A Diet, a Birthday, and Some Humor

* Note: I started this post last week and it then sat in "drafts" until I remembered about it today, so it isn't exactly current. I have been just a little busy dealing with two huge boxes of mangos before they all went bad. I now have a quart of mango syrup, twenty five quarts of sliced mangos in the freezer, and 8 half pint jars of mango jam in the pantry. I sent a bunch home with the gardener, and a bunch ended up on the compost heap because they got squished at the bottom of the boxes. I am done done done with mangos until next mango season!

This week marks the start of Malawi Meltdown 2011. I have been weighed, and my BMI calculated. No, I am not going to post my weight, but I would like to loose about 15 pounds this year. My BMI is in the healthy range, but just barely. I am officially on a diet. Okay, not so much a diet, more working on changing bad habits and making better choices. To start with I am keeping a food log and writing down every little thing I eat or drink. Nothing takes the fun out of eating quite like having to stop and write it down. I also need to start exercising again. My original plan was to start with the 30 day Shred but my knee isn't cooperating. Last time I tried the Shred I had to abandon it around day 19 because my knee started hurting too much. Instead I am doing about 30 minutes of yoga each morning. I get up way too early and tune into to AFN for Nameste Yoga while David takes care of the morning routine getting the kids fed, dressed, and loaded on the bus . I'm not exactly working up a sweat but it is a starting point I suppose.

This week also marks the end of my annual torment by David. There are only two months difference in our ages. I am the older one. Every year from the last week of November until last week of January David takes great pleasure in telling everyone that he married an older woman and that I am a year older than him since I was born in '67 and he was born in '68. His usual line goes something like "Shannon is already 43 but I'm still 42. I won't be 43 until next year." We have an agreement, he can be a jerk for two months then I better not hear a word about it for the other 10 months of the year. To celebrate the end of the torment for another year I made a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. For presents Dave received a brand new tripod for his camera and some special gifts the boys made just for him.

Sorry David holding the cake upside down does NOT make you 34.


And now for a little humor. I may have mentioned that we have guards at our house. The guards take their job very seriously and we are thankful to have them. The one thing that cracks me up is the saluting. Every time we go through or even near the gate, or sometimes if I am sitting out by the pond drinking my morning coffee (note to self: no more drinking coffee outside in pj's) the guards will salute. Basically the thought of anyone saluting me on a regular basis cracks me up, I'm a civilian through and through. However that isn't what is funny. When we arrived most of the guards just snapped a basic salute as you drove past, but there was this one who would do this foot stomp thing as he snapped to attention. Now it seems that all of the guards are doing some sort of fancy foot stomping salute, some stomp once, some stomp twice, some seem to specialize with the straight leg stomp or the high knee lift stomp. So far I have managed to refrain from bursting into laughter in front of the guards, but it is a close thing sometimes.

Update: Since I wrote this last week I have dragged myself out of bed at a quarter of six everyday to do yoga. How I managed to get dressed and functioning well enough to exercise prior to coffee I am not sure. One morning I had a hard time figuring out how to put on my exercise shirt. David came in looked at me struggling and after he finished laughing, he told me I had it on backwards. If you are a girl and you can't figure out that you have racer back exercise shirt on backwards you probably need one or more of the following: 1. Serious psychiatric help 2. More sleep or 3. COFFEE!

I was feeling stronger and more flexible until I managed to loose my balance yesterday doing triangle pose. Somehow in the process of falling on my butt I managed to pull a muscle in my thigh. Today's workout was all based around the warrior poses. If you are not familiar with yoga the warrior poses use the thigh muscles, A LOT! OUCHIE! Hopefully tomorrow's workout will be based around down dog, or cobra, or really anything but warrior. My personal choice would be child''s pose, but I suppose that wouldn't be much of a workout, more of a nap.

It has been a week so I got on the scale today and found I had lost 3 pounds in a week. YAY! Twelve more pounds to go. WooHoo!