There's always a price to pay

I'm keeping to my goal (so far) of attending 25 Jazzercise classes in 25 days. Three down and 22 to go! Of course, there's always a price to pay. My back, neck and shoulders are aching! I'm lucky in that I'm not having any trouble with knees, hips or ankles....YET! But I've dug out every tube of muscle rub cream we own, as well as a couple bottles of pain relief tabs.

When I got home from class this morning, got the shower done, pain meds applied, I read a couple of blogs. One blog that I follow (out of 48 - yeah, I know, I need to get a life) is written by a man named Tim. Among the topics he writes about are exercise and diet. Last night he wrote about the breakfast he'd had that morning of steel-cut oats, and it sounded so good that I decided to have oatmeal myself today.

I don't have the steel-cut variety (I understand they are really good for you so I'm going to see if I can find some) but I've got the regular old-fashioned type. I like to make my hot cereals with milk instead of water, but remembered that I'd finished off the milk with my dinner last night. I thought I'd use powdered milk but I couldn't find it in our stuffed & cluttered pantry. However, I did run across a box of WestSoy unsweetened vanilla-flavored Soy Milk. Hm! I was a little unsure how it would taste so I used 1/2 water and 1/2 soy milk when I prepared the oatmeal. It was delicious!! Tomorrow I plan to use all soy milk. I highly recommend this. The vanilla flavor added a nice touch and with the small amount of brown sugar that I usually add it was more like a dessert than a healthy, good-for-you breakfast. Plus, it's nice to be using that box of soy milk because I have no idea how long ago I bought it!
So that's my story for today, so far. The rest of the day will be spent getting some of my digital scrapbooking work done, a little grocery shopping, lunch in the garden so I can enjoy my single stalk of gladiola blooms while it lasts, and then, well, I think I may need to lay down and rest my poor, old, aching muscles (but aching in a good way, of course)!

A Gorgeous Summer Day

It's a shimmery summer day here in Benicia, with just enough of a lovely warm breeze to set the leaves in our birch tree sighing. I'm sitting outside in the "cat garden" with my laptop and a nicer setting you couldn't find anywhere I think! It's too bad the lighting is really not too good for viewing a computer monitor! But I'll persevere at least as long as my laptop's battery holds out which is about another hour. It's just too nice of a day to be indoors (plus this is a good opportunity for me to do some deep watering of our trees and tomato plants).

The bird in this photo visited one of our hummingbird feeders a few days ago. He's definitely NOT a hummingbird, and I'm pretty sure he (or she?) visited us last year about this time as well. Naturally, I can't remember what kind of bird he is, and I'm thinking we never were really sure if he was a northern tangier or an oriole, even though we checked our bird guides. He's got an orange head and body and tail, with brown/black/grey on his wings and belly. If anyone knows what kind of bird this is, please let me know!

We've got lots of hummers right now, too, and mockingbirds. The mockingbirds usually nest somewhere nearby and sometimes dive-bomb our cats when they are in the garden. As if the cats could get anywhere NEAR the nests! They are well-confined to their garden, but I guess the mockers don't know that and, after all, a few years ago our male Burmese cat, Tony, did find a mockingbird nest (they nest in evergreen trees only about 3 feet from the ground, how foolish is that?) and killed all three of the babies just before they fledged. It was tragic.

Mike is at work today and, can you believe it, he had to work on the Fourth! I was NOT happy about that, nor am I pleased he is working today. It's a shame he has to miss this gorgeous weather. No one should be inside on a day like this. And I just noticed that a pure white gladiolus has sprung up and bloomed! We planted bulbs years and years ago and didn't do a good job cultivating them so over the years we've had fewer and fewer. Last year I'm not sure we had any at all and now, out of the blue, popped this one tall stalk with a dozen buds, the lowest three already blooming. I often think things like that are "signs."

I wonder what it means?