How did you spend your day off for honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.? I participated in the Tarrant Churches Together work day. I and members of my church, and folks from lots of a variety of churches in the county. Some people worked outside cleaning up areas. Others worked inside.
(From my friend Susan Bernhardt on FB.)
I was grateful for an inside assignment because the day started with a continuation of the fog of Sunday—some of the soupiest fog I’ve ever experienced. It lasted the entire Sunday until the vicious thunderstorms hit our area.
![img_4935]()
But Monday, God smiled on our area. The fog burned off quickly. After a great ecumenical church service at Baker Chapel, AME Church we set off to an Eastside care center where we spent the morning singing, (hardly had any voice left afterwards) painting nails, and playing games. ![img_4938]()
But Monday, God smiled on our area.
Besides members from our church, there was a group from one of the Harmony Charter Schools.These were some of the most caring and fun folks. They were so good with the elderly women. Even the guys painted the women’s nails. Did a better job than I would have. The seniors can’t graduate until they’ve been accepted to a 4-year college. Talk about having high standards!
Our church has participated in this activity before, but this was my first experience. I didn’t stay for the lunch where they’d intentionally put different folks together, important to do this. All the different colored table cloths were cheerful. I’ve found I wear out with a lot of personal interaction. Since retiring, I’m apparently letting my introverted self, have more sway. I’ll go back next year for sure.
Weight Loss Updates: It was disconcerting to have FB show me that on Jan. 16 two years ago, I did my first day on Nutrisystem. Six months later I’d lost 28 lbs. I documented that loss on my blog. When I decided that I couldn’t eat the packaged food the rest of my life, I stopped using the Nutrisystem food. Surely, I’d learned my lesson about quantities. Well, no. I regained about 10 lbs. But still I felt good about myself and how I was handling food. Then another 5 lbs climbed back on and then I broke my ankle. Yikes! I documented that experience here, too.
So I started over December 14 and over the next couple of weeks lost 6 lbs. But then holidays hit. I tried eating fresh cooked food. As heathy as that is, if you eat too much of it, it’s too much. In November when I went Gluten Free, I took that to mean I could eat all the chips I wanted. Hey, they were GF. It said so right on the sack!
And then I started over again. (Thank God, I can start over!) I’m 5 lbs below where I was when I began Nutrisystem 2 years ago. I celebrate that. I could’ve regained all of it and more. Tuesday morning the scale died. Need to replace the battery. My system of weighing every day and writing down the weight and what I eat, only works if I right down what I eat. DUH!
This morning’s paper had an interesting article about weight bashing, which is a sport in this country. The author pointed out how damaging this is to young children and how girls pick up the bad image thing from their moms. Here is my public apology to my daughters for bad-mouthing my body when I weighed 115 lbs. I should’ve been celebrating that. My older daughter recently reminded me of this time. I don’t doubt that my actions have contributed to the issues they have. Please, girls, know that you are both beautiful inside and out, and the lbs on the scale do not measure your worth. Continue being active and eating healthily, but love the beautiful selves you are.
Book Updates: I’m zipping along well with ACT OF BETRAYAL. As of Tuesday, I was at 27,702 words. Heading to 75 or so. This is almost entirely dialogue. Will have a lot to fill in, but I like how it’s coming. Need more conflict between H & H, but that can happen in rewrites if I don’t show it before.
Looooong post. Sorry. Guess this comes from not writing much of my own ideas last week. LOL
How are you doing on those January resolutions/goals? How are you with your self-concept? How did you honor MLK on Monday or all year long? Love to hear from you.
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