Paper Cowgirl

I spent yesterday at the Paper Cowgirl Altered Art Retreat. A couple of friends of mine, Susan & Gail, were going and invited me, and I'm glad they did - I had a great time. We met Friday evening and spent some time looking around at vendor night - they had some really talented and creative people selling some really neat stuff. We had dinner at Chick-Fil-A - can you believe that at a Chick-Fil-A, an employee not only brought our trays of food out to us, but asked Susan if she wanted fresh ground pepper on her salad? Really! They brought out a huge pepper mill and ground some pepper on her salad. Who knew that in Waxahachie, Chick-Fil-A is almost fine dining! And then, when we were done, I was holding two trays, getting ready to throw them away while Susan finished up a project for her swap, and a lady walking by, a fellow customer, said, I'll take those, I'm going that way. She not only took both trays and threw away the trash, but brought back a little gift bag I'd left on mine. I knew there was a good reason I like living in this town!

Anyway, there'd been swaps that people signed up for to do Friday night, I didn't sign up for any because I didn't think I'd be able to come up with anything good enough, but Susan and Gail had signed up for the crown swap, and Gail made and extra crown for me. It's really pretty, lots of blue and green beads and vintage cowgirl pictures. Here's a picture:

She also gave me a necklace:

I went with them back to the hotel for the different swaps, and there were some really cool things people had done. I think next year I want to get involved in some of those - anything I do might not be the very best one out there, but I think I could do something presentable.

We went back to my house afterwards, where Susan finished up the aprons she made for me and Gail to wear in our classes Saturday. They're really cute. Here's mine:

Really adorable! Saturday, we started out in the Peek A Boo Cases class, where we were each given a vintage compact and lots of stuff to decorate it with, including various papers and lots of vintage jewelry and pieces of broken jewelry. There were some gorgeous projects by the time we were done. I'm pretty happy with how mine turned out, especially since I wasn't sure going in if I'd be able to come up with anything or be able to put anything together without gluing my fingers together accidentally - I'm definitely a crafting novice. Here's what I came up with:

After that, we had lunch, provided by The Dove's Nest - if you're ever in Waxahachie, I recommend it, their food is yummy. Then, we did our second class - a Vintage Memory Shadow Box. Basically, wrap a pencil box in pretty papers, and add something to represent a memory from your life, plus a few extra things to dress it up some. Mine's kind of minimalist, compared to what some other people there came up with, but I like it:

It was a lot of fun, and I'm already looking forward to next year.

Wordle

I found a new toy - Wordle.net. Actually, I found it a while ago, but I was just playing with it. It makes even grumpiness look more interesting.

May 24, 2009

So, the weight loss is not going so well, but at least I'm not gaining. I just have been having trouble sticking to my diet - I'll do okay for a while, then not so great for a while. But that's okay, I'll get back to it. Really, I will. I haven't been reading much, which is really weird for me, but today I dug out Rick Steves' Europe 101, a sort of summary of European history and art work for travelers. It's just hitting the highlights, nothing too detailed, but it takes the major things you might see while you travel, and puts them into historical context. I'm only up to ancient Greece, but there was a chapter on the stone age and cave art, and mention of standing stones like Stonehenge, and a summary of Egyptian art, since so much of it has ended up in museums across Europe. It's pretty interesting and shows a definite sense of humor, so I expect to keep reading it this week.


I was sitting in my library earlier and had the window open because it was so nice out. The cats were just fascinated by the birds outside. They love sitting in the window and looking out, and I got some decent pictures of them, although mostly they're facing away from the camera. I should have gone outside and shot some through the window, but I was feeling lazy, so I didn't. Anyway, if I can get them uploaded, I'll post a few.


Here's Peanut:

And Cashew:

And finally, can someone explain how they can be so adorable one second, but by the time I snap the picture, I get this?

Well, boys will be boys, I guess.

Good Doctor's Appointment, and weight loss!

This has been a good week, after being stressed the first couple of days of it. I went to the doctor and everything looks okay. He won't get the pap test results for a few days, but he said he didn't see anything that I needed to worry about, so that's good. Then, after missing Weight Watchers yesterday due to the dr's appointment, I went today and lost 1.8 lbs for the week, bringing the total to 12 lbs since January.

Therapy and a low-dose antidepressant medicine are really helping me feel better. It's made a big difference in how dedicated I am to really trying to lose weight, too. Well, something has, anyway, and I assume it's that. Plus, I really, really like the Sparkpeople website. I like that I can track my food and see not just the WW Points for each item, but actually see if I'm getting enough fiber (I was actually going back and forth, one day way too much, one day not anywhere near enough - I really don't recommend doing that, especially if you have to be in close proximity to other people a lot), and I've started to pay a little more attention to things like sodium and cholesterol, although mostly I'm still just trying to stay in the calorie and fat ranges it recommends. Plus, the people on there are really supportive and understanding, and it amazes me how often I'll look at someone else's message they've posted or blog entry and think, yes, I do that, that's exactly how I feel! That's one reason I like Weight Watchers in general, going to the meetings and being around other people who are working on a lot of the same stuff, but this way, in addition to that weekly meeting, I have people I can turn to all hours of the day or night. I think the combination is really going to work for me.

Just checking in

I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd write something. Weight Watchers is going okay, but not great. I keep losing .8, then gaining .8, then losing it again. I know it's my fault, I'm not following the program as closely as I should, but it's still discouraging. The first time I did WW, way back in that previous lifetime BC (before cancer), I was very good about writing everything down, exercising, everything you're supposed to do. At least for the first year and a half or so, then I got a little lax, but was still mostly following it. Now, I'll follow it a few days, then not for a few days. Makes it hard to lose weight when you undo any good you did every few days. But, I found a new website that I think is going to help some. It's sparkpeople.com. In addition to a food tracker that tracks all nutrients, not just points (I'm not knocking the Points system, I know it works, and in some ways it makes life a lot easier than counting actual calories), SP has much more supportive forums than WW does (theirs can get a little snarky and way, way off topic in a sort of disturbing way as people seem to try to break the rules and get their posts pulled off the boards). I'm going to keep doing WW, and use SP as another tool to try to keep myself on track.

Well, I've got supper cooking in the oven, hopefully it's about done. I'll probably post again in the next few weeks, since I've got a dr's appt coming up on the 22nd of this month. I usually have enough stress in the weeks leading up to those that I find something to write.

March 1, 2009

I was doing pretty well with Weight Watchers until yesterday. Actually, even most of yesterday wasn't too bad. But then I stopped at WalMart on the way home, and even though I knew I shouldn't, I bought a box of coconut crunch mini donuts. I thought I'd eat a few last night, and maybe a few today, you know, spread out over several days. I ate them all yesterday. I'm not even really sure why I did. I certainly wasn't hungry enough to eat two dozen mini donuts in a few hours. I know I've been annoyed and angry the last few days because of some stuff going on with a friend of mine. And part of the time I was eating, I was on the phone with her. I guess it was just a stress reaction. Anyway, I did the, well, since I messed up yesterday, I might as well go ahead and not worry about what I eat today either. I know better than that. Anyway, I've got to stop beating myself up and move on now. I'll do better tomorrow.

February 24, 2009

I realized it's been a while since I posted anything, so I thought I'd just drop by and put in an update. So far, Weight Watchers is going well - I've lost 8 pounds. Not bad, especially considering I still haven't been exercising like I should. I'm going to start soon, I swear. Talking with a counselor every week has been, well, interesting, I guess. I've started to realize that I can be very negative about myself, and that I tend to ignore my feelings a lot. I'm not quite sure how to fix that, but it's only been a few weeks, so hopefully I'll gain more insight and some knowledge of how to fix things in the coming months.

I've been reading a lot, after not reading much at all in January. I've finished a couple of P.D. James' mysteries, a biography of George Washington, another Discworld novel, Coraline by Neil Gaiman (more of a kids' book, really, but the movie looked intriguing and I wanted to read it before I see the movie), and now I'm working on Arabian Nights. I've enjoyed all of them, although the George Washington bio was a little slow starting out and I didn't really get into it until close to halfway through it. I think I'm going to try to go see the movie Coraline sometime this weekend. It doesn't look like it follows the book, but I'm hoping it will still be good. I'm not sure what possessed me to pick up Arabian Nights, except that I was buying some other Barnes & Noble classics, and they were buy two get one free or something like that, so I picked it up as my free one, since I've never read it. I'm enjoying it, but it can get confusing, keeping up with all the stories within stories within stories.

Anyway, I don't really have much to say, so I guess that's it for now.