soeurs du jour

Healthy Shmealthy

I'm disappointed.  I figured all the healthy eating, exercising and vitamin-taking on our 8 week challenge would provide me with some sort of superhero protection against the common cold which is making the rounds in our office.  Nope.  It got me.   

Aside from the annoying scratchy throat, nagging cough, sniffy nose and tiredness, the really aggravating part is that I feel guilty because I can't exercise.  This is sooooo not me.   They say, okay so I don't really know who "they" are, but they say that if you do something for 21 days it becomes a habit.   It might have happened to me.  I have exercised every day for the past 30 days (except for yesterday when I stayed in bed).  I must admit, I'm shocked because I never dreamed when we started this challenge that exercise would become something I want to do every day.    

I'm planning our weekend as I lay around and sip soup because I know I'll be better by Friday when Margie and Charley arrive.  I'm thinking a tour of the local antique stores and some of the local wineries is in order.   We also have to go to Jordan Village.   It is one of my favourite places to go.   And while we're on the wine route we may as well stop at a few wineries.  Organized Crime is a lot of fun.  Go check out their website.  It's not what you think and there is a great story attached to their winery.   Fielding Wines are a favourite and their winery is beautiful, high up on the Niagara Escarpment.   I think we will also have to stop at Flatrock Cellars to sample their wines and take photos. Flatrock has the most spectacular view.  I know for sure we're going to slip across the border  at some point and go to Target.  The only thing left is to choose a place to eat, because we're going out for dinner Saturday night, just the two of us, but I've already written that post.

You know what?  I think I'm feeling better already.  It's either the codeine or the power of positive thinking!   Having something to look forward to sure helps the healing process.

stay well

xo Kath

Weights and Measures

Good morning.   I love the photos that Margie has been taking lately and took a stab at one myself.    Week 1 of the 8 Week Challenge is done and the photo pretty much sums up my week.

I have lost 5.5 pounds, there is definitely a difference in my face and my body shape has changed a tiny bit.  But more importantly, I feel great.   We have complied completely with the dietary rules and I exercised every single day for a minimum of one hour.  Twice I managed 90 minutes of exercise.   We joined the gym, which is within walking distance so there are no excuses, even if I do not have the car I can get there.   I hauled out the many yoga & pilates dvds and videos, pumped up the exercise ball and have put the yoga mats out where we can see them.   The  exercise bike is in front of the tv.   Our basement looks a little bit like a home gym.

All of the food in the house now fits in the program and photocopied pages from our manual grace the refrigerator reminding us of the food choices we are to make to eat a balanced diet.

It may seem like a lot, but because this is our main focus right now it only made sense to me to create an environment that supports us in this challenge.

And it is working.   I didn't think I would be doing so well.  I feel really great. 

Exercise is not my thing.  How can you tell?   Well, look at all the exercise equipment I have in my house (there are 7 other dvd & videos that I didn't put in the picture), I keep buying things thinking that this one is the magic one that is going to turn me into an athlete.   Okay, not an athlete but at least move me from being an internet potato, the couch wasn't the problem as much as sitting at the computer was, to being a person who has some level of fitness.

I may be on my way.

Enjoy your Sunday!

xo

Kath

rose coloured glasses

I loved Margie's post yesterday.   Seeing my great-nephew and Charley always puts a smile on my face.    But it was her words that really got me and I was nodding and thinking yup, yes, I hear ya.  We do get side-tracked don't we?  Best laid plans and all that.

I am writing this on Friday night, because tomorrow morning will come early and I have plans laid out for the day.   I do tend to see my plans through rose coloured glasses though, see, I know I can accomplish everything.   And sometimes all at once.   I just have to put my mind to it.   I deceive myself.

Although the 8 week challenge does not officially start until Monday, we were weighed and measured on Tuesday night.   Once the numbers were written we decided there was no point in waiting, may as well start the eating portion of the program on Wednesday morning.  

No problem, I thought, as I adjusted my rose coloured glasses to sit more comfortably on my nose.   I had things well in hand, I knew pretty much what we needed to do and had done some preparatory things in the kitchen, cleaning out, organizing, buying some of the foods I knew we would need. 

Wednesday night we spent two and a half (yes, two and a half) hours (yes, HOURS) in the grocery store with the nutrition coach.  Not shopping, we followed her up and down the aisles listening to her talk and read labels to us, holding up our little hands when she would ask, "Now has anyone ever had plain yogurt?"   By the end BB and I were lurking at the back of the group, like the bad kids, whispering to each other, "Grab that baguette, we'll eat it as we go along and pay for it before we leave".   "Oh, Oreos, do they make whole-grain, sugar free, red wine free Oreos?"  There may have been some gentle shoving and giggling too, you know the kind, where the boy likes the girl and he nudges her with his shoulder or gives her a little bump with his hip and she giggles. I digress because that was the only fun part of the evening. 

By the time we got home we were famished.

Again, no problem, I had planned for this and cooked the night before,  I took off my rose coloured glasses, polished them with the hem of my shirt, put them on and in a flurry of activity had dinner ready in 10 minutes.

On Thursday, I cooked.

By Friday morning, I have to admit, my rose coloured glasses felt funny, like they were sitting a bit askew, as if I had one ear higher than the other and they were smudgy with fingerprints.   I had spent 4 hours the night before shopping, slicing, dicing, whirring chick peas in the food processor, making apple sauce, boiling rice, cooking salmon.   I even boldly wrote an email dripping with false bravado to Margie where I announced, "The food is so much better when I make it myself and cheaper too!"  I lied. I was a  a quivering mess by the time I launched that missive at 10:30 p.m.

This was not working out as I had planned.  I could not spend this much time on food preparation.  How would I find the time to exercise?  Or watch tv? Or anything?  I put my rose coloured glasses back in their case and looked at things in the cool light of day.

On the way home from work tonight, I stopped at Costco and bought hummus, quacamole and bruschetta topping, then I went to the grocery store and bought things in jars that fit in with our food constraints.

I feel much better now.  I'm seeing clearly again through my rose coloured glasses.   Indeed, I looked out my kitchen window as I was loading the dishwasher tonight and saw that, once again, all was right in my little rose-coloured world.

 

The sunset reflecting on the clouds coloured things perfectly for me.

Have a great Saturday.

Kath

Fancy a cuppa?

As we ready ourselves for the 8 week fitness/healthy eating challenge, we've been drinking fewer and fewer cups of coffee each day this week.   At about Tuesday we ran out of cream and it seemed senseless to buy more, I started drinking my coffee black and discovered, much to my surprise, that I really prefer it black. 

This morning, as I sit writing to you I am sipping my very last mug of coffee until December.  It tastes exquisite, like a fine wine... whimper, whine, gasping sob ... no, no, now that's not the right attitude is it?    We've got that lovely organic green tea to drink and I will dig out one of my many teapots that lurk on bottom shelves throughout the house.

It will be just fine.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Kath

8 Week Challenge

Hey, welcome all you black boxers, is that what we're called?   I haven't installed the widget yet, but you can go to Caroline Smailes site to grab one or play for a while.  But I warn you, if you have something you MUST do, do it before you go over there, once you start visiting all the wonderful folks out there you won't accomplish much else!  Enjoy.

BB and I have joined an 8 week fitness challenge.  Part of the fee goes to a great charity and all of the benefit will come directly to us.  The challenge starts on September 29.   This coming Monday we will go for a fitness test, be weighed, measured and have our "before" photos taken.  Next Wednesday we will attend a grocery store tour to learn what we can and cannot eat.  I have already figured out that I won't be able to eat like a pig or I won't win.

Our orientation was last evening.  3 hours of nutrition, exercise and motivational presentations.  We are going to be eating clean.  No dairy, white flour, sugar, alcohol, coffee or prepared foods.  8 weeks.  56 days.  It's extreme but both of us have done this kind of eating before and are preparing our bodies and kitchen for the switch.  Weaning off caffeine has to happen slowly over the next two weeks.  I have cleaned the cupboards of forbidden foods and a trip to the food bank is in order.  Edited to add:  BB just pointed out that I should perhaps clarify that we are donating all of the food that we won't be using to the food bank, we're not going to the food bank to fill our own cupboards!

We're on a team so must pull our weight or at least leave some of it behind.  I do know that  I can't be chicken or I won't win.

We're strongly committed to completing this.  I wrote the other day about wishing for a body that could wear clothes and have them hang nicely.  I wrote back in July about discovering how much weight I've gained in the last few years.   I do want this and I think the intensity of it will ultimately satisfy my need for instant results.   This program sounds like it's going to be incredibly hard so I'm expecting great results.

I'm just going to have to be a champion!

 

Wish us luck!

Kath

okay people, i'm not coping

i should have seen this coming. i am feeling crappy. sad, lonely, useless, pathetic, tired, should i go on or do you get the picture? i like things to be the way i see them. i see things very clearly in my mind and perhaps in my heart too. do you think that because my heart is holding up that stupid pfo closure thing that it can't hold me up this week? it is not easy being me, it's a full time job and unfortunately i wrote the job description. i set high standards for myself and then when i am unable to meet these standards, like now, i end up feeling that the people around me are not who i need them to be. that i am disappointing them.

i feel like david in this photo, except he's just annoyed with his hair. i am annoyed with myself. i don't like to feel that i am not being everything i need to be to keep the people around me happy and yet no one is complaining, not out loud anyway. i don't like it when i can't cope. i have had many struggles in my life and i have dragged myself forward, kids in tow. i am worried that now, this very innocent heart procedure has left me, not coping.

is she nuts? and remember i never use caps!

the sister sends me a message, can you do a recipe post, blah, blah, blah. yeah sure kath, no problem. great weekend together at the cottage with the babies and assorted others however it was our cottage and so guess who came home with wet towels, sheets, etc., plus i got lost for two and half hours coming home from OUR COTTAGE, with the two babies and my son and daughter in law in my car. poor a. stayed up there with his head down a hole or under the water trying to figure out what the heck happened to the pump and the water that the pump is supposed to provide.

but there were moments like this, so all was not fraught with angst.

wait wait wait...there's more!!! i had to start giving myself NEEDLES IN MY STOMACH yesterday morning because i am having the HOLE IN MY HEART fixed at the frigging HEART INSTITUTE in 48 hours.

wait wait wait...there's more!!! today,after i gave myself yet another needle in the stomach, feh, i decided to load up the laundry and take it to the laundromat where i paid to have someone else do it for me, made a grocery order the size of montreal so that the family will be able to eat while i am convalescing, washed the floors one last time, changed all the beds (person at the laundromat should be washing those sheets as we speak) cleaned out the fridge, and soon i will make supper using the left over tenderloin that cost a fortune and has to be eaten today.

i still have A LOT TO THINK ABOUT and while i was doing all of this and while i will be doing everything that i need to do for the next two days, i need to appear CALM AND HAPPY so the children won't get upset.

please do not think i am nuts, remember this post is called is she nuts? but i want to start a book so that i don't have to start the book when i am already too nervous or anxious or worse feeling like crap because who can start reading a book then. i need to marry some stupid book before all this starts.

okay enough, you get the picture, so kath, are you nuts?? there will be half a recipe post while i am trying to deal with all of this.

here you go,

my daughter in law's fruit cobbler:

take this, and throw in some of kath's granola, and flour i think, maybe sugar, bake it in the oven

it will look like this and be delicious.

xoxoxo

i had a great weekend kath, but are you nuts?

Water

I have an appointment at 1:00 tomorrow to do this.   

Should be interesting.

 

I quit

A certain famous female blogger started Oprah's recommended 21 day cleanse . 

And then she quit.  Stopped.  Put the brakes on.  Fell off the wagon.  Is not doing that anymore

Over the years, I have quit lots of things, diets, jobs, friendships, worrying about things I can't control. 

The thing about quitting is that it can be hard or it can be easy. 

Quitting smoking can be hard, yet quitting a job can be easy, quitting a diet is dead easy.

Right now I'm quitting something.

I'm quitting my child bearing years.   And for me, it's not easy.  I have no emotional attachment to it, no, that's not the problem.   It's the physical.  I've been suffering for four years now with hot steaming horrible sweaty non-stop flashes.   I've tried all the over the counter concoctions, potions and pills money can buy.  I've eaten flax seed and soya.  I've meditated and exercised.   I've wept about it and joked about it.  I've solved other health problems that might have been contributing.  I've tried "getting over it" (as one not so helpful friend suggested).  I've tried waiting it out.   And nothing has helped. 

And now, I QUIT.  I have quit trying to doing this on my own.  I brought in professional help.

About seven days ago I (along with my doc and BB) made the decision that I cannot spend another summer being miserable. 

 We're talking quality of life here, mine, his, ours.

  So I slapped a patch on my ass and have been waiting impatiently for relief.

 And finally, today, I am having some relief. 

 I have quit being thermostatically challenged.

  It's okay to quit if it means that things are going to get better.

I heart my hrt.

(Don't you love the box?  That tiffany blue swath with the hermes orange stripe, why it's so pretty I've been leaving it out on the bathroom counter.)

(I made you a photo album over there on the right, it's called by the uninspired name of "Kath's Photos")

a keepsake for my heart

i am getting one of these for my heart.  this little device will hopefully plug my pfo, patent foramen ovale, and stop the bloodclots that like to scream around inside me looking for a bad place to throw up a tent and block the way for the rest of the blood.  

while i was having an ecg at the heart institute, i made a friend. "great hair colour, love your highlights" as she stuck leads to my chest.  "do you want the name of my colourist?" and from there we went on to discuss the beautiful blue boxes of tiffany, the fabulous orange and brown hermes box, anything chanel, does it get any better than my beloved chanel, and even how we both love to read some magazines just because of the quality of the paper, my new John Hardy ring all the way from Bali and even my funky medic alert bracelet.

             

i gave her the name and number of my colourist, we exchanged big smiles, acknowledging that we had the best time we could possibly have knowing that it was unlikely we would ever see each other again. as i walked away, thanking her, she swung her own gorgeous hair, and laughingly said,"it's so great to be fifty and shallow."  waiting for the doctor, I pondered the success of brand marketing.  are we truly shallow or is it just marketing?