Last day of the year.

I am a silly, emotional person trapped in a logical brain. There, I've admitted what you all know already. I spent the evening looking at old photos, laughing once or twice (especially at the amount of photos of my old black kitteh) and dropping a few tears for people gone or at things that don't exist anymore.

Something about your mid-30s changes a person though. It's that wonderful transition from thinking you know everything to really not caring that you don't and not really being in any hurry to find out because you know it will all reveal as needed (but knowing that you absolutely need comfortable shoes).

So I can't really get too sad about my old house in Kansas although when I saw the photos of the pile of wood that it was through all the phases of it being built, I sobbed uncontrollably for all the memories that I had locked away. It's funny to think of that house as being small because at the time it was so overwhelming and new. The photos of the year I really went crazy with Christmas made me laugh though because I learned such a valuable lesson: what goes up must come down (but I think it got left up until March...)

I've reinvented myself on numerous occasions. Spring will always be my favorite season and the smell of it is almost out there. I took the Foo dog for a spin outside and everything is just poised, waiting to fall over into the next year. Even the moon was a tiny sliver with just enough grace to show but not enough to steal the sky.

In celebration of memories and photos yet to come, here's a fantastic shot from Blackrock Mountain in north Georgia.

Overheard!

I had sent e-mail to the gents who do the Stop Podcasting Yourself (SPY) show because they are always looking for funny "overheard" segments. An overheard is when you come into a conversation at an awkward moment or just overhear something completely out of context and it makes it hilarious.

Earlier this year I was at one of the baby showers for one of the impending pregnant folk in the Paradiso clan, Julie I think. I was sitting next to another impending pregnant folk (Casie) who also heard the overheard and we had a good laugh.

From the kitchen we hear from Susan (Jim's mom), "No, that's the bad nipple!"

Casie and I looked at each other and then back at Susan. It turns out she was preparing a bottle of formula for one of the other babies and a notorious and faulty plastic nipple had been snagged by mistake.

Anyway, the SPY gents thought it was funny too and said to listen for it on an upcoming podcast...

Best of 2008

I'm typically not a fan of year-end lists or countdown shows but I started to analyze why and couldn't really think of a reason. In fact, the more I started to think about it, I thought it might be a good way to close out the year with a positive feeling and prepare for 2009 without doing resolutions. To that end, here is my personal list of the Best of 2008 really in no particular order but numbered for ease of reading:

1. Ending the year in better health than the beginning.
2. Being married to my soul mate and a wonderful man. Although it stinks that because our work schedules are now very different, it just means the time we get to spend together has to be better in return.
3. Being continuously employed at a company that despite everything allowed us to buy a house at the beginning of the year. (And the despite everything is the subject of another blog someday when I'm feeling complainey.)
4. Finding socks that energized my whole body. Silly to put socks on a Best Of list you say? Go buy some Under Armor socks with the stretchy part around the middle and then get back to me. As I get older, my feet become more important!
5. Discovering podcasts. My favorites include: Common Sense with Dan Carlin, FootStompin.com Scottish Music Podcast, Music For Midnight, PODRUNNER, Spacemusic hosted by *TC* (and not just because one of my pieces was featured on episode 3.9), Stop Podcasting Yourself, Tapestry of The Times, Techtronic Sound, Ultima Thule Ambient Music, and The Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour. These are all free from iTunes and you don't need an iPod to listen to them on your computer.
6. Starting a blog. I actually thought of this blog title a number of years ago but never felt like what I had to say was important enough to get it down but I've realized I don't write for other people. If it's not important enough to say to myself, we're in real trouble.
7. Finally being diagnosed with something that makes sense for all the symptoms I've had for over a decade and getting medicine that seems to be really helping it. If you are a woman who has had continual problems with weight, menstrual difficulties, abdominal pain, depression, and more (there are a ton of symptoms), I highly recommend you read up on Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and ask your doctor to run the blood and other tests to find out if you do.
8. Breaking my addiction to ice cream by understanding why I craved it so badly. I'll tell that story soon but what a great epiphany. I'm now able to have ice cream in the house, eat normal portions of it, and in fact if I have more than about 3/4 a cup it's too much.

I'm sure I'll think of more later but there is always time to reflect on the good that happens to us, not just at the end of the year.

The importance of always moving forward.

I think many people are very negative and it's difficult for me to spend any amount of time with them. When I think about people who were my friends in the past, they tended to be people who I believe were using my positive energy and outlook to feel better about their situations or personality types. I think about people who I liked and thought were inspirational and they weren't necessarily the coolest people, but they were always active and in retrospect, always moving forward.

Because this past year has revolved so much around my health and becoming more active or just coping with junk that comes up (like a hubby losing his job), I've struggled the last two months with depression. Sometimes you don't realize it until you are on the other side of it though and I only realized it in the last two weeks.

I had been doing outrageously well with working out and eating. All of a sudden everything changes and I just turned into a slug. I've only truly retreated into old eating habits two or three times though and the good work that I did earlier in the year helped so that I haven't completely ruined all my progress i.e. my clothes still fit.

For being a quick observer in so many other aspects of my life, when it comes to depression, sometimes I'm slow to realize what is going on. Jim also told me in the last two weeks he thinks losing his job hurt him more than he thought. I knew it would but it's hard to say that to someone when you know they just have to figure it out.

Of course it doesn't help that this time of year is cloudy, rainy, and just blah. I tell you what though, one of the things that I have really grown to love about Georgia is that the winters aren't nearly as harsh as Kansas. Lots of pine trees and other year-round greens make the landscape just a tad colorful, enough to cling to until everything starts to refresh at the end of February.

So I'm taking a Vitamin D supplement based on an article in the Scientific American earlier this year (and the advice of my sister who had visited a nutritionist and told her the same thing) so we'll see if that helps any. I don't expect it to affect any depression from the result of being whiney about changes in my life but if it can help lessen the seasonal blues I typically have from the lack of sunshine, that would be nice.

This week I'm starting a multi-week challenge through the Leslie Sansone Walk at Home program. If you dislike going outside to workout and want something that is gentle enough to do by yourself or challenging if you want it to be, I highly recommend her walks. When I first tried one I thought, 'how can walking in place be a workout?' but its more than that.

Walking reminds me that my body isn't broken and can be repaired. It reminds me to keep looking and moving forward but at the same time to enjoy the trip.

On holidays and eating.

The end of the year seems to be a difficult time for people who struggle with their weight or who are on constant diets. They feel like they shouldn't have a good time so they just add stress and do you know what your body does when it is stressed? Mine likes to help me by turning what I eat into fat...

I did pretty well yesterday in just trying a little bit of everything (and the night before at Tina's party) but I did have to go back for more beef brisket. We made big plates to take home and that saved money and was delicious too.

Today I've convinced Jim to go to the grocery store with me (after I take him out for a quick Mexican lunch) because he's been complaining that there is never anything that he wants to eat in the house. He did eat my Kashi Moroccan curry that I had bought so that's when I knew he really must have been hungry.

He's noticed that because our schedules are different, he won't eat anything until he gets to work and then will put in a hard night and then binge eat when he gets home. It hasn't been so bad this last week because I didn't even go to the grocery store because I knew we would be doing a lot of holiday things.

Mom gave me some great books at Thanksgiving though and I read through the Glucose Revoluation one in the last couple of days which I thought was much more insightful than the G.I. Diet Express one I had picked up. Although a color-coding system is helpful I think the thought of truly limiting yourself against foods tends to set up a very negative method in your head.

I equate that to something Jim's mom said to me about her last two weeks on the Atkin's diet. She said she was very faithful to the diet for two weeks and lost 6 pounds. Then with three days or normal eating all those pounds came back. She said she felt so much better when she just let herself have things like chocolate.

Living is always a struggle and living well is even more difficult but it is worth it! I'm going to keep coming back to something I thought of earlier this year and try and hold everything against it: Eat better, eat less, move more, and relax!

Favorite memories of my grandmother.

I thought about writing down my favorite memories of my grandmother the week she died but every time I would start, I had to stop. Now that a tiny bit of time has passed, remembering is easier. Some of these I thought of when talking to my sister at the funeral; some I just remembered this week.

I can't recall the first specific memory of my grandmother, who I called grandma Ben, because she had hair sort of like Ben Franklin. I don't think anybody except my ex-husband Scott knew that. He may have actually coined that phrase but I thought it was endearing and it stuck.

I realized at the funeral that grandma helped with the money to buy our first piano when I was five. I told my sister that we should be the ones playing music for her but she of course was right when she said we wouldn't have been able to do it.

I remember going out to her farm during the summer, playing in the very tall grass, catching lightning bugs in a mason jar and that they got loose during the night and were making light patterns on the ceiling. We hadn't caught very many so we didn't worry about catching them again.

I remember her showing us how beehives worked and how she got honey out of the combs. I remember her cutting off a piece of honey-laden comb for us to chew on. I don't ever remember getting stung by any bees.

I did get stung by a wasp once but it was stuck in a window or a blind and fell on my hand. It hurt badly but grandma told me it would feel better in awhile and she may have put some salve on it. That memory is pretty vague.

In the same building she had all her bee equipment, she had a couple rooms filled with discarded food boxes that she would use for rebates. I remember the whole family really got into rebates for awhile. I always thought that was something that was a bit old-fashioned and maybe something she had done when times were really rough but then who doesn't like getting back a buck or two?

I remember one winter she had a bunch of chicken eggs and they were in an incubator for a long time and then they hatched and she had a room bursting with chicks. We had to be careful where we stepped. I think later that year I helped (or tried anyway) to catch one and got to keep a foot. I remember thinking how crazy the chicken looked when it ran around in the yard without a head. I remember taking that foot home and keeping it in the fridge for a couple of days and showing my sister how the toes moved when you pulled the talons. I don't think mom let me keep it very long but it was kind of a nasty thing to have in the fridge.

I remember grandma tried to make pizza one time, this probably would have been when we were getting a bit older. It was pretty healthy tasting which meant we probably didn't like it much...but I don't remember not eating it. I think we would have gone to bed without eating if we had done something like that. That might have been the start of me not liking peppers or onions though.

I remember she always kept a tube of vitamin E for lips in her purse. It always felt nice and didn't make your lips sticky like gloss.

I remember going to the Powell Gardens for one Mother's Day. That was fairly recent and may have been during the spring when Scott and I broke up. I loved going to gardens with her because she knew about everything or could tell you about it. I always wanted to know that much about plants but knew I didn't have the patience for it.

I remember the peonies she had at her farm in the spring and how they would have big ants on them. The flowers would be so big too.

The only time I remember making my grandma upset was when I was maybe six or seven. I think my sister and I were riding in her car and it was raining heavily. I kept singing loudly, "rain, rain, go away, come again some other day." She gently asked me to stop and I did because I knew she meant it.

My mom told me something about an afghan I had made that was really out of control huge. It was a salmon and sage color in alternating stripes. I think it was bigger than a king-size bed. I don't really remember why I made it so big but I think I probably just used big knitting needles and didn't measure anything. I started with a pattern so just followed it to the end. It wasn't good for much but taking up space so mom was going to give it to the Goodwill or something but grandma said she wanted it because I had made it.

If I ever disappointed her or made her unhappy I don't recall. I don't have a very good memory sometimes. I know I didn't get to thank her enough for all the help she gave to me over the years, sometimes without me knowing. This last Thanksgiving though, she gave my husband Jim and I some money that definitely helped us out more than I got to tell her.

Times are tough all around but as my friend Justa said to me, we never really lose people, they are just watching over us now. Although I don't believe in heaven, I know that my grandma made a huge enough dent in my reality that her energy will always inspire and guide me.

I was very thankful I was able to go back for the funeral. I got to say thank you one last time and even though I couldn't hug my grandma any more, I knew she knew I loved her and understood.

Truck jerks, a sliding scale.

I've been thinking a lot about the type of people who drive trucks, especially here in Georgia. I noticed while back in the Kansas City area that there are significantly less SUVs and trucks on the road. Whether it is a Southern thing, or a jerk thing, or both, I'm not 100% sure.

I have come up with a sliding scale to determine whether or not a particular truck that is about to run me down will perhaps spare me.

If you have any sort of truck, give yourself a base score of 50.

If you have any sort of aftermarket modification such as extra chrome, custom wheels, extra antennas, or fancy paint job you can add 10 points for each modification. The only exception is if you've had the bed sprayed with a protective lining because that just shows common sense.

If your truck has more than four wheels, has an extended cab, or if the wheels are lifted in any way add 10 points each.

Add 5 points for each decal celebrating your love of Nascar, Calvin pissing on Ford or Chevy, the fact that you are a bowhunter, or that your truck enjoys a particular brand of parts.

Add 5 points if you have a vanity license plate, are from Florida or Alabama, or if you are from Georgia if you have the "protect wildlife" plate which I call the patriotic plates because of the bald eagle over the American flag. I think they actually require trucks to have that one...

Now I've heard that white is the most common color for any car and considering most of the truck jerks have white trucks it's hard for me to penalize for color. That being said, add 5 points if you have a red truck or any sort of flames, camouflage, or wildlife imagery.

For those responsible drivers, knock off 10 points if you are hauling anything in the bed of your truck or a trailer. You are using your truck as intended.

Knock off 5 points if your truck is dirty! A clean truck is a sign of an idle jerk.

That's about all that comes to mind. Next time you are out tooling around in your jerkmobile, consider the little people and cut us some slack!

Ow, my tummeh.

I had been keeping a blog over at diet.com since March of this year but I began to dislike the amount of advertising they had on their site plus I always felt like things I wrote needed to be food or diet-related. While a large portion (haha) of what I talk about may be food related, my XXL-ness needed to break out, hence the start of this blog.

I often feel that the end of the year is a wasted time and mentally I can't get started on anything until that near year gets started. I know that's stupid and I'm trying to break out of that this time. I don't do New Year resolutions but since the week my grandmother died, I've been thinking a lot about how I've not being doing anything with my life.

That's not wholly true; I've been working and I've been playing World of Warcraft (it's own form of work). I decided yesterday in a fit of boredom that I was done and cancelled my account, uninstalled the game, unsubscribed from all my WoW podcasts, and called it done.

The first thing I did this morning was clean and organize my office. It felt really good to get rid of all the junk mail piles, the random food bits from late night playing sessions, and the dog furballs accumulating under my chair where he was looking for random food bits. It wore me out because I was actually doing something other than sitting in my chair running around a fake (but beautiful) world doing fake things with fake money.

I tie my experience in WoW a lot to my current job, a website designer for Yellowpages.com through Technisource. Because it is advertising, I sit in my chair rushing to meet my productivity numbers to develop alluring lures for various companies to cause their clients to spend money. I guess it's not a fake (but corporate) world with fake money but my brain sees the correlation.

A few things happen to me when I get obsessed about projects and the first is that I stop taking care of myself i.e. eating well or exercising (and sometimes to the point of bad clothing and bad hair). So when I take on a new job I tend to get overwhelmed with trying to learn everything I can to excel in the position and it's only when I master it do I realize that I forgot to brush my teeth for a couple days or the jacket I'm wearing has a big food stain. I am exceeding my production goals though!

So after sitting all day at work obsessing, I was coming home and sitting all night obsessing about my WoW character. After four years, the fat excess around my midsection has grown sizeable and I've been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome and insulin resistant. I'm not blaming my lifestyle but it has been a contributing factor.

I think about my health this year and my upcoming birthday and I'm in a much healthier state of being than last year so overall we're going to call that a success. I'm very much looking forward to being able to look back next year and have even more incremental success. I always want to be improving...my life, my body is my character that I have to obsess about and improve.