I have a new experiment I’m going to try. I can only do it part-time because I’m tired so much of the time but instead of doing a few “puzzle walks” on the treadmill where I do puzzles while walking, I’m going to run 2.5 minutes every half hour. If I get up at 10 a.m. and I start doing this at noon and stop at 10 p.m., that totals 55 minutes. Plus, I burn more calories that way than I would if I walked that long. I want to see if this speeds up my metabolism. Might have to start with once an hour, though, till I get in better shape. I haven’t been running as much lately. Just walking with a little bike riding mixed in.

Unless a person is disabled, I don’t see how people can stand not to exercise regularly. Not exercising would be like being cooped up in a car on a long road trip with no way to stretch your legs.

Even though Tom’s thyroid is fine, his metabolism is way slower than mine, the poor guy. Usually, a woman has to cut her calories lower than a man when dieting. Not in our case!

Still not “dieting” per se but I’m making a point of taking it easy. Made my first caramel apple smoothie and it came out good but a little runny. I should use less caramel syrup and two apples instead of one. Later I’ll make one with plums, blueberries and plain yogurt.

The cypress killers came for their money before I got up, and he picked up the busted trim that used to encircle the trees, plus the water drip system. Not having the cypress trees will certainly save time and money. They’ll no longer have to be watered in the summer or trimmed constantly in the winter. Every time we would have a hard rain, branches would flop outward and look ugly.

I slept better even though traffic did wake me up a couple of times when the earbud slipped (these buds are too big for my ear) if I didn’t wake up just because. My energy didn’t last long, though. After tending to the animals and doing a few other things, I was pretty tired.

We’re thinking of getting one of those Purple mattresses but we both agree that while it may make me more comfortable, it won’t necessarily help me sleep better. Getting postmenopausal and the hell off such a busy street will help. I just wonder how long the loud vehicle obsession is going to go on. The street wouldn’t be as bad if there weren’t so many damn vehicles that were insanely loud. Really hope to get on some dead-end somewhere eventually if we don’t end up getting land. We’re still going to hear shit no matter which one we end up with because you still have neighbors even when you go rural. They’re just further away. You can still hear dogs, chainsaws, engine gunning, loud music and things like that. At least you could in Maricopa and Auburn, although we didn’t hear loud music in Auburn. Just everything else. 95% of it came from Jesse, though. I’ll settle for just not being on such a high-traffic street and so close to it, too!

Tom showed me how his game is now looking on an old tablet as well as his phone and it’s looking good but he got delayed with catching and having to fix a few bugs. The next step is incorporating Google ads into it but the app is probably not going to be available anytime soon. This part is totally new to him. He’s having to watch tutorials and stuff like that but we’re both self-taught kind of people so I’m sure he’ll figure it out just like I figure out languages and writing techniques.

I deleted Christine. I don’t know why, but she’s been ghosting me lately by ignoring messages as well as comments on her posts. Why bother staying connected then? Not sure what’s going on with her since we never had any problems but I don’t need any deadbeat friends on my Facebook list. I’ve always been picky about that. I don’t do one-sided friendships.

Had a dream Tom and I went to Massachusetts of all places and met up with Kim. Kim the former nurse. She wore a navy dress with small white polka dots and I thought it was so her. Stylish and pleasant looking but more on the conservative side. She had a baby too, and we were all in some store Kim and her husband owned.

Then Tom and Kim were sitting on a bench while he was explaining something to her on some device be it a laptop, tablet or phone.

Then I was inside her house and walking down a wide set of stairs carpeted with cream-colored carpet. The stairs were lit with little strips of light running along each one. I noticed the last two were burned out. I then stepped off the stairs and went into this room where Tom was overseeing a small fire. I then produced a couple of sticks I was holding and threw them into the fire and said, “Now they won’t get cold.”

Tom smiled with amusement at that one.

Then we were outside and it was really noisy with motorcycles and other loud traffic. I said, “My God, it sounds like we’re home. It was never like this when I lived here. I remember not one single motorcycle.”

Then I asked Tom if he saw a guy with a red bandana on the motorcycle that just passed by, thinking it might be Mark, Kim’s ex.