One Week

The view from my window on Saturday, November 22nd...



And my view yesterday, November 29...



Last weekend...



This weekend...



Not that I'm complaining - I've been enjoying the mild weather! Of course, tonight the forecast is for snow mixed with ice pellets, turning to rain. Who knows what we'll wake up to tomorrow.

These are a few of my favorite things - Vol. 2

I know there are people out there who don't like guacamole, and I just don't get it. What's not to like!

I also know that among those who do like guacamole, there are many different ways of making it - we each have our favorite. This is mine:

~ avocado
~ lime juice
~ finely diced onion
~ minced garlic
~ diced tomato
~ fresh cilantro
~ finely chopped hot pepper (if I have any, this time I didn't)
~ a little salt, to taste




This was made on Monday to go along with leftover Chicken Fajitas that we'd made on Sunday night. Husband and I polished it off in no time flat.

These are a few of my favorite things - Vol. 1

I'm thinking maybe I need a little positivity in my lifeblog right now. Providentially, a couple of photos taken over the past couple of days gave me an idea...My Favorite Things! Is everyone singing along with me?

I took this photo on Sunday, for no particular reason other than the fact that I love pomegranates and pomegranate seeds are pretty.



I have loved pomegranates since childhood. I remember my mom cutting a pomegranate in half, and presenting a half each - in a bowl, with a spoon - to my sister and I. It was a treat because we didn't get them often - they would only show up in the stores around Christmas time, and if today's prices are anything to go by they were probably expensive.

It seems to me that they are easier to find these days, which is great. Winter is not a good time for fruit (not when you live in a cold climate anyway), so it's nice to have something that is in season this time of year (by late winter I will be fresh-fruit-deprived; I will be craving grapes and eating them non-stop; happens every year).

Reading other blogs, I see people adding pomegranate seeds to salads and to yogurt, and so on. I'm sure that's very tasty. But I still prefer to eat mine plain, out of a bowl, with a spoon - though I do peel the fruit by hand now so that I can just sit down and spoon pomegranate seeds directly into my mouth...And then I don't feeeeeel so bad!...I told you to start singing ;)

It's here...

I feel like winter sneaked up on me this year. Somehow I feel surprised by it which makes no sense. I have lived in the Maritime Provinces for all of my 38 years, and winter has happened every single year. Yet somehow this year, every time I step foot outdoors the cold takes me by surprise.

Maybe it's because it stayed warm for so long. Sure, we had some chilly days, then it warmed right up again. Then suddenly it just got cold. And when I woke up Saturday morning...







I'm not the only one who was taken by surprise...



It snowed off and on all day, and there was a substantial amount of this...



Sunday morning there was sunshine...and deer tracks!





Everything was still white today, but it is supposed to warm up over the next couple of days and possibly rain, so that should make a nice mess.

Thanks for all the replies to my last post - I have responded in the comments.

In which I allow my Hypochondriac-Self have the floor

Further to yesterday's post: I've been trying not to whine & complain about this but...

I am used to being stuck in a certain range. It was bad enough that in late summer/fall of '07 - after ignoring the scale for about 6 months - I suddenly found that my range had gone up by about 10 lbs. It was not a happy feeling. So back to the scale I went.

Usually, if I am doing things right, even if I don't see the results on the scale, I can at least see some other indicators - I feel better, my clothes fit better, etc. So even if I am bouncing around the same few pounds I figure that as long as I'm not gaining, as long as my clothes are fitting ok, as long as I'm feeling pretty good, then it's not all bad. Maybe not the results I really want, but at least I am maintaining the status quo.

Lately that doesn't seem to be the case. I don't think that I have let my eating habits slip all that much (though I don't claim to be perfect), and I think my workouts have stayed pretty consistent. Still, it seems like I'm gaining - and I'm not just going by the scale; I can see it and I can feel it. I don't know what's going on and it's kinda freaking me out.

If I still had the doctor I had when I first moved here, I might go see him and ask if maybe there could be something wrong. But the few times I have seen doctor #2 (took over doc #1's practice) I have felt like my concerns were not being taken seriously and I'm afraid he'll tell me that I'm fat and it's my own fault - now go home and eat a carrot. I just can't handle that right now.

And it may very well be that I am overreacting, and that I have been letting things slide and maybe I just need to work harder.

I don't know. Have any of you ever had the feeling that something wasn't quite right but you just couldn't put your finger on it? If so, did you figure it out? Did it go away?

I feel silly posting this and probably as soon as I hit "Publish", I will inexplicably feel just fine and wish that I had never said anything. Wah.

Okay. Done whining now.

Lost & Found

During my Food Network orgy last weekend, I kept seeing these Herbal Magic Weight Loss commercials (no, I am not considering Herbal Magic, calm down already).

The ads show a woman going to the Lost & Found department saying she had lost herself. Those ads spoke to me, I really identified with that sentiment. I miss my younger, skinnier self and it makes me sad. I guess those ads also tell me that it is a pretty common feeling.

I can't get the youth back, but it seems like I should be able to get at least a little bit of the "skinnier" back. I thought that I was doing pretty good this week, food-wise, but the scale just keeps going up. Which really kills the motivation. I think that I could keep a handle on my eating if I actually saw results in the form of a lower number on the scale. But when those results don't show up, I really have to fight the "I might as well just eat chocolate" mentality.

The battles are waged with varying levels of success - tonight a few cookies slipped in under the radar. But I live to fight another day, so I guess that's something.

How do you fight your battle?

In which I refuse to acknowledge snow

I have to say, we've had a pretty decent fall so far. There have been a few stretches of chilly weather, and each time I find myself thinking: This is it! The freeze is setting in! And after a few days of cold it would warm up again. I think we're done for now, though.

It's been getting colder and colder all week. Today, my afternoon stroll was not nearly as enjoyable as it normally is due to the fact that it was -1 degrees and the wind was blowing quite ferociously. Some people thought they were seeing white flake-y things floating through the air, but I definitely did not see any, not even when they landed in my hair.

I quite enjoy my delusions. Please leave me to them.

I did break down and light a fire in the wood stove tonight though. The basement was quite chilly while I was doing my Pilates-Yoga Blend DVD (which is so entertaining when you have cats trying to rub their faces on your toes) and Husband commented that he could feel the cold air coming up the stairs. So it seemed like time.

Now I am getting sleepy, so I think it's time to head off to bed and maybe read for a bit if I can stay awake.