Sleepless and Silly but not in Seattle

I know I haven't Blogged for a while but I'm sure my friend Patty will ask me at my weekend retreat this weekend why not. So Patty, this one's for you.

Well, it's diet and exercise season, so of course it's now time for the Girl Scouts to sell cookies to all the people who are trying to lose weight. Remember, folks, they have no trans fats (the cookies, not the Girl Scouts)! You can email your cookie orders to me at......wait, I can't afford to ship them to you, so unless you are within driving distance, never mind! Or you can order some to donate to the troops and send me a check from far away.

I tried to blog every day for a while but it was exhausting, like too much exercise. So I quit cold turkey, and now I think I will try to get back into the excercise habit. Mental exercise at least. It's too damn cold even in Texas for all but the die hards to go walking outside, and my eczema is flaring up badly, so the idea of sweating (and itching) to any Oldies or Newies is not very appealing.

I have good intentions, although I don't make New Year's Resolutions. Well, I did make one this year. It was, "take better care of yourself." So I made an appointment to have a really nice facial at a toney salon here in town ($85, no less). I did this as I cashed in the massage gift certificate from my Destination Imagination team that I had been stashing away for about nine months, and it was getting ready to expire. I finally had to use it because I messed up my back putting up all those Christmas decorations! (Don't get me started on why I don't really like massages much. Ok, now that I'm older, they just piain HURT. What's relaxing about that???)

Well, the facial was supposed to happen on my birthday (Jan 2nd). For various reasons I have put it off and rescheduled it at least three times (money, snow, too busy) and I finally cancelled it for good yesterday (it was supposed to be this coming Monday) because I decided to buy some nice period clothing from a friend instead. And the van needs inspecting and the car needs a new battery, etc. etc.--well, you don't want to hear about the mundane problems of my life. I have to shell out $70 for a school field trip by Feb 1 and that's only HALF the fees. My kids want me to chaperone as well but for another $70, I think I'd rather do something else besides ride for hours in a bus full of fifth graders.

Of course, getting new clothes was one of the ways I was going to take care of myself (although new underwear would have been more practical, and I haven't bought any in several years now). Well, it's hard to get excited about buying underwear when you can buy an Elizabethan gown, now isn't it? And the gown was going to be $100, about what I would have had to spend on three new bras and some accompanying panties even at the "buy two get one free" Lane Bryant underwear sale. I am not a great seamstress and $100 for an Elizabethan gown in a color and fabric I liked seemed like the deal of the century, at least to me. Not to mention the sideless surcoat and two cotehardies and two entaries (Middle Eastern coats, probably spelled it wrong) for another $200. So, another allowance down the drain. But now I can take my time and I don't have to make five garments for each family member by Gulf Wars!!

OK, Lane Bryant doesn't really call it an Underwear Sale. It's Lingerie, remember? But Lingerie for larger sizes--well, sorry, but whether you make it out of satin, lace, or cotton, it's still Underwear. In fact, the tv networks pulled the Victoria's Secret Lingerie add for larger sizes this Christmas because the models were too "voluptuous." My husband, bless him, said at least they looked like women!

I can't start a diet or an exercise program in January. For one thing, I have several major January occasions where food is a big deal: New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, my birthday Jan 2nd, Steppes Twelfth Night, my twin daughters' birthday party, my twin daughters' birthdays, and my scrapbooking retreat. I mean, between Jan 1 and Jan 15, even when I don't get a cake for myself like this year, there are still 2 or 3 cakes lurking around because the kids get one for their party, two cookie cakes for school, and one for home. This year we are also having a Populace in the Park Potluck the end of January, and then it's just a few short weeks for us to eat our way to Valentine's Day!!! Besides, I'm still eating all that holiday clearance food I bought at World Market for 75% off the day before 12th Night! Cranberry bread and leftover chocolate, anyone? And Robert claims the peppermint cookies from Christmas are actually improving with age, so how can I throw them out??? They are getting stronger, like a good cordial.

And I can't just NOT EAT CAKE. Even Marie Antoinette thought it was a good idea.

As to exercise, there is the aforementioned eczema, and we quit our gym because we were too busy doing SCA stuff on the weekends and too busy with school, work and housework/taking care of everyone else during the week. Besides, all that working out around young thin people was making me depressed.

I used to work out in high school and college (hell, I used to RUN and do high impact aerobics for an hour and a half) but I can't do that with the messed up ankle. And with Robert's knees, you are not going to be seeing us on a ski slope, not EVER. He's lucky if he can limp upstairs and he just finished a round of steroid shots in his knee in December.

I did buy a belly dancing instruction tape from Wine and Alchemy in December, and I have tried the warm-up (which was really good), but the kids interrupted me and I didn't get a chance to do much dancing. And I WON'T be doing that in public. I'm nore interested in Middle Eastern Drumming anyway. And I got a Wii Fit dance game that the girls have tried out upstairs. They said it was easy, a piece of cake! (see, there's that cake again). That means that 15 minutes of it will probably send me to the emergency room. Especially the way my asthma is flaring up in the cold weather--I feel like a cat about to hack up a hairball just about all day long.. .

So those are all of my exercise excuses. Maybe diet modification would be easier, although I have found in the past that I really need to do both.

I know--I will cut out all soda (because of that pesky high fructose corn syrup!). I don't do artificial sweeteners so that leaves me with water and unsweetened tea. I will cut out all alcohol, especially the hard liquor (started drinking that because the beer and wine upset my stomach in the evenings but Crown and Rum are pretty smooth). Actually, our clock is broken in the family room and stuck at 5 o'clock, so in our house it's always "five o'clock somewhere!"

I will cut out all desserts and carbohydrates! No more chips. No more pasta. No more potatos. No more rice. No more white foods. OK, now that means I am eating fruit, vegetables, and protein.

Wait a minute--have you seen the price of meat lately? Especially lean chicken and pork? And there's something about WallyWorld chicken that I just can't bear. They had some spoiled or near spoiled chicken out about 8 months ago and ever since then I just can't even look at it without wanting to hurl. Seriously.

I'll become a vegetarian! (OK, now I'm down to fruits and vegetables.)

Wait a minute, those fruits are high in sugar!

Oh, darn, I I need to cut out the processed ones too. They are probably full of MSJ or hydrogenated vegetable oil or sodium. And I hear that cooking the vegetables cuts down the nutrients, so I guess I had better eat them raw.

(It's too bad that most raw vegetables give me gas.)

Maybe taking care of myself means not obsessing over food, right???

Pleasant Valley Mom (making excuses and thinking that some dried currents might taste nice now--can I eat some and still make some more cordial? The current one rocks!)