Well, that didn't last long!

Thankfully, the intense heat only lasted a week:  Long enough to make the lawn go dormant and to almost kill my rose bush and other plantings.

The upside is that we had to tell the lawn crew not to come the week after we asked them to come every week.  How ironic. *eye roll*

SO, we spent that money on a nice dinner on "date" night (which is basically stopping for something to eat on Friday night before we do all of the errands).  Had some good parmesan crusted steak medallions and a cocktail.

The other silver lining is that my seasonal depression has lifted with being able to get back outside.

I had my monthly trip to the clinic on Thursday.  Saw my doc this time.  I hadn't actually seen him since April.  I only see a nurse or the doc every other month.  The alternate months, I just go for my shot.

Anyway, I expressed my concerns about the weight gain issue re-emerging, and he approved me to try a different diet idea.

I've been researching the "ketogenic" diet.  It's similar to the "paleo/primal" diet, in which I am already well-versed. 

It's still a real food/whole food diet, or what I like to call "eating style."

The main differences are that keto allows for more healthy fats, and it DOES allow grass-fed dairy.

You eventually cause your body to go into a state of ketosis, in which it burns fat for fuel, instead of burning glucose for fuel.

I only need to lose about 12 pounds to get back to my original size, but on my frame, that weight is ugly and uncomfortable.  It's all around my middle (like happens to women in natural menopause, but in the case of hormone blockers, it's exaggerated). 

I can hardly reach my feet, and for someone who works hard to stay fit and flexible, it's VERY frustrating.

Dave also has stalled in his weight loss efforts, so this will help kick start him as well.

As a life long nutrition geek and liver of healthy lifestyles, I am concerned that long term ketosis is not healthy for the body, so I am not planning to dive in with both feet at this point.  We'll do a week and see how we feel. 

We are already almost there in our eating style, and just have to remove a couple of grain foods, and really stick to the NOT DRINKING on weekdays (there is no booze in the house at the moment)!!

I've become very fond of little whole grain crackers and kefir cheese as an after work snack, and have gone back to cooking white rice to go into some dishes.  Taking those items out of the diet won't be too difficult.

I think the hardest part will be NOT having what I call "frosty treats" in the freezer during hot weather.  I love me some little ice cream treats from Trader Joe's, or a bowl of Braum's sherbet.

Replacing carrots (too much sugar) and hummus (which is made from legumes) with "keto friendly"snacks should be pretty easy, too.  It won't be a big shift, but hopefully, it will be an effective one.

For example, last night, we had grilled steaks and brussels sprouts.  The only difference between paleo/primal and keto is that I added more fat to the sprouts in their foil packet. 

Today, I am making a fritatta for us to have for breakfasts this week.  Eggs, cheese, mushrooms, spinach.  What's not to love about that? 

Snacks will shift over to these lovely little things called "fat bombs," which I still need to learn more about, and celery with kefir cheese, instead of crackers!

We're already pretty much on track, eating delicious salad kits for lunches a couple of times a week (with added protein from grilled chicken or organic cold cuts), salmon and veggies once a week, skillet suppers with meat and veg.... this will be pretty easy, and I sure hope it works.

Since the shift won't be drastic, it may do nothing at all.

We went to another music show at the Tower theater last night.  It was a cowboy group called Riders in the Sky....an old favorite of Dave and his son.

It was great fun!  We took Uber rides to and fro so that we wouldn't have to worry about parking. 

The credit card balances are all $0, and we made the first payment on our home equity loan.

Things should start to look better in our cash flow situation pretty quickly, like in August...and then, in September, the loan for the concrete and hot tub from 2013 will finally be paid off!

Dave plans to redirect that monthly amount into his savings plan at work, so we won't see a difference in real life.  The money will just be put somewhere else, as opposed to repaying that loan.

Off to another quiet Sunday.  Shutting down the social media and news, and focus on peace!!

Into hell

Forget the doldrums... this is hell!

This is the hottest July we have had in at least a year.  HAH!  Actually, it's hotter than it's been for a few years.

It was 111 on Friday when we were out running our errands.  101 yesterday.

My seasonal depression has deepened a bit.  I bet it's due to lack of sunlight, and breathing processed air most of the time.

It actually physically hurt to be outside on Friday.

One thing that seems to be helping my blues a bit is the new Alexa device has access to a "skill" called "sounds for sleep."

One of the sounds is a loop of crickets and katy dids singing.

It reminds me of summer nights when I was a kid, and the windows had to be open because we didn't have air conditioning.

I haven't heard katy dids since I left Illinois, and I miss them.  I've seen a couple of them down here, but they don't sing in the night by the hundreds like they do up north.

Anyway, that sound loop has really been soothing me at night, and I love falling asleep to it.

We got our loan check to the bank on Monday after work before they closed, and started paying off our credit cards this past week.

The first loan payment is due next week, and I can pay it on line.

Phew!!  SO glad that's taken care of.

We hired that lawn crew to come every week for the heat of summer (or until the grass goes dormant, which it should soon, with this heat). 

Another aspect of my seasonal depression is lack of exercise.  I actually LOVE mowing the lawn with our reel mower, and now it's way too hot for me to do it.

I also can't take my walks when it's even too hot to go across the street (equivalent to walking about a block outside) to the indoor walking track at the hospital.

All I have is what I can do inside my house, and that gets very tedious.

I did sign up for an on line yoga course, though, and am still going to dance classes.  The second yoga lesson came today, so I will do it this afternoon.

We had some friends over last night, and that was good.  We played a fun game, and laughed. 

Our quiet day last week was such a success that we decided to do it every Sunday.  It helped me to NOT see political posts and negative stuff on line for a day.

New news, no social media.... nice!

Dropped ball

Well, despite the fact that we discussed it with our banker, have a confirmation email, and a signed form stating that we wanted our loan funds to be direct deposited (since we got the loan from our actual bank).... the money never showed up.

Dave called Friday, since we were off (one of the reasons we were off was to pay off all of our debts with the loan money), and they mailed us a check.

Yes. Our bank mailed us a check that we now have to take BACK to them to deposit.

I know, right?  Paper, postage, fuel, and time ... all wasted.

Dave had asked if they would please stop pay the check and deposit the funds directly, like the paperwork and email said, and like we discussed face to face.

Nope.  Our personal banker apologized, but said that could not be done to correct their mistake.

So, of course, the mail arrived yesterday long after the bank was closed.

We now have to wait until tomorrow to deposit it.  Of course, we work til 5, so Dave will have to go during work hours to get it there in the morning, so it's credited to the account sooner.

It was still a good day off on Friday, but the big thing we wanted to do that day..... well..... we had to make minimum payments on a couple of the credit cards again.

The patio furniture paint project turned out great.  The table top and chairs are "expanded metal," in an open diamond pattern, and it's hard to see the cool rainbow colors unless you're at the right angle, so it really is iridescent, and very cool.  Sadly, though, it doesn't really show in pictures.

I started on it early, but was still overwhelmed by sweat on many occasions.  I had to come inside to take breaks and cool off, even though I was just sitting in the shade.

I got sunburn, too, sitting in the shade!  Wow... But it was worth it.  I love the look!

Our 10th anniversary dinner was fabulous. It's a good thing we budgeted for it because DANG!!

Dave also sent me 10 roses to my office.  They are beautiful, and are opening up nicely.

Today is our quiet day.  We are going to try to make it kind of a retreat, with a minimum of exposure to news and social media and a focus on something spiritual.

We need much more of that.

I'll be making pulled pork in the crock pot.

That is, if Dave ever gets up.  I need him to get the crock pot out of the shed for me (I'm an arachniphobe, and they are THICK around here).

It's a cloudy morning, and there is distant thunder, so he isn't getting out of bed....

Into the doldrums

Summer is here and the time is right for cabin fever.

No more holidays til Labor day.  No more guests coming.  No more being able to go outside very much due to the heat.

Sigh.

Our 10th anniversary is this coming week, though, and we took Friday off so we can go out for a real date on Thursday to mark the occasion.

Friday will then just be a nice chance to do errands and yard work at our leisure.

There's a high-end steak house in one of the more upscale districts in town that Dave wants to try.

Speaking of money, we closed on our home equity loan yesterday.  The funds should be in the bank by Thursday, so we can pay off all of our credit cards.

The cards themselves have been locked up in our safe.

With the state of the world being what it is, and with my job situation being somewhat tenuous, getting our debts managed and our cash flow improved was a necessary move.

We got into credit card debt in a few ways.  Dave has issues with spending and not caring about the consequences.   He ran one of his cards way up.  That card has been locked in the safe.

We also paid for big vet bills for Louie and Jack with a credit card because we had no other means to pay. Even though they were both several years ago, with the interest rate on credit being what it is, we are still paying that down.

Hospital bills went on credit after Dave's adventures in 2009 and 2011.

Some of our vacation expenses and weekends away have gone on credit (though, for the most part, we have used tax refund money for those).

All of the frivolous use of credit has stopped, and now we have to crawl out from under the pile.

Previous attempts to consolidate over into a "lower interest" credit account have failed, because the interest goes up after a period of time.

The nice thing about this loan is that the designated monthly payment is less than we were paying on the consolidation account, and there is no penalty if we pay MORE than the designated amount, or if we pay the loan off early.

We can sock away quite a bit of money every month (compared to not socking any away lately), and then, every once in a while, make a triple payment on the balance.

This will also allow us to save for a trip to Wales and England, to make that dream come true.

I am very grateful that my dad taught me how to manage money.  I think I know a lot more about it than some people,  and I am also grateful that Dave let me put my foot down.

It only took 10 years, HAH!!

In other news, when Dave decides to get up, his first task for the day is to spray down our patio furniture to get all of the dust off of it.

Then, I am going to attempt a painting project.  We can put the furniture under the car port so I can be out of the sun.

It's an idea I got from a furniture painting video I saw on Facebook.  Click link below to see....


https://www.facebook.com/MarkMontanoNYC/videos/1656899904364137/


The patio furniture is metal, and I just repainted it all black before my sister and brother in law came to visit.  Then, I saw this video, and wanted to do the project before they came, but we didn't order the paint in time. It just came the other day.

The colorful sparkly paint was expensive, so I really hope this works!  I will take pictures and post them next week!

Welcome to July

Last weekend went by way too fast.

We came out of the drag show on Sunday to a torrential downpour.

Because the club we were at was in the midst of "boys town" on Pride day, we had parked a couple of blocks away.

The streets were closed off, and there were tents set up for the festivities.

When we got there, we scoped the place out, and decided we would walk through the event after the show.

However, because of the storm, by the time we came outside, everyone was GONE.

The event had been closed for safety reasons.

We picked up some free newspapers to put over our heads, and stepped out into the rain for a dash to the car.

The temperature had dropped substantially, the winds were strong, and the rain itself was like a cold shower.

We came home and changed into dry clothes, opened up the house to let the fresh air in, and listen to the rain, and watched the Cub game.

The weather cleared later, and it was GORGEOUS out, so we tried to go back over to boy's town for the parade, but we would had to have parked many blocks away, and decided against it.  My sister has some painful arthritis symptoms, and the walk would have done her in.

That was disappointing, but the show was fun, and they seemed to enjoy it.

The first brewery we tried to visit after that was closed on Sundays, so we sought out our last stop, which turned out to be three breweries in one!  Record broken!

We went to breakfast Monday morning, and saw them off by 10.

Because it rained every night last weekend, the lawn grew beyond our capability to mow it.  We had to flag down a lawn crew and hire them to come back and mow for us.

Dave got the guy's phone number, though, so we can just text him if this happens again.

We now have "a guy."

Yesterday, we got up early and mowed again first thing in the morning, to avoid the heat of the day.

Then.. guess what?  It rained last night.  HAHA!

But at least the lawn was mowed twice during the dry days.

The rain cooled things off for us, though, and we finally got in the hot tub for the first time in a while.  It was lovely!

Nothing much on the agenda today.  I did my chores yesterday after mowing, so I can take it easier today (which is good, because I have a hang over).  Dave still has to go to his dad's for his weekly visit.

Maybe I'll go along, but lately, every time Dave goes, Pop is asleep.

Why do I have a hang over, you ask?  Because I had a beer during the Cubs game, had a celebratory half shot of whiskey when the Cubs won, then made some wonderful mojitos with juicy limes and mint from the garden, and then had some chilled sake in the hot tub last night. 

I simply can no longer tolerate drinking different things on the same day, even if it's over the course of many hours (like yesterday), and even if I never even get tipsy.

It's so not fair!  But I need to remember that on my "drinking day," which is usually Saturday.

Last Saturday, when Elsa and Jim were here, I drank a grand total of 16 ounces of beer (4 breweries, 4 ounce beers at each one), and I felt great on Sunday.

Today, I feel like shit.  I feel like I SHOULD feel after being roaring drunk....but I wasn't roaring drunk.

Sigh.... OH well.... I just need to remind myself to stick with one thing.

There has been thunder all around us all morning, but no rain in our area yet.  The distant thunder is nice.  It's supposed to rain at some point today, but when the storm comes in, it should be gentle.