Friday, July 8, 2011

Dieting, floors, quilting

I started watching what I eat - nay, really being serious about what I eat! - on Tuesday. I went to the gym and weighed myself and found I had slipped up about 13 lbs. in the last few months. Must be all the wonderful strawberry shortcake and ice cream I've had lately. I've been watching those carbs and eating more veggies all week. No relaxing glass of wine at the end of the day, either. But I think it's paying off because today I weighed myself at home and am down. (Maybe I will keep using the home scale since it is much more in my favor.) I'm glad it's summer and we can eat more salads. Picked my first two Sun Gold cherry tomatoes yesterday and a batch of Swiss Chard this morning. And I ordered a treadmill today for those days when I'm too lazy to drive to the gym.

Yesterday we went out to Country Floors to pick up some samples for new kitchen and powder room floors. The kitchen is on a concrete slab, so we are going with something with lots of cushion. The powder room can be more flimsy. I have been laying the samples out on the floor, and Tues. Mr. Martin will be here to measure and take them home with our choices. Shouldn't be too long before we have new floors since both are in stock. Meanwhile, we've been having our back porch floor painted. Quite a project, involving sanding down to the wood and then two coats of oil-based deck paint. We can't use the porch until Monday (maybe Sunday if not tacky), so I moved a rocker to the front of the house so I could read while Max rolled and sat in the grass.

Quilting on the Civil War quilt has been my focus this week, and is all finished. The binding has been machine sewn to the quilt, and "all" I have to do is sew the binding down! It looks great, and I'll take a photo when I can get onto the porch to do so. I am calling it "Full Duty," since around the outside border I quilted "Governor Erastus Fairbanks," "Vermont will do its full duty," and "April 15, 1861." This is the famous reply to Abraham Lincoln's request for troops after Ft. Sumter fell. And who knows? Maybe I'll make a few more quilts during this sesquicentennial.

1 comment:

Karen - Quilts...etc. said...

it sounds like your salad garden is doing great if you will be eating a lot of salad. I'm afraid my garden was a dismal failure due to the heat. I still have one tomato plant hanging in there with 4 tomatoes on it, I hope they ripen before I give up on the plant - I already have 4 green tomatoes from a different plant ripening on the windowsill as the plant was to give out.
Karen
http://karensquilting.com/blog/