October 22, 2013

Last week was my birthday - it is just hard to wrap my head around the fact that I am 62 years old.  Where indeed does the time go?  I have been feeling particularly old lately because the arthritis that is setting in is starting to get really painful.  For several nights the past few days it has been difficult to sleep because of all the joint pain in my hips.  Where I would have probably not believed it before, I do think that the weather plays a large part in the amount of pain.  Since my birthday fell on a Tuesday this year and I was off, I wanted to do something special and fun for a change.  I honestly could not think of a thing that I wanted to do that I could actually afford to do.  I would have liked to take a nice, long walk in one of our natural areas but the weather did not cooperate.  I did take an amount of money that I had put aside and went to my favorite store - Half Price Books.  Things are REALLY cheap there and I bought a bunch of books and videos to enjoy over the upcoming weeks.

I have also been finishing up the garden clean up.  I finally pulled up the last of the tomato plants and the vegetable garden.  I think I finished just in time as it is really cold this morning and possible frost.  I took the last of the tomatoes and made a final batch of Whimpy Ass Salsa and also took a bunch of the berries I had put in the freezer and made Triple Berry jam. 

Sunday was the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk.  This year it moved from Aurora to St. Charles and a new walking venue.  I liked this years venue a lot more than schlepping around the Chicago Premium Outlet Mall as we have done the past 7 years. 




We had a great bunch of costumes on hand this year and our team came in as the top fundraiser. 

I ended up the top individual fundraiser.  That was weird because I have had larger fundraising totals in years past and was never the top fundraiser.  MSABC has been expanding the last couple years and adding walks so I guess that is why I did better in the "standings".  It doesn't matter where one falls in the overall race for donations...the important thing is that one does what they can.  I wore my X-Wing Pilot costume on Sunday and am ever grateful that I have lost enough weight the last year that this costume is once again more comfortable. 

There was a time not too long ago that I could barely zip up the flightsuit and that was bumming me out.  The flightsuit is now much more loose but I would love to lose more weight.  One of the things I bought on my birthday was a Billy Blanks Bootcamp DVD (for 2 whole dollars...lol.) and went through it once and plan to add it to my "rotation".  I have no delusions that I will ever be 128 pounds again, but it is still great to start feeling a little better about myself....old wrinkly face aside.



I did another workday on October 12th and the chainsaw was still behaving itself.  I did, however, hit another piece of barbed wire and that is not good for the chain.  We are working in yet another new area of the Preserve.  I am getting a little frantic at having so many areas "under construction".  It is hard to keep up.  I am hoping that the FPDWC gets my site burned this fall as that makes going out to work in areas a LOT easier.