Princesses Should Not Have Dirty Feet.

I digress a little today. This is for Miss Isabella, my only granddaughter.

Princesses Should Not Have Dirty Feet
by: Kim York

Isabella was a princess. She lived in a castle with the king and the queen, two brothers, and her grandmother. Princess Isabella loved to go barefoot and her grandmother was always saying to her, “Isabella, princesses should not have dirty feet.” One day Isabella went to the courtyard in her bare feet and a ball gown. She saw one frog, two butterflies, and three lizards. She chased the frog and he hopped away. She watched the butterflies land on the roses and tore her ball gown on a thorn. She climbed the fence to catch the lizards, put them in a jar, and took them to her grandmother. “Isabella, look at you!  Your ball gown is torn and your hair is a mess. My goodness, child, princesses should not have dirty feet!” said her grandmother. Isabella looked at her grandmother. She ran toward grandmother’s throne, hopped on her lap, and hugged her neck. “I know, Grandmother,” said Isabella, “but explorers should have dirty feet.” So each day when Princess Isabella finished exploring, she would wash her feet and put on her pink sparkly shoes. After all princesses should not have dirty feet.

 

(Share this with your princesses. )

Small Victories

Wow! Time does fly, whether you are having fun or not. I haven't posted in a while because I have been working on other projects. In truth, I have written a book and started another. Now for the daunting task of trying to become a published author. Wish me luck.

Anyway, I decided to post an entry today because two good things happened. My son and his family are visiting from out of state and we were going out to lunch. I was trying to find something to wear in my meager selection of clothing. Just for fun, I tried on a top that was only a 1x. I have not worn a 1x for so many years that I truly cannot remember when I last did wear this size. To my extreme surprise, it fit! Now, in defense of the top, it was stretchy material. I did not wear it because I did not like the way my belly looked in it. It was fitted near the hips and this is not a flattering look for my belly. But it still made me smile. Six months ago, I could not have pulled that top over my body, stretchy or not. Now I can! Yay me!

Fitting into this top was my first good thing, now for my second good thing. When my son arrived to pick me up I got into the back of the car. Some of you may not be aware of this, but many times the seat belts in the back seat are not as long as the seat belts in the front. Quite often, in fact almost always, I cannot buckle the seat belt when I sit in the back seat. The last time I was in my son's back seat, I was seat belt-less because it would not fit. Today, I pulled and buckled with ease before I realized, "Hey, my seat belt is on!!!!" Once again, Yay me!

These may not be big things to many people, but to me they are major victories. I will keep up with the healthy lifestyle. It is working and I am not in a hurry. Now some of you may be saying, "Your son, his wife, and your two adorable grandbabies were visiting Florida all the way from Pennsylvania and your good things are shirts and seat belts?" Well, yes, because my family is not a good thing it is a GREAT thing.

Potato Chips

There is an old saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder. While there may be some truth to this saying as far as relationships are concerned, it is a little different with food. For most of my life I have been a potato chip addict. They were my comfort food, my stress reliever, and on occasion, my best friend. I sometimes would wait until my kids were in bed and my husband (now ex) was upstairs asleep and I would sit in the recliner, turn on whatever I wanted on the television, and savor a few chips. And a few more. And a few more and oops, where did that bag of chips go? If I was really stressed I would add a little (okay, a lot) of dip. When I was single and my son was away at college and my teenage daughter would be out with friends for the evening, I would have chips and dip for dinner, followed by peanut M&Ms for dessert. Hey, I had a very stressful life. The point here is, I love potato chips. Anytime. Any place. For any reason. Potato chips, however, are like a dysfunctional  relationship; you may love them, but they are harming you.

Getting out of a bad relationship is not easy. Trust me on this one, I have been divorced twice. I have first hand knowledge of bad relationships. Fear of the unknown is a powerful thing. It makes you continue doing whatever it is you know because you are afraid of what may happen if you change your lifestyle. But bad is bad, whether it is a relationship with a person or with a bag of rippled chips and French onion dip. You must choose to stay or walk away. A few months ago, I walked away from my old friend. I chose to commit to a healthier lifestyle. I have been eating mostly vegetarian food and cut out lots of fat and most bad carbs. You know what? It hasn't been that bad. I find that I crave chips much less than I did before. I will admit that I have had them on a few rare occasions, but they just weren't like I remembered them. Oh they were good, just not satisfying. I found myself wanting tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions with a little Italian dressing.

Sometimes I do not believe that this is me. That I want to eat vegetables and fruits. Where did this person come from? I hope she stays. My new cravings are for watermelon and Honey Crisp apples. I love my new vegetarian chili recipe and eat it at least once a week. I never knew how good whole grain pasta with vegetarian sauce could be. I love to cook and have been experimenting with lots of recipes.  They are good. I would order them in a restaurant. The best part? My pants are getting looser and my tops are getting longer. I have a very long way to go, but I am going. I am headed in the right direction and am enjoying it. My son is coming to visit in a few weeks and he already knows that we are having veggie chili and vegan sloppy joes. I do not consider myself a vegetarian or vegan, but my diet includes mostly those types of food. If I can figure out how to post some pics on this blog, I will post a few pics of some of my meals. They look as good as they taste.

Anyway, my relationship with food is improving and finally becoming a functional, healthy relationship. Now if that would just carry over into my choice in men. Well, we can't move mountains all the time.

$1.00 a Day

Lately I have been working on other projects and have not been writing on the blog much. Well, here I am and as usual I have something to say. This morning I was watching TV and a commercial came on for a diet product. I watched and was intrigued by the claims that "fat literally melted off," and also that, "you did not need to change a thing. Eat as you always have and take [this pill] and the weight will melt off." Finally something dawned on me: this is false hope marketed to people who have become hopeless. What is the cost of hope? Apparently it is $1.00 a day for this product. I have seen it much more expensive, but this one plays right into people's emotions. Did I mention that the disclaimer at the bottom listed patients losing 3.8 pounds over an 8-week period. That is LESS than one-half pound a week. Therefore, as consumers, we are willing to pay $7.00 a week (plus shipping and handling) to lose less than one-half pound. Putting this onto perspective, if you need to lose 100 pounds it will take you 4 years and cost $1,460. My guess is you will have given up long before then. People, wake up! Stop drinking Coke for a week, lose 1/2 pound and put $3.50 or more in your pocket.

Weight loss marketing is insanity! Why? Because those of us who have large amounts of weight to lose do not think that we can do it. We NEED someone, something to help us and guide us. It's a lie. There are two ways to lose weight: #1 Eat less or #2 Change the types of food you eat. Period. Diets may work, but very few people have permanent success from them. Look at Kirstie Alley. How many times in the last 25 years has she been fat, thin, fat, thin..... Look at yourself. Is this your cycle? It was mine until I finally gave up on losing weight. I had decided that I was destined to be fat, I liked food too much, and if people didn't like it just leave me alone. I lied. I am not destined to be fat. I made a choice to be fat. My choices were pizza, chips, cookies, ice cream, and the list continues. I liked them. I wanted them. I hid behind them. I made them my life. I am trying to fix that situation.

Recently, the past few weeks, I have been eating a healthier diet. I am cutting out most processed foods. I have been having 3-5 meatless meals each week. I have tried several vegan recipes. Now, I am not becoming a vegan, but I have to admit, the food has been exceptionally good and I have lost weight. My pants are getting loser and my shirts are getting longer. What I have found is, by eating healthy and finding recipes that taste good, my cravings are lessening. A few days ago I ate a handful of potato chips. They are one of my weaknesses and something I craved in the past. They were okay, but not as good as I remembered from a month ago. They felt greasy in my mouth and later that day I had stomach issues that sent me to the bathroom. I know it was the chips. Healthy food is a super hero; it takes away the need for junk.  I know that I will never be a vegetarian in full and someday I know I will have a steak, but I do not have the desire I had a few weeks ago. Earlier today I thought about beef and noodles and while I love them, I thought about how heavy they make my stomach feel and the thought left me.

I guess what I am trying to say is that by not looking at this as a diet and thinking, "when I hit my goal I will have......" that I have been making it a lifestyle. It feels good. It feels right. It feels like I do not need false hope at any price. Think about what foods you love and check out a vegan recipe. There are many on Pinterest. Give it a try. It is a very different mindset, as we tend to plan our meals around the meat. I am going to give you a quick and easy, although NOT a vegan,  recipe for my biggest diet downfall. It will help save me, as it satisfies my cravings and my taste buds. Plus the kids love it. I don't have to eat less, because I am changing how I eat. It seems to be working. Maybe I have found my miracle!

Kelly's Pizza (Kelly is my daughter who is on this quest with me.)

1 whole wheat pita bread per person
spaghetti sauce (We use the 99 cent a can Hunt's Traditional)
lowfat shredded mozzarella cheese (and a small amount of feta cheese for the grown-up's pizza)
mild banana pappers
diced green pepper, onions, mushrooms, olives, anything you like
turkey pepperoni

Spread sauce on pita breads (leave them whole). Sprinkle with cheese, add turkey pepperoni, and top with your favorite veggies. Lots of veggies= being full faster
Spray cookie sheet(s) with Pam. Bake at 400 degrees for 5-10 minutes depending on how crunchy you like the crust. Cool slightly. Cut into each pita into 4 pieces and enjoy!

Thoughtless

How many times do we go on auto pilot and do things that are thoughtless? Sometimes those things make no difference to anyone. Sometimes, however, our thoughtless act is devastating to another person. We may think nothing of it. We may not even realize that we have hurt another person. There are people who are very vocal about their feelings and voice their opinions loudly over hurts that are real or perceived. Yet there are many people who bottle those hurts up inside and push them down as far as they can with the intent of forgetting. Try as they might to forget, some hurts never go away.

I have not decided if empathy is a learned skill or an inherited trait. It seems as though some people have it and use it abundantly while others have it with an on/off switch, and still others do not have it at all. I remember saying to someone once that they should have some empathy for the situation and they scoffed that I wanted them to feel sorry for me. Empathy is not sympathy. Let me say that again. Empathy is not sympathy.

So if empathy is not sympathy then what it is? It is the ability to proactively know what may hurt another person's feelings. It is listening while a friend cries on your shoulder to help work through a problem. It is giving a child a hug because you can tell they need one. It is holding the door open for an elderly person struggling to walk into a store.It is using tact when you have something difficult to say. It is doing the right thing. If you look in a dictionary, it will not give you these definitions. They are mine. But I have thought about this for awhile. It seems that empathy is lacking in our society today. People do not care.

We have become so busy being our own people that we forget that others are people too. We are obsessed with OUR needs, OUR wants, OUR lives. Me, me, me! We say things that are deliberately unkind or even cruel because, well, hey, everyone else does it. We ignore how it may make someone feel. We don't care; we have no empathy.

So, this being said, I am going to challenge myself this week. Between now and next Friday I am going to make a point to (a) say something kind to a stranger, (b) hold a door for someone, (c) call a loved one and let them know I love them, (d) send a card to a nursing home with a note, "Please give this to a resident who receives no mail." It is a world that could be made better if we would take the time to do so. Do you have a challenge for yourself? If so, let us know. Let's make the world a better place this week.

Cliches

This post is dedicated to cliches that really do have an impact on our lives. Well, my life anyway. We all use them. They are something to say when there is nothing else to say. They are words to fill an uncomfortable silence. They are things we say because we know it drives our kids crazy and it is the small amount of payback a mom can get without actually being mean. Hey, they drive us crazy at times, so, well.....

"Hind sight is 20/20" I used to hear this as a kid and think, "what in the heck does that mean?" Now as an adult I know. Having 20/20 vision means you see perfectly. When we look back over our lives we see perfectly what we should have, would have, or could have done to make things better. Problem is, you can't live in the past nor can you change it.

Which leads us to: "Tomorrow is another day." Scarlett O'Hara was right when she said this. Tomorrow is another day to correct any mistakes we made today. However there is a problem with this cliche as well because, "Tomorrow never comes." We put off and say "tomorrow" when we really should be doing and saying "today." Finally one day we wake up and realize that the intentions for tomorrow were thought of 10 years ago and we still have not changed the problem. As for getting healthy, it has been 32 years for me. I know that because my son is now 32 and I have intended to lose weight since he was born. Frankly, my dear, that is a lot of tomorrows.

"Every cloud has a silver lining." Yes it does, only sometimes that lining is lead. Unless you are Superman hiding out from cryptonite, lead is not exactly a great thing for anyone. Sometimes it is just best to accept the disappointment and move on from there. Disappointments are a part of life. We cannot escape them. We must learn to deal with them or succumb to depression or worse. I have my days here and there, but mostly I just keep trudging on.

"All that glitters is not gold." Again, yes that is true. We rush after the glitter and think that it will make our lives better. It is a temporary fix. Gold in itself is soft and weak. You need to mix harder, uglier metals with it to give it strength. That is where the troubles of life come it. They are the ugly that makes the pretty possible.

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." True, but who wants to drink after a horse anyway? Maybe where you have lead someone is not where they are supposed to be. Maybe they need to walk a little on their own to find the right place for a drink.

"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." We think that other people have perfect lives. We see the greener grass but we do not see the dirty dishes, piles of laundry, or sadness that may be hiding behind that green grass. Guess that we really do need to "walk a mile in their shoes" to understand their lives. Empathy, my friend, is a gift that few people have and even fewer people want.

Last,but not least, "People who live in glass houses should not throw stones." You know, this cliche says a lot about life. We need to remember it. We need to employ it. We are all different and we should be. If we were all the same what a boring place Earth would be. Yet instead of accepting our differences and trying to understand them, we judge, ridicule, mock, and outcast those who are different from us. If you are a Christian you should remember that there was only one perfect person who walked this Earth and it was not you or me. If you are not a Christian you should remember this cliche that sums it all up, "Nobody's perfect." Make an effort to accept. I did not say agree; I said accept. Take the journey to make our world a better place. Because....

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." You are on a great journey called life. Make the most of it.

Count Your Blessings

My life has not always been easy. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not complaining at all. However, I have had a little more than my share of bad luck. So much so that several years ago a few of my friends started calling me Job. One of them is also not the world's luckiest person and she once told me that whenever she was really down she thought about my life and it made her realize that things were not so bad. Murphy's Law  may have been written about me. I'm not sure about that but I do have my suspicions.

For example, I have lost almost everything I have owned. Not once, but three times. The first time was through a divorce which left me with my kids, my car, my clothes, and very few of my belongings. At the time everyone advised me to fight for my "stuff." My children were young and that fight hurt them. He was fighting. He was hurting them. I was being a mother. Protection of my children at all cost. Always. Besides, what I lost was material things. My blessings were my children, my sanity, and my peace of mind. I felt blessed and God told me repeatedly that these were just "things", let it go.

The second time was soon after my mother passed away from cancer. I cannot describe the grief I felt during that time. I made a lot of poor choices because my grief was so deep. Within the space of seven months I had lost an uncle, an aunt, my mother, my grandmother, my home, both of my children moved away, and I was involuntarily transferred to a job I did not like at all. My children were far away, but they were healthy and had grown into adults I was proud of. My dad was still with us and I got closer to him than I had ever been. I met a great friend at a new job and I was blessed.

I battled depression for several years, but always managed to keep my head above the water. I met someone who I thought was a perfect fit for me. Turns out he wasn't. This divorce was much easier. No fighting.No kids. But I did lose my home because it was in his name. I did lose my transportation because we shared a car. For awhile I lost my self respect because I was someone who did not believe in divorce and now I was twice divorced. But, you know what, I was blessed. Because I felt so badly I tried to do things to make myself feel better. I did. These things helped me to help a few people along the way. They also made me take stock of my life and do some re-evaluating. It is part of what set me on this journey to be healthier.That choice is a blessing in my life.

So, here is what I know:
I am blessed with two great kids who have become responsible, respectful adults.
I am blessed that they have chosen good spouses.
I am blessed with five absolutely beautiful and loving grandchildren. (I know they love mamaw!)
I am blessed to have a roof over my head. (Many people do not.)
I am blessed to have food on my table. (Many people do not.)
I am blessed to have family that loves me. (And I love them.)
In short, I am blessed and I thank God everyday for those blessings.

I can hear my mom's squeaky voice singing, "Count your blessing name them one by one. Count your blessings see what God has done. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings see what God has done." Thanks, Mom, for teaching me to count my blessings!