#150 - Best-Friends---City or Country AND Tighten It Up Thursday Update

Whether you live in the city or the country, having a best-friend who sticks by you through thick and thin is a priceless treasure.

My ultimate best-friend is Kelly. She and I were friends before we could even form words because we lived next door to each other while growing up. Our parents were great friends; we all had a fabulous life together for many years.

Kelly's dad and my dad were motorcycle enthusiasts, so Kelly and I took many, many road trips on the back of a few bikes with our dads. It was a natural way of life for us two daughters. Come to think of it...if my dad and I ever had a father/daughter bonding experience, it was all of that motorcycle riding throughout my years growing up. It was pretty cool. I've still to meet any other teenager who is taken to tennis lessons on a motorcycle. 

In fact, I didn't have any other friend whose father rode a motorcycle, just Kelly's dad, who was like a second dad to me.

And our parents would actually take extended motorcycle trips for days and days at a time. They all enjoyed life so thoroughly. Kelly and I have some wonderful memories.

For a few years in my childhood, my family moved to Scotland so that my dad could work on an offshore oil rig in the North Sea. I went to school with the Scottish kids, lived in a house off Inchmickery Avenue and slowly developed a strong Scottish highland accent without knowing it.

Finally, after Scotland was coursing through my blood, it was time to come back to America. Kelly and her family picked up my mother and us three kids from the airport. My happiness at seeing Kelly was incredible, but when I began to chat with her about old times, new times and everything in between, I got this funny expression from Kelly and she said, "You talk funny."

I quickly closed my mouth because I didn't realize that I talked funny. The REALLY "funny" thing about most accents is that you often don't realize you have one at all, until someone points it out, like a best-friend who is completely perplexed by the Scottish-Texan friend with the changed accent.

Over the next year or two, I worked extremely hard to get rid of my accent. Back in those days, in the mid-to-late 70's, it wasn't so cool to have a foreign accent all the time. At least I didn't think it was so cool because it didn't feel good when people continually stared at me with a weird expression every time I spoke. Therefore, I worked hard to listen to the difference in my accent and to try to catch myself when the Scottish burr was coming out thick and strong. It was not easy.

These days, I'm back to my good old Southern drawl, and I only get a few stares when we leave the Southern states. For old fun, I sometimes will talk in my Scottish accent when saying my grocery list outloud to myself or when I am singing an old Scottish song that I know by heart from my time there, but I will never speak with this accent in front of anyone because, to this day, it is very uncomfortable for me to allow anyone to hear me sound that way. I guess I associate it with a bit of trauma with moving from country to country at such a young age.

However, the Scottish language still often comes natural to me, especially when I become angry...that's when the old accent wants to make a huge comeback, but I remain aware of it and keep it at bay. And when I hear the bag-pipes playing...I have been known to go to my room and close my door so that I can imagine my swords (my dancing practice swords) on the floor, crossed over one another and I hold my arms just perfectly with my fingers position just right and I begin my highlands dancing between the blades, with my one foot lifted and the toe swiping back and forth around my calve muscle and so on. Yes, all the time I lived in Scotland, I took Highlands dancing lessons, the real deal. So, the bag-pipes truly do MOVE me in a unique way.

Since my Scottish accent was such a shock to my American friends, I was suddenly horribly shy and would be incapable of sharing my love of beautiful, mesmerizing bag-pipe music that seemed to resonate through my body, nor would I share my unique form of dancing on the practice swords that I kept in my bedroom back in America.

There would be no more dance performances before the Scottish public --- the performances where we actually got to dance around gorgeous, shiny, sharp REAL swords. And the reason that you MUST practice, practice, practice this form of dancing is because the admiration of this dance comes from the fact that you must NOT LOOK DOWN while dancing around the swords placed across each other, you must highstep from quadrant to quadrant using fancy footwork without looking strained. You dance around the blades and do so gracefully, without kicking the swords out of place, and without injuring yourself.

I performed around real swords in Scotland, to real bag-pipe music, and I did not kick the swords. But, back in America, soon my practice wooden swords would disappear...one would be used as a cross after being stuck into the backyard dirt to memorialize a fallen pet. I had not wanted to use one of my wooden swords from Scotland, but my dad stuck it in the ground, not knowing its meaning, and there it rotted. After that point, I would use anything I could find to perform my private Scottish dances in my room.

As for Kelly, she loved me even when I sounded "funny." We will be friends from the cradle to the casket. She is like a sister to me. There's hardly a week that goes by when we haven't spoken multiple times, at length. We support each other, encourage each other, pray for each other, share Bible verses with one another, we vent with each other and understand each other. Yes, we understand one another because we've known each other for...forever...forever as we've known it so far.

I am thankful to God for him giving me a friend like Kelly. A friend who cannot be run off by anyone. A friend who is as close to me as anyone who shares the same blood with me.

Thank you God for Kelly!

Kelly and myself --- this past week at her house.

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Okay, as for my Tighten It Up Thursday Update, I weighed myself today (Wednesday) and already saw an additional one pound weight loss for this week which gives me a GRAND TOTAL LOSS so far of NINE POUNDS!!!

Since I am shooting to lose 25 pounds total, I am getting closer and closer and only have 16 pounds more to go to meet my goal!

For the good part in all of this...I am at the point to where I can DEFINITELY feel the difference in my clothes. I can feel the loss of those pounds mostly in my legs and in my booty. Actually, I can see and feel it all over, but those are the two places where I seem to lose the most weight. My jeans are not fitting so snug any longer, I'm the owner of jeans that now are sagging in the booty area. And I can sit around and walk around so much more comfortably in my jeans. My waist line is diminishing and I am glad for the positive change that I'm seeing in myself.

Since I am going nice and slow at this weight loss, it's sometimes hard to even notice and then I step on the scales and am shocked each week to find the numbers dropping and dropping.

I guess this coming year, I really will PARTLY be a new woman...a new woman who will need some new clothes in a few sizes smaller than the ones I already like to wear baggy. Things will be changing for me and I'm excited, yet I'm still taking it day by day. 

I refuse to buy any new clothes until I've lost the full 25 pounds. Then, it will be enough to justify a new pair of jeans and a few other things. The size difference will warrant some smaller things; I think I'll be able to handle that shopping trip.

When that day gets here, I'll be sure to blog about it as well!!

# 146 - Another Tighten It Up Thursday Update

Had to repost a correction with my math --- actually have lost more than I had figured out.

Well, I'm here to happily report that out of my 25 pound weight loss goal...I have now lost a whopping eight pounds! I'm so close to a ten pound loss that I can TASTE it!

Over the holiday gathering, my daughter Heather actually noticed my weight loss and made a nice comment. But, she's perceptive that way.

I've had a lack of appetite, so that definitely helps with the weight loss. But, I cannot believe that I actually lost weight over the Thanksgiving Holidays...this is probably a first for me.

If I keep going at this rate, then by Christmas I should be mighty close to that 25 pound weight loss goal. But, for today, since I have lost a solid eight pounds, I have 17 pounds more to meet my weight goal. But, having these several pounds gone do make a nice difference for me.

And what will I do once the 25 pounds is gone? Well, then I will start on my next lump goal of another loss of fifteen pounds. That should put me at a weight that will give me leeway and it will change my clothes sizes significantly. I'm sure those last fifteen pounds will be extremely stubborn to remove, but I am ready to take them on!

Taking off the weight slowly has been rather easy. I eat a variety of foods; I really do not deny myself, but I do watch the portion sizes. I figure, my frame is already petite, I just don't require that much food to keep going, so I better adapt to the proper nutritious intake required for my small-frame.

Little changes do indeed make big differences!

#132 - Weekends at this Carnival We call "Home"

First, my "Tighten It Up Thursday" update is four pounds. I guess I gained one pound back over this past week. That's okay with me. I've had a stuffed Jalapeno kind of week, which means I'm eating more than usual. I normally eat very lightly until about 2:00pm, unless I have stuffed Jalapenos in the house. Next week, no Jalapenos.

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This past weekend, Deputy Dave and I babysat our two year old grand nephew and six year old grand niece. These two children belong to my husband's nephew, which means they also belong to me!

Ava, Jace, Brice and Stefie hanging out.

It's been so long since we've had a two year old running around our house and everyone knows that once you get beyond that phase of raising kids...your house is no longer prepped for a two year old's presence. We did our best to prepare, but the weekend was full of running around and finding the next thing that was within his finger's reach that we had to handle. With our diligence and constant rearranging, he was safe and sound, but we were exhausted!

Jace wearing my flip flops!

It makes me realize that I had better lay-out our country cabin design and furnishings to simply be ready for our future grand-children. That way, we'll be ready and not need to constantly adjust to toddler mode.

As always, part of our purpose with spending time with precious children in the family is to be supportive to our family members so they will know their kids are loved and in good care while the parents are able to have a few kid-free hours. I am blessed to have a wonderful Uncle. I did not have a multitude of aunts and uncles while growing up, I had ONE uncle, that was it, but he was all I ever needed...nurturing goodness rolled into one awesome Uncle package is all I needed. My uncle was so good to me; we still are very close.

My mother's brother is a man I look up to with great respect and love. So, I KNOW how important it is to have respectable and trustworthy aunts and uncles. An aunt or an uncle can make a marked difference in a child's life. My uncle gave me a very valuable gift...he taught me another side to men...that they can be able to do it ALL and still be a MAN. He could cook, be a master carpenter, a plumber, he can clean house, do the yard, he served in the military AND was always loyal and tender to those he loves while working a life-time in a rough environment at a Texas refinery. Plus, my uncle contracted Polio along with my mother when they were children, but he did not get the crippling kind; however, it still impacted his health, hugely. To this day, he has times of having trouble breathing and my mother, when she was alive, always knew it was related to his Polio, but he won't hardly mention it.

I'm getting to read my daughter's treasured
books to the young ones.
We keep these books carefully stored on the bookshelves
for future generations to enjoy, with supervision.

I suppose that any time a family member needs us to help with the kids, they know that we are fiercely protective of the kids in the family, so they will do their part to help build relationships; we're there for them and are willing to meet them more than half way!

Another reason for trying to make a difference in the lives of children is to honor my husband's Aunt Virginia. She was the first person we trusted (besides my mother) to take our kids for an ENTIRE week! Every summer my daughters would stay one week with their Aunt Virginia and those weeks were full of fun and tremendous memories that they will hold dear to their hearts until the day they meet their aunt in Heaven. Aunt Virginia died of cancer six months before my mother died from cancer. I had loved Virginia with every part of my being, we were extremely close and spoke every week on the phone for hours, we wrote long letters and emails to each other, read the same books, went on long walks together when we were in town with each other and just connected on a deep level.

Aunt Virginia was related to my husband's family by marriage. She always made you feel as if you were the center of her universe. She knew how to listen; She was always excited about things going on in our lives and she was so interesting...always learning something new and sharing it with us. My husband had grown up with his Aunt Virginia loving him dearly; she even confided to him that he was her favorite nephew and that he often felt as if he were a son to her. She provided a true motherly touch and a nurturing heart for him...which he needed and she knew it. They loved each other and held great respect for each other.

So, I had made a vow upon her death to be as good to our nieces and nephews as she had been to my husband, to me and to our children. There are just some people in your life who bring light into your lives and she was one of these people. She is greatly missed. But, I have decided to honor her by being loving, supportive and fun to the little ones in the family. Deputy Dave usually has this mindset as well, as long as he's not sitting in front of the television engrossed in a football game, needing duct-tape over his mouth after an interception by the other team.

Another reason we enjoy spending time with the kids is so that we can introduce them to the world of CHICKENS! I've found that most city adults are absolutely terrified of chickens. I mean T-E-R-R-I-F-I-E-D! However, children will be initially cautious, but they warm up to the chickens very fast. Usually the kids will warm up TOO MUCH to the chickens and will need to be told to either stop chasing the chickens or to quit trying to pick them up because it might hurt them. Somehow, over a short amount of time, their fear dissipates. My main goal is to keep trying to close the gap between today's kids only knowing about food sources as a grocery store product with a price tag to farm raised animals and home-grown crops ending up on the plate at dinner.

Letting the kids take part in searching the coop for new nests is always a delight. Their little expressions look bland as they check each empty nest, but those expressions turn to pure delight as they find their first egg. Each time, we show the kids how to gently rinse the eggs at the kitchen faucet and then set the egg on a kitchen towel to dry. Once the eggs are dry, we have egg cartons in the fridge ready to hold the eggs and we put the eggs in a certain order --- going by most recent egg laid to be set as last in the carton so we can be sure to go through our eggs in the right order.

Checking for eggs.

Often, we cook eggs with the kids. It's amazing how kids will say they don't like eggs, then they cook their own egg and find that it is scrumptious. I also keep the eggshells - rinsed out and ready to go into the garden to add calcium back into the soil --- the eggshells need to be crushed and the kids LOVE to crush eggshells. It's as if they are getting permission to do a big NO-NO.

Ava is doing her best to pet every chicken in the yard!

This week, I'll begin tapping the ends out of an eggshell so that I can empty the contents and keep the shell ready to fill with birdseed, instead of confetti, for Easter. We always have the "confetti" egg fights at Easter, but this year, we'll have "birdseed" egg fights. And it won't take much birdseed for each egg, just enough to be noticeable and to bring gratification as it is cracked over an unsuspecting head. The holes at the ends of the eggs are usually covered with a light gluing of a tiny tissue paper square.

Anyway, we keep the kids busy from sun-up to sun-down. We had forgotten how much we dislike changing diapers. Yuk!

On Sunday, we did some yard work and let the kids play outside. Our street is always so busy that we can't even let the kids go near the sidewalk next to the street...one wrong step and the street congestion and traffic may be disastrous. So, the kiddos had to stick next to us like green on grass.

By the time Sunday evening rolled around, we were ready for a vacation and the parents were on their way to the house after spending a weekend on a mission church trip with their two older children. My husband's nephew is a youth leader for his church and that was a huge reason we agreed to watch the two younger children over the weekend. We wanted to be fully supportive in their endeavor to make a difference and to always be searching for a better life for themselves. 

Side-walk chalk...oh the memories!
My "chalk" was left over sheet-rock pieces.

I hope the kids will remember their time at our house with a smile. Maybe they will be one of a few kids in this generation who will remember having fun with the chickens in the backyard, playing fetch with the dog and collecting eggs without having to buy them at the grocery store. Most of all, I hope they won't remember a few special words that Deputy Dave yelled out as the Aggies played football...if anyone needed to go to the time-out chair, it was him! The only problem with this punishment is that he'd be delighted to go to time-out. I can already hear him, "PLEASE, send ME to time-out!"

I guess the next time we're babysitting, the television cannot display any sporting event with a ball. He can watch...hmmmm...no sports.

The sweetest moment with a two-year old!!!
Nap Time!!

#114 - Tighten it Up Thursday - 2nd Week Update and More

It's official, for my 25 pound goal of rock and rolling, dancing, playing, video-gaming off some my excess pounds the "fun" way, I must admit that we've been way too busy to have much fun, but I've moved so much that I've lost a solid two pounds.

That means I have only 23 to go...that's IF I can keep off the two pounds that has taken me two weeks to lose!

I can tell you exactly how I lost those two pounds. Deputy Dave and I have been at my dad's house most every day this week. He took out an old sliding glass door in my dad's master bedroom and put in a solid core single door. While he is installing the door, I've been cleaning dad's house. The house that my dad refuses to air-condition. So, in 86 degree heat, I am pouring sweat while scrubbing floors and polishing appliances, and unloading old boxes.

Well, "cleaning" isn't the right word to use for all I am doing.

My mother passed away nearly six years ago and since that time, he's not cleaned. Maybe he's run the mop or broom here or there, put in some laundry that's critical to his weekly life and kept his coffee cups washed out, but I am talking about deep HOUSE cleaning in general...that does not get done any more. It's that simple. We don't have family gatherings over there because each room is disorganized and as he puts it, "...that's what he has two daughters for."

The truth is, my dad was never good around the house. He's good around cars or anything with an engine. I would go over there and clean his house for him more often, I like being over there and I love my dad. Him and I are buddies. But, a huge problem between the two of us is his smoking.

He smokes in the house and I cannot be somewhere with fresh smoke or smoke residue. This is not a preference, this is a requirement for me to live as healthy as I can with my condition. Each side of my lungs has previously collapsed and will never be the same. I have bad scarring in my lungs, which could mean a simple pulmonary infection can be deadly. My weakened lungs must be carefully tended to by self-awareness and trying to stay away from lung irritants.

But, over this past week, I've been grinning and bearing it. I've been going to the house and lovingly hand-washing all of my mother's china, silver, pottery and have been carefully wiping down each and every shelve.

Dad has nothing on the walls since mom died...no art work, no pictures, nothing. I'm going to work on changing that as well.

He has his good and bad days with my mother, even though she is dead. He still has one day of crying while remembering good times; wishing they were still having fun together, going on their regular road trips with her still beside him as his happy and perfect travel companion. She was amazing; she had child-like excitement toward any kind of adventure, big or small. As a Polio Survivor and after living one YEAR of her childhood in an iron lung only to emerge with body parts that no longer worked at the tender age of five, that girl grew to be a woman who knew how to savor life.

Dad also has bad days when he's mad at her. I have to laugh at it all because I think he doesn't exactly remember how difficult he was toward her, as a husband. He'll sometimes tell me that he has bad memories and he thinks about her imperfections, but I wonder how deeply he thinks about his contributions toward thoughtless behaviors and decisions that she was forced to endure. I remember quite a few and often felt that my mother was nuts for staying married...so he probably thinks it only went his way, but I think he forgets about just how difficult it was for her to be married to him even when he was acting out of line.

The bottom line is...they stayed married to each other. They loved each other, understood each other and knew how to have good times together...they had a lot of glue between them holding them snug together.

Every day, he walked into a house where his laundry was kept up, even when she was very sick and a clean pitcher of fresh tea sat waiting for him to enjoy a tall glass while relaxing in his recliner in front of the television while mother continued about her day. Obviously, by just looking at the house, you can clearly see that my mother took care of...pretty much everything.  Once she died, things slowly fell apart because dad was not maintaining anything. When mom was alive, the house had a severe flood and that woman had that house put back together in record time and it was better than before. She didn't waste time. She was a mover and a shaker, she knew how to get things accomplished and never made excuses. If it weren't for her while growing up, we'd not have been able to live in a decent home. She definitely went above and beyond to do more than her fair share...always.

After mom died, the daily maintenance of the house went steadily downhill. Things in the house were beginning to ruin from dirt accumulation and grime and smoke residue. The house didn't take care of itself or it would still be doing the same thing. It just is not easy to maintain a house and deal with the daily grime that life brings across the threshold. It takes a personality that is willing to stay in motion...always looking for the next surface to clean, the next item to dust and the corners that need to be cleaned.

Anyone who keeps their house clean knows that it takes work. Even if you go to work somewhere else during the day, the house is waiting and it requires MORE work from us. I'm amazed that my mother taught school for many, many years, she'd come home to care for three children, basically on her own, as a disabled woman and she'd clean, cook, have our clothes washed, food purchased from the grocery store and handle her own life. Personally, I think dad should use her teacher's retirement money to pay for a bi-weekly maid to come to the house so his investment can quit going downhill and so that he can give himself and his family home the respect it deserves. Our mom made plenty contributions to that home and you can sure feel her absence these days...when she left, the contributions stopped and the house deteriorated.

Losing my mom has proven that behind every good man is indeed a good woman. There is some good that came from all of this...seeing all of this before my eyes in such a highly personal way makes me want to be a better woman for my own man.

Of course, if something were to happen to me, Deputy Dave would still be living in a nicely kept, clean house because he is capable of taking care of himself that way. Maybe it's because he's ex-military, but he would always be neat and organized. He'd probably have his days of being in the dumps, but overall, he would not let things disintegrate around him. I think the dust would finally get to him and he'd find his inner-feather-duster self so that it would be kept at bay.

My dad was so cute the other night as I was removing five years worth of dust from a book shelf, he went to the laundry room that I had just overhauled with a good cleaning and brought out a nice feather duster that he claimed to "love." Deputy Dave and I got a good laugh out of that one, along with my dad. I told him, "I think the part you love most about that feather duster is NOT using it."

But, if I were gone, Deputy Dave would still be holding gatherings and be preparing the Thanksgiving turkey...the girls would take care of all the side dishes and desserts that I love to make. But, the point is, he would know how to live; he would know how to get things done, even if they are things he doesn't do now...it wouldn't stop him from doing it alone. He would take charge and still be a great family leader. On the other hand, my dad slipped into his cocoon, letting everything around him crumble; he created a world surrounding him that was his choice. Since he kind of changed mom's house from welcoming to a place where all of us three children and our own children feel the signal from him to  stay away, we adapted and we all see each other elsewhere. The love is still strong and solid, but his home is no longer a place to go and to remember Grandma anymore. That saddens our heart. My mother would be devastated that her own children and grand-children could not go visit and step inside a non-smoking house. But, the desire to make that happen on his end is not there. So, in other ways we give her our respect.

In the meantime, I am exhausted physically and emotionally from having several days in a row of being over there cleaning and seeing so many things my mother treasured being buried beneath layers of neglect. And I am feeling the congestion in my lungs from working with so much smoke residue, and often fresh smoke in the air since my dad kept smoking in the house, even knowing we're on our way to his house to help out. He's addicted, but he could be more thoughtful, maybe he'll get it one day. It just limits my ability to stay longer as I would like or to come more frequently, as I'll like. When my mother was alive, the house was a non-smoking house because we all knew how quickly the walls, ceilings, furnishings, etc., become permeated with the smell of smoke residue...it's a bacteria and it spreads. The science side of our family understands this concept and this is why we can't even let our clothing from our visit be destined for anywhere but the laundry room upon our return. Gotta get the smoke residue off of our clothes and bodies and I must wash out my mop of hair every day that I've been there.

So, I wish he didn't smoke in the house at all. I know I'd thoroughly enjoy going over there to help him out and to even cook him a meal every once in a while, but he makes it impossible for me due to my health complications. Dad is hyper aware of my serious lung troubles; he's sat with me in the hospital as they told me my lung was still collapsed and that the chest wall was filling with blood. He knows the battles I've been through, but all I can say is that his addiction is stronger than any desire to do what is right for us to be able to enjoy a healthy visit in the house I grew up in.

Oh well. I'll do what I can and then keep working in my own controlled environment where I do not have to breathe in smoke from the person sitting next to me and lighting up nonstop.

Deputy Dave was a smoker for 17 years of our marriage, but he quit. During his smoking days, he never smoked inside the house. He did his best to sit outside so that the wind would blow it away from him and his clothes, he always held his cigarette out far from his body...all of this was also because he had an allergy to smoke. Kind of humorous. One day, he got sick of it, literally. So, he quit, cold-turkey. He lived with us three gals who gave him constant hell over that smoking habit and eventually, it helped to nudge him to quit. But, he had to do it for himself because he was kind of like my dad...he wasn't going to do it for us girls.

Today, Deputy Dave is a reformed smoker and they are the worse ones around! He smells old smoke residue much more quickly than anyone else and he always tells me that he can't believe he lived like that for so many years. It took several months after he'd quit for his sense of smell and for his tastebuds to become fully functioning again after he quit smoking. He likes not being controlled by a paper stick and he sure is glad to not be spending money on such an expensive product.

He's no longer a paying sucker!

To those of you who smoke, I hope you just do it away from the loved ones. I struggled to breathe one time too many because of being forced to sit in cars, etc. with my dad's heavy smoking. It made a terrible difference to my lungs. If you smoke, be a quitter! You'll love being a quitter!

# 107 - Tighten It Up Thursday - First Week Down

Well, last Thursday I began a "Tighten It Up Thursday" which embraces me trying to get into better shape through having more fun. I'm not trying to go on some major name-brand diet or to starve myself...I don't want to be skinnyfied, I just want to be in better shape. Stronger.

This week, we didn't get as much time to play because I've been cleaning out closets and old storage boxes on a serious level, trying to get ready for a garage sale.

However, I did play Rock Band and since I was the drummer, I did get a decent workout of my arms and my right leg...a FUN workout to great music. At least my right leg will be more tone. I was trying to figure out whether or not I could do the drumming pedal with my left leg so that I could alternate legs every once in a while.

Stefie and I being taken to downtown Houston by Deputy Dave
to see the Broadway performance of Phantom of the Opera, our favorite.
This was about two years ago...when I was having a blond moment.

As for my Rock Band drumming ability...it is pretty hysterical. I am able to do it, if I know the song. I do believe my classical pianist training helps with any kind of music fun, but I sure wish I were playing real drums. I think I'd have such a fun time that I'd never want to stop.

Deputy Dave and I have decided that we will keep playing our video games so we can keep up with today's generation a bit better. Heck, I'm already doing my part by blogging, so that's a start!

As for my Zumba dance video gaming that serves as a workout, I've yet to try it out. My husband has asked if he could set up a camera so that he could take pictures of me doing the "sexy" dance, but I don't think he realizes the magnitude of my clumsiness, especially when it comes to any kind of salsa-type of movements. God Bless my husband for thinking I look great when chopping vegetables or polishing the furniture. But, I think that my attempts at this Salsa thing might end up hurting his brain. It might be painful to watch.

Last year when Deputy Dave was in the hospital...boy I missed him.

Years ago, Deputy Dave and I took Swing Dance classes where the beat is to Big Band music and the moves are fun and spunky. We had a couple of people in the class who were doing the major swing dance moves with the girl flying in the air overhead and then swung low between the guys legs...Deputy Dave and I would stand there watching, then we'd look at each other and say, "NO WAY."

I didn't want to be swung around anywhere and Deputy Dave didn't want to be doing THAT much swinging cause his back would protest loudly. We were content to do our fun quick dance moves and to be in tune with each other. And we both sweat like pigs in a sauna each time we danced. No one wanted to dance near our zone of flinging sweat droplets. We were working so hard at every move, but we had fun!

Our class "graduation" led us to a Big Band club in downtown Houston where a live band put out the awesome strummed beats while we took our new moves to the real dance floor. The entire class had such a great time. It was a once in a lifetime enjoyable moment. Since then we've never been back to a big band dance club, but we sure do dig the music. I'm so happy we have done such fun things together.

Stefie and I this past year, on our way to a long-famous Jazz Club
in downtown Houston.

That swing dance class was extra fun because my dad and my sister took lessons with us. My mother, having Polio, was physically unable to use one of her arms and one of her legs, but my dad always wanted to dance. My sister always danced wonderfully, so they teamed up, and we four had a blast taking these lessons. However, my dad came from the days of doing the twist and other free-form dancing, so he would start off doing the proper steps for swing dancing and then he'd get carried away in his own world, with his own weird beat, and my sister would be left standing there as he wiggled around doing the "Dad Dance" all by himself.

Fun stuff. Frustrating, but fun.

So, my official record today as my first week of Tightening It Up comes to a close for my 25 pound goal of weight loss shows me to be at 0 pounds gained and 0 pounds lost. I am exactly where I started last week. Way to go Lana!

One thing is for sure, I need to get movin and groovin in order to Tighten It Up. Sounds like it's time to put myself on some kind of schedule so that I can actually force myself to have more fun. It's funny how we get older and we start to avoid such things, but once I'm doing it, I'm having a ball. I just need to force myself to get the ball rolling more often, then I can really test out the results.

If only I could muster the courage needed to open that Zumba game box and to put on that exercise belt with the motion detector remotes in the side pockets. I guess there's a side to me that knows that once I get started, I'll be hard to stop. And this means I'll be doing salsa moves as I head out to the chicken coop each morning, I'll be swinging my hips and kicking up my legs as I clean out the nests and search for eggs. Then, my neighbors will have it confirmed...Lana is Bananas.

Us having a picnic on the bay a couple of weeks ago.

#103 - Tighten It Up Thursday Update - Deciding to Take it Off!

Deputy Dave and I married when I was only 18 years old. Actually, I had just turned 18 when we eloped with him in his Air Force uniform and me in my favorite dress from Sakowitz. I had not even been 18 years old for a full month yet.

However, we'd grown up together and we were childhood sweethearts. You hear people saying, "He was my high-school sweetheart," and I laugh while remembering my blonde haired, blue-eyed, long-legged dreamy boy and he first struck my eye when I was only 11 years old. He was a cutie!

Our first set of wedding bands were purchased on a military base at the BX in the San Antonio, Texas area. They were simple gold bands with a bit of engraved pattern. My fingers were tiny, but I was 18 and without any meat on my bones. In fact, I weighed approximately 98 pounds when we got married. I rarely was able to bust the 100  pound mark on the scale. My body had always been petite and no matter how much I ate, I could not gain weight. My problem was trying to keep enough weight on me so that I would not become weak.

On David's end, he too was built like a lean wire. He had height on his side...I was five foot two inches tall and he was nearly six foot 2 inches tall. There was quite a difference between our heights and it didn't matter. Deputy Dave had lived with tall women his entire life, so he loves a tall woman, but he did not want to marry a tall woman. And I wanted to marry a tall lean man. I'd been surrounded by beefy, stout, muscular men while growing up and I wanted the opposite of my genetics as well. We both got what we wanted in each other.

Through the years, our bodies changed. Often Deputy Dave and I would stand side by side in the mirror and give our best pose, then we'd let it all hang out and give the saggy, poofed out pose...we'd be in hysterics. Deputy Dave would sing along to his old-timey favorite country singer Randy Travis, "I'm gonna love you forever..." and then he'd get to the part, "...time can play tricks on a body, make a young girl's brown hair turn gray..." and we'd sing along, in love, and with amusement at knowing that we were singing about a chorus that would come on some distant day...a day far, far in the future, so far away were those gray hairs that it was difficult to imagine.

I guess since Deputy Dave is a few years older than me, I imagined the gray hair line in the song to represent HIM with gray hair, not me.

But, now we're here in the gray hair days. My hair is definitely turning gray. No, my hair is actually growing white streaks while his hair is thinning. When he is on vacation from the Sheriff's Department, he gets to let his moustache and beard grow out a bit and we've both been amused lately to find that it grows out mostly in white whiskers.

And for other aging highlights...Both of us no longer have a waist-line. We lost our waist-lines years ago, me over children and surgeries and him after enjoying too many full beer-gut-moments until the day they became miserable instead of enjoyable. Over the past twenty-five plus years of marriage, we've both lost height, but I got an inch back after my cervical spine was completely reconstructed, then fused. BAM! I was one inch taller again!

Today, we're definitely not as agile, strong or able to face physical exertion with the never-ending endurance we once enjoyed. And I must say, I often gave Deputy Dave a run for his money. This mama could run circles around nearly everyone I knew. My stamina, energy and non-stop go-go-go personality was hard to keep up with. But, these days, my stamina is unreliable. One day, I might feel as if I could climb a mountain, then the next day I find it difficult to lift the remote control for the television.

Such is the life of a person who is growing older each year. And, that is reason to celebrate. I cherish growing older.

However, lately, I've been bothered by something that has not bothered me for about a decade...my weight. Deputy Dave convinced me that it didn't bother him either cause he likes for there to be junk in the trunk instead of it being empty. Well, my trunk has plenty of junk in it. In fact, it's time for me to do some unloading so my trunk can scale down to carry only the best of junk.

I will keep some of these in my trunk...home-made
chocolate wrapped strawberries. My specialty. 

To be honest, I've been rather distracted with staying alive too often over the past few years than to obsess about my weight. Really, it's such a trivial thing that I learned to quit letting it rule my life. For the past decade, I've had one life-threatening battle after another to keep me busy. Watching the scales became a luxury I could not imagine having. I learned to live without worrying about those scales. And, even during my battles, the freedom from the scales has helped me to live in peace from weighty concerns.

On the other hand, I see people who count the calories in the ketchup and I'm oh-so-grateful that I quit letting such shallow obsessions infiltrate my daily thoughts. I know people who monitor their every bite and who feel as if their entire day is ruined by one piece of pie. How ridiculous! If this is you, STOP! If you are going to eat the pie, live without regrets! Conversely, if you have conquered the pie that calls to you, then bravo. To each their own.

As for me, I've enjoyed my extra 25 pounds. They've been good to me. I enjoy going out to a restaurant with my husband, and we make inappropriate noises when we eat things like a rich lobster bisque. Food is fun in my house. That will never change.

I've got a great man because when we are out shopping and my husband sees a skinny woman with a bad attitude, he leans over to me and whispers, "That gal really needs a juicy fat hamburger to lighten her mood."

And, he's probably right. but my line of thinking goes toward emergency intervention, "Give that woman a twinkee!"

In the pictures below, my oldest daughter, Heather, will teach a skinny girl how to find a bit of carefree happiness...not regularly, but on special occasions...it's risky behavior, so beware:

Go to a party and find the best looking
cupcake on the table. Be ready to fight for it.
This might be a valid reason to hit the gym regularly.

Then, don't worry about proper etiquette, attack that cupcake
and savor every crumb.

If you pass by a man who can't appreciate your taste for
finer pastries and chocolate, then give him this "good-bye" grin.

Okay...back on topic...I've decided to change my way of thinking, just a tad. My body would benefit from losing a bit of this extra weight. I no longer need the extra cushioning to protect me from my uncanny ability to lose weight rapidly...Addison's Disease, my beautiful rare disease, can cause rapid weight wasting, so years ago, once I saw how I could easily lose 18 pounds in one week, I became leery and began to WORK at putting on pounds. Actually, Deputy Dave began the serious task of trying to do all he could to keep me from getting another medical record noting "anorexic" because of the disease (involuntary anorexia---I'm not choosing to be sick, it's this disease and how it affects metabolism).

After all our hard work to help me gain weight, we found success. The weight "cushion" the doctor told me to put on is now padded by an extra cushion. It's getting pretty fluffy around here.

Nowadays, I feel more in control. So, I can safely lose weight and be just as happy as I am now, but in a smaller size. I haven't had any wild fluctuations with my weight in a long time, things have stabilized, so I feel very comfortable that I can drop some cushion and still have plenty cushion left to protect me during rough times.

Instead of letting myself get caught up in the regular woman's obsession with the bathroom scales, I've decided to make some subtle changes in my daily life and to give careful observation to see whether or not my changes result in weight loss. Just so you know, I'm not looking for rapid weight loss, I'm taking the slow boat to China on this one.

What started all of this thinking about losing weight?

Well, recently I found a red blouse that had once been meaningful to me about a decade ago, and I tried it on last week and it fit, but very tightly. I mean TIGHT. Then, I began to look in my closet at all of the clothes I love and that are classics, but I cannot wear them because I'm about ten pounds too button-popping big to fit into the clothes comfortably. Another reason for me losing a bit of weight is that I'm too cheap to go out and buy these same articles of clothing that I saw at Macy's last week, but in a different color and in the next size. My dress style is classic button-down and that style never changes. I literally saw the same dress last week that I have hanging in my closet right now from a purchase made ten years ago. Since I don't buy fad-style clothing, I guess this works for me.

Good thing is, I can still fit into these dresses, but that doesn't mean I can walk in them, or sit in them, or breathe in them. But, I want to WEAR them again. And, I mean, I want to wear them NICELY. Not just the red blouse, but the other things that signal to me..."You really need to lose a few pounds woman."

So, I am going to tell you my plan for losing a few pounds. You may wonder...Is it a plan that includes going on a new-hype-diet that follows the latest book on the charts? Nope. Does my plan include joining a gym so that I can share the sweat soaked machinery of the last muscle-bound goon who wears HIS clothes three sizes too small? Nope. Is it a simple plan, such as starvation? Heck no...You DO remember that I am a Texas gal...Right?

Well, my plan is simple and fun. I plan on drinking more water, eating more veggies and playing more often. Yes, play. I am going to incorporate some hard-hitting playing into my weekly life. At least 3-4 times per week, I will play until I am sweating. And if I hit the sweat stage and am having a lot of fun, I won't stop.

Or, as my great-grandmother Pearl would say, "I will play until I glisten." She didn't think too fondly of women who "sweat." La-tee-da. So, I will GLISTEN.

One method of play I intend to employ is video-gaming. There is a PS3 video gaming system sitting upstairs in my gameroom gathering dust. We use the system to watch movies. The kids in the family play for hours on it. We even purchased the 3D camera and joysticks that are motion-detected so that your body becomes part of the interactive gaming process.

 And, I have a ZUMBA PS3 game for the Move system that has a belt you wear and you put the gaming remote in a special pocket on this belt which makes your body part of the game.

Back up a bit, What is ZUMBA you ask? Well, as far as my unsuspecting, half-witted knowledge can reveal, it is a bit of exercise that combines spicy salsa kinds of dancing and jiggling movements to prove that a forty year old woman should not jiggle. At least not in public.

That's me on the cover of the box. Really.
I was glistening.

The belt, with the remote, makes the ZUMBA game more challenging because the 3D camera watching over you is able to recognize your body's moves by the calibrated remote control tucked into the belt. Shake your booty, yes, it's part of the game, and you get points based on your ability to MOVE. I guess. I shall soon see how this works as I put the jiggle to the test.

I hope I don't break the remote and I hope the belt fits.

Since I am competitive in nature, this is the most fun way for me to get my body moving in extra ways that are fun and to help me shed some pounds. Next, I'll add the dancing game to my PS3 so I can bounce around upstairs and boogie the pounds away.

I'm going to be keeping track of my weight loss and will keep you informed. For sure, I intend to have lots of physical fun while playing games like a big kid. I think that's often what is missing from our lives as big grown-ups, we forget how to have fun. We think we can't figure out how to work a gaming remote control. Well, I want to make a point at learning, remembering and enjoying.

One of the games we like to play that makes Deputy Dave and I sweat buckets --- oh yes --- he sweats buckets and I glisten like the ocean beneath a moonlit night --- is the game where we get to be Gladiators and our remote controls are swords. Each time we slice at each other, the controller vibrates and lights up and I viciously try to take out his knees as he is intently focused on slicing my head in two. It's great.

Okay, back to my weight loss plan. I think I'll write about this plan for every Thursday's post. I could call it - Tighten It Up Thursday...compliments of Stefie's creative thinking process...I tell you...that girl should go into marketing!

For the record, I'm starting at 135 pounds. HAHA. Could you hear me all the way to your place with that super loud giggle?

For the real record, the real record is top secret. I'll simply start with the amount of weight I'd like to lose, let's say 25 pounds. I'll give a count-down to 25. When I lose five pounds, I'll let you know that I have 20 more pounds to go to reach my 25 pound loss. If I gain 3 pounds, I'll let you know that I'm nearly back at square one. Yes, I'm sure that'll happen.

So, today, I'm at my 25 pound starting goal for weight loss. Truthfully, 25 pounds will put me a such a low weight that I'd be thrilled, I could lose more, but it's my starting goal.

On a serious note, I'm getting older...I'm a whopping 43 years old and I know that any extra weight being carried around will be more and more difficult for my aging joints and muscles. Therefore, I want it off now. I've enjoyed the bliss for the past few years as I've been focused on more serious things, such as surviving cardiac-thoracic surgeries, a broken neck and the removal of a huge abdominal mass that caused major complications, but those are the little things in life that had me distracted. Now, the weight is again in focus and I want it gone. Adios to my soft side.

I'll be posting pictures of my efforts. It won't be easy. I have days when I am very weak. Some days I cannot barely move because the hardware in my spine is surrounded by swollen tissue and I could scream at every move, but on the days I can shake my booty, I'll be shaking it.

And, Deputy Dave might lose a few pounds from all the extra laughing he's going to get a chance to do. He'll be on the laughing weight-loss plan.

Actually, last night, we played another serious gaming session on the PS3 upstairs. It was a racing game. Unfortunately, Deputy Dave was the one who probably ended up shedding five pounds because he was obsessed with learning the race track, with coming in as one of the top five in the race instead of #15. And, each session found him comparing the time around the track with the last timed session...he HAD to beat the last time and make it into the top five in order to move forward in the game. Several times, he came in 6th, but never in 5th place. His blood pressure was up, his heart was racing, his palms were sweating and he wanted to be NUMBER ON ON THE RACE TRACK!

Then, it was time to go to bed. Well, there is a drawback to being "old" and that is self-inflicted regimented bed-time. Some things just can't change once you learn to appreciate the importance of schedules, and bed-time is one of those things that can't be messed with.

Sadly, last night was not the night for Deputy Dave to make the top five in the racing game. I'm sure he went to bed thinking about how to jump the ramps more efficiently and he probably dreamed about pushing the others off the track so his ranking would increase, but I have a feeling that tonight is his night to be a winner. However, he's always a winner in my book. And, I think I'd better incorporate a bit of side exercise as the rule for when Deputy Dave is playing his game, then I will be using our PS3 time wisely.

We have several games for me to play that will get me into cardiac mode and to the point of burning fat. I will glisten, glow and resemble a shrinky-dink over the coming months.

Ready? Set? GO!!!