Battle of the Bulge

I scored a little victory in my battle of the bulge yesterday morning when I stepped on the scale and discovered that I've lost 12 pounds since my birthday last month. That puts me at 215 which is two pounds less than my previous high in 1987.

I know that oatmeal is supposed to lower cholesterol, but I don't like oatmeal unless it is in an oatmeal cookie. For a quick breakfast I decided on oatmeal muffins. After trying out several recipes I have landed on a combination of them and now consider it my own.

Healthy Oatmeal-Raisin Muffins
· 2 egg whites—can substitute 2 tsp cornstarch, but use honey in place of brown sugar.
· ¾ cup of milk
· ½ cup vegetable oil
· ¼ cup wheat germ
· ¾ cup oatmeal—soak in milk for a while first, if old fashioned oats are used, soak longer.
· 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
· ¼ cup unbleached white flour
· 2 tsp. baking powder
· 3 Tbsp. brown sugar
· 1 tsp. salt
· 1 tsp. Cinnamon
· 1 tsp vanilla
· ¼ tsp. Nutmeg
· Two handfuls of raisins, dried cranberries or a combination

Heat oven to 400°. Grease bottoms of muffin cups or use muffin papers. Put dried fruit to soak in warm water while you measure dry ingredients. Drain dried fruit and stir into dry ingredients to coat. This will keep them from sinking to the bottom of the muffin. Beat egg, stir in milk, oil, and vanilla. Fold egg mixture into dry until moistened. Batter will be lumpy. Fill muffin cups about ¾ full. Bake until golden brown approx. 20 min. Remove from pan immediately.

Life in the Fat Land

Obesity is the last characteristic that it is politically okay to make fun of. Writer and teacher Irene McPherson has stated in her blog In the Shadow of Fat that as she looks forward to her wedding this fall the nasty little childhood ditty of “Here comes the bride, big, fat, and wide” sticks in her head. She should be planning more romantic music for her wedding, but what bride doesn’t want to be ravishing on her wedding day? The good news is that the lovely man who proposed to her loves her just as she is, to borrow from the movie “Bridget Jones’ Diary.” And yet, our society is so obsessed with thinness that girls end up anorexic and models are airbrushed to impossible dimensions.

It’s okay to discriminate against fat people. I have a hard working, tender hearted, large girlfriend who was discriminated against when she applied for a secretarial job. She had the seniority and skills to do the job, but didn’t fit the image the boss had for his front office. I asked her to grieve the action with her union since the department had flagrantly ignored the fact that she was senior to the woman who got the job. “Why would I want to be somewhere where I’m not wanted?” she asked me. Ultimately it worked out for the best because eventually she landed in a department where her skills and character count for more than her size. She is treasured just the way she is. The man who didn’t hire her ended up with difficulties of his own from higher above and left the organization altogether.

Those of us who have yo-yo-ed over the years have wound up with crappy metabolisms that only exercise will get going again. I don't eat that much and while I admit to being addicted to carbs I do not consume copious amounts of them. My body, because of my near anorexic experience in the '90s doesn't want to turn loose of anything for fear of another famine. As the kdis would say, it sucks.

I am fortunate because my own husband, who has seen me yo-yo from overweight to borderline anorexic and back again, also loves me just as I am. I’m not looking to get a job as anyone’s office decoration, but I know that I would be discriminated against if I did. My reasons for wanting to lose weight is mostly about health and sticking around to see my grandchildren all get born and grow and take care of my own Special Needs child. As my mother would say, I don’t expect to be in the front row of the follies, but if I could buy a new dress for Irene’s wedding (which will be recycled for our niece’s wedding in December as well) it would be a nice fringe benefit.

Remodeling Me

Our bathroom is remodeled and our grandson installed in his new bedroom after he and his mama spent Winter in Brazil. The seasons are turning and it’s time to remodel me. Like most people I can know intellectually what I need to do, but can live on the rive Denial and in the land of Procrastination. Since I became a mother I’ve had issues with my weight. Each baby added more to the scale and no amount of nursing got me anywhere near where I’d been when I got pregnant with that baby much less the first one at age 19. Although I’m not looking to weigh 115 again, I’ve known for some time that I need to lose weight. A lot of it. Right after the holidays, right after my birthday, as soon as school is out, tomorrow. Tomorrow’s come.

My blog buddy Lorrene LeMaster of “Pet Peeves and Other Ramblings” has written about how much she hates blood draws. She and I suffer from the same malady. Our veins take one look at the needle and roll over and dive so when my doctor ordered a couple of blood tests about a year and a half ago I thought it a matter of some importance and about a month ago I decided to take care of it while at Group Health for a check of my blood pressure. It was an early morning appointment and not hard to fast before showing up for my 8:30 appointment with PA Gross. This was just before my 59th birthday when we had reservations at a B&B in Snohomish with my best friend who was also having a birthday. I got the bad news (results) the day we were to leave. Although my HBP is under control, my cholesterol is through the roof and I’m staring down the barrel of Type II Diabetes. Aside from that I have two bad knees and was sitting at my highest weight ever—227. Tomorrow had come or at least it was going to come as soon as we returned from our three day vacation.

I’m motivated to share my struggle publically because my soon-to-be-sister-in-law is fighting her own battle with the scale and has taken her struggle to her own blog. It seemed like a good idea. Maybe if I have to be publically accountable my progress won’t turn to regress so if you don’t mind I will share my successes and failures here for whatever it is worth as I struggle toward a class reunion and my brother-in-law’s wedding.

So here I am, the day after my third baby’s 34th birthday. I am down seven pounds. Not amazing for almost a month, but, hey, it didn’t go on all at once so I can’t expect it to disappear all at once either. I'll let you know how I'm doing.

Rennovations Continue

It would be tempting to whine about having only one bathroom and having to trudge downstairs in the middle of night while our renovation is going on, but with the reality of what much of the world has to live with coming into focus with the daily pictures of Haiti I realize how much I have to be grateful for. The fact that I have a bathroom at all is blessing indeed and that perhaps by the end of the week it will be freshly remodeled with a new larger shower, new vanity and medicine chest, fresh paint and new flooring is wonderful. And when judged with my other contractor experience this one has been a breeze.

There’s no getting around the upheaval of remodeling unless are working on an empty house. Our clothes, medicines (we’re old and have lots) and cleaning supplies as well as linens are in tubs and piles in our bedroom which adds to the nightmare of middle of the night trips to the bathroom. Personally, I’ve been living out of what’s in the laundry basket which means that my coworkers are being treated to repeated viewings of my wardrobe. Since it is mostly purple they probably have quit noticing what exactly I’m wearing.


The work on the bathroom went much faster than that which we had done to the kitchen several years ago. All but the shower door is done and we await the flooring man to do the floor in Gabriel’s bedroom with the expectation that it will be done before his return from Brazil.

Remodeling the Bathroom

I hate home repairs/remodeling. For those readers of the In Your Neighborhood blog spot might have seen my posts about getting the south side of our house in Ilwaco, WA resided. It turned into a disaster. The contractor, who will remain nameless, bought and installed the wrong windows, promised to change them and then disappeared. Over last winter the shingles began coming off the side of the house and my husband had to make repairs last summer because the contractor was nowhere to be found.

In the past we’ve had trouble with a shady character my husband hired to finish reroofing our house in Gig Harbor when the sun and height began to take a toll on him. Had I been home at the time Dave struck a deal with this man I would have put a stop to it, but I was in Ilwaco. That mess had to be corrected by a professional roofing company and it would have been cheaper to hire them in the first place.

There was the Gig Harbor kitchen remodel. Following a little kitchen fire the insurance company recommended a particular outfit to do the repairs. It took them three months to do it while I washed dishes in the old sink set on saw horses on the patio and cooked on a barbecue. Thank goodness it was summer. We ate out quite a lot, but that gets old pretty fast and rounding up four people to go out three times a day is a pain in the youknowwhat.

Now the time has come to do some more remodeling. We’ve drug our feet and cannot any longer. For a while we’ve had a little leak from the upstairs bathroom into the downstairs little bedroom which has served as my son’s “art room.” What was a little spot of mold on the ceiling has become two spots the size of tennis balls. Because the house was built in 1972 and remodeled in 1980 the fixtures, etc. are dated and ugly. We knew that if we ever want to sell the place that having updated bathrooms would be important. Our daughter-in-law and grandson’s departure for two months in Brazil seemed a good time to get the work done since the art room is going to become a bedroom for grandson so before Christmas I began to look around for a contractor.

Although the disappeared contractor had been a recommendation, I asked some coworkers who they would recommend and came upon someone who seems honest. The work will begin on Monday, Dave's second day of "retirement," and I will let you know how it goes. If things go well I will tell you who we got. If they don't...

“What fun,” my mother exclaimed. Yes, packing up all our vitamins, medicines, cleaning products and supplies along with the linens and our entire closet is sure fun.

Does Technology Connect or Isolate Us?

A coworker and friend on Facebook and I chatted a few weeks ago about the love/hate relationship we have with technology. While we love the feeling of connection that the Internet and Facebook provides, we commented that we spend more time fertilizing each other’s crops on FB’s Farmville than we do having “face time.” Technology connects and isolates us all at once.
I use “texting” a lot. My husband cannot receive calls at work except to call his supervisor and ask to have Dave call me. Although they are not supposed to have their cell phones turned on while on the floor at Seattle Flight Service, per Lockheed Martin’s regulation, Dave leaves his on vibrate and responds to text messages. Until he began working day shifts those messages were the only connection that we had so I’m pretty familiar with texting.

My kids text me. When I am at work my situation is similar. I’m not supposed to be answering personal phone calls and the concrete school I work in is a bunker for cell signals so I understand them wanting to send me a text message if they have a question. Never-the-less I find myself getting irritated when they text me at times that they know I am off work. I know why they do it. It is easier to text a person with a brief question and get an answer without having to perform the “hi, how are you?” ritual that makes us civil human beings. They are too busy to actually talk to me. They don’t really want to know how I am just then. They don’t really want to share how they are either. I find that sad and wonder if I am the only mom/person who suffers from the technological disconnect? I am grateful for what snippets of information I receive about friends and family via email and texting, but what are we losing? Are we not losing the warmth of human contact, of looking into the eyes of a loved one or hearing their voice on the other end of a phone line?

In times gone by children climbed into a car or wagon and moved miles and miles away from family with only letters to connect them to parents and sometimes they never laid eyes on one another again so I guess that I’m grateful that Thomas Edison figured out the telephone, but sometimes I believe that technology as done as much to hurt as to help us. We must be wise in its use. That’s why one of my New Year’s resolutions is to spend more time actually talking to the people who mean a lot to me. I do not have to be too busy to do that. There has to be a way to simplify my life.

New Year Resolutions

I like New Year’s. It’s like absolution in the Church. You get to start over and try again. I don’t mind resolutions even if I believe that I will probably break them. Mine are always the same: lose weight, get organized, and be more frugal with my money. It’s good to be reminded of what we need to do to improve ourselves for no one is above improvement and last year my resolution for keeping better track of my money means that I now have more than $1,700 in savings that I did not have at this time last year. That’s being saved for a 40th birthday trip for my daughter.

Orthodox Jews get organized and clean for their New Year’s and it is probably a good thing. To that end I am excavating our refrigerator. It’s a fairly new one and appears quite large on the outside, but inside is another story. It is only with creativity that we are able to get leftovers in there. Unfortunately, it is our fault, not that of the refrigerator. Things get shoved to the back and forgotten and I’ve a pretty good idea that I’d have more money if I ventured back there more often. I’ve spent the last two days pulling and pitching and washing. I’ve doubled our space and plastic ware. I am hoping that getting the kitchen organized will gradually spread beyond its borders to the rest of the house. Unfortunately, I’ve got my middle son working against me. He’s cleaning his “art room” which means dragging everything out to the living room to organize it. Moreover, the New Year’s plan is to turn that room into a bedroom for our grandson.

My New Year’s Resolutions include:
1.) Eliminating as much chaos as possible from the house. This means working on the clutter.
2.) Bringing as much peace into my life as possible which includes the house.
3.) Finding new ways to stretch our money farther since my husband’s job ends the end of January.

New Year’s 2010 is coming in on a Blue Moon. That has to be fortuitous. May 2010 bring health and happiness to everyone.