First Signs
9:11 a.m. - 2008-02-12


Two days ago I saw the first almond blossoms in town, and this means that Spring in on the way. There are daffodil plants with fat buds out back, so blooms are not far away. I am still waiting for my seed catalog from a company in Oregon, but the catalogs will be late this year according to the helpful guy who took my phone call. They are the only ones who sell the wonderful variety of cucumber, Sweet Success, which sets hundreds of cuks whithout wasting time producing male flowers. The weather has been so nice that I have been walking every day and am now down about 12 pounds. These things would be more definite if I could remember what I weighed when I started, and this is a lesson to me to write it down, or if I did write it down, to remember WHERE I wrote it down. My nurse practitioner is a great fan of the South Beach diet and recommends it highly. I asked her why lowering my carbs for any length of time sends me into anxiety and depression, and she was much interested and gave me lots of information on serotonin levels and how in some people serotonin depends on carbs to maintain proper levels. So I guess Atkins is not for me, but I am doing well on my lower cholesterol/whole grain diet. Here is a sample of what I eat:

Breakfast: big bowl of oatmeal with raisins and skim milk

Lunch: Hearty soup and a piece of fruit or big burrito of whole grain tortilla, beans, lettuce and salsa with fruit on the side and glass of milk

Dinner: Main dish from one of my low-cholesterol cookbooks, lots of veg, milk, chocolate meringue (Trader Joes) for dessert

Snacks: Handful of nuts, mostly almonds and milk

It is also important to keep busy because I don't get hungry when I am knitting on the machine or sewing.

I set in the other sleeve on the V-neck sweater and just have the side seam to do. After that I weave in the ends and I am done.

Yesterday was spent walking around town and then ironing endlessly. The spouse likes to have long-sleeved shirts in the winter, and since he likes natural fiber (cotton) shirts, they are awful to iron. I wish for the days of good old permapress shirts which just needed a touchup, but the spouse would be really unhappy with polyester. Now that I am a lady of no outside work, I don't have any excuses for not doing the ironing, and it is a small price to pay for being retired.

Now, instead of just writing about finishing off that sweater, I should actually go do it.