This and that

Yesterday was a rugby day. It was an "away" match, and we wound up at a field in Tibbetts Brook Park in Yonkers. The City of Yonkers doesn't generally give me a warm and comfy feeling, but I have to admit that this park was quite lovely. It was a slice of the country in the middle of an urban area.

The weather yesterday wasn't suitable for any outdoor activity. It was ridiculously hot and humid! It's one thing for the ruggers to be dripping with sweat, but my stomping up and down the sidelines with my camera doesn't normally leave me in such a state. Well, it did yesterday! My shirt was soaked through! And I'm not talking about underarms being soaked. I mean the whole thing! It was pasted to my back, and my chest was soaked. I felt so butch! ;) Even the tops of the short sleeves of the shirt were soaked! I needed to hit the shower, the moment I got home! (BTW, rugby photos will follow in later posts.)

In other news, our friends in Houston are just fine. Before the storm, I was trying to resist the urge to call and check on them. I tried, but I failed. I called them, and they assured me that they were safe in their home in Houston (and they haven't flooded in the past). Then, last night, we again reached them, and they said they made it through just fine, although they are without power. And they say it's hot and humid with no breeze, so being without power will make for a miserable week.

They estimate that it will be at least a week before they can get out to their (almost ours, as I mentioned in the last post) beach house and see what has happened to it, but they don't have high hopes. Based on what we've seen online, I can't say I blame them. Here's a photo from the Crystal Beach area (the house was only about 100 yards from the beach)...



There's no way to be sure if the particular stretch of coastline where the house sits suffered the same fate, but this article from the local Galveston paper doesn't leave much hope for homes in Crystal Beach!

On a happier note, I'm trying a new approach to dieting. Before Marc and I met, way back in the last century, I had lost a lot of weight on a sort of low-carb diet (more balanced than Atkins, but still mostly focused on limited carbohydrates). Unfortunately, over the years, I put most of the weight back on. Since my earlier success, every diet I've done has been focused on restricting the types of foods I eat, but that approach really hasn't worked (except for that first time).

Recently, I've decided to try something simpler: counting calories. Yes, the simple, old approach of eating fewer calories than I burn every day. Radical, huh? Well, it should work, and I sure hope it does! To help me in this effort, I have two things: Marc, my wonderful husband who also is a magician in the kitchen. I also have a website called Calorie Count Plus (formerly Calorie Count, and I'm not entirely sure what the "Plus" is). I like tracking things, and this lets me keep tabs on what I eat. Aside from putting numbers to my efforts--which gives me some satisfaction on its face--it also helps keep me honest. Despite being obese, I'm actually pretty honest in my dieting efforts, and I put a lot of effort into it. So the "keep me honest" part is really more a matter of making sure I don't forget anything I eat. Yes, some days my memory sucks so much I actually can forget what I ate that very day.

So wish me luck! I really want to be thinner. I don't need to be ripped like a certain hottie I could name, but I want to be closer to the condition I was in when Marc and I met.