It's really happening! These days my mind is about 98% BERP. For the new folks, that stands for Big Entropy Reduction Project—a house-clearing and house-organizing endeavor on a major scale. I used to be a book reviewer, but in 2010, I rather suddenly became a full-time collage artist—old-fashioned paper, scissors & glue collage—so I have to collect paper. I also have a lot of art supplies. Not only that, but our house long ago hit its limit on how many books it can hold. We have full bookcases in every room in the house except the bathrooms, most of them floor-to-ceiling. We have books in stacks lining both the upstairs & downstairs hallways. We have books underneath some of the furniture. And we have boxes of books substituting for tables, crowding the kitchen & den & dining room, and taking up a lot of space in the basement.
So I'm working like a woman possessed to reduce the many piled-high stacks of magazines & catalogs to just clipped-out images I plan to use for collage, to square away all those clippings in my collage studio, to give away many hundreds of books, to organize & tidy up all the art supplies... basically to make it so we can see the floors!
My motivation is that we plan to be parents of cats again, after a long, sad, catless period since our last cat died on April 4th of last year. (We have no human children, by choice.) Our third consecutive pair of oriental shorthairs—like our last two pairs, a male & a female who are brother & sister, littermates—will be arriving in July. Orientals are very active, highly social with both people & each other, and as devoted to their human companions as dogs. And they are indoors-only cats: our breeder wouldn't sell them to us if we were ever going to let them outside. I want these new kittens to have lots of room to run & play & chase each other & climb & jump & generally get into trouble. =grin= They will not begin to slow down a bit and take occasional breaks as lap cats until they are at least two years old. Both my husband Bob and I are pushing 60, so being good parents to active animals won't be as easy as it was the last two times.
As for weight loss, it's taking place, slowly. I finally conquered my lifelong habit of binging (never purging) on sweets in late 2013, thanks to Kathryn Hansen's book, Brain Over Binge. I'm on a low-carb diet. I do half-an-hour of leg exercises every night. And now that winter is over, I'm trying to get myself into the habit of walking. We live very close to a lovely little park with a mile-and-a-half-long trail through woods, around a lake with mallard ducks & Canada geese. I feel so fortunate to have that trail, but in recent years I haven't been taking advantage of it as much as I should.
Restless— I want to add to the other voices saying that taking a medication like phen is not cheating. I have Bipolar Affective Disorder, for which I take a boatload of medications. You do what you have to do to be as healthy as you can be!
jacquelinerose— I'm impressed by how you're planning ahead, preparing yourself for the big journey. I've been on 3 Fat Chicks since the fall, and I think this thread is in fact an amazing support group. =smile=
Betsy— I'm so pleased to hear about how you're getting your mind on track, and congrats on your 9-pound loss!
Ubee— I really appreciate the gentle butt-kicking I got from you (& others) on your Tough Love thread. I'm afraid I won't have a lot of time to hang out there, though, not until around August or September. This will probably be my last long posting for a while on this thread, too. I have SO much to do! =pant pant=
Terra— Way to go on that walking, and you're really rolling on the weight loss front as well!
Sam— So sorry, girl, to hear about your painful experience with the ultrasound: I hope you hear what you want to hear, when the results come back. As for your workouts and your cardio, you are a rock star!
silentarctic— You haven't had a lot of luck with fending off infections these past several months, have you? But good for you that you're exercising all the same! Bob has a bad cold right now, so the viruses are out there making mischief, that's for sure.
sugar2go— Welcome to the thread! Does your handle mean you're going 100% sugar-free? That's what I'm doing, with rare dark chocolate treats spaced months apart. (My last one was for my birthday in February.) I'm astounded at how much more energy I have now that sugar is out of my life. Anyway, like Ubee said, don't be shy: tell us about yourself, when you're ready.
Jane, Dean, anyone else who hasn't posted recently— I hoping you're doin' well. If not, please telll us about it, and get some love from the group!