I look in the mirror and see shades of my mom...sometimes. Since I've been losing weight, I have noticed little lines under the eyes and sagging around the jaw area. blah.
I never thought it would bother me...that I was so vain. But I don't want to look 50...or older!!! LOL It went by too fast.
Guess I'll have to go buy some of that cream that says it will smooth out fine wrinkles and tighten your skin. Just how tight? How much skin can it handle? I hope it doesn't turn out to be some kind of hyper cream and I end up looking like Joan Rivers! (she gives me nightmares!)
As for my hair color I have been dying it a lighter brown with strands of gold and red in it. I am kinda liking it but my daughter and my husband tell me they like my hair the dark chocolate brown is has always been. I tell them that since my hair is insisting on being gray (stone gray...ugly...with lots of white strands) I am going in a lighter direction so that I don't have to color it quite so much.
I went into a phase about 4-5 years ago where I started wearing more makeup. I never was a big make up wearer...very little lipstick, hardly ever wore eye shadow. Just patted on powder, put on a bit of eyeliner and mascara. But suddenly I started putting on more. I figured it might dazzle and distract from the fact that I am aging. But then, I quit. After all, who really is caring? I will get all dolled up when/if hubby is taking me out somewhere but otherwise, I will put on my basic lot of cover. As long as children don't scream and babies don't cry when they see me, I'm good. After all, I'm not advertising anything.
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I was having a bit of fun with the hubby the other day. I don't know why I started thinking about this but he is part Italian and part Indian...oh, I mean...Native American. Now THERE'S a combination for ya! I was trying to figure out a way to combine the two. I didn't want some big mouthful like 'African-American'...besides, I think one should pick a continent. SO...I came up with "Italdian" He just kinda chuckled and said he didn't mind as long as I make sure the ppl know he is a "bow and arrow Indian" and not a 'Call Center Indian" I thought about it and I said, "oh...you mean a feather head and not a towel head!" Okay...okay...I know I'm gonna get some flack for all of that...but, COME ON!
I am waiting to see what he comes up for me...I am part Scottish and part British...all from the same island but neither part likes the other one.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Walking Partners
Sssshhhhh....I found the 'secret' to losing weight...and keeping it lost. Move. Just that one simple word. Move. Well, of course you have to quit eating junk that really shouldn't be put into your body in the first place...chips, candy bars, ice cream. And don't eat those already prepared meals in a box/bag. Nasty bit of business there.
I am not a weight loss know-it-all. My friend Karen seems to be putting a bigger dent in her weight loss journey than I. She has lost roughly twice as much as me and she has only been at it a few weeks more than I have. But I had to learn...and to make the necessary adjustments. While I may not have been putting in much actual exercise time (exercise as defined by machines or walking or programs or gym time) but I have been exercising in my own way. I have put in a lot of gardening time. The kind where you have to pull weeds, plant plants (digging), and lots of hoeing. I have also put in 2 days of scraping and sanding and painting in one of our bathrooms. That last is the source of my sleeplessness this night...and why I am on this contraption typing this blog post. The smell has given me a headache. I wore a mask but it didn't totally take care of all of it.
Anyway...what did I reap for all of my hardwork the last 2 weeks? A WHOPPING 2 pound loss. (are those crickets I hear?) yes...2 pounds. (16 pounds total...in 5 months) I am burning it off! (oy). I'll have you know in those two weeks I also used the push mower twice for a total of one hour each. LOL AND I went on 3 walks...each with a different member of my family.
Ahhh...the walks. My daughter loves to go for walks but usually a teen stops by our house bored and looking for Ms. Divine. So, off they go to one of the local parks, or uptown or both. There are days when she will more than gladly go for a walk with me for close to an hour...with her chattering the whole time. That's okay. At least I know what is going on in her head. When she was younger I would have to play 20 questions with her just to pull out a small bit of info.
I talked Jr. into going for a walk with me...down past the city park to the boat dock on the river. Once we got to the boat dock he just had to sit on the bench and REST. After all, it was a grueling 20 minute walk! LOL It was a very hot and humid day and he complained most of the way about the fact that he doesn't like walking (he would like to have a motorized scooter!) and about the heat. I was glad to make it back home and be rid of him.
THEN I actually got Sr. to go for a walk with me. I thought Jr. was bad! My husband can turn any event into a trial in hell. From the moment we stepped out of the front door he was complaining...about anything and everything. The neighbor's fence, ppl's lack of tree trimming, Jr. playing so many video games, how the kids don't pay attention, how I don't back him up...and when I tried to draw his attention to the flowering trees, instead of looking up, he looked down and criticized the way I walk to which I replied, "This is how I walk...you knew this about me from the day we met and you married me anyway." That shut him up...fer a minit.
My walking...I am knock kneed is I point my feet totally straight so my feet have a tendency to want to point outward slightly. When I was younger it was A LOT...so I had to do certain exercises to stretch the outer calf muscles and knee tendons and generally strengthen my ankles. I CAN walk with my feet straight when wearing high heels or if I am not walking at a fast pace. But when I have on my sneakers and am out to walk far and fast, or I'm hiking over rocks and up and down hills, my feet will point out slightly. If I walk too fast and far with my feet straight, I get shin splints. Ms. Divine's feet tend to want to point in...pigeon toed. I told her I would have been a good ballerina while she will be good at downhill skiiing...which I had to give up becuz I could not point the ends of the skiis inward enough to stop so I had to sit down in the snow and use my butt as a brake. (I SO prefer cross country skiiing!)
SO...we made it down to the river and he wanted to sit on the bench in the shade. There was a guy practicing fly fish casting off the dock. Sr. couldn't help himself. He started shouting down to the guy and giving him 'advice' on where he should cast in the river to catch fish. The man looked back at him and politely told him that he was just a beginner and was just practicing getting the hang of the cast. Sr. was actually quiet for a moment but then he started yelling more advice...at which point I looked at him and said, "Are you ready to go back?" I would have loved to enjoy the shade and the bench and the scenery a bit longer but I figured that guy was thinking, "it WAS quiet and nobody was bothering me until that loud mouth showed up." So on the walk back to the house, since it is uphill, he was rather silent until we were a block and a half from home and I stopped to rub a knot out of one of my calves. This caused him to criticize how I walk once more. To which I replied, "I CAN'T walk that way when I'm walking fast cuz I'll get shin splints!" He just got a weird look on his face and continued walking. (sorry I'm not perfect!)*
So, I have come to the conclusion, it might be best to go on walks by myself. Although having Ms. Divine along sometimes isn't too bad.
AND, I love gardening as a good source of calorie burning becuz no one else wants to do it and, gasp, raise a sweat or get dirty so I have the outdoors to myself. I don't even take my MP3 player out there. Just me and the neighborhood noises. And when I work in the north side garden, I get to see one of the robins feeding its babies. In the blissful peace and quiet.
*Becuz I am always trying to find excuses for ppl's bad behavior (including my own) I must add that Sr., while usually pretty negative and critical, was especially obnoxious these last few weeks becuz of 2 things: 1)he is, as my daughter laughingly says, off 'the pot' becuz as part of his year long court ordered Diversion it seems the court could ask for him to go to a nearby court approved lab and have a piss test done and he doesn't know when/if they will do that so he decided he had better abstain; 2) he has had an awful lot of clients throwing hissy fits and needing to be handled with kid gloves...all at once. So, since he does not have his own customary type of anxiety meds ('the pot') to keep him calm, he is one big walking ball of ornery nerves and it causes him to pick at everyone and everything.
And now, sweet slumber is finally beckoning (I took half of a sleeping pill...cuz a whole one will knock me out for a whole 24 hours!). And I think I shall head for the cool side of the pillow.
I am not a weight loss know-it-all. My friend Karen seems to be putting a bigger dent in her weight loss journey than I. She has lost roughly twice as much as me and she has only been at it a few weeks more than I have. But I had to learn...and to make the necessary adjustments. While I may not have been putting in much actual exercise time (exercise as defined by machines or walking or programs or gym time) but I have been exercising in my own way. I have put in a lot of gardening time. The kind where you have to pull weeds, plant plants (digging), and lots of hoeing. I have also put in 2 days of scraping and sanding and painting in one of our bathrooms. That last is the source of my sleeplessness this night...and why I am on this contraption typing this blog post. The smell has given me a headache. I wore a mask but it didn't totally take care of all of it.
Anyway...what did I reap for all of my hardwork the last 2 weeks? A WHOPPING 2 pound loss. (are those crickets I hear?) yes...2 pounds. (16 pounds total...in 5 months) I am burning it off! (oy). I'll have you know in those two weeks I also used the push mower twice for a total of one hour each. LOL AND I went on 3 walks...each with a different member of my family.
Ahhh...the walks. My daughter loves to go for walks but usually a teen stops by our house bored and looking for Ms. Divine. So, off they go to one of the local parks, or uptown or both. There are days when she will more than gladly go for a walk with me for close to an hour...with her chattering the whole time. That's okay. At least I know what is going on in her head. When she was younger I would have to play 20 questions with her just to pull out a small bit of info.
I talked Jr. into going for a walk with me...down past the city park to the boat dock on the river. Once we got to the boat dock he just had to sit on the bench and REST. After all, it was a grueling 20 minute walk! LOL It was a very hot and humid day and he complained most of the way about the fact that he doesn't like walking (he would like to have a motorized scooter!) and about the heat. I was glad to make it back home and be rid of him.
THEN I actually got Sr. to go for a walk with me. I thought Jr. was bad! My husband can turn any event into a trial in hell. From the moment we stepped out of the front door he was complaining...about anything and everything. The neighbor's fence, ppl's lack of tree trimming, Jr. playing so many video games, how the kids don't pay attention, how I don't back him up...and when I tried to draw his attention to the flowering trees, instead of looking up, he looked down and criticized the way I walk to which I replied, "This is how I walk...you knew this about me from the day we met and you married me anyway." That shut him up...fer a minit.
My walking...I am knock kneed is I point my feet totally straight so my feet have a tendency to want to point outward slightly. When I was younger it was A LOT...so I had to do certain exercises to stretch the outer calf muscles and knee tendons and generally strengthen my ankles. I CAN walk with my feet straight when wearing high heels or if I am not walking at a fast pace. But when I have on my sneakers and am out to walk far and fast, or I'm hiking over rocks and up and down hills, my feet will point out slightly. If I walk too fast and far with my feet straight, I get shin splints. Ms. Divine's feet tend to want to point in...pigeon toed. I told her I would have been a good ballerina while she will be good at downhill skiiing...which I had to give up becuz I could not point the ends of the skiis inward enough to stop so I had to sit down in the snow and use my butt as a brake. (I SO prefer cross country skiiing!)
SO...we made it down to the river and he wanted to sit on the bench in the shade. There was a guy practicing fly fish casting off the dock. Sr. couldn't help himself. He started shouting down to the guy and giving him 'advice' on where he should cast in the river to catch fish. The man looked back at him and politely told him that he was just a beginner and was just practicing getting the hang of the cast. Sr. was actually quiet for a moment but then he started yelling more advice...at which point I looked at him and said, "Are you ready to go back?" I would have loved to enjoy the shade and the bench and the scenery a bit longer but I figured that guy was thinking, "it WAS quiet and nobody was bothering me until that loud mouth showed up." So on the walk back to the house, since it is uphill, he was rather silent until we were a block and a half from home and I stopped to rub a knot out of one of my calves. This caused him to criticize how I walk once more. To which I replied, "I CAN'T walk that way when I'm walking fast cuz I'll get shin splints!" He just got a weird look on his face and continued walking. (sorry I'm not perfect!)*
So, I have come to the conclusion, it might be best to go on walks by myself. Although having Ms. Divine along sometimes isn't too bad.
AND, I love gardening as a good source of calorie burning becuz no one else wants to do it and, gasp, raise a sweat or get dirty so I have the outdoors to myself. I don't even take my MP3 player out there. Just me and the neighborhood noises. And when I work in the north side garden, I get to see one of the robins feeding its babies. In the blissful peace and quiet.
*Becuz I am always trying to find excuses for ppl's bad behavior (including my own) I must add that Sr., while usually pretty negative and critical, was especially obnoxious these last few weeks becuz of 2 things: 1)he is, as my daughter laughingly says, off 'the pot' becuz as part of his year long court ordered Diversion it seems the court could ask for him to go to a nearby court approved lab and have a piss test done and he doesn't know when/if they will do that so he decided he had better abstain; 2) he has had an awful lot of clients throwing hissy fits and needing to be handled with kid gloves...all at once. So, since he does not have his own customary type of anxiety meds ('the pot') to keep him calm, he is one big walking ball of ornery nerves and it causes him to pick at everyone and everything.
And now, sweet slumber is finally beckoning (I took half of a sleeping pill...cuz a whole one will knock me out for a whole 24 hours!). And I think I shall head for the cool side of the pillow.
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