betsy- my older kids still have stuff left her also. I am storing everything my younger daughter got for her shower and will continue to store it until her house is finished up this fall sometime. She will have plenty of room for her own stuff once the house is ready.

Jane - oh, yeah. It sounds like those will be fine! I have some wedges but rarely wear them. I am strictly a flats girl (mostly), though lately I feel more comfortable with some shoes with a bit more heel, I still want flats.

dgramie - awww, were you expecting the empty nest syndrome? I suppose note in the excitement of the wedding. I hope you are able to find your groove soon!

betsy - yes! My migraines are ocular/headache. I get an aura that lasts for 30 minutes to an hour. It starts off as a single spot, then sort of expands in a widening circle until it is completely 'framing' my field of vision with the visual disturbance. I definitely cannot see to do much when I have the aura, and I find the aura is the worst part of my migraines. Once the aura goes away, I get the headache (if I am going to get one). I also often have some nausea. When I was a kid I would throw up, but not any more.

Anyway, I think they are hormone related. I started getting them during adolescence. I have had them more often since losing weight. But again, mine are relatively benign as to the headaches. I take advil and they go away. Sometimes I need to spend an afternoon napping, but mostly once the aura goes away I start feeling better.

Also, funny that it is winter again there! It was actually really cold here last night and this morning and I am on the other side of the country, but no snow for sure. I'm astonished by that bright collapse, though. That is SO scary, honestly. It makes you wonder how bad the rest of our infrastructure is, you know?

--

Anyone have memorial day plans? I'm going to work tomorrow. I'm also going to do a bit more planting and yard work, and go ahead and weed and get mulch put out. There will be alot of places where I'll want to plant more annuals when the pansies are finished, but they really need to be weeded now. I may also need to go do my mom's planting too. We'll see. O

I have my pansies in pots and if we have a mild summer mine will last all summer. IF we have a hot summer they will die back and I will put something else in the pots but look forward to their color in the fall.
I am starting to dig a garden spot since i cant find anyone to till for me. It will be alot of hard work but I will love having a garden again. I really feel behind but with our strange weather this year i htink it will be fine.
My glider and wishing well need staining also this year. I have a busy weekend planned in the yard. At least its a cool weekend and not miserable outside.
Im thinking hubby will grill at some point this weekend. I may break down and buy a good steak to grill.
Im thinking a nice glass of wine at the end of the day would be really nice.

Wow -- where has May gone?

Jane -- sorry that Yoga kicked your butt, but good for you for going. I want to start yoga because I think it would help with the arthritis pain so much. Have you noticed that you're able to move more easily since starting it. Of course, you go swimming, too, and that helps with keeping more limber. Good combination.

Dgramie -- I chuckled when you said that your daughter will have plenty of room at her house for her stuff when it's finished. Of course, since it's shower gifts, she may definitely want to move everything over there. My stuff was all the things from my childhood that I couldn't bring myself to part with, but didn't want to move out of my parents' house. I've now moved 3 of those boxes 12 times! The cooking out sounds like fun and a glass of wine would definitely be nice to have with that.

Mnem -- I get those ocular migraines too -- and I'm way past the hormone phase of life -- but I was lucky and they never went into headaches. Mine are half circles that are like rick rack on the edges and multi-colored flashing. A friend told me they were like tripping out -- I'll have to take her work on that.

It's not raining right now so I'll go work on the mulching and weeding and endless yard clean up. Can't remember if I mentioned it, but I am putting down rubber mulch on all of the planting beds. So, I bought two "bags" of the mulch, each of which weighs half a ton. They're sitting in my driveway and I have to fill up the wheel barrow or else the cart behind the lawn tractor and haul the mulch to where I'm spreading it. Not bad except I live on the side of a ridge so my yard has a 13% grade to it. Word of advice if you're planning your retirement: buy a condo! I'm also on some wild hair about cleaning all the woodwork in the house and am scrubbing the baseboards one room each day. Getting close to finishing that. Also need to start on doing a video inventory of the house -- been here 7 years and haven't done that and after the OK storms, it's time to get it done.

Nothing too exciting for the holiday. A movie with a friend tonight and maybe a trip up to Mt. Rainier tomorrow -- haven't been up there in a while and just need a mountain fix. Have a great weekend.

betsey

I'm definitely more limber and more aware of my breathing too.

I cleaned most of my house today. I put in a little extra effort so that I won't be too far behind after the wedding.

My plan for today is to go to church and then come home and dig and plant. I also need to start restaining my wishing well and glider. Its amazing how fast the sun can wear it off.
EAting was BAD yesterday, back at it today!

I think I'm in a plateau. Well, I really think I've fallen off the wagon. I know my eating habits have gotten worse, and I know that I'm not drinking as much water. I can't figure out why I've given in or up.

Don't know what's going on with me mentally, but I'm in binge mode. I am feeling so much better physically -- better than I've felt in months! -- but mentally I'm not in the game right now. I ate a whole container of ice cream yesterday. Wasn't hungry. Just wanted ice cream. The day before it was almond M&Ms. Normally this would have resulted in about a 10 pound gain overnight and that hasn't happened -- YET -- but it will if I don't get this under control. Time to get my head screwed back on straight.

It's raining here again today. Our rain reprieve lasted all of 20 hours yesterday so it's a good thing I got the grass cut. I'm going to finish up washing the wood work, color my hair, go to the crafts store for some yarn to make an afghan (maybe I just need to keep my hands busy at night) and maybe work on starting the video taping of the house inventory.

Hope everyone has a good holiday and if you have words of wisdom to get me back on track, they're more than welcome.

dgramie - I planted pansies EVERYWHERE in my garden last fall and was really rewarded this spring. So now to plant my annuals I have to dig them up! But, thinking about what you said about the pots (though really, when have we had a mild summer lately? HAH!), this weekend while I was digging up the pansies around the roses to plant marigolds, I thought, hey! I'll pot them. So I got out a bunch of old empty hanging baskets and filled them with dirt and ended up with four pots of pansies just from the ones around the roses.

I left most of the other pansies in the ground, and just planted/mulched around them. Hope you enjoyed your planting!

betsy - yes! that ocular migraine you are talking about is the exact aura I get. Mine start out as little flashing dots, then spread around my eyes until I basically have a flashing frame of multi-colored rick-rack stuff edge my vision all around. Then that fades and I get the headache (but again, they are not the super I need a morphine shot migraines - they are give me some advil headaches) and some nausea. It is annoying! The ocular symptoms are the worst part for me.

Heh, the 13% grade sounds very tough to deal with. I live on a hill and the front part of my yard is very steep but it's not a very long grade or a ridge or anything. Just the hills here. If I ever buy another house though my yard will be FLAT FLAT FLAT.

ALSO: re binge mode. Hmmm. I think that keeping your hands busy is a smart idea, but what I would say about the binging is that if you have that food in the house, maybe get it OUTSIDE the house when you are in binge mode? Are there other folks in your household who eat these things too? I normally don't bring anything tempting home, heh, since I have trouble with control in such situations.

But! I have found that even merely removing it from the house can help me. For example, last winter I had a jar of peanuts I used in Christmas baking. I have no idea why but I was fine with them in the house for weeks, then suddenly I was all PEANUTS PEANUTS PEANUTS. I hate throwing things away, so I decided to take them to work, but before I could do that I probably would've eaten them all, except I put them literally on my front porch. The physical separation was enough and I grabbed them on my way to work the next morning and was okay.

Jane - how goes the practicing wearing the shoes? Haha, sometimes when I have new shoes that I need to practice wearing I wear them while cleaning, cleaning my bedroom especially since the shoes are there.

workinghardatlosing - hmm. How much have they slipped? Can you get yourself back on track by spending a day or two planning and preparing for the upcoming week's meals?

--

My favorite greenhouse had flats for $10, so I bought three flats and a few other annuals and got 2/3 of those planted. I bought a flat of mixed-color marigolds, then a mixed flat of salvia and snaps and verbena, and another mixed flat including t-pots of coxcomb, gompheria (sp?), zinnias and a few others. I cleaned up a a bunch of beds, weeded and spread mulch, and other things. I have a few more places to plant/mulch, but the yard looks so lovely right now. Makes me happy.

Heh, and this year I think is my most diverse veggie garden. I have tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, watermelon (just one plant), honeydew (again, just one plant), tomatillos and broccoli. I would love to plant squash and zucchini but have had trouble with fungus attacking them and then moving on to the other cucurbits so I'm giving them a rest and not even trying them this year.

I actually ended up with a blister on my toe that I let heal, so I'm going to wear them again tomorrow. I'm now armed with medical tape and ball of foot cushions, and I've actually figured out how to walk properly in them.

I wish I had space for a garden or lived in a city that had a communal one. My mom planted a huge one that I'll have to help harvest, so that will probably be enough work for me.

I bit the bullet and went to the Monday yoga class after going Thursday, so now I'm really really sore today. I'm hoping though that if I go more often when I can, I'll see more benefit from it.

I dug a spot and put in 2 bell pepper plants and a red hot pepper plant( hubby wanted it for looks). lol
I am sore from all the digging but I love walking outside and looking to see if any thing is growing yet. Cant wait for my squash to sprout. Still debating about cucumbers. I just hate having to dig more..its work when you dont have a tiller.

I got back on track after a few days off track. It feels good to be back OP and seeing the scales inch back closer to where they were before the wedding.

Have a great day!

Jane - heh, sounds like you are well armed, though OUCH, I really hate blisters. I bet you will start seeing more benefit from the yoga going more regularly, too. I am so impressed with you taking that up, though. I still don't think I could.

dgramie - have you considered a raised bed? I bought a raised container garden from some gardening catalogue. I actually have two. The larger one is 3' by 3' and the smaller is 3' by 1'. I did take off the sod and dig a bit before putting down the 3' by 3' one, then covered the dirt with newspaper and filled in with loads and loads of bags of garden soil from Wal-Mart. Anyway, having done that once, I don't have to till, really. They do get weeds but they are REALLY easy to plant/maintain. I grow 9 vegetable plants in my 3' by 3' garden (you couldn't have nine squash or zucchinis, of course) and in my 3' by 1' I have a pepper plant, a tomatillo plant, and four broccoli plants right now. Mine are both black plastic but they have more colorful ones now. I've seen some similar ones at Lowe's and Home Depot, too, but less variety.

I think they cost me $40 or $50, plus the dirt, but after that investment they are WAY less work than a bed in the ground, especially if you have limited room. My garden is really small.

You can see the smaller raised bed in one of the pictures of I posted today:

http://elizavieta.tumblr.com/

There is an angel statue in front of it.

Good morning all. It's another rainy, cold day here......want our sunshine back!

Mnem -- Your posts just ring with joy when you're writing about gardening -- obviously a passion in your life. The pansies in the pots sound like a great idea. Our pansies can last for 2-3 years here with our temperate climate, but when I lived in the Midwest and the South, they were strictly a one season plant. Love, love, love them though. Sounds like a great garden you have planted. Do you can, freeze, or give away?

Dgramie -- Sounds like you're a gardener as well. Congrats on getting back on plan. Hopefully, I'll be able to say that soon.

Jane -- The shoes and blister sounds painful, but glad you're getting them broken in. The yoga classes sound like they're really making you stretch. I ordered a yoga for arthritis book and want to start using it. The nearest yoga class is over 20 miles away, and I know that I would quickly lose interest in driving that far. Keep on going -- people who are into yoga swear it has changed their lives.

Yesterday was my grand nephew's 6th birthday. My sister passed away 4 years ago, so I've sort of assumed the matriarch role in the family -- fix all the holiday meals and serve as the grand for the little ones. He and his 3 year old brother will be here for the weekend while their parents coach their Special Olympics soccer teams. That will definitely get me up and off my rear this weekend. They bring such absolute joy to my life.

My garden is still in the some day phase as the earth just isn't warm enough to plant yet. We have to germinate our seeds in advance and then plant, but since it's been raining non-stop for two weeks, I ended up having to put all the germinated seeds in pots and hopefully will get them planted within the next week. We're supposed to get some sun next week. I'm putting in peppers, onions, zucchini, summer squash, cukes, pickling cukes, tomatoes (they're in pots on the porch already, but look kind of puny), sugar snap peas, sugar pumpkins, jack-o-latern pumpkins for the boys, 2 kinds of winter squash, beets, pole beans and bush beans and lettuce. If everything produces, I share with the neighbors. I've also got a peach tree which is loaded with buds, 2 apple trees and 4 blueberry bushes. And the grape vines are finally growing so I may have my first grapes this year if the deer don't get them. That ought to keep me out of trouble for the summer!

Off to the gym. I'm going back to the basics on this binging mentality. Mnem, normally I don't have anything in the house that is off plan, but lately I've been going to the store and buying it. Really resurrecting some old bad habits. So, I'll get my head on straight and my goal is to get through one day of staying on plan. Then two days and eventually string together a whole week. I know I can do this.

betsey: check out bodypositiveyoga.com as well. It's full of modifications for heavier people and I've found it helps me a lot. Also use blankets, bolsters, straps towels.... anything that will help.

Wow – all these gardeners! I have never really gardened and always though of myself as having a black thumb.

Mnem – Your garden is gorgeous!

Betsey – That is exciting you will have all those veggies. There is nothing like veggies fresh from the garden.

Dgramie – Maybe you have to dig more, but it is good exercise.

Jane – Thanks for the yoga link. That is a great site.

I am trucking along. My main problem right now is not spending enough time on the job hunt. I figure the fire will be under me shortly when severance runs out, but for now I still need to spend a bit more time looking and a bit less time doing other things. I am enjoying having extra time

I saw a doctor about my knees and the good news is that the x-rays don't show any major damage. Yay! I start physical therapy on Monday, but my knees actually already feel better. I think that adding walking has really been helping. In fact, I should probably go get in a short walk this afternoon. They keep saying it is supposed to rain so I wasn’t going to go, but it looks nice out and it is hot up in my apartment.