Not Perfect but Better-

Exercise-I did a good job with exercise today even if my workout choices were odd ones. I went out and weeded and watered my garden for 1 hour and then while Grace was taking her horseback riding lesson I cleaned out 3 horse stalls. The gardening was really not too strenuous but I did manage to work up a sweat because it was hot outside. Cleaning out the horse stalls was more on target with a work out.

The riding teacher owns three horses. While Grace was on one I cleaned out the first stall. Then when grace had finished her lesson she took out the old retired horse for a walk around and brush while I cleaned up his stall. Finally the third horse went out for a lesson and I cleaned out that one. I even have a blister on my hand!! Cleaning out stalls is not back breaking work because after all grassy horse poop is really quite light. There was, however, a lot of it in those three stalls. It took almost two ours of scooping, pulling the cart out to the poop pile, dumping and then reloading with fresh sawdust into the now clean stall.

On the food front I ate OK but I need to start doing a better job of eating actual meals. I have fallen into a snacky habit. My meals are after all so small now that grabbing a few crackers and cheese is easy but it does not really pack a protein and vegetable wallop like I need. For dinner I had to go out to a newspaper editorial meeting and again...grabbed for the cheese instead of sitting down to a proper dinner. When I came home David had prepared the most delicious beets on the barbecue (see recipe below)

This recipe was inspired by my aunt Sally who gave me the beets fresh from her garden. She told me to do the following and then put the vegetables in a roasting pan in the oven. David was doing sausages on the barbecue tonight so I adapted it for that:

Peel some beets. Throw the beets on a sheet of aluminum foil. drizzle olive oil and a few cloves of garlic (chopped roughly). close the foil up and put on the barbecue next to whatever you are cooking. The beets are tender and tasty in about 30 minutes. Sally says she does the above with all kinds of vegetables (but roasts them) and it makes them taste extra good. I ate some when I got home from my meeting and they were delicious!