Predatory Salt and Vinegar Chips

For the past year and a half I have been making great efforts to get into shape and lose a bit of weight.  I have slimmed a bit while gaining a couple of pounds.  During this same time my thyroid decided that it was done and now I have to combat the slow metabolism that comes with hypothyroidism.  Sigh.  I ran for a little over a year, if you could call it running, on some days jogging would have been an over-optimistic term.  I never enjoyed running, it did what I needed it to do, but that is it. I turned to swimming at the beginning of the summer, something I greatly enjoy.  I swam all summer until we took our vacation a couple weeks ago, during the time we were gone the local pool closed for its yearly maintenance, a total of three weeks.  I figured while we were away in the mountains I'd hike daily and then when I returned I would run for the last couple of weeks until the pool was open again.

All Wrong.

The beginning of the trip featured quite a bit of rain, it was relaxing, but it wasn't calorie burning.  My fellow vacationers helped to maintain a pretty high level of junk food in the cabin, so even if I had been hiking every day there was no way to burn off all the s'mores and chips.  One four mile hike on a mountainside, a few short walks and pedal boat races on the lake were all my activity.  (It was a wonderful trip, we all enjoyed the trip and would probably do  it all again.  It wasn't great for my waistline though.)

I returned home, the residual junk food stowed in the house, taunting me. I was ready to run to burn it all.  Then the evening after we returned, I was walking to say goodnight to my daughter, and tripped over a suitcase waiting to be unpacked.  The "OW!" I let out must have indicated that this wasn't just the ordinary trip, because both my husband and my daughter immediately asked if I was okay with a touch of alarm in their voices.  I saw stars for a moment.  It wasn't too bad, so I said goodnight to my daughter, read for a bit and headed to bed myself.  During the night my little toe throbbed and throbbed.  My husband suggested that it might be broken and I knew he was right. A few hours later it turned a splotched purple and continued to throb, so the next day I limped into a store and bought some first aid tape and buddy taped it.  I know going to the doctor would get me a co-pay, an x-ray and a little clean tape, but that is all.  You can't splint or cast a toe. It isn't a horrible injury, just achy and annoying.

So much for running, I aggravate it doing chores around the house, never mind a three mile jog.  Now, I wait for the pool to be open again, there is still one more week to go.  I have excess energy that needs to be used up, but moving around too much on my feet makes my toe ache.  I just need a little patience, will power, a healed toe, a new thyroid and to walk into the pantry to chuck all the sweet and salty-crunchy foods still lurking there. (I need a cartoon of  predatory looking bags of salt and vinegar chips and Indian Boondi Masala plotting an attack with a package of sadistic Oreo's and to insert here.)

DIY -- Doing a Great Deal for a "Great Deal"

Where has the summer gone??
I've had blog ideas accumulating, but I just haven't had the moment to write.  I have a few minutes, let's see what I can get on the screen.

I haven't talked about the garden lately, but it is doing quite well.  Tomorrow, I will put my pumpkins out to cure in the sun, I haven't counted them, but there seem to be quite a few.  The tomatoes have been making up for last year's poor showing.  This year's favorite is green zebra, nice and tangy. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words, that is a nickel under the tomato(es).  These are two tomatoes that merged to form one massive tomato, (fraternal conjoined twins??) it was 5.5 inches across:

It was yummy, we ate it within 20 minutes of it being picked, most of the 20 minutes was spent trying to get a good shot of it.

The goat lease is moving forward, here is the goat who will be providing out milk. I should have taken a bird's eye view of her, she is is probably carrying triplets and from that view it really shows.

One of the reasons that I haven't had time to write is that after getting a "great deal" on a dining table and chairs, I had a great deal of work to do.  The chairs needed new foam and upholstery, the whole set needed a good scrub and a coat of paint.  The couple I bought it from referred to the set as "Nana's table".  Well, it appears that Nana was a two pack a day smoker, the chairs had a thick coating of tar and nicotine.  Some of it came off and some of it didn't.  The mustardy colored set appeared to have originally have been off white, with off white seat covers.

After washing

The deconstruction, the beginning

Hadn't seen a chair put together like this before.

STAPLES!!!

 After spending an hour or so washing the pieces, I spent about 10 hours pulling all of the staples out of the seats (not kidding, there were thousands of them). 

Making progress with a little company.

Nasty Chair Cover

Cup-O-Staples

Then I had to order foam on the internet for the cushions, find fabric, find the right color paint and...a month after I started I have now finished, this is how I spent my summer.  This is why I haven't had time to write.

Next  the window treatments, eventually.

For the vicarious poultry keepers:

11 weeks old