Besides the STUFF....

I realize that there are a few areas I plan to work on, besides just getting rid of (or putting away) the STUFF.

Health

Though I am not the heaviest I have ever been in my life, I still want to get back in control of my eating and my weight. Way back in 1990, I joined Weight Watchers with a good friend. I lost about 70 pounds. But then my father was diagnosed with the disease that would eventually kill him -- pancreatic cancer -- and for the five years of his illness, my primary coping mechanism was to eat.

Then in 2001, we got a dog -- Yuki, seen here guarding a pile of papers.


Yuki needed exercise, so I started walking her. Then she needed a friend, so we adopted Max. Max is not only a BIG dog, he needed LOTS of exercise. Before I knew it I was taking two fairly long walks with the dogs every day.

And I changed the way I ate. For 20 years, I had been an ovo-lacto vegetarian and I gained weight every year, except for the year or so that I was doing Weight Watchers. I ate healthy stuff; I just ate a LOT of it. In brief, I started eating meat again, among other changes. Over the next year I lost 50 pounds and I kept it off for nearly 4 years. During those 4 years, I lost my mother and I moved across the country.

But while I was helping care for my 105-year-old grandmother in the final months of her life, I lost control again. There were reasons, which I won't go into right now. And I slipped into a depression that I am only beginning to come out of now, three years after her death.

Books

The books are out of control. They are taking over the house, the garage, the storage locker.....

Crafts

I need to be doing something creative, and now that I'm not rearing children, I am returning to hand-work. Sewing, piecing quilts, knitting, crocheting, needlepoint....

Music

I love to sing, but have not found a choral group in this town that I want to sing with. The piano is gone. I am taking cello lessons (Future Vet made me do it!). I need more.

Writing

Is is sad that this blog is my writing exercise right now? I need to get a Real Life!

Leyning Torah

I leyn (chant) from the Torah at my synagogue frequently. VERY frequently. So I need time to study. But more about that later.

Okay, now to today's STUFF

I did not get around to the dog treat shelf. I'm not sure why, exactly. Cleaning the house, doing laundry, going to the bank, missing my cello lesson, buying new towels for Sports Nut and Media Guru to replace the bath towels that mysteriously disappeared, watching the new TV show "Lie to Me" (that was fun, btw)?

But I did recycle that pile of papers that Yuki is guarding in the picture above. They were almost all lesson plans and hand-outs from my days teaching religious school. And I listed a boat-load of STUFF on Freecycle. I'm sorting through the requests for this STUFF now. Maybe tomorrow, I'll take a picture of all the STUFF sitting by the door ready for someone else to haul it awy.