Presto pesto!

Fall is great for beautiful sunsets and sunrises

Tess in her school photo looks a lot like her mom

Cooper's hawk likes to hang out around my feeders

Even though I prefer to have an orange and blue lamp, this looked so pretty I bought it anyway

Big sky: while running this morning, I observed large clouds coming and going. Very pretty

We will be seeing more of her

today's lunch place

A pretty day; I hoped to eat outside but too cold

Traditional pesto is a mix of basil, parmesan cheese, pinenuts and garlic ground with a pestle (pesto is Italian for pestle) into a paste. As we learned in our Cooking for Survivors class yesterday, many substitutions can be made. My favorite one yesterday was a mix of kale, sage, pecans and cheese which initially sounded disgusting but it turned out to be quite tasty especially served over roasted vegetables. I didn't plant kale this year but the mild winter enabled last year's kale to survive and thrive to the point of taking over my garden. As I have now all this 'free food', I tried to make some steamed kale the other day. Not loving it. But maybe I will if I prepare it the way it was last night. Another pesto was made from cashews, arugula, and spinach served on toast rounds with roasted peppers, roasted eggplant, and goat cheese. Yet another with sun-dried tomatoes and cilantro.

I hadn't eaten anything but a few strawberries previously all day to the class and was starving but at least it was healthy food. I had picked up my friend to take her to class as her treatment for leukemia is making it difficult for he to see. The leukemia appears to be gone but the side effects of the treatment are still there, one causing irreversible changes. The class was fun. I should be using these recipes much more often as I try to return to my former self. Today was a step backwards as I had one beer at lunch, the first drink in 11 days, but I am mostly being observant.

I was the first to vote in my township. I went in just to register for an absentee ballot and found that today was the first day I could get one.  So that's done. Why am I not voting on Election Day? Well we might be gone but I pulled the geezer card again. Sixty year olds I guess are too feeble to show up in person..

Funny bumper sticker in the parking lot.

Vote for Bernie!

OK, then Hillary I guess.

Knowledge of good and evil

the road to our ghost town

It is Day 9 of my 200 day improvement program. A long way to go. This involves no drinking, except one drink perhaps on social occasions, no sweets or treats and an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption. As the weather is cooler, my time spent running will increase. For the first few days, it was especially hard as my body missed the alcohol and food but now it is getting used to the new normal. And I have lost weight, mostly in the beginning which I assume was water weight but perhaps the fat is slowly dissolving too. What will make me successful? Incessant weighing.
Recently I read a study on a group of dieters that were divided into two groups though with the same food plan: one group would be weighed often, with the results electronically sent to the researchers and the other whose weight would be recorded only at the end of the study. Big differences were found at the end. Well my weight won't be electronically sent anywhere but in the distant past, this is how I lost weight.

Previous to menopause, I never was much more than 15 pounds overweight excepting in the few months surrounding giving birth. Even then, I would be back to normal by the time the babies were one. But in the past 10 years, I have gone through so much physically and emotionally. I have let myself go. Cancer especially was not the weight loss opportunity as it is for others. Having to take steroids on top of few red blood cells made me ravenous but too weak to move much. Yeah, all excuses.

Now it us quite cool out. I had to wait Sunday until it was warm enough to bike (40 degrees) If I bundle up with my fleece this and that, I can stand 30 degrees for short periods but the wind gets through eventually.

Dawn today. These maples are now red

On my now longer runs, I go past gated driveways, some quite long. What is behind them? This is one of them recently on Zillow  Almost 6 million. And in Michigan, this buys quite a lot.

Some good knowledge: I have a friend who is an adoptee. There were rumors about her biological parents that I thought would be easy to confirm or deny with a DNA test. Certainly if it could uncover my 6th cousins, identifying half sibs would be easy-peasy. Well the half sibs are half sibs. And she found a whole side of her biological family she previously knew nothing about.

Bad Knowledge:
Last week I wrote about a murder in Maya's father's neighborhood. Little did I know how that will impact her life. OMG is all I can say.

A three year old party

Allie with her birthday bear that Steve got for her

ArtPrize continued

like the copper bison

not so much the elephant which won some big prize

this was one of many pieces composed of duct tape

If you looked at this with a naked eye, you'd see just tiles

architectural detail on Amway Hoel

This grandfather clock was carved out of walnut. The eyes moved back and forth along with his tie in sync. His moustache told the time

more duct tape

a city arises from a decomposed tiger. What's the message?

ArtPrize 2016

Last supper..What is Trump's function in this?

Grand Rabbits...get it? Yesterday we had our annual pilgrimage to Grand Rapids to view ArtPrize. Much less smaller than years pass but still was interesting to view

one of the more interesting installations. Each shoebox tenement had tiny video screens giving a story

My friend is front and center with the black coat

Naomi had several state championships in volleyball at the GR convention center. When she was a U-16, they won states

Maybe its not clear but he has a gun instead of..

lots of copper butterflies

close-up iof butterflies

this mosaic mural was put up 4 ArtPrizes ago

wheelchair made up of toy soldiers

Indian chief Christmas ornaments

not art but an interesting bouquet at a bar

dresses of post-it notes and tuille

a whole assortment of and carved wooden bikes

birdlets along the river

I think this is the latest we ever went to Grand Rapids. We were to go earlier but forecasted thunderstorms had us choose a different day (rain never came but just as well, it was lovely yesterday). Despite the many times, I've gone to Grand Rapids (Michigan's 2nd city 150 miles away)
I never bother to remember street names. I navigate according to landmarks. Where we park is across from the BOB, a big red building. However I went right pass it as new construction covered it up. Just as well, we ended up at a private structure that was cheaper and much less crowded.

I took many photos; these above are only the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps I will post more later.

While I was out and about, Steve was babysitting Allie. She wanted to ride her trike to the park. Steve somehow (!!!?) forgot how to get to it and relied on directions from a 3 year old. The trip was very long (should be only a few blocks). Steve finally figured out that Allie would not turn down a street that had a lawnmower in one of its yards. She hates lawnmowers and other loud things. Steve ended up having to carry both Allie and the trike.

The clouds seemed to have lifted. I am no longer on the verge of tears so yay.

the view through a dark filter

dahlia: a bright spot with many of my flowers destroyed by disease. My impatiens survived last year but I reused a pot that must have contained spores from 2 years ago so all of the impatiens in back are gone. Plus I have my annual petunia wasting disease so my pretty gardens I took so much pride in are now ugly

fake flower wreath. I do like it though

I haven't bought anything in a resale shop in a month. This set me back $1.50. I notice the studio sells similar ones in a gallery for $36

Our local paper's idea of news is to tally the arrests and ejections from each home football game. Who cares? Its other news consists of crime reporting which invites 'the basket of deplorables' to comment on the race of the perpetrators. Reading these comments fills me with despair. And now Trump is bringing racism out of the closet. It is OK to hate openly. I thought for sure his fan base would be put off by the fact he does not pay taxes but no, they applauded his cleverness But the big mystery to me is that he will do nothing for his fan base. They love him but he does not love them back.

Back to the news: an 18 year old man was found shot dead two days ago on the block that my granddaughter spends 3 nights a week at. Don'tae has 2 18 year old half-brothers. Could the 18 year old be one of them? I just saw one of them the other day as I picked up Maya to take her to Allie's 3rd birthday party. I haven't seen him in 5 years and of course, he has grown up. We had him over several times as Don'tae takes him  in on the weekends instead of his father. He is a shy, polite kid. When I picked Maya up,I  also saw Don'tae's youngest sister, now a mother of 2 little girls. The oldest, 3, was born the same weekend along with Allie and another brother's child. Who gains 3 cousins in one weekend from 3 different mothers? This cousin was about half the size of Allie. News was slow to trickle in about the 18 year old's identity who turns out not to be Don'tae's sibling.Some of the 'basket of deplorables' were gleeful as now there is just one less probable thug though for a change, some went online to try to shame these assholes. The boy was an honor student. Was this random violence or was he especially sought out Will my grandchild be caught in the crossfire? When Don'tae and Naomi were still together, they could only afford to live in very sketchy places which worried me constantly. Thus the condo was purchased in a safe neighborhood (my former neighborhood) associated with a good school. But where Maya spends some of her nights is now out of my control.

Ann Arbor gets about 2 murders a year so this was big news.

So what sent me on this downward spiral in which I can't see anything good and feel so, so alone. Who can I talk to? Steve forgets to buy me the one thing I asked for and I burst into tears. So trivial but I see it as a slight. Everything seems a slight. I looked forward to a friend's visit this weekend but her plans had changed. I was kept up in the air for awhile; phone calls unanswered, finally a terse text that bit my head off (seemingly though it was followed quickly by one apologizing for the negative tone). I was sure (am I?) that there were good reasons but all I felt was hurt.

And I can not love myself. I have ballooned into this huge creature without me   noticing. I cannot exercise any more than I do; hours and hours a week. And who calls me? My kids only when they need something.

Yeah I know I am not seeing things straight. I actually am rarely depressed though I spent my senior year of college in such a dark place. And then finally the dark lifted. I hope this is just a short phase.

Do I wallow in this? I have been for the past 5 days. It is pretty out I have been exercising still. I have cut out alcohol so maybe some of this is withdrawal. Also gone, no eating between meals, which now are very Spartan affairs. I no longer keep myself ignorant about my weight which is now down to the point before I began my month of entertaining and being entertained, which meant eating. I have not discussed this with Steve though he must have noticed something going on and said he will eat only what I eat so I won't feel bad about him feasting while I starve. I rarely cry but I feel on the verge of tears for the tiniest of reasons. and the reasons are tiny or at least fixable (for the most part; a  part sadly is not). Do I tell a friend that is struggling to breathe why I am sad? Hell no.

this too shall pass.