Remember a few months ago when I talked about all the excuses I had come up with to not exercise?
Well, I finally bit the bullet back at the beginning of August, and I started an eight week program to tone my abs and the rest of me, too. I didn't really expect to get back down to the size I was pre-pregnancy or anything, but I wanted to feel more confident in how I looked and not have to wiggle so much to pull my jeans up in the mornings.
Those first few weeks were brutal. It wasn't necessarily that the moves were hard. It was that they were working muscles and areas that hadn't been worked like that in a long time. Like, maybe since college?
Needless to say, I was hurting quite a bit.

Did you ever have a perfect moment? But it wasn't with the guy you ended up with? Author Delores Topliff shares one of her most romantic memories today, and you might be surprised. Read on.

Sometimes, when I have been working on writing things too long--especially if I've just gone through a ton of edits all at once, like I did near the end of the summer--I need a break from anything to do with words on a page (besides reading, of course, because that doesn't count).
When that happens, I tend to either turn to my sewing machine, my yarn, or my paints. This year, I dabbled in a bit of cloth and paint on wood, too. And not only did it make my fall-loving heart happy, it also produced a few things like gifts for friends or items my children needed.

Have you been wondering if it was worth all the time and effort it took me to pull up the zinnias from the green bean beds in my garden this year? I think it was. I picked around 40 pints of beans this summer. Most of those were canned, but some we shared or just cooked up with bacon and onions and enjoyed ourselves. Green beans are a big staple in our house, so I'm pretty excited about it.
The tomatoes did fairly well this year, too. We ate a ton of cherry tomatoes, as well as slicing some for burgers or sandwiches. I put up several pints of salsa and more of spaghetti sauce, though some of those tomatoes came from my neighbor's garden, too. Yummy, either way.

Do you ever find yourself doing things the hard way? Or even just forgetting about a tool of some sort that would make it easier?
I sometimes do. I'll be most of the way done with a project of some sort and then remember a tool I had stashed away that would've made things go much faster. Or kept me from burning/poking/etc my fingers. Pretty sure the ends of my fingers are completely numb forever now from all I've put them through.
But, one set of tools I don't forget about it, is my turning tools for sewing.