Getting Healthy One Meal at a Time ~ Originally published May 12, 2013

Many of you know that I have been a diabetic for almost 20 years and for the past few years have dinked around with trying to lose weight.  I say "dinked" because I would start a diet, start to exercise, start to drink more water, lose a few pounds, was at my highest weight in Summer of 2011 and so started to take things a little more serious.

Yes, I know I am a slower learner :)

I lost 26 lbs :) but slowly began gaining the weight back, gained 10 of those pounds back.

Earlier this year as I started having problems with my blood sugars, stressing over how I as going to get my medications.  Two of my medications cost over $1200 every three months and the rest of them are about $75 a month.

If I can get my eating under control, exercise every day like I know I should, I know I can cut down if not eliminate some of the diabetes medications I take thus saving us money.

So once again I decided to get back on the bandwagon of getting healthy.

First I got myself an accountability friend.  Many of you know her as my bestie.  I started out writing down everything I eat.  I use My Fitness Pal to record everything I eat.  I mean everything, even all the candy I ate last week when I was having a very hard day.  By putting in my height, current weight and my goal the program helps me figure out how many calories a day I can have each day.  I log all the food I eat, the water I drink and any exercise I do.  I have a little ticker that lets me know how much weight I have lost and my overall goal.

And another great friend got me this great workbook:

I am now on Day 15...because of the rough couple of days I had last week I repeated a couple of days.

It is not a magic book but a tool, one of many that I am using.

Another tool I am using is a Facebook group I started called "Getting Healthy One Day at a Time."  And believe me, it is one day at a time, some days it's half a day at a time and sometimes for me it is get through this hour at a time.  We are a group of ladies who are trying to get healthy, being accountable to each other, encouraging each other when we slip that we can do this and cheering each other when we reach a new goal!!  We are a closed group and after a couple of glitches we are going strong.

Another tool that a friend is helping me with is using protein shakes as a meal replacement.  It is full of nutrients and tastes yummy.  Actually I have used Beachbody Shakeology and Body By Vi protein shakes before and if you want more info on either of them I would be happy to connect you to two great health coaches.  Or you can buy this

or something similar.  Use it as a meal replacement for one or two meals a day.  I am doing one shake a day.  I do it for my breakfast and it keeps me full for a good three to four hours.  I have been encouraged to eat three to six small meals a day and so far it is working for me.

And I have set small goals for myself.

Yesterday my goal was to walk for 5 minutes around the park.  Ron and I measured the distance of the roads inside the park and the perimeter distance.  One lane is 1/4 a mile so the shortest distance I would walk is half a mile because if I go down one lane I have to come back to the rig up the other lane :)  Yesterday I felt so good I decided to do the perimeter and walked a mile in 13 minutes ~ yeah me :)  Got back to the rig and realized I had forgotten to take a letter to the mail box, umm Ron had the Jeep at work, guess what?  I walked another mile.  Our rig is parked as far from the mailbox as possible here in our campground.  So back out I went and did a second mile.  I felt good.  I slept well last night.

One thing about my walking...I would say I was going to walk but then would get busy doing other stuff and never get out for my walk, well night before last as I had trouble going to sleep I was talking to God about my NOT walking.  He said, umm, do it as soon as you get up...don't get "BUSY" doing other stuff, just do it!!! Right away in the morning and that is how I did my first walk yesterday.  This morning I had Malachi come over for about 6 hours and so I told him after breakfast and the sun came out we were going for a walk.  He asked me where?  I said, you will see.  So about 10 a.m. we got our shoes and socks on and went for our walk.  He would run ahead of me, walk with me, lag behind me but he talked to me the whole time and we had a great walk.  Came back and sprayed the weeds around the patio area of our campsite...yes, I even did a little yard work.....what is getting into me?

Another thing I am doing is cooking at home.  In fact, we have not gone out to eat except twice since we have been here in Liberty/Coffeyville, KS - once when we were on a six hour drive that we took to Oklahoma to see some sights and one day when we had gone into town and it took longer than expected and my blood sugar started dropping so we pulled into Sonics.  Even that day I made a pretty good choice compared to what I used to eat: a grilled chicken wrap, half an order of tots and NO soda pop.  And if you have known me for any length of time you know how I love my soda pop.  I could check my food journal but I think I have had 5 soda's in the last 20 days ~ yeah for me :)

For dinner last night I made mini pizzas w/pepper jack cheese for Ron and mozzarella cheese for me, pepperoni, red/white onions, red, green, yellow & orange peppers, mushrooms and FAKE shredded cheese for the topping - not because I intended to use FAKE cheese but because I saw it was $4.99 for 2 lbs and I thought what a great deal :) :) :) next time I will read the label that is for sure.  You know that stuff does not melt.  Ron and I usually split a medium pizza - last night I ate one mini pizza!!  yeah me :)

And a fresh fruit salad with apples, bananas, peaches, strawberries and oranges and I did not put any Cool Whip on it!!!

And I added a green salad with mushrooms, onions, carrots, peppers and lite Italian dressing.  Yeah for me :) I did not eat the fattening blue cheese dressing that is my Favorite!!!

Here is a peak at our dinner last night.  Hope you enjoy looking at it as much as we enjoyed eating it.

Ingredients for the pizza.

All put together  except for the shredded cheese.

And before it went into the oven.

Looking good in there baking.  This is when I noticed the cheese wasn't melting so pulled it back out of the fridge to see what it was ~ it was FAKE!!!!

The fruit salad!

And Ron patiently waiting for me to present him with his dinner.

And voila ~ dinner: healthy, colorful and tasty.

I forgot to get a picture of my green salad.  Ron had two mini pizza's and fruit salad.  I had one mini pizza, fruit salad and a green salad.    And it was ALL good.

So be prepared to see what's cooking in the Wander Lodge in the days to come!!!

Cleaning Up the Mess ~ Originally Published May 12, 2013

Do you remember this

from our drive from Joplin, MO to Coffeyville, KS?

(if not you can read about it here)

Well one day last week we decided it was time to check those totes that had taken their own little adventure

and this is what we found:

This is Tote #1.  The lid came off and is now cracked and broken.

Also the lower right corner has a big chunk missing from the tote :(

A close up of the corner :(

Take the lid off, another tote inside

It has a big piece missing from its right corner :(

It was full of Fall decorations but nothing was found broken or missing :)

We transferred the contents to another tote :)

And labeled it correctly :)

Then on to Tote #2

Tote #2 still had the zip ties on 2 of the 4 corners.

And this is what we found minus the stuffed bear and musical dog that we picked up off the road and had been drying up by the dog house for the past week.  You will be  happy to know the musical dog still works :)

This is the angel that broke.  It was special to us as Judy, Ron's sister, had given it to us our very first Christmas in the motor home, 2006.  In the front it had the nativity scene with an ever-changing LED light behind it.  It was pretty and we enjoyed watching it change colors and brought peacefulness to the rig in the early evening hours after a busy day at work.

One of the wings that broke off.  We were missing a few pieces so we could not glue it back together so we said good-bye.  We will keep our eyes open to see if we can find something similar down the road.

If you know us at all, you know Christmas is one of our favorite holidays and we love to decorate.  When we first moved into our motor home we put 19 totes of Christmas decorations in our storage unit.  Over the past six years we have taken a couple of totes out to change-up the decorations of the motor home and now carry two totes of Christmas decorations along with a tote full, really full of Christmas lights that we decorate with wherever we are at Christmas.  We have also passed a few things onto our boys and their families and we plan on doing that some more when we are back in Whatcom County next January to March (2014) and yes, we are already planning our vacation for next year.

Do you like to decorate for Christmas?

How about for other holidays?

How many boxes or totes do you have stashed away that you bring out each holiday season.

And in case you are wondering we do have an Americana tote that comes out this next week where we will decorate with Red, White & Blue for the season of Memorial Day thru Labor Day!!

And the tote full of Fall decorations and a tote with Valentines Day, St. Patrick's Day and Easter decorations!!

Oh the Little Things that Bring Us Joy ~ Originally published May 6, 2013

First off, I have to start with a special blessing we had today.

I got to Skype with this sweet momma and baby

And these two pumpkins

And then once Grandpa got home he got to Skype with them too!!!

We heard about Christopher saving up his money to buy a special sprinkler ~ it has like 10 points that shoot water all over and because it is so warm there in Clackamas today (85') and now that all the boys are awake from their naps they get to go play in the sprinkler...guess Grammy & Grandpa will have to wait for another day to see those sweet boys again.  We are always thankful for our blessings.

Last week on Ron's three days off we ~ can you guess ??? that's right

Went for a Drive.  This time to Oklahoma.

It was a 6 hour drive but we were probably at most 75 miles from our home on wheels.

I took over 70 pictures, but fortunately for y'all I put them into collages :)

We started out going to Oklahoma to get gas.  It is 20 cents a gallon cheaper :)  This is a little town we came upon.  The sign in the second picture down on the left side represents their school mascot and then we saw this cool grocery store. And a sweet little home.  As you can see the sky was filled with lots of blue and white puffy clouds.

We like to go to old cemeteries and we saw this sign for "Relocated Cemeteries" so we wandered through.  One of the oldest markers was from the mid 1800's.  Lots of babies :( and one of a mom and her four little ones lost over a period of 5 years.  The one in the 2nd picture down on the right side was in a family plot and this was for a newborn, I think he lived 3 days.  The 3rd one down on the right was quite interesting.  It had the marker then next to it was the round stone that had etchings of farm life, trees, a spring and field of grain.

As we continued we came into the town where Will Rogers was born.  The 2nd picture down on the right is there town square and this is in the center where all four roads meet.  Loved the simplicity of the Methodist church and the street sign.

On the main thorough fare is a replica of Will Roger's home, a sign welcoming people to the town and the story of Will's life and career.  The red barn and white face cow are behind the replica of the home. And see we were really there!

As we continued on our drive we saw this roadside sign of one of the many battles in the area.  Ron had to show me the Jeep in the center picture - he wants to do that to our Jeep ~ ummm...don't think so I already have a hard enough time getting into the Jeep :)  Along with more pictures of the surrounding area.

I love hominy and there was a sign to Hominy, OK so I said "Let's Go"  We found this little meat market and so went inside.  Ron has been looking for Head Cheese since we left Branson, but alas we still have not found any.  We did pick up some nice looking bacon (and we had some the other day and it was quite tasty) along with a nice rump roast.

Which is what I made for dinner tonight (Monday, 5/6).  It was very tasty and we have plenty left for two or three more meals.

Another road sign of another battle.  And do you see the clouds forming there.  We decided we had better head for home.

After being home about 45 minutes the skies got dark, the thunder started rolling and the next day we had SNOW, yes snow in May in Kansas!!!  We couldn't believe it.  I tried to take pictures through the window of the rig but as you can see they aren't very clear through the screens.  I opened the door at one point to take a picture but the snow is not really showing up.

I had a friend who posted this picture on my Facebook page and said if I saw her I had better run for cover...let's hope I never see her :)  Because we all now about that nasty tornado that came through Kansas after she was seen.

Hope you enjoyed our little trip.

Saturday Night Fun at Grand Country Jubilee~ Originally published on April 14, 2013

Saturday Night Fun at Grand Jubliee

As we are preparing to leave Branson there are a few things we wanted to make sure we did one more time ~ and going to Grand Country and see the show and cast of the Grand Jubilee.  And what a fun night we had.

Our hosts Michael Patrick & Jim Dandy (Jamie Hagee)

New South

The many faces of the band.

Jackie Brown

The only bummer was that Jackie Brown got Ron from the audience and sang to him, stroking his beard and then throwing a kiss to him at the end of the show AND THE BATTERIES HAD DIED IN THE CAMERA :(!

What a fun night ~ wish you could have been with us.

Saying Good-bye: Part of an RV'rs Life ~ Originally published April 14, 2013

Saying Good-bye ~ Part of an RV'rs Life

While we have been here in Branson we  have attended Friendly Baptist Church.  And it is just that FRIENDLY.  We were warmly greeted by Pastor Cardis Bryan and had met  Bill & Virginia Hickox through an RV Facebook page that I belong to.  Shortly after our arrival here in Branson Virginia invited me to a women's fellowship luncheon and we attended a services there.  We love the great Southern Gospel Music, all the old hymns and the great preaching by Pastor Cardis.  As campground managers we couldn't always  make it to services on Sunday mornings and we just hoped they would understand.  And they did :)  Pastor Cardis came and visited us one day here at the campground and told us we were always welcome whenever we could make it.  And there was no pressure to join the church ~ we explained that our home church is in Blaine at Northwood Alliance Church and that was not an issue like the church we attended off/on in Hondo, TX.  That made attending Friendly Baptist Church very enjoyable with no pressure.  We found out a couple of weeks ago that Pastor Cardis was retiring and today would be his last Sunday preaching there.  We made sure to make sure we could go today.  And boy are we glad.  What a glorious service honoring Pastor Cardis & Stephanie and hearing how the church started and how God has blessed them over and over.  If you are ever in the Branson area we encourage you to attend a service or two.

Here are a few pictures and some of the special music we were treated to.

The Choir leading the opening song accompanied by so many wonderful musicians.

The Stained Glass window above the baptistry.  When the sun is shining through it gives off such beautiful colors.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=836cvcnc3d0]

Pastor Cardis Bryan giving his last sermon "Memories"

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjZ7YkbE9Cw]

Jerry, Son-in-law, singing a special tribute to Pastor Cardis

Music Director Bob Mabe and his sweet wife, Sue

Recognizing Pastor Cardis & Stephanie

Saying good-bye to Virginia & Bill Hickox

And we  were invited to stay for lunch and boy was it tasty.  We had fried chicken from Bobby Jack's BBQ and was it delicious!!!  And an assortment of salads, baked beans, corn and green beans w/ham :) and ended with a variety of cupcakes.