So I Can Sew

My mother was a seamstress.  She made all of my school dresses until I was in junior high.  She sewed clothes for my dolls.  She made pajamas for my brothers and clothes for herself.  Her sewing machine was always set up and had a project sitting on it.  Seeing my mom sew was a fixture of my childhood.  I had no interest in learning to sew.  She would often ask me if I wanted to sew and my answer was always no.  I am pretty confident that that was a disappointment to my mom.  But I wanted to establish a difference between my mom and I and one way for me to do that was to refuse sewing lessions.  I did take a Home Ec. class in the seventh grade.  Sewing was part of the class.  I made a skirt.  It was hideous and I never wore it.  When my husband and I were married, my mother-in-law asked if I would be interested in a sewing machine as a wedding gift.  I told her that I didn't sew and wasn't planning to learn.  She bought us a sewing machine for a wedding present.  I was...curious.  For many years, we used the machine as a door stop to keep the door leading from the house to the garage open when I was doing laundry.  I loaned that machine to an acquaintance and never got it back.  I was not distraught.  When my mother-in-law recently passed away, my father-in-law asked if any of his daughters wanted her sewing machine.  Since they all have their own, they said no.  He asked me if I wanted it.  My sister-in-law said that if I wanted her to, she would teach me to use it.  So at 53 years of age, I am learning to sew.  I hope my mom is watching. 

Countdown - Day 110

I really am taking my time with my weight loss.  I do have the goal of losing 25 pounds; there's no doubt about that.  But the bigger picture is that I am changing the way I eat and the way I think about food.  I know that food is a comfort at times and I am trying to find better ways of dealing with stress.  One way is the work I am doing in my backyard.  The work is both physical and therapeutic.  Food is also a way to combat boredom.  When I start to eat for no apparent reason, i.e. I am really not hungry, I pull out my Kindle and read instead, or I get Willie to play HallBall with me.  I know that there are many foods that I enjoy to eat that are no good for me, like chocolate or ice cream.  I have found that as I eliminate these things from my diet, I crave them less often and when I do decide to indulge, I only need a small amount and I am satisfied.  So why is it taking this long to lose the remaining eight pounds?  I'm not sure.  I know that I'm not stressing over it.  It'll happen.  We did go on our seven-day cruise and I gained three pounds while we were gone.  And I lost those three pounds within a couple of days of returning home.  So I'll keep looking at my diet everyday to see if there are other changes that can be made.  For now, my weight loss is 17 pounds.

Countdown to the Wedding - Day 83

I am not a keeper.  I go through things in my house often and get rid of things that I'm not using anymore.  Other than seasonal items and a few sentimental things, I weed things out pretty often.  I do, however, tend to keep clothes that I hope I can get back into "some day."  It's a good thing I did that because I've been able to pull pants out of the top of my closet that I had been saving.  Some of them don't fit with the style that I want for myself now.  Some of them look great on me again.  I just spent an hour going through my entire closet.  I filled seven big bags with clothes that are too big or don't make me feel good when I put them on.  It was a good purge.  In getting ready for the cruise that we're going on, I now have a good picture of what I have and what I need to buy.  We're going to Alaska, where the high temps these days will be in the upper 60s and low 70s.  I've lost most of my weight since our weather turned to the 90s.  Time to go shopping!! 

Countdown to the Wedding - Day 82

I haven't lost any more weight since early June.  I'm not discouraged by that.  I intended to lose the weight slowly, doing so by changing my eating habits and by figuring out what fits into that new plan and what doesn't.  I'm at the point now where I can tell just how much I need to be eating, what I need to be eating and what to change in order to lose any more pounds.  I can easily manage my new weight.  That is important to me because once I've reached my goal, I don't want to gain weight again.  It's also important because in a week, Tom and I will be on a 7-day cruise in Alaska.  I need to be able to maintain this through that vacation.  I am planning on getting back on track for the remaining ten pounds that I want to lose once we return home.  But I didn't want to have to be dieting on the cruise.  So the past three weeks have been instructional for me.  I CAN go on a cruise and not be afraid of gaining weight.  I'm very excited about that.  The temptations have gotten easier and easier to deal with.  One day I did have a little bit of birthday cake at a birthday party.  Afterward, my stomach was queasy and I decided that eating the cake was just not satisfying.  I feel confident that my "sweet tooth" has been tamed.  This is a good thing.    

Countdown to the Wedding - Day 62

One day a couple of weeks ago I was working at the library and a former employee came in with her son. She hadn't seen me in about a year. She said that I looked different. Was it my hair? No. She said I looked better, like I was wearing my clothes better. I told her I had lost weight and she said "It looks good on you."  I'll take that as a compliment.
I am enjoying my new way of eating.  Food tastes really good.  I have more energy and can go without eating between meals, except for that 3 pm slump.  But I did hit that plateau of 12 pounds lost.  It was frustrating and unexplainable.  I couldn't figure out what I had changed.  But I was determined to just keep doing what I was doing.  Keep eating protein and vegetables, with fruit just a couple times a week.  Keep saying no to bread and sweets, with a treat only rarely.  Keep drinking 2+ liters of water every day.  Keep walking Willie.  And this morning I got on the scale.  My total weight lost is now 15 pounds.

Countdown to the Wedding - Day 53

I haven't lost any weight since May 17.  No weight loss in ten days.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe I've hit a plateau.  Maybe I need to add something to my exercise routine.  I admit that I am getting discouraged.  Every day when I step on the bathroom scale, I see that my weight is the same.  And I groan a little inside.  Now, I am halfway to my goal of losing twenty-five pounds.  I still have just over five months to go, so I have lots of time.  Now is NOT the time to give up.  But there is also no WAY I'm going to back off on my goal.  I'll figure out how to lose the rest of the weight. 

Countdown to the Wedding - Day 43

I admit that I did not take Willie on a walk this morning.  I know, I did promise him an hour a day, every day.  But it was cold and windy and rainy.  I don't mind walking in the rain; I've already talked about that.  But it was COLD and WINDY and rainy.  I do love that kind of weather, but not for walking.  It is quite unusual for Northern California to have cold, windy, rainy weather in the middle of May.  I enjoy it.  But not for walking.  So Willie and I stayed in today.  I started out the morning with a cozy blanket on my lap and he was content to lay there and be petted.  But as the day wore on, it became apparent that Willie did need an outlet for his energy.  So we played Hall Ball for two hours.  Hall Ball is a game invented by my husband Tom and Willie.  Tom will stand in the entrance to our dining room and kick a ball down the hall.  Willie will run after the ball and bring it back.  He will plop it at Tom's feet and Tom will kick it again.  Sometimes Willie blocks the ball and sometimes he doesn't.  No matter what, he picks up the ball and plops it at Tom's feet.  This is a game that is mostly played by Tom and Willie.  I've played this game with Willie a couple of times but I can always tell that I'm not playing it quite like Tom does.  Today I started playing Hall Ball just to keep Willie from barking at the tree blowing in the wind.  He thinks the tree is moving because squirrels are leaping from branch to branch.  Willie doesn't understand wind.  We played for two hours.  Willie kept bringing the ball back and I kept kicking it.  I know that I didn't get the benefit of a long walk.  But Willie enjoyed the two hours of play.  We'll get our walk in tomorrow.  Today we had to make due.  My  total weight lost today is 12 pounds.