I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. ~ Anne of Green Gables

There is something about Fall mornings that turn temperatures cooler that bring about a desire for change in me. I usually spend summer in a heated haze – not moving, barely making it through the days because of the heat. I feel like a slug on the sidewalk, moving as fast as I can (which is slow enough to be fried to a crisp when the sun comes out), but never really making much progress.

But Fall…ah, that is a different story. Fall is a season of new beginnings for me. Every year for the past three years, I have started a “diet” of sorts in the Fall. Every year, I have managed to lose 20-30 pounds before Christmas, only to take a “break” and gain it all back, plus some. I have realized I can only stick with something by myself for about 90 days. That’s all I’ve got in me. I have come to accept that I am not a person of great fortitude, nor am I a self-motivator. This has been a hard realization. I *want* to be those things, but the truth of the matter is that I am not.

I have lived the past 40 of my 47 years as a “talker-downer”…being my own worst enemy. Who needed mean girls in high school? I was (and to this day still am) meaner to myself than anyone else could have possibly imagined. (And let’s just be clear about this – I did NOT need to diet in high school!) My sister-in-law used to make me pay a quarter for every time I said I was sorry, because I literally said it for everything. I felt like everything bad that happened was my fault, and even as a 7 year-old girl, I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. I don’t know why, either! That’s the crazy part…when did I start to loathe myself so?

So October 1st, I made a decision. I’m going to do my best (through MUCH prayer and submission to God) to stop talking down to myself. After all, He knit me in my mother’s womb…I am wonderfully and fearfully made. I am HIS creation! What am I saying about God when I crack jokes about my weight to others or hate on myself?

I’m not telling many people this, but I joined a gym. I’ve told a few close to me because I need and covet their prayers, and of course, my family knows. In addition to joining the gym, because *I* know myself and I wouldn’t go if I didn’t have someone or something waiting on me there…I joined a group of really fabulous ladies in a program called “Barbell Butterflies”. I just started Phase 1 yesterday, which is 3 weeks of nutrition and goal setting education and then 5 weeks of beginner weight training education.

Baby steps…Phase 2 will start in December, just in time for the Christmas holidays! (woohoo – I love me some accountability partners!) and end at the end of April. I hope to lose about 60 pounds by the end of April. I have a total of 150 to lose. Yes…I said 150. GULP. I can only think of it in terms of 50-lb increments. It’s the *only* way I can wrap my head around the fact that I have let myself go this far.

I was so excited on Saturday that my oldest daughter and I went to Walmart in search of some larger, roomier t-shirts for me. I’m wearing a women’s 26-28 right now, so I thought “Surely a men’s 3X will fit!” Grabbed a couple of cute looking t-shirts from the men’s rack and tried on the largest one first:

I might have shed a few tears right there in the dressing room. *sigh* I didn’t buy the shirt, but I should have…just as a “goal” shirt.

However, today is a new day…October is my “month of change” and I am not backing down from it this time. I got up at 4 am and went to the gym. Not only did I go to the gym, but I went IN! That’s actually pretty huge for me…because I hate going where people “might see me” working out (as opposed to seeing me NOT working out….I know, makes zero sense!). Everyone there is so encouraging and smiley-faced. Who knew!?! I can do this. And if I can do it, anyone can do it.

A year has passed and still the blog sits empty, forlorn, forgotten. I think about it quite often – always have things I want to share, but never the time to formulate my thoughts into cohesive sentences.

I can’t believe I was ever considering writing as a career! What a hoot. 🙂 I’d have made it halfway through one book and then pfft!

The real reason I’m writing this post right now is to test comments from a blog feed. I’m trying to accomplish something for a client and had to actually WRITE something and publish it in order for the test to work. 🙂

So I’m here…alive and kicking. Sometimes screaming…but otherwise, doing very well. 🙂 Hope you’re all doing well and someday when the season of “busy” has passed, I hope you’ll visit and chat with me again. I’ve missed you all!

So this morning, I googled: “lost sense of humor”.

I came across a very uplifting and encouraging article about how I’m probably in the throes of depression or have a serious psychological disorder that needs medical attention. I don’t think that’s very funny.

So they could be on to something.

I had a few insights I was going to share about the last three months of living with my mom, but since we’re still here and she’s buying the groceries, I should probably wait until we get home before I talk about some of these things. I mean, we have to eat.

Instead, I’ll share a Top Ten list of reasons why you should never move back in with your parents (even if you are the one trying to help them):

Top Ten Reasons You Should Never Move Back in With Your Parents as an Adult:

1. Every single pile of crap in the house will get blamed on your puppy, never mind the fact that another bladder-challenged dog lives in the house.
2. You’ll have to listen to the virtues of how important it is to potty train whilst scraping crap off the wheels of her motorized wheelchair and cleaning up the mile-long trail of smeared turds that she left before she noticed she had driven through it in the first place.
3. Your kids need their own space – a place away from critical eyes and opinions that would never be shared if you weren’t living with parents.
4. Because old people can’t eat food unless it’s going to burn the fake skin off the roof of their dentures, and that requires reheating everything they eat  multiple times during one meal.
5. You will never pour a cup of coffee and make it to your chair without having a parent finish their first cup and ask for  a refill, which means standing at the microwave for two minutes to heat a new cup up past the boiling point.
6. If you have siblings, you will always be the bad guy. Always. Just accept that and move on.
7. The fact that you have lived on your own successfully for the last 24 years will not prevent your parent from treating you like a child again.
8. You’ll start to remember why you moved out at 17 in the first place.  Alpha Females – there can be only one. ‘Nuff said.
9. You’ll begin to believe your mom when she tells you that you’re not the person you used to be and that you’ve completely lost your sense of humor.
10. No matter how hard you try to get along, after a certain period of time, you’ll lose the cool facade that has been hanging on by a thread and you’ll say something you regret, or at the very least, compose a Top Ten list of why you shouldn’t have done it in the first place.

(no old people were harmed in the making of this post)