Friday Focus

FOCUS

It's Thursday night as I write this and and tomorrow I intend to FOCUS my actions and my thinking on my diet and my exercise.  I won't have the grand babies.  I need to visit my Dad at some point and spend some time with my brother, but I intend to spend a lot of this day on myself.  I want to center my thinking and make sure that I'm doing all I can to make progress toward my goals.  I think I've gotten sort of lax about things and I feel the need to tune up my game to do my best.

The forecast promises mid-70s in the morning and maybe rain.  I'm going running.  I want to challenge myself to see if I can cut out some of the walking breaks I've been taking in all my recent runs.  I also want a good, long run--maybe 7 or 8 miles.  This is one of the few days during the week where I don't have to squeeze my run in before the children come or I have to dash off to WW or to church.  


I also want to take some time and do a little intentional reading in two or three diet/motivation books that I have.  I also have a few months worth of Eating Well magazine that I want to take some time with and find some new recipes to add to my repertoire.  


As a sop to the idea of doing some housecleaning, I want to spend an hour working on my closet.  I've got clothes to give away and clothes to bring back to the front of the closet.  I need to do some serious weeding of my T-Shirt pile.  I grabbed one this morning that was a 2X--I'm sending all my X's to live in Texas (or at least to the Goodwill store)!


Breakfast and lunch will be my usual, but I want to discover some new ideas during my time with the magazines and cook something wonderful and new for dinner.  I'll let you know!


The ants have gone completely away.  I haven't seen even one ant in the past two days.  Hurrah!  Maybe I can hold my head up again when the cleaning ladies come tomorrow!  Someone asked me what the recipe for the Ant Poison was. I got it from a Wiki How article (google  "get rid of ants").  They had several ideas, but the one I used called for 1 cup water, 2 cups sugar, 2 TBSP Borax.


I made reservations today for a beautiful inn on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  We're going Labor Day weekend.  We'll load up our bikes and take advantage of the flat terrain and bike-friendly conditions and do some serious biking.  We regularly do 14 or so miles a couple of times a week, but the farthest I've ever biked is 17 miles.  There's a 35 mile bike trail that includes a 25 minute ferry ride and lots of biking along the water.  It sounds really nice.  I've got to get DH to read some of Lori's posts so that he gets into the idea of interspersing serious biking with bagels and fro-yo and other wholesome treats!

For your viewing pleasure:  Here's a picture of DH and me during a trip to Astoria, Oregon.  In May 09, when this was taken, I weighed about 5 pounds less than I do now.   








PLEASE~~~Can Someone Help Me with a couple of technical Question about Blogger??

1)  Why does my blog typically take 5+ hours to update to the newest post on the blog roll (my own and yours--I've checked)?  This happens almost every time.  

2) Why do I sometimes have huge spaces in my blog even tho the preview and the compose view don't show those spaces and I can't eliminate the spaces without deleting lines of my post??

It's WAR

I heard on the news that  all factors combined to make this summer the worst in memory for ants in this area.  They've certainly found my kitchen.  I've declared war on them.  All out biological, chemical, thermonuclear war.  Well, maybe not thermonuclear war,  just the borax solution, but they are so no longer welcome or tolerated in my kitchen.  First it was two or three.  I even escorted them back outside without squishing them.  Now it's a never-ending trail of the little suckers,  busily taking reconnaissance reports back and forth to the mother ship about the best eating spots in Ticiaskitchenland.  Die, ants, die!  I did some google research and came across the perfect ant cocktail, so to speak.  I have placed two innocent looking baby food jars with said cocktail along their trail.  Happy to report, that since yesterday morning, they've discovered the joys of the aforementioned cocktail, become hopelessly addicted to it, reported its location back to the mother ship, and invited all their cohorts to come and sample its pleasures.  This afternoon there are far fewer of my little friends than yesterday.  Most of them are going towards the mother ship, to share samples of the cocktail with any of their cohorts who happen to still be living.   The most embarrassing part was having to point out the ant infestation to my team of cleaning ladies and direct them not to disrupt the trail.  They were suitably horrified, and though I don't speak Spanish, I think I heard something along the lines sof  "the most disgusting home maker del mondo."   I'm hoping that they are essentially gone by this evening when I get back from picking up my brother at the airport.

On the home front (as opposed to the front lines of the ant war) I slept late this morning and loved it.  I could get used to sleeping until 8!  After my usual shredded wheat and peach cereal breakfast (in the uninfested part of my kitchen), I went for a 4.5 mile run.  The weather today is less humid, so that was nice.  I need to catch a shower, fix my hair, do a last minute check on my guest room, and stop by the grocery store before I go to meet my brother.  Think I'll fix pan seared scallops with my favorite whole wheat orzo,spinach & tomato side dish for dinner tonight.   Maybe the avocado/mango/cilantro salsa for the scallops.  Yum.  I'm getting hungry!