From the Archives



It's been a long week. This week it seems all I did was stay in perpetual motion, helping Rach stay on track with her homework, shopping for homecoming, physical therapy, doctor check-ups, flu-shots and end of fiscal year at work. In June Rach asked me to buy her tickets to a Blink 182/Fall Out Boy/All American Rejects concerts for her birthday, I did without checking to see if that date in September was a school night, it was. Wednesday night we went to a concert and crawled in around 1:00 am. I made myself a mental date to look at a calendar before I purchase concert tickets. The concert was great, more so because my friend Liana came in from Greenville (my home-town) with her son, I gave up my pit ticket to her son and she and I sat on the lawn, talked, played catch-up and let the music drift in and out of us. Thursday the building I work on made the 6 o'clock news when a terrorist was caught trying to start a fake bomb in the parking garage under our building, needless to say Friday was a bit strange at my office with the news crews hanging out at our front door. This week I lost 2 lbs and Rach 1.2 lbs--a good first week for both of us. Saturday my sister called to let me know they rushed my Momma to the emergency room, she has pnuemonia. My sister said she had been weak and unable to eat for several days, and that she became too weak to walk. She suffers from COPD, and even when she is well weighs no more than 100 pounds, she weighed less than 90 pounds when she went to the hospital. I talked to her on the phone, she sounded tired but her sense of humor was in place, a good sign. Im asking for prayers and well wishes for my Momma.

Change of Scenery




Photo of Seward Harbor, August 2009.

MyPyramid.gov



Well day 4 of the diet and I have already learned several things about myself and my daughter, first counting calories works great for me and Rach loathes the thought of it. Less than 1200 calories a day is almost impossible for me to maintain on a consistent basis, but I can easily stay within 1400 calories. Rach does not want to be introduced to leafy green vegetables. On Sunday we regrouped our strategy and went to the FDA website mypyramid.gov and fed in our profiles and customized food pyramids for the entire family. What we learned, is that according to the USDA I can lose weight and consume the recommended daily allowance of the basic food groups, grains, fruits, vegetables, milk and protein on 1600 calories, Rach on 2000, and Michael needs to double his food intake. The website has lots of calculators that allows you to calculate exchanges for common prepared items like frozen pizza, herb roasted potatoes, etc. It also lets you put in what you had and creates an bar graph of how you did each day. After four days of tracking what I eat, I learned a few interesting facts about my diet, I don't eat enough grain or milk. I eat double the daily recommended allowance of vegetables, nearly 5 cups in a day. almost all of the carbs in my diet are fresh fruits. The low grain is likely due to years of cutting carbs because of my diabetes, but I think I need to find a few complex grains and cut back on the fruits and if I can choke it down drink 8 ounces of skim milk with at least one of meals. I am hoping by sticking to nutritional needs instead of diet, my entire family will benefit from better nutrition. Its Monday, and surprisingly I am feeling groovy despite myself.

Me and Rach


Once again I am going to try to lose weight.  I have spent the last year bringing my blood sugar under control, trying to learn to exercise and focus on following the example of good health that my husband Michael has adopted. Michael after 25 years of smoking, has quit smoking, lost 70 lbs, and adopted exercise and healthy eating regime.  I am far from there yet, I still am at least 50 pounds overweight, and I am being generous with myself.  I have managed to bring my blood sugars under control and for the last 3 consecutive A1C have been in the optimum blood sugar control range, and the last A1C in the normal range, resulting in the lowering of two of my diabetes meds and one cholesterol medicine.  Still with all of this I can not manage to lose weight.  I started a new health regime with my daughter, we both are trying to lose 20 pounds by Christmas which if you do the math is 1.4 pounds a week, which means between exercise and food choices we need to reduce/burn 4900 calories a week or 700 calories a day.  I have asked Rach to contribute her thoughts on weight loss here, not sure she will, but we will see.   I am one of those diet statistics, that women who has tried every diet combination known to man, who loses/gains, gains/loses and about 10 years ago gave up on dieting as a matter of principle and instead focused on healthy eating and managing my blood sugars. I truly believe that a woman's self worth is not dependent on how she looks, but how she feels inside, and I have tried to not limit myself by being overweight, to still maintain a healthy image.  To keep healthy to keep active in both mind and body.  Why weight loss now?  I realized as my daughter struggles with the same genetics that I have, that she is at greater risk for diabetes and if I can help her and myself by studying healthy choices, having an open dialogue about weight issues, I can help her build a positive self image.  So we are loosely going to follow a 1200-1400 calorie a day diet, and try to exercise at least 3 times a week.  My total weight loss goal is 60 pounds, Rachaels is 25 pounds.  We will see how we do.

Happy 16th

My Beautiful Baby Girl!!

All Along the Watchtower

Photos from Lake Texoma, most taken from an observation tower overlooking the lake. A good but wet weekend at the lake, the horse back riding trails were washed out, so no horseback riding, but the girls still had a wonderful weekend, and I love just being nestled in the woods, near water, and away from the noise of the city. It's Monday, and no matter how hard I have petitioned the powers that be, Monday comes once every seventh day.

Read Any Good Books Lately?

I wrote six poems in 8 days, well actually 5 poems and one Loose Thought before I quit.  It's okay, it was a test to see if I was ready, I am not.  I missed the words, perhaps why I am still in hiatus, I will start working through old poems, revising and submitting.   I will do what I normally do when this happens, I will read.  I will photograph.  I will doodle.  I will post my thoughts on the books I read.  Let me know if you have read any good books lately? 

Doodle Art and New Pens

I love coupons, sales, gimmicks that store keepers use to bring me to their doors, in the hopes that I will buy more than the advertised special. I generally am pretty good at keeping to the sale items (not always). This weekend I went to Michael's with my 50% off coupon and purchased a set of calligraphy pens. I spent a bit of time Saturday night learning how the pens move, getting used to the weight of the pen, the amount of pressure needed to make lines of varying width and depth. I have been experimenting with my doodling tools, I have been doodling a long time ( most of my life), generally with bic pens and whatever paper is available, the last couple of years I have began to keep the best of these doodles, and the last six months I have began to explore tools of the trade, graduating from steno pads to sketch pads, and trying out a variety of pens and pencils, I have purchased graphite artists pencils, gel pens, roller-ball pens, fine and extra-fine sharpie markers , and lastly manga and calligraphy pens. So far I like the gel pens and the calligraphy pens the best, they seem to give crisp lines and sharp curves as well as the ability to vary the depth and boldness of black. Still I think them as doodles and not drawings, most evolve on their own, perhaps only hinting at the concrete. I find doing them relaxing and reassuring, a comforting abstraction.

Writing Again

I jumped into a 30 day challenge this week, lasted two days before my daughter became sick, but that's okay, I wrote 3 poems this week.  The first in a very long dry spell.  I am not sure of the new work,  I will have to see how it evolves, generally there is a shift, a subtle change of hue in my work between periods of hibernation.  The more I write poetry, the more convinced that I am not a modern poet, that by virtue of history, my work might belong in another time period, frankly I am okay with that.  I am finding that I become more and more protective of my work, I let the poems speak to me, tell me which ones to submit, which ones to sit and settle for awhile.  I am likely gaining the reputation of one who does not care to put their work out in the open, it's not true.  It is not that I mind rejection, frankly I anticipate most of my work will be rejected, it is more likely a matter of ineffective time management on my part. Ask my husband, I start more things than I finish, I constantly want to learn new things, this week two old friends of mine  were telling me about classes in paper making and hand dyeing, before I could stop myself, I asked them to send me the link to the classes.  Then I looked up and said, no don't I already have more hobbies than time.   I have the equivalent to creative ADD,  I love the process of creating--whether it be words, photos, flowers, art or even food. I am a creative junkie.  I can't help myself.   It feels good to be writing.

Even on a Cloudy Day





Photo taken from the plane as we were leaving Anchorage, I am still buried in photos trying to go through the ones I like and optimize them, finding the right balance of light, color and perspective. I am still very much the amateur and often find myself struggling between what I want to do and what i have the skill to actually do. My husband gave me Aperture 2 for my birthday, and I am waiting to the long weekend to install it and see what it and I can do. I am excited, this weekend I am going to take my camera and go out and photograph bridges, I find myself wanting to stop and photograph the little creeks and waterways that filter through our neighborhood, I have been mentally making a list of the ones I like, and this weekend I am going to ask Rachael if she wants to practice driving, and I am going to take my camera. Killing two birds with one stone. I wrote a poem yesterday, not really a good poem, but a poem, the first in nearly 3 months, and it felt right, like it was time to return to the words. I also sent in 3 poems to the Rattle Poetry Prize competition, my first submission since April, perhaps I am coming out of poetic hibernation. My chapbook An Insatiable Desire for Deja'Vu (special thanks to my husband for giving me the title) has been accepted by Flutter Press, and hopefully will be out in late 2009 or early 2010, it will be my first chapbook, and I am really excited. Thank-you Sandy.