A Measure of Success

Yesterday a small miracle occurred: I was able to tuck a shirt into my blue jeans, run one of my favorite old leather belts through the loops, and buckle it!!!!

Not only that, but the buckle fit on the SECOND HOLE!

Lordie! I haven’t been able to get that belt around me in years. Not that one nor any of the other belts that have been hanging in the back of the closet gathering dust for all these past years. And yesterday was the first time in living memory that tucking in a shirt did not make me look like an overstuffed walking sausage.

Couldn’t believe it.

This morning the fat-o-meter broke 138: if you can imagine, 137.8! And that was in spite of yesterday’s greasy restaurant breakfast of twice-fried potatoes and four slices of (apparently undrained) bacon. Thought for sure I’d be up a pound today, not down almost a full pound.

So that leaves a little under three pounds to reach CardioDoc’s expressed goal of 135. I think, however, that I’m going to try to get down to 130, since these elegant measures are being taken the first crack off the bat in the morning. In reality, by the middle of the afternoon, the scale (should I dare to get on it) is running two or three pounds heavier. So it seems reasonable that if one shot for 130 pounds, one’s real-life, mid-day weight would hover around 133–34 pounds.

Yesterday was so cool — only 80 degrees all day long — that I didn’t have to turn on the air conditioning! That will save about $7.20 off the electric bill. The Nest sent its monthly AC power use report, grutching about my having run the contraption 52 hours longer in July than in August. It scolds, too, about my noxious habit of turning the thermostat down at night so as to get more than four hours of sleep (if that much):

• In July, the lowest temperature you set at night was 76°F.
• Top savers in your area like to keep it at 78°F or higher at night.
• Nesters in your state are setting Nest to 78°F or higher at night.

Oh yeah? Well, dear Nest, just because some sheep like to lie in a puddle of sweat all night doesn’t mean they all have to. Grrrrr!

LOL! Lest you think I keep the thermostat at 76 all night, the Nest is programmed to drop from 83 degrees to 78 along about 6:00 p.m.; then to go down to 76 around 10:00 p.m. when I might be expected to go to bed; then rise back up to 78 at 1:00 a.m. — by which time, if I’m not asleep yet, I’m not going to get to sleep at all.

Because the morning was so mild, I ventured to take the first walk around the park since the 21st of June. That’s about a mile and a half, including a short detour through the prettiest part of the neighborhood. Tried to maintain a stately pace, not charging along like a Marine making a run on Tripoli. And it worked: hardly any pain, and no aggravation of what there was. Did it again this morning, and walking actually felt good!

So there’s hope, maybe, for that 130-pound goal.

What hurts, as it develops, is sitting in front of the computer. This morning it occurred to me that when the feet are up on the stool that resides under the desk, it causes me to cantilever back and sit on my tailbone. And the tailbone does hurt. Along with just about everything else.

So the footrest came out and got shoved way across the room.

How lovely it is to stroll around the rich folks’ part of the ’hood!

The corporate lawyer, who favored expensive vacations, once took us to a very swell resort in Santa Barbara, the sort of place the likes of Ronald Reagan would hang out in. We walked all over the residential area around this retreat, and I remember thinking holy mackerel! Just imagine being able to live in a place like this!

Well, amazingly, today I live in a place like that. Right on the fringe of it, actually. Because of the patchy nature of Phoenix’s in-town neighborhoods, it’s possible to buy a middle-class (or lesser) home in an area that abuts a very upscale district, and that’s the nature of my present living arrangement. I look at newer houses — as I was doing online just this morning — plopped in amid the far-flung square miles of homogeneous suburban tracts that have been smeared across the desert, and think i am so lucky to have this pretty little house in a quiet corner of the middle of everything, a block from a beautiful park and a five-minute walk from what is probably the loveliest street in the entire city.

Yes. In addition to the solidly upper-class housing surrounding the park, we have the cutely named Why Worry Lane, a little piece of high-toned Santa Barbara transplanted to West Hell. The entire area is shaded by gorgeous, mature (as in 30 to 50 years old) trees, and because the acreage is irrigated (it all used to be agricultural land), every house has deep, rich lawns front and back. Because the real estate is so expensive, the people who live there are the sort who can afford to maintain it. And maintain it they do: in stately splendor.

Some of these big old spreads are just gorgeous. Walking past them is great entertainment…and getting back to my little house, just a few yards from theirs but eminently less work, less expense, and less of a headache to care for, is a real joy. 🙂

A measure of success in itself.