Metamorphosis

  I really want to get this shirt but I'll wait until I know what size I'm going to be in another year. Right before I left Arizona I stopped in the Sewing Room to see my friend Mary. She was working on a quilt someone donated for Comfort Makers and I fell in love with the pattern. It was kind of like a crazy quilt and yet different. I found the templates on Amazon and ordered the eight piece set so when the gardening demands slow down and the weather gets too hot and sticky to be outside much (known as July & August in Minnesota) I could start to cut up some of my stash up here to make some quilt blocks. It looks like a really fun way to make some quilts and a great way to use up lots of smaller pieces. I'd been looking for some inspiration to get me quilting again and this might just be it. My favorite things to do are garden, sew and play pickleball. How blessed am I to be able to do all of these!

  I was hoping for my energy to return with the weight loss and that seems to be the case. Yesterday I played pickleball for the first time in a long time. It was pretty rough at first, but I could feel the skills coming back by the end of our play. I went for my walk around the loop today and jogged over the bridge, returning to the trailer to pick up George to walk to the far side of the campground. This amounts to about three miles. After stuffing him back in the house I headed out to water the newer plants in the common gardens. Upon returning I decided the patio mat I bought is too small so packed it up to return to Amazon. When I went back inside Pete was up and moving so we went to Denny's for breakfast before heading out to get the edgers I purchased on Facebook Marketplace. I ordered the 55+ scrambled eggs with cheese, four sausages and two pancakes. I ate half the eggs which would be one egg, took one bite from the sausage and nibbled on a corner of the pancakes. And then

  After finally getting all the weeds removed it was time to just enjoy the garden. The white clematis near the flying pig is going nuts. It's a variety called Huldine and I think I need to add some more to the trellis. The vines on the trellis at our entrance is finally lush and thick. These are Sweet Autumn clematis and in the fall will be covered with tiny fragrant blooms. The garden behind the shed is doing well, but I need to plant the big red truck.  At least the sink got it's flowers for the season. The lilies in the garden behind the shed is such a deep red. I always like being welcomed by the Lady in Red when I come into the driveway.

  Well, it's new to us anyway.  The old car we had was ok but lacking in a lot of creature comforts. The doors to that van had no power, so had to be yanked open. Yes, I've gotten really spoiled. Also, the key fobs didn't work, so you had to open the fob to get the key to unlock the doors which was a major pain in the tuckus.  So off to the car dealership we went and found this 2018 Pacifica. It's got 115,000 miles on it but drives like a dream and has more fancy gadgets that we'll ever use. It even has two little screens & headphones in the back seats that would have been handy when the grandkids were little. I like that it has stow and go seats so I can make lots of space for hauling plants and bark mulch. Yeah, I kind of use my vehicles like a truck. We've never had a white car before but I figure this way the bird poop will blend in nicely as they tend to bomb our car a lot. We decided to name her Betty White.

  One of the first things upon arriving was to take a tour of our gardens and see what needed.  With all the rain up here everything was looking pretty good. Now we just need some heat, and it looks like that's coming soon. We're always on the lookout for anything we can find to help cut costs in these beds, so Facebook Marketplace is an everyday search. Our latest excursion was to pick up some blocks but when we arrived they were not what we were hoping for. But we stopped at 101 Market with is fortunately next door to our campground. We replaced the one shrub that had died over the winter and got some coneflower to replace those that had died also. Picked up a bunch of fun plants to add to the boats. Someone had donated two bags of red bark mulch so this boat was able to get finished and barked in.  There...one done!

  I arrived around noon on June 14. We stopped at McDonald's on the way to the campground and I had four chicken nuggets. Still hard to wrap my brain around how little it takes to fill me up. Took a nap and still crashed early that evening to adjust to the time change and recover from the flight. Saturday started with our general meeting and then Pete and I went around the park so I could see what I needed to deal with first for the gardens. Then I went to Walmart and bought over $500 in groceries, of course that doesn't make much time any more. We're in phase II of the road construction so that was a bit of a mess. I'll be shopping closer to the campground in the future. We have a Super Target, Colburns and a brand new Aldi very close by.  Sunday I went out for a walk to start trying to get my 10,000 steps in. There's a lovely paved walking path within walking distance that has a pond in the middle and is along the Mississippi River. As I was walking I felt a sharp

  I've been working on assembling the cabinet over the last few days. I'm a little anal retentive when it comes to this as I like to arrange all the little parts in alphabetical order so I can find them easily. The directions look clear with good graphics. All graphics and no words, which is perfect. I love putting these things together and have done several of them in my lifetime. It's like a huge 3D puzzle. The project went much smoother than I anticipated, which was nice. Right until the very end when it was time to put the knobs on. I had enough bolts for the knobs for the drawers, but when I went to attach them to the cabinets...none. My options were to contact the company for the part missing or just go to Ace Hardware and buy them.  I opted for door number two and headed off to the hardware store. I love Ace Hardware because I can show them the tiny little part needed and they can find it in a flash. I bought four of the little bolts that were exactly the right size.

  Today is the day I've been waiting for, the reason I'm still in Arizona as the weather gets hotter and hotter.   I was so excited that I got to the clinic at 9:45. This was fine and dandy except my appointment wasn't until 1:30. So, I headed back home and stopped at Der Weinerschnitzel for a hot dog for lunch. They always look so confused when you order a sandwich without the bun. I enjoyed my all beef weiner with catsup, mustard and onion and actually ate the whole thing which surprised me. After loving up George for a bit I went back at my appointed time to meet with Amanda. I was shocked at my weigh in to see 201. They take two pounds off for shoes and clothes so they have me recorded at 199. This is major for me. My highest weight was 232 and I lost 15 pounds prior to the surgery, making my surgery weight 217. So I've lost 16 pounds in my first month for a total loss of 31 pounds. I realize that it won't always be this fast of a loss, but I'm tickled to ge

  I had such hopes for some homemade frozen yogurt and I bought this little gadget from Amazon. It seemed so perfect. It only makes one cup at a time, which is more than I can eat at one sitting anyway. I unpacked it and washed it up and put the bowls in the freezer for the 24 hours it requires. Finally, it was time to try it out. The instructions are to start it running and then add the materials in the little side chute.  Since yogurt doesn't pour well, I tried to spoon it in. Jeez, what a mess! I gave up, turned it off and put the yogurt directly inside. After 20 minutes I opened it up and it was indeed frozen yogurt, but given the difficulty of use and the mess it made I will not be keeping it. The clean up was even worse. The motor can't go into the water and I couldn't figure out how to remove the lid/rim so I washed it as best I could. So, back to Kohls again with another failure. I had to return the purple monster puppet yesterday because it was too small for my han

  I love to incorporate props into my karaoke performances. It makes people laugh and that makes me happy. I have a squirrel puppet for the 'Mississippi Squirrel Revival', a cowboy had for Patsy Cline songs, band-aids for 'Did I Shave My Legs for This?', a chicken hat for 'Little Red Rooster' and several other oddball things. But there's one song I was looking forward to doing and needed a prop. I could have made my own puppet, but it's getting too close to time to leave and I don't want to mess with it right now.  So I ordered this purple little creature.   The song?  The Purple People Eater of course!  I can't wait for karaoke night next week. It will be the last one for me before I head to Minnesota.

  I'm craving real food that isn't smashed into oblivion. I kind of moved myself onto the soft diet a little early as I am having trouble dealing with the pureed mess.  Also, the protein shakes don't appeal to me anymore either. I have to kind of choke them down to get the needed protein. Thankfully I just had a call from the Bariatric Clinic checking up on me and she asked if I had begun transitioning to the soft diet, so I confessed to the things I've been eating. Nothing seems to bother me other than I can't eat very much of anything. She was fine with that as long as it wasn't bothering me. I had a misadventure with some smoothies I was trying. I put frozen cherries with chocolate protein shake thinking it would taste like chocolate covered cherries. Yuck, out it went. Then I tried the caramel apple smoothie which was a lot of work cutting up the apple and adding all the ingredients. Took one sip and threw it out. Dang, I'd rather just drink water. Bored