Losers Guilt

Today is the second week weigh in and I am pleased with my results, sort of. I lost weight and inches. I'm feeling optimistic and a little proud except that Big Daddy isn't losing yet and that feels rotten. I suspect I know why he hasn't seen the results I have and I suspect he knows too (although we haven't talked about it because we've discovered that trying to coach one another in an area where we both struggle is not good for our marriage). I know he's frustrated. I know it because I've been there and I'm a little afraid that he'll give up. I'm worried that I'll have to go it alone. I know it's possible, but I also know that I've never done it. So I've chosen not to pow wow about it because my feelings are tangled. I want him to succeed because I know he'll be happier and healthier and we can live a better life together AND because it makes it a whole lot easier for me.

What my head keeps whispering to me (and just for me) is that there's always an excuse not to get better. It's not convenient. It's a stressful time. I just don't have the will power. I can only say no so many times. (Seriously, I can go on for pages with this.) The only way it works is if the reason to do it is bigger than than the reasons not to. So I'm going to celebrate my success (quietly) and enjoy the results I've earned today. I can't promise I will stay in my own sandbox for good and for all, but I'm going to try to to stay in here for today. Happy Tuesday!

Winner Winner Big Steak Dinner

Yesterday afternoon I was toying with the idea of going to the bingo hall but my luck has been so dismal lately that I was having a hard time justifying the expense. Big Daddy encouraged me to go, suggesting that I could just play paper cards and a few pull tabs and maybe I could win a computer. Well that's what happened and then just when I decided I was out of luck, I got a bingo on the last game of the session. I left very thankful for my good fortune and then I bought some big old steaks.

My business has been slow lately and that means there's been very little "fun money." I think I've done a pretty good job of staying out of self pity about that, but honestly, I'm just a teenie bit happier and things are just a skosh easier when there's a little something in my wallet.

My experience at the bingo hall got me thinking about pedaling and coasting. (You knew this was going to lead to a bicycle analogy didn't you?) When Big Daddy and I ride, there's this route I choose all the time. It's easy at the beginning and then there's this stretch that feels ridiculously long because it has a slight incline and I start to pant during that stretch. (Look, I never claimed to be Lance Armstrong--I'm just a big girl on a sparkly bike.) There's always a point where I think, "Nope, I can't do it. I don't want to do it. This is dumb." That's when I'd quit only I have to get home somehow and so I slog on. I usually sing or pray during this part of the ride and then just when I think I can't go on, I make the turn onto Bronco. Bronco is my favorite street because it's all downhill from there. Gravity takes over and zooooooom! I just love that stretch and I am convinced that a good part of what makes it so fun is that it comes right after the point when it was hard and I was ready to give up.

I think good fortune comes and goes, just like there are times when we get to coast and time when we have to pedal. Either way we keep moving forward trusting there are happy surprises just around the corner. Happy Funday!

Stretching

These are some ballet cookies that I made for a customer. Rather than buy an expensive cookie cutter, I designed my own pattern, cut each one by hand and decorated them in pink and white. I am really pleased with how they turned out, because I didn't know how to do them before I did them. 

One of the things I love about my job as a caterer is that I routinely tell people I can do things that I've never done before. I am constantly learning, researching and trying new things (like leave lots of time for cookie decorating because your hand is going to cramp up about every five cookies!) It's the ultimate on the job training and while there have been some very stressful trips to the store at one in the morning because the lesson didn't go so well, but most of the time with proper planning and enough time to work, things turn out better than I expected.

In some ways I think I've gotten more adventurous as I age. When I was younger my motivation was usually external. I did things to please or shock those around me but now I'm driven more by the desire to experience and learn. Less WOOOOOO HOOOOO and more, oh wow. I think I'm quicker to say, "Sure I can do that," because I'm not as afraid to make mistakes. I finally recognize mistakes as a necessary part of the learning process. It's not a failure to learn what doesn't work.

One of the things that has been an inspiration to me is my blogging heroine. Her blog is beautiful. She makes gorgeous art. She has this amazing house. She takes breathtaking photos of her family strolling down the beach near her home (well of course she lives on the beach!) and I've followed her posts for years now. Recently I took the time to go all the way back to the beginning of her blog and guess what? It wasn't that great. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but it wasn't great. Her art, her home, her writing and her photos got much better with time and experience. This shouldn't surprise me, but it did. One of the ways the critic in my head keeps me from trying things is that Little Miss Thinks She Knows It All tells me that the people whose talent I admire are naturals. They roll out of bed beautiful and tinkle perfection. It's just not true. The people whose talent I admire have been willing to stretch and are committed to practice and those are things I can do too. Actually, there are lots of things I can do, I just haven't done them yet.

Enjoy the weekend, and try stretch your wings a little, venture two steps out of your comfort zone and try something new! You can do it, I know you can.

Feeling Super

Last night was rough. I had rushed to get somewhere and then when I got there I discovered that I didn't need to be there at all. Then, I wanted to go spend some money I can't afford to spend on playtime and I don't like telling myself no. I wanted to eat things I'm not supposed to eat. The TV was getting on my nerves because they kept showing commercials for things that cranked up the temptation to 11 and all I could tell myself was "this too shall pass." I turned off the TV, grabbed my Kindle and went to bed early. This morning I got up and did my thing with no thought of the struggles from last night. It really did pass just like I told myself it would.

This got me to thinking about "getting over the hump." So many times I suspect I've snatched defeat from the jaws of victory because I wasn't willing to be uncomfortable for just five more minutes.

About seven years ago, I was walking through some stuff. I was cleaning houses for a living and I was not happy about where I was living or who I was living with. I'd lost a lot of the stuff and the status that made me feel like a big deal and I was none too happy about any of it and to add to the fun, I was trying to lose weight and work out. I had a membership to the rec center at the time and three or four times a week I'd go walk on the treadmill or ride the bikes and I'd do this little workout routine. I discovered that if I didn't workout right after I finished cleaning my houses for the day I wouldn't do it, so I would go straight from work to the gym.

Well this one day, I was headed to the gym and I looked down and I had on a pretty low-cut t-shirt and some underthings that weren't exactly designed for working out but I knew if I went home I wouldn't go back so I decided that it wasn't that big a deal. I did my little cardio, and then I did some arm thingies, and some crunch thingies, and some more arm thingies and I was just about done when I got on this piece of equipment called the Roman chair and you hook your feet in and your tummy is on this seat thing, and you put your hands up by your ears and you lift yourself up and lower yourself down using your abs. So I'm lowering myself down and then lifting up and arching my back. Then I notice there's this old man watching me and I really needed him to get back in his own sandbox if you know what I mean. I am not cute when I work out. I am sweaty and I'm fussy and I sure don't need any attention from Papaw while I'm trying to get done. Six, Seven, Eight...the whole time this man was staring at me and the whole time I was trying to give him a sufficient stink eye so he would stop, and then it happened, the thing he'd been waiting for, and I didn't have to see it to know it happened because the look on his face let me know all about it: I'd had a wardrobe malfunction. I lowered myself down and quickly returned the wayward body part back into her holster and then I had a decision to make. Would I quit or keep going? This small firm voice inside said, "Finish the set."  So I did and then I did another one.

I walked to my car and I felt like I'd just won a gold medal. What had begun as a silly situation turned into something bigger, something important--something spiritual. All afternoon I thought about how important it was to just "finish the set." Most of my life I'd spent so much time and energy focusing on the five seconds of self consciousness  and convincing myself that I had to quit, that I'd missed out on the joy just doing a little more than I thought I could and that was the victory this morning. I waited it out. I finished the set.

I hope whatever challenges you meet today pass quickly and that you don't give up before the miracle happens because they happen every day friends. Love & light to you all.

Cleaning the Craft Room

I started a project yesterday that I thought would take a couple of hours. I'm now on day two of what will be at least a three day project, a disaster I am calling "Craftnado." As I told my Facebook friends, "I waaaaaay over estimated my enthusiasm for this project."

Oh my gosh. I don't know if everyone has that room (or three) where they toss stuff when people are coming over, but I had two (and some closets and the garage) and then I had overnight guests so the guest bedroom had to get shoveled out. That left the craft room and man oh man oh man, is it a wreck of epic proportions. It's awful. There's glitter, scraps of paper, beads, ribbon, buttons, empty boxes, tangled yarn, dozens of bottles of paint (just imagine at least three things from every aisle in Michaels to complete this list) and it's everywhere. I have baskets and boxes for this stuff, but half the stuff is in the container and the other half is jumbled up with some other stuff. There are tote bags with project remnants and Levis with a tear in some important place. This is a hoarders starter kit right here. So I start dragging things out into the hall so that I can rearrange stuff to make the room more user friendly and I slowly start putting things into cubbies and plastic shoe boxes when I find my electric pencil sharpener and I spend the next half hour sharpening colored pencils!!!

This is exactly what would happen to me lo those many years ago when my mom would send me in to clean my room. I'd close the door and I'd get started and three hours later she'd find me sitting in the floor organizing my crayons with Roy G. Biv with no discernible progress made. My problem then is my problem now: it's very hard to clean up toys and not play with them.

I look at the pictures of craft rooms on Pinterest and I see these massive spaces with a billion dollars in Container Store shelving and three hundred plastic coffee containers spray painted robin's egg blue with chalk board labels on them and I think to myself well if I had that kind of room...I'd have a much bigger mess to clean. So I'm happy with what I have. When I was a little kid we had a family friend who had a closet filled with real cigar boxes and each one was labeled pom poms, feathers, jingle bells, felt, ribbon & watercolors. There was only one rule for her craft closet: no kids allowed. It was like standing at the window of the chocolate factory staring at all those boxes and not being allowed to use any of it.

Today one of my great joys is sharing the craft room with my nieces. I love that I'm the kind of aunt who gets to say, "Use it up, I'll get more!" So I guess that thought is just the nudge I need to get up and go spend another hour in there. Happy Hump Day people--and whatever you do, do it with enthusiasm!

The Facebook Effect

I'm so glad I have this photo of my sweet Big Daddy, so I can talk about something I've been wanting to share about for awhile. This picture was taken at Lockhart Smokehouse in the Bishop Arts District and Big Daddy is just digging into his first bite of delicious BBQ. I captured this precious picture of his giddy face only there's only one thing you can't see in the picture--it's completely fake. He was trying to eat, I was trying to take cute pictures. I said, "Look up," and he looked up with half a snarl on so I said, "SMILE!" and he put on the phoniest, cheesiest, most sarcastic smile he could muster and boom! I've made a FB memory. (Now to be fair, Mr. Wonderful did have a great time at the BBQ joint and we did enjoy the food, but in that exact moment while his wife was delaying the kick-off to his carnivorous feed, there were not genuine smiles to be had.)

My Facebook friends know all about my life. They see more pictures than they probably want to. They know where I go and what I do. I record it all--except the yucky parts.

I cannot tell you how many times people come up to me to talk about how lucky I am at bingo. According to Facebook, I win every time I walk in the place, because I only post about bingo when I win. We don't share many of the less photographic moments in our lives on social media because there are some things that are private, and because there are some things we don't care to record for posterity. That doesn't mean they don't happen.

Most of us have had that friend who rants about her boyfriend/husband online and most of us have hidden her from our newfeeds. It's immature and awkward to air dirty laundry online but just because people aren't shouting it from their status doesn't mean that there aren't challenges, struggles, and just general messiness in day to day life and the only time that becomes a problem is when I start believing the Facebook world is the real world. That's when social media becomes toxic for me. In recovery we call this "judging my insides by your outsides." When I start to believe Facebook is the real world, everyone is skinny and dressed cute at all times. Everyone except Big Daddy and I went to the beach this summer. No one has ever been alone in Facebookland, nor have they fought with anyone including themselves, things don't spill, things don't break, there's always enough money, and nothing bad happens to anyone except me. There are exceptions to this but these situations are handled with such grace and faith that these friends seem superhuman. This is when I need to turn the computer off and spend some face to face time with a real live friend. This is when I need to get my head out of my laptop and get my feet back on the ground.

Here's the thing: Facebook is a great place to keep up with people that you can't see every day. It's a great place to post those cute back to school pictures or to share a funny story. Facebook is a wonderful tool to bring people together or to get feedback--but while a picture may be worth a thousand words, there are thousands of other words that are just outside the frame.

Easy Like Sunday Morning

It's been a great morning so far. I jumped out of bed and onto the scale and it sent me a message of great joy. Then we got out early for our bike ride. Posie and I are really having a great time together except that I am saddle sore. I'm contemplating getting a seat that's squishier but I'm having trouble convincing myself to part with the money. Then I made breakfast, sent Big Daddy off into the world and wrote in my journal. Along with eating right and exercising, I've also been writing and drawing every day and it is amazing what a difference that makes in my overall sense of well being.

I have loved writing and drawing since I could. There's just something magic about the possibility of it all, and it was the first (and probably healthiest) way that I found  to make the world go away. An hour spent with my journal or a my paints and pens is like a vacation, a retreat, an oasis.

So I am refreshed and renewed and I really need to get cooking (quite literally), but maybe I can just enjoy the peace for a few more minutes...