Did you ever want, very much, to let someone off the hook?  Absolve them of a responsibility?  I've had that desire so often in my life.  I want to take care of things and make life easier for the people I love.  To a degree of course it is possible to do that. 

I know that the love I receive gives me strength and makes it possible for me to persevere which makes my life easier than if I had to constantly drag myself up from the ground and start again.  Love opens Its arms and keeps me from hitting the ground to start with.

But there's a sense in which no matter how much I want to make it easier, and no matter how hard I try, my effort cannot succeed.  Because some responsibilities are not open for mitigation.

As a dyed-in-the-wool enabler and co-dependent, that's been a lesson that I've had to learn the hard way.  And you know the worst?  My inability to release someone from responsibility or obligation to me.  It makes sense to me that if I'm the person to whom it's owed, I should be able to decide whether or not to collect the debt. 

How strange then to realize that it doesn't work that way.  I can't absolve my boss from his responsibility to uphold fair labor laws.  I can't absolve my child from his responsibility to treat me courteously.  And I can't absolve my best friend from the debt of love that requires consideration. 

* * * * *

My mortgage lender person says that it's possible for me to qualify for the loan I would need to buy the house of my dreams.  It's a beautiful place.  And it's even possible that I might do it without having to put down the very last dime of my savings.  She's concerned (and so am I) that putting everything I have into a house would leave me with no buffer in case of a crisis and God knows that with the boys and life in general, there will be a crisis sooner or later.  So, she's working for me, trying to put together a good package. 

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and praying.  And I'm still making my deposits, one square foot after another.  I'll get there. 

Earlier in the week I wrote about my obsessions.  And though I've spent much time on the obsession with health and diet since then, my obsession with buying a home is no less intense, just a little less immediate. 

Several people pointed out to me that there are downsides to home ownership, and that's certainly a point to consider.  The purchase of a home has for many people been a type of investment.  They expect their home to gain in value and that some day they will be able to sell that home and reap the reward or at least leave a nest egg for their grandchildren.

That may or may not happen.  Although home prices have traditionally appreciated, they have barely kept pace with inflation and in fact over time they lose value relative to inflation when you consider the expense of maintenance, taxes, and interest paid on the mortgage. 

The sale or refinance of a home also costs money and anyone who does either of those things more often than three years from the time of purchasing the previous mortgage will almost certainly lose money. 

On the other hand, while rents are typically lower than the cost of a new mortgage in the area, rents will tend to rise while the amount of a mortgage stays the same for the next 30 years.  So any comparison of renting versus buying has to take that into consideration and most of the literature out there that claims you will save money renting ignores that fact. 

There is also value in the ability to paint your home the color you want, have a dog or not, plant your own plants in the yard, and decide when to upgrade your appliances which is the prerogative of the landlord in a rental situation. 

But all other considerations aside, for me the main reason for aspiring to home ownership is that it is eventually ownership.  I have a son who will most probably live with me for the rest of his life.  He is a wonderful kid, bright, funny, and sweet (except to his brother, but they ARE brothers ...).  He's capable of a lot.  But his capability probably doesn't extend to supporting himself.  The jobs he's likely to hold are at best entry level positions.  I know how difficult it is to manage on that kind of wage and I am a very capable manager. 

The more secure a foundation I can create for my child, the less likelihood there is that he will someday find himself standing on a street corner with a cardboard sign that says, "Hungry, need food."  (I'm kind of a sucker for those because I'm so afraid that one day that mother's son will be MY son.  So, I gave away my last $5 of cash to a guy in the Walmart parking lot this morning when I went to get plastic sheeting to cover my leaky windows.  It was freaking COLD out there and I didn't figure that any kind of a mere scam artist would be willing to brave that 1 degree.  This guy really didn't have any place to go.)

I want to have a home for myself.  I don't want to be one of those sad little old ladies who's been renting the same apartment for the past 20 years and suddenly gets forced out when the landlord decides to tear the building down because the maintenance expense exceeds the profit.

And I'm almost 45 years old.  If I got a 30 year mortgage tomorrow, I'd have to either find a way to double up payments, or I'd have to plan to work until I've been dead for at least three years.  (Wanna make a guess what my plan is?)

So when I get paid next week, I'll deposit at least another 2 square feet into my savings account.  And I'll keep doing that just as often as I can until I have enough cash to exchange for real square feet of living space.  I got the statement from my account yesterday, and I did better in 2007 than I thought.  Even with the expense of the move last summer, I'm still ahead by 14 square feet over what I had in savings when the year started.  99 more years like that and I'll have a house. 

"Some of the kids at school were talking about whether it's better to have a nice mom or a pretty/cute mom.  I'm lucky because My Mom is the full combo platter."

o_0

He was also wearing one glove.  I felt compelled to ask about this.  He told me, "Its the warmest if I put my bare hand in the pocket of my jacket, but I have to have one hand out to carry my lunch so it needs a glove."

I'm gonna be on this health thing for a while.  Like I said, it's kind of an obsession. 

Yesterday, on the food side of things I gave some of the big picture information about what gets metabolized in what order.  And how that has influenced my food choices.  Now something I want to go back and follow up with - a person who needs to lose 10 pounds has a very different situation than a person who needs to lose 100 pounds. 

A sustained weight loss over a long period of time has risk factors that have to be considered.  For example: toxins and hormones are frequently stored in body fat.  So as you lose weight these are released back into your blood stream.  That can mean mood swings, unexplained illnesses and flu-like symptoms and all sorts of other issues.  Now, the BEST way to deal with that from the outset is to drink a ridiculous amount of water so you can make sure that your system is being flushed.  But sometimes the water is not enough. 

There's a reason that Slimfast and other dieting products say that if you need to lose more than 40 pounds you should consult a physician. 

So having said all that, I'm going to come in behind what Tiff said in the blog she wrote in the comments from yesterdays post.  (Which is awesome and worth reading through if you missed it.)

Going lo-carb isn't a matter of simply counting grams of carbs.  In fact, that can be exactly the wrong thing to do.  If you are eating 30 grams (a small amount) of carbs per day, but they are all potato chips, white bread, pasta, high fructose corn syrup and the like, you might as well drink Elmer's glue, it will have just about the same nutritional benefit and the glue may have fewer downsides.

By all means, if you want to count your grams count them - but make them count.  Eat whole foods, fresh fruits and vegetables are great, but in fact, for the best nutrition, frozen foods are frequently the best.  They are harvested washed and frozen usually within a matter of hours, whereas the "fresh" foods in your market may have spent days or weeks in transport.  And I'm not even going to get started on tomatoes, which are picked green and then GASSED to make them turn that sickly pink before they are put out in the store. Okay, so I did get started on the tomatoes.  But that's all I'm going to say about them.

So what are the best carb options for getting your fiber and nutrients without over-doing it on the sugars?  You do know that the reason carbs give energy is that they all contain amounts of sugar, right? 

VEGGIES   (4 oz cooked       FRUITS  (4 oz or 1/2 cup
                     8 oz raw)                            except where noted)
artichokes                                 apple
asparagus                                 apricots   (2 med)
bamboo shoots                         blackberries 
bean sprouts                              blueberries
beet greens                               boysenberries  
broccoli                                    cantaloupe
brussels sprouts                        cranberries
cabbage                                    peaches
cauliflower                                 pineapple
celery                                        grapefruit
chard                                         honeydew
chicory                                       orange
cucumber                                    raspberries
eggplant                                      strawberries (3/4c)
endive                                          tangerine
escarole                                       watermelon  ( 1c)
green beans
green onion
green pepper
leeks
lettuce (almost any kind other than iceberg)
mushrooms
radishes
tomato ripened on the vine
     (farmer's markets are the best source for good tomatoes)
sauerkraut
snow peas
spaghetti squash
spinach
summer squash
yams
zucchini

STARCHES ( 1/2c or 40 calorie serving)
whole grain bread (ALL commercial bakery bread is made with SOME white flour, but if you buy the kind that says "whole grain, and look for fiber on the nutrition label - you're good)
whole grain cereal (look for sugars < 10 grams per serving and fiber > 5 grams per serving)
oatmeal
whole grain pasta (there's a great pasta from www.FiberGourmet.com with 130 calories 7 grams of protein and 18 grams of fiber per serving)
legumes (black beans, garbanzo beans, pintos, kidney or navy beans, green peas,, lentils, black eyed peas etc)
corn tortilla (try to find 40 cal ones they are out there!)
whole grain tortilla (the small taco sized ones are the closest to the right portion size)
brown rice
melba toast (process three pieces into bread crumbs to coat chicken or fish then cook in the oven for a "breaded" and "fried" version that's really tasty.  Dip the meat in egg white, coat with crumbs, sprinkle with herbs and a little sea salt then bake at 350 until juices run clear.)

These are not exhaustive lists, but they are a good representative sample of the kind of thing you can and should eat instead of mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, potato chips, etc.  Eating right is as much a matter of eating well as anything.  And once you get into the habit, you'll be surprised how unappetizing things you used to crave become.  Seriously.

Use a little bit (1 teaspoon per serving) of olive or safflower oil, any herbs and spices you have an interest in trying, seasoned vinegars, mustard, Tabasco sauce, lemon/lime juice, or low sodium soy sauce to season. 

My goal is to branch out a little more because I've gotten into the routine of the same three seasonings, the same four vegetables, and the same three fruits every day.  It's my plan that every time I shop I will purchase at least one "different" vegetable and try at least one new recipe a week.

I'm not much into the idea of trying to live off romaine lettuce for a year.  I want my food to be fun and delicious.  And it can be. 

Season asked yesterday whether getting healthy still means losing weight in my book. 

The markers of health can be subtle, but I've learned to notice a few.  I'll come back to weight in a minute, but here are some of the other factors that create or indicate good health to me.

• adequate sleep
• physically active enough to do what I want to do when I want to do it
• balance of time between work and pleasure
• good nutrition (with vitamins and supplements)
• mentally active and learning/discovering new things
• time with friends
• comfortable surroundings
• financially organized

That's really about it.  Not an extensive list although I'm sure I'm not fooling anyone into thinking that those categories aren't broad enough to constantly be in a state of going deeper and learning more.

So where does losing weight fit in there?  Well, when I was at my heaviest, I was very unhealthy.  I had problems with knees.  I had major problems with back pain.  I had sleep apnea.  I had issues with blood sugar and high blood pressure.  And my breath was bad.  I can happily report that I don't have those problems now and I like it.  Okay, maybe my breath could still need some help, but I'm not nearly as unpleasant as I used to be.

I haven't had a physical in years, so I can't really say for sure what my Dr. would suggest if I had one, but I know that I'm far enough over the weight considered "healthy" on the actuarial tables that I'd get a talking to. 

Bill and his wife are doing Weight Watchers and between them they've lost an entire small person.  I like Weight Watchers' point system and I highly recommend it to anyone who will listen.  However, I'm not exactly doing Weight Watchers.  I'm doing my own version of Weight Watchers.

I'm counting points just the way they do, but I'm doing low-carb. 

I'm doing this because of an interesting bit of information I learned last summer.  When you eat, your body first metabolizes the carbs and takes all the energy it can from them.  Next it metabolizes fats and last it metabolizes proteins.  Proteins are necessary but are inefficiently processed by the body. 

In order to lose weight you have to take in fewer calories than your body requires for it's energy needs.  I guarantee you that your energy needs are different from mine, and mine are not the same as Tucker's.  The amount of energy you need depends on your activity level, your level of over all health (it takes more energy to recover from an illness than you would need if you were perfectly healthy), yout gender, and your stature. An active 5' 10" man has a very different energy need than a relatively inactive woman who's ten inches shorter.

Food isn't just energy.  It's also the building blocks you need to maintain healthy blood, organs, and bones.  You need vitamins and fiber.  And it would be nice if the food had enough taste to be enjoyable.  So right now you're saying "duh" right because this is all stuff you've heard before. 

Okay, here's the dilemma.  Eat enough calories to meet dietary and nutritional needs without exceeding the number of calories needed to either maintain a healthy weight or lose weight.  The hardest part for a seriously overweight person, isn't cutting back calories.  Anyone can cut back calories for a while.  The hard part is that the long term need to have decreased calories means decreased vital nutrients.

Add this to the fact that many overweight people are also suffering from a nutritional deficiency to start with, and you have a recipe for failure.

Does that surprise you?  The food that most people eat is terribly deficient.  It's bleached flour, rancid fat, and some salt. 

So here's my plan, eat a few carbs.  Carbs can be great, and contain a lot of great nutrients.  But if I get a lot of energy from carbs then every gram of fat I eat becomes stored fat.  So I eat not many carbs, and not much fats.  I'm planning to get my energy from proteins.   Most people dieting do get most of their energy from proteins, its just that fot most that energy is coming from their body breaking down lean muscle which is what your body will do before it breaks down stored fats.  And I'm keeping my total calories below the level that is required to maintain my weight.

For me that's a ridiculously low amount.  I'm barely five feet tall.  And I don't have anything like an activity level.  I'm okay with that.  Really.  I would be happy eating 200 calories a day if it meant that I didn't have to sweat.  Happily, I don't have to limit myself to quite that few. 

 ((( If I'm right, I'll be 30-40 pounds lighter and quite a bit healthier by my birthday in six months -  That's the present I'm looking for.)))
 

Hey - waves to the world. 

Yes, I'm alive.  Sort of.  And I'm recovering, mostly.

I am here to tell you that being sleep deprived is no laughing matter.  I was seriously messed up.  Now I'm just kind of tired, achy and cranky.  And given over to my obsessions.

Obsession 1: A House.  I want to own a house.  NOW.  okay, I get that it's not realistic to buy one today, but I'm wanting one so bad I can taste it.  I had a disappointing tour with the realtor the other night.  We looked at condos where were ... almost within my price range if I stood on my tiptoes and stuck out my tongue just right. 

They were nice.  Fairly new.  Kitchen was small but I thought I could expand it and make it workable.  However, the stairs were so narrow and built at a strange turn-the-corner angle that meant I'd never be able to my bed up there. 

So now I'm going to plan B which means that I'm not spending anything I don't have to spend on ANYTHING because if I'm going to have a home, I'm going to have to do a little more than stretch, I'm going to have become an NBA Center. 

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can ...

Obsession 2: Getting Healthy.  (And getting a smaller behind in the process).  I've been reading again.  Four and a half years ago, I read through all the information I could get on metabolism and human nutrition needs.  I came up with a plan.

I figured out that if I consumed less than 800 calories per day, I would lose weight.  I was bolstered in my confidence by my doctor who told me, "No one came out of a concentration camp fat ..."

Well, that's true, but what he and I both neglected to consider was that neither did anyone come out of a concentration camp healthy.  So yes, I lost weight.  In fact, I lost a LOT of weight.  Over 100 pounds.  And then my heart was beating erratically, my brain was fuzzy as a Palisade Peach, and I found myself in a psychological state where I was more or less terrified of food. 

Oh, yeah, and just in case I was so weak as to exceed my daily allotment (which by that point had decreased to about 500 calories) I had a medicine cabinet full of diuretics and laxatives with which I could punish myself. 

I wasn't healthy.  In fact, I was approaching the point of being much less healthy than I was when I wore size 28 pants. 

So with a great deal of well, I'm not sure what the word for it is, but I was so scared that I told my best friends what I was up to knowing that the mere fact that they knew would be enough to keep me from doing it again. 

The only problem was that having lost so much weight and so many clothing sizes whetted my appetite to go all the way.  Not all the way to the mortuary, that was an unfortunate side trip.  I want to go all the way to healthy.  To a place where I'm not so worried that my health won't hold out as long as my kids need me to be here for them. 

(Which, is a long long time.)

SO, I'm back in the metabolic research business.

I'm pretty sure that there are answers.  Answers that will leave me with a lower body fat percentage.  Maybe allow me to see my old age with a hope of enough health that I won't be a burden to my kids before I leave this world via some bizarre accident involving a mostly naked Polynesian dancer, an airplane and too much alcohol.

I have some ideas. 

I started on a new plan the day after Christmas.  I'm not sure yet what the results are going to be, it's too early to know.  But I have hope that what I'm learning using myself as a bit of a ... guinea pig ... will prove helpful.  So whether my readership plans to try my methods or just keeps reading for the same reason that my best friend took a photo of a wreck between a Hummer and a Porsche.  I'm gonna write about it.

And yeah, can you IMAGINE a wreck between a Hummer and a Porsche?  That had to be the most expensive thing that those poor insurance adjusters have dealt with in a long time.  I'd have taken a photo too.  I mean, I'd have felt guilty, but I'd have done it.  This is why my best friend is my best friend.  We think alike. 

So anyway, those are my two obsessions.  If I haven't scared you off yet, or totally bored you, I can only say that you are a glutton for punishment.  I kind of like that too. 

You could easily become Obsession #3. 

The earplugs helped.  They didn't block out 100% of all sound, I still heard the Banshees once.  But it was at least muffled enough that I could get back to sleep fairly quickly.

I've been looking at Realtor sites.  And it appears that the average cost of housing in this area is about $150 per square foot.  So now, I'm not thinking of my savings as a meaningless number.  Every $150 I deposit is one more square foot of house. 

Yeah.- I'm a little obsessed and because I can hear the Banshees shrieking as I type, I'm become more obsessed by the minute.

I wonder how many square feet I could buy if I sold a kidney ... slightly used ...

PS - if you missed the "Cheryl" video below, you really should check it out. 

I know that not everyone knows my sister, Cheryl, so I'm providing you this video ... this is her ... I'm thinking that in the coming newsletter we need a "what would Cheryl DO?" column to keep us in the right frame of attitude.

HOT music videos at BLINGCHEESE.COM

1988 is the number of days (counting today) until I can get my AARP card.  Start getting those half priced breakfasts at IHOP, hotel discounts, theater discounts, all kinds of discounts.  I'll tell you, I started looking at the discounts on that website and I'm getting excited about it.

There needs to be an AASM group (American Association of Single Moms) or something because I'll tell you, we could use the help. 

I met with a fellow Xangan last week (waves to Jeri) and we had a great time sharing our writing hopes and goals.  (Now I need to actually email her a chapter so we can start the critiquing process, but she gave me some wonderful ideas and I'm doing a rewrite before I send it to her.)  As a side note in that conversation she said, "You know, it seems to me that the most direct route to poverty for otherwise smart, educated, skilled women in this country is divorce.  And the fastest route out of poverty is remarriage."

It's tempting.  Only wouldn't I have to start dealing with ... men? 

Sigh.

Anyway, I'm hanging in there - still getting less sleep than I want.  Just in case I had any lingering romantic notions of raising babies, this past week has cured me.  The Banshees were in fine form last night.  Now I'm counting the days until I can find another place and get out of here. 

My lease isn't up until this summer.  I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea to sign a year lease, but well, it looked better on paper than it seems at 2 am listening to the shrieking and wailing.  I'll say one thing for the Banshee Babies, they have a regular schedule and they adhere to it.  Gotta admire that ... a little bit.

Hogs and Kisses
Have a good Day

Oh, yeah, I haven't forgotten the Newsletter of Crankiness and Living Well.  I'm working on it and checking out different means of delivery.  I'd like to do something where people have to sign up and confirm it because the last thing I want to do is spam somebody even accidentally.  I'm thinking that's a bigger sin than creating a little inconvenience for people signing up. 

MWAH

I've had one of those days again. 

The Banshees wailed through the night and I didn't sleep very well.  I know I'm going to have to get earplugs or something, but for now, I'm kind of wallowing in being pissed off and I'm really really tired.

Work was interesting, I've spent two days putting together a package for a client in need and so far, my boss has failed to acknowledge it, much less sign off on it or let me know that it's getting done. 

Anyone wanna guess the significance of 1988?  C'mon ... it's fun to play along.  And I'll give you a huge hint.  It's nothing to do with being the year I got married or any kind of 20 year mark.  Gonna have to look a little deeper than that ...