Resolution(s)

From Wikipedia:

Cheating refers to an immoral way of achieving a goal. It is generally used for the breaking of rules to gain unfair advantage in a competitive situation. Cheating is the getting of reward for ability by dishonest means.

January 1st - the first day of the year (at least on western calendars).  The time for resolutions.  I haven't made a New Years Resolution in many years, but I know that fitness centers are hopping this time of year, so diets must be high on the list!

So when people say that they are cheating on their diet, what does that mean?  If you read the Wikipedia description, it must mean that they are only eating carrots and celery, since by definition they're getting to the goal by dishonest means.  And the goal is losing weight, right?  Or maybe they're taking water pills and laxatives.  Or photo shopping their profile pics?

Based on what I'm seeing on Pinterest, not a lot of my friends made a diet resolution this year.  I see pins for caramel pretzel bars, and death by chocolate cake, and, oh my...I can't go on for fear of the food porn police coming to get me.  

On a totally unrelated subject, my alma mater, North Dakota State University, won the NCAA FCS football championship for the 3rd year in a row!  Here we are with #4 Ryan Smith, who had to stand on tippy toes for the shot (I didn't, but that doesn't mean I'm vertically challenged).

And here I am with Thundar, the Bison Mascot the night before the big game at the Pep Fest.  It was so cold, and at that point I was shivering and barely able to hold on to my wine!

The highlights of the game weekend were my Niece's family visiting, meeting my nephew-in-law's Mom and Pop, the homemade dilly beans and chokecherry jelly my Niece brought me, and well, just being with family.  I've been dreaming about my move back north for a long time - sometimes it seems impossible, and sometimes, just sometimes, I can see it.  

In order to sell my house, I need to come up with the money to install baseboards, repair some siding, and replace some fence.  I don't know now where that money will come from, but if I hold on to my dream it'll come.

What is my dream now?  When I was younger, my dream was to travel the world and have adventures.  I DID THAT!  Dream realized 100 times over!

Now?  I want to be close to family.  Close enough to have game watching parties at my house.  With a garden out back.  Ideally, chickens out back, but that probably isn't going to happen.  I want my geriatric cat Gracie to go with me, but she's 16 and has kidney and liver disease, so when she goes, I want 2 kittens - not to take her place, but to start anew.  I want to laugh, and cry, and live near those I love.  I want to sweat because I'm working out.  I want to be in the best shape of my life.  I want to run a 5K - not walk/run, but run the whole way.  I want to learn how to recognize mushrooms in the wild, pick them, and create magnificent food.  

The last couple of days I've done a count down in my head.  I'm 53, so how many years does that give me?  By no means do I feel like I've wasted my life, but the warning bell is sounding in my head to do what I want now.  There's no guarantee of more, ever.  My family has been incredibly blessed with  rare fatal illness.  My folks both smoked and died from it (heart attack and lung cancer), but incredibly, we're okay.  My big brother has had heart issues (bypass) but it now in the best shape of his life.  My sister-in-law and step-father have both had skin cancer scares.  Type 2 diabetes has been cured by weight loss for my younger brother and me.   

Long, rambling post tonight.  But it's full of my wants, needs, and dreams.  May they all come true - sooner than later!

Why Painting Is Like Life

I'm on vacation this week, and trying to fix up my house so that I can eventually sell it and move back to my beloved Minnesota.  My downstairs bedroom is badly in need of a face lift, so I ordered new curtains, new bedding, and decided to paint the walls a lovely light blue (it's a dingy green now).  A study I read online (which of course must make it true) says that people sleep longer in a blue room.  

What I know about my myself is that I like to skip right to the end of a project.  I want it done, like now!  So my character flaw is that I like to take shortcuts to get what I want as fast as possible.  The last time I painted this room I painted over some stains on the wall, and they bled right through, making the bedroom walls look dirty and dingy.  So this time I bought a good primer designed to cover stains as a first step.  I had all my tools, knew what to do, and on Monday opened the primer can only to find a sticky, muddy, mess at the bottom.  Thinking I'd forgotten to have the paint store shake the primer, I went back to the store, where they gladly shook it for me.  Got home and found the same sticky mess.  I was SO tempted to skip the primer and go straight to the paint, but instead, I got back in my car and drove it back to the store.  The very helpful young man behind the counter offered to shake it again.  I suggested that he do so, but this time open the can afterwards and stir with a paint stick.  Yep - same problem.  So I was offered a replacement, but every can he opened was defective, so I switched to a new product, had him try it out, and went home.  By that point I had only accomplished taping, removing curtains and pictures, but oh well, I had a week to get it done.

Tuesday morning I arose with every intention of priming, then painting that bedroom.  Until my temporary tooth crown came off (again) and I had to spend the morning at the dentist's office.  They've informed me that the cement they used this time is so strong it will have to be drilled off.  How fun - I get to have a crown drilled off in a week so that my permanent crown can be placed.  

So Tuesday afternoon saw 3/4 of the room primed and painted, and Wednesday believe it or not, I finished. My pretty new white sheer curtains went up, my new white coverlet went on, and a new floral quilt went on the end of the bed.  I'm still not done - for some reason in their infinite wisdom the builders of this house in 1961 decided to mount the fuse box on the bedroom wall.  In my nearly 18 years of living here I've never figured out how to hide it.  I could paint it I guess, but the big black "Main" switch still sticks out.  So I ordered more curtains from Penney's during their Black Friday sale - I'm going to try a wall of curtains on that wall, and if it doesn't look right, I have another window in my living room that still needs window coverings.

What does this have to do with life?  Well, I was very frustrated this week.  I wanted to get to the end quickly, so that I would have a beautiful result to look at.  I wanted to revel in my success.  When life threw me some curve balls, I had to deal with them and move on.  And I found that I couldn't skip steps - I needed to do it right, even if it meant that it would take longer than I initially thought it would.  

There are lots of people willing to help, (Home Depot) but sometimes the help they give isn't what you need, even if you didn't know it at the time.  Once you do figure out what you need, you have to ask for it.  And you still have to work damn hard to get the results you want.

In the end, if you follow the rules, have the right tools, don't skip steps, and deal with the obstacles life throws at you, you will have something to be proud of.  Something new and shiny and fabulous.  And if you take care of it, it'll be just as gorgeous for a long time to come.  And in the end, we're all still works in progress; just like my bedroom.

Things You Don't Want to Hear in a Dentist's Chair

I got my Mom's teeth.  My Dad gave his teeth to my younger brother, who has probably had one filling in his entire life, can go years without a check-up and still come out with no issues.

My Mom?  She lost all of her teeth in her 40's, but not before painful root canals, extractions, and days of all of the curtains pulled, with us tiptoeing around so we didn't wake her.

With all of the advances in dentistry, I won't lose my teeth.  But that doesn't stop them from doing their very best to make sure I'm miserable.  Since I was a small child, I've had more fillings than I can count, surgery to correct an under bite, braces (twice), retainers (twice), crowns, and even the dreaded root canals (4).

So when my dentist found cracks in tooth number 30 (it's the second to last molar on the bottom right side of your mouth), they told me I'd need a crown.  So I prepared to part with $700, and set up the appointment for last week.  Prepping a tooth for a crown means a LOT of filing the top of the tooth down.  That means the dreaded drill.  Oh, and since I had jaw surgery, my nerves aren't in the normal places and there's lots of scar tissue, so where most people only have to have one round of Novocain, I usually have to have 3 rounds of shots before they can start.

So my mouth and gums were understandably sore and achy after the crown prep.  But after day 3 where I couldn't bite down on the tooth and the cold and heat sensitivity started, I knew what was happening.  So day 9 I called the dentist and said "I think you stirred up the pulp (I Googled it) and now I need a root canal".  Of course they need to see you to confirm that, so I got to endure the dentist pushing, knocking, and putting cold things close to my tooth to prove that I was in pain.  Only to get the referral to the Endontist.

This Endontist, Dr. Dazey, has done every root canal I've had done, and so I knew that I had nothing to fear - he's the very best at what he does, and I knew I was in good hands.  When they found out that it had been 9 days of pain, they decided I was an emergency, and fit me in this morning so that I didn't have to suffer through the weekend.  I wasn't suffering that much until the dentist knocked on my teeth to see if it hurt.

So Dr. D put something cold near the tooth, and when my right hand almost connected with his jaw, he decided that yes indeedy, a root canal was in order.  I told him about my issues with novocaine, and although still not fun, he managed to make the 3 rounds of shots bearable, including the last round straight into the tooth itself.  I had mentioned earlier that I guessed that I'd be missing Happy Hour this afternoon thanks to him.  So with the (gigantic) needle inserted into my TOOTH, Dr. Dazey makes a crack about the fact that he was using the strong, long-lasting stuff, but he was sure it would wear off before Happy Hour.  Not nice, Dr. D., not nice.

If you haven't researched it, a root canal procedure makes a big opening in the top of the tooth, which exposes the roots, which are filled with living tissue (pulp) and lots of nerves, which are the source of all pain.  Once he has the opening exposes, he uses a file to scrape out the pulp and nerves from the roots.  When he entered the pulp, he said to me "the pulp is bleeding".  Then he followed up by saying, "and that's good, because it means that it's not infected".

Yeah thanks, but I'd prefer to think of the tooth as a big hunk of calcium, rock-like, that has nothing in it that BLEEDS.  Luckily my mouth was wide open with a piece of rubber stretched across it, so I couldn't respond.  And I thought that hitting him might make him mad.

As he looked at the roots, and living (bleeding) pulp, he said "I doubt very much that your roots would have survived, so your instincts that you needed a root canal were spot on".  Thanks Doc, that makes me feel SO much better.

It is now almost 10 hours since the first round of shots, and even my lip is back to feeling normal.  My jaw aches from keeping it open even though they gave me a bite block, and of course my gums hurt where the shots were.  But the Tylenol I've been taking every 4 hours works so that it's bearable.  The real test will be tomorrow, when I'll test to see if I can bite down on food on that tooth.  I still have to be careful since it's a temporary crown, but the worst should be over.

I remember my Mother going through root canals, saying it was the worst pain imaginable.  Whether it's my high pain tolerance, or the incredible skills of Dr. Dazey, it's just another day in the dentist chair for me.  I'm not gonna complain!

The Knife, The Tumbler, The Pan, and The Pizza Stone

For the past 10 days, I keep losing things.  Really losing them, like thinking that someone has been sneaking into my house at night and stealing them.  First it was my 24 oz. Tervis Tumbler, which I use every day to drink water from.  It has been my constant companion for months, and out of the blue, it was gone.  I searched high and low - even checked the refrigerator thinking maybe I put it there, like an old lady absent minded thing.  Then it was my little fry pan that I use for scrambled eggs.  Seriously?  WTF?  This morning it was my Santoku knife.  Then I opened the oven and discovered that the pizza stone I stored in there was also gone.

Gremlins???

As I was at the sink this morning washing the few dishes I had, I remembered that I hadn't checked the dishwasher.  I only use the dishwasher once or twice a year - hand washing is just faster.  I opened it, and found...you guessed it - my Tervis Tumbler, my knife, my pan, and my pizza stone!

Now before you think that I put them there, I didn't.  My housekeeper did, with all good intentions, I'm sure.

I can now breathe a sigh of relief knowing that my visit to Crazy Town was only temporary.  At least for now.

Magnum in Limbo and Other Saturday Adventures

I had put off doing the food shopping for far too long, so Saturday morning I threw on sweats and a t-shirt and headed for Albertsons.  I knew I wanted some good old comfort food from home, so I got the ingredients for Chicken and Wild Rice hotdish.  I was also craving a Rueben, so sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, pastrami, and rye bread went in the cart.  On the healthy side, I got the ingredients for a white bean soup, which would be yummy on a cold day.

The cashier was friendly - rare these days, at least in my neck of the woods.  The fellow that bagged my groceries was probably in his mid-40's, and I didn't pay much attention to him.  That is until he said something very excitedly about limbo and Magnum, and remember that episode where only the Lads could hear him?  He had a bit of a speech impediment, and of course the subject matter was a little out of the blue.  He continued to talk about that episode, and I just decided to go with it.  He insisted on taking my groceries out to the car, and so I got a non-stop description not only that episode, but what was considered the best Magnum P.I. episode of all time.  Then he asked how many DVDs I own (none - I have Netflix).  He owns a lot, and I guess Walmart is the best place to buy them.  Then he switched to the new James Caan TV show, and said "don't give up on it...you have to be patient".

As I drove home, I realized I was smiling.  Someone that I normally wouldn't pay any attention to at all made me smile.  His soul shone bright and touched me in a way I didn't expect.

The hotdish turned out well - I added mushrooms and onion to the recipe, otherwise I followed Amy Thielen's recipe from her book "The New Midwestern Table".  She has a show on the Food Network, filmed in Two Inlets, not that far from where I live during the summer.

Today is Sunday, and I'm busy working off the hotdish.  I'm on week 8 of a beginning running program.  I ran 6 minutes today.  Three times, with one minute walking in between.  Six minutes, people!  I started out not being able to run for 20 SECONDS this summer.

I'm also doing a 30-day squat challenge, so I got my 70 squats out of the way this morning too.  I'm very proud of myself, especially since I couldn't seem to get my butt off the couch yesterday other than to shop, cook, and eat.

Sunday Afternoon

I ate breakfast, got my run in, showered, went to the thrift store to get some clothes for the work week ahead, and drove home.  I nodded to the two folks in the street two doors down talking to someone parked on the curb.  I figured that it was a nice day for a family barbecue or a post-church service get together, since they seemed nicely dressed.

Mindlessly I went about my chores - laundry has to be finished, unpacking yet to be done, clothes to hang up.  I grabbed Grace's water bowl and went to the sink to fill it.  The window over the kitchen sink is open, and I heard loud screaming.  Thinking it was my imagination or dogs howling or kids playing, I filled the bowl up and turned off the water.  The screams continued, and this time I knew they were human.

I saw four black women dressed in their Sunday best, all standing on the front stoop looking across the street.  I looked too, and found the source of the screaming.  A woman in a pink blazer, a pink skirt, and candy striped pink high heel shoes was bent over double next to one of the parked cars, wailing in obvious grief and pain.  A man in a white shirt and black pants held her arms while she howled, patiently waiting for her to finish.  She slowly quieted down, and silently sobbed on the man's chest.

The man didn't pat her back or say soothing things to her, at least not that I could tell.  He simply held her while she poured out her grief for the world to hear.

Finally silent, she let the man guide her to the passenger side of the car, and they drove off.  The wailing though, continued, this time one of the four women who stood by watching on the stoop across the street.  As one of the other women comforted her, a little girl, three or four, danced around them not knowing that something of a tragic nature had just occurred.  A little boy, perhaps 6, joined her outside and looked up at the adult's faces, as if wanting to know what was wrong.  The women stared straight ahead, as if they couldn't bear the thought of explaining to a child that death had arrived in his life, and that he would forever after have to know that people would leave him.

The door to the house opened, and a white woman dressed in all white walked out carrying a bag.  Hospice nurse?  She walked straight to the car to put the bag away without saying anything to anyone outside.  She drove away, as if in defeat.

The mourners have started to arrive, shaking hands, hugging, or patting shoulders.  Is it a different protocol depending on the relation to the deceased I wonder?  Or is it how close you are to the person in mourning?  Now there are seven on the front stoop, with others weaving in and out from inside to the outdoors.

As I watched, tears welled in my eyes, and I so desperately wanted to go and ask if I could comfort them in some way.  But I knew I was not wanted or needed and could only be a silent observer to their grief.

I don't know these neighbors, so don't know if the person inside is a man or woman, old or young, alive or dead.  But pain is universal, and pain has visited this house two doors down from me.

Winter Palace Blues

I'm never happy about leaving Minnesota for Texas, even for the promise of better weather.  It means saying goodbye to family and friends, lake country, chipmunks, deer, and the "country" life.

But I'm back in the city now, adjusting as best I can.  Thursday not just one but two drivers pulled out right in front of me; one even ran a stop sign to do it.  I laid on the horn both times, but both drivers were oblivious, probably too busy texting to worry about it.  By the time I got home my hands were clenched, my shoulders hunched, and I felt a headache starting right behind my eyes.  Then the Dentist told me I needed yet another crown, and my portion of the bill would be close to $700.00

But it's not all bad, not even half bad.  The day I arrived it was 91 degrees (ugh), but a cold front went through that very day and temps have been in the mid 70's since then.  I have my big kick-ass oven/range to cook on - no more trying to fit stuff into a tiny convection oven and then wondering how it's gonna turn out.

I joined the local YMCA this week; it being the cheapest option out there and the closest to home. When I entered the reception area to join, several people came in swiping their membership cards to get in.  None of them was under 80.  One lady came in with a walker and looked as if it would take her an hour to make it across the 50 feet to the gym.  Turns out there was a Silver Sneakers class about to begin.  The average age at this Y is much older than the normal gym though - even the trainer I met with is 57.  Guess I don't have to worry about being intimidated by athletic young hotties!

I hit a "magic" number with my weight loss this week too - 40 pounds lost.  That makes 70 pounds gone since my initial weight loss surgery 7 years ago.  10 pounds more and I'll have a normal BMI, which is my next goal.  I'm on week 5 of my running plan, which is run 2 minutes, walk 2 minutes.  It's still a workout, but it's getting easier every day!