Walking for a Cause With My Dog and Friends and Other Rambling Thoughts

Yesterday I walked a 3.1 mile stretch of streets in a circuitous route here in Greensboro to raise money for The March of Dimes. This organization has been around all of my life. Its original mission was to overcome polio. Somehow that miracle happened and they took on an even more challenging mission of ending birth defects. Of course prevention is part of the solution and then treatment when they still happen is also necessary. This organization helps with research and in other areas. It was a great reason to walk.

I am a member of my school's Spanish club and some of the other members made up the team I was a part of. So the walk went very quickly since we were chatting all the way with one another. This is a good way to say goodbye to each other since it was technically our last meeting for the school year as well. They all were very nice to Loki my dog that joined me on my hike. She started out a little shy but once we got going her tail waved high behind her and she smiled all the way. She is a little thing. She weighs about 15 pounds and is half Chihuahua and half something else, possibly Italian Greyhound. Her vet calls her a 'fiest' or a squirrel dog which is a breed of dog common in the mountains of the Carolinas and West Virginia for hunting small game such as well, squirrels. It is not a breed recognized by the AKC. But when I adopted her I was led to believe she is a Chihuahua but it is clear she is not pure bred. So my youngest daughter dubbed her a 'Faux'huahua. Whatever she actually is doesn't really matter because she is my gentle little energetic Loki. When I get to do another walk of some kind I think she will be my companion from now on.

After the walk I dropped Loki off at home and then met my group at a Mexican restaurant. I enjoy the atmosphere of being in a restaurant with a group of friends and or family, however, I don't enjoy trying to figure out what to order and eat. I got lucky because the young man to my left had already gotten his plate (I was late because of getting mixed up in the directions) and his plate was filled with exactly the kind of food I can and like to eat so I ordered it as well. When my food arrived I had a sizzling plate of enough food to feed a small country. Then the second part of the dinner arrived with it. Oh well I ate what I could of it and packed up about 85 to 90% percent of it and took it home. My hubby of course was delighted to get a whole meal brought home for him. He got to it while I was in the shower before I could portion a bit more out to save for today. No biggie. What I did eat was delish and maybe I will order it again sometime with the hubby and just eat some and have him eat the rest. That doesn't usually work though because he likes to order different foods than I so he can have more later. So much for my being a cheap date. We don't go out to eat together much anymore anyway since I finally convinced him I don't enjoy eating out.

On this week's agenda, I am finishing up my semester. I have finals and final projects to turn in. Then I can turn my attention to planning my summer. I did decide to not attend school during this summer. I hope to get a job through the temp agency and work through the summer and then get back to classes in the fall. Another plan percolating in my head is to drive across country and stop at various relatives places for a couple of days at a time and then move to the next. I even mapped out a route and figured out the gas cost and everything. I just don't know if it is possible. I know it would be fun for me. I am not sure how much my family would enjoy me just dropping in and spending a couple of days with my three little dogs in tow. Still an adventure for the summer would be fun and it would give me stuff to write about. Hmmmmmm.............

Clothes and other options

As a teen and young adult, I had a style of dressing that was probably inappropriate but I had a body for that then. Moreover, at that time it was somewhat okay to dress somewhat sexy and show a little bit of midriff and all. Then I got fat and had to learn how to dress a completely different way. First, I was a mom and a wife (still am of course) so I changed my look accordingly. No more sex kitten attire as that was just juvenile and then the fatter I got well it would have just been gross. Problem was I never really learned how to dress beyond sweats and stretchy pants and oversized shirts. Face it my body just did not feel like a fashion body. The best I could do was to sport really good hair.

Now that my body has recovered from being oversized, and my muscles have been toned up to go with it, I still don’t know how to dress it. It’s nice that I am a size eight or even in some cases a size six, but the skin suit is still at least a size eighteen for heaven’s sakes! Tailoring it isn’t an option (have you seen the cost of plastic surgery?) so what’s an older gal to do? I am too old for the cute look and I wouldn’t show off my midriff now anyway on a bet. Where is Stacy or Clinton when you need them? How do you find a style that works for the new busy life of the full time student in her fifties? Is it even possible to be hip at my age?

Jeans are a conundrum for me. I have several pairs of jeans, but the style doesn’t seem to work for me quite right. The girls are wearing their jeans really low cut and, well, I suffer from a bit of the muffin top issue with the oversized skin suit thing going on. Then there is something called jeggings. They are kind of a jean/legging thing. They are really comfy and do rise higher but after twenty minutes of wearing them they sag in all the wrong places. Sigh! Then I found a jean that is made for older women and I bought one pair to try. They fit really well when I got them (size eight) and so I went back and got the last two pair in that size. But, I have short legs and have to have them hemmed and now they are too big. They don’t have any in size six left and I don’t know if they will ever get any more of them in. Again, it is a conundrum finding clothes and on top of that, I can’t just go out and buy clothes. I am a starving student after all.

Okay so I have ranted well enough about the bottom half but I have much more to say about dressing the top half too. Now that I desperately need things with the three quarter length sleeves, they have gone out of style and therefore, out of the stores. Where are the cute tops with the empire waistlines that are flattering when you have that little extra fluff in the middle? The fashion show that says my body type needs this doesn’t tell you where they found them. This should be fun but it’s not. Shopping for clothes is still a nightmare except that I get to have my nightmare in normal size clothing stores. Don’t get me started on bras because that is a whole other blog.

At some point, someone is going to have to take me by the hand and teach me how to find clothes that are appropriate for my age that look professional and attractive without looking completely ridiculous. Do those clothes exist? I hope so.

Restless and waiting for Someday to Get Here.

I find myself to be restless these days. School is almost done for this session. I am not getting anywhere in the weight-loss department again. I am putting a lot of irons in my fire and find myself at times not knowing which one i should pick up first. What is a woman to do about this? Right now I will just have to remain a bit restless and pick an iron up one at a time and address it as it comes. Someday, I will find time to do something exhilarating. I am not sure what that will be just yet but I have a list in my mind of things I want to do before I leave this world. It is a long list and I can't be sure I will get to everything. Surely I will get to many of them though. For now I am in a bit of a rut and am bored. I like my life. Its not a bad one. I am not hungry or cold. I can go where I want to go around town and around school. But I know there is a lot more to this world than this little corner. I want to experience it sometime. I know, patience will get me there eventually. Getting my diploma will help tremendously. Its just that I feel tired of putting it off. I guess I am the one that has to make something happen. Things don't just happen by themselves. I will keep blogging and I will keep reading. Most of all I will keep learning and studying. It can be put to good use someday I am sure.

My New Cross Addiction

Okay its not really a bad one but it does seem to keep me from snacking a little more than 2 and a half years out from my surgery. I bought a Kindle reader a couple of months ago and I am reading anything I can download as fast as I can fit it in between school and regular everyday stuff. I have even found myself staying up to late to finish that last bit of my book. I have always loved to read but over the years had not been doing so much of it because TV was more enticing and books are harder to come by when you have to get off a fat ass to go to the store and buy them or go to the library to check them out. As a morbidly obese person I just didn't have the energy to do much more than grocery shop for Pete's sake. Now I am a full time student and I get out of the house daily M-F and have PE classes every semester. So I get my exercise in and I have learned to get my nutrition in with little hassle as part of my everyday routine. So the rest of the time I am reading (after homework of course). I finish one book and move right into the next and have read so many fun books I decided to blog about them. amanicinsomniacsreadinglist.blogspot.com/ Is that crazy or what? Anyway I am not buying anymore books until I have blogged about the ones I have already read. That means I have to read or skim through them all again. Maybe blogging is really my new addiction too. At least its keeping me out of trouble.

Only three weeks in the semester left and.....

I am nearly done with this semester and I am at my usual can't wait to finish it and start on something new. This time around classes have been good mostly. English has been the least fun but I think I have my A anyway. Only one project and one small assignment to complete and it will be done. The math is going well as can be expected. It is another baby step to college algebra which I will take in the fall. Then I will have to plug away at statistics in the spring and that should wipe the math for my degree out. Yeah! Psychology and Sociology round out this semester's academics and I am holding my own their as well. I expect to have A's in all of them as I have succeeded in doing well in all of the tests so far. Finally the Water Aerobics and the Swim for Fitness classes have done me the most good physically. I have lost nearly ten pounds and built some great muscles all over. I never knew I would like to exercise. In fact as a kid I avoided physical activity as a rule. Wish I hadn't though cause then I would have not had all the weight and health issues I experienced over the last 30 years. So as the semester comes to the end I am satisfied at accomplishing something I never have before. I have completed three consecutive semesters of college and can really believe I will see it all the way through to my BA. How great is that?

Writing? Me? Really?

I am not a writer but I have to pretend to be one for school. That aside I was not sleeping well for some reason over the last week or so. During those insomniac episodes I found myself working up a fictional character and I wanted to write about her and maybe get a story or book scoped out. This tormented me for nights when I was supposed to be sleeping. First i was blaming it on not enough carbs since I am attempting to do better in that department and take a few pounds off for a challenge. Besides I still think i could spare a few more pounds. After all I still am technically considered overweight on charts right? That aside I still have that damn book inside of me and I have to get it out.

Saturday morning I woke up and started typing under a working title. Next thing i knew i had ten pages in Word of complete utter bad writing. Okay, maybe its not the best but the content might be okay with the right co-author or editor. So I will finish it over the next few months and then see what is there and if it might be worked into a book or something. Meanwhile I still have homework assignments due and I still have to drag myself out of the bed every day to take care of the dogs and get myself fed and off to classes.

Now I can report i did finally get more than 3 hours of sleep last night. I hope to accomplish that again tonight so I can enjoy classes instead of doze off in them.

Focus

I haven't done this for a while and this is only my second entry in as many months. The actual embarrassing reason is that I forgot how to get back into the Blogspot. I did figure it out finally so here I am. I celebrated my 54th birthday yesterday and I am happy to still be here walking the earth considering the alternative. 
Did I title this blog focus? Yes I did because it is something I have difficulty doing. I definitely have a condition that causes me to be easily distracted and flit from one thing to another. In my first entry to this blog I told you all I am planning to get a degree in Psychology and Sociology. After spending time in both of those classes I find that though I get both subjects and am having no trouble passing the tests I don't think that is really the career I want after all. I am now changing my major to Health Education but I still plan on minoring in Psychology. How did I get to this decision. I have an English assignment to thank for this. I had to create a document that included my major and the job possibilities after completion. This caused me to explore more options and I found that as a health educator I can still do what I want to do and have a better chance of making a living doing it. 
At the end of this semester I will have finished a full year of classes. I have not ever been able to stay a course this long before. And I am still enjoying it. Fortunately for me I only have to focus for a few months at a time on a subject and then I can switch gears for another semster. I am already looking forward to summer. I will have only one academic class and a PE class. I may even be able to find time to volunteer somewhere for the summer. 
So even though in the past I have had difficulty finding focus in my life I think I have finally found what I need to do it now. Its hard but Its fun and in a few years just in time for Terry to retire I will be ready to begin a new career. Wish me luck because I think it can't hurt.