Starting Over and Progress

I started over on my fasting diet Monday. It's going okay. I managed to wait till 2pm both days before having my first food of the day. I chose raspberries both days and then today I also ate some low cal popcorn. I needed something to eat. This diet is tough! At least I am done with day 1 and ended up eating 900 calories for the day. 

I have been doing home projects after working instead of biking. I need to get somethings done around the house and if I bike that will zap all my project energy. 

I put tar down on our driveway this afternoon. I've done it at least two other times so I know it takes almost 2 buckets of tar. I have no idea of how long this actually took me. I started out sweeping the driveway and then I painted the white trim around the garage doors. Just touch ups where paint had peeled away. Then it was time for the tar. I actually, like doing this job. It's like squeezing black paint.  Looks good again for at least two years, maybe 3.

The three pictures above the bed were the last of the gold in our bedroom. I'm not crazy about the pictures, but for now they are okay. I just spray painted the frames shiny silver. No more gold/brown for the frames. Some day I'll find new photos that I like better to hang. I'm happy with the results and now am done with the spray painting of everything to make it all match. 

Shiny new things!

I did it!! Finally purchased myself a new laptop and an Apple! I had the old Windows 7 on my laptop and it was well beyond its years. I didn't want to wait till it completely crashed before getting a new computer. I've done that before! It's always a bit of a pain to get new electronics. It's the whole do you  remember all your passwords guessing game. I think everything is pretty much set up now on my new apple.

We will share the new laptop for work! I really don't use it for many other things since I use my cell phone 99% of the time.

Friday and Saturday night we went out. We did Minneapolis Friday night and went to some breweries and Saturday to the Hastings car show. Mostly just sat at restaurants along the river and had food/drinks. 

Saturday and a BIg decision!

I don't want July to end!! I love summer and I want to hang on to June, July and August for as long as I can and then repeat the months again over and over again. I think this means I'm meant to live some where warm all year round. I just do not enjoy the winter months even thought I love to ski. I could pass the cold forever! 

Found some white shorts and a top from last year that I had yet to wear this summer. I've kind of been in a rut with wearing a few summer items over and over. Got to branch out or take out the iron once in awhile! My hair, well that is going to remain easy to do. Throw it in a pony tail and go! I just think it's easy and keeps the hair out of my face! 

My weight loss efforts have been awful. Just hope I"m not gaining weight! ugh!! I have BIG plans of doing a fasting diet for 31 days Starting August 1st. I turn 51 on the 31st and I figure now will be the time to start fresh on a 31 day of fasting till dinner diet once again. It's getting back on track and losing the rest of the weight I wanted to lose. I'm starting this Thursday. Maybe Monday so I get a jump start on the diet since I plan to weight myself on the 1st. I don't want to be in weight gain SHOCK! Yikes!!! 

Friday night we went to two breweries. Started off at Monster then went to Surly and got beer and pizza. Super tasty way to spend the night with cribbage and I won! 

 My fur  baby wasn't happy we were leaving her again for the night. She gives me this look when I tell her she needs a kiss goodbye. 

 Then its back to looking out the window and keeping an eye out for cats, squirrels and bunnies. Its her favorite thing to do, go from chair to chair in our house looking out various windows at different spots for animal hunting. She did catch a bunny in our yard last week. She carried it around and then put it down with a trade of beef. I don't think she has killed anything but I didn't want to find out either. She mostly likes the chase. The bunny was fine and hopped away. 

I made a big decision this morning! My laptop is windows 7. OLD!! It's time for a new laptop before this one crashes for good and all is lost. I do that with most of the computers we have and it's not fun. I need a new one asap! My laptop is crashing all the time and one of these days its going to be toast! 

A little Crafty!

I was feeling crafty and decided that purple foot stool must be re-covered in fake fur. Off in search of fur options and hoping to not spend too much on this project. 

I thought Walmart had a big enough fabric section to have fake Fur, nope! I had to go to Joanne Fabrics and they had a pretty big selection. More choices then I wanted because it made it that much harder to decide. I was going to choose fur similar to the white pillows on the chairs, but then matching that bright white was not going to happen. They had more of a off white fur. White would show dirt faster then just going with gray. I found something a little gray and a little white! Perfect combo and super, super soft fake fur. I think its actually blanket making material. 

Love it!!! I am so happy with the way my little foot stool turned out. It was a lot easier to recover. I was afraid with the legs and and corners with the sides would be super difficult. I only got a yard of fur for $14 a great price because some were $40 per yard. Love my new updated sitting area. 

I just need to get motivated to finish the rest of my indoor house projects and the outside ones too. It's never ending but at least this was a fun one! 

House updates!!

I was needing some retail therapy. I came home with exactly what I wanted for some changes around our house. Its not really needed, but I really wanted matching chairs! 

I had been looking at these two gray chairs at TJ Maxx for months now. Yesterday they were marked down to $80 each! I could not pass that up! I wanted matching chairs for our little sitting area in front of our sliding glass doors. 

I added the rug, since Celina wasn't using the rug we bought her for the college apartment. It was just rolled up and being stored. I wanted to see how a rug would look and I love it! She might not get it back! Just don't look at the box in the corner. That's our light. Its going above our stairs. It's been waiting for Steve to hang up for a long time now. Just need to wait more until his shoulder heals! 

I just need to re-cover the foot stool. I'm looking for either white fake fur or light gray. I think gray will stay looking nice longer since I have a feeling white will get dirty since it's where everyone puts their feet. I'm just going to re-cover it and call it good enough. It's on my todo list for this afternoon. I wish I had taken a before picture! The two un-matching chairs that were there in that spot, I moved one to our office and the other to our bedroom. I can finally, get rid of the dumb folding kids chair I was using to put our extra bed pillows on at night. Love the little house changes to make it feel more cozy! 

It was such a nice day out on Tuesday. We had perfect temperature weather 79+F. I just sat outside after biking with Celina and Don. We did the 8 mile shorter bike loop. Today, we are going to try the Mountain biking park. I haven't done this in a while, so it should be fun!

I tend to wear the same thing over and over when I'm done working and working out. I only wear normal clothes for a few hours so this is the reason I just wear the same thing a few days in a row. I actually looked in my closet and found something else to wear. White shorts and a gray top. 

After Monday's burger, we had Tuesday chicken brats. Had a side of broccoli and mushrooms/onions. Delicious! Can you tell I love ketchup! 

It's time again.

It's time again to fast/diet and lose some weight. I still try to eat less but fasting has only been through Dinner through  lunch the following day. I'm eating more and drinking more so it's time to cut way back! 

We made grilled burgers last night and pulled out all the stops. I filled mine with blue cheese to make a juicy Lucy. Cooked bacon and toasted the buns. Steve fried up some potatoes on the side. I can't keep eating like this or I will gain weight! It did taste really good! 

We did this on Sunday, Visited the Brewery in River Falls, Wisconsin. We shared three appetizers, a giant pretzel with cheese, brat cut up and wrapped in a light pastry and Artichoke dip with more bread! Lots and lots of bread/carbs! With Beer! A flight to try. 

 Now you see why I need to start dieting again!

We also had Beef tenderloin for dinner Saturday night at home instead of eating out. It was a great choice! 

While we were at the Brewery, Celina and Don were using our Living Social Deal to Kayac down the Kinnianac river in Wisconsin. The river was high due to all the rain, and gushing in some places making the 8 miles of kayaking a little more challenging then a beginner river. There were rapids and large trees down along the way that they had to navigate around. I think in all they had fun, but it was a bit more challenging then they wanted. 

We also checked out River Falls in town while they were on the river.  Found this nice park with a bridge over the river, right in town. 

 We listened to this band of really old guys play some good music out in the court yard by the river. 

Finally, an ice cream treat after our day. 

Solo... But moving ahead!

Going biking solo today on the longer route. It felt weird to leave Steve at home while I went out to bike my 9 miles on the same road he wiped out on Thursday. It was too nice of a morning not to go out and bike. 

I wanted to make these light fluffy souffle pancakes for a while now. The pancakes, turned into waffles pretty quickly. It was too much of a pain using a ring mold and covering the pancakes to make them and then try to un-mold them. They were light and fluffy and delicious! Just had to beat the egg whites and fold them into the batter. I'll be making this recipe again! 

 I took zero photos Friday night while we were out with Friends. Just went to Bald Man Brewery in Eagan. Now I could actually try the beers they make and drink them! I tried the Psycho-delic beer. Had 1-1/2 and I was done drinking. They were strong and I only ate a little pizza from this cute school bus truck parked outside. The pizza was made on a wood burning oven in 2 minutes! Super fast and really good! We just had one small 10" with meat. I could have ate more but didn't want more pizza and that's all they were making. We stopped at Mcd's on the way home and I treated myself to a Caramel Sunday with nuts.  A few bites in and I could have been done with it, but I ate it all. 

Since Steve is recovering and it's now storming outside and will pretty much rain all day. We have no plans for our Saturday. I'm just glad I got in my early morning bike ride and made some pancakes this morning. Just going to wait till the worst of the storm passes then it's off to the store. We are out of printer ink and I want a new gray tank top. So it's off to Kohl's for that. Not a very exciting day planned! I'm sure we will go out tonight for dinner. 

Off to the Emergency room we go!

Thursday morning was perfect outside for a bike ride. I needed to take a shorter route since I had to leave for work in an hour. Steve and I did our usual bike route and that's when the accident happened. 

We were a little over a mile from home and then his bike tire hit my back tire. There was a car coming on the dirt road. I was trying to tell him something and he was looking back at the car. I wasn't going as fast and he was going faster. I feel like it was part my fault for picking a bad time to try and tell him a story. I was going to tell him that I noticed my heart rate increased to 65 after having two drinks. It's normally 45 at rest. So that caused our collision. He almost caused me to fall. I recovered, but I looked behind me after I stopped to see Steve fall off his bike and roll. We quickly got to the side of the road with our bikes and then he laid down in the grass on the side of the dirt road. Not able to get up. His full weight came down on his shoulder. He wasn't very scraped up. Just a bruise /rough spot on top of his shoulder and a little road rash on his upper arm. 

 A few cars drove by us. I was thinking he just needed time to rest from the shock of falling. Not sure how hurt he was. He attempted to sit up and that's when he felt like he'd pass out. A guy driving by stopped and asked if everything was okay. At this point, I knew he needed help. He would not be able to bike home like I had hoped. 

I don't know what we would have done if this guy had not stopped to help. He lived right around the corner. Went home, got his truck and picked up Steve's bike, took Steve in his truck to our house. They met me at home. Once home, Steve kept passing out in his truck. He offered to drive him to the emergency room. I followed in my car and then we wheeled him in. 

An x-ray and cat scan showed no broken bones but lots of bruised shoulder and ribs. He also jammed his right two fingers. It could have been a lot worse! Thankfully, he is recovering but it will take some time. The bad part is that he has a big construction job that he needs to finish. He will need help lifting all the materials. We will wait till Monday to see how he is recovering. Last night he took one more super pain pill to sleep. Today, he is moving around a lot better even though the doctor said today he would be more sore then yesterday. 

Monday, he has an appointment at the new Viking medial building to get his shoulder looked at and maybe some exercises? They wanted to have it checked out by a specialist. This way we will know how long he needs to not lift anything with that arm/shoulder. Mostly his ribs are sore from the fall and top of the shoulder to the neck. Fingers crossed he is a quick healer and can be back to working normally ASAP! 

How things can change quickly with an accident. We know this from when he had the eye injury two years ago. I'm just lucky that I didn't get in the bike accident with him. We both could have been taken out on our bikes. Being self employed, its more important then ever to stay healthy and accident free. Looks like I'll be doing a little construction helping along with the kids this next week and maybe more? 

Lutsen Camping Weekend!

We loaded the car full of camping equipment for the long weekend up the North shore of MN. Thursday we left for Duluth to stay over night at the hotel before heading out to the woods. 

We usually stop at Black Bear and do a little $20 gambling and spend the night. 

The next day, Friday we were off early driving to Lutsen. I wanted to stop at one location on the way up. 

In Silver Bay, they have a beach that has black sand. It's super pretty when the sun shines on the orange rocks against the black sand. It's the only spot that looks like this on the North Shore. 

After our quick stop at the Black Sand Beach, we were off to drive to our camping spot for the next three days.

We set up camp. Used everything we brought. The screen porch came in handy to get out of the bugs at night. 

 It was spring on the north shore with all the blooming flowers.

We had a pork loin grilled dinner down by Lake Superior at the park next to the Lutsen resort. The resort was having a big wedding so we opted to go to the park next door. We had it all to ourselves! 

 Delicous dinner by the lake.

 Camp fire the first night.

 We also brought tubes instead of our Kayaks. With only being up there a few days we figured biking would be enough and we would just keep it simple. We had never swam in the lakes up in the mountains before but it was nice on a hot day. Super great idea and I'll be bringing the tubes every time we camp! 

 We ended up going to two different lakes, Lake Claira and Twin Lakes to swim/bike/hike

Grand Marais, at Sidneys on the roof top over looking Lake Superior

 We had a beer and shared a donut.

 A sail boat off in the distance on the lake

 Yummm....

 Cheers! Off to the Brewery, Voyager in town for more beer and some cribbage.

 We did a little driving on Saturday on the Gunflint trail to Twin lakes to picnic, bike, swim and hike.

 The pizza at Sidneys was super good!

 Sun Set in Grand Marais at the harbor.

 Back to camping for the night. We had the whole place to ourselves on Saturday night without neighbors! Only on Friday we had two neighbors.

 Calm waters down at the Lutsen resort on our last day, Sunday

 Packing up and heading home.. Till next time!

 We stopped for pie at the Rustic Inn. Excellent pies! Don't bother with Betty's pies they are junk compared to this pie place!

 Going through the mountain tunnels.

 Dinner at Hinkley and to do a little more gambling before driving home.