5 Tips for Newbie Hikers & Campers

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's been a while... So what? Life happens but I'm back in full force. Check out my latest blog post especially if you are interested in hiking or camping but aren't quite sure how to delve into either of the two. There are some irons in the fire so check back often for new posts. As always, thanks for following!

Click Here to Read My Latest Blog Guest Post

Happy Groundhogs Day

So the little guy saw his shadow so I'm pretty sure that means the Ravens are going to win the Super Bowl!...

Taking a cue from a dear friend, my husband and I roll Christmas and Valentine's Day into one glorious evening celebrated on whatever day Groundhog's Day falls on.  It's brilliant really.  There is non of the stress of Christmas or the pressure of Valentine's Day.  We always go to our favorite restaurant which, to us, is like having dinner at a dear friend's house.

That favorite restaurant of ours is a Nepalese place is Mount Vernon in Baltimore called Kumari.  The service is extremely friendly, the food is scrumptious and the atmosphere is cozy and exotic. 

They have some wonderful art on the wall representing Nepal and Buddhist culture and for years my husband has been urging me to do a painting to give to them for their collection.

I love painting landscapes and thought that a mountain scene would go wonderfully with the other art in their collection.

The mountains are part of the Annapurna- a section of the Himalayas in Nepal.  "Annapurna" is a Sanskrit name which literally means "full of food" but is typically translated to mean "Goddess of the Harvests" and has an association with Lakshmi- the Hindu goddess of Wealth.  Of course I thought this an appropriate depiction for a restaurant and deserving of a lovely gilt frame.

This is what I came up with.  It is an oil on canvas based on an image I found on the internet.  I really loved the color harmonies and the inclusion of some buildings.  They were pretty ecstatic!  What a wonderful way to celebrate Groundhog's Day.

It has been a while!

What a roller coaster ride the past two months have been.  The social season has finally passed and life is returning to normal.

The holidays of course brought holiday indulgences and stress and another nasty cold.  When all was said and done, I woke up one morning after New Years and reluctantly got on the scale.  I knew that my pants were feeling a bit tight and when I looked in the mirror my face seemed bloated.  Yuck!  I, unfortunately, was not surprised when I saw that I was a tad over 150 lbs.  After my wedding-- when I was working out like CRAZY-- I dropped down to about 140lbs. but then I settled into being about 145 lbs.

Like many folks, my New Years Resolution was to lose weight and get in shape.  My very supportive husband also resolved to join me in re-finding our healthy lifestyle.

We've been using myfitnesspal to count calories and are on a very aggressive weight loss plan.  I've been trying to stick to between 1200 and 1300 net calories a day... which is crazy difficult!  The days that I do the best on my diet are the days that I work out and burn more calories so I have more calories to "spend".  We have also resolved to not eat out, not eat fried food and not drink alcohol.  We have a few cheat days planned so that we have something to look forward to.  I find that we are less likely to cheat on our non-cheat days if we can say to each other, "Listen... we gotta stick to this healthy stuff so Saturday night we can have a meal out!"  So far it is working really well and we are saving a lot of money by not getting carry out, going to the diner or picking up a sixer on the way home.

It's always slow-going when you are trying to lose weight-- it's much easier gained than lost-- but I am seeing some results.  In the past when I have not been so food-conscious I would see huge fluctuations on the scale day-to-day.  Now I've stabilized in the mid-140's.  My short-term goal is to lose 5 lbs. and keep it off.  I also would like to get stronger and be able to do a pull up...

Coming up this week:    A full work week at the theater, date night, then coming up with some healthy-ish snacks for a Super Bowl on Sunday!

Small Changes, Big Payoffs

Family and friends that have known me for a long time know that I have always struggled with health and fitness.  As a child I had a lot of poor eating habits that were passed down from my parents.  I was that chunky kid that the other kids made fun of in elementary school.  I can't tell you how many recesses were spent indoors because I couldn't run with the other kids or I was too worried about being made fun of for one thing or the other- because in addition to being overweight, I was also the tallest kid in class and accentuated all of this by occassional cross-dressing and other bizarre outfits. My two favorite closets to raid for hand-me-downs were my dad's and my grandma's...

Puberty hit, and of course I don't have to tell you how awkward that was, but an unexpected bonus is that my fat distributed itself a bit and because puberty was of course laying victim to my peers, I was no longer the tallest, most awkward, heaviest kid.  Which, for someone who was attending a new school with all new peers, was truly a gift.  Unfortunately for me, the school that I transferred to in 6th grade was a close-knit Catholic school and I still felt like an outsider.  I began to spiral downward into a dark depression and lashed out and got into a lot of trouble in school and at home.  To make matters way worse, the summer following sixth grade, after coming home from a family vacation, we found out that my dad- the coolest freaking guy in the universe- was dying of cancer.  His illness was ...well, it is indescribable to watch your childhood hero deteriorate and die uncomfortably in front of you.  We all dealt with it in our own ways, but each family member, needless to say, had a very hard time recovering from the loss.  The pain is still there everyday.

Back then it was there everyday, every hour, every minute, every second.  Part of my coping mechanism was spending time with my old friend food.  Thanks to another dear friend- my Canadian pen-pal, actually- I was inspired to become a vegetarian around age 14.  I thought "vegetarian" just meant that one didn't eat meat.  So... cookies and pasta and lots of cheese were everyday indulgences- especially before bed.  Sometimes in the middle of the night with a glass of 2% milk and an Anne Rice novel.

I wasn't "fat" per se, but I was NOT healthy.  I never excercised.  I experimented with smoking.  I was sad and angry and eventually the therapist that I decided to see to help me work through all this, recommended anti-depressant drugs.  They made me more depressed.  I felt like I was living life with foggy emotions- and as a very emotional Pisces that needs to feel, this was no good.  I was sedentary.  The scale crept ever upward.  I cried to psychologist that prescribed the drugs and told her how desperate I was to lose weight.  She was cold and uncaring.  This, for me,  was the era of crash diets, diet pills and a very unhealthy cycle of binging and purging...  I was the fattest I have ever been.

I remember very clearly being in my best friend's bedroom over Christmas break during freshman year of art school.  She, out of the blue, turns to me and said, "Boy, you've put on a lot of weight!"  Wow.  What?  Had I?  I looked in the mirror.  I guess I had.  I think at the time I joked about it but I couldn't stop thinking about it.  I weighed myself the next morning.  I couldn't believe what the scale registered.  Somehow it said that I weighed 219lbs.  Two hundred and nineteen pounds.  That can't be right.  219lbs?!  I didn't weigh myself for a while after that.  I was afraid to.  However, seeing that number was not a wake-up call.  It was just one of those things... like waking up and realizing you have your first wrinkle.  That sucks!  Well, guess I'm getting old...  In fact, I kind of embraced my new realization that I was a big girl.  I read an article recently about photographer Jen Davis in Oprah Magazine and I could relate a lot!  At the time I was also very inspired by Jenny Saville, whose much larger-than-life portraits reflected some kind of macabre, Venus-of-Willendorf feminine ideals that I could relate to.  I painted some very large, self-reflective portraits at the time that I'm still proud of to this day.

Jenny Saville

Fast-forward two years to 2004: I was then living in Highlandtown in Baltimore, MD with my boyfriend at the time in a big old row house close to Patterson Park.  He got word of an endangered Siberian husky who was about to be given away or maybe even put down because he has lashed out and attacked one of his owners and was just a general nuisance.  The owners were afraid for their children and asked if we would be interested in taking the dog in.  So, all-of-a-sudden we had a dog.  A very, very spry, energetic dog.  We also happened to live next to one of the greatest parks in the country- Patterson Park.  A perfect place to walk a rambunctious dog!  And walk we did...  A mile or two a day.

Without realizing it, my pants started to ride down.  My shirts felt bigger.  I had more energy.  I wanted to run with my new husky!  Slowly.... slowly pounds melted off.  Just by walking a little bit every day.  I was amazed.  What a wonderful side-effect from getting this dog that I wasn't so sure about in the beginning.

The point of this very long anecdote is that a very small step- a very small change can reap huge reward.  And once you make one small change, it is much easier to make others that add up to big changes that can impact your life in a very positive way.

That's all for now... I have to walk the dog.