"Getting rid of everything that doesn’t matter allows you to remember who you are. Simplicity doesn’t change who you are, it brings you back to who you are."
At 85lbs she is a force to be reckoned with when she wants to be. SM calls her "Big Mama" as she pushes aside the other dogs and even SM himself on her way to her ultimate goal.
Me.
Now we've been gone on vacations before and other than the initial "gang-bang" of puppy kisses, jumping, crying and whining when we get home, everyone seems to settle back into their routines fairly quickly.
Not this time.
Casey has become a cling-on.
Like little fuzzballs on your black pants that you try to pick off, she's there.
I can feel her eyes following me if I so much as twitch.
This week, she's been waking me up in the middle of the night simply by placing her front paws on the bed beside me. The bed then starts to sway with the rhythm of her bodacious behind wagging slowly.
"Lay down." I say, my eyes closed and my voice muffled into my pillow.
The bed starts vibrating faster, back and forth. I roll over and pat her back down onto her bed until she sighs and falls back asleep.
"Why is she doing this?" I asked SM the other day.
"I think she's really happy to see you." He told me. "She missed her Mama."
"So she wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to make sure I'm still here?" I asked.
"She'll settle in. Give it time." SM advised. Like I said...She's so sweet. You can't be annoyed by her behavior.
I went out for my morning walk-about the other day and saw Mr Joe, my 75 yo walking buddy.
"Welcome back to the real world." He called out laughing into the 25 degree pitch black morning.
Amen, Brother. Never have truer words been spoken. We've been back less than a week and it seems like a dream.
We had a wonderful break while we relaxed in South Florida last week. SM went golfing with Ronnie and Connie while I sat in the shade by the pool reading a good book.
Yes, I said shade! It was close to 80 everyday we were there and we all know that I just don't handle full sunshine the way I used too.
With no dogs to walk, I would wake up at 4 am and roll over, sleeping in till 7. We sat around sucking on caffene till 10 every morning then went out for a walk in shorts and tees sweating slightly as the ever constant Florida breeze cooled us off.
Evenings found us gathering together for Happy Hour. Ron introduced us to Bang Bang Shrimp night at Bonefish Grill where the wine was $3 for a glass and the Bang Bang Shrimp was $6 for a pile of lip smacking goodness.
Another night found us sitting out at World Of Beer with a sweet little 20 something telling us that "It's cold out tonight." It was 75. After quizzing her we discovered that she'd never been north of Orlando. "I've never even seen snow. Except on TV." She pouted.
Boo Hoo.
I must admit that I can understand the appeal of South Florida in the Winter time. I generally dislike Florida as a rule. But I found myself checking out the timeshare weeks that were available at the condo where Ronnie and Connie have spent Januarys for the past twenty years. They started buying timeshare weeks when they were our age and have built up to 5 weeks now. Their condo is steps away from Fort Myers beach and watching the sunset is a favorite thing to do.
"I could get used to this." I told SM as we watched the sunset one evening.
Fast forward to the real world, Tami. Back on the chain gang....
So it's Saturday morning and I'm cleaning the kitchen.
I've got 4 sticks of butter hanging out on the counter softening as I want to make a double batch of Oatmeal Craisins. I want to give some an elderly neighbor (who has the flu) and also to give some to Deb as a thank you bribe for taking care of the dogs while we're in Florida in a few weeks.
Anyway...I've had a pot of water steaming on the stove for humidity all morning and for some reason I look up to watch the steam rise and I see what appears to be a fairly big bug sticking his head out from between the ceiling and the crown molding.
"Son-of-a-bitch." I exclaim.
"What?" SM hollars from the other room.
"I've got a freakin cockroach taking a steam bath right over the kitchen stove!"
"It's probably dead." SM calls out unconcerned. Clearly dead roaches in my kitchen are not that big of a deal to him.
"No it's not! It just waved it's antenna's at me!!!" I say as I zing by SM to get the vacuum cleaner.
"I can't be making cookies with him looking down on me!"
SM wanders into the kitchen to investigate the crime scene. "It's just a stink bug." He says as I uncoil the electrical cord. "What are you going to do with that?"
"Vacuum him up." I say and try to suck the little bastard into the vacuum with the extender thingy.
"He's holding on for dear life with his little stinky legs." I say over the roar of the vacuum. He's stronger than my Dyson. I must say I'm impressed.
I flip the vacuum off as SM grabs a kitchen chair and my plastic cup from the table. "Hand me a toothpick." He says climbing up on the chair.
"Flick him into the cup." I advised...I didn't want boiling stinkbug in my kitchen.
SM flicked Mr Stinky into the cup where he buzzed around angrily and went out to the back porch where he tossed him outside into the crisp 20 degree morning.
"You saved the day again, Baby!" I told SM with a kiss.
SM has been having a bit of a slow month. It's not at all uncommon that the phone stops ringing around the holidays and this first full week of the New Year is continuing the trend. So SM has been filling his hours with repairs and To-Do's and household tasks that are usually left to the Lady of The House. The other morning I'm standing there fluffing my "do" and slapping the paint on before heading into work when SM pops up at the bathroom door. "Anything you need done or need me to pick-up today?" He asked, mug of coffee in his hand and slippers on his feet. I paused thinking..."No, I can't think of anything. And by the way, I really do appreciate everything you're doing around here." "Yeah...I'm a regular House-Husband around here." He replied with a trace of sarcasm. Since the holiday down-time began SM has: Built shelving in the garage Repaired my coil-top electric stove so that ALL my burners are working now
Hauled yard debris to the landfill Repaired the Jeep window motor And cleaned the bathrooms not just once but every week for the past month!!!! Besides all that he has done the weekly grocery shopping, run some laundry and has taken my car and filled it with gas for my work week. I could get used to this. It does make me wonder though...Is this what retirement will look like?
If you should ever come to my house, you'll see something interesting on my kitchen floor underneath the chair where I type my thoughtful prose.
Something besides the dust bunnies that is.
It's a can of Comstock Cherry Pie Filling.
It has a stamp on it that says "Best By Jan 2011". That means it was likely purchased by moi sometime around 2009/10 ish.
Now you might wonder what is an old can of cherry pie filling doing underneath my chair.
Good Question!!!!
I use it every morning before and after my walk to stretch the muscles and tendons of my feet. Back and forth, back and forth...I roll that can under each foot. God, it's feels good!
As we get older, it's very common to have plantar fasciitis develop. I expect it's one of the most common foot complaints out there.
A thick band of tissue, called the plantar fascia, runs across
the bottom of your foot and connects your heel bone to your toes.
Plantar fasciitis commonly causes stabbing pain that usually occurs
with your very first steps in the morning. Once your foot limbers up,
the pain of plantar fasciitis normally decreases.
I've experienced that pain getting out of bed and when I take my first steps out of the car after a long commute. I hobble along for a minute of so before things start to relax.
Why Cherry Pie Filling? Why not a can of corn instead? Couldn't tell you why but aren't you glad you know?
As I said in the last post, FitBit is considered to be a pedometer by most people. A very expensive $99 pedometer.
But it's really not. I would call it an activity tracker. In other words people who are active are generally trim people. People who are sedintary are prone to plumpness. There are exceptions of course. I would consider myself an exception. Active, but plump. Blame all the potato chips, cheese, ice cream, nuts and wine for that. I love junk food.
SM pointed out to me a long time ago that my diet consisted of high calorie / high fat foods. The only time I eat vegetables is when I pull them out of the garden. (I'm buying more store bought veg now though.) Anyway...A long time ago I drove the car around to estimate my walking route and determined what it takes for me to acheive 5 miles which equals 10,000 steps.
One of the biggest complaints of pedometers in general is that they have a tendancy to count any movement as a step. The FitBit does too. If you're standing there folding laundry, it counts the movement as a step. Fixing your hair, putting on makeup, knitting, cooking, scrubbing the tub...It counts these as steps which is inaccurate in theory.
I'm OK with this inaccuracy since I excercise first thing in the morning. I basically keep walking until my wristband vibrates. That's when I know I've hit my 10,000 steps for the day. Everything else is just gravy.
FitBit encourages users to see yourlevel of activity as a trend.
You want to maintain a level of activity that helps you burn calories. It's that simple. FitBit allows you to customize your fitness plan with the free online app. You can "sync" your information to the app and watch your progress.
It monitors intensity of your activity. It monitors your "miles". It monitors your sleep. But the best thing about the app is the food log.
FitBit has an easy to use drop-down food menu and portion size program. It collects all that data and even breaks out the calories, protein, carbs, fats, sodium...that you've eaten for the day. And then it updates how many calories you have left to eat so it's easy to see when you need to stop eating or change what you planned on eating. (Which is perfect for me.)
You download the App without any special codes to your smartphone, iPad or computer.
What's even more amazing is that you supposedly can use this App even if you don't own a FitBit. That's right, my friends. If you are looking for a good online fitness tracking and diet program I would tell you to look into FitBit. All you would have to do is enter your data manually if you don't have the FitBit unit telling the App what you've done.
After 6 days of using the FitBit Flex I started to question if I really even needed the FitBit unit itself. I thought about returning it and saving myself $99.
I mean, really...I already walk the walk...What I need is the discipline to measure and log my food intake. So I put the FitBit back in the box to take back to the store and then I typed up this post.
And thought about it. And got nervous. And decided to keep it. Why? It's easy. It's fun. But it's mostly because I'm a weak willed woman and I need to have that physical reminder to be a good girl. And that is worth any price.
It just might keep me on the straight and narrow. Oooo...Straight and Narrow. I like that thought.
Welcome to the New Year. It's time to loose weight isn't it? According to the every other commercial on TV..."Yes" it is! I've been thinking about loosing weight the whole time I was gaining it. Lets face facts. It pretty simple really. The only thing you really need to know in order to loose weight is this... That's right. Know Thyself. Stop and think about the kind of person you are. Some of us like the interaction of a group. Enter Weight Watchers. Some of us hate to cook. Enter Jenny Craig and Lean Cuisine. Some of us are lazy. Join a Health Club. Most of us look for that magic pill. But it doesn't exist. I know lots of people that belong to Weight Watchers and are successful with it. Debbie across the way lost her weight on it. She's so tiny now! I'm not used to it. Deb invited me to join a year ago but the $35 a month price tag was too steep for me plus I couldn't make the meetings. I know that you can join online but I always figured "Hey...it's just counting calories. How hard can that be?"
But did I do it? Nah... I prefer to eat my own food. My trouble is that my Full Switch disappeared along with my hormones. I don't get full anymore. Really. Did that happen to any of you?
So portion control is a BIG issue for me. It comes down to discipline. Count it and measure it. And "No" a half carton of Blue Bunny is not a serving size. I will start buying some frozen meals to keep in the freezer at work when I forget to bring something to eat for lunch. It's better than a bag of chips and a handful of M&M's. I don't have a problem with exercise. Never did. I used to love Jazzercise back in the day. A few years ago I got a free trial to a health club and they had some 5am classes that I tried. That was when Tae Bo was all the rage.
After a few days of that I discovered that I really wasn't into the group kick and sweat thing anymore so I adopted the 10,000 steps a day plan. Sometimes I would jog but my feet didn't like that. Now my problem is that my body is accustom to it. So I have to do a little more mileage than a beginner would.
So after thinking about what my specific needs are I came up with two major wants. I think my biggest problem is not measuring and logging my food intake. Pure and simple, I'm overeating. So I was looking for an easy way to log food data. I also like to have a physical reminder on me. On my body. Something to say "Hey...Think about what you're about to eat. Are you sure you want to go there?" I've been considering a FitBit for awhile now. FitBit is what they call "Wearable Technology".
It's a pedometer pure and simple. But it has an Online App that you can customize to suit your needs. And that's the best part of it in my opinion.
I've been resigned these past 3 years that The Menopause would create a new me and there was very little I could do about it.
I let my hair go salt and pepper. It took a year for me to grow it out but in the end I looked at myself and said "You'll be grey for a lot more years than you'll be blonde."
So I went ahead and colored my hair back to it's normal shade. For now. I got moody. I tried to hide it for the longest time, internalizing my anger, until SM pointed out that I was pretty generous with dispensing my bad attitude to not only him but the world in general.
So I got on a happy pill and all is well. I've watched myself become fluffy these past 3 years. That's how I describe my weight gain. Fluffy. I've been a pretty active person most of my adult life and I've been able to eat pretty much anything I want while maintaning a fairly trim fiqure. I've read articles about the 30 lb weight gain that commonly occurs to menopausal women. Spot on! Ding Ding Ding! That's exactly how much I've gained. Now I'm tall...5'8" and I've always carried extra weight pretty well. But I don't have much of a shape. Long arms and legs with my hip bone and ribs sitting right on top of each other. No waist. I've always described myself as a 2x4, stick straight, a brick.
Now I look kind of like Kermit.
And to be honest, seeing my ass in the mirror last week was the straw that broke my back. That and fact that as I went through my closet the other day and seperated donatable items from things that I just don't fit in anymore...
Well, it made me realize that I at least want to tryand find Skinny Tami once again.
So I bought a FitBit.
I plan on posting my FitBit experience over the next few posts. So stay tuned. There's a lot to talk about.
One of my favorite thing to do at
New Years is to poke around the internet for predictions. You know
Astrology, Numerology...stuff like that. I don't pay much attention to this
stuff on a daily basis anymore. I've never had my chart done. I mean,
come on...I live a very boring life!
I
went to a party once (thirty years ago) and they had a young gal
reading palms who told me that I'd be divorcing my new husband in a few
years.
I guess this year is an 8 year. Here's a quote from the site... The essence of the 8, first and foremost, is balance. (Like all
symbols, including letters and numbers, its shape tells you much about
its nature -- the 8 stays upright only when it is in balance.)
I'll
let you link to the site to read more about "the prediction" part of
it. I thought it was interesting so I wondered what 2015 would bring me
personally.
2015 is the year of changes and a good time for taking new risks and
moving in new directions. Personal Year 5 for lifepath 6 and 33 also
signifies a period when your curiosity will show itself fully. Find
time for travelling, satisfying your inquisitiveness and exploring new
interests.
Well, that's a safe enough prediction. SM's "life path" number is a 5.
In the year 2015 you will take on the role of manager, as you'll need
to put things finally in order and build the foundation for you future.
Make sure to pay close attention to your health too.
2015 is a year to use mental abilities over brute force. For those who
wish to be aggressive, expect to be out-maneuvered by strategy and
common sense.
For me personally (See the above links sidebar for your sign) I'm a Tiger...
The chaos of the past is coming to an
end and although nothing ever runs smoothly in your life, there will be
fewer surprises this year. You should be concentrating on finishing what
you start and broadening your creative horizons. You can count on
others for help this year so don’t hesitate to ask for favors. The very people that you approach will
not only give you the support you need but will bring knowledge, ideas
and cash to the table. Your cash should be put away for safekeeping this
year.
Hm...Well, that speaks to my nature for sure. How about SM? He's a Dog...Woof! He's all about his career.
In this field things may not be as easy or simple. You will not overcome eventual obstacles
by the use of force. Above all, it will be decisive to act with
intelligence and not loose sight of the situation as a whole. You have
to put first things first and not react under the effect of emotions.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ The Four of Pentacles says
that you’ve toiled your way through 2014, now sit back and enjoy the
fruits of your labour. Strike a balance between work and personal life.
Take your leisure time seriously and spend more time with family. Money
won’t buy you happiness.
True That! And SM? He's a Scorpio.
There are many possibilities of you relocating or migrating to start
life afresh in a new country. It is very difficult to let go of the
emotional ties that bind you to an old ache though.
What??? Unless SM's finally ready to give up the "Sticks and Bricks" and start our RV'ing Journey I just can't see us leaving our home.
Well...I'm going to wrap this post up. Let me know if any of you have an interesting "forecast" for 2015.
