Month: July 2011 (Page 2 of 3)

We worked a little on the new house this morning while it was still raining a bit. We decided to put the door to the bathroom on the other end, so it is right outside the bedroom door and right at the foot of the stairs. That will be a lot more convenient. So we busted out the walls that were in the way.

Then we came back to this house and seriously sheetrocked all the rest of the day until suppertime. We have all the sheetrock up except for 3 small pieces and none are in the bathroom, so Dad should be able to put the first coat of mud on the bathroom tomorrow and we might just be able to get it done before Chloe gets here. (That is why your baby is so late, Erica – so we can get the bathroom done before Chloe arrives!)

On a humorous note (to me, anyway.) I was thinking about telling the plumber that it was really important that we get the bathroom fit into his schedule so I was going to tell him it was because my granddaughter is coming and she just got housebroken. Fortunately I just said it in my head and not out loud. Potty trained. Housebroken. Basically the same, right?

Dad had an interview today for a job he really, really wants. He thinks it went amazingly well, and he only knows of one other person who applied for it. I won’t tell you all about it, yet, because why would you care if he turns up not getting it? But it is at the new Marshfield Clinic and hospital in Rice Lake and is in his field of occupational health nursing. He said everything that they needed him to be able to do, he had already done, so he is very qualified.

Please pray that he gets it and that the amount of money they offer him is enough to live on. We will know by the end of July, and if he gets it, he would start Sept. 1.

A little on goals, just for a change of pace. If you want to have more actual control over whether you reach a goal or not, make it a behavior goal. In other words, make it a goal to exhibit some behavior for a set amount of time. In the weight-loss realm, that would translate into a goal to, for instance, eat within a certain calorie range every day for a week. If you are on Weight Watchers, it might be to stay “on plan” for a week, since being “on plan” has definite parameters.

An outcome goal is a goal to attain a specific outcome. Again, in the weight-loss arena, that would be something like a goal to lose 10 pounds or a goal to weigh 150 pounds.

If you compare the two, you can see that you have pretty much total control over whether you attain the behavior goal – you make the decisions, hour by hour, to either stay within that calorie range or not. But when trying to attain an outcome goal, there are a lot of things not under your control. You get your period and retain water, so your weight is up. You eat like you should and for some mysterious reason, your weight stays the same. This can be very frustrating. So, the solution is to concentrate on changing your behaviors, because that is the real key to maintaining the weight loss in the end, anyway.

And, as an added bonus, if you see yourself successfully accomplishing these individual behavior goals, you will be more motivated to stick with it until the weight does finally come off.

So, how about it? Are you ready to set yourself some behavioral goals?

I think the flowers are like my children now that I don’t have children to care for. I care for the flowers, but then I insist on boring you all with pictures of them. But I enjoy it…. and you don’t have to look. 🙂

Since a lot of you use your posts to talk about weight, I’m going to join the bandwagon. A week ago tomorrow I decided to finally get down to business. I’ve decided that before, of course, but this time it seems I really meant it. I’ve stayed on my plan the past 6 1/2 days and tomorrow is the first day I weigh in after getting serious. Unfortunately I didn’t even weigh in last week, because we couldn’t find the scale. (They’d moved it when they used the building over the 4th) But I know I will be down. Here at home, I’ve lost 5.5 pounds since last Wednesday. But that was starting pretty heavy after several days of poor choices.

My plan is to stay on my plan for 49 days straight. Staying on plan simply means staying within my allotted Weight Watcher’s (old plan) points, taking into consideration activity points. I have a variety of incentives, but they only work if you are motivated in the first place. I give myself stickers and gold coins for good days. I have a list of alternate activities that I enjoy (like writing a post). I made dinner menus for every one of the 49 days, including my favorite foods, like meatloaf and porcupine meatballs, and have shopping lists to go with the menus. I’m writing in a diary every few days. I’m keeping a list of things I’ve learned as I go along. But mostly I keep telling myself that I can do this for 49 (and decreasing) days. When I’m tempted I just tell myself, “You can have that in 49 days.” Hopefully I won’t have everything that 50th day, but you get the point. So far, it isn’t that hard, since the days go so fast in the summer, anyway.

What I hope to do in the 49 days is get back to a weight that I consider good for me, although it isn’t my ultimate goal. Then I’ll try maintaining at that weight for a while before I try to lose the last 7 pounds. I know that for me, it is hard to keep focused on dieting for more than 7 or 8 weeks.  August 23rd is the date that I’m aiming for.

That’s all about weight. I hope the rest of you are having success on your weight loss journey during this season of low calorie, high flavor fruits and vegetables!

Well, the one item of news is that the lady across the street died suddenly on Friday afternoon. Her son was there, but outside working for a bit, and he found her. He called the ambulance, but she was already dead. I guess she had been failing for quite a while, but I couldn’t really tell, because I never knew her before we moved here. She had such amazing flower gardens for us to gaze at out of our front window. And she was a very sweet person. She always took our grapes off our hands, because I didn’t (and still don’t) really know what to do with them. Then she sent us over some grape jam. So I guess this year I will have to figure out how to make grape jam myself. Anyway, all this means that the neighborhood has been really busy, because she had 10 kids, plus all the grandkids, etc. and they are all congregating there. Lots of cars!

Speaking of which. We’ve been car hunting. But Gary really wants us to buy his that is kind of on the decline for $300, so we decided to do that, since we’re not needing to go back and forth to GA any more. Its about a 94 Buick and not all that bad although it doesn’t run really good. But it will give us some more time to save up money to buy a better one when it finally dies. And the $300 is what we will get when we take our white car to the junk dealer, so we will come out even. Can’t knock that!

We worked a bit on both house2, but not a lot – it’s just too hot! We spent more time shopping and planning, but that needs to be done at some point, too.

I always was going to do one of these. But what’s important changes. So I just did one for this week.

A week ago, I was being a Nana with Ethan and Audrey and having a swell time. Unfortunately by the time the weekend was over, my weight was way up again, so I decided (again) to get serious about getting my weight down. Thus, all the references to body size, diet foods, etc.   Also, on the weekend, we looked at new cars, since Dad’s died. Our main goal was to have one that got good mileage. And we worked a bit on the house. And, finally, last night, when I was dressed up for Dining at 5 because I was the entertainment, a lady came by me and whispered in my ear, “You have a great shape.” That caught me off guard, what with all my worrying about my weight this week. But I guess it isn’t that I have a bad shape – it is just too big, altogether. Anyway, that was really motivating to me, so that is why it is at the top of the page. I want to eventually believe that I do have a great shape. (Before I’m too old to have any shape at all…)

I forgot that between the time the plumbers start and the time they finish, we have to sheetrock the walls of the bathroom. So they are done with their preliminary work, which means we have water and drain lines, but no fixtures. Really not much to show in a picture. Hopefully Dad will get to the sheetrocking this weekend sometime. It isn’t much, really. Hmmm…. maybe I could do it.

In other news: I was mowing with the push mower out at the property last week and the handle broke right in half. I guess all that going back and forth to mow around the hundreds of trees was too much for it. Then today I was mowing the yard with the other push mower and the wheel broke off. Am I hard on mowers or what? At any rate, the rider is still working (for the time being.) But I only use that on the wide open spaces at the property.

That row of flowers on the east side of the driveway at 117 is just about to bloom. It looks like they are going to be pinkish purple. Here is a picture of what they look like now.

And here are the yellow tiger lilies at 126.

The plumbers are here today working on the upstairs bathroom. The house is a bit over-run with men, but I’m excited that the bathroom upstairs will be a working model quite soon! I’ll post a picture after they leave!

The weather improved a lot, which made the weekend with the Winsted Fritzes a lot more fun than it would have been. Our house isn’t very cool at it’s best, so you add that sweltering heat, and it is an oven!

We mostly ate and watched the kids play and feed the goats and chickens. We went to Dairy Queen Saturday night. Nothing special, but it was nice to just hang out. Packing all the little ones in a car is difficult and then it is hard to get all the adults in, too! Plus Dad had to work at The Garage Saturday evening.

A few photos:

Quite a car-ful of car seats and little ones! Two of the three were asleep in short order.