A Conservative Treehugger

Eating grilled asparagas

julilloyd — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:08:34 +0000

My goodness. I really can’t believe it is 3:50 pm and I am eating for the first time today! That is a first since high school when I only ate one or two meals a day (breakfast made me sick). I started a new thing…the hCG protocol described in Kevin Trudeau’s book THE WEIGHT LOSS CURE. It is based on the medical journal POUNDS AND INCHES by a doctor named Simeons (which can be found on the internet for free).

I know how I gained all this weight: sitting at a desk all day, using my treadmill as a clothes hanger, eating lots of fast food because we are always late getting home, not buying groceries, and drinking good, sweet, Georgia iced tea. But that’s all changing now. I’ve lost 12 pounds in 13 days on the program and hope to get to my goal weight after a couple of rounds. Wouldn’t it be luverly to greet January 1, 2010 at my healthy weight? I sure hope this works as well as they say it will!

Lots of good veggies in the fridge...

I should grow some next year...would be much cheaper!

Got my new food scale!

My new favorite...organic tomatoes and steak

Live your life in whatever circumstance you find yourself…

julilloyd — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:08:41 +0000

I am always on a search for positive change…mainly in myself and my surroundings, the myopic person that I am. Most of us are that way, though. We can’t help but be. This world isn’t like it was when our great-grandparents were living…doors left unlocked, key left in the ignition switch, everyone on your street knew your name. No. It isn’t like that anymore. We have to watch our backs.

I love being at home. I love my family! For years I was a stay-at-home, homeschooling mother who baked bread, gardened, took time to sit in a field with my sketchbook and have picnics nearly every week with my children.

What happened? Lean manufacturing happened to my husband’s workplace. His salary lowered and lowered and then lowered some more. He has worked for 28 years for the same company and this is how they treat their long-trusted employees. Isn’t it a shame?

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE my job(s). Where else can you work where you pray together and go bowling? I have a creative outlet to use my art degree, I get to cook in our great big facilities kitchen if I don’t have time to prepare my lunch at home, I get to work on the computer all day and my husband works there, too, so I see him all the time. I can listen to Christian music in my office all day long if I want to. It’s the best of situations and I love the people I work for.

Our videography business, Dream Again Video Producations, is not only a great outlet for creativity but it is such fun to get to know the people that I film! We feel like part of the family after spending an entire day with their family and friends shooting a wedding. There is such joy and happiness all around us in the people we all come in contact with. They all have hopes, joys, sorrows and disappointments just as we ourselves do.

And I go into the world with my computer case or camera bag to face the day and the challenges.

Still it is hard to leave my window..in the morning…where I can see the sunshine and the squirrels play. But I am grateful for the day and that I am able to be a better person if I try.

My trees are changing!

julilloyd — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:57:24 +0000

As a hawk swooped in to eye my small goldfish swimming in our pond yesterday, I realized that one of my dogwood trees is changing color! They are the first to start showing off their “autumn-ness” and a precursor to the loveliness yet to come! I have two large Japanese maples that are so wonderful it takes my breath away when they are in full color.

Fall in the South comes in slowly just like the caterpillars do in the Spring. Every other year or so we have a big bang of color and it is very unpredictable. I sure hope this year is one of those.

Thought of the moment…

julilloyd — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:19:39 +0000

You are special, a rose among thorns. Never forget the magnificence that is within you (and to let it out occasionally).

Photo by my 12 year old daughter, Abbie

Nothing tastes as good as beaver cooked over an open fire…

julilloyd — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:48:50 +0000

When I first met my husband, we found we had so many parallel events and hobbies in our lives. One of them was arrowhead hunting!

There were many different tribes of native Americans in the part of the country where we are from. I am from middle Georgia and he is from West Georgia.

Right out of high school, I was in a group of friends that loved to canoe the Flint every weekend and we did quite a bit of camping along the river, too. We knew where the “Indian Cave” was and all along the waterway there were plowed fields of soybeans, cotton and other crops. We’d park our canoes and climb the banks to the fields where we would find lots and lots of flint arrowheads, spearheads and birdpoints.

Relaxing in the tipi last year

My love of native American culture has never diminished and I was very pleased to learn that my husband had the same interests. His collection of arrowheads was about the same size as mine! I had long since sold my canoe but I found that he had a tipi he and his late wife had sewn themselves. It is a bit tattered now (I have the canvas in my garage to sew another) but in two weekends, we’ll drag it back out and put it up for at least one more season.

I could write a book about the fun we have on our Indian Rendevous camping trips in Pine Mountain and at the Ossahatchee in Hamilton, GA., each year. Stay tuned for some stories to come!

Nothing tastes as good as beaver cooked over an open fire (I didn't eat any! : D)

Ossahatchee Indian Festival last year…

julilloyd — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:42:27 +0000

The Dancers

Bright colors!

Drummers drum...

My husband, David, in his period apparel

My grandon and I with our favorite Indian dancer

My daughter, Sara Sophia, and family

Pixie likes being here!

Exiting the tipi

It is nearly that time again and I am getting excited! We have a tipi and usually set it up each year, camping for two nights and cooking over the campfire. If you are anywhere near the Hamilton/Pine Mountain, Georgia area on the weekend of Oct 16-18 of this month, you can visit our tipi and see the dancing for yourself (not to mention have “gator on-a-stick”). You can also visit the Ossahatchee website for more information: http://www.ossahatchee.org/. See you there, I hope!

Still time for coffee!

julilloyd — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:47:02 +0000

I am still waking up on this drizzly day. I am blessed to be home today and working on projects that normally don’t get seen to. There is just something about a rainy day that makes you want hot cocoa, tea or coffee! My 19 year-old, Lolly, works for Starbucks so we drink it a lot even though it took me awhile to get used to it. I thought that an “Americana” was a regular coffee and used to buy one at B&N and watered it down with LOTS of hot water. She laughed and told me that it was already watered-down expresso and that I should just order a regular brew. I wondered why Starbucks coffee had always tasted burned to me and now I know why.

But now it is GOOD (especially while watching the dripping leaves outside my window).

Look for the beauty around you…

julilloyd — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:41:04 +0000

Every day is a gift. Don’t get so caught up in your busy-ness to forget to breathe, look around you and be thankful.

The view of my backyard in the early morning

Musings of a Conservative Tree-hugger

julilloyd — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:59:15 +0000

Is it wrong to love the earth and want my water to be clear and pure? Sure, Jesus might come back this week and rapture us all up to heaven so what does it matter if we litter or put lots of cleaning products down our drain??

Well…I don’t know about you, but I want to preserve the world we have for our children and grandchildren to enjoy (and our children’s, children’s, children…Moody Blues). That is why I am a conservative tree-hugger.