The day after Thanksgiving means ...

... all of my Christmas gifts are purchased (and the ones that have to be mailed have been wrapped and sent), and it's time to turn on some Christmas music & get some holiday decorations put up!

While a huge segment of the world is shopping (*shudder* I don't enjoy shopping most days of the year ... and wild horses couldn't drag me out today), I am home, stringing Christmas lights on the crabapple tree outside (which took an incredible series of logistics to get the remote control on/off switch hooked up), pulling out ALL of the Christmas-related stuff (where did all of this come from, anyway), and then systematically sorting things out into three piles: (1) Stuff For Cookie Day (2) Christmas Village Components and (3) Everything Else. The Cookie Day stuff can be stashed until about the 17th. The Christmas Village Components are going back in storage. Everything Else can be put up throughout the day. I'm going to ask my dearest to help make some choices about what to decorate our space with, and what we might be able to donate to places that can use it.

So, let Christmas preparations commence! I'm putting Christmas music up on my blog!

An A-HA moment

This morning, during savasana, I had a bit of an epiphany. Heretofore disconnected statements all of a sudden were hanging together. Here they are, slightly paraphrased from memory:

"Go just to your edge, but not beyond." - Joyce Owens (my yoga teacher)
"If you feel awkward, that's GREAT!" - Catherine Ehret (my Nia teacher)
"The loosest of the loose people have to work twice as hard as a beginner to achieve the same benefits." - Bryan Kest (of PowerYoga fame)
"Invest in loss. Celebrate." - John Peebles (my tai chi teacher)

Here's the connection. Awkwardness ... tension ... failure ... loss ... these things only occur when I dare to try something new, or to do something old in a new way, or to live on the edge of my comfort zone. Isn't that cool? The discomfort or pain just means I've bumped up against an edge. But the fact that I've bumped up against an edge means that I've been willing to explore and to try and to risk learning something or experiencing something new. I don't know if I'll be able to hang onto this, especially on the days my balance seems shot or when John can send me flying with just a subtle shift of his body. But right, for today, I get it. Which I think is pretty cool.

Beautiful & powerful!

I am hating on my left knee right now

Apparently, I did something to it on Friday the 6th. I know this because it suddenly was in excruciating pain when I went to do the very first move of tai chi (a simple, gentle bend of the knee), and I had to stop. Same thing the following morning. I did my best to rest it all day Saturday, and it seemed to be fine on Sunday. No pain, but a weird crunching/clicking/ticking/grinding noise. Very quiet, but there, nonetheless. I did my workouts all week, being very careful not to overtax it. I managed tai chi class last Saturday, and wasn't in any pain ... but then, Saturday night, after riding the clutch through bumper-to-bumper traffic for 40 minutes, climbing several sets of stairs for the el, and walking about a mile, my knee wasn't so happy. Sunday I meant to rest it, but wound up doing some walking & standing to do about 3 hours of Christmas shopping. Well, by Sunday night, it was inflammed and irritated with me. So I rested it yesterday. And it's still inflammed and irritated with me. So I'm hating on it right back. I am doing my damndest not to tax it today or tomorrow. I want it to heal. That's why I'm icing it ... taking anti-inflammatories ... and slathering it in China Gel. It is SO hard for me to sit still. And to add insult to injury, my weight's up by a couple of pounds. Stupid knee.

First Goal Achieved!!!

As I mentioned this past Monday, I had less than a pound to go, to reach the goal I'd set back in, gosh, probably the fall of 2001. Well, this morning, the scale smiled on me, and I've met my goal! I am now lighter than I've been in almost 8 years! My sweetie's on the verge of reaching a weight milestone, too ... just another pound or so. We've both set a new goal, to lose 5 more pounds, in 4 weeks. Wish us luck! We'll just keep on working at it!

A shoutout to our good friends next door, who've lost about 40 pounds a piece! WTG, you two!!! Between the 4 of us, we've lost abou145 pounds ... that's almost a whole person! And all of us, I think, would be happier to lose a bit more!

I am just glad we've all found plans that work!!

It's taken me 7 months

and I've lost a total of 25 pounds. I am pretty happy right now! And I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that we seem to have found something that WORKS! That's always been the sticking point -- I'll go through a lot, if I can see some results! You see, 17 of those 25 pounds have come off in the last 10 weeks of that 7 month time frame. 10 weeks ago, we started working on an item for our 101 Challenges in 1001 Days list, wherein we ate only food we made from scratch for 2 weeks. The weight started coming off dramatically. Mind you, I was eating the same number of calories as before ... and working out the same amount (sometimes even a little less!), but the weight came off. I'm pretty damned geeked right now, because we've found a way to have about 18 meals a week that are from scratch and 3 that are not & the weight is still coming off. Just gotta keep on keeping on. In another .7 pounds, I'll be at the goal weight I set back in 2002 & couldn't achieve in time for my 2003 wedding, so that's not far off ... and it's pretty damned exciting.