Finding Radiance

I decided on a rest day today.  My insomnia seems to have made a reappearance lately.  I was up at 5 a.m. today.  I came down and did some work, then just went out for a walk when it got light.  Normally I wouldn’t snack before a walk, but my tummy was growling, so I had a graham with fluff before leaving.

I had thought about running or biking, but realized I hadn’t taken a rest day in a while.  I love biking so much that I forget to not do it on occasion.  Rest days are so important.

We did not go for bagels this morning because of the window installers coming today too early for us to make it out and back.  I know you were all wanting to see a bagel picture almost as bad as I want to eat one    We will go tomorrow.

Instead, I made protein waffles.

We didn’t have enough cottage cheese, so I subbed yogurt.

• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup of oats
• 1/3 cup of yogurt (low fat vanilla)
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

They came out definitely different, but still yummy.  More soft in texture without the crispness of waffles.  I think I would reduce to 1/4 cup of yogurt next time, or use greek, as the batter was very liquidy.

Working away today while the window people worked.  They were upstairs today and I didn’t notice them very much.  I already notice the house much cooler because the glass blocks the heat from coming in.  Technology is amazing!

Lunch break.  Not much protein, but super colorful!

So I found the route for my charity ride next weekend.  I’m not going to lie – I am a bit skeered of it!  I know I can do it, but it will be tough, check it out:

   Who is the crazy nut that signs up for 62 miles of hills? Oh wait… it’s me….  Miles 25 to 30 are going to be really, really hard!  Not sure which I am more scared of, the climb up or the free fall down.  I might go scope out the course this weekend, but I almost do not want to see this hill in person before I have to go up it or I will have nightmares…  If you want to check out the route in full size glory, you can click here.

Afternoon snack break (there is a little chocolate under there) -

No coffee today.  Just wasn’t feeling it.  How weird is that?  I just wanted to chew versus drink.

They worked hard on those windows!  It’s neat to look out and not see the world ripply.  Pixie watched them intently when they worked in her favorite window:

Not quite finished yet, though – as they still need to cap most of them on the outside, but all the inside work is done:

17 windows needed to be done in this house.

Little by little we are doing nice things to this house.   I think it has been a long, long time since it was really loved by its owners.  I’ll post a picture of the outside tomorrow per request.

Dinner time and I needed some protein, so that meant pork!  Another burger.

I assigned John to make bread tonight since we are now out.

Done with job #1 for the week and just 4 hours tomorrow.  Even though I backed down to part time with both jobs, I still do 6 days a week.  But that is okay.  We just do what we need to, right?  At least until I open that coffee shop….

Off to buy a couple new window treatments.  New windows deserve new blinds and not the ones the are broken because the cat keeps going through them

Up bright and early today and biked to the gym. I was there by 6:30! That is 1/2 hour earlier than I normally am there.

I hopped on the treadmill with the intention of only doing 1.5 miles, but it really felt good, so I kept going. Ever have that happen? I was doing 5.5 to 6 mph and ended up with 3 miles. I never run that much before lifting. Oooops.

I was pretty tired at this point. Even though I had a protein drink before leaving the house, I was really hungry!

Came home and made custard oats topped with almond butter and honey fluff (recipe coming soon).

Can I just say “wow?” I actually had to get up and walk away from breakfast for a minute because I was eating too fast (being mindful!).

I got to work early, as the window people were coming to start the big installation. Hot day to do it, too. Poor guys.

Lifting Move of the Week: The Horizontal Wood Chop!

This is for your core. The object is to use your core muscle to move the weight, not your arms. Keep the lower body still. Lighter weights allow you to use your core and not the arms. To do this at home, just use a dumbbell and go along the same path.

Enjoy!

Lunch time and the house was getting warm because of the AC being unhooked.  Nothing like no AC on a 90+ degree day, right?  I wanted a cool lunch:

Greek yogurt, Uncle Sam’s, and berries!  It was very good.  Although, I was still a little hungry after this, so I had a Luna Bar.

New flavor to me and I liked it.

Since the men were moving into my work area with window taping (not to mention I was getting too hot!), I moved upstairs to sit in air conditioned comfort while I worked.  Since we have a 100-year-old house, there is lead remediation to be done. Windows barriered on the inside:

Snack time!

With a latte.

The downstairs was done by dinner time.  How exciting!  Old windows.  These windows were 100 years old with the original rope pulleys and wavy glass (some broken).Not all of the windows even opened:

And yes, our neighbor’s house is that close to ours on that side.

New windows are tilt ins, E-glass and insulated.  I’ll get pictures of those up tomorrow.  Happy, happy!  This will make a world of difference with our heating bills this winter.  I am just dorky enough to be excited about cleaning the windows now.  I couldn’t do the upstairs ones from the inside before.

Dinner was a scrambled egg open faced sammie.

Gonna need more bread soon.  One thing I have done, which you probably might have noticed, is increased my bread consumption in the past couple of months.  That is a result of all of this bike riding I am doing and I am adjusting the diet to include more carbs.

Tonight involves a trip down to see my niece for her 11th birthday and have some cupcakes!  I’ll try to just have one.

Question: Are there any moves in particular you would like me to video?

I was up early for a pre-heat bike ride today.  With temps expected into the low 90s, I knew I had to get it in early.  I had some toast and jam pre ride:

I zoomed along pretty fast.  I was on the roadway for the first 6 miles, then I hit the path.  Noticeable difference in the quiet.  Lots of other bikers and joggers, too, which surprised me this early.  It was getting hot already.

I stopped for a moment to take some pictures and have some coconut water.

Gotta stop and appreciate when you can, right? There was a headwind on the way home.  It seems like I am always going into a headwind.  What is up with that?  Anyway, I did 22 miles today with some hills and it felt really good.  Good thing I did hills because my charity ride is *Hilly*.  Note the capital H. I will post a graphic of it tomorrow or Thursday.

Brekkie and I wanted to shake things up around Team Radiance today!

Protein pancakes topped with a dollop of vanilla greek yogurt, plus I couldn’t resist that drizzle of chocolate sauce (that was the bike ride talking   )

Yum!!

The winner of Edward Ugel’s  “I’m with Fatty” is

Nancy

Just read Klondike Tales by Jack London

Congrats Nancy!  Please contact me at javaqueen01 (at) yahoo.com with your address and I will send that out!

Lunch break was standard.  So much for shaking things up

So – here were my goals for August.

• Compile my recipes into a cookbook, which I am going to give to anyone who sponsors my Team Challenge ride.  Done!  This took longer than expected and I am still distributing the copies.
• Continue working on the no snacking while preparing meals.  Doing pretty well with this.  I still snack at other times, though.
• Again, no weight goal this month, just being mindful of what I am eating.  I am going to weigh myself when I want to, though.  Weight remained stable for the month – yay!

Things I learned in August:

- I don’t need to record my food each and every day anymore.

- Just because you lock up your stuf, that doesn’t mean someone won’t steal it.

- Working 2 jobs is not for me.

My goals for September are as follows:

• Team Challenge Ride on September 12.
• Concentrate even more on mindful eating.
• Do more brick training after the charity ride to get ready for the duathlon in October!
• Experiment more with not recording my food every day.   Although, I pretty much can keep a running tally in my head of calories, so not sure if this is really ground breaking in any way.

Afternoon snacks:

Plus some sea salt Lindt.

I had to laugh at this.  Do ever fear when moving furniture about what you might find behind the couch?  We moved the couch away from the window for the new windows coming tomorrow.  At first nothing appeared, then all of the sudden we saw this:

These are all of Pixie’s little rolled up balls of paper LOL!  She just jammed them all under the couch.

Who me?

Thank goodness there were no mousie bodies under there….

John cooked up some dinner tonight.  Pork burgers!

I dearly love our local smokehouse.  Good quality and good prices and local.  The best of all worlds.

We shopped for my niece’s birthday tomorrow and had some success.  So of course, we had to stop for some cafe – decaf…

And a snack size pb cookie.

Yum.  I like how places are actually making things smaller sized.  Do you find this happening as well?

I am off to catch up the google reader now!

Yay – my Broncos won last night and looked pretty good! Can’t wait for the real season to start. I biked to the gym today, where I decided on lifting only for a cardio break.

Operation endurance is still going:

I tried chins again for the first time in a few months. I lost some strength there, which is annoying. I stopped doing them because I didn’t want to concentrate to much on them, plus I was getting a little bored doing them each workout.  Then lookie what happens

Quick bike home. It’s going to be a hot one today! Not humid, though, which is always good in my book.

Are you tired of the oats yet? I have really been on a super kick lately. This blog should be called finding oats and broccoli…. (which ought to bring in a lot of readers).

This is the size banana that I use for my banana custard oats (I know there is a joke in there somewhere).

I don’t like using half a banana, so we just find the smallest ones possible.

I cannot tell you how great it feels to be back down to a single job’s worth of hours.   Yay!  I’ll have my new bike paid off next week, so that is a good thing.  I might just keep the 2 jobs as part time instead of moving to 1 only, as I am afraid that there won’t be enough work with one company (it’s feast or famine in my industry).  Plus job #1 has eased up a little on the constant berating of employees – or a lot of them left at any rate.  I’ll just play it by ear.

Lunchtime involved something different.  I made a protein crepe using egg white protein powder.  I am not that fond of it, but we must use it up.

• 15 grams of egg white protein
• 1 whole egg
• 1/4 cup liquid egg whites
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp of whole wheat flour
• stevia

Whizzed up in the magic bullet and cooked in a skillet.   Filled with blueberry sauce and a dollop of vanilla greek yogurt.

This was tasty, but a little on the tough side, thanks to the egg white protein.  I have tried this with brown rice PP and kind of had the same result.  I need to try it with whey and see what happens.  Definitely in the keeper file, though.

I now have the donate button for my charity ride if anyone wants to use it in the sidebar (or below).    I’ll be getting the recipe book out to people this week.  It’s about a 50 page booklet!
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I am getting excited about the ride.  I just need to find out what the course is like.  I imagine hilly because it is in the Adirondacks, but I am prepared for that.  I did 100 miles this summer, so I know I can do 62 with hills. The only thing I won’t be prepared for is rain.  The ride is rain or shine, so I am going to have to suck it up and ride if it is bad weather LOL!

Snack time included one of these:

Plus some of this:

I am starting to have cereal snack issues again, so this box is going to go up high tonight.

Finished up with work by dinner time, which is so awesome!  It’s so great to know I don’t have to log back in after dinner and do more.  It’s also great to see a man cooking:

Although, truth be told he was cooking some shrimp for himself LOL!

I had a baked crab cake and finally some red pear!  They are back around now.  Red pears are my favorite.

Now I have a whole evening with no work to do, but a lot of other things to do.

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway of  “I’m With Fatty!”  Recipient will be chosen on Tuesday.

I slept great last night!  Probably because  I took a Tylenol PM since my back was bothering me a touch.  I think my disk will probably bother me forever, I guess.  Interesting note,  5 months after herniating my disk and I still have skin numbness in my knee.  I am beginning to think that is permanent as well, although it does not seem to affect anything I do, it just feels really weird.

We were up for biking to bagels this morning albeit a little slow   I was hangry, too!  Day after long bike ride usually = very hungry Lori.

Yum.  Plus my 3 cups of coffee… yes indeed.

More relaxed work day today.  I have officially moved down to part time with job #1 so that will get me more on an even keel.  My life has been so backloaded with work for the last couple of months that I have felt a little out of whack.  I hope to get some blog stuff updated as well.  Another gentle reminder from John that I need to change my age to 42 in the sidebar….

Lunch break on the porch.  I held this up by the giant clematis

I have pretty much finished the recipe compilation booklet.  I will get a donate button on my site (amount will be up to the donor).  All monies collected from it will go to my charity ride (and I will forward a copy to those that have donated already!).  That took a while to do, I have to say.  Compiling took forever.  I cannot imagine writing a book from scratch unless that is all you did.

My butterfly visitor was back today:

Snack time (unpictured are some crackers I had):

Spent some time today moving furniture and removing window coverings in preparation for the installment of our new windows this week.  It almost feels like we are moving.  Thank goodness we aren’t.  Don’t want to move again for a long time.

I cannot believe we are coming to the end of August already.  School doesn’t start around here until after Labor Day, but people are gearing up.  And do you know what we saw in the grocery store last night?  Halloween candy!  I picked up a bag of candy corn and just inhaled that sweet, sweet scent… Didn’t buy, though.

Dinner time! Went for extra protein.

Plus awesome baked sweet potato “chips”.  These are great in the new convection toaster oven.

Flexing in work tonight and the Broncos are on prime time!  While I still love my Broncos, the Saints keep stealing their way up in my heart.

Snacks:

We have been going through a ton of fruit lately.  In fact we ran out as I didn’t have any pear to eat with yesterday’s ride! I guess I just eat a lot of it.  I may as well do one of those fruit fasts LOL!

Don’t forget to comment on this post if you want an entry to win the book I’m With Fatty!  And with that I will end this mish mash of a post

Question:  Does school start before or after Labor Day for your area?

It’s long ride day!  I was up early and came down to make brekkie.  It was 47 degrees out when I got up.  Can you believe that?  That’s what mountain area does.  It did warm up to 80 degrees, though.

I put on a big pot of coffee and made some banana custard steel cut oats that I had soaked overnight:

Missing from this pic is the drool I wiped off my mouth!  This bowl was tasty.  I need to figure out something to do for long ride days, though, as John sleeps a couple hours later than I do, so I eat too early.  Maybe I should have just a small snack and then a bigger breakfast later.

I puttered around in the garden and got stuff ready for the ride.   We decided to pack a lunch today to save a little money and then just spend on a couple snacks.

Fabulously gorgeous day!  It seems every single Saturday has been nice this summer.

15 miles later and we ended up at the lake:

The sky was so clear and the water was so blue.  Nature is the most amazing thing.  The classic car show was going on today.  Always something happening during tourist season.

Delorean – made out of stainless steel.

A Triumph with wooden dashboard panel and a beautiful cranberry color:

Old school mini Cooper:

And a pic for my dad, even though I don’t think he  reads my blog – a Road Runner:

We ate lunch in the park, which consisted of chicken salad and a piece of the bread I made yesterday.

Nice view of the lake:

Hmmmm…. closer look.  Is this man naked?  You be the judge:

We didn’t go around to find out.  Back on the bikes and we continued northwest to Warrensburg.  First time up this way and there was a long slow climb of probably 4 miles.  I was dripping sweat, but didn’t have to stop at all.  Warrensburg is a small town, but cute.

We stopped in at Willow Bistro because we had a BOGO coupon.

It’s very tiny and cute inside.  I would love to open a place like this.   I had a latte and a scone:

Hooray for carbs!

This was around 22 miles or so.  We then headed back the way we came, which was nice going down that 4 mile hill!  Except for the headwind.

We kept going in a really large loop.  At mile 38, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some ibuprofen since John was getting a headache.  Perfect time for some coconut water!

Nice tip – we froze these overnight  so they would thaw out during the ride.  They were slushy and delicious!!

I was really feeling good at this point.  I wanted some yogurt, though!  We biked off to Cooper’s Cave, which we reached at the 46 mile point:

We parked our bikes next to a Trek and a Giant.  With John’s  Specialized and my Fuji, it was a pricey rack full of the who’s who of biking.

I got something special!  A Mexican sundae with yogurt, which is peanut butter sauce and chocolate fudge on top.  With whipped cream (no cherry as I don’t eat cherries ever).

It. was. so. good.  I jumped around a little after the first bite because it made me so happy.  I think my body really wanted the glucose rush from it.  I was going to get ice cream, but I decided since I had the scone earlier, I would get yogurt.

Then we biked the last bit home.

Ride Stats:

52.9 miles (may as well say 53)

Ride time (not including stops) 4:12

Avg speed 12.6 mph

Top speed 27.5

Calories burned:  1625

Either I am getting used to the seat fast or the anti-chafing gel is amazing because no problems and I know I have another 10 miles in me for the charity ride in 2 weeks.  Of course, I won’t have the breaks like I do on our rides LOL!  I was saying to John at how I was feeling lazy biking today.  Like 53 miles is being lazy!  This was quite a hilly ride.  Good practice for the duathlon in October, and I have no idea what the course is for the charity ride!

The day is almost over.  I get one day a week where I don’t work and it goes by so fast.  I feel so fortunate to be able to spend the day with my best friend doing something I love and eating some good food!

It’s Friday and you know what that means! What’s blooming! But first, the daily stuff. I proteined up and biked to the gym. I know a lot of you are in a heat wave, but it was in the upper 50s biking there this morning

Warmed up with 1 mile on the treadmill and then set to lifting.

Then I hopped onto the treadmill for another mile.  I was super sweaty today as the AC wasn’t on at the gym because it was chilly out and they had the doors open.  It felt good to bike home in the cool air.

I came home to a cute scene:

Pixie is a heat-seeking lap missile now that it is cooler in the mornings.

In honor of Banana Lovers Day, I had banana custard cream of wheat topped with peanut butter and fluff and joined John at the table (rare):

Deliciousness!   Since today is pretty much just a half work day for me, I was able to relax some in the morning.  I don’t have a set start time with job 2, so no rush to log in.  I wrote that book review (click here for review and giveaway) and then worked.

Lunch break.  Egg sammie.

I am not afraid to eat eggs.  I do like runny yolks, but most times I cook thoroughly.  Plus we buy locally produced eggs, so I worry less.

Nice stuff in the garden right now.

More asters:

A grasshopper!

Buddha being all peaceful with the clematis:

Purple Liriope:

This is the white Liriope in it’s neat little mounds:

Twin gaillardia:

And a little dahlia:

Came back in and did more work.  John made me a latte

And I pulled out a mighty awesome looking loaf of bread out of the oven!

I said I wanted to just pick it up and take a huge bite out of it.  John suggested I could slice it instead, but where’s the fun in that??

Finished up work and I almost don’t know what to do with myself.   Since John cooked up a bunch of chicken, you know I had to have a salad for dinner!

Funny how there was no real urge to snack or anything today.  It seems like yesterday just filled whatever needs my body had.  I think sometimes we concentrate on staying in a specific calorie range and the body just pushes back against that at times because it actually has different needs than an assumed calorie count each day.

You know the evening snack includes some of that bread.

Best loaf to date, I think.  It’s a wheat challah bread.  I just didn’t braid it (lazy).

Tomorrow is a long ride.  Going to shoot for 50 miles.  A very nice day on tap, so hopefully it will happen.  Likely frozen yogurt tomorrow!

Question:  Are you eating eggs right now?

I recently was forwarded a copy of  “I’m With Fatty” by Edward Ugel to review.  

From the copy:

The book is an honest and wickedly funny chronicle of a father, husband, and all-around-food-obsessed man as he attempts to lose 50 pounds in 50 weeks – a foodie who can’t remember the last time he exercised but can describe every bite of his last Chinese takeout meal.

The book is really just a snippet of his life, 1 year to be exact.  He hits rock bottom when he needs a CPAP machine for sleep apnea and takes on a challenge to lose 50 pounds in 50 weeks.

I found this book to be a very, very fast read.  He uses a lot of humor, but you can feel underneath the humor the embarrassment and humiliation of some of the things he goes through.  It’s actually quite interesting to read from a man’s point of view about self-image and weight loss.  Turns out they think a lot like women do (only a little grosser at times).

You can actually read chapter 1 online here

There were times in the book where he really goes further than I want to hear about, like the colonic and the cleanse.  I did find his anatomy of a week long binge to be pretty accurate to what I have felt in the past.

There is a lot of self-dialogue which is quite funny, including the rationale of buying Halloween candy at the grocery store   This is not a book about an eating plan per se, although he does sometimes talk about what exactly he eats.  It is more a book about the emotional/mental process of the 50 weeks.

I am not going to tell you if he makes his goal or not in the 50 weeks.  He did learn some surprising things about himself during that time, both good and bad.

All and all a good quick read.

I am going to send this copy on to one of my readers.  Any country, too!

All you have to do is leave a comment telling me the name of the last book you read.

I will pick a recipient on Tuesday morning August 31.

For more about Edward Ugel, you can visit his website.

I am officially beat.  Not to mention my brain is like an egg scramble.  I woke up super hungry.  I had a Luna Bar as a pre-ride snack while I waited for John to get up.

I also did some work.  It seems like I am always working.  Oh wait, I am!

We headed out for the first bagel ride on the new bikes.  Last week John had the flat tire and it rained on Sunday, so this was the first official bagel trip.

Wheat bagel enjoyed on the patio:

(My bike in the background within arm’s reach thankyouverymuch)

This actually seemed really small and I was somewhat unsatisfied, so we split a berry muffin.

Then it was home.  13 miles today.  My chain was having some problems.  Guess this is stuff that happens when you get a new bike and it breaks in, so to speak.  Didn’t stop me from cursing the thief from Montreal.  John said I couldn’t blame him for everything that went wrong, but I say “why not?”

Settled in to work more.  I am moving to part time with job #1 after I get some paperwork stuff out of the way.  I have to cancel my benefits, and need to do that first before working less – as I don’t want all that money coming out of a smaller paycheck.    I’ll be getting set up with new insurance in a few months through the chamber of commerce and our business.  I went without insurance for years, so it doesn’t bother me all that much.

Lunch time!  I was feeling PB and J, so that is what I had.

I actually went back for another slice of bread.  I feel some snackiness coming on.

I was a bottomless pit today.  Midweek really seems to do that to me.  I have come to realize that it is okay.  If you eat well 90% of the time, the other 10% isn’t the end of the world.  I had some cereal and mini chips:

Then after I while I had some ice cream:

A quick visit from my sister and niece right near dinner time.  Devon wanted to learn the foam roller:

She needs to work a little on upper body strength, but she has the flexibility!

John grilled chicken and we had a quick dinner, but I didn’t cook any veggies.  Sort of a mash up:

More work to be done and I was feeling the urge for more snackage.  We walked down to the ice cream place (this is becoming a habit on Thursday) and I had a malt with the world’s biggest straw.

I was talking to John about the big difference now in having a day like this is that I don’t beat myself up or feel bad about it.  I really think that allows me to just move on tomorrow without feeling guilty or have it send me into a multi-day spiral of eating.  Maybe I am getting the hang of this thing.

I have to work more tonight….sigh….
Stay tuned tomorrow for a book review/giveaway and what’s blooming!

Happy Hump Day! Sort of. When you work 6 days, where is the hump exactly? Guess that would be tonight. Anyhoo, I decided to chance the gray skies and bike to the gym. First I quaffed a protein beverage:

Then headed out.

The air in the gym was all wavy from the amount of testosterone today. It was kind of funny as there was a group of 8 young men and one was obviously the ‘leader’ as they all followed him around the gym like chicks after a mother hen. I was not going to let them intimdate me out of free weight area, either. I made sure to scrub down everything really well that I used before I touched it. There was so much testosterone around that I didn’t want to grow anything unwanted…

I notice I did 2 shoulder exercises today. Ooops. That’s what happens when there are so many people in the gym that you forget where you were.

I biked home to brekkie and some protein waffles!

Topped with a little honey fluff. I’ll get a recipe post of this up. It’s life changingly good. I put it in the recipe book, too (which is almost done).

Lifting Move of the Week: Cable Squat-to-Row. I have posted this before a long time ago, but I do love this move. Short on time? Work the entire body with this. You could also do it at home with a resistance band around a door knob (or something to that effect).

I love how the weight on the cable allows me to get all the way down for the squat. Today I did lighter weights and more reps and it got my heart rate up. It’s sort of like doing the rowing machine only standing.  Obviously an older video with the longer hair

Workie, workie!  I am getting much faster with job #2 as I get more and more familiar with the doctors.  That makes the days a little shorter that way.  It’s a good thing.

Took a lunch break for some greek yogurt and cereal!

One serving of Newman’s Own Sweet Enough cereal on the bottom of this bowl. Dang a single portion size is so tiny.  This is why I don’t have cereal with just milk as the serving is too dinky.  I like to bulk it up with yogurt and fruit.

Payday for one of my jobs was today, so I socked that right towards the new bike.  Just a little more craziness and I might make it.  I had a latte for a snack, plus a couple of these.

Think I am going a little crazy?  You wouldn’t be incorrect.

One thing I have noticed in all of this is that I am really not stress snacking.  I would say I am proud of that, but to be honest I just hadn’t noticed I was not snacking and was not consciously trying to avoid it.  Maybe that is pride worthy in itself…

Another fast dinner.

The baked crab cakes I use are Smart Option brand, which I believe is a store brand for Hannaford.  This is one of those things that I kind of close my eyes on the ingredients.  The nutritional stats aren’t bad, and they are inexpensive – hence they enter the house for quick meals.  Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

I am posting from Starbies tonight.  Needed a break, so after I got most of my work done, we are here now and I can internet and catch up on emails and blog stuff.

This bush is outside.  Does anyone know what it is?

Decaf!

Plus I snagged half of one of John’s chocolate grahams.  Most times he doesn’t mind me taking some of his dessert, as long as it is too many bites