Pick Three

Good news.

And Bad News.

HI! Haven't seen you all in a while, how the hell are ya?

Let's start with the bad news.

We all know that I fell off the healthy eating wagon, right? I mean, c'mon, no one here is stupid. When a weight-loss blogger disappears, it usually means they've gained weight and they don't want to deal with it.

I weighed in today for the first time in 112 days. (So says my Wii Fit. It didn't ask me where I'd been, or be snarky, tho, and I'm happy about that.)

I've only gained 2.4 pounds since the last time I weighed in, tho, and that's a really good thing.

On the other hand, say hello to the 150's again. So, I've gained about 25 pounds back in the last ... eh, I'd guess 18 months or so since I really just stopped paying attention. (On the other hand, when I got on the scale this morning, I told myself I wasn't allowed to freak the fuck out unless I was back to the 180s. And I'm not. So I'm not.)

Had a nasty shock at the Old Navy the other day getting new shorts.

Anyway....

Nothing I can do about that now except try to fix it.

I said something to a friend of mine the other day that went along these lines: Keep my house clean / Be a good mom / Watch what I eat and exercise / Be a Good Wife / Write / Have a Social Life : Pick three.

I can sometimes handle four of those at a time, if I give two of them half-priority. Like, be a good mom before 5pm and be a good wife after 5pm.

So... I need to have a sit down with myself and figure this out. Do I need to be less than 150 pounds? Is that absolutely critical? Does my house NEED to be clean? (and bitch, don't even go there. we're not talking about stepford family clean or anything, but generic household chores and getting dinner cooked and whatnot... I'm not ever going to live in a house you could white glove. No matter what else I gave up.) Does my child need a good mother, or can she live with one that's just so-so?

On the other hand...

Concentrating on the other priority in my life, the one I don't talk about much here (keep your eyes open if you care... I may start a blog about that elsewhere)...

I'm now, officially, a published writer.

My short story will be published in the upcoming anthology Steamlust. (I didn't make the name. Personally I liked the working title, Clockworks and Corsets, better...)

It's not a lot. It's one short story.

At the same time, it's everything.

Being a writer has been the one goal I've always had. Never really lost sight of. Wanted. Longed for. Dreamed about.

Finally, a few months ago... I decided to stop fucking around and DO something about it.

And in October, I'm going to hold my very first published work in my hands.

Oh, and before I forget... I'm doing the Susan G Komen 3 day again.

And I deserve it!

I don't know if I've particularly talked about this here before, so I'll go ahead and sum up:

One of my core thoughts in relationships goes along these lines: If you can replace the words "But I love him/her" with "But I deserve to be treated like this," then clearly, there are issues with the relationship.

For example: Boyfriend is cheating on girl. She is unhappy, her self-confidence is a wreck. He either promises to change and doesn't, or basically blows her off with a "well, that's just how it is, baby. You can be with me on my terms, or not at all." She complains to me about it. I suggest that she find some backbone, self-respect, and LEAVE HIM. She says "But... but I LOVE HIM." (Translation: "I believe, deep down, that I DESERVE to be treated this way.")

I do, sometimes, give credence to the fact that you can't always control who you love. But I do believe - truly, and firmly - that what you DO about how you feel is UP TO YOU. You might love him. And he is treating you badly. HOWEVER, you control what you decide to do about it. If you decide that staying with him is the best option, that's YOUR CHOICE. No one else is forcing you to stay with him, be treated badly, continue to feel badly about yourself. (because we all know that in that sort of a relationship, the person on the 'being treated shabbily' end of things quickly stops asking 'what's wrong with him/her that she/he treats me this way' and ends up in the world of 'what's wrong with ME that I can't MAKE him/her act right?')

So, that's my core belief. And it applies to more than just boyfriend/girlfriend relationships. It applies to everything.

My father, for instance, tends to question my judgment a LOT. If there's a subject out there, chances are we disagree. And for a long time, we always ended up in nasty, hateful arguments. Seeing him stressed me out so badly that I'd be a wreck for weeks before we had our visit, and fumingly angry for days afterward. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I had given him power over me, that I gave him the ability to make me crazy, and that I didn't have to do that.

Now, I'll give my father a lot of credit here: we talked about this, and we developed a much better relationship. The key to our relationship is the simple phrase: Do you want to fight about this? If he brings up something I feel strongly about (gay marriage, for instance, is a particularly contentious issue for us.) and it's the middle of Christmas dinner. "Do you want to fight about this?" "Well, no." "All right, then." It's a warning: I'm willing to fight about this issue if you are, but I'd prefer NOT to argue with you about it. We both know the other person isn't going to change their minds, and why disrupt the hell out of Christmas by being mad about stuff we can't do anything about ANYWAY.

I love my father. And I deserve to be treated with respect. He may not appreciate or agree with my beliefs, but he is required to respect my opinions.

And then the particularly hard part: I love myself. And I deserve this!

I deserve to have clothes that help me feel pretty. I deserve to not feel guilty about buying a dress, even if I only "need" to wear it once every few months. I deserve to spend money on myself. I deserve to be fit, and healthy. I deserve the pleasant ache in my shoulders after a yoga workout; I love myself enough to give myself that gift.

I love myself.

And I deserve to treat myself with respect.

My Safe Place

The last few minutes of yoga class are laying on my back, towel over my eyes (the instructor can't change the lighting in the room, something she complains about every single time we do the corpse pose).

"And now, you're going to go to your safe place. Forget about whatever else you have to do. Forget about your concerns. Put them away from your mind. Your safe place. Picture it. Hold fast to that idea."

And I think back, and I grab hold of images of my grandparents' summer house. A tiny two bedroom cabin set on the barest imaginings of a peninsula; one good summer storm away from being an island. The path from the dock is no wider than two feet; a few bridges that cross what might actually not be a damp spot in the trail, but merely a very aggressive bush that holds one side of the land to the other.

I can see the docks. The front deck. The tuffets in the back of the house. (Did you ever wonder what Miss Muffet was sitting on? I don't. I've seen them... they're round domes of moss, almost perfectly round, like a seat cushion. You can pick them up, they're dirt on the bottom, and move them somewhere else, and they'll just continue to do their thing...)

And yet, I'm seeing everything from a bird's eye view. A perspective I've never actually seen these buildings, structures, trees. I don't see any people, although I was never there when there was less than four people in residence, and usually there were more. I've never seen the house from the top, nor peered down at the back yard from the roof.

I can't seem to picture myself there. Not in a deck chair, or lounging on the deck, or swimming in the back bay, or walking in the shallows over to the Point.

It's strange.

But I'm not in my safe place at all.

No one is.

Takes a Little Time (Sometimes)

Well it may not be over by morning
And Rome wasn't build in a day
You can name that thing a thousand times
And it won't make it go away...

- Takes a little time, Amy Grant

You know, I've figured out my problem.

(I know, I know, I only have one?)

Seriously, y'all, bear with me. I had a bit of an epiphany the other day.

When I started all this, over two years ago now, I kept trying to remind myself that Happy wasn't guaranteed. I could get thin, and all that would mean is that I was thin. It doesn't mean I'm pretty. Or smart. Or confident. All it would mean is that I was thin. (er).

And still, I got here (no, I still don't really think I'm thin... I'm working on it. I'm definitely thinner. Normal-sized.) and expected to be happier. I expected to feel more confident, more energetic, sexier. Something.

And it still seems to be the same old me. Slightly older. A bit more fashion-conscious. (ok, and I've discovered something odd about myself. I like... shopping for shoes. And clothes. And hair accessories. Um... ok? This is me? Since when?) Now, I realize, going back and re-reading this blog, and other things I've written, done and said... that I am more confident. I am happier. But it was such a little bit at a time, I didn't really notice it was happening.

But see, here's the thing....

I'm stubborn. My dad likes to call it tenacity, but you may as well just call a spade a spade. It's pure bull-headedness.

I have not yet failed to accomplish anything I wanted to accomplish.

I wanted to quit smoking, and I did it. I started smoking when I was ten. years. old. Smoked on and off for 17 years. And quit. Cold turkey. Haven't picked up a cigarette in 12 years. Don't intend to ever do so again.

I wanted to lose weight. And I did it. You've all seen that.

I wanted to walk sixty miles. And I did that, too.

I wanted to organize my house, get my housework accomplished, and generally not feel like a slob. Mission accomplished.

So my problem?

I keep wondering why I haven't fixed everything else.

If I can do anything I set my mind to, why can't I do everything I set my mind to? Why, for that matter, can't I set my mind more often?

When I spell it out like that, even I can see how ridiculous it is.

Also... what the hell am I unhappy about? HONESTLY?

I have a wonderful husband (and I hate saying that, because it never sounds honest.... it sounds like a prelude to my saying "but..." And yet, it's true. He's pretty damn wonderful.) My child is not me, and that's ok. She's good at math, and has sticky points with reading. But she's very well behaved, enthusiastic about stuff in general, positively cheerful most of the time, and not particularly whiny. I get along with my parents, mostly. I love my step-parents. Most of the time. I'm friends with my relations, after seventeen years of NOT being friends with them. I even like some of them rather a lot. I get second looks in the grocery store. I've been whistled at in the street. (There needs to be a word for that feeling of being simultaneously creeped out and yet flattered at the same time, there really does.) I have enough money to pay the bills, buy some stuff I want, and yet not have everything I want. (Who really wants to have everything they want? I mean, if you have everything you want, you start wanting really complicated, world-domination sort of issues. And who wants that?) I have good friends. And even beyond my good friends, I have a wide circle of acquaintances. I'm comfortable with my life.

So what's my problem?

Today, I feel pretty damn good, actually. So... not much.

Maybe I should try being more aware of what I have and what I've done than worrying about those things I haven't fixed yet. There's still tomorrow, after all, and tomorrow is another day.

Empty Drawers

I was folding clothes the other day - a thankless task, honestly (however, folding 1 load of laundry burns approximately the same calories as walking a little more than half a mile... that's JUST the folding, not the lugging about of laundry baskets, loading or unloading the washer, etc) and I was thinking "damn, I have a lot of clothes." Then I was folding up a postage-sized pair of underwear. "And they're all tiny."

Truth be told, it takes me longer to fold the laundry now than it used to. What was a full laundry basket two years ago contained six or seven shirts, twelve or fourteen pairs of undies, a few bras, a couple towels and two or three pairs of pants. (If you're gathering from this that I wore the same shirt several times, you'd be correct. I didn't have that many things that fit, nor were flattering... Also, I was probably depressed. The problem with depression is that sometimes you don't know you're in it until you're not... but the symptoms: I rarely left the house, I usually wore the same baggy housedress five or six days in a row - can you say YUCK with me? I know you can! - were all there... it's only NOW that I'm realizing HOW MUCH better my life is...) And my laundry basket was FULL.

These days, a full laundry basket contains 4 - 5 pairs of pants, two pairs of sweat pants, 10 tank tops, 5 t-shirts or blouses, a skirt, one sundress, 17 pairs of undies, 4 bras, 2 sports bras, 2 sports shirts, my Victoria Secrets bathrobe, 2 or 3 sweaters, 18 pairs of socks (I simply cannot BEAR to wear the same socks I worked out in...), four bath towels, 2 gym towels, and my sweat jacket.

I haven't gotten a new laundry basket.

My clothes are just TINY.

On the left side of that photo is one of my cami-bra tops from Express. (I currently have 9 of these things and I still want the espresso brown one, and a few more of the patterned ones.) It's a medium. I tried on the smalls the last time I was there, and while it fit, it also displayed some of the stubborn back fat. Plus the shelf-bra inside it was a LEETLE TIGHT. So, still mediums. I'm ok with that. On the right side of the photo is one of my racer-back tops from Torrid. Right before I started losing weight, I discovered Torrid, and I still recommend them for the plus sized line that actually looks good. Also, their stores are neat, with nice wide aisles (ever wonder why Lane Bryant has to pack their clothes in so tight that you feel like you're going to knock over a display?) and really nice changing rooms. Anyway, I had a number of those tank tops. Size 4XL. That's an XXXXL, just in case you were wondering. (If we wanted to be Roman, it'd be an IVL. That looks better.)

I have an ENTIRE DRAWER of clothes dedicated to activity. Sports bras, yoga pants, sweat pants (I almost called them sweat slacks, except there is NOTHING slack about them... they are Tight as All Hell. I actually have to zip them down my legs... on the plus side, a contractor today from Chesapeake Sidings actually leaned out the window of his truck and yelled 'Nice gams, lady!'... by the way, who the HELL says 'gams' these days?") workout shirts - including my 100 pushups tank because it now has huge sweat stains around the neck and under the arms and is too ratty to wear out in public - sweat bands for my hair, two swim suits (one of them is even a bikini and I look GOOD in it... I am only dismayed that I managed to snag it just at the end of the season and didn't actually get to wear it out to the beach.) and the towels that I take to the gym with me to wipe the sweat off.

And despite this.... I still have two... count them! TWO empty drawers in my dresser.

You know, a size IVL sweater folded up takes up half an entire drawer by itself. I have four sweaters now, folded neatly, in half of one drawer.

So... I have empty space.

Guess I should buy more clothes, aye?

How Breast Cancer Changed My life

Excerpt from my old blog:

October 3, 2007.

My mother has breast cancer.

Why is there never anything helpful to say about these sorts of things. "Sorry you're sick. Hope you don't die." "Hmmm, can I have all your stuff when you're dead?" It sucks that I sit there on the phone, gaping and just having no idea what to say. Maybe they should teach a college course on "shit to say that doesn't sound completely stupid in the face of a tragedy." I know I should have signed up for it.

Yes, they caught it early. Yes, breast cancer is survivable. Yes, it's still one of the leading killers of women in the United States. I know all this. I knew it even before she told me she had it.

And people keep asking me "If there's anything I can do..." and there's a bitter, nasty part of me that wants to scream at them... "What the FUCK do you think you can do? Because, really, if you're sitting on the cure for cancer just so you can offer it to me at a convenient time, you're a real jackass." I don't say that, though, because it's rude. And I do know that people love me and care, and they wish there was something they could do. And I'm not even mad at them, I'm just mad at the situation. Still... "What the fuck, man, what the fuck. No, there's nothing you can DO. There's nothing I can do. We have to just hope that there's something the goddamn doctor can do aside from sending my mom a BIG HUGE bill."

Ditto, I'm mad at my mom. One of the first things she said to me was "Don't tell your dad, ok?" Oh for fuck's sake woman. Look, I know she's vain and self-centered from time to time, but jesus h christ, get a stepladder and get the fuck over it already. She's been divorced for fifteen YEARS. It's about time that she stop giving a royal FUCK what he thinks. What does she think he's gonna do, anyway? Gloat? My dad may not have been the most wonderful husband on the planet, but jesus, he's not like that. And even if he used to be, he's not anymore.

I feel sort of alone in this... my friends don't really like my mom much. She's sort of neurotic and immature. I don't have any family support in this; I've disowned (and been disowned by) most of my aunts and cousins and the like. It might be nice to talk to someone else who actually cares about my mom, you know? My friends care about me, and believe me, I appreciate that. But they don't generally care about my MOM. That's ok, and I don't blame them for it, but gods, I do wish I had someone to talk to who does care about her.

I can't decide if the timing of the rest of my life is good, or bad. I have Darcy's birthday party this weekend, and Carol's baby shower next weekend, and I still have a ton of stuff to do, so I'm staying really busy. But I'm also having a lot of trouble focusing on the tasks at hand. I stood there blankly at the bank the other day for like ten minutes with my mouth open, disconcerting the teller, while I tried to remember why I'd gone there in the first place. (To get quarters.)

I dunno. I hate feeling lost and useless like this.

And I don't know what to do.

This followed a doctor's appointment in July where my doctor said "I'm not liking your A1C results... I'd like you to try to lose 10% of your body weight - about 22 pounds - by the time I see you in January or I'm going to be forced to put you on diabetic medication."

And was followed by this picture being taken of me.

I weighed about 227 pounds.

My asthma, my ankle, and my fear of falling down (every time I've fallen in the last few years, I've broken a bone... I have crappy bone density from years of steroid use, and I'm a klutz on top of that. All in all, it doesn't add up to a happy and safe life.) were my excuses to keep from working out. My attitude was an excuse to not diet ("diets don't work!" "I can't lose that much weight!" "It's pointless!").

But after those three things - and they say these things come in threes... oh, wait, that's celebrity deaths... whatever - I decided to change my life.

I might not be able to change my genetics - I now have breast cancer history on both sides of my family - but I could change my eating habits and weight.

My husband and I started "watching what we ate" just after November of that year. And started weight watcher's "officially" the first week of January, 2008.

You all know the rest of the story... my husband's lost 90+ pounds. I've lost 87 (ish) pounds. I started walking; he started running. We've changed our lives a LOT.

Two weeks ago, I walked the Susan G Komen 3-Day... sixty miles.

Today, I read this article in Fitness Magazine:

"Women think breast cancer is mainly related to family history," says Melinda Irwin, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology and public health at Yale School of Medicine. "But in truth, only about 10 percent of cases are. That means 90 percent of breast cancer may be caused by environmental or lifestyle factors like weight."

It's a good article, and I highly recommend it. It's encouraging to think that - what I did in the depths of "I need to do something" fear - I made the right choice.

This is me, today. (Well, technically, two weeks ago.) And my mom. I weigh 134 pounds. I can walk sixty miles. My mother's been cancer free for almost 2 years. And her surgery scar is really minimal.

4 Ways to Beat Breast Cancer

1. Watch your weight.

If your BMI (body mass index) is 25 or above, work to lose 10 percent of your weight.

2. Get moving.

Exercise for two to three hours a week for the ultimate protection, says Melinda Irwin, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology and public health at Yale School of Medicine. "Aim for 60 percent of your maximum oxygen intake, where you have to take a deep breath every other word if you're talking," she adds.

3. Schedule regular sweat sessions.

Chores don't have the same anticancer effect as working out, because "they tend to be start-and-stop," Irwin explains. "You could spend an hour in the garden and raise your heart rate for a total of just 15 minutes. When you exercise, you get continuous moderate-intensity activity."

4. Veg out.

Eat cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, and kale. They contain isothiocyanates and indole-3-carbinol, compounds that may prevent the growth of tumors.

BLOG CONTEST!!

I've been enjoying my subscription to Fitness Magazine (I got to try it on the cheap through a special offer on my Sargento Cheese sticks...) I'm going to renew my subscription. When I do this, I'll be getting 2 free subscriptions to give away as gifts.

If you'd like to win one of these free subscriptions, leave me a comment!! Post about this contest on your blog!! Or twitter about this contest!! On November 1, I'll select two lucky winners and you'll get a year's subscription to Fitness magazine! (yes, if you do all three things, you'll get three chances to win!)

In Another's Eyes

First off, there's still time to enter and win one of two copies of Lose the Diet by Kathy Balland. Please go here and leave a comment, twitter about this contest, link to it on your blog, whatever! Contest will be open until Friday!!


Well, we all know I have Issues.

I don't see myself as I am, and I certainly don't see myself as other people see me.

We also know that I'm a little too cynical to think the I'm ok, you're ok theory of self-esteem improvement actually works, most of the time. You can tell yourself you are lovable and capable as much as you want (or are forced to!) and it doesn't really help all that much. The best way, I've found, to gain self-esteem is to do those things that you think are worthy.

Sit down, look at those things you find admirable in other people. I'm not necessarily talking about Michael Jordan (don't we all wanna be like Mike?) but about the people in your life that you look up to and admire. Because we can't all be basketball players. (Even if Sulu would like that if we were...)

What are the people you admire like? Are they intelligent, witty, or generous? Be careful, while you examine these people: do you actually admire them, or are you jealous? Make a list of the things you admire in the people you've chosen... honest? Or tactful? Kind-hearted?

Now, sit down with your list of traits you find admirable. I admire people who are even-tempered, good with children, generous, determined, and mostly cheerful, with a good dash of sarcastic.

Here are the items you can work on; I admire people who are even-tempered. I... well, let's just say I won't win any awards for being calm in the face of aggravation.

But I can work on it! It's not possible, perhaps, to be perfect, but we can always, always find ways of improving. I'm learning - slowly, and with a great many set-backs - to calm down. To take a few deep breaths. To ask myself if this really matters in the grand scheme of things.

I admire people who go out of their way to make other people's lives better. I may not be wealthy, but I can give to charity. I'm an organ donor. I give blood regularly. I'm doing a 60-mile, 3-day walk in October to raise money for breast cancer awareness, screenings, research, and hopefully one day to find a cure. My daughter and I take trash bags out with us to the playground about once every 3 months and clean trash up in our neighborhood. I donate my gently used clothing and household items to the Salvation Army. I click here. And here. And here. And here. Every day.

Sometimes it helps to see yourself through someone else's eyes. It's not always easy; there's sometimes the nagging suspicion that someone is telling you what you want to hear... but when you get an honest opinion - or sometimes for me, it's even just seeing a list of my accomplishments; what does it look like to someone else...

Here's what some friends had to say about me recently... and the thing is... nothing here isn't true. It's just... wow, when you put it all together like that, maybe I am, actually, pretty damn nifty...

One of my best friends, Jeanne, sent this email out to her family and friends (who are not also my family and friends, since we do have a load of friends in common) and bcc'd me on it...

My best friend will be participating in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure in Washington, DC in October.

That's a 60 mile walk for someone who was a half-a-pack-a-day smoker 12 years ago (until she quit cold turkey). Who was told after her ankle was shattered in a car wreck 8 years ago that she'd never walk again without a cane (today, she can step-run like Rocky Balboa). Who was in the "high-risk pregnancy" category 5 years ago because of weight-related complications and asthma (which she has since controlled). Who was borderline diabetic 2 years ago because of her weight (she joined Weight Watchers in Jan. 2008 and has lost over 80 pounds to date; her husband, who joined to support her, has lost over 90).

She has a beautiful 5-year-old daughter, and a close family history of breast cancer-- both her aunt and her grandmother were survivors. Her mother's breast cancer diagnosis in late 2007 was her personal wake-up call to improve her life and her health, for her own good and that of her family. Now she's done it, and in October, she means to give back in her mother's honor. She's up to walking 18 miles on the weekend, and she's working out extensively during the week to prep for the Walk.

Unfortunately, unlike a standard walk-a-thon where you simply raise as much as you can, the Susan G. Komen Foundation sets a minimum fundraising goal of $2300 that you must meet in order to be allowed to walk in the 3-Day (any donations short of the goal will still be accepted). She is only about halfway to her goal. She's an amazing person, it's a great cause, and she really, really wants to be able to walk.

Please help.

Well.

It does sound sort of impressive, doesn't it? When you lump it all together like that. I tend to see things all microscopic. I have problems - doesn't everyone? - but my problems are like a bunch of tiny rocks. If I hold them in my hand and put them out at arm's length, they look fairly minor. But I don't. I bring them up close to my face and study them. I know them intimately. Try it. Take a small rock, less than an inch across, and hold it up as close to your eye as you can (and still be able to focus on the rock! Don't poke your eye out!) Now, you can see the rock really well, right? But the problem here is that you can't see much aside from the rock. The rest of your life is blurry, out of focus, and blocked off because you're looking too closely at a stupid, little rock.

One of the people I admire (and, I confess, am somewhat jealous of) had this to say to me recently:

I chuckle every time I think what the "college Lynn" would say if she saw you now. It is silly to say that you make me proud as I have nothing to do with any of the things you have done. Yet your hard work has inspired me to work on making things better for me. Good luck on your walk!

How nifty is that? Someone that I admire is admiring me right back... interesting.

I may not be where I want to be, and I may not yet be who I want to be. Neither am I who I was, and neither am I incapable of change.

Perfection and true happiness may be unattainable (and I reserve the right to doubt) but we can always improve, we can always become better, and we can always be happier.

I think these are things worth striving for.

And I think, sometimes, I need to sit down and look over just how far I've come.

The Ballet

So, Thomas took me to the ballet this weekend; it was sort of combination birthday/mother's day gift.

I haven't been to the ballet in a long time; not since my best friend in high school died. (She fell asleep at the wheel graduation night and drove her car off an overpass. She hadn't been drinking or anything, she was just worn out. And as she was a brilliant, witty, friendly, pretty and talented sort, the whole event went to cement my opinion of the general completely unfair nature of the universe...) Anyway, Tracy used to be a ballet dancer and we (my mother and I) went from time to time to see her in various performances...

A few weeks ago, I was paging through the paper - have I mentioned I subscribed to the paper in an attempt to start being more frugal by clipping coupons? Thus far, it's been a good investment. In three weeks (the paper costs me $10 a month) I've clipped over $18 worth of coupons; and not coupons that I have to stretch to use, either, but ones that are stuff I would have bought anyway - (Ok, that was a very long aside...) Anyway, I was thumbing through the paper and there was an advert for Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.

Further investigation (Small bit of trivia about me; I am a russophile. I love all things Russian - well, except politics - decorations, art, music, history, culture. Love it. I minored in Russian History in college sort of by accident. I was just taking classes that I was interested in and my advisor pointed out that all I needed was one speciality history class in a field aside from Russian Studies and I'd have a history minor already completed. My primary professor who taught most of my Russian Studies classes was enomoured of me, said he'd seldom met someone who understood Russian culture as well as I did, and I was the only student in the last decade to whom he'd awarded an A+ on a term paper. This did not, I might add, endear me to my classmates.) yielded the information that this would be one of the first performances of Prokofiev's intended ballet.

"Living people can dance; the dead cannot." This was the rather utilitarian explation offered by the freat 20th centure composer Sergei Prokofiev as to what possed him to alter the fate of literature's most celbrated loves, Romeo and Juliet.¹

Simon Morrison, a professor at Princeton University and famed musicologist, discovered in 2003 that Prokofiev's original score included different music and a surprisingly happy ending. Stalin-era censors edited out twenty minutes of music, thickened the orchestration and restored the tragic ending, resulting in a performance that was almost unrecognizable from Prokofiev's opus.

The Virginia Arts Festival is one of the few openings for this new ballet; a master's dream restored. In fact, the performance we saw actually preceeds the ballet opening in New York. For me, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity...

So, I asked Thomas, "If I wanted to go see the ballet, what might you say?"

Thomas frowned for a moment, then shrugged. "I've not been to a ballet since I was in high school, when my sister used to dance. I've no idea if I like it or not. Sure, we can go."

So, we went.

As I'm not a professional reviewer or familiar enough with the ballet to accurately describe the performance, I won't. I'll simply say I enjoyed it immensely, and Thomas's comment was "It wasn't the worst thing I've ever done, and the music was good." That's hopeful enough that I might be able to persuade him to do this once or twice a year.

Also, I got to dress up, and that was good.

This is my new dress; a size 6!! My shoes, while they do match the dress nicely, were unfortunately, a half-size too large, and made walking a bit dicey... why did no one tell me that losing 80 pounds would make it so that I lost two complete shoe sizes? I'm now wearing a seven, and all my old shoes are 9s. (Fortunately, I wasn't much into shoes when I couldn't wear heels, so I didn't have to replace too many pairs... in fact, I own more shoes NOW than I did a year ago...)

In any case, I had a good night... I felt pretty and thin for the entire evening, even after the dancers came on stage. And we were very, very close to the stage, so I got a very good look at how thin they were, and while they might be more muscular than I am, I don't really think that Juliet was all that much smaller than I am.

I found myself playing the Fattest Woman in the Room game again, but it was oddly different. I wasn't the fattest, nor was I the thinnest. And strangely enough, it didn't matter. I felt pretty, I looked pretty, and that was all that was important to me.



1. Leona Baker, Romeo and Juliet, Alive and Dancing

The Long Walk

"Hi. My name is Lynn. You might not know me. I live in here in Chesapeake. I'm a stay at home mom. I went to college at William & Mary and majored in literature. I have a love for action movies, science fiction, Russian art, Irish beer, Jackie Chan, and just about anything with cheese on it.

I'm thirty-six years old (thirty-seven in May!) and grew up in Louisa County, Virginia. I used to spend summers in upstate New York with my grandparents. My mother's parents and my dad's parents lived about four miles away from each other, near a tiny town called Peru.

My favorite color is green.

This is my mother. You probably don't know her either. Her name is Cynda Abolt. She's sixty years old and lives in St. Simon's Island, Georgia. She's an historian and a reenactor and a member of the National Park Service. Nine years ago, she married my step-father in an early 19th century period wedding down in New Orleans.

Her favorite poem is The Doormouse and the Doctor, by A.A. Milne. She likes suspense movies, novels by Patricia Cromwell, and has an inexplicable fondness for purple cow creamers.

In October, 2007, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After surgery and several months of radiation treatment, my mother has been cancer free for a little over a year now.

(Insert picture of Gramma here, don't currently have one that's electronic)

This is my grandmother, Ethel Stafford. Her favorite color was yellow, and she had a collection of china birds, especially cardinals. During the Great Depression, she was a teacher. When my family visited her, she always made two batches of chocolate chip cookies, one with walnuts in them, for my dad, and one without, for me. She died in 1994 from pnuemonia. She had been a breast cancer survivor for almost ten years after a partial masectomy.

This is my aunt, Beth Anne. We called her Big Beth, as opposed to her daughter, Little Beth. She lived in a log cabin, and enjoyed sailing. She died two years ago from heart disease. She was also a breast cancer survivor.

Betty Poe, friend of the family. Died in 1987 from breast cancer.

I never met my friend Leslie's mother. Brynia died from breast cancer in the mid 90's, before I even met Leslie.

These are women you probably don't know. But I expect if you looked around at your mother, your grandmothers, aunts, and cousins, sisters and friends, there are women you know who have been affected by this disease. Breast cancer is the second most prevalent form of cancer, after lung cancer, and the fifth most common cause of cancer death.

In 2007, after my mother was diagnosed with cancer, I decided it was time for me to get healthy. At that time in my life, I was nearly 100 pounds overweight and had been sedintary for years. In early 2008, I joined Weight Watchers and began a more active lifestyle. A little more than a year later, I have lost seventy pounds and am now in the gym three times a week.

But it's time to do a little more.

In October, 2009, I'm going to walk in the Susan G. Komen Walk for the Cure. It's a sixty mile walk, spread over three days, to raise awareness for this disease and to raise money to help find a cure, better current treatments, and help provide screenings for people who can't afford them.

In order to do that walk, I need to raise $2,300 in sponsorship money. And, quite obviously, train to be able to walk that far."

Here's where I'm asking for your help.

At the moment, I have not actually paid my registration money to walk... I am hoping to get verbal promises for sponsorship for at least half of the money I need to raise in order to join the Walk. Once I get promises for half, I'll pay my registration fee and get an on-line donation form set up. I've gotten permission from my apartment complex manager to post requests for donations to all the residents in my complex. I'll hit up local businesses.

When I raise the money, I'll be blogging/tweeting from the walk so you can share this experience with me.

To this end, I have decided to shelve my C25K training - since really, I'm just not capable of doing that many different kinds of training - and begin working towards increasing my walking endurance.

It's going to be a long walk. I hope you'll join me.

If you are interested in making a verbal promise, please post in the comments how much you think you will be willing to sponsor me for. You are NOT obligated to do so at a later time, but if you don't think you will, or can afford to, please do not promise. When I reach a goal of 50% required donations in verbal promises, I will set up the online donation forms for you to make good! Thank you very much for listening, and for any help you can give!

Update: You guys are AWESOME. Look how far we've come in just a few hours!!

About Me

Hello, nice to meet you!

My name is Lynn C., and I'm a thirty-something stay at home mother who is in the middle of a journey towards health and fitness. When I started this blog, a little over a year ago, I wanted, desperately, to lose about 95 pounds. Much as I would have liked it to be easy and quick, it's been neither. A year later, and I'm still trying to lose that last 30 pounds.

In the meanwhile, I have learned a lot about nutrition, health, fitness, and weight loss. I'm attempting - with some good manner of success - to incorporate what I've learned into my every day life.

I follow Weight Watcher's program, but my personal opinion on weight loss is this: As long as the program is clear that losing weight takes eating less, moving more, and is a slow process, it's probably a good plan. I don't think any program that relies on "miracle foods" or restricting yourself from a specific type of food are good ideas, primarily because they're hard to stick to over time... Do research, pick a good plan, follow the plan to the best of your abilities, and accept that you're in it for the long haul, and you're much more likely to be successful.

I started this blog to keep myself in check, to remind myself of areas I need to work on, to ask for and provide support for other people going through the same experiences, and as a way to track my own feelings and thoughts.