Huh? What polka-dot umbrella? I don’t have one…never did, as a matter of fact. So what and whyfor the title of this bloggentree (blog entry…doesn’t bloggentree sound kinda trippy on the tongue?) anyhoo?

Does “because I like it” work for you? Does for me, eh?

Went sale shopping with my dd after work yesterday. We were gone for so long without checking in that my DH called her DH and both DH’s were worried. Jeesh! Now that everybody on earth has a cell phone, people worry if they don’t hear from you like every hour on the hour. There seems to be something intrinsically wrong with that reasoning. At least from my perspective. But I’m an old poop, of course. I don’t even know my cell phone NUMBER. Can you imagine? I keep it in my glove compartment in case of emergency, and once in a great while I remember to take it out and plug it in to charge it. Invariably, when I have it charging on the kitchen counter, I forget about it for a few days at a time, and intrepidly drive down the highway to work without it. I’m convinced that should an emergency ever occur, it will occur when my phone is at home on the kitchen counter plugged into the charger.

Anyway, about the sale shopping. The whole world - or at least all the summer clothes in it - are on sale right now. I’ve been buying incredibly nice things for incredibly, ridiculously low prices. I have also…NSV! NSV! NSV!….discovered that I can no longer buy a size 16, because despite the fact that I like my clothes to fit loosely (can’t TOLERATE anything tight and confining) and despite the fact that my daughters (I have three) repeatedly tell me to buy a smaller size and I won’t…I simply can’t buy a size 16 anymore because the pants and skirts, anyway, slide down my hips and rather unceremoniously end up puddled around my ankles on the floor of the fitting room. So, I somewhat reluctantly (C’mon, Mum, you HAVE to get a smaller size, now!) climbed into a 14, and omigosh! THEY now fit as loosely and comfortably as the old 16’s used to fit!!! Wowza!!!

And that experience, needless to say, has been quite encouraging to my overall lifestyle change in general. Somebody mentioned pastry at work this morning, and not just ordinary pastry, but my all-time-favorite-pastry-on-earth, the demonic cheese danish - and I felt no longings for one whatsoever. In fact, my stomach actually did a little curdle, and I did a mental “retch, retch, gag, gag” in response. I mean, how kewl is THAT? (Hey, I’m wearing a size 14, now….we 14’s don’t eat cheese danish!)

So, okay. Hopefully, when I finish this undertaking - or, more accurately, when I arrive at the “maintenance” stage of my “lifestyle change” - I will be wearing loose size 10’s maybe…but for now, I’m very pleased at dropping down to a loose 14. Plus, I think I look a little better in my clothes, now.  

My dd is dieting, too. She’s a couple of inches taller than I am, and was VERY slim and svelte until maybe a year or so ago, when she started packing excess pounds on. I actually think it’s her birth control pill, but she’s not planning another child anytime soon (her daughter is turning 7 in November, but they are putting an addition on their house, and there are several other things they want to accomplish before having another baby) and so she’s going to have to deal with it, I suppose, or talk to the doctor about taking something different. At any rate, she’s about 30 pounds heavier than she typically is, and has been miserable over it. I suggested the low cal/high fiber that I’m doing, and she seems to feel that it’s working for her, too. I’m so glad, because it IS something that you can continue pretty much forever as opposed to being some strange and convoluted combination of foods that you just can’t stay with indefinitely. It tends to be a little slow - it’s taken me around three months to lose 23 pounds, and I have 21 more to lose - but I feel good, and don’t feel hungry or deprived.

Well, another weekend on the horizon, and nothing concrete planned. We’ve had rainy weather for the past couple of days, but Sat. & Sun. are supposed to be sunny, so maybe DH & I will pack ourselves a nice, low cal/high fiber lunch (thin-sliced deli-ham & reduced fat cheese w/salad greens on flatbread roll-ups with mustard; cherries, grapes and maybe some strawberries; some reduced fat wheat thins & bottled water) and go laze about at the lake for a while. Tomorrow I really should do some grocery shopping, though. I’ve run out of some of my staples like Fiber One cereal and fresh fruit. Need to restock.

Oh - I also need to make up for these past two rainy days with my bike rides! I usually try to ride at least 45 minutes to an hour a day, and the past two days have just been too rainy to get out there. I did buy a new fern plant for my dining room. (Rain is good for ferns; that’s what made me think of it.) I hope I can manage to keep it alive, unlike the palm plant that I drowned - and rotted to death - by overwatering. I seem to either be OVERLY attentive with my plants, or downright neglectful. Either way, they all eventually die off. I do think that my khat Yoko helped kill the palm, tho…she was always jumping at it and shredding it with her clawz. I’ve put the fern in the same place that the palm was, but on one of my sculpture stands, to keep it out of Yoko’s reach. Hopefully that will help. And I’ll try to be more attentive to its needs - I really love having live plants in the house but the only kind I seem to have much luck with are philodendrons. I have four of those hanging over the long window seat in my dining room, and they just seem to keep growing and spreading whether you pay attention to them or not. I DO play a Paul Simon or James Taylor CD for them occasionally; I think they like old poop music same as I do.

Okay. That’s my life today.

 Talley ho!

E!