Help! Need to commit

I need some accountability. I swore I would not gain weight over the holidays and I'm up 2 pounds at least. This puts me at 20 pounds over my WW goal which I reached a few years ago. D*mn. I should have signed up for the "maintain, don't gain" program at the fitness club but I really didn't care about the dumb "Got Goals?" T-shirt reward so I thought, why? Well, duh, because someone would have been watching....that's the whole point!

I've already put most of my Christmas chocolate stash in the fridge where it will stay fresh. (How did I have the willpower to not have eaten it yet, you may ask? Well, it wasn't that hard given that I was eating the cookies and fudge from two cookie exchanges, 2 people dropping off plates of cookies, plus the cookies and sweetbread I purchased as a Christmas "treat: for the family (I reasoned that they were whole grain....) and you have to get through those first, you know, so they don't become stale!

So here's my plan. Three parts:

For the next 2 months I want to <uh! look at that waffling language...make that...> I'm going to give up white sugar except for one treat after dinner. And I want to ...I mean, I will only have that treat if I've taken my vitamins and supplements for the day. (The next step may be cutting down on wheat but I'm not there yet :)

I'm also going to drink at least 3 large glasses of water each day (I know I should get more, but for me, that's a more doable goal). I'm going to do this by only allowing myself other drinks (tea and wine particularly) when I'm caught up on water.

And the most easy step, I'm going to exercise several times a week. This is the only goal I've been even close to meeting so I have to put it in here so I know I can have some success!

(As I was writing this, I thought, Wait! I just baked an apple pie last night, maybe I'd better start NEXT week :) Oh, yeah, I can have a slice after dinner...but then what about the CHOCOLATE I had had planned!?!....as you see it's going to be a long road).

Anyone want to join me?

Lisa

Doing everything

Rebecca, my Amma practitioner, had the idea of worrying for only 15 minutes
and then being done with worrying for the day. (Worrying, in this case, is
really a codeword for obsessing about, well, all the things that moms
obsess about). Sounds good doesn't it? I was going to do that but that
was 30+ minutes ago. I got sucked into reading email. Then into doing
“urgent” tasks. Sigh.

When I get like this the thoughts go round and round so fast I can’t keep
up. I would love to be blogging this. I ought to update my blog. I
should post to it more regularly. (Why? For others? Hmmm.). Thinking
about blogging makes me remember that I'm blogging with a friend about a
book we want to write, which makes me want to work on that. Thinking about
working on our book makes me want to contact my friend and all my
clients. Thinking about my clients makes me want to work on
business....there must be a mouse and a cookie in here somewhere.

So what to worry about? I have a week between Christmas and New year and
it feels like I should do all the things I haven’t done this year in this
week. I simultaneously want to get my house all clean, relax and enjoy my
crafts and hobbies, work on my business, call all my friends, spend quality
time with my family, catch up on paperwork, make all kinds of yummy food to
stock the freezer for school days….well…I’m sure there is more but we all
get the picture.

And of course, what I really “should” be doing is just being thankful to be
here unhurt. My reality check – that all this other stuff is just not
important enough to stress over – lasted exactly 3 days. Does that make
me ungrateful?

Why do I do this to myself? What is “special” about this week that makes
me want to get everything in the world done?

Ok, off to spend the last 10 minutes of quality worrying time with my todo
list.

We're all fine....but

We're all fine. Have to start with that.

My neighbor/friend Carolyn and I and our two boys were going to go skiing
today. Two miles before we got there, we skidded, swerved, skidded, and
ended up sliding off the road and 137 feet down the side of a mountain
(very close to vertical, no exaggeration), rolling once or twice and
landing upside down hanging by our seatbelts. Luckily there was a ton of
snow so it slowed us down a bit and the slide was very soft for going over
a cliff.

We were going slow (less than 30) uphill; the road seemed fine (wet and
slushy) and there must have been ice but the people behind us,who stopped
abruptly when they saw us go over, didn't notice any loss of traction. We
think the tires were bad or something went wrong with the 4 wheel drive.

No-one was even hurt which was pretty miraculous. The children both had
booster seats (despite being way over the age requirements for
Colorado). Somehow the ski boots which ended up in the front on the
windshield didn't whack anyone. We were able to unbuckle everyone from the
"ceiling" and the power windows still worked and one door opened. The many
people who stopped were incredible and formed a chain up the steep side of
the hill and got us up and into a warm car. Sorting it out took most
the rest of the day but we are all safe and sound at home.

I'm so thankful that I chose to put in the booster seat even though Alex is
almost at its weight limit (otherwise he likely would have slipped down
under until the seatbelt was on his belly, since his legs aren't long
enough for SUV seats), that I anchored the booster in, that we stopped to
put up Ben's headrest to the right height, that we made Ben sit up straight
instead of laying down for a nap. I'm thankful that someone saw it (and
that the first thing the witness told us after finding out we were OK was
that the car was stable and wouldn't go anywhere). I guess I have
something to put in our holiday letters now....

Please, everyone, don't get lazy with safety. Over 80% of carseats are
installed incorrectly (usually not tight enough - if you can wiggle it more
than an inch or two side to side, you may need to put your whole weight in
it and tighten it). IIRC, children should be in boosters until their legs
fold at the seat edge without pulling them forward and until the seatbelt
rests across their shoulder. Anchor seats and boosters if you can (the one
that wasn't anchored slipped out from under the child when we rolled, but
he was OK). And drive safe this season,

Lisa S