Failure is not an option.. Dr. Fuhrman's 10 in 20

I have started and stopped so many exercise programs and healthy eating plans. I always seem to come back to Dr. Fuhrman's plan. I have gained a lot of weight these last few years. Many things happened in my life, and I gave up on sound nutritional advice and started to look for easy and convenient things again. Easy and convenient foods are usually processed crap, however.

I started another journey with 80 pounds to lose.

I am approximately 15 days through Dr. Fuhrman's 10 in 20 program, and I have already lost 10 pounds! I haven't done any exercise other than walking the dog during these 15 days.

This is incredible, because I usually have to work out harder.

I don't know why I stopped using Dr. F's advice in the first place. I must've needed to take an unhealthy side journey away...

I'm back, and on my way to fitness again!

It only SEEMED hard...

I can almost remember...
seems a lifetime away

Was it this lifetime or another?

suffocate, breath deep
suffocate, breath deep

buried alive,
walking dead

fear

afraid to live
afraid of waking up

disillusionment

afraid of the unknown

reaching
stretching
seeking

Am I finally awake?

RIP Van Winkle

I've been here before,
I've been here before

Was it a dream?
Is it a dream?

It's more beautiful than I remember

will I forget?

I've dreamt this before

slip and slide
in and out
sideways, backwards, forwards

Reaching, stretching for truth

Truth is inside.
Truth is Now

God DID NOT give us animals to eat!

I am vegan.

With veganism comes scrutiny from others.

"Where will you get your protein?"
"Where do you get your calcium?"
"What do you eat?"
"Why?"

But there is my personal favorite:

"God gave us animals to eat."

WHAT?  Why would you say that?

"Well, it says so in the bible"

ACTUALLY...

the Bible says

GENESIS 1:29

"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food."

"Imagine No Religion"

Today, a coworker told me that “children should be raised with religion, otherwise they will run wild”.  I am not fully sure what the hell that means, but it made me think of a conversation my son and I had last week.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with him about “Good Friday”.  He heard me say I had “Good Friday” off work.  I explained to him what the day represents by telling him there was this guy Jesus that believed in Peace and Love, but that the story goes, that some people hated that he was spreading the word about loving everyone and so they killed him.  He says, “Oh, so he was kind of like Martin Luther King Jr., because he died because he was teaching about loving everyone no matter what color or who they were”.  I agreed, “yes, they were very similar”. 

So, without raising my son in a religion, but being honest with him about what all different religions believe, he is able to see that sort of correlation.  I didn’t need him to fear hell for that, but he understands that you should love everyone.  He understands it doesn’t matter what color someone is, what they look like, what they wear, who they love, what they eat, or what religion (or lack thereof) they are.  He understands we all have feelings, feelings can be hurt, and it is nice to treat people nice (animals too).  What more can I ask?  Unfortunately a lot of current religions that I could have indoctrinated him in, even the Christianity I was raised with, wouldn’t be doing as good at teaching him the morals already instilled, since many of them are still against marriage equality and civil liberties for gay people.  I'll stick with John Lennon and continue to "imagine no religion".

Cat Butt

Dear Inconsiderate Cat,
Why do you stick your butt on my things?
Do you always have to turn around and stick your butt in my face?
Must you brush your butt-hole over the top of my beverage, rendering it undrinkable?
Why must you insist on using the carpet as your toilet paper?
You smell.
Go lick yourself (but not lying next to my head in bed, please).

Flying Braless

I was sending an office memo today to notify my coworkers of a death.
Reading the deceased's obituary got me thinking about my own death.

I know we mourn the passing of others because we are so used to them being around, and we will miss them, however, I don't want some lame ass, boring funeral where everyone just cries and walks around eating food.  I also want my obituary to be more original.  Sure, my obituary can say who outlived me, and who already died, but I think I will pre-write my obituary with fill-in-the-blank spots for the names.  Maybe something similiar to this:

Rough Draft of my Obituary

Angelique lived an awesome existence; 

she loved hanging with Bea, 

attending many Phish shows & wearing happy pants, 

marrying Tim, raising Aiden, 

dancing to more Phish, 

getting fat then getting fit, 

spending times with her family & friends 

and petting pussies.  

Angelique also really loved:

 hula hoops, bubbles, things that glow, and things that bounce.

She was survived by: (list survivors.. don't forget surviving pets!)

She was predeceased by: (insert those that died before me; including pets!)

The celebration of Angelique's life & transitioning to her bodiless existence will be held:  (insert place and time).

Even though you might be sad or missing me, 

rejoice, because now, not only do I get to go braless, I can also fly!

Pondering Love, Revolutions, and Grocery Shopping

Yesterday was a busy Saturday afternoon at the supermarket.  Some people meandered through the aisles, blocking the way for other shoppers, often not moving their carts to the side to let others through.  Some busy people rushed to cut me off and get into an aisle before I did.  Some people gave my son and me dirty looks because he was running off and wanting to scan everything at the price checkers. 

I came home thinking "where's the humanity?" 

I am not so better than those the perceived rude shoppers. 
I came home fuming, feeling pretty lousy from my shopping experience. 

Where is MY humanity? 

Where is the love?

Later on, yesterday evening, I went to bed with a meditation CD; long needed after a busy day.  I haven't listened to this disk in many years.  It has relaxing flute music and a few words from the Dalia Lama about love and opening the heart.  What a treat!  His voice is soft and he sounded, well kind of like Yoda (because of his accent).  He spoke about Love in such a moving, inspirational way.  

I came to the realization I hadn't applied love and compassion in my dealings with my friends at the grocery store.  I realized I don't always apply those feelings of love and compassion for some of my seemingly difficult co-worker friends.

I realize there are so many places I forget to apply this message of Love.

Tonight on Facebook, people are talking about revolutions.  I am going to begin my revolution at home with my mind.  How could I ever expect to go out into the world speaking about freedom and love, when I haven't mastered it within my own mind, heart, and home... or at the grocery store, for that matter.  How could a revolution ever do any good if it didn't first begin with the seeds of Love?   

Life: Perfect problem of illusion

Perfect = Illusion

Problem = Illusion



My Conclusion:

The meaning of life =  Whatever you desire and dream (illusion)... 

Might as well have sweet dreams

Letter to a Shrink

Dear Shrink,


Why do you categorize me and put me into your little box?

Why does one thought I have mean so much to you?

I might be on the rag today when I tell you I want to smack my co-worker's face.  If I was 5, I just might have smacked her face.

I will be off the rag tomorrow and feeling much better.  Does that make me bi-polar?  You better hand me a questioneer to make sure.

I know I sound like I don't like you very much, you are just doing your job...

normal, abnormal, potAYto, potAHto

I came to see you, the first step is admitting I have a problem, right?

What if I don't have a problem?  What if my only problem is thinking I had a problem?  Maybe I dwelled on having a problem so long that one appeared?  That must be the true problem.  See, I admitted there is a problem.

Now go away, your fired.

Confessions of a Kindergarten Vigilante

(note:  some names have been changed to protect the identity of those involved)

I would like to raise my son in such a way that he will be grow up to be a kind & caring sort of guy.  So when he gets in trouble at school, I feel it is my duty as a Mom to get to the bottom of the issue.

At school, they have these cards they move when they have an occurrence.  The card starts out on green, and if they have misbehaved, they move the card to yellow (that is a warning).  If they misbehave further, they move their card to white and get a time out.  If they misbehave a third time, they move their card to red and get sent to the counselor that helps them come up with an action plan and an oops report.

Thankfully, we haven't seen a red card in a while, however, very recently our son came home several days in a row, reporting yellow cards.  This concerned me, and I wondered if it had something to do with his "best friend" leaving to go to another school. 

As we were winding down for bed-time, I inquired about his consecutive yellow cards, saying gently, "honey, is there something that has been bothering you at school lately?"

He replied, "well, I could use another snack in my lunch". 

"I could arrange that.  Have you been feeling hungry at school?", I asked, knowing this may be true, yet he was stalling from the real question.  "You've been getting a lot of yellow cards, lately, does it mostly happen after lunch?"

"yeah, I know", he said softly "no, its not just after lunch".

"So what has been going on Hon?", I asked with genuine concern. 

I knew he had gotten the first days yellow card from putting glue on a chair. He told me he couldn't remember what happened the next day, and the third day it was for crawling around on the carpet when he should have been doing something else.  Then he said, "do you want to know, honestly?"

"Well, yes, I do want to know, honestly, I always want to know honestly", I answered with anticipation.

"I was trying to glue George to the chair".

"Oh.", I said, trying really hard not to giggle.  Seeing a slight smirk in my face, he started to smile, as I continued, "though that might seem like a funny thing to do, its not very nice, why would you want to glue George to the chair?"

"Because they did it on SpongeBob, somebody got glued to a log"  (I am sure he told me the character's name, but I cannot remember it)

My keen mom insights could see through his endeavor to blame his actions on television, and I replied, "well, you know, that is exactly why I don't like SpongeBob and we don't watch it here, at home.  Maybe I will have to tell the daycare not to allow anyone to watch SpongeBob.  You know T.V. is make believe, and I know you know its wrong to glue people to chairs, don't you?

"Yeah.", he mumbled.

"So why WOULD you glue George to the chair?", I inquired again, inquisitively.

"Because he is pretty bad to everyone, and I thought I would teach him a lesson by being bad to him and gluing him to the chair", he replied, in a matter of fact tone.

"I see... did the teacher realize you were trying to glue him to the chair?"

"No, I think she thought I was making a mess.  I had to clean up all the glue, and it was hard to do".

"You know", I said, "the glue they have at school would have taken way too long to dry, you wouldn't have glued him to the chair anyway."

We then had a short discussion about bullies, why/how bullies might have become bullies, and how dealing with bullies by gluing them to seats, probably isn't the best way to deal with bullies. 
 
Hopefully this was the beginning AND the end of his vigilante ways.

on the topic of true love

Ah, True Love....

Some of us have found it,
Some of us have longed for it,
Some of us still long for it...

Some think they have found it,
Some have...

The former want to know how the latter did it, and how do you know?

I have walked the desert of lovelessness,
I have walked in the forest of love's illusions,
I have danced in the joy of real love.

True love isn't finding someone to complete you.
I don't think you find true love until you are already complete.
Rather, I feel you find true love when you are close to realizing your completeness, or at least, are not trying to fill the void of your illusion of incompleteness.

True love is a compliment, not a completion. 
True love doesn't ride up on a white horse with the wind blowing in his/her hair.
True love is for the daring, the fearless, the bold.

If you ask, "where do I find my true love?", I will say, look within...
find your true love, yourself,
only then can you find a companion to share in your journey. 

If you don't appreciate yourself, why should someone else?

Children's concerts for many years to come

When my husband and I had basic cable T.V. and were childless several years ago, we used to sit and watch the local channel that aired the School Holiday programs.  They were kind of boring, but it was fun to laugh about them.  You could always tell what kids wanted to be there, and which ones would have rather stayed home.  We knew some day that we would be attending these kind of concerts in person.

Since my son is in Kindergarten, we went to one of his first of his Holiday Concerts today.
Many eager parents waited for their Child's debut performance.

Guess whose child stole the show.

The funny thing about our son, is, I don't believe his intent is to steal the lime-light.  He was so overjoyed to see his smiling parents in the audience, that he couldn't contain his excitement.

The Kindergardeners stepped up onto stage and started singing.  Some looked bored, others looked dazed, ours was trying to give his parents a show.  He was clearly nervous, wringing his hands at the beginning, yet grinning ear to ear.  He danced when the others stood still, and gestured with more emphasis.  At one point the teacher's aid looked over at me, and we shared a silent chuckle.  I heard the lady next to me say, "that little boy in the orange shirt is so cute!".

As the other grades stepped up to sing, and the others sat back down, he couldn't stop waving to us from where he sat.  What a proud day for a Mom, what a proud day for her son, probably for Dad too, even though he doesn't show his zeal as readily.

Ah, Winter

I love winter, the snow on the ground is beautiful,
I just need to remember how to stay warm

Time to get out the long underwear and thick socks,
Time for footy pajamas (I do love those!),
hot tea, long workouts,
baking in the oven more,
flannel sheets under thick comforters.
A warm kitty-cat on my lap..

Thanksgiving Salad & Workout

One thing I am extremely thankful for this Thanksgiving is my health.

This time last year I was at least 20 pounds, maybe 30 pounds heavier.   The year before that, even more so.  I will no longer use the Holidays as an excuse to become unhealthy.

I had salad and fruit for my Thanksgiving meal, and it was delicious.  I might have eaten just a slice too much watermelon, though!  Now I am thinking about my workout tonight.  Since I just started Dr. Fuhrman's 6 week holiday challenge, I thought about maybe doing Jillian Michael's Ripped in 30 dvd all the way through, but having knee issues,  I find some of the exercises hard on my knees when doing them every single day.  I am thinking about alternating "Ripped in 30" with 6 week 6 pack every other day and doing some yoga either afterwards or in the morning.  I love the cardio, but I also love the stretch that yoga gives me, especially on my leg muscles.

Soapbox:

I find that many people often don't care enough about their health to throw away their unhealthy habits.  Maybe it is because they don't think they are worthy enough to live the wonderful, healthy life they should be living.  I know this may have been the case for me, the more weight I gained the less I cared about my appearance.  I dressed sloppier, and continued to eat junk.  I guess one day I just woke up, looked in the mirror and quit lying to myself.  I would say, "it's so hard to lose weight", "I don't know how".

There IS a quick fix to losing weight.  It doesn't come in expensive pills and surgeries.  It comes in eating healthy and exercising.  It comes from not lying to yourself about what foods are healthy.  It comes from educating yourself about eating healthy, and it comes from living that life day in and day out.  Sure, it means you can't have a candy bar every time you go through the check-out line at the grocery store.  But its worth it, I am worth it, you are worth it.

Dr. Fuhrman's Challenge

Its the holidays again and Dr. Fuhrman is hosting his 6 week Holiday Challenge.

Basically the challenge is to eat healthy for these 6 weeks during the Holidays.  You can check out more about the challenge at his website: http://www.drfuhrman.com/events/holiday-challenge/

I have already been eating this way, but joining Dr. F's Challenge is going to help keep me on the straight and narrow.  I also love being able to join up on his website and forums to get advice, give advice and converse with others that are making healthy change in their lives, as I normally can't afford the subscription right now.  And the recipes are wonderful!

Here's to health!

Don't forget the meaning of the Holidays... of Life.

As this holiday season is upon us, 

I realize, I would like to make this a different sort of Holiday season, a non-stressful one.

Amidst all of the hustle and bustle there is something more important.. the FUN!

It is easy to get caught up in the day to day grind.  Sometimes the holidays bring extra worries of finding the right present and putting out the decorations, sending out christmas cards.  

I say, forget these things if they are not fun!  Do something fun this holiday season!  

When I was a child I loved decorating for Christmas with all the various Christmassy nic-nacs.  I also enjoyed watching all of the popular Christmas shows.  It was, indeed a fun, time.  My favorite decoration were the thin metal angels that dangled around in a carousel above a set of candles, circling them when lit.  Mom would put old Christmas records on the "Hi-Fi"and we would put all the different decorations out on the end tables and various surrounding furniture and the fire mantel. 

I remember waking up Christmas morning,  the stockings were full and I could see toys sticking out the top, but I knew I wasn't supposed to touch anything until everyone was up and ready.  The wait before opening presents was excruciatingly long, particularly when we didn't go to midnight christmas church the night before, forcing us to wait until after morning church to open presents.  I could never fully understand why it was so important to ruin a fine Christmas morning with something like boring old church, anyway.

This Christmas I'm not going to worry about the perfect gifts, I am going to put out a few more decorations (inside, I don't like to spend a lot of time in the cold). I'm not going to let the shopping crowds stress me out, I will try to smile more often, I will take 11 straight days off work, I'll dance in footy pajamas and I promise I won't ever go to church.  I will make sure to enjoy spending time with my family, however, on these fine holidays that come around and remind us to "let your spirit be light".  

Kitty Cat Bath

Kitty cat bathing,

One leg raised in the air,  

Tongue smack,

Jingle collar,

Content.

What do I want with 90 Meat Sticks!?!

My son is in Kindergarten.

I recently learned that they have a wrestling league for the youth in our area.

There aren't a lot of sports and activities for 5 year old children so we thought it might be a good idea to get my son active and doing something that might be fun for him too.

So, we went to the wrestling sign up meeting at one of the school's libraries.  

What a culture shock!

We walked in (My husband, my son, and myself) and were greeted and handed paperwork.

There were several parents there; one of them was wearing a WWF Wrestling T-Shirt.  

We sat down to fill out the paperwork and a high school girl comes over and hands us 3 boxes of meat sticks (similar to Slim Jims) for a fundraiser.  I am a strict vegetarian, therefore an instant sense of panic overcame me and I said, "um, I don't think I can sell those, I am a strict vegetarian", to which the girl replied in a dismissive tone, "oh, just take them to work".  I looked at my husband, then I looked at the meat sticks, then I looked at my son sitting there looking a little clueless about the whole situation and I said, "Are you sure you want to do this?".  He said passively, "Yeah, sure".  The next table over, there was a two year old girl crying and a father saying in a overly macho voice, "what are you crying for, do you see anyone else here crying?".  As I was reading my son the rules on the sign up sheet about the 4 day a week training schedule and what is expected, I could tell he wasn't paying attention.  I looked at the meat sticks again, and then looked back at my husband, who was looking annoyed. We heard the meat stick girl giving someone their meat stick fundraiser as she was saying, "they are non-returnable".  My husband and I looked at each other again and he said, "do we want to be stuck with these meat sticks, especially changes his mind in a couple weeks and doesn't want to do this anymore?". "No", I replied immediately, "I am not paying $90 for Meat Sticks!".  I turned to my son and said, "you know what, why don't we do this when you are older and understand it better".  He looked a little upset, but not devastated, after all, earlier he didn't want to come to the meeting because he wanted to play instead, how easy is it going to be to get him to all the practices?  "I think you can make a more informed decision in a year or two", I said, "besides, I am not sure how well you will fit in here".  

I had my husband return the meat sticks and tell them we changed our minds.

I was thinking "you know your a redneck when..."  you have Meat Sticks as your sport fundraiser.   

The Mix Tape

My car and my husband's car are both in the shop.  Because of this, we have been driving my mother-in-laws car.  Its a 1992 car (but only has 120,000 miles on it) and comes fully equipped with am/fm and cassette player. I like having my own choice of music to play in my car, so, finally, this morning I decided to grab a cassette tape I had seen in a jewelry box.  I grabbed the tape on my way out the car, and held my breath as I stuck it into the tape slot.  I had no idea if the cassette player or this old tape even worked.  I immediately pushed rewind to wind the tape to the beginning, as it looked left somewhere in the middle.  After it finally rewound, the tape made a funny chipmunky-scratchy sound, so my finger shot out to the eject button.  Phew, the tape popped out!  It looked okay, so I thought I would give it one more try. TADA!, Jim Morrison's voice sang "Come on Baby Light My Fire".. WOOHOO!

I was off down the road and down memory lane.  I remember this mix tape, a construct of two Twenty-Something girls that hadn't quite found the love they were looking for.  My best friend and I listened to this tape A LOT.  We would listen to it quite often while we worked out with our "Body by Jake" Ab machine, "Body By Jake" Thigh Machine, stepper, hula hoop, twist board rotation.  We called it the "sexy tape", primarily, because of the Paula Cole song "Feelin' Love".  If I recall, it was constructed to play from beginning to end like a story that starts with longing and desire and ends with, well, conquest, I guess.

Since I haven't had a LOT of driving to do today I am only through side one of the tape.  It's in the real lovey mushy section right now.  Though we used songs from different time periods, there are a lot of mid-late 90's songs in there, so the tape is dated.  I can also tell we really wanted to put one Phish song on it because there is a very misplaced "Water in the Sky".

My husband and I were discussing the lost art of the mix-tape.  Though it is easier to make a CD/MP3 mix on the computer, anymore, there was this proud feeling of accomplishment that came with the time and effort of a mix tape.  You had to listen to all the songs while you made it, pause the tape and wait for the perfect time to un-pause it.  I remember the CD/Cassette recorder that we made the tape on, I remember our deliberations on the ensemble, and the boy, girl, boy, girl song fashion.  So far, it is still a very enjoyable tape!

Sailing in the seas of contrast (or maybe floating gently on my back on a noodle)

I'm sailing in this vast ocean of contrasts (Its frickin awesome, by the way),
their waves pushing me closer toward the shores of my ever-changing, ever evolving destiny (of my creation)

AND I DON'T EVEN GET SEA SICK ANYMORE!

I used to swim (quite badly), practically drowning in the huge waves.
But that was another yester-year

Tomorrow, I think I'll buy a noodle and float gently on my back  ;)