Eleven

My first blog post, on my old blog, happened January 10, 2006. I've now been a blogger for 11 years, and if you look at the photo posted then, I honestly don't look a whole lot different now.

So that's depressing!

Possibly I need to accept that brief periods of normal weight will happen occasionally, but that I'm destined to carry extra poundage until I've taken my last breath. Possibly.

Actually, I'll keep trying and I'll keep posting and I'll keep trying to figure it out.

But seriously … in 11 years I haven't figured it out yet? Sheesh.

Anyway, if you've been here from the beginning (and I think a couple of you have), thanks. You've witnessed three marriages (mine, my son's, and my husband's son's), the births of five of our grandchildren, and the death of my father.

You've been patient as I natter on about food and workouts and half-marathon training (those were the days!) and politics and society and gardening and knitting and the weather. Boy oh boy, have we had some weather.

I'm grateful for you, for your patience, for your friendship … and I'm truly grateful for technology, which has expanded my world immeasurably and wonderfully.

Thank you.

Thanks, my friends!

Nothing's more fun than publishing an all-about-me post and getting great feedback from wonderful readers like you.

Well. Some things are. BUT NOT MANY! Thanks to the nth degree. You made my day!

Look. Now. Over there to the right. Do you see the little orange-bordered rectangle with the number in it? Do you remember what I'd hoped to do by the end of the year?

I have just completed a thorough search of past posts and I canNOT find the one in which I said I wanted to walk or run 1000 miles by the end of 2013. Somewhere along the line I decided I was going to do just that.

And I'm so close to hitting the mark by the end of SEPTEMBER! I have to do 5.25 miles per day for the next four days.

Apologies if you saw this on Instagram
or Facebook. Chicken tenderloin wrapped
in a slice of bacon and baked until done.
Hands-down, this is our favorite dinner.

Piece. Of. Cake. Chicken.

Heh.

What I did find when I went back through last year's end-of-the-year posts was a promise to do some strength training twice a week. That has been a major fail. I have an excuse this week – I fell last Friday, hard, on a sidewalk and the heel of my left hand is still ouchy, which makes pushups and tricep dips uncomfortably difficult.

But I have no excuse for all the other months I haven't been doing them. I'd rather walk than lift or squat or push. I do like yoga, though, and I'm going to get back to my class tomorrow. It's been three weeks. I predict major soreness on Sunday.

But not enough soreness to stop me from walking. And I think my scraped knee will be healed by Monday and I may – may – actually run those last five miles.

Friday Quote Day (an occasional reprise)

See, don't ever give up! Maybe sometimes you feel like 
a rotting old pile of firewood too, but you are actually 
full of incredible potential underneath. All you need is a 
heavy-duty sanding and some paint, and possibly some 
new handles on your drawers!

~ Lindsey, author of the Better After blog

© 2013 Debora J. McNeer

Lindsey features furniture (and sometimes room) makeovers over at Better After, and I LOVE the way she writes. When she wrote the lines I'm using for today's quote, she wrote them for me. And you, if you're also working toward a tough goal.

The number on the scale this morning was much more realistic than last Friday's. I might even get some work done around here today. (Last Friday I collapsed in a heap and didn't move all day.)

To recap: I stepped on the scale Christmas morning and saw a most horrifying number. My New Year's resolution to get fit, once and for all and I really mean it this time, began the next day. I'm using the LoseIt! app, and following the calorie guidelines there to lose a pound a week. I hope to lose 50 pounds this year.

I wanted my progress to be measured simply by staying within LoseIt's target calories each day and achieving my exercise goals, which are to:

• walk or use the elliptical six days a week
• do a short yoga session twice a week
• do a light weight-lifting session twice a week

I planned to take Mondays off - no counting calories, have a little treat if I want and rest from exercise.

But I also want to know if the plan works for weight loss, so I decided to weigh myself on the 25th of every month. Just once a month, a quick check-in, because I was confident I would be at least one pound down for every week on plan.

Last week's two-pounds-in-a-month result was pretty devastating. I had eaten well below the calorie target each day and had only missed a couple workouts. Both of you suggested eating more. LoseIt! has done the research and knows what it takes, and I was, possibly, sabotaging and/or short-changing myself by creating a deficit each day. I vowed to stay on target and check the scales in a week.

Well, the week is up. I did great from Friday through Monday, staying either slightly below or barely above my daily calories. Tuesday was a tough, tough day and I barely ate anything; I came up short on calories Wednesday and yesterday, as well. I didn't know what to expect this morning.

I've been looking for, working for and hoping for a pound a week. And I got it. Five weeks, five pounds. I don't FOR A MINUTE think I lost three pounds this week. Last week was, as you both pointed out (gently, thank you) a fluke. So this week? Yay for me! Wait, I'm sorry:

YAY FOR ME!

Last Friday I really did feel like a rotting pile of firewood. Or maybe even what lies beneath a rotting pile of firewood. Today I feel (again) like a woman on a mission. Not a life-or-death one (although it may very well be one, I'd rather not know), but simply a let's-get-this-done one. Let's get back to a body that likes to move and doesn't hurt when it has to. Let's get back to enjoying shopping for clothes. Let's get back to being able to do XYZ, rather than making excuses not to.

Thanks for your advice last week, and for your sympathy and empathy and kindness. Thanks for your help. Thanks for coming along for the journey, one pound at a time.

Thanks.

Y'all are the BEST!

Not that I needed the validation or anything, but it was lovely to read your supportive and uplifting comments yesterday. It was, indeed, a down day, and those happen every once in a while. I made the best of it, and will continue to do everything I can to eat healthfully, move gracefully and with intention (doesn't that sound all yoga-y?) and shoo those negative thoughts from my mind. With your help, of course. THANK YOU.

After I published yesterday's post I went to the drugstore for generic Claritin and an allergy eye drop, to treat whatEVER the hell happened to my eye on Friday at the garden center. I was standing at the potting bench, moving petunia plugs into larger pots, when suddenly my right eye began swelling. It was quite dramatic, actually, everyone there noticed it. I washed it out with clear, cold water and hoped for the best, but that best wasn't good enough. I needed an anti-allergy arsenal, because whatever it was was quickly spreading to the left eye.

I've had eye "issues" before. A couple of times it has been too-much-sun-related, and I once ended up in an urgent care facility in Florida because of it. My glasses are the transition kind, and I try to wear a visor or a hat when I'm in the sun, but sometimes even that doesn't help.

But it wasn't a sun issue on Friday, it was probably just something in the air that decided to attack me. My eyes are still swollen and red this morning, but the loratidine is helping and I'm not sleeping the day away, as I would if I were taking Benadryl, which is the other thing the pharmacist recommended.

I spent yesterday afternoon crossing things off my long garden work list. I weeded the herb bed and planted lots of stuff in there, both plants and seeds. There's one empty "slice" of the circular pie, which I will fill with lavender and bee balm, I think. It still looks pretty raggedy; definitely not photo-worthy!

After I told a friend about all the straw we've collected lately, she asked, "What are you going to do with it?" Well, here's what I've done so far:

All the onions have been weeded and straw-mulched. What a huge job that was. I got the electric fence up around the vegetable garden Friday morning (and thinned the apples) and fenced the blackberries yesterday afternoon. Now I need to trim around them, add some cardboard and put down a thick layer of straw.

Then it's back to the big garden for more weeding/yoga (downward dog really is the best weeding pose) and, maybe, if the rains stay away, some major planting. In addition to the 48 Amish Paste plants I bought yesterday, I have some other tomato plants and a few peppers, along with cucumber, zucchini, edamame and Italian green been seeds. Oh, and this celery plant, which I hope will grow in the ground as well as it's grown in a dish on the kitchen counter. I'm always willing to try something new in the garden. I've planted celery before, but always new plants, never the root end of a bunch from the grocery.

We shall see … I think it's important to keep trying to grow my own celery, although I haven't had much luck so far. Celery is #2 in the dirty dozen, and Tiny Kroger rarely has organic celery in stock.

Time for breakfast, then time for work. And one last thank you before I go.

THANK YOU!

Thanks …

for reading, commenting, sharing, helping, giving me so much more than I can give in return. You bloggers and blog-readers are the best. I look forward to writing every day, even on the weekends during this most wonderful time of the year.

Thanks …
for helping me through some tough, tough times and cheering me on when the load got lighter. And I'm not just talking about my weight. Heh.

Thanks …
for inspiring me to knit more, plant more, cook more, eat more. I'm just not reading the right blogs to be inspired to run more, but I did order some of those Vibram Five Fingers thingies, so maybe I'll get inspired. (They were super-super cheap at Moosejaw Outlet.)

Thanks …
for encouraging me to take more pictures and to post them here, on Facebook and on my 365 blog. You didn't even know you were doing that, did you?

Thanks …
for introducing me to your favorite bloggers. I love linkfests (and should do more of them myself).

Thanks …
for technology, for without it, I never would have met you.

A small token of thanks was mailed to Jennette yesterday.
Thanks for your humor, inspiration and friendship!

Stats

10 of each, with 5-lb dumbbells:

• Bicep curls
• Front raises
• Side bends
• Overheads

5 tricep kickbacks, 5 tricep dips
10 wall push-ups

5 miles in 95 minutes.

Three meals, no snacks (breakfast at 8 works much better than brunch at 11)

64+ ounces water

PLUS: I loaded and unloaded a 17 cu. ft. trailer with horse manure. Twice. The south end of the garden should be in pretty good shape next spring.

Denise, thanks for your comment earlier today. I read it out loud to my husband when we were walking. You made my day! And Kitten, you're the best. Thanks for all the attagirls you've given me all week. Don't feel obligated to keep it up, but do know that I appreciate it!