noom – randomly erin

things to celebrate

For all that she is a raging pain in the ass sometimes, Dog Blossom is a good pup and pretty damn adorable

Let’s see, where to begin…

I’ve had four days in a row of 5000+ steps
I’ve tried some new recipes that were mostly successful
we’re having a small group of friends over tomorrow night to celebrate a late St. Patrick’s, early birthday, and the start of our vacation
I have now lost 24lbs

Spaghetti squash cooked in the instant pot and then mixed with a little butter, olive oil, garlic, grated Parmesan, and low fat ricotta

I’m quite excited about how things are going with the weight loss. I have been trying to make sure that I not only get my steps in but I also pay attention to my calories and eat a good variety of food, including healthy fats, and that I’m getting plenty of water. It’s a process, to be sure, but there are definitely pieces of this that are just second nature now. And that, probably more than anything else, makes me ridiculously happy.

Well, also, my pants are starting to be way too baggy. That makes me pretty fucking happy too.

Tomorrow morning I’m going with Mom to get a manicure, something I haven’t done since right before Lancelot and I got married last August. I certainly don’t feel like having the one shot is going to magically make me bullet-proof, but it gives me hope. I do feel like there are a few more things I can do, still carefully, and that I don’t need to worry quite constantly or quite as much. It will still be many months, if not until next year, before I feel safe to travel anywhere other than by driving our car. I’m just not ready for planes yet.

I am ready for restaurants, and that’s pretty exciting. We’ve done a lot of take out in the last year, generally just once a week but still. There’s just something about actually going in somewhere and enjoying a good meal. I’m even going to get spiffed up. For my outing on Sunday with my folks I have a black dress that I’ve never worn that actually fits very nicely now.

He’s fucking adorable when he’s sleeping. When he’s awake he bites leaves off my plants and then go racing off with them in his mouth. Captain Naughty Pants indeed.

a bit of an update

I got my first shot. Lancelot is still a goober, albeit my very favorite goober.

The shot was fine, no issues at all. I actually woke up Saturday morning feeling better than I have in a while. So yay. The shot didn’t hurt or cause me any more trouble than any other vaccine I’ve ever had. It was less painful than the MMR, if anyone has an adult memory of getting that one. My only side effect was a slightly sore arm.

Eric has been particularly photogenic lately

I’m doing pretty well with life in general right now. I did a lot of food prep stuff this weekend that I think will be helpful and I have a plan of attack for getting the house in shape for next weekend. For the first time since Lancelot and I have lived here together we are having friends over, in the house, for a meal and a concert.

I am damn near beside myself with excitement.

Everyone in attendance will either be fully vaccinated or have their first shot, with the exception of L. These are also friends of ours that are just as careful about COVID safety precautions as we are. And that will start the week of celebrations. There will be dinner with my mom and stepdad, dinner out with L at our favorite restaurant, museums, I’m assuming Thai food, and my birthday is in there. I need this vacation so damn bad.

The healthy eating/exercise/Noom stuff is going well. I’ve lost a total of 22.5lbs and now that I’m starting to feel better it’s time to get back to exercising. My goal (once again) is to hit 5000+ steps every day and to drink at least nine 8oz glasses of water every day. It’s just now coming up on 2pm and I already have almost 2200 steps so I consider that good. Thirty minutes on the treadmill will help quite a bit.

The food prep I did was mostly getting together more of the smoothie packs, partly because I had fresh spinach to use and partly because that was a big time saver. This time I used nonfat plain Greek yogurt and only 2.75oz. I also prepped four snack bowls with a hard boiled egg and two clementines and five “salad starters.”

I have these divided container things so I put fresh spinach in the biggest part and then chopped up a cucumber and divided that among the containers and used the smallest spot for shredded carrots. At lunch I dumped all of that into a big bowl and added a hard boiled egg, 1/4C roasted pumpkin seeds (also pre-measured), and my salad dressing (if you guess pre-measured you’d be right).

Having all of that measured ahead of time made my lunch preparation time today almost negligible. It was nice to have a little extra time during my break to do other things. Like laundry.

five

Short post today y’all, I’m still recovering. The good news is that I am finally starting to feel better. And the even better news is that I’m getting my vaccine shot tomorrow. Super excited about that.

What I really want to share comes from a prompt in my Noom lessons this morning. “Write about five qualities you’re proud of having.” Can’t back away from an invitation like that.

Empathetic – if I haven’t actually walked a mile in your shoes (I’ve been around most of the blocks at least once) then I’ll try my hardest to put myself there.

Strong – you know how they say that women are like tea, you only know their strength by putting them in boiling water? Yeah, I’ve been in some seriously yuck situations and come out the other side stronger because I just don’t have a good grasp of what it means to back down.

Kind – I’m not a religious person, but I follow my own most important rule and I do my best to treat everyone the way I’d like them to treat me. This has lead to being hurt and taken advantage of many, MANY, times, but it’s still the only way I know how to behave. If I have two cookies and you don’t have any, I’m going to offer you a cookie.

Creative – I find solace in creativity. I used to draw and do intricate beadwork, but my hands won’t stay still enough anymore. I can still knit and crochet and I get a little wild in the kitchen. My favorite creative outlets are making holiday gifts for a small group of family and friends and by cooking.

Student of life – I have a Master’s degree, a graduate certificate, a semester of graduate work in a different area, and two professional certificates. I see the world as my classroom and I have no plans to ever stop learning. The day I don’t learn anything new will be the day I’ve stopped breathing.

Garth says that his best qualities are that he’s soft and adorable

things that make you stay sane

There was a meeting at work this morning, whole department not just my tiny team, that was meant to give us tips for not burning out and staying professional and basically just surviving the whole “you’ll be working from your homes now and no, we really aren’t sure for how long” business.

But we’ve been at this for over a year now.

And they really don’t know how much longer we’ll have to do it.

And yes, that’s a 25lb Goldendoodle on my lap.

Anyway, it seemed like rather a waste of time to me but what the hell do I know? And I guess that was my frustration; everything they talked about is either stuff I’m already doing (because we should) or avoiding doing (because we should) and I mostly felt like I could have done a better job of the session in part because of that. Well, that and a whole lot of self-awareness that I’ve cultivated over the last 15+ years of mental health care.

I started this post on Tuesday, right before all hell broke loose. So let me take just a moment to catch y’all up.

I’ve been fighting off this icky fatigue, upper respiratory, chills nonsense for a while now. Rather a long while. But I’m stubborn and, to the best of my knowledge, had not been exposed to The Rona. Tuesday afternoon my body decided to toss in some GI stuff and that was it. I changed into jammies and sought out a comfy chair in the sunroom and basically melted into a puddle of cold goo.

Yesterday morning I decided that enough was enough, the symptoms were too close to COVID for comfort. And Lancelot still goes to work every night and his place of employment is kinda “petri dish-esque.” I will say, I feel pretty good that this was the very first time either of us had felt the need to be tested. I feel good because we’ve been following the guidelines from that nice Dr. Fauci.

At any rate, it was not overly pleasant, not gonna lie. And mine has come back and it was negative. So I called my doctor’s office and got setup for a telehealth visit. That nice doctor said the rapid test I had done was not accurate enough for his liking, particularly given my symptoms, so he ordered another test that also included testing for influenza A and B. Fortunately you can do all three of those things with a single brain-tickling swab.

The results from that were all negative. Still don’t know about Lancelot. He feels fine though, which is good. So now I’m waiting to hear back from the doc about what we do next, especially since he mentioned bacterial pneumonia. So much fucking excitement I can hardly contain it.

For now I’m working, as best I can, and trying to stay warm and hydrated.

In other news, I am down 22.5lbs. I find that sort of miraculous given the last few days I’ve moved less than your average sloth and I’ve eaten more calories than I really needed. But I know that my body is doing its best to fight off whatever this is, plus I have an active cyst issue. Yay.

The other good news, my fingers are good enough that I’ve started knitting again. I had tried to make a hat for my stepdad for Christmas and it turned out too big, so I’m trying again with the kind of yarn I always use. It’s a delightfully straightforward pattern so it’s excellent TV knitting and right now that is precisely what I need.

I am late getting to the party, but smoothie bowls are amazing

so there I was, hip deep in spent bubble gum wrappers and empty sardine cans listening to polka on an old walkman when suddenly…

Eric occasionally enjoys drinking nice cold water from the running tub tap

Every time I think I’m going to be able to get back to working on a project I find a dozen things that need to be done in the kitchen that all involve either having my hands in water or washing them very frequently, and that means all the good I’ve done with repairing the damage to the skin on the fingertips goes right down the drain. Literally.

I freely admit that I got this idea from Pinterest, right over here…

Those are freezer smoothie packs and I think they’re going to be brilliant. Most of the time I don’t mind the extra prep that goes into feeding myself these days, but every now and then I’m running way late or my ambition is ridiculously low but I do still need to eat. Everything but the almond milk is in these and is pre-measured, including the yogurt. They’re seriously fucking brilliant.

I did spend some time yesterday afternoon while Lancelot was sleeping going through my stash of craft supplies and I found some needle felting supplies and kits, including one that’s a picture – like a paint by numbers thing – that’s done on marked felt. That should be easy enough to do, assuming I have time. By the time I could sit down last night to eat it was after 6pm and I was just done. I did also find some coloring books and that made me happy.

This is the face off a woman who desperately needs a vacation

We’re fast approaching my personal one year Rona’versary. I began working from home on March 23, 2020. The university had known we’d be switching to remote delivery of courses so they gave everyone a two week long spring break to get their shit together. L had made big plans to take me out for my birthday and that weekend was when virtually everything shut down.

A lot has changed since then. I was thinking about that this morning on my drive to get L, not sure why. There are things that I miss about “the old days,” but mostly I’m content.

I miss feeling safe just going out in public. I miss feeling safe eating at restaurants. I miss shopping in stores. I miss going to the theater.

But I love that my job is such that I can work from home, and that I have the critters keeping me company, and that the people I love haven’t been sick. The stuff I miss isn’t really all that important.

And I hope that we all put some thought into what we want for our New Normal. We have an opportunity right now to shape our world moving forward in really meaningful ways. I’d go so far as to say that we all have an obligation to make this a better place to live.

when life gets in the way

Nope, not dead yet. Not even doing all that bad really, just been busy. I honestly really just love Loki and that meme felt rather perfect for right now.

Mostly here recently I’ve been trying to stick with my Noom stuff and not throttle Garth. What’s wee little Garth been up to? Oh you mean Captain Naughty Pants…

That’s the hutch on top of my desk, the very top of my desk. And that’s him, peering down at me from behind one of the bits I had thought would block his landing. But no. Straight up like some damn alien and he stuck the landing like an Olympic gold medal gymnast. Little fucker. I had already moved the really fragile things to different (safer?) places but now it looks like I’ll be moving everything and letting him set up a cat-condo up there. Maybe I can charge him rent…

For some reason this shawl looks red on video calls…

We had a wonderful workshop yesterday morning, the last in a series, and I thought it went great. It was the kind of thing that reminds me of why I do this nutty little job in the first place. And I looked pretty spiffy. That’s the Off Kilter shawl I knit, paired with a beautiful shiny purple ribbon rose brooch I got in Branson a few years ago. And new lipstick. It’s called “speak your mind” and it’s perfect.

Today I look like roadkill, so we just aren’t talking about it.

I am still experimenting in the kitchen, sometimes for fun and sometimes for necessity. This one was mostly necessity. I had several Gala apples that were looking like wrinkled little old men and I didn’t want to throw them away. Instead I cored them and cut them in chunks and put them in a sauce pot with some Craisins, white grape juice (100% juice, no added sugar), and the chai spice blend that I love (cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg, and ginger). I let that come to a boil and then brought it down to a simmer. It was probably on the heat for an hour or so and I stirred it periodically.

Last night I took about 1/4 of the mix and topped it with a few tablespoons of low fat ricotta cheese and a drizzle of honey and that was my dessert. It was heavenly. This morning I had some mixed in with vanilla yogurt for breakfast. Also heavenly.

It’s been getting easier to drink as much water as I should be and stick within my calorie guidelines, both of which are wonderful. I’m also working on getting more motivated with the exercise. My goal for this week is to get at least 5000 steps in every day. I started on Monday and hit my goal both Monday and Tuesday. The exercise is also getting easier. Yay!

The other thing I’ve done that I basically swore I would never do… A smoothie with spinach in it. I’ve started drinking some form of matcha every day and this was a smoothie recipe I found that included spinach. It was very “earthy” but not terrible. For what it’s worth, I’ve decided that “earthy” is just a polite way of saying “this tastes like dirt.”

the amazing tower o’ yarn

Creative people seem to surround themselves with other creative people, at least that’s always been my experience. So I have a good friend who does photography, like she’s amazing at it. She posted a picture on FB yesterday of a tower of books that she has but has yet to read. I made a smart ass comment about how my tower of yarn could totally beat her stack of books. And that’s how this happened…

That’s almost all of my yarn laid out in the sunroom on a queen sized bed sheet

And that is my 5’6″ self laying in the middle of my (much more impressive) tower

Do I have a problem? Probably. Am I interested in an intervention? Only if you bring me yarn. And truly, this wasn’t quite all of it. There were still a few skeins hidden away, maybe a total of 10 more? I’m not sure. Anyway, I’m going to use this as an opportunity to evaluate what I have in my stash and see if there are balls/skeins that are ready to move on to someone else.

In health related news, I lost another 1/2lb yesterday which was awesome. I got myself back on the treadmill, 15 minutes, and then did the pilates bar thing and various exercise for another 15 minutes. I also totally crushed my goal of getting in 80 oz of water. (before anyone freaks out about that, I drink that much plus some anyway, my change here is to make the majority of what I would drink be water)

There really is something to be said for telling someone what you’re planning to do and that helping you stick with it. Yesterday I made sure to tell Lancelot and my bestie K that I was going to exercise, and I did. So this morning I told my Noom group about that and then also told them, “hey y’all, I’m telling you now that I’m going to exercise again today.” And I don’t feel the least bit weird about that.

My exercise and dinner plans have just changed. As I was typing this, and several other things, I heard the kids from down the street run past our house yelling something about a dog. My dog was outside and I thought “oh fuck, they let her out of the yard and she’s loose.” Oh no, it was WAY worse than that.

The temperature has been warm enough the last few days that the ground is defrosting, and that monster loves to dig.

Needless to say, I just got done taking a shower that I didn’t plan on with a dog who loves water.

Fortunately I am at the end of my work day so it doesn’t matter that I’m sitting here with no bra on, in my work out clothes, mascara streaked all over, and I smell like wet dog. I’m very glad I had already gone out for the mail. I’m anticipating a slightly less involved dinner than home made minestrone and I will likely just spend 30 minutes on my treadmill.

It’s coming up on beer o’ clock, right?

losing track

It feels so strange to think that I’ve been working from home for almost a year now. And it’s even more strange for me to think that I’m fast approaching a second birthday celebrated in a very subdued fashion due to a global pandemic. Not like that’s huge, but it’s huge.

Want to know what else is huge?

I got to move the big slider one spot to the left this morning and I’m pretty sure I screamed with pure delight

I am officially 249.75lbs and that has been an unofficial goal for a while now. The next actual official goal will be 225lbs. I’m hoping that getting back to the treadmill and starting to use the pilates bar on a more regular basis, along with going back to drinking more water every day, will help get me there a bit more quickly.

Part of this is needing routines. I’ve said it before, I live and die by routines. I’m starting to get back into some of the routines/habits that I used to have that really seemed to help, if nothing else they would help with my mental health.

I get a week’s worth of outfits out on the weekend, including any necessary under garments and jewelry; they hang together in the back of my closet.
I use pill trays to organize and set out my morning and bed time pills, two weeks’ worth at a time.
I have a reminder set on my phone for Monday evenings – that’s when I take my Humira shot.
I have other reminders set on my phone for things like monthly cleaning chores, watering plants (weekly), and giving the dog her meds (monthly) – my philosophy on this is “set it and forget it.”
I always put my car keys in the exact same place when I get home, on a key rack in our entryway. If I don’t put them there I lose them, without fail.
I keep multiple baskets in the laundry room so that I can take the dirty stuff down and sort it every few days. When there’s enough of something to run a load I do it. This keeps me from spending an entire day on the weekend doing laundry.
I try to create a menu for the coming week – just dinners – mostly to make sure I have all of the ingredients on hand.
I go to bed and get up at approximately the same time every single day. Part of it is my brain not letting me sleep in much and part of it is just that I’m so used to this schedule.

I realize that probably already seems like kind of a lot, but I need a few more. I’m not feeling like I’m doing a very good job with…

Making time to do creative things every day
Exercising regularly
Unplugging before bedtime
Planning lunches

This is my little Garth buddy, just because

learning as I go

I think of life as the journey and not so much as the ultimate destination, partially because I think the journey is exciting and partially because I have no clue in hell where the fuck I’m going.

But I also like to keep learning little lessons along the way. It’s rare that I’m not doing some sort of “school” either doing actual graduate work or, more often these days, doing some kind of professional development education for work. I’m also seeing the Noom journey as a kind of education. I’m learning how to eat in ways that are nourishing for my body and my spirit. And I really do enjoy it.

Here is the Friday update that is ridiculously irregular…

I’ve lost a total of 16.5lbs which means I’ve hit my first personal milestone of 250lbs
I got a pilates exercise bar thing that actually seems to work better than the resistance bands I’d gotten
I have been doing better with drinking water (by making it sparking in the Soda Stream and then adding a chunk of lemon)

Sporting my favorite jewelry that Lancelot has gotten me; beautiful moonstone necklace and custom not-matching earrings made by a dear friend of ours

We had some ridiculous cold this week and it’s seeped into my bones. I shouldn’t complain, we could have had it so much worse. But it left me less inclined to do my workouts and craving the carbs.

You either win or you learn

There have certainly been days when I’ve gained back weight that I’ve lost, and I could get all frustrated and pissed and give up. That would be easy. But I don’t take the easy road, ever. I remind myself that every choice I made the day before had an impact on what I see on the scale every morning, and then I have another choice to make – I can get grumpy and throw it in or I can get smart and learn from the choices I made.

Things I have learned:

Low fat vanilla yogurt is excellent in oatmeal
I really love butternut squash noodles (like strips of squash to use in place of pasta noodles)
Not all food prep is a good thing in my world (don’t make a whole batch of pasta salad because I just won’t eat more than one serving)
It is 100% worth it to have “snack” bowls prepped in the fridge (fresh fruit along with either a hard boiled egg, a chunk of cheese, fat free cottage cheese, or low fat yogurt)
Dairy milk is not as essential to my emotional well being as I once thought (I use unsweetened coconut milk now, almost exclusively)
I really do feel better when I exercise
I need to allow time Every Single Day to take care of the whole me, not just the food part of me

One of the things I’m starting, and L is helping with, is a “house diet.” There was a thing I saw on FB about decluttering for the 40 days of Lent. We are not religious people but the idea of doing a bit of spring cleaning out and stretching out appeals to me. I’ve started doing bits and we’ll be doing more this weekend. It’s kind of liberating.

freezing my pieces off

This photo is deceptive; there’s a sunlamp on the desk behind me

It has been crazy cold here recently, like so cold there’s wind chill advisories out. They’re telling people that as little as 10 minutes outside can lead to severe frostbite on exposed skin. It’s no damn good. Fortunately I have a large (LARGE) collection of hand knit shawls to help keep me warm.

I’m still doing well with Noom, really well I think. I’ve been doing the program since January 1st and I’ve lost 16lbs. I feel good about that and just in general I feel good. So yay.

Part of what’s making this easier is that I’ve gone back to spending part of my weekend doing food prep. I had been doing that for awhile pre-Rona but then I had stopped. I’m remembering why it was so helpful. I spent several hours on Saturday getting some things done and now my week is already feeling smoother.

Those are the snack bowls I put together, there are actually two of each. They all have some fruit (pickles are fruit, right?) and they all have some protein. I can’t say enough good things about those divided containers, such a life saver. The oatmeal lump things in the lower right corner are banana oatmeal muffins. (recipe from this site) Super easy and totally yummo. I also made a batch of pumpkin oat cookies that are pretty freaking amazing. (recipe from this site) Please keep in mind that I don’t bake so for me to make these, they must be easy and worth the effort. They are.

I have returned to making a menu for the week, also super helpful. And I’ve gone back to getting my clothes out a day in advance. (just one day, not the full week like I used to do) And in general I’m just trying to take time to take care of myself. It’s wonderful.

Lancelot is helping, a ton. Today I’m making vegetable beef soup for dinner and he took care of carving up the meat for me. Oh yeah, I’m still kind of obsessed with food that can be prepped earlier in the day and then left alone until I’m ready to eat it. Totally.

I need a drum roll right about now…

That is home made Indian Butter Chicken over butternut squash noodles, done in the Instant Pot, and it’s the physical proof that I have hit one of my goals for the year. I wanted to try a new Indian recipe and feel like I had mastered it. Done. (recipe from this site)

In news that is not related to food, me cooking food, or me loosing weight… I have been working with yarn again!

Anyone remember the crocheted blanket I was working on for my mom? Yeah, I’m still working on it but it’s a LOT bigger than it was in that picture. I want to say I’m on my 3rd skein of yarn, and those skeins are good sized. I have it sitting next to my chair in the living room so I can easily work on it while I watch TV.

I have also been allowing myself to work on other projects that have already been started, you know, trying to finish a few things up. Yesterday I finished a shawl I had started at the very end of last year using Cassowary yarn from the Queensland Collection. It did some amazing stripes of green. The pattern was just me doing a riff on a standard top down, center spine shawl. I’ll take a picture once I get it blocking.

I have since moved on to once again trying to finish the Christmas gifts. The hat I made my stepdad ended up too big so I need to remake that with different yarn, and the gift I’m making for my friend N is just plain taking way more time than it should. But it’s coming. I should really make myself a list of what all is in the works so I can check them off as I finish things.