Whittling Away

Does anyone else think it's entirely unfair how easy it is to gain weight and how hard it is to lose it?

And that shit sneaks up on you! Here I am thinking everything's fine then a summer goes by and winter rolls around and I put on my jeans and BAM - they are tighter then they were last year!

One of the main benefits of moving to Highlands Ranch is that all the Rec Centers are free gyms with indoor pools. I've been going nearly every day for over a month now and I've seen no changes. I'm not going to quit but it is a bit disheartening.

One of the tricks I use to motivate myself is to pick a paperback I want to read and I can only read it while I'm working out. It works pretty well!

My gym book is Anno Dracula and it's not bad. The premise is that Queen Victoria is a vampire and Jack the Ripper is a vampire killer. The author has thrown in EVERYone associated with that time period into this book. At first it was kind of cool but then it got stupid. OK, we get it, it's Victorian times. Even so, the story line is keeping me interested. I'm about halfway through and I still haven't figured what the Anno in Anno Dracula means.

Speaking of books, did y'all read the comments yesterday?? One of the authors I invited to my fantasy Thanksgiving table commented! How fucking cool is that?? So, Dave King, author of The Ha-Ha, here's the little write-up I did when I read the book and if you're ever in Denver, I'll treat you to lunch!

Reading my way to fitness, Ruth!

Dear Diary

I've decided to start a food diary for a week. You know, where one writes down every edible thing one puts in one's mouth to see how much of a pig one might resemble?

I'm overweight. "How is that?," you say, "You knit all the time and love sweets and don't exercise that much and..... oh."

Yeah. Oh. As of May (Trev and Davie's birth month), I've been around 30 pounds overweight for over 6 years. When I realized that, I realized it was either time to do something about it or time to give up and buy bigger clothes. I'm not really the giving up type.

I've been walking every morning this week for about 20 minutes. Yesterday, it was stormy about a mile from our area. I was plugging along with my ipod on and wasn't really looking around when I heard this huge clap of thunder. I looked behind me (where the sound came from), then back forward, then to my right. To my immediate right, I mean it couldn't have been 5 feet away, stood a small doe munching grass! She looked at me and then kept eating! She was still there when I came back 10 minutes later on my way home. Still eating. (Maybe she needs a food diary. Just kidding)

It's great having the inlaws here so I can feel comfortable taking these walks. Their apartment is ready on Sep. 15. I don't know what I'll do after that. Not really comfortable leaving the boys alone in the house for 20 minutes. I don't think they'll set the place on fire or anything like that but I'm fairly certain they'd open the door to strangers.

Despite the "no soliciting" sign on the house, we get solicitors about once a week. Last week, we were visited by a rather scruffy, jailhouse tattooed man who was selling a house cleaning fluid. He was very insistent and washed our front glass door, then streaked it with his hand to show it's staying power. Then he shot some on his finger and put it in his mouth to demonstrate it's chemical-free-ness. Eeeewww! I know these guys are just trying to make a living and I have no problem with tattos (I have 6 of my own) but "no thank you" means "no thank you"!

I really like the Namaste Yoga that comes on at 10:30a and I've tried to do the aerobics show that comes before it but there was too much of that annoying aerobic WHOO!! Hate the whoo. Maybe I'll find me some Gilad. Love Gilad! (Maybe because he's got William Shatner hair?)

Going for my walk, Ruth!

P. S. Anybody wanna play food diary with me?