Part Two

Here it is Part Two of Why I've been gone

I have made a decision at 58 years old that I'm going back to school and I'm going to Culinary School. A 12 month Culinary Program opened here last year. I've taken many of the community classes in the evening from Braising to Sushi and enjoyed them and the teachers. I have always wanted to go to Culinary School and the timing was right so I enrolled.

Now the scary part after 40 years out of school I had to pass 2 english and 2 math tests. No joke I freaked out. I am horrible at math, so horrible I considered quitting right there. Thanks to the wonderful teacher in the Student Success class I had to take to enroll, I stuck with it.

The second day of the class I got sick with a nasty cold/flu which did not help me one bit with studying. Friday, February 10th I took the tests. I passed 3 of the 4 tests and of course it was one of the math tests. The second week of the Student Success class was the teacher working with you on the areas you needed help with. Thank goodness on Friday when I took the test I passed.

I am already making lists of what career move I want to do with this experience. I do know I do not want to work in a restaurant unless it was my own and I need experience before even considering that.  I am considering a Personal Chef, a small venue event and catering business, working for a magazine, recipe developer, recipe tester my list keeps growing.

I'm very excited to see where this new adventure takes me and I will take you along for the ride. My first class starts April 6th with Kitchen Safety.

With Love,
Pam

Reason I've been Gone

This will be a two part post

Part one

A while back my daughter called me to let me know her and her husband were moving to Florida. This did not set well with me. It's bad enough to be 7 hours away from her but I can get to her the same day. But Florida is the other side of the country. I've been having separation issues since we moved away 4 plus years ago. I understood why she moved back to California, there is no work for her in this town, her tattoos were an issue, guys, yeah slim pickings unless you are of the church and being Utah I don't have to spell it out.

Usually I go with the flow and I don't question what she does. She is a smart girl and she needs to live her own life. This time I opened my mouth, part of it was selfish on my end. Hey, I only have one child, I'm not going to apologize for that she is my world. I did give her some stuff to think about.

I was in a complete funk, depressed, over eating, not wanting to do a damn thing but sulk. I few days after we talked she called me and let me know they were not moving to Florida. You think I would be jumping up and down celebrating. Nope, I went into a further depression worrying that my butting in would change our relationship or she would be resentful for me voicing very loudly my concerns.

None of that happened thankfully. We have always had a very strong and close relationship. I learned that I need not get so emotional when we talk about these things and that it is her life. On the flip side as a mom it is okay to present things that I could see as being an obstacle and that maybe she needs to do more research before making a rash decision.

I will be back soon with Part 2.

With Love,
Pam

Health and Fitness #3

This is what happens when you do not follow your own regiment you gain weight. I have not been logging in the food I ate and I have made poor choices. BOOM!

This morning when I weighed in I knew I had to get serious. For breakfast I had a english muffin, with a small amount of butter and half of banana, 201 calories and it is logged into My Fitness Pal. Since it is freezing outside I'm thinking about having soup for lunch and Bill and requested breakfast for dinner. I will be bringing the scale out to weigh my food this could easily get away from me if I don't take action.

As for exercising I'm still under doctors orders to only walk. The only problem was last week we had a freezing fog come in for days and everything is ice. It is too dangerous to go walking.  I will get up and walk around the inside of the house, every little bit helps but I will not be getting in 10,000 steps.

Today is the first day we can see the town. We were lucky to be able to see 20 feet in front of us last week.  We didn't get any more snow but what we did get was ice from the moisture in the fog. It did leave a beautiful winter wonderland.

Shards of ice that dropped off the deck railing

Beautiful ice crystals 

Taken from my deck our side yard

Ice crystals stuck to railing

It's funny how the ice crystals only stick to one side

Here's to be accountable my goal this week.

With Love,
Pam

Starting Weight: 223
Current Weight: 224.6
Goal Weight: 130

Health and Fitness #2

Last week didn't turn out the way I had planned it. The weather was not good, received some news that put me into a funk and friends sent us a huge amount of See's Candies, my favorite. Even with all the candy I still lost a 1/2 pound.

So this will be a short post while I figure out this week.....weather is suppose to be bad, again.

With Love,
Pam

Starting Weight: 223
Current Weight: 222.5
Goal Weight: 130

Health and Fitness #1

Happy New Year,

What better way to start the New Year - Health and Fitness....NOT!  But it's something we need to do.  I will give you some background on what has been going on in that department with me.

The summer of 2014 I started walking and I changed my eating habits, by the end of the year I lost 50 pounds. I then started running. I ran a few 5k's, a 10k and was training to run a half marathon in October 2015. Three weeks before my half marathon I was running and had to stop I had a pain in my side, I started back running and had to stop again. When I got home I noticed I had blood in my urine. I was in the doctor the next day, tests were done fast and the next thing I know I'm scheduled for surgery for a kidney stone the size of a almond.

I was ready to start running again and noticed some flashes in my eye. I had a flight booked to go visit my daughter in California, I figured I would see the eye doctor when I got back. Just days before my flight I noticed I couldn't see my husband from the knees down. I called the eye doctor on a Sunday and his exchanged contacted him and within minutes he called me back and wanted to see me first thing Monday morning at 8:00. I received the bad news that I had a retinal detachment. I was lucky that the retinal expert was in town (when I say in town I mean 50 miles away, he travels the state of Utah, Nevada and Wyoming) by 12:30 I was in surgery. To make a long story short 2016 was all about eye surgeries in both eyes, my 9th surgery was December 22nd, I still need one more procedure before I know if I will be able to see again in my left eye.

Because I have been sitting on my ass for over a year I have gained back 40 of the pounds I lost. I'm upset with myself, I worked so hard taking that weight off. Now I have to start over. The good thing is I know I can do it. It just might be a little harder with my sight problems. It's a hurdle I'm willing to JUMP over. (One Little Word 2017 OLW)

I'm going to start by walking daily if I can't make it down to the trail in town I will walk my driveway. When I lost the 50 pounds it was just walking my drive. My driveway is a 1/4 mile, dirt, rocks and not level, oh and right now it has 2 feet of snow on it. I will be checking with my eye doctor on Wednesday to see what other workouts I can do, I don't want to put any pressure on my eye certain yoga positions are not good if you have had a retinal detachment.

Now let's talk about food. I don't diet, when I say I don't diet I mean I'm not going to grab a magazine and do the 2017 diet that will change my life, I'm not doing Weight Watchers, Atkins, etc... I'm doing what works for Pam. I'm going to make good choices and stick to 1200 calories a day.

I will be logging my food daily on MyFitnessPal and tracking my steps on FitBit (I have a Alta). If you would like to join me you can find me on FitBit using my email address pamcapone58 [at] gmail.com and MyFitnessPal using the name mrscapone.

I will be posting my progress, challenges, weight (sigh, yes I'm doing this and it's not pretty) every Monday.

With Love,
Pam


Starting Weight: 223
Current Weight: 223
Goal Weight: 130

Introduction

Welcome to Sparklers in my Hair,

I'm Pam Capone aka Sparklers in my Hair, I chose that name for my greying hair. I'm not new to blogging, I had a food blog for years called Living Rancho Delux. I decided it was time to close that chapter in my life. There are so many better and younger food bloggers out there and I wanted to hopefully find a venue that fit me better.

I planned on taking a break from blogging to try to figure out what my next plan of attack was. I ran into some health issues, which I will explain more in detail in another post, it ended up being almost 1 1/2 year break. The first year I didn't even think about blogging....then that little voice in my head said get off your ass and start doing something with your life. Blogging helps keep me in check and accountable for the things I want to do.

What did I come up with?  A "Life Style" blog for women over 50, I more than qualify for this endeavor as I am 58 years old.  I'm going to include all the things I enjoy or want to try. Here is a list of what I'm going to cover.

1.  Health and Fitness
2.  Creativity which will include arts/crafts/photography and planners
3.  Focus on home, fashion and YIKES! Make-up, at this age it's a whole different ball game
4.  I will even throw in some recipies. I do enjoy cooking

Mondays will always be the same platform and that will be health and fitness. As time goes on I will see where the other posts take me.

Starting 2017 I will be joining the One Little Word movement by Ali Edwards.  My word for 2017 is Jump.

I will also be sharing my wonderful family with you, my husband Bill, my daughter Anna, my son-in-law Cliff and my fur baby Olive, the English Bull Terrier, my little clown.

This is just a short introduction, I hope that we can all get to know each other better and you will join me on this journey.

With Love,
Pam