New Tool

I had the strangest dream last night. I was supposed to cat sit for my friend when she goes to Turkey (which I’m doing in real life), but my parents and my brother were also going away and there was no one to watch their dogs (including the one who died last year who was now alive), bird, cow (which they don’t have), and another friend’s cat who I had volunteered to watch.

My brother hadn’t left for his trip yet so I made him show me want to do. We were supposed to kill the cow (!?!?), but after my brother shaved it and prepared it for killing it looked so sad that neither of us could kill it.

So I asked my friend if she wanted to cat, dog, bird, and cow sit since in my dream my parents lived in Brooklyn.

How strange, right? Also in the dream: my exroommate sent me a gift, the IT guy at work asked me who controlled the air conditioning, I started taking a different subway home, and I met up with two friends from college and a girl I went to high school with who I hadn’t thought about in years.

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about my birthday gift.

A new camera!

You all should know how much I love taking pictures.  I’ve always felt kind of lame taking them with my point and shoot and I’ve never been able to do what I wanted.

So my parents were nice enough to get me a DSLR.

I haven’t taken it too many places yet because I haven’t had time, but I’m really impressed (with the camera, not my talent) by what I’ve done so far.

It also takes some good food pictures (if it weren’t for my parents’ ugly tablecloth I think this is very Smitten Kitchen)

And some really bad (my fault) food pictures

Obviously I need to learn what I’m doing. I have my eye on some lenses and I’m excited to go places and use the camera as an excuse to explore!

To keep up with my adventures I’ve started a Flickr account where I’m going to post all my pictures (and I’m adding some older stuff so it’s all together). Of course I’ll still post stuff here, but if you’re curious they’ll be there as well.

Finally, in all my birthday celebrations I put on a few pounds. I know that it sounds crazy that I’ve gained 4lbs in a week, but given how much I’ve drank and ate and how little I exercised I’m not shocked. I’m going to make a real effort to be better for the rest of the month and hopefully those extra pounds (and maybe a few more) will fall off.

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A Healthy Weight

Two things have happened in the past few days that have made me think a lot about what it means to be a healthy weight.

I’m pretty sure a healthy weight for my height (5’4″) is somewhere between 120-140lbs. When I got on the scale this morning I was 162.4. Does this bother me? Honestly, no.

Obviously, if you’ve been reading this blog, you realize that I’ve lost about 40lbs and I’m still trying to lose more, although I don’t think it’s about losing weight, I think it’s about being healthy. And that, to me, is a healthy attitude.

For me it’s more about what my body can do. Back in the spring I had trouble running for more than a few minutes at a time. Now I can run for over an hour, doing almost 7 miles.

Sure, lots of people (my father included) are much faster than I am, but seeing people who are faster and fitter than I am only makes me want to be faster and fitter.

What are the two things that spurred my thoughts on this?

One, at work the other day we were all sitting around collating (the joys of working for a small company) and two people, one of whom I’m good friends with and the other who just started but I like very much, were discussing how awful they feel when they gain 5lbs. As in they go on a fabulous vacation indulge a little, put on a couple pounds, and then feel awful.

And it just made me sad. For me the joy of being able to indulge is excusing yourself from guilt or pressure. So long as the indulgence stops when you come home and you then continue your normal eating and exercising routine your body will go back to its normal weight.

The other thing that got me thinking was watching the where are they now episode of the Biggest Loser. One of the former contestants, I don’t remember which one, was at his college’s homecoming tailgate party and he and Jillian were discussing how he can’t eat that stuff any more.

Like ever? What’s the point of life if you can’t indulge sometimes? Obviously it’s easy to overindulge, but I think a big part of life, and maintaining a healthy weight, is learning to indulge appropriately.

Now, am I perfect and able to sit here and able to sit here and say I’ve mastered all of the things I’ve been talking about? No, of course not. I overindulge all the time and, frankly, 162lbs is probably too heavy for my frame.

But, just like everyone else, I’m working on it.

Updates tomorrow on food and exercise. Really not feeling physical therapy, btw.

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