Catching Up

Less than three months left until I cast off my thirties!

I'm back to the place where I'm avoiding blogging because there's too much to say, so let's clean house a little (not literally--that's what I probably SHOULD be doing right now) and get up to date.

How am I doing?

Weight Loss: Okay, look. I've been up and down over the last 10 pounds for like 5 months. And more and more I'm faced with the spectre of becoming that girl who's trying for the rest of her life to lose five more pounds, who can never have a milkshake or skip a workout without pangs of guilt. I don't want to be that girl. So I'm drawing my line in the sand. My birthday is it. I've come a long way...90 pounds could possibly be enough. Whatever I weigh on November 16 will be what I weigh. Then I'll have to learn how to maintain it, which will be challenge enough. An entirely different kind of weight has been lifted off my shoulders since making this decision, which tells me something.

So it's a race to the finish line. We'll see how I can do if I push it for just under three months. I got to a super start today by eating multiple handsful of Swedish fish. :)

Some Kind of -lon: There's a duathlon in NY state on September 10 that would require me to spend a chunk of change and get up stupid early in order to pull it off. Haven't decided yet. I toyed with the idea of a tri-, but then I tri-ed swimming. I'd found a race that had a really short swim--300 yards, which is 12 lengths of our YMCA pool. I gave it a trial run and made it a total of one and a half lengths of the pool before stopping in order to avoid drowning. Not good. But hey...it's something to put on my list of 50 things!!

8 books: So far I've read Eight Secrets to Highly Effective Parenting by Scott Turansky, Flower by Wayne Stahre, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Christ-Centered Preaching by Brian Chapell, Crazy Love by Francis Chan, and Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper.

The Road bears some commenting...it is by far the best book I've ever hated. It's a Pulitzer winner, and my husband read it after loving the movie (which I have not seen and now refuse to watch). He is not normally inclined toward literature, so I figured I'd better enter into this experience, since we don't often connect over books. It is incredibly well-written and perhaps the bleakest, most depressing book I've ever read. Blech.

I'm in the middle of several books right now, so we'll see which of them I finish first. (One about leading worship, the second Harry Potter, one about whining and honor and parenting, and a book of imagist poetry.)

Galatians 5:22-23 on the wall: Done. I'd like to give this its own post, though, with pics.

Throw out 100 pounds of clutter: Done. I was up to about 40 pounds cumulatively, but then I threw out 108 pounds of junk in one day. There was TOO MUCH STUFF in my house...I couldn't put away everything we brought back from Colorado. So Mark took the kids out for a day or so, and I threw things away like a maniac. So far the kids haven't missed anything, knock on wood. :)

Zumba class: I tried this in Colorado, and I realized while I was there that it was not only my first Zumba class, but my first group exercise class ever. Those environments completely intimidated me. Honestly, they still do. I suppose Zumba was an ambitious beginning. The cute little instructor clearly had joints in her hips that I am lacking...mine do NOT move that way. But it was really fun, and I had a good time as long as I was able to avoid looking at myself in the giant mirror.

3 months of attention to my abs: Had to start this one last Wednesday if it was going to happen. I've started and abandoned it probably half a dozen times, so we'll see. My friend Jen, who is a personal trainer, kindly showed me some things I can do at home without expensive equipment, since I will not...repeat, not...be laying on the mat in front of everyone at the Y and doing abdominal exercises. My current strategy is to try to do them with the kids in the mornings. Maybe that will whip me into shape.

Clean out all my closets: Just the office closet to go, but it's a doozy. Still, it's fun to open the others and look at all the order! Available space is a wonderful thing and a rare commodity in our home.

I'm looking critically at this post now, thinking that it's sorely lacking in both wit and photos. But I'm going to eschew perfectionism and post it, paving the way for future wit and photos, I hope. Onward!