Visiting Mansfield Park by-way-of my Blog!

So when I started this blog, everyone told me I could cross off #1. on my Cupcake List immediately...but what I have discovered is that Starting My Own Blog is going to be more ongoing than #21 (Make flossing a daily habit)!! I confess to often being frustrated with blogging overall...trying to make the different elements of the blog work has had me banging my head against the desk more than once. "It's never as easy as it looks" has become my motto about blogging in general.

HOWEVER...last night my spectacular fantabulous husband (who, btw, is appalled that I told anyone that he watches Family Guy) helped me add a Library Thing list, a Flickr badge, and a link for Operation Nice AND The Happiness Project! He gets all the praise and my eternal devotion. And now I have a clue how to do these things and hold out hope that perhaps I can figure out how to add a RSS feed all on my own.

Not only have I now made this amazing progress in keeping my blog layout interesting, I received my very first non-friend/family comment! Emily Bouchard at Blended-Families.com left me such a nice sentiment! So she gets my eternal thanks for visiting as well. And suddenly I am inspired to continue once again.

As part of the book I mentioned previously, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (see Happiness Project badge to the left! Ta-Da!), I realized that sometimes the "process" towards increasing our happiness (or completing our Cupcake List) isn't exactly warm & fuzzy.

For example, preparing to run a marathon would be very exhausting, but the actual running of the race and the satisfaction upon its completion would bring a great deal of happiness! An example of my own that is much closer to my heart (since I have no plans to run a marathon---ever) would be #2. Catch up on my reading. Since I have been mickey-mousing around in the months since October, I now have to read SIX books per month from my list to get the first 40 completed by October 8th of this year. So. In an effort to get my behind in gear, I picked up Mansfield Park by Jane Austen on Sunday. After plowing through half of the 430 pages, I can say definitively that this is not going to be my favorite of Jane's novels.

The first problem is that I own the movie version of the novel, which I have loved for years. I (erroneously) assumed that since the movie versions of Persuasion and Sense & Sensibility tracked the novels quite closely, that the other stories would be the same. Not so!!! Which has me all thrown off. But I am enjoying comparing the two versions, and know that even if the reading of it is a bit of work, I will be very pleased when I can check it off of my list and talk intelligently about the storyline.

Perhaps I will have to join the Jane Austen Society so I can debate the merits with like-minded readers! It is honestly amazing that a woman who authored only six books in her lifetime has been the inspiration behind so many spin-off stories. All 6 movies are wonderful and make the novels accessible to the masses, which I fully condone. And then there are the fun movies and novels: The Jane Austen Book Club, Becoming Jane, Lost in Austen, and a few more that I haven't even seen! I'm waiting on someone to make Pride and Prejudice and Zombies into a movie and then my life will officially be complete. (hee hee!) Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Old Books and Old Friends

This week I finished reading Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret? by Judy Blume. I had never read this book as a child, although I had read many other by this author. One of my loveliest and oldest friends offered to read it with me, and we met on Wednesday to chat about it, which made the experience even nicer!

Margaret is about 12, and is struggling with all matters that pre-adolecent girls do, which strikes a cord with me since my step-daughter just turned 12 herself. Margaret's parents are not religious or spiritual in any way, and have left it up to Margaret (supposedly when she gets old enough) to decide which, if any, spiritual path she will choose to follow. Unbeknownst to her parents, however, Margaret does talk with God regularly, about all the things in her life that matter to her. It is a very sweet, and very poignant, example of being able to approach God as a child does...most children don't overcomplicate the issue the way we adults tend to do.

My friend and I both laughed a bit about the drama that befalls a 12 year old girl, thanking God we don't ever have to be 12 again! But the book is all about the innocence of a child, and that IS something that is precious and easily lost with the passage of time.

I undertook another task this week, a simple one, but one that I had forgotten! I printed out my Cupcake List and my Reading List...go figure. It is very helpful to have this information in front of my nose, so as to remember what it is that I'm doing. Seems obvious, yes? I guess not.

Lastly, for the wonderful ones who are reading my bits and thoughts, there is a way at the top of the blog to "FOLLOW", which will (I think) email you my new blog posts as they appear. It would be great if you were interested in doing this!

Off to try to tear my husband away from Family Guy (sigh) and to get ready for bed! What book shall I start next...hummmmm....

Continuing a Blog

It's funny, when I started this Countdown, I knew that it was going to be challenging, but I expected to enjoy every moment, or every other moment, anyway. Instead I am finding that it is bringing out a lot of interesting emotions that wouldn't necessarily be described as enjoyable! For example, I have already mentioned how it has been difficult for me to focus on my reading list. That has been frustrating to me. And I have not actually posted nearly as often as I had originally planned, even though now I am not working full-time, which bothers me a lot. Why haven't I? I had to give that some thought.

I am reading a book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (also NOT on the book list), and I think that I may have gained a small insight into why my enthusiasm has waned a little bit. A) I don't feel like I am doing ENOUGH (whatever enough might be) towards my Countdown...therefore B) I don't have ENOUGH to write about on a regular basis; and C) What if it all sounds dumb anyway?! I really hate to fail...or even have a "perceived" failure.

What a bunch of hooey.

The irony is that I DO have things to write about, (I'll try not to write about them ALL right here)...and even if I'm not the most eloquent of writers, my posts are heartfelt. It is hard to embrace the process, and not focus just on the outcome, but that really is what this whole experiment is about. Not JUST about checking things off a list, but about the challenge of growing as a person. And part of growth is to stop fearing what may or may not be considered "failure", and to simply take something away with me from every experience. I've had some practice at that. And THAT is something I can write about every single day.

Reading at LAST!

Reading at last! I finished The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and Persuasion by Jane Austen. Loved them both. The links provide the story background if you are interested, but suffice to say that for me The Red Tent was very thought-provoking for a girl who grew up in the church, and Austen, well, is lovely...and Persuasion worth reading just for Wentworth's letter towards the end of the story.

I have made inroads on a few other items as well...#9, #11, and #14 are all in the works. I have inquired about the watercolor class (which I can hopefully take in March), plan to start going to yoga tomorrow (!) and have the movie here at the house (thanks, Netflix) which I plan to watch this week! And I have started reading The Beauty Myth, which is already taxing my brain, but is very interesting so far. That one might take me a while to plow through.

I do have to confess that I missed January's breast self-exam. It is one of those things I keep thinking 'I need to do it, I need to do it'....and then time has passed and I haven't done it! Ack! So I will have to either A) add one in there when the months are longer, or B) add a month on to the end of my countdown. But obviously the goal is to get into the habit so that I am doing it beyond the countdown timeframe...duh. Anyway. So I've confessed my failure on that particular item, but I am determined to get February's done!!!! (I have seven more days, right?)

Have a good week!

29. Lose the weight...finally

I just finished a 30 minute walk, and my legs are itchy (from the increased blood flow, I suppose), my lungs are tired, and the toes on my left foot are a bit numb, as they tend to be if my shoe is tied even the littlest bit tight. And I was thinking of just a few years ago, when I ran my first 5k...in wonder that I ever ran that far. It was really a kind-of miracle. And I know I could do it again, eventually, but why is it so hard to START OVER?

I have been struggling with the puzzle of body management vs. self-appreciation for a while now. A woman spends her entire life, or most of it once she hits about 25 anyway, in a massive war to A.)stay in decent shape, and/or B.)love herself the way God made her. We spend our time thinking we need to lose 5/10/50 pounds, or our breasts should be larger, or our thighs should be smaller, or we should be doing more aerobic exercise/weight training/yoga to make our stomachs smaller/bones stronger/bodies more flexible. Is our behind too big in these pants?...Does this dress make our stomach stick out? If we do 50 mores sit-ups every morning will we lose the muffintop? On and on and on....And on. YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN...DON'T YOU!? It is exhausting. I even get tired of listening to myself! And the litany of judgment is there whether you are saying it aloud to your girlfriends or just talking inside your own head.

And of course there is no help in our society...where even supermodels are airbrushed and every movie star is shot in perfect lighting. As the saying goes, 'if we all had personal trainers & personal chefs, we could all be a size 6'. (Mine would have to come drag me out of bed in the morning by my hair, but still.) Although, wonderful Oprah still seems to have a little trouble, so maybe that isn't as true as we think it is! Hummmm....

There is nothing more beautiful than a woman comfortable in her own skin, whether she is a size 2 or a size 22. But how do you achieve that comfort level? And how do you remain comfortable and confident and simultaneously acknowledge that you need to make some positive changes? It seems those two things are directly at odds with one another. I don't need to have the body I had a 21 to feel good about myself, but I need something....something more than what I currently have. Is that something the confidence to accept that time leaves its mark on us all? Or is that something a tummy tuck? Probably something in the middle? Probably.

So this is the beginning of the end of my battle to try to figure out how to accept my body and appreciate it the way it deserves (it does, after all, get me around pretty well), and at the same time try to bend it to my will in an effort to finally lose some weight and get a bit more fit before 40. I am determined to make my peace with this issue. (Feel free to pipe up with your thoughts, please.) So to start I will do the hardest thing of all. BEGIN.

(And then tomorrow: BEGIN AGAIN.)

What to Read

I love to read. Love, Love, LOVE. Love it at least as much as I love birthdays. Wanting to read isn't my problem. Wanting to read the list of books I've given myself IS. Or rather, wanting to read Persuasion more than I want to read the new Laurell K. Hamilton. I can't seem to focus on my list...instead I keep bringing all these sci-fi fantasy books home from the library--say, 6-8 at a time, and devouring them immediately, one after the other. Very gratifying from an entertainment perspective, but a bit off task.

And the irony is that I really do want to read the books on my list. The thing is, they are, well, work. As opposed to the others, which are really my version of mindless television. So I guess the bottom line is that maybe I am a little bit lazy? Anyway, any suggestions on how I can get more involved in my reading list (which, by the way, I expected to be one of the EASIER items to accomplish on my list...yikesy!), would be greatly appreciated.

Happy New Year!

So I expected that the combination of work, work, work and the holiday excitement would postpone my blogging, and I was correct.

Now that work is over, and Christmas has passed in all its Christmasy-glory, and the ball has officially dropped on the New Year (not to mention I have caught up on my sleep for about a week), I'm ready to resume the Countdown!

I have accomplished a few things since my last post...I have completed two Breast Self-Exams (one for November and one for December, as evidenced by the little pink ribbons at the bottom of this post~so right on schedule there), and I finished reading The Story of My Life by Helen Keller. (Very good book, and a nice short read.)

And I figured out who one of my heros is, two actually. After hosting 11 people at my house for Christmas Day, including breakfast AND Christmas Lunch (yes, that is lunch with a capital "L"), it is obvious that my Mom and my Aunt Ginna have attained heroine status in my eyes. Both of them entertain beautifully and make it look like a snap...which I knew it was not, but knowing in theory, and KNOWING in practice are two totally different things! So thanks to the two of them for all the many wonderful meals that they have hosted over my lifetime. And here's to hoping that I will be a bit more prepared next time around.

Now with a fresh new year at my disposal, I'm on to another countdown challenge. Best wishes for a wonderful 2010.