It's Difficult

I started the week determined to get myself back into eating better.  Yesterday I did pretty well except for lunch which required me to eat (how's that for rationalization?) a cheeseburger and fries for lunch but I went straight to the Y afterward and spent an hour walking, using the weight machines, and on the recumbent stepper.  I know that one doesn't cancel out the other but it was better than coming home to sit on the couch and zone out.



Today is $10 Tuesday at Papa Murphy's.  It's been a couple months since I got a pizza and my afternoon plans ran extra-long so I treated myself to one.  I specified the thin crust and had 2 pieces--and logged them like a good girl.  I swear that I'll make real food, WW-type food for all three meals tomorrow.  And I'll go to the Y.

I greatly misjudged how much of the blue heather yarn I had when I cast on this Seaman's Cowl.  I meant to knit an inch of the red Jelli Beenz, knit five inches of the blue, then another inch of the red.  Things did not work out that way.  I knitted the inch of red but ran out of the blue in barely four inches.  Drat.  At first I thought I'd just put an inch of red on and have a shorter cowl but it looked way too short to be warm so I'll knit with the red until it runs out.  It'll be warm and if you turn the narrow red stripe up it almost looks deliberate.  Yeah, I meant it to be like this.  (that's my story and I'm sticking to it)





When hauling my stuff back to the car on Sunday at The Clearing I was surprised by a spot of green along the path.  Snow had melted in the sunshine on Saturday and exposed this moss.  Right next to the moss were some grass-like blades, a cheerful sight in the cold and windy day.





Along that same walk to the parking lot this bench sits inviting you to rest a minute.  It was tempting but I didn't relish getting my heinie wet on the snow.  I'll have a sit next summer.  There's often a twig or bent wood furniture class during the summer there and it's been the same week as my writing workshop a couple times.  I'm amazed at the things people make.

Yesterday's toss was the last two years of receipts that I took to the shredder at Office Depot this morning and today's was the first laptop carrying case I had, which is no longer the right size for my laptop, and a couple discount store picture frames that went to Goodwill.

8 January--Tropical Obsession.  The big Tiger Grouper hangs motionless over the Orange Barrel Sponge like a trophy on some avid fisherman's mantle. But it's my trophy. I've fine-tuned my diving so that I no longer thrash about scaring fish away. I glide through the water like an arrow slipping between the molecules, barely pushing a pressure wave before me. I learned the surge and sway of the liquid world and I stopped fighting it. Now I am aware of its push and pull, I feel the currents that flow through it like a breeze on a sultry summer day and I glide through the aqua density like a native. So still am I, so at home, that the most nervous of the fish, the Spotted Drums, barely pause when I appear. And that big Tiger Grouper? His eye swivels in appraisal, and then he flexes his gills to invite the tiny cleaner fish to resume their work as I watch. I am not a threat. I am at home here.

It annoys me no end that I can't make this line of print move over to the left margin.  And why is this lighter than the words above?  Search me. Tomorrow night I'll try to remember to type this part first before copying and pasting the old prompt on here.  Wish me luck.  Tomorrow afternoon I'm meeting ACJ for a couple hours of writing which means I'll spend the time going through the manuscript AGAIN looking for places to slot in more references to the main character's late husband.  I keep telling myself that every time I work on it takes me a little closer to The End.  Exciting stuff.

--Barbara