My Fourth Dimension

I was going to post a cantaloupe soup recipe today, but then I was over whelmed with kind messages about yesterday’s blog and I feel a response is required. I love getting comments on my blog and I don’t usually reply to the wordpress, facebook, words with friends, texted or e-mailed comments. I feel like everyone hears enough from me and just because I don’t write back a personal message to each one of you does not mean that I am not touched, moved or appreciative of the kind words you send me. I’m really grateful that most of the time you readers get my jokes and don’t hold me accountable for health, interpersonal or other advice that requires a doctor or professional. This blog is my therapy and should just be entertainment, inspiration or a “what’s for dinner” guide.

I don’t post before and after pictures of myself often because I am not fishing for compliments and this journey is not as simple as how I look. If I really wanted to shock you I would post pictures from eleven years ago when I weighed 135 pounds more than I do now.

For more of my life than not I have been fat, but I never felt like I was fat. I was a regular sized person carrying around a fat body. Today at Mah Jongg my friend Christy, who has known me for thirteen years and seen me regularly that whole time said, “I looked at the picture on your blog yesterday and I don’t remember you ever looking like that.” Now she is a true friend because I either looked like that or fatter than that more of the time she has known me than not.

The thing about just looking at a picture is you are only seeing a two dimensional vision of the person and we are all four-dimensional, the 3-d physical being and the 4^th being the soul. Since Christy is a friend I think she remembers the fourth dimension of me and not just the physical. I think there is a kind of friend blindness where we see the good in people we love and tend to block out the bad. For that I am thankful.

My message today is don’t worry about getting older, having a few extra pounds, wrinkles, gray hair or no hair. Chances are the people who love you still love you no matter what and they may not notice, certainly not the way you notice yourself. People love you for your kindness, warmth, generosity and I hope in my case, sense of humor. So thanks for the kind words yesterday and today. Keep the messages coming. If you want to make me really happy just tell me I made you laugh, not that I look good. Looks will come and go, but laughter is forever.

Shockingly Less Dana, More Good Celebrates Second Anniversary

2, 95, 103, 734… The number of years I have had this blog, the number of pounds I have lost in the last two years, the number of countries that have visited this blog (With the exception of the top five countries the rest have to be by accident) and the number of blog posts I have made ( I apparently posted four more posts than actually days because I had so much to say).

Two years ago today I sent out an e-mail inviting friends to log into this new blog. On the site was a video asking for pledges to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC for every pound I could lose by November 1, 2012. I had 744 views on the blog that day. I certainly did not send the e-mail out to seven hundred people, but I’m sure based on the numbers, people could not believe I was doing this weight loss challenge and had to watch the video multiple times.

A weight loss challenge for myself has been the most successful way for me to stick to a diet. I had done this before and lost 137 pounds and raised $48,000. The problem was that I gained over ninety pounds back over six years. The math on that is that I basically gained a little more than half an ounce a day. It certainly was easier to gain half an ounce than it was to lose.

During this last challenge I lost 53 pounds and raised $53,000 — more money per pound than the first one. That was great for the Food Bank and great for me, but I was still a long way from the weight I wanted to be. So without any money on the line I kept the blog portion of my challenge and worked on losing the weight just for myself.

Except for two days when I was too sick to lift a finger to the keyboard and write I posted a blog on this site everyday. My sweet husband and daughter posted things on those sick days so that I never missed posting in 730 days. I have to say that this very public accountability has been the difference. I think I have changed my eating habits to something I can live with. I certainly have changed my exercise routines.

I spend about twenty minutes everyday writing this blog, I think it is time well spent to be mindful. I am thankful for the people who follow me, encourage me, laugh with me, make fun of me, celebrate with me, cry with me, share their stories with me and inspire me. I am not at my resting place yet. So it’s the start of year three of Less Dana.

I know so well how a half an ounce a day on the plus side can get out of control. I am not looking for a half an ounce a day on the minus side for much longer, but what I do know is that very few days are even, most are plus or minus. It takes keen awareness and honesty with one’s self to stay on an even keel. I want to thank all you readers because you are my balance. Without you reading this blog I never would have gotten to where I am today and I am counting on you to keep me heading in the right direction. Thanks for the two years, I will try and keep you entertained in the next year.

Mother’s Day Amends

All the occasions that center around me happen in a eight-day period. First is our wedding anniversary followed the next day by my birthday and a few days later mother’s day. It can make for a really good week or a disappointment that I have to wait another year for my time to come around.

Last weekend for my birthday Carter wrote me a heartfelt letter. Yes, that is about all I ever really want. Flowers can die and fade away, and never should I ever be given candy or treats, but a letter I can read and reread especially when I need a pick me up, so it’s a good thing.

Since I got a letter for my birthday and Russ got my breakfast in bed this morning I was sure that Mother’s day would go unnoticed by the person in my house to whom I am an actual mother. I don’t come from a big tradition of honoring mothers. Heck, I just sent my mother a card and called and left her a message on the phone.

That is why I was caught off guard when Carter gave me an envelope. On the outside was written, “Mommy, Happy Mother’s Day! Thanks for the womb and board! And everything else you do for me! I love you! Baby Bug.” It was a lot of exclamation points, but the best part was that it was funny. A good pun goes a long way with me.

I was expecting another heartfelt letter, one that her father had reminded her to write. Then I opened the envelope to find the only real gift I ever want, a gift certificate to Chapel Hill Needlepoint. “I bought it with my own money, “ Carter told me. Her father confirmed that part.

What a surprise, a good joke and a real gift. I started to feel guilty about the just funny card I had sent my mother, with a couple of sentences, not even a whole heart felt letter. My fifteen year old had shown me up. So here is my open letter to my mother.

Dear Mom,

I hope you had a good day and that your two other children did more for you on Mother’s day than your first born. I know that I have not always been the perfect off spring and for everything I ever did that made you mad, embarrassed or sad I am sorry.

I know I don’t say it enough, but thanks for being my Mom. Despite the jokes I make you had to do some things right because I have never gone to jail, killed anyone that I know about or been banned from entering a foreign country. I know that leaves a lot of leeway, but I think I turned out OK, even if it took some 53 years to get here.

Mom, I think that the next 20 years you will see continued improvement in me so I hope that you can consider me a long-term project that eventually turned out the way you wanted.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Your Doodle Bug

To all you mother’s out there I hope you had a great day and that someone acknowledged all the hard work you do for your kids. If you have a mother and have not done anything it’s not too late, a heartfelt e-mail and a good pun go a long way. Go on and steal from Carter and thank her for the “Womb and board,” I’m sure your Mom does not read this blog.

Baby Food

I like having friends of all different ages. It is always helpful to have someone who has been through a stage of life I am in to help give me perspective or advice and then turn around and do the same for someone else.

Today my great friend Jan who moved to Texas four years ago was up visiting and taking care of her 15 month old granddaughter, Elliott. Since Jan is doing the Grandmother thing I asked her to come over for a walk to lunch play date with E. Although I am a long way off from the Grandmother stage it was so fun to play with a baby.

I feel like Jan and I have come full circle because I have known her since before Carter was born. It seems like yesterday that I used to roll Carter in her stroller into the darkened locker room of Hope Valley where she would sleep while Jan, Roz, Judy and I would play Mah Jongg in the ladies card room.   Jan’s kids were in elementary school then and now one is married and the other is getting married next month.

Elliott is a happy baby. She has two dogs of her own so she was totally cool meeting Shay Shay who was most intrigued with this little person. I was happy Shay did not think to look where the squeaker was on Elliott. After some play time with the dog Jan and E and I set out on a meandering walk to lunch.

Things have changed in the baby eating world since I had Carter. First Jan had a disposable stick down placemat that covered the public table that had who knows what germs. Then she began the breaking up of the crunchy section of the meal. E really likes teddy grahams, but they must have their tiny little ears and legs broken off and then their bodies and head quartered so they are baby bite sized, smaller than half a kernel of corn. I helped with the breaking, but found that I was better at making graham dust than bite sized pieces.

Elliot was an expert at picking up each tiny crumb and popping it in her mouth. Me, with my aging eyesight could hardly see the actual the tiny teddies. Jan told me that Elliot was very particular about what she liked to eat and to demonstrate she pinched off two tiny bits of bread from her sandwich and added them to the pile of teddy chunks we had made when E was not watching. Not one second later did Elliot pick up one of the bits of bread and without any fanfare drop it on the floor since it certainly was not a teddy graham. She quickly found the second piece of bread and did the same.

Then came the wet portion of the meal, a squeeze tube of amaranth, zucchini and banana.   Jan and I both decided that baby food had changed a lot since we had our babies because we did not even know what amaranth was. I guessed it was a grain and Jan confirmed I was right as she read the description on the package, “An ancient grain that pairs well with the zing of zucchini and the sweetness of banana.” Obviously the copywriter at the baby food company was counting on the fact that baby’s don’t read descriptions since I have never encountered a zingy zucchini in its natural state in my life.

E. loved the stuff in the tube, but when Jan offered her a bit of bacon she spit, wiped, waved and demanded that the offending pork product be removed from her being. An avocado was not met with any greater love.

I guess they have made baby food too good because it is dwarfing the appeal of bacon. I can remember that Carter’s first solid food was some horrible rice cereal. Then one day we gave her some bacon and she looked at me like, “Why the hell have you been giving me that damn cereal when this stuff exists in the world?”

I’m sure that by the time I am a grandmother things will change again. Who knows what format babies will want food in then, but I can pretty much guarantee that zucchini will still not be zingy all on it’s own, no matter what the package says.

Do I Need Three Daily Constitutionals?

Today my friend Sara wanted to do something to celebrate my birthday so we took a walk to a local spot for lunch. We were lucky that the humidity was low even though it was warm so we did not get too sweaty to eat lunch at a place with people who were not exercising right before dining.

It was the perfect guilt free way to commemorate my birthday; nice walk, good friend, healthy lunch, great conversation and post merriment walk back. It got me thinking that I should have to walk to all my meals. Not that it would increase the amount I walk in a day, but that I think it makes me more mindful of my eating.

Mindless eating is an issue I think I have overcome after two years of writing this blog. I started by vowing not to eat in the car. I feel like the advent of the drive thru restaurant, and I use the term restaurant very loosely here, is the downfall of the American civilization. We should not have such easy access to unhealthy and fattening food. Drive thru raw vegetable stands are fine, but for French fries we should have to climb a mountain or jump over thirty hurdles before being served a small bag.

Also eating while driving does not give your stomach a chance to register that you are eating at all. Our mind really is on the driving, or at least I hope it is. I think it is best if we enjoy our food with another human being. This is not always possible for me, but I do notice I eat much more slowly when I have someone to talk with during a meal. I do have the terrible habit of eating my breakfast in front of TV while a small dog sits at the ready to drink the milk from my bowl. I don’t think eating with Shay counts as a dining companion.

Sara has been a great friend and avid follower of my blog and weight loss progress. She asked me what my plan was when I reached my goal for keeping the weight off. Since I have lost and gained weight so many times the maintenance part is the most important and difficult task. The one thing I know is that accountability is my best friend. I don’t anticipate changing much of anything.

I certainly can’t add sugar back to my life. I still will need to exercise the same amount. White flour is still a foe. Mostly, I will still need to write my blog everyday. Knowing that there are people all around me with their eyes on me has been the biggest helper to my keeping on track. This is all very easy to say while I still have a few more pounds I want to drop, or a couple of items in my closet that still don’t quite fit.

It seems that if I hover right above my goal and never quite reach it I will stay the course, but then there is the part of me that wants to reach my goal and see if I am able to maintain. Perhaps I should add walking to or before and after every meal. When I get really sick of eating at the places that are close by I might reach my goal because I make myself walk downtown for lunch. Of course I might end up only having time for one meal a day by the time I reach lunch, eat it and walk home.

What’s That Flapping Sound?

People who know I walk 20,000 steps a say have asked me if I ever considered running. I laugh. When I was 28 I had a bad moped accident in Greece and the stateside Ortho Doc told me the good news was I would recover from my hip dislocation, broken leg and broken arm, but that I would never run again. I told him I could not run before so I was even. Running is not in my cards, but the good news is I have not worn out any knees or hips.

I have to admit that all this walking and weight loss has made it easier to run on the odd occasion when I am trying to catch a run-away dog or chasing the recycling truck down the street because I was late in rolling my cart to the curb. The other day I took Shay Shay out for a walk and it was much colder than I had anticipated. In my underdressed state Shay decided she needed a long walk before she would submit to her business.

When she finally decided she was done it started to drizzle, as we were three streets away from home. The cold rain was not helping my situation since I was only wearing a t-shirt and it was about 50 degrees out. Shay also is a bit of a princess and does not like to get wet. I am sure the lab part of her was bred way out and this is a poodle trait. If only Shay realized that a little spritzing of her curly coat improves her look a lot.

With my small dog pulling on her leash we both started to run to get home. Now Shay can out run me any day, but having her tug at me certainly helped get me up to speed and stay there for a good three minutes. Since I was able to run that distance without panting I noticed a different sound, something like flapping. I looked to the sky to see if a large hawk was flying overhead, but saw nothing. That is when I realized the flapping was my own flabby body parts slapping against myself.

Before you blame my large breasts I will tell you I had on my most supportive sports bra, so I ruled out the most likely flapping culprit. That left three potential perpetrators, my stomach, my thighs or the underside of my upper arms. I stopped running very abruptly and practically choked my dog to death as the leashed pulled against her collar. The flapping sound stopped.

Since I have no way to isolate one flapping flabby area from the other I am not sure I will ever identify exactly who caused the terrible sound, but what I do know is the Doctor’s prediction that I will never run again was not exactly true. Instead I should only run with deaf people because the hearing runner will be thrown off stride if they run with me because they will keep ducking and looking to the sky to avoid the large bird of prey that most certainly is flying along with us.

Birthday Guilt

Boy, am I going to have birthday guilt come tomorrow. I just had afternoon tea at the Fearington House and let loose of all healthy ways to celebrate my big day, and this is just the beginning. We still have dinner tonight and brunch. If I were Catholic I would be headed to confession.

One of the best things about Russ is one of the worst things. He is so busy with work that he does not plan celebrations far in advance. That leads him to go so much bigger because it is last minute. So a night at the Fearington House with a massage and flowers and the decadent eating. He wanted to do more but the front desk told him yesterday this was all they could fit in since most everyone else who comes for the weekend plans their trips far in advance. They don’t know Russ. The other thing about him is that once he has given me a gift I love he somehow thinks he needs to give me that gift again, year after year, but then he wants to do something new so the number of gifts keeps growing. I am totally spoiled.

It has been a great birthday this year, especially since it is not a big number. It started last week with my friend Donnabeth taking me to lunch. Then Hannah had a lunch at her house to celebrate my and Michelle’s birthdays. Yesterday my Mom came and took me to lunch and last night Renee organized drinks at the club for the May birthday gang. De showed up with a darling orchid for me. Sadly Beth Sholtz who shares my birthday was not there because of a last minute issue. Suzanne sent a gorgeous hydrangea yesterday and Carter thought it dwarfed the beautiful orchid Russ sent. I am continuing the parties next week with lunch with Shelayne and Susan Monday.

Facebook has totally changed birthdays because so many friends are reminded it’s your day and send kind messages. As far as I am concerned it is the best use of Facebook.
I used to hate birthdays because I selfishly thought the day did not live up to the hype. Not now. It could not have been a better day and it is not over yet.

Besides my friend Beth it is also my friends Gussy, Tricia and Cousin Sarah’s birthday. Happy birthday to all of you. Some years are better than others and I hope that you all have your best year yet.

I am not as good as Russ at celebrating other people’s birthday. I want to keep hold of how great this day has been and make sure that I honor my friends and family on their big days in a way that makes them this happy. I just can’t break my diet this way on any other day but my own birthday or I will cut short the number of birthdays I have.

Happy May Third to all of you. Go out and celebrate, it’s my birthday.

 Fat Shopping Was Easier

Yesterday I had to stop by the Mall to drop off our Nespresso recycling at the Sur La Table store. In the inefficient European way that is my only option to recycle the coffee pods we use. Since I rarely go to the Mall because I hate shopping while lots of people are also shopping I took advantage of the Tuesday morning lack of crowds to try and find some new smaller clothes.

To most women I know they see loosing weight as an opportunity to buy new clothes. To me I see it as a pain. I used to have to buy clothes in the “women’s Department” which is code for fat people’s clothes. It was not so bad because I knew exactly who sold those clothes and the “Big” departments were not that big. I also knew what size I wore and how the clothes would fit. The other bonus in the larger sizes is they tended to be age appropriate for me.

Now I wear regular size people’s clothes. I find this definition interesting since according to fashion retail experts more people are a size 14 or greater yet most of the clothes in stores are under size 14. There are so many things that made this shopping trip bad.

I don’t really know what size I am so I had to gather multiple sizes of the same item to try on. And it is not so simple as just 10, 12, or 14. In the pants department of one store there were seven different kinds of fit, all with names that mean nothing to me, like “Heritage” or “Signature”. Are “heritage” for people who have ancestors who have been wearing pants for many generations? Come on, I was looking for the name that meant, “Smaller waist than hips and a sagging middle aged belly to hide.” You might think “Curvy was the right name, but no, my butt is not big enough for curvy.

One problem about shopping when the crowds are low is that the stores don’t bother having anyone work then or they have the clerks who are only capable of folding sweaters and not actually helping customers.

I went into Banana Republic and picked up one dress, one blazer and one blouse and headed back to the dressing rooms without ever encountering an employee. The only problem is that I needed someone with a key to let me into the locked dressing room.

Eventually Jason came along and he insisted on knowing my first name and let me into a dressing room. I tried the dress on -too small in one part too big in another. Blazer – not a flattering fabric. Blouse – like the dress, too big in the shoulders, small in the bust. I decided this was not a store worth exploring further. As I walked the length of the store to get out Jason screamed across the room, “Dana, what was wrong with those clothes?”

“Too Young for me,” I said as I breezed out to Anne Taylor next door. As I walked in the door a light pink shirtwaist dress caught my eye. Not that I want a light pink dress that looked so much like one of my boarding school uniforms, but I wanted to see what size I might be in that dress and then explore the possibility of it coming in another color. I took two dresses to a room and tried them on –too big and too much material at the skirt. I repeated this exercise in five more stores. Not once did I ever have a clerk who offered to find me the right size or something that was a cut that fit my body.

All that shopping and I did not buy one thing when there are basic things I need. One problem with loosing weight is that I have become much more picky about the way things fit and you would think it would be easier to find things that fit, but it isn’t. I know the answer is the tailor, but I would love to find one pair of pants right off the rack without having to find a “pant’s translator.”

Always a Food Lover

Recently a new reader to this blog sent me a message saying that she wanted to lose weight, but since she loved food so much she did not see a way that she could. This is more or less my response to her.

Hey friend! I hear your pain. I am a life long food lover. I started cooking as soon as I could reach the stove, which was about age five while my parents slept late on Saturday mornings. At that point in 1966 I was not cooking because I had any culinary interest,  I was just hungry.  Eventually food became a bigger part of my life, and I let it have more power over me than I had over it.

More people I know are food lovers than “Food, what’s that? I forgot to eat today” people. In fact I can count on one hand, a hand that lost three fingers in a horrible Cuisineart accident the number of friends I have that really don’t care or think about food.   They are the food outliers and they as you can imagine are naturally thin.

Then I know plenty of people whose lives are not ruled by food, although they like to eat, some are heavy and some are thin and a few are just right. That leaves the group I am in. The people who think, plan, talk, read, smell, everything about food – some are heavy and some are thin, some are just right.

Here is what I have come to learn in my most recent two-year journey to control my own life and food:

I love food

I think about it everyday

I cook, grocery shop, read about it

I write about it, photograph it

I make food for others

I eat it.

I try and eat smaller portions

I treat some foods as treats and so I limit sugars and white flour foods to special occasions

I recognize that I will always be a food person. I also understand that being a person who loves all things about food does not have to mean that I am fat. So the excuse that you are a “Food Person” is just that, an excuse. You can love food and not give all the power to the food. It actually holds no power. The power is in your own brain. Once you decide to take control of food then you will lose weight.

Good Luck. It’s not easy.

For the Love of Socks

It’s been the longest and the coldest winter. For months I have been wearing warm socks because I have no circulation in my extremities. You would think that now that we have a beautiful 80-degree sunny day I would be thrilled to run barefoot or at least just have sandals on.

I started the day in my Dansko Mary Jane sneakers and no socks. As the day went on I kept taking my shoes off to shake out any little speck of dirt that was annoying my barefoot as if I was the Princess and the Pea. Barely an eyelash of dust would fall out, yet when I put my shoe back on it felt so much better.

When I was a kid we went barefoot all summer. The bottom of my feet would be black by nighttime from running in the driveway. I remember this because my mother used to use the cleanliness of the bottom of our feet as proof we had taken a bath. When we did not want to take a whole bath my sisters and I would run a few inches of water in the tub and run around until our feet were clean and the tub was black. Once in our nightgowns when we went to say goodnight to my mother and had the feet check we appeared clean. Of course we were only cheating our selves, as is always the case.

Now that I am older not only do I prefer to be clean I apparently am totally annoyed by dirt. I wear disposable rubber gloves when I dig in the garden because I hate to have to scrape my beautiful black earth out from under my nails. And I guess that six months of socks has spoiled my feet.

As I walked on my treadmill today without socks on I kept shifting my toes and then my heels because the smallest thing was annoying my walking. I realized that all the cold months my socks had been keeping my feet cocooned, clean and safe and able to walk farther and faster. I guess with the spring here it is time to toughen up my feet and learn to ignore small irritants.

But the small things that annoy us can turn into the biggest things. A splinter, a paper cut or a thoughtless comment in passing. Today I realize what a big role socks have played in my walking life. It reminds me to pay attention to all the little things, like thanking my family or acknowledging a kindness, because I know too well that what is little to one might be big to someone else.

If You Tell The Truth You Will Lose Weight

“Honesty is the best policy,” is a saying that can be improved. I would rewrite it as “Honesty is your friend.” The problem with it saying it is the best policy implies that something other than honesty might be a good choice, not just the worst choice. The opposite of “Honesty is your friend,” is that being dishonest is either not your friend or your enemy, either way it is bad for you.

As a person who has gone up and down the scale multiple times there is one big lesson I have learned, forgotten, relearned, ignored and relearned again; that is that I must be honest with myself everyday. People who lose and gain weight know why it happens. It should not be a surprise.

When I went to Weight Watchers years ago and stood in line week after week to stand on the scale in front of some nice underpaid Weight Watcher worker I always knew if I was going to have a good week or a bad week. I was not alone there. I never once heard anyone say, “You’re kidding, I really gained two pounds?”

I was successful at Weight Watchers. It was easy. They gave me the rules and I learned that if I followed them, measured correctly, wrote down exactly what I was eating I would win the game. Eventually I got to the point that I knew way more than any Weight Watcher Leader, but I still went to meetings so I could be weighed in by someone else. I thought that I needed that accountability to be successful.

Then I started lying to myself, I can eat a cookie and maintain, then two cookies, then four. Then I gained weight, then I stopped going to meetings to get weighed in because I knew I was failing. So I kept failing and gaining and failing again.

Luckily I woke up one day and had an honest conversation with myself that I was the only one who could help me lose weight. If I just did the right things that I already knew, and held myself accountable then I would win. I did not need to have someone else weigh me, because that kept me one step away from my own accountability.

Not that I did not weigh myself everyday when I went to Weight Watchers, but somehow in the warped mind of a food addict I thought that if I was having a bad week and I did not get weighed in by that other person then that weight did not really count. I was giving my accountability away.

That poor person who did the weighing in had nothing to do with the food I put in my own mouth or the lack of exercise I might have done that week, but just having someone else in the equation somehow offered me a scapegoat. The bottom line is there is no fall guy in life. We are all responsible for our own SH%T, whatever it is.

Living honestly adds simplicity and life is hard enough. Dishonesty is truly your enemy.

Review of Losses

My first job out of college was as a Sales Engineer selling Mail Opening and Extracting Machines. Don’t let the title impress you. I had a five state territory and as a twenty-two year old kid I was solely responsible for rooting out every possible receiver of more than 500 envelopes a day that needed to be opened, get to know them and then sell them at least one machine to do the work. Think of all the companies you paid your bills to back in the 80’s that had millions of dollars coming by checks that needed to be opened and extracted in order to be processed.

I know it sounds incredibly glamorous, and it was especially at 4:00 in the morning when I would be staking out the major post office sorting station and following trucks that would go and pick their mail up at the post office rather than waiting for it to be delivered back to their business to find new customers.

The mail opening business only had about three or four major players and I knew everyone of my competitors in my territory. I not only had to find new customers who did not have any machines and sell them, but I had to make sure my current customers were happy and up-to-date as well as try and steal away my competitors’ clients. It was more like the TV show Scandal than I’d like to admit.

The worst part about my job and the most memorable these 30 years later is when at quarterly sales meetings we had to review our losses in front of the worldwide sales team. Think of a hospital Morbid and Mortality (M&M) conference where a Doctor who has made a mistake had to stand up in a room in front of all their colleagues and discuss in detail what they did wrong. That is what review of losses was like for me, the youngest and usually the only woman in the room, only no one had died. The only saving grace was if I had already shared the loss with my boss and asked for his help all along the way. If the loss was news to my boss as well as everyone else in the room it was hell to pay. I only made that mistake once.

It is inevitable that in life we all are going to make some mistakes, but most of the time you do not have to dissect that error and lay yourself open for critique. I can relive in my head each time I had lost a big sale to one of my inferior competitors. It was not just the commission I was sorry about losing, it was the fact that I had to admit in front of God, (and the people that owned the company thought God worked there) and these witnesses that I had made mistakes, not called on a Vice President in a timely manor, or visited the operations center in time to know that they were getting a big new account and doubling the amount of mail that needed to be opened. In the end it was my fault and I had to own it and more importantly learn from it.

In the last few days I have had a couple of hard conversations with people who needed to do an M & M on the way they were handling a situation. The details of the story are not important, but a bigger problem was created because someone ignored having a hard conversation or thought someone else was going to do the dirty work. In the end that one hard conversation turned into many harder conversations. The loss was amplified because the details were ignored.

Ignoring bad news has never been a plan that works. The bad is still there and might be growing when you have your back turned. To paraphrase a song from Carley Simon, “If you think this blog is about you” it is. We all have bad, hard difficult things we have to deal with. Dealing with them head on is by far the easiest solution. Own it, learn from it and move on, never to make the same mistake twice.

A Taste of Life

Tonight was the opening cocktail reception for the five-day TASTE extravaganza put on by my magazine. Since I have cut down working at Durham Magazine to writing one column an issue it was a fun night to get to see some of my pals. The party was held at TOPO distillery and featured cocktails made with their homegrown spirits and food from local cookbook authors with their books.

Considering my life on the wagon I had to ask the TOPO person if I could have the Spicy Cucumber in a virgin version. They were perfectly happy to leave the vodka out of my cucumber, lime, jalapeno and seltzer drink, which I greatly enjoyed.

My dear sweet editor Andrea told me that she was on the hunt for my missing underpants that I lost in 1984 and have sworn not to drink again until I find them. I told her that my daughter also wanted to find those underpants so she could see me drink just once. Andrea then realized that I was probably the same person drinking as I am not drinking…ding, ding, ding. That is why not drinking is not that hard for me.

The hard part about cocktail receptions is cocktail party food. Most things in the finger version come on a cracker or some other bread-like version. That leaves nothing but a half a deviled egg for me. I did find two cook book authors who had samples I could try. One was Andrea Weigl who wrote Pickles and Preserves and had a pickled yellow squash sample. It was yummy and timely since I just planted five yellow squash plants. The other author I liked was Fred Thompson whose book Southern Sides I purchased after tasting his black-eyed pea salad.

But parties are not just about food and drink. The real fun was spending time with people I love, but don’t get to spend enough time with. Tonight I had a surprise of getting to visit with my friend Treat, who is perfectly named. I have not seen her since her wedding to Regina, which I was very sorry I was unable to go to since she had to marry in Maryland and not North Carolina.

I may not be able to fully enjoy all the parts of a cocktail reception but I fully enjoyed myself at this one. It is never about what I can’t have, but what I can.

Puritan Curse

There is one thing I think most everyone I know can agree on; there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done. If I were to actually write down all that I need to do I am sure the list would be five or six pages long. Thank goodness I don’t have time to do that.

At this point I have a few priorities of things that I always do everyday. Of course walking 20,000 is probably the thing that takes the longest and could be cut down in an emergency, but since I am able to accomplish other things while I walk I somehow get it done most days. Like most people the things that would be on my list are dull and boring and that is why they stay on the list. Or they are things that never end, like laundry or cooking.

Today, being Easter Monday, it is like a holiday, at least in my mind. Carter did not have school and my father-in-law was visiting until his departure this morning. So my calendar was blank of outside the house stuff. But that is hardly a holiday. I had a story to write for Durham Magazine and chores to do.

It occurred to me as I was prioritizing my day that perhaps I was looking at everything backwards. Rather than trying to get as many things done that I did not want to do maybe I should do the fun things first and then fill in with the work?

So I worked on the puzzle my father–in-law started over the weekend for a good hour. Then I watched last night’s Mad Men while I walked. All the while I ignored my pressing chores in favor of fun. Eventually I guess I felt like I wanted to do some work and got right down to writing, did a few loads of laundry, answered some e-mails from last week, and paid a few bills.

Somehow I still feel a little guilty as I pass by the puzzle and see that the yellow and orange sections are done. I’m sure I probably got about the same amount done by playing first and working second, but somehow it feels wrong. I wonder if I kept my calendar totally free of outside obligations if I could get through the bigger list of looming projects and thus alleviate future guilt if I played first and worked second?

I don’t know why I dream of this because I can’t imagine it ever happening. I am not quite sure if playing first is worth the guilty feeling. I guess that puritan work ethic is too ingrained. Damn.

Body Geography

Between meetings about teenage stress, and communications strategies I got my haircut and my nails done. Seemed like the right thing to do since Easter was coming. I am young enough that I don’t have a weekly standing appointment to get my hair pumped up like women a generation or two older than I am do a day or two before church, but I still would like to look somewhat presentable on Easter Sunday.

When I say I got my nails done I think I should clarify that by saying I had my old tired hands rubbed and my pitiful short nails polished in a color so as not to draw any attention to them. When all that lotioning was done I looked at the back of my hands and they appeared to resemble one of those plastic 3-D maps we used to have in school of the Rocky Mountains and the Colorado River. By hands have lost most of their fat and the blue veins stand proud of the hands as they traverse the knuckle mountain range.

What I will never understand is how my body decides which fat to get rid of first when it is in need of fuel and which fat it thinks I need to hold on to in case of a marathon running emergency. You would think that at some point my body might say, “Hey there is plenty of belly fat to spare, let’s let some of it go,” and send it a pink slip in the weight loss paycheck. But no, skinny hands and feet seem to be the priority. It is kind of like the remote branches of my body get the cuts first before the home office.

Thinner hands are nothing but age snapshots. There is a reason that women used to wear gloves. Although thinner hands look old it does not really affect my clothing, as does the weight loss in my feet. These days I am finding myself walking around on the inside of my shoes. It is not really a problem for my Mary Jane sneakers since the strap will hold them onto my feet, but for things like pumps I am having trouble not walking out of them.

I hope that my hands and feet can settle into a good plateau and the mountain ranges of my thighs and stomach can begin to contribute their fat stores to the universe. I am not expecting to become some salt flat dessert, but I look forward to wearing down the rolling hills.

In Preparation for Easter

Despite the freezing weather Easter is almost upon us. I know I should be in deep prayerful thought during this holy week and I am, just probably not about what I should be praying for. Currently my prayers are about what meals I am going to need to prepare and what food will I need to have on hand for the four-day weekend.

Normally Easter is a breeze. My parents come for church and then the five of us go to the club for the Easter buffet. What could be easier? No one has to cook and everyone has plenty of yummy choices that make the holiday seem special. There are even some not too fattening choices for me, so in the end people are happy, and then everyone goes home. No leftover ham or leg of lamb to try and coax my non-leftover eating child to consume later.

This year we have the special treat of my father-in-law coming for the four-day holiday. He is a very easy guest and not a picky eater, but his visit is going to change the dynamics of our families eating.   First we are going to have to actually eat together and second we are going to have to try and eat the same thing at the same time.

Our family has fallen into the routine of eating different things at different times. I know that it is not good, but between school and work schedules not everyone is around or can wait in order to eat at the same time. Top it off with the situation of my trying not to eat too much in the evening and Carter wanting a different meal tonight than she had last night or the night before and we have a real kettle of fish. Russ is the easiest person to feed because he will eat any old leftover and is perfectly happy to make himself a plate of whatever he can find.

Since I was a caterer in a past life I have no trouble making food, but what I like to make and what I like to eat are not really what my father-in-law would choose. He is of the plain food era. It is just hard for me to come up with menus that are going to please more than two of the four of us.

I don’t know about your family, but for us when we have guests, cooking and eating are a major part of what we have to do together. Even discussing what and where we will eat are paramount conversations. It causes me a little fear because I have my family at a fairly self sufficient point so I don’t have to be around a lot of foods I love, but are trying to avoid. Even though my father-in-law does not eat much I still feel the need to provide nice meals for him and ensure that his granddaughter will be at the table too.

So this is my prayer, “Please God, let’s have everyone get along at Easter. Please help me provide the right things, so there are no fights, hurt feelings or complaints. Please let everyone be thankful for all that they have and remember those who have less.”

Refrigerator Invisibility Cloak

If I had kept a tally of every question my child has ever asked me, “What is for lunch?” would surely be at the top of the leader board. When she was so small that I had to make her lunch I would expect that question. Now she is old enough to make her own lunch and I still get the same question.

I am not sure, but I wonder if there is some Harry Potter like Invisibility cloak in my refrigerator. Why is it that only a mother is able to open the door and look in and indentify all the foods staring me in the face. I am wondering if this is something that exists in other homes.

I know that the answers I am giving about the lunch choices are often met with great disappointment. The original question should not be “What is for lunch?” but “Have you bought any new and exciting foods that you are hiding on me?” The answer would always be the same, “No.”

The question she really wants to ask is, “Mom, have you been taken over by aliens and bought some junk food?” That possibility is greater than my not being asked, “What is for lunch?” in the first place.

So far in my life I have never thrown away a refrigerator full of perfectly good food and gone out and bought all new food so why does anyone in my house need to ask me what is available. Perhaps someone thinks that suddenly some kind of restaurant has popped up in our kitchen with an ever-changing menu of specials — Don’t hold your breath.

My mother never liked cooking and hated grocery shopping even more. That is probably why I am a good cook. I had to learn to forage and create with the least. Perhaps it’s not too late to try that strategy here in my house. I could make the answer to the “What’s for lunch?” question really easy –“ Whatever you can find in the garden.”

When He Is Risen Is Time To Plant

Mother Nature is cruel. Just when we think we are going to poke our eyes out if we have another freezing cold day she brings us spring. Ok, so that part does not sound so mean, that is until you go outside to enjoy the newly warmed earth and are confronted with the drapery of spring pollen.

Hello, spring in North Carolina is here and we know it from the thick coating of fine yellow dust everywhere. Right now it is coming mostly from Trees and Pine (which I thought were trees) according to the weather channel’s pollen cast.

The clouds of pollen rolling down the golf course across the street from my house look more like giant tumbleweeds than the minute irritants that have banded together to make us all suffer.

Walking outside, even if just for the three minutes my dog needs to pee I feel as if I have been in a dust shower. My eyes itch and the back of my throat gets dry and it feels as if my esophagus’ sides have been pinched together and stuck like a half blown up wet balloon. What I wish for is one of those air curtains like serious scientific labs have where they blow everything off you in a cleansing way before you enter a room.

Normally in this neck of the woods we have had more than a few really nice 80 degree days sprinkled in January and February before the pollen starts, but not this year. So the insult is that we have hardly had a good time outdoors before being driven back in to escape the allergens and the impending heat.

I need to work in my garden, but am yet to pull one weed or turn one shovel full of dirt. A farmer recently told me that I should never plant my summer vegetables until after Easter. Considering that Easter has about a six week spread in its potential date I wondered what Jesus had to do with my ability to grow green beans. I could answer that question myself in that it is a total miracle that I can put a seed in the ground and wait two months and then eat what comes up, but that is a greater theological question than I am prepared to deal with today.

I decided to ask my Uncle Wilson, a retired Minister what Easter had to do with planting my garden and he explained how the Easter date is determined. Easter is the first Sunday after a full moon after the spring equinox. Uncle Wilson said that the planting time is tied to the Moon and not to Jesus. That makes a lot more sense to me.

Now the problem is that I am going to have to plant in the high pollen season. Yuck and double yuck. So right now I am praying for a wet end to this week to knock the pollen down, bring on a yellow dust free Easter and warmed soil fit for planting. If you went ahead and planted already because the warm weather enticed you should think about covering up your tender plants Wednesday night. It may go back down to freezing. Easter hasn’t happened yet and I always trust a farmer.

Driving Happiness

If I am having one of those days when I can’t make any humans happy I can easily turn to my sweet dog Shay Shay and make her happy. Now she is not one of those smiley dogs who are always happy to see you. In fact she is really quite reserved. But even in her Lange introverted way I know one thing I can do that will make her jump for joy…take her for a ride in the car.

Given a choice Shay would rather go get in any one of our cars and drive any place. She would prefer to sit on the lap of the driver which I will not admit to letting her do, but just being in a car in any seat makes her happy.

I am thrilled that winter is coming to an end, but for Shay the impending hot weather means fewer car rides and certainly only ones where Russ or I may just be dropping Carter off somewhere and coming right home. Perhaps she can still go through the drive thru dry cleaners with Russ where she always gets not just one, but two milk bones. It is so funny how much she loves those dog biscuits in the car. We have bought the exact same brand and she turns her nose up at them at home.

Shay seems to have a good internal clock and comes and sits by the garage door around the time for me to go pick Carter up at school. She does not always get to go, but that never stops her from sitting by the door and looking at me with a pitiful please take me look.

I can remember a time when I was little and all I wanted to do was ride in the car too. One of my earliest memories was when I was about three years old. My dad had a black Corvair and I was playing in the car while it was parked in our driveway in Dayton, Ohio. I put a penny in the lighter and started the car on fire. I don’t remember getting out of the car so I’m not sure if the fire started right away, but what I do recall is being sent to my room and my punishment for starting the fire was that I was told not to look out my bedroom window at the fire engines. I was mostly upset about losing my penny.

I know the car survived because I also remember being five years old in New Canaan and having to push the car down the slight slope of our little street so my Dad could pop the clutch and get the car started. Pushing the car was not so much what I remember, but my Dad yelling at me to jump in the moving car once he turned the engine over was very memorable. I guess I was too short to reach the pedals and that is why I had to do the pushing.

Now that Carter is learning to drive she too loves to go in the car as long as she is driving. I can hardly wait until she gets her real license so she can do all the errands and drive Shay Shay around. Although I will not miss trips to the dry cleaners I wonder what I am going to do to make the beings in my house happy?

Sitting Is The New Smoking

The other day someone who knew I had a standing desk told me that “sitting was the new smoking.” I was not sure that it had quite gotten to that point and then I really started to think about it.

I don’t know many people who just sit around anymore. I know companies that almost never have meetings sitting down because they find they last too long. If you hold a meeting and everyone has to stand the whole time it takes is cut way down because those people who like to talk just to hear themselves are too tired from standing.

I asked my friend Stephanie what she wanted to do to celebrate her birthday and she said take a walk and get a cup of coffee. I presume we won’t sit while enjoying the coffee since we probably could walk and drink at the same time.

I wonder if sitting is going to be something people only do in secret because it is so socially unacceptable to be so lazy just to be sitting? If so, do you think they will do away with seats on buses and subways because everyone will prefer to stand?

Imagine in twenty years watching reruns of the TV show, The Office will people look at it and think, “Oh my god, people used to sit at work” the way we look at Mad Men and think, “Oh my god, people used to smoke and drink at work.”

Will sitting be something people just do for pleasure? Will you go on vacation and just sit or like smoking will most everyone give it up except for the very old who are so addicted to it and why bother giving up such an unhealthy habit as sitting since they are going to die soon anyway.

If sitting really is the new smoking I would not invest in any company making chairs. Do you think I could short chair stocks? I might invest in adult bibs though because standing and eating, let alone walking and eating is a lot messier than sitting.

As much as I stand and walk now I really hope that sitting does not go away completely because it is still one of my favorite things to do. I may be really out of fashion saying that out loud.

NYC Walking Utterance

In my quest to walk off these final pounds I seem to be taking a spring walking tour of the world’s great cities. Last month it was London and Paris and today it is New York City, otherwise known to me as “the city”. Since I grew up in Connecticut and my Dad worked here for over 20 years New York was always the only city to me. Everyplace else felt like a big town because their buildings were not high enough or their streets were not wide enough.

New York is any easy city to walk in since the grid layout means you can always ensure you are going the right direction. Once you understand the east and west sides and which way is which you are set.

I’m here thanks to Russ having a meeting where wives were invited. True to form once we bought our tickets and made the plan to fly up first thing this morning Russ’ plans changed and he had to go to Grand Rapids Michigan and is flying I tonight. That meant I had a free day today.

I called my best college friend Suzanne and was lucky enough to get her for a good walk and lunch between her bridge lesson and her dinner tonight. So as soon as I dropped my bags at the hotel I began my trek to get my 20,000 steps on the streets of the city.

I walked from 30th and 6th Ave. uptown to 72nd and Central Park West. Since I traveled up Broadway I was surrounded by many tourists. I counted at least thirteen different languages as I eavesdropped on conversations. I must have heard at least that many different accents speaking English as well. My favorite thing I heard was a little irish boy who said, “But Da, where are the gold streets?” In my heart I wondered if he thought the streets were paved in gold.

Once I got to Central Park West I met up with Suzanne and we had a great walk through the park where the crocuses and daffodils were blooming. We meandered back to her house on 87th and first where we had lunch and caught up on our lives. Actually I got to catch up on her’s since the whole world is caught up on mine through the blog.

Sadly I had to leave my friend so I could walk back to the hotel and change for dinner. I zigged zagged downtown the 60 blocks only stopping once to buy a pair of shoes. The conversations I overheard varied by neighborhood. As I was walking down First Ave. through Yorkville I heard a mother tell her grade school son, “four pairs of sneakers was his limit.”

As I passed by Soul Cycle a sweaty young twenty something coming out of a class turned to her friend and said, “I’m coming back to the seven o’clock class tonight.” That is what I call an obsession I thought.

I was crossing Park Ave. by Hunter College and a girl said to a guy, “No, no and for the last time no”. I was dying to know what she was refusing him, but I still had miles to go so I kept moving. As I crossed over Fifth Ave. and was on the west side I heard my favorite utterance of the day, I big burly guy screaming into his phone said, “My general counsel is going to fuck you up”. I love New York.

My fitbit buzzed my 20,000 steps well before I arrived back at the hotel. We at walking down to Union Square for dinner so this is going to be a big step day as of course New York City should be.

Don’t Plan Too Much

It never fails that when I have a day that has every moment planned and accounted for that is the day when thanks to someone else’s carelessness a big wrench gets thrown in the schedule. I will not be naming names or calling anyone out, but why do other people’s emergencies have to become my problem? The truth is that someone else’s problem causes me an emergency that only I can fix.

This is when I have to take a big breath and just work it out. Of course it is nothing life threatening, unless I am doing the threatening, but that won’t solve the problem. Really the best answer is fix the problem with kindness and ignore how difficult it is going to be to get everything done before the absolute drop dead end point.

Anger at an honest mistake just builds up whatever the chemical is that makes me want to eat something or drive my car through a wall or something else equally bad. So to the person who needs me, I am here to help you and I am not angry with you.

But to anyone else don’t ask me for anything today. I am right on the edge.

I Have Walked 10,000 Miles!

OK, It’s April Fools Day! The truth is not bad either…at 9:48 my fitbit messaged me that I had walked 1,000 miles! If you are a faithful reader you might remember that on Feb 3 I wrote I had walked 500 miles in three months and one day. I thought that was fairly good because before I got my fitbit I estimate I was walking something like three miles a day and that at that rate it would take me about five and a half months to walk 500 miles.

Being competitive, especially with myself, I decided to see if I could walk 500 miles in two months instead of three. That was a big jump, but I calculated that if I did 20,000 steps a day I could do it. The power of math! I was right. I made my goal two days early thanks to walking more than nine miles a day on a bunch of days to help make up for two sick days and two flying days.

Now to prove that all this walking is a good thing I can report with scientific accuracy that I lost 9.8 pounds in the time I walked the 500 miles. That includes ten days of a trip to London and Paris where I ate like a tourist. Other wise my eating is incredibly stable and similar to a time I was not walking so much.

Even though we are all sick of winter, if you are dreading bathing suit season’s arrival, and who doesn’t, I suggest you get up and walk around. Even if you just walk around your house it makes a huge difference.

I am keeping my 20,000 a day step goal for now because I really need to spend sometime doing real work so I don’t think I have time to up my goal. But I do think that I am about 5 pounds away from fitting into the skinniest clothes I own. That certainly won’t be skinny but it is a good place to see if I can stay. I know that losing weight is exciting, but maintaining weight loss is dull and that is the ultimate goal.