Hippie woo woo

Wow, a somewhat consistent posting schedule! Maybe.

First, a quick update on the bellydance coverup. It's in time out. I was trying to be a good little dancer and affix rhinestones to my new garment. And I MELTED A BIG HOLE in the damn thing. On the front. There is no getting around this. It'll get a patch, but only when I can look at it without glaring.

Now, onto the main point of this post. I've been chipping away at the goals I've made for this quarter, and I'm going to try a slightly different tack for the weight loss one. I've been making it to the gym fairly regularly, and have added a second bellydance class, and have been cutting the carbs down. Through all of this, I have not lost any weight. It's really quite irritating. I'm doing everything right (or well), and my body is just hanging on to the pounds, despite the fact that this has never been a stable weight for me in the past-I've always been able to gain and lose fairly easily through this particular weight (there are known stable points about 10 lbs. heavier and 15 lbs. lighter than where I am). I was complaining about it to my dad, when he recommended that I might consider trying something that a business friend of his did. It's called NAET, which stands for Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Technique. Trolling the internet, I've seen fairly mixed reviews, so I'd like to toss my hat in the ring on this--I'll let you know how it works.

The concept is this: your body is exposed to allergens (food, environmental, and emotional) every day, and this treatment works to re-program your body to recognize harmless substances as such. However, the definition of "allergen" is a bit broader--it also includes things that might not be tested in an allergist's office (that is, it wouldn't elicit an immune response), and your body might respond in different ways. For instance, with a grain allergy, you might not be celiac, but you might not process the grain very well. Because of this, your body might hold on to fat, or become bloated, in an effort to hang on to the energy it *can* use, and protect you from something it thinks is a poison. This enters into hippie woo-woo medicine, because they address emotional crap as well. (Though I may have a lot of work that could be done there....)

It sounds intriguing, and I'm willing to give it a whirl. It's not solely for weight loss..in fact, most of the folks in this area seem to specialize in skin problems, and chronic upper respiratory ailments--symptoms you would associate with traditional allergies. As far as I know. I don't have any food allergies, but I do have a few environmental ones: something metal, aspirin, poison ivy, and an ingredient in hair dye. My first appointment is Thursday. I'll let you know what I find out

I spent a bit of time this weekend sewing (no pictures yet, sorry!), and I had a little bit of an epiphany about color. I purchased this particular fabric a couple of years ago when I was at a conference outside of San Francisco. At the time, I loved the fabric. I thought it was interesting, and nuanced, and I thought it would make a great cover-up for my various bellydancing exploits. Over time, that love faded, until I was left with "what the hell was I thinking?" So it sat, while I avoided looking at it.

In the spirit of fulfilling some of those New Year's resolutions, I pulled it out with the idea of sewing it up just to get it out of the closet. I mean, it's a cover up. Not a fashion statement. I cut the pattern out, set to work, and tried it on in a half-finished state, just to get an idea of what it would look like. Now, I'm hopelessly IN LOVE with this garment. It makes my skin light up, it's elegant, I can already SEE how wonderful this garment is going to be. I saved the scraps (there weren't many)...I will need a tank top out of this. I NEED this fabric in my every day life. This coming from a person who doesn't need much in the way of polyester satin.

The entire exercise threw everything I'd read about color theory and skin tone into sharp relief. It's not a color I'd normally included in my shopping excursions. I definitely will in the future!

Resolved

Ah yes...it's the New Year, and that means another attempt to get this poor, abandoned blog up and running with some semblance of regularity, to say nothing of a cohesive theme and all that. All in all, though, I don't feel too guilty. 2010 was a pretty good year. There were some disappointments, but I learned a lot, and feel like I've come out ahead, in the end. It's certainly not one of those years where I'd say "good riddance!" and do my best to shoot the year in the ass as it walked into the history books (see: 2001, 2008).

If I had to give 2010 a name, it would have been the Year of the Plan. I think I learned a lot about planning for the goals in my life and I saw the success of some of them. Some plans failed to materialize the way I envisioned, as well, and I think I learned how to better plan because of them. Back in September, I was reading a book about goal setting, and one of the statements the author made was that people tend to overestimate what they can accomplish in one day, and underestimate what they can accomplish in three months. He added that a year was too long of a time frame for most people to think about, and led to procrastination. With all this in mind, I made a bunch of goals for the last quarter of 2010. I accomplished a few, made progress on a few, and didn't even get to some. All in all, though, it ended up being very helpful for me. So, in the spirit of accountability, I'd like to share my goals for Q1 2011:

Physical/body goal: Lose 10 lbs
To accomplish this, I will continue doing WW, but will also modify it slightly and lower my carb intake. I'm starting to notice that my carb intake is inversely proportional to my mood. And I like being in a good mood. I'm also going to add a second dance class and keep up my gym attendance.

Career: Finish a draft of the alpha-pinene paper aka The Thesis
Seriously. This damn thing follows me around like Marley's ghost. It's time to scratch it off the list.

Social/emotional: meet more people
This one's a continual challenge: find more single people to hang out with. All my married/committed friends are wonderful, but I am the third wheel on some occasions. I'm thinking about seeking out a singles group of some stripe to make this happen.

Creative--lots of goals
I want to move sewing back up to the front. There's dance costumes that need making, street clothing that needs making, and all number of smaller things I need to finish. I have a long-promised Spaceman that WILL get out of my closet this quarter, and you can pretty much shoot in any direction in my stash closet and hit a sewing project in some stage of completion. It'll be like spring cleaning, but for finishing. I also want to read more--so I'll add that I want to finish 3 books, too. Finally, writing. I want to write a bit more. I write for my job, so I tend to get all my word-smithing Joneses met that way, but the net result is that my own work doesn't get attention (see: Thesis). So I've taken some steps to build a space for that, and wish to post something here every other week. (at least) We'll see how it goes.

What about you? What did you learn in 2010? Any plans for 2011?

Whew! That's everything. For this quarter.