i'm good!

did i tell you about the promotion?  unrealistic!  unbelievable!  4ish months ago.  and get this - i'm freakin' happy with it.  i have independence. my own lovely office with a view. responsibility and respect. room to be innovative.  and most importantly an opportunity to do good.  to help people. to have more involved relationships with staffstudentsfaculty.  freakin unbelievable.  somebody pinch me. i've been so nervous that it was a dream. 

there real;y isn't much else to my life now. except of course the cutie. he hasn't been well actually. spent a couple weeks in the hospital last month which was scary.  and difficult. and sad. its hard to see him so uncomfortable 24  7.   all we can do is pray for a medical miracle.  go stem cell research! 

well as i type i realize there's few more things to report. but now that i have my first real job and all, i must admit i have more to lose in regards to my anonmyity.  wouldn't want to give away too many details that could be traced to me.  for my few old friends, perhaps i ought to come clean and start a brand new, clean cut blog.  of course, not nearly as much fun.... but..... i do miss writing.... such a dilemna

and how are you all?

happy holidays.

i miss you

 

some progress

Big promotion. now in a field that makes sense for me, is meaningful, is challenging, and sufficiently impressive. went to a conference in chicago this last week. 

but he's still sick.  he went off his meds and is slipping.  there was an incident yesterday and it was ugly.

i was so fulfilled and excited on my way home. and now today, everything is again gray.

tomorrow back to work.  i don't want to go.

feeling awesome today.  unfortunately have to go back to work tomorrow after 2 heavenly work/stress/anxiety/irritation free weeks of hanging out at home.  started a new weekend grad class in multicult ed and its FABULOUS. the intellectual stimulation is a joyous experience that fills me with hopefulness.  if i can knock out this Masters in the next year, i think i'll have many more options in life, which is something that keeps me hanging on. 

Healthy Delivery Food in NY?

www.OrganicDirect.com

- New York and New Jersy Organic Food Delivery! Buy direct and save. Free delivery*. (Brooklyn, NY)

Snowbird Natural Organic Foods

- Free Shop At Home Service With Free Delivery (New Rochelle, NY)

Organique

- Gourmet Foods for Health, Convenience, Indulgence (New York, NY)

• Farm Share Ltd

- Home Delivery of CSA Shares in Westchester, NY. (Larchmont, NY)

• The Full Plate Farm Collective

- 3 Farm Collective CSA. (Spencer, NY)

• Bogo Food

- BOGOFOOD sells directly to you, so you always enjoy below-retail prices. (BRIDGEHAMPTON, NY)

• Organic Roots Cafe

- Organic shop serving organic sandwiches, salads, Catering platters, & Organic Drinks. (East Greenbush, NY)

• Will's Macrobiotic Services

- Will's Macrobiotic Services. (Glen Head, NY)

• High Peaks Java

- High Peaks Java. (Glens Falls, NY)

• Garden Gate

- Home Delivery of Local Gourmet and Staple Foods. (Ithaca, NY)

• Zen Pavilion

- Zen Pavilion--Oriental Vegetarian Cuisine. (Little Neck, NY)

• Two Peas In A Pod, LLC

- Personal Chef & In-Home Catering. (New York, NY)

• The Organic Grill

- Organic Vegetarian Restaurant in East Village New York. (New York, NY)

• Lynda's Eat Well and Be Well Vegetarian Kitchen

- Healthy Organic Vegetarian Meals Delivered to Nassau and Suffolk. (Oakdale, NY)

• 1844 House An American Bistro

- Fine American Regional Cuisine with an emphasis on fresh local vegetables, meats, & cheeses.. (Potsdam, NY)

• Teri's Dairy -- Organic Home Delivery

- Teri's Dairy- certified organic beef and other local organic foods.. (Savannah, NY)

• The Hudson Milk Co., Inc.

- Organic Milk Delivery. (shrub oak, NY)

• Chef Organic

- Organic Private Chef Long Island, New York City and Upstate NY. (Southampton, NY)

• Vanda Azevedo

- Organic Personal Chef Service. (Westbury, NY)

Pat Lyons and I wrote the book, Great Shape: The First Fitness Guide for Women in 1988.  Since then, the interest in the topic and the resources available to large women have grown exponentially. 

Large women are not morally obligated to exercise. Rather, we should have the right to pleasurable and safe physical activity. Joyful play and feeling competent in your own skin help you feel safe and healthy, combat stress and depression, and resolve many common physical problems.

Many barriers still exist when large women try to become more active.  They include

• less accessible clothing (although thankfully this is changing),
• activities paced for lighter bodies,
• possible public ridicule or hostility,
• a lack of safe public spaces (especially in the evening when many women who work during the day could exercise),
• lack of time,
• lack of money,
• lack of motivation to spend time on oneself,
• the diet-and-exercise mentality many of us are still haunted by, 
• the diet-and-exercise mentality of other people exercising around us,
• nasty memories of PE
• the possibility that we don't have movement skills because we have spent our lives avoiding it.

Moreover, when our exercise schedule gets disrupted (as it does with everyone) because of deadlines, sick kids, injury, illness, etc., it can be harder to get back into the groove because 

• we are moving more weight and so it feels harder to move after being sedentary,
• we are vulnerable to feeling like our inactive selves are our "real" selves because of the "fat and lazy" stereotype,
• we are vulnerable to feeling that this disruption means we must lack will-power because of the "fat and out of control" stereotype,
• if what got in the way of your exercise schedule was another person's need for you, you might feel it is being selfish to exercise.

A BodyPositive approach has the goal of integrating movement into your life for the rest of your life.  If you look at it as a very long-term process, in which you never "arrive," you begin to care about how it feels day-to-day, and how to develop the skills to keep coming back.  It is more like learning a foreign language: 

• At first it seems pretty difficult and there's more effort and self-consciousness, but there still can be fun aspects to it.  
• It takes a long time and a lot more effort than our quick-fix culture prepares you for.
• Later when you've wrestled with it for awhile, you begin to notice more effortless moments. 
• If you get out of practice, you can feel overwhelmed at the thought of coming back, but once you do it, you are surprised at how much comes back easily.
• When you've become fluent you can hardly imagine your life without it.

A long-term approach means you have to pay attention to

• your body's hunger to move (get in touch with it! Give it a name! Write a haiku about it!) 
• what you find pleasurable about movement (being with other people? being alone? moving to music? to quiet? in water? on land? vigorously? gently?)
• the blossoming athletic identity within you ("when it's not raining, she's gonna be outside, that's just how she is").

Want to be

fun
happy
creative
wild
spontaneous
loving
positive
inspiring
thoughtful
open
good

i'm like a regular, boring dude now.  plain.  average.  status quo.
i used to be bohemian.
funky. abstract. weird. a free spirit. 
now i am capitalist cog in the wheel. 
i wonder if i'll go back or continue in this path until death. 
its weird to change who i am. 
my brain is caught in the middle.