FORGET SAFETY.

LIVE WHERE YOU FEAR TO LIVE.

DESTROY YOUR REPUTATION.

BE NOTORIOUS.

- RUMI

Wise words.

(Almost New Year's, 2011)
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I just discovered that SP considers changing your page background to be "updating." Interesting.

I kept my exceedingly wordy introductions from previous years. I should probably update ...

FORGET SAFETY.

LIVE WHERE YOU FEAR TO LIVE.

DESTROY YOUR REPUTATION.

BE NOTORIOUS.

- RUMI

Wise words.

(Almost New Year's, 2011)
________________________________________
__________


I just discovered that SP considers changing your page background to be "updating." Interesting.

I kept my exceedingly wordy introductions from previous years. I should probably update them - I'm not as whiny as I used to be. However, I am still every bit as lazy, so I guess for now, they stand.
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A practical introduction from a blog post I wrote about how I don't particularly care what I eat and am not all that interested in variety or serious menu-setting:

I don't particularly enjoy cooking, so I tend to make what's fast and easy, and if it makes a huge pot of whatever, I'll happily eat it all week long. During and well after college, I worked in a lot of restaurants in many different capacities, so I know how to cook big, fast and delicious but not in the least healthy.

I'm alone now. (Not tossing a pity party - just explaining.) A few years ago, when I had a husband and a couple of kids and their friends and a couple workers around, I felt the same way I do now, only the result was different - huge pots of carbonara or Alfredo, a couple pepperoni pies, strombolis, beef bourg with lots of potatoes, lots of sausage with anything, and always, at the end of the day, having a couple beers with the guys.

At the same time I was making all this food, in the beginning anyway, I was working as a landscaper, so I burned it all off, and more. Then, gradually, circumstances changed but my cooking didn't, and over time, slowly - literally like ten pounds a year, but for six or seven years - it started to pile up. I didn't notice, and if i did, I didn't care - too much other stuff going on.

And that, my friends, is my story
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(The old story is below and the updated one is in the recent blogs, for any of you who are interested in The Continuing Saga. Don't feel bad if you aren't. Even I'm starting to lose interest, and it's my saga.)
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This was the part I wrote right after my husband died:

The condensed version is this: I've gained ten pounds, my house is a disaster, and I have no idea what happens next.

I've learned not to assume I know where I'm going or what I'll be doing a year from now, and that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The best laid plans and all that.

I know I need to be creative and get lots of fresh air. I know I need to get my house in order (my physical house and my mental house.) And I know I want to feel better and have more energy, and to that end, I need to lose a bunch of weight and get my muscles back (again, both physical and mental muscles.)

And as my mother used to say, there's no time like the present to begin.

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This was my initial introduction:

I dug some photos out last night,(they're in the Gallery) and that was really the first time that I saw, side by side, just what four years of massive stress can do to a body (or lead the body to do to herself.)

The sob-story details are in the blogs somewhere (or on mumsananarchist.livejournal.com, which repeats what's here occasionally but not often) but basically I just quit paying any attention whatsoever to myself. I had no immediate crisis, or so I thought, and then one day turned into the next and here we are, 60+ pounds heavier, living in chaos.

I'm blessed with good health and a strong body which I freely admit I've abused the hell out of. I want my old one back, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. I'm concerned, for the first time in my life, for my health and the possibility of not being around for my children (and their children, I hope, some day.) Stress alone can cause big-time illness, and when you add in this sort of weight gain (built largely out of white flour, sugar and alcohol) I feel like the poster child for Impending Doom.

So I'm overhauling my life. The weight thing comes first, because everything depends upon having the health and energy to enjoy my life. I quit working outside the home in order to take care of my husband and try to generally get things under control.

In general, I need to learn balance. And perseverance. And that things can be nudged into position, rather than steamrolled (my usual method.)

And SparkPeople seems like the ideal place to start. In the last few months I've made some real friends and have felt the Hand of Fate (or whatever you want to call it - I'm mostly pagan, but happily respect all paths) quietly setting up a nice future for me - all I have to do is reach out and accept it.

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