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Feeling Funky

admin — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:46:22 +0000

I’m in a funk. I’ve stopped myself from many times from going full on Debbie Downer here, and so far so good, but I can’t keep it in any longer. I can’t recall ever feeling like this, I feel like I’m not connecting, not fitting in, not understanding anything that’s coming my way. I feel like I’m trying to walk in very thick sand. I’ve lost the twinkle of hope, that passion for making things happen. That spark to stretch myself and try something new. All I want to do is retreat. And this has been going on for months. I’m hesitant to even put this out there because, really, does the world need more words about sadness? Loss of hope? And then I realized that I know it will come back and this too shall pass, but I feel an itch to share, regardless of how vulnerable it makes me feel. And you want to know the weirdest part about this funk? It has nothing to do with weight loss. I’m losing, and lately due to loss of appetite, rather rapidly (13 pounds in one week.) Normally I would jump for joy to see these numbers on the scale, but lately, I’m indifferent. I have a few ideas as to where these feelings are coming from. For starters, I’ve become scared to try something new. In the past four years I’ve tried a little bit of everything…design, catering, jewelry, clothing design, blogging, e-book writing, and a few more other things that I’ve forgotten along the way. Each time I start out with this hope of what I could become. I fall in love with the potential of a new business, a new idea, a smaller version of myself. I have great desire to “do big things”, but sadly, I’ve come to realize that I was more in love with the result rather than the process. And because I believe everything in life is connected and related, I know that deep down, what I do and how I make a living has a lot to do with how I feel and care about myself. And somewhere along the line I never figured out or changed my perspective enough on any given thing/business/idea/project to fall in love with the process (a line I’m stealing from The Biggest Loser.) And I want to get there. To be in the love with the process of taking care of myself rather than the result of being thin, or doing things because I love the action and not because its a defined direction or path. I find myself worrying so much about things I do and don’t have control over. My mom emailed a quote to me recently, “Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself.” – Harvey S. Firestone The last line is the one that hit me the most “accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself”. I’ve come to realize that I haven’t defined who I am or who I want to be. I’ve been waiting on other people to tell me who I am, or who they want me to be or who I can be. That path can be very unsteady. I’ve realized, that I’ve been relying on my past experiences to define who I am. These experiences from junior or high school where I never felt good enough…my clothes, hair, makeup, body, personality…always fell too short. In the days when opinion flowed out of mouths so freely, where everything on the outside was the measure of a worthwhile person, those days still linger too many years later. I want to give myself permission to define who I am, who I want to be, and unapologetically become that person. I want to move forward even when fear starts screaming in my head. Fear that my efforts are lost, that they won’t get me anywhere, or that it’s pointless to try. Recently, I’ve had strong desires to start painting and illustrating again, a skill that I picked up in college and loved. I let it go because I didn’t let myself get good enough. I feared the work that was involved in getting good, I worried that I would spend all this time and never arrive. That I could never feed myself off of it. That it wouldn’t matter. That I’d never be good enough. And the realization that I stopped doing something because I was both in love with and afraid of the result, rather than the process, knocks the wind out of me. And I understand deeply, where this trend pops up over and over again in my life. Silly little things and the big stuff too. I’ve put so much weight in these imaginary outcomes, that I’ve stopped myself from ever starting or even being in the process. What if I lose weight and I’m still ugly, or have a loose skin? What if people resent me? What if I get unwanted male attention? Why both lose weight? What if I start painting, but never sell a print? What if I never wrap my own canvas? What if I’m never taken seriously? Why bother painting? What if I never make a good living doing what I love? What if my businesses stop growing? What if I can’t keep up with the growth? What will I have to give up in order to make more income? What if I start marketing my design…what if I fall short? or make a mistake? or ruin my reputation? What if I’m never credible? What if I fall short or miss a deadline? Why bother design? And I do this with everything, cleaning, exercising, work, meeting new friends, staying in touch…on and on and on. I can play the “what if” game for so long that I wake up at 29 and realize that I stopped it all before it got good. Update: This post is good timing for the Things I’m Afraid to Tell You series of blog entries that are making their way around the blogosphere.

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Feeling Funky

Hand Me a Tissue

admin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:20:24 +0000

I don’t want to start this blog out by saying “I’ve been sick”, because that’s just not fun. It’s April and like clockwork, I’ve got a stuffy nose, itchy ears, piles of tissues everywhere and a cough to come. I haven’t tasted or smelled food in days. Many, many days. It takes the fun out of eating. Lately I just eat because I’m hungry and I have to. That’s a concept! Last week I started emailing my daily food and calories to my dear friend of a million years and it felt so refreshing to say to someone “guess what? I had two smoothies and a subway sandwich today” without a return comment about balance, or how I should be eating more of this or less of that. Sometimes that’s all I want, peace with imperfection and less justification. I know that for me, as soon as I start creating rules and rituals about what I should and should not eat, I get into obsessive eating trouble. Not that I don’t aim to have better eating habits, it’s just that so often I find that I create them more out of the approval of other people rather than my own belief system which is balance and moderation. And that’s that. Moving on. Edit: And of course, after writing this I go and read this wonderful post by Andie from Can You Stay For Dinner? Her post is so good, and so well written that I want to go to Seattle and give her a parade. Read: The Weight Loss Dilemma. My favorite line: “Please know that there is nothing wrong with eating as cleanly as one can. (If you do and if you strive to- I applaud you.) There is similarly nothing wrong with having Skinny Cow ice cream bars in your freezer beside organic frozen vegetables. (Tell me you have Cool Whip?) There’s nothing wrong with any of it and my bottom line remains: Judging others’ eating styles and deeming food choices as inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’ only leaves us feeling and looking ignorant and unenlightened. The point of this post, as always, is to let you know that there’s middle ground. And also that I don’t want this blog to exclude anyone who’s hungry. My table serves Kit Kats and kale chips in varying amounts.” Thank you Andie!

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Hand Me a Tissue

Spring Cleaning

admin — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:44:16 +0000

Happy Easter!! I bring this photo to you as a gift. It’s pretty cute, right? Please note the socks with sandals! There was a little packet of seeds sewn in a plastic pocket on the leg of this outfit. I remember wanting to get it out soo freakin’ bad! My mom’s note about this picture “I was so worried about your ears”. Luckily, I now have a large head to match. I’m spending Easter weekend with my family, which means I got to do some deep discount shopping at Gabriel Brothers (hello $4 cacique bra!), and a couple of slices of grape pie. Which reminds me… During our visit to Pies n’ Pints (in Charleston) me and Josh were seated, he was facing in towards me and I was facing out. Our waitress who could only see my husband’s very curly hair, but not his face, says to us “Can I get you ladies something to drink?” I laughed hard, like hand clapping, tears streaming down my face for a good five minutes. I’m laughing now as I type this. Bless him and his curly hair. This morning I’m making a pineapple upside down cake, either using this recipe or this one . This cake always seems so kitschy, 1950′s to me, which is even more reason to make it! Today I worked out a little personal “blogging manifesto”. I’ve had trouble blogging these past couple of weeks, a phase that I’ve encountered frequently in the past six years. Sometimes it means I’ve fallen off the ol’ wagon, while other times it just means I don’t know what to share. And lately it’s the latter. I’m doing good, very good in fact. Publicly announcing that I’m leaving obesity behind for my 30th birthday in a year is a lot of motivation for me. But sometimes I don’t know how to share my story. And then I realized that it’s because I still struggle with my voice and letting it shine no matter what other people think. I get a lot of emails from people asking me about blogging and sometimes I just don’t feel like I can give that kind of advice. But, from experience, I would say more than anything, do what feels right for you, not what you feel like you should do. I rarely get negative or preachy comments, but when I do they make me retreat. They sting because my blog is a part of me, and it reflects some small portion of who I am. If I showed everything, I don’t think I’d make it out alive. I’m sure I’d crawl in a hole and never come out again. What would people think if they knew I had an Arby’s sandwich on the road to WV? All that processed meat, white flour bun and *gasp* at a fast food restaurant!??! What would they think if they knew that I work in my pajamas and spend the day designing right on my couch? That I almost always have a sink full of dirty dishes? What will they say when I tell them that I never eat low-fat dairy? And in fact, I find it completely offensive and disgusting? That occasionally I choose white over wheat pasta? Or that I sometimes put too many toppings on my frozen yogurt? What would be left when I showed the truth, that looks so similar to the truth of other people , especially when people were seeking a higher ground with me? My blog is not a refuge or an escape. This is not the place for perfection or noble eating. I have no desire to “one-up” anyone with morals, ethical or clean eating. I try not to place my judgement on others, virtual or not because people and lives are more complex than any opinion I could ever dream up. I write all of this to say that, I’m giving myself permission to be whoever it is I choose to be today. To celebrate that person, her life and all of the happiness it holds every day. And I hope you will too. I’m giving myself permission to share my life virtually (and in real life) regardless of the words others bring to my little space on the internet. Regardless of what I assume they are thinking, but usually aren’t. There is nothing you can say to me that I don’t already know about myself. No bits of wisdom that I haven’t already lost sleep over. I won’t allow my blog to translate into my interactions with people in real-life, because the truth is, nobody is thinking that much about me. No one is losing sleep over my bad habits or inconsistencies. I’ve found myself heading down that path recently and it’s not pretty. This life is just too damn short to make apologies to other people for living a full life or making a lot of mistakes. Am I wrong? Anyway, that’s what the title “Spring Cleaning” means to me. Just celebrating my life and what I want to share and being proud of who I am and who I’m becoming. No apologies or justifications. My spring cleaning is about letting go of what I assume people are thinking about me. It’s about letting go of those who don’t want us to grow or change. Letting go of opinions or judgement. I always like to say that there is no one I admire who hasn’t had negative words thrown at them. And I’m so thankful they kept going anyway. That they didn’t give up on their mission or fall off their path because someone called them out or stamped them with their opinion. We’ve all been on both sides.

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Spring Cleaning

29 Resolutions

admin — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 19:43:40 +0000

Good Morning! I took the past couple of days off of blogging to sort of regroup before my 29th birthday. This year (to sound like my old hokey boss in nyc) is going to be transformative. I’ve created a list of goals and resolutions that I want to follow and remind myself of often over the next year. 1. Leave Obesity Behind . I’m determined that 29 is my last year of being an obese person. I’m fine with being chubby at 30, but not obese. These past few weeks have been really good for weight loss and I know what it looks like, I always have. I know what it takes. I don’t just want to be thin, I want to be strong and able-bodied. I want to be able to climb a rock wall, go kayaking, run, swim, and play sports. I want to find a new identity as a smaller person who leads a bigger life. I want to stop killing myself with food. I’ve created a little more details and action lists as to how this goal will come to be, but for now this is my main goal this year. If I accomplish nothing else this year but this one goal, I will be satisfied. The main thing that I do is keep a food journal, this is number one and most helpful. The second thing is establishing and maintaining a regular exercise routine. The third thing will be creating time for daily meditation and inspiration for my goal. I’m working on an inspiration scrapbook that I will work out of over the next year. I’m a visual person and I want this scrapbook to be a place where my goals are laid out. A book that I can turn to every day as a reminder of where I’m headed. I will also spend the year sharing here, but also keeping a private daily journal. I keep thinking how nice summers will be when I’m not sweltering in layers. How wonderful it would be to wear a tank top and Bermuda shorts and not feel self-conscious. How amazing it would be to wear a sleeveless dress and not have to wear a cardigan. 2. Lowered Expectations. My biggest struggle for as long as I can remember is having high expectations (if not unrealistic at times) of other people. I tend to wear my heart of my sleeve and find myself tore up over everything people do or don’t do (or say and don’t say). I can hear my mom saying “you need to develop thicker skin”, and I never knew what that looked like. This year I want to let that go. Instead of worrying about and wondering if and why other people don’t like me, I’m going to take that energy and put it back into liking myself. I expect people to be better than I am, and give more than I can, and it’s just not fair. I expect kindness, generosity and thoughtfulness from those who are friends, but I don’t always get it. I expect those around me to care about what I’m doing, to be interested, to say something, anything to let me know that they care. And there are people who do and there are people who don’t and I have to stop waiting for people to get me, to validate me, especially when I haven’t let them in. So when I find myself going down the familiar path of wanting more from someone else I will simply whisper to myself “lower your expectations, it’s not about you” and move on. I realize that my high expectations keep me a victim of other people, they keep me negative and things begin to fester. The act of nothing from someone else, turns into something and I want to be better than that. 3. Embrace Humor. I love having a sense of humor and I like when mine comes out. I love laughing with other people and being silly. I have a pretty good (if not crass at times) sense of humor, and I want to embrace it and bring it out more. I want to be fearless in that regard and trust that I can laugh at life and be less serious. It’s in me and I want to bring it out more. 4. Work Harder, Be Focused. Here’s the thing. I keep myself busy, but for the most part it’s just me being busy. I’m actively trying to figure out who I want to be when I grow up. I want to figure out my life’s work. I waste a lot, a lot of time being overwhelmed and worrying. It’s not productive, it’s not moving forward, it’s not growing, it’s not anything at all, but wasted time. I get excited about ideas, I have more ideas to fill up a warehouse. And I don’t know what they mean. I wait until the last-minute to do things, and often I find that they are half-assed. I want to stop doing that to myself. I want to work harder in confident, focused ways. I’m not 100% what they even means, but I want to get closer to whatever that is. I want to improve my writing, design, illustration and photography skills. I want to do more work that I’m proud of. 5. Have Blind Faith. I don’t put a lot of faith in the notion that things will just work out. I don’t trust the process. I don’t trust that things will just happen on their own, or naturally, or in “god’s will”. I have deep-rooted fear it not growing so much so that I become stagnant from the fear, how’s that for irony? I believe we have to make things happen, and actively seek out what makes our hearts sing, but… I want more blind faith this year. As I write this I can feel my chest tighten and my breath shorten. I see flashes of all of those episodes of Oprah that I watched growing up where women got lost and they are crying on her stage at the age of forty or fifty because they stopped seeking out what they wanted long ago. They let kids, marriage, and careers take hold and forgot to seek their dreams and maybe those are/were their dreams, but an essence was lost in the day-to-day. This year, I want to stop fearing my journey. I feel as though this worrying is mostly misguided and I want to trust my unplanned process this year. I want to believe more that just by doing, I will get where ever I need to go. I want to change my perspective. 6. Less TV. I’m setting a two hours a week rule for TV, unless I earn time as a reward for extra exercise or meeting a deadline. 7. Eat Less Factory Food. I’m not looking for perfection, just being more mindful and better about this. 8. Let Go of Perfection. Perfection is the root of my procrastination and I need for that to go away this year. Before starting a project I get so wrapped up in wanting it to be perfect, that I never start. I need to just start, work hard, be focused and have blind faith that it will work out. 9. Let Go of Validation. I need to stop waiting on other people in my life to cheer me on, to get what I do, to support my goals. In all honesty, I don’t do this very well for others and I should stop expecting (those pesky expectations again!) for it in return. I want to stop waiting on others to define who I am. 10. Spent More Time Outside . Lets be honest here, nature is scary. There are bugs, spiders, snakes, bears, and poisonous plants all ready to jump out and get us! Living in Floyd leaves little room for admitting to such fears, but mine is alive and well. I want to spend more time in my garden, but what is a spider crawls on me? I want to sit on the porch at night, but what if somethings flies out and attacks me? I want to go camping, but what if a bear tries to eat our food and eats us instead? I want to go hiking, but what if I fall off of a rock? I could keep this up for days. I’m taking baby steps in our own yard and deck. I bought a little bistro table for daily outside dining, I’m going to decorate the porch with potted plants (that I will have to go outside and water!) and twinkle lights. I want to walk around our (small, yet adequate) property. Walk up the steep hill, mow the lawn, get my hands dirty, pull the weeds, trim the hedges, have a picnic… you name it, I want more of that. 11. Take More Risks. I’ve toyed with a couple of moderately life changing ideas, like going back to school or getting a job outside of the house. And while I’m not convinced either of these are good ideas right now, one would bring more debt and the other would require significant car time. I want to be a little more open to these ideas. There is a part of me that believes I’m not qualified for either, and I want to get over that and get better either way. 12. If I Get Stuck, Seek Pen and Paper (or a blank word document) . Write it out, let it go. 13. Create a Beautiful (uncluttered) Living Environment. 14. Go on More Adventures. 15. Get Dressed Every Day. 16. Move More. 17. Limit Social Networking to 30 Minutes a Day. 18. Make My Health and Wellness a Top Priority. 19. Smile More Often. 20. Let People In. 21. Get Over Embarrassing Things From My Past. 22. Act With Love. 23. Challenge My Fears. 24. Be More Spontaneous and Flexible. 25. Cook At Least Five Times a Week. 26. Make Everything From One Cookbook. 27. Visit a New State. 28. Develop My Blogs. 29. Have A Lot More Fun!

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29 Resolutions

Why It’s Personal

admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:22:01 +0000

Good morning! Can you tell beets made a special appearance in my juice today? I love the bright red color! Last night I did something that I always intend to do, but never actually do. I prepped all the vegetables so they would be ready for easy eating or cooking. I even prepared several sandwiches and boiled some eggs. I’m also working on a whole chicken and a big batch of brown rice and quinoa to eat on during the week. Why have I not done this before? I put everything for my juice in a plastic salad container last night so that this morning all I had to do was pull it out of the refrigerator, cut the apples, peel the lemon and start juice. I had juice and the juicer cleaned in less than five minutes. Why do these simple things in life make me feel so accomplished? I’ll never know. I had this big(ish) post planned for today, that would go into the details of how things are going and what I’m doing and how I’m doing, but then I realized what better way to show than tell? I’m not the best at articulating things that seem abstract in my head. But, to sum it up. After reading Brain Over Binge , I emailed the author, Kathryn Hansen. I’ve never emailed an author and wasn’t expecting a response, but sure enough, not long after my first email she replied. And then she replied again to another email filled with questions. And while I was forming the questions and reading her response, I realized something totally and completely obvious: The process is personal. Katheryn talks in-depth about her life post-binge. A life that is very similar to her normal eating patterns before she ever began dieting in her early teens which lead to anorexia and then bulimia (binge eating with extreme exercise). Kathryn knew about normal eating, she knew what it felt like and could call upon those feelings. Those feelings helped her to tell the difference between a binge urge and just a normal human urge to eat a little more, seconds or dessert. For her, snacking, eating without hunger and occasionally overeating are all normal. She’s also never been overweight or obese. Needing to lose weight complicates the process more for people like me. And this is where my journey branches off. I don’t know what it feels like to eat normally as a default. I know what it looks like and can identify what an acceptable portions is. I can recall hiding food at a very young age and because of this, I don’t have a lot of experience to draw upon to tell the difference between binge eating and “normal” eating. For me, eating without hunger, while normal on occasion for someone like Kathryn, signals to my brain that I’m in overeating mode. Eating seconds, eating between meals, and most importantly eating without hunger, all indicate that I’m off track. This thought process leads to overeating or binge eating. For Kathryn, she has a hard time telling the difference between true hunger and urges. I don’t. I’m very aware of the difference between eating for true hunger and not. Eating without that true feeling of hunger, for me, is following my “lower voice”. That’s not to say this always isn’t the case or that there aren’t exceptions, but it’s just something I’m avoiding using Kathryn’s methods. Occasionally people will say to me that I need to eat xyz or not eat xyz or that I need to eat several times throughout the day. And all I can say it, this is why it’s so important for me not to put what works for me onto other people. For me, eating a handful of cherries while making dinner is okay. Eating a handful of potato chips is not. Eating six meals a day because someone tells me a should, even though I’m not hungry, is not okay to me, only because it signals an urge to continue eating. Eating without hunger is like telling myself “you blew it! eat more!” And that’s my pattern. Kathryn’s Response: This is one of the reasons why I mentioned in my book that some people may want to use meal plans (and possibly consult a nutritionist) at first, if they truly feel like they don’t know how to eat normally without binge eating. I didn’t give much advice directly to the reader (I primarily explained my own story and ideas) in the book because I’m not in a position to give specific medical advice, but that’s one thing I felt was important to include. You have to do what you think will be best for you, and if that includes no unplanned eating and/or no extra servings and/or no small snacks of less-than-healthy food; I think that makes sense. I referred to something similar to this in the last chapter of the book under the subheading “Bridge to Addiction Therapy,” saying that someone could get rid of all problematic foods for a while, then gradually add them back if they want them in their diet. For you, you could avoid all non-hungry eating for a while, and then – when you feel more confident – gradually start giving yourself some more flexibility. In my past, another slice of cake always signaled that I was out of control, or would soon be. Even if it was just another portion of something, I’ve always used that as an excuse to eat more. It seems that for me, when I eat when I’m not hungry, I’m giving myself a free pass to binge or to eat too much. This sort of black and white thinking is my pattern. I’m in a place where I want to eat well because I’m trying to get a lot done. If food weighs me down or makes me feel bad, I become foggy and start putting things off. Yesterday for example, was a good day of eating : Woke up slight hungry so I ate a green apple and drank some coffee. I rarely drink coffee, but I followed the craving. A few hours later I ate a spinach salad with salsa, a couple of homemade corn chips crumbled on top, a little shredded turkey and a few cherry tomatoes. I felt good, satisfied and full. Around dinner time Josh took me out to Mexican where I had a few corn chips and we shared the chicken fajita dinner for one. I ate a small plate of the salad, guacamole, chicken and vegetables. I was full and satisfied. And that’s one day, each day is different, but it was successful for me (emphasis one me) because 1) I didn’t overeat 2) I didn’t eat when I wasn’t truly hungry 3) I ate what my body wanted 4) I ate until satisfied and because of this I felt 1) clean 2) productive 3) healthy 4) satisfied. Everyday is different. Some mornings I may wake up and just want a raw juice, while others nothing else will satisfy me like whole wheat toast, eggs and bacon. Other lunches may be a giant salad, or a burger or Indian food. Dinner may be sushi, or steamed vegetables, or a couple of slices of pizza. All of these decisions are okay with me. I feel good as long as I’m not eating too much. For me, at this stage, eating without hunger, overeating and binge eating are all one in the same. They may look slightly different, but the root is very much the same. It’s how I can tell if the urge is a habit or a true need. I want my food choices to be because they make me feel good. Raw juice and a turkey sandwich for breakfast this morning fuels me and makes me feel good. It’s not perfect. I’m not going to eat six meals a day just because it’s suggested or because it works for someone else. The other balance is cooking and preparing food when I’m not actually hungry, in anticipation. I’m planning meals and having things ready to eat. I have a clear idea of what I want to eat and making it easily accessible is key. So I’m curious, how is your journey different from mine? Does anything trigger old or bad habits for you?

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Why It’s Personal

It Chooses You

admin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:22:00 +0000

Good morning! Did you guys get any snow yesterday? So far we just have a dusting, it’s mostly cold and windy. Is it bad that I’m hoping for at least one big snow this winter? Yesterday’s breakfast was so good. I had one of Jeanne’s eggs fried in butter, a couple of slices of peach ham, a clementine and a small slice of banana bread. I ended up not eating more than a bite of the banana bread because I got overzealous with reheating it in the microwave. I think a loaf of banana bread is in my future. Lunch was really late in the day so I kept it small. A shared chicken burrito, half of an avocado, and salsa. Dinner took forever to cook, but it was so worth it. I made tandoori chicken burgers with yogurt cucumber sauce and naan. I topped the burgers with cucumber, red onion and cilantro. It was amazing. The chicken patties were tender and had a lot of Indian spice flavor to them. I also really liked the cumin in the cucumber sauce. I didn’t get a good photo of the burgers because it was 9pm and I didn’t feel like pulling out the natural lights, but these were amazing. I’ll definitely be making them again. You can find the recipe for the tandoori chicken burgers here . The only difference for me was the chicken. I used whole chicken breasts and ground them up in the food processor with the spices. The naan recipe is here . I did not exercise yesterday and can tell it’s going to be hard at first to get back into the swing of things. I woke up early to exercise and then waited for Josh and then just kept putting it off until we were both too tired. I think honestly we were both excited to get back to work and have a normal day that it took second seat to everything else. No excuses today though. I’m almost done reading It Chooses You by Miranda July. Oh my. It’s so very interested and surprisingly sad and deep. Miranda’s comments about life, time and death feel so familiar to what goes on in my own head that it’s comforting to read the words from someone else. While writing or trying to write a screen play she decides to seek out the people from the LA Penny Saver for interviews. What she finds is a whole lot of crazy in a world that exists without the internet.

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It Chooses You

Resound11 Prompt 10: High/Low

admin — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:46:49 +0000

Today is a bit of a choose your own adventure: write (paint, draw, photograph, record, etc.) about your best experience this year. If that’s not your cup of joe, write about your worst experience. Feeling chatty? Share both your best and worst moments. How will you resound? There are several best moments this year. The best ones were traveling with Josh, taking a real vacation that involved not much more than walking to dinner, traveling to California for the first time, hosting friends at my house, being hosted at other homes and for the whole of the year finding and sharing time with people who just “get” me and vice versa. I find comfort in my relationships with other people. I wouldn’t say there was a definitive worst moment of the year. Thankfully, for the most part 2011 was smooth sailing. My biggest lesson this year came in a difficult way and that came by giving red flag people the benefit of the doubt repeatedly. I believe (and still do) that most people are good. I like to believe that most people have the best intentions. And then their are others who live purely on the surface. They don’t have relationships with other people, they bring me and everyone else down, they try to fix my life and wave their magic wands so that I can be “better”, they analyze me in a negative way (and most other people), and they get involved in my life and then quickly pull away. They throw stones at how I live my life with my husband. My lesson is, is that I’m not always crazy and overly sensitive when I have red flag feelings about people, I don’t always have to get involved with these people. I don’t have to give them permission to bring me down. It’s okay to simply say no and move on. There are people who think that my life “isn’t together” because I’m not on the exterior, always a together person. We don’t drive a fancy car because we are waiting for our current car to die, this bothers some people. We didn’t buy the fanciest or most expensive house in town. This means that we are “poor” and our house is “too small” to entertain. My husband doesn’t shave every day and has wild and crazy hair, this means he is “irresponsible and not a real adult”. We don’t have children so we are “selfish”. We work from home and this means we are “unemployed”. Yes, these people exist, and yes, I finally understand what it means to have civil relationships all the while giving them a big “f-you” and moving on. It feels Awesome, with a capital A.

When I Wake Up Tomorrow

admin — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:08:40 +0000

First, thank you to those who took the time to comment and participate during the Waiting For Hunger challenge. And then my life got really busy and blogging got pushed down to the bottom. And that’s just how it goes. I’m still waiting for hunger and would love to revisit this challenge again in the very near future, because writing during the day is helpful for me. I have to admit that things got foggy right when I stopped blogging my experience. I’ve had so much going on that I still turned to food. Emotional eating is real. I have been a participant my whole life. Who am I to be changed in a week? It’s an ongoing process. The question I’m asking myself is, how do I stick to my goals when life gets busy? I love being busy, I love getting things done, productivity is a huge portion of my happiness. But, there are times when I feel like I’m spinning my wheels, or don’t know where to start. I get overwhelmed. I put things off. And those are the times when I find myself in the kitchen looking for something to eat. Hungry or not. My work life doesn’t end at 5pm. I don’t shut down the computer and head for home to watch TV and make dinner. I do both things, almost daily, but then I head back to work. Because I love it. There are times when I overextend myself and end up coping or punishing myself with food. Busy for me, is starting a clothing line (that opens in two days!), creating jewelry, updating and working on all my blogs (there are four), checking and sifting through many emails, making sure I’m on top of all my design deadlines, cooking and cleaning (lots of both), juggling meetings and office time, finding new work, creating new experiences for myself and making time to rest, be social, have husband time and most importantly exercise. And I love these aspects of my life so much, they are why I wake up happy in the morning. I love that I have the freedom to choose my day. I want to use my time better, in realizing that my life is my own pattern and if there is something I need to happen. It’s up to me to make it happen. So with that said, I feel like there are a few hurdles that I need to jump before making my life work for me in the healthiest possible way. The first one is self-worth and self-esteem. So often I get kind compliments/comments from people regarding the way I live my life. A way that seems natural to me. And I often feel like I’m just pretending. That any minute someone will raise the curtain and find out how bad I really am at everything I do. And it’s crazy. My negative voice is loud and it haunts me. It tells me what other people could be thinking about me. It criticizes my decisions. It makes me feel worthless and uninteresting. It tells me that people know I’m not smart and are just humoring me. It tells me that I will never make things happen in a real way. It tells me that I’m not worth goodness. And often I have conversations in my head are along the lines of “they will think this of me if I do that”, “so and so doesn’t really like me”, “they think I’m an idiot”. But, I realize that people do not think that, I think that about myself. And then I step down from it and move on. I was reading a Blogging Your Way e-course description that read “… [we will] show(s) you how to use your blog as a catalyst to create your best life.” And out loud I said, yes! That one sentence is why I blog. I blog because I show myself how to live my best life. I challenge myself to think a little longer and to put myself out there when it is uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable is a good thing if you’re willing to face it. And I’m trying to face it. I was reading quotes from Steve Jobs from his Stanford Speech and this one stood out “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” I just love the second to last line. I want to have the courage to make mistakes and face them. As I was sewing a scarf of my own design yesterday evening. I realized that I made a mistake in the construction. I needed three closures instead of two or would look weird. And so I pulled out my seam ripper, took a deep breath, and starting breaking my imperfect seams. This was a challenge for me on several levels. I first had to admit that I made a mistake. And then I had to face the mistake and make a decision. Do I scrap the project and call myself a failure? Do I keep going, pretending that I didn’t make the mistake and sit on a bad project that doesn’t make me proud? Or do I suck it up and try again. I chose the latter, but not without wincing. I was uncomfortable. I sat with it and walked myself through a game plan. I would rip the seam. Make another loop. Position the loops again and sew the seam back up. And while it’s just sewing I learned many lessons about myself in the process. The first lesson is that I’ve been scared to face my mistakes. I’ve been covering them up and punishing myself for not being perfect the first time. The second lesson is making a decision. So often, I walk (or run) away from myself or others instead of facing what is uncomfortable. Instead of making a plan of action, I drop the ball. And finally, I learned that I struggle with feelings of inferiority and discomfort and when faced with them, I eat. And so when I revisited the “Ideal Day” task, I started asking myself “If I could wake up tomorrow, what would I like to be different?”. I sat down with a new word document and typed. I typed a story that I was picturing each step of the way. I pictured myself waking up in a bedroom where clothes weren’t piling up on the floor. Where the clean sheets were soft and the bed was plush. I walked to the bathroom and stepped on the scale. 135 blinked back at me. My hair was long and shiny. My body is not perfect, but strong. I pull my hair back. Put on workout clothes. Get my ipod ready and I head out for a jog. Because that is where I feel free and weightless. It’s early, but not dark. I’m rested. I head back to the house and fix a nice breakfast. I sit down and enjoy it with my husband. We talk. I read a little. I take a shower and get dressed for the day. I head to my bright studio and return emails. I work for four hours on projects. I meet design deadlines. I feel accomplished. I’m on top of my work and not stressed. I’m not behind. And then I go make lunch. I take my time eating. Or some days I meet a friend for lunch. And take a short walk outside. I might have a dog to walk. I head back in and work on creative projects through the evening. I take time to learn new skills. I’m patient with myself. I document my process and day, because I love doing those things. I take time to blog and plan my blogs. I do a little cleaning and then I make something glorious for dinner. The house is clean and organized. Every room is decorated to my (our) taste. So eat and enjoy some sort of exercise like zumba or yoga. I settle in for the night with a project and TV with Josh. Or I come back to my creative space if I want. I spend time with Josh. I brush my teeth and wash my face before bed. I crawl into our plush bed. That’s the shortened version, but sums up my ideal day. And then I went back and put all the words in bold that I could make happen today. 98% of that, I could have within the week. That says something. It says something about how I intentionally bring myself down. That I don’t always believe I’m worth the effort. That what makes me happy is within my reach. And all those actions on my ideal day, help bring me to the 1% that won’t happen in a week. Which is a much lower, much healthier (for me) weight. I’ve inspired myself to live my ideal day and set up my life and environment for it. I’m not expecting perfection, but I can do better for myself. I really can. There are things that I’m not doing because I don’t feel worthy. It’s bull crap. It really is. I’m worth whatever I need to make my ideal day happen.

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When I Wake Up Tomorrow

People Who Handle Your Food Work Sick

admin — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 15:54:16 +0000

Have you ever actually found a fly in your soup? I haven’t. I’ve seen it in cartoons, but in real life? No, never. Unless you’re eating at an outdoor caf� in Calcutta, you’re probably safe from rabid winged pests. But apparently food service workers are a bigger threat to your dinner than Musca domestica Linnaeus; a new study says many food restaurant employees go to work sick, and don’t get sick days. Continue reading…

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People Who Handle Your Food Work Sick

Skinny People Taught to Hate Overweight People? [Forum]

admin — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 10:56:27 +0000

From what i have experienced with weight loss is that i am still not at the weight i need to be but on this journey i have built the satisfaction as an individual to understand other people and know for a fact that everyone struggles with something, no matter what our physical appearance is and that if we all worked on ourselves and got to know who we are we would treat others better on a daily basis. I would love to know what others think about skinny people being taught to hate or dislike someone who is overweight?

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Skinny People Taught to Hate Overweight People? [Forum]