Two days in a row I ate breakfast. Two days in a row I am ravenous before day's end.

I banged on metal for a while tonight. Then I finally ordered some cool 1" stickers to use.

I know I ate too much, too fast tonight. But, I did only sit for a 45 minute TV show. And, I could have done a LOT worse with my food. And, I washed the dishes after.

Now, it's fairly early, just 9:30, and I am going to bed:)

The hardest part of the day

Oh man. I get home from work, it's already dark, because it gets dark early now, and I just want COMFORT!

For years comfort has meant food, lots of it, and some sort of visual distraction, namely television. So, I don't have television anymore, and I totally do not miss it, but I keep myself quite distracted enough with Netflix, and now I don't even have to wait for the dvds to get here because there is all kinds of crap Netflix will let me watch for free! ANYway.

Right now I am feeling my itchy soul. Pema Chodron teaches about the itch of our ego, the strong need we have to scratch these places in our souls. And we scratch by eating, shopping, sex, food, alcohol, whatever, and right now I really want to scratch. But the instruction is to sit with the feeling, to feel the feeling. I am to breathe and face the feeling. My goal, to become completely familiar with my emotions and feelings.

I don't want to sit. I want to eat.

Plus I am "feeling" ravenous. And, I think it might be because I ate breakfast. Another great recipe from Escape from Obesity, (http://escapefromobesity.blogspot.com/ ) pumpkin oatmeal! I ate a serving, but it was a lot of food, this morning, when I usually go out without eating breakfast. I know, everyone says it's the most important meal of the day. But, if I can get out of the house without eating, and if I don't WANT to eat, then I think that is a good thing. Fewer calories I will eat for the day. Then again, maybe not. Maybe breakfast really does start our motors and we really do burn more calories BECAUSE we ate breakfast. Who knows?

My aspiration: I wish to know happiness and the root of happiness:)

When I got tired of trying to work on the blog, I finally got my grocery list and went to the store. There I spent $75.00! I came home to a kitchen full of dirty dishes and bottle caps spread out all over the counter. I calmly set my groceries down and went about putting things into order.
I made a bit of space and started cooking, taking care of myself!
I cut the $7.00 butternut squash in half and put it into the oven to bake. That is for butternut squash mac & cheese. You must try this recipe, it is so very good. And read her blog too, she very creative. http://escapefromobesity.blogspot.com/2007/09/farmers-market-butternut-squash.html
Then I made the spinach dip; the recipe is on the same blog. Next time, I must measure the sourcream and mayo, I probably put in too much.
Then I started soaking the dishes.

Back in the kitchen, the squash was cooked and I put that dish together, it looked so good!
I meditated for 20 minutes. Again, it seemed to go by so quickly.
Then, I finished the mountain of dishes, managed to find something to watch on Netflix, and sat down to eat. Yum!

After an exhausting weekend in which I did not even take my laptop out of its bag, and I did not do any work on the thesis, I am going to bed.

I cannot believe this blog thing is such a pain in the ass and so many people fool with it. Maybe I'll get better.

The Road to Fatness and Self Hate

Once, I was a delighted child.

Somewhere along the way, I started chunking up. Always, I am compared to my younger sister. Me on left, her on right. We are dressed in our Fairy dresses.

 
Here we are again. Dressed up in pretty velvets and sparkly vests Mama made us to wear to our school Christmas pagent. I had was a narrarator and I loved this "bolero," as Mama called it. I was pretty puffed up here and I felt it too. Always, trying on the clothes Mama was making was a opportunity to feel really shitty about myself. "Stand up straight, hold your stomach in, tuck your buttocks under." Followed by disappointed sighing. I hated it and it made me hate myself, and others.




Here I am, 14 or 15 maybe. I look at this pic and I think I look pretty good. Especially compared to not too many years later when I totally blimped out. But my family would have none of it. I was FAT, and UGLY, and STUPID, and LAZY. Yeah, I had issues.

WooHoo! I loved being in Pep Squad! I loved wearing my dorky but slutty little outfit! And I ALWAYS wore pantyhose! I don't really like the way I look here, but it's really not that bad. It makes me sad that I could not see that then.

It's No Big Deal

Wow, I really suck at building a readable blog! I guess I thought with so many people out there doing it, surely I can too.

So, I did. Now I just need to figure out how to perfect the technique. Just like making Bottle Cap Art.

Go practice some Maitri!

Beating metal on the old dead tree

I don't drink much alcohol anymore. It's one thing I am NOT addicted to. I don't even know what kind of beer this came from, but the red it pretty, and the inside of the cap is shiny golden. This one still has the silicone seal in it. More about getting that out later.

This is an example of an ugly bottle cap. I have already removed the silicone, but the whole inside of the cap is covered with silicone, do it's dull, very matte finish.
 





Who knew, Bud Lite is beautiful shiny silver inside!?

Here's a few more I've been beating on. Some still have their seals. I'm working on a new technique, where I hammer the cap out a bit, then remove the seal, then beat on it some more.

This is my favorite Bottle Cap so far. I love this hammered edge. After playing around with it a lot, hammering, using different kinds of pliers to bend the edges, and a $7.00 wooden dowel, this is what I came up with. This is a Michelob Ultra cap. They are the best. The inner liner peels off easily, the cap responds to hammering beautifully, and the inside color is glittery gold.












I am really enjoying hammering the metal! I beat it and beat it until it is something different than a Bottle Cap. Then I use a little piece of the $7.00 wooden dowel to beat a flat-ish space for the picture.
Here are a bunch of my beaten pieces.

I am making Bottle Cap art, actually, you will see, it is Altered Art.
First, I collected a bunch of bottle caps. Mostly they are from friends drinking, but a few are mine.
I washed them in warm water, and sorted them out. I wanted to see what caps might be cool to use the painted side of. And I love sorting things. You might think I'd be more organized generally.












These are the ones that I deem regular enough to have a cool picture glued onto.












Here's the "organized" work space. I've gone a bit crazy with the 1" circle cutter. The first thing I cut, an image from a postage stamp, made a great frame for deciding if a future picture would make a good bottle cap magnet.












And here's my first attempt at gluing in the pictures. I used Mod Podge, impossible to buy in the small town I live in. My mom brought me this when she came for a visit. I like it for other projects, but it does not work for this. Two days later, these caps full of white Podge are still white. For whatever reason, they don't dry well. No problem, as Pema says, No Big Deal.

Bottle Cap Art

I have decided to make Bottle Cap art, in the form of refrigerator magnets, for my friends and loved ones for Christmas.

I SHOULD be spending every waking moment working on my thesis.

I have begun following Pema Chodron. I think it is fair to say that between the wise woman who offered Pema to me when I was bleeding to death, and Pema herself, my life has been saved.

This blog MAY chronicle some of what is going on in my life.

I am 49.5 years old. I weigh 301 pounds. And, that is a good thing. I do not have a scale in my house, but I know when my weight changes. I can feel it in my clothes, I can feel it in my body. I have lost about 50 pounds since I moved here in 2002. But I lost 40 pounds and gained most of it back before I lost it again this time.

I do not remember a time when I was not FAT. When I look back at some pics of me as a child, I did not look that fat, but I felt it. And I was the fattest kid in school, and the fattest kid among any group of cousins I played with, and I was the fattest of two children in the house where I grew up.

Day One

I am going along this journey, whether I am aware or not. So I might as well work at awareness. I really don't want to get to the end of my life and feel I slept through the whole thing.

And really, this very moment is all we have.