This Perfect Weekend

I don't know what it is, but I feel really good this weekend. Yay! I think part of it may be my new diet/exercise routine. Part of it might be giddiness over getting my spinning wheel. Part of it might be the delightful spring-like weather we're having here now in the middle of July.


The weekend started off right with us going to see a really FUN 3-D movie called JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH - a contemporary group of adventurers go on the old Jules Verne journey to the center of the earth. I LOVED the 3-D effects and already want to go again. Even though I was tired Friday night from a hard week at work, we really enjoyed the movie. It was a blast. The screen effects were so real that I reached out and grabbed for a flying bird that "flew" right in front of my face. I hadn't been to a 3-D movie in years, but I used to go to several of those back in the late 1970s when I was in high school. I was also proud of myself because I didn't eat popcorn or soda at the movie.

I stayed true to my diet all week through. That's a really powerful, invigorating feeling. So did Phyllis. Congratulations, Phyllis, we did it! And we're going to keep doing it, for at least 5 more weeks. After that, we'll see how it's working and reevaluating at that point.

What's amazing is I didn't feel hungry. I felt pretty headachy and raggedy the first two days, a bit better on Tuesday, but from Wednesday on, I felt a surge of energy and much better mood. Not hungry. Not craving things. Just fine. Even though it was a crazy, hectic week at work, I didn't do the emotional eating that I too often do when on a low-fat, low-cal diet. I felt happy and satisfied.

Saturday, we spent the morning lazing around the house and I read up on spinning and signed up for my spinning class taking place next week. I was reading a really excellent one called Start Spinning by Maggie Casey that was recommended by Kelly Petkin of Knitpicks. It covers both drop spindles and wheels at a pretty basic level. There are lots of pictures.

Had a chance to knit for several hours on my Shoalwater Shawl. This shawl is going slowly, because I keep making mistakes and having to rip out. It's not a hard shawl, I just have to pay closer attention because it is so easy, I get overconfident and then make a mistake. So there are LOTS of lifelines. Still, there's progress.

Saturday afternoon, we went shopping for my daughter's boyfriend a birthday present. Even going to the mall, which I normally don't like to do, was fun. Saturday night, we drove around in the cool night air down some country lake roads. Spotted several herds of deer and watched them for a while. Very relaxing.

Today is Sunday, my "free and easy" day. I've had a leisurely morning but am going to soon go out and get my week's worth of healthy groceries and start cutting up veggies, preparing my food plan etc. so I can have just a successful week this week as I had last. Being on a diet like this is restrictive in some ways, but freeing in others. I have to PLAN very carefully and be AWARE of what I'm eating so that I can make the right choices.

For some reason, I feel more relaxed right now, on Sunday afternoon than I did last week after having a 3-day weekend. I can see that planning my weekends in advance, and planning for having really FUN down-time is as important as planning my meals and exercise.