Yesterday we surprised the kids and brought home a puppy!! They have been begging for one for years and we felt like the time was right to bring one home.

Meet Angus 🐕 He's a Golden Retriever/King Charles Cavalier Spaniel mix. He's 11 weeks old and currently weighs about 8 pounds, he should be around 35 pounds fully grown. I know it will be an adjustment for a while as he gets potty trained etc but we are so excited. 😂 Wish us luck! 🤪

Cheese is good! I ate a block of chipotle oven baked cheese with lunch yesterday and it was divine. I love it, but know that it halts any progress I'm making, and will even trigger eating in excess to where I'll gain weight. It's sad but I have accepted it. If I eat it in small quantities with a meal, it's ok, but I really have to work to keep it in check.

What's your favorite cheese? How do you incorporate it? Do you see negative results when eating it?

Happy Sunday! Sharing a video today from our week, one of the highlights. This was Wednesday evening church, normally they have a more casual prayer meeting where someone plays the guitar, but they were doing some construction in the fellowship hall so they had their prayer meeting in the sanctuary. No one was there to play the piano so my my Grandma did it, she's been playing the piano in church for probably 80 years.

For context, she's 88, she had a really bad fall 5 years ago now and hit her head and ended up with a lot setbacks, similar to having a stroke. She has a lot of dementia like symptoms also (I am sure related to her Type 2 diabetes), she really can't read music anymore, and she has trouble seeing well, and she needs to wear hearing aids to hear but hates wearing them, so on this night she didn't want to wear them. My 93 (almost 94) year old grandpa takes care of both of them on their farm. Anyway, on this night she sat down on the piano and led worship as people called ...

On Sunday I am starting a "12 week year". I just finished the book and I am hoping to dive in head first to help with some of my time management and general negative life moments lately. With moving my Mom, replacing all our carpet, painting, and garden my life is a hot mess. The point of a 12 week year is to break down your goals into manageable pieces and just basically build those habits. My one habit is to try to get back into alternate day fasting. I felt my best while during this last year along side of a BBBE way of eating. I will post daily for accountability as is recommended. In case anyone is interested my other goals include bringing peace into my home, building my crafty side business, and strength training with my son. 12 weeks puts me in the middle of September. In the end 1% better each day is the goal.

I made Laura's Chicken Salad and added the pickles. Like Laura said, this has to be liveable. I allow real cocoa, pickles and probably jalapeños. I believe if you track, dairy can be consumed in moderation. Been losing 2 lbs a week.

Happy Friday evening Family!
I thoroughly enjoyed my day off! After getting hubs off to work, I slept in my chair for another 2 hours until 7:30. It was wonderful!
I took a nice long time catching up on my Bible reading and drinking coffee on the screen porch where it was nice and cool.
I messed with my plants and then decided I had to clean up the winter clutter from the porch. That is when I knew I'm basically better. (Ears still plugged but a getting there.) I had no interest nor energy to clear it out before this. I had a bin of Christmas porch decorations to put away and the furniture was stacked in the corner and all the dust and debris!
I swept and wiped down the dust/cobwebs and arranged it all nicely. And wouldn't you know that husband of mine didn't even notice! 🤦‍♀️🙈😂 Which is ok, because I'm really the only one who uses it.

The rest of the day I did a little housework, laundry and kept an eye on the bulk water tank we were filling. It was uneventful except for a few ...