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National Homemade Cookie Day

Today is National Homemade Cookie Day.  I'm going to have to make some cookies with my youngest today.  She will want chocolate chip, I'm going to try and get her to agree to oatmeal chocolate chip.

Here is an old recipe that I got from my Mother-In-Law the year Hubby and I got married.  It was published in the Christmas Cookie Cookbook published by the First Baptist Church, in Amherst Nova Scotia.

Diane's Chocolate Chip Jumbles

1 cup butter or margarine

3/4 cup Brown Sugar

3/4 cup White Sugar

1 egg

1 Tbsp water

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup oatmeal

1 pkg chocolate chips

Nuts (if desired)

Cream together butter and sugars before adding egg, water and vanilla.  Sift together flour, soda, salt, and then add to creamed mixture.  Add oatmeal, chocolate chips and nuts.  Drop onto baking sheet.  Bake at 370F.   Yield 6-8 doz.

No baking time is given in this recipe but I have found that 8 to 12 minutes works in my oven.

It's also the first of October.  My simple goals for this month are

1. Increase my daily steps to 8000 a day by the end of the month.
2. Drink my water, 8 cups a day minimum
3. Spend 30 minutes less watching tv everyday

I'm in a daily challenge to post a picture of the cover of a favorite book on Facebook right now.  Today's book is

I read this book the first time way back when I was in junior high.  I have since read it a few more time. 

Stats from yesterday

Steps:14304

Active Minutes: 106

Stairs: 7

Water: 2

The parts for my RV have been bought.  Hubby thinks he will be able to get it done this weekend and then the RV will go to the muffler shop on Monday for the muffler.  It means not going to the lake this weekend unless we just go for the day but I’m okay with this.

My sleep last night was terrible.  Charlie my older dog, woke me up at 2am.  I got up and let him out thinking that he might need to go outside to do his business (polite way of saying use the toilet).  As he went out and came right back that wasn’t it at all.  He continued to cry or whimper for a while.  Thankfully my son arrived home at 2:30 from work and took him with him into the garage while he ate his dinner and played on his computer.  We have an office set up in the garage for my hubby and my son uses it late at night when he gets home from work so that he doesn’t wake the rest of us up.  The rest of the night I just couldn’t fall back to sleep until just before the alarm went off.  For the first time in forever I decided to let myself have an extra hour.

Today I am thinking about the following “What is the difference between exercise and activity?”  Exercise is activity that we do with the purpose of increasing our heart rate or building strength whereas activity is a normal part of our life, such as housework, yard work, taking the stairs instead of the elevator.  I realize that in my life right now I am way too sedentary and spend way too much time on my butt.  I need to add both more activity and start to add actual exercise to my day.  Looking at the last few weeks I realize that I ma getting zero actual exercise.  I am slowly increasing my steps over the whole week, not everyday for sure yet but at least my weekly totals are going up.

I also need to work on my sugar intake.  The last few days I have been really watching the how often I crave or want sugar or sweet foods.  Last night I was craving a chocolate bar, I almost got up and drove to the store for one.  I’m happy that I didn’t.  I did however go to the kitchen and make myself a strawberry/blueberry shortcake.  I know that adding a small piece of pound cake and 2 tablespoons of whipped cream was better then the KitKat bar.  It did satisfy me.

The end of one week and the begining of the next

Yesterday was a great day.  I got up early and went and finished a work project that I hate doing so now I know it is done and I know that I don't have to d it this week.  

Jamie and I tried out our new BBQ yesterday, we made a roast on the spit.  It was delish and the friends were awesome.  Jamie also made a cherry and an apple pie for dessert.  We have the apple with about half the sugar we would have normally used.  It was still great. It's almost gone but with 5 adults eating and 1 teenager and a kid, food went fast. 

My goal for this past week was for a total of 55,000 steps  and 50 flights of stairs.  All readings were from my Charge 2.
Day 1 update, managed a nice walk in the morning.
Day 3 update, Didn't manage to get as much walking in as I wanted, but I did have a 4 hour drive in the rain instead...
Day 4:  Seems I am about halfway to my goal for this week.  Not bad at all, hoping to add some numbers today to push me closer.
Day 5:  I'm going to need to really add some numbers today to make my goals. 
Day 6:  Well it looks like unless today is a banner day I will not make my goal for this week.  However as I am starting to understand more and more life happens.  My 4 hours drive yesterday could not be avoided and was unplanned.
Day 7:  So I ended the week with 45870 steps.  Not too bad but not my goal of 55000 steps.  I also wanted to do 50 flights of stairs, I made a total of 43 so just a little under my goal.

Steps
07/08: 6741
07/09: 7453
07/10: 6301
07/11: 5986
07/12: 6878
07/13: 4910
07/14: 7601
Weekly total: 45870

Stairs
07/08: 6
07/09: 3
07/10: 9
07/11: 5
07/12: 5
07/13: 5
07/14: 10
Weekly Total: 43

What I am pleased about is that with the exception of one day all my days had over 5000 steps which is huge for me as a month ago I was struggling to 5000 steps in on any day.

I am going to keep my goal the same for this week as last. So 55,000 steps for the week and 50 flights of stairs.  I am also going to track my water intake and my active minutes.  I do have a goal of at least 8 cups of water a day which I ma struggling of late to attain.  My active minutes I'm going to track just to see where I am starting from.  It's hard to make a goal when you don't know where you are.   All readings will be done using my Charge 2.

Steps / Stairs / Water / Active Minutes
07/15:
07/16:
07/17:
07/18:
07/19:
07/20:
07/21:

Weekly total: 

Today'sobjective to is to treat yourself the way you treat others

Boy am I ever glad that I treat others with respect and give everyone the benefit of the doubt.  But really what does this mean.  To me it means that while I would never expect someone else to help me when they are tired sic, hungry I often expect myself to keep going.  I need to learn to let myself have the break that I would give a friend.  

Yesterday was a long day.  I ended up driving north to get my middle child.  She is sic.  Seems like the stomach bug has hit.  Last night she finally was starting to look a bit better.

When I got home rather then go to work I hung out and help my hubby put the new bbq together.  Lots of fun (not).

  It's going to get used tonight.  We have a roast that we are going to do on the spit.

What a crazy storm last night

Wow I love our summer storms.  The one early this morning woke hubby and up.  Wow it was amazing, so happy we were safe and dry inside the comfort of our home.    I did check the basement for water.  Thankfully none was found.

Today my thought are on goals,  What are my true bug picture goals.  Not just vague concepts that I'm supposed to want but what do I really want for my life.  I've been thinking on this for a while now. I know that I want to lose some of this extra weight but I really don't know why.  I could just buy bigger clothing and go on.

Yesterday I came up with what I really want.  I want my energy back.  I want to be able to enjoy life again without hurting the next day.  I want to be able to play with my kids and someday my grand kids.  I want to be able to try new things again.

I'm not old at 47 I should still have lots of energy.  Why don't I?  For starters I'm easily 40 pounds overweight, it's tiring dragging this extra weight around.  Secondly I'm not active enough.  It's hard to even get 7000 steps in a day, forget about working out or doing anything that requires strength or endurance to complete.  I need better sleep.  I'm getting an average of 7 hours a night of sleep but it is poor and I often wake up tired.  I stop using my CPAP machine over a year and a half ago.  I know that I should use it every night but for whatever reason I stopped.

So the last few weeks I have been tracking what I eat, and trying not so hard to drink more water and watching more closely my step count but really not changing much.  In the next few weeks I will start making some small changes to the new energized me.

Today I will clean up my CPAP machine, add clean new water to it and start using it.  I need better sleep to be able to do any of my other goals.

My Big Goal Is: 

To have the energy to enjoy life again

My smaller goals are:

To lose 40 pounds by this time next year
To drink at least 8 glasses of water daily
To increase my step count to 8000 steps by the end of August
To increase my step count to 9000 steps by the end of October

This year I am trying to have the same attitude with my life as we do with our youngest where every day is a new start. It doesn't matter what happened yesterday that is the past, what matters is right now, today, this minute. It is our current choices that matter. Make today matter.

New to this challenge. But it fits very well with my personal goals. My goal this week is for 55,000 steps for the week and 50 flights of stairs. All readings will be done using my Charge 2. 

Steps 
07/08: 
07/09:
07/10:
07/11: 
07/12: 
07/13: 
07/14: 
Stairs 
07/08: 
07/09: 
07/10: 
07/11: 
07/12: 
07/13: 
07/14: