Like many of us, I discovered McCaffrey’s writing as a teenager.  At the time, her Dragonrider series had only two books, and I devoured them, and then (as they came out) almost everything else she had written.  Her characters were friends, sometimes in ways other characters in other books were not.  Her books found me just at the perfect time in my life for that to have happened.  I still have the ones I owned (as opposed to the ones I borrowed from the library).  And I still treasure them.

Sigh.  I want a “do-over” for this month.

That said, I do love tea.  Nothing is more relaxing than a nice cup of tea.  It makes the workday go better, makes life seem more civilized, even when it’s at its craziest.  Mostly, I have been making tea one mug at a time, because my tea gear was all packed away from when I moved here (yes, that long…).  Today, I cleaned out two boxes of stuff from the living room, and one of the boxes contained my tea things.

Among those tea things was my eight-cup teapot, and its two matching cups and saucers.  I had been missing that pot for a while — so much so that Marc attempted to replace it with a lovely teapot from the local Chinese market.  And that pot is wonderful, but it just wasn’t “my purple pansy teapot.”    You know how it is…certain things symbolize comfort.

I love Chintzware, modern or old, and this was the first modern Chintzware pattern piece I acquired.  Back when I was living on East 4th Street, this pot was almost always in use, and I’ve missed it.

Now that life has changed, and I will be in this apartment for a while, I decided it was time to start going through the boxes cluttering up the living room.  I’m not getting crazy and trying to clean them all up in one fell swoop.  Space here is limited, and shared with Sue, so things have to be gone through slowly, and places found for the things I am keeping.  This is not a bad thing; I firmly believe in going through things every so often to see what is still relevant to my life, and what I no longer want to carry with me.

The main thing is that I now have my favorite tea things again, and it’s so much nicer to have my teapot and teacup sitting on my desk with me as I work.

(Oh, and the pic is of one of the teacups and saucers from the purple pansy set.  It’s a fairly sturdy set, and is part of the Baum Bros. Formalities line.)

I retired from the School Aide position I had on January 15th, and became a full-time freelancer.

I’m not doing badly at it, so far.  I have two clients who are giving me a good amount of work every week, and I have been getting other offers which I’ve been exploring (so far, none of them have made the cut).   I could use more work, but it has to be at a rate that I can live on.  I am sure those offers will come as my rep grows.

I have also started two additional pages here – one for a writing resume, and one for my writing services.  These are very much still under construction, but if anyone feels like giving me feedback, I will not refuse it.

The hardest part is the time management.  I am, by nature more nocturnal than diurnal.  This in and of itself is not a problem.  The issue is more of getting from sluggish into work mode and staying there.  I don’t think that will be an issue for too long — I’m pretty sure it’s just the adjustment period from a very regimented schedule to one where I have great freedom, but also have great responsibility (i.e., I don’t meet deadlines, I don’t get to pay bills, eat, pay rent, etc.).  So far, I am doing okay on that, but since I do need to pick up more work to make up the shortfall between my pension and reality, I need to stay on top of this issue.

Things are still a bit scary, but it’s scary in a good way.  I’m moving forward toward doing what I want with my life.  That, I think is the important thing here, and the one to focus on going forward.

Goals?  I have about seven big ones, in varying degrees of being worked on.  Plans?  Yep, got those too.  Chutzpah and drive?  Got those in spades – just ask my friends. Writing ability?  Well, you all can judge that…I’m a bit biased.  Perseverence?  Hey, I am my dad’s daughter….stubborn is my heritage.

Can I succeed at this in today’s economy? Unless I want to be a drone, and at someone else’s beck and call for the rest of my life, I damned well better succeed at this.  Yes, I know I will be at the beck and call of clients, but that’s my choice.  It damned sure beats the kinds of jobs that get offered to older people in this economy.

Besides, if I don’t do this now, when will I do it?  Life isn’t infinite, and I”m seriously on the second half of it.  I’ve played by the rules for the last thirty years.  Now it’s my turn to make the rules for myself.  It may not be much, but I want to live the rest of my life on my terms.

So, here I go again.

Primarily, with regard to the weight and the finances, I feel broken.  I have been half-heartedly trying to get back on program, but it’s just felt like too much.  Until my pension kicks in (all $157/month, or so the union tells me it will be), I am dependent on the roomie and the writing.

I hate being dependent on others.  The ex has agreed to suspend my paying him back what I owe him until after my pension kicks in, which is very helpful, but I am afraid that I am going to have to apply for food stamps.  Part of the problem with applying for food stamps is that the city wants to know the income of every person in the apartment, and my roommate is unwilling to provide that information, so I either have to lie and risk getting caught, or do without something that could enable me to buy proper food for staying on program.  I have the papers filled out for free meds for two of my three prescriptions, but I don’t know what to do about the third, since it’s a generic.  I know that once I am more established as a freelancer, there is insurance I can get through the Freelancer’s Union, but it will cost me.

I am not feeling sorry for myself, here.  I am just catching up before going forward with this blog again.  Am I happy?  Mostly, but not entirely.  Am I moving forward?  Yes, but way too incrementally for my taste.  Am I going to survive?  Most likely.  I am not given to failing at that, after all.

The good thing is that the job stress is pretty much gone.  I no longer wake up dreading a two-hour commute to a job I had grown to hate because of the administrators (I loved, and still love, most of the kids).  I am building a good reputation on the site I am picking up clients from.  I am learning new skills that I will be able to apply both to the freelancing and to my personal writing.  I’ve sold two articles to an online writer’s magazine.  I am working on figuring out how to counteract the getting broken with regard to weight so that I can get back on track.

So, things are not looking too horrendous.  And there is progress.  I can see it with every article that gets accepted on a platform such as Associated Content/Yahoo!Contributor Network, and every pair of socks/scarf/hat/pair of mittens/shawl I complete.  Now, I just have to stop sabotaging myself in the areas of weight and money, and I can really soar.

The first time, I was about 15, and was dragged there by my mom, also obese. Neither of us got to goal, and after a while it became just too much to schlep from the almost-Brooklyn end of Queens way the hell out to Great Neck, so we gave up. Also, the diet was much more stringent in those days than it is now.

I tried it again in my 20′s, and even had the same lecturer (she lectured in Forest Hills as well as Great Neck). My failures had nothing to do with Helen’s leading; she was fabulous, I was not ready.

I tried it a third time after I met my fiance. That time, I lost 50 lbs in about a year and a half, but crashed and burned (and gained it all back), after I moved in with my roommate. The good thing is that I don’t blame Sue for it. I did it to myself. I had lost the 50, then got cocky. I figured I knew what to do, so I didn’t need to go to meetings or track food. Well, the upshot was that I gained back the 50, plus 10 more.

When I went back this time (last May), I was angry and disgusted with myself. I hated the way I looked; I hated that I could barely walk 100 steps a day, even after the surgery and after the anemia got treated (I really had been hemorrhaging to death, though the surgeon refused to believe me about it!) I hated the way I looked, and felt it was unfair that I would have to do things differently to look the way I wanted to. I had a magic number I wanted to get to, and told myself that if I could only get to that number (which would have been realistic if I was still 18 or so), my whole life would magically change. But I hated that I would have to work to get there. It wasn’t fair, I whined, that so many people didn’t have to go through all this to maintain a reasonable weight. It wasn’t fair that there was no magic to turn my life around. It just wasn’t fair (imagine me stamping my feet and throwing a full-blown tantrum — not pretty)!

Well, I’ve been getting over that. Losing the weight won’t magically change my life. What it will do, however, is give me skills for coping and living that I can apply to other areas of my life. I have let go of the magic number, and changed my goal to a much more realistic one: having a body that truly represents who I am. I’m learning to not give a damn about whether it’s fair or not, and to acknowledge that if I want what this goal I have to do the work to get there, no matter how effortless it seems that others have it…and they really don’t. It seems to me that almost every woman I know — and some of the men, too — are constantly going on about fighting to lose or keep off between five and twenty pounds. How could I ever have thought they had it effortless and easy? It’s about learning that we all have our own places of ease and places of struggle, and that I have some power over which of those choices I see things as.

The result is that it has been almost ridiculously easy to lose the 64 lbs. I have lost. And that loss has happened in nine months, not the year and a half it took me last time. I track religiously, and while some of my friends joke about it, that’s fine with me. They are very lucky that this is not part of their path, but it is part of mine, and it works for me, so I will keep doing it.

Would I recommend this path to others? Hell, yes! It is still one of the safest, most reasonable ways to lose weight out there. Is it easy? Depends. Are you willing to honestly face yourself, or are you still looking for that magic bullet or fairy dust that will make your life different?

The thing that is making the difference for me this time around seems to be that I am willing to do the work to make the changes — not just in my habits, but in looking at where my thinking is faulty, and where I BS myself, and where I blame others for my shortfalls. Easy, no, but neither was being 271 lbs, and watching my world grow smaller and smaller as I could physically do less and less.

There are great things about this program — I can eat ethnic foods (and why the hell live in NYC if you can’t). I can do things that keep me from feeling deprived (dark chocolate, anyone? Lemon pound cake with mandarin oranges and fat-free ReddiWip.) Does it mean effort? Hell, yeah. I am relearning how to cook. Hell, I’m cooking again. I’m not falling into the easy old “What can we nuke tonight?” syndrome. Even better, I’m learning to plan a bit. When I cook on the weekend, I try to make something with many portions. Then, instead of just dumping it all into a quart container or two, I divide it into portions, freeze some and fridge others. That way, I build up options. I get home I can pick and choose, rather than just having, say, crocked beef, 12 days in a row. I have, further, made a new decision this time around. I will, going forward, be trying to use meat, poultry, and fish more as “just one element” of a meal, rather than as the focus, in order to reduce the amounts of them I eat.

See, WW is a points system, and as you lose weight you lose points. I currently get 24 points a day, with an additional 35 points I can use throughout the week if I want to do so. Now, I can spend those 24 points any way I want to, but…meat (and even poultry and fish) are much higher in points than veggies and fruits. Now, I can’t say this would work for everyone, but I happen to like fruits and veggies, so I think it will work for me to start shifting my meals to include more of them. Given that I have mostly learned standard assimilated-NY-Jewgirl-raised-in-the-1950s-cooking (i.e., meals where animal protein is the main component), this mean relearning cooking at the age of 57. Is it an adventure? You betcha. Am I having fun along the way? Yeah. Is it scary as hell? Yes, but so far the good has outweighed the scary. Finding out that my roomie loves beets and asparagus (two of my favorite veggies) was a delightful surprise. So was last night when Sue yelled to me from the kitchen to find out if we had used up the beets and stewed tomatoes because she wanted some for dinner (we hadn’t). So is the joy of watching my roommate go down in size along with me, even though she is not formally on the program.

If I had it to do over? Yeah, I’d love to have been born one of those for whom weight is not an issue. I won’t lie about that. But the thing is, worrying about what might have been, or what went before, or what I could have done differently way back then is not gonna change my life going forward. Doing this, and doing it one step at a time, and doing it no matter what the short-term scale number says, will. So I’m taking it on faith that changing what I do will change what I get as a winning outcome. And I will keep doing it because I know it works, and I have seen results not only in the area of weight loss, but in how people treat me, and in who I am becoming (not to mention because I’m a stubborn b***h, which those of you who know me in RL already know).

I used to hate myself. I used to think I was substandard (hell, I was told that most of my childhood). I like myself now. I like who I grew up to be. I like who I am growing into being. Can I credit all of that to WW? Maybe, maybe not. A lot of that came from them asking me to look long and hard at myself. But the bottom line is that I am now willing to do the work necessary to become who I want to be, and knowing I have the tools to accomplish it. And that is the bottom line here, folks.

I have had much progress with my Weight Watchers journey, going from a start of 271.8 lbs. on May 14, 2009 to my present weight of 213.8 lbs.

This is a pic of where I started out:

Next, is a picture of me, in the same dress, on Christmas Day:

Finally, here is a pic taken last night, for an update to a challenge over on the Weight Watchers website:

Quite a difference, and I am exceedingly pleased with my progress to date.

There are things about this journey that I want to, and will, share, but they will have to wait for another entry.

Meanwhile, I hope that 2010 has gotten off to a good start for everyone, and that the year continues pleasant, with a maximum of happiness for everyone.

After hanging out with him for so long, one thing I know is that he is one of the best people to go grocery shopping with.  (He could probably charge for his services, and the client would still end up saving a good chunk of change.)  There are several reasons for this: One, by the time I get my PDA out, he’s done whatever math I need in his head.  Two, he is a very careful shopper, partly due to having to shop for people with several different food sensitivities.  Three, he is, by his own word, a cheapskate, which means he has done all the work of checking the flyers online and knows where the best deals are on any given week.   Over the years, some of this has rubbed off on me, thank the Gods, and I have become a much better shopper under his tutelage.

So, when he picked me up this week and noted that the Pathmark flyer had two great meat deals, I listened.  The first was on 75%/25% ground beef: half off with a $25 purchase, and center cut boneless pork loin for $.79/lb with a $50 purchase.  Since I knew we needed a lot of stuff, I knew I’d take advantage of both those deals.  Additionally, with no need for the card, Perdue chicken was up to 50% off, depending on what you bought. I took advantage of that to pick up some chicken thighs, which I will cut into tenders for breading.

The trash bags we needed were on sale, and the big fancy brand name was actually the most cost-effective.  The Progresso soups I like (the WW-friendly ones) were on sale for $1.25@, down from over $3.  The sweetener we use was also on sale — half off the sale price with the store computer coupon, with an additional $1 off for a paper coupon Sue found, so 200 packets of Nevella (Splenda) ended up costing me $2,99.  Best of all, the Green Giant veggie blends that we both adore were on sale for $.99@ (one package is actually enough for two people)

Best of all was when I got done at the register.  I spent $89.45 for food for two people for the better part of a month, but I got $179.58 worth of groceries for that!  Further, once I got home, we divided the meats up into portions for each meal (including cutting the pork loin in half and freezing the half we didn’t use tonight), so that we don’t have to keep thawing and refreezing meat.  I will definitely be working at doing even better on this account, but I cannot begin to describe how wonderful it felt to save more than I spent.

Anyway, on to the pork roast.  It was already about 6 pm when I got home, but the pork was nice and fresh, so we didn’t have to spend time thawing it.  We did a very basic roast:  Auntie Arwen’s “Dancing Bear Russian Sausage Seasoning” (Auntie Arwen makes and sells spice blends at science fiction conventions and on the web, and they are wonderful!) and sprayed the pan with a bit of olive oil cooking spray.  Sue roasted the meat at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for one hour, and it was perfect.  Fully cooked, tender, and, since we followed Alton Brown’s advice and let it rest for a few minutes before cutting it, nice and juicy.  It cut like a dream, and tasted even better.

Dessert for me was coffee and a WW 2 Points Bar.

On another subject entirely, Dr. Phil just said something that I have believed in for years: Talking to one of his guests, he noted that his father often said, “There is something about that person I don’t like about me.”  I have often noted that when we clash with others, it’s usually over something that we dislike about ourselves, but I never heard it put quite so succinctly.  I’m not saying this is 100% always the case…there are things which are not part of us that we can dislike about people …I doubt that I will ever murder someone, for example.  But many times, there are things that drive us up a wall about someone else that triggers something we don’t like about ourselves.

Anyway, It’s time to go and do some crocheting, since I want to get at least the first motif for the purple afghan done before I go to bed.

Mike was fiercely loyal to his friends and fiercely “antagonistic” to his enemies. Mike loved words. He used them to bait, to seduce, to enchant, to confuse, to clarify. Mike had a heart bigger than the average weight of most fans. When my wallet was stolen on my way to my first convention as a pro, Mike took out his ATM card, told me the code and said “Don’t take out more than $200/day without letting me know.” Mike and Naomi let me live on their couch for five months after I screwed up my left ankle when I had no medical insurance. Mike wasn’t perfect, by any means. He could be short-tempered, hold a grudge (even when it was only in his own mind), gossip, and plot mercilessly. He had a paranoid streak a mile wide, but loved Naomi more than anyone would have believed possible.

There is a hole in the universe tonight, and it is so much bigger than Mike’s physical space.