Nesting Notes

Since my mind and heart have lingered so much lately on my daughter, I will post an old photo of her here. This is one from our trip to LA in 2008.

With Emily gone off to college, I am in a state of flux as I readjust my life to no longer being a parent. Missing her hits me at odd moments. Like yesterday, I was at a thrift store, and I saw two high school girls sifting through the dress area in search of old evening dresses. One of them was a thin, pretty brunette like my Emmy. I stood watching them, mesmerized, missing my daughter, for the longest time.

Finally, one of them looked uncomfortably toward me, noting my eavesdropping with a nod of her head to the other girl. So I spoke up, told her I agreed with her friend that the red dress would look stunning on her. I also explained that my own daughter is just a year or two older and has gone off to college and that the dress she held in her hand was the style that my daughter probably would have picked. The two girls laughed and explained they were both searching for homecoming dresses, and since they'd only wear it once, they saw no sense in buying a brand new dress. They said they often shop thrift stores. I told them Emmy did too. They both were pleasant and sweet, but probably thought I was a little nutty. So I drifted away, leaving them to their girlish camaraderie.

Other times, Bob and I will see a little girl in a crowd who reminds us of a smaller, younger Emily. We talk wisftfully about that time, and laugh as we go down "Memory Lane" together - then draw ourselves back to the present.

But all in all, we are doing fine. Emily seems to be doing fine too. She started out sick her first few weeks there, but she's feeling better now and adjusting to college life. She misses us too sometimes, but overall, is building a new life.

One thing I'm trying to do is refocus again on my diet and exercise. I've been letting that slide really bad these past few months. I like Jenny Craig program really well, but can't afford to keep doing it, so I've been off of that for quite a while. Tried to do diet and exercise on my own, but that really hasn't been working!

I'm at that stage where I'm still not back to my very fattest weight - but I've gained about 15 pounds and 2 sizes of it back again from my Jenny Craig fighting weight where I felt at my best. I am too fat to fit into the more stylish size 8 clothes that I fit into only a year ago. I want to get that "top of form" feeling back again and I KNOW I can do it. I have the time and energy free now to devote to my fitness and health again. I have no good excuses for NOT doing it. I will do it. Yes!

So last week (on Wednesday), I signed back up for Weight Watchers again. We'll see how that goes. I've tried it before and struggled because since I'm so short and small framed, I only get 19 points a day. What I've figured out and plan on doing differently this time is to use the online tools, and I'm already forced myself to look up the points and journal everyday online so I figure out the true points of the foods I eat. Planning ahead is essential since 19 points doesn't go very far if you don't carefully preplan. I always thought that figuring out the points was such a hassle, but with the online software, it is fairly easy to look foods up and record them.

My Mother and I are also getting back into doing our treadmills everyday. We're both trying to do the routine where we go fast and then go slow on the treadmill, we break up the pace, intensity and incline on the treadmill to give the workout more "punch." That seems to really help. I'm also wearing my pedometer and getting in 10,000 steps each day. I just started all this - so we'll see how it works out.

So I end this post by reminding myself that we can't live in the past, but must reinvent ourselves for the future - it's a process. Sometimes it a process we have to repeat (as in the fitness journey) but we have to do what work at each stage of our life, because we are never the same and can't go back to who we used to be to get to where we want to be.