Cool!

Thanks, kid!

The only beef I have with our YMCA's workout area is that there is no designated place to stretch. I end up out in the hall with people who want killer abs. I guess that's what they're doing... why else would they be laying on their backs, tossing a medicine ball in the air while doing crunches? Is that Killer Abs, or Exercises That Will Kill You?

So, I was stretching tonight after 30 minutes of the elliptical and 30 minutes of the treadmill, and about 7.5 minutes of "weight lifting". I was TECHNICALLY lifting weights... oooh... 8 pounds... in each hand, people.

Anyway, stretching... pleased to find that my right hip feels better... I thought I'd pulled something other than a muscle and didn't want to admit that maybe I am almost 40, and whattheheckamIthinkingtakingkarate?

Oh, yeah, out in the hall... so I'm out there stretching, and there's a girl wandering up and down the hall. Children under 12 are not allowed in the workout area... I saw a Mom and some kids get busted tonight. I was just wondering if I should say something to someone and the Y guy pushed them out. So, I can only assume that this girl was an exercise orphan and her mom was working out.

Ok, here's another beef I have with the local Y. They have childcare available for children UP TO 8 years old. Then there is nothing except classes that kids 9-14 can do. They can workout at 12 IF you pay money and they get trained on the equipment, and they have to wear a lanyard in the workout area. I totally understand that, but it leaves a big gap in ages to fill. They do have a "Teen Center" for that age group, but it looks totally unsupervised.

Oh, right... this girl walking the hall. She was crunching on Doritos and chugging something blue. I was thinking "Just finish your #$%@ Doritos already." That was really all I had to say... hmmm... not that interesting, now that I think about it. Never mind.

3 Pounds Down, and New Motivation.

I have lost 3 pounds so far... about 1 pound a week. Working out makes a HUGE difference in conjunction with eating better. Duh. Why do I think it won't matter?

Vitamin D has returned me to my Summer Self... the one without SADD. Seriously. Why was I not taking it before?

My Father in Law weighs just a few pounds more than me. That's the motivation part. He's 5'11" and recently lost a few pounds by not drinking anything with sugar in it. And I thought, maybe I should never weigh as much as a tall man.

No Respect!

Since getting children, there is very little that I can now call my own. By and large, the contents of my desk are mine, although I have conceded the front drawer that holds the pens. The children largely leave my working space alone after much exhortation.

One cat, however, is no respecter of personal property. Let me count the ways...

The Easy Way or The Hard Way

Easy/Hard... all amounts to the same thing when you're trying to lose weight and get in shape.

"It's so EASY... just eat less and exercise more."

"It's so HARD... eating less and exercising more totally sucks."

Day 4: still on track, but realizing it's gonna be a long haul. It's Day 4 of the rest of my life.

Dear Cats that live in our house,

Rico, Thank you for keeping my spot warm while I get up to go to the bathroom. If you would only give me my spot BACK once I return, I wouldn't be forced to evict you.

Murray, I know that it is considered "high art" among your feline set, but please stop leaving your "art" on our white bedspread.

Momo, I'm sorry about the blanket I threw over you and the subsequent sparks that ensued while you tried to get out. That's called "static electricity" and now you know a little more science than you did before.

Sibbie, thank you for keeping our borders safe. Your patrol at 10 p.m. helps all of us sleep better.

Back in the Saddle... Again...

I debated about writing about this, just in case I FAILED. You know... wouldn't want people to know I'm a MERE MORTAL. I'm back to the weight I was 2 years ago, and while my pants TECHNICALLY fit, there's a bit more of me than can be contained at the waistline. Yes, my friends, I've got a muffin top. Also, it's getting harder to blame the dryer on shrinkage of jeans that I've had for 3 years.



















I have been successful with Weight Watchers in the past... I reach goal, and then I kind of forget about all the tools to keep the weight off, and I slip back into bad habits.

This time, I don't have the time or money to go to meetings. Since I'm a life time member (I reached my goal 6 years ago, and 2 years ago, again.), it's free for me IF I am at my goal weight or lower. It's $12 a meeting if I'm not, which I'm not. I like the support of the meetings, but I'd like to think I could do this without paying a bunch of money.

As a program, I like Weight Watchers for the portion control, and the ease of use. There is one thing I don't like, and this isn't TOTALLY WW's fault, but the "WW culture." It is possible to eat a WW sanctioned meal that doesn't actually have much FOOD in it. The fake sweeteners, using cooking spray instead of real oil, substituting "food products" for "food" are, if not encouraged, are accepted. Of course, WW says to eat more real veggies and fruits, etc, but it is possible to still lose weight while eating fake food.

The other thing I find outrageous, is that all the yummy foods are penalized for having SUGAR, or FAT, or NO FIBER. It's as if these foods MAKE YOU GAIN WEIGHT. I don't buy it. :)

If you don't know how the Point System for WW works, it's roughly 1 pt. for every 50 calories. I get 22-27 pts. per day. The bowl of chili I had for lunch was 1 point per cup because of its high fiber and no fat. This dish composed of 24 mini corn chips and 1 oz. of cheddar cheese was 6 pts. You can see the spoon for scale... this was a small plate. I guess I could have eaten 6 more cups of chili, but no one but my colon would have benefitted.

Pick Me!

I spent 7 months in Austria in 1996. I believe that makes me uniquely qualified to be the Vice President of the United States. Oh, wait, someone has already been picked? AND she LIVES between two foreign countries? Oh, rats!!

Mentos and Diet Coke

Literary Sucker

I am an absolute sucker for these lists...

Bold the ones you've read, dash -- the ones you read for school, and italicize the ones you started but didn't finish. Here's the twist: add (*) beside the ones you liked and would (or did) read again or recommend to other people.

--The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods
Anansi Boys
Angela’s Ashes: a Memoir
Angels & Demons
*Anna Karenina
*Atlas Shrugged
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
Brave New World
The Brothers Karamazov
--The Canterbury Tales
The Catcher in the Rye
Catch-22
A Clockwork Orange
Cloud Atlas
Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Confusion
The Corrections
The Count of Monte Cristo
Crime and Punishment
Cryptonomicon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
David Copperfield
Don Quixote
Dracula
Dubliners
Dune
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Emma
Foucault’s Pendulum
The Fountainhead
Frankenstein
*Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
The God of Small Things
--The Grapes of Wrath
Gravity’s Rainbow
--Great Expectations
Gulliver’s Travels
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Historian : a novel
*The Hobbit
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
--The Iliad
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
The Inferno
Jane Eyre
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
The Kite Runner
*Les Misérables
Life of Pi : a novel
Lolita
Love in the Time of Cholera
Madame Bovary
Mansfield Park
Memoirs of a Geisha
*Middlemarch
Middlesex
Mrs. Dalloway
The Mists of Avalon
Moby Dick
Neverwhere
1984
Northanger Abbey
--The Odyssey
Oliver Twist
The Once and Future King
One Hundred Years of Solitude
On the Road
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Oryx and Crake : a novel
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Persuasion
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Poisonwood Bible
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Pride and Prejudice
The Prince
Quicksilver
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
The Satanic Verses
--The Scarlet Letter
Sense and Sensibility
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Silmarillion
Slaughterhouse-five
The Sound and the Fury
*A Tale of Two Cities
*Tess of the D’Urbervilles
The Time Traveler’s Wife
To the Lighthouse
Treasure Island
The Three Musketeers
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Vanity Fair
War and Peace
*Watership Down
White Teeth
*Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
Wuthering Heights
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into value