Swimsuit Edition

A lot of things get easier and/or more fun when you've lost 85 pounds. Running, dancing, playing with your kids, wearing dresses, meeting people...

Know what apparently still stinks? Swimsuit shopping.



I went out tonight looking for a swimsuit that fits. Nothing fancy...just a one-piece I can use to swim laps at the Y. The old ladies don't care if I have something adorable on. It was supposed to be step one toward the goal of doing a triathlon or biathlon or some such thing.

Things that were unhelpful in this effort:

1. I am still figuring out what size I am at this particular moment. I ended up bringing 3 different sizes into the dressing room, the first (and most ambitious) of which caused me to gasp audibly and then laugh in a horrified manner upon looking in the mirror.
2. My extreme cheapness. If I wanted to pay $50 for a swimsuit I could probably find one. Apparently that's about what people pay, and then some. I, on the other hand, would prefer to pay, say, $15. This propensity leads me to shopping venues that do not help my cause.
3. I'm no longer 16. (In fact, I'm turning 40 soon...have you heard?) I need more help from a swimsuit than I used to. I can't think of any way to elaborate more on this without crossing lines of delicacy.
4. Swimsuit shopping is inherently torturous and is used by Satan to taunt and demoralize all women.
   

In retrospect, I think I was really expecting to spend one hour at the cheapest store I could think of (which only had about 6 suits in anything close to my size) and find a cute, flattering swimsuit for, like, 75% off retail. Perhaps that was a tad overoptimistic. :)

OK, cheerfulness restored. I'll try again. Thanks for the pep talk!

UPDATE: As of Sunday night I now have a ridiculous number of swimsuits in my shopping cart on the Lands' End site. I like their stuff, but I have no clue what will fit or flatter, so I just threw it all in there. They'd ship for free, and I could return the rejects to Sears, but I'm loath to actually put the initial charge on my card. Yikes, yikes, yikes. We'll see whether I can get up the nerve.

4:27 AM

It's 4:27 AM. I'm sitting here awake with a stomach virus, nursing a flat ginger ale and wondering why it feels like there's a boulder in my stomach. I was asleep a while ago, but at 4:15 Will was up making use of the bucket I put next to his bed. I can't sleep through that, though I think he almost could. (He's such a trooper when it comes to this stuff.) I was awake at around 2:30, too, because my husband, whose servant's heart is unsurpassed in the known universe, is snoring like he has something to prove. I suspect he's going to have a rough day tomorrow (today), so I let him continue and moved to the couch.

This is stomach virus #2 for us this winter, for those of you keeping score at home. I think there ought to be a limit on them: one per family per season, like with really great coupons or jury duty. I would have been more than willing to fill out an exemption request, citing our week-long dance with influenza in December. But here we are.

I've been thinking about this blog this past week, wanting to post but not having a ton to say. I haven't made a lot of progress on the list lately. At least not in a manner where I can cross things off. The fact is, though, I've been working hard at item #1: losing the rest of this weight.

Weight Watchers has been a real experience this time around. It's consuming a lot of my time and energy as I A) re-learn the system and B) accustom myself again to having to write down everything that goes in my mouth. And while A may be the thing that enables me to maintain this progress for a lifetime, B is what I really needed right now. It forces me to ask WHY I'm eating what I'm eating. And every day there are a good 6 or 7 of my 29 points that I didn't really mean to eat...things I just popped in my mouth because they were there or that I went looking for because I was feeling ________________. (Stressed, bored, sad, happy, angry, you name it.) That's what I really want to do away with. I want to know that I can choose to walk away from the stupid leftover french fries or granola bars if I want to. (Ugh. The rock in my stomach just shifted.)

Almost a year ago I went to talk to my pastor because I was concerned that I might be flirting around the edges of an eating disorder. He asked some great questions, prayed with me, and gave me some really intense articles on the subject. One of them asked this question on behalf of its readers: "Am I eating this BEFORE God's face or IN His face?" I've managed to avoid falling into classifiably destructive behavior in this area, by God's grace. But that question has followed me around since then. In a good way.

It feels like it shouldn't be this hard. I'm really hoping someday I'll get to a point where I'll be able to spend less time and energy thinking about food.

Boy, I'm really rambling. Dangerous to write in the middle of the night when I'm sick and sleep-deprived. I'd better stop before I lay out all my junk in its totality and scare you all away. :)

I'm not posting those recipes from Will's party right now, because thinking too hard about cooking would be a bad idea at the moment. But maybe I can take some steps today toward something else on the list. Maybe it's time to register for the 10K or read a chapter of Systematic Theology. I don't think I'll be climbing a tree. It would be nice to turn my attention to something other than food for a minute.

At least until this stone in my gut rolls away.

Sweet dreams, everyone.

Not on the list...

...the "Hoodie Footie," whose marketing blurb goes like this: "Keep her warm from head to toe. What do you get when you combine the warmth of a hoodie with the coziness of a footie? Hoodie-Footie™ The hottest gift to give for Valentine's Day!"


Do you know that this is an actual thing? Like, a serious product featured on a website that also sells normal pajamas? And that it was in all seriousness being marketed for Valentine's Day? Because nothing's more romantic than a gift that says, "Let's see if we can cover up as many square inches of you as possible."

The hottest gift, huh? I know very few women who would not look like a giant Teletubby in this article of clothing. The one with the teddy bear really makes me laugh.

I thought the Snuggie was bad. I can't imagine what's next.

Will's birthday party was tonight, at the local mecca of adrenaline-fueled chaos and mediocre pizza: Chuck E. Cheese's. The kids all had a blast. It was nice not to have to worry about squeezing everybody in our place--winter birthdays can really be a problem that way--and having the big mess to clean up.

But somehow, my good cheer about having much less to do led to my WAY over-reaching with the cake and the favor bags. So I was still making preparations up until the last second, and my house still looks like a bomb went off in it. Literally every room needs to be cleaned. And our friend and supporter and electrician is coming over tomorrow between 10 and 12 to do...something. Ceiling fans? Driveway motion sensor lights? I don't know. But he's a great guy, and I'd prefer he didn't see our house looking like we belong on "Clean Sweep" or "Hoarders" or something.

All that to say I'm going to have to wait to post recipes and pics for the three new recipes I tried for the event. (Yes. One cake, one favor bag, three new recipes. See? Over-reaching.) I'll get them on here soon, I promise. For the moment, though, I'm going to go see if I can find my bedroom carpet under the laundry piles.

Gentile Genitals

No worries...this post isn't going to be X-rated. Barely PG.

Item #9 on my list is "Memorize Galatians 5". I chose that chapter for a few reasons:

1. It's been a central one in my spiritual life lately and has recently been emphasized at our church.
2. I can identify with the Galatians' temptation to gain their worth from (and earn their salvation through) adherence to the law. Also, I think Paul's exasperation with them is a little bit funny. Is that bad?
   
3. It deals directly with the idea of walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, which is the key (imho) to living as Christ-follower with any kind of victory and satisfaction. It is the lens through which all of the rest of life must be viewed. There is coming to know Jesus, and then everything afterward is walking in the Spirit. All the other topics and ideas and challenges are essentially different facets of a Spirit-filled lifestyle.

I started memorizing a while ago, but I was having trouble mustering the discipline to retain much past verse one, which: not unusual for me. Two days ago I had a brainstorm. Why not enlist Joy's help? She's up for half an hour after Will goes to bed, and studious endeavors are right up her alley. Plus, having the opportunity to quiz me might be a fun little reversal for her. She was game, and we started that night.

Yeah, it hadn't occurred to me that this chapter is loaded with references to circumcision.

So my memorization journey began with a very awkward conversation wherein my 8 year old daughter learned what circumcision is. Here's how it went:

Me: "Well, back before Jesus came, back when Abraham was around, God gave His people a way to show that they belonged to Him. He asked all the men and boys to...um...well...take a...piece of their...private parts...a piece they didn't really need...and cut it off."
Joy: (wide-eyed, open-mouthed look of revulsion)
Me: "Yeah, I'm sure it was pretty painful."
Joy: (horrified) "That's so GROSS!"

And thus my girl is introduced to the rich history of God's covenant relationship with His people. Incidentally, "That's so GROSS!" was also essentially her reaction to learning the basics about sex, childbirth, and menstruation, all of which I communicated much more positively and articulately than the above. I'm starting to be concerned that it may be the theme of her childhood and/or a future autobiography title.

We have yet to get to the verse where Paul wishes the false teachers would emasculate themselves. Maybe my kids' college funds need to be supplemented by "future therapy" funds.

Anyhow, once we got past that, we did ok. I explained to her that in Galatians "circumcision" represents trying to follow all the rules so that we'll be good enough for God. I told her that someone was telling the Galatians that they had to follow all the Jewish rules or they wouldn't be good enough. We established that a contemporary correlation might be someone telling Will that if he didn't make his bed every single day we would kick him out of the family. (Seriously flawed comparison, I know, but it communicated what it needed to.) And over the past two nights here's what we've both memorized:

Galatians 5:1-5, NASB
1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
2 Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you.
3 And I testify again to every man that receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole law.
4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified through law; you have fallen from grace.
5 For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.

The non-standard punctuation bugs me, but I like the NASB, so there it is.

The other thing I didn't factor in when enlisting Joy's help was how difficult these first few verses of the chapter are. "No benefit"? "Severed from Christ"? What?

I was honest with her about the fact that I don't completely understand it. We talked about how Romans 8 tells us that nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God. In the end, we decided that Paul is at least saying that depending on the rules instead of God's grace is a really big deal. And a really bad idea.

Not a bad take-away for a couple of good girls.

Twenty-one more verses to go!

Waiting and Watching

Almost two weeks again. Hmm. At least this time I have a better excuse.

So I'm a weight watcher again. I joined Weight Watchers the day before I wrote my last entry, and I've spent most of my web time the last two weeks learning their new PointsPlus system (one PointsPlus value does NOT equal one of the old POINTS values, naturally) and re-learning their e-tools.

I decided that 7 months is long enough for a plateau and it's time to move on with this journey. I don't have that far to go, and I have to keep reminding myself that I've come a long, long way, but the fact is I'm still about 15 pounds above a healthy BMI for my height, and I'd like to at least take a solid stab at getting rid of that 15 pounds.

A few photos just for comparison's sake, all lifted from Facebook. This is me in summer 2007, in January 2010, and in August 2010. That's pretty much what I look like now, except that I now badly need a haircut.





When I told Mark I was thinking of going back to WW, he looked at me a little skeptically and said, "What if this is the weight you're supposed to be?" (Sweet guy!) It's a valid question, and if I give it my best shot and nothing happens, and my doctor and my husband concur, I could live with being this weight for the rest of my life. But I want to try.

So I'm back to meetings and tracking and calculating and whatnot. The first two meetings I went to were on Monday mornings, and I wasn't completely digging them. The leader is...well, I can't decide if she's hilarious or a little alarming. Maybe both? And the reception I got from the other women sitting in the room was not warm. Weirdly not warm. I'm no stranger to these meetings, and they're never like a social event, but this time I got lots of eye contact and not a single smile. Both weeks.

I'm wondering whether this might be due to the fact that I look a whole lot different than I used to. It's not nearly as obvious now that I need the help of WW, especially when New Jersey has transformed into the arctic tundra and I'm showing up in a parka that would have sufficed for Admiral Byrd and effectively hides my...er...figure flaws. When I was first attending these meetings and was hovering near the 250 pound range, I remember feeling less than charitably toward those who weren't similarly hovering. I felt vulnerable and exposed, and their very presence made me feel judged and ashamed. I don't know whether that's the dynamic at play here, but if it is, it feels awfully ironic. Also, on this end of the spectrum, I find myself thinking, "Hey, you don't know what I'm struggling with! This isn't easy for me, either! Quit judging me!"

Note how, regardless of my weight, A) everything is about me, and B) apparently I can read everyone's thoughts, which are always frowny and judgmental and also about me.

On some level I must still be 13.

...OK, lost my train of thought because Will just asked me whether our butts can turn into metal. (???) Where were we?

Right. 13.

So anyway, I'm trying a new meeting this week. Monday's the most convenient for me, but Tuesday could work, too, so I'm going to try that tomorrow. Maybe the group is friendlier and/or the leader is more my style.

Plus, and this certainly figures into it, waiting until tomorrow to weigh in gives me an additional 24 hours to recover from the Stupid Bowl before I step on the scale.

I ate ALL STINKING DAY yesterday. It was a massive failure from a self-control standpoint. It makes me a little nuts, because I don't even LIKE football. I was saved from a total food coma only by the fact that I'd had the forethought to make healthy food for the party we were hosting. About half, then, of the food I was gorging on was good for me. Two things were WW recipes.

One was the Cheesy Chili Mac, which was the centerpiece of the meal. It's pretty easy, especially after you've done it once. I made a triple batch of this recipe, and then I had to throw it out and make it again. Don't ask. But by the second time the prep went pretty quickly. :) Unfortunately, a good portion of our party guests had to stay home due to illness, so I was left with an enormous quantity of the chili. Here's a pic of the leftovers.

That's not even all of the leftovers, actually. Yikes. I'm going to be eating it for months. Thankfully, it really was pretty yummy. I switched out the macaroni for whole wheat macaroni, skimped on the chilies (b/c spicy scares my kids) and the onions (b/c my family has no taste), and added a little brown sugar and some corn starch. My mom raved about it, though with moms you never can tell how much to believe.

The other recipe was for Devil's Food Cookies. This one was weirder but was also a hit. Its primary draw for me was that each cookie is only 1 ww point. I think they accomplished this by adding protein and fiber in the form of pureed lentils (!!!), which I couldn't taste at all. Everybody liked them. My discerning and honest friend Kathy tasted them today and said that they needed to be more chocolatey--she'd add some cocoa powder. But she acknowledged that they'd be really nice used (as the recipe suggests) in some variety of whoopie-pie-like sandwich. Here are the cookies and Jack's reaction to them.



If these two items had been the only things on the menu, I would have been ok. It was the peanut m&ms that were my undoing. (**shaking fist at the sky**) Darn you, peanut m&ms!! Darn you and your mysterious powers!!

Well, it's over. I think I'm done beating myself up about it. I'm making good choices today, and that's what this is really about, even more than the number on the scale. I will never...NEVER...have enough willpower on my own to eat responsibly. Not going to happen. But as I learn to walk through my eating more and more consciously in the power of the Holy Spirit, self-control becomes an option. Imagine that.

I have to run. Joy needs to be picked up from school, Jack's napping, and Will is watching SpongeBob. With a character who has a metal butt. Oh.

p.s. It just occurred to me that you may not be able to access the recipes on the WW site without, like, a retinal scan or something. Or at least paying them money. If you can't get the recipes and you want them, shoot me a message. :)

Flower

My uncle wrote a book.

A book, people! A long one!

It's not like he's a big-time writer. He's smart and funny and clever and articulate, but he's not a writer by trade. He's...you know...a guy. With a family and bills and the stuff of life happening.

I've been talking about writing for YEARS. I've been kicking around a novel premise for almost a decade. But life gets busy, and it's hard to take an amorphous mass of writing-related ideas and tidbits and turn it into written words. It takes dedication and discipline that I clearly have not had.


But Uncle Wayne did it! His novel, Flower, a Story of the Nativity, is an adventure story based on the events surrounding the birth of Christ. It's absolutely rich with historical detail, and it offers a new perspective on some of the particulars of the story that have become entrenched not through Scripture but through tradition.

I am thoroughly ashamed to say that this book was in print for over two years before I actually got around to reading it. I have no good excuse. In my partial defense, I did read portions of an early draft, but still.

The tale is impressively complex. He introduces a wide array of characters whose stories interweave as the miracle unfolds. There isn't as much attention paid to Mary and Joseph as you might think...they're in there, as is Jesus Himself, but between glimpses at their circumstances you're watching Roman soldiers, prophets, thieves, Medes, Persians, government officials, angels, and demons. (Incidentally, before I read the "to be continued"-type line at the end, I suspected that there was a sequel coming, and that I'd already met some of the characters central to the story of the crucifixion and resurrection. I think I was right.)

His writing style, if a bit rough around the edges, is energetic and imaginative. I think he was afraid of letting an English-teacher-type read the book, and as I think back over conversations where I've been vocal about my disdain for literary greats like Emerson, Hemingway, and Faulkner, I can understand why I might have given off an intimidating vibe. But to me, the success of this book doesn't rise and fall with the language. Its plot complexity, coupled with its warm tone and its thought-provoking approach to the story, makes it engaging enough that I'm already remembering it fondly.

This past December I thought a lot about the fact that Christmas is, and always was, a dangerous thing. It's fraught with conflict. We picture the Nativity as this serene tableaux with glowing saints and the soundtrack from Charlie Brown loo-loo-looing in the background. But there was rejection inherent in the story, and danger, and intrigue, and murder. It's tumultuous. There's a reason that Christmas brings up tremendous emotional turmoil in people's hearts even today...the sweet enormity of its victory cannot go unchallenged by the enemy.

And that got me thinking. In some ways, the whole thing seems like God thumbing His nose at evil. Like, "I'm coming. I could come as a warrior, surrounded by warriors, and take the place by storm. But I'm coming as a baby. And not a baby with a security detail. In fact, I'll arrive in a stable. With poor people and shepherds. And to make sure you can find Me, I'm going to put a star overhead. You see if you can get Me."

This God I serve--He's not playing.

I wasn't expecting to revisit all these thoughts when I started Flower after Christmas, but the novel hit on all of this stuff. Despite the humor and warmth of the tone, it really centers around the dangerous life into which Jesus was born and the daring plan God undertook to rescue the people He loved. I'm going to look at Christmas differently next year.

One more thing...I'm inspired to just start WRITING. Flower isn't perfect. But it's done. It's in print. The Urban Muse posted 30 writing quotes this month, and one of them was James Thurber: "Don't get it right, just get it written."

Bravo, Uncle Wayne. I promise I won't wait so long to read the sequel. :)

Regrouping

It's been nearly two weeks. I wish I could say that I've been using the time in some kind of remarkable and productive fashion, but that's not true. Productive, maybe, but not remarkable. I've mostly been inching forward, trying to tame my household...working away at piles of laundry, wrangling my kids, and picking up the same toys over and over and over again. For the last two days the house has been in pretty good shape. I'm caught up on laundry. The pantry and the refrigerator are stocked, at least for the time being. It feels nice, but it wasn't easy.

I'm a terrible housekeeper by nature. I have always found it perplexing (and frustrating) that God would intend me for a life where running a home is such a huge part of my job and then leave me so ill-equipped to do it. Why? So I'll know when my living room rug is visible that it's to His glory and not due to any greatness of my own? So that I'll mourn the relentless slide of our fallen world into entropy? To test and refine my patient neat freak of a husband? I don't get it.

This is one of the many reasons why He is God and I am not.

Anyhow, my home has been at least temporarily cajoled, bullied, and strong-armed into submission. We'll see how long it lasts. In the meantime, I'm turning my attention back to the list.

One thing I HAVE been doing lately is thinking. My list needs some editing if it's going to be both useful and fun. Some of my goals were a little overly ambitious, I think, so I'm trying to adjust. When I put the thing together I was trying to look for ideas that fit one of the following categories:

1. Things that require me to be brave, even a little bit. I have very little natural courage. Curiosity, yes, but not courage. However, I serve a great God who would have me put away my fear and trust Him. I'm working on it. If I live to be an old woman, I want to be a brave one. (ex: trips to NYC, sushi, spiritual conversations, writing, public singing)
   
2. Things that will help me to stay engaged and present in the moments of my life. I'm far too easily contented with meandering through routines, shifting my mind into neutral. If that becomes too much of a habit, the remainder of this year (not to mention the next 40) will simply slip through my fingers. I want to challenge the routine of my life. (ex: geocaching, crafts, recipes)
   
3. Things that I can, and should, enjoy now, while I'm still young by I-don't-actually-need-a-walker-yet standards. (kickball, finger painting, walking in the rain)
4. Things that will help me to streamline, to cast off that which holds me back or clutters up my life. (losing the rest of this weight, getting rid of clutter)
5. Things that make me better. Relationally, spiritually, physically, professionally, personally. (ex: travel with Mark, character plans for the kids, memorizing Scripture, reading good stuff)

All of those are true, but I think the heart of it lies in #2: I don't want to just tumble through my life. I want to live it well, and purposefully, and joyfully. That's what the list is about.

That said, I'm making some changes.

• I'm downgrading the number of crafts I'm trying to do with my kids. I still want to do them, but I'm also trying to read with them more, and to be more active with them, and there are only so many hours in the day.
• I'm going to put off my "mom's book" email for a while. It's the first step in pursuing a book idea I've had in the back of my mind, and it's a solid one, I think, but the odds of starting that AND a novel this year? Not good. It will have to wait.
• I'm switching out "host a creative night" (another good idea that will have to wait) in favor of a "Just Dance" party with some women. Reason: a creative night would be easy. I stink at "Just Dance," but it's fun and active, and it would require me to be a little braver.
• I'm ditching the flash mob. Turns out they're hard to find. It would be fun, but it's not important enough to me to force the issue.
• In place of the two things I've dropped I'm adding a complete and updated Flylady control journal (more on that later) and cleaning out all my closets.

I don't know if there's anyone still reading this thing, especially now that I vanished for two weeks. Maybe it's just me on here, and that's ok. But I'm still around, and still plugging away. If you're out there I'll let you know how it goes. :)