Michelle Jones's blog

Not the Same Old Lang Syne

01 Same Old Lang Syne

Dan Fogelberg

I got up to a Twitter update from George letting me know Dan Fogelberg had died. That news added a layer of sadness to my day.

On Saturday B and I were driving around my hometown and "Same Old Lang Syne" came on the radio. I tried but couldn't adequately explain to her how much Dan Fogelberg, and particularly "Same Old Lang Syne" and "Run for the Roses" meant had always meant to me. Call him 70s light rock, call him cheese, call him sappy, call him what you want but he always struck an emotional chord with me and I'm grateful to have his music in my life. There is some music that I have and occasionally listen to and that's that. There is other music that isn't just a passive bystander to my life, it's an active participate and I'm grateful to have it. The best compliment I can pay a musician is to not just enjoy his music but to be grateful for its presence in my life.

I'm grateful for Dan Fogelberg's music. A couple years ago I was going through a rough time and I found myself listening to "Same Old Lang Syne" a great deal in late Spring. I was so emotionally raw the song made me cry almost every time I listened to it but it also made me feel a little bit better each time. That tiny little emotional release that this song about old loves, home towns, warm memories and being home for the holidays gave me brought comfort to me. Thank you Mr. Fogelberg. George is right, Same Old Lang Syne won't be the same knowing you're not around anymore.

Fleur

Fleur

Memory Walk 2007

We're less than two weeks away from the Alzheimer's Association Memory Walk 2007 here in Louisville and I'm asking for sponsors. We participate in this event every year. As a geriatrician B sees the effects of Alzheimer's on both patients and their caregivers on a daily basis. I've heard enough stories to know how important it is to do everything we can to fight this disease and support the caregivers taking care of Alzheimer's patients. So if you can afford it and you think fighting Alzheimer's is a worthy goal please support me in Memory Walk 2007.

In case you're curious I'm trying to raise $500. I'm currently $140 from that goal.

Mr. Brilliant

There is a brilliant probably partially homeless, possibly (B says probably) schizophrenic man who hangs out nearly everyday at the bread shop or the coffee shop in our neighborhood. He reads the paper or a magazine and openly discusses what he's read with himself. We figured out he was brilliant when he was discussing an article debating how private an elected official's private life can and should be. His analysis of the article and his arguing both pro and con was genius. Yesterday I walked to the bread store for a new loaf of golden wheat and a great cup of coffee. As I was leaving Mr. Brilliant was looking at a fashion magazine. He'd not made it to any of the articles. He was still in the ads that clutter the front of the book. For each ad he would look critically not only at the ad in general but also the photography in the ads. He would dissect the direction, quality and quantity of the light to determine how it was shot and lit and how much was done in Photoshop. Like his elected official thoughts his analysis of fashion ads was brilliant. I could only stand and listen to him for a few minutes, he doesn't like people to look at him or hang around too long unless they've got a purpose (you know eating your bagel at the bench or something) so after hearing him debate how possible it was to recreate foggy light in Photoshop and how realistic that re-creation would be I headed home. 

Summer Vegetable Saute

This is cross posted from A Healthy Appetite. It will be a little redundant for some of you, sorry.

We moved back to Louisville a couple months ago. We were very lucky and landed exactly where we wanted to be. Our neighborhood is incredible, absolutely incredibly. It's terribly walking and biking friendly and we try to take advantage of that as much as we can. We walk or bike to the bread shop, the coffee shop, the grocery for small items, and of course the farmer's market every week. Ah, the farmer's market. At the same time my eating habits have changed for health reasons my eating habits have evolved because of food politics and philosophical issues. Those two things combined have given me some pretty strong guiding principles about what I eat, what I don't eat and where I get what I eat. In a nutshell my food philosophy is "eat as much local, seasonal produce as possible. Eat organic whenever possible. Eat more whole foods, less processed foods. Bake with really excellent ingredients. Support farmers and sustainable agriculture by buying direct from farmers whenever possible. Supporting farmers includes supporting meat and dairy farmers so buy humanely raised and slaughtered meat products and humanely cared for dairy and egg products."

So each Saturday morning we walk to the farmer's market and load up on whatever is good and fresh. Then we build our week's menus around those fresh items. Obviously we don't eat farmer's market produce at every meal but it does make up the bulk of our meals. It's glorious.

Being back home in Louisville gives the opportunity for more fresh, local produce than we can shake a stick at actually because we're now quite close to my family and the farm country I grew up on. In the past two weeks two different aunts have come to visit, each with bags full of fresh veggies from their farms. Between the two of them (I'll be seeing them both this weekend), the farmer's market, and our own backyard tomatoes we buy very little product from the grocery store and we eat glorious fresh vegetable based vegetarian dishes at almost every meal.

From this embarrassing wealth of fresh riches comes fabulous lunches and dinners including this Summer Vegetable Saute that I made last night for dinner. I didn't measure the vegetables exactly so I can't give you exact nutritionals but a good estimate is 90-100 calories per cup of veggies so 2WW points if that's your bag.

Summer Vegetable Saute

1 teaspoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small eggplant
1 small red onion
2 yellow squash
1 small zucchini
1 bell pepper
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained (I used diced tomatoes with peppers and onions)
Salt
Pepper
Oregano

Dice all vegetables into small but not tiny pieces.

Over medium heat saute minced garlic in oil. Add bell pepper and onion. Cook for about 3 minutes until onions start to soften. Add all of the remaining vegetables. Cook for 8 minutes. Add tomatoes, stir the tomatoes and vegetable mixture really well. Add your salt, pepper, and oregano. I can't even give you estimates on the amount because it's completely dependent upon taste. Just experiment until it tastes well season to you.

Cover pan and cook on low-medium heat for 5-10 minutes depending on how much firmness you want your vegetables to have and how cooked you want your tomatoes to be.

Serve over whole wheat pasta. 2oz dry pasta is 4 points so if you have 4 points in pasta, 2 in veggies you've got a really hearty, really delicious dinner for 6 points. Since there are only 2 of us we ended up with a good amount of leftover veggies.

In just a few minutes I'm going to take 1 fat free tortilla, 1/4 cup 2% Mexican shredded cheese, and 1 cup of these veggie leftovers to make a simple and tasty veggie quesadilla for lunch. Yum.

A Place in the World

I'm 31 today. I've been on The Plan for a year and a month, I've lost 140 pounds, we live in Louisville, I'm applying for a grant to partially fund a photography project that I've already been working on for a couple months (anyone want to write me a letter of recommendation?), B loves her job, I have a new cute significantly shorter haircut and I love my new MacBook beyond words. Things are good. It's scary to say that, but of course I freely say when things are bad so I should step up to the plate and say when things are good. Things are good right now.

New Clothes, New Computer

I'm sure it's a combination of factors (significant weight loss, aging, happiness quotient, etc) but my taste in clothes has changed quite a bit of the last year or so. It's hard for big girls to find cute clothes, much less really big girls. Starting this spring though I fell into a comfortable shopping routine that revolved mostly around a store called Avenue. I only like about, oh 35% of the stuff they sell, but I really like that 35%. I've gotten several really, really cute peasant style tops, floral skirts, a few blouses and a couple other things there. Turns out I'm kind of hippie chick when it comes to clothes. Who knew? The problem is that soon I'll be too small (such an insane statement, I'm going to be too small for something, insanity I tell you) to shop there. I'm already in the smallest size they carry in both shirts and skirts. I've still got a couple pant sizes to go (thanks hips!) but soon enough even that's going to be an issue. As I said it's a challenge to find cute clothes as a very large woman but if you're a large woman who doesn't really like to shop it's actually liberating in some regards. Basically you have the Misses or Women's Departments in department stores which carry plus size clothes that your grandmother might wear or you have shops that cater only to plus size women like Lane Bryant and Avenue. So if you're like me your shopping consists of going to either Lane Bryant or Avenue and if you're really desperate then maybe both. Now though most of the clothes in those stores are too large for me. This puts me in an uncomfortable situation, namely I have to find new places to buy clothes. B has always been smaller than me so her exceptionally impressive weight loss put her in the "find new clothes stores" position a while ago. So I've now been in to several of the stores I never even glanced at before. B has found J Jill to be her mecca. It's a bit expensive but it's the exact kind of clothes that B loves, it's a match made in clothes heaven. She and I are also liking a small percentage of things at Cold Water Creek (though that store tends to skew toward a more middle aged demographic). So that's two stores to go to but neither have the hippieish-wear I'm digging of late. Now clearly I can't wear flowing hippie skirts and peasant tops all the time so not only do I need a supplier of those things but I also need to find more clothes in general. Suggestions anyone? I guess I'm going to have start looking in department stores and all the other stores in the mall I've never been in before. Seriously, any suggestions would be great, online stores would be good too. Thanks in advance for any help. Also feel free to recommend any young, hip clothes and very cool t-shirts. I need clothes people.

I'm writing this to you from my brand new MacBook. I decided many months ago that my next computer would be a Mac. I'd grown tired of Microsoft products for many. many reasons and wanted to make a switch to Apple products. I'd planned to buy a MacBook a couple months ago but money grew tight so I decided I would wait until the holidays to buy a MacBook. Because I have the very best baby in the world I don't have to wait. I turn 31 on Friday and for my birthday B bought me a MacBook. She gave it to me early because it came early and she couldn't help herself. First impressions:
- Insanely quick and simple setup. I was up and running almost instantly.
- Beautiful packaging and a beautiful machine. The operating system is beautiful as well and everything from applications to websites is much more beautiful than on Windows machines.
- It's going to take some getting used to some of the different things and more importantly I think I'm going to have to buy a book to help me learn some stuff. Normally I just figure things out on my own but some things are very, very different from Windows and I'd like to decrease my learning time as much as possible. Jason recommended The Missing Manual series of books so I think I'll check them out.
- I got an Airport Extreme Base Station. Setting up a new wireless network with including wireless printing from the MacBook and wireless printing from the Dell laptop was entirely painless. It was about 6 million times easier than setting up a wireless network with Windows. It was so easy I'd like to send flowers to the Apple Corporate offices.

Looking Glass

Something that I've been thinking about a lot lately is how I'm seen now that I've lost 132 pounds. How I see myself, how strangers see me, how my family who saw me at my heaviest now see me, how my family who saw me heavy but not nearly my heaviest see me now. Used to be, save very, very few exceptions, I was always the fattest person in the room. There was a certain...comfort isn't the right word but almost a feeling of comfortable acceptance. "I am the fattest person in this room. I don't have to compare myself to anyone else, I don't have to do anything. I am what I am and this is what it is." Now, I'm mostly not the fattest person in the room. A lot of times I'm the person in the room who can bench press the most, knows what vegetables are currently in season, and walked anywhere from 1-4 miles before the other people in the room got out of bed. Clearly that's different from being the fattest person in the room. Clearly I don't miss being the fattest person in the room but I do somehow miss knowing where I am in relation to people. I can't look at myself and see how I look in the context of other people. Would strangers describe me as fat, heavyset, thick, healthy, strong? It doesn't really matter. I guess I'm just curious.

All of this coincides with moving back to Louisville, where I'm so much happier, so much more content and so much more confident. So do people treat me better because I'm 130 pounds lighter or because I treat them better because I'm happier? Are people more friendly because they aren't repulsed by my appearance or because people are just nicer here. Many questions but not so many answers when it comes to strangers. Family is a little clearer.

At my brother's wedding I saw a lot of family members I hadn't seen for a long time. There are very varying degrees of long time though. So I hadn't seen in 8 months, some I hadn't seen in 4 years, some I hadn't seen in 9 years, some I hadn't seen in over 15 years. Some of these people have been present in my life at moments where I was getting bigger and bigger. The ones who saw me at my heaviest and hadn't seen me since I started my healthy lifestyle last year seemed to only want to talk about my weight. I had an aunt who repeatedly demanded I tell her the number of pounds I'd lost. As we've discussed I'm not comfortable with that (though I tell you people freely enough don't I?) so I repeated my stock answer of "a little" over and over to her. She wasn't terribly amused. She didn't ask anything else about my life, our new house, my photography career, nothing. This massive weight loss is apparently the only thing about me that interests her at all.

Family members and family friends who hadn't seen me in 15 years didn't ask about it at all. They commented that I looked wonderful but I chalked that up to the terribly cute outfits I was wearing for all wedding related hoopla including fantastic accessories. Family members who saw me when I was 130 pounds heavier said I looked great but the only meaning I took from that is that "you look so much better 130 pounds lighter" instead of "you look pretty in that skirt." Did they mean either of those things? I don't know, that's just how I instantly took it.

Perhaps the most interesting exchange at the wedding was with a male cousin I hadn't seen since my grandmother's funeral many years ago. I was quite heavy at my grandmother's funeral maybe 30 or 40 pounds less than my heaviest weight. So let's say a hundred pounds more than I weigh now. Since I last saw him this cousin has gone completely bald and gained a significant amount of weight. The baldness threw me.  I didn't pay much attention to the weight, until he brought it up. He came up to me and said something about he didn't know I would recognize him. I said well yeah the bald head threw me off for a minute. He sighed and said "yeah there's that and the extra 30 pounds" in an almost apologetic manner. It was a short exchange but one that never would have happened a year ago. No one apologizes to the really fat girl about their extra 30 pounds.

Some family friends told me I looked like I did in high school, others said they would never have known me if we passed on the street. The interactions I liked best were the ones where my weight didn't come up at all.

Facts and Figures: 132, 31 volume

I've now lost 132 pounds. This summer has been an interesting time for my weight loss/healthy journey. At the beginning of summer I was losing a crazy amount of weight a week (like 5-7 pounds a week) because I was doing so much work around the house and particularly the yard but not eating anymore than normal. Then came family visits, friend visits, headfirst diving into the Louisville dining scene, a couple Maker's Mark nights, and the hot sign being on at the Krispy Kreme. So then the scales stopped moving. Even when the number on the scale wouldn't budge I knew I was making good progress in my health goals. My upper body strength has grown significantly (bags of mulch are heavy), my overall fitness level is higher, and I'm just really active on a daily basis. So though I can't say I wasn't frustrated when the scales wouldn't budge I knew it was just a plateau that I could work through and not the end or the beginning of anything. Now the scales are moving again, our eating out is back to a normal level and our healthy eating habits are right back on track. I should mention that earlier in spring I had set a min-goal of reaching the 130 pounds lost mark by my birthday. Clearly I've exceeded that and I couldn't be happier about it.

Speaking of birthdays, it is that time of year again. On 27 July I turn 31. Hmmm. I don't have a lot of thoughts or emotions on turning 31. This time last year I was in such a depressed, miserable place emotionally, physically, psychologically, it's good to now just be back to "yay a birthday. Presents, dinners with loved ones, cake, good times." instead of "my god I'm 30 years old and a complete and total failure." Definitely an upgrade.

Some Facts and Figures Volume 2 and a Louisville Update

At this point I've lost 126 pounds. I can't remember if I said this or not but when I started this journey I didn't really have a goal weight I wanted to reach. I threw out a number here and there but truthfully I didn't really care about that number. What I cared about was a clothing size. I wanted to be clothing size X. I don't know why I focused in on that particular clothing size but I did and I'm currently one size above clothing size X. That means I should comfortably be into clothing size X by the end of summer. But as I mentioned in last month's update I feel good and comfortable in my own skin but I still want to be significantly smaller, leaner, stronger and more physically fit. I thought that the number I was throwing about and clothing size X were at about the same point. They aren't. I'm one size away from clothing size X but 56 pounds away from the number. The clothing size and weight were quite close together in B's case but she's several inches shorter than I am and I'm just bigger overall. So in general there has been about a 50 pound difference between when she's in clothing size Q and when I'm in clothing size Q. That doesn't mean anything of course, it's just interesting to know that numbers on a scale can't be the sole motivating factor for anyone because our bodies are each so very different and one weight on me looks and feels very different on someone else. I've always known this but it's a good reminder. I got another kind of good reminder this week too. A reminder of why I don't like to talk about these things with most people. This week someone commented that I'd lost a lot of weight. I said "Yeah, a little." She said something like oh it's much more than a little. I smiled and started to move on. Then she pressed and said "So has it been really, really hard?" I said "well there has been hard work of course in terms of exercise but the actual change in lifestyle has not been that difficult. We've found that we very much enjoying eating healthily, we very much enjoy exercising, we very much enjoy being smaller more fit people. So in that regard no, it hasn't been that difficult. I don't feel like I'm constantly working or that I'm deprived at all." She smirked and said "Well you'll get to a point where it will be much, much harder to lose weight. You'll see." What? What am I supposed to do with that? You assume that I want to lose more weight, you assume that I want to be skinny, you assume a lot and you just seem petty. You don't ask if I feel good, you don't ask what kind of exercise I like, you don't give any useful or supportive comments. Don't ever bring this topic up to me again. Ahem, moving on.

We used the gym at our apartment complex in Indianapolis so since we've been in Louisville we have been treadmill and elliptical machine-less. We have the machines we're going to buy picked out and the space all ready for them we've just not been to buy them yet. However a lack of exercise has not been a problem since we got here. Our house has two stories, sits on hill on a street with a hill, surrounded by other streets on a hill (seriously we're in a valley), has a ton of yard work to do (including mowing the hilly yard with a reel mower), our neighborhood has lots of stuff to walk to and we of course have our beloved new bikes.The routine has been to walk 2 or 3 miles each day with a 2 mile or so bike ride thrown in with lots of house work to do during the week. During the weekend those same 2 or 3 walking miles, same biking miles but lots and lots and lots of yard work. You know it's hot in Kentucky during the summer right? I've been sweating and working and working and sweating and loving lots of the minutes of it. Not every minute you understand, but lots of the minutes of it. My arms are quite sore today from mowing the yard yesterday. Quite sore.

So I'm confident that we'll continue our healthy eating (we're biking to the farmer's market tomorrow morning, yum) because that's what feels good to us and what we like to do and we'll continue exercising (walk, bike, treadmill, etc on the way) and even expand our physical activities (we're looking into some canoe/kayaking options, and both really want to try skiing/snowboarding this winter, and I may want to take up golf again, walking the course naturally). So even with size X right around the corner I think my weight is still going to go further down. I don't know how much further down it will go though. The BMI index says I've got a long, long way to go but I know there isn't much fat left on my hips. Seriously, my hip bones are close to jutting out at this point. If I get to a point where I have to exercise like a crazy person and starve just to lose more and more weight as opposed to just feeling good and healthy then that's the point where my weight is going to stay. Like I said above, the number can't be the thing. A healthy weight for me isn't necessarily a healthy weight for you. I hope that a healthy, comfortable weight is about 56 pounds from now but maybe it's 40 pounds from now or maybe even 60 pounds. I don't know but I know that I look good, I feel good and I'm strong and active. That's what's important. If I don't ever break that additional 56 pound mark but I look good, feel good and am strong, active and healthy then that's A-ok.

Did you catch that last part where I said I looked good? That's a self-confidence thing. My self-confidence was gone for the 4 years we lived in Indianapolis. We've gotten reacquainted here in Louisville and we find that we like each other very much. Here's the thing about me and Louisville. When I'm here I'm "The best, cutest, quietest most confident version of" myself. And I sometimes "wear lip gloss." Here the cute dyke at the cafe flirts with me and I flirt back a tiny bit before letting it be known that I'm completely taken. Here I go to the coffee shop by myself and hang out and chat with strangers. Here I'm joining a book club. After the Indianapolis book club fiasco (anyone remember that?) it's shocking that I'd be up for joining one ever again but here I don't have a single reservation about it. It meets next Sunday afternoon at a cool coffee house and the book is "This Is Not Chick Lit." Here I find it easy to connect with an artist I met online and tell her truthfully that she sounds cool and I hope B and I can be friends with her and her partner. She says she feels the same way. We're meeting for coffee in a hour at a cool lesbian coffee house. Here I find it easy to be honest and earnest about a documentary photography project I'm working on and not care if someone gets it or not, thinks I'm silly for doing it or not. It's my project, it's work I want to do and I'm doing it. Fin.

That's what I'm like here. That's who I am here. It is the real me. The me that's been buried. Buried under excess weight. Buried under Indianapolis' cold winters and frosty people. Buried under a layer of unhappiness I didn't really understand. Buried under low self esteem and extreme self doubt. This all sounds a bit melodramatic doesn't it? That's cool though because the real me is a bit melodramatic.If you've only known me during the Indianapolis years then we definitely need to get reacquainted.

Hello there, it's very nice to meet you. Enough about me. What do you think of me? Bwhaaa, I kid, I kid.

An Updated Look at Me

 

The Excellent Street We Live On

Sweet Surrender

Color and Cammo