just chat

They were threatening horrible heat this weekend, and at nearly noon it's still in the 70s here, so that's a huge relief. I'll take the dogs out this afternoon at least once, I think, as well as after dinner.

Speaking of, I've lost another pound. I've been trying to eat more healthily, and I've been eating a piece of whole-grain bread with a tablespoon of peanut butter for breakfast, cottage cheese and fruit for lunch, and a microwaved skinless chicken breast with veggies for dinner, plus 2 squares of Dove dark chocolate at 8 and about a quarter cup of raisins before bed. It's not as high-protein or low-fat as I would like--the peanut butter and chocolate are the culprits in the fat department, and I'm not willing to give them up--the peanut butter is a good dose of protein in the morning, and it's easy to carry to work (I always get up so late that I wind up eating breakfast at my desk), and the chocolate is my reward for eating healthy the rest of the day. But I can't figure out how to work in more protein without increasing the calorie count.

So I've lost 15 pounds--about a pound a week after the initial big water-weight drop. That's the way you're supposed to do it, but it's such slow going. Of course, it would be faster if I'd work some exercise in. Walking the dogs would be ideal, but they are such a pain in the butt to walk together--or more accurately, a pain in the knees. I suppose I could walk them on alternate nights--Taenzer one night, Timber the next. But considering that I've got another 35 pounds to go, it's going to take--let's see, 35 divided by 4 is 9, more or less--9 months. Not counting plateaus. So it might be worth walking one of them 30 minutes every night if it would speed up the process.

What I really want to do is build up muscle. I mean, somebody's got to bring in the dog food and move the window ACs in and out, and I don't see anybody else in the house but me. You can tone muscle with light weights and lots of reps, but to build it you need to use as heavy a weight as you can manage for 6-8 reps.

I've been having this recurring dream where I find myself in a house that it turns out I've been renting--in addition to the house I'm currently living in. It's an old, single-story, friendly-feeling house with wood floors and a big oak or elm growing in the yard. There's usually not much furniture in it, but there are usually closets full of clothes--nice clothes--and, always to my horror, animals--dogs or cats that I've moved out there and forgotten about. They're always well-fed and healthy, thank goodness, but it's still kind of a disturbing dream.

I've gone back to the white seed-stitch sweater for taking outside with the dogs, and discovered that (a) I forgot to split at the right place for the sleeves so I had to rip back, and (b) I don't have enough white yarn. Or if I do, it's going to be like 6 inches left over. So I need to go out to Walmart and get more white yarn. For someone who never goes to Walmart, seems like I've been there far too often lately. Inside I'm working on the lion's mane, so maybe a picture of that tomorrow.