July Happenings

Hi all!  Long time no write.  Sorry!  

Things are going well.  I celebrated my 61st birthday this month and feel just fine.  I used to think 61 sounded old, but one's perspective changes.  Actually, with my weight loss and exercise program, I actually feel younger than I did several years ago when I weighed much more and exercised much less.

We had a great trip to New York City a couple of weeks ago.  DH was involved with a conference, but I was free to explore and enjoy myself.  Highlights were a repeat visit to The Cloisters (one of my favorite places in NYC), an 8.2 mile run around Central Park (!!),  shopping (nice to have some of those 12P dresses fit!), and Pinkberry!  I first read about Pinkberry (non-fat frozen yogurt) on Debby's blog.  Lo and behold, there was a Pinkberry four doors from our hotel.  Let's just say I'm hooked!  Thank goodness my closest one is 30 minutes from here!

Part of the lovely walk through Tyron Park on my way to visit The Cloisters when I was in NYC. Doesn't this look like something out of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?

The last bit of the walk to The Cloisters (that tower in the background is part of it).  The Hudson River is directly on the left.

This is one of the cloisters.  It is planted with a medieval garden and each plant is marked.  I got some ideas for my garden here.

I asked one of the other visitors to snap my picture.  That's the Hudson River in the background.

I was out having lunch in a restaurant by myself last week and discovered something.  I looked over the appetizers and found a good looking salad (Caprese, one of my favorites) that I thought I would eat for lunch.  Then I was tempted by the lunch salads and thought I'd just order both--salads, right?  That couldn't be too far off the mark.  Well, besides the expense, the calories did add up, so I decided to use my tendency to procrastinate to my benefit.  I ordered the appetizer and decided to defer the decision on the lunch salad.  By the time I'd finished the Caprese, I was content and didn't order the other salad.  SCORE!  Who knew that I could turn one of my bad habits to work to my advantage?!  

DH and I have been enjoying our bike riding.  Yesterday and the week before that we ate early and took an after dinner ride to Fort Hunt Park.  There is a Sunday evening concert series there all summer and we enjoyed the music while we rode the mile+ loops around the park.  In the middle we zipped over to the Mount Vernon bike path and rode to Mount Vernon and back along the river just before sunset.  B-E-A-utiful!  Last week's ride was 20 miles and last night we added a bit more and got up to 23+ miles.  

Ella playing dress-up after I allowed her to rummage in my scarf drawer!

Jack was not amenable to having his photo taken, but he said something cute as I was putting him down for his nap the other day.  I had refused some final request (I think it was a third story) and he looked at me with his big blue eyes and said, "If I was Amie and you were Jack I would read another story to you!"  So do you think he got the third story??   Youbetcha!  

One of several red lobelias (cardinal flower) that I planted this year.  My camera was not quick enough to accurately catch the hummingbird (see the blur?), but this plant sure attracts them.  They ignore my feeder now, in favor of these alluring red plants.  This plant is about four feet tall.

Of course the birds all disappeared when I went outside with my camera, but we usually have at least three or four on each feeder (plus the hummers on the lobelia, beneath).  The pink and white are spider flower, or cleome, and are descendants of those that my grandfather used to have in his garden when I was growing up.  They seed themselves and are quite striking.

Where I spend a lot of time every week.  This is the Long Bridge on the Mount Vernon Trail, alongside the Mount Vernon Parkway.  I love this part.  This was early morning (~7 a.m.) about a week ago.  There is a marshy part on either side and a small river that passes under the center part.  I like it best at super high tide.

These are some of the pretty plants I've seen lately.  The flower is a large hibiscus type and I've seen them in gardens.  I've also noticed at least one plant that had dark pink flowers. They definitely like very wet soil as they were in the marshy part.  Anybody know what kind they are?

Lots of "Art Time" these days while Jack is napping in the afternoons. Lke most four year olds, Ella loves all things "princess" and this crown was an immediate hit.

I keep track of my running and biking on Daily Mile.  This chart shows the combined distance for the past 26 weeks.  I'm not trying to set any records, nor am I training for a race, but I'm finding it pretty comfortable to run 4-5 miles three times a week and to bike 12-20 miles three times a week.  Not charted is my twice weekly trip to the gym where I do resistance weights for about 45 minutes.  

All this activity and following a WW/17DD approach to my eating has yielded a good weight loss.  This chart is from Dec 6, 2010 until the present.  My father died on the 6th and I spent an entire year gaining weight.  Finally, in the past few days, I've gotten below that weight again.  And I will definitely  lose more.  I'm going to reach my goal this time and stay there.

A couple posts ago I had expressed a hope that I could lose 7.5 pounds before we left for a family reunion at the end of this week.  Well, guess what?!  As of this morning my daily WI shows me down 7 from that day and I still have 5 days until we go to drop the last half pound.  I will be down ~13 pounds from our last family reunion there.  Did I mention this is a beach holiday?  Yes, I'm going to feel great!

I took a chance on a flat of Costco peaches the other day.  YUM!  I love peaches.  I had to let them soften for a couple of days, but these are super.  

What's your favorite summer produce?

Beating the Heat

Record breaking heat today, tomorrow, and Sunday, then a "cold front" coming
with temps only in the high 80s!

The huge storm that hit here a week ago took out many trees, including this grand
old specimin that we guess was 300 years old and maybe 10-12 feet in diameter.

The storm hit here around 11 last Friday night.  Immediately knocked out power (and AC).  Laura had just flown in from Seattle to spend the weekend before flying home with Rose on Monday.  We decided to leave the house in favor

of an air-conditioned nice hotel with a pool to enjoy the weekend together.  We headed north and, despite many inquries, didn't find a hotel with rooms and power until we got to Wilmington, Delaware (about 2+ hours north of here).  There was visible storm damage (downed trees all along I95) until well north of Baltimore.  Many hotels that 

we tried did not have power.  Our own power didn't come back until Sunday and we were without Cox service (phone, Internet, TV) until Monday night.  There are people we know who are still without power.  We want underground wires if and when we buy another house!  We were very lucky.  Just branches blown from neighboring trees in our yard.  

Johnny and Jack fill the bird feeders, staying in the shade of the umbrella and the crape myrtle.

Laura models star bubble blowing techniques.

It's so hot and humid out during the day that our outside playtime (bubble-blowing and playing on the slip and slide) usually takes place before 10.  We tried the playground one morning, but despite the shade, the swings and slides were much to hot for comfort.

Rose must take after her mom, some pretty good bubble production going on.

The house seems empty without Rose's cheery presence.  Ella and Jack miss her a lot, too.  They were always "up" for any game or activity she suggested and she did a great job a big-sister.  A nice change for Rose, the youngest of 3 in her family.  Rose got better and better on the bike when she was here.  We stayed a while Saturday morning after the storm, hoping that the power might come back on, and went on a 13 mile ride through the neighborhoods.  She was a trooper, never complained and was as interested in seeing the storm damage as we were.  We did have to maneuver around downed power lines and walk our bikes around big downed trees, but we had a good ride.

Jack and Ella were more interested in catching bubbles on their bubble wands.

One of the many trees down across my running path.  I run very early in the morning.
Notice the very long shadows and the pinkish-hue of the sunshine--there was an old poem that my mother shared with me once that mentioned "rosy-fingered dawn." She was buried at Arlington 19 years ago, today.

I've kept up with the running and biking, despite the weather.  I get out to run by 6.  It was 84 degrees at six this morning!  DH and I went for a nice bike ride on Independance Day, mid-morning to noon.  It's a little cooler biking because we use mostly shaded paths and the bike generates a little "personal-breeze."  We also take two large bottles of ice water and stop to drink it half way through.  We don't need to stop, but the water break is good.  And yes, Mom, I always slather on lots of sunblock.  Funny to think that when I was growing up people used sun-tan lotion to get a tan!

The Slip and Slide got a good workout.  I love Jack's expression--he loves it, but it's
cold and the water is getting on his body.  The slip and slide left a 20X5 foot swath of
dead yellow grass after our 2 hour play session.  A knife to the heart of lawn-tender DH.

Anybody have any ideas about how to prevent the yellow dead grass under the slip and slide?  It really is annoying, but the children love it so.  Our best slip and slide area (shaded and sloped) is smack dab in the middle of the back yard.

My brand new running shoes (Nike Vomero 7).  I love the color
and my first run in them, this morning, felt like I was running
on clouds.

Shelley wrote about her new running socks.  She said they'd make
her run faster.  Mine are a different brand, but it's true!  I thought
the pink color might deter any house-sharing sock snatchers!! (Hi
sweetheart, ti amo!)

I lost .4 at my WI last week.  WW was closed on the 4th, so I'll expect big things next Wednesday. 

My new-found refreshing summer drink.  Lemon Ginger Green Tea iced-tea.
I make a large pot of it in the morning and finish it by dinner time.

Stay cool!

Fence Post, WI, and Pix

My running is going very well, despite the first wave of summer heat and despite the challenge of finding times to run when someone else is able to watch the grands. I ran four times last week for a total of 18.5 miles. Running very early, I was able to beat the heat and avoid leaving Rose alone. I found it also started my day off on a note of success. I feel good about myself when I've run and am set up to have a good day of following my plans. If you look closely, you'd probably notice my little halo on those early morning run days!

We had a new fence put up last week. We'd had a chain link fence that was here when we moved in, but I wanted a wooden fence for a few reasons. I like the look of them, for one thing, and we're hoping they will inhibit the deer who have been feasting on our liles and hosta and many other beautiful, and apparently delicious, plants in our garden. I chose to have the solid part only four feet high because we like our neighbors and want to be able to chat face to face through the "topper." i also thought the fence would make a nice backdrop for our garden. I think the three workers were trying hard to be careful, but there were several plant casualties in the garden beds near the fence. :-( I'm hoping that most will come back next year. The workers worked through two of our hottest days. Rose and I kept them supplied with a cooler of ice water.

I lost 1.4 pounds at my WI last week. We're going to a family reunion, beach vacation on Vancouver Island in five and a half weeks. I'd love to lose 7.5 more pounds by the time we leave. The last time we were with this crowd (DH's sibs' families) I was feeling quite trim at 6 pounds above my current weight. :-)

One new recipe in the RECIPE page this week. Debby asked for the recipe for my brownies. It's there and you'll love them, but caveat emptor! They're wonderful and made from old-fashioned, read NOT health or diet-concious, ingredients!

We're aiming to take an after-dinner bike ride tonight. Rose is opting out, but can stay alone for a bit with Jay. We'll shoot for an hour long ride. I've missed riding.

If one picture is worth 1000 words, I wonder how many these two pictures are worth?

It was this picture from last Dec, posted on
FB by a friend, that brought me to my senses and
back to being serious about getting myself in shape.

Tonight, -30 pounds later, feeling good about myself.

Photo Story

We had a great time hosting a tea party for FIL's 90th birthday.  He lives in Wilmington, NC and we and all our progeny (kids, in-law kids, and grands) went there to help him celebrate.  Daughter Laura made this beautiful cake and it was possibly the best cake I've ever eaten.  Awesome.  I tried to limit myself, but suspect that this cake was largely responsible for the 2 pound gain my scale reported the day after the party!  (fortunately gone within a few days)

The grands (12, 10, 8, 4, and 2) worked on this banner and we think it turned out wonderfully well.

These are the world's best brownies.  The recipe was my grandmother's.  I made and froze 4 batches of these and never had even one until the birthday party.  Um, they might have also contributed to that 2 pounds.  But they're all gone now. :-)

We put son John in charge of the helium balloon kit.  He got them blown up and the kids were delighted to find places to attach them around the party room. (We had reserved the poolside party room at FIL's condo complex.)  Granddaughter Ella is eying the platter of scones as she looks for a place to tie her balloons.

Grandson Ben is a talented chess player.  His opponent was in his mid 90s, has played chess for decades and was surprised to lose 4 out of 5 games to a 10 year old.

After the party, the children gathered up all the balloons and took them outside.  No, they didn't let them go, they had fun popping them and disposed of them in the trash.

Laura gave the grands a push on this neat swing in a large Wilmington park (Greenfield Park).  They climbed trees (live oaks, I think), enjoyed the Spanish moss, saw an alligator in the lake, caught a small box turtle, and collected some large pine cones for future art projects.

DH and I love being surrounded by our gang of grandchildren.  We love each and every one!

More smiles!

Grandson Jack (almost 3) gets up close and personal with the little box turtle.  He waited patiently for it to come out of its shell and chortled when it scuttled into the water.

Granddaughter Jeannine scrambled right up this live oak.

We brought granddaughter Rose (8) back to Virginia with us.  We took her up to Lancaster County PA to a play about Jonah at the Sight & Sound theater there.  We drove through beautiful countryside and saw a dozen horse drawn vehicles.  There were also horses powering the farm machinery.  

The play was so well done.  It was a musical and the staging, special effects, and costuming were every bit as good as at plays I've seen in NY and at the Kennedy Center.  It was a fun day.

Rose loves to shop.  Here she is modelling an outfit we found at Kohl's.  Gotta love those 75% off racks!

Can you spot the dog in this picture??  I seem to be the only one in my family who has noticed the dog who is always out in this yard in our neighborhood.  Here's my photographic proof.  Remember, you can click on the picture to enlarge.

My new favorite meal.  Tish's Eggplant Parmesan .  I made up this recipe with what I had on hand one night and it's a definite keeper.  (lean ground turkey, lots of veggies, grilled eggplant, fresh mozzarella).  Only 275 calories per serving.  The recipe is in the RECIPE page in the sidebar to the right.

My little Nike+ is not reporting my running right now because the Nike+ site is being renovated.  But I'm doing really well with the running.  I ran 5 times last week, averaging just under 4.5 miles per run.  I'm running farther and faster which makes things better as I can allow an hour for transportation to and from plus the run rather than the hour and three quarters it took me for the same run a month and a half ago. I've been getting up early to accomplish my run before Rose wakes up and the other grands arrive.  The weather has been wonderful recently, but I noticed that the 90s and even a 100 degree day are in the 5 day forecast.

I'm not biking as much as I'd like now.  Mostly because Rose is not yet a confident biker and we don't leave her alone.  We'll get back to our long after-dinner rides in a few weeks.

I'm continuing to lose at my weigh-in's.  I'm down over 30 pounds since Christmas.  Happy days.  I've had some great "closet shopping" sessions and reclaimed some cute outfits that hadn't seen the light of day for over a year and a half.  I still have 23 pounds to lose to achieve my WW goal, but I feel confident that I'll get there.

Today is DH's and my 39th anniversary.  No big celebrations today, but we are very thankful for our wonderful life together.  We're hoping to get in a bike holiday weekend next month.  Maybe that will be our celebration!

Moment of Repose

The view from the porch.  

This was a small post I composed last week. I had some connection problems with my macbook so didn't get this posted.  I'll post again in a couple days with a recap of recent events.


Hi all! I'm sitting on the porch of the beach house we rented enjoying the night falling, the sound of the waves and the wonderful evening breeze. We got here this afternoon, I made supper, went for a quick run on the beach, and then DH's dad came over for supper. The fellas have all gone off to find an ice cream place, but I opted to hold down the fort, instead. Our daughter, Laura, and her family shd get here in the next hour or so. They live near Seattle, and we haven't seen them since Xmas. johnny's family (our neighbors in Alexandria) will arrive tomorrow. We're looking forward to a fun family time! DH'S dad turns 90 on Saturday and we'll host a tea party for around 35 people. I'm pretty well prepared and determined to enjoy the family time and not stress! Here's a picture of the birthday boy taken right after supper.

Almost 90!

 Just had phone calls from Laura and Tobey and both families expect to arrive tonight around 1 AM. A few hours late for the Seattle gang and one day early for thecAlexandrians! Joy. We love our kids! It's only about 10 now, DH and I may go down for a "midnight" swim in the surf while we wait for them. He's driving his dad home now. He did all the driving today, 6 hours, so maybe he'll want to nap instead. We'll see. Lost .2 at my WI yesterday.

 We had company, a nephew and his family from Atlanta, for two days this week. We did a bit of sightseeing in DC, Washington National Cathedral, and the went for a bike ride. The two children, 10 and 8, we're troopers and did the 13 mile ride with no complaints. We took along a picnic lunch and let them play in the park for a while.

 We left this morning about 30 minutes after they did. Our cooler was loaded up with things for the party and so was the trunk of the car. Usually I bring all my diet friendly things along, but this time we stopped at Harris Teeter as we came into town. I made eggplant parmesan for supper. Yum. Hoping to keep up with my running while we're here. I might try to see if we can borrow bikes from one of the local cousins, I brought along my biking gear.

Smooth Sailing

The USS Jack and Ella

Ella and Jack loved fixing up an old carton into their boat yesterday.  Each side is painted a different color and, by the end, we had seats (stadium seats leftover from our days cheering on their Daddy and the Georgetown track team), a number for the boat (68 at Ella's insistance), and a nice rope attached at the front so I could pull them across the deck.  And the best thing?  They loved it so much that they wanted to take it home!  My decorating plan doesn't really have room for a small boat. . . .

My life has had happy sailing since my last post, too.  I lost 2.2 pounds at my WI on Wednesday (26. 6  since Christmas).  I also dipped down into the next decade--yay!  I record my weight every morning and enter it onto the physicsdiet.com site.  I love how it coverts them into an average weight, so that the minor fluctuations in weight don't have such an impact on the graph.  On the graph, green is good.  Here's my graph since Jan 1st.  There are a few spikes (red) and plateaux, but the trend is good.  You can spot the three dramatic down trends when I did 17DD cycle I (beginning of Feb was the first and I'm just finishing the most recent).  My average is just about 1 pound per week.

I had to squeeze in my run this morning to get to my hair app't on time, so I ran faster.  Another minute off my pace!  Notice my little Nike+ runner girl in the upper part of the side bar.  The pace there says 13:04 per mile, but that's the cumulative pace for all my runs and walks over the past few years.  The pace kept going up as I mostly walked last year, but it's definitely turned around.  I'm hoping to make the Nike+ girl's pace go back under 13 by the end of next week.  Today's pace was 10:53 per mile. :-)   My method of running for an increasing distance every time my ipod announces that 5 more minutes have passed works really well for me.  I'm now running 80% of the time (run 4 minutes, walk 1 minute).  I'm going to have to  start running earlier though, the weather is edging into the 90s and definitely getting more humid.

We're driving down to Wilmington NC next week to celebrate my FIL's 90th birthday.  We're rented a huge beach house that will accomodate 12 of us (DH and me, all our children, their spouses, and all the grands.  It should be really fun.  I've planned the party.  A tea party.  According to the RSVPs we'll be about 35.  I'm going to bake (scones and brownies) before we go, Laura is going to make the birthday cake (she has a white thumb!), and I'll get fresh fruit when we're there.  Pink lemonade for the kids, clotted cream and strawberry jam for the scones, some nuts, a nice selection of teas and we're calling it on the food offerings.  I found a rental place there that assures me I can walk in and walk out with teacups, linens and whatever else we need.  I've reserved the poolside clubhouse at my FIL's condo, sent the invitations, have supplies for the grandkids to make a happy birhday poster, and am running out today to buy a box of balloon magic (helium, balloons, and necessary acoutrements in a box).

We'll be returning from Wilmington with three of our grandchildren in the car! Ella and Jack are going to stay for a couple extra days (John and Tobey have to get back to work on Monday and this works out for childcare and gives them a chance to be with their cousins longer).  We'll also have Rose, Laura's youngest who is eight and enjoying her first solo summer visit with us.  (We've worked out a great deal with Laura and David--we get to have their kids come here  for a few weeks in the summer when they're 8, 11, and 14.  It works out so that we get one child each year and we have a lot of fun.  Ben (11) will come next year, and then Jeannine (14) the year after that!  We'll have a wonderful time!

Rose when she was 7.

We're going out to dinner tonight!  One of DH's international students (he teaches an advanced law course at Georgetown) invited us to dinner to meet his parents.  They are Italian and we'd had the student to dinner a while ago.  We lived in Italy for a few years and have some other connections.  It should be fun.  We're going to the Chart House in Alexandria.  I've got to peruse the online menu to make my choices, though my brain is trying to remind me about their Mississippi mud pie.  I'm trying to ignore that, we'll see.

Hoping to take a nice long bike ride, tomorrow.

We Interrupt this Long Hiatus to Bring You a Post!

Hi all!

Yes, I'm still here, and yes I'm doing just fine.  In the month since I've posted, I've survived a two week killer-cold, hosted my aunt and sister for a week-long visit, biked over 100 miles, run 36 miles (mostly in the past week), shaved more than a minute off my running pace, lost 8 pounds according to my morning weight record, fit back into some formerly-too-tight clothing, and generally done well and felt great about my progress.  I'm still there.  Sorry for the lack of posting.  I'm still trying to find a balance between my workouts and my connections with you.  I pretty much kept current on your posts, but I've slacked off on composing posts.  I miss it.  That cold really did knock me out--I was taking afternoon naps every day and going to bed super early and doing no structured exercise.  Maybe I can catch the wave again about posting.  Hope so.

The 17DD/WW Core combination is continuing to work well for me.  The WW Core plan calls for limiting grains/pasta to whole grain varieties and to one portion per day.  I had no trouble with the whole grain part, but, in the past, I'd edged up to three portions per day.  With the 17DD influence, I've reduced that component to less than one portion per day.  Eating bread and pasta always makes me want more bread and pasta.  Not eating them, makes me lose weight more easily and I'm over early cravings for them.  I choose losing weight and no cravings.  I eat pretty simply, but we occasionally work in a dessert or a dinner out.  I'm practicing portion control--it makes a real difference.  We haven't used the dinner size plates for a couple weeks--that trick of small plates making the offering look bigger works!

My DIL has gotten a great internship which has her working long days.  My responsibilities with the youngest grandchildren keep me on my toes three days a week.  Today after nap time (did I mention I LOVE nap time) we did art.  Jack made a motorcycle out of saved milk bottle caps, mini-popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners.  Ella made a ballerina doll out of wooden beads, pipe cleaners, scrap material, and yarn.  Each was quite pleased with his/her project.  Art is not my strong point, but love and a well-stocked art box go a long way.  I'm happy to let them do as much as they can--Jack had a ball painting the bottle-cap, motorcycle wheels  orange.  I wield the glue gun, and help out with cutting and other tricky parts, but they do a lot themselves.  They actually come up with a lot of good ideas.

I'm really pleased with my running recently. It took me so long to feel comfortable about running after my surgery a year ago March, that I really thought I'd probably not run again.  Not so.  I'm finding I look forward to running and while I'm not planning a late life career as a marathoner, I think there's a lot of running in my future.

I'll leave you with some random pix from the past few weeks.

Ella and Jack decided DH's soccer cones would make great hats.

There is a bumper crop of poison ivy growing all along my
favorite running path.  I'm hyper allergic and hyper careful!

I had a great day biking with Sharon (Gains and Losses).
This was the beginning of the WO&D trail.

Dame's Rocket was blooming all along the
trail that day.  Beautiful and fragrant.  

More WO&D.   Doesn't this make you want to grab
your bike and come to Virginia??

Wild iris growing along the running path today.  I probably could
have had an even better pace had I not stopped to snap a few pix!

I'm at that very happy place where I'm entirely sure that I will reach my weight loss and fitness goals. This year. Maybe by the end of summer.  Once again, I'll try to be better about posting more often so you can peek in on my journey.

Ciao for now!