# 146 - I wish I could change the way I…
Am. It seems like a simple answer, but it really carries a lot of weight behind it, literally and figuratively in my case! There are things out of my control that I wish I could change.
My hair is too thin (it is a genetic thing and it sucks, my sister has super thick hair and complains about the heat of it sometimes…) and I can do nothing with it to make it “look” any better.
I wish I could change the fact that I have Diabetes (but after more than 20 years, I have grown accustomed to it being a “part” of who I am). In fact, this year around Thanksgiving (November 19 was the day I was diagnosed); my Diabetes will be old enough to go out and buy itself booze! The humor of that, I am sure, is something only I can really see…and yes, I know it is just a disease and won’t be doing that (inanimate thing and all). Now, I have had Diabetes for over two-thirds of my life. I hope they do develop a “cure” but I seriously think it will not help those of us who have dealt with the disease for a lifetime. I know that many of the drug studies of late have required that you have been diagnosed within the last 6 months. However, that could just be to eliminate those who may already have complications from Diabetes.
I also wish I could change the way I look. This one I am working on! Nevertheless, it is going much slower than I would like it to! As of today (I neurotically check the scale daily), I am back down to what I was 2 weeks ago. My weight fluctuates by a pound or so from week to week, but is steadily decreasing over time. So, today I am officially (rather unofficially since the official numbers are the Friday morning ones) down 30.8 pounds! The scale I use is a Curves branded scale I bought from an AVON rep 4 years ago. This thing is awesome, and if I could figure out how to use it properly, is supposed to be able to measure body fat percentages…though I fear at this point it would just read “damn”! For those that believe in the BMI mathematics, I have gone from a starting BMI of 47.96 to 42.99 today. Personally, I really do not like the misinformation this calculation has. It was designed for a specific body “set up”. No one who is extremely tall can use this, the formula falls apart after, I believe, 6 feet! In addition, every person has a different bone mass, which accounts for a significant portion of our overall weight. I know it sounds like an excuse; however, I really am “big boned”! Obviously, my bones have nothing to do with the flab hanging on me…but larger bones equally more weight from the bones themselves, this could really make my BMI reading go wonky once I have lost the majority of what I want to lose.
According to Am I Fat, which has two guidelines for measuring bone structure size, I come up with two different results. First, using the wrist measurement, my wrist measures 8 inches around. Anything over 6.5 inches puts me into the “large” category for my height, 5’6” (re-measured at the Doctor’s office last week, and haven’t lost the ½ inch the last nurse said I did…). In the 8th grade, our health teacher made us all do the “touch your middle finger and thumb together while encircling your wrist” measurement to determine bone size. She told me I was doing it wrong when I told her that I could not get my fingers to touch doing that, in fact, I have at least a 1-inch gap! Therefore, she tried herself before deeming my bone structure “extra-large”. However, the other measurement “test” on the elbow, put me squarely in the “medium bone size” category if I did the test correctly. My elbow measured right at 2 inches, which actually puts me in the “small bone size” category! So again, these tests are subject to someone using their own body or an average of whatever size “average” sized people had when the test was developed. All my “extra-large” wrist means to me is that it is super hard to find a watch or bracelet that I can actually wear comfortably!
Yet another thing I wish I could “magically” change overnight is my “domestic habits”. I loathe these with a passion… I hate doing dishes, vacuuming, cleaning, dusting, laundry, etc…! I am also a very unorganized person; this is why we need a few days’ notice before we have visitors in the house. That way we can do a frenzied full day cleaning of the house, top to bottom! As a result, we do not have people over very often… I am going to work on this one, but I really do need the help of my other half here! I have a “task list” that I made previously. I was looking at it while on the phone with my Mother (I opened it by mistake while looking up something I had saved for her) the other day, I really want to polish it up a little and actually do it this time! I think a “job list” will help both of us though…when I made the list to begin with, it failed as both of us tried pushing things off for another day until we were right back at a frenzied cleaning only when someone was going to be in the house!
I added a snap shot of my “chore list”, everything is color-coded, so hopefully we don’t argue over it too much! The pink square are the things that we are both responsible for making sure get done; making the bed, doing the dishes (loading the dishwasher), and doing the laundry. The large amount of green squares is there “as needed” and either of us should do them if the need arises. Purple is me…I am home all day, so I realize I should be the one doing most of the things during the week (and I did give myself a day off, but that day may need to move around a little). Finally, blue is for my other half, that is what I would like him to do to help stay on top of this whole “clean house” thing! As we have two long haired cats and a black lab that all shed profusely, I tried to leave two days a week for vacuuming each area that needs vacuuming. I also have the vacuum traveling on a specific level of the house so I do not have to cart it up and down the stairs all the time. As for my lone “Other” item at the bottom, we used to do this every day but after the move, the litter box wasn’t in such a prominent spot and we have slipped into only doing this once a week, at which point we have to just dump it out and start fresh. That means that a 30 pound container of cat litter only lasts us 2 weeks! I am thinking of moving the litter box up stairs (and into the dining area we don’t hardly ever use to eat in…Baby has a food bowl on the dining table) so that it is more “in our way” and on our minds so that we get back in the habit of scooping daily. I have Mondays marked “as needed” because Tuesday is Garbage day and if we are going to be dumping it out in the morning, I don’t feel the need to scoop it that night. We have a cute little “diaper genie” gizmo that you scoop the poo into and it rolls up in a giant tube and keeps the smell inside! In Central Oregon, this contraption sat next to my desk, so I can attest to it doing its job well!Well, out of the first four things I wish I could change that popped into my head this morning, one I am working on slowly and one more I am going to be changing very shortly! The others are things I cannot change, but I can dream about! I think that is a morning well spent since I got a “plan” on how to get and keep the house clean!
The links below are to books about cleaning house...I have not read any of them, but they look interesting and I may go pick up one or two myself!
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