Poor Bea!

I was shooting for blogging once or twice a week but have clearly not kept up with that.  I'm trying to approach this differently this time, and not hold myself to a schedule, which I inevitably fail to keep, then feel guilty and a sense of failure for not keeping up with the meaningless expectations I've set for myself.  I'll blog when I blog and try not to feel the guilt and failure when I don't, because it really doesn't matter to anyone but me.

I'm already starting the week with a sense of guilt and failure (self-induced, as always).  I have been an intermittent faster for over two years now and generally love it.  I don't eat my first meal until 3 PM (or after) and don't eat anything after 9 PM.  That is the schedule that works best for my mind and body.  However, there are days when, inexplicably, I'm starving early in the day and can't think about anything other than food.  I've been pretty good about sticking with it, even on those days.  Today I was not.  It's a dreary, ugly, depressing Monday.  I'm tired and fairly stressed, and gave in and had my normal 3:00 snack (cashews) at 12:30 today.  While I'm now able to focus a little more on work, instead of thinking about food and watching the clock, I'm upset with myself for my lack of discipline today.  I need to let that go.  I'm not great at letting things go--especially when it's a failure or weakness on my part.

I've learned as I've aged, that even the absolute worst situation comes with some positives if you're open and look hard enough.  The Covid plague has certainly brought a mixed bag of negatives and positives.  One of the "gifts" of CV is that my husband now works out with me religiously, every single day.  Another gift is that we've instituted family game night each week.  After several disagreements over our approach to games, we found a couple of new games that work well for us.  I like to play games for the fun of playing games. I don't like to keep score, and I don't enjoy "winning" or beating people I care about.  Collaborative games provide the perfect solution.  I mentioned Ghost Stories previously, and we've been enjoying working together to beat that game.  Though my husband seems happy enough to play the same game every week, I needed a change of pace, so we added another collaborative game to the mix:  The Crew:  The Search for Planet Nine.  We played that Friday for the first time, and it was really fun.  I like it a lot and look forward to continuing to complete each of our 50 missions!

We had to take Beatrice to the vet a few weeks ago, as she had developed a limp in her right back leg.  She's a very high-energy (almost) two-year old dog who runs and jumps constantly, so we figured she had just pulled something.  The vet gave us really bad news, however. She has a ruptured knee ligament and will probably need a very expensive ($3000-$4000) surgery.  Additionally, dogs with a genetic disposition for this generally have the same thing happen in the other leg shortly after.  We had to keep her quiet and inactive (impossible, but we did our best) for two weeks, then resume light activity for another two weeks, then return to see how things are going.  Though surgery is by far the most likely outcome, there is a small possibility that the knee joint can form a capsule around and stabilize the ruptured ligament and make surgery unnecessary.  Obviously, that's our hope.  

For two weeks, Bea had to watch her whole family go on daily walks--the thing she enjoys most in the world (or maybe second most, after attention).  That was as heartbreaking for me to watch her hopeful face become sad and crestfallen when she realized that she would, again, be abandoned and unable to do her favorite thing as it was for her. She has no way to understand it's for her own good, and that was a horrible two weeks.  We tried to take her in a couple of different wagons and even tried Silas' wheelchair, but the constantly wiggling ball of energy would not tolerate a passive walk in any format.  She's now able to go on short, slow walks, so we take her for a half-length walk and keep her from running and jumping.  She gets to walk by herself, so we are now doing three dog walks per night to cover everybody's needs.  She's still limping, but it seems to be less pronounced.  Our hope is that indicates that there's some healing taking place, rather than that she's adjusted to her condition.  We won't know until we go back to the vet next week.

I'm still getting a batch of tomatoes each week from the garden.  We have so many green tomatoes out there yet, I'm hoping they ripen up soon.

I made a batch of one of my favorite cookie recipes last week and experimented with it.  I love them even more now.  Vegan Richa's brownie cookie recipe is so quick and easy. I love the taste and texture of the cookies and especially love that they're gluten free (as I'm quite gluten sensitive--though I think it's more of a sensitivity to the RoundUp chemicals present in all wheat products than the wheat/gluten).  This time, instead of using regular maple syrup, I used a habanero maple syrup in the.  It was fantastic.  I love the addition of the heat that hits after the chocolaty, sweet deliciousness of the cookie and will definitely continue to make them with the habanero syrup in the future.

Our zinnias continue to produce gorgeous flowers that make the garden look pretty glorious.