That Four Letter Word

I wish I could say this is a 3-day weekend for me. However, inasmuch as Trainer never takes a day off for holidays but instead keeps his AM appointments, then takes the afternoon off, looks like Monday 11:30 will be business as usual for me.

Feeling energetic after Friday’s workout, I had plans for this weekend, starting with steam cleaning the kitchen tile yesterday, as soon as I returned from the Pain Cave, shampooing the carpet today.

After the kitchen tiles were done, I headed out to use the little hand vacuum on the car in hopes of finding a eyebrow pencil I’d lost in the car, and the rubber tip to that walking cane which somehow had fallen off while in the car.

I found neither object but, as I stepped away from the car to head back upstairs, I saw one of the residents in another building had been watching me. Let’s call her "Lu".

Lu approached with a worried look on her face and asked if I was okay.

After saying "Yes, I was just cleaning out the car" she called me a four letter word I’ve not had spoken to me in more years than I can recall.

She said I was looking "thin", seemingly had lost weight overnight since she last saw me at bingo a few weeks ago.

I understood her concern because, when we see others around here suddenly losing weight, it’s generally a sign of illness.

So that’s why Painted Rock Lady was staring at me so strangely last time I saw her, thought I. PRL had stared intently at me without giving me her usual greeting, and I’d wondered what was up with her.

I didn’t know my recent weight loss was that noticeable, and it’s not like I was even trying to lose weight.

What happened was, my last blood test didn’t look good. My cholesterol and other numbers were so alarmingly high that I was shocked to still be alive. I’d been a dead woman walking, on the verge of a stroke or dropping dead.

Looking for a way to get the numbers down without medication, 37 days ago, I’d signed onto an app (MyFitnessPal) that made it easy for me to track not calories, but Carbs, Sodium, Sugar (CSS), and I began building meals around low glycemic foods and tracking my intake in the app so that I did not exceed my daily intake level.

Losing weight seems to be a byproduct of watching my numbers because, in those 37 days, I’ve lost 21 pounds and, as Lu said I was looking "thin", on the verge of being "too thin" she said, evidently I’m losing inches as well.

Though the carpet cleaner is out of storage, sitting across the room staring me in the face, the energy I felt yesterday is alluding me today, so maybe I’ll get around to that project tomorrow.

Today, I was off on a tangent due to having seen an episode of Food Network’s Summer Baking Challenge a few days ago that stayed with me.

The bakers were challenged with making smores and, as they baked, they spoke to the camera of how they grew up camping, making smores in the great outdoors and making smores while camping in the back yard or on the beach.

It occurred to me that I’ve never done either of those — camping or having eaten a smore, never even saw a smore up close and personal.

When I was dating the cop that I eventually married, I do recall his coming over one day to say "We’re going camping".

He’d spent something like $600 on camping equipment — tent, sleeping bags, clothing for me, and miscellaneous other stuff but, when I realized "camping" meant sleeping outdoors where there are bugs, insects, I wasn't down with it.

The only way he could have gotten me out camping was to rent one of those vans with a toilet and shower. I would have been willing to bend on the van being equipped with a television and kitchen, as I could have lived without a TV and a kitchen if HE did all the cooking over the fire pit.

Needless to say, we never went camping ………… ever.

As for smores — seeing the ingredients are all things I’ve eaten separately (graham cracker, chocolate, marshmallow) but not together, I became interesting in experiencing what the big deal was all about.

Before I’d gotten started on yesterday’s kitchen tile project, I first popped into the market for ingredients, but ran into a roadblock when I realized graham crackers and marshmallows had ingredients that would send my gut issues spiralizing out of control (whole wheat, modified food starch, high fructose corn syrup, soybean, et al.), so I began looking for gluten free ingredients, of which the market had none.

But at least the market was quiet.

For the last two weeks the market had been hosting two different charities. Nice gesture but did you have to shout WOO HOO!!!! every single time someone made a donation?

Being subjected to this every single time I popped into the market for two weeks straight was incredibly annoying, had me hearing WOO HOO!!!! in my head even when I wasn't in the market. Even caught myself yelling WOO HOO!!! out loud to myself, like a crazy woman, for no reason.

Just typing this out is bringing back the memory and I'm hearing WOO HOO!! right now.

It was a traumatizing two weeks.

So, anyway, not in the mood to run the carpet cleaner today, I instead checked two more markets for smore ingredients I could work with, and even drove to Wally World but, not able to find any gluten free graham crackers or marshmallows, looks like I’ll have to order everything online, fit smores into my CSS intake next weekend.