Mighty Life List
I'm not entirely sure I know myself well enough to write a complete list YET but this is a good start.
1. Bake a wedding cake
2. Become a foster parent
3. Take a trip outside the country with Ryan
4. Learn to make French bread that rivals a bakery's
5. Join a CSA
6. Complete a more comprehensive genealogy of my mother's family
7. Go blonde
8. Get a baking tattoo
9. Join a fencing club
10. Learn to saber champagne (Check! 8-29-10)
11. Finish my degree
12. Go on a second honeymoon
13. Keep chickens
14. Take a knife skills class
15. Visit the lakehouse without my parents (Check! 8-13-10)
16. Attend forensic interviewer training
17. Get a puppy
18. Attend SXSW Interactive
19. Couchsurf in Europe.
20. Master the mother sauces
21. Write friends a letter twice a month
22. Go on a trip with Emily
23. Have a dress made for myself
24. Cook all meals, everyday, for a month
25. Stop biting my nails long enough to get a manicure
26. Touch a penguin.
27. Take a trapeze class
28. Perform a burlesque routine.
29. A meal at French Laundry
30. Organize a comic book club.
Pilgrim's Progress
I didn't go to Whataburger. I had a bowl of leftover pasta, watched a movie, looked at old picturs and felt better. Then I felt sleepy and managed to sorta sleep off my sadness.
This evening I had planned to make a dessert but I got side tracked so instead I think I'll share a frozen pizza later tonight with Ryan as a treat and make something really decadent for the brunch we're hosting on Sunday.
I've also not being doing yoga because I'm so exhausted all the time that I can't focus on my breathing well enough. I'm trying to get my sleep under control.
Wherein You Realize I am a Crazy Person
Dear Diary,
I am sad and awake at 5:30 and lonely and feeling like a failure and it makes me want to eat. Instead I came here because I thought if I wrote about wanting to go to the Whataburger (which is like TWO BLOCKS AWAY) and get a burger, and fries, and a non-diet coke (the last two whatever the Whataburger equivalent of "super sized" is) and a big gooey cinnamon roll and eat them all while sitting in my car feeling sorry for myself (because then the wrappers stay where no one will see them so I'm less humiliated by the whole affair)....
I lost track of that sentence. Okay, I thought if I came here and told you INSTEAD of doing that then maybe one of you would ask me at some point, "So, did you go to Whataburger?" and knowing that might happen might keep me from going. Is it more embarrassing to eat the food and lie about it? Probably.
Sooo anyway. This is uncomfortable.
Being Kind to Myself
Today I did 21 minutes on the elliptical at a good clip, made a nice dinner and did about a half hour of yoga this evening.
I think I've also discovered a weakness in my previous weight loss attempts. I am hard on myself. I have been punishing myself with being fat and unhappy. I was mad at myself for having gained weight in the first place and my unrelenting self criticism just helped me pack on more weight. This has got to stop. Being fat makes me eat junk and eating junk makes me feel sad...which makes me eat more. Not a productive cycle.
So I am also trying to be kinder to myself. Occasionally I still beat myself up or catch my reflection and make a disapproving face at myself but I'm trying just to be NICER. So today after my workout I took a bath in our new jacuzzi tub and used a fancy and amazing smelling bath bomb Ryan got me from Lush while listening to NPR. (That's right, a bath with Epsom salt and listening to Diane Rehm show. Too bad I have a husband or I'd be everyone's weird 60 year old aunt.)
Next on my list is to try and stop viewing food through such an emotional lense. A few months ago I got really terrible food poisoning. The sickest I'd be in forever. I knew I needed to eat but didn't feel good and knew the chances were I'd throw up most food so what was the point? My habit became looking the in the fridge to figure out what I could eat the least of to stay alive. I just needed to fuel myself up so I could try and get better. After a few days I remember thinking: "Huh. I wonder if this is how skinny people feel about food?"
Like, what is the minimum amount of food I need to ingest in order to feel healthy and full and do my daily activities? That seems crazy to me. My thought process is usually more like "How many brownies do I have to wrap my sadness in to cause it to sink to the bottom of my stomach where I can't feel it?" Not ideal.
Foiled
So our new little balcony is very nice. We're on the ground floor and by pure luck ended up with a unit where our patio faces out onto a grassy area instead of on the parking lot.
Since it is so pretty out there I figured it was worth making up the patio so we could sit out with the dogs and enjoy it. The only problem is it's a bit of a funny shape. It's a very narrow rectangle and one end has our storage closet, so I don't really want to put furniture there. Then I saw this beautiful patio that seems to be similarly shaped on flickr.
Which made me think, hey! we could probably fit something into the nook in the corner of the patio.
However I'm having trouble sourcing that little couch. But then magically Nicole redid her porch with a piece of furniture I loved and, hooray it's from Ikea!
Alas, apparently that line of Ikea outdoor furniture is ONLY available in stores and no stores in Texas ever carry it. Plus I worry that it wouldn't have been exactly narrow enough. So I'm starting to think Ryan and I have a project coming up. Making a little bench to fit in that funny little corner.
Success!
Today I did FORTY FIVE minutes of yoga followed by a breakfast of low-fat yogurt with granola and then I felt like a million bucks even though I had not slept at all during the night.
I found a yoga video that's pretty nice (maybe a little TOO gentle but a good place to start) and it's available on Netflix Watch Instantly so I can stream it right from the Wii everyday. Yeah, feeling pretty pleased with myself for that one.
Tonight Ryan and I made the first dinner in our new apartment and OMG the kitchen is SO big. I'm still getting used to the layout but I suspect I'm in love. We made eggplant parm, a salad and some pasta.
Heavy
I feel like my weight has spiraled entirely out of control. I got married less than two years ago and I looked and felt amazing then. I would really like to get back to that.
For now I'm setting four goals:
1.) Morning or evening yoga practice.
2.) 20 minutes of cardio at least 2 times a week.
3.) Make dinner EVERY NIGHT. No more dinners out for awhile. Ryan and I have gotten in to some bad eating habits.
4.) Post a monthly picture so I can try to track any changes in my body.
Yeah, JACUZZI TUB
Ooooh how I'm going to miss the little yellow house. Most everything is in boxes and the furniture is packed in a Uhaul waiting to be taken to our apartment tomorrow. The was the house of the first years of our marriage, where we were engaged... I loved this house more than I could ever have loved Denton.
With every thing so up in the air I'm at least glad to be closing this chapter of our lives. I thought I'd be sad but mostly I just feel READY. Ready to move, ready to have a new place, ready to do something else for awhile.
Rob came over tonight to help Ryan load the truck and though I'm not feeling entirely freaked out, I am glad that all day tomorrow I will be at the CAC watching families and children pick up backpacks full of school supplies. I did a good job, y'all. We've helped over 130 kids and 61 families.
Hopefully when I get off at three tomorrow I can go take a bubble bath in my new jacuzzi tub.
Snippet
Me: Uggh you are really sticky with sweat!
Ryan: Oooow! Yeeeeah I am diiiiirty! *sings* I'm sorry Ms.Jackson...
Me: You are not singing the song you think you're singing.
Ryan: I'm not?
Me: No. I think you were trying to sing that Janet Jackson song "Nasty Boys" but instead you are singing an Outkast song called "Ms. Jackson".
Ryan: Whaaaa? No! I know what I'm doing! It's a mashup.
Me: Yeah, I am about about to create a mashup of my fist and your balls.
Ryan: Touche.