I never would have believed.....

Even if you had promised me, that I would have felt that 3 miles would have been an easy walk. I am now up to about 13 miles of walking a week. Half of that in one stretch usually. This week is the longest walk so far, which is going to be 9 miles. That will put me at 16 miles this week. YOWZA.

What have I learned so far from this? I am amazed at what my body is capable of. When I am walking, I take time to thank God for the ability to walk. I see too many people out there who can barely move from one end of a store to the other. I realize that they have sometimes allowed themselves to get that way, and sometimes it is through no fault of their own. So whenever I am feeling blue, I remember - HEY, I can walk 3 miles.

Holiday Challenge: Goals

So I have been going to Weight Watchers for over a year now. During the last year I haven't really lost much weight, but I haven't gained any back either. That is good and bad. I haven't ever done a weight loss program and kept 50 lbs off for so long, but I really want to lose about 35 more pounds (for those of you who are doing the math in your head.... Yeah, I really can lose that much more). Anyway, at the meeting I go to, during the last 12 weeks of the year we do something called the Holiday Challenge. Each week our leader challenges us to do something different that will help us learn more about eating and is part of the Weight Watchers plan. So for example, one week will probably be eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. I'll talk about the Holiday Challenge more as we get into that 12 week challenge (it is amazingly only a couple of weeks away) but this week we talked about setting goals for the 12 weeks, and so I am posting them here.

• Follow a half marathon training schedule in preparation for the P.F. Chang's Rock-n-Roll Marathon.
• Journal my food, exercise and feelings about the two during the twelve week challenge. (I have actually already started doing this)
• I will follow the Core plan (Weight Watchers calls it the Simply Filling Foods now, but I'll keep calling it Core) and only eat 35 extra points each week - if you have ever done WW you know what I mean, but if you don't, well you will be fine anyway.
• Eat two vegetarian meals (lunch/dinner) during the week. I have been wanting to try more vegetarian recipes, so this will help me start to do this (suggestions, Mrs. Swizzle?)

I feel good about these goals, and have actually already started most of them (except the vegetarian meals. I tried Baked Tofu in homemade fried rice last week and really liked it.

Do you have any goals for the upcoming holiday season?

After a Hiatus...

I have decided to get back to blogging. I've been missing it, and facebook can only provide me so much outlet. Had to finish school and blah, blah, blah.. there are always reasons. But anyway, I felt like getting back in, so for those of you who don't know what has been going on with me - here's the basic rundown:

• Finished travel school.
• Starting to found the business.
• Looking for a new job (stop gap until I get the travel sales up and running).
• Decided to train for a walking half-marathon with Curly Girl.

So here we go. Hope you are still interested in my life, I have continued to be interested in yours.

Wondering.....

When I taught Sunday School to 4 & 5 year olds (oh so long ago, Elastigirl's Teen was in my class) we used a technique I call "wondering. " It is one of my favorite things to start discussions now. My mom and I often say, "I wonder what..." because she is a fan of the technique as well. You get some great answers from it.

For example, when I asked, "I wonder how the shepherds felt when they saw the angels?" I was thinking that they would say, "Happy" (about 90% of the 4 & 5 year olds gave that answer for all wondering questions, then they would come up with something else while I waited) or "Scared" (which is how I think I would feel if I saw an angel, after all, the first thing an angel usually says is, "Do not be afraid.") I remember The Teen's answer like it was yesterday. He said, "I think they said, 'Hallelujah!'" and threw his hands up in the air. Always thinking, that one.

So anyway, I have so many things that I have been wondering about lately, I thought it might be good to write them down.

• I wonder what God's plan is for me


• I wonder why it seems like that plan includes me being alone


• I wonder if I will be alone for the rest of my life


• I wonder what success means to me now


• I wonder if it was a good decision to not immediately go back into the workforce


• I wonder how my new career will shape up over the next 5 years


• I wonder if I will feel successful in 5 years


• I wonder what life will be like once I have reached my weight goal


• I wonder what it will be like to wear a size 8 (or if that is the size I will be, cause I'm just guessing here)

That's just the tip of the iceberg..... What are you wondering about right now?

Thanks to Elastigirl...

for nominating me for this award. She is truly one of my closest friends, and I miss her a little bit most days and a whole lot on others. Our time together IRL is precious, but the blog she writes allows me to be with her off and on throughout the week. Thank goodness for the internet.

Here's the explanation and the silly rules that go with it:"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

As for the bloggers that are important friends to me, many have already gotten the award, but I will still list them here:

• Curly Girl: More than just a friend, she is my wonderful sister and inspires me to be more like her every day.
• Jennie: More family, and one of the funniest writers I have ever known.
• Mrs. Swizzle: One of the best all time blog tag lines: Do you ever feel like someone has put a swizzle stick into the top of your head and just stirred things around a little? I do, and I am glad to know there are other people like that in the world.
• Mary Beth: My first blog friend that I met after I read her blog. It was quite exhilarating. Thank goodness she is the least anonymous blogger in the whole world :)
• Princess Mindy: So interesting, and so creative. I look forward to meeting her IRL someday.
• Perplexity Project: More family, and really smart and insightful. Makes me think, which is always good.

So, looking here, I realize I need to make more blog friends. But I love the ones I have. Thanks to you all for brightening my life.

Looking Back at 2008

Reflecting on the last year, I was trying to decide what I had learned from 2008. There are so many things, but here are just a few, in no particular order:

• I am happier today than I was 5 years ago. I am focused on a goal, and working toward doing something I love instead of just existing. It really does matter.
• "You set your own price in this world" - this is a quote from my friend J, an economist. He told me that it was something his mama always told him. I repeat that to myself a lot these days.
• Things don’t get easier when you put them off. Procrastinating is never the right answer.
• Once it gets above 110 degrees outside, it really doesn’t matter if it is a dry heat or not. Really. It doesn’t.
• facebook. Enough said.
• I can be a skinny person. I can lose the weight that I want to lose, and keep it off. I just don’t know exactly how I will accomplish it.
• You don’t have to see your friends everyday for them to be really good friends.
• I have a lot to learn, even now.
  

What did you learn?

Wonderful Christmas

I had a wonderful Christmas this year. Surrounded by family, watching The Present open presents ALL DAY LONG (Christmas in the morning and birthday at night) and being delighted that he wanted to try and read every book that he got (he probably got about 15 books - the kid loves to read) and then sitting down on his own to try to read a book we got for Dimples when everyone else was busy.

Dimples was a force to be reckoned with, and no matter how many girly toys I got her (a baby doll and a pink boat) she just wanted to play with The Present's new cars. That one might be a tomboy, we'll see. She did give the baby a kiss, I think, but maybe she was just trying to put the baby's head in her mouth - she's been doing a lot of that since she started getting teeth.

For the first time in a long time, Curly Girl and I surprised our parents with their big gift. An electric smoker. Dad had been talking about it with her back in October, and she filed that info away and we did some research. Plus we got to benefit the next day when he smoked some ribs. Fantastic, his first try. YUM! In a world where we want to be sure that we get the right thing, our family has gotten in the habit of talking through what we want, and there aren't many surprises on Christmas morning. It was fun.

All in all, it was a wonderful holiday, filled with family and happiness. Hope that yours was amazing too.

Holiday Blogging

Well, I have to say I've missed a lot of my favorite bloggers over the last week or two. All of us seem to be busy, busy, busy. So I think I'll just make a post to give you all something to read, and maybe you'll take pity on me a post a blog about something for me.

I told a good friend about my blog the other day (he actually knew about it, but just never had signed on before) and he said it was interesting how all my blogging friends seemed to know each other. I thought how funny that was, because there are people that only know each other through the blog, like Elastigirl and Jennie, and while they are both important to me, they have never met IRL.

And so I explained to him that blogging is just like that, we find out about others thoughts and lives and learn from each of the blogs we read. I love clicking through the blogs that are interesting to my blogging friends and learn something new or laugh or look at things differently with each click.

So Merry Christmas to all who read this blog. And thanks to all of you who have enlightened me in one way or another during the last year.

Never Go to the Grocery Store Hungry!

One of my key rules to weight loss, but I broke it tonight. I am often weak once the food makes it into my apartment, so I just do not bring it home. Makes the decision what to eat much easier. Not sure why I broke the rule tonight, except I didn't really think I was hungry.

I went to one of my favorite new grocery stores here in the desert, called Fresh & Easy. They are a grocery store that operates on a smaller scale than most of their competitors, so it is eashy to run in and get out usually. The best part about them is that they have amazing store brands. Not only do they cost less most of the time, but they also use only natural ingredients. No artificial flavors or colors, no hormones in their meats, nothing with 16 syllables on the ingredient list. No high fructose corn syrup in their ketchup. Really good products. And they taste great too. The first part of tonight's breakdown. And when they want to get rid of stuff (if it going to expire soon, or if they are overstocked on it) the sell it at HALF price. AWESOME (and part two of tonight's breakdown).

So I went in to look for one thing - I wanted some blue cheese for salad - and came out with a ton of half price stuff that I did not intend to buy. Corn bread, frozen empenadas, green beans and much more. And almost none of it is on the Weight Watchers Core program. So at 35 points a week, it will take a while to consume. My only ray of sunshine is that this week Weight Watchers is unveiling a new program (called Momentum) so maybe I'll be able to have some of it sooner. Yum.

"Christmas is Coming"

Today was the first Sunday in Advent, tomorrow is December 1st, and its beginning to feel like Christmas. Not weatherwise, of course, because when you live in a desert, winter is mostly 75 degrees and sunny, which is not very traditional Christmas weather to me.

So I've been listening to Christmas music in the car (there is a radio station that has been playing it since early November, but I have not listened mostly on principle - there is something wrong with Christmas carols before Thanksgiving!) which always helps me get in the mood. I tend to sing out loud whenever I hear any Christmas music (which was kind of embarrassing at the big orange box today, when I was singing Feliz Navidad - "I want to wish you a Merry Christmas" - when I walked up to one of the cashiers I work with). Ah well.

Anyway, I'm getting in the mood. And I am wondering what Christmas music really makes it feel like Christmas for everyone else. Mine is all of the album from "To Wish You a Merry Christmas" by Harry Belefonte. My mom loves this album, and I associate it with the Christmas season - playing it on the day after Thanksgiving, and then again when we were decorating the Christmas Tree, and again on Christmas Day.

So what about you? Which song do you have to hear in order to be ready to celebrate Christmas?

I'm Thankful

I really don't understand where we got the tradition of calling Thanksgiving "Turkey Day" - I know I do it, and I know lots of others do it without any desire to demean the Thanksgiving holiday, but in preparation for this years Thanksgiving holiday, here are the top 5 things I am thankful for.

• I am learning something new, so that I can do something I love for the rest of my life.
• I have a family who loves and supports me in everything (OK, most everything) I do.
• I am healthier this year than I have been in years, and I am on the way to being the healthiest that I have been in my life.
• I still have friends who can make me laugh so hard it makes my stomach hurt.
• I have a roof over my head and a place to call my own.

So, I am starting a meme. My first ever. I tag Elastigirl, Curly Girl, Mrs. Swizzle, Jennie and Princess Mindy. What are you thankful for this year? Give me a Top 5 List.

Special Thanks to My Weight Watchers Leader!

And not for the reason you might think. For the last 3 days my neck has been hurting, and no amount of rubbing, ibuprofen or corn bags (heated) or anything else has helped me. Everytime I looked over my shoulder, pain.

So where does the Weight Watchers leader come in? A few weeks ago, we started the 12 week challenge at Weight Watchers, a creation (I believe) of my leader, Sharon. It is the final push to make it through the last 12 weeks for the year, which are filled with eating holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas - it is really an eating marathon). So each week we do something to challenge ourselves. Try new recipes, find new information, and even try new vegetables (mine were rutabaga and acorn squash). This week was do 45 minutes of activity that you don't normally do. I decided to use my DVR to record two exercise shows and follow them. One was Wai Lana Yoga. I picked it because I used to do Yoga quite regularly at QB's gym when I lived in the big state, and I have been missing it lately. I was able to do all but one pose (starts out like the picture above, then you stick your legs out sideways in either direction... I'll have to work up to that one, I think) and when I did the spine stretch, it miraculously released my neck! I feel so much better. I do love yoga.

So what 45 minutes of activity would you do if I challenged you to do it?

I'm still here....

OK, so I mentioned before I have a facebook addiction problem, and it might just have affected my postings over the last couple of weeks. I have found some long lost friends, and some not so lost friends, and it has been great fun. But I also miss the blog, so now I decided that no matter what, I am going to make sure that I post at least once a week.

Here's what I can't believe. ONLY 6 1/2 weeks until Christmas. WOW. So much to do between now and then. And I'm heading back to the Midwest for a couple of days to see family and friends. It will be nice, and I really miss everyone. That is happening before Thanksgiving. HOW will everything get done? I do not know. But I will just do my best. That's all I can do.

The First Step is Admitting You Have A Problem

I AM ADDICTED TO FACEBOOK. I just thought it would be a good idea to tell my internet friends. I have found some high school friends that I haven't seen in years. And camp friends. And family. Who knows who will be next. I don't understand all the share a cupcake and winking and other stuff, but I love finding out about people I haven't seen in ages. It's really cool. Any insight to help me kick the addiction? Maybe wean myself off slowly? HELP ME!

The Big 5-0!

No I did not turn 50 this year, nor am I contemplating life at 50 (although according to Oprah, 50 is fabulous!). This big 5-0 is about loss. A good kind of loss. 50 lbs! WOW. As part of my strategic plan I joined Weight Watchers, which I don't even know if I have talked about before here on the blog. I have joined before, but it has never stuck like it has this time, so up until recently I have been afraid to talk about it at all. But this week my cumulative total is 50 lbs, so people are starting to ask what it is I am doing. WOW. I picked up a 50 lb sack of grass seed at the big orange box this week, just so I could see how much that was. A lot, I think. And all since November 15, which means it has been less than a year.

Big thanks to Curly Girl and my mom, who have given me extra support when I needed it. My mom has struggled right along with me (and loss 30 lbs herself) and my sister is teaching me to think like a skinny person. I never have been able to do that before, but I am learning.

R.I.P.

My grandmother passed away this week. I am so sad, but mostly because I talked about calling her with my sister this weekend and just never got around to it. I loved her so much. She was a lovely woman and so sweet. She loved her family very much and always let us know it.

This year she turned 90, and for her birthday we published a cookbook, which I wrote about here. As I said before, she was able to live out her entire life in her own home, for which I know she was grateful.

I hope someday I have as beautiful a spirit as she did. Always kind and generous. I hope someday I am as good a cook as she was. Never measuring, always just knowing the right amount.

I love you grandma. I know you are happy to see Grandpa and your sister again. We will miss you so very much.

Six Unremarkable Things About Me

A tag from Elastigirl . . .

1. I cannot walk around with one sock/shoe on and one sock/shoe off. In 5th grade, I had a teacher (take note teachers of the power of your words) tell me it was bad luck to walk around with one sock on and one sock off. Now it gives me the heebie jeebies when I see someone else walking around like that, and have been known to take off my sock if I need to walk somewhere in the middle of putting a pair on. Curly Girl still makes fun of me for it, saying to her son, "Your driving your Aunt Smarty crazy with your one sock on and one sock off." And she is right.

2. I see all the flaws in the movie The Wizard of Oz when I watch it now (thanks to a summer camp dean - now a deacon - who pointed them out to me one summer when it was well over a hundred degrees so we had rest time in the cafeteria and watched movies because it had AC and the cabins didn't). Some of the magic is gone. I won't ruin it for you, but the problems are there. And I can't watch the movie without thinking about them.

3. I love to put together wooden jigsaw puzzles that were handmade by my great uncle. Regular puzzles don't have the same meaning for me. Our puzzles have pieces in crazy shapes and ones we call "specialty" pieces that are shaped like everything from the liberty bell to animals to one we call "running guy" that looks just like a guy running. Lots of family holidays have been spent doing these puzzles together and it is a great time to catch up. We have all levels of difficulty and we recently started The Gift on some that are 24 pieces. He loves them too.

4. I can say all 50 states in alphabetical order, thanks to a song I learned in the 5th or 6th grade called "Fifty Nifty United States." It has come in handy on more than one occasion, but I can't think of any of those occasions right now.

5. Because I moved so much as a kid (military brat) I do not remember things by the year that they occurred, but by where I lived when they happened. So the reason I said 5th or 6th grade in the last item is because I know where I lived when it happened, and I know I was in 5th or 6th grade then.

6. I like math. I always have, and I guess I always will. The world is filled with patterns and math problems and people ask my advice on "mathy things" (as my mom calls them) all the time. My pet peeve is when people say, "I can't do math" like it is an unnecessary skill. No one ever says proudly, "I can't read!"

I tag curly girl and jennie, two remarkable women.

I Missed My Own Blogiversary!!

Hard to believe that it has been a year that I have been blogging. I've been so sick the past couple weeks, that I haven't much felt like doing anything. It was all I could do to go to work and work on homework. Then sleep, sleep, sleep. And somewhere in there my blogiversary rolled on by. I also lost a brand new credit card for a week under my coffee table. Thank God I found it yesterday, because I was sure that I would have to cancel it before too much longer if I didn't find it. And I hate changing to a new number on everything.

So happy belated blogiversary to me. One year of looking at life through the prism of the world wide web. Hope there are many happy years in my future.

P.S. Thanks for all the well wishers. I am finally feeling better and have climbed out from under the mountain of laundry that needed washing and cleaned off the counters and surfaces, so I am back to the world of blogging again.

I'm SICK

Really and truly sick. What is it you do when you have a cold? For me there is a regimen of day-quil and ny-quil, nose spray and throat lozenges. And on the homeopathic front, I take zicam. I am usually not a big homeopathic remedy person, but I do think it makes me better faster, so I added that to my cold remedy about two years ago. I think it helps.

So today I am doing nothing but drinking lots of liquids, catching up on stuff that I have DVR'ed and napping throughout the day. Hope the combination of drugs and rest works its magic soon. I do not like being sick. At all.

So all you lurkers out there - leave me a message to help cheer me up on my sick-day at home.

What Decade is This Anyway?

I'm not saying I agree with her philosophies (she's pro-life, pro-gun, pro hunting, pro-who knows what else because before last week I had never heard of her....) but this is not the 1950's. Haven't we moved beyond the idea that a mother can't be a good mother with a big job? It is insane to me that these questions are even coming up. And even more so that they are being brought up by those people that I have seen as champions for equal-work-equal-pay idealism.

Her opponent, Joe Biden, when asked about her, said she was "good looking." REALLY?!?!? That's what he could come up with? Nothing about her politics? But what do you expect from a guy who's presidential race came to a grinding halt when he said that Obama was "articulate and bright and clean." He's certainly not PC by any stretch of the imagination. And he was a single father for sometime with small children, so he can't really be the one to throw stones. He had it all, career and children.

So all in all, in a world where I was really excited to know that I will see either an African-American or a woman in one of the top two spots in the nation, where there will be some kind of barrier broken for sure, I couldn't be more disappointed in the world's response to her as an individual. I am excited to see a woman on the ticket. We all should be. No matter what her party. Congratulations Sarah!