Week 46 - Swearing Off Bowls

Last week’s 3 words were Hard to Quit. Speaking of quitting, this past week I swore off eating from the candy bowls that are everywhere at work. Because I have no self-control. Once I start dipping in, I find myself grabbing a handful every time I walk by, which adds up to who knows how many empty calories every day. So it’s cold turkey time. If I want candy, I’ll have a candy bar (that won’t happen much) but no handfuls. I did this once before and lost almost 20 pounds without trying. We’ll see how this goes.

Aside from the lack of candy, it was a really nice week, despite some mid-week sadness.

Things were going along swimmingly when I got an email Tuesday afternoon from my friend Lori that her mom, who had been battling ovarian cancer for as long as I’ve known Lori, had died. Although Nelda had been in hospice, this still came as a surprise. I’d seen Lori at knitting Monday night and there was no mention of her mom being worse. The next morning she died. The visitation was Thursday night and 4 of us from knitting converged on the funeral home in Omaha at 5:00. I had driven directly from work, Jan and Donna had driven from Wahoo and Andrea, who was rushing back for book club at her house at 7:00, had driven herself. The visitation was very pleasant - between Lori’s sisters, her cousin and aunt, I had plenty of people to visit with and the time passed quickly. I left at 6:00 and met Donna and Jan for supper at Upstream before heading home. It was an oddly nice evening and Lori and her family seemed to be doing OK, which was reassuring.

Lori had requested lunch at Chips on Saturday so I got up and got busy picking up the house, which was a wreck, so I could offer knitting chez moi after lunch. But when I called Lori at noon, she was not up for going out after all. Friday had been a long day of the funeral and then driving to Bassett and back (more than 4 hours each way) for the burial. With the house pretty clean, I told Andrea I’d rather stay grubby and keep going than stop for lunch, which surely would have stopped my productivity dead. So I put all the plants I’d brought in outside, swept the floors well and then repotted everything, bringing in the plant racks from the garage and arranging everything for the winter to come. Only then did I jump in the shower and sit down for a cup of tea. I was pleased with my progress.

Luckily the productivity streak lasted because beside chores on Sunday, I did some mending, sewed a curtain for the spare room and did a bunch of cooking. By the end of the day, the house was neat and cleaner than it was on Friday, the laundry was done, the frig was stocked with food for the week (I even made a pie to take to knitting) and my plants were all safe and warm for the winter. If I could be so productive every weekend… I have a dream!