Watching What I Eat
HSDM and I are in our 3^rd week of “salad in a jar”. I found this on face book and thought it might be worth a try. I have thrown out more lettuce because I did not get it ready the night before and then forget about it. The first week we bought our produce from our local store and just put lettuce in the jars. The next week we started going to the farmer's market to get our produce and added our cut up veggies, mixed in the lettuce. This week we added cabbage. It is so nice to open the fridge, grab a jar of salad and go! We are really enjoying the farmer's market.

I mix up my salad days by adding chicken for a grilled chicken salad one day, some ground turkey and salsa for a taco salad, minus the taco, and tuna another day. My biggest challenge at present is my snacks. I'm still trying to come up with snacks that are healthy and yet portable.                

   

On Exercise

I have my first 10k (6.2 miles) the middle of April. I know I can walk it as last Friday I walked 6.34 miles! I seldom worry about winning since most of my races are just that: a run! Usually, if I do place it is in my age group: 60-64, and only because there are no more that 3 ladies that age.   It's always a little daunting when everyone around me takes off running at the beginning of the race and there I go, walking, walking, walking. I almost quit the first time this happened. It was at the Fort Worth Running Club. It was a 5k and only my 2^nd race; (the first race had a lot of walkers)! The horn sounded and whoosh! Everyone else was gone and there I was, walking. It was in December and I was cold. I thought, I can tell my friend (who was running) that I got cold and turned back. But then I remembered my mom, grandma, and grandpa who all died of congestive heart failure with diabetes, high cholesterol, etc., etc., etc. I remembered that I did not want to be taking over 20 pills a day like my mom did before she passed, if I could keep from it. I also told myself that I had to keep going because my grand-kids knew I was walking in a race and one of my hard and fast rules has always been: “you have to finish what you start”. So as I kept walking, pretty soon the runners started passing me on their way to the finish line. A number of them complimented me and told me I was doing great, to keep going.

I think the coolest thing for me is my running buddy. She could be one of my kids as she is slightly younger than my youngest son. I always know that if the race officials allow it, she will come back and walk the last of the race with me. And if they do not allow her back on the track, she is always somewhere at the end of the race, waiting for me. How cool is that!!

Lefty . . .