Wasn't Going To Do It

Blog that is. Until I finished BBD Beneath the Sunlit Sky but the urge to blog just hit so here I am.

BTSS is thisclose to being finished. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not. Such is the randomness of my stitching life.

Dinner tonight is chicken and noodles, the middle son said he doesn't like it, won't eat it. Why I don't know, what's not to like about Chicken Noodle Soup? I'll make chicken pot pie for him tomorrow night. I cooked plenty of chicken today so tomorrow is covered. He's at work tonight anyway and will probably eat Waffle House on his way home.

Would have made the pot pie tonight but didn't have pie crusts(no I don't make them from scratch, Pillsbury is my friend) or cream of potato soup and not a potato in the house to make my own. I know I suck majorly at keeping a pantry, icebox stocked these days.

All because of Missy, Deep Inside Missy » Embroidering I shall go…, I'm obsessing over this:

314 Zelda's Fancy Hat Crabapple Hill Studio and can I be happy with just that? No. So now I want to make this for next Halloween: 313 Hocuspocusville Crabapple Hill Studio

Lots of new music, Lucinda Williams, Little Honey, I love Lucinda Williams music. I think she's an acquired taste but Car Wheels on a Gravel Road remains one of my all time favorite CDs. There's Time the Conqueror: Jackson Browne: Jackson never gets old to me. Sure this album is one full of his politics but that's why I love him. He has never sold-out his beliefs. If you have never listened to The Pretender or Late for the Sky, two great albums. They both break my heart and I have loved them since I was ten years old. I'm not sure what it says about my childhood but I went to sleep every night listening to The Pretender from the time I was ten. Sleeps Dark and Silent Gate, The Pretender being the last songs I heard as I fell asleep. I only stopped when I got married and the spousal unit was so not down with going to sleep with Jackson on the stereo every night. Another CD getting lots of play around here is:
Consolers Of The Lonely: The Raconteurs. I love this CD. I can't stop listening to it. And
Evil Urges: My Morning Jacket is another CD I'm enjoying but the spousal unit doesn't care for it. I will also admit here and now that Kid Rock's most recent CD, Rock and Roll Jesus is getting a fair amount of play time too. I can't help it. I like the CD. New Motley Crue is also in the rotation, what am I, 16? But sometimes you just got to rock out you know? And for fun, Def Leppard's The Vault is also in rotation. Armageddon It, OK?

I officially signed up for NaNoWriMo this year. I know the story I want to write for the challenge and haven't made the time to write it. I see my characters, I live with them everyday but just don't make the time to write it down. I get these glimpses into their lives every day, I may or may not make a note at the time. How many wonderful moments of their lives have I dreamed about and not bothered to write down, what if I don't get those moments back? These characters are begging me to tell their story. So November 2008 is their time. Taking advice from Annie Lamott I've given myself permission to write a crappy first draft, it's all about getting the story down in whatever form and leave the editing for later.

It was 38 degrees this morning, I'm happy to report that I pulled out my tan capris that I haven't put on my body since some time last winter, maybe early spring and they are loose. Not falling off but trust me last winter they were stretched tight across my big old stomach. Now they aren't. I do believe the daily walking is actually working. I don't notice it on the scale(the Wii Fit will only admit to me losing about 5 lbs) but I don't care about poundage, I care about the way the fat girl clothes are starting to loosen their grip on my waist, my hips and my butt.

Years ago I read Feeding the Hungry Heart: The Experience of Compulsive Eating: Gen by Geneen Roth. Food lost it's power over me. I've been portion controlling for almost three years. My only weakness is chips and salsa at the local Mexican restaurant. I do eat the occaisional sweet but it's not often and I don't live my life for chocolate. I like it, I enjoy it, and sometimes, hell yeah, I need a Lindt's Milk Chocolate Truffle, but no more than two, three tops and that is rare. I'm really proud that food no longer rules my life. Yes I spend a lot of time planning meals for the family and fretting over them but it's more because they are difficult, the family--they won't eat anything and they complain like you wouldn't believe, and the honest truth is, if not for them I don't know that I'd ever eat. That was a shocking realization for me. Food used to be my every thing. It was my dirty little secret. But the weight didn't come off. I cut tons of stuff out of my diet, I don't eat a lot of chips and intentionally buy ones that I don't care for so I'm not tempted, the only real sugar I get in my diet on a daily basis is the sugar in my coffee, but I'm not giving that up. I have to have something. I only drink coffee in the morning, unless I get a Starbucks or a Cafe Carmel at the Coffee Beanery but that is rare, like once a month.

So I had to cowboy up and accept the fact that I had to exercise. There was no way around it. I have to move. Remember Susan Powter, she preached the importance of getting your fat butt off the couch and moving(I still love the story when she's walking and notices that her thighs aren't rubbing together any more). So now that's what I'm doing. Every morning that I can, I get up and Polly Prissypants and I walk. Some mornings we make it two miles, other days just a mile but I'm moving. Some days I walk a second time with my friend Pam and her son John and other days I might walk a third time if Andrea, another friend, wants to walk at night. I rarely turn down an opportunity to walk(Pam, we will not mention Saturday night, there were other things to consider, LOL) but as a general rule if someone invites me walk, I walk even if I just got back. Polly and I walk between five and six a.m. Andrea stays on me about doing sprints and I don't like walking once the sun is up because do people driving along the highway really need to watch the fat girl and the little yellow dog run? It's not pretty. So we go before sunrise and walk, and sprint, and try not to throw up. Some days when I sprint I get all excited and run a little too much and I want to hurl. People aren't too happy when someone throws up on their lawn and people are even less thrilled when one throws up all over the brand spanking new sidewalks. So I try to stay out of the puke zone but I am trying to do some sprints. I am trying to keep the walking in perspective, it's meditation time for me, dream time. I take the whole visualization thing to a new level when walking. It's the only reason I can bring myself to do it every morning when I'd rather lay on the couch and drink coffee and watch AMC. Anyone catch the Frankenstein Marathon this weekend?

Every morning when I walk with Polly I work out my story, the one I want to write for NaNoWriMo, I tell parts of it, play out scenes of my characters. I'm walking, dreaming and writing, if only in my mind. It's why I can put my shoes on every day and walk. I don't take an iPod, it's just me and Polly, the quiet, the cars passing on the highway, other walkers/runners. It's dark and I'm making up a story.

I don't know why I feel the need to write this now, because even though I've been walking for months, I'm still fat, my stomach isn't looking any smaller in the mirror but I know something is happening because of my clothes and finally that is enough for me. I can live with small changes. I am doing this for me and for no other reason, not to fit in a certain pair of jeans, not for any other reason than it's the right thing for me right now. So I'm walking, I'm moving, and I'm wanting to do this and I don't beat myself up on days when I don't walk.