Yesterday I wrote a post wishing my brother Chuckie a happy birthday. I also planned to call him. The post didn’t post, and I I spaced out on the phone call. So, happy birthday, Chuckie!
I have also revamped my web site again. I added some things back that had been missing, and I plan to add some other things back soon.
And it is hot outside, and the house doesn’t have air conditioning. Whew.
Thanks for playing.
I stepped onto my bathroom scale Sunday. It is something I do every week, although I can usually tell just by the way my clothes fit whether I’ve lost weight. I knew before I stepped on that I hadn’t lost weight, and that I probably had gained weight. The scale confirmed my suspicions.
Since the new year, I had lost 16 pounds. I had actually lost 14 of those pounds pretty quickly, and then nothing for a long time. And now, since the new year, I’ve only lost 8 pounds. Which means, I’ve gained back 8 pounds.
I hate this weight thing. I hate weighing in, but I always hope that the numbers will shock me into something. I think the numbers did that this week. I haven’t been exercising, and I hadn’t made any progress on losing weight, so I think it confirmed that I need to renew my vow to exercise regularly.
It is also depressing, weighing in, because my weight can fluctuate so much in just the space of a day. And then I try to record my weight loss progress, and it is as if there is no progress, which, of course, lately there hasn’t been any progress.
When I went to stand on the scale Sunday, my husband was in the room. I tried blocking the results with my toes, but he was pretty determined to see my weight. And it sort of ticked me off. I was already upset with my weight, and then he made a comment that was supposed to be encouraging, but I did not need to hear it right then, and I responded in a very snotty manner.
I keep thinking the first step in weight loss is admitting I have a problem, but I have been admitting I have a problem for almost two years. I think it is time I take the second step, and I keep taking that second step. I can’t quit quitting. Or rather, I did quit, and now I need to restart again. Exercise. Right. I need to do that. Really. Because I am tired of not losing weight. And, yet, if there were a quick fix solution, I’d jump at it. Right not, I think I’m 80 pounds overweight, although I’d be happy to lose 60. Heck, at this point, I’d be happy to lose 10 or 20. I’d be happy to lose.
Today, I stepped on the scale again, thinking maybe yesterday (Sunday) was a fluke. I was up another pound. Gah.
I went to a wedding Saturday. I was the official photographer. All was going well. And then it was the father-daughter dance, and I snapped a few pictures. And then I had to rush to the bathroom before anyone noticed the tears in my eyes.
My best friend from high school, Autumn, told me this would happen. And it has happened enough times, that I know it happens. Things will be fine and out of no where you are blindsided. It doesn’t matter that it happened Nov. 24, 2003, and it is practically four years later. Get over it already, right? Nope. In that moment, it is like it happened all over again. Death sucks.
And on Saturday, I was blubbering because I would never again be able to participate in a father daughter dance. And it didn’t matter that I’d only done it once in the first place, and that was at my wedding, and I won’t be having another wedding because I’m happily married. It just mattered that my dad was gone, and I missed him. And I want to be able to dance with him again. Or just talk to him. I want him to know I’m teaching, since he always told me I should be a teacher. I want him to know I went back to school and earned a master’s degree.
It’s been almost four years, I’m 36, and I still miss my dad. Blindsided.
I spent most of the last four weeks away from home, and I had high hopes that it would result in some weight loss.
Instead it resulted in a lot of picture taking, and in each picture, I was a little surprised by exactly how big I am.
And all of this picture taking ended with me burning all of my huge photo files onto CDs, and it had been a long time since I had done that, and my computer was nearly full. So I was looking at pictures of me from 2005, 2006 and 2007.
I realized that in 2005, I wasn’t that much overweight. Maybe within 20 to 30 pounds. Doable, right? But starting in late 2005 and all through 2006, I bloomed. This coincided with me starting grad school. I know that at one point I gained 20 pounds in less than 2 weeks time. Part of it was because my time was spent sitting and working or driving and eating.
And that’s how I ended up like this. Overweight and a bit depressed about it. And yet, not quite depressed enough to actually get off my butt and do something about it. I make lame attempts. For instance, I did get up at 6 a.m. and walk, but I only did it one day so far this week.
A new study came out this week that says the people you love influence your weight. So if you are trying to have good habits, you need to surround yourself with people who have good habits. I know this has worked with my husband and whether or not we actually get up at 6 a.m. to walk. When one of us isn’t motivated, the other one can talk us into it, but it works the other way too, and lately it is working the other way a lot.
I’ve been trying to get a better understanding of my body size compared to other body sizes I see. And I’m larger. And I don’t like it. Yesterday, I was at a restaurant and sitting at a bar behind me was about 7 tiny tiny girls wearing almost nonexistent skirts. Most had no curves. And rather than get depressed, I tried to think differently.
Throughout this incredibly unsuccessful attempt to lose weight, I have been trying to lose it all. I even figured out that if I lost X amount a week, I would have lost it all by X date. I did the math but not the loss. Now, I’m thinking I need smaller goals. Not as small as one pound a week because that doesn’t work for me. Weight fluctuates too much in a day that it just gets depressing. My first goal? Twenty pound, preferably before the end of the year.
And exercising — walking three times a week and other exercising. No more working on my computer for hours without a break. I need to get up and get moving in between too. I need the break. So basically, I am recommitting to losing weight. Don’t quit quitting, right?
My goal — some day in the future, I will no longer be bigger than the average bear. My body in 2005 would be nice. 
One of the things that I like to do as a creative release is design web pages. I have done quite a few over the years, and I truly like to do it. Right now, I am planning a revamp of my own personal site even though I had only revamped it earlier this year. But I don’t like how narrow the pages are, and I want to have a better match between my site and my blog. So, I am planning a change.
I am also updating things, like my resume, because I want to update it with my shiny new degree and my shiny new job (tutoring online). So I’m thinking web sites a lot. Plus, I recently had to change pages at Roscommon Herald-New’s web site.
When I design pages, I like clean pages. Simple. With easy navigation. I use Photoshop to create various things like buttons, and the overall page structure, along with CSS. I hand code everything by writing HTML into notepad. I am also a fan of simple templates that I tweak.
A long time ago I created a hand-coded site for a local business. It was a huge web site, and I really liked what I had accomplished. Then the owner of the business changed, and the new owner wanted to update their own site. And his design ideas don’t mesh with my ideas. He likes things that move and blink and ghastly colors and basically web pages that would show up (possibly) on http://webpagesthatsuck.com.
And at the bottom of every one of those pages was my name saying that I designed the page. Argh. I haven’t designed that page since 2004 or so. I’d asked that he remove my name but because of the handcoding, I realize it is not easy to do. He uses WYSIWYG program, I believe. Lately, I’ve been making my request to remove my name more frequently. And on the latest request, I also offered to go in and remove my name by myself. And he granted me permission.
I now think I removed my name from every page. And it was time consuming. There were like 40 pages, but my contact info and name were right at the bottom of every page, so it made it easy to change.
Along with the bad design, there are a number of spelling errors on the site now. For instance, on the front page, instead of loses, it is spelled “looses.” Argh.
But now my name is off there, and I feel so much better.
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