New Beginnings

Yes, I am still alive and kicking. I'm amazed that I still have 'followers' after such a long absence from this space.

Basically, over the last nine months, I poured everything I had into a job, but even so, it apparently wasn't enough as I was fired last month-for the first time in my life. I've always been the star, the go-to person, and now, I am experiencing the other end of that spectrum. The only thing I can do is to move on and to learn from my failings, career and social. I've never been good at playing politics, sucking up to people. My emotions are always on my sleeve, which makes me easy to manipulate. Plus, I tend to think the best about people, even those who act like assholes and jerks. I make excuses for them in my mind, and try to block their influence and in doing that, I allow myself to be blindsided. They win influence, I don't. It is the story of losers everywhere, I suppose, that the victor's side of the story is the one recorded in the books. C'est la vie.

So in my quest of self improvement, I've decided to try to lose some weight and become more fit. This process began two and a half years ago when I stopped smoking after 27 years. I gained 30 pounds from that, and I lost that over the following 18 months, but now I am back on my pre-quitting plateau. I vowed to lose 50 pounds in 2010, and I have lost about 10 pounds with half the year gone. My BMI is close to 27, in the overweight range, but luckily under the obese marker. I just pulled out the Wii and weighed to make sure. I just weighed 199.5 pounds with a BMI of 27.8, up from last month by three pounds. That is where feeding your failure leads! Wii Fit states that my ideal weight should be about 157 pounds, which is where I would be if I lost the 50 pounds I intended with my New Year's Resolution. I have 43 pounds to lose in 6 months, 7 pounds a month, 1.75 pounds a week. That should be a safe loss rate and something I should be able to manage with diet and exercise. I've already given up soft drinks this year, and I am working on swapping out saturated fats for unsaturated fats. I don't believe in 'going on a diet', but I do want to make lifestyle changes. I've used a couple of calculators and figured that my Basal Metabolic Rate is about 2200 calories a day. I haven't been counting calories as to what I am consuming, but I will keep a journal for a week or so just to get an idea. If I can keep my intake between 2200 and 2500 calories, I should be able to exercise and burn off at least 1000 calories a day. One mountain bike ride around the 7 mile 'block' burns just over 700 calories and takes about 45 minutes, so I think with some stretching and a few additional minutes, I should be able to hit that 1000 burned goal. In addition, it is summer, and that means gardening-more calories burned. In a few weeks, I'll need to start splitting wood for the winter-more calories gone. So doing the math, If I consume 2500 calories and burn 1000 from exercise and 1000 from seasonal work, then my net caloric intake is 500, which is 1700 less than my BMR. If I ride my bike or exercise 5 times a week and spend 3 hours a day working, that is 8500 calories a week, equaling about 2.5 pounds a week. Of course, that will be the short term weekly goal that I strive for, not a given.

I want to pass along a few websites that I have found refreshingly useful.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/

From this link you can sign up for daily newsletters concerning topics that interest you. I've been receiving the Diet and Nutrition newsletter and it has a lot of informative articles (like choosing cooking oils) as well as a lot of simple, everyday recipes.

http://nutritiondata.self.com/

Nutrition data is just that, but I like this site because it gives you enough information to make balanced choices about food. They feature an Inflammation Factor chart which is helpful if you suffer from allergies or auto-immune disease. Also, there is a glycemic load chart for those who deal with blood sugar issues like diabetes. If you have a few minutes to check this site out, it will be well worth your time.

Plant ID

I thought I would post a few pictures of plants that are on my property and in the nearby woods of which I haven't been able to identify conclusively. I may do this again soon because I have pictures of other unidentified plants as well. These plants are common, and the pictures were taken on a April hike with some friends.
.
Plant A: This first one is some kind of trillium, I think. The leaves are green with a touch of burgundy, and the plant is very pretty..




Plant B: This second and third pictures are of the same plant. I see this thing everywhere and I used to call it 'wintergreen', but it is not the wintergreen mint, and that is probably not the name of it. It really is not minty at all and I have no idea of why I call it that.
Some plants are darker green and some are lighter, and it can be found on the forest floor any time in the Spring and Summer.













Plant C: I have no idea of what the plant with the white flower would be. This plant was flowering in early Spring










Plant D: This plant is a baby. I took this picture in April, and now, mid June, most of these are 12-18" tall and growing still. I'm not sure what kind of flower they have.









Plant E: This little heart shaped mottled green leaf almost looks like catbrier, but all I saw was the leaf and I did not see any stickery stems.

Homestead Hike

Today my friends Ava and Melissa and I went for a hike through the National Forest near my house. We hiked through the woods, following the creek beds (Hidden Creek AKA Rocky Creek) and an old road bed that predated the land being part of the National Forest to look at an old homestead, and we ended up 2 miles away at the old, now closed Hidden Creek Campground, a CCC venture, in the Chattahoochee National Forest. It was a fun hike with the dogs as we stopped and took pictures of various plants along the way. At the old homestead we found some naturalized leeks or ramps as the locals called them as well as old daffodils, a large pear tree, a nearby crabapple, some walnut trees, grape hyacinths and a monster wisteria vine that is taking over the area. The only remains of the house was a few bricks with Plainville Brick Co. on them. That is a nearby town over on the Oostanaula River. I called and found out that the company was founded in 1910, so the old homestead is probably only about 100 years old. At any rate, it was a nice hike along the bottom land of the forest, and the company was great. My friend Ava took a few pictures of me, so now I can finally be like the rest of the world and display an actual, recent picture of myself on my blog.