The Winter Blues Strike Back!

Winter is a struggle for the Nerd Mom.  I was planning my son's birthday, which is today, with my sister on the phone this weekend.  Ninety percent of the ideas we had were all things you couldn't do during the winter.  Drive up to the winery for a tour?  It's freezing out.  Book a night at the very haunted hospital not too far from here?  Closed til March.  Completely limits your options this winter does!  I'm sure someone in the Netherlands would laugh at us, but we're just not throw on your North Face and play in the cold kind of people.  We're more pour yourself a glass of rum punch and head out on the deck  type of  folks.  So that does limit our options during the cold.  We become pale. Squinty eyed when we walk outside.  The sun is gone by 5pm, sometimes we're turning headlights on at 3pm.   Ah, but when you're a Nerd, this does give one awesome excuses to stay inside and read.  Watch old movies.  Discover new music. Play Bioshock til 2am.  Every season has a meaning and in this house, winter is for books and gaming! 


The Winter Blues

This Nerd Mom has a rough time once January hits.  Thanksgiving has come and gone.  The Christmas tree has come down.  Now we have months to go til Spring gets here.  It makes me want to eat soup and chili, curl up and not move.  Then I flip out when March hits, panic during April.  How did I get so pale?  Why does my bathing suit start to make fun of me when I walk by it?  This is why detox is so important. Last year was one long January.  Stress eating became the norm for me.  Curling up to surf the net and read a book was my year long activity during 2013.  What used to be a month or two of catching up has stretched out to let's recover from the entire year.  Daunting, yes.  Impossible, no way! Last week I started out focused.  Lean cuisine.  Greek yogurt.  100 calorie snack packs. Bottled water.  It ended up with work kicking my booty and sliding back into old patterns.  At the grocery I dutifully loaded up on low fat dinners and yogurt.  Then snuck a few bags of chips that I told myself were for the kiddos.  They were!  The fact the a few fell into my mouth while watching old Seinfield reruns was not too bad. A couple of hot dogs while reading V.C Andrews is normal!  I despaired so much I needed chocolate to get past it.  Not to mention those pesky monthly hormones flaired up, causing dreams of pastries and sushi to dance in my head.  Not a great way to detox.  My friend pointed out that I'm just not ready to suffer everyday, all the time to lose weight yet. It is suffering, that's one of the best descriptions of dieting I've ever heard.  Suffering.  So while I've slid off and on the food wagon, I have been good about taking my vitamins and herbs. Drinking my water each day.  Okay yesterday I forgot but I have been drinking warm water and lemon when I get up.  So all is not lost!

Spring, where art thou?

So even though the weather is still snowy and cold, I'm kicked my planning self back into gear! Last year we didn't do too much landscaping, just hung ferns and plants on the front porch.  My yard has tons of clay in it since we're so close to the river, so it's a challenge to get things to grow in my yard.  This year I'd like to build up some planting beds in the backyard and try, again, along side of my the house.  Jumping online the other day, I ordered tons of herb and seed catalogs.  They get me through til it's time to plant again.

The other tradition spring brings in my neighborhood is the Windchime Challenge! We've had a neighbor for 14 years we call "The Smoking Lady".  She sits outside on her porch smoking and talking on the phone, rain or shine, hot or cold.  Well Smoking Lady and I are engaged in a yearly battle over who has the biggest, loudest windchimes.  Then it's time to see who's ferns are bigger, who's hanging plants are longer.  I can safely say I've been winning this battle for at least 10 years, in no small part to my Hubby.  He reports watch she's done while I'm sleeping, so we sneak out in the middle of the night and put up new ones.  In 14 years Smoking Lady and I have never exchanged one word.  We just nod at each other in passing.  Waiting for spring to arrive and the battle to begin again!

Dieting or Suffering For the Fun of it?

So I've tried the new workout, The Tracy Anderson Method.  The daily workouts are tough!  Be ready to sweat, have tons of water near by.  I was gasping around like a beached whale after my workout, but no pain, no gain, right?  The Yorkie Bully loves to watch me workout.  Then again she loves to watch me dry my hair, maybe I'm just that funny looking!  

My diet has not gone quite the way I've wanted it to the past week.  My 3rd round of steroids is finally over, so maybe my moonface will finally deflate. I'd take a half moon face at this point!  Steroids make you want to gobble sweets like there's no tommorow, so hopefully that craving will go the way of the dodo.  So here's to a new week, new workouts and hopefully a new face!