Getting Healthier

I follow a dude on FB who's something of a conservative pundit.  Good guy.  Anyway, I saw where he'd posted about his weight loss journey.  From April to now, he went from 217 to 170 - all by eating healthier and exercising.  Way to go, dude.

Anyway, I'm not going to talk about my weight loss journey.  There isn't one.  I don't care if I lose weight.  I do, however, want to be a healthier human being.  Cuz, let's face it, I ain't gettin' any younger and the old parts are starting to notice that their warranty has expired.

Every Sunday for the past whatever, I've tried to post about my activity level and with that, I put my weight.  Yeah, yeah, a lady is supposed to talk about her weight.  I think that's a silly taboo.  I'm not ashamed of being 177-ish pounds.  It is what it is.  (Ladies also aren't supposed to mention their age.  I'm 55.  I'm such a rebel.)

Time out... I was just searching to see what my ideal weight would be for my age.  Freakin' idjits have made it so you now have to calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI) and age doesn't factor into it (except whether you're a child (under 20) or an adult (over 20) which is stupid in my opinion).  Anyway, a person who's 5'7 and 177 pounds has a BMI of 27.72 according to the Forbes BMI calculator - and that means I'm 'overweight'.  Which is actually better than the last time I checked one of those and it told me I was obese.  According to them a healthy weight is between 118 and 159.  I tried another place that calculated using height and actual age to find my ideal weight (it came out in kilograms... damn metric people... which I then had to convert to pounds).  According to this place, my ideal weight is 138.

Okay... my ideal weight when I was 25 was 135, so I'm not sure what the hell they're talking about.  Oh, and I'm probably carrying around 10 pounds of boob which skews things.  Maybe I should delete 10 pounds so I can see what the rest of my body should weigh.  Me minus 10 pounds of boob is 167, which is only 8 pounds over what Forbes consider within healthy parameters.  I'm okay with that.

Actually, this wasn't supposed to be about weight, but I fell down that rabbit hole, so you get to enjoy reading about it.  

The point I was trying to make is that in order for ME to feel healthier, I need to up my activity level - regardless of calories and make-up of calories (you know... carbs versus proteins, and all that rot.)  I learned this about myself ages ago.  If I sit around, I end up feeling like shit.  My hips hurt, my legs hurt, walking to the mailbox makes me tired.  That's no way to live.  

When I'm a good girl, I do something active every day and that makes me feel better.  And for me, feel better = healthier.  When I'm a bad girl, I sit on my ass all day and feel like shit.  Simple stuff in my life, really.  

Right now, I'm getting more active.  It's cooler, for one thing, which means I can get out in the woods again.  I love woods work better than any other activity.  I'm sawing limbs and throwing logs.  I'm tramping over uneven terrain - uphill, downhill, sideways - over rocks and logs while maintaining my balance.  It all uses a lot of different muscle groups and gets the heart a-pumpin'.

I spent 6.25 hours in the woods last week, and I'm feeling pretty good.  Oh, sure, everything aches today, but thems good aches.  Joints feel better, heart feels better.  Better is good.

Now, I just need to find the gumption to be active when it's not fun.  (Outdoors = fun. Indoors = not fun.)  It's all a balance.

How are you feeling?  How's the balance in your life?  

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 49

I'm having a tough time with the concept that there are only three weeks left to 2025.  Where did November go???  Ack.  Okay, it's true, but yah.  Anyway...

The writing went pretty well last week.  I wrote 4 out of 7 days and ended up with about 4000 more words, which put DN3 over 40K.  Woot.  It's all coming together.  

The marketing?  Not so well.  Still, I moved 41 copies of CU, which is better than nothing.  Still no $$$ for December yet.  Which is depressing.  I'm not sure what I'll do this week, or if I'll even do anything. Not selling gets pretty depressing.  Tune in tomorrow for the answer.  If there's a Marketing Monday post, I did it.  If not, then nope.

I'm working my way through reading Stellar Ranger - a SF/Crime/Western mashup.  It's pretty interesting.

In baking news, I made another cheesecake - and I'm done with that for a while.  I also made a vat of Turkey Noodle Soup and another vat of chili.  I meant to make corn bread to go with the chili, but it didn't happen.  :shrug:

On the activity front, I was active every day but one.  Loads of woods-work and one day was groceries.  Unfortunately, today was the first time I weighed myself since before Thanksgiving and I'm up 3 pounds over the last weigh-in.  :shrug:  Maybe I was up 5 pounds and lost two in the woods.  In that case, yay.  Maybe yay?  Weight: 177.8.  

Speaking of woods work... Most of what I was doing out there was cleaning the areas around the big dead cherry to prep for chainsaw work and clearing the new property line.  Then Hubs and I took a line from one end of the property to the other and he tapped in stakes with pretty pink ribbon, so we know where we are when we're in the woods.  I took pics, but I haven't downloaded them yet.  The woods are still an unholy mess, but progress has begun.  Hubs took the chainsaw out on its maiden voyage yesterday, and for this, I christened it.  Our chainsaw is now named Buzz.

As for critters, we saw a bald eagle over our property.  Yay.  And Lumpy is still alive as of yesterday... not sure if yay is appropriate there.  She's pretty damn skinny, and her coat looks like shit, but she doesn't appear to be suffering, so I'm torn.  Not that there's anything we can do about it except wish for either a speedy recovery or a gentle end.  Speaking of ends, I found a deer skull, pelvis, long bone, and one vertebrae in the woods yesterday.  Not Lumpy.  They've all been out there a while and they seem small enough to be a 4-6 month fawn.  Nature's a bitch sometimes.

I can't think of anything else I did this week.  I'm lucky I could think of all the above with as sore as I am right now.  Throwing logs and walking around on lumpy, heavily-inclined hillsides is not for the faint of heart.  I think I need an Aspercreme bath and an Aleve drip.

How was your week?

Thursday This n That

I sometimes wonder what the people who gossip to me say about me when I'm not around.  I don't care.  I'm just curious.

Yesterday, I saw a coyote.  I was driving down the highway and it was standing in a field.  It actually looked quite majestic.  Coyotes are always the rangy, scaggy things they're portrayed to be, ya know.

It was an outstanding coyote.  It was out standing in a field.  ROFL

Yellow-bellied sapsuckers... Their bellies aren't really all that yellow and they don't actually suck sap, they lick it.  But vaguely-yellowish bellied saplicker doesn't quite roll off the tongue.

There's nothing quite like waking up in the morning, wandering toward the bathroom, and stepping in cat puke.  Thankfully, I stepped in the smallest bit.  After I turned the lights on, there were several piles.  Not sure which cat urped all over the kitchen, but thankfully, he didn't urp on the carpet.

I keep receiving emails from scammers, trying to get me to buy their services for books that aren't even mine.  This morning alone, they wanted me to hire them to promote something called After Midnight and something else called Hurricane Secrets.  ROFL... what boobs.

And now I seem to be out of things to this-n-that.  Feel free to drop your own.  And have a great day!

Lumberjackin'

Yesterday, I was out in the woods, clearing piles of deadfall, etc. in preparation for the chainsaw work.  There's a lot of crap out there on the new property.  We've had several large trees fall over in the last few years and they're just laying there, clogging up the paths and generally retarding progress.  So, we bought a chainsaw to deal with them.

Except in order to get to them and work, we need to clear away all the limbs and sticks and little bushes.  We also need to clear all that crap so we can chart the property line.  The black cherry tree's upper branches are right across the line.  And there's a cedar fallen across the lower part of the line.  Plus there's a stand of spicebushes down there.  It's a mess.

In the middle, we have a huge sycamore that fell over during the storm of May 2024.  That definitely needs to be chopped up.  Walking around it to get from the top of the property to the bottom is a pain in the ass.

So, yeah, chainsaw.  

Now, I'm not an idiot.  Hubs will be working the chainsaw and I will be staying the hell out of the way.  I like my appendages and he's more skilled at that stuff anyway.  But if he's doing all the chainsaw, I'll be contributing by giving him access and then helping drag the logs up the hill.  That's why I bought the sled.  

What's any of this have to do with writing?  Not much.  Well, except for the fact that all the work I did yesterday made for really ouchie hands today.  Typing this is a symphony of ouch.  I need a bucket of Aspercreme and a pound of Aleve.

Still, it's stuff that's gotta be done and we're not getting any younger.  (Okay, it doesn't HAVE TO be done.  I want it done, so I'm doing it.  It'll be so pretty when we're finished.)  Chop it up, drag it up, stack it.  Plus, it's good exercise and it gets me out of the house.  Fresh air and all that.  And eventually, all that wood will be used to heat the house.

Marketing Monday... The Late Edition

 Okay, so somehow I totally brainfarted on my marketing post yesterday, so you get it today...

Now through Friday, CINDER UGLY is absolutely free. (Always free with Kindle Unlimited.) Get your copy of this snarky paranormal romp today! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LW3ZB5Y

This is the third and final book of the A Model Curse series, where everything gets wrapped up.  The first in the series is only 99c and the second is $3.99, so you're basically getting the whole series for under $5 if you get it this week.  It's a fun series to read and it was fun to write.  Enjoy!

Sunday Update - Week 48

 Gah.  I woke up late and the coffee is just now kicking in, so here goes the update for the week:

I only managed to write 2765 words last week.  Then I hit a snag and Thanksgiving happened and additional excuses.  I think I have the answer to get past the story snag, though, so we'll see what happens today.

Marketing was done.  I moved 9 free copies of Song of Storm and Shroud. Sold one Sleeping Ugly and one Thicker Than Water.  If I don't sell anything today, I'm at $11.29 for the month.  Not sure what I'll be doing this week.  Stay tuned.

I finished reading The Martian by Andy Weir.  It was good.  It held my interest as much as any book has done lately.  I started reading a quirky SF/Crime Noir book I found at the thrift store - Stellar Ranger.  So far, so good.  Speaking of the thrift store, I added 7 more books to my horde - including a signed Robert B. Parker.  Nothing else really of note but they had a sale, so I picked up stuff that looked even vaguely amusing.  I also got a book on aviation for Hubs, cuz he's into that stuff.  Think of it as Early Christmas.  ;o)

In baking news, I made pumpkin cheesecake.  We finished eating that yesterday, so I'll probably try to bake something today.  I might make pumpkin pie bread, since I have all the ingredients.

On the activity front, I did some stuff - raking and woods wandering - early in the week, then the rain hit and the holiday, etc. Then I did raked some more.  I ran errands one day, and yesterday we did a shopping trip.  Weight: (Pre-TGD) 174.8

Yesterday's shopping trip... We went to Tractor Supply and picked up our chainsaw.  Hubs had noticed in the morning that they only had ONE of the kind we wanted (Husqvarna 16" gas) left in stock, so I bought it online and set it for pick-up.  It was like the lottery, getting the email to let us know it was ready for pick-up.  Yay!  We won!  While we were there, we also got gloves and earplugs and oil for the chainsaw and a small oil/gas mixture that you need to fuel the saw.  After we left there, we stopped by Wallyworld so Hubs could get new jeans, but we also bought other non-food items which will be our Christmas.  Nothing spectacular or exciting.  Just stuff.  Oh, and the log sled I ordered arrived Friday.  Woot.  And the snow shovel will be here tomorrow.  Yay.  We are all set for dragging wood out of the woods.

The rut seems to be over here and the bucks have, once again, vanished.  We haven't seen Lumpy in a few days, so I hope she found a nice place to cross the rainbow bridge and she isn't suffering anymore.  On a happier note, her children are thriving.

Everything here is good and I'm ready for the holiday season to commence.  Ho ho ho and all that.  

What things did you get up to last week?  

Pre-Thursday This n That

Since Thursday this week is a holiday, I thought I'd do this a day early.

Yesterday, as I was coming home from errands, I came over a rise in the road to discover a car parked right in my lane.  No flashers.  No turn signal.  Just at a dead stop.  I hit the brakes and stopped in time to not hit her.  Then she moved forward a little and I thought okay, off we go.  But no.  She putted along, so as a snail, until she reached a driveway and put on her turn signal.  I thought she was lost and had finally found where she was going.  But no.  She didn't turn into the driveway, she just moved over a little and stopped again.  Now only half of her car was in my lane.  Unfortunately, this new place she'd chosen to stop was before a downhill with a curve, and I couldn't see shit coming from the other direction in the lane I would have to share in order to pass her.  I swore loudly and said some very unkind things as I eased past her.  Thankfully no cars were coming.  The driver?  A chick about my age who looked like a spinster from Little House on the Prairie.  And no, I don't think she was having car trouble.  I think she was lost and brainless.

Anyway, I went to the store yesterday because I forgot to buy whipped cream for the cheesecake I'll be making today.  Pumpkin cheesecake with a dollop of whipped cream is to die for.  Well, almost... LOL

I also stopped at the thrift store.  And happy coincidence, they were having a sale on books.  Paperbacks for 10c and hardcovers for a quarter.  I got 7 books for $1.30.  Woot.  And one of them was an autographed copy of a Robert Parker Spenser for Hire hardcover.  Double woot.  I haven't actually read any of those, so now might be a good time to start, eh?

Unfortunately, they didn't really have a whole lot of books I loved.  I picked up stuff that looked interesting, but nothing for my collections.  :sigh:  I can usually count on that store to have at least one or two Christies or hard-boiled crime paperbacks.  (I prefer to read old crime novels in paperback.  It's a quirk.)

I did my first order with Tractor Supply.  I'm getting a deer-dragging sled and a snow shovel.  The sled's for dragging logs.  I joked on FB about the shovel is for killing deer.  I'm so funny.  LOL

Does placing an order with Tractor Supply mean I've finally gone full redneck?

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  Hubs will be making the turkey, as usual.  All I have to do is make the cheesecake.  Yay.  I also have to figure out what to do for dinner tonight.  Pizza?  Burgers?  What do you have the day before the big eating day?

And that's enough out of me.  Have a great day and an awesome holiday.  :hugs: