On the Road Again

Aren't they cute?

Yesterday was busy. We were gone all morning and into late afternoon for a medical procedure for Mark. This was the day I wrote about dreading, as I hadn't driven for three years and had to be on a very busy interstate. Those who said it would come right back were correct. I had only one short practice drive beforehand and yet I had no problems. Coming home was a busy, busy drive, but I was fine. This afternoon we have a follow up appointment at the same place. It's about an hour from home. The Twin Cities is a sprawling metropolitan area, so depending on where you are going it can be a long drive. Tomorrow I wait for Culligan Man. Our reverse osmosis system isn't flowing well. After that is done I need to get to the mowing. The place looks abandoned.

 

 

The Sweet Smell of Lilacs

I was given a vase of lilacs on Saturday from a bush they had planted. The aroma is wonderful.

I had plans to mow the lawn yesterday. That didn't happen. It was hot and I was unmotivated. I did manage to make pizza dough and then in the evening the pizza. I often use prosciutto or speck, Italian cured ham, on pizza. It's paper thin and crisps well. I used the remaining tomato sauce I'd made for the meatballs as a base on the crust. That worked well and was good use of a leftover. My husband is very food centric, I'll lead with that to say, he told me as he is eating his messy pizza that he hit the jackpot when he married me. It's amazing how food erases all the years of a difficult me! Oh, I just bought another horse, here, have steak. I think I'll move to Atlanta, here's some lasagna. He is a saint. Don't tell him I said that.

It's laundry day, I also have tentative plans for some mowing in the afternoon. I do need to do it, it's a jungle out there. 

Here and Now. Long Ago.

Okay....I do not photograph well, especially selfies. Something I inherited from my mother. As I wrote a few days ago, I have lost sixty pounds over the last two years. The health benefits are worth the effort and some of the less positive results. Old skin sags under the best of circumstances. Old skin that has been stretched by too much weight sags even more. Lets just say there is a lot of drooping going on around here.

Because I have no shame, a photo of me at twenty-three looking duh. This was not too long before I separated from husband # 1. I married too young. I won't get into the family dynamics which played a large roll in that happening, the reality is.... it did. 

 

Because it's Mothers Day, a very grainy photo of young me hours after baby boy was born. Now he is a fifty year old man. I am surprised I did as well raising him as I did. I know being me was sometimes difficult for him, especially his young teen years. I was not your run-of-the-mill mother. He asked me once why I couldn't be like all the other mothers. All I could tell him was because I'm not like all the other mothers. He turned out well, despite, and because of me. Of course, Mark played a role later on.

I am a bit melancholy this morning. Not sad, just reminiscing. We had a very, very nice time with son and his wife yesterday. I asked him how it felt to be fifty. He said good. I told him I thought that was probably the best decade of my life, overall. He thinks it will be for him. I hope so.

Happy Day to all the mothers out there. 

Cameras

I know, another ta-da photo of a cleaning accomplishment, but this time there is a dual purpose. The first photo is taken with an iPhone and the second with my early 2000s Canon DSL, which I have not used in at least a dozen years. Since I got my first iPhone, whenever that was. I used to know how to use it, now I was lucky to figure out how to turn it on. I have the manual somewhere. I need to look at it. There is no reason not to use the camera.

 

If I were an actual photographer I would not have let the camera sit for so long, but I'm not, I am basically point and shoot with a nice camera. Or, I was.

It's a beautiful day, I have things to do and here I am, messing around with a camera. Ah, well. Life is short, sometimes we just need to mess around.

More Food

Yesterday was early morning rain and then gloomy the rest of the day. It did reach 70 F even though overcast. It was still a good day for soup, so that's what I did in the morning. Make soup for lunch. I had turkey stock from Thanksgiving in the freezer and thought it was about time I used it.

Boud and Lori both made spaghetti and meatballs (Boud's were plant-based balls) a few days ago. It made me crave this delicious delight, so I finally got around to making it for last evening's dinner. It did not disappoint. So, another post with food photos. In between making both meals I did get a bit of work done in the house. Just a bit, but it's better than nothing. The piano and the center island both were polished with beeswax. I love that stuff. So does the wood.

It's a pretty day, sun shining and warm. I'm going to attempt to concentrate on sprucing up the house in anticipation of son and wife visiting on Saturday. I've decided to make a pasta salad using an olive oil dressing for the vegan. Mark picked up some Talenti sorbet for desert. I have trouble remembering if it's sherbet or sorbet that is dairy and egg-free. It's sorbet. That problem is solved.

Sunday started out with making a loaf of bread.

It ended with making a sort of stroganoff with leftover flank steak, cream and Worcestershire sauce.

In between I mowed part of the lawn. Talk about a jungle out there. We've had a lot of rain, causing a burst of growth and also an inability to mow said growth. Phlox and weeds are competing with one another for garden takeover. The iris and lilies cannot even begin to put-up a fight. I plan to finish mowing today, in the afternoon when it's dry enough and my Monday (mundane?) laundry duty is finished. 

The son and wife are coming here on Saturday for lunch. I'm planning a pasta salad with an olive oil dressing to accommodate the vegan. I'll need to do a little fluffing inside the house to make it visitor acceptable. With tomorrows expected rain there won't likely be any weeding. We have the worst soil known to humankind.....black clay. Until moving here I had no idea such a thing existed. Saint Paul is on the bluffs of the Mississippi River, this has some relevance to the wonderful sandy loam I was used to. This stuff, boot sucking, tendon popping when it's wet, hard as cement when it's not. Weeding has a short window, not when it's soaked, but don't let it dry. Trials and tribulations.

The sun is shining, the washer is washing and I am grumping. Happy day everyone.

Meow

Don't we know it.

 Happy Sunday!

About Weight

About Attitudes.

 

I gained a lot of it, starting slowly in my forties, holding steady (mostly) in my fifties. Then I gained a boatload. More like an ocean liner load. Weight gain and weight loss are not the simple equation we have had drilled into us. Shame is a large part of this. If you are overweight, or Oden help you, obese, there is a shroud of shame around you and your round body. I know this well. I was a small person into my early forties, then something went awry. One day I existed, the next I did not. If you are fat..... you are lazy, you eat too much, you need to eat less and move more. Then, viola`, all will be well. Nonsense.

I have hormonal problems. I am insulin resistant. I am not diabetic, just on the cusp. With insulin resistance, the insulin has difficulty getting glucose into the cells, so instead the body stores the excess glucose as fat. This is why so many Type 2 diabetics are overweight, with much of the weight in the belly. This becomes metabolic syndrome: risk of heart disease, diabetes and stroke. 

I was prescribed Ozempic in 2022 for this reason. Because my A1c was just under diabetic, insurance wouldn't pay for it. At that time it was a little over $1000/month. Nope. Shortly after this the drug became well-known and somewhat notorious in many circles. It also became available in compounded form, bringing the cost way down. The drug itself is semaglutide. In short, what it does is assist insulin to push glucose into the muscle and liver cells instead of it turning into fat. It becomes energy.

All this to say I have been on a very low dose of compounded semaglutide. I have never increased the dose because the low dose is working. The drug is doing what it is supposed to. My A1c is much lower, I have more energy, not a lot, but more. And....I have lost sixty pounds. Unbelievably, to me, I still have 30 - 40 pounds left to lose before I get out of the overweight category. I am out of morbidly obese, but still obese. I'm in my 70s, I am tired of lugging this weight around. I know I am at risk of diabetes and heart disease for certain, since both parents died from heart failure and my father was an insulin dependent diabetic. Both parents had the metabolic syndrome body shape. As do I.

There is a lot of chatter that people using this drug are cheating, taking the easy way out. I say, people may think what they want, I am not going to be aiding in my death or at the very least, spending the rest of my life in discomfort because of misguided opinions. I will likely be on a lower maintenance  dose for perhaps life. I can live with that. Literally.

 

Just a Note

In between loads of laundry there was bread rising and baking. 

 

We've had quite a bit of rain the past three days, with more coming later today. It is currently sunny and mild out there. We were in a bad drought last year, rain is much appreciated. Everything is a vibrant green. I believe verdant is the word. The word of the day.

Rainy

We have another rainy day today and part of tomorrow. We really need it, so no complaints from here. Everything is greening up and sprouting. I made soup for our rainy weather lunches. Soup is always good, but soup on dreary, wet days is even better. Roasted eggplant soup with feta. I roasted the vegetables last autumn and froze them. It isn't pretty but really good. Feta crumbles or goat cheese sprinkles.....perfect. A repeat for lunch today.

 

Otherwise, all is quiet on the West Metro front. This once was a very rare and appreciated state. Quiet. There was always something with the equines. I'm not complaining, mind you. I'm not up for the stress I lived with back in the day. It is normal when you are living it. When not, it makes a person wonder about their own sanity. Horse obsession and sanity do not keep company with one another. They and we are now oldsters not too interested in youthful drama. Well, they still have some interest.