Autumn Morning Walk

My walk this morning was invigorating and beautiful. I took the opportunity to talk to God while I was walking and suddenly I heard a soft honking and looking up, there was a dozen snow geese flying low directly above me. I felt it was God telling me He was right there listening to my prayers. Down the path aways a small Norway pine tree was tilting over. It appeared that the ground had recently been dug up around it and maybe with the strong winds on Tues. and Weds. it had gotten blown over. But I felt that I should put it upright so it wouldn't grow crooked, so I pushed and pulled until it was straight and tamped the dirt down around it and for the moment it is standing tall. Later on my walk as I was contemplating if I am doing God's will in my life and wondering if I miss opportunities to show God's love, He reminded me that if I took the time to straighten up a tree He is sure I would not pass up an opportunity to lift up another human being if they needed my help. That's why I love my walks with God, He always lifts my spirits!

A Newly Remodeled Basement

Today was a pretty productive day, considering I didn't really have an agenda when I woke up this morning. First off we went grocery shopping to start our more healthy lifestyle and then stopped at Schubert's to see if we could find a cheap remnant of carpet for the bedroom downstairs. Which we did find, almost the perfect size. Curt had to do some trimming but I think it looks good. And then we tackeled the big job, putting together the new futon, end table and glider/recliner. I thought we did an amazing job of moving furniture out and moving furniture in and putting furniture together and getting all the furniture rearranged, all in 4 hours! It was a good days work. Then we relaxed in our newly refurbished basement and watched a movie. It was a great day! I even made some humus and it was delicious!

After the lemonade diet

Well, I stopped the lemonade diet after Saturday. We went down to see Curt's folks in Aberdeen yesterday and I thought it would be too hard to continue it. Besides I was ready to eat some solid food. I did try and limit it to mostly fruits and vegetables though.
But anyway, I did lose 4 pounds in 4 days. Most of which I suppose will come back after I start eating food again. But all the time I was on it I had really good energy and alertness. I could exercise and not feel exhausted and worked Thursday night and felt more awake than most nights when I'm drinking caffeine. So I am going to stay off caffeine and I have replaced my morning cup of coffee with tea now, which may take some getting used to.
One thing that the diet did not do is cleanse my colon. Even drinking the saline flush at night, it did not produce results. But I never felt bloated or uncomfortable.
All in all it was a good experience. I realized that I do indeed have will power and am determined to use that will power to just continue on with a healthy lifestyle and hopefully continued weight loss.

The Lemonade Master Cleanse Diet

Angela told me about this diet and I really had no intension of trying it but after feeling bloated and uncomfortable after eating all the time I thought maybe I would give it a try. So on Wednesday I started drinking my lemonade mixture of freshed squeezed lemons, pure maple syrup and cayenne pepper. It really tastes quite good. I cheated a couple times on Weds. and ate an apple and a banana. But Thursday I did really well. I even took a 5 mile walk with my friend Julie on Weds. and Thurs. I had to work Thurs. night and instead of drinking the lemonade mix I took a 46 oz. bottle of V-8 fusion + tea and drank that all night. Surprisingly, I was more awake last night than I have been drinking caffeine. And I haven't had any since Monday. Today I am really wanting something to eat but I am trying to be strong. My plan is to keep on it until I have to go back to work on Tues. I am surprised at the amount of energy that I have without eating anything solid for the last three days. But what I don't get is the colon cleansing part because even though I did the "saline flush"(which is drinking a liter of salt water) I had no results. But I am going to try it again before I go to bed and hopefully have results in the morning. I am going to weight myself tomorrow morning also and see if I have lost any weight. I better have or I am stopping this.

Get to Work

That's what I should be doing instead of blogging, but once you start you want to blog about everything.
I just got back from a very invigorating bike ride. Even though I only went a little over 4 miles, it was quite breezy and cool and I feel like I got a good workout. Despite it being windy, Russell Barber's blog about his endeavor to bike across the United States and back again motivated me to get out and ride.
Now I am going downstairs to vacuum and scrub the family room so I can paint the floor tomorrow and get our new futon and chair moved down. I figured we should start getting it ready for when the kids come home for Christmas. And yes, we just got the shower unclogged last night so it's up and working. Christmas will be here before you know it!

My "Hairball" Experience

I don't know if any of you have heard of "Hairball" but if you like the big hair bands of the 80's, you would have loved this show. In this group I think they have 2 guys that take turns doing the lead vocals and the lead guitarist, bass guitar and drummer are always the same. But the lead singers take turns impersonating the lead singers of different groups and Curt tells me that they do a really great job of impersonating them, even down to their movements and everything. But since I was not into rock and roll in the 80's I was not familiar with these bands. But for $15 we got to see Kiss, VanHalen, Prince, Queen, Def Leperd, Alice Cooper, and Poison. Now there may have been more but Curt had to work at 6 a.m. so we left around 11pm. They really do put on quite a show with pyrotechnics, fog, confetti and all. Lots of the crowd dressed up with wigs and 80's attire. It was an experience.

Our Blackhills Vacation

I haven't had time since returning from the Blackhills last week-end to post any pictures. My vacation ended quite abruptly when we were driving back on Monday and I got a call from work at 6:08 pm asking me if I was coming to work. I had forgotten that I picked up an extra shift. But I got to work by 9 pm and they got along without me until then. We had a great time while we were in the Blackhills. The weather was perfect, like it has been since we got home. Saturday morning we went to Wind Cave National Park and I took the tour. Then we took the wildlife drive through Custer State Park and saw buffalo, antelope, deer, wild burros, and mountain sheep. We drove the Needles Highway and stayed in Hill City that night and then drove up Spearfish Canyon on Sunday and took in Roughlock Falls. We got to Spearfish at noon so decided to drive to Devils Tower and then go on to Gillette where Curt's folks were visiting his sister, Claudine and her family. We started out Monday morning for our long drive home.

Ahhh, Autumn!

I just returned from such a beautiful walk! I couldn't help thanking God my senses. The ability to see all the wonder surrounding me, to feel the sun on my bare arms, to hear the crunch of dry leaves under my feet and smell their fragrance. I am in awe of His love for me.
I wish I would have taken my camera, because the water was so still there was a perfect mirror reflection. It was gorgeous. Thank you Lord for all your many blessings!