An award! A challenge! A return from the abyss!

I feel like it's been forever since I've posted, though it was just Wednesday. I've had so much stuff going on between work and friends that it feels like I've got 2 weeks worth of life to report on! Where to begin?? I got a wonderful award from a great blogger, but I'm saving that for further along this post's path.

First, I've started another challenge of sorts - NOT EATING RELATED thank goodness! It seems all I need to do is join a food challenge and every cell in my body starts shrieking for high sugar high carb items in mass quantities. This challenge was created by Karen at Fitness: A Journey Not A Destination. It's called Boredom Busters and you can read about it here. Karen's blog is great, if you haven't read it; and in the process of joining this challenge, I discovered she also has a design blog called Strictly Simple Style that's about decorating without breaking the bank. It's also good. But I digress. Again.

In her Boredom Buster post, she talks of how boredom in day to day life can make us vulnerable to bad habits - like overeating for one. Her challenge is to make a list of 5 things you'd like to accomplish this week that aren't sedentary activities. They can really be anything you've been wanting to get to but haven't yet - and not just exercise or fitness related. You list your five things in Karen's comments section, and then write a post of your own about your list and whether you've accomplished the 5 things this week. The deadline for writing your post is Monday, May 10. She wrote her challenge post Monday this week, the 3rd. I didn't see the post until Wednesday but signed right up after seeing what some people listed, because they gave me ideas and reminded me of things I've been wanting to do but have put off.

My 5 things are:
1. Return several items of clothes to Boscov's and Kohl's that I've had sitting on my dining room table for 2 weeks
2. Take an old changing table to Goodwill. The "baby" is 21. It's time.
3. Plant the $60 worth of annuals I bought last weekend in pots and garden as planned but haven't yet done.
4. Cultivate and mulch my front yard perennial bed.
5. Find and hang a mirror to go in my newly redone powder room. The first one fell and broke 3 months ago, leaving a wooden cavity that used to be a medicine cabinet uncovered and gaping.

I've already underway with these items and hope to complete them all over the weekend. When I do, I'll do the requisite reporting post by the 10th, and hopefully make it to the Boredom Busters Hall of Fame that Karen will put on her sidebar.

Another item on my agenda is that I've gotten another clear jolt about exercising with my still funky knees. (Had I written a post yesterday, I was going to title it, "My knees suck and my vacuum doesn't", because my knees have been ridiculously achy and stiff this week, and my vacuum cleaner decided to go on the fritz. Don't know which of these dilemmas was more annoying, but the knee issue is getting OLD. Oh wait...it's my joints that are apparently getting old. I mentioned earlier in the week that while in Avalon last Saturday, a friend and I walked almost 4 miles on the beach, much of which was in wet moving sand that required an element of toe gripping of the sand in order to have adequate purchase and not be walked away by the surf (being the little slip of a thing I am). It felt great! My knees and feet and assorted other parts held up well, but for the next few days my knees both had different kinds of shooting pains and such and this was very discouraging. My response was to not do much other than short walks with La Dog as a means of trying to rest them. Well, they weren't feeling better or worse with the rest, so yesterday a friend and I did a 3 mile brisk walk with our beasts and my knees feel better today than they have in 2 weeks! They NEED movement. The CRAVE walking and respond with happy and looser bending. I've probably written about this before, but the writing is now on the wall for me about this, and I'm delighted, because the exercise is as good for my mental health as it is for my physical well-being. It they're going to be stiff and stubborn either way, I choose the way of walking and biking. No more rest. IT DOESN'T HELP.

Also - I got a wonderful award from Deb at Deb Will Be Free. She's another awesome gal who writes a wonderful blog that you probably already know of. If not, check it out. She presented me with this:

This award was created by Sheilagh at Sixty is Good as part of her celebration of the anniversary of her blog. She presented it people who touched her at one level or another during her first year of blogging, citing 12 bloggers (one for each month of her first year). Deb was one of her original 12, and now Deb has kindly passed it on to me! I'm thrilled and delighted, and would absolutely pass it back to her if she hadn't already received it.

The only requirement of this award is to pass it on to 6 people who have inspired me in my journey to this point in Blogdom. There are about 6 thousand of you who have made a real difference for me in countless ways, but I will abide by the "rule" and list 6.
Lyn @ Escape From Obesity
Stacia @ Swimming It Off
Tammy @ From Fat To Fab
Biz @ Biggest Diabetic Loser
TJ @ TJ's Test Kitchen
Helen @ Doing a 180

Thanks again Deb. I can honestly say that virtually every blogger I read has been significant to me in some way. Blogging and you wonderful friends are a great addition to my life.

Finally - GUESS WHAT ROSE FROM THE DEAD??? The cell phone I lost a month ago! A gal at work came into my office today and asked if I'd ever found it...I said nope. Then she asked what it looked like? I replied, "umm, like a cell phone?" She held something up and it was my phone! She found it behind a chair outside the offices of the social workers with whom I work. I go up there sometimes to hang out and shoot the breeze. It's entirely possible (obviously) that my phone could have fallen out of the pocket onto the thickly carpeted floor underneath. With the ring volume turned to zero, it was inaudible when we tried calling it a thousand times. And finally, of course, the battery went dead. So - it's back and I' have a decision to make over keeping either my Go Phone or the old new phone! I've certainly had harder decisions!

I hope everyone has a good weekend. Husband and son will be rolling in tonight so I'm excited about that. I have to shop after work for Mark Chow - what I lovingly call the mass quantities of college boy food he goes through on a daily basis. I just have to not go through it myself!