a step in the right direction!

 When you're as lazy as the day is long, and trying to get into better shape, actually going to the pool is a huge accomplishment.  All winter long, I'd think...I really should go to the pool.  I really should.  What stopped me?  Well, a million things:  I don't like being cold afterwards, the chill comes on, and on those blustery freezing nights, oh dear.  What an excuse, I could just bundle more.  Putting on a suit with the white pasty winter skin.  A really good excuse.  Dealing with the wet towel and suit, oh the laziness...

Jonathan started going to the gym, he got a monthly membership, asked me to go to the pool with him...set a time, so I went.  We decided to get a yearly family membership, since our insurance will reimburse most of it, so Jon canceled his monthly one.  Anyhoo, I got into that pool and swam and moved and it was amazing, it felt so fantastic.  Why-0h-why do I procrastinate such amazing things?

This was six years ago when we went to Disney...

This fine morning....getting old!  But, I'm working on taking better care of myself.  Trying to lose weight has been a journey, a process, an up-and-down experience.  When the pandemic started, I was going to water aerobics, and being super low carb-y, intermittent fasting (one meal a day), and at that time, was 95 pounds down from my starting weight.  That starting weight wasn't even my highest, shh.  But I had lost a bit before I really started, if that makes sense.  Anyway, I have gained back 25 pounds in the last few years, and it's not fair.   But stomping my feet and saying NO FAIR won't get me very far, and I refuse to re-gain anymore.  Sustaining weight loss is very hard to do.  My metabolism is pretty much trashed, I can't just eat like a normal person, or it would all come back.  I know, excuses!  I really want to get those 25 pounds back off, but that's easier said than done.  

Chocolate, how I crave thee, adore thee, delight in thee...add some almonds, and ahh, heavenly.  I am not saying I'll never eat chocolate again, but I do know that Hershey kisses can sabotage me so easily.   Those kisses with almonds in them do not stand a chance here in my house, I LOVE them.  In the evenings, it's the worst.  I've been drinking lemon ginger tea, or chewing gum.  It's hard.  Last night after my one meal of the day (oven roasted lime-marinated chicken breast, air fryer Brussel sprouts, and some unsweetened applesauce), I had an 80 calorie Greek yogurt with a huge spoonful of crunchy peanut butter mixed in.  That was IT for the day.  My goal is to add a second meal a few times a week of eggs, because they're healthy, and I think I need to. A normal person eating the amount I eat would be thin, but I've backed myself into a low calorie corner, and every time I splurge on anything, I gain two pounds.  It takes a week to lose it, then it happens again.  And when I say splurge, I just mean eat breakfast or lunch, not even high carb.  Anyway.  I'm hoping adding more exercise in will help, along with staying away from evening chocolate.  

So today I have done ten push-ups, lifted my ten-pound weights twenty times, and have walked backwards around the house a bit.  

I have it on my radar to paint the kitchen ceiling, and fix up the ceiling light in there.  It's from when we built the house, with floral-y shaped glass globes, but I still like it.  The globes need a washing, and I bought a can of black matte spray paint for the rest of it.  

Today is Kathryn's birthday.  Kathryn is our #10 child.  We had four boys and four girls, then Margaret was the tie-breaker, and the boys never regained the lead.  I couldn't have imagined, when Kap was born, that she was the second of those five-girls-in-a-row-in-five-years.  I mean, we had 8 kids, then those five in a row, then we lost baby Robert, then Jonathan was born a mere 10 and a half months later, then Miss Charlotte Claire and Miss Camille...Cam whom we thought we had lost.....what a journey it's been.  

Kathryn is 24 today.  (the five are now 25, 24, 22, 21, and almost 20).  She is all the way out in Oregon, and I need to go see her again soon.  I miss her, but am so thankful for FaceTime.  I'm old, it still impresses the living heck right out of me.  Back in my day, we telephoned with the black rotary-dial phone with the two foot coiled cord, on a Saturday morning to lessen the long-distance charges.  When I was married and moved out, we had a wall phone with a long cord, moving on up in the world.  When I got my first cordless phone, my goodness, my sister and I were both in hog-heaven, we could talk and not have to hang up because a sneaky toddler figured out our range.  (not too many years ago, I lived a few towns away, south of here, and it was long distance to call my sister.  Did that stop us?  Of course not!  We talked every.single.day.). 

(Evelyn, Kathryn in the red dress, Suzanne, and Sonja K....a few years ago)

Oh the tangents.  Kathryn living on the west coast is a trial for me, I'll be honest.  It's not fair.  When you can see the grandkids but not really know them, ouch.  I go visit and by the time they snuggle freely, it's time to say goodbye, then I leave part of my heart with them, knowing full well it'll take half the week next visit to get back to that place again.  

When you're raising your kids, your goal is to get them to that point where they can stand on their own two feet, you're making yourself obsolete.   It's a good thing!   They can live on their own, function without their mom!  But oh it hurts.  Then they think they're bothering me, when they call and ask me how to thicken sauce or what I think of a certain rash.  ha, little do they know how nice it is to still be needed.

To further the tangents today, I want to talk about feeling needed.  I've read some threads lately on social media which have made my heart ache.  Scenario:  a mom who has just HAD it with a teenager, has taken all devices, put her foot down, screamed, and the teen is being even worse.  This is not an anomaly of a situation, it seems every week or so, there is a mom who is at wit's end, those awful teenagers!  I do not claim to know all of the answers, I barely scraped by raising my own kids, from on my knees, mostly.  But I do know this:  the mom HAS to have more self-control, and HAS to impart to that poor kid how much she loves them, make them feel wanted and needed.  Kids will do anything for attention, good or bad.  When the parents are so strong and right and authoritative, the kid pretty much has to rebel.  If it's so difficult for  grown ups to humble themselves, how can they expect a kid to do it?  

Today is also Wulf's birthday, he is four years old!  We are having a birthday party here for him on Sunday.  It'll be a bit crazy, as the weather is veering back towards winter again (low 25, high 35, snow mixed with rain, not fun to be outside in).  I was hoping it would be deck weather.  It'll be fun for the grandkids, and the rest of us like getting together too, so it'll be all good.  I wish Kathryn and Darius and Achilles and Rhys could be here....

Alrighty, things to do....have a really good day!