Merry Christmas!

This last week got away from me, but I wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! We are headed to see family and I am leaving my laptop behind, but my camera will be at the ready and I promise to catch everyone up when we return.

In the meantime, here are some shots of a trip Jessie and I took to the Chicago Botanic Garden last week. We were there for an indoor farmer's market, but we were fascinated by a cool handmade wreath display.













Those are dried beans. Beans!!








Not everyone used the parking lot, alas.




Merry Christmas!!

Friday Bouquet

1. Wow, thanks to everyone who chimed in with some awesome righteous indignation on my behalf as well as some excellent ideas to get me to incorporate 30 minutes of daily exercise for the Bottom Line Challenge at work. Lots and lots of good ideas, and you all definitely nudged me out of my foul mood about it.

Especially my sister, who responded with a cheery, "Suck it up, buttercup!" 

Nice, right? ;-D



 2. Since it is going to have to be every day, I think using a flexible combination of exercise types will work best; I can adjust depending on my time and stress levels of the day. Some of the ones I will be doing are:

-Wii yoga in the morning, either 15 or 30 minute increments
-Wii dancing in the morning, either 15 or 30 minute increments
-walking with Hubby in the early evening
-walking on breaks with co-workers
-walking on my own, with my "cans" on and zoning out to my music
-possibly swimming on the weekend mornings. I have to check if the park district pool has morning lap time on the weekends, or I might look into joining another gym with more pools.
-10-minute increments with the weights and heehee the Shakeweight I bought and never used while watching TV
-make sure my membership at the Chicago Botanic Garden is renewed and do some weekend morning walks there. (Where all the photos in this post were taken over the years. You can thank my mom and dad for buying me a membership for Christmas for many years.)

I'll be starting this weekend.



3. Weirdly, the one suggestion that I won't be doing right away is buying new exercise clothes. I have drawers full of them already; buying cute workout clothes has been my usual default preparation step when I think I am going to start working out, and honestly, those drawers of barely-worn clothes have been just another reminder of my repeated failure to actually implement those plans. So I don't really need them, and I don't want them. I don't want to do this the same way I've done it before; clearly that hasn't worked. So I am just jumping in and wearing what I already have. Maybe later as a reward I'll buy something cute. :)



4. I am so, so glad you guys are enjoying the "They Walk Among Us" series. I am absolutely loving it; while everyone is so different, there are certain themes that echo among all of them, and have already taught me a lot about my own journey.

• Losing significant weight stretches out over a long period of time. Patience and persistence over the ups and downs is necessary; just don't give up.
• There isn't one particular diet that works for everyone, and many of them used a variety of them along the way. 
• Eating whole, healthy food is how you take it off and keep it off.
• Exercise in some form is required.

5. I do have several more interviews queued up, but if you are a maintainer and are willing to tell your story, I would love to have you join us! Email me at lowfatdressing1012@gmail.com and I will send you the questions. I hope to hear from you!!



6. This week has been so strange: my husband has been in London for work, I've had a training class onsite for most of the week so there have been new people roaming the office and I've been working late, and of course the weather has been so amazing the windows are wide open at home all day long.  The cats are completely befuddled; all of their routines are disturbed and there is a person missing in the house. They are not pleased.

Hubby comes home this afternoon, and next week will be our first week of having a full staff on my team. I am sure the first few weeks will be just as busy as the last ones, since the two new people need to get up to speed, but I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hurray!

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.



1. African Daisies, 2. Purple echinacea, 3. Field in wider perspective, 4. Orange and Purple coneflowers in a field, 5. Gargoyle Fountain, Spring, 6. Irises around the pond, 7. Faces to the sun, 8. A welcoming entrance, 9. Baby Blue Eyes, 10. Inverted Baby Blue Eyes, 11. Like, wow. Totally., 12. Lilies of the Valley, 13. Bleeding Heart, 14. Allium, 15. Colombine, 16. African Daisy

Midweek musings

I think a trip to the Chicago Botanic Garden is in order in the next couple of days. It's been a month since I was there; I want to see how everything is after all the storms and heat we've been having!





Maybe tonight. A nice long walk might do me some good.

(No outfit photos from yesterday, sorry. I am not really liking the striped Target dress on me anymore. The polka-dots is much more flattering.)

+++++

Food. It's a thing.

I didn't plan well from Monday to Tuesday (meetings at other sites, going to L's to babysit, not having my usual breakfast stuff with me, etc), but I got back into better routines when I got home Tuesday night.

Daily Food Tracker: Monday
Breakfast: broccolini and mushroom frittata
Snack: strawberries and blackberries
Lunch:  BBQ pulled pork sandwich, couple of fries, coleslaw
Dinner: Panera Pick 2: caesar salad, broccoli cheese soup, Mike's Hard Lemonade

Daily Food Tracker: Tuesday
Breakfast: Panera everything bagel, light veggie cream cheese
Lunch: Portillos Maxwell Polish sausage, half order of onion rings
Snack: pretzel M&Ms, *fresh* Twizzlers
Dinner: Big green salad with bell peppers, carrots, shredded Parmesan, light honey mustard dressing, and crabmeat, 2 slices of seeduction bread with WW parmesan peppercorn cheese

Daily Food Tracker: Wednesday
Breakfast: broccolini and mushroom frittata
Lunch: Panera Pick 2: tuna salad sandwich and broccoli cheddar soup
Snack: Twizzlers
Dinner: Big green salad with bell peppers, carrots, strawberries and blackberries, blue cheese and parmesan-garlic dressing, 2 slices of frozen BBQ chicken pizza
Snack: popsicle


This frittata thing was an EXCELLENT idea; it's gotten me out of the fast-food breakfast sandwich rut I was in, but the protein from the eggs and cheese keeps me just as full in the mornings as those did. Plus, veggies are good to kick off the day with. The only thing is I put in too many eggs, but six weren't enough to get it fluffy. Next time I will try a combo of egg whites and whole eggs. And my friend Annie made hers with chard, mushroom and blue cheese. Blue cheese!! Annie is a genius.

The next habit to start to work on more homemade lunches. I am currently addicted to Panera's tunafush sandwich (200 calories) and their broccoli cheese soup (190!). It would be supereasy to make that at home -- in fact, I could put some muffaletta in the tuna, and it would probably be more tasty than anything Panera could offer. Yep, that's going on the list for grocery shopping for next week. And how!

30 DoC: Day 25

On Sunday I headed back to the Chicago Botanic Garden for a sunset walk. The light while the sun is setting is amazing, even better than during sunrise; I took a photography class once and the instructor explained that the angle of the sun and the particles in the air made those two windows of time the best in the day for photographs. It's true; the glare of an overhead sun at noon ruins a lot of shots, and makes everything seem harsher. Since then I have tried to keep my photo trips to that early or late schedule...which tends to irritate my friends who are late risers. LOL.

This one is pretty photo-heavy; I stayed all the way until it got dark, waiting to see how the place looked when the lights went on. My point-and-shoot did really well on the low-light setting without a flash. I am pleased.

The sun still glowing over the flower beds, dappling and dancing in lovely ways.






Visitors enjoying the fountain in the lake.




More secret gardens


Hey, look who is here!


Lilies in the Bulb Garden


A trail of yellow flowers among the purple heather


The purple onions are blooming!


A quiet sunset




Even after that, there was still a lot of light in the Walled English Garden. I cannot get over how lush it is.
















I have taken a million pictures of that blue bench way in the back.


In the darker light, the rich purple of the clematis shows up better.

The Rose Garden was also glowing in the fading light.




The waterfalls were working again, hurray!




When the lights finally came on, some of the lights focused on the flowers.






But what I liked best was all the angles and garden design that the lights brought out.









The bonsai displays were stunning.




Finally, the fountain from the beginning was still showing off its brilliance, even if no one was watching it now except me.





Sigh. I love this Garden, in every season and every time of day.