In the best interest of this forum its best I leave and delete it from my computer...I will not be returning for personal reasons... I have enjoyed all your pics greatly! Please take care everyone and have a great holiday season...

May God Bless you all!

I'd like to leave you all with this poem by Rumi, in the spirit of Xmas

Rumi wrote:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about language, ideas,

even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense.

thanks so much for the wonderful discussions we had, I am already missing all of you, and you will always be in my thoughts and prayers.

It's getting cold here. 12/10

We're getting snow on 12/17.

Its 25 degrees Fahrenheit at night.

Heated bird bath first.

https://youtu.be/-AJL0P0OMrE Bob Cannard talking about nutrient cycling.

One might get a huge plant boost for 2 weeks or so if they put manure or worm compost casting leachate down or chem fert, but it's best to get the life in the soil.

It's not yet time to winter protect. 12/10. Maybe in a few weeks. Terra cotta gets damp frozen and cracks in the Northeast.

I have started to winter protect by putting up wind barriers around roses.

It is not cold enough yet here. Winter starts 12/21

I have 20 bags of leaves waiting. It is not cold enough yet. They are dry 12 in the garage and 8 bags garden shed. When it is consistently cold I will pour them in the corralled rose shrubs. Dry curled fluffy leaves. They are used as a cooling jacket to keep the roses frozen.

Last year I used 14 bags. Was not enough.

Most Birds have left south.

Frozen bird bath.

Sam: Thank you for posting those pics. It's an inspiration for people to collect leaves. Thanks to you, I collected 40+ bags/wheelbarrows of leaves ... I already spread them out. It will save me time & money ... I won't have to get mulch for my garden next year. Last spring my neighbor spent $200 on mulch, and his garden is 1/10 of my garden. Here's the link to the next thread on rooting roses, best soil & wood ash, foods to lose weight:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3543808/12-5-15-rooting-roses-and-best-soil-wood-ash-foods-to-lose-weight?n=21

Jessjennings: Check out Khalid's wisdom on life in the below link, It has nothing to do with roses, but VERY useful toward happiness. It's way at the bottom of the thread, before Sam's winter-pics, in the below link. Also Jess, anytime you want someone to talk & someone to listen, just drop by. Thanks.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3528532/npk-and-ph-of-organic-matters?n=49

Jess

How is chocco? The neighbor goat.

YOUR'E BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I THOUGHT EVERYONE JUST LEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

now Xmas is going to so much better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thanks for the site I'll definitely look and learn from it :-)))))))))))))))))

HUGE HUG TO ALL OF YOU LOVELY PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jess: you are a ray of sunshine .. I was so discouraged with my daughter's cold ... she's coughing & crying & refusing to eat breakfast. It has been 1 week, but since she's in the gifted program, she can't miss much school. Brewer's yeast mixed with soy-milk and buckwheat honey is a God-sent, since she refuses to eat solids. Buckwheat honey is tested in clinical trial to be just as effective as cough medicine.

I also give her Kefir, but I sprinkle magnesium oxide powder (tasteless, like cornstarch). Last year we drank Kefir (cow milk) ... that made us constipated and the entire family came down with a bad flu. I have been eating & drinking her left-over foods for the past 5 days ... so far I'm fine & sleep well with brewer's yeast and it's a gentle laxative .. I have lots of energy, thanks to its many B-vitamins & chromium.

For cold prevention, I'm giving my kid brewer's yeast shake & Kefir with magnesium everyday ... Thank God she's getting to like it now. I'm 100% happy with this forum having just a few friends who are committed to the same goal: supporting each other in our path to 20-min-of exercise per day & weight loss, and health for us & roses.

It's safer & more peaceful with just a few friends. I posted in big forums before, some of my thread got 80+ people responding, but it was tiring & time-consuming. Jess, I will always be here for you. Same with Sam .. he will always check in despite working full-time. I'm committed to walking or gardening outside for 20 min. I'm down to 126.5 to 127 lb. (57 kilos). Last year I was 134 lbs. in the winter, so that's a 7 lb. loss, or 3 kilos from last year, and our pledge didn't even start until late Sept.... more weight-loss to come & brewer's yeast helps me a lot to be more energetic.

There is something wrong with my way of searching the posts on this forum because everyday I miss something important. How could I miss this lovely poem of Rumi

Rumi wrote:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about language, ideas,

even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense.

Thanks a lot Jess for quoting these beautiful verses. You made my day. BTW, my late father was very fond of Rumi.... so fond of him that when I was born, he nicknamed me Rumi. Even today my close relatives address me as Rumi.

Samuel: Thanks for giving the idea for strong leaves in winter. So what would be better in your view? Making a heap in a lawn corner and covering it with something or storing them in bags and then using them in areas where needed? I think both can be done. Thanks for the photos and idea.

best regards

Hi Khalid

Last year I had 14 bags of leaves it wasn't enough after they break down, I still bought two trucks of compost.

Yes Khalid a little bit of both. Yes I use the leaves for both too. Elaine Ingham says mix in a 4' fenced area. Leaves and stalks and garden prunings then take one of your Terra cotta compositions and mix it in and wet it. (The lemons are the 10% nitrogen source. Maybe chop the lemons an mix with the wood ash.). When the temperature in the center of pile gets 65° c with a compost thermometer then turn it.

That's the Elaine Ingham way. It takes a lot of money to take the Elaine Ingham training. I have not taken her classes yet. Here is her in a one hour teleconference about urban composting. https://youtu.be/fnXsw5EzuM8

(I don't have a compost thermometer) but I never have to worry about my pile getting to hot. I just turn it often and hope I get it to the right temperature to kill diseases and weed seeds.

I cover mine to keep the warm moisture in and cold moisture from getting in.

Khalid do you cover yours to keep it wet and keep warm moisture from getting and drying out ? Do you cover your Terra cotta compost?

There are two ways thermal composting by bacteria and fungi and vermicomposting, In the pile, both happen.

Has anyone had experience with those 3 in 1 blower/vacuum/mulcher things? I am not very inspired to work hard, but was thinking I would vacuum up the blackspot leaves from the ground and blow/vacuum them off of the stalks and canes. Then I'll borrow a weed whacker for the random stuff and mulch that up?

I might not end up composting like y'all but I'll do the baby step and pretend to make my own mulch.

Yes, I had seen the crew using that by the town-homes .. I hate that tool, it's so noisy, and when I saw the guys using it to blow the leaves off the sidewalk, I thought to myself: "I could do it faster with a broom." It's much louder than a lawn-mower.

When I used chopped up rose bush parts for mulch from the chopper bag I think it gave my roses diseases. I should have composted them to compost away the disease fungi and bacteria.

Thanks for the details Sam. Got it. Now I am waiting for the leaves to fall down naturally. It has started but still many of them have leaves. There are many pine trees around but they won't shed needles. However, I can find enough pine needles under the pine trees. Are they Good?

Here's a picture out on the lake where I live . I took this from the boat this autumn.

Sam, that pic. made my day ... that looks like paradise to me. GORGEOUS. I tested few months old white-pine-needles in red-cabbage juice, it's neutral pH, didn't change the color whatsoever. But pine bark turns pink, toward vinegar's range.

I really like vermicomposting. I must have millions of worms. I keep composting in the winter...just shove more food into the bins. It is a little tedious when I want to use the compost, because you have to separate the worms out. Although, I'm thinking that now because I have so many worms (2 systems with 6 huge trays altogether) I might have one tray that I don't add food to, once it's composted, and wait until all the worms either migrate up to the other layer or die. That takes a bit longer, but that's okay When they're left that long, the soil is very well composted.

My husband made one system for me. Pretty crude but it works. I haven't had a finished load of soil out of that one, because he made it for me late in the season.

Carol

It seems I don't need any winter protection for my roses this year. They are growing like crazy during December..... so many fresh shoots and buds

This Whisky Mac bush outstanding and I am waiting for a splash in next week.

Question from Straw: We normally prune in last week Dec or first week January in Islamabad. If a rose is growing like that.... should I delay pruning and start it only when leaves start falling naturally or should I do it at a fixed time (first week january) regardless of anything because it will start getting warm in mid march again

Glad to hear from you, Carol .. I love worms .. I get leaves to feed the worms below. Please let me know how your ??? that tracks the steps & mobility per day. I'm thinking about getting a cheap pedometer, but I'll wait to hear from you on your high-tech-gear.

I have a VivoSmart HR from Garmin.

I really like it!!! I've lost 2 lbs in under a week. It's $200 here in Canada - probably cheaper in the U.S.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2495579,00.asp

I love Sam's picture, it really makes me happy .. gives hope & joy to life.

Thanks, Carol, for the info. I'm happy that you lost weight, that really motivate me to exercise more. Losing 2 lbs a week took me lots of work. That's when I did 1 mile on the treadmill until I sweat ... everyday. It's warm here, from 50's to 60 F, or 15 C. I was whacking my sand cherry stump with a pick-ax .. got so warm that I had to wear short & T-shirt. I can see lumber-jack burns lots of calories. I think hard-labor, or exercise until one raises body-temp. is a fast way to lose weight.

I checked on pedometer, even the $20 one doesn't measure vertical exercise, as in climbing the stairs, of my jumping on the shovel to dig dirt, or my using a pick-ax to chop stumps. So I do reverse-calculation, I set a timer on my computer to it rings after 15 min. The only time I sit down is in front of the computer or TV. I'm limited to 45 min. of TV per day with my family, but I have to control my time on the computer.

What I like about having a podometer is that I'm a short term goal person. I have a hard time caring about what happens in the future as in :

- I'll get diabetes (runs in the family)

- I'll be too heavy to walk

- I'll have heart problems,

etc.

The Vivosmart HR - gives me daily charts, graphs, etc. that I can see right now, not 10 month from now weight loss. Every day I get visual colored charts/graphs that give me immediate gratification. I love it!

Another good thing about the heart rate technology is that my heart rate can go up too high too fast. The other day I went on the treadmill for 45 min in the morning, then did my exercising with my trainer, then did treadmill in the evening about an hour after my training. It was too much. I could do it, and I wanted to do it, but my heart rate went up to 189. So I've decided to not do the full 10,000 steps just do half on days when the trainer comes. I wouldn't have known that without the heart monitor.

Plus, when I go for walks, there are a lot of ups and downs near my house. So it's like doing stairs, and my heart rate goes up too 150, and I know if I don't slow down, it's going to go through the roof.

Carol :)

Yes, Carol, we all need rewards otherwise we get discouraged. Posting in this forum is my reward, I have you, Carol, as a good example of hard-work despite handicaps. I'd just got done feeding my kid (10 pm now).

My kid has a bad flu and cough non-stop every min., plus she has a loose front tooth .. it took her 1 hour just to eat 1 cup of soup. She would cough, take 1 teaspoon, wiggle her tooth, cough, wiggle her tooth .. it takes forever. She lost 5 lbs. in a week from her cold. I give her 1 cup of kefir and it takes her 30 min. to finish it. So dinner took 1 1/2 hours !!

I have a skinny sister .. she's in her 70's .. thin for her entire life thanks to the same habit of slow-eating. She would eat, yak (talk non-stop), eat, talk, eat, talk .. takes her 1 hour just for a meal. She got that idea of you have to chew your food for at least so many min. before swallowing !! When I was my lowest weight, under 100 lbs .. I spent twice more time eating, it took forever to chew on an apple, or wash watercress and chew on the stems, those raw kohlrabi took forever to chew. Satiety results from chewing action.

I ran a test today: cook rice and black beans .. and had that with salmon. Lots of chewing from the beans. Was so full that I only ate 1/2 portion of my salmon. Plus save $$$ since beans is cheap.

I'm sorry your daughter is sick. Can be very frustrating to have dinner last that long. You are very patient. That's very good!

Carol

Carol: She eats in front of a TV .. if she eats in front of me, I get impatient and keep nagging her. How I wish my entire family get the flu-shot earlier !! this came from Google news today: "earlier influenza vaccination is linked to fewer flu symptoms and less time away from work, a Mexican study suggests. “It’s a straightforward phenomenon: it takes three weeks for antibodies to develop, thus the earlier you get vaccinated the better,” said senior study author Dr. Adrian Camacho-Ortiz, of the University Hospital Dr. Jose Eleuterio Gonzalez in Mexico.

Khalid: Fantastic bush-shots of Whiskey Mac (lovely foliage) and The McCartney rose. It takes tons of water to generate a stem, so I would prune BEFORE tons of rain coming. Rule of thumb is to prune below a set of 5-leaflets, but who has time to count ?? It's easier to prune the skinniest stem first .. anything smaller than a pencil won't be productive.

Pruning when the leaves fall? That's when the roots are driest. Take always warm California, they had a drought for years, which result in roses coming down with diseases due to shortage of water. Hoovb, an experienced rosarian, stated that she pruned her roses very short during drought, so the root has less stems to support. I agree. I prune my roses when THEY ARE DORMANT, or leaves are zapped by frost.

For warm climate, leaves fall down signaling a dormant period. So I would prune when roses are in a dormant period, and WAY BEFORE heavy rain. Pruning when roses are resting (dormant) makes more sense than pruning when rain occurs.

Yeah, we should have got the flue shot too. Too late now. :)

I'm disappointed in my weight progress. I know I'm just starting, but I lost 2 lbs this week - which is great - but we went out to a movie last night, and I gained 2 lb. This is what I ate:

cabbage salad that I made

1 choc. chip cookie my daughter made

lettuce wrap with veggies and chicken when we ate out + half a glass of coke.

regluar popcorn with extra butter and a coke.

That wiped out all week of 75,000 steps.

Today I went out for an hour and a half walk - took 8,000 steps approx. Came back and my achilles tendons are sore again, cause I have to wear my boots instead of my memory foam shoes that cured my achilles tendon problem. It's so frustrating!! Grrrr!

Carol

Straw: I pray for quick recovery and better health of your daughter. And thanks for the advice on pruning.

msdorkgirl: Lovely shots of cannonball plant. This is the first time I have seen this plant. Lovely flowers, is the fruit eatable?

Wow! I am so lucky to have you, Msgirl, posting such rare flowers Cannonball. THANK YOU. I have never seen that in my entire life !! I watched a Discovery-show on Hawaii, where a Botanist was climbing the cliff to collect some flowers, which they say is near extinction. There are lots of near-extinct plant-species in Hawaii.

Carol: I see staying healthy as a habit to keep everyday, rather than a goal .. I can lose 20 lbs, in 6 months (by exercising like a maniac), and gain back easily if I stray from that habit. So I watched the habits of skinny people: like a really nice roommate in college, really fit & tiny waist who devoured the entire head of lettuce for lunch, and a can of soup ... She would open a can of green beans, and snack on it !! Or my skinny sisters: one would have a grapefruit and an orange or lunch, the other would snack on a cucumber, and a 3rd sister chews forever before she swallow.

Recently I acquired a habit of drinking lime-squeezed water (zero sugar) ... Seaweed, an ex-poster in Organic Rose kept telling me that FRESH lime and lemons are alkaline, didn't believe her until now. At first it was YUCK, but everything is an acquired taste, and after 1 month, I prefer it over sugary juice. Same with potassium chloride (lite salt), at first it was icky, now I prefer it over regular salt. My kid HATED Kefir, until this week ... she has no choice but Kefir due to her coughing & loose baby tooth .. now she asks for Kefir.

I like easy to keep habits (or cheap habits) ... lime is only 10 cent. Easy to nuke a sweet potato for 6 min. as a snack before bedtime. Skinny people have things that they consistently eat & same routine.. once dated a guy who's 6 feet tall, 145 lbs .. he would have the same food & same exercise routine, like a robot !!

I read a book by a trainer who trained Halle Berry, the book was 8 min. a day toward fit. He listed boring fixed food to eat during week: grapefruit, beans, high-fiber cereal, salads, Ezekiel bread, boiled eggs, sweet potato, fish, etc. But the person can splurge one day out of 7 days, and HAVE to do hard-exercise 8 min, a day, 3 times a day. Shopping for 3 hours until my feet drop isn't fun, but it's fun to go out and whack on that sandcherry-tree, 10 min. interval, 3 times a day. That bumped up my metabolism & heat up my body for faster fat burn.

The Biggest Loser show is my favorite TV-program. There's 2 groups, one won the chance to party in Florida, the other group had to stay behind in the gymn. The group in Florida lost more weight than the group who tortured themselves in the gym. The Florida group would party, relax, have fun & eat yummy food... then do HARD-STAIR CLIMBING few times a day. The other group tied themselves in the gym, and got tired & burnt out.

When someone walk at a steady pace, the body goes to comfort zone & preserve the fat. But when someone do interval-training: take a nap & relax, then exercise REALLY HARD for 10 min, take a break, then bump up the metabolism again for 10 min. That burns more calories than 3 hours of steady-exercise at a slow pace. That's what my skinny husband does, he exercises for a short time (1/2 hour), but at high speed until he sweats.

Take cooking for example: it would take more energy & more fuel, to heat a pot for 10 minutes, cool down by putting ice cubes, then heat up again for 10 min, then cool down. That consumes more energy than a crock-pot which heats food on low for 2 to 4 hours. Crock-pot is the most energy-efficient way, while high-heat gas, with the cover off, loses lots of energy.

Yeah, you two are right. I just felt so virtuous eating all that salad stuff, and then when it didn't pay off....

Thanks!

Carol

Thanks Msgirl. That's Lake George NY

I just watched 50 first dates which was filmed in Hawaii. I love that movie.

Adam Sandler is my favorite movie star .. we laughed so hard when we watched Billy Madison.

Sam you live at a dream place. My dream place is a house just next to a lake which is full of fish like trout, bass, mahseer and snakeheads. Wow.... If I were living at such a place I would go fishing every morning before going to office. Thanks for posting the pics..... no harm in posting more pics like this. BTW, do you go fishing?

Khalid: My husband's hobby is fishing. We have a man-made lake within walking distance, plus a river dam. I can's get into fishing, I'm too impatient and too hyper. My husband is a good example of a balance life. He exercises rigorously only 1/2 hour a day .. most of the time he relaxes like fishing & watching TV.

He has sweet treats, but very tiny amount. He has a fast-burning metabolism, and does everything at a fast-pace. When he walks, he walks really faster (faster than my jogging !!) .. when he sits down, he would shakes his legs non-stop. The coffee he consumes in the morning speeds up his metabolism. He drinks 3 to 4 cups in the morning.

I no longer drink coffee nor tea .. the caffeine mess up my sleep. Brewer's yeast & soymilk makes me just as hyper as caffeine .. I have been drinking that stuff to prevent catching my kid's cold. Got really hyper this morning ... cleaned & vacuum the entire house (4 bedrooms, 3 bath, plus stairways). I meant to do only 8 min. of fast-burning, but I ended up almost 2 hours. .. Thanks to Carol's honesty, I remember that neat trick of 8 min. fast-burning, 3 times a day. I set a timer for 15 min. in front of the computer. It's easier to keep track of when I sit down, than when I run around.

Straw: Good to hear your hubby is an angler. I was very short tempered when I was young. Fishing over the years, along with few other things, has enabled me to control my temper though even now I lose my cool sometimes. It allows me to reflect upon things that happen in a very peaceful and serine environment (fishing locations are mostly very scenic and pristine). It's very important to reflect upon what one does. It also taught me to be patient..... the capacity for waiting for good things to happen and they do happen. One just has to be little patient and keep his belief intact...

best regards

I also really loved 50 First Dates!! The music really gets to me too.

Carol

WARNING ON FLU SHOT: vertigo & dizziness & nausea vomiting, which I experienced after 1 week of getting flu shot (on Dec. 19) .. it takes more than week before bad-reaction occurs.

My neighbor warned me about that, how she & her daughter (a nurse) have tingling in their ears after the flu-shot. I took the flu shot last Sat. Dec. 19, it takes more than a week for antibodies to build up. For the past 2 days, that affected the equilibrium in my ears, I get extremely dizzy when I lie down, with vertigo (ceiling rotating). Just horrible !!

That's worse than the real flu !! I also feel so nauseated and vomited for the last 2 days ... at first I thought it's bad food-combo, but I checked the internet and many others have the same problems with flu vaccine. I'm having a low-grade fever, nausea & tummy ache.

If anyone gets dizzy easily, flu-shot may not be the best. Vertigo is the worst thing anyone could have, it's like getting off from a roller-coaster every time I get up, or lay my head down. When I change my head position, I feel nauseated and want to throw up.

Nurses are reporting that they get vertigo 6 months straight after the flu-shot, see below link:

http://www.mdjunction.com/forums/menieres-disease-discussions/introductions-personal-stories/207497-vertigo-and-flu-vaccine

Good grief! That sounds worse than the flu. I've have really bad vertigo before - it's terrible.

Carol

I have never taken flu shots in my entire life. When I was a kid, my mother preferred herbal treatment and we did get flu once in a while but get over it in a week or so. During flu, treatment with selected food and herbs used to provide lot of relief. We would only take medicine if the things prolong or go very bad. Normally it would be over in a week or so.

When I grew up, I somehow developed a habit of avoiding use of medicine to last limit and depend more on prevention, use of selective food as a habit and use of herbs etc. Even now, I rarely take medicine and take it only if things go bad. If I correctly recall, last tablet of medicine I took was over 6 months back when I had a really bad stomach and last injection I got was to fill my vaccination card when I was travelling abroad. Don't remember getting injected for any kind of sickness in past more than 5 years.

I regularly use black tea with ginger and cinnamon. Honey (with black pepper if I have a source throat), cardamom (small and large), garlic (as part of all our curries), onions (an integral part of our curry), as well as a few more herbs, spices etc (I only know their local names). Generally I stay ok.

Winter protection update for my region here in the Adirondacks. Freezing temperatures are setting in. I mulched the beds with shredded leaves before Thanksgiving.

Dec 31 It will be consistently cold. I have had my leaves in bags in the shed and the garage to keep them cold and dry. Dec 31 is the day I will put the leaves around the roses inside the wind protection areas I constructed , to keep them cold and protected from brutal north winds.

Sam: It will be steady 20's for my Chicagoland too. I dumped away my buckets of rain-water, icy-cold .. I should had dumped them earlier, but the flu shot made me sick.

Carol: Vertigo (dizziness & spinning head) is worse than the REAL FLU of coughing for a month ... like what I had last March. Stiff neck & vertigo & vomiting are commonly reported side-effects of flu-shot in nurses' forum.

Carol, how's your exercise & keeping track of steps going? Even though I was sick for the past 4 days, I managed to do 1/2 mile of treadmill per day, plus 15 min. of elliptical & some weight lifting. Total of 1/2 hour exercise .. the weather is awful: blizzard, icy snow. Big comfort: the treadmill gave me instant digital display when I achieved 1/2 mile mark. I re-post this info. in the next thread below, taking care for our health is more important than roses.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3579603/12-29-15-foods-to-lose-weight-daily-journal-toward-health-and-joy?n=6

Straw

I agree about taking care of our health and losing weight too. I had a flu shot once and it made me sick for a week sore throat because I have no tonsils they were removed so I don't have good defenses. It made me weak also.

I am hoping everyone is good. I think my Achilles is doing a little better.

We got 6" of snow.

Here is Karl winter protection.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/ezine.php?publicationID=687&js=0

And here is Cynthia's principles on winter protection.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1716072/principles-of-rose-winter-protection-in-cold-zones?n=9

Straw, yeah, I know. :) I've had terrible vertigo (I wasn't sick). It's horrible. Good for you in keeping up the exercise! I've had a rest from mine, because it wasn't working. It's okay now, and I'm back on the horse.

Samuel - what did you end up doing for your Achilles tendon?

Carol

Its still hurting right at the tendon insertion where it connect to the heel bone. I will have to go to the doctor. Its only the right one. I must have strained it and never healed.

Carol I have been trying ginger.

Khalid: I didn't see your message until I came back to this thread. Thank you for what you wrote: " I regularly use black tea with ginger and cinnamon. Honey (with black pepper if I have a source throat), cardamom (small and large), garlic (as part of all our curries), onions (an integral part of our curry), as well as a few more herbs, spices etc." All those have anti-viral and anti-bacterial .. I agree with using food as preventive medicine, rather than dangerous flu-shot (combining virus).

Carol: Glad to hear that you are back on schedule .. I am delighted to hear of your progress & success. It feels SO GOOD to have looser pants, and I wish everyone have that experience with daily exercise.

Sam: does your Achilles tendon hurt to wear shoes with heels? I don't like shoes with heels: one of my foot is shorter than the other. I actually do more exercise on the treadmill than outside ... I can wear my husband Walmart open-heel plastic clog, I insert a memory foam inside ... and wear that on the treadmill. I wear size 7 woman, but I need a BIG shoe to insert the thick $5 memory foam. The plastic clog has bigger toe-box than running shoe, plus no need for lacing.

Sam, I've never heard of ginger being used for something like that. I'm not good with herbs etc. though. :) I still think that getting the shoes with memory foam would work. But if your way is helping, then awesome! :)

Straw - well, I've gained weight over Christmas!! But, I'm dedicated to getting my 10,000 steps in, and the Christmas baking is almost all gone. I'm working on the last butter tart right now. :)

Thanks, Sam, for a great pic. showing how it's done: Smart idea to wrap burlap around wooden posts & fill with leaves ... I never thought about that.