Well…it’s done…my house is now Christma-tized!(ummm….’tis so a word!) Tree is up,lit,ribboned,ornamented andskirted ….finally!
Things I now know:
I can decorate the entire downstairs of the my house including tree,formal living room, banisters, entryway, den, dining room, kitchen and bath in less time than it takes my husband to put up white icicle lights on pre-existing hooks on the front of our house .
On no less than 6 occasions my husband needed me stop what I was doing, come outside and offer input on the house lights.Otherwise, I might have been able to add “cooked dinner” to the above list….
My electric company generally shows its displeasure with me each December by rewarding me with a humongous electric bill.(They are so lacking in Christmas spirit!)
The company I was expecting on Monday (hence the rush to decorate) cancelled. …leaving me with a completely decorated house and plenty of party hor’deuvers.
Stashing stacks of emptied ornament tubs, string light crates and other various Rubbermaid Christmas containers in the garage, as well as, vacuuming dropped needles and glitter dust, plus taking a shower (complete with makeup and hair) can be accomplished in less than 45 minutes.Had it not been for an unscheduled babysitting gig with my 3-year-old granddaughter,I would never have known this.
Chasing after a high energy pre-schooler should be considered aerobic exercise.
It is not possible to bake Christmas Cookies without testing them.(the ones with frosting and sprinkles are best).
The little princesses’ Cookie Decorating Attention Span (C.D.A.S.) is exactly 9 cookies…I could probably have pushed and gotten a dozen out of it, but I can’t handle tears.
At 10:00 pm last night, I tossed the remainder of the Duncan hines buttercream frosting tub in the trash.But…not before trying it as a dip for baby carrots.
My DIL called me from Target today …apparently she and DGC were listening to the sample clips from the Christmas CD’s while shopping.After pushing one of the buttonsthe child geniusproclaims to her mom: ”mom, that’s Ben Crispy!”“His name is B_i_n_g C_r_o_s_b_y.Honey, you’re 3,how do you know who Bing Crosby is?””oh, Grandma told me…he’s dead now ya know?but it’s okay,cuz he was really old!”
…I now understand why they don’t take advantage of my babysitting abilities more often…
Well…thanksgiving has come and gone and I have to say…I could have done much worse eating-wisethan I did…admittedly I did eat more than I needed, but I had previously decided to grant myself the day-off and to put down the calculator for once and just go with my gut (literally????)
a couple of points worth noting:
Gut decisions —it is probably not the best idea to allow my gut to make eating decisions for this day (or any )…isn’t that what led me down the path to this website in the first place?
The Feast—fortunately for me the whole turkey and fixin’s spread doesn’trawk my world…sure it’s fine and all…but if it weren’t for the appetizers, stuffing and plentitude of desserts, it is a non-event holiday as far as the food goes …give me an outdoor bbq any day!
Liquor—gotta say…this isn’t a big part of my life generally speaking either…although the frozen margaritas yesterday certainly set the merrymaking mood in place as a nice addition to pre festivity happy hour(s)…add to that the wine at dinner…all’s good!
Cooking—Have I mentioned I don’t cook?Yeah…that’s right…I suck at it!!…no imagination, no patience, no ambition…I used to worry about this in my youth…how would I eat?Who would feed me? Who would show me how to work one of those oven thingys?Certainly one can’t live on take out alone can they?…but then, I realized…hey, if I marry a cook or fireman they can take care of that whole ” kitchen part that involvescooking” part of my life…I opted for the fireman!He was the hottest!
Family—yeah, I have one…yeah, they showed up…yeah they went home…fun was had by all…no arguments, no drama, all’s good…did I mentioned I was serving margaritas for the pre festivity part?
Desserts---very, very best part…in my opinion…I opted for the pumpkin pie (loaded w/ ff whipped cream) Since I was nominated Head Pie Cutter, I did have plenty of opportunity to sample the others…and can I just say that the chocolate satin pie was to die for?
Exercise—didn’t do it yesterday…hey, I had a house full of people coming over...there were floors to mop, vacuums to run, margaritas to make, a turkey to watch my husband stuff…oh well…I did roll out of bed this morning to work off the effects of the tryptophan and tequila that is still running thru my system…
No Holiday Traffic—to contend with, (my husbands favorite part).He hates driving in Holiday traffic and seems to complain at every mile marker or so.Since my family all lives over an hour away from us (some north, some south) and we are smack dab in the middle…well…we host a lot!
Gratitude—that we were all together (and most of us are quite healthy), that my familyall enjoyed themselves, that the leftovers were packed up and sent home with my aging parents…AND that the kitchen was cleaned and the margaritas were polished off all in time for Greys anatomy.
and most importantly....that today, I can break out the Christmas stuff that’s been packed away for a year and start decorating my house for the Holiday I live for…seriously!
Of course, I can't just list the items I like about exercising without listing all the feeble excuses I use to keep me from doing it...so here is my list:
10 things I hate about exercise….seriously!
Alloting time--setting apart the first thing in the morning to exercise, cuz if I don’t do it then, chances are slim that it’s gonna happen that day.
the first 5 minutes--of any exercise activity that makes me sweat
the necessities--buying clothes/shoes with the specific purpose of wearing them to sweat in, seems to me that since I am doing something healthy for myself, items such as these should be donated for my cause.
the fit--why must my stomach look so huge in yoga pants?????
the sweat--kinda a love hate thing going on here…love the feeling of a good workout..hate having to shower before I can be viewed in public
the laundry--do you have any idea how many extra loads of laundry must be done to wash these items regularly just for the pleasure of stinking them up for the next day?
the burn--why must floor exercises not only be boring but also cause muscle burn while doing them…and why in heavens name must my anti-christ aerobics instructor always insist on “just 8 more?”
the residual pain--is it really necessary for my muscles to remind me constantly that they didn’t enjoy the workout I gave them the previous day either?
the calories --no matter what they say, it is not worth an hour of all of the above just to enjoy an apple or worse yet a mocha frappachino.
the scale--despite all this hard work, the scale is slow to recognize a tangible numeric loss…probably that whole muscle vs. fat thing…oh sure my clothes may fit differently but who goes on a diet to lose a dress size…not me, I’m here to lose weight!
Kicking the scale only results in a chipped toenail...removing said chip does not register enough to change the value that the scale read originally.
I weigh and measure my foods prior to eating them.Sometimes.
My scale is attractive and looks good in my bathroom.Unfortunately, it is quite stupid!It refuses to register my weight loss in a timely manner.(if it were to attend school, I imagine it would be riding the short bus)
I weigh myself daily, every morning, to keep myself honest.Except when I know it will be hateful.
After opening my eyes each morning, I pee and then get on the scale… naked..I then brush my teeth and check it again…just to make sure….I accept only the lower of the two weights.
I haven't taken my measurements lately because they are too depressing.I need to loose many inches… from everywhere…. except maybe my ankles.
Regardless of how low the scale registers, I know that I would look better if I could just loose 10 more lbs.
I have a new tape measure.My old one was made of cloth and soon became stretched out.My new one is made of plastic and won’t do this.I miss my old tape.
When I was young, my mother always encouraged me to go on a diet.I rebelled against authority as a child. Especially my mother's.
We have a second home in Palm Desert (hence my name) and I just love coming here (I am here now)...it is so peaceful and relaxing, it's located right on the golf course and centrally located to some of the best shopping and restaurants around.. We come here to get away and relax and just enjoy ourselves...but therein lies the problem.
you see every time I come here, I think I am on vacation...you know, the whole palm tree swaying, pool lounging, golfers viewing, country club living features, entice me throw away my hard work and just enjoy my vaction...and EAT...yep...that's what I tend to do here is eat...too much and too often...it is so frustrating cuz...I know, I am not ON VACATION, that this is my home, but still I struggle.
I live for structure, in fact I crave it... at home I am very disciplined to exercise daily, count calories, pts, whatever and focus on weight loss...here, not so much...
but this trip I did a much better than I had hoped...I remained focused the entire time right up to dinner last night...when we decided to try a new restaurant for a change...and I let my guard down...it started out fine...I ordered a glass of wine (I had planned on this all day and had allotted for it)...the salad--yep...they had NO light dressings--who doesn't have a light balsalmic dressing available these days? so I opted for oil and vinegar..used just a skooooch of oil...so far so good...then the bread basket came...damn...no control!!!! two dinner rolls (and one pat of butter!!!!! bad) for dinner, I ordered the san dabs, baked potato (dry) and veggies...sounds like it should work for me right?
damn san dabs...I figured they would be lightly breaded and cooked in some butter...but they were actually laden in butter...it even tasted bad, too rich!...so good news is, I didn't finsh them..pretty much just had my small potato, veggies and called it a night...wish now I had ordered the shrimp cocktail from the appetizer menu that I wanted...
but the thing is "I didn't want to be THAT girl again" you know the one that is always on a diet...the one that has to ask a ton of questions about each and every item, mentally calculating the calorie content of each before making a final decision...for once, i just wanted to order dinner off the menu...
I wish now that I had been THAT girl last night...seriously!
So yesterday I completed week one of my newfound diet interest.
I am so freaking happy to report the the scale awarded me quite phenomenally with a 6.5lb loss for the WEEK... yes, I said WEEK, not month or quarter... but week. The way I generally lose this could have been considered an outstanding loss for a Month for me. so I feel completely motivated again.
I admit, some of the weight loss was probably from a very recent gain considering the whole Halloween and passing out candy debacle, but still I dropped those lbs. before they found a permanent spot on my hips.
The good news is, with a loss like this, it is just enough to motivate me for weeks to come. Theoretically, I know I didn't put the lbs. on overnight and can't expect them to fall off like that...but once I can get that first 10 lbs gone...it is so much easier for me to keep on track.
So I am cautiously optimistic about my continued success, and am shooting for a totally doable loss of 1--2lbs per week until Christmas where I can once again, pull out all of my currently too "small clothes" and gleefully celebrate the holidays in them.
I haven't posted in a couple days, but I am still doing great!! Tomorrow will be one week since I started my new diet...and let me say, I am feeling so much better about myself these days...funny how my lack of control over food seems to give some misguided credibility to my worthlessness as a person.
Technically I know this isn't true, but I think I have beat myself up so much lately over this lack of control that I started beliveing it myself.
This week feels different so for that I am gratelful. I still have scale issues, I let the scale dictate my mood for the day, when in fact their are so many reasons that the scale will fluctuate from day to day. (Two days ago, I got up and weighed, and the scale was down 2.5lbs from the day before!!!. This of course left me elated first off, then scared to death to weigh yesterday because I just couldn't bare the fact that the scale would read higher. I avoided the scale until today, and like I should have assumed it did read higher today by 1lb. but still...not the whole 2.5lbs came back, just a bit of it.)
Guess the thing is, I need to learn not to value the # on the scale so much, but instead appreciate that for now, I am feeling better about myself and then someday soon my clothes will stop feeling so snug...
since this is just week one, I know that it is too soon to notice physical changes...so I am just going to have to appreciate the mental ones. Once the physical changes start occurring I think I will find this whole journey a bit easier.
I’ve decided to confront you today and get this over with, so I can move on with my weight loss plan.
First off, let me start by saying that up until a few days ago, I had no idea that you even existed.You’ve hidden yourself behind a thin veil of secrecy while reeking havoc on my life. For whatever reason, you have chosen this time in my life to try and keep me from being happy, healthy and thin. I just want you to know, that I will no longer be tolerating this kind of treatment from you.
I have done nothing, for you to take such action!Oh sure, maybe I overlooked you and took you for granted over the years, but I certainly never intended to make you feel under utilized.We all get consumed with our lives so I guess maybe I was guilty of that, too.But the thing is, I never intentionally meant to piss you off.
That cannot be said for you.But….The.Gig.Is.Up!you have been exposed!.Fortunetly for me, my doctor told me all about you.He told me it was you, and not Will Power, that I should hold responsible for the constant grazing of my cupboards.That your goal, Mr. Thalamus, was to consume my every waking hour obsessed with thoughts of food and how soon I could get more, not unlike an alcoholic or a drug addict.
Because of this,my doctor suggested that you and I needed a break from each other,so for the next 60 days, You.Are.Dead.To. Me!
That’s right, you are in “time out” and shame on you for allowing me to feel badly about myself all this time.My doctor has given me a small pill, that I am to take daily, to ward off your presence for the next 2 months.He feels without you sabatoging me, I may be able to achieve my goal.
So while I won’t be concerning myself with you for awhile, I want you to know , that I do appreciate your worth, and do intend to give our relationship another try together in 61 days.Of course, there will have to be some ground rules set, but hopefully, we can learn to live with each other in harmony and be more supportive of each other’s needs in the future.
a couple of challenges the last two days...went to lunch and a movie with 2 friends on Thursday (both WW'rs) so that was okay, then met 2 other friends for happy hour that night (also ww'rs)...I did good, 1 glass wine and healthy appetizers...them--> not so good...
Then last night met 2 more friends for dinner and no problem again...dinner lettuce wraps and one light beer
geez, I sit around at home with nothing to do for weeks and the minute I set a new resove to go on a diet, everyone wants to go out and eat!!!!
