KraftyKat

My obvious phishing for complements

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 05:21:52 GMT

I have lost 37 pounds. I still haven't had anyone say anything until I mention I have lost weight. I was thinking if I bought some new clothes that fit it may make it more obvious that I have lost, since baggy clothes are not really flattering.

Here is a pic of me in June.

Here is today's pic.

I think that I am looking good!

Quieting the voice that never shuts up

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 04:00:12 GMT

I think about everything, my mind never stops analyzing and commenting on everything over and over. The problem is that it never really solves anything. Over a year ago I was miserable, my mind ran in circles over the same things and I felt that I was wound up so tight that I wa going to explode. The problem is that the inner voice is never really all that nice. That voice says all the nasty things you don't like about other people and yourself. The voice just would never shut up, it was so negative.

I have found that physical exertion is what can shut it up. When I started yoga we would do some standing poses for quite awhile and the instructor would say that it was ok to hate her. The funny thing was that when I was in those poses my mind just said how much it hated me. After awhile I wore down that mind and started accepting myself little by little. When I finally got to the point where I used everything I had to hold a pose, the voice finally shut up. In that moment of quiet the world was much more clear and that clarity has been my driving force. At first I became a little obsessed with class because it was a way to "reset" myself. Yoga wasn't the cure but it was the catalyst that started my journey of change. I am so happy that I found that class and went because I feel that the past year has been a very valuable journey of discovery and self-acceptance.

Fast Food Fitness

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 03:32:31 GMT

I signed up for LA Fitness back in April. I have found that the personal training that was so hyped isn't as personal as I thought it would be. It has kind of left me feeling like I am paying for fast food fitness. I don't work with an individual trainer I just work with whoever is available. I can schedule times, but I rarely get the same times each week. The staff is nice and I do get a workout, but I just kind of want something little more personal. The bright side is that I ended up taking an early training session on Sunday and met this awesome trainer, Natalie. She was very open and gave me a lot of good information for working out. She told me about her personal fitness journey and mentioned that she became a personal trainer to "pay it forward". This was very motivating to me and I like that she isn't afraid to be honest.

Tonight I met with another trainer and she was nice but she just did the weight training and was like "bye". I then headed over to the treadmill and did the cardio workout that Natalie suggested. She suggested an interval workout and to use perceived exhaustion as my pace for each interval phase. To test this I need to hear how it sounds when I say "As I get older the more I appreciate my health." If I can say that when I am walking then I am in a resting phase, when I can still say it but it is breathy then I am working hard. Several people mentioned interval workouts to me before saying that you actually burn more and by switching paces it gives your heart a rest and then ups the heart rate again. I did get all sweaty, burned a lot of calories and I had so much more stamina after this work out. Seriously by doing 1 fast pace I could barely handle 30 minutes, with the intervals I could have done an hour. I have to say that those 35 minutes flew by and I wasn't spending my whole time looking at the timer and making fractions of how much time was left. After tonight I have to say that cardio isn't my nemesis now that I have learned a better way to handle it.

Thanksgiving and wardrobe malfunctions

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:29:11 GMT

I invited my brother's and sister's families for Thanksgiving, unfortunately neither will be able to make it. I was looking forward spending some time with them. Out of the two I feel that my sister really wanted to come. She tried to get the day off and was really disappointed when she couldn't. I then suggested that I could go to her place one weekend and we could do a bunch of holiday baking together. She seemed to really like the idea and wanted to make it a "sister's weekend. This made me happy because I have felt a loss of family when my mother died and I really look forward to getting that connection back.

So at last night's weigh-in I loss another pound. I was pleased since I wasn't really expecting that much since I lost 3.8 pounds the week before. It has been really nice wearing some clothes that didn't fit a couple of months ago. Today I was wearing a pair of pants that used to be kind of snug. I was feeling pretty good until I bent over to open a drawer at work and the zipper blew out. I asked my manager if I could go home and he was understanding of the situation. Normally I would have cried for and hour and felt crappy all day because I am such a "fat ass", but I am not. The pants are over 3 years old and before I stopped wearing them they were really tight. I think that poor zipper just had been worn down from all the abuse it took when I was heavier and today it gave out. This does make a good case for me to buy some new pants, because all of my old pairs had the same treatment. I love to have reasons to shop!

Still losing...

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 04:41:46 GMT

I have lost a total of 22.2 lbs so far. I am really happy with the progress and I feel that the changes I have made are changes that I can stick with.

The theme of tonight's meeting was voting for yourself. So when we were asked what one change would improve yourself the most and I said exercise. So I was changed to try to incorporate it into my life more by my leader. Yeah!!! I have found that I can eat what I like, but smarter. I just need to try that with exercise. So it is time to put on my thinking cap and think of ways to incorporate more activity in my life.

Here is a link to a toon that psmylie said was totally my since of humor. I must admit that it is. Enjoy!

A Walk in the Woods

Voting Fun

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 01:24:33 GMT

It took me and psmylie almost 2 hours to vote this morning. It was totally insane. I am glad that so many people want to vote, so it is a good thing.

see Sarah Palin pictures

see Sarah Palin pictures

Happy Halloween!!!

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 02:36:45 GMT

We had a Halloween party at work. Of course only the girls dressed up. I ended up looking like a goth drag queen. Here are some Halloween pics.

Cleaning my house and clearing my mind

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:22:48 GMT

This past week I starting working on a project to move all of my clothes, accessories, cosmetics and hair care products out of the spare room. This allowed me to then move everything out of my craft room there. We are putting the spare bed into the basement storage and the former craft room, which is a very small bed room will become our closet/dressing room. During all of this I have been going through everything and deciding what to throw away, give to charity or keep. This has been a lot of work, even more than I thought it would be.

I have to admit that it has made me feel good to tackle this project. Taking an honest assessment of your stuff and deciding what what you will use and what you won't use can really translate to a lot of emotional baggage. After my father passed on is when I really started to understand the concept of your possessions owning you. My mother and grandmother each had a big house in the country and were in poor health. They couldn't really take care of their homes physically, couldn't afford help, and were so far away from any help. I worried about them and secretly wished that they would downsize and move into town, but neither of them wanted to give up any of their stuff.

My grandmother's whole basement was full of stuff that she could not live without even though she hadn't been in the basement for years. She also had a spare room the was about 5 feet deep of more precious stuff. All the walls of her "living area" had piles of stuff that were all very necessary. The house was very cluttered and she even fell down about 8 years ago because she tripped over some of her stuff and broke her arm. Grandma besides being a hoarder was a compulsive shopper, bad mix. My mother wasn't a whole lot better. The whole upstairs of that house was storage, not just Christmas stuff, but broken things that we could fix but never did and tons of other "precious" mementos. She started creating a lot of piles in her bedroom, my old bedroom was a guest room/storage room. The walk in closet was full of old clothes and material that was never used for sewing projects. In the living room there were piles of magazines and newspapers. Neither of these houses were filthy (the exception of the storage areas that they never went into) because they still dusted and vacuumed, just really cluttered. I don't know why but at the time it made me think about stories of dragons that never left their nests in fear that someone might steal a piece of their treasure. I thought of my grandmother as a big old dragon sitting on top of her pile of precious crap never leaving because the crap meant more.

Coming from a family of hoarders, I have of course struggled with this too. I think that there was always a feeling of never having enough growing up and so possessions became very important. After growing up and going through several moves, I realized that a lot of stuff is a lot to carry physically and emotionally. The other thing that I have learned is not to keep stuff out of guilt. I have bought stuff that I though I would wear or make and never did. My mom used to tell me that I was wasteful when I would get rid of stuff because I spent money on it. I have learned that it is more wasteful to keep something that I will never use, I would much rather give it to a charitable thrift store. The money raised goes to a good cause and someone will have bought something they want. I sometimes will let my friends go through the clothes and crafts first before dropping it off at the thrift store. As long as it has found a good home I am happy to have it out of mine.

So today when I was in therapy I started talking about all the cleaning and rearranging I was doing and started talking about what it was like to clean my mom's house after she died. It was such a huge mess and it was difficult going through her stuff and deciding what to keep, sell or throw away. It was very emotional too, because it felt wrong to get rid of her stuff. My brother and husband worked on the upstairs which was really gross and most of it was just crap. They also went through the garage which was mostly my dad's tools and stuff. I worked a lot with the more personal stuff like the bedroom, and living areas. My sister hardly did anything, she purposely found things to be offended with so she would have the excuse to leave. Everyone deals with grief in their own way.

It wasn't until today that I connected my reluctance to be actively maintaining the house with memories of cleaning and sorting my parents stuff. Now that I am doing it, it feels good to deal with it and it has been clearing my mind. Like I said earlier everyone deals with grief in their own way.

I am still a big loser...

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:13:13 GMT

I just got back for weigh-in and I have lost a total of 15.8 lbs this month. I am pretty excited about the loss. I also really like the program because it does promote healthy lifestyle changes and there are no special foods. This is something that I can live with.

I have started yoga again after taking a break this summer. I really do love the class and the other ladies in the class are so much fun. It makes it easier to wake up before noon on a Saturday morning when it is something I enjoy.

Now the funny pic...

see Sarah Palin pictures

I am a loser and it feels good!

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:00:33 GMT

I started Weight Watchers last week and I lost 7.4 pounds. I was really pleased with this and wasn't expecting such a big loss.

For the past 6 months I have been going to individual therapy and one of my goals was to take better care of myself. I realize that most of my weight issues are behavioral and that it will be a lot of work. The therapy has been helpful in understanding why I over eat and make bad food choices, but the Weight Watchers is more to help make the life style change.

I have also when to a couple of OA meetings per the advice of my therapist, I am not completely sure how I feel. I like it, but it is weird. The people there are really nice and supportive. I like that it is a good support system and you can customize it to your needs, with the exception of the 12 steps. The 12 steps scare me. My thought is to just try some more meetings and see how it goes. The one piece of advice that I got from the meetings that was really helpful was to just think about today.

And now the funny pic...

see Sarah Palin pictures

Caption this!

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:41:39 GMT

The SciFi channel used to have a "Caption This!" feature on there site that was so awesome. Unfortunately it was taken off-line a few years back. It was part of the MST3K page that encouraged riffs. What I loved was that it took pics from shows that were currently airing and you could see everyone's comments. I used to do this nightly to Old Star Trek episodes.

So in the spirit of "Caption This!" I will post a picture and you comment with your caption.

Here is the picture...

More RNC spelling fun!!!

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:09:33 GMT

see Sarah Palin pictures

Well at least we know that they are not those well educated, elitist liberals. It is so refreshing to see the common man sharing his insight.

So what is worse, not knowing how to spell America or not caring enough to have it spelled correctly?

OK so this might be offensive

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:06:40 GMT

I found this on Google image and had to share. It reminds me of those really funny magnets, the ones that are so wrong but hilarious.

I know it has the terrible "C" word, but I can handle it for the sake of art. If you are a Republican and a jackass that makes you a maverick. It is nice to know that it all about how you look at it.

The Mavrick

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 04:46:45 GMT

It is a good thing that no child is being left behind.

Feed Me! Feed Me! Feed Me!

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:49:32 GMT

see Obama pictures

Gun tot'n beach fun!

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:35:44 GMT

see Obama pictures

What happened to our diva?

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:06:04 GMT

This past Wednesday on Project Runway was a drag design competition. Being the big hag that I am , I was anxiously awaiting the episode all week. I have to say that it was by far the best episode this season. RuPaul was the guest judge and I was surprised that she would show up in a room full of queens looking like she just threw on a wig. Oh RuPaul it is sad to see you looking like Whitney Houston. Please come back!

I do have to say that I have fallen under the spell of Varla Jean Merman. She is so fabulous!

Da Pope

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 01:01:57 GMT

Is it just me or does the pope look like a heavier version of the creepy old guy from Poltergeist.

The Pope

Creepy old guy

see Obama pictures

USA..USA!!!

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 03:28:46 GMT

The fun just never stops. It is hard to tell which is the best part of this picture, the president being oblivious, the daughter realizing what is happening, or the wife smiling and pretending that it isn't happening.

Project Rungay

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:26:26 GMT

Here is a new fav of mine Project Rungay "Project Runway & Fashion from a bitchy gay perspective", how can I resist that. I just spent half the night catching up on all of the posts for this season.

Here are some of the highlights:

"Celebrity judges. Hate 'em. Especially when they're not really known for their fashion chops and they're not acting as the client. Last night wasn't about dressing Sandra Bernhard. It was about having Sandra Bernhard spew her uninformed opinions about clothing she had no interest in. Give us a celebrity that wants to wear the winning entry or feature it in their vanity line, but don't give us disinterested has-beens whose latest face hasn't settled in."

Heidi vs. Nina
This match ends in a stalemate; that is, neither the Teuton nor the Latina wins or loses. But high drama does, indeed, ensue as they reenact that fabulous scene from Mommie Dearest when Joan (Nina) wrestles Christina (Heidi) to the living room carpet and tries to strangle her while Barbara what’s-her-name from Redbook is present writing an article about La Crawford’s happy home. “Barbara, PLEASE!”

Forever Fratboy

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:51:12 GMT

Looks like the president enjoyed the olympics. It is nice to see his support of women's athletics.

Not so long ago, in a city not that far away...

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 05:50:21 GMT

psmylie and I went to the Star Wars exhibit at the science museum of Minnesota. It was pretty impressive. There were several costumes and models from the movies. Psmylie took a lot of pictures and I will posting them to Flickr if you want to take a look later. Unfortunately for the uber geeks there was no Boba Fett or gold bikini on display. After we went through the exhibit we went on a Millennium Falcon "ride". We sat in the cock pit and it looked like we were flying through space, it was pretty cool. It was a night of good wholesome geekiness.

LOL Politics

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:50:05 GMT

Another fun site, www.punditkitchen.com

Mr. Kitty's High Fiber Diet

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 04:05:09 GMT

I found this lovely towel holder on a icanhascheezburger ad. I think that they would make lovely Christmas presents for everyone.

This totally looks like fun

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:50:35 GMT

I am a huge fan of icanhascheezburger.com and just found out about their new site, totallylookslike.com.

Here is a sampling of their awesomeness.

see famous look-a-like faces

see famous look-a-like faces