I made it!

Well, I did make it yesterday. Not with the exercise, but with the eating. Ok, so it was 4 fudgesicles for breakfast and a pizza for dinner, and nothing else, but I made it.

I am currently having a problem with panic attacks about every four or five hours, and severe anxiety all the time I am awake, so I think I did pretty well!

All I am aiming for today is to do a little cleaning to keep the house OK - it is better now - and to do some gardening. However, the cat just knocked over two seed trays full of compost all over my spare room, so that will be some extra work! I need to make a phone call as well about flights, return my library books, buy something for dinner, and stick to calories!

Small stuff!

Rach xxx

PS. ROFL take a look at my goal time counter at the bottom of the page! REALLY worth a look today!

And the question for you all is....

...am I going to stick to my diet plan today?

Answers on a postcard please .

Will let you know!

Rach xxx

PS. Now there are caterpillars

The Thief of Time

Ooo-kay...so what do I write about today?

Just to add...

...after that post yesterday, the blasted aphids have arrived in force now!

ATTACK! ATTACK!

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's war!

I believe I shall look back on 2008 as The Year I Became A Gardener.

Also as The Year I Became A Cold-Blooded Murderess.

The two things are not unrelated.

I love gardening. It took me 27 years to realise it, but there it is. My husband and I began with a yard waist-high with docks and nettles and pretty much nothing else.

(It was something of a surprise. When we came to visit before buying the house, the garden was neatly mowed. We only learned when we moved in that the neighbours used to call it 'the jungle'.)

Anyway, we dug, weeded, hauled out a ton of dirt, hauled in a ton of gravel, sweated, cemented, bricklaid, dug again, bled, hammered, cried, dug some more...well, you get the idea.

Actually, my husband did most of that. Except the crying (he'd kill me if I allowed that to slip by).

I mainly provided coffee and sieved soil. And grew things. I raised hundreds of plants from seed. I would like to say this was because of some purist gardening ethic. It was actually because I am a cheapskate.

But I did find it very satisfying, watching my babies grow.

So many different emotions. Doubt as I stared at the bare soil in the greenhouse. 'D'you think they're duds?' I questioned my husband anxiously. 'No', he replied. 'You only planted them yesterday.'

Relief and pride as the first pale green shoots pushed their way out of the soil.

Amazement at the speed with which they shot up. Some of them, anyway. I am still waiting on the campanulas. Perhaps because my cat decided to use that seed tray as a bed .

True delight as I finally placed my tender new plants in the ground...their destiny fulfilled.

And then, finally, mounting horror as I went down the next morning and...they had disappeared. Almost all of them. Nothing left except the odd green stump or sad-looking shred of leaf.

That was when I felt the white-hot, unholy rage. It was their fault.

The Slugs.

They had to go. Now.

I began my war tentatively. I didn't actually want to kill them. Or my cats, which would undoubtedly view slug pellets as an exciting new treat. Or at least consider it their right to eat them, even if they did taste foul and make them sick.

So I did some internet research, and found a whole host of organic methods for slug control.

Many of them weren't even that murderous. But those were all so expensive. So I took a deep breath, and put out some beer traps.

It was a wet night. By morning, I had captured 40 of the miniature monsters. Initial triumph (involving a war-dance round the garden, in my dressing gown) turned to tears as I peered into the foul-smelling jars. The little bodies just looked so pitiful. Poor wee things. They didn't even die happy, because the beer had gone off. I was evil.

I didn't really function for the rest of the morning. Especially after I realised, beer traps or not, the slugs had finished off the rest of my morning glories overnight.

I was in mourning. I kept away from my garden for the next few days.

But then something happened. A small switch seemed to flick in my brain. Sure, slugs might be God's Creatures. But My Garden, I decided, was More Important Than Them. They probably didn't even have a central nervous system. Whatever that meant.

Since then, it has been all-out war. And I have to confess, I am loving it .

My methods and strategies are numerous. Beer traps, organic slug pellets, coke-bottle cloches (yep, I encourage coke consumption these days), copper tape, night raids with a torch (those are my personal favourites)...

Every morning, I bound triumphantly up the stairs to give my hubby (still in bed) the latest campaign updates. He groans and opens one eye as I report eagerly:

'An excellent night for our boys, sir. A few minor casualties in the greenhouse, but nothing to worry about. The Hun were completely unable to penetrate our cloche defences. Ingenious, sir, ingenious, if I do say it myself. And 42 fatalities in the enemy camp, 40 privates (that's the little ones) and two Majors (you know, the ones with the big orange stripes around the bottom).'

This could be seen as a little insensitive to my husband. He is in the military. He has been to war, himself.

But he doesn't mind. He just wants me to shut up so he can go back to sleep.

Errm, I could do with making this about weight loss, somehow.

And here we go...what have I learned from this whole experience (except that I am a foul Killer who can cast my morals aside like trash when it suits?)

Well, gardening has not been what I expected. I started the spring with clear ideas about how my yard would turn out. I envisioned a perfect English country garden. A gorgeous planting scheme of stunning, healthy specimens. The sort of garden that would blow my neighbours' out of the water.

Things haven't turned out quite that way. I encountered Problems.

Not all my seeds grew. Some of the plants didn't transplant well. Some died for no reason I could see. The rest were munched by slugs/trampled by cats/squashed by the neighbour's ball.

And it has all taken so long. I thought I would be relaxing in my paradise by now...but it is nowhere near finished.

Predictably, I knew straight away why all this had happened. It was My Fault. I was a Rubbish Gardener. I had Failed.

If I had been more educated/harder-working/better, this wouldn't have happened.

So I decided to forget about working on my yard. What was the point?

Except, I kept remembering how much I liked gardening. So I decided to have another try.

After more computer research, I realised a few things. Firstly, yes, some of the things that happened were down to me not knowing enough. I had done some things to harm my plants. But that was OK. It takes people years to learn about gardening. Mistakes are just a part of that.

Secondly, whatever I did, some problems were bound to occur. That is just the way gardening is. I had scoffed at the instructions on the seed packet. Plant them all? 150 of them? How wasteful, I only need 15 plants!

But I didn't allow for the facts of life - that however hard you work, some seeds just don't grow, some plants aren't strong, and some will always be eaten by slugs. And even if I do get my garden looking how I want it, the work to maintain that will be immense.

I had to accept these things as a part of gardening and just get on with it. I had to learn it doesn't matter if some of my stocks don't flower because I planted them too late, it doesn't matter if my ageratum looks a bit nibbled, it doesn't matter if my garden is that little bit less than perfect. It will still be beautiful and it will still be mine.

Gardening has taught me that I have a personality that likes perfection, in a world that is always flawed.

In gardening, and in life, I have to accept setbacks.

The same applies to weight loss. It won't turn out the way I planned. Things will go wrong - with my own behaviour and with life in general. Those things won't have easy fixes. It will get to summer and I will be less than half as far along as I thought I would be. And even when I do arrive at my goal, my battle to maintain my new weight will only just be beginning.

But if I keep going, I will learn as I go along. I will find ways of coping with those curve balls. I will get results, in the end. And, even those results aren't quite what I imagined, I will have achieved something beautiful just by making something a little better out of what I had.

And the slugs?

Well, luckily, I had some backup plants.

Most of them have survived, so far.

It's a war of attrition. I am going to have to keep on murdering the little blighters, probably forever...but hey, at least it's fun . Mwah ha ha! Love Rach

Time for a little honesty...

I am not feeling well at the moment.

I am looking back at my goals for June. I deliberately set them small. By June 20th, when I was/am going to Paris with my friends, I planned to have 1. got the important things in my life taken care of, 2. reached my lowest weight to date, 3. done two more weeks of C25K and 4. done some abs and upper body work.

I thought I would be reaching this point laughing!

Well, here is where I have been for the last two weeks:

I am seriously depressed.

I have spent way over budget.

I have done no work.

My bills etc are out of control, not because I can't pay them, but because I can't be bothered to.

My bedroom floor is a sea of dirty clothes. I have no clean clothes, not even underwear.

There are two flies in my house, probably because I have not got a single clean item of kitchenware and I have not scooped the cat litter boxes for days.

I buy food to cook, but can't be bothered, so I get a takeaway and end up throwing out the food I bought.

I have cancelled my trip to the US and am seriously considering cancelling my trip to Paris.

I have started self-medicating by putting my anti-depressant dose back up, because my doctor couldn't give me an appointment.

I have stopped calling my friends, even the two who have just had their first babies. I haven't even sent a card.

Needless to say, I haven't done any exercise.

I have binge eaten my way to an extra 5.5 pounds and am back in the 170s.

I am sleeping about 16 hours a day, even though I have not changed my sheets for nearly two weeks.

I have all these plans and hopes and dreams and no belief I will achieve them. I am so anxious I block everything out.

My therapist is away for a few weeks because her poor mom is seriously ill.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Anyway. It won't last forever, for me. It never does. I am going to try to clean up a little today, so the house may be messy but not dirty.

I'll keep on trucking! You keep on too!

Rach xxx

I am sorry!

Just a quick note to say I am sorry for neglecting you. I have been awful at posting and replying to or making comments.

I have been hugely busy, and not really felt like I had much to post. I had a week or so where I really thought I was so off track I was going to gain all the weight back.

Somehow reading blogs and trying to write made it worse.

I am 3.5 good days down, now, and have lost the gain...but I am still in the tender stages! Will report back when I have some progress.

Blessings to you all, and hope you are getting on really well.

Rach x

You are such wonderful people : )

Thankyou so, so much all for your lovely comments on my complaining post! I don't deserve such lovely people as you! I can't quite bring myself to delete the post now because of the comments!

Anyway, I am feeling slightly better, but I did binge last night, after spending about three hours stressing about money. So mad at myself. So horribly bloated. And feeling a little helpless about it.

I put out the jars of beer...caught so many slugs...but oh, did the guilt almost floor me! I don't know why, as my Dad said, they died happy , but it was so awful just to see them floating in the jar!

I am going to put copper tape round my pots and maybe make some cloches out of old soda bottles, maybe with the tape round the bottom. But I feel like some of the slugs are the burrowing kind and that is how they are getting past the barriers. And the nematode things? I just don't trust introducing a creature that isn't natural into my environment. That might be daft, but I have a bad feeling about it.

It turns out my cat is also fairly keen on beer . After sniffing around the slug traps for a while, he dipped his paw in and started licking it. He just kept doing it and doing it, so in the end I brought him inside.

In the morning, as soon as he was let out, that little beggar went straight up to the jar! He stuck his paw in, pulled it out, went to lick it and then just stared at it in horror. I guess the smell of about 50 drowned slugs was not to his liking. So I don't foresee too many more problems with his drinking .

Sooo...I have to go look at my budget. We have been sticking to it fine, but it is just so tight. It stresses me out.

See you all later, lots of love Rach xxx

Catalogue of complaints

Hi guys! Feel free to ignore this post, I just wanted to complain for a while. I am sure I shall delete it later!

1.  I HATE SLUGS! I have tried so many things to get rid of the little blighters. Everything I can find that doesn't hurt pets. In fact I caught 40 last night in the rain. Despite that, this morning my LAST seedling I planted out was bitten off at the base.

I have more, but I don't see any point planting them out. They have all gone. I have worked so hard on this garden, and, blah! Plus I feel totally guilty for killing slugs.

2. I HATE NEGATIVE EQUITY! Our home is likely to be in negative equity in fairly short order. Not much to say about that, really, a bit sad as I have always worked so hard with money. I am sure many EPers are in the same boat.

3. I DON'T WANT TO GO ON VACATION! I know, I know, my wallet's too small for all my 50s and all that! But we booked our 3 week trip to the States a long time ago, to get cheaper tickets. Now...I have a lot of stuff going on here, and really can't even spare any money at all to use on vacation because circumstances have changed. We are meant to go in 2 weeks...all my OH's family know we are coming...I am dreading it, absolutely dreading it.

4. MY CATS WON'T GET ON! Fighting, fighting, fighting, and they are both miserable. I am actually thinking of giving away my sweet Ruby to a new home.

5. ZITS! I have adult acne. Most chemicals set it off, so I could control it pretty well except, as a redhead, I need sunscreen every day. Even with a doctor, I couldn't find one that didn't set it off. But I did get one prescription that worked and I had perfectly clear skin last week. For four days. Now we are back to normal. Hopes dashed!

Anyway, none of those are massive, that is what writing this has shown me! In the grand scheme of things, you know? It isn't world hunger, is it?

Rach x

ETA: Can't believe I forgot this one! 6. I AM HAVING A PLOUGHMAN'S FOR LUNCH TODAY AND I FORGOT TO BUY THE BLEEPING BRANSTON'S!  Errr...that might not mean much to those who aren't British.

Spilling (a lot) of beans

My Friends Must Have Noticed I Have Lost Weight.

That was the amazing insight I had the other day. Clever, huh?

Why, you might ask, did it not occur to me before? I've only had about 14 months and 45 pounds to come to this staggering realisation.

I think it hadn't occurred to me because the overwhelming majority of my friends had never mentioned anything about my weight loss (not to my face, anyway).

I had kept pretty quiet about it myself. Well, I didn't want anyone actually acknowledging I used to be even bigger than this.

Until recently, that is.

Last weekend, at a lunch party, the subject of weight and fitness came up. The conversation ran on, and on, and on, and I kept thinking, 'Actually, I have a lot of things to contribute to this discussion.'

I mean, guys, a lot of what people were saying was just cr*p, if you'll excuse my language. In my opinion, at least.

I kept thinking, 'Most of these people, while they may be slimmer than me, have been trying to lose weight without success. I have lost weight, so it is OK at least to offer an opinion.'

But you know what another part of me was thinking...yep...'I am still fat. There is no way they are going to take me seriously.'

In the end, I took a deep breath and did make my contribution.

I couldn't just leave it at that, though. They might have thought, 'What does she know?' . Eeek. So I ended up justifying myself. To everyone. 'I have lost 45 pounds.' Plus the inevitable addition - 'Of course, I still have a lot more to lose'.

Pathetic, really. Who even cares if they judge me or not?

Then it got a bit weird. Once the shameful words were out there, I just couldn't shut up about My Amazing Weight Loss. Over the next few days, it seemed like every other thing I said started with the words 'When I lost 45 pounds...'. (This one time, at band camp...)

I actually started to feel quite proud of what I had achieved. I wanted people to know I had lost weight. And I wanted to share. That awful word (pretty horrifying for most Brits, anyway). I did, though. I wanted to let people know about my experiences, to show the world I wasn't ashamed of who I was or where I had been.

I may have carried it a little far.

I even talked about it in front of people I knew were struggling with their weight. What if I was offending them or upsetting them? But I just couldn't make my mouth Stop Talking.

At one point, I was chatting to a girl from my husband's work. She is overweight and has been since I have known her, and she was talking about how much she eats sometimes. She just seemed so down on herself, so in a fit of solidarity I found myself saying, 'Oh, yeah, when I was heavier I used to eat two family packs of Minstrels (that's about a pound of chocolate candy) every night'.

I didn't get the reaction I expected. This woman just stopped stock still and stared at me, and for a second or two this completely blank look spread over her features. It was like she had no idea how to process that information.

Then she just carried on talking, as though I had never made the comment.

I panicked. I thought, 'Oh God, she is judging me. Here I am trying to be all open and honest, here I am trying to make a connection, and she just can't associate herself with me at all. I am just too gross, I look gross, everything about me is gross and the things I do are so gross they are beyond her comprehension. Even though I have just sat and watched her pick her way through an entire block of blue cheese.'

That shut me up about my weight pretty quickly. It was a good job. I was getting boring.

I went home and got really depressed. Half a pie's worth of depressed.

Then I got angry. As I shovelled down my treacle tart straight from the packet, I muttered to myself:

'Who am I trying to kid? I have socialised with the same people all through my weight loss. They already know I have lost weight. There is one reason and one reason only they aren't mentioning it. It is because they don't want to admit I was - horror of horrors - obscenely fat before.'

Then I realised I must look completely nuts, ranting away to myself, spraying crumbs all over the couch.

Then I ate the other half of the pie.

After throwing all my toys out of the crib (and the sticky cushions off the sofa), I felt a little better.

Perhaps I wasn't really being judged after all. Perhaps the main reason I was so upset was that no-one, during my recent foray into the world of self-publicity, had actually said, 'Dammit, girl, you have done so well.' I mean, just one 'Lady, you are a total legend' would have been enough. Maybe. In fact, no-one had showed any reaction at all.

I wanted to think it was because my weight was not of the slightest importance to my friends, compared to my Stellar Personality. 

More realistically, I suspected it was down to the fact they all already knew my 'big secret'. Possibly they were jealous. Perhaps they just all thought I still looked huge.

Or maybe they just didn't give a flying monkeys about any of it (as this blog entry grows ever longer, I am beginning to feel that way myself).

The important thing, though, was that none of this really mattered. I wasn't doing this for anyone else. What mattered was how I felt about myself. The way I presented myself in public was a reflection of that. I had just gone out and talked all about myself for more than 30 seconds at a time - so I must be feeling pretty good.

Definitely cause for celebration.

OK, so maybe I had thrown myself into my new, fat and, dammit, proud persona a little quickly.

That's not so bad, though. It is good to be open about things. It might actually help someone, one day. It might make someone else who feels as cr*p as I did when I was eating that pie feel just a tiny bit better because they aren't so alone.

As long as I am not being belligerent about it, as long as I am not insisting my way is the only right way to lose weight (I can still think it if I want ), as long as I know When To Shut Up, I am allowed to speak up. I am not so repulsive I have to hide behind baggy clothes, or keep silent, or even stay at home. I like myself enough that I don't have to apologise for existing any more.

I know there are risks to this approach. I might offend someone who feels stuck in their habits. I might feel - or really be - judged and rejected.

But that's not really my problem.

In the end I might play a tiny, tiny part in changing the way people who overeat are viewed - and feel - in our society.

That has got to be worth it. Better than pie, anyway.

And I do rather like talking about myself.  Even if no one else gives a monkeys .

Rach xxx