Oh to sleep the sleep of the dead

*251*

  It is almost October. My most favorite month of the entire year. Yesterday I bought a couple pumpkins and some mums for the front porch. I think my days of decorating for trick or treaters is over but Fall decorating could take on a whole new thing for me. Kid number two turns 20 at the end of the month. That will be it. No more kids in my house. I know they were adults at 18 but something about not being a teenager anymore really seals it for me.

  I have been told that a couple people are patiently awaiting my jams. I have not done them yet. So this week I will get it done. I have to make a batch of strawberry and a batch of strawberry jalapeno. I have to start thinking towards the holidays too. Even though I am not eating it, I still like to make treats for others. I found these fancy looking cupcake tins called Tulips. I found out later that they are not very new but they are new to me. They were selling in the discount store. I bought a bunch for really cheap but I think I am going to go there later and grab a few more. $2.50 for a box of 12. I know that I could make them myself if I got it into me to do so. I eventually will but for now I like the colored ones that I found at the store. They are neat because they make your treats look fancy and they have the benefit of a corner to pick up your cupcake with so you do not mess up the frosting. Pretty handy.

  Except for one day where I punked out, I have been going to the gym on a regular basis. My friend A and I signed up about two weeks ago. I have been almost 3 times a week but shooting for four times. I want to do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Fridays. Give myself Thursdays and the weekends to relax. The trainer at the gym said four days is a perfect amount of time. You want to give your body at least three days of rest. I am trying the dreaded elliptical. That bitch hurts! I can only do like three minutes on it but I am going to do it every single day. I do the treadmill, the stair climber and the elliptical. Then I choose a muscle group to work on. I am there a little bit over an hour now. I started to lose my way with the eating. I was eating things that I shouldnt. I ate some greasy stuff that made me really sick and I had some other foods that shot my blood sugars through the roof. I have learned my lessons. I know that I cannot be perfect and there will come times where I will want to eat some things but definitely staying away from fried foods, whole milk dairy, and wheat. Since I started this, I noticed that whenever I eat wheat, I get this phlegm thing going on afterward. I sometimes start gagging, I am guessing a wheat sensitivity.  All is a learning process. So far I have lost 24 pounds.

  I think I told you all about the at home sleep study that I did for sleep apnea...? I am not going to go back and look so I will assume I have. Insurance wouldnt pay for full on sleep study in the hospital so I had to have a monitor to bring home. I went last week to find out the results. Girlfriend needs a C-pap. Most of the time those home tests do not show the full fledged severity of your apneas. Mine did OR mine are so bad that even the home shit picked it up. Doctor said that I stopped breathing 48 times an hour. That is like almost every fucking minute! My oxygen saturation is supposed to be 100% to the upper 90s. Mine would dip down into the 80s on more than a couple of times. So they sent me across the hall at that very moment and set me up with a machine. I have been using it since Wednesday. I have not kept it on the whole night yet but the longest so far is five hours. It will take some time getting used to. I wake up a little bit freaked out and take that shit off. One night I talked myself out of it in my half sleep, left the mask on and went back to sleep. I have the full face mask because I am a mouth breather. I am trying to overcome the feeling of being trapped as in claustrophobic. I have read that in time, it does go away. The full face mask is best for me because I move around alot in my sleep, I am a mouth breather, and I like to sleep on my side. So I need to overcome that shit.
  Lots of news and little links to click on. I have been busy with the yard this week, that is why I have not been around more. Once winter settles in, I will post more. You all know how I do things.
Enjoy the rest of your lovely September 2013.

To can or not to can. That is the question of the day

Ball half gallon canning jar

*255*<-----in the losing inches phase now

  I love that my friend had taught me a valuable lesson. Sometimes on your weight loss journey, you seem to not lose any weight even though you have cut calories and upped the movement. She told me that you lose inches instead, and then you will lose pounds. I am doing the inches thang now. I know this because all my clothes that I usually wear are either fitting looser OR are way too fucking big. I have started to dig into my stash of clothes that were on the snug side or I did not like this or that cause it made my gut show offy more. Today I am wearing a pair of purple cotton lounge type pants but they are for outside. They used to be on the snug side. I would never wear them. I am pleasantly floating in them now. Not too big, more like just right big. I am liking what I am doing. And I am loving all the *new* clothes I am venturing into.
I have to confess though that this week was a week of eating things not on the list. I ate 1/4 of a pancake with syrup. I had a burger with bun and small amount of fries, and yesterday I ate half a small bag of Lay`s. I chalk it up to my period was late and long and I have not eaten a chip in almost 2 months. It had to be done. My sugars were a teensy bit high. I am still eating well otherwise. I will be careful not to do THAT in excess.
 I always said I would never totally deny myself stuff. I have found healthy alternatives to many things but there is gonna be times when I just want it and I am not going to be denied. :)

  I found the canning jar of my dreams yesterday at Walmart. It is a half gallon jar. They come in a pack of six. I bought the last one in the store. And my pack had been opened (i guess they wanted to see how big it truly was). I did not care. I wanted them. I am hoping to find one more pack of six before the winter. I have no idea what I will do with them but I had to own them. They are usually used for people that can juices. I was thinking big jars of tomato sauce or salsa. We shall see.
 It is cooler this weekend. I am thinking maybe I will do my jams tomorrow (Sunday). I want to do regular strawberry. Then buy some more strawberries now while they are still cheaper and the next weekend make strawberry jalapeno. I have enough jars to make a shit load. I am not going to short myself this year. I want to make enough of the strawberry so that the family has enough for the winter. Then I will have extras for giving to friends. 
 So that is the plan, I think. I am going to do some yard work today. Fish for dinner. Canning tomorrow and then the man and I are going to go through our clothes to put away for winter, and get rid of anything we do not want. Full schedule if you ask me.
Oh and he gets to watch football. Lovely lovely football.

I can see me cleaning out our room on my own.