Lately, I’ve been walking a lot more. It’s good for me, of course, but I also want to get in shape for NYC, where I’ll be walking a lot, jumping on the subway, and walking some more. The pace in the city takes some getting used to – and you have to be in shape. Since it’s been more than a year and a half since I’ve done anything in the city, it’s time to take it up a notch.
Sometimes I walk by myself, but my favorite walks are with Don. Some photos from yesterday’s jaunt:
The creek and the river are back to normal.
There is an old grist mill across the street from us. It was in continual operation from around 1780 until not long before we moved here. It has since been converted to a restaurant under several owners. It looks like it didn’t recover from the pandemic as it’s closed. These hydrangeas are outside the entrance.
Standing on the grist mill deck. Our house is on the other side of those trees, just across the road. Hello, handsome!
I have a coaching session this afternoon with Ben.
I painted for a while yesterday afternoon and it was very calming. My anxiety has been flaring up again, so I’m seeking out activities that keep me grounded. Painting is one of them. Walking is another. As is mowing the lawn.
As is not watching or reading the news, which both of us – within reason – have vowed to do.
Hanging in there.
Stay safe.
Happy Tuesday.
Looks like a lovely walk! How nice to live so close to such beauty!
I watch the news and feel despair building up or I avoid the news and feel guilty – it is hard to find the right balance these days. And what can I do to help? – it is frustrating and difficult to figure out.
Very difficult to figure out. I understand.
Stay safe, Ellen!
Hi
Your husband is looking very handsome .
The painting is beautiful, I like the texture . It is like looking at the actual vase.
Take Care,
Kaye
Park City, UT
He is, isn’t he?
There’s even more texture coming in the painting as it has dots of a cream color throughout that rusty hue.
Thanks, Kaye.
Stay safe!
I love those hydrangeas and can’t believe the allium is still looking so wonderful! Ours is long gone, mostly in spring or very early summer. You have some terrific walking areas and prepping for NYC is smart. I am loving your new painting. The detail looks terrific. It will be interesting to see what BG color you choose for this painting.
I have no idea what color I’ll use – I guess I’ll wait til I’m finished and hope I’m inspired!
Stay safe, Jeanie.
I was thinking exactly what Ellen said. I don’t watch & then feel so foolish when someone refers to a news item of which I should, obviously be aware. It is walking a tightrope.
Love the pic of Don. Wonder how many under the age of 50 or so would recognize the item on his shirt!! (or, maybe it isn’t what I think, and is some new tech item that I misinterpreted!!)
Anyway, happy walking, and have a good Tuesday! Take care.
It is what you think and I am sure a lot of people would have no idea what it is!
Thanks, Chris.
Stay safe!
Love Don’s t-shirt!!!
Thank you, Jayne. We love it, too!
Stay safe.
Yep, it’s a Roseville; you really know how to capture the look of it; such a nice collection of Roseville paintings now. It seems like every time I google Roseville just to look at more of it, there’s always some pattern or style I don’t remember from anytime before, so it’s always a new ‘discovery’ and I am really drawn to Roseville’s blues and greens; there’s such a range of it from Robin’s egg blue to the teals, as of course you know.
Lovely photos; you live in such a beautiful place. What really jolts me is all that green landscape. I live in surroundings which are brown, parched, dry, dead; welcome to Southern California with no rain and all drought … and heat; I am SO sick of every single day being a frick’in heatwave. We were 70 degrees at 5am and over 90 before noon, and so goes the same, day after day after day. It even runs my husband into the house because it’s too hot for him to work outside, and he can take A LOT of hot weather whereas I can’t at all. And, oh joy, we have the Santa Anas still to come, anywhere from now through December for sure. Hot, relentless, violent winds with zero humidity when we’re already choking with not enough moisture in the air, being shriveled up and dried out. My husband and I are really surprised that the municipalities haven’t as yet put any of us on water restriction; as it is, though, we’re really careful with water consumption because of the high cost of our city’s water.
Don looks really slim. You two take good care of yourselves, mentally and physically. I think you’re very wise to be thinking ahead, getting yourself more conditioned to walking, in advance of your new life to come in the City. I’ve spent a week at a time in downtown L.A. or San Francisco and walking was a large part of daily existence. It sure keeps you in shape. Good for your heart, too. (But I was young[er] then and it didn’t phase me. Uphill, downhill; walk, walk, walk. Today? Whew. No way. Walking isn’t a part of my vocabulary/routine and it NEEDS to be. I guess I could do it at 4am to be out of the sun and heat [ha]. A better answer is to get a treadmill!)
That kind of weather would get anybody down! I’m so sorry you have to deal with it, Vicki.
Don and I have been on a diet for the past two months. We are both overweight and we have to slim down. We’ve both lost weight. I don’t weigh myself, nor does Don, but I’d say we’ve lost at least 10 pounds. We are committed to this new diet. Even though we eat pretty healthily, Don was using too much oil, I was eating lots of potato chips, Don ate huge helpings, and then we both snacked a lot. No more snacking. I haven’t had a chip in two months, Don uses very little oil and when he does, he carefully measures it out. Our dinner helping size is much less. We feel better and now we’re walking and that’s good.
Stay safe.
Well, congrats; that’s fantastic of the two of you working on this together. “They” say that losing ‘as little’ as 10 lbs makes quite a difference in all kinds of things for the body.
Gosh, I never think of you and Don as being overweight at all. But it’s sure showing on him in the photo! Interesting as you speak of oil, olive oil is supposed to be very good for us, but I’m now even roasting veggies in the oven (sheet-pan roasting) without oil (the doctor really wants me to eliminate oil and butter). And, true, it’s all about portion control. I think I read of Anthony Bourdain once, of how he said we don’t need to be eating a plate of food that’s the size of our face. (Man, I saw a photo of him which was taken about a year before he died, which meant he was like age 60, and the man was ripped; flattest abs. I think that takes a lot of gym work!)
My mom maintained pretty much the same weight all her adult life until she was very old, nearing 90 (and consequently lost TOO much weight at that late age [she had appetite and was a good eater with really no dietary restrictions, but she ate ‘like a bird’, just not enough quantity]) and she never snacked; did not encourage snacking! Very strict with us kids growing up about the snacks; it always had to be fresh vegetables or a piece of fruit, fruit juice (she was horrified at the idea of Koolaid); if we were lucky, a healthfully-made oatmeal cookie. I had a school friend who was a latchkey kid and when he came home from school to the empty house, he ate whatever he wanted to; I remember big bowls of ice cream at 3pm. Was very unusual for me to see that, as we only had ice cream occasionally back at my own home (for dessert, to complement the main meal; again, not very often).
I do okay all day but I can get hit hard with the munchies-cravings in the evening, wanting nibbles in the hours between dinner and bedtime. When the weather cools off, I curb those cravings with a cup of hot herbal tea. I’m trying it with a glass of ice water on these hot days and warm nights. It’s not very alluring. I’d rather have a brownie. (Not!)
Keep up the good work; it’s inspiring! It’s easier when you can do it as a team.
Thank you, Vicki. I expect it to take a long time and I’m encouraging Don not to get impatient. It can be a bit more challenging to lose weight at our age.
xo
Yeah, if I can be frank, my former primary-care physician said to me (essentially): “Good luck, Vicki, you’ll never get off the weight; you’re a senior-aged menopausal woman.” (This and a series of similar comments is what prompted me to go to another doctor after 13 years of him.)
My current (female!) primary-care doctor was really appalled that he’d say such a thing to me or any patient, and said she’s had plenty of older women AND men successfully lose varying degrees of weight in their 60s & 70s. Any little bit of weight loss, or a lot (under doctor’s supervision), is helpful. Anything is progress.
(My husband’s niece underwent weight-loss surgery at age 40; she was overweight from infancy, born to two seemingly irreversibly obese parents. At 400 lbs, her biggest worry was being overlooked for promotions in her employment [this kind of discrimination shouldn’t exist, but it does; she’s a scientist and does a lot of important work in a lab on the East Coast {here again, a very-sedentary job}] and she’s the sole wage earner in her family. She’s now under 200 lbs and is getting skin-removal surgery this month. I’m not saying this is the answer for everybody who’s fat (at 40, she had no other significant health issues [yet], so the surgery wasn’t complicated by other risk factors), but she’s like a diff person in a 100 ways now; the main thing being is that she has protected her health from the heart trouble and diabetes which sorely plague her now-ailing, very-obese parents (who likely won’t make it to age 75, from the way things are looking for them). My neighbor has a friend in her late 70s who just underwent weight-loss surgery and is doing fine, when everybody was scared for her to have that kind of procedure at her age, but if the operation didn’t kill her, her obesity and related health problems were trying to, so the risk was worth it, in her case.
In fact, I know of two different cases, and this is stuff I saw in my local newspaper or on TV or maybe I read of it online, where one woman confined to a wheelchair lost an amazing amount of weight by controlling diet and doing exercises meant for people who have to do it from a chair (there’s a show on PBS for this very thing called ‘Sit and Be Fit’). Also, another older gal who couldn’t and still can’t get around without a cane or a walker, but she persevered with walking (ever so slowly and patiently with herself) outside/outdoors and in all kinds of 4-season weather and SHE too lost weight which was healthier for her (since obviously with both of these cases, the patients are forced to live the otherwise sedentary life).
In my local paper, a guy was profiled in this past year (who I actually once worked with; same employer; in fact, I helped hire him at the time; he was a factory worker on a machine where he couldn’t move around a lot during the day) who, in his late 50s, lost a TON of weight, simply by watching what he ate and doing moderate exercise. For the first time, he said he got really attentive to self; became a mindful eater. When I’d worked with him, he was a tall, solidly-built guy but just too obese, so I was really glad to see nice-man Ken in such a good, more healthy state for the rest of his life after this significant weight loss.
As my husband said (he, always thin and reed-y, like you could huff & puff and blow him over like wind thru a tree), who never drinks alcohol, works in the yard and walks the dog, yet he’s getting a paunch when all his life he was a bean pole), it’s too easy in retirement to just get lazy, about everything, and he knows he needs better discipline about the snacking (his downfall being M&Ms and carbonated soft drinks; we ain’t age 30 anymore; can’t keep eating like that; for me, we just got back from the blissfully-cool and uber-foggy beach [I’m writing this on Weds a.m.] where I indulged [this is rare for me] in a absolutely-delish pumpkin spice latte [omg, the caffeine was wonderful; I’m so happy now] but that has to remain indeed the rare treat because it’s too fattening, loaded with carbs [oh, for the day when I didn’t even know about or have to worry about something called a carb!]).
Again, I’m inspired by this new journey of yours and Don’s; after all, you’ve also got to get in shape for … PARIS. (We MUST have things to look forward to; I’ve got a travel wish list, too [which I refuse to give up on!]!!)
Thanks so much, Vicki!
xoxo