Still here …

Still busy.

Still walking.

Still on track with the eating plan.

Still sleeping well (early to bed, early to rise).

AND LOSING!

Astonishingly, I've lost SIX pounds the last couple weeks. I reset my goal on my little weight monitor app and am starting anew. Again. I may never make my high-school weight again, but I can get close and I'll be much more fit than I was then.

One thing that's really been helpful is that rack of spaghetti and butternut squashes on my back porch. It's so great to have them "in stock." It's what I love most about gardening – not having to go to the market. When I had that huge, fabulous garden four years ago, I was able to preserve enough food to last four or five months plus eat my fill during the summer.

My garden is half the size it used to be and the deer ravage it every year. I was warned they would, as time went by, so my challenge next spring will be to container-garden the tomatoes and peppers and use the garden space for cucumbers and squash – vegetables for which the deer apparently haven't acquired a taste.

Being busy is helpful, too. Sometimes I just don't think about eating. Sometimes I literally can't stop. It's kinda cool to feel real, actual, honest hunger and to know I'm not going to die if I can't drop what I'm doing to eat something.

In case you haven't heard, there's an election coming up here in the United States. I'll be doing Democratic things for the next couple weeks, as much as possible, trying to counteract the Koch Brothers' influence here in West Virginia. The ground game will make the difference.

This campaign season has been negative from Day One. Every candidate has thrown mud, both sides, and the pleas for money never stop. Right, Jen?

The Koch Brothers are really going for low-hanging fruit by coming to West Virginia. Ten counties voted for a convicted, incarcerated felon over the incumbent President in the 2012 primary. I just hope our phone calls and outreach will get Democrats to vote for Democrats. We're reminding people that the President isn't on the ballot. Some people seem to not know that. SERIOUSLY.

We may or may not have company this weekend, depending on the health status of the four children and one adult who were coming. Everything is ready for them, or will be by this afternoon, and if they don't come that just leaves more time for campaign work.

Yay.

And … that's all for now.