Cracks & Calories

Here I am, wide awake at 5:00 am on a Sunday.  That's not particularly unusual for me.  The problem is that today that's 4:00 am since last night was Fall Back.  Maybe I'll take a nap this afternoon.

I thought I'd post a couple pictures of some of the foundation-related cracks in my house.   This is the ceiling in my master bathroom.  Not only is the ceiling cracked, but it goes down that corner and cracks the grout at the top of the shower stall.  And in the second picture you can kind of see that the cracks extend across the whole bathroom ceiling.  The third picture is the corner of the window in the sun room.  It's hard to wait 2 - 3 months for the house to finish settling to get them repaired.  Considering that the slab leak repairs will probably cause more damage needing repair, it's probably just as well to wait and have everything repaired together though.  I currently have a two page list of everything that needs to be repaired.  Now I just need to decide whether to have the repairs done in December or wait until after the holidays.  I'm leaning toward December, but we'll see.

I gave up on those little pine trees I was growing.  I have SUCH a brown thumb.  No matter what I've tried, they continue to seem to be dying.  Give them more water, give them less water, re-pot them (twice!).  The needles keep turning yellow, then brown and that's spreading up the little trees.   So this week I put them outside.  They're pine trees, so they should be able to live outside, and I figured if they're going to live at all, their chances are better out in the elements, than under my tender loving care.   Poor things.  It it weren't for cacti and wandering jews, I suspect I couldn't grow any plants at all.    

I did plant the three remaining peach tree seedlings out into the yard.  The oldest one was looking pretty bad, so we'll see if being planted in the ground will allow it to survive.  The other two seem happy enough.  I won't believe in their overall survival until they leaf out next Spring though.  I haven't replaced any of the shrubbery that died from the foundation work yet.  I figured I'd wait until the slab leak guys finish digging up the place and then replace everything that needs it.  

I haven't been able to go nine months without drinking alcohol.  *laughing*  I sound like an alcoholic, but I'm not.  I'm not even much of a drinker - basically never drink at home - but when I'm out socially, I do like an occasional drink.  So since I've been lucky enough to have zero side effects from the INH (TB drug) I'm taking, I have had three drinks now since the first week in September.  Two half glasses of wine and one beer.  I'm counting on my liver to be able to handle that much alcohol along with the INH, but I'm not going to push it much more than that.  After November, I won't be traveling for work much for several months, so I won't be in those social occasions where I most like to have a drink.    

I am traveling the next two weeks though.  A BOD meeting in Washington DC next week, then I'm going to give a talk in Florida the following week.  Then the third week in November is when they're coming to fix my slab leaks.  Then Thanksgiving.  I think November is going to fly past even faster than the rest of the year has.  Which is scary, considering how fast the rest of the year has passed.

Besides the usual cohort of sparrows, I have a flock of 12 mourning doves under my bird feeders this morning.  I hung a second feeder out there because they were going through one feeder so fast.  The sparrows and doves are the only birds I'm seeing out there lately. And only the mourning doves - no white-winged doves.

I destroyed my diet yesterday by going out to eat with a friend.  It was worth it though.  I'll have to be extra good today to make up for some of those calories.  I'm really not very strict on this diet.  I don't pay much attention to what I eat except I've pretty much stopped eating any fast food, and don't drink cokes except very rarely.  Plus I began eating yogurt and fruit.  Other than that I just watch portion sizes and keep track of overall calories.  In June when I got serious about it, I set my calorie limit to 1400 per day.  In the month of June I averaged 1404 calories per day.  In July, I averaged 1356/day.  In August it was 1303/day.  September - 1233/day and October 1188/day.  So I've been steadily decreasing my calorie intake just by keeping track.

I have this cool little app on my phone called FatSecret Calorie Counter that lets me keep track easily of calorie intake and expenditure.  I need to stop decreasing my overall calories soon though or I won't be taking in enough to keep someone my size healthy.   


I guess that's about it for today.