Just a quick update this morning. Last night I picked our first ripe tomatoes and put one in the salad! It was better than expected, I had forgotten how great real tomatoes taste!

The high for today is going to be 100, guess I won't be spending too much time outside.

Yesterday we found a low cost used elliptical trainer. It is two years old, but seems in decent shape. Brand new it would cost roughly 600 dollars, we picked it up for 200. Not a steal, but a decent price which included delivery as well.

It arrived around 7 last night, and Carol and I had to try it out almost immediately. Both of us did 20 minutes and were sweating and puffing. It was a fun work out. It is going to be 103 this weekend with overnight lows of ~80 making outside exercise difficult. This will allow both of us to continue to seek health without worrying about the heat.

Oh, last week I lost a pound (2 weeks, 2 pounds), or did I mention that already???

So far my diet/exercise plan is going well. In the last two weeks I have lost 2 pounds (1 a week as planned). I have been walking consistently, doing some strength training, and eating healthier. As the heat increases, it becomes harder to exercise outside. Starting today, I am going to begin the hunt for a low cost elliptical trainer that won't break down two minutes after we start using it. Not sure if that will be possible, but the search begins!

Our garden is doing great. We have some baby eggplants

From tomato June 1

And our tomatoes are starting to ripen:

From tomato June 1

More garden photos can be found here:

tomato June 1

It has been a busy morning. I went for my 35 min cardio walk at a local park (~15 min away by car, one way), came home had breakfast, and then mowed my lawn front and back. It has just turned 9:30. High for today is supposed to be 92 and partly cloudy, but it has been a beautiful, clear morning. It does not get more summer morning than this, warm with a soft breeze, birds, lawn mowers all around, sunny, and the smell of fresh mown grass. Yum.

I took some back yard photos yesterday morning. Not all of them have been edited yet, so some are bad. If you want to see  what my back yard looks like this morning, here you go:



I am off to sip water and have a shower.

I am sitting out back once again, enjoying a warm morning. Clouds linger, but I hope to see some sun and blue sky soon. One of life's great pleasures is sitting outside listening to birds, bugs, and wind while reading poetry, writing, and meditating.

Monday I began a life style change once again.Spent a few minutes figuring out how to sign back into Sparks People after being away for months, and then spent the rest of the week tracking my nutrition and exercise. Based on what I learned, my basic meals do not give me enough calories, which might explain my need for large unhealthy snacks during the day and evenings. The foods I do eat are often to high in fat and sodium, and to low in potassium.But, I am making one of this weeks goals to improve those numbers. Weigh in day is tomorrow morning, but I doubt I have lost anything this week, it has been more a remembering/learning week than an effective week of changes. Though I have only become active for a few days, I find I already have more energy than before. I am in such bad shape that just a little weight training has enabled me to feel my muscles once again.

Tuesday I met up with a friend from the Q who has the same quit date as I do, except she is exactly one year behind me. We had met a number of years ago, and though we both live fairly close now, this is the first meeting we have had since I arrived in Texas. We had a good chat, and will likely meet again.

Other than that, the week has been quiet. The tomatoes get closer to ripe, the peppers grow, well some of them, the eggplant continues to lose its flowers, the watermelon is growing a foot an hour, the okra slowly adds height, the purple fountain grass is now a fountain, and the north east corner looks beautiful. The purslane is filling out, and the lantana is having a party. I will take some photos of everything as soon as I can. The wind/sun has made it hard to get decent photos lately.

I am still working on wedding photos, as soon as I finish, I will put some more on line. Patience is necessary as I am moving slowly on some things this summer.

The last few weeks have been mostly busy if I don’t count last week which was a long lazy gee wizz Barb played me out week. I am not sure where to begin as a great deal has occurred since my last post, most of it very good.

I shall begin with course work and move into more interesting material later. All my grades were in Friday and I have another semester of 4.0 finished. My first year has went well and I am half-way to the end of the MLIS. There has been some interesting material, but the coursework has not been as challenging as I would have hoped. I suppose I could make it more challenging for myself, but I find I am very much a novice in many of the areas of study and just learning the basics does not allow for more in-depth study. The challenge for next semester, assuming I have the time as I also have to do a practicum, is to try and go deeper than this past semester. I will check back in a half year and see if that actually happened. :)

Now for the fun part, Barb’s visit. She arrived May first on a plane that was an hour late. I was a bit surprised to see how much she has changed since we last saw each other (3 years!), and it was not all bad. She is looking healthy, though a bit skinny. However, given that she is a long distance runner, she is in extremely good shape. I am proud of what she has achieved with her running, and a bit envious as I cannot do what she is doing.

Sunday I took her on a tour of Denton, round the older historical area near UNT to begin with and finishing out near where I go to class, when I go to class. We had lunch out, and were able to do it on the outdoor patio place where we ate. It was a bit cool (windy and partly overcast), but it was a pleasure for her to be able to do so as it was still to cold up north to do such things. Later, at UNT, she sat in a field of flowers and had a photo taken.

Monday we went on a road trip to Fort Worth to see the pretty flowers at the botanical garden. Most everything was in bloom, even one blossom on a magnolia (awesome trees I think). After two and a half hours there, she was brain burnt and could no longer enjoy the pretty stuff. I was a bit weary as well, so home we went for a relaxing evening.

Tuesday we went to Lewisville to check out the natural forest, but the place I wanted to visit is only open Friday to Sunday. Instead, I took her to the local mall and made her shop for stuff she needed. I do believe the rest of the day was spent relaxing, if we did do anything else I don’t remember.

Wednesday, we went to Plano to visit the Whole foods there. More money was spent, but it was a pleasant drive. Barb saw some cool thistles growing along the side of the road in a construction zone and was terribly disappointed when I would not stop so she could pick some. Later that day she made her tabbouleh (which is awesome). That evening I took her for a drive round the area and we ended up traveling down a narrow road in the country. The tree branches reached across the road in places, and Barb was excited to see some real Texas long horns in their native territory. She made me stop so she could take a photo of a donkey, long horn cow and calf in a field. I did find some thistles for her to pick later in the drive.

Thursday was a busy day for me. Carol and I were packing for our trip/wedding and getting ready for the wedding. Hair cuts all around, morning meetings, gassing of cars, etc., etc.

Barb was able to go for a couple of runs down the trail at the Elm Fork Green zone (not sure what the place is called, but it is green at the moment) and to walk over to a local field and pick some wild flowers. Those flowers lasted from when she picked them (Wednesday night? to Monday night).

Friday, we left for Hot Springs Arkansas. Bowls of food and water were set out for the cats. Immediately, Charlie began scratching in one of the shallow bowls, throwing water everywhere. For most of the next few days I was concerned that the poor kitties were without water.We were at the court house round about noon and were licensed shortly there after. The clerk called Carol a cougar, which delighted both of them. From there we went to the village and picked up our condo keys, then to the condo to dump our stuff, then to Carol’s parents. The evening was fun (except for a little food problem, darn vegans), and it was very nice to see Carol’s parents and siblings once again. Her family has been very nice and welcoming to me right from the start, and I love it.



In the afternoon Joe had a surprise party for Nancy (80th!), with lots of relatives and friends. It was different for me to observe this party. I took some photos, I wandered around, I watched. Every one seemed to have fun, though the day was long and exhausting. Near the end of the day, John (Carol’s cousin) sang a few songs that were emotionally touching, and one that was rather humorous. All in all, it was an excellent day.

Sunday I woke early, had a coffee, woke Barb, and off we went to Little Rock. Other than a short detour caused by my GPS, the trip was uneventful. I left her at the airport (sad and a bit bummed I was) and returned to the condo. Carol was ready to go, so off we went to her parents place, visited a little, and then headed home. The trip home was exhausting, but safe. The kitties were curious about these strangers in their home, but not suffering as much as feared. They still had water and tons of food. In fact, I suspect they did not eat much as the food was not in their normal bowls, fussy creatures. As I was eating a quick supper (pasta and marinara sauce), I tracked Barb’s flight and saw that she should have arrived in Edmonton 21 minutes ahead of schedule. This turned out to be totally wrong as plane trouble at Little Rock had held her up and she did not arrive home until the next day. Sounds to me like the return voyage was no fun at all, long and tiring and icky. But she did return home safe, if a bit later than desired.

Monday was a rest day (after waking way to early after going to bed way to early). Tuesday I was up early again to take the car to the dealer (oil/filter change and tire rotation (brake check)). Everything is looking OK, though we may have to get new tires/brakes come November or so.

The rest of the week I spent lazing about cause I was exhausted. Today is actually the first day I have done anything productive (mowed the lawn) since we made it home a week ago.

I have also started working on a diet again. I have not been feeling well for some time, and I will lose some weight and start exercising more to give me more energy and less blahs in general. For the rest of today I am going to work on a summer plan of work. Writing, reading, writing. I will work on photos this week, and hopefully have more to post later.