Back Due to a Sound Spanking

I called Aussie Paul Friday afternoon (his Saturday morning). I had not talked to him in forever and vow to call more often. He is so good about sending me cards and notes and I am so bad at doing this! Aussie Paul seems to be going through a lot of the same things I am so this post is for you my darling Paul!

I have been working on changing my life and this is part of why I haven't posted much in the past couple of months. Paul mentioned that he checks my blog and noted the lack of updates so I promised myself that I would post something this weekend!

For the past 13 years I have been putting people and things much higher on my priority list than my own health and well being. I mulled this over a lot once I got back from South America and in October I began making small changes. In November I decided that 2009 would be the year of ME. That sounds so self-absorbed. Really it isn't. If I drop dead from self-neglect it isn't going to do my company any good.

In 1996 I met my ex and he became my priority. He was extremely high maintenance and I focused every bit of energy I had on him. In 2001 I kicked his miserable ass out and embarked on beginning my recovery. I found a new job (my present one) and put everything into it. I worked the long hours, traveled, and lived far outside my comfort zone which for me was an awakening. I am truly not the person I was even a handful of years ago. The problem was I put job at #1 and this after putting the ex at #1. So I found myself in December looking at a fat, pasty, out of shape, unhealthy person.

I decided to make 2009 the year of ME because it suddenly sank in that I am not getting any younger, I want to live a long and healthy life, and I want to be the best I can possibly be.

I know I have a family history of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart problems. This was heavy on my mind when I came back from Santiago after spending 6 months eating every meal in restaurants and red meat for practically every meal! I am quite sure I gained at least 20 pounds while there and I was carrying too much weight to begin with. The last cholesterol test I can remember the numbers of was in my late 20s and it was 216 at that time.

I function with lists. If I make a list I can generally tick off the items. If I don't things never are attended to. I knew I needed to begin exercising. I knew I needed to add supplements to my daily routine. So I made a weekly checklist. It's all on there. I print one out every Sunday night and it gets posted on my whiteboard. Every single day, as I do the things I need to do for my own health, I check them off my list.

So here is what I've been doing. At least 4 times a week I get on the treadmill and walk for one hour - 3 miles+. I wear my Polar heartrate monitor which tracks my caloric expenditure which I then upload on the web so I have a diary of my accomplishments week by week. I highly recommend this little device. I want to lose weight but just getting on a treadmill isn't going to do it. It takes me 10 full minutes to get my heartrate up to aerobic zone. With the monitor I can see exactly what I am doing and add to my walking if my heartrate drops below the aerobic zone (increase incline, add light handweights, etc). It allows me to use every second of my hour for maximum bang.

I take a daily multivitamin, 2 baby aspirin, omega 3 fish oil, two tums (for calcium) and red yeast rice to lower my cholesterol. And yes I did take a full list of everything I am taking in to my doctor and got his blessing and praise for what I am doing. I also drink a concoction of 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar with a teaspoon of raw unfiltered honey with 8 ozs of water every day. And I drink at least 2 cups of high quality green tea each afternoon.

Since Christmas, and as of this morning, I have lost 22 pounds. I had a full bloodwork done 3 weeks ago and my cholesterol is at 182 total (HDL is 49 and LDL is 114). All other results are smack dab in the middle of the acceptable range. My attitude is mostly excellent, I have at least twice the energy I did 6 months ago, and rather than sit and worry about my health I feel so good about it!

I still have a way to go. I would like to lose more weight. My doctor and I rarely have differences of opinion. He thinks I should ideally be at 150. I think 140 would be acceptable and 135 preferable. Whatever. What I will NOT do is starve myself or kill myself to get to 135. What I WILL do is continue what I am doing now. I will turn 47 on June 30 and if I can continue to lose 2.5 - 3 pounds a week I will turn 47 at a healthy weight. If I can get to this goal I will get a tattoo. A small, discreet tattoo. I will also buy some decent clothing. For years I have refused to buy clothing because really the next step is Lane Bryant. The day I walk into Lane Bryant is the day I get into bed and refuse to get out.

I also want to get my LDL below 100 and maybe in the bargain raise my HDL a few points. I highly (highly highly) recommend red yeast rice. Note that it must be taken with niacin but the brand I take has the niacin built in. I am certain that I was courting a cholesterol count of at least 230 or 240 by the time I returned from Santiago so to get my results and see 182 was nothing short of amazing for me. I am certain this was due to the red yeast rice.

I do not ever want to have to be on regular medication if this is possible but I am now taking a low dose blood pressure med and hopefully if I can keep up the exercise and good dietary changes I can back off of it in 6 months or a year. I have a BP machine and I monitor myself a couple of times a week to keep track of my progress. I would rather take a pill every morning temporarily than have to hire someone to wipe my ass for the rest of my life.

So there it is. The year of ME. It takes only about 90 minutes a day to add my checklist items to my routine and you know what? I think I am worth 90 minutes a day.

Long Time - I have a Story

Hi all - I have been doing stuff which I will blog about later. Blogging has not been on my radar too much lately so apologies.

Today I will tell a story that I told a friend of mine today when he called and asked how things were. Follow me here.

About a month before I turned 18 I graduated from boarding school and moved to Boston with my eventually-to-be-first-ex-husband. I was to enter Boston College in the fall and we moved there in early June.

On June 30 1980 I turned 18 and for my birthday my man got me a beautiful little parakeet. I named him Keats after the poet. He was very tame and had the full run of the basement apartment where we lived. He was put inside his cage at night but when I was in the apartment he had the full run of the house.

In the autumn after he came to us the apartment developed a fly problem which is pretty usual for Boston. One day I bought a roll of flypaper and hung it in the "window" of the kitchen. Keats was outside his cage and I was writing a paper and all of a sudden Keats started flying down the short hallway towards the kitchen. As I saw him fly I understood immediately what was going to happen. I ran to the kitchen and Keats had flown directly into the flypaper! By the time I got there 3 seconds later he had already flapped himself into a very bad situation. Bad. Very bad.

I looked at this beautiful little bird wrapped in unforgivingly sticky death paper and my heart dropped. I realized then and there that I had two choices.

1. I could take down the strip of fly paper with Keats wrapped in it but still very much alive and throw him in the trash bin and live with that the rest of my life. or
2. I could deal with it 100% to the very best of my ability even though the situation seemed hopeless.

I went with #2. A centimeter at a time I pulled the paper off his tiny beautiful body. Most of his feathers came with it and I am sure it was so very painful for him. When we finally finished he was still sticky and could not live like that so I doused him in flour. This was just a guess on my part but it worked and over the next months he managed to preen the sticky gunk off and his feathers regrew and he lived a long and healthy beautiful life.

I bring this up because it was a life lesson that I remember almost daily.

I woke up this morning with an impossible job before me. I wanted to just throw it away but I knew if I did it would haunt me forever. So I decided to peel the flypaper of despite the pain and give it a chance.

Tonight I do indeed hurt and I have many feathers gone but they will grow back and this lesson will continue to bring me through the rough times.

The Healing Has Begun

Yesterday I watched change. I watched 2 million people spend hours walking and standing in freezing cold temperatures because THEY WANTED TO WITNESS THE REBIRTH OF HOPE!!! 2 million people in one small area of one small town in the US and not one single arrest.

Yesterday a man who listens became President. Yesterday the people of the US found their voice again. Yesterday we stepped over a threshold where each and every one of us matter again.

The reign of no information is over. The muddying of the government has ended. The arrogant man who felt it was his right to "interpret" the Constitution to suit his whims has flown back to what we hope is terminal obscurity in Texas and the man who is his EXACT opposite walked into the Oval Office this morning, took off his suit jacket, and began to right the wrongs.

I have now received 5 emails from good friends in other countries offering congratulations. The entire world shares the hope we feel.

" . . . a government of the people and by the people and for the people . . . " Finally.

I KNIT A MOTHER OF GOD SOCK Y'ALL!!!!

OK so Merry Christmas and Happy New Year blah blah blah. I haven't been around. I traveled to the great north country to spend Christmas with my parents and one cancelled flight and a night in a stuffy loud motel later I am home and getting the house spiffed up for the New Year.

But what I have to tell you about is my fucking SOCK y'all!!!! I am the one hit wonder of the knitting world. Since I started knitting I have done 13 baby blankets - 12 in one pattern and one in another. Baby blankets are easy and the one pattern I have done over and over has become a no brainer that I can do while on conference calls. Two years ago I did an easy bulky sweater and I love it but I don't wear it outside of my house. I have a stack of hand knit dish cloths in my laundry room. My dishcloths taught me some simple stitches. That is the extent of my knitting. Nice, easy flat things.

I decided this time last year that 2008 would be my year to begin branching out in the knitting department. (also I decided to quit smoking and lose weight but let's not go there) In July I even purchased sock yarn. Then I knit two more baby blankets. Knowing I was going home and that my father had knit all four of his grandchildren Christmas stockings I decided this was my opportunity to knit a sock with tutors present and so I struggled through getting it started on the double pointed needles and then packed it.

Suffice it to say that neither of my knitting parents were much help although God love them they tried. I ended up Christmas Day sitting on the sofa with my laptop pulling up youtube videos of how to knit a sock and yelling at them to shut up so I could concentrate.

And I finally figured the damned thing out! Look at this!

It even GOES ON MY FOOT!

It isn't pretty or fashionable but I KNIT A FUCKING SOCK Y'ALL!!!!

When I landed yesterday I came home and unpacked and started a load of laundry and loved on the cats and then I went to Walmart for another skein to make the mate. And lo and behold it seems I learned a whole lot from doing the first one because the second is much tighter and the stitches are more even. Look at them side by side (second one I have done the heel flap and turned the heel about to start on the body of the foot):

Here is sock 1 with sock 2 (in progress) on top to give you an idea of how much I have improved in only one sock:

I have a few friends who think knitting is for old ladies and that I have fallen into drooling and eating pureed food. Not true. Knitting is cool. Knitting is hip. When I have gone into my local knit shop to beg for help I get it from 20-somethings. Who have cool tattoos and piercings. You can not imagine the sense of accomplishment. I think by completing my first sock I have accomplished more personally than I did all year professionally.

The pattern I used for my first sock was incredibly easy (although it could have been easier) and can be found here: http://www.royea.net/sock.html

I did need some help after turning the heel and I found it here - which is hands down the ONLY reason I have a completed sock today and the courage to go on: http://www.cometosilver.com/socks/SockClass_Beginning.htm

I am now rabid about doing socks. I want to do maybe one more pair of the basic pattern to make sure I am comfortable with it and then I plan to begin branching out into real patterns. I am so excited!


OK that's all for now. Got to get back to my second sock and get it finished!

Cutting Costs

It has been a challenging year financially. When the year started I was riding a very small, very manageable amount of credit card debt.

And then the rat problem. When one leaves a very old house sitting empty as long as my house sat empty (with only a few weeks of exception that was October 1 2007 - June 1 2008) critters tend to move in as squatters and I did have some critters in the attic and crawl space and this had to be taken care of. To the tune of almost $3000.00. Which went on credit card.

Then came the dental problems. I had a root canal/crown. Then another root canal. Then I found out I had met my maximum dental coverage but I needed to have the first root canal tooth pulled and have a bridge. Which had to all be paid out of pocket. To the tune of almost $3000. Which went on credit card.

So now I'm carrying about 4 times the debt I feel comfortable carrying. I can and do make payments in excess of the minimum and I haven't touched my emergency savings which, at this point, amounts to about 4 - 5 months of living expenses but I just simply don't feel comfortable. So I am working on ways of cutting back, even if it is only a few bucks here and there.

Last month I negotiated a deal with my landline/DSL carrier and cut my monthly bill by $30. This morning I cut back my personal cell phone, which I rarely use but don't want to give up entirely. I shaved another $20 from that monthly bill. I have weather stripped every window and door in the house but got my gas bill this week and in a month where the weather was warm enough several days to have the windows open it was still too high. So I got out the socks and sweaters and turned the heat down about 8 degrees. In the past I would regularly throw away spoled veggies and left overs but now I make a huge effort to make sure I do not waste anything. I've been clipping coupons and printing them off the internet. Christmas will be scaled back a little this year. Normally I go all out but this year I'm cutting back just a bit and I took advantage of deep discounts and free shipping on Cyber Monday to do a lot of my shopping. I'm looking for an online work from home part time job that I can work nights and weekends.

I'm not complaining mind you. I have a great job and a roof over my head and my bills are paid and there is food on my table. I'm just saying that I've come a long way. Instead of pulling a pillow over my head I'm very realistic about things. I've educated myself and opened up my ears. It makes all the difference in the world.

Life is good.

Happy Thanksgiving to my US Friends

My turkey is brining in the fridge. Before I get in bed tonight I will rinse it and set it to dry uncovered in the fridge for the optimum crispy and delicious skin. I do hope this works - it is the first time I have attempted this method.

I made the tomato aspic salad this afternoon and it is congealing in the fridge now, soon to be garnished with a bit of caviar and consumed without mercy.

I will wake up in the morning and prepare the oyster stuffing. I unintentionally purchased too many oysters and I look forward to enjoying them while I cook along with the cocktail sauce I also unintentionally purchased. I will unintentionally eat them for breakfast I think.

I love preparing this meal. I missed out on it last year due to the fact that I was stuck in Mexico City. It will only make this year that much more enjoyable.

There is so much I am thankful for and although I do try to remember these things every day it is truly wonderful to have one day out of 365 where the entire focus of the day is remembering and being grateful for all I have. My life is modest but I have all I need and that is more than many can say. I try to never forget this.

So Happy Thanksgiving!

Putting Things Off Is So Stupid

So in early summer 2007 I got a wireless router and I got it set up so that I could work from home from anywhere. On good weather days I would sit on the porch for a couple of hours and I could choose to sit in the kitchen or living room or at my desk. Very important to have variety when you work from home. I was happy and all was well.

Last March I came home from Chile for 3 freaking days to find that my Bellsouth modem had blown out during my absence. They got me a replacement before I headed back out but I didn't set it up right. I came home twice after that but the wireless always worked even if the hard-wired PC didn't so I let it slide.

This has pissed me off for the past 6 months and today I tackled it. I didn't want to but I was tired of being pissed off. I wanted to put the work laptop away on the weekends and use this PC.

DONE! The actual work to get it online took about 15 minutes. I have no idea what I did but finally it worked. Then I tackled the wad of knots of line under my desk and get them all un-knotted and wrapped all the slack with velcro wire wrappie thingies.

Also I watered the plants, went to the store and bought my turkey, made an eye doctor appointment, and did a full pattern round on my knitting project. And got my Chicken Satay dinner for tomorrow night marinating.

I still have vacation time which must be burned before 12/31 or it will be lost so I am taking Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off so I have a full week with the 2 day Thanksgiving holiday. I think I have made MAJOR progress already.

I am feeling quite proud of myself.