Losing Weight, Floating Docks & Insane Dog

I haven't been blogging lately (despite emails saying "miss you!"), due to circumstances beyond my control, as they say. It's been raining. Never mind that the temperature outside has been in the high 80s and even 90s some days, the water just keeps pouring from the sky! I spend a lot of time getting wet and drying off, doing laundry and still, the unpacking goes on.

As a result, my floating dock done floated away from shore. Moorless, it bobbles half-submerged around the pond, never coming close enough to shore for me to lasso it and drag it back. I have thought about getting the canoe down and paddling out to it, attaching a rope and then making my way back to shore with the rope, attaching it to a car and hauling it back to it's place, then figure out a way to secure it again. But all that just seems like WAY too much work. It's easier to sit and think about it while I'm knitting and watching TV.

And I've decided that the 28 pounds I have added to my frame in the last 2 1/2 years have to go away. Thanks to a suggestion from MaryAnn, I have been on the South Beach Diet since last Friday, and have lost 10 pounds! I never looked into this particular meal plan, mostly because I hated the name that conjured up rail-thin society babes ("social x-rays," as Tom Wolfe put it, in Bonfire of the Vanities), frolicking about their useless lives while drinking fortified exotic juices. But that isn't it at all. After reading the book, it's basically a refutation of the low-fat, high-carbo diet we've all been told is good for us. In the decades since the Food Pyramid was changed to make us all eat less fat, less protein and bump up our carbs, America has gotten fatter. This plan is all about the meat, cheese, eggs and vegetables, cutting out ALL sugars and starches for the first two weeks. After that, I can start adding in fruit and whole grains. It's the low-glycemic, quasi-diabetic diet that has always worked for me in the past. And it sure is working now, without hunger or crankiness.

And I've been getting plenty of exercise with Mr. Crazy-Dog. Bounder is coming along just fine, though he is clumsy, somewhat dumb and hyper. He got away from me a few days ago, clamored up the back deck steps, then scooted under the railing out onto the roof. Then, of course, he fell off the roof to the second story deck below, crashed through the railing and lattice barrier, and fell another 10 feet to the driveway below. Then he jumped up, ran to the back yard and tried to do it AGAIN! I grabbed him before he could go up the steps again, and was relieved that he was completely unhurt, despite falling off the roof of my house. Wow.

Bill suggested that we put a sign that says "Beware of the Dog," with an arrow pointing skyward. Or, put a parachute on the silly animal.

The garden is slowly taking shape, in raised beds and pots on the porch. I will have my eggplants, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers this summer! Although with the heat and rain we've had, I'd say summer is already here.

Life goes on.