I didn’t want to go for a walk this morning, but I did it anyway and feel more centered from it. On Tuesday I did a full body workout that kicked my butt, but I’m gonna do it again. My pep talk on repeat for now is, “I don’t want to, but I need to.”

The Google home mentioned here is back in it’s box to be returned to the store. I didn’t need it and thought I wanted it, but it didn’t add any value to my life. The best thing it did was to ingrain a reminder somewhere in my little corner of the web to ‘write’ that pops up on my phone every day. We’ll be keeping that reminder because I need it.

It’s hard to bloom in August in Texas and you can just ask my Bougainvillea. I did a deep dive into the needs for a Bougainvillea to bloom and it was interesting. I purchased a couple of small, hanging baskets of Bougainvillea as soon as they became available after Spring and they were in bloom at the time, but haven’t bloomed since!

Come to find out, I was coddling them. They need to pretty much bake in full sun for several hours a day until they droop before they will bloom. This is painful for me to watch and I want to rush outside to bring them in to cool off. I was giving them a drink of water every time they drooped which produces growth, but no bloom, so I watch them get hit with hours of full sun and water them once every 3 days.

The Hydrangea. When I first purchased one after Mother’s Day for $5 from the sad shelf, I just wanted to nurture it back to heath in hopes of seeing it bloom. I discovered that the Hydrangea wants to grow for years before producing a bloom, but if you’ve ever seen one, they bloom big and it’s going to be worth the wait. My only job for now is to not give it much attention, not overwater it and just let it grow.

When I first purchased it, it was a stub of a plant and I’m sure it was overlooked by many. I was ignoring my fitness needs before challenging myself to 100 walks and counting each strength workout upon completion every other day. I don’t stand in full sun like the Bougainvillea, but I’ll wake up early to walk and even sweat. I’ve started to not even look at the weather app and just go.

In October I’ll be 62, and it was October of 2025 that I first met Dr. J and made a commitment in my heart to become the best version of myself possible. I didn’t start strength training until a few weeks ago, but that has been more rewarding than I ever imagined. I’m still eating clean for the most part, but there’s usually a piece of dark chocolate in the fridge and every so often some Popcorn chips enter the house.

I’m not going to deprive myself from a treat, because it’ll show up in how I feel the next day and I pivot from there. A year ago I hadn’t eaten much kale, but now I get nervous if there’s not at least one variety in the fridge.

In the comments of this post I promised a photo of the Trumpet Vine, covering the Arbor in full bloom. Here’s it is back in March of this year, and it looks pretty droopy right now, but I will forever believe for one more bloom.

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