Incredible News Abounds

Written on 10-8-17.

The incredible news abounds today!  First, Daryl and Katie are under contract for a new home, and…they are expecting their first child!  Katie is at around 14 weeks, so that’s a good sign, especially considering she has had complications before.  The due date is April 6th.  So, we are super excited for them, and we could not be happier about those two pieces of wonderful news from the Lamberts.

Wait, there’s more.  This really was not planned or coordinated to be on the same weekend, but Emily and Carter are, as of just last evening, engaged to be married on October 6, 2018!  I immediately put the event in our calendar.  What a fantastic couple!  I know they will have a long-lasting, loving relationship.  They celebrated their six-year anniversary yesterday by getting...
engaged.  Wow!

They called to let us know all of this a few hours ago.  Mom and Dad were there, too, so that made it even more joyful.  I could not be happier for all of those young people, and they are all so deserving.  Makes me excited for the future.

I am sitting out on our back deck, Sanctuary, and I have my feet up on one of the mesh chairs.  The covered gas stove is to my left, just below the gorgeous view of our La Plata mountains, and my coffee cup is on that cover.  It’s a gorgeous fall day here at the Swope house, and I can hear some dirt bikes in the hills behind our house.  Despite the occasional rev of an engine, it’s peaceful out here.  Belinda is inside taking a nap on our couch.  I just wrapped up a brief conversation with neighbor John to catch him up on all the great news, and I shared what Danielle is doing this weekend with her wildfire fighting boot camp weekend.  He and Ida got to go see the Broncos last weekend, the game I mentioned up above against the Raiders.  Good for them.  

In other news, we are looking at new flooring for most of our entire home.  Our house was measured on Friday.  The only rooms that won’t be done are the computer room (we recently put in new carpet that we got for free from C.J. and Lynne) and the two bathrooms.  Belinda and I were just looking at our baseboard trim, trying to figure out what we would do with that.  The final decision was to save it all by sanding it and then use a clear water-based polyurethane to coat it again for shine and protection.  That’s a lot of work, but I have an idea about that.

Guy has shared a book on his Kindle about fasting.  Yes, fasting.  So, this past week, I’ve begun to fast a bit.  Except for Wednesday, the day I had to work by doing the final follow-up training at Kirtland Middle School, I would not eat until noon.  Then I would not eat after dinner again either.  One day, Friday, I ate only a healthy shake for lunch and a coffee with my favorite Safeway salted caramel creamer for an afternoon snack.  That was it.  My tummy kept me up a little later than usual, but it wasn’t too bad.  Then I woke up at just ater 3:00 AM to a grumbly tummy, but I was able to go back to sleep again.  From what I’ve read, and what I like about it, is the health benefits are numerous.  If I had no weight to lose, I wouldn’t do it, but I could stand to lose around 20 lbs. and still be just fine.  The biggest reason I started is because Guy had some success, some true weight loss success.  He is under 200 lbs. again for the first time since college.

I also like that I get to decide when to stop.  If I really need to stop, I just eat something, but that really hasn’t happened yet.  I’ve set times in my head, and then I’ve stuck to them.  I proactively drink much more water, and I also take a men’s 50+ multi-vitamin on the days I wait until after noon to eat.  I played golf with C.J. on Friday morning while fasting, and I went to church today while fasting, too.  Plenty of fat reserves to tide me over for right now.  I will continue this experiment.  I would be happy and proud to be under 200 lbs. again.  We shall see.

What really helps is to get and keep busy.  Sitting around while fasting is miserable, not that I have that much experience with it yet, but occupying my mind really helps keep my mind off of eating.  That’s why sanding all of the baseboards in the house sounds like a superb distraction.  

We expect to receive our new file cabinet on Tuesday, so I could begin to reorganize all of our files, too.  One of my biggest distractors this past week was the computer I am using right now.  I have worked hard to begin cleaning it up in order to increase its speed.  It’s been a bit sluggish lately, so I have now made three calls to Apple Support to get some help in that area.  The first advisor recommended emptying out all downloads and histories on my browsers, so I did that.  Then he had me install Malwarebytes to check for infections.  I finished up by installing the latest operating system, High Sierra.  Done.  

The second advisor helped me to figure out what could be deleted, so I spent most of time Saturday going through photos and trashing the ones I knew we would not want anymore.  All of this takes a ton of time.

The third advisor had me reinstall the High Sierra, and we did a few other tricks like zapping the PRAM.  He thought that my Macbook Pro should be running fine considering I had 163 GB available and a new operating system.  I agreed.  Today, despite it running dreadfully slowly yesterday, it is working much better.  Especially since he said that if reinstalling High Sierra wouldn’t work, I should begin my search for new hardware.  Yikes!