Christmas Eve At 4:30am

I did not plan this. I did not go to bed that early, causing me to be wide awake at 4:07am. At 4:23am I hear a loud Bloodhound whine, not quite to the level of a howl. Now I know the moon was full last night and with no clouds the field was lit up like an airport parking lot. Had Stella heard something in the darkness of "oh dark thirty" ?? Or did my wrist move enough in my sleep to light up my Garmin VivoSport, (free) waking Stella up.

Whatever the reason, I was wide awake and knew a return to sleep in the land of the most bizarre dreams was not going to happen. Shit! I turn the lights on as the hounds walk through the kitchen to the door to be let outside. Heidi has to do her morning pee, Stella just knows she is that much closer to her morning kibble. They go out, I pour dog food, they eat, I make coffee, they finish and go BACK TO BED, I sit at the computer ... daily routine.

Will the blog design change AGAIN before you even open your eyes??

Nope, I'm finished. I have migrated back to my favorite colors and I like the design. There is just something about dark gray or black backgrounds that doesn't hit me hard enough to keep them. I have three columns that now line up in perfect order and will crop the small thumbnail photo if needed, just to keep those blocks lined up. I've been told the photos look clear and sharp, even when they are about 1" or 300 pixels narrower.

So it's Christmas Eve, too early in the morning and I have yet to buy my annual Christmas gift for myself. That usually is something electronic. I can't decide what I want or even if I want anything this year. Does that sound familiar? The indecision, not the gift.

If I was really brave I'd drive over to the local Super Walmart today, grab a 64oz cola and a box of a dozen donuts (joking) and people watch. You know, those shoppers that are in a panic because they are less than 24 hours away from their holiday stress maxing out. They have either not bought gifts for everyone on their list or they may have bought the wrong one. Stress, stress, and more stress. They can't seem to find that "perfect" gift for someone.

Not only would that throw my way of eating into the ozone with a sugar buzz not felt since ... can't remember ... but it would also put my car in danger just sitting in the parking lot. Or I might get "T-boned" as I tried to leave. People drive crazy when they are in a panic and have less than 24 hours to make a decision.

Most of you cannot imagine what a Christmas is for a self-described hermit, by choice. Single, of little faith and every year doesn't know what he will do on a day that use to be filled with all the Christmas stuff. The fact is, it has never bothered me. While living out west I remember these two or three days around Christmas spent on a beach in Baja, skiing in Breckenridge, or Stevens Pass, maybe heading up Mt. Baker as far as the roads would let us.

I remember four Christmases specifically where I was in the middle of 120 days straight at sea, on an aircraft carrier. It was a 'no-fly' day on all four of them (different years) but  just enough time on two of them for a USO group of Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders to fly out 8,000 miles away to wish us a Merry Christmas. They were out to boost the spirits of 5,000-6,000 Navy personnel with their variety show, as well as dip out ice cream for the "Ice Cream Social" afterwards ... 5,000+ men ... that's a lot of ice cream.

For those of you that are not NFL fans and have no idea what a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader was then and is now, you will have to do a Google, Bing, Yahoo, or DuckDuckGo internet search, click on the 'image' link for "Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader".

I don't believe their "cheer" uniforms have changed much in the last 30 years. You need to remember what they look like to really grasp where I am going with this story. Just picture 5,000-6,000 men on one large Naval vessel, who have been at sea for over two months and closer to three months straight. Then picture how long those lines must have been for 5,000+ men/boys to get a bowl of ice cream, dipped and handed to you personally by a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader .... Ha Ha.

It took hours waiting in line that weaved from the mess desk, up narrow steep stairs,  three stories up and out into the hangar bay. The lines winding back and forth for as far as the eye could see. Let just say the two to three hour wait was well worth it. I was just a table width (2ft?) away from beautiful women, "in uniform", the first female seen in person in over 90 days in some cases. LOL

When you have Christmas Eves and Days like that, it's no wonder I have no clue what I want to do today and tomorrow here in 'the tropics', is it?? No, all joking aside, there were more than a few Christmases in the past where I wasn't that enthused even when celebrating the day with others.

Although I don't send out cards, I do receive a few. Sadly a couple of them were not sent this year, just a reminder of how short life can really be. Enjoy each day and be thankful for what you have. You don't have to be religious to give thanks.

Well that's it for my holiday stories. I am now scanning my brain waves to see what else I want to say. I know there were things not written in yesterday's post because I couldn't remember.

Back to the holiday of Christmas.

I know the reasons for Christmas. I understand all of that. Greed and profit ruined it for me when I look back for the reason(s). The more the stores would fill up with Christmas decorations, wrapping paper, candy, bows, lights, etc ... earlier and earlier each year, the more I lost my enthusiasm for Christmas. It wasn't what they were filling the stores up with but it was just too damn early!!!

One thing I find interesting in this small town, that I live outside of, the few neighbors that line each side of the highway .... there is hardly any outdoor lighting compared to years ago.

Whereas every house toward town use to be loaded with outdoor Christmas lights, this year there is only ONE. They have a small display that lines the front edge of their roof. I find that in a way sad but remember I am not helping the cause either, so what can I say.

A small town that use to flood the downtown courthouse square with Christmas lights has decreased to almost nothing. The only lights shown at night are now wrapped around the lamp posts and not even around all four sides of the courthouse square. Is it budget limitations or lack of interest?

Within those four sides of the town square, vacant stores are scattered. The block west of the square are ALL vacant and rundown. That is what happens when the economy changes some will say but I beg to differ in that opinion. It is what happens when owners of those empty buildings are owned not by locals but by investors in Indianapolis and as far away as Chicago.

They don't have an interest in town development, just a profit. Like those stores clearing out their landscaping section to put in wall-to-wall Christmas decorations in October, two months before tomorrow. Money, money, money, profit, profit, profit.

So yes, the feeling of Christmas left me a long time ago. Greed and profit ...

I saw the other day that the USA had the 4th warmest November in the history of keeping records. I can look back through the blog of seven years and see that the weather comes and goes. One year it's warm like now, upper 40's and other years I showed pictures of deep snow. I remember 10 or 12 years ago, hmmm maybe more, where all I did was shovel deep snow every day just to survive another day. It was cold but it was fun.

Holiday meals also come and go. I can cook everything you would see in a family portrait on a card or tv commercial. I have in the past, but almost every time I would eat too much ... for days ... and feel terrible because it was not my normal way of eating. My portion control would be out of control, there would be no control ... thus added pounds, constant heartburn and sleepless nights.

I have thought about cooking a "Mini version" with smaller quantities and help with that portion control. Wouldn't I need some full-sized pies for desert? What's a Christmas meal without pies for desert? Or all of that fudge, chocolate or peanut butter?

I remember the last holiday meal I cooked. All the hounds felt they needed to supervise my kitchen. As they stood staring at my every move, giving me barely enough room to walk. The closer the food got to being finished, the longer their drools hung from their jowls. Imagine fighting off three or four hounds to try to eat? Even now with two hounds, I have to watch my step with a plate of food. They will trip you if they have to, anything for food.

So I guess, these next few days will be about like the other 362-363 days I've had this year. I'll read some, live on the computer some, a movie or ballgame or two. Stella and I will take two to three walks per day. Nothing much out of the ordinary.

I guess I could put the big tv sized picture of a burning fireplace and stream Christmas music thorough my old but loud stereo ... but there would be a need for candy, pies, and cooked food to really get in the groove.

2015

2016

2017

2018

Tonight as usual, a hound and I will stand outside late at night staring at the open skies. Under a full moon this year, it will only be Stella joining me this year. In the past it did not matter how cold it was, I dressed accordingly. There is something about doing that at midnight, something thoughtful and moving in a way. While Heidi will be in a deep sleep on the couch. I'll remember the people who are not here this year ... I know too many of them.

Sorry for the rambling but what else can you do at 4:30am when you feel like writing.

Can a non-religious but spiritual, non-celebrator of Christmas say "Merry Christmas" as a reply to friends???

The photos scattered throughout the post today were from past years on December 24 or 25. There are probably many more I could choose from but my search through 55,000 photos only were "Dec 24" and "Dec 25".

Every day I label the first photo of all the photos I've taken, like this "yy mmm dd" .... in different groups. Meaning, the dogs separately, the surrounding areas, the immediate area and anything exciting like deer or butterflies. Yes, Apple tries to do that for me automatically but come on??? Who can do it better, me or Apple?  LOL

I can tell it's going to be a great day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.

The Changes Continue With Me

It was a day of changes Saturday as I made a couple of mistakes that I mentioned in my previous post. A lot of them were blog changes but some of the small changes with me still continued into this morning. I guess it's one of those moments where my brain might be in the overdrive mode, where I cannot make up my mind what I want in the blog design. Plus I can't make up my mind on what to do on anything. No big deal, this is a common occurrence with me.

I am going to try something different on this post, let me know how you like it. I am going to put a little commentary about the photos listed and will wait until the end to write what's on my mind or as I call it ... 'rambling'.



It was still fairly dark this morning just like the past two days. I planned on waiting until 9:00am before starting the walk but Stella had other ideas. I heard her walk across the hardwood floor in the bedroom from her 'after breakfast' nap. That plan of waiting an hour was gone as she stood at the doorway of my computer room, whining. It was 8:03am, her normal time.

She was in the tracking mode again this morning. Signs of deer traffic were all over the field. I could see fresh hoof prints that had dug into the ground through the thick grass. I like these mid-40's temperatures so early in the morning, with only two days before Christmas.

This warm weather isn't something new. It was Christmas Day just three years ago where Winston sat outside looking for snow and wondering why it was so warm. He had become paralyzed from the middle of his back and rear legs just six days prior. To this day it is still a kick in the gut when I think about it.

Instead of trying to keep Stella on or near my path, I decided today I would follow her. Her nose was right on point, in the middle of deer tracks, with those hoof prints I mentioned but also a couple of other signs I'll get to.

I am not a deer hunter, nor a deer expert but I am assuming with the way the tall grass was pressed so close to the ground, that is a place where a deer might have laid down to sleep? I'm serious when I ask that because I have no clue. I know my answer is just a few keystrokes and clicks away if I asked that same question on DuckDuckGo image search. I thought I'd show just how little knowledge I have when it comes to any kind of wildlife.

Here is another more prominent 'bed', only this time the grass looked like it was almost damp compared to the grass around it. Something had been laying here an hour or two before we got there. You can see the two hoof prints, looking as if it dug in as the deer tried to stand up.

A poor quality photo but shows that Stella is on the move. That is rare for her and I can assure you she will not move that fast on any afternoon walk. Never

I tried getting as far ahead as possible  so I could possibly get a photo of her running. By the time I turned she was already running at me and she was so quick I barely got this photo and the one below.

Obviously she wanted to get way ahead of me.

As I walk on the path you can barely see on the right edge of the photo, towards home, this small path crosses both of our paths moving left to right in this picture. It is the deer path from the woods, across the field, to the woods behind my neighbor's house.

As we slowly make our way home ... Stella isn't done with her exploration. Too many scents to smell and catalog in her computer database called 'the bloodhounds brain'.

I knew something was strange when she abruptly moved from the center of the field heading to the backyard over to the path I take back home. She rarely does that, so something is up.

While taking some other photos of the woods, sky and my house roof I did not notice she had moved left of the path into the "land of burs". This is blurry but will give you some idea what those burs look like attached to her coat.

I was trying to hold her with one hand and take a photo with the Nikon D3200 in my other hand. She was covered with them on the other side. She thought she was going inside with all of them attached. :) :) :)

Just like I said I would yesterday, after the IU game was over a little after 8pm, I slid back into my desk chair to play around in the blog "dashboard", looking for that 3-column theme and photos just as big if not bigger when the post is opened up to read. At least you can sort or filter the 300+ themes to choose from by what you want. Not in detail but just some basic things. I tried this ... "3-columns, page-wide images". The number of themes to look at went from over 300 to 86.

Long story short, by 12:35am I had a theme I thought I liked. It was soooo much different from this one but it did have the two things I wanted, 3-columns listing 9 past posts on the homepage and images that were even larger than what you see here Sunday.
(as of 10:18am)
Yet as I looked it over there was just something I didn't like. Was it the all black background or that the three columns did not line up exactly perfect because some of the thumbnail photos were different sizes? Stuff like that drives me crazy, similar to a crooked picture on the wall ... anybody's wall.

With the lights turned off, computer turned off and both hounds asleep, my overactive brain was wide awake and still working at warp speed. 15 minutes later I jump out of bed, lights on, computer on .... yes, I was changing the theme back to what I had at 8pm Saturday and right now (unless I change it again Sunday). {I changed it a little after 2pm on Sunday}  Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!

With the different theme design I had to quickly edit my last nine posts, taking out the feature image, then installing the 'excerpt' so the posts would be summarized on this themes homepage. This morning with some help from the Wordpress techies I was able to install some CSS code to remove the categories that were above the titles of each individual post.

Here is the 'sick' thing with me. The blog looks good to me. It's easy to read, it's bright and easy to navigate BUT .... I still have a small urge but big enough to have me look at other blog themes (design) and possibly make changes today. Somebody take my computer away from me!!!

Oh, that is not all I can't decide on. That slight confusion of never making my mind up occurred all day Saturday. I went back to logging in all my food, at least for now. This morning I brought out the small container of granulated sugar for two level teaspoons per cup of coffee. (interesting results).

Those results were immediate and surprising. I tried the sugar again because I didn't want to wait for a month or a year to see if there was a difference. I found out something before I even finished my second cup of coffee. By adding that sugar I was feeling a little indigestion. Enough to notice the difference from the past four to five days. I'll not be using sugar anymore in my coffee, nor will I buy anymore granulated sugar nor substitutes.

I even thought about starting a new blog that was subject specific ... sports!!! What am I or was I thinking ???? It has to be the 'winter mentality' that keeps me in front of this monitor bouncing from one idea to the next while I am doing something else. I need outdoor projects to do.

At least the hounds are sane and keep to their routines without much change. They are mentally stable and know what they want, what they like, etc. They don't bounce from idea to idea. They only get confused if it is raining outside and they have to dump their tanks. Their eating habits and sleeping habits never change although the spots they sleep might.

Hmmmmm do I post this now or wait until tonight with pictures of Heidi. I can do what I use to ... post mid-morning and then include any afternoon photos on tomorrows blog. See, it's questions like that make me move in circles. Don't ask what I want to eat for lunch, I have no idea and if I did I would not be able to decide. How screwed up is that?

It's
the last daythe 16th week of 17 weeks of the regular season in the NFL. I'll watch the Colts today and all the playoffs. I have yet to watch a College bowl game because none of the match-ups interested me. It looks like I'll start watching them about every day/night starting December 26th until the final National Championship game. That will stabilize my brain a little to where I will not have time to be making blog changes but I will have time to publish a blog post.

No worries, it's all good today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

A Day Of Mistakes

I basically wasted my afternoon today. It took only five hours for me to mess things up with the blog as much as possible, then fix them. I am usually pretty careful when I am working behind the scenes of my blog. Today I made a couple of errors that cost me some additional time. Of course the hounds didn't change their routine. It was a cool 41° but they both spent some time outside this afternoon. Stella took me out for two walks and with a camera in the afternoon walk.

It all started when I thought I wanted to change the blog design back to where it had a front page with three columns showing the most recent and past blog posts. The number of posts on that page is something I could decide. It's like I said the other day, every blog I have checked out does not have all that I want.

Probably what I want the most are wide large photos when you are reading a post. With the current theme and the one I have used since Thursday morning, it has photos 8-1/4" wide. That looks good on a large monitor but may not make much difference if you are reading the blog from your tablet or smartphone. I always check the blog site on my iPad and iPhone to see how it looks for readers.

The blog title looks pretty messed up on an iPhone 8+ but if I try to fit it on one line to fit the phone, it makes it too small on a desktop monitor.  On Wednesday I had found a one column blog with 10" photos but as Ed pointed out, the blogs listed did not have dates. I found out after looking at it, there were also no dates in the archives either. So I changed it to what you see now.

I know somewhere out of 386 themes to choose from, there has to be one that has a front page showing three columns of blog posts AND have blog photos at least as large as I have now, 8-1/2" wide.

Three columns of blog posts to see on the front page or a long list of them?

So besides of 'activating' a different theme I was working too soon, thus making it look much different if any of you stopped by during that short period of time, I also deleted the post with all of the butterflies I posted a few days ago. I didn't try to re-write the original post but added all the photos back to a post earlier today, with a short paragraph.

I also went back to logging in my food in MyFitnessPal app. Stopping that logging of food will be a slow process if I do it at all. I have taken breaks from using that app in the past, so anything is possible.

As we finished our walk I could see Heidi heading toward the door. She didn't see us coming. I called her names a couple of times and had a loud barking basset hound by the time Stella and I reached the yard. She must have been cold.

She is a lot more vocal since her surgery in September for an impacted tooth, plus another tooth pulled after finding a problem while cleaning them. Today she was named an "Official Food Beggar". I was eating nothing more than a raw avocado and she moved off the couch to my feet, looking up barking at me. She doesn't know that she has the wrong approach and the wrong kind of food.

I'll continue my search for a 3-column front page, no sidebars and photos that are at least 8-1/4" wide when you are reading the post or scrolling through the photos. I have an IU game to watch but after that I most likely will be back on the computer looking through themes, IF I can even find one as much as I like this one.

Found one that did both ... columns ... large photos at 10pm Saturday Night

This is the 3rd post of the day from 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Butterflies Fly Away & Come Back

While trying to edit the post with all the butterfly photos from a few days ago, I inadvertently deleted that page. So all of those butterflies in that photo have flown back to the blog. Enjoy ....

Living Without Granulated Sugar

It's been less than a week since I decided to tighten up my eating habits and after 25 years of drinking coffee (late starter), I hid the granulated sugar container out of sight and started having my daily two cups of coffee ... black. I don't have any historic revelations to speak of but I have noticed some differences. One is my loss of appetite. Tuesday - Friday I ate less than a 1,000 calories per day without intentionally starving myself.

A shock to me was that I enjoyed the taste of coffee without sugar. Now before you email me or list in the comments section all the substitutes I could use to replace granulated sugar ... save yourself the time and trouble. I am not interested in any of that crap. I don't care what it looks like or what it does. Years ago I tried all of it and had coffee come back out through my nose. The taste of coffee with those "fake" sugars simply sucked.

Like I wrote the last week, I'm not attempting the Keto carbohydrate theory. I know that there is no way in hell I am going to eat less than 20 grams of carbs per day. NO WAY !!!!! I mean one banana alone is 27g of carbs. No, I'm not giving up a banana a day just to be "low carb", screw that.

All I intended to do was to cut out what was making it hard to lose weight. Am I fat? Some people say I am not, that I look proportionally built. The few people I have run into at the store, that have not seen me since I retired, have mentioned I have lost noticeable weight. Still I'd like to get down to 185 pounds, standing 5'10".

Please don't send me any lessons on diets, nutrition, suggestions, etc.

I'll tell you why. I know enough about nutrition, what's good, what's bad, what food does or doesn't do. I know ... water water water water. For me that means pee pee pee pee. When I was much younger I was a strict vegetarian for eight years. I took one semester class in college dealing with nutrition. While bike racing part-time, nutrition and heart rate recovery was important. Nutrition was monitored and studied. In recent years I have read medical journals to see what is good or isn't with current research or lab tests.

I as hit my 30's, due to work schedules and locations I fell off the wagon hard from that veggie diet, eating when I could and what I could. I went back to red meat, lots of carbs, fast food, junk food ... anything I could eat or wanted to eat. I didn't log into a food app (not invented yet), I didn't keep a food diary, I didn't count calories. I just ate.

Granulated sugar was BIG in my diet ... in coffee, on cereal, on grapefruit, on oatmeal. Throw in all the pasta, whole pizzas eaten, never just one sandwich or just one burger and mix all of that eating with getting older ... slower metabolism ... and I was headed for a heart attack. In fact when I took a job related physical, the doctor asked me how long did wanted to work. I answered "65" .. he replied if you want that you need to lose 20 pounds.

I was 50 years old at that time. Here is the strange thing ... based on what I weighed that day, I lost those 20 pounds he suggested soon after I retired from work at 62 years of age. Interesting. I want to lose 15 pounds more.

I have always eaten pretty healthy overall. I never sat around gulping  64oz "Big Gulps" and downing a large bag of Cheetos followed by a small case of twinkies. My problem was and always has been portion size, plus high calorie foods. I believed in moderation for everything. I called that "my diet" ... moderation. Plus I never logged my food intake into an app or I would quit logging food in.

I noticed a trend when I didn't log my food intake ... I gained weight ... I ate more ... impulsive eating took over. Now I log my food intake for short periods of time just to check on if I am eating right. I'll stop logging in food today because I have seen the results and know that I am eating what I should be. Plus I have gauged how I feel. Energy? Heartburn? Hungry?

There are still battles of fighting through strong urges to make a "junk food run" ... As recently as last night I was thinking of making a short grocery run Saturday morning. I wanted to buy some ground sausage (good fat and protein), a little flour and a quart of whole milk. You do know what those three ingredients make don't you?

Sausage gravy over that tin of biscuits I'd buy and bake ...

That's not all I was planning to buy ... oh no!!!  LOL ... I pictured myself walking by the freezer department, opening the door, reaching in to grab A COUPLE of containers of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. As a reward for eliminating granulated sugar this week. (only a justification)

Since it's only 7:30am, the store I was thinking about going to is not open yet. It will be a BIG TEST to see what happens or will I even go. By the time I take Stella for a 8am walk, spend a little time thinking, it's very likely I will not make a trip to the store anytime soon. It just gives you an idea what I visualized last night just after I went to bed.

I went to bed too early ... now Stella is confused as hell, because we woke up early. She had her breakfast kibble at 5am. She and I have been waiting for daybreak and the clock has been extremely slow getting there. She has moved from sitting and staring at me to laying down sleeping in various spots, not knowing what to do.

Back to that granulated sugar.

By looking at the daily nutrition section of that food app, MyFitnessPal, it's amazing how much sugar your body takes in with good healthy food. I mean I have had zero deserts of any kind, no sugar, plain pink grapefruit, oatmeal only with blueberries and most food high in fat and protein ... still the sugar nutrient count higher than I expected.

No sugar takes away the feeling of bloat or feeling fat. I am not hungry soon after eggs/bacon like I am after a 1/4c of dried oatmeal before it's cooked. BTW, I am eating the oatmeal only to get rid of the small Quaker Oats container I bought the last week. After that, no more.

It's not only no granulated sugar ... but no grains that make me feel better. Even after four to five days. I've also noticed that the past couple of years anytime I cut out grains. A short book called "Wheat Belly", a free online download, points out some amazing things different from what we have been taught. I read that a few years ago.

For a long time I have not had set meals. I eat during the day when I'm hungry not because "it's time to eat". I might have nothing but baked salmon or I might add steamed broccoli to that. Last night or mid-afternoon I had nothing but a large thick NY strip for an early dinner ... yes Heidi and Stella shared the fat that I cut off or could not chew. They love the smell of steak. To Stella that means a 12" hanging drool in anticipation of getting some.

Not once the past four to five days did I automatically reach for that sugar container. I poured coffee and went back to my computer desk.

In closing, I know real changes will not be seen for months or even a year. I think if I take it one day at a time, no granulated sugar, occasional pasta in a small portion, or a section of lasagna, I'll see major differences by this time next year.

This is NOT a diet ... just a way of eating. I've changed my own definition of moderation.

I was going to wait to blog this morning but I knew at 8am the skies were not going to be any better than yesterday, where they would be too dark for good hound photos. Plus I had the urge to write early this morning and not wait a few more hours. What I am thinking of doing is posting again later this morning like I use to on this blog .... a paragraph of content and a lot of photos of the hounds this morning.

If I waited until after lunch, Heidi would be more photogenic and would actually be out of bed by that time so she could be included in the photo session.

Now, IF I can just delete that thought of Ben & Jerry's this morning I'll be fine for the day.