Yup. Anyway. For my thirtieth birthday, my ex-husband bought me an MG Midget. It was the sweetest little car you ever saw. British racing teal blue, black convertible top - talk about sweeeeeeeeeeeet….I’ve often thought, now that they’re making them again, that I might like another one. Then I think about the traffic on the Mass Pike, and how many times I’d be shifting gears, and remember that I’m too damned old to drive a sports car. Too damned old for any number of things, actually. And, you’d think I’d feel sorry about that, wouldn’t you? Feel depressed that I’ve passed my prime, so to speak, and am now on the downhill stretch. But I don’t. Feel depressed, I mean. It’s more a feeling of relief. Really. Relief that the hard part of my life - high pressure career, crumbling marriage, raising four kids, etc. - is behind me. Oh, sometimes I miss the days when my kids were young. I look at old pictures - once in a while even pull out the old home movies - and think about how cute those kids were, and how I probably didn’t appreciate those years the way I should’ve/could’ve. I do have to say that I was very invested in those chickadees of mine - reading Lyn, Soclose & Ruby Jean’s blogs bring back some warm memories (really) of the running from one thing to the next, and then that whole awkward stage when your kids are wanting to be grown, aren’t there yet, and you’re starting to wonder if you gave birth to some alien seed or something…and then things seem to smooth themselves out, they really DO grow up, and they become your best friends. I’ve been thinking a LOT about growing older in recent days; thinking about my children and grandchildren, and how they will have many years of life that don’t include me. What a strange thought! Strange to think of no longer existing, I mean. Suddenly not being there/here anymore. Moving on. What a HUGE step, eh? Moving on into the unknown. I mean, no matter what anybody chooses to believe, the fact remains that there is simply no proof of ANY of these beliefs/theories/explanations. Essentially, we are going forward (sometime) into a mystery, no matter how convinced we are that what we believe is the *real deal*. I find it a little scary, but exciting at the same time. I feel a sense of anticipation and a kind of thrilling as-in-goose-bump-raising suspense at the same time. Oh, I don’t want to leave my kids! I wish that I could stay with them forever, but in order to do that, I’d have to live to a horrendously old age, and I don’t want that, either, so I guess leaving is what I’ll be doing. At some point. Who knows? Hey! Sometimes I’m overwhelmed with feeling like I should go ahead and eat that hot fudge sundae because tomorrow I could get run over by a truck, and my dieting will have been for nothing. Then, I think, “Yeah, but if you don’t get run over by a truck (and what’s the statistical likelihood, anyway?) you’ll be soooooooo fayet.

Hmmmmm. I guess you just have to do the best you can while you can. Make your little life the best you know how to make it in the time that’s been allotted. That, of course, means keeping yourself healthy and reasonably active. There are things, sometimes, that I think I can still do - or ought to be able to still do - and I’m always amazed when I discover that I can’t. Like this whole dieting thing….I mean, in college, I could lose ten pounds in three days or a week at most. I would eat a big bag of M&M’s every day and drink diet soda and black coffee. Now, just the thought of all that chocolate in an empty stomach makes me green around the gills. But the TIME it takes to drop a few pounds now is simply incredible. I’ve told all three of my daughters that if they feel like they want to lose any weight, they’d better do it now, and KEEP it off, because if they wait until they’re MY age, it’ll be SO much harder, and so much more discouraging.

I’m REALLY counting and measuring today. I feel like I’ve just been treading water for the past month or so. No weight gain, but no loss, either, and I really DO want to get down to my goal weight once and for all. I’m counting WW points again. We’ll see how that goes. Had a yummy pear for brekkie, and a Fiber One bar. Perfectly satisfactory. For lunch, leftovers from last night’s supper: a small piece of roasted pork tenderloin, a small serving of brown rice, and a good-sized helping of baby carrots. An orange just in case that doesn’t fill me up all the way. I’m also seriously thinking about doing some walking again. Have I mentioned that my bike got stolen? Somebody cut right through the chain…must’ve had a chainsaw, eh? Anyway, that happened just before I left on my little vacay with my son. I don’t want to get another one immediately, as it’s getting too cold to worry about being outside riding, anyway. We may have some snow by the end of this week. (WHAT????) Can’t ride in the snow. Think I’ll get some of those Walk Off The Pounds tapes/DVD’s- whatever they are - but in the meantime, may do some walking around the neighborhood. My leg bothered me too much to walk before (which is why riding a bike worked so well for me) but since I’ve taken off the 26 pounds, the leg seems a lot better. Had it checked out, and was told that I had bursitis in my hip joint. They could give me some kind of nasty shot directly into the joint, but I’ve heard some not-so-great things about those shots and figured I’d just see how it went if I lost some weight. I did a LOT of walking out in California with my son, actually, and had no trouble at all, so I guess I may as well try some walking back here at home. (Of course, there’s not so much to see, but I guess I can manage to entertain myself).

I’ve been working on my “Ancestry Book”. It’s more work - and more time-consuming than I expected, but it’s something I really want to do.

I’m still chuckling at the thought of Lyn’s DH marching around the stage with a *dead parrot* on his shoulder. SO Monty Python, eh?

I’m making us some flatbread pizzas for supper tonight. Like using pita bread, but the flatbread is, of course, just one layer. I use the FF mozarella cheese, a thin coating of pizza sauce, onions, green & red peppers sliced ultra-thin, small chunks of chicken and sliced black olives. I swear, when you’ve had these, you NEVER want pizza from a pizza shop again. I made it for my son & his ISO when I was out visiting, and they loved it.

Okay, now I’m rambling. Time to get some work done.

Hope all is well with everyone,

 Z