Half Way to Winter

Yesterday was the official first day of fall. I have seen various dates for first days of fall--for instance, the first of September is meteorological beginning of fall, and the 23rd of Sept is the fall equinox, the astronomical first day of fall. Of course, to millions of children, the first day of school is the real first day of fall, other people consider that Labor day is the day that it begins. So, whatever day you use, it is 3 months to winter--so we are half way there. You couldn't convince me of that from today's weather. It is hot and breezy.
Well, my weight isn't as cut and dried as the first day of fall. Today, I was up, after two weeks or down. I did follow the program for most of the week, but I ate too much junk at my mother's place, and all the exercise I did last week didn't do the trick. I also had a candy fall out. This time, I wasn't as disciplined as I was with the jelly beans. Candy corn is one of my irrational favorites, and the bag called my name. It took me a few days to finish it, but finish it did. I really like the first few pieces, then the sweetness gets to me. I think that I have to go back and reread all of my weight watcher affirmations.

September vs June

A writer--maybe Shakespeare, once said that there is nothing more beautiful than a day in June. Well, I can argue that many September days rival June, and may even surpass them. Today, for instance, warm, in the low 80's, breezy, but not windy, sunny, but not humid. A good day to be outside. So, after I took my mother to get her hair done, we went to Panera, and ate lunch outside. It was so nice, that even the yellow jacket wasps left us alone.
My garden is looking rather ratty, most everything except the asters and sedum autumn joy are finished blooming. So, now the clematis paniculata--sweet autumn, has started to bloom, and it is just wonderful. Hundreds of tiny white flowers, with a spicy fragrance cover my arbor and climb up the trellis on the patio. What a treat. The show lasts for about two weeks. Then the flowers are replaced with some very unusual seeds. This plant spreads seed by the wind, so the seeds have tentacle like wings, and they do fly and start little plants in the spring. In fact, the vines on the trellis came from seedlings that I dug up and transplanted. Sometimes I think that that vine looks better than the original. I highly recommend this plant for places that are narrow, and need coverage. For instance, the trellis is in front of the electrical boxes and connections, and the recycling buckets.
Fall is a good time to move plants around the garden, and I have done a little of that already. I want to put in either a yellow or red twig dogwood in one of my borders as a foundation plant. I have one, and it does a good job. I need one more to fill in an empty spot. I noticed that some of the garden centers have shrubs on sale now, so I may go out and purchase one soon.

Another Monday

So Monday is here, and so is weigh-in again. It went OK, I'm down a little, but down is better than up or stayed the same. At this rate, I will get to goal sometime, but not soon. My leader suggested that we visual out goal in technicolor. Hm. That will make me think a bit.
Roadside was fun, there were too many volunteers, but I made myself busy by rearranging the arrangements as they sold. And sold they did, quite quickly. Friday is the busiest day, and the stuff was flying out of there. My purchase, 4 curly sticks, for a front door arrangement--to be made later.

I Think its fall

Today started out cool, and from I heard on the forecast, will stay cool. So I think that fall may have put in its first weather appearance. My husband had a very early dentist appointment, so I got up and was at the gym by 8am. I did my routine, went to the grocery store and now I'm blogging.
Tuesday is a teaching day, and I'm all ready to go, papers graded, power point done, weekly lesson done. My class is big--17 students--actually 18 on the books, but one hasn't showed up yet. It is a typical egl 092 class, some immigrants, who need to improve their English vocabulary, and the rest are American students who never got the hang of reading well. So far, attendance has been good and completion of homework has been fair. Typical for this class.

Monday was WW, and I went to the meeting with a better attitude. I have to accept that I have been eating too much. This past week I wrote almost--but not all -- of what I ate and I was over the top. No wonder the scale doesn't move. Well it moved .8 of a pound this week, and that was good enough for me. So at the grocery store I bought soup and my weekly savior, frozen dinners. I tried to find some that might qualify as core. No pasta, potatoes instead. There isn't much of a selection, mostly turkey and mashed potatoes or Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes. I really don't enjoy frozen dinners, but they are so easy. I eat at 5pm and rush out so I can do my office hours from 6 to 6:30. Thus a light and fast meal. I don't know when I will achieve my goal weight, but I am not giving up.

Roadside Sale

This week, my mother, her caregiver and I spent three afternoons making dried floral arrangements for the Chicago Botanic Garden Roadside Flower show. This is a big fundraiser for the Botanic Garden, and all the proceeds go to fund a specific project chosen by the botanists and other leaders at the garden.
All the dried material was either raised or gathered by the volunteers, all the containers donated by garden members, and the flowers and other materials were arranged by volunteers. Nothing goes to waste, Flowers with very short stems are are used to make candle rings. Flowers with no stems are used in potpourri. The left over dried material and containers are sold to the public at the sale. Last year, every arrangement was sold, and the sale made over $17,000. Not bad for a three day sale.
If you want to purchase a beautiful dried floral arrangement--or just look at a lot of well designed, and well arranged dried arrangements, with fresh material, grown locally, come to the sale. It is at the Chicago Botanic Garden, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Sept 14, 15 and 16th in Burstein Hall. Burnstein Hall is in the Regenstein Education Building. For those of you who haven't been to the Garden recently, the education building has been remodeled, with a beautiful Bonsai display in the courtyards. Burnstein Hall is the old snack shop.

Back to the Scale

I just finished checking the WW site and read some inspiring articles about getting back to the scale and the program now that summer is officially over. Yesterday, after a good lunch--Greek village salad, pita and iced tea-- at Dengeos, a great Greek place in Skokie, I was so stuffed that I decided not to eat dinner before going to my class. I did have a glass of milk and some grapes before I left. I really didn't feel hungry afterwards either. I drank a diet coke and a water, had a small bag of WW pretzels that I got as a free sample. When I got home I had some popcorn. What really amazed me was that I wasn't hungry this morning either. Maybe I have been eating too much. My weight is slowly creeping up. I am starting to backslide. This is a situation that terrifies me. The months of being absolutely disciplined were not so long ago. I am only a few pounds away from my goal.
So, what will I do? Recently my habit is to journal for a couple of days, then eat too much of the wrong foods, and not journal for the rest of the week. So, Monday comes, and I gain or lose the same one or two pounds. There is movement, but it is more like maintainence, not the loss I want.
Tuesday, Sept 11, marks a one year mark on WW. It has been a good year for me. I have spent almost $500 on meeting fees, which have been well worth the cost. I have only a little way to go. Will I give up and go back to being fat? Will I continue to pay the fees and stay 5 pounds away from goal?
s

Some bloggers have good fortune

Yesterday, I read an article in the Chicago Tribune (check it out)http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-bloggermom_03sep03,0,2773360.story about a housewife blogger who went from a blog like this one, to fame, fortune, movie and book offers. Someone suggested that she blog and try to make some money with ad connections on her blog. She was getting 100 hits a day, which would make me very happy, and then she put/auctioned off a baseball on ebay. She then went to 100,000 hits or so a day. She writes about her life as a housewife with 6 kids. She was compared to Erma Bombeck. The large number of hits attracted lots of attention, which led to the movie, TV series and book offers. Read out what a housewife can do with a blog: http://www.mom2my6pack.blogspot.com/