december 26

I took a chunk of time off from riding this past week. I hadn't been feeling great and knew I needed a break so I used common sense for once and decided to wait until I felt fully better before I went back out. By yesterday I was back to normal, so I went out for a ride after the kids had opened the gifts and before we ate. And with the amount of junk I consumed in the past couple of days I could have ridden all the way to NY and still been bloated. I am quite ashamed of the gluttony that took place here in a forty eight hour period. Food continues to be a struggle for me. Not food so much as me not knowing when to stop eating it, so the problem would be more of an Ann Marie problem and not a food problem. I have gotten better, but the holidays are rough. There is simply too much temptation and then you mix in emotions and memories and a million other pathetic excuses and I was feeling like I was about to give birth last night.The fact that I was able to hold off for most of the season without over-indulging makes me feel a little better.

I went out for a ride today and it was cold, but it felt good. I love riding. I know I have said that many times, but I really do. Although I typically leave my house at 5 in the morning, today I went out much later thinking it was going to be nice out by then. I was foolish enough to watch the weather and even more foolish to believe it. It was nowhere near the promised 65. Maybe I watched Guardian when I should have been watching Doppler or Viper. Whatever - all I know is that it was cold. I rode up past Lake Jem and into this very nice place called Deer Island. It is filled with horse farms and big houses. Houses don't thrill me much but the land and the horses are beautiful. And you can look out and see what I guess is Lake Dora. I'm horrible with direction and honestly I have no idea what body of water I was looking at, but I'm going to guess Lake Dora.

After taking a whole week off I am actually sore and tired and also annoyed that it is going to be cold for several more mornings, which means my riding will have to be done in the later hours. There is something so satisfying about getting up early, getting out and being back home while it is still quiet inside. But Greg reminded me that it will only be cold like this for a little while and he is right.

Now that the year is coming to a close I can say that I have picked up a couple of good health habits in the past 12 months. The two biggest were my quitting splenda and caffeine and also, coming to the point where I stopped obsessing about my weight and just concentrated more on being healthy and knowing the weight would come off when it came off. And for the most part it is coming off and in a much better way than starving myself or using other foolish techniques that I employed in my younger years. I have found that the best way for me to stop bad behavior is to just wake up and say "for today I'm going to try this" Only for today. Going beyond a day in my thought process is a killer. I didn't come up with this idea obviously. It's employed my millions of people in AA and it works.

Yes, I have many more things to work on but I'm not going to go on and on about what they are because then I'm just going to get depressed and I'm feeling kind of good and I want to go to bed feeling good and not bad.

If I'm not back for a few days ...Happy New Year!!

december 15

I need to start writing a little more. When I wrote my column last month I struggled to come up with something to write about. I don't write much anymore and because of that I have no idea what to write about when I have to write. I am going to keep writing the word write until it becomes completely irritating.

I seem to be only capable of update type material. Like this update from this morning. I locked myself out of my house - before I even got a chance to ride my bike. And it was 4:55 AM and my bike was still inside the garage and the garage was shut and my keys were in the house. So I banged on Anthony's window and woke him up and told him to open the door. He didn't seem to think there was anything weird about me waking him in that manner. He went right back to bed and seems to not remember it.

The girls went to a sleepover last night and it was just me and Maggie here during the morning hours and it was weird. I don't know what we would do if the girls ever went back to school. It would be horrible. It seems I keep the girls home because my life would be dull without them, not because I am afraid of public school education.

Today is December 15th, 2009 and twenty years ago today, right around 4 PM, I gave birth to a baby boy. It was a quick labor. So quick that I almost had him in the elevator. It was snowing hard and it was a Friday and Frosty the Snowman was playing on the TV that night. When my parents finally got to the hospital the next day my mom came in with a giant pumpkin muffin. I have no idea why, but bringing that pumpkin muffin made my mother seem like the sweetest person alive. And it really does seem like it was just yesterday. This fact makes me question if maybe I should have just kept him, because 20 years goes by really fast and maybe it would have all worked out. You don't make life altering choices and have them not affect you in some way for the rest of your life, so hey, a little doubt every once in awhile is to be expected. But for the most part, I'm sure he's doing well. I pray he knows God and that's all I really pray for anymore in regards to his life, because that is really all that matters and every other prayer is pointless if he doesn't know God.

We just finished discussing Book Four of Confessions by Augustine and I do recommend this book more than any I have ever read. This book is knocking me on my behind for all of the truth contained in it. I find myself yelling out as I am reading it. It's scary for my children I'm sure, but I scare them a lot.

We went to the Our Lady of Guadalupe Feast on Friday. This is a huge feast day for Mexican Catholics and I wanted to see what it was like. It was quite sweet, even though it was in Spanish and I couldn't understand any of it. The music was fantastic. It reminded me of August 15th when I was growing up and it made me miss my Nana a little, but I always miss her. She will be 100 on Feb. 14th! Anyway, I'm glad I went.

I've done very little Christmas shopping so far but I always wait and never seem to mind waiting. I thrive on procrastination. Just ask Steph. I bet she loves my procrastination right around deadline dates. I hope anyone who bothers reading this anymore is having a peaceful Advent season.

December 8

I had a full blown wipe out on my bike today. It was quite tragic and embarrassing. The last time I wiped out like that was back in Burlington when I came inches from smashing my head into a tree, while not wearing a helmet. That one shook me up enough that I didn't get back on a bike for a very long time. And of course when I did I still didn't wear a helmet, because I am a complete moron and it takes me a long time to learn lessons. But I wear one now and was mighty glad for that this morning.

I was trying to be nice and get out of someones way and so hopped up onto some wet grass and slid, in extremely slow motion. I landed half in the road and half in the grass and thankfully no one was driving down the street. This is a benefit of going out early when few drivers are around.

The person who I was trying to avoid came running over and helped me up and asked if I was okay, which I was, but I didn't even try to act gracious and unfazed. I rambled on about how much it hurt to hit the pavement and how scary it was and oh my goodness I almost never fall off my bike and can you believe how stupid I am and I'm so sorry. I was sorry because the person who I was trying to avoid felt really bad for me and I didn't want anyone feeling bad for me over something I could have avoided by simply being careful.

I got up and brushed myself off and got back on my bike and pedaled home. When I got home the kids were still sleeping, but Greg had left for work so the door was locked. I went to reach for my keys in the back of my bike pouch. The pouch was opened and nothing was in there. No money, no keys, no extra batteries, no extra light and suddenly it hit me that everything had fallen out when I had my mishap and so I had to get back on my bike and ride back over to the scene of the fiasco and the whole time I was praying that I would remain calm no matter what the outcome, because if the outcome was that the keys weren't there, I was pretty sure Greg may be upset. He would be upset because he doesn't relish the idea of me going out so early and the last thing he always says before I leave for my ride is, "be careful." I clearly wasn't careful and Greg has the slightly annoying habit of saying "well, I don't like to say I told you so" (even though he loves telling me so) .

The keys were exactly where I thought they would be, as was all of the money and everything else that I keep in the little pouch, the one that I will never again forget to zipper when I stick the keys in it before I leave in the morning. And this little incident will be yet another that I mention to Greg not on the day it happened, but several days from now when he is sitting on the couch, watching sports, having a beer and smiling happily. Because by then my shoulder and my knee won't be killing me, and listening to him tell me how much he hates to tell me, "I told you so," will be so much less painful.

The Moon

....was exceedingly bright this morning. Exciting news. What else? I don't know. I don't write anymore, so I have no idea what to talk about. I lost my writing mojo.

I guess I could give an update on my riding and weight loss progress, since the whole reason I started writing again was to chart said progress. I know I've lost weight, but I don't know how much. I don't care anymore, I really don't. Over the course of the past few weeks I've managed to cut out all caffeine and splenda. This is pretty huge for me. I didn't set out to do it, but just took it one day at a time and before I knew it I wasn't reaching for my 50th packet of splenda to mix into my 50th cup of chai.


I'm still drinking my daily tea, but Greg bought me some special kind for my blood pressure, so it's pretty bland and without the caffeine kick it was slightly pointless at first, but now I'm into it. Despite riding every single day for the past several months and losing weight, my b.p. is up. I'm opting to not go on medicine right now and will just try to lose the rest of the weight and cut out all salt and stress, which should be easy to do with four kids and husband. My doctor said "well, your pressure could just be up because you're old." Thank you doctor! I kept saying to him, "well I'm only forty" and he kept saying "yes, I know, you are old now." I told him he was a jerk, but I said it with a smile so it made it nicer. I'm not overly concerned about the blood pressure thing because I feel terrific. When I told the nurse this same thing she said "yes, well, that's why they call it the silent killer." It was a lovely appointment.


I guess I can give an exciting update on my life

- The girls are done with activities for the next few months. Boo-hoo, so sad about this.

- We spent Thanksgiving with a friend of Greg's - it was nice to come home to a clean house.

- We bought all of our Christmas decorations at the thrift store. When we cashed out I said to the cashier, "see we could never get all of this at Target for that low price." And she said "and it certainly wouldn't all be this interesting." Hum. I'm going with eclectic, not interesting.

- I cut Jane's, Kate's and Maggie's hair in the backyard and left the hair there and Greg got mad when he saw it laying there and then I told him not to be mad or I might have a heart attack.

- My house has been clean for three whole weeks. I cleaned it a couple of weekends ago when Greg had taken all the kids out for the day. The secret to a constantly clean house is that you can never really rest, or sit, or let your guard down. It's not a bad trade-off considering I no longer have to live in fear of people popping in on me. A pop in visit from a friend was what got the whole cleaning thing going to begin with. I can't go through that again.

- Maggie looked at me the other day and said "mommy gots a moustache." It was right up there with the doctor telling me I was old now.

- We're reading Confessions, by St. Augustine, for my Tuesday morning book club and I am loving it. He wrote this in 360ish and it is still relevant today. Shockingly so. It's like a love letter to God. I recommend it if you haven't already read it. It may take us the next 50 weeks to get through it though.

- Jane is officially a volunteer at the library. She loves it. She's growing up, but she's still sweet. Sometimes moody, but mostly sweet, just like her mom!

Okay, enough wasted time. Have a good one.

hi

I haven't written lately. Is anyone even reading this thing anymore? I know, comments are off so you can't tell me if you are reading. I like to pretend hundreds of people read this. With my comments off I can continue to live in this fake world of mine. It's fun.

I was riding this morning and noticed that we're heavy on the garage sales here in Mount Dora this weekend. I was out early and part of my ride was in the dark, so I couldn't make out much of what people were selling. People still had sheets over the tables, hiding all their wares, but I did notice someone was selling a mattress set. Who would buy a used mattress? Tell me, who? Sorry, just my opinion.

Shirtless was out today, but he was wearing a jacket so he wasn't shirtless, unless he was shirtless under the jacket, which is entirely possible. He's pretty old. I got a good look at him today because it's getting light by 6:30ish which is when I crossed his path. I'm actually able to see all of the regulars in daylight now, which is very disconcerting. People are not looking at all like what I thought they would look like.

For some reason it reminded me of when I used to watch General Hospital in college and they had a masquerade ball every year, and the characters never knew who they were talking to, because you know when you hide your face with a feathery eye mask your voice changes too. There was always a mix up where someone would sleep with someone and not realize until the morning after the ball that they had slept with the wrong person and then someone would end up pregnant. Of course the truth would be hidden for months and divorce would ensue and then the kid, who was born just a year earlier, would somehow already be in high school and he/she would rebel against the parent who had lied about the kid's real parentage and the way he/she would rebel was that he/she would sleep with some girl/boy of the lower class, someone from the wrong side of the tracks and then another pregnancy would result and this one would be hidden as well. The girl would threaten abortion for a week or two, but would never actually have an abortion, which makes me think the writers of these morally repugnant shows must have had some shred of decency in them.

I have no idea how I ended up on this tangent. I will say, I used to think those shows were so far fetched, but now that I am forty I feel like I have heard many real-life stories that could rival anything written for daytime t.v.

Well, on that note I will go finish cleaning my kitchen, which was what I was doing before I got bored and came and wasted time on the computer. If you haven't already, go for a bike ride today, or tomorrow, or sometime in the next week. The weather can't be beat.