Health and Wealth....or Just Health

So, I mentioned on Facebook the other day about how fate seemed to be shouting in my face that I needed to get off my lazy ass and lose some weight.  That morning my jeans were too tight.  That afternoon when I got  home there was a Women's Health mag shouting at me about the best way to get fit and healthy.  That night, while sitting on the floor with The Small One, she pointed out how big and fat my belly was.  In fact, she told me I looked pregnant.  Good times.  Nothing like a little hit to your self-esteem to get you motivated, right?
Now, to be sure, as my dear friend reminds me regularly, I'm not fat.  And I need to learn to be content with the body I have.  That being said, I'm not content.  I was a thin girl most of my life, even skinny at some points, so being...not skinny...is a bit difficult for me.  And, you know, I made a human, which takes a toll on one's body.  I will never be as thin and fit as I was when I was, say, 25..

I'm the absurdly thin girl in the glasses.  This was, of course, 13 years ago.  My metabolism was still high and I was much more healthy eater.  Not to mention the fact that I got regular exercise.  I don't do that so much anymore, my life seems to have gotten in the way, a bit.

Add to that the fact that I just scheduled a photo shoot with an amazing photographer, well, there's some more incentive for me.  I want to be fabulous.  

I know, it's silly.  I've fallen prey to the stupidity that is pop culture.  Why should I be concerned about it?  I'm not really that fat.  I qualify as chubby.  But, my girl loves me, chubby or otherwise.  So do my friends.  In fact, they don't even see it.  If I were to show my dearest friend a picture of me today, I doubt they would even notice the chub.  What they'd notice is what they love about me.  I feel the same way when I see a picture of my friends.  I see what I love.  I see how beautiful they are.  Or how fun, or how delightful.  I see how they love their children or what they are doing.  But, no, I don't tend to see that about myself.  I think many of us are like that.  Too many fashion magazines.  Too much pounding into our skulls how we aren't thin enough or pretty enough.  And yep, I caved.  

But, don't worry.  I won't go too far.  I don't want to look like that girl up there.  I was that skinny in my 20's and it was part of who I was.  I'm not that skinny any more, and it would take WAY more effort than I am interested in investing to look like that again.  I have more important things to do that be skinny.  But, you know, I would like to not squish over my jeans when I sit down.  I would like to be thin enough so that my dear sweet, honest girlie can't tell me that I look like I'm pregnant.  Will it happen?  I don't know?  It's either that or become ok with the body I live it.  They both seem difficult to obtain. 

My end goal is to weigh what I did before I got pregnant.  I think part of my problem is looking at that end goal and seeing just how far away it is.  And, it's far enough.  20 lbs away, if you want to know.  So, I've decided to take it in 2 week bites.  I can do anything for 2 weeks.    So, 2 weeks from now, I hope to be 5 lbs lighter.  We'll see what I feel like doing for the 2 weeks after that when we get there.

Wish me luck.  It means no more brie and olives for dinner for the next two weeks. No crab and goat cheese ravioli.  It also means watching my too skinny daughter eat up creamy, gorgeous delicious foods in an attempt to fatten her back up, while not having any myself. It may kill me.

I'm a Greedy Beggar

You know what I want?  I want joy and happiness and beauty and enough money to travel and help out my friends who need it.  And a pair of really fabulous shoes.
Since I was planning to move this weekend (yeah, that didn't happen) I had been purging my belongings in an effort to fit into a much smaller space, so I got rid of a lot of my shoes.  Nearly killed me, that.  I hate purging my shoes.  It's silly.  I'm in a job where I'm on my feet much of the day, plus, we've had epic snow here and I have to walk about a 1/2 mile from the train station to work, so I've been wearing boots.  Not cute fashionable boots, of which I have 5 or 6 pair, no, useful boots.  Saloman, to be specific.  They are neither cute nor fashionable.  They are flat, with grippy soles and they keep my feet warm.
When there aren't large amounts of snow on the ground, I'm still on my feet for much of the day and I still have to walk 1/2 mile to and from the aforementioned train station, so I wear sneakers or boring flats.  So, I have a TON of gorgeous high heels, really sexy high heels, that I NEVER wear.  But, I can't bring myself to get rid of them.  Perhaps I ought to be more glamourous.
I love fashion and shoes and makeup, and yet, I show up at work everyday in jeans, a tshirt and snowboots with a scarf on my head and no makeup.  Something is wrong here.  Oh yeah, I'm lazy.  And lest you be confused, the scarf on my head is a headscarf, not a big winter neckscarf, cause that'd be weird.
But, high heels give me joy.  However fleeting.  So does cheese.  And good friends.  That joy isn't as fleeting.
As the move this weekend didn't happen, and it appears I am staying in my house for the next several months, at any rate, I decided to put my purging and organizing to continued usefulness.  I spent all day today covering boxes in pretty fabric so that I can properly organize my sewing stuff.  Moved some shelves in, started putting away fabric.  What a daunting task.  But, I will continue to purge as I do it.  This is a good thing, right?  RIGHT?
Here, let me show you the fruits of my labors so far.

Aww, isn't it pretty?  All blue and tan and grey and black and french.  I have a tendency to be half-assed when I start a project like this.  I am determined this year not to do that.  I will do it properly if I'm going to do it.  Problem is, it takes SO LONG.
I think The Small One may have had a better idea.  This is how she spent much of the afternoon, the lazy infant.

Laying in my bed, eating chili and watching cartoons on the kindle.  Or playing games.  Or harassing the cat. Just depends.
I want to go back to Ireland in my dreams tonite, but I'd like to have a companion.
It's after 2 am.  I'm tired and have insomnia.  Can you tell?

Better, Someday

I dreamed last night that I went to Ireland with a friend.  We flew to Ireland and wandered around different places and had a wonderful time.  And then, we got separated.  My friend and I were heading for a train or a ferry or some other sort of transport and my friend made it on, but I did not.  There was a lot of confusion, a lot of things going on, and then I realized, I was alone.  Alone in a country I did not know.  At first, I was worried and a bit frightened.  What would I do?  Would I be able to find my friend?  Would my friend be able to find me?  Did my friend even WANT to find me?  Perhaps not. 
I sat in the station for a while, trying to figure out what to do.  And, then I realized I was in a new country, and yes, perhaps I was alone, but it didn't change the fact that it was a new country with new things to see, new experiences to have, new people to meet.  So, I got up and I went out into the city and started to explore by myself.  I saw my friend in passing periodically, a face on a passing train, the back of a familiar coat exiting a store I had just entered.  Having dinner with someone else.  It seemed my friend had an adventure to find on their own, and apparently, so did I.
I think Ireland would be a lovely place to do that. 

It's been a hell of a week.  Things haven't gone right, I feel all sorts of loose endish.  I wasn't able to move into the apartment I had been planning on.  I spend too much time away from The Small One, what with commuting and working all day.  My house is a half packed disaster.  I don't know if I'm staying in this house or moving to a different place.  The Small One has been out of school since before Christmas due to serious illness and major weight loss.  She is due to start back on Monday, and, I confess, I'm a bit worried about it.  I don't want her to get sick again, she can't afford to lose weight like that, but she does need to go back to school. 

I think I'll go back to Ireland.

Who Am I?

Ha, I still have Les Mis on the brain. 
Anyway...

So, throughout my life, I've identified myself certain ways and been identified certain ways.  Labels, I suppose.  Some people really dislike being labeled, they feel it limits who they are.  And I can see that.  Some, labels, however, can be useful.  Like I said, I label myself a certain way, and it does change and has changed throughout my life.  And some labels I apply to myself cautiously, because they don't always mean the same to an outsider as they do to an insider or to me.
For instance, some of the labels I apply to myself are Mormon, Mother, Friend, Designer, Cutter/Draper, Feminist, Pro-Choice, Liberal. 

I have noticed, after the last election, that those last three are sometimes gravely misunderstood.  Feminist does not mean man-hater, Pro-Choice does not mean pro-abortion and Liberal, well, that's a whole other ball of wax....

The extent to which I identify with certain labels changes as my life changes, and the labels themselves may change.  At one point in my life, Career woman and Feminist were some of the more important labels. 

I have to say, and it isn't how I thought I would be, that Mother is the most important label to me right now.  It is the one with which I most identify myself.  I have a great job that I love in my field of study, and I am very good at it.  I am an ardent feminist.  I am a Mormon.  But, if I had to give you the single most identifying label, it is Mother. 

This thought has come to me lately for two reasons.  One, I am currently a single parent.  (That's another story)  Two, The Small One has been sick since Christmas. 

Being a single parent throws into focus just how much of one's life is actually spent parenting.  And how we think of it, what we think of it.  Now, I am lucky, my mom and step-dad live with me, so I do not actually have to do it all alone.  But, their obligation is only so much.  Their willingness extends greatly, but they have raised their kids and I feel like she is my responsibility when I get home from work.  Sure, sometimes I am a slacker and let her stay in their room watching TV and irritating the dogs, but mostly, especially when she is sick, I feel an obligation to not bother them about her.  She is mine, and it is my job to take care of her.

When I was younger, and even after I married, I thought, I want to work full time, even when I have kid(s).  I couldn't IMAGINE myself wanting to stay home and be a housewife and a mother all the time.  Heh.  Shows what I knew.  I never stopped working part time, but, I loved staying home with my wee girl.  I loved being her mamma, the center of her universe.  And I loved that I was in a position where I could do both.  Full time Mamma, part time wedding dress creator.  And when my wee lass got sick the first time (meningitis at 6 months) and there was a very real chance I could lose her, it was hammered home to me just how much this label of Mother meant to me.

So, yes, fast forward to now.  Single parent of a sick child.  We got parainfluenza the day after Christmas, and it lingered.   She got better and went off to school for two days when it started back up.  Day 3?  Nope.  Fever.  And it just got worse.  Fever, cough, headache. Called the doctor.  Just the flu, keep her on fluids.  Two days later, her throat hurt.  Crap, must be strep.  Off to the doctor again.   Nope, no strep.  Just the flu, make sure she gets her fluids.  Several nights in a row with The Small One waking up 10 or more times a night, crying and gagging.  Freaking out because she felt so wretched.  Yesterday, she got even worse.  At this point, I am running on fumes.  I've not slept more than 2-3 hours a night for a few nights.  All day today, she would cry, doze off, wake with a start, crying and kicking and coughing.   I've gotten nothing done.  I've held her, rocked her, cuddled her,  fed her, forced fluids down  her, bathed her, medicated her, massaged her head and neck and face for endless hours.  I'm so tired.   I'm on the verge of tears myself.  I've run out of patience.  I've resorted to telling her if she doesn't take her meds and drink and eat she will have to go back to the doctor, or worse, to hospital.  Everytime she lets out a cry of frustration and pain, my nerves tense up.  I'm so tired of hearing it.  I'm worn out.  This is one of the worst parts of parenting.  There's just no respite.

But. 

I would take this pain and illness from her in a heartbeat.  Because worse than the aggravation of tending to a cranky sick child, is the sorrow and pain of the child.  My heart hurts that she has to go through this and there is not a damn thing I can do to help.  I'm Mamma.  I'm supposed to fix things.  I'm supposed to make it all better.  And I can't.  And it kills me.  I would trade places with her so fast, remove all that pain from her.  But, I can't.  So, despite my frustration and fatigue and nervous tension, I will continue to sit up with her at night, and cuddle her feverish little body as long as she needs it and rub her head until my fingers feel like they might fall off.  Because that is who I am.  I am her Mamma.  My label is Mother, and I wouldn't give it up for anything.

Once a week, if you're lucky...

So, it's the New Year.  Woot, and all that.  I have New Year's Resolutions (do you like how I capitalize that?  Feels more important.)  Do you have resolutions?  I know some people think they're stupid, why do you have to wait for the new year and all that.  Well, it's a fresh start.  It's a dividing line between the past and the future.  If time were linear, which it isn't.  It's more like a big ball of wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey stuff.  But, I digress.
But, the new year seems sort of like a giant Monday, without all the bad stuff.  It's a beginning, so we like to start at the beginning believing that we are going to do all sorts of good things.  I don't see anything wrong with that.   Well, unless you have too many resolutions and feel bad about yourself if you don't keep them all.  That's a bit silly.
One of my resolutions is to shift this, um, baby weight.  Except, I can't really call it that anymore, since baby is nearly 6 years old.  (WHAT!?!)   I should probably change that goal to accepting it for what it really is (my no longer 25 years old body) and go with it.  But, alas, I cannot.
Another of my resolutions is to try to blog weekly.  I really will try.  I seem to have lost my mojo lately, and although I have a lot of followers, I am not sure that many people actually visit the blog.  This is likely due to my sporadic posting style. 
Here's the problem with my goal.  I seem to have a smidge of writer's block.  I can't think of anything to write about lately.  Stress has rendered me boring and commonplace.  So, I ask you, dear readers, if you are still out there, is there anything you'd be interested in hearing about?  Let me know in the comments.

A Totally Biased Review of Les Miserables

So, I went and finally saw Les Miserables tonight.  There was decidedly some high school theatre geek squee going on with me, as attested to by my companion for the evening, who is a friend from Jr. High and High School.  He laughed at my squee, but I cared not. 
It was like I was a teenager again, seeing the stage show for the first time.  When the orchestration began and the men's voices started, I felt a bit giddy, no lie. 
So, here's what I think.  Technical bits first, perhaps.  There was, without a doubt, the stamp of Cameron MacIntosh on the show.  Now, some might say that that is not a good thing, for it to be so obvious whose creative fingers were in the pie, but let's be honest, if you've seen Les Mis onstage, you have seen Les Mis.  It's a Cameron MacIntosh production.  Since Les Mis was the first "real" Broadway theatre I ever saw, I did rather enjoy recognizing the "Cameron MacIntosh-ness" of the whole thing.
In addition there were some fairly significant lyric changes.  This was interesting to me as well.  The screenplay for the movie was written by Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil, who were the original composer and lyricist for the stage production.  So, the changes to the lyrics were, in my opinion, well done and kept with the spirit of the show.  I won't lie, though, it did throw me off a bit, although, in the same way, it made me pay more attention to what the changes meant with regards to the character.
Jean Valjean, our protagonist/hero was played by Hugh Jackman.  I've seen Hugh Jackman perform musical theatre before (Boy from Oz, anyone?) so, I knew he had at least some MT chops.  Russell Crowe has a band, so presumable he could sing.  Anne Hathaway and Amanda Seyfried, though I knew, quite well, who they were, were unknowns to me in the singing department.  And, I am sorry to admit, I had no idea who Eddie Redmayne was before this.  Or Samantha what's-her-name that played Eponine.
So, yeah, Hugh Jackman was good.  I'm a huge fan of Colm Wilkinson's voice as Valjean, so it took a bit of getting past the fact that Mr. Jackman wasn't Mr. Wilkinson, but I did enjoy his performance very much.  He was a bit nasally in parts, but the raw emotion visible on his face and his body more than made up for the lack in his voice.  Of course, watching a musical requires even more of a suspension of disbelief than does a straight show, but I felt like Hugh Jackman's singing really was just an extension of his talking, and not like I was having a song thrown at me.
Russell Crowe.   Oh boy.  I don't think anyone is lukewarm about his performance.  They really enjoyed it or really disliked it.  I disliked.  Big time.  I didn't feel he grasped the character at all in his singing.  His posture, body language and facial expressions captured it and I think his spoken lines were ok, but his singing quite took me out of it.  His songs sounded like pop-ish ballads to me, rather than the emotional,  hard core feel that I have come to expect from Javert.  It really felt emotionless.  I find Javert to be such a passionate character.  Passionate in his search for absolute justice.  He is not a cruel or evil man, he is simply a relentless pursuer of justice.  And his past is what drives him to pursue said justice.  I think he feels like he did not get any.  He was born in a prison to "scum like you" as he tells Valjean.  There was no justice there for him, he had to work his way out of the gutter and proved that it can be done, so there are no excuses for anyone else.  I like this character, a lot.  In fact, he is one of my favorites.  Now, as stated in my title, this is a biased review.  Because I have come to expect a certain "feel" from Javert, to have it not delivered was quite a disappoinment.  I never felt any of the solid entrenchment in his beliefs that I would have expected and in Javert's final scene?  I felt no conflict.  Seriously, it was like Russell Crowe was singing a Taylor Swift song about her lousy boyfriend who betrayed her and then he jumped off the bridge.  Lame.
Marius.  Ah, we was lovely.  Nice voice, attractive boy, perfect for Marius. 
Cosette.  She is one of my least favorite musical characters EVER.  I think she is utterly insipid and she twitters when she sings.  And Amanda Seyfried nailed it. 
Fantine-Wow.  Just wow.  I admit, I missed most of the death scene because I had to pee, but what I saw of it coupled with the rest of her performance was amazing.  She captured the utter despair that Fantine feels in "I Dreamed a Dream" like I have never seen before.  I've never really been a fan of the Fantine character before, but I am now.  The raw emotion on her face, the despair at her betrayals in her voice.  Oh, she was perfect.  And, let's be honest, it takes a bit of guts for an actress to allow herself to be that unattractive on film.  Anne Hathaway looked the part.  A beat down, malnourished, hopeless woman.  She NAILED it.  It was beautiful and heartbreaking.
Eponine-Meh.  She was fine.  She had a slightly freakish body shape that distracted me.  The corset did not work for her.
And, ok, major highlight for me.  COLM WILKINSON.  That was EPIC!!!!  Oh, how I loved seeing him as the bishop.  That was utterly and completely perfect.  And also elicited some fangirl squee from me.  Now, if Michael Ball had had a cameo?  I might have fainted. 
The costumes were divine.  I loved the texture of the fabrics they chose.  The smocking on Fantine's first dress was gorgeous and I loved how it showed that she had once seen better times, despite her current poverty.
However, the costume highlights for me were Marius and Jean Valjean.  Oh, they were amazing!  The costumers absolutely got the shape of the body right for the period.  It's a hard shape to create, the stacked up neck and sloping shoulders.  It was beautiful.  And the varying textures and fabrics in Valjean's various coats and vests and cravates made me drool.  I loved the way they changed from point to point and it was easy to see who/what Valjean was at any given time. 
There were some camera moments that had me reeling, and not in a good way.  It seemed that any time there was quick camera work, dodging between shots, etc, that they went out of their way to NOT make it smooth.  I get that the steadicam thing is not in vogue at the moment because the natural movement makes it seem more real, but ouch.  I have had a background migraine for a couple of days waiting to sneak up on me and that choppy camera work certainly exacerbated the problem.  I had to cover my right eye a few times so I could watch without falling out of my chair. 
It's a rather politically charged movie and I would like to see it again, to be able to watch with a more critical eye how the story is told.  This time, I really was kind of all fan girl about it.  But, if you want to read an interesting take on the politics of it, go here.  http://www.mormoniconoclast.com/les-miserables-the-film-a-review/  He's an excellent writer, and one of my former professors.

Thank Goodness it's over

It's been a hell of a year, friends.  I am not sorry to see this one go.  Often, at the end of the year I am a bit sad, a bit depressed.  Another one gone.  Not this year.  I am glad this one is behind me.  It has not been my best year, perhaps evidenced by the serious lack of posts on my blog.  I don't like to post as much when I am not happy, and I have not been happy much of this past year.
But, I have high hopes for 2013.  I have made a lot of changes in my life.  They have not been easy changes, not been easy decisions to make, but they have been necessary.  2013 will not be easy.  Far from it.  It will come with a whole new set of challenges, with new adventures to navigate and situations I have not encountered before.  Hopefully, I can rise to these challenges with vigour and a good attitude. 
God grant me the strength, the patience and the good humour to navigate this new year well.  And may he grant the same to all of you.