We made it back from our Wisconsin vacation in one piece (or 3 pieces? Seven, if I count luggage), though a bit later than we expected. Our 5 pm flight was cancelled, so we didn't get out of Minneapolis until 7:30. It wasn't bad, but I wish we had called to make sure the flight was on time before we left the hometown. We could have spent those two hours visiting instead of in the airport. Though Rob was sick and Noah fell off a 4-wheeler and sprained his wrist, we all had a decent time. We managed to divide our time well between the people we like and the ones we have to see, spending more time with the former and very little with the latter. My littlest brother is walking now, and as adorable as ever. We rode part of the bike trail with my aunt and cousins, and saw the town fireworks in the same park that I watched them every 4th of July for the first 23 years of my life. It was a really good trip, and just long enough.
On the plane ride home, inspired by my vacation indulgence, I finished that Portion Teller book I was reading in Boston. It's probably the most sensible diet book I've read. Nothing really new about it--just another book about losing weight gradually by eating a smaller, balanced diet. It does offer some good tools for portion estimation and a way to ease into a new way of eating. There's no calorie counting, no banned foods, just controlled portion sizes and balance. The thing I liked about the book, I think, was the easy tone of it. It didn't have the infomercial feel of other diet books I've read, like the author was working to sell me something. It sort of felt like a 300-page meeting with a friendly dietician. The more I read, the more I thought, "I can totally handle this."
So, I'm going to give it a shot. This week, I start keeping a "Portion Teller Diary" (though I'm not going to call it that, because the title kind of bugs me). For the first few weeks, I won't make deliberate changes to my diet, I'll just write everything down to get an idea of which food groups I favor at which times and what changes would be the easiest to make. Once I have an idea of my eating "personality", then I can tailor the program to suit how I eat, while working within the recommended daily servings of the various food groups. Since I'm horribly impatient and I've been doing the weight loss thing forever already, this observation phase will probably only last a couple days. I don't expect there will be very many new discoveries, anyway. (I eat too many grains? The heck you say!)
I've also decided that while I'm getting my eating in order, it would also be a good time to get the house in order. We desperately need to get rid of a lot of clutter, and I've been putting it off for years. YEARS. The main reason I'm so disorganized is that I get overwhelmed by the Big Picture. So much needs to be done in order to get the house the way I want it, I end up not doing anything at all. Then before I know it, the magazines pile up and the DVD cabinet overflows, I can't find my shoes or my keys and we have 3 sofas (3! Sofas!) in the garage that aren't worth giving away but the regular trash pickup won't take, so there's nowhere to put our 5 bikes, spare washer and dryer, broken lawnmowers, and the boxes of clothes we're never going to wear again, and how did we ever accumulate this many books?! AAAAAAAARGH! Enough! Turn on Entourage and pass me the Cheetos.
Deciding to take baby steps in improving the way I eat has inspired me to take baby steps in clearing out the clutter also. Today, I booked a pickup appointment with 1-800-GOT-JUNK for next Saturday. Over the next 8 days, I will be concentrating on moving all large clutter out to the garage with the sofas. After gutting the two spare bedrooms (which cannot be slept in because of all the junk), I'm going to tackle the kitchen cabinets and drawers. Any appliance we have not used in the past 6 months is gone. Any book we are not going to read again--gone. Any book we'll never read? Also gone. All our VHS movies? Done. Old magazines? Buh-bye. Remember that falling-apart bookshelf in the front room? The extra computer desk in Junkroom #1? The RonCo food dehydrator that we never used, not even once? The clutter-catcher table in the kitchen, the top of which not seen daylight since the turn of the century? Gone, see ya, bye.
I'm not expecting our home to be a showpiece...I just want to get it to a point where everything has a purpose and a place. Where it looks like adults live there and I can find a damned skillet without causing a pot-alanche. I know it can't happen overnight, or even in 8 days. But this is somewhere to start.
Posted by Joy at July 6, 2006 03:43 PMHave you ever tried Freecycle? I used to belong to the Houston group before moving to Sugar Land. They have different groups for different areas of town. I enjoyed using it for getting rid of things I didn't want anymore but were not ready to be in the landfill. Just a thought.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HoustonFreecycle/
Posted by: marilynn on July 10, 2006 05:16 PM
I've never heard of that...I'll have to check it out. Thanks!
Posted by: joy on July 11, 2006 06:34 AM