01/15/2019, Tuesday

So true! And after the drought weakened all of the trees they have an alarming propensity to simply fall over and hit people after it rains...

Weight 178.4 I actually laughed when it came up this morning. After a big workout, good eating and very productive bathroom time I certainly expected better. But maintenance beats gaining I suppose.

I hiked my 8 miles this morning. It's up an old paved haul road that is no longer used for hauling anything. Thre were 4 of us participants and like 8 volunteers. I feel very supported! Californians don't like going out in the rain apparently. We melt.

This afternoon I'm headed to see Mary Queen of Scots at the movies. But first a shower, lunch, and a dog walk. Must hop to!

It really is getting pretty out / up there, Cecily! I envy you getting to walk in real country that's just uphill out of the city where you live. That's one of the lovely things about California -- the lovely mountains right next to the cities.

It's only a 5 minute drive from my house. I have no excuse not to go when their offering hikes! (Close to the public usually)

Weight: 135.0
Macros: Calories - 1,798, Carbs - 162, Fats - 57, Protein - 145, Fiber - 28
Sleep hours: 7.5
Vegetable/Fruit Servings: 7.5
Water glasses: 2
Exercise: 6,500 steps
Meditation: Yes

My weight is still holding at 135. But yesterday's calories were higher than I had intended, mostly because last night I was awake two hours later than usual and had a second bedtime snack (apple and cheese). No biggie. Today is a new day. :)

BTW, last night for dinner I sautéed half a pound of shrimp with olive oil, a pat of butter, salt, pepper, and lemon (unbelievably delicious!) and paired it with a little mushroom risotto left over from a fancy-restaurant dinner last week. Like almost all my NOLA meals thus far, it did not suck. :)

Also, yesterday was my first day down here that I didn't walk in the park. My excuse was that the weather was cloudy and quite chilly (in the 40s), so I snuggled up and read a lot!

Bonjour! Je m'appelle Ann. Et vous? Vous vous appellez comment?

Today was my first day of French lessons. I was as excited as on my first day at first grade! This morning I took the St. Charles Avenue streetcar downtown to the school and arrived 30 minutes early for an hour and a half hour class that I absolutely loved!

Our class has eight people--five women and three men. The youngest is 21, and I'm the oldest. The group includes three folks from the UK, Guatemala, and Mexico and five native-born Americans, most of whom have French-speaking forbears, but who did not learn the language themselves. A few class members have had a little prior French training, but most of us are self-conscious neophytes.

The first twenty minutes of our class were in English. Then we were told that going forward our teacher will be speaking only French because our classes are designed to be pure immersion learning. Today, we had to pronounce French, speak sentences and hold conversations in French, write French, learn some specialized French characters, pronouns, and verb tenses, and infer meaning from context. We are little babies learning Mommy's language. ;)

It turns out that French class is also good exercise: The walk to the streetcar stop a few blocks from my apartment and the 2.5+ mile walk home totals 7,500 steps. I'm quite happy about that. :)

Tuesday's theme is: On the first day of school anything is possible!

I took 3 years of high school French and learned to say important thing like "my brother is in the military" and "I would like veal with spinach", neither of which I've had occasion to work into any conversation in any language. I took a gap year after high school, (way back in 1980) and spent a year as an exchange student in Brazil. In about two weeks I was speaking more Portuguese than I ever spoke French. Immersion is the way to go! Being that both the languages are in the romance language family, understanding French grammar helped me with Portuguese, and learning to speak Portuguese fluently helps me read French, and some Italian. (But still not speak it). I am semi fluent in Spanish (Portuguese is so similar, but also different enough I've said a few scandalous things, quite unintended at parties with our Argentine friends). I once read (can't remember the author) to learn another language is to gain another soul. My Brazilian soul resides quite nicely with my Finnish American Minnesota soul. Have fun gaining your French New Orleans soul, it will no doubt serve you well!

That's a lot of fluency in other languages, DD. I'm really impressed. :) I went to a German university and am still fluent in German. But German ain't nuthin' like French! ;)

Must agree with you on that! Per my mother's conditions that allowed me a gap year so I would start college at 18 rather than 17 (...earned my HS diploma a few weeks before I turned 17...) I had to take French. I found myself translating everything from English to German to French. Pain in the azzz..... Still understand almost everything in German, can barely remember anything in French... Sad....

Greetings All

No weight today. I got nuthin' much to say. DianeO glad you could find a way to exercise and entertain yourself at the VA. Must be one of those buildings they added on to a million times.

DH had his ultrasound. While he was there the place called trying to schedule it. They really are overloaded and messed up.

Hope everybody is safe and warm. Over and out for now. Diane S

Hola mi amigos! LOL! The talk of languages made me do it!

Therapy was was productive. I almost want to call it fun, but that would be somehow sacrilege. Dr. Freud would not approve, I'm sure. But it was a bit fun to be honest. Shrink asked me about how I might have dealt with being upset with Ron without resorting to buying cookies. I stopped dead. Sat silent while my mind was reeling over the situation and replied,"Since we are about honesty here, being mad with Ron at that moment was a wonderful excuse to do what I wanted to do anyway. I had been craving something cookie-ish for several days. Being upset with him simply gave me permission to buy the cookies and eat them as I had wanted to do anyway. Being mad was the justification I used for not feeling guilty about buying and eating them." BAM!

More good discussion followed. I may schedule an appointment with the new nutritionist in their office. We talked about having the opportunity for support and the gift professional support verses the idea of "I should be able to do this by myself." Having support vs. needing help and being told how to do something is much more palatable for me.

Then the accepting myself as I am discussion happened again.She asked me what would it be like to accept myself as I am right now. I laughed. Oh, I really did. It was a gutty, feel good to the depths of my being laugh, too. I couldn't help it. I replied that it would be horrible! And with a smile I explained that my entire existence for as long as I can remember has involved fixing myself in one respect or another. I mean, if I wasn't working on being thin, I was working on being better at something, but mostly trying to fix my appearance. I am the very model of someone who has been uncomfortable in life and in my own skin in one way or another for as long as I can remember. I even talked about how I downplayed my smarts because my mom told me it was not fair how easily things came to me when I didn't apply myself. My older brother certainly applied himself and had to work hard at school, she said. That to her was admirable. The ease with which I learned bothered her for some reason. It scared her and she tried to make me more studious. It sort of backfired I think because my entire life I have downplayed my intelligence - especially because I am not academically inclined as my parents and brother are. I must not go on I could write a novel about this part of my inner dysfunction.LOL!

Taking a peek at my inner workings yesterday and being bluntly honest about it was fun. I felt some of the mass was lifted from my psychological shoulders.

Excellent workout tonight, too. I think I will feel it tomorrow. I have gotten to the level in my workouts that I look forward to the soreness. There is a level of soreness that says, "You did a good job, bud." I like that sense of physical awareness of having worked out.

I could go on (and on) about food, weight, eating, but it's time to let it go for today.

Cheers!