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I have gained weight again. It's hard to acknowledge my lack of discipline of eating high carbs and sugar. The addiction will always be there and only when I am super, super strict will it release or reduce it's hold on me enough to be able to either lose or maintain a normal lifestyle. Still doing intermittent fasting every day I don't always achieve my 16 hour fast but usually at least 14 or 15. There was a PBS program day before yesterday on Alzheimer's and another one yesterday on the 700 Club. I worry about my memory that keeps slipping, and often when I pray my brain feels like mush. Many believe sugar (blood sugar) and high carbs are the worst thing for our brains. Then lack of sleep and lack of exercise, all of which are problems for me. Exercise is difficult with my extremely bad back but yes, I could be doing more. After driving the car when I get out, my back is very painful and I can't walk for a minute. Three days ago I fell asleep in a chair and when the telephone rang I suddenly (disoriented) jumped up and hurried for it, and fell forward all the way down, because my leg won't work for a minute or two.
Journaling is very time consuming (for me at least), and I don't get enough done in the house and yard even without the time of reading other FS journals, supporting others, and journaling. I am a person so full of emotions that when I open up the flood gates even a little, the deluge seems overwhelming. I am up at 4am because my husband isn't wearing his C-Pap and is too noisy snoring. After my last journal a month ago I was cleaning house before our daughter and her husband's visit for my husband's 86th birthday. By the way none of my Basil slips rooted before they rotted. I've been doing a lot of extra shopping while I still can before the prices get even worse and there are still groceries available. Dehydrating vegetables is a lot of work if I have to blanch them, frozen is easier since they don't need blanching and I'd like to keep the dehydrator going. Now that it's hot, it's outside. My refrigerator/freezer is full. Finally I am trimming my rose bushes but can only do about 6 or so a day before I can't handle the pain of leaning forward a little, even with a stool. We have a row around the edge of our corner lot plus some others. I watch YouTube a lot, mainly about gardening, which brands of things are better, and some about prepping but I can't take much of that. Since my husband throws away the water I save, my preps won't be very useful with no water if the grid goes down in my area. People are already getting nasty about food in some places, which will become a really big problem later. I live about a mile from major homeless encampments. How long will they not go that mile when they don't have food?
Do you believe as I do that we will have serious food shortages in the coming months or at least in the next year or two. One food industry individual predicted the average family will be spending an “additional” $1,000.00 a month on food. Not everyone has it to spend, probably most don't have it. We need to grow what we can to supplement what we can buy. We can grow herbs and sprouts in our kitchens or some people have a balcony where they can grow at least a little. My lot is a standard city lot but that is big enough for my husband and me if I were better at it. I just carried an empty tote or plastic storage container from the garage to the back yard and my chest hurts. I have 3 leaky valves and an electrical problem. Yes, I am out of shape, can I use the excuse of my painful back?
In the gardening arena, my raised beds are growing in number but that's all that is growing. At the rate I'm going I won't even get in much this year although I did buy little summer squash seedlings at the 99 cents store yesterday. It's been a month since I started with 2 of the inexpensive ($7.) 18 gallon gray storage containers from Walmart or Target and now I am up to 14. Watching YouTube's “Robbie and Gary Gardening Easy” gave me the confidence to try the storage totes because she continually puts kitchen and yard waste down under the top layer of compost without stirring it at all, and she uses netting called tulle to cover the plants to keep pests out. She puts her storage containers on cheap plastic chairs so she doesn't have to bend over so far, and I happen to have a retaining wall around my backyard about 18” tall (about as high as a sofa) than I can put some containers behind to raise them. She drills holes in them a couple of inches from the bottom to conserve water (in California) so tree roots can't grow up into the bottom of the ones sitting on the ground, and I have trees with lots of roots that I can't deal with. She even lets some containers drip into other containers. I bought tulle where she suggested on eBay that is the lowest price and 54” wide by 40 feet long. My husband eventually drilled the holes for me but told me not to buy a used drill or soldering iron because he has them (but I can't get my hands on them). My husband did get angry about the totes and says if I don't grow things in them I'll just be wasting money on them. We have a continuing argument over him spraying poison on the lawns to kill the weeds when I want to use the grass clippings in my raised vegetable containers. He only sprayed about a 3' x 5' area this week so I ran out this morning to pull contaminated weeds to get rid of the majority of it from that area before the guy cuts the grass. Of course, the grass is dying in that area which he said it wouldn't. Last year he killed 8 rose bushes and damaged more from overspray of weeds and ants. Yesterday he took about 10 or 12 things off the kitchen counter and spread them around on the kitchen floor. I suppose it was a warning that next they would go in the trash. I thought about leaving them there but knew that wouldn't help. Better not to inflame him since he can be dangerous.
Robbie on YouTube puts sticks and branches in the bottom of her totes so dirt doesn't clog the water holes but I don't have branches and have not gone to the neighbors as she suggests. I can't gather or carry much. Then she puts yard and kitchen debris in, which I was able to do, and then 4 to 6” of compost. It took me a while to buy that much compost. Some of the containers she has on the ground have poles to hold the tulle fabric up over the top of the containers but the cheap ones at Home Depot have bad reputations for breaking. As I look closer she seems to have heavy poles to hang the tulle on to keep the birds out of planted seeds, and critters from eating the plants, but those are much more expensive. She says critters get their nails stuck in the netting and think it is a trap and avoid it. I haven't figured out what I should do about the poles yet. On some, she poked or drilled two holes in each corner of a container to hold a post with ties. That's 8 holes per container times 14 containers, which are already in place in the yard, and I hate to ruffle my husband's feathers getting him to drill that many corner holes. Since I haven't bought expensive heavy posts (4 for each container) I haven't pushed the issue. On some of her containers, she cut out the center of the lid and stapled netting over the top, which is good for seeds and seedlings but not as plants get taller. I have always had a big problem with slugs so I'm thinking about what to do next, maybe wrap the tulle around the outside of the top of the container and clip it. I bought a bunch of cheap wood clothespins at Target. Someone on YouTube said just do a little something every day for prepping for emergencies. I also love YouTube because I don't feel so lonely. We can only prep for the small things. The big things we can't control and need to trust the Lord for those things. “Normal” isn't coming back, but Jesus is.
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60.7 kg
Lost so far: 0 kg.
Still to go: 7.3 kg.
Diet followed: Poorly.
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Gaining 0.5 kg a Week
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