New Journey - Get Serious about Diet

I went to a new doctor today--she wants me to lose 85 pounds!!! Mercy I thought 50 would be good. I have lost 20 pounds this year, so that is a good thing, but I need to do better. She has given me a plan - 1600 calories and 80 grams of carbohydrate a day. I am going to try this plan. I did pretty good on weight watchers, but grew tired of documenting and counting......
Hopefully, I can stay with this plan. With this post, I am making the commitment to do this!

Today was another beautiful day - husband and I bicycled again, we did our Chruch Criterium!
(Criteriums-The most common form of American racing, the criterium, is a multi-lap race of 25 to 60 miles held on a closed course generally a mile or less in length. These races, which usually last one to two hours, are extremely fast -- 30 mph and up.) Well our criterium track is .35 of a mile, and we are only riding 5 miles a day which includes about a 1.5 miles to get to the church and back! On the fastest part of our lap, I can get up to about 16 miles per hour! I will never be a race cyclist, but it is fun to pedal as fast as you can for a short distance. When our boys were teenagers, I did participate in a few races.

I had a bad tension/sinus headache this afternoon after doctor appointment, and treated myself to a massage at the local massage school. I had an intern that was really good!

Sweet daughter-in-love is better today. She is back in the grove, still sad but working on being happy while son is deployed. She adopted a german shepard today to keep her little Winston (cute little dog) happy. Since son will be in the states for about a month - the major worrying won't begin until he leaves the US. Two years ago when he was in Iraq, he had Internet access, not sure he will have that luxury this time. Remember to keep all our soldiers in your thoughts and prayers daily. It is a real sacrifice for the families to be without them during their deployments! This group has many seasoned, long term soldiers in the group, many with several children, so their wives and husbands will be in for a long year.

Exercise is good for the Body and the Soul

Husband and I are trying to get back into our regular exercise mode. We love to bicycle, but were busy for the past few weeks and fell away from our routine. We had an easy ride yesterday in the neighborhood. The weather was marvelous - a high of about 82, and is supposed to stay that way for a while.

I am still recovering from the weekend, it was incredibly tiring, party preparations, airport good-byes and then the lingering sadness. Sweet daughter-in-love was really mopey yesterday and stayed home from work. Hope she is in a better place today!

I sat with my grandchildren last night for son to go to a mandatory meeting. He was in home in time to watch the Dallas Cowboys football game. We have always been big fans. It was a great game and our Cowboys pulled out the winners! What fun!!!

We have had quite a bit of rain from the hurricane, so back to mowing today! Hope to get caught up before the weekend!

GOD BLESS TEXAS and our soldiers!

My son deployed with his reserve unit today. Our goodbyes, and seeing the other soldiers say goodbyes to their families and children, was very emotional. The USO volunteers at the airport were wonderful. The departure was seemless and was over far too fast! My sweet daughter-in-love was so filled with emotion - this is her 2nd deployment. Our son deployed 10 days after they were married in 2006. This is his 3rd deployment in 10 years! I am physically tired, and emotionally spent.

We had a wonderful weekend - big send off party with family and friends! A good time was had by all, but what an emotional weekend - we have both family and friends that have been in the hurricane path! All are safe for now, but some without electricity in the Houston area and hoping all is well in East Texas!!!

Life's Work--Mowing

I believe my life's work is becoming mowing. We have had a lot of rain for this time of year, perhaps because of the hurricane season, thus lots more grass than our normal very hot and dry summers. The weather has been great, but I have gotten somewhat behind on my mowing and weed eating! I bought a new weed eater on Saturday and got busy yesterday! We have over 810 feet of road frontage and over 5 acres to mow--enough said--this keeps both my husband and I busy!!!

We are also planning a party for this weekend for our middle son who is deploying to Afghanistan. I want everything to look nice and manicured around here. I have lots to do for the party, so I had better get busy. More on party later.