What NOT To Say To A Family Member

Last night, after laughing at my up close & personal encounter with fish guts, my mom was her usual loving self, and my sister backed her up on this. According to my loving mother and supportive sister, I need to start walking more because all those years at the gym made my butt too big and I really could stand to lose some more weight.

Now, while I admit that I agree I need to lose at least 10, preferably 20 lbs, hearing that was NOT something I appreciated. Especially since I have already lost 20 lbs. over the past 4 months! And they never even noticed! Sheez! Granted, the weight was lost because I stopped lifting weights and hurting myself at the gym. Cracked bones are not something I enjoyed enough to recommend. Then once I could walk again, I started walking with sprints mixed in and devoted more time to yoga, but that's a small comfort.

Oh well. At least I know that I am on track because my legs are no longer "so lumpy looking." And the tape measure has recorded a nice 1 inch drop in my hips and 2 inches of my waist so I guess I can't complain too much. Besides, my butt is too big.

So I guess now I need to pre-apologize to everyone who has to live with me because I am now going to be even more fanatical about dropping the next 10-20 lbs. and holidays are coming up. So please forgive me for being a food nazi! I will try and remember to eat occasionally. Maybe.

All right, who am I trying to kid? I will end up having to hire someone to make sure I eat at least 1 meal a day that resembles food and not a slimfast shake. I really have to start writing if only to make sure I eat. Cause I hate cooking and the food part of my grocery list is rather short & definitely repetitive. It consists of soy chocolate milk, slim fast fudge chocolate shake mix, cranberry juice, lemon juice, sunflower seeds, sugar, tea, turkey and/or veggie burgers, bagged spinach salad, ginger salad dressing, & anything that looks good veggie wise. Total extent of my food shopping.

Yup. I need a personal chef. Either that or move some place where I can get something I like to eat already made.

Ugh. I just finished a gossip session with 1 of our regular patrons. Gas prices are $3.00 even for the cheap stuff. A motorcycle is sounding better & better. Though I would probably be road pizza in less than a week. Oh, and the other bit of happy news - there will be a gas shortage soon!

According to what I have been told by the local NPR news listeners, fuel is going to be shipped to the hurricane ravaged areas from the east coast. Guess where I live? This is going to really suck. I can not think of any level of society beyond the truly wealthy that this will not have a negative impact on, and even with the truly wealthy, they will find it harder & harder to indulge themselves quite so shamelessly because people will be seriously jacking the prices up to cover the shortfall in other areas. This is going to hurt.

Right now I am smiling my way through a description of 1 man's trip to a Promise Keeper revival. 1st off, let me say that I do not care what a person's choices are 1 way or the other. They are exactly that - another person's choice. But in this case, this man has made a special trip to tell me all about how God helped him, and how God reached him, and how grateful he was that God was able to let him connect to other men whom share his feeling of closeness with God.

I have just finished reading the CNN articles of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The people there, residents, rescue workers, everyone, have my sympathy and prayers. The pictures I have seen are of absolute devastation. I am so glad that I am here with my life and problems because 1 option is to be there and know that everything is gone. I could not cope. Rebuilding is going to be horrible there and I have no idea how they are going to manage everything. I am praying for them, but this is not going to be a good experience for anyone in this country, especially the people of Louisiana.