Totally Cool Things Happened Today...

I just have to share quickly two things that happened during the course of today.  First of all, on Twitter on Fridays there is a Trending Topic called #FollowFriday where - if you want to - you can make suggestions to your followers of who you follow and think are worthy of others following.  It is fun to do - makes people feel good when you shout out and it is fun to be shouted out at in a #FF.  So, I usually do a list of people whom I follow whom I find to be inspirational, often times people who I've learned of by listening to The Secret tapes or reading the book.  One of those incredibly motivational and upbeat and great Law Of Attraction folks is a woman by the name of Marci Shimoff.  This morning in my "Motivational #FollowFriday" list I included Marci.  She tweets back to me and says MY BLOG IS INSPIRING!  What?  I nearly fell out of my chair!  I am thrilled she took a moment to look at this blog and so grateful she took another moment to tweet that in response to my #FF mention.  Very kind and meant the world to me!

As if that wasn't enough, mid-afternoon I peek back onto Twitter and see a tweet from a small Ohio based independent pasta sauce and salad dressing company named VinoDeMilo *grin* that I follow as part of promoting #BuyLocal from farms and local retailers, producers.  They tweet to me suggesting that I try their pasta sauce on spaghetti squash and let me know I can pick it up in Stop & Shop locally.  So I tweet back, that sounds great - I will ('cause I happen to love spaghetti squash and thought - why not!?).  Within an hour, I get another tweet from them saying they've now read  my blog, and - as encouragement to keep going on my weight loss and healthy journey - would like to send me their products gratis!  HOW NICE IS THAT!?! 

So, if you ask me if I believe in the Law of Attraction, why YES, I DO!  Today I had two very visible signs of great things happening just "out of the blue".  I'm so grateful to be able to experience the little acts of kindness thru Marci saying a nice thing and the larger act of a genuinely unexpected gift coming my way thru the nice folks (Kim!) of VinoDeMilo! 

Life is Good friends... be aware of the blessings around you and give thanks and keep your mind focused on your goals!  Good things are just around the corner! : )

"I want to thank the Academy..."

I feel a bit like Sally Field today... remember when she accepted the Academy Award for Norma Rae (or was it for Places in the Heart?) and her acceptance speech of "You like me... you really like me." ?

Well, I am little-girl-giddy-excited that a healthy Twitter friend (Downsized76) has passed along the "Honest Scrap Award" my way! Thank you, Tina! :)

1. “The Honest Scrap” award must be shared!
2. The recipient has to tell 10 true things about themselves.
3. The recipient has to pass along this prestigious award to 10 more bloggers.
4. Those 10 bloggers all have to be notified they have been given this award.

Ohhh the truths I could tell but I'll be good and let the ten things I reveal be about fitness and weight loss and my journey so that I can, hopefully, give others the courage to be truthful in their journey, too.

Heck - if I can't be truthful at this point I am sunk... I've posted my weight on the blog and that was a HUGE wall to have tumble down around me. I often wonder if people who aren't overweight have ANY idea how incredibly scary it is to admit one's weight when it is in the "obese" range of the BMI? How about when you have to admit that you can't register your weight on a regular scale? I never got there but I was well on the way... and that alone kept me from getting there. Sooooo... here we go friends.

  1. I collect antique kitchen yellowware bowls and vintage kitchen "stuff"... like tiger maple rolling pins and 1800 pie crimpers, antique wrought iron apple peelers.  I used to have a giant kitchen in an 1855 colonial home and I went semi-crazy at New England antique auctions collecting all this stuff.  And it was all kitchen and food related... hmmmmmm.....   I no longer have that enormous kitchen, however, and rarely use those items which is GOOD 'cause that means I'm not making fancy fattening pies and cakes and cookies weekly. ; )
  2. In high school (30 years ago...ack!) I ran track.  Me!  I ran track.  The 440 relay was one of my better events.  I was long legged and lean and fast.  I want to get back to being able to run someday in the next year and I hope I'll enjoy it again!                                                                                                                   
  3. Once upon a time I was a life guard.  I had to swim a mile across an Adirondack lake to receive the final test badge and I did it without a problem.  That was after college... and I was really incredibly fit then, too!  I still am a fairly good swimmer but I've let my fears of my adult-onset asthma sometimes get the best of me so I don't push myself to complete laps in a pool like I probably should for fitness.                              
  4. I have had near-death experiences and have (obviously! lol) lived to tell the story.  Five years ago I had to have thoracic cardiac surgery as the doctors believed I had lymphoma.  It turns out I had and have (although fairly dormant now) a lymph-disease called Sarcoidosis.  Three summers ago I went into the ER with the worst ear ache imaginable and with what I believed was an asthma attack.  My son drove me despite my protestations that I didn't need to go to the hospital.  Within four hours they'd revealed that the cough and weakness wasn't asthma this time but a blood clot that had traveled to my lung.  A second one had broken a blood vessel in my ear.  I missed death by the breath of my guardian angel's voice whispering in my son's ear to get me to the hospital.  When tested, my right leg was filled with blood clots and I now have an implanted filter that prevents other clots from traveling beyond the artery at hip level.  I was in the hospital for two weeks and have been fine since, thanks be to God! :)
  5. People who know me now think of me as a city-girl but I am not at all.  I grew up in very rural upstate New York - right on the border of Vermont and love the country.  My parents were not farmers but nearly everyone else in the town I lived in was.  I can milk a cow, toss a bail of hay, bait a hook, help muck out a horse barn if necessary.  And living in the city has made me cherish a black sky with endless stars that can only be seen in the country.                                                                                                   
  6. I have tried Jenny Craig and NutriSystem in the last 20 years and failed miserably on both! And I spent a lot of money at the same time! Weight Watchers is the program for me!  I joined earnestly four years ago... lost about 20 lbs and then had the whole blood clot fiasco!  And then I began to have relationship issues with my fiance... and then that seemed like a good excuse to really gain A LOT of weight. But now, as I look back, I wasn't really ready to lose the weight and get on with my life.  Now I eat veggies and fruit and try new things, experiment with recipes and am really into this being a lifestyle change. And - as a result - I am seeing the weight slip away and I am loving life!
  7. I couldn't open my treadmill when I bought it and had 1st unpacked it.  I know this sounds crazy, but it is true!  I had never been on a treadmill  - I had never seen one "open up" from a "slide away" position and I was truly dumbfounded.  I finally had to wait for my son to get home from college on a break for HIM to open the damn thing up! LOL  And then I didn't use it.  If I walked 5 minutes on it at a time I thought I was really 'working' my exercise.  My WW friends were so encouraging during this time- they used to say "5 minutes is great! You're not sitting in front of the tv."  No, but the treadmill was in front of the t.v. and I used to pause and watch more than I walked.  But that was then... and this is now... and I've given that treadmill away to someone who knew how to set it up - wanted it - and I walk outside or at the YMCA!         
  8. Embarrassed to go, I joined two separate gyms and never spent one day in either.  No, I didn't join them simultaneously - but within a year of one another.  Both were convenient and close to my house.  I didn't know HOW to approach someone - or couldn't because of my shame over my weight - and ASK how to use the equipment.  I had no idea what any of the equipment did, how to turn on the machines, how to sign up for circuit training.  And I let the fear of asking and the embarrassment of my weight hold me back.  I was the only one judging myself.  The trainers weren't.  They actually LIKE to help newbies and see you progress.                                                                                                                                                    
  9. I sing and I dance and I'm a pretty good mimic and a stage actress and I plan to do all of that again! My asthma has changed my ability to sing so that is a bummer but that doesn't mean I can't perform on stage again in comedies or dramas.  I was very active in community theatre not all that long ago (my son was 8 or 9 so maybe it WAS awhile ago - he's 23 now! lol) and I will be doing that again!                                       
  10. And finally, dear friends... I have every intention of having upper arms like Michele Obama and Sheryl Crow by next year at this time. And I will not have an extra 'flap' of stomach that - when left to its own devices - would like nothing better than to hang over my panties... You all know what I'm talking about. *grin*
Thanks for the award and for reading my 10 silly facts!  Now I'm off to bestow the Honest Scrap to bloggers whom I've enjoyed reading!  ; )