Relaxed

I was out at the lake during lunch today and pressed my cell phone's camera into service. There is nothing quite so nice as mid-80's temperatures, no humidity, a good book, the sound of water running through the creek and feet up. Perfect catnap setting before heading back into work.

The Chocolate Triplets

Here we are, left to right -









White Chocolate , Dark Chocolate and Milk Chocolate

We are the chocolate ladies all decked out in our browns and creams and caramels.

Sadly, Darlene wasn't well and could not join us after all but Angela and Wanda (White and Milk respectively) were wonderful. We are already planning another get together and hopefully include Darlene the next time.


Wanda is full of life and warmth and generosity of heart. Angela is a bit quieter (well a lot quieter) with great depth and keen interest in what is being said around her. She raised four kids (3 boys and a girl) now all grown if you can believe that.

It is a never-ending fascination to me that we can meet on-line and make such genuine connections. Meeting Angela and Wanda face to face today simply became a natural extension of a friendship already formed. We already knew so much about each other and there is a lot to admire about these two ladies. If you have not visited these two yet, please be sure to do so soon. They started blogging just recently in January and February and judging from my visits to them, they already have developed a great fan base and deservedly so.

Reflecting on the day, I realized that I've gotten pretty good at meeting my blogging friends. It started last summer with Tammy, moved on to Vicci and then Vicci again this time with Lisa, Maryellen, and Biene (with quick drop in visits by my daughter and Maryellen's). Then in March I met Corey for a brief but exciting 90 minutes at the Starbucks in Willows as we were heading to Oregon for Erin's bridal shower. And now Angela, Wanda, and Darlene in spirit. But wait! It doesn't end there. We are headed for Oregon again in a couple of weeks for the wedding and then I'll have a chance to meet Jone and perhaps some others. What a rich and varied world these women bring to my doorstep. You have all helped me in difficult times and are following me through this evolution I'm going through as I lose weight (15.5 lbs gone as of this morning), let go of old heartaches, and regain my lost confidence. I'm blessed to know you all.

Light is shining

Wow! I am seriously doing a happy dance. I lost 2.5 lbs this week. This is fabulous. I'm thrilled. Ecstatic. Over the moon. There are not enough superlatives in the English language to express how good I feel at this moment. This is a total of 15.5 lbs since I started my weight loss program.

The weight is falling off me like a lot of the negativity in my life. I am feeling freer and happier and more in balance than ever before. I am making healthy choice in every aspect of my life, not just physical. I'm not hiding anymore.

I feel like I am on the downside of a roller coaster ride and wheeing all the way down. I know the climb up will happen again. I have too long a ways to go yet on this journey. But for today I am thrilled and rather than just post this at my private weight-loss blog, I really wanted to share it here as well.

Today I have a lot of excitement ahead of me. After getting some packages out in the mail, I am meeting Darlene, Wanda, and Angela Marie at Hamilton's Cafe in Hughson. We all discovered a few weeks ago that I live just about 10 minutes away from them. Amazing. Pictures to follow.

Wishing everyone a great Memorial Day weekend.

And the winner of . . .

. . . . the book drawing is - Chamara at Gypsy Purple. Thanks to all who entered. This was fun.

Endings

Heart heavy weighed down

Thirty years pass, thirty seconds end

Hole in my heart, is there room for another hole?

Is there enough heart left to have space for another hole?

Change comes stealthly

Sneaks up darkly

Flows around inevitably

A question of differences and a bridge too weak

to bear the weight and the wait.

Inner thoughts. Unexpected avenues.

Is there enough space left? Yes.

Welcome dark hole. Fill with something new.

Random Moi

I got tagged last week for seven random things about me. And of course I've let time go by and I can't find how it was who tagged me. If you read this and it was YOU, raise your hand and wave. Sorry this took so long. So without further time passing - Fait au hasard me

1. I love using Babel translator to translate English to French
2. I'm a Scorpio
3. Periwinkle blue is my favorite color
4. I love reading Jane Austen, Jane Eyre is my favorite novel, the mystery writings of J.D. Robb and James Patterson are not to be missed
5. Paying it forward is one of my life rules
6. My fantasy self plays the cello
7. I wish I had the courage to get a tattoo - just a small one

And there you have it, Seven Random things about me. Do you want to share randomness about yourself? Jump right in. The water's great.

REMINDER - I have a book give-away going. See here for info. I will send this book anywhere in the world so please don't be shy. If you are halfway around the world and are interested, go for it.

Words to Live By

Don't die with your music still in you.
Be attuned to your intuitive inner voice.

Listen to this invisible companion,
express the music that you hear,
and ignore what everyone else around you
thinks you should be doing.

from Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
with thanks to Carmen for posting this at her site.

Book Give Away

Jennie over at Cyber in a Bottle hosted a book give away a few weeks ago. I won the book. I've finished now and would like to do the same thing. So - if you are interested in receiving Patricia Cornwall's At Risk, comment here by 5 p.m. Thursday and I'll toss you name in the hat for a drawing in the evening. Click on the book title for an Amazon link for information about the book.

Scraps

I was cleaning out my studio and ran across quite a lot of scrap fiber from various projects. I started tying them together and made this lopsided, free form granny. It was fun working with the different weights and textures all in one piece. Now what to do with it. Ideas, anyone?

Sanatio in Radice

Met with Fr. Silva (my spiritual director) yesterday evening. I just laid it all out to him. Family memories, weight, Don's resignation, unexpected reactions stemming from mom's passing. All my feelings and confusion and fears of this week since Monday. The roller coaster ride that has left me feeling so out of harmony. I've been striving towards balance and harmony, an awareness of where life might be taking me, and I completely lost it this week and was left with nothing but questions.

What is human maturity but a ripening, an act of preparing for and engaging in a full life. The meaning of "full life" is as individual as the person who is paying attention to this process. Like losing weight, maturing to your full potential is a process. Honest efforts reveal layers of hard work to get through. It's step by step (so obvious) but each step is so loaded with challenges, it is no wonder most people fail in their weight loss efforts. Or, where maturity is concerned, slip into their comfort zone and stay there.

It takes a lot to free yourself from fears and hurts that are so deeply buried that you don't even know they are there. If these invisible agents of failure are lurking out of sight, how can one even KNOW to dig or, if one knows, then where?

Taking a sharp turn here now -- I struggled with God for years. Now, I'm no Ignatius or Augustine; my struggle with Him has been more like a child struggling with a parent. For me, it was something like:

- Struggle with God/Parent
- Go with the flow of what is around me.
- Focus entirely on children. Try to give them the tools for freedom that I could not use for
myself. Of course, this can end up being something like the blind leading the blind.
- Elder care done out of love, obligation, duty, guilt, the desire to fix/save
- To somehow deliver a happiness in later years that eluded the parent earlier.

But I find that as my struggle with God stopped and I started to surrender; understanding and freedom started taking root. Harmony and balance were in sight, albeit just a pinprick of light far away but clearly in view.

The wrestling with God/parents has been freeing and ripening but the journey is actually just starting. Like a maze, there are paths which will turn out to be dead ends or will lead me through twists and turns. But these twin processes of weight loss and spiritual growth are necessary processes. There are many layers to be uncovered, examined and then fitted into the puzzle of a free life and clarity of purpose and the ability to remember, with love, those who are gone now. It will be a love without blinders, love with the full knowledge of who they were and who they were NOT. To discover this is freeing and provides focus. It is the heart of spiritual life.

It is Sanatio in Radice , a cleansing, a healing at the root.

For "B" - What I felt at 1:35 today

Loud silence settled on my ears. I closed my book and listened . .

. . . to the hum of a plane overhead echoed by the train's hum in the distance.

. . . the whisper of the trees as they spoke with the wind.

. . . the call of a blackbird, a magpie, and a chorus of geese.

Fountain sprays on a gust of wind. Fountain finds me.

Dabbled shadows flow over my table, sunlight filtered and comforting.
Leaves tumble and dance over asphalt, leaving invisible scars behind on the pavement.

It is Thursday and today I am alone but I feel surrounded by friends found in Nature. Touch this and feel the Creator's greatness. Feel this and be not alone.

Time to Lighten Up

It's time to lighten up. More journaling awaits me tomorrow. I'll have a lot of time to kill while Don has his second eye surgery so I'll write while I'm waiting. In the meanwhile, I'll post a few pics.

Mainstage lobby. A study in circles and squares. Biene and I lunch here twice a week before going out for our walk to the campus store for coffee (her) and a bottle of ice tea (me).


Our walks around the lake always treat us to a funny sight. This time around it looks like one of the big guys of the lake is impatient with the other to get out of his way.




In the campus art gallery, the end of year show is always a display of graduating seniors' works. This mixed media work covered in glass and framed in mirrors (cropped from this image) shows my reflection and reflects the art work on the wall opposite.



Up and down the valley, one can see the common sight of a granary waiting to unload their stores into the beds of the passing trains.


Gus just receiving the news that he will be losing an ear. "Oh NO!!"














Summer of '95, I'm in Paris walking the streets just below Montmartre. This man's lonely image captured my imagination. My 35 mm camera and twightlight conspired to make this oddly eerie portrait.

Driving Imperative

Can one have an absence of a driving imperative in one's life?

Can a life be so unchallenged that the lust to climb higher or rise above, is absent?

Can it be that a life can just drift?

I think NOT but the imperative that would drive us can be buried so deeply that we miss it, overlook it, don't live up to it and therefore we don't live up to our potential.

What is my imperative?

What is my potential?

Two weeks ago when Retabile tagged me for this meme, I thought I had the answer but two weeks of thinking about it, digesting the question, has taught me something else entirely.

Initially I thought my driving imperative was my faith in God - a God of love. But faith/belief isn't an imperative. If you have it, it is THE aid that carries you forward. In reality, it is the thing we want, the thing that we are driven to overcome and rise above that is our imperative. What was/is my driving imperative? What is it that I need to overcome?

My entire life I have been afflicted with a lack of confidence, focus, and discipline to follow a path. I drifted. Floated. Took occasional stops to adjust and change directions.

Marriage - Bad
School - Long and hard
Marriage - Good
Children - The best
Work - Not what I planned on or hoped for.
Aging - A door to new opportunities to get it right, at last.

What drives me now? What is the wheel that I steer? That I control?

What is my God-given gift that I can use to serve myself and somehow serve others?

I can listen.
I can give.
I can hear a call and inspire others to do good.

I have time to do something great. Leave my imprint.

That is my Driving Imperative - to live - finally!! - live up to my potential and at the same time lead others to rise to theirs.

If any of you are inspired to asked this question of yourself, I highly recommend it. Five people that I would be interested in hearing from (out of sooooo many, darn it) are:

Lee-Ann - Pear Tree Cottage
Chamara - Gypsy Purple
Jennie - Blog in a Cyber Bottle
Mary Timme - BeadFluff
Viccie - Moon, Stars, and Paper

BUT, remember, no obligation. This could be a tough one but anyone who is so inclined is welcome to join in as well. Please let me know if you do. And be sure to visit Geoffrey, the originator of this meme.

What Now?

So much of what I am about to write perhaps more appropriately belongs in my Interior Dialogues blog but I'm posting it here because this will really speak to the spirit of a lot of what is happening to me, the new understandings I am unveiling. Perhaps later, when I can look at all of this, turn it over in my mind, examine it, I'll post it all there as well.

Call with M last night. Felt again pushed to feeling responsible for our uneven relationship. Felt PUSHED. Frustrated that nothing I do is right. At a loss. Don't know what to do or say. So much I hear and don't "get", so much that does not make sense, does not ring true. At a loss once again.

Avoid certain thoughts about m & d. Accept the flaws and damage. More sense of that with m. d is another matter. Silence was our communication. Only occasional glimmers of light. If something could be ignored, it would go away.

Things don't go away. They get buried. I BURY.

Love not felt.

Frozen out.
Freeze myself.
Felt lacking
Weight
Wanting approval.
String dangled.

Face it. FUCKING FACE IT.
I could never really do it right.

Tangled with S. Love her. Does SHE know or feel it? m all over again. What is missing? What else can I do?
Do to make it better.
Fix it.

You don't love me.
Comparisons.
Why can't you be more like . . .
Not accepted.
Strings

Love so much
Want so much
No wonder I CAN NOT cry.

Bridges being built
Incomplete.
Two cliffs
Two sides
Don't jump over, jump across.
Jump TO -
Catch -
Hang on

Understanding.

Discovering goals and learning new habits

I came into this effort with only one idea - lose weight. The how was uncertain. All I knew was that it would be complex. Yes, I had a road map - Jenny Craig - but I don't have a success record to look back to, no memory of what I did once upon a time that resulted in weight loss and long term keeping it off. The big questions I had to answer during this first month was "What are my goals and what do I need to do to get there?" It's taken me all month to get through the maze of challenges below to get some of the answers.

1. Learn to plan.
2. Learn to think ahead.
3. Be prepared.
4. Slow down.
5. Savor.
6. Reprioritize.
7. Do what's right
8. Don't seek approval.
9. Break free



I didn't have any of this on my first Jenny day. It's taken me a month of self-awareness and evaluating my action to get here. So before I go any farther into this maze, here are the Stats for my first month. I've lost 12.2 lbs. and 19.5 inches.

Into the Maze

Food wasn't planned. It was day to day. Meal to meal. Snack to snack. Shopping was terrible. Storage of fresh foods worse. If it was easy, easy was the way to go. Now food preparation and easy isn't a bad thing, it just the definition of what is easy. Easy for me has been peanut butter and toast or a bowl of cereal. Redefining easy needed to involve planning.

Have food available. Have travel-friendly foods for work. Take food OUT OF THE FREEZER. At the end of this first month, I've planned better for Kris and Don, had everything I need for me, but am still failing to thaw ahead of time. I need to put together a strategy. Since I brush each night before I go to bed, I think a post-it on the bathroom mirror might be in order. Mission accomplished. I now have a strategy for developing the TAKE IT OUT OF THE FREEZER habit.

Think ahead means looking at my meal plan for the week and checking the fridge and pantry. Make a list. Buy for a week. Store perishable properly and they will last for the week. Saves money and trips to the store. Check. Got it.

Be prepared relates back to 1 and 2. If I have accomplished these habits than I will be prepared. See how it is all intertwined like a Maze?

I need to slow down. I need to eat slowly. I need to savor. Food should not be hurried. I needed to learn how to enjoy food, take pleasure in it, understand that a little good enjoyment goes a long way.

Reprioritizing my actions may have a "huh?" factor attached to it but doing things in such a way as to accomplish a goal, whether it's a project or weigh loss, is definitely a habit that encompasses much of the above. Reprioritizing slows me down. Makes me plan. Encourages me to look ahead to the end result.

For example:

Taking this out of the realm of food, consider projects that go unfinished in your life. I certainly have an abundance of these. What is my latest project? Crocheting. I love doing this. But, like many projects (read that THE KITCHEN - more about that down the line) I can see this heading into the unfinished zone. How to avoid this? Like with all such things with me, it started out with a mental tug-of-war and a compulsion to spend money without thinking it through - PLANNING towards the goal, if you will.

I'm working on a project that involves the used of Paton's Canadiania Aran color yarn. I have several granny squares ready to block and connect but less than half a skein of this particular yarn left for connecting. Biene found the yarn at a store in Oakdale. My first impulse was to go to Oakdale after weighing in today to pick up the needed skeins. But after some careful thought, I decided to wait for two reasons -

1.) With Don's eye surgeries, he's lost a lot of work time and with no sick leave benefits, that equals loss of income. We really can't afford anymore this month, and;

2.) If I get the yarn now, I'll just keep on making squares and be no closer to completing the project.

So, I reprioritized. What really needed to be done to accomplish the goal of blocking and connecting the squares I already have? Easy solution. Wait to get the needed yarn. In other words, have patience. The blanket will be completed eventually but lets complete the first part of it first before going on to the next phase. It's the same with weight loss. Learn the plan, get comfortable with it. Don't look too far into the future. The amount of weight I have to lose is right up there with the size of the blanket I'm making. It's going to take TIME.

When I reprioritize by thinking things through, I end up doing the right thing and that feels good. And more than that, I don't let myself be influenced by anything outside of myself. My decisions are completely me accomplished. I'm not seeking anyone else's approval by making a certain decision or choice. This is FREEING.

Still feeling quiet

I am noticing that I'm feeling very quiet, very still, within myself. It is occurring to me that this is an unfamiliar feeling. I have felt this way from time to time before but the root of the cause seems somehow different.

In the past, these still moments accomplished regrouping, restrengthening, when I really needed it. Now it seems more like a lull to reorganize and reorient myself. I still have my small list of things to do, you know, the daily stuff of life that I personally find very easy to ignore. DH will give a strong affirmative to THAT.

I find my evenings totally occupied with crocheting (thank you, mom) and relearning this old artform. There is something almost meditative about crocheting, the repetition of motion that creates its own rhythm. It is relaxing and rewarding.

My camera is not looking at the world at the moment. Since cameras look outward, this makes perfect sense to me. But, the camera is still always there, always in my purse ready to be pulled out.

I find myself scribbling notes to myself for Retabaile's "meme" on driving imperatives. Be assured, Ret, my notebook is filling. Reflecting on driving imperatives is showing me the ebb and flow OF the imperative I've settled upon. That imperative won't be a surprise to anyone who is a regular reader here but actually thinking of the order of things forces me to reflect on my entire life (gee, thanks, Ret). ** smiling here, I promise, Ret **

I find myself musing on poems that don't go anywhere beyond my mind. The brain and the hand seem to be disconnected at the moment.

So, I continue to feel quiet. I'm actually grateful for this feeling. I haven't had a chance to recharge myself, just FOR myself, in I think, my entire life. I don't regret or resent any of what has come before. My life certainly has not been a hard one. But there is something rather like Christmas and birthday all wrapped into one big package that makes this process quietly exciting. And there's that word "quiet" yet again.

Being quiet and other things

This has been a rough week at work. Boy has it been rough. I'm so glad it is Friday. It has also been quiet battle time for me in the weight loss struggle department. Third weeks are always a tough time for me and it doesn't help that I'm still nurturing the habit of daily walks (not there yet) and not being a slave to the bathroom scale.

But - I've been quietly battling through this third week. I've kept my focus almost entirely on this and managed to walk 2.5 time between M and Th. The .5 was a delivery between one building and another - 6 minutes but more than I usually do since I leave the running around to my student assistant. And why you may ask? On Tuesday when Pah was here last I had her running all over campus for two hours. That is two hours of work at my desk that I can't afford to be away from. Considering the pleasant weather earlier this week, it would have been nice to do this even at an amble.

Oh, and ambling. That is another habit I'm working on changing. Walking is becoming purposeful. No books with me to read as I walk. YES, I do DO that. Walking is becoming about breathing and keeping my head up and taking in the world around me.

AND NOW - Other Things

Ret over at Poefrika tagged me for what I consider to be a really serious MeMe. It's called the Great Imperative. Considering driving forces, recent death, and rapid changes in my life, I would say the Great Imperative in my life has been doing one heck of a shift. I'm giving this MeMe the time it deserves and will be working on it over the weekend to post in the next few days. You all might start thinking about the Great Imperative in your life. You might get tagged.

Later in the morning

I walked as I promised. Rushed would be a better description. Have more running around to do and 20 minutes at lunch for formal walking. It's lightly raining but I have an umbrella . I love walking in a light rain. I walked again during lunch, around the lake. Walking here is so peaceful. I had my book with me but kept it in my pocket and walked with my head up enjoying the peace.


Walking in the light drizzle was
like walking in a cloud.

Land of Mystery

For as long as I've had Mapcluster on my site, I've been fascinated by the absence of activity in the old Soviet Union. I've wondered, for a year now, when I might get a hit in that mysteriously cyberless world. Well, this week it happened.

There is one tiny red dot on my Mapcluster map tucked away in the Russian Federation. Somewhere east of Kazakhstan, north of China, and west of Mongolia, a lone blogger clicked in for just a moment. There was no message so I'm left to imagine who this rare bird might be. Whoever he or she may be, if you see this know that you are acknowledged. I saw you and you were the first to start filling up that sadly blank part of my map.

Welcome.

Laughing through my Tuesday

Just came back from a walk with Biene. It was a good 20 minutes and I felt a little sweat building up. Bringing my walking shoes and some socks with me to school tomorrow to leave here. Why didn't I think of that sooner. If they are just going to sit in the closet, they might as well site HERE where there is a chance that they wil lactually be used. We have a plan of building my endurance up so that I can walk to Michael's during lunch with her. That will be a bit of a trek for me at this point but entirely do-able. Why oh why did I have to decide to do this at the beginning of hot weather??? Oh well. Now that I've committed to Biene, no way will she let me get away without doing it at least ONCE. That would be her German coming out.

1:45 and post-lunch
Biene and I hung out in the Mainstage lobby in the theatre department and laughed our way through the lunch hour chatting and crocheting. Well, I crocheted; she studied my crochet book and knitter that she is, she brought an informed eye to the differences in the two arts. We solved none of the world's problems but did find a bit of relief from private sadnesses, things we don't have any control over but nevertheless effect our daily life when thoughts become too hard to bare. All in all a very good lunch hour not overladden with calories and very full of the dessert of friendship.

What do you do when thoughts are too much and laughter is hard to find?