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10 pounds down 32 pounds to go!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

"I try hard not to make the same mistake more than three or four times."

The woofs and I just finished our second awesome long jog for this week. It's amazing how much faster the walk goes when you run it. We ran twice as far as we usually walk in almost the same time. I shouldn't be amazed but I am. I thought running that route would be a bigger ordeal but it seems our long walks have put me in good shape because I don't feel any of the pain or frustration with myself I felt when I used to run on the road. And we haven't been eaten by a bear yet so it's all good.

Somehow I'm just not afraid of the critters anymore. I'm done with that because I have no intention of sitting in my house because there might be bears in the woods in Maine. And with the racket we make no way will anything cross our path on accident. I am a bit worried about the hunters though because I think probably the bears are smarter. Hunting season starts in exactly two days and I really hope it doesn't mean we have to stop running just when I'm starting to really like it again.

I'm kind of amazed at how easy it is to start this time. I've been underestimating the power of our long walks because I'm not any thinner. How terribly vain. Anyway, my legs and my lungs must be getting stronger because I didn't get any of that feeling like I couldn't take another breath or step. Except for dodging the loose rocks, the ground is much softer and easier on my knees than the paved road.

My goal is to rebuild a sense of routine into my life because that's when I function best and not just in a weight loss way. Doing something everyday makes the difference between choice and habit and I'm not allowed any more choices because I suck at making good ones consistently.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

"Thinking very often resembles napping, but the intent is different."

There are these bins at the front of my grocery store which are always full of things that no one would want to buy ever. It's always obscure jello flavor overstock or last season's paper goods. Who wants to buy fourth of july themed paper products in October and especially who needs a pallet of them, seriously. But anyway, the point is that I bought something from the bins of destitute marketing failures and it was this:




Who wouldn't be interested? I wonder what they were thinking, was it like "hey, we like gingerale...we like green tea...why not?". Actually it was pretty decent, I don't know that I'd go out of my way to buy it again or that I'd buy enough to survive the apocalypse but I'm not horrified. There are so many products that come out and you really wonder why they had to go there. Do there really need 15 different ways of selling a peanut butter cup, does it really increase Reese's market share to come out with a new peanut butter cup derivation every 3 months? What is the word for creating your own competition, is there a business term for that? At what point are the new products coming out going to be so ridiculously unnecessary that evolution just ends? I thought it was those disposable toilet brushes but the sun keeps rising so I guess there's something more ridiculous yet to come.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

"Cupcake, your middle name is trouble."

Today I met a cake that was too much for me. It was my clients birthday and we had a lovely lunch at the new Irish pub in town with a guinness chocolate cake for dessert. The cake was very good, but it was also four layers which was three layers too many. It's so weird because I have been looking forward to an excuse to eat cake guilt free. Until today at least. This morning I wanted to wear some new pants for the special occasion but uh oh, they didn't fit so hot. Which is why I came home to do pilates for ONE HUNDRED HOURS. I hate it when clothes don't fit that used to fit, it breaks the illusion that nothing is wrong. I like being delusional and eating cake and pretending nothing is wrong. Bummer.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

"in my own defense, I'd like to say I haven't run over anyone since."

I am urgently shopping for a winter coat this week because apparently SNOW in OCTOBER is no longer a nightmare but a painful frozen reality. My current coat is in a bad way, ten years and two dogs later it needs to be replaced. I also need some waterproof pants for snowshoeing so it's going to be an expensive but warm and toasty month. I hate just about every coat I've seen and the only coat I'm warming too, hehehe, is really expensive. Ridiculously expensive actually but if I amortize over the next 10 years it's pretty affordable. I'll have to talk to Matt about it, he's my sounding board for expensive purchases and usually he tells me to go for it if it's reasonable instead of me torturing myself over the decision to spend.

I'm really concerned about a. buying something I actually like instead of the cheapest workable thing and b. I'm concerned about fit. Those two may be more related than I realized but ten years when I bought my coat it didn't fit very well. I did that thing where you buy the extra large because that's how your brain sees your body. I'm determined not to buy a bad coat this time. I'm trying to take my time but the weather is seriously against me. This has officially been the shortest summer ever.

Monday, October 19, 2009

"I'm telling you, it's fucking hard to be classy"

I'm feeling very domestic this week. I've been baking up a storm and my kitchen smells so good. Yesterday and today I made baked beans...yes it took that long because they WOULD NOT cook and now we're eating them and they're very yummy. Last night I made an apple crisp in an effort to use up the last apples and it's amazing. There are sometimes when I feel like everything I cook comes out great and this is one of those times...maybe I should try a meringue or something else impossible...like scratch white cake. I know this is probably not the website to go begging for cake recipes but seriously y'all, if you're an undercover baker and you have a vanilla/gold/white cake recipe that knocks off the socks please let me know. I'm tired of box white cakes...it makes my soul sad.

So, obviously, I'm not killing myself to stick to some special diet. I'm eating more or less the same things just maybe not in the best portions so I'm bringing back the measuring cups. I'm better at eyeballing than I thought but less good at stopping where I should stop. A dash more of salad dressing, an inch more of cheese and a few more nuts move a salad from light to heavy real fast and that's the sort of thing I haven't been diligent about. I haven't been using the least amount of oil when I cook and the lowest fat versions of everything possible. I'm working on them one at a time, they all become habit eventually.

It really hit me when I started putting away the summer clothes, how little I wore because it didn't fit right. I made a decision a long time ago that I wasn't going to keep clothes that didn't fit for any serious length of time. I don't want to be the person who lives for the future like that, a nebulous future filled with ill fitting out of date clothes. Anyway, so I have to make some decisions to either fit back in to those clothes or sell them and buy new ones and just get on with things. I guess, judging from the above, that I'm heading toward a goal of the solid twelve. I still wear a twelve actually but clearly I'm not twelve enough to wear some of the things I wore last summer. I need to be a smidge twelver. So, no more apple crisp.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

"I'd bitch slap the devil for you."

I have a pimple on the exact center of my nose. It's the kind of thing that usually only happens in Cathy cartoons and Bridget Jones novels but No, IT'S REAL! It's actually very uncomfortable above and beyond being unattractive. It's also really, really cold here. It actually snowed down the road aways. It is much too cold and snowy to be October. The last in a long list of things that aren't Ok.

The ok list is getting pretty long though. My house has been clean for days on end, which I know is the lamest thing to blog about ever but has such a huge bearing on how I feel about myself every day. I have gotten two sessions of pilates in this week which is more than last month probably so that's really making me feel good. The doggies had a wonderful day in town and were so well behaved you'd think I drugged them. This makes me especially proud because if it wasn't for them I wouldn't be working on my myriad anxiety issues.

I have had unnamed anxiety issues since ever. My mother was a psychologist and it's been bothering me lately that she never noticed or cared enough to address it. It's a very conflicting feeling. On the one hand I know they had bigger problems with my brother. On the other I had problems with my brother too, never knowing if he would be searching my room for things to sell or having his creepy "friends" over when I got home from school, or talking about committing suicide. So many things were never addressed, just survived and now I can't take two free breaths if there's a dish in my sink. Anyway, it's my problem now and I have to fix it before the dogs run under a truck and I have an aneurism.

I never learned how to relax, not really relax. Looking at it from an adult perspective, my parents never relaxed either so of course I never learned the importance of letting things go. I practice every morning now, before we go on our walks and during our walks and after our walks. I make that whole time a no anxious thoughts time. I don't think about the things I have to do when the walk is over, what I'm having for breakfast or what I'll cook for dinner. I work at just enjoying our time in the woods for what it is and the dogs (or I should say Knox) is responding. He shows less anxiety every day and Jolie follows us with awe. We're on our way to being a happy tails success story. I should have got dogs years ago.

Monday, October 12, 2009

"Only men you can count on these days are Ben and Jerry."




This puppy likes toys. Knox likes toys too, but he'd much rather chase Jolie around the yard and before her he enjoyed tackling Matt. Neither of them like Big Mean Kitty as much as I do. There were three angry kitties to choose from, the other two were Awful Mad Kitty and Dirty Rotten Kitty. They're all hilarious and if I'm not very diligent with my budget I will end up buying all of them. I have a real weakness for dog toys but it is certainly better than having doggies eating the furniture and shoes and EVERYTHING ELSE. Little one likes shoes a lot so I try to keep really awesome toys everywhere. She tries to drag Matt's boots to her lair but they're a little too heavy. She's big into stealing. She takes pot holders and kitchen towels and all of the bones, her bed is now two feet taller than it used to be.

"It hurts my shoulder when I break down the door."

I want to be sleeping but what do you know I'm blogging. Matt had fisticuffs with the toaster and I couldn't sleep through the sighing and reverberating animosity. And now I have to buy a new toaster. Who would think a toaster would be so important but the one we have is killing us slowly. Hello Kitty toaster never did us wrong, until she died after years of continuous use. Matt really misses her, he didn't mind at all that his breakfast had a girly cartoon cat on it, so now I have to go to target and see if I can get a new one.

I had the whole weekend off which was a nice change. I made some pies and we walked the dogs and it was freezing. 50 doesn't seem so cold in the spring but in the fall it's awful. At least it was yesterday. I really have to find my winter clothes. I put away a ton of summer things, some of which I never wore because they didn't fit well which is tremendously depressing.

I'm feeling like I didn't hit any of my fitness goals but that isn't really true. I have been getting at least an hour of hiking in every day and my legs are amazing. I haven't had the diligence with pilates that I need to feel really human. For some reason I can't get it into my schedule. I haven't been making room where I should and it's another tremendously depressing thing I have to report. You get to this point in the year where you really see the end of another big chunk of life and you start to think about what you accomplished you can feel good about and when there isn't very much you get to feeling like you should run a triathalon in december to catch up. Which is ridiculous when a few days of pilates actually getting done would make me feel like wonder woman. Sometimes my goals are so pathetically small it's painful to say them out loud. 'Specially when I'm such a slacker I can't say I completed them. Yikes, I drive myself nuts.

Friday, October 09, 2009

interwebs assistance needed

How does this happen? The second entry is my entry about Jolie and the first one...is a store inexplicably linked to my entry about Jolie. Say what?

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

"I bet nuns would be good basketball players"



Enjoying each other's company on the sofa after a long visit at the Vet. They were both troopers, playing the whole time and sitting for treats. Knox barked at the nurse when a shot made Jolie cry, a real big brother. She's already getting grown up teeth so she's older than we thought and will be smaller when she's grown up. I don't think it will matter because she's already spending most of her time with her teeth locked on Knox's fur. She's well up to the challenge even if she is only 30 pounds.

Monday, October 05, 2009

"you like eating, baking is just a preamble"



introducing Jolie, warrior princess. She walks under Knox and steals the toys right out of his mouth, she uses all ten of her pounds to charge her 60 pound brother and wags her tail so hard it sounds like someone knocking on the door. She's very lovable and curls up in our laps and gives us all kisses. She relaxes Knox when I leave and she makes him want to get in the car (praise the lord for that), and so far we like her a lot.

500 to 800 pets are killed every week at the pound where she was taken to be put down in Iberia, LA. I hate that someone thought this sweet bundle of woof was disposable, an inconvenience to get rid of. I can't even think about it without grinding my teeth...I'm minutes from lockjaw.