Look what a year can do!

In November of 2007 I thought I'd like to try to get back in shape, I was feeling tired and weighed down carting around a baby on my hip plus about four more of them on my ass... my goal was originally a very modest, "I'd like to feel better and be in shape."  I didn't want to focus too much on the weight loss because I think I was afraid I'd fail. I also probably wasn't fully aware of how fat I had really become- being a very tall person- I was carrying a a lot of weight spread across a big surface- so I didn't look roly-poly.  Sometimes I would imagine my fat, calculated against my college weight, as an object separate from me... I would imagine 50 one pound boxes of butter sitting there on the shelf in the dairy aisle... and then imagine, if like a shoplifter- I could shove all that under my clothes! Oh my goodness- when I went to the feed store and bought a bag of horse feed- imagine, if like one of those "sexual responsibility" exercises they do in highschool where the make the kids cart around demanding faux infants 24/7 ... what if we all have to carry the excess burden that is inside our skin- on the outside as well!?  How many days of carrying a 50# bag of horse feed would it take before I said- "You know- I want to be free of this burden!"

Well, I worked out very hard for two months and I did feel better, my clothes started to fit differently- but I did not lose a single pound!!  This was very disappointing but I did not give up- and suddenly- pounds started melting off.  I has bought into the theory that muscle burns more calories than fat- and by building muscle- I would increase (rather than starve and cripple) my metabolism.  Wow- when it finally kicked in- the results were very satisfying. 

I went from a size 16 or 14 jeans, now to an 8.

I ran a 5K last summer, and I feel like I look ten years younger (maybe I just FEEL ten years younger!)

These pictures in my "fat jeans" were taken last summer.  Since then I have lost another 5 pounds and increased some muscle mass.  I'll see if I can dig up a mortifying rare "before" picture as well as an updated today picture.

(Renee is a friend who had some very helpful tips and motivations that kept me focused)

Technorati Tags: weight loss,motherhood,motivation,before and after,fitness,fifty pounds

Duke

I know I have much to be thankful for in that his death was without suffering and his life's work, which was to love his family and all people he had a chance to meet, was a joy right to the end.

Duke, our 13 year old Boxer was put to sleep on Thursday evening April 28, 2008. 

His last meal was bison.

He was 13.

On Wednesday I took the kids to go buy "Daisy" a dog bed... making it official- we are keeping her. While we were gone, Duke must have had a seizure or stroke and when we came home he was changed and I knew he was at the end. A sad timing.
Only a week earlier he was cantering up the hill to our house after his daily "naughty trip" down to the bridge at the bottom of the hill ... I don't know what it was about that little walk to try to find some deer guts to roll in- but he loved to sneak off in the morning and be back by 10... I find some comfort in thinking that he must have been thrilled at his prospects when that last big bridge finally appeared before him...and on the other side he met his Bullydog friends Thelma and Darby, and Tyler the horse.


My son, pictured here six years ago, is taking it with tremendous courage. He's some kid. Duke took his job raising the kids (don't try to convince him otherwise) with tremendous good humor and patience.

I remember a funny incident when my son was a baby- hardly mobile, and was on a blanket in the yard... I was gardening and jokingly told Duke to keep an eye on him. After some time I heard the boy start to fuss and turned around to find him at the edge of the blanket- arms and legs flailing- with Duke, grinning and proud, sitting on him.

Because of his tail and uncropped ears, many people didn't recognise Duke as a purebred boxer. He was certainly not showdog ideal- but he did come from AKC parents. He was picked from the litter at only 2 days old so that his tail would be spared when all the other puppies had theirs docked. This turned especially cute on the day we returned to the breeder to get him at 8 weeks and a sea of joyous boxer pups came bounding across the yard- but only one had a tail wagging above the brown wiggling mass... 13 years a puppy and always wagging.

Duke's nostril structure was awful- causing his breathing to be pretty loud and snorty. I had considered some surgery but the vet turned me away from that and suggested I learn to live with it. Who'd guess that now I'm crying to think of trying to learn to live without it. This garnered Duke all the conjugatable nickname variants of snuss, snussa, snussy. And just like a wife might train a man with with huffs and sighs... Duke had me trained to respond to his particular snorts and sniffs which could mean things like, "Dodi is sleeping in my bed would you get her out of it?" "Are you finished with that (burger, pizza, spaghetti... etc)?" "Did you not see me here standing at the door?" "I need a hug" "A little lower there... and to the right"

Did you know that Boxers give the best puppy kisses? That because it's all fuzzy lips and no cold nose.

A long time away

Hello out there my long lost friends.  It's been a while since I posted on my blog... I guess I should explain.

Just before I stopped blogging you will see I posted about finding that little dog Daisy.  Well, little Daisy soon found her way into our hearts but I was reluctant to take on a fourth dog when Duke's health was going downhill.  The day I decided to make it official, we went out to buy Daisy a little dog bed.  Duke must have had a stroke while we were out.  When we came home- the Duke we knew was gone, he was alive, but erased.  It was a sad irony how I struggled so hard to open my heart to Daisy out of concern for Duke... and then, when I did take that step to make Daisy ours, Duke gave up his spot by the stove for her.

At the time I could not bear to write a blog entry about Duke.  ...and as other things came along, stories from Great and Small Farm, happy, sad, interesting, creative... I could not bring myself to leapfrog the new entry past the unwritten memorial for old Duke and somehow a year and a half has passed.

I promise to soon write that post, and then all the ones in between and try to get this blog current again.  I have missed this.