Winter Blech!

Hi,
We are snowed in, literally.

Almost two feet of snow has come down in the last 24 hours and I am too pooped to shovel any more of the white stuff. My plan now is to just hibernate like a bear until April and come out when the sun shines again and the flowers start to bloom. I think I have enough hot cocoa and pretzels to last until then.

It would be beautiful out if I was into skiing or snowman building, but I'm not. I am a cranky winter person. I take all this snow as a personal insult. Each flake that falls is another cold dagger in my heart. I'm a lousy Canadian for hating the snow. I fear they will revoke my maple leaf status, but I can't help it. Winter is dark, dreary, cold and isolating. It depresses the hell out of me. I am tired of trying to smile when all I want to do is run away to a warm island in Fiji, forever. Why Fiji? Why not!

To add insult to injury, Tyco (Marshall's employer) keeps calling the house at 5:00 A.M., yes FIVE A.M. to tell me that there will be a two hour delay in the opening of the corporate building in Princeton "due to weather conditions".... DUH!!!! All you have to do is look out the window to know that no one is going anywhere on a day like today. When I find the moron who arranges this automated wake-up call at Tyco I am going to wring their neck. This morning was the third time I have been woken up to grab the phone in a panic at five o'clock in the morning, thinking "who has died?". Today, if nothing else, Marshall's job is to get our home number off this auto call list or kill someone at Tyco for me. I'll settle for the first motion but I'd really prefer the second.

Today shall pass, and the snow will melt, but until then I shake my little fist at Mother Nature and call her dirty names out loud. I haven't the energy to do much else... maybe I'll make cocoa. Chocolate cures everything else, why not the winter blahs? I have to make it through at least 8 more weeks of this crap. There is no way the groundhog prediction is going to happen this year, he's snowed under. I hope he has plenty of cocoa and pretzels too.

xox
m

food guru

Hi,
I have a new favorite food guru.

www.caloriecount.about.com

My friend (and yoga teacher), Carol Ann, turned me on to this site yesterday and I am hooked. It lets you set up a personal account, FREE (I love free), that tracks your in put/out put of food and activity on a daily basis. It's fabulous.

Having just come off a 12 day cruise, and a week of being sick, I have gained a few pounds and feel like crap. This is putting me back on track and getting me excited about controlling myself again. You set up your personal info in the web site and it allows you to enter everything you drink, eat & do all day, calculating everything from calories burned to calories consumed plus all the minerals, vitamins, fats, cholesterol and nutritional needs you are meeting, or missing. I have become my own science project.

This will help me own up to what I do right and wrong in my diet and exercise on a daily basis, plus it tracks your progress... I now have 'stats'. How cool is that! Be honest, wouldn't we all like to hit .400 in the diet and exercise hall of fame? Yes, there will be drug testing on this program and I'm not sure how to incorporate that into the plan...how many calories are there in that crap they make you drink before a colonoscopy? Okay, maybe that is taking it to an extreme... I'll back off now.

I don't bother with "New Year Resolutions" but I am planning to keep this project going for a full year and see if it will make a difference in how my body feels and ages. Can I make my skin look a little tighter? Eyes brighter? Have more energy? Maybe, maybe not, but I won't know unless I give it a try. I think I'm pretty active but yesterdays' swim only burned off 249 calories according to my guru. That means I better step it up a notch if I want a treat after dinner, 249 calories doesn't even cover off a chocolate bar. It's all about the in & out in the weight game. My 'out' lags in the winter since I walk less, don't have a garden to tend to and generally spend too much time hiding from the cold outside. I have added yoga to the winter mix of activities but is that enough to keep the dreaded "winter5" off? You know that sneaky 5lbs. that seems to find you every winter no matter what you do. I am a woman on a mission.

I am coming up on the 2nd year anniversary of my cancer surgery. Yes, 2 years next week on January 24th. I can't believe it either. Where has the time disappeared? Since I am 2 years older it is even more crucial that I get this body in it's top working form. It a battle against aging badly, with the operative word being 'badly'. We can't stop aging, maybe Cher can but I can't afford her surgeon, we can only make it less painful and ugly. Will I ever turn heads or stop traffic, nope, but I won't be mistaken for someone older than I really am and maybe I may still be able to take a few years off their best guess. "Gosh, you look about 46" stills sounds terrific to me.... can I keep them guessing another few years? I hope so.

xox
m

welcome back

Hi,

it's now 2011. New year, new date, new page in my blog. January is almost half over already and I'm behind in my postings here. The first week we were still on our Caribbean cruise, no Internet access. The second week I developed pink eye and a sinus infection. Feast or famine.

The cruise was a lot of fun. Pictures are posted on Facebook for those who care to gander. We had excellent dinner mates at our table who developed into great friends. Every night was a laugh a minute while we ate and then we would cavort around the ship all evening as a tribe. The shows, casino, dancing, karaoke, midnight cookie raids... for those of you who have cruised you know the routine. The ship was a bit of a let down but the cruise was so inexpensive it wasn't worth complaining. Mostly the staff were a sleep at the wheel and going through the motions. Our room steward got food poisoning so our cabin was straightened up but not exceptionally well cleaned. The maintenance on the ship was shoddy. Valves leaked on deck which made Marshall crazy. The leaking was from water sources for the cleaning hoses but it was damaging the deck and I can only imagine the mold issue the water was creating. Everyones' allergies were on hyper-drive... does that tell you about the problem? The ship also had smoking areas inside like the bars & the casino. Walking around you had to rush past places to get to fresh air. The next time I will only get on non-smoking ships. Gross.

Other news: Marshall is off to China & India for a few weeks. Swimming lessons will resume as soon as I clear up my pink eye & sinus problem. Hopefully next week I'll be back at work. It's freezing cold here with snow on the ground. I'm hoping we don't get another dump while Marshall is away. The day we cruised we had to dig out from 10", and the day we came home we had to dig out from another 4". Monday we woke up to another 9", more shovelling. It takes the two of us about 4 to 5 hours of man labor to clear our driveway & walk... I have no plans to tackle this on my own. I will break down and call Kevin (our lawn man) to dig me out if need be. I'm a tough Canadian when it comes to winter but only to a point. I'm praying for dry skies.

As 2011 speeds along I look forward to spring. Winter is not my season. Yardley starts to bloom April 1st, 10 more weeks and I'm back to gardening. I prefer that to snow shovelling any day.

xox

m