In stitching news, amazingly enough, I actually have been doing a little bit. I stitched a summer pinkeep for Kim as part of a seasonal exchange. After that was away in the mail, I’ve been working a bit on “Snow Garden” from Blackbird Designs as well as another secret project. Here are some pictures of the exchange:

The pinkeep design was taking from the “Friends for All Seasons” chart by Lizzie Kate. I also included the “Small Sampler 1” chart from Ewe & Eye & Friends, a couple of skeins of Dragon Floss from Polstitches, a couple of skeins of Soy Luster floss (one solid & one shadow) from The Pure Palette, and a pack of strawberry blank notecards.

Here are some close-up shots of the pinkeep by itself:

My Dovos were for demo purposes only and weren’t part of the exchange. Sorry Kim!

This was my first attempt at doing a scissor pocket on the back. I thought it turned out ok, but I definitely learned some things that I will do differently next time. For example, I didn’t leave a bit of slack in the pocket when I assembled it. As I was sewing, the pocket kept getting tighter and tighter to the point that it pulls slightly downward. If I had given it a little leeway at the beginning, I think it would have come out much nicer in the end.

Here are my before & after progress pics on Snow Garden:

Previous Progress

Current Progress

I know it’s not much progress, but at least it is noticeable. I try very hard not to compare myself to the speedy needles of some of my other stitching friends whose speed is simply astounding! I just seem to be in a bit of a stitching slump this year, and I’m not sure why. Normally by the mid-point of the year, I would have at least 10-15 finishes, but this year I only have three. The sad part is that I know my time available for stitching is about to get drastically reduced, too.

That leads me directly into my last bit of news. I’ve officially gone back to college to finish my degree. I dropped out of college at the start of my senior year back when I was 21 years old. I said I was just going to take a couple of quarters off, but somehow that mushroomed into taking 25 years off. One of my biggest regrets in life has always been not finishing my degree, so now I’m going to remedy that. In fact, my plan is to finish my Bachelors as quickly as possible and then go immediately into a Masters program.

I have chosen an online competency-based program through Western Governor’s University. It’s basically an independent study program where each student goes at their own pace. They will also allow students with extensive real world experience to test out of some classes. I decided this particular model sounded perfect for me, so let’s hope that it is! I guess I’ll find out soon enough given that I start classes today.

One of the best parts is that since the university if fully accredited, they qualify for tuition reimbursement through my employer. w00t! By the time I get my reimbursement checks each year, I should hopefully only spend around $1000-$1200 out of pocket annually. That means no student loans!

I suppose that’s the last of my news & updates for now. I will try my best to update as often as possible, but please understand that I’m likely just uber busy between work and school should I disappear for extended periods of time. If you want to keep track of me more frequently, I would recommend Facebook.

Until next time …

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I actually started recording before I really even knew what I was going to talk about other than my lack of motivation. It quickly turned in to a real stream of consciousness conversation. I started to make some major edits on it, but I ended up deciding that I really need to remember how I was feeling when I recorded this so I ended up just leaving it all intact. If you are inclined to watch all of it, wow, you must be really bored.

Part 1:

Part 2:

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My blog made the “Blog Chatter” section of the January issue of Women’s Running magazine (formerly Her Sports & Fitness). I left a comment on their blog a few weeks ago when they announced the new Rock n’ Rock Seattle marathon/half marathon on their site. I had just registered for the half marathon, so I left a comment about how much I was looking forward to the race. So, you can find my little comment in the January issue at the bottom of page 12 (see “A New Grunge Run” in the Blog Chatter section).

So, if you are reading this entry and found your way here via Women’s Running, welcome to my blog! Please leave a comment and let me know you stopped by for a visit. Of course, the down side to this is that I now feel compelled to write more meaningful posts and not spend as much time on things like Bad Scale. I’m sure I’ll find a happy middle of the road though. ;)

If I don’t get around to posting again before Christmas, I hope everyone has a very safe and happy holiday. I’ll be thinking of you from out here in Fa La La La Land. Merry Christmas!!

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Ok, so I’m sitting here watching The Biggest Loser off my DVR and crying my eyes out right now. The cast is in New York getting makeovers and Renee just said something that hit home so hard with me that I literally had to pause the show to come here and write about it.

Here is what she said:

“The Renee I saw in the mirror, even a few months ago, was not somebody I loved and not somebody I wanted to be. I wasn’t proud of myself. I think I was more ashamed of myself.”

I don’t think any one person could sum up so succinctly exactly how I feel if they tried! I don’t love myself right now. I’m completely ashamed over how I look and how much of my weight I’ve regained.

So often, I feel completely overwhelmed with the long journey I’m once again facing considering how close to my goal I was five years ago. I need to find a way to connect to the ME that’s hidden away somewhere deep within all this fat so that I CAN love myself again. I need to start loving myself enough to recognize that I AM worth this. If I can find that person within, perhaps one day I’ll also be able to utter the words the next words that Renee said:

“BUT, I’m proud to say that I’m not that Renee anymore, nor will I ever be. I’m proud of who I am today.”

At the start of the season, I wasn’t really sure how long Renee would last on the show. I wasn’t always sure initially if her heart was really in it. Clearly, it was!

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Then, as if I didn’t have enough stress in my life, the person who sexually abused me for many years of my childhood decided to make an appearance in my life via email in a discussion over politics and religion. Other than seeing him briefly at my grandmother’s funeral several years ago, we’ve had no direct contact for nearly 13 years, so it was very odd to suddenly have communication with him.

I’ve had a mixed bag of emotions ranging from anger to just severe emotional pain/trauma from the flood of memories it brought back, including having nightmares pretty much every night since the initial email. After a few emails back and forth, I’ve thankfully not heard from him again since I told him before he started lecturing me on the state of freedom of religion in our country that perhaps he should take a look at his own faith since he has called me a liar over the things that happened to me as a child.

Anyway, moving on to more pleasant things ….

Praise be to the deity of your choice (see how I linked that back with the whole freedom of religion thing? ;)), I am DONE with 5k races for the summer. It’s just too hot and painful (for me) to do races in the summertime. My next race probably won’t be until the middle to end of September.

Today’s race was the Cypress 5k/10k put on by the nearby city of Cypress. I did have a good race overall though. I think I may have even set a new personal 5k record. I missed getting my Garmin started at the very beginning of the race and didn’t realize it until a couple of minutes into it. When I passed one of the mile markers, I heard one of the volunteers calling out the race clock time. I remember thinking at the time that my Garmin was approx. 2:15 off the race clock. Like a ninny, I forgot to look at the race clock when I crossed the finish line.

According to my Garmin, I finished in 48:58 which gives me about 3 minutes of “wiggle” room to beat my old PR of 51:47 which I set back in 2006 just before all of my back woes took control of my life. I’m figuring I have 3 minutes of wiggle room since it was probably 15-20 seconds after the gun that Darla and I actually crossed the starting line.

If you are a numbers geek and want to see the data from my Garmin, here’s the link to my race details on their Motion Based site. It’s a bit odd though on some of the data. The display on my watch said I had gone 2.9 miles, but when I uploaded the data to the Motion Based site, it shows 3.04 miles.

Cypress 5k Garmin Data

For a comparison, here is a Google pedometer map I put together of the actual race course. I definitely wasn’t off very far before I got my Garmin started:

Cypress 5k Race Route

From looking at the race website, it looks like the official results aren’t posted there, but are on the Active.com website. I’ve never done a race where the results were solely on Active’s site. Anyone have any idea how long those typically take to get posted?

I do have to say, there were definitely a couple of highlights in today’s race. The first was the family who hooked up a water mister to their garden hose and had it hanging on a street light. As we all passed by their home, we got a quick little mist to cool us off. That was awesome!

The other highlight was that in addition to the typical banana, water, etc., they had Big Stick popsicles for all of us at the finish line. I generally don’t like anything with pineapple, but I have to say that may very well have been the best damned popsicle I’ve ever eaten and was the perfect way to cool down after a hot race! Even better, it was only 90 calories.

Ok, that’s it for now. I hope everyone has a lovely rest of the weekend!

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I even got a phone call from one of my best friends today who said she was also inspired to head back to WW. She’s already signed up for the monthly pass and will be heading to her first meeting in a day or so. Woot!

TB – I completely agree with you about the perfectionism aspect. That’s one of the things I love about WW as well. It makes it very easy for me to fit in the occasional treat which helps make this a lifestyle and not just another fad diet.

For me, the purpose of this challenge isn’t so much as being perfect as much as it is to get a good chunk of “clean living” time under my belt again to help me get off on the right track. I guess it’s a bit of an OP detox to help me remember that while the occasional treat is OK, it should be just that … occasional. I need to plan for the treats and fit them into my points target and/or weekly points allowance.

Steve – I just wanted to give you some MAJOR kudos for giving up golf for a while so your wife can go to WW. What an awesome and supportive thing for you to do! Of course, I realize that this really shouldn’t be that amazing as one would like to think all couples would do something like this for each other, but we all know that just isn’t always the case. Anyway, way to go!

Day 1 went very well. The only thing where I went a bit overboard was spending 8 points on some ice cream last night. It was the last of the ice cream in the freezer. I knew I had enough points to cover it, so I went on and ate it rather than throwing it out. That was really the only “bad” food I still had in the house.

I really hesitated to use the word “bad” regarding the ice cream. I’m trying to focus more and more on that there are no good foods or bad foods. It’s more about the choices I make. When I start labeling things “bad” then I start feeling that sense of deprivation. As a former WW leader of mine once said, “Don’t think of this as a diet. You can have anything you want to eat on this program … except too much.” Words to live by!

So, in closing, here is my summary of how Day 1 went yesterday:

Total Points: 30.5
Exercise: Walking (1 AP)
Weekly Points balance: 35
Water: 64 oz
Consecutive Days OP: 1

Until next time …

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Start of a new trend?

If you don’t have the time to read Kathy’s post, here’s the story in a nutshell. Chloe Marshall won the Miss Surrey pageant and is now advancing to the Miss England pageant. She’s 16 years old, 5’10″ tall, and wears a size 16 UK. (That’s a size 14 for those of us in the U.S.) She said during a recent interview with The Sun, “I wanted to go through to the Miss England finals to break the stereotype that you have to be tall and skinny to be considered beautiful.”

I say kudos to Chloe!! I think we need more role models like this to help young women (and young men these days) to realize that the world of the Abercrombie & Fitch models and the like is not “normal”. There is a LOT of retouching on the photos even of these “perfect” model bodies, so PLEASE don’t compare yourself to them or think less of yourself for not looking like them. They don’t look like them either!

I had enough body image issues growing up in the 70′s & 80′s. I can’t imagine what it must be like for young people now in today’s multimedia world. We need more beautiful young people like Chloe to stand up and remind us that beauty isn’t about being a size 0. It’s about being healthy, comfortable & confident in your own skin, and knowing who you are so that you don’t succumb to the peer pressure that is inevitable of the teenage years. Now I just need to remember that the next time I see a photo of myself or step on the scale and hate the number I see.

Rock on, Chloe!!

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I’ll start by offering my apologies to U2 for stealing their lyric, but why is it such a beautiful day you might ask? Well, for one, I live in southern California and so most days are actually beautiful. Aside from that, it’s a beautiful day because 1) I’m alive, 2) I have a good job and nice place to live, and 3) I was able to get out this morning to wog (walk/jog) and bike.

The reason #3 is so significant is because 1 year ago today, I went into multi-level spinal fusion surgery at 12:15pm PT. I went in with the guarantee of a long painful recovery with no guarantee of success. If memory serves, the doctor gave me 70/30 odds that the surgery would resolve my spinal issues which had already been plaguing me for quite some time. Making the decision to have the surgery wasn’t easy and I tried many other methods of treatment before going that route.

So, here I am 1 year later. Do I consider the surgery successful? Yes. Is my back perfect? No, but it’s light years better than it was before the surgery. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve EVER had a better workout than I did this morning just because of being so grateful to actually be in the gym. So, even if there were thunderstorms or snow today, it would STILL be a beautiful day to me.

Wednesday’s WW stats:

Total Points: 27.5
Exercise: None
Weekly Points balance: 34
Water: 80 oz
Days OP: 38

Until next time …

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So, here’s the question … Are you ready?

It’s a simple yet complex question,  “Are you ready?”

Are you ready to live a healthier lifestyle? Yes!
Are you ready to make the harder choices that lifestyle may entail? Yes!
Are you ready to plan, think, prepare, shop, & not just grab a donut on the way to work? Yes!
Are you ready to shut off the TV and go outside for a walk? Yes!
Are you ready to seek out the staircase instead of taking the elevator? Yes!
Are you ready to admit to yourself you eat too much? Yes — on treats!
Are you ready to tell yourself hunger is not an emergency or an excuse? Yes!
Are you ready to face your feelings instead of shoving them down with a slice of pizza? Yes!
Are you ready to stop trying to do it all and get more sleep? Yes!
Are you ready to try new foods you’ve dismissed because you “don’t eat vegetables”? Yes!
Are you ready to love yourself NOW, unconditionally? Hard one, but yes!
Are you ready to be the example, the motivator, the exception to the rule? Yes!

As she says, this is a very simple complex question, but one I really want to spending some more time thinking about in earnest. It really came at the perfect time for me, too. I actually just got a copy of the new book by The Biggest Loser trainer Bob Harper titled “Are You Ready!: To Take Charge, Lose Weight, Get in Shape, and Change Your Life Forever” which deals with these same types of questions.

As I was laying in bed last night before drifting off to sleep, I found myself thinking about where I’m at with my journey. I honestly think I’m at another one of those turning points where I’m going to start seeing real progress again. I’m feeling that mojo that I felt a few years back when I started this whole process. I really think this is MY time. So, yes, I am ready!!

Tuesday WW stats:

Total Points: 29.5
Exercise: 1 mile walk – 1 AP
Weekly Points balance: 34
Water: 80 oz
Days OP: 37

Until next time …

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To say the conditions were less than favorable would be an understatement. It was 47 degrees with 13-15 mph winds and stinging rain falling (sideways at times). I ended up walking virtually all of the course, but I did start and finish running. I finished in 57:45 which was slower than my last 5k, but I was just thrilled to finish in less than an hour given the conditions.

The course was basically an out and back, but the start and finish lines were staggered, so the back part of the course after the turn was longer than the out part. Naturally, it was the back part of the course that had us going headlong into the wind and rain. I was doing pretty good on the first part of the course out and was averaging just over a 17 minute mile pace, but lost all kinds of time after making the turn for the back part.

For about the last mile of the race, all I could think about what getting across that finish line and trying to get warm & dry. Every piece of clothing on my body my soaking wet. My hair was so wet that I had water pretty much constantly dripping from my bangs down into my eyes and face. All in all, it was a pretty miserable way to walk a 5k.

I was walking with my friend Darla. This was her first race ever after having just started walking and exercising recently. I was amazed when she said after crossing the finish line that she couldn’t wait to do another one. If that had been my first race ever, I’m not sure I would’ve been saying the same thing.

Here are my official results for the race:

Here are the nifty finisher’s medals we received, too. Yes, the little surfboards are real wood.

Finally, I just wanted to take a minute to say thanks for the emails and comments that I’ve gotten about the death of my brother-in-law. I spoke with my Mom last night and my sister is doing as well as can be expected given the circumstances. Everyone is trying to keep her stress levels down as much as possible to hopefully prevent any flare-ups with her MS. I’ll be going out to see her in a couple of weeks. (Feb. 15).

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