quick check-in

A lot of my focus and research has been on beekeeping lately. It's a small way we can begin to help give back to the planet and possibly, eventually make some honey!  I've started a new blog and also reopened my old writing blog that I started before this one. I feel my interests have been too narrow for the past year, and that is contributed greatly to some horrendous bouts of depression. I'll continue all of my blogs periodically, although not promising daily posts on any of them.

Aside from some bothersome joint pain some not getting enough sleep because I'm completely ignoring that little ol thing called "bedtime," things are going ok. Well, some shit happened, but I won't bore you with that. At least not right now. The  main thing is that life is good, spring is springing, and my family is healthy.

When the pond warms up and I'm back to my daily exercise, the pounds will be melting off again. until then, the Wii is my workout friend again because my gym closed w/o notice. I really need to sign up for those 5K's I keep talking about.

Feeling great

Snow day or not, I feel better than I have for a long while.

There must be some nasty virus around these parts - one symptom is throbbing gums. I thought it was a dental issue having recently had my teeth cleaned. The pressure of my CPAP mask made it worse. I was in tears. Tylenol or Voltaren wasn't touching the pain. It was miserable. I guess it could be sinus-related. Anyway, it's going away now. But Sweetie mentioned today his gums were throbbing.  Hmmm. . . I hope he doesn't feel as miserable as I did at it's worst.

I love blogland, but I am extremely behind in my reading. I'm behind in reading my books as well. Still, I keep adding blogs to my list. I should go through and clean some out, but I hate to lose any. NY day I went through and poked at a few that hadn't posted for a while and I'm glad they're back now, even if not regularly. It's so worth the wait. Anyhow, I need to find that awesome blog I had on my favorites that had the monthly weight loss book. There are so many on my list now that I'm having a hard time sorting through. If you can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it. Meanwhile, I'll search through my dashboard and see if I can find her that way.  It's Juli's Journey. I found her! Yay me!

I've made a few more local friends lately and am really happy to have found the "cool kids" around here. It takes time for friendships to blossom and finally it's happening. Certainly not neurotypical, my sense of humor and lack of grooming can cause assumptions to be made that aren't quite valid. I don't spend a lot of time trying to fit it, but I do very much want to make connections to people. So, even if I've been spending less time blogging, I have been building my support network and making new friendships IRL.

I think I'm taking a  Bob Ross painting class in March. Who wouldn't want to learn to make "happy little clouds"?  It's on a Friday. I hope my kid has school that day. The more I think about it the more I want to do it.

Kiddo is dining out with friends tonight and I've been having a PJ day. Maybe I can get in some exercise and then change into new jammies. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but hopefully it will be nice enough for the local "Global Summit" which I'm really looking forward to attending and helping with our Kids For Peace group. I'm such a hippie.

Back to the present time.

Yesterday's post was a fun little project from http://www.shrinkingeans.net/ where we were supposed to pretend we were 1 year in the future looking back and writing a letter to our present self. So, that is my wish list of sorts for the coming year. Thanks everybody for you enthusiastic responses.

Today I had great fun hanging out with BFF and doing a little knitting, worked out at the gym 40 minutes on the treadmill and tried some crazy exercise at home too, during Biggest Loser.

At the beginning of the BL premiere, I was smaller than each one of them. That was fun! Didn't last long though. At least it was a 2 hour episode. lol

Now I need to go find my Kindle so I can sleep. Nice, snuggly Kindle. I want to wrap up Lesson 1 in the book "A Course in Weight Loss" as recommended as this month's pick by Juli's Journey. This one is definitely written for Believers, but I think there are a lot of good ideas in here that even a total heathen could wrap up in their own belief system and use towards their success. It's a little difficult to stay objective during some of the churchier stuff, but I'll muddle through. :)

Tomorrow looks like it's going to shape up to be a full day of volunteering, although I've missed my lunches with Sweetie 2 days in a row now so I'm going to try to work that in somehow. I know he probably misses me terribly. :-) Especially since he decided not to join us for the viewing of the Biggest Loser premiere.

200 Squat Challenge: Day 2, Week 3/Power of One/Healthy Living Goals

I just did my squats and my grand total for the day is 173! Let's see if the one-armed Mandy(t) can beat that!  Whoo, my back hurts and my legs are gelatinous. (There's a word you can't work into daily conversation without trying).

Trying to catch up on reading blogs and I see that one of the most cleverly named blogs, Cankles and Carrots is joining a challenge called The Power of One at The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans blog. Because I'm not afraid of failure, and because Steve's HOT 100 is cming to a close, I foolishly signed up.  Please go over and suffer along check it out with me.  I have no idea what I've signed up for. Really. I'm not good at tracking on routines of any kind. I tend to rebel against them, even if - or especially when - they are self imposed.

The thing that sold me on this challenge was the cute and clever name of the blog  fact that they outwardly reject the notion of new year's resolutions. Sold! However, the challenge for today is to list my new healthy living goals. So, what can I come up with for this?

• Continue Blogging Daily
• Increase my compassion capacity
• Stretch my frustration tolerance (Thanks Anne!)
• Continue losing weight and making my doctor happy
• Participate in a 5K walk in the first half of the year
• Achieve a healthy BMI by the end of the year

Another part of the challenge is to take measurements and a "before" photo which I will do tomorrow at the gym since I have no clue where our tape measure is now. Kiddo has a playdate in the afternoon and I plan to visit the gym at that time, so I'll ask the trainer to take measurements for me at that time. I do know that my weight this morning was 232 lbs even. It says I should blog about my bathroom scale, but I use my Wii Fit board as my scale and it's not in the potty :) (tee hee, I said potty).

inspired! This is what I needed.

I love this post. please read. I hope it helps.

4 Hours ago

Over 4 hours ago, I got home from my workout. I ate my lunch - nuked potato with cheese - and sat down at the computer to catch up on blogs before writing my own super-inpired interest.  Kiddo's bus will arrive in about 20 minutes but writing is in the air and I just can't get caught up on all these blogs. As soons as I read a post, 3 more new ones come up. I read an entire blog from a noob that I just adore. Unfortunately, I didn't save it to link to her, but I "followed" her so when she posts next, it should show up on my feed.  I started 2 more inspired posts that I want to come back and flesh out later. I had some great movies on AMC in the background. I read, and commented, read & commented . . .it was so much fun. I talked to BFF on the phone, also very very fun. I read some personal emails. One from my favorite blogger that was so supersweet that, if I were a sensitive person, would have made me cry like a big old baby and eat a bag of Reese's minis. Since I'm not, though, I only cried and ate 1 serving of kettle corn. Hmmm. . .that would be even better dipped in chocolate.  Anyhoodle, there is a lot of energy out there in blogland today! Also, I did one and a half loads of laundry. I will have to kick ass on the kitchen before hubster comes home.

Before all this excitement, I had the second session with a trainer at the gym. Let's protect her privacy by calling her Tom Riddle. Tom expected me to do twice a many reps as I did 2 days ago with the same amount of weight. Tom showed me some "fun" new machines and exercise. Tom is the heart of all that is evil and she must be destroyed. As soon as I can raise my arms again. I'll be seeing her on Friday for our 3rd and final meeting. I'll need to bring my unicorn-hair wand.

Before that, I did about 15 minutes cardio, and did a little more afterwards to get the blood flowing or some such nonsense.

Tonight we'll be dining at Buffalo Wild Wings which may be a challenge. I need to check out their menu before we go. It's a school fundraiser and will be fun to visit friends. Later, we'll watch Survivor as a family. I will snack on water. Yum, water!  It's been a while since I've blogged about water.

Oh yeah, and the eliptical? It was my bitch for 13 minutes today.

Have I mentioned of where I dream to be?

Ever since I was a little kid, I've always wanted to go to Australia. It seems so beautiful and exotic to me. There is wildlife there that cannot be found anywhere else. It has the freaking barrier reef! Koalas, kangaroos, all kinds of weird critters and birds that you can only see here in a  zoo - IF you are lucky enough to live by an awesome zoo like I do.

So several months ago I stumbled upon a blog from Sue in Victoria Queensland Australia named, ironically, Dreaming of where I want to be. Oddly, she is - geographically anyway, where I want to be. And these days . . . she's in need of some bloggy love. I know it's meant a lot to me when bloggy friends have forwarded others here to support me on my low days. I'm all about moral support. Poor Sue, comments on her blog have been slow lately. Can you go check her out, please, and help her feel better?

Thanks!

Hot 100 and "I Refuse to Blow It Over the Holidays" update

I've lost 9 lbs since the first day of autumn. More would be better, but as long as it's going the right direction, I won't complain.

Health: Go to bed by 10 pm nightly
I've done very well on this except for last night when I had a hard time winding down after a day full of family fun :)

Nutrition: Eat more fruit!
I could do a lot better. I've been slacking here but I have lots of big juicy grapes waiting for me and I don't intend to let them go to waste!

Activity: Achieve BMI at or below 35
36.82 It's getting there! And with the new gym membership, it should get there a LOT faster now

Accountability: Blog at least 2x daily
This has been more difficult with all of the holiday prep and not much profound to say. Not a lot on my mind except for cleaning.


Pay it Forward: Encourage hubby to join the journey

Quote of the day "I could try to lose weight too, ya know"  :)

Dear body;

The problem with eating a boatload of watermelon in the evening is that you have to wake up at 3:30 a.m to pee. That's 2 1/2 hours earlier than usual. Then, if you didn't take your meds like a good girl the night before you might have some pain and an anxious mind so that you're still up at 4:30 posting on your blot with really not much to say.

Not that it's ever happened to me.

Where will you be in 5 years?

I read something pretty absurd recently about there being no bloggers in this realm who have been dieting for 5 years.  I know, I know - Math is hard. However, most of the people I have read are people who have been dieting for their WHOLE LIVES and I'm pretty sure they're more than a few years old. When you keep doing the same thing and it doesn't work - it's time to try something else, like blogging.

I always hated the question "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" because I realize that it's unknowable. Before I was much older than 5, my life was completely unpredictible and sometimes quite unsafe. As much as we'd like to, even as adults, we humans cannot fully control our own destiny. Make good choices with the circumstances you are handed, sure! But to say you "know" where you will be in 5 years is pretty presumptous in my opinion. When put on the spot, I would always tell prospective employers that I hoped to still be working for them in a mutually beneficial role. I never had trouble getting gainful employment.  Today, it's the same thing. In 5 years, I hope to be continuing my healthy lifestyle that I've started now, living as a healthy (not obese) person physically and mentally. Things will undoubtedly happen that are beyond my control, but I have confidence at this point in my life that I can continue to make beneficial decisions that will keep me moving forward. I could lose life or limb and that would effect my health - duh. Nobody knows when or if that will happen.


Within five years? I think that weight loss bloggers of today will either succeed and not longer need a weight loss blog, or they will fail for various reasons and close their blog, or change it to something else that works for them. What you can control is your own attitude right now: try, do, achieve. Make goals and work towards them, sure . . but if things don't go as you planned, you'll have to adjust those plans to what.works.for.you.  Others may think they know what's best for everybody, what works for everyone, but they don't know. Usually these people are so devoid of compassion or empathy that they can't possibly imagine a life different than the one they themselves are living. These are often the same people, of course, that are constant "victims" of circumstance or making themselves out to be a martyr.  The bottom line is what works for you WORKS and judging others about their own choices is not going to support or help anybody.