Sad, Sad Post

I don't know why our pool has been "Closed for Maintenance" 3 times since the beginning of May and twice since it opened Memorial day weekend. I do know that it makes it hard to swim though. That also makes it hard to exercise and to meet my challenge. It has been closed all week. The annoying thing is I have yet to see someone out there working. It sounds to me like they just don't want anyone swimming.

That wouldn't bother me except our rent went up $50 on June first. Oh well, I guess I'll have to exercise another way.

Maybe I can convince Music Man that whining counts as exercise. If I can convince him of that then I've got it made.

Swimming with my Honey

So, Music Man took today off so that we could leave at a decent hour to head for The Weather God and DolphinLady's house.

There two other reasons I'm happy about this: 1) He got to go swimming with Miss Goofy and I. 2) IT'S OUR ANNIVERSARY!!!!!


Happy Anniversary, Honey. 10 Long Years!!!

Social Anxiety pt 2

I had an incident of anxiety the other day when I went to the bank. It made me start to think about why I started to feel nervous about going to the bank. It's not a fear of the bank being robbed, which is what Miss Goofy suggested. It's a fear of there not being sufficient funds for the check and the ensuing looks from the tellers.

When my ex-husband and I divorced, he sent me $50 child support twice a month. When he remarried, she took over sending the payments. I would receive the check and walk the half mile to the bank and cash it. Or attempt to cash the check. More often than not, I would be told there weren't sufficient funds to cover the check. That was bad enough but the tellers would look at me like I was a criminal. Hey, I'm not the one writing bad checks, that's your customer. Consequently, I learned to call the bank and verify the funds before dragging a 2 year old out into 100 degree weather to walk a half mile to the bank. Eventually, she started sending a check and when I called and said, "Yeah, there's no money in the account to cash this," she would Western Union the money to me. That would cost her an extra $12-13. It would have been simpler to just make sure she could cover the check, but hey it wasn't my problem. I think she thought that it cost me money to receive the money. For the record, it doesn't.

I was able to go cash a check from my dad the other day. I had bought a money order and sent it off for something for him and he had me just write a check to myself to reimburse me. I hate doing that, but at least I knew the check was fine.

So, that's one example of an anxious moment for me. I'll post more when I think of them.

PE with Miss Goofy

Miss Goofy and I went swimming this morning. I am really feeling it in my arms. I decided that rather than try to swim laps quickly, I would swim slowly using mostly my arms. They got quite a workout. It feels really good though.

I need to drink more water than what I have been. I am very thirsty most of the day and I know I'm dehydrated. I always feel so much better when I drink water and lately I'm not drinking anywhere near enough.

I have noticed that I sleep better when I exercise and if I'm drinking a lot of water then it doesn't matter how many times I have to get up to use the bathroom I fall right back to sleep. I also sleep deeper and wake up feeling more rested. Interestingly enough, I didn't swim yesterday and I was so tired this morning that I couldn't get up with Music Man at 5. I got up at 6 but it was the last thing I wanted to do. I'm tired now, but I know I'll feel better in the morning. I'm also finding that I'm dreaming more. It's interesting to me to have that happen.

Well, I need to make a list of what I'm taking on our trip to DolphinLady's and you can bet a swimsuit will be on the list. DolphinLady has a pool at her old and new apartment complexes.

Should I post pictures?

Okay, so I'm try to decide if I should post some before I lose the weight pictures. I am very self-conscious and really hate the way I look in pictures. But I'm wondering if I should do it anyway. What do you think? Would you like to see pictures of my pre-weight loss self?

I'll think it over and decide while I'm away for the weekend. If I'm going to then I'll try to post them on Monday.

Cyrstal Clear Pool

I love a crystal clear pool. I want to see to the bottom and not find a ton of leaves, paper, plastic, and bugs. Which was what we found on Friday morning when Miss Goofy and I tried to go swimming in the pool in our park. It was gross. We swam on Thursday and while it wasn't super clean it wasn't as bad as it was on Friday. We didn't have a chance to even try to go on Saturday. Sunday Music Man did some skimming of crud and we swam a little. Apparently the managers got the word because this morning it was so clean and pretty it was heaven. Until we looked at the spa, which I think is where they put all the dirt from the pool. It was pretty yucky, although I've seen worse.

So, we swam for 45 minutes this morning and maybe if Miss Goofy and I are lucky, Music Man may decide he wants to go swimming this evening. If his ankle is any better. Somehow he managed to injure it and if anyone knows how he did it or how to fix it, please let me know.

Real Food

So, I’ve done a lot of dieting in my life. No, really I have. You wouldn’t know it to look at me right now, as I’m rather, um, large. However, that is the truth. I didn’t say they were successful.

I tried a modified version of the Cambridge diet when I was around 9. Sadly, I now really don’t like milk shakes. I’ve tried Weight Watchers, Jillian Michaels, Overeaters Anonymous, some weird diet that my mom had where you eat certain foods in a certain order, things like that. They all have one thing in common: that’s not how my family and I live.

What I’m learning is that I can eat just about anything if I eat it in moderation and I exercise. Now I’m not saying I should eat runny eggs and bacon everyday, although I know a lot of people who have and died at the tragically early age of 80 something. I can’t eat the same thing everyday anyway, I get bored and honestly nauseous if I eat the same thing repeatedly.

So what am I doing and what do I mean by real food? Well, by real food I mean stuff that as much as possible isn’t processed. I’m making my own meals. I’m not using organic vegetables or super healthy, extra lean everything, just regular food. The only real freezer stuff I’m using is some frozen veggies. I’m even making waffle and pancake batter and cooking them myself. I feel better and fuller with less food. I’m not leaving anything out. I’m still eating foods I love, but I’m cooking them now.

Music Man and I discovered something important on our trip, once outside of California we found places that served sweet tea. We found that one it tasted better than tea we added sweetener to, and two that we weren’t hungry after drinking the sweet tea. The sugar in it helped satisfy our hungry. It was very enlightening to us. We had spent so long trying to eat really healthy food that was over processed and we were still hungry that we had forgotten how real food tastes.

We were still hungry because while all the “bad” stuff had been removed from the food, so had most of the nutrients and some of the “bad” stuff is necessary.

Music Man has been after me for years to buy some cook books and about two years ago I broke down and bought a Weight Watchers cook book. Not quite what he meant. Well, I few months ago, I found a Betty Crocker cookbook. I’ve been cooking almost exclusively from it since then. The food is very tasty. It’s fairly simple to make and we’re not gaining tons of weight. The only thing we haven’t been doing is exercising a lot. My thought and the experiment I plan to conduct is: I’m going to keep cooking from my Betty Crocker cookbook (along with a new Better Homes and Gardens and two from Reader’s Digest) and start doing some real exercise. We’ll see how I feel for the 4^th of July.