Alas, since the garden wasn't very big, we pretty much ate everything it produced. I was able to freeze a little bit and I made some zucchini relish, but man doesn't live by zucchini relish alone.

One of the customs I've adopted from the Kingsolver book is Friday night pizza. My dad used to make pizza when I was a little girl, so I guess I'm just carrying on a family tradition. We had the best pizza this past Friday I just had to share.

(By the way, this post has nothing to do with knitting, running, losing weight, fitness or any of that nonsense. You might repeat this pizza, though.)

I spread the crust with about a couple spoonsful of pesto sauce, then covered it with thin slices of mild Amish cheese. (I haven't started making my own mozzarella. Yet.) For toppings I used sauteéd onions, red pepper slices, pine nuts, mushroom slices and chicken pieces seasoned with garlic and oregano. Top the whole thing with shredded Parmesan.

My whole house smelled like a pizza shop all evening. Heavenly!

Trust me: Friday night pizza is a great idea. The combinations are endless and you never have to worry about what's for dinner.

A picture is worth a thousand words

And since I don't have a thousand words – or even a hundred today – I'm just going to put up some of the pix I took Wednesday. No quote, no inspiration, no fitness (I walked again yesterday, and thanks, Denise, for your comment!) – just pix.

A woodpile (obviously).

Strange looking growths on the trunk of a tree.

I want to go back and take this one from another angle.

Ho-hum. Boring shot of a hay barn.

When I walked by this little Jersey yesterday, she had her head stuck in her grain bucket, and I rescued her. She is the friendliest little calf I've ever seen. Her mama feeds the Amish.

That is all … have a good weekend.

Slooooow as molasses

The internets are strolling this morning, they clearly don't care about a PR today. Grrr.

And that's what I did yesterday. I hadn't walked for a couple of days because it seemed prudent to stay near a bathroom. My wonderful fresh home cooking seems to have made my stomach a little sensitive to restaurant food. That's too bad, too, because tonight will be yet another restaurant meal.

Anyway, since it was a little overcast yesterday morning I grabbed the camera. I'm not sure how much my camera weighs (it's a Canon digital Rebel, about three years old), but between lugging it and stopping to take pictures, I certainly didn't care about a PR either! I'll post some of the pix tomorrow. At least I got out and walked – I don't give myself a medal every time I walk faster than the last time.

Or, as they say in the Land of Justification: Something's better than nothing.

I was getting ready to begin mowing in the afternoon when the phone rang. It was one of our Amish neighbors, wanting to know if I was available to run an errand for her. (The Amish families share a telephone, which is in a little wooden phone booth on their property.) And so I abandoned my too-tall grass and traded a trip to the hardware store for some of their wonderful eggs.

When I delivered their goods, I asked Mr. Yoder about this funny-looking corn they have growing along the road. I've been waiting for ears to develop on it all summer, but it just grows taller on stalks with leaves but no vegetables. The tassles at the top look like little beads. They're growing sorghum, which is used both for animal feed and … well, I invited myself to the sorghum-pressing party in October, to help them make molasses.

I love it when a blog post comes full circle. Heh.

I'm so proud.

Hope this works, trying to imbed a video. If it doesn't work, try this link:

We're #37.

Black bean soup. Or stew, maybe.

I made this for dinner last night, and although I'm sure it's nothing original, it certainly was delish!

Cover two cups dried black beans with eight cups water. Soak overnight. (Alternatively, you can bring this to a boil, let it boil for two minutes, then remove from heat and let it sit for an hour.) Drain the soak water, add six cups fresh water and begin cooking beans over low heat.

In the meantime, sauté two seeded, chopped jalapeño peppers and one chopped onion in a tablespoon of olive oil. Add to the beans along with two (or more, if you like) teaspoons dried cumin, one teaspoon crushed red pepper and a teaspoon of salt. Simmer until beans are tender – about three hours.

During the last hour of cooking add two tomatoes, chopped, and the kernels from two ears of fresh corn. You also can add a couple sausages, sliced, if you like a meaty stew/soup, but I wouldn't have missed them if I'd left them out.

This amount should easily serve four to six, unless you live with my husband. I have a small – less than two cups – amount left for my lunch today. Yum!

What happened to manners?

And respect? And dignity?

I am, of course, referring to the trifecta of bad taste exhibited by Joe Wilson, Serena Williams and Kanye West this past week, topped off by the extremely bitter, angry, hate-filled [and white] crowds demonstrating in Washington Saturday.

I didn't watch much news over the weekend, so I'm just now catching up on all the gory details.

I know I sound like a broken record (what's the 21st-century equivalent of a broken record, by the way?), since I just wrote about bad manners on Friday, but seriously – what the HELL has happened to our sense of decorum?

I have no answers, only outrage. But I should probably keep it to myself.

Unmet goals

Well, I ended up walking (actually I ran a bit, too, which felt great!) only on Saturday morning. I find it difficult to sleep well when I'm not home, and ended up waking up too late Sunday to get it done on time. The Saturday walk/run was great, though – a beautiful park, lots of deer and wild turkeys and hawks and even though I'm sure I looked like I was having a heart attack, I didn't.

An interesting thing happened to me there, beginning Friday evening and lasting through Saturday evening. I've never considered myself a binge eater. I don't stock up on packages of food and eat them all at one sitting. But starting with Friday's dinner and ending sometime around halftime of the USC-OSU game, I was eating something almost all the time. I didn't eat while I was walking, of course, and I took a break Saturday afternoon. For most of the weekend I felt stuffed, overfull, uncomfortable and fat.

I wasn't at all interested in food yesterday. I guess it all evens out.

It's good to be home, but I have much to do today and there's something on the schedule every day this week. I told someone at the retreat I really am a homebody, but you'd never know it if you looked at my calendar this week.

Friday Quote Day

There are no shortcuts
to any place worth going.
~ Unknown

Well, I live in West Virginia, and I can tell you truthfully there are no shortcuts anywhere, worth going to or not! I saw Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) on television yesterday say that just four percent of West Virginia is flat land. When you add the curves that go around the mountains, you get long distances to nowhere.

Today is another one of those travel days. I've had far too many of them this summer. This weekend I'll be going from the Middle of Nowhere, WV, to the Middle of Nowhere, KY, for a retreat. This is the tenth year my husband and I have gone, and while I'm not particularly enthusiastic this year, I know I'll enjoy myself and return home renewed and relaxed.

Except for the driving.

The retreat is held at a beautiful state park with easy walking on the roads within the park and harder walking on the woodland trails. I plan to take advantage of both while I'm there. I feel good about getting back on the horse (the five-mile daily walk), and I don't want to lose my momentum, especially at a place that affords beautiful walking opportunities.

I'm taking some simple knitting with me, a wool bag that will eventually be fulled and donated to a charity event my daughter-in-law is helping coordinate. Only 10 more rows to go on the shawl collar of my sweater, but those are very long rows and the piece is warm and bulky and too big to take to a retreat.

Today is, of course, the anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York. Will we ever forget where we were, who we were with, how we heard the news when it happened? My older granddaughter was just four years old and even she has a faint memory of planes flying into buildings, although my daughter tried to shield her from the news. My son and his wife were less than a month from their wedding date, and considered postponing the party. Somehow it just didn't seem right. Baseball and football games were cancelled, malls closed, we glued ourselves to the couch and watched news and more news. There wasn't much sleeping at my house.

Airplanes quit flying. That was the eeriest thing for me, to be outside and not see or hear airplanes overhead.

The fabric of America changed forever that day. We were knitted together for a while, united in sorrow and patriotism. And then … we weren't.

We are more divided now than at any time since the late '60s. I'm not sure the terrorists could have counted on this dividend of their attack. They succeeded in crippling our economy, but how could they have hoped to cripple our soul?

And what are we to do about it? How can we again become one nation, indivisible? Where is our respect for each others' viewpoints? What has happened to civility? I do believe in free speech, I do, I do, I do.

But not at the expense of good manners.

Grrr.

I HATE DIAL-UP!

Well, it rained last night – a lot – so I can't connect to the
internet for more than 5 seconds at a time, apparently. And I have so
much to say this morning!

I did end up watching the President's speech, and was happy I did so.
I applauded several times, just like most of the people in the
audience. Some of those Republicans, though, had some motor
coordination problems. Not only could they not clap their hands, they
couldn't get out of their chairs, either. But that Rep. Wilson (R-SC)
represented his party well, doncha think? His shout of "You lie!"
shocked everyone in the chamber.

His website is "down for maintenance" this morning. Heh.

I'm still a single-payer supporter, and I always will be. It's the
right thing to do, morally and economically. I will continue to work
toward that end. But Rome wasn't built in a day. Nor was Medicare. Or
Social Security. Or civil rights.

Baby steps.

Should I or shouldn't I?

I'm so tempted to watch some kind of trash TV or maybe a baseball game at 8 p.m. Eastern tonight. The hype surrounding President Obama's address to Congress, in case you've been under a rock this week, has been unbearable.

Which Obama will show up? He needs to do this. Or that. Or the other.

Sometimes I think Americans would fare better if our news cycle was two weeks old, instead of two seconds. The cable news programs have to fill up all those hours with something, and rumors and opinions are just as good as facts.

So. Two days in a row of healthful eating. Still doing my five-mile walk every day. And a miracle, of sorts, appeared last night.

I have had a doctor's appointment for this morning. Canceled it yesterday afternoon after talking with the PA, who suggested that my preference to "wait and see" wouldn't hurt.

I've had some kind of a growth – cyst, tumor, whatever – on my right ankle all summer. I showed it to my gynecologist last month, who suggested my family doctor probably ought to take a look at it.

I'm not one of those obsessive-compulsives who keeps a close eye on every little flaw on my body. (The big flaws are omnipresent; why should I worry about the little ones?) But I did check the status of the whatever yesterday and discovered that it is no longer firm, well-defined or tender.

I'm healed!

Well, maybe not healed, but it appears that the whatever is going away on its own. At least I hope so. My health insurance plan doesn't cover office visits, so I'm very happy not to have to fork over a hundred bucks (or more, probably) to be told my whatever is nothing to worry about.

Gives me more time to worry about which President Obama is going to show up tonight.

Stuff

As I was walking from the house to our second-story garage/office, I thought about what I would write today.

Unless I'm away or exhausted – both of which have happened frequently in the recent past – I like to throw a post up every weekday. Sometimes I sit down and the words flow; most of the time I have to compose (in my head) ahead of time. I'm sure some bloggers work in a word-processing program first and then cut-and-paste; I'm too lazy to launch two programs to write a few paragraphs that two people are going to read (you and me).

Anyway, the topic I came up with today is "stuff," and it looks like Laurie has written my post for me. Thanks, Laurie!

I've not watched the television show she refers to, but I really don't think I qualify for an episode. I'm more like Laurie – sometimes overwhelmed and sometimes comforted by the things I own.

I'm very comforted by my yarn. I've sold some of it over the past year, and am down to the point where I would have a hard time letting any more of it go. I'm not sure why, exactly, since most of what's left is good wool and I live in a climate where wearing wool sweaters happens only a few times a year. Three of my grandchildren live farther south than I do, so they're not good candidates for knitted gifts. The triplets live in Ohio, and they'll get sweaters and hats and mittens, oh my, for Christmas, but not wooly sweaters and hats and mittens. Mothers of triplets don't have time for hand laundering.

I enjoy knitting with wool and wool fulls into a thick, impenetrable fabric good for bags and decorative bowls and … stuff.

I'm very overwhelmed by dishes. I had a complete set of china when I moved from Ohio to West Virginia. I moved into a furnished house (owned by my husband), complete with – you guessed it – a set of china. We added a set of handthrown, beautifully glazed dinnerware to the kitchen cupboards a few years ago.

One couple doesn't need three sets of plates. I'm ready to get rid of the stuff I brought with me.

There is a theory floating around out there that decluttering can lead to weight loss. I'm not sure if it's true or not; theories tend to come and go depending on who's funding them. What I do know is that the time spent cleaning the kitchen cupboards and pantry is time spent not snacking.

To follow up on yesterday's post about eating more healthful meals – we had stir-fried chicken with lots o' veggies for dinner yesterday. The spring onions and Chinese cabbage came from the garden. The chicken provided enough protein, so I left the little cabbage worm in the dirt. But with the way the economy's going, it's nice to know that I can grow protein along with greens!

Happy Labor Day!

What we do is a measure of who we are.
If we imagine our work as labor, we become laborers.
If we imagine our work as art, we become artists.
~ Jeffrey Patnaude

A bonus quote this week, in honor of working. Especially apt, since both my husband and I are retired. Heh.

I did a lot of work yesterday, most of it in the kitchen. I've come to the realization that if I'm not going to lose weight on a "diet," then I might as well prepare and eat food that is somewhat entertaining. For instance, after years of eating an annual slice of pizza (if that), we're now making dough and preparing toppings for homemade pizza every Friday night, a la Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. We've had some wonderful concoctions and we really look forward to Friday dinners.

I made pork chops – in a skillet, with breading – Saturday, along with baked potatoes and mixed vegetables. Yesterday we had an old-fashioned Southern-fried feast: biscuits with sausage gravy, fried green tomatoes, eggs (I didn't have eggs, but my husband had three!) and apple pie for dessert. (Again, my husband had pie, but I was too full to eat any. I thought I might have a slice for breakfast, but I'm still too full to eat anything!)

Because I'm turning into a food snob (oh, yes, I am), nearly everything we had for dinner this weekend was made from scratch. Doing that, my friends, is a lot of work. I'm sure the calories expended don't come close to equaling the calories eaten, but there is some effort involved that makes the meal much more satisfying.

Eating is eating, of course, and it takes about as much labor to prepare "diet" meals as it does to prepare the kinds of feasts we've enjoyed this weekend. (Although I haven't figured out how to make healthful biscuits.) Eating from the garden, as we've done all summer, is more work all the way around – you not only have to clean and prepare the vegetables after you pick them, you have to work pretty hard to get them to grow.

Last night after my husband rinsed his dessert plate, he suggested that perhaps we should go back to our old, more healthful, meal plans. It's not about weight loss for him – he's the one who retired, started taking a daily walk and lost 30 pounds, remember? It's about cholesterol and triglycerides and fat, oh my!

I'll humor him, of course, because he was nice and polite and not critical with his request. And maybe because he's right. But I gotta say that this Labor Day weekend was full of some pretty darned fun food.

P.S. I'm back to walking five miles a day, and it wasn't hard at all to start over. I ended up taking a week off, started back this past Wednesday and haven't missed a day since. Yeah, me!

Friday Quote Day

My hopes are not always realized,
but I always hope.
~ Ovid

Without hope, we'd never have elected Barack Obama as our President. I have to say though, right now I'm a little nervous about my hope for health insurance reform.

I guess if the public option doesn't make it to a final bill, I'll just move to scary old Great Britain, or evil old France, or – horrors! – Taiwan, fercryinoutloud, all of whom have excellent universal health coverage, as long as you're not listening to Faux News. (Next time you meet a Canadian, Brit, Aussie, Finn, Swede – you get my drift – ask them if they'd trade their health plan for what we have here in the U.S.)

But enough of that. I try to keep my political rants away from my blog. That's what Facebook is for! Heh. (Wanna friend me? djmcneer AT citynet DOT net)

Those of us working to improve our health, and particularly those of us who are doing so by trying to lose weight, have lots of hope. For a while. We're doing the right thing, following the plan, sweating to the oldies, running, walking, lifting – we're gittin' 'er done.

Except some of us aren't.

As I trudged up the first hill of my route yesterday, I happened upon a guy sitting on a bench in his front yard. We usually wave and say hi when we meet, but rarely have a conversation. I was astonished when he asked me, "Are you losing any weight?"

Of course I answered, "No," because I'm an honest kind of person. And then I said, "Maybe I'm not supposed to."

I think of my friend Nancy, who died last year at Christmastime. She and I "met" on an e-mail list for those following an Atkins diet plan. During all the years of our friendship, weight loss (and knitting) glued us together. When she got sick she lost massive amounts of weight. She looked elegant and serene and lovely. But she was ill and couldn't eat more than a bite or two of real food at a sitting. Her food had to be ground in a blender. She was nourished by a feeding tube the majority of the time, and only when she had a real hankering for the taste of something would she ask for coffee ice cream, or Jell-O, or ground-up chicken fried rice.

I keep telling myself that I used to be thin and I can get there again. Hope springs eternal, I guess. But I surely hope I don't lose weight like Nancy eventually did.

My former husband also lost massive amounts of weight during his illness, although he never really needed to do so. I'm sure you've heard the expression that the cure is worse than the disease. That, unfortunately, was his experience. (Thank you all for your kind thoughts while I was gone, by the way. I appreciate all of you so very much.)

Maybe my extra pounds are keeping me healthy. (Wouldn't that be ironic, considering that my health insurance premium is higher because I'm overweight?) Maybe I'm supposed to learn acceptance, or patience, or tolerance of my own too-large body from this challenging journey of daily exercise and healthful meals. Maybe I'm stubborn. Maybe I'm an optimist.

Maybe I'll just keep on keepin' on, and see what happens. There's that old hope thing. Again.

P.S. To contact your Senator and urge him or her to fight for the public option, go here. The drop-down menu to find your state is in the upper right-hand corner of the page. To find your Representative, go here. The contact information is in the upper left-hand corner of the page. Do it today. We can't wait any longer.

ExHAUSTed

Since we last got together, I have:

• Spent three days in another state caring for a two-year-old
• Spent two days at home, one of which included a visit by three 15-month-olds (and their parents)
• Spent one day recovering from a visit by three 15-month-olds
• Spent two days driving to and from another state to attend a funeral
• Attended yet another health care reform town hall meeting

And another town hall is on this afternoon's agenda.

I've had to cancel and/or reschedule three appointments during that time, as well. I haven't walked more than to and from a building to a car in the last week. And the garden has been – obviously – more neglected than ever. (But I picked three ripe, unblighted tomatoes when I got home last night! Anne, you were so right about the blight! Yuk!)

The funeral was for my first husband, my children's father. They gave the eulogy, which was wonderful and sad and funny and heartfelt. I couldn't be prouder of our children. He was, too.

That's all for today …