Tonight was the annual Winter Concert and Christmas Tree auction. The local PTA auctions off small trees that the various grades sponsor and put items into.

Last year I won several, the year before two, I spent entirely too much money on them in the past, but it’s such a good fundraiser for the school and the PTA. As few volunteers as our PTA gets, it’s worth it to me.

This year, I ended up with one tree. No big theme, it came with cute ornaments, wrapping paper (six rolls) and is really just adorable. I bid on the Star Wars tree, but as I really don’t need it I stopped at $65. Last I saw it was up to $80.

My sister, Katie, also goes and bids on the trees. She’s as competitive as I am so we end up not bidding on the same trees.  One year my Mom and I ended up bidding up a tree we both wanted to $100. Yeah, I paid (of course I won, competitive) $100 for the tree.

It was pretty awesome though as it was a tree themed with the high schools’ colors and mascots. I gave the shirts on it to the kids and kept the scarf that was the tree skirt.

Along with the auction, the concert is always so much fun. The little kids are so much fun with how into they get. Coren was in the youngest group and that boy is a ham. At one point during the song instead of following the actual movements, he ended up dabbing.

I was done. I started giggling and had to cover my head. He’s too much.

I’m almost out of major Christmas related activities in town. There is the house tour this weekend, but I do not cover it (houses aren’t typically handicap accessible and neither is the town trolley that takes people to it.)

I have the just outside of town fire department’s installation Saturday night, Town Council Saturday morning. Art Walk Friday evening (we do a second Friday art walk here because the next town over has there’s First Friday.)

Oh, I have a meeting Friday morning. Almost forgot about that.

All evening I have been thinking that I am forgetting something I am supposed to do tomorrow. It still isn’t coming to me, but hopefully, I’ll remember before it happens.

I really think it might be those council meetings used to be held on this Thursday of the month that is still pinging in my brain. Who knows? It’s been a busy week.

The tree is up. It has no lights or ornaments, but it is standing in the living room fully fluffed. I bought a new one this year because the old one was bent and crooked.

That son of a bitch took out a bunch of my ornaments last year. Of course it wasn’t the cheap ones, no the old collectable Star Wars ones.

Our new tree is 7.5 foot tall and big across. It takes p way more room than the old one and actually fits the space much better. In fact it is big enough that I think the kitchen tree will remain in its box this year.

Yeah, I normally put up multiple trees. Weird as I’m not even all that into Christmas, but I love the lights. They are one of the few things that keep me going through the darkness of winter.

I have 900 lights for the tree this year. 300 red, 300 green, 300 blue. They go with the Star Wars theme as seriously our house is more decorated for StarWarsmas than Christmas.

Everything is Star Wars, ornaments, lights, inflatables for the yard, stockings, all of it. It’s ridiculous, but it makes us happy. Or happier than we would be without them.

Christmas this year is odd. It will be the first Christmas with Tony’s Dad being gone. We lost him in April to the lung cancer that was discovered in 2015.

Grief is still palpable in all of us. There is no way to escape it, we just keep on one step in front of the other.

So, tomorrow the lights will go up, the ornaments will come out of their boxes, the C3PO and R2D2 lights will be draped across the mantle. I’ll pull them out, put them up, in hopes of making things just a tiny bit easier for Tony.

Now, it’s time to go cuddle up with him. He leaves for a business trip in the morning. Just a couple days this time and not far away, but not in my bed which is too far for me.

Try number three. Two entries have disappeared tonight as they aren’t what I want to say.

So, number three went straight to the diet thing. Hmm, let’s try something. The top of the page will focus on other stuff. I’ll delineate when I get to the weight loss stuff.

Deal?

Today was good. It was a busy day, but most are this time of year. I did realize I really need to get on Christmas shopping, as we’re three weeks away and I have done squat.

Seriously, I have like two things for Tony. That’s it.

I mean a lot of it just comes down to money. You need it to actually buy Christmas gifts and we just don’t have much. Both working our asses off with little to show for it.

Oh, I lied, I do have my bestie’s present bought.

Yeah, I need to get on the ball.

I also need to get my tree up, my lights outside in place, and my house back from the edge. It looks like a tip and I’m just too busy to deal with it.

It’ll happen soon. I need the lights on the tree to make me happy. They are the only thing that get me through the darkness that is this time of year.

Soon.

Soon.

For now it is late, I have other things I need to do. Good night, dear readers. <3

Weight loss talk lives below.

I’m dwelling on politics because that’s who I am. My brain is fixated on this weight loss journey, thing, diet, lifestyle change, whatever you want to call it.

It’s tough. You have to eat or you die. So, I obsess.

Calorie counts, food weights, what can I eat that fits today’s goals.  It gets quite ridiculous and I am settling in to eating the same foods over and over.

I know the calorie counts for them. One cup of chopped broccoli is 31 calories. One slice of that lunch meat is 10 calories. A clementine averages 37.

Romaine is five calories a cup. That salad dressing is 15 calories, this one is 120.

See, it becomes an obsession and a compulsion. This happens with anything my mind focuses on for too long.

This is a good obsession, I know what I’m going to eat, I save calories if I want to eat something in particular (like food at last night’s gospel sing. I saved calories because Church Ladies make the best damn food.)

I’m exercising. Chair aerobics and dancing. Light weight lifting. Stretching. Things I can do without making the lymphedema angry.  60 minutes today.

I’m using My Fitness Pal to track everything. It’s okay, although it way overestimates the number of calories burned from exercise. It makes me thing before I put food in my mouth.

First it has to be logged before I take a bite. No logging, no food.

It makes me pause and think before I grab that piece of bread or buy those potato chips.

Last night, my body beat out my mind at the grocery store. No chips at all. I haven’t had a potato chip in quite some time. In fact, I’m thinking it was October the last time I had even one.

For a carb junkie who things potato chips are their own food group, this is huge progress. I mean I love chips so much that even though I am not religious I give them up for Lent every year.

Maybe, I won’t need to come Ash Wednesday this coming year.

I know this line of writing is boring for most people. No one wants to read about someone else’s weight struggles, but this is where I am. I am fighting to feel better. I am fighting to be better.

It will get better. It will get easier. Eventually there will be a different focus in my brain, for now, I am what I eat, or didn’t eat. I’m going to keep at it.

It has been a long day. No, a long weekend.

The first weekend of December is all the Christmas stuff that Colonial Beach can throw at you. Parades and Santa and lights and Ho fucking ho. I’m tired.

I love it all, don’t get me wrong. There is something about small-town festivals that I adore. Kids running around. People dressed like elves.

Girl Scouts on a float covered in sparkly snowflakes. The Boy Scouts marching with the color guard. I love it all.

I just wish it stretched out over more time.

Tonight was the 19th anniversary of a local gospel group and they had a big gospel sing. While a gospel sing is the last place you would expect to find me, I was there.

All the groups that participate in this are fantastic, but again, too much in one weekend.

I’m ready for bed.

Night.

It’s late, really late.

Today has been an extremely busy day. Three parades, Santa Claus, adorable children, a fall, driving two-plus hours, now bed.

Seriously, that was my whole day.

I’m tired. I’m sore. I’m ready for the comfort of my pillows.

However, I refuse to give up on day two this year. I’ve promised myself a beautiful lipstick if I write 20 out of 31 days. I really want that lipstick.

So, the fall. It seems that I will never be graceful. As I was crutching from my scooter to our stairs (gimp scooter, no ramp, you do the math) I fell.

Hard.

I landed in an odd position with my head pointed down the hill that is our front yard. I slowly checked all my bones, my arm, my hip. There seemed to be no breaks.

I slowly gathered all my crap. Two cameras, a recorder, my basket full of various items that flew everywhere and set it all to the side. Then contemplation over how I was actually going to get off the ground.

You see being gimpy with lymphedema and fat and having muscle issues with my legs makes getting up from a fall difficult. I moved the gimp scooter, or scooter of whee if you are from my KoL friends, beside me, spun around, and got up.

Hmm, not easy, my right leg still doesn’t bend all the way, probably never will again. But, it was easier than when I fell in my laundry room 75 pounds ago.

So while I can barely see it on my face, can feel it a bit in my clothes, I can feel it a lot when I’m trying to get off the ground. Hell yeah.

This isn’t without some shame and feeling like I’m giving up on fat acceptance and that community. I worry that I am doing harm by doing this.

I have been a strong supporter of fat acceptance. Not necessarily health at every/any size as I believe in science and fat does have health effects for many us.

When I am counting calories and working my ass off exercising I feel guilt. Then, I think about how hard it is on my muscles that are screwed up, how hard it is on my lymphedema to have all the extra weight, how much I just want to feel better and it’s worth it.

I’ll never be skinny. It’s not going to happen. I have lipedema which causes fat gain, mainly in the lower body, and is pretty much impossible to get rid of, so there will always be that.

I want to keep working on this though. I want to be healthier. I want to be stronger. I want to feel better.

I’m 42 years old. It is well past time to take care of myself. We talk about self-care a lot in the circles I run in, yet so often I don’t take care of myself first. Everyone else comes before me.

That doesn’t work any longer. I have to come first.

It’s time.