Didn't see this Winter Wonderland coming....

I got up a little early so I could wash that gray right outta my hair.   About daybreak I opened the back door, and realized it was sleeting like crazy!   This really wasn't our forecast.    An hour later, it was still sleeting....shortly thereafter, it turned to snow.  I went on to work, and it was snowing the biggest flakes I'd ever seen in my little town.

This is looking out from the main entrance where I work:

 I didn't have the foresight to bring my camera, so I had to borrow one...and I couldn't find the zoom button until I was almost finished taking pictures (not because I wanted to quit, but because I killed the battery, lol).  I got absolutely covered in snow, and my hair was soaked.   I looked like a drowned rat...but I didn't care.   It was so pretty!

This is the view of the back entrance to my building.

Alabama doesn't get this kinda of snow very often.   We've had more snow in 2010 than we've had for the last several years put together. Must be that GORE-y global warming.  I heard on the NOAA weather radio that the record high for today for my area was 78°.   And that was way before global warming.

The birds are with my own camera, in my own backyard.

They closed the University at 11,

so I got to go home and enjoy the snow and the birds.

Today was Day One of no sugar.  

I did OK.   It was definitely easier today than yesterday (I was on a binge),

and I fully expect tomorrow to be even better.  

I might really be convincing myself, here.

Six Words and Other Stuff

¡Hola!, Amigas! (y amigos!)

Who wants to learn a little Español? Well, not me, apparently! I’m writing a blog instead of studying. Ah, but I’m learning a little at a time. I may not be as unable to grasp a foreign language as I originally thought. This is good news. I will know for sure on Friday when I take my first test.

Some clues for you (which have nothing to do with Spanish): Jethro, DiNozzo, Probie, Abby, and Ducky, what am I talking about?

My daughter and I went Wal-Marting this morning. She is going to have a baby…a little girl. This will be her fourth, two boys and now two girls. I’m hoping she names this one Final. Names she has mentioned are Ginger Elle and Ida Claire…Briar Olivia. I’m going to suggest Olivia Claire. (I am almost certain Ginger and Ida were to get me riled…she “do love” to do it to me.)

After Wal-Mart, she and I went to get a biscuit at Bojangles (good biscuits, by the way, it was my first trip there) and stopped near some sea gulls basking in the cold Kmart parking lot, and fed them biscuits and eggs and sausage…I so wished I’d had my camera! Those birds are so cool!  One did foo foo on my car.   I assume that is gull language for "Thank You."   Who knew?

I woke up at 4 a.m., like I do way too often. This is after waking up several times before 4, but able to go back to sleep. I got up and fiddled with the fire. I do not like going outside at 4 a.m. to get fire wood. Don’t like it anytime after midnight, as a matter of fact. I finally went back to bed around sunrise, and I dreamed about NCIS’s McGee being chased by shadows…guess I shouldn’t have watched two full episodes before I went to bed last night. Of course, the clues above are NCIS characters. I have decided I like this show best of all the cop shows.

And those early morning hours when I can’t sleep! The voices in my head may not be real, but late at night and in the wee hours of morning, they solve all the world’s problems. If only I could remember the solutions when I do get up and get going…


Notes to self:
Starting a fire with wet wood really doesn’t work.
Never look at my face in a 15x magnified mirror. Never. Ever.
Lay off the sugar.

Side note on sugar: I did so much better in January with no sugar than I have in February with sugar. Come Monday, I will be doing the sugarless thing for a week just to see if it is indeed easier. If so, I think Adkins…or Adkins lite will become the plan of the year.

And (drumroll please!) it's that time again....Six Word Saturday!

Cate, who talks about showing her face,

but we (or at least I) haven't seen it yet,

hosts the Six Word Saturday Challenge.

Visit her for more SWS entries!

And that is all!

Adios!

Ice Forest and Icy Mood

Southern Tennessee on Sunday

An Ice Forest

Close Up

It was very pretty.

I've been in a funk lately.   A little depressed, a lot of negative thinking.

I know how to preach it, Baybee, but I don't know how to practice it!

I need to change the name of my blog, eh?   I am certainly not amusing lately.

I am too ashamed shy to tell my real weight loss story here.   I've visited some blogs lately where the ladies really put it all out there...the pictures, the numbers...I wish I had that tenacity.   I have a story to tell, that's for sure...with lots of ups and downs.   I know I will be victorious, but at this moment, I am not feeling it.  

If I were to start a private journal with the pictures and the numbers, would anybody want to be a reader?   I may lack the confidence to send invitations out.   Although, if I follow through with making the blog (I have it named) I probably will send out a few invitations.  

I'm really irritable.  Not sure to yell or pout.  I'm sure part of it is hormonal.   Another part is questions, questions, questions that go unanswered.

I need to be studing some Spanish.

I weighed yesterday....official weight (or as official as I can get it because my starting weight was at my doctor's office.   My "now" weight is from my scales.  

At anyrate, it's 14 lbs.

Why do I feel so out of sorts?

Ah, but this will cheer me a little...

Stuff

Good Morning!

I can't believe it's Monday morning already again.   Since my two weeks off for Christmas, I have not worked a full week...I wonder if I will this week.    The first week back, we had a snow day, the second week I took annual leave on Friday so that I could have a four day weekened because we were off on Monday for MLK/REL Day.   Last week, we got half a day on Friday because of Ice.   So, we'll see for this week...

Speaking of ice...there wasn't much of it on Friday.   The roads were mostly clear, maybe a patch of ice here or there.   I didn't see any....but there was a lady named Dawn, 37, driving with her 9 year old daughter, Maggie, and a friend named Diana, 41, and Diana's 13 month old grandaughter, Jayden, who apparently hit a patch of ice and slid into the path of an oncoming tractor trailer.   Maggie and Diana were pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, Baby Jayden died Saturday.   Dawn is still in critical condition.

Surviving Diana is her 17 year old daughter, Shandi, who is Jayden's mother.

I was going to write about other things....I really don't have the heart to now.

Don't you hate it when that happens?

Saturday, I went into the back yard for a few mins...and found the one little pile of doggy foo in the whole yard.  I took my boots off at the door, and left them there, intending (sometime over the next year or two) to clean them up.    Ole Boy came in, got a scrub brush and some spray cleaner and went out back and cleaned up my shoes.   Wasn't that sweet?

This morning, after the third or fouth time I got mildly irritated at something Ole Boy said, I finally got mad and started letting it show.  He asked a question, and I bit his head off.   He said, "Wow, someone peed in your Wheaties this morning."   I said, "YES! YOU!!!"    As I was getting ready to make a grand exit without saying goodbye, he saw it coming.   He calmly stood by the door and waited for me.   He then opened the door and told me to have a good day...."in your nice clean shoes." 

Over a year ago, a childhood classmate stopped me to talk in the middle of WalMart.   Before we parted ways, she said something that I have thought about often since that day:   There was a time when she would not stop people to talk to them, especially if she wasn't dressed nice, or didn't have make up.   Now, she said, she won't pass up an opportunity to catch up with old friends.

At the time, I was wishing that she hadn't stopped me because I was ashamed of how I looked.   Oh, I had my make up on, and there wasn't anything wrong with how I was dressed; I was very ashamed because of my weight.   The reason her statement was so profound for me was because I'd spent the last 10 years avoiding old friends.   When invited, I'd find a way not to get together.   If I caught a glimpse of them a public place, I would go to great lengths to make sure they didn't see me because I so hated the way I look.  I was obsessed with it.   I thought my weight was my identity.  This obsession has consumed a great deal of my adulthood....years...and there are so many missed opportunities to speak to an old friend that I can't get back.  Places I could have gone, but didn't, because I didn't want to face anyone...or face myself.   Family get togethers that I shunned because of what I looked like.   

My appearance doesn't define me.   It's been a long road to this discovery, and there are still days that the wrong thinking rears it's ugly head, but just because I have the negative thought, doesn't mean I have to invite it in and give it coffee. 

It's very important for me to "get over myself."  I have a choice.   I have the ability to make better decisions.   I may not always do it, but I am working on it every day.   Better food choices.   Saying hello.  Getting involved where once I would have stayed in the background.  Not letting my identity be intwined with or defined by my appearance. 

I am not counting calories.   I am not counting fat grams or carbs.  I don't always make good food choices.   I am not dwelling on every morsal of food I put in my mouth.  I am learning how to enjoy a meal without guilt, without planning my next meal, without planning my next diet, without hating myself for eating.   I am losing weight. 

I have been praying for a long while about freedom from this obsession.  My freedom story is an entry for another day, but this much I know:   If the Son sets me free, I am free indeed.   (John 8:36) 

Six Word Saturday

I just noticed on my last Six Word Saturday, I put "This are my six words."   
 And nobody told me!   I am anal about typos...I have to correct them!    

So, this week, here are my six words! 

"This" is in reference to my Spanish class, which I have whined about for one-point-five weeks.   Yeah, that's a whole week and a half.   But I'm going to stop whining and start studying.  More.  It would just help a little if they spoke some English in the process.   Just sayin'

Cate, from Show My Face, hosts the ever-popular "Six Word Saturday" each week. 

Pop over and see her for more great entries.