PRAYER TO ST. FRANCIS
FOR OUR PETS

Good St. Francis, you loved all of God's creatures.
To you they were your brothers and sisters.
Help us to follow your example
of treating every living thing with kindness.
St. Francis, Patron Saint of animals,
watch over my pet
and keep my companion safe and healthy.
Amen.


It's a rough time, pet-wise, in my family. My dog, Maerlyn, experiences occasional seizures, and had one over the weekend. While they do not seem to leave any lasting effects, they are frightening and upsetting. My brother's Dobie, Ginger, has an exploded disk in her back and underwent surgery for it today. And then the really bad news came in. My sister-in-law's Sheltie, Lady, is inexplicably in renal failure. I do not know all the details, as the news was relayed to me through my husband who got it from his parents who got it from his sister, but apparently they told my sister-in-law that she could last two weeks or two years. We're pretty upset. Lady is only ten, and she is the kindest and sweetest dog on the planet. She's very friendly, loyal, smart, obedient...pretty much everything a dog is supposed to be. My dog absolutely worships her. Ever since he was a puppy, he has wanted to do what Lady was doing. We'll be crushed if anything happens to her. So please, if you can spare a moment, some prayers for the pets in my family would be greatly appreciated.

Finally made it to the gym several times this week. Already that's a positive sign. It hasn't made a huge difference in the weight so far (187 this morning), but as I get into more of a routine I should start seeing more results.

Also, I am hoping to see more positive results when swim season starts. I plan to make sure I go to practice early and swim as often as possible. My eating habits also tend to be better during swim season, maybe because I'm on the move and don't really have time to sit down and graze in front of the TV as I do the rest of the year.

I've also decided I need to try and utilize some of my planning time during the day for exercise. I procrastinate badly when it comes to my grading, and I really should use my planning periods for that, but with the beginning of swim season I gain some time in the evenings when I can sit down and grade. I often take papers with me to practice and sit and grade on the pool deck. So hopefully I can use some of my other down time during the day to exercise. I won't be doing cardio or anything, but I have hand weights in my classroom and I found a website showing some leg exercises that are mainly just lunges and squats. If I can get a yoga mat, I can incorporate some ab work too. That would be really helpful.

Anyway, I'm hoping to see positive changes soon...

Went camping the other weekend, and I swear that's where we stayed. It was a state park, but I really think it was Mosquito Falls. I've never seen so many mosquitos in my life. There was a lake there, and it hadn't rained much in a while, which made it perfect conditions for evil bugs. The surface of the lake was covered in larvae. I really can't believe the fish weren't gorging on them. Must not have been enough fish. Or maybe the mosquitos ate them.

Anyway, I'm thankful my father-in-law was there, because the mosquitos went for him over me. Usually I'm the one the bugs go for; they tap on my windows and ask if I can come out and play. But they just tore him up. I didn't do great; I probably had 30+ bites by the end of the weekend, but he had that many on EACH LEG. It was horrible. We went through at least five bottles of bug spray between nine of us, and we had to buy Cortaid spray and Benadryl gel when we got home. I still itch.

We took the dog camping. Our dog is not really a "roughing it" kind of dog; he sleeps on a pile of comforters and blankets in my closet and spends most of his days indoors. He gets walked 2-3 times a day. So this was an adventure. We wanted to try to it see if he could survive and do well; since we camp so frequently it is a real pain to have to find a dog-sitter every weekend--maybe if he did well we could take him along more often. Sadly, this is not to be. The first night he was OK, although he didn't really understand the whole concept of the tent. He didn't sleep on the bed prepared for him in the tent. Instead, after circling the tent five or ten times, he laid on my clean clothes and got hair all over them. The next day he started out having a great day. We took a walk around the lake and he got to pee on every plant in the state park. Very exciting. But then we gathered our stuff and headed for the swimming beach on the other side of the campground. This necessitated putting two adults, two small children (4 and 6), and two non-water dogs (our Shiba Inu and my sister-in-law's Sheltie) in a raft and paddling that raft around a small point of land. My husband, my brother-in-law, and I all paddled our kayaks next to the raft. The dogs contemplated their potential escape the entire journey, hanging over the sides of the raft and patting the water with their paws. I think they were estimating the depth and their chances. When we got to the beach, my husband climbed out of his boat and waded out to the raft, in about chest-deep water. He then called to our dog, who wiggled a moment on the wale of the raft and then leapt into the water. Well, it didn't go as well as he hoped--he came up frantically paddling and sputtering and made his way to my husband. He tried to climb my husband to get out of the water, so my husband tossed him back in the raft. He stayed in the raft until the boat got close enough to the shore to jump to the beach without hitting any water. That was pretty much the turning point of his day. We stayed at the beach for several hours, but a storm blew up. We headed back to the campsites (this time by truck instead of by boat, because we thought the storm was going to make the paddle back ugly) and started on dinner. Then, it began to pour. And pour. And thunder. And lightning. It was a heck of a storm. With a little camp creativity (a tarp draped between two big storage boxes and held up with a kayak paddle and some rope, all over our fire pit with a dutch oven in it) we managed to get dinner cooked and eaten, but the rain made for a early night for everyone. It rained off and on the entire night. This second night did not go well for the dog. We thought at the time it might be bugs (which he hates), but on reflection may have just been the noise of the rain hitting the tent, but the dog would not settle down all night. He whined and cried, and fussed around, and would lay down for half an hour or so and then get up and circle the tent again. We didn't get much sleep since he was so active. Little did we realize, he was searching for a way out. He found it at about five in the morning. He discovered that the two zipper pulls on one of the tent doors were not quite touching. He put his nose in the fresh air between them and pushed. He managed to work them open enough to fit between them, and made a break for it. We were both dozing at that point and didn't realize he was on his way out until it was too late. The dog was loose in a state park 200 miles from home in the pitch black pouring rain. Great. There was nothing we could do; we certainly couldn't chase him down. My husband went back into the tent to wait until it was light. I stayed out under the dining fly; I figured if the dog knew I was there he would be less likely to run away in terror if the thunder rumbled. Sure enough, I was only outside for about five minutes before he came sidling up. Clearly running loose in the dark rain wasn't nearly as much fun as he thought it would be. I walked over to the cooler as if I was going to get something out, and the dog came right up and sat down, hoping for a handout. Instead, I grabbed him by the collar and threw him back in the tent. He circled the tent a few more times, checking for weaknesses, and then gave up for the night. The next day, he was so tired, he just laid around the campsite until we were packed and ready to leave, and then he fell asleep on my lap on the drive home (something he NEVER does--he's not a lap dog in any way).

So, we left some blood at the state park, and learned a valuable lesson about our dog: until we have a camper/trailer that has a locking door, he should be left at home.

I've been tired ever since. Could be because I'm so horribly out of shape (made it to the gym today for the first time in forever; hooray for me!), but I think it's because of the anemia. Or the West Nile virus.

Horrible couple of days. Started yesterday when I was so tired I was mentally incapable of turning off my alarm. Then I left my school bag at home, the bag that contains all my work that I was grading and needed to put into the computer. Then I poured whiteout all over my black pants and one of my favorite sweaters. And I had major cramps. Just made it one of those days. Thought it was over, but this morning as I was walking the dog I stepped in some mud with my Crocs, one of which zipped out from under me and dropped me on my butt in the mud at 5:30 in the morning. And when I weighed in, it was the worst weigh in I've had in over a year and a half (191). I haven't been working out, I've been eating horribly, and I've basically done everything I can to sabotage myself.

So here's what I need to do to fix it:

20 Ways to Stick to Your Workout
By Adam Campbell
Men's Health

You have the right to remain fat. Or skinny. Or weak. But you should know that every workout you miss can and will be used against you to make your belly bigger, your muscles smaller and weaker, and your life shorter. Unfortunately, most Americans are exercising their right not to exercise.

A recent study by the National Center for Health Statistics found that only 19 percent of the population regularly engages in "high levels of physical activity." (That's defined as three intense 20-minute workouts per week.)

Another 63 percent—about the same percentage as that of Americans who are overweight—believe that exercising would make them healthier, leaner, and less stressed, but they don't do it. At the root of this problem is motivation, or the lack thereof.

It's the difference between wanting to exercise and actually doing it. That's why the advice you're about to read is priceless. We've filled these pages with the favorite motivational strategies of the top personal trainers in the country. Their livelihoods, in fact, depend on the effectiveness of their tips to inspire their clients to exercise—and to stick with it. After all, statistics don't pay by the hour.

1. Sign up for a distant race

That is, one that's at least 500 miles away. The extra incentive of paying for airfare and a hotel room will add to your motivation to follow your training plan, says Carolyn Ross-Toren, chairwoman of the Mayor's Fitness Council in San Antonio.

2. Make a 'friendly' bet

Challenge your nemesis—that idea-stealing coworker or a non-mowing neighbor—to a contest. The first guy to drop 15 pounds, run a 6-minute mile, or bench- press 250 pounds wins. The key: "Make sure it's someone you don't particularly like," says Michael Mejia, C.S.C.S., Men's Health exercise advisor. (It's okay if your rival thinks you're best friends.)

3. Tie exercise to your health

Check your cholesterol. Then set a goal of lowering your LDL cholesterol by 20 points and increasing your HDL cholesterol by 5 points. "You'll decrease your risk of heart disease while providing yourself with a very important, concrete goal," says John Thyfault, Ph.D., C.S.C.S., an exercise researcher at East Carolina University. Ask your doctor to write a prescription for new blood work in a month. You'll just have to go to the lab, and the doctor will call you with the results.

4. Switch your training partners

Working out with a partner who will hold you accountable for showing up at the gym works well—for a while. But the more familiar you are with the partner, the easier it becomes to back out of workout plans. "Close friends and family members don't always make the best training partners because they may allow you to slack off or cancel workouts," says Jacqueline Wagner, C.S.C.S., a trainer in New York City. To keep this from happening, find a new, less forgiving workout partner every few months.

5. Compete

Find a sport or event that you enjoy, and train to compete in it. "It adds a greater meaning to each workout," says Alex Koch, Ph.D., C.S.C.S., an exercise researcher (and competitive weight lifter) at Truman State University. Consider training for the World Master's games in 2009 (www.2009worldmasters.com), an Olympics-like competition for regular guys. Events include basketball, rowing, golf, triathlon, and weight lifting.

6. Think about fat

Your body is storing and burning fat simultaneously, but it's always doing one faster than the other. "Understanding that you're getting either fatter or leaner at any one time will keep you body-conscious so you won't overeat or underexercise," says Alwyn Cosgrove, C.S.C.S., owner of Results Fitness Training in Santa Clarita, California.

7. Do a daily gut check

Place your fingers on your belly and inhale deeply so that it expands. As you exhale, contract your abdominal muscles and push your fingertips against your hard abdominal wall. Now pinch. "You're holding pure fat between your fingers," says Tom Seabourne, Ph.D., author of Athletic Abs. Do this every day, 30 minutes before your workout, and you'll find that you'll rarely decide to skip it.


8. Join a fitness message board

It'll be full of inspiration from men who have accomplished their goals and are working toward new ones. Our particular favorite: the 52-Day Challenge. Created by a Men's Health Belly-Off Club Forum member with the username "Determined," it's designed to foster encouragement, discipline, and accountability. "Each participant posts and tracks his goals for a 52-day period so that everyone is accountable to the other members," says Determined. To sign up, click here.

9. Strike an agreement with your wife and kids

The rule: You get 1 hour to yourself every day, provided that you use it for exercise (and reciprocate the favor). So there's no pressure to do household chores, play marathon games of Monopoly, or be a doting husband (a fat, doting husband). "Since it's for your health, it's a contract they can't refuse. And that will allow you to exercise guilt-free while acting as a role model for your children," says Darren Steeves, C.S.C.S., a trainer in Canada.

10. Burn a workout CD

Studies have shown that men who pedal stationary cycles while listening to their favorite music will do so longer and more intensely than men who exercise without music. So burn a disc with your favorite adrenaline-boosting songs (maybe something by Limp Bizkit or—if you're over 40—Hot Tuna).

11. Plan your workouts in advance

At the start of each month, schedule all of your workouts at once, and cross them off as they're completed. For an average month, you might try for a total of 16 workouts. If any are left undone at the end of the month, tack them on to the following month. And make sure you have a contingency plan for bad weather and unscheduled meetings. "You're about 40 percent more likely to work out if you have strategies to help you overcome these obstacles," says Rod Dishman, Ph.D., an exercise scientist at the University of Georgia.


12. Squat first

If you have trouble finishing your weight workout, start with the exercises you dread. "You'll look forward to your favorite exercises at the end of your workout, which will encourage you to complete the entire session," says John Williams, C.S.C.S., co-owner of Spectrum Conditioning in Port Washington, New York.

13. Schedule a body-composition test every 2 months

It'll provide you with a clear end date for the simple goal of losing body fat or gaining muscle. "Tangible results are the best motivator," says Tim Kuebler, C.S.C.S., a trainer in Kansas City, Missouri. Your gym probably offers the service for a small fee—just make sure the same trainer performs the test each time.

14. Don't do what you hate

"Whenever you start to dread your workout, do what appeals to you instead," says John Raglin, Ph.D., an exercise psychologist at Indiana University. If you loathe going to a gym, try working out at home. (Check the Men's Health Home Workout Bible for ideas.) If you despise the treadmill, then jump rope, lift weights, or find a basketball court. Bottom line: If you're sick of your routine, find a new one.

15. Go through the motions

On days when you don't feel like working out, make the only requirement of your exercise session a single set of your favorite exercise. "It's likely that once you've started, you'll finish," says Rachel Cosgrove, C.S.C.S. If you still don't feel like being in the gym, go home. This way, you never actually stop exercising; you just have some gaps in your training log.

16. Start a streak

There's nothing like a winning streak to attract fans to the ballpark. Do the same for your workout by trying to set a new record for consecutive workouts without a miss. "Every time your streak ends, strive to set a longer mark in your next attempt," says Williams.


17. Make your goals attractive

"To stay motivated, frame your goals so that they drive you to achieve them," says Charles Staley, owner of Edtsecrets.com. For example, if you're a 200-pound guy, decide whether you'd rather bench "over 200 pounds," "the bar with two 45-pound plates on each side," or "your body weight." They're all different ways of saying the same thing, but one is probably more motivating to you than the others.

18. See your body through her eyes

Ask your wife to make like Howard Stern and identify your most displeasing physical characteristic. "It's instant motivation," says Mejia. If she's hesitant, make a list for her—abs, love handles, upper arms, and so on—and have her rank them from best to worst. Make the most-hated body part your workout focus for 4 weeks, then repeat the quiz for more motivation.

19. Buy a year's worth of protein

"If a guy believes that a supplement will help him achieve better results, he'll be more inclined to keep up his workouts in order to reap the full benefits and avoid wasting his money," says Kuebler. Stick with the stuff that really does help: protein and creatine, from major brands like MuscleTech, EAS, and Biotest.

20. Blackmail yourself

Take a picture of yourself shirtless, holding a sign that shows your e-mail address. Then e-mail it to a trusted but sadistic friend, with the following instructions: "If I don't send you a new picture that shows serious improvement in 12 weeks, post this photo at hotornot.com and send the link to the addresses listed below... " (Include as many e-mail addresses—especially of female acquaintances—as possible.) "It's nasty, but extremely effective," says Alwyn Cosgrove.

I think one of the biggest reasons I don't blog regularly is that I have nothing new to say. I am in such a horrible rut. I worked out ONE DAY last week (as I mentioned). The rest of the week just faded into nothingness. Tuesday was our anniversary so we went out instead of hitting the gym. Wednesday we went, as our big anniversary gift to each other, to a really nice restaurant called Texas de Brazil, a place we've only eaten once before, because it's so expensive. Well, as I've described previously, it's basically an orgy of meat. So, no dieting there. Blew off the gym Thursday because I needed to prepare to be out of town for the weekend. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday involved some physical activity (rafting and kayaking) but also some eating out at restaurants. Too tired yesterday recovering from the weekend to work out. So I've gone a whole week with no gym. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The scale definitely shows it; highest weight in a long time this morning (187). So, I'm headed to the gym now. If I can just break out of this slump, I might be able to start making it all a habit again. A good habit, instead of the bad one I've developed.

Through one of those weird "one thought leads to another which leads to another" days, it occurred to me that it has to be around the anniversary of the death of my bunster. He died about this time, middle of August, 2003, at the bunny-elderly age of seven and a half.

I got Bump, as he came to be called, when he was about two months old and I was about to begin my first year of grad school in 1996. I had spoken to the two girls who were to be my roommates, and we all decided we wanted a pet. However, our landlord did not allow dogs and cats. Since a rather large loophole existed (he only mentioned dogs and cats, no other animals), we wanted something that had some personality and would interact with us. My brother mentioned that he knew someone (who knew someone) who raised rabbits. "What the heck," I thought. So I went and picked him out of the crowd of other bunnies.

I wanted to name him Archimedes, and maybe call him Archie for short, but the first night I had him his true name appeared. The people who had bred him had kept the rabbits in wire hutches. I had put him in a glass aquarium with an open screen top. He looked through the glass and in his little bunny mind he thought, "I can see through it...I can GO through it." And bump bump bump on the glass all night long. And so he was Bump.

He was not the brightest animal in the world, although he was terribly handsome. A "broken chinchilla" Holland lop, he had a beautiful pattern of dark silver fur kind of like an inkblot. He had bright eyes, big fuzzy feet, a little tail-tuft on his butt, and long ears that he could at best hold straight out to the sides when he was very interested in something. He went everywhere at full-tilt, bouncing off furniture, smashing into door frames, and crashing headlong into the wall one day when he couldn't make the turn fast enough. He knocked himself unconscious, broke his top front teeth off (beginning a life-long necessity of clipping the teeth with wire cutters because they didn't wear themselves down on the lower teeth after that), and precipitated the vet to suggest that we make him a little bunny crash helmet with holes for his ears. We didn't, and he never crashed into the wall again, but he didn't slow down all that much.

Bump was very lovable, at least to me. He would play with my roommates (he loved fetch, and if you gave him car keys he'd throw them up in the air for hours--and then they'd land on his head), but when I'd call him he'd come barrelling down the hall to me. I'd pucker up and make smooching noises, and he'd climb into my lap and squint his eyes and put his nose up to receive bunny kisses. He loved to have his nose rubbed, between his eyes. He'd flop on the ground, close his eyes, and go into a state of bunny nirvana until you stopped rubbing, and then he'd look at you like, "Are you kidding? You aren't done yet."

He was mostly potty trained, doing most of his liquid business (he'd forget occasionally) in a litter box. He also slept in it sometimes. Eew, I know. He got better about leaving his pellets in the box, but I'd find them in various locations in the house on a somewhat regular basis, so he never really got the hang of it. He'd walk on a leash, sort of, although he only wanted to go as far as a tasty patch of grass in the yard. He did get destructive when he was ignored--he'd get a hold of a book and tear pages out, or he'd scratch at the carpet. When we moved out at the end of the school year, I had to roll pieces of duct tape and place them over the backing of the carpet that was left on the floor, and then I took all the pieces of yarn that had been scratched off the carpet and put them rather painstakingly back in place. I don't know if the landlord ever realized that the carpet was damaged, but we did get our security deposit back, so maybe he never noticed.

My inlaws had a collie who loved Bump. Rex would race up to me as soon as I got to their house and sniff the rabbit through his travel cage. I'd set the cage down and open it, and Rex would shove his head in and sniff nose to nose with Bump. When Bump hopped out onto the floor, Rex would follow him and nudge him whenever he stopped hopping. I assume he must have been trying to herd him somewhere.

He learned to beg for treats. His favorite treats were M&Ms. I'd break them in half and give him a few pieces (I know, some of you are freaking out because chocolate is bad for animals, but rabbits can tolerate it much better than dogs or cats because rabbits are related to rodents). He'd sit up and wait for the pieces, and make this funny noise.

Probably my favorite thing about Bump was the noise he'd make. I always thought that rabbits were silent, but Bump would make this weird noise when he was really excited about something, sort of a "voot". The best description I can give is, put your bottom lip and top teeth together and make a long "v" sound, and put a "t" on the end without actually taking your teeth off your lip. He'd do it repeatedly: "Voot voot voot voot voot" as he bounded around the room and played. I have no idea what it meant, and he did it less and less as he got older, but it was a very unique sound and pretty funny to hear.

When Bump got older, he slowed down. He played less, he ran around less, and he spent more and more time lying around and sleeping. Finally, he stopped eating. I knew the end was near. The morning he died he was still alive when I left to go to work, but he wouldn't move from his little bed. I petted him and spent about half an hour talking to him. When I had to leave, I told him that if it was time for him to go, he needed to go and I loved him. My husband left an hour or so later, and he said he was unresponsive but still breathing. I knew by the time I got home that afternoon he'd be gone. And he was. So I called the vet's office and asked if I could take his body to them for them to take care of. I wrapped him in a t-shirt, placed him in a box, and drove him the three blocks to the office.

The interesting thing was, my dog didn't trust me for a few days after this. He was home with Bump all day, and I know he was aware that Bump had died. But he also knew that the bunny LEFT THE HOUSE with me, but I came back and HE DIDN'T. The dog didn't want me to take him for a walk for several days. I think he thought I'd take him and leave him wherever I took the rabbit.

Anyway, all of these memories were triggered by one of those random thought connections. Someone was typing about Monty Python's Holy Grail, and mentioned Zoot (bad, evil, wicked, naughty Zoot), which made me think "voot" which made me think of the bunny and made me realize it's been almost exactly four years since he died.

I miss him. He was sweet, friendly (although jealous of my husband), and cuddly. He made a great Easter bunny (he loved to get into the baskets and make a mess). And he looked like a furry little airplane with his ears sticking out to the sides.

Meh. Didn't make it to the gym this a.m. I didn't go to sleep as early as I wanted, and then I slept poorly, so I reset the alarm at about 3:30 and slept 'til 5:30. Didn't do that well at keeping the food to a minimum today either, as it was a coworker's birthday. A little party at lunch with a little cake and a little punch and, well, you can guess what the problem was. I didn't adjust the rest of my eating for the day, which I should have done.

It seems like my life is starting to revolve around 100-calorie packs of things, and generally prepackaged meals. I have 100-calorie packs of Cheese Nips, Oreo Crisps, Doritos, even Hostess Snack Cakes (man, those are so disappointing compared to a nice full-size package of cupcakes). I've got Healthy Choice meals (usually under 300 calories) for lunches. For dinner we've been using those Bertolli bagged skillet meals (serves two, ready in ten minutes). It's all great, but I'm wondering if I'll ever develop the ability to cook and eat an appropriately-sized meal. How do you cook for two and not scarf down any leftovers? It makes me question the long-term success of anyone on a prepackaged meal system, like Jenny Craig or Nutrisystem.

I did make it to the gym after school, although it wasn't the most impressive workout I've had. I made 15 minutes on the elliptical machine (I will credit myself that I set it on a higher resistance than usual) and just pooped out. I switched to the treadmill (feeling a little dizzy for the first minute or so) and went for another 30 minutes.

So, not the best start back on the road to thinness, but it is a start nonetheless.

Ooookay, it's been a little while since my last post. Very little has changed. Due to a variety of circumstances, I have not made it to the gym regularly as I had planned, I have not done much in the way of monitoring my food intake, and basically everything is exactly as it was two weeks ago. My weight is still at about 184. However, I have hope that things will start to improve. School has started, so I've got a routine now, and I can control the amount of food that goes to school with me, so I should be able to limit my intake. We're working on a little vehicular problem that has caused my husband and me to share a vehicle for the last week or so, and if we can get that straightened out today I should be able to start back to the gym in the morning tomorrow. I have hope.

Life has sort of stagnated, as my husband put it. We got a glimpse of a place we would love to live, Boise, ID. I know, you're thinking, "Idaho? What the $&%^ is in Idaho?" Well, other than potatoes (my second favorite food group), there's a surprising amount of stuff in Idaho. We went to get a glimpse of Boise State, where my brother-in-law is considering going for grad school. Boise State was OK, somewhat unremarkable to someone who has been surrounded by SEC campuses for the past nine years but overall not bad. But the town was incredible. The actual city of Boise has around 200,000 residents, and the surrounding area (Nampa, Meridian, Eagle, and some other small towns) create a metro area of about 600,000 total. So it's not small, but it has a nice small-town feel. Boise is known as the City of Trees, and the city is very green and verdant, especially if you consider that the surrounding land is brown and scrubby. It's a very earthy town, with lots of people riding bikes, skating, or running everywhere. All the streets have bike paths, there are bike racks at every corner and outside every shop, and there is a greenbelt system of city parks numbering around 50. The Boise River runs straight through town, and there are paved pathways running alongside the river for about 25 miles on either side. Everywhere we went there were people outside enjoying the day. But as green and granola as it was, it didn't have that aggressive "we're so green and liberal" feeling, the feeling that places like Boulder, CO and Eugene, OR have. Idaho seems to have a pleasant mix of environmentalists and red state Republicans. We were very impressed. But of course, now that we've gotten that glimpse of Boise, we're stuck in the South. A possible promotion has popped up for my husband at work, and if it ends up happening it will trap us here for a few years more. And the whole thing has just made us dissatisfied with living here in general. It was a bit of a tease.

Anyway, that's just a little of life right now. I'll let you know if I'm able to get back on track tomorrow.

Well, crap.

Here I am, less than two weeks away from the beginning of the new school year, and I have nothing to report.

I'm at pretty much the same place I was at the end of the school year, hovering at 180 lbs. Did I spend the summer at the gym like I said I would? Nope. Did I carefully monitor my food intake? Not really. Did I increase the difficulty or length of my workouts? No. So, why am I disappointed that I haven't lost any weight the past two months?

The summer has pretty much been a waste in other ways. I had planned on spending a couple hours a week playing the guitar, which I haven't played in several years. You guessed it--never happened. I was going to spend a little time each day carefully planning out my curriculum for the school year, since I was making changes in both the content and my scoring methods. Of course not. I was going to pick a different room in the house each week and thoroughly clean and reorganize. Did I actually do it? Well, that's the only thing I did this summer, and even then it was pretty half-assed. I started out strong, busting out a cleaning and reorganization of the bathroom in just one day. Then it was several weeks before I got around to the next room, the utility/laundry room. Took a couple days to do that one. And then there was a lot of sitting around, doing nothing all day long, until I had to spend two frantic days (with my husband's help) cleaning the rest of the house so it wouldn't look like a total disaster when my company came to visit. So, the house got cleaned and somewhat reorganized, but not to the level I had originally intended.

And now it's all over. We'll be out of town for the weekend, and then I've only got a day before I have to report to school for a week of inservice. So my summer vacation is over. I have nothing really to show for it.

I'm very tired and frustrated. If I come up with these plans and can't follow through with them, what's the point of coming up with the plans in the first place? I know that "no one can do it for me" and I have to take the initiative, but I've tried all this time and can't make myself do what needs to be done. So, is there any hope?

I need to go back to the beginning. I need to make some changes. First, I need to go back to morning workouts on a regular basis. I've gradually drifted away from hitting the gym in the morning, and that can't be the case. So, that's the first change. Next, I need to go back to a full hour of cardio. I've eased up on myself and often only do 30 or 45 minutes of cardio. I also need to increase the difficulty of my cardio. They say (whoever "they" are) that your body gets used to doing the same thing over and over again, so the 30-45 minutes of cardio at the same resistance level and the same pace has gradually gotten less and less effective. I also need to go back to including weight lifting on a regular basis. To increase the amount of calories burned, I need to increase the mass of muscle available to burn those calories. And lastly, I need to rigorously follow some kind of eating plan. It's too easy to destroy whatever progress I've made by overeating. I've always eaten a large amount of food at a sitting, and that hasn't really changed, even as we've made some progress over the past few years with the exercising. I need to train myself to eat less.

It's all well and good for me to say all these things that I need to do. It's another thing entirely for me to actually do all of this. I haven't managed to accomplish anything yet. I simply don't know if I'll be able to do this or not.

Wow. Just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and to answer one of your questions, yes, I'm a fast reader. We got the books (multiple, yes, because both my husband and I read them, and we didn't want to fight over the copy of the book) this morning at about 9:30 a.m., and here it is just before 4:00 p.m. and I'm done.

To answer any of your other questions would require revealing some things about the book, which I'm not going to do, exactly. I will say I was right about a few things and not completely right about some others. About Dumbledore's death and Snape's involvement, I was both wrong and right. About Harry and whether or not he was a Horcrux, I was right, and about whether or not Harry was going to have to die, I was right. About Neville's involvement in the whole prophecy (as he could have been The Chosen One), I was sort of right; his involvement was not exactly what I had predicted. And as to the characters who died, I was totally wrong. I was pretty sad about the characters they killed off, but I didn't cry.

Overall, a pretty darn good ending to a pretty darn good series of books. And now, to start rereading it...

Cancer sucks. Got the news that the mother of a close coworker passed away today. Diagnosed last year with lung cancer, she was treated with radiation and chemo. Things looked OK for a while, but at the beginning of June she was supposed to go in for cataract surgery, but right before she was to have the surgery she went in for some tests and they determined that the vision problems she was having were partly due to brain cancer. The lung cancer had spread. My friend immediately went up to be with her mom and stepdad. The prognosis was grim, 4 weeks, 8 on the outside. Well, it about split the difference, as it's been about 6 weeks since that was handed down. Thankfully, my friend got to spend a lot of this time with her mom and stepdad. And it didn't exactly cut her life short, as she was 89. But cancer is cancer, and sucks is sucks, and the whole thing isn't fair. Cancer shouldn't happen. It's not natural. It's a mutation. It makes me wonder how much of the cancer is caused by our civilization's gradual progression of chemical dependency. I hate it, and of course it makes me think back three months ago to my own mother's death. I guess I would have liked to have the prognosis, to know that it was coming, but I don't really think it would have made anything easier or better. I just hate that anyone has to go through this, and that any families have to be left behind.

A nice, somewhat helpful article that I found on CNN.com today:

Sneaky little slim-down tricks
(Health.com) -- Health magazine went to the top weight-control experts for their No. 1 tips to get the weight off now. Take a look.

Start smart
Begin lunch and dinner with a veggie-rich salad or broth-based soup, says Pennsylvania State University satiety expert Barbara Rolls, author of "The Volumetrics Eating Plan." "That lets you fill up first on a big volume of low-calorie food and ends up displacing some of the foods you'll eat next -- the choices that are usually higher in calories."

Here's a good salad recipe: Mix 1½ cups of salad greens with ¾ cup of raw veggies like onions, bell peppers, carrots, broccoli, or cucumbers; drizzle with 2 tablespoons of low-cal bottled dressing.

Sneak a snack
"Ten minutes before each meal, eat some healthy fat (around 70 calories or fewer): a handful of nuts, a few slices of avocado, or a spoonful of peanut butter, for example. That helps activate ghrelin, a hormone that lets you know you're full," says Michael Roizin, MD, co-author with Mehmet Oz, MD, of "You on a Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management."

Try the 3-hour rule
"The secret to losing weight comes down to keeping your metabolism alive and active," according to fitness guru Jorge Cruise, author of "The 3-Hour Diet." How do you do that? By eating every 3 hours, give or take 10 to 20 minutes, he says, which translates to three moderate meals with three snacks (100 calories each) between meals.

Though other experts say there's nothing magic about 3-hour intervals, eating small, frequent, portion-controlled meals and snacks can keep your blood sugar level steady, your energy up, and keep you from overindulging.

Have liquid assets
"If you're going to drink anything with calories (i.e., fruit juice, soda, sweetened coffee and tea, or alcohol), you need to consciously adjust your diet to accommodate those extra calories," says Purdue University nutrition researcher Richard Mattes, PhD. His research shows that people typically make adjustments to eat fewer calories over the course of a day after eating a solid food like jelly beans, but not after drinking the same amount of calories in a glass of soda.

And if you want to replace sweetened drinks with their calorie-free counterparts, rethink it. Some research suggests that people who drink no- or low-calorie drinks might actually end up eating more, Mattes says. The best thirst quencher -- and a dieter's best friend -- is still plain old H2O.

Cut out this combo
Skip those munchies made with white flour and sugar, like white bread, cookies, and pretzels, says integrative medicine guru Andrew Weil, MD. They signal the body to produce more insulin and set the stage for turning calories to fat, fat, and more fat.

Choose your pals
Studies show that most of us base how much we eat on what others around us eat, says University of Toronto psychologist Peter Herman, PhD. So steer clear of the big eaters in your social circle, at least when food is around. Sashay over and make small talk at parties with the folks who aren't hovering near the food table.

"Marching to your own caloric drummer requires some independent thought and calculation," Herman says.

Pare portions
Everything from beverages to bagels is two to five times bigger today than in the 1970s, says New York University nutrition professor Lisa Young, PhD, author of "Portion Teller" and who has studied the servings dished up in restaurants and by food companies.

"So if you grab a bagel or eat out, chances are you'll be served double what you need," she says. Her advice: Start leaving just a little bit on your plate or, if you can, cut the amount you eat in half. She also suggests that you "use your hand as a portion guide -- 3 ounces of meat fits into your palm, 1 cup of potatoes looks like a fist."

Be an early bird
Eat the most food earlier in the day, says Elisabetta Politi, nutrition manager at Duke Diet and Fitness Center, Duke University's successful weight-management center.

"Many dieters try to trim calories from their break-fast and lunch and then get hungry," she says. "Research shows the calories you eat earlier in the day help you eat less at night" -- a good idea since you probably won't be active after an evening meal.

Step it up
"Get a pedometer and start walking," says University of Colorado obesity expert James Hill, author of "The Step Diet." To keep the weight off forever, the goal is to take 11,000 to 12,000 steps (around 90 minutes) a day.

"You don't need to do it all at once," Hill explains. Start with 2,000 steps a day, or about 15 minutes of walking. Add another 5 minutes (500 steps) each week. You can find supercheap pedometers at drugstores and big-box retailers to help you keep count. There are lots of other sneaky little ways to add more steps to your day, too: Use a cordless phone and walk while you talk, or get up and walk during TV commercials.

Think thin
"Seeing is believing," says Janice Taylor, weight-loss coach and author of "Our Lady of Weight Loss." "You have to picture yourself thin if you want to become thin." Visualize what you're wearing, where you are, who you are with, and how you feel. "The more vivid the picture, the more real it will feel to you," Taylor says, "and the more likely it will take form."

Shula Lazarus, PhD, a psychotherapist at the North Carolina-based weight-management program Structure House, agrees, though the method isn't clinically proven. "We use it to help dieters visualize a healthy eating pattern and the right portions on their plate. It can't hurt, and it might help."

Fill up on fiber
Crowd out calorie-dense foods by ratcheting up on fruits and veggies. "Start by eating one more serving of fruit and one more vegetable a day," says Donald Hensrud, MD, a Mayo Clinic nutrition specialist. Hitting that midafternoon slump? Reach for carrots -- the carbs will give you a lift. Not only does munching on nature's bounty become a good habit, but it'll also help you tap into dozens of disease-fighting phytochemicals and vitamins. The biggest fiber bulker-upper: beans. Just a cup of black beans nets you nearly 15 grams of filling fiber.

Brush your teeth
Sometimes the best advice comes from your best friend or, in this case, a fellow Health magazine reader. Barbara Haug of Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, says she brushes her teeth right after dinner instead of at bedtime. "I can be a compulsive snacker in the evening," she says, "but I don't like messing up freshly brushed teeth."

There are some good pointers in there. Since I have a hard time controlling how much I eat, I need to max out on the stuff that's better to eat--more salads, more veggies, more fiber, less meat, less starches, less white flour and sugar (*sob*). Eat more in the morning and cut back at night. If I drink something with calories (which I usually don't--mostly water and diet soda, and I should really cut back on the diet soda again) I need to cut the calories from somewhere else.

Of course, advice is great and all that, but can I really do it?

As time draws nearer and nearer to the release of the final Harry Potter book this weekend, I can't help but think about the possible endings. Will Harry live or die? Will he finally vanquish Lord Voldemort? Who else from the large cast of interesting and (mostly) lovable characters will meet an untimely end? Did Snape really kill Dumbledore, and if he did, was he a good guy or a bad guy when he did it? Is Harry a Horcrux? Is Neville supposed to be the real Chosen One?

And I'm not the only one wondering these things. There is an absolute legion of fans out there, all of them wondering how it will all end. Even famous people. Here's an article written by Stephen King, the famous novelist who has killed off more characters than we can count in his stories.

Goodbye, Harry
Our columnist knows from writing his ''Dark Tower'' series that every story needs closure -- even if one ending can't please 'em all
J.K. ROWLING
Jon Furniss/WireImage.com
By Stephen King

"I'm having a day of mixed feelings: happy because I'm reading the manuscript of a novel that's full of magic, mystery, and monsters; sad because it will be finished tomorrow and on my shelf, with all its secrets told and its surviving characters set free to live their own lives (if characters have lives beyond the end of a novel — I've always felt they do). It's called The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff, and it will be published early next year.

Did you think I meant the final Harry Potter tale? Don't be a sillykins — not even your Uncle Stevie gets that one in advance (although I'm sure you agree that he should, he should). But I expect to face the same feelings, only stronger, when the pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows dwindle down to the final few. Hell, I had trouble saying goodbye to Tony Soprano, and let's face it — he was a turd. Harry's one of the good guys. One of the great guys, in fact, and the same holds true for his friends.

The sense of sadness I feel at the approaching end of The Monsters of Templeton isn't just because the story's going to be over; when you read a good one — and this is a very good one — those feelings are deepened by the realization that you probably won't tie into anything that much fun again for a long time. This particular melancholy deepens even more when the story is spread over multiple volumes. I felt it as I approached the end of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy, more strongly as I neared the conclusion of Frodo's quest in The Lord of the Rings, and with painful keenness when, as the writer, I got to the end of The Dark Tower, which stretched over seven volumes and a quarter century's writing time.

When it comes to Harry, part of me — a fairly large part, actually — can hardly bear to say goodbye. I'd guess that J.K. Rowling feels the same, although I'd also guess those feelings are mingled with the relief of knowing that the work is finally done, for better or worse.

And I'm a grown-up, for God's sake — a damn Muggle! Think how it must be for all the kids who were 8 when Harry debuted in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, with its cartoon jacket and modest (500 copies) first edition. Those kids are now 18, and when they close the final book, they will be in some measure closing the book on their own childhoods — magic summers spent in the porch swing, or reading under the covers at camp with flashlights in hand, or listening to Jim Dale's recordings on long drives to see Grandma in Cincinnati or Uncle Bob in Wichita. My advice to families containing Harry Potter readers: Stock up on the Kleenex. You're gonna need it. It's all made worse by one unavoidable fact: It's not just Harry. It's time to say goodbye to the whole cast, from Moaning Myrtle to Scabbers the rat (a.k.a. Wormtail). Which leads to an interesting question — will the final volume satisfy Harry's longtime (and very devoted) readers?

Although the only thing we can be sure of is that Deathly Hallows won't end in a 10-second blackout (you're going to hear that a lot in the next few weeks), my guess is that large numbers of readers will not be satisfied even if Harry survives (I'm betting he will) and Lord Voldemort is vanquished (I'm betting on this, too, although evil is never vanquished for long). I'm partly drawing on my own experience with The Dark Tower (reader satisfaction with the ending was low — tough titty, since it was the only one I had); partly on my belief that very few long works end as felicitously as Tolkien's Rings series, with its beautiful pilgrimage into the Grey Havens; but mostly on the fact that there is that sadness, that inevitable parting from characters who have been loved deeply by many. The Internet blog sites will be full of this was bad and that was wrong, but it's going to boil down to something that many will feel and few will come right out and state: No ending can be right, because it shouldn't be over at all. The magic is not supposed to go away.

Rowling will almost certainly go on to other works, and they may be terrific, but it won't be quite the same, and I'm sure she knows that. Readers will be able to go back and reread the existing books — as I've gone back to Tolkien, as my wife goes back to Patrick O'Brian's wonderful sea stories featuring Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin, as others do with novels featuring Travis McGee or Lord Peter Wimsey — and rereading is a great pleasure, but it's not the bated-breath, what's-gonna-happen-next suspense that Potter readers have enjoyed since 1997. And, of course, Harry's audience is different. It is, in large part, made up of children who will be experiencing these unique and rather terrible feelings for the first time.

But there's comfort. There are always more good stories, and now and then there are great stories. They come along if you wait for them. And here's something I believe in my heart: No story can be great without closure. There must be closure, because it's the human condition. And since that's how it is, I'll be in line with my money in my hand on July 21.

And, I must admit, sorrow in my heart."

The irony here is that I am one of those fans King mentioned, who was unsatisfied with the end of his Dark Tower series. I got very into those books. As with Harry Potter, there are seven books in the Dark Tower series. That's seven stories of getting to know the characters, getting tangled in their lives, and getting towed helplessly along in the storyline. So, when I read the final story, I had a lot of emotions flowing as he killed off one character after another, characters I had become very fond of. The one that finally did it was Oy. Oy was a dog-type creature who could sort of talk. At first he just parroted back what the other characters said, but it became obvious over the course of the series that Oy was very intelligent and knew what he was saying. There is little that can be worse in a story than hurting or killing an animal, especially one as funny and sweet and loyal as Oy. And what was worse, he died saving another character. I bawled. Horribly. For hours. I couldn't believe King would kill off the damn dog. Jerk.

So, when he says he awaits the final story with sorrow in his heart, not because of how it will end but because all things MUST come to an end, I'm sure he means it. But I will reserve my sorrow for any characters that get killed off, at least, for the good ones. I doubt I'll shed many tears for Voldemort.

But Friday night at midnight seems so very far away!

Got a new kayak, a Dagger Agent 6.2. It's a playboat, which means (for those of you who aren't into this sport) that it is design to do tricks. It is shorter than typical "river running" kayaks, with less volume and a bow, stern, and edges that are flattened and shaped to make it easier to surf on waves, spin in holes, and bury the front or back to do flips and twists. Not that I expect to ever figure out how to do any of these tricks, but I wouldn't have any chance at all of pulling any of them off in my other boat.

The one thing I changed about the boat is the logo. The original logo was a silhouette of a man, one would assume a spy of some kind, with a hat pulled down low over his face and sunglasses to obscure him. Kind of a lame logo, really. So, I decided to replace it with something. I had a few ideas unrelated to the whole "agent" thing, but my husband came up with the clever idea to use the old "Spy vs. Spy" comic from Mad magazine. So I blacked out the original logo with a Sharpie, bought some white paint pens and a waterproof clearcoat spray, and went to work. All in all, I think it came out pretty good.







I'll try it out this weekend, and let you know what I think.

Bah humbug. It's unfortunate that six days at home can be so detrimental to my weight loss! I weighed in last night at 185.4 (thankfully this morning I was down to 183.8). I tried to be good while I was home. I didn't really get any "home-cooked meals" as the primary cooking was always done by my mom. Dad is more apt, especially now, to go pick up some take-out Mexican or Chinese and eat off it for a couple of meals. The day I flew back to CA I didn't eat great, simply because I was relying on airport food--a bagel and cream cheese at Einstein's, a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut. Then Dad and I got Chinese for dinner. So that day wasn't very good. The next day I did OK--ran/walked a couple miles in the morning, had a small bowl of cereal for breakfast, didn't have lunch because we went to the movies (and had popcorn, although I didn't put butter on mine), and had leftover Chinese for dinner. The next day wasn't too bad; after the small bowl of cereal for breakfast we went to a wedding and had a meal at the reception. I didn't have any dinner that night because I felt like I had probably eaten enough at the reception, and I really wasn't that hungry. The next day was Mom and Dad's 40th anniversary, and I took my dad out to lunch at a salad buffet (after the obligatory bowl of cereal for breakfast). I tried to be good at the buffet--I didn't put dressing on my salad, just dipping my fork in the dressing instead, and not getting any other items than a small bowl of chili and piece of bread. Buffets are the kiss of death as far as diets are concerned, but I felt like I had really done a good job of restraining myself. Again I did not have dinner, but I did have a pretzel (one of the big soft ones) at the movie theatre with a friend. The last day I was home I went running again, and it was the only day I ate three meals while I was there--the usual breakfast, lunch with some of my mom's friends (and the only bad thing I did was the French fries), and then dinner with my brother (didn't even eat everything on my plate, but I'm pretty sure the two monster margaritas I drank were probably pretty bad). No breakfast yesterday until I got to the Phoenix airport, where I repeated my personal pan pizza, and then nothing until I got home and went out with my husband to Chili's. So I had hoped that my multiple days of only two meals might offset the fact that so many meals were restaurant food, but apparently not. I'm pleased that the 185 dropped this morning to 183, but it still is three pounds more than it should be.

So here's the deal: I have 37 days until school starts, just over five weeks. Realistically, I can probably only lose about ten pounds by then, since they (whoever "they" are) recommend losing no more than two pounds each week. So that's my goal, ten pounds from today's weight. So that would be 173.8 by August 16th (the day school starts). That would only put me equal to my lightest weight (which I think I hit either spring last year or last July). Definitely not the 160 I was originally hoping for.

Here's how I'm apparently going to have to do it. I am going to have to keep track of my calories, as much I as absolutely despise keeping a journal. I briefly considered relying on either packaged meals (like Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice) or an actual program (like Jenny Craig or Nutrisystem), but it's less expensive to just eat regular food and try to keep track of it. So I'm shooting for approximately 1200 calories a day, really the minimum they (again, "they") suggest for weight loss. To balance that out, I need to be burning at least 1000 calories each day. I am going to only count the calories I burn on a cardio machine, like a treadmill or elliptical machine, simply because those machines are calibrated and consistent. I know I might not be burning exactly the number the machine says I am, but I can rely on the machine to give me the same kind of reading each time. It's hard to calculate your own calories being burned in an exercise because you can never be sure you are putting in the same kind of effort or resistance as the calculation, and the numbers for exercises are never the same depending on the website you look at (one might say you burn 250 calories swimming at a medium pace for a half hour, while another might say you are burning 300 calories, and are you really sure you are swimming at what "they" think is a medium pace?). Now, I will still lift weights and swim and things like that, but I'm only going to count the calories burned on the cardio machines. Hopefully I can get back on track and get some weight off before school starts again.

Why is this so darn hard?

Transformers kicked ASS!

I watched a lot of cool cartoons as a kid, and so every time one of those cartoons gets turned into a movie I await with a mixture of excitement and uncertainty. Will it be good? Will it suck? Well, I got the answer to Transformers last night. IT ROCKED. Seeing Optimus Prime drive up through the smoke RULED. Very freakin' cool. Go see it, now!

Meh. So, four full weeks into my summer, I was curious about my size. Not my weight; I'm horribly aware of the fact that I haven't lost any weight for the entire month. What I was wondering was, what size clothes am I currently wearing? I haven't done any clothes shopping in quite some time (ignoring the outfit I bought for my mother's memorial service, at which point I was not paying any attention whatsoever to what size the clothes were). So I went to a department store and tried a few things on.

I know the largest size pants I have ever purchased were size 16, although at some point I probably should have been wearing larger ones than that. Disappointingly enough, despite a loss of almost 40 lbs in the past year and a half, I am only down to a size 12. I was able to get into a pair of size 10 pants, but they pulled rather tight across my hips and butt, and my lovehandles lopped depressingly over the sides of the waistband. Ick.

As far as tops go, I am still firmly into the XL range. My biggest (haha) problems are my wide shoulders, my big upper arms, and my, uh, bosom. Let's just say that what God graced me with has been seriously augmented by my eating habits over the years. I'm HUGE up top. I know there are girls out there who pray and pray for bigger cup sizes than what they've been given, but I'm here to tell you that there is a point where it becomes seriously unattractive. These do not belong in a magazine; they belong to a fat person. Eew. Anyway, I'm thoroughly disappointed in the styles of tops that are currently popular. With a plunging neckline, fluttery sleeves, and Empire waists with flared bottoms, my arms look flabby (which they are, but why accentuate it), my bosom looks disgustingly huge (which it is, again...), and I look pregnant (which I am not, so why lead anyone on). Yuck.

So, unless I get a move on and actually lose some weight (and tone what I've got so I'm not quite so horribly jiggly and flabby and lumpy), I really won't need to buy much in the way of clothes this fall for school. I've got a couple pairs of pants that fit, and I've got plenty of XL tops (not too stylish, but I'm not, generally, so it's no big deal).

Clearly, however, even if I lose some weight, my days of buying anything in the juniors department are over (and really have been for some time); the stuff just isn't cut to accomodate me, whether I lose or not.

Well, I've been given a pretty good dose of reality; let's see what I do with it.

I feel like a broken record (or skipping CD, for those of you who are too young to remember): FRUSTRATED. Another week of working out pretty well, another week of absolutely no weight loss. Oh, I did have one morning where I was actually below 180, but I promptly popped right back up the next day. Ended the week at 181. So, basically, another wasted week.

I'm beyond frustrated. I've been basically stuck at this weight since March of LAST YEAR. That's right, March of 2006. I had one week last summer where I dipped down to my lightest weight, but pretty much other than that, I'm totally stagnant. I'm really starting to question if it's even worth continuing to try to lose weight. Heck, I've lost over 37 lbs since we started this back on Halloween of 2005, and really about 45 lbs from what I suspect was my heaviest weight. I should be happy with that, and proud of that, and to be completely honest it would be a lot easier if I'd just quit. I know how to stay at this weight; I've done it for over a year.

But I'm still so unhappy. I really wanted to get down to around 150 lbs. I really wanted to get below a size 10 (I'm not sure I'm even in a size 10 right now; I haven't bought any clothes in a while, and most of my pants right now are 12, although some of them seem a little loose but it might not be enough to get into 10s). But my summer is slowly creeping away, and I haven't made any progress at all. I mean, school got out on the 24th of May, and I was done with work on the 30th. It's now June 24, and I have absolutely nothing to show for the past four weeks. While watching shows like The Biggest Loser are very inspiring, they also piss me off, because I'm watching these people losing 10 and sometimes 20 lbs each week, over and over again, and I've lost nothing.

Obviously, consistent exercise and "watching what I eat" (right, watching it go from the plate to my mouth) isn't enough. I clearly need to make a modification regarding my diet. But this is where it gets very difficult. I am not good at cutting items out of my diet completely. Those tend to become the things that I snap and binge on. But I'm also not good at controlling my portion sizes. I've heard people recommend a variety of different things to control portion size, like using a particular plate that you fill up and you only eat what fits on the plate, or using a particular ladle or spoon to control the size of the portion, or getting one of those divided plates for picnics and filling the largest space with salad and the other spaces with whatever else you're eating. All of those sound like good ideas, but they aren't practical for eating anywhere other than home. So, you're gonna take your divided plate and your ladle to Outback Steakhouse and load up? Just doesn't seem realistic.

So, what can I do?

1. I can keep eating the same way and drastically increase my workouts. This works OK for the summer (although it will make it a little harder to get some stuff done at home because I'll be spending more time at the gym), but it won't work during the school year, when I have a limited amount of time I can be at the gym. This might be a good plan to lose the weight, but I'll need to come up with a different plan to keep it off.

2. I can try one of those portion-control methods, or at least come up with my own method. While this is obviously one that I really should do, I don't really know how to do it. I've never known how to control my portions, short of purchasing everything premade and prepackaged, like those 100-calorie packs of chips and cookies and the 100-calorie things of yogurt. How DO you control portions? How DO you stop yourself from loading up? I have no idea how to do this.

3. I can try to restrict my diet and cut some things out that I know I shouldn't be eating. I know breads are loaded with calories. I know pasta is packed with carbs. I know red meat is much fattier than chicken and fish. I know that desserts have sugar and fat in them. But I don't know how to live without them. That sounds incredibly stupid, and incredibly selfish; I have this crazy image of some little kid in Somalia looking at me like I'm completely insane as he slowly starves to death. But it has been proven that if you completely cut something out of your diet, that item is the one that will probably lead to your falling off the wagon at some point. Since I do have a binging personality, I'm afraid to cut things out completely.

4. I can keep working out and eating the same way I have been, but try a supplement like Lean System 7 or Stacker 2 or Hydroxycut. Again, this is one of those things that could work in the short-term, but it really doesn't have a realistic chance to work in the long-term. I don't tolerate things like ephedra very well (tried the old Metabolife long ago, and it made me super-twitchy), and I don't know that the other non-ephedra stimulants will work any better. I already take medication for high blood pressure, and I don't know what effect a supplement could have on that. And what happens when I stop taking it? Do I just gain the weight back?

Clearly, only two of these options are really viable. I can either dramatically increase my workouts, or I can try to figure out how to eat less. I know a lot of people out there keep food journals. If you do, how do you do it? Do you set yourself a calorie goal for the day, and figure out your calories as you go? Do you just track your eating habits and not actually count the calories, but perhaps track your weight loss and gain for each day, adjusting your eating to that? Or do you just write down everything you eat to shame yourself into eating less? I know CalorieKing.com is a good website to help track calories, but I don't know if calorie-counting is what I want to do. It takes a lot of time to figure out how many calories you are taking in (especially if you are making your own meals--either you measure everything or you just take a guess as to how much you are eating), and it requires you to stick to it. Do you have to carry your journal with you everywhere? Do you write everything down right away, or wait until later? There's just a lot to think about when you are doing a food journal.

Well, I've got a few things to think about. Whatever I'm going to do, I need to get started on it. I've already wasted about a month of my summer, and time is running out.

It's over. And I am so let-down! It wasn't a very good series finale at all. Sort of stole a page from Star Trek: TNG. Not that they haven't done that before, but they didn't put much of a novel spin on it. Of course, it didn't really tie up any plot lines, because they are making two made-for-tv movies to finish things up. Didn't even have a great ending; I sort of expected bringing in some old characters to tie things up, but they only really brought in one, mostly for tearjerker points (and while I love the Asgaard, I'm not going to cry over Thor, although he was pretty cool). No O'Neill, no Hammond ("of Texas"), no nothin'. They just went through the gate, as usual, with just a few "gosh, it's been fun" kind of lines. Not even as cool as the end of ST:TNG, with its poker game with everybody participating. Oh well. Anyway, at least one character is making a crossover to Stargate: Atlantis, and I'm sure other characters will show up from time to time. But dammit, I'm gonna miss 'em. It just won't be the same.

*sigh* Why do the best shows always have to end?

Continuing to struggle. Went out of town on a kayaking weekend, and was very disappointed to not lose any weight. As a matter of fact, I actually gained a couple pounds. The exercise on a kayaking weekend is undeniable (great upper body and cardio workout), and not eating while on the river is pretty good too, but we've started really cooking in our campsite, you know, dutch oven pizza and cobblers, eggs and bacon and french toast and burgers and ranch potatoes and...mmm, gettin' hungry. Not good. Anyway, as we've refined our camp cooking abilities, we've started eating more food on these trips than we ever did in the past. Add in the eating out on the way to and from the camping trip, and it gets ugly in a hurry. Even kayaking several hours a day for a couple days, I ended up apparently not burning as many calories as I took in. Bummer.

Thankfully, one day (yesterday) of being better about eating and working out and I was back down to 180 this morning, but I've had absolutely no net loss whatsoever. I've only got eight weeks or so left to lose some weight. At this point, I'll be happy for ANY loss, not necessarily a whole 20 lbs. I mean, I'd love to lose a full 20 lbs in the next 8 weeks, but I'll just be happy to be below my lightest weight, 173. Really, that just means I need to lose 1 pound each week. That, I think I can do. I think.

Frustrated. Despite the fact that I worked out pretty well last week, I did not eat that well. We ate out several times, and I did not chose wisely. Large portions, lots of stuff I didn't need. So, despite all the working out of last week, I lost nothing. My weight stayed mostly flat all week long, with a few peaks and no valleys. Last night we went out to a steak place that is well-known for their desserts, which is why we went there in the first place. So of course we both got dessert, and although I did not finish my dessert, I still cleaned my plate of everything else.

I'm watching reruns of The Biggest Loser wistfully, wishing I could be in that situation, where there are no bad snacks lying around, where there is a personal trainer there to kick my ass into moving faster, where there is $250,000 of motivation added to the motivation of looking and feeling better.

I really don't know what to do. I need to make a number of changes to what I'm doing. I really need to try and switch to more veggies and a lot less meat. I need to add some variety to my workouts. Instead of spending the whole cardio time on the elliptical or the treadmill, I need to spend equal time on the elliptical, the treadmill, and the stationary bike. I need to push myself harder and harder on the exercises that I have been doing for a long time.

I spent some time the other day looking up information about willpower (namely, how to get some). I got really mad reading one website that said it isn't really willpower that is anyone's problem, because despite how we feel, we all really do have willpower. Instead, the website suggested that people just need to find the one thing that motivates them more than anything else. Well, fabulous. So, instead of needing willpower, I need motivation. F&^% lot of good that does me. So, how do I get motivation? Since apparently the facts that I hate being fat, that I want to look better for my husband, and that I want to give myself a better chance of surviving some of the genetic health issues I may be facing are not enough to motivate me to lose weight. I'm even trying to bribe myself with shopping (I can't buy any new clothes until I lose at least ten more pounds, and I only have until school starts to do it). How do I do this?

My ultimate goal is 150 lbs. I am teetering at 180 right now (actually I was 183 this morning, but like I said, I ate way too much last night, and I was dressed when I weighed, so I suspect I'll be back at 180 tomorrow morning). If I could get that by the end of October, it would be two years since we started this little adventure.

I would really like to be 160 when school starts in mid-August, but that might be asking too much. I've got about 9 weeks (a little more until the first day of school, a little less until the first day the teachers have to report back for inservice). So that means I've got a little more than 20 lbs to lose. A very stubborn 20 lbs, from the look of things. I don't know that I can make it, but I'm still going to try. It's just frustrating.

Well, I tried out my new mp3 player, and I've gotta say, it was pretty cool. It is a SwiMP3 player from Finis. The premise is simple--in order to get the best sound underwater, it relies on bone conduction rather than sound waves traveling through air, since your ears aren't in air while you swim. It's the same concept that causes you to hear your own voice differently than others do (it sounds so weird when you hear yourself recorded and played back), because you hear it through your head as well as through the air. The speakers actually rest on the bones of your head right in front of your ear, and the sound waves travel through your head and vibrate the workings of your ear. So the sound is good underwater.

Anyway, that's the way it is supposed to work. That's definitely what I was hoping for when I purchased the item. Since I want to make swimming one of my major workouts each day, I decided to try it to make the laps a little less boring. $199 plus shipping. It arrived pretty quickly via UPS, and I tried it out yesterday. It's got a little waterproof bud in between the speakers, where you plug in the USB cord to load the music. It loads really easily. The only downside is that it does not play iTunes' proprietary format, so any music I've actually purchased I'll have to convert before I can use them. Oh well. Most of my music has been, shall we say, procured another way (that's not to say illegally, necessarily).

So, I got the speakers hooked to my goggle straps, figured out the controls pretty easily (although I'll have to memorize where all the buttons are and what each one does), and ducked my head under the water. Here are my observations:

1. As long as you are underwater, the sound is really good. I didn't have to fiddle with the volume much to find a good level. And the music quality is pretty impressive.

2. Even if my head was above water, as long as my ear was full of water, it still sounded pretty good. That means freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly (since I breathe to the side) all sound good.

3. The only time it didn't sound great was when my head was above water with no water in my ears. With my head up, the sound is a little tinny, like my old crappy headphones on my old Sony walkman years ago. I could still hear it, but the sound quality did definitely change. So breaststroke was a little disappointing, with a sort of ooo-WHEE-ooo-WHEE-ooo quality to the music as my head would rise and fall above and below the water level.

4. It kept me from fiddling with my goggles. I usually take them off and put them on multiple times during a workout, or rest them on my forehead for a while. I left them on the whole time.

5. What I didn't do was use my kickboard at all, and I can certainly see a problem or two there. I usually take my goggles off entirely to rest my head (I get headaches really easily). So I wouldn't hear the music obviously if I took them off. Also, the sound is better underwater, and when kicking with the kickboard I keep my head above water. I'll have to think this part through. I can always kick without the kickboard and keep my head in the water most of the time. But it does change things up a bit.

6. The speakers didn't get disrupted during any of the strokes, flipturns, or anything like that. I didn't try diving, but I don't usually dive in anyway. No big problem there. And it was easy enough to slide the speakers back a bit from my ears so I could talk to someone out of the water and hear them.

So I'm pretty pleased with the SwiMP3 player. It worked pretty well, and it will keep me from getting bored while I swim. I'll sort out whatever bugs I come across. But if you swim a lot, give one a try!

Well, yesterday went pretty well. I went to the gym in the morning, swam a mile, and then had to abandon my plan of lifting weights (waldrobe malfunction; well, really, I forgot an item of my wardrobe). So I went home and got some housekeeping and business stuff taken care of. Then I went back to the gym and got an hour of cardio. I'm a little sore today, but not too bad. I managed to eat pretty well yesterday too, which brought my weight down from the 184 I registered the other day to this morning's weigh-in of 180.6. Much better, but I still need to get away from the 180's. Heck, I need to get away from the 170's and 160's too. Ultimately, I'd like to be somwhere between 150-155.

Anyway, I haven't gone to the gym yet today because I'm waiting for the mail and the UPS guy to arrive. I'm especially excited about the UPS delivery; I'm going to try out an mp3 player that works in the water. It's not a traditional mp3 player; it works through bone conduction rather than traditional headphones. It clips to goggle straps so it doesn't get in the way while swimming. I'm pretty curious and I really hope it works well, because it will make it much easier to swim longer without getting completely bored.

So, this afternoon the plan is to go to the gym and swim for about an hour, then dry off and go inside, meet my husband, and do cardio or lift. I may also go for a walk or run coming up here around lunchtime, although it's pretty warm outside and I may not be happy with the decision to do it. Oh well.

So, I feel like I've got a good plan. It's all going to come down to whether or not I can stick with the eating better and the exercising more. I really hope I can.

And there was much rejoicing (yay...).

It is officially summer vacation! Hooray! Finished all the work I needed to do in my classroom today, went to our end-of-the-year luncheon, checked out with the dean. That means I'm free and clear until July 16, when I start my two weeks of summer school. And after that, nothing until August 9. Whoo hoo!

But I'm not going to spend my summer lying around the house eating (like I did last summer). Oh no. I need to use this time to get myself out of the rut I've gotten in (the non-working-out, eating-way-too-much rut). My weight has crept back up over 180. I weighed myself this evening (even though it includes clothing and food weight since I just ate) and I'm not happy: 184.2. A solid 10 lbs heavier than my best weight so far since we started this whole weight-loss adventure over a year and a half ago.

So my summer will be spent at the gym. Not all day long; I don't think I could keep that kind of intensity up. But what I'd like to do is go to the gym in the morning and swim a few miles, then change into clothes and lift some weights. Then I would go home and do whatever needed to be done at home, and go back to the gym in the afternoon to meet my spouse and do some cardio. It will require a lot of effort and dedication from me, which I so far haven't shown in quite some time. I don't know if I'll be able to stick with it, but I'm going to try.

I also need to work on my eating habits. Right now we're pretty broke, so I don't have to worry about buying too much food. I just need to pick food that is good for me (fruits and veggies mostly) and only small amounts at a time. Ideally I would like to run/walk/bike to the farmers' market that is about a mile from my house to purchase my lunch, or maybe to the grocery store or Subway or something like that. However, my dislike of running coupled with the really unpleasant temperatures and humidity of a typical Southern summer may be prohibitive.

Anyway, this will all begin tomorrow. I'll start out the day by weighing myself, and then I'll hit the gym to swim. We,ll see how this goes from there...

I hate cancer.

I survived Mother's Day, I made it past the one-month anniversary of my mother's death, but somehow it just all keeps coming back to me. It seems like so many people I know have lost a loved one to cancer, have a loved one with cancer, or have had cancer themselves. It's everywhere.

A close coworker just got the news this afternoon that her mother's lung cancer, which was treated last year with chemo and radiation, has spread to her brain. Two close family friends have fathers with lung cancer now, one in the late stages.

It just sucks. With everything else in the world that isn't fair, why do diseases have to pick off the good people?

This has been sort of an emotional day. I haven't really done much, just went to the gym and sat around the house, took a nap and worked on school stuff, but the thought of my mother has been with me all day. My brother had sent me a gift of Almond Roca, something we all traditionally gave my mom every year for various holidays, and I had sent him a small pillow I had made from one of my mom's shirts. Our dad had suggested that we didn't really need to celebrate Mother's Day anymore, since neither of us have children, but to hell with that, we decided. So we sent each other cards and gifts, and spent the day thinking about what we didn't have.

But what really drove it home came as I was finishing a book my Honors students have been reading. The book is The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster, by Kaye Gibbons. It is a sequel to another book, Ellen Foster, and follows the life of a girl named Ellen who lost her mother when she was about ten and is now going through adolesence with her adoptive mother and the rest of her somewhat crazy family and rural-town friends. The stories have been very good, but obviously in the past few weeks the character of Ellen has become a bit more familiar to me. Although we are different ages and lost our mothers in different ways (and of course she is fictional and I am not, at least I don't think I am), some of the thoughts and ideas that drift around Ellen are ones that have crossed my mind in the not-so-distant past. Anyway, the last passage in the book, as I was finishing it up and preparing to write a quiz for the girls, struck me very suddenly, and I found myself briefly in tears, but not in a bad way.

"Knowing well that I could be more than what my mother did, more than the moment she died--I am what she was before and is now, here with me in the burden of her love I'm content to carry, gorgeous to me and lighter than breath."

I cannot stay in the waiting room of the hospital, waiting for a phone call from the surgeon that I simultaneously needed and dreaded. I cannot stay in that room at the hospital, the one where the doctor summoned us to tell us that he had lost my mother on the operating table. I cannot stay in that little curtained-off area in the ICU where they brought my mother's body afterwards for us to view. But I am afraid that when I left the hospital finally that afternoon, hours after my mother's spirit left me behind, I left part of myself behind, in that waiting room, in that little room on the third floor, in the ICU beside the shell of my mother.

My life is not the one that ended. I don't want to stay in that hospital. I don't think my mother would have wanted me to, either. But I do not feel whole, yet, and I do not know how to regain the part of me that could not bear to leave.

Wow, my 100th post. And somehow, things haven't changed that much.

I'm still struggling to lose weight. I still haven't made permanent improvements to my housekeeping abilities. I still haven't gotten 100% organized at school.

Pretty sad that in over a year I haven't made that many advances.

Anyway, I need to work on the same things I've been working on.

1) I need to get better at working out. I was especially bad this week, making it to the gym only three times. I really need to finish the chore of losing all the weight I've needed to lose. I'm still hovering just below 180 lbs. I have many reasons to lose the weight. Self-esteem, certainly, is a primary one. But the events of the past few weeks have driven home to me all the issues in my family history that can affect my health (cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, alzheimer's, stroke, diabetes, etc.), and a lot of them can be influenced by obesity. Definitely cause to drop the weight.

2) I need to get one top of the school stuff. Thankfully, I'm almost 100% caught up. I had been doing pretty well, and then I went out of town for a couple days for my mom's surgery. When everything went to hell, I lost an entire week. By the time I got home, I had seven days' worth of homework assignments, plus a test that included an essay, to grade. I literally just reached the official "caught up" point, where the only items I had to grade were items actually turned in today. Hooray. And even better, I only have a week left of classes (since the girls are almost out for the summer). And the week is pretty much all reviewing for the exam, except for a test they'll be taking. So I really don't have many assignments left to grade. I need to get together their study guide and exam, but for the most part it's smooth sailing.

3) I haven't really improved on the state of my house. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I'm still working on washing the dishes that were sitting in the sink the week I headed to Cali for my mom's surgery (and that was back on April 18). Ick. I also need to get onto the laundry, and I really need to vacuum up the dog hair.

Anyway, at least with school ending in a few weeks, I can try to get back into some semblance of shape. And get my house cleaned up. And everything else.

Man, I'm a slacker.