52 in 2013 - #9 Theme of the Week: Domestic Animals

Meet Max (above). He is one of my two sweet-natured "granddogs." He is the younger of the two Corgis, a year younger than Zoe (below). We have watched them grow up from rambunctious puppies into sedate seniors. As you can see, Max is still patient with the grandkids, even when coaxed into wearing a birthday hat. Zoe, Max's plumper and older companion, is content, these days, to be left alone to nap and dream of days gone by.

Atta Girl!

I had my A1C lab work done last Thursday. The A1C test measures one's average blood sugar levels over a period of the last three months. This morning I saw my doctor to go over the results. My score has come down to 5.0, which falls in "Normal" range for someone without diabetes. That doesn't mean that I no longer have diabetes (once you have it, you have it for life), but it does mean that I currently have it under control, which is a big deal to me!

I've been using a three-pronged approach at controlling my blood glucose (BG):

1. I've been eating a moderately low carbohydrate diet (trying to keep it at about 75g to 80g spread out evenly throughout the day). It's a drastic change for me. No more sandwiches with two slices of bread; only half a potato, and only occasionally; ixnay on the pasta and pizza; no to most fruit, although I seem to be able to handle a few berries without a problem. Oh . . . and, of course, no to all those Daring Baker delicacies I used to create.

2. I try to exercise some - mostly walking - on days when my knees will allow it. Exercising is wonderful for lowering BG, as the body burns up carbs for energy.

3. Besides watching my carbs, I've also been keeping my calories between 1100 and 1300 a day. As a result I've lost 34 lb. (and more to come, I hope) since the beginning of October. Losing weight has also helped my BG numbers to come down.

My doctor was overjoyed with my progress. She says to keep doing what I'm doing. Keeping my BG level at or near the normal range will help me avoid all those nasty complications you hear and read about. It was great to get the reassurance from my doctor that I'm on the right course.

When I got home, Dan asked me how it went. "My doctor loves what I'm doing!" I reported, which prompted a big hug and an "I'm proud of you" from Dan. It was a good day!

Ladies' Day 2013

Yesterday we, the ladies of the Temple church of Christ, hosted an area-wide Ladies' Day. We worked for months preparing for this event, so we were all happy that it was a big success. We had two speakers, one of them from our local congregation and another from out of town. Both of them presented excellent lessons.

Janet and Carla - our two speakers

Janet is multi-talented. Besides presenting one of the lessons, she painted this mural, using acrylic paints, onto a bulletin board (she did it in one afternoon and evening). Our theme was "I Come to the Garden." Other bulletin boards were decorated, as well, keeping with the garden theme.

I'm not sure of the final count, but we had in the neighborhood of 80 ladies who attended, and they came from a dozen or so different towns. 

For lunch, we prepared a salad buffet with salads of every kind - green/vegetable, fruit, pasta, meat, gelatin - all donated by our own ladies. For dessert we had a huge variety of pound cakes. The tables were decorated in springtime colors, with small gift bags at each place.

Most of the decorating and set-up was done on Friday. I was at the building from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (except for a lunch break) on Friday, so by the close of the meeting on Saturday, I was pretty tuckered out. I ended up calling it a day around 8:30 last night, and slept like a rock in a river bed all night long. But it was a sweet sleep, knowing that all of our hard work had been rewarded by a successful event.

Visit with the Kids and Grands

We drove to Spring on Monday morning to spend a day with the kids. We arrived around lunch time, and all of us, except Clara, went to lunch at Bullritos. It was Presidents' Day, so Chris and Robert both had the day off. Clara's school, on the other hand, had no holiday, much to our granddaughter's chagrin. Her mama told us that she lost count of how many times she had heard "Not fair" that morning before school. At 2:30 I went with Kelsey to fetch Clara from school, and, although "Hi Grandma!" were the first words out of her mouth, right on their heels came, "It wasn't fair that I had to go to school today."

Robert made the most of those first couple hours, when he had us all to himself. We played and played and played, and laughed and laughed and laughed. I tried to get some good pictures, but the little fellow is so active and wiggly that it's tough. Here are a couple of shots that, at least, show how much he is growing and changing. (Also see the photo in the post just prior to this one.)

Playing with Daddy. They both have Lego addictions.

After dinner, Clara had a hard decision to make. Should she bake something in her Easy Bake Oven, with Grandma? Or should she play Minecraft with Grandpa? There wasn't time for both since it was a school night. She finally decided to bake with Grandma, since that meant that she would get a little dessert afterward, with emphasis on the word "little" as the cookies were each about the size of a nickel.

There were just enough strawberry-with-lemon-frosting sandwich cookies for each of us to get one.

That evening there was a big thunder and lightning storm that moved in. After the little ones went to bed, we waited for a pause in the heavy rain and drove to our hotel, where we would spend the night. We hadn't been able to book a room in either of our usual hotels. This one was in an unfamiliar (to us) area of Houston, near the airport. One of the major roads we had to travel on was FM-1960. When we got there we found all of the traffic lights AND all of the street lights out, I guess because of the storm. It was a white-knuckle trip down that road. It was so dark that we couldn't tell where the intersections were, and we were concerned that cars coming from the cross streets would come through the intersections without stopping. Thanks, first, to the Lord, then to Dan's good driving, and, finally, to our GPS, we navigated it all safely. I'm not sure we've ever been more relieved to arrive at a home away from home.

For our trip back to Temple, on Tuesday morning, the sun was shining in a clear blue sky.