How Was Your Holiday?
Thursday, January 1st, 2009Mine was pretty terrific. I ate tons (literally!) of very, very bad food - everything I haven’t been able to eat for too, too long and I don’t feel at all bad about it. Definitely needed: I was pretty run down by the end of finals - got hit with intestinal flu/food poisoning followed shortly thereafter by a bad cold and laryngitis (fortunately the laryngitis came right at the end of classes!), and low iron (that diagnosis really hit me hard because I have been working so hard to follow a healthy lifestyle). I feel so much better now - though I am definitely! pretty pudgy! LOL! Gonna have to take off some of what I put on over the last two weeks. Right now I don’t know how much that is and honestly I do NOT want to know. My goal is to get back on track and eat clean through the weekend. If I can make it over the weekend hump then I tend to do well during the week at school. Not sure why - if it is simply the fact that I have so much else to do but I do think that I need to explore this soon as I really need to figure out how to make the weekends work for me instead of against me.
I have two sisters. The youngest, Suzanne, is extraordinarily gifted in terms of arts and crafts- very creative. Suzanne makes her own lotion and soap. I love her lemon soap - the best both in terms of creamy-ness and bouquet - and a rockin’ chocolate mousse lotion - truly to die for! LOL! Over the last few years Suzanne has developed a serious interest in woodworking. She has given me two beautifully crafted pens which I treasure - one made from bamboo and the other from mohogany and a magnifying glass, the handle of which is also made of mahogany. Shortly before Xmas Suzanne asked me to send her photos of Nikki, my siamese cat that she said she needed for one of her projects. I felt kind of sad. I had a tough time trying to get her photos. This was odd in that photography is one of my hobbies and I love taking photos of Nikki. I used to have literally thousands of photos of Nikki. Unfortunately I have had several laptops die recently and despite my best efforts I lost a lot of my digital photos of Nikki. Sad because you just can’t ever replace photographs - time marches on. Anyway, I finally managed to get a set together and mailed them to her shortly before coming home for the holidays. Suzanne sent a box to mom and I which we were to open on Xmas. We had arranged to Skype so Suzanne and Steven, her husband, could enjoy seeing mom and I open up the box. I was just blown away this year by what Suzanne sent: she had made each of us a beautifully cut/sculpted wood stand holding a small clock with a place to put papers or business cards (which is what I plan to do) and a beautiful calendar with different photos of Nikki (in my case) each month. I can’t say how touched I am by her thoughtfulness and all the hard work that went into both projects. Absolutely amazing! I have posted a photo I took using my cell phone of her stunning gift.
I got two other significant gifts this year which I gave myself. One is the Parillo total performance package and the other is “The Hardgainer’s Bodybuilding Handbook” by Hugo Rivera. I purchased the latter on sale for half-price at Vitamin Shoppe. I want to really endeavor this year to take more control over my diet and workout program. I have a secret (how secret can it be if I am telling all of you, LOL?) desire to become a certified personal trainer.
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