Throwing away the scale

Now that nanowrimo is over, well almost over, there are still almost twelve hours to go. I've not written in my novel for a couple of day but i do plan to go out with a bang later after church by hanging out in the nano chat room and cheering on my fellow writers till midnight, and maybe getting another thousand or two words in before the deadline as well.

But this blog post is not supposed to be about fiction writing, or my future plans for that which are bouncing through my head, distracting me as we speak. I had resolved that once nano was over I would try to write a blog post a week, that is not a copy paste from my live journal, most likely on sundry mornings (*cough* afternoon) because that's my generally calm and quiet time, sitting around the house in pajamas, drinking coffee, and just puttering. A 7:15PM church service is a beautiful thing. I figure if I could pound out 50 thousand words of drivel disguised as fiction (and many scenes of people drinking coffee, or tea, or debating the relative merits of coffee versus tea - I think I should just call next year's novel 'Scenes from a Starbucks' and have done.) then I can pound out a few hundred words of blog post a week, surely? Though the blog will not be immune from coffee references, because coffee is love. Especially with pumpkin spice creamer.

Mixed up in my nano notes in the notebook I've been carrying around since mid October are lots of little ideas for blog posts, and the challenge today is to try not to cram them all in to one, because I am in the mood to write something not related to adventures on the moon, the coffee is flowing (see?), it's raining and I have the house to myself.

No. Must stay on track. Yes.

Right, so today's blog post will be about idols.

I've been reading and hearing quite a bit lately about idols - in books, sermons, podcasts, etc. When I think of idols, the first thing that pops into my head is a silly statue, like the falling fish god, the golden calf, or Jabu in the movie 'Major League' who gets offering of rum, cigars, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. And I always think, so self righteously, how could anyone be so stupid as to worship something like that?

Of course, we wouldn't. Two thousand plus years after Bible times our idols have become way more sophisticated.

If this year of no clothes shopping has taught me anything, it's that clothes are not my issue. Finishing my eleventh month of no clothes shopping today, I still don't really feel it. I wonder where on earth I found the time to go shopping for clothes, and I'm not really looking forward to resuming it. I could almost go another year, except that I really need a new raincoat, one that does not absorb water. Did you know Gortex wears out? Apparently after a few years, it does. And proper running shoes, from the store where they watch you run on the treadmill and look at your old shoes to see where you wear them out... But this post was not supposed to be about clothes.

My idol is the scale. I decided this after about two years now of weighing and recording, obsessing about numbers changing, counting and recording points, trying to hyper organize everything I eat in one day, blowing it, feeling guilty, and then blowing it some more. And then last year, trying to fit training into the mix, calculate how many points I exercised and need to replace, so as to not pass out during a workout, which would be bad. Discovering the the weight watchers site has no clue about energy bars and sports gels and drinks didn't help.

So I threw out my scale. Well, actually i didn't because I would feel guilty throwing out a perfectly good appliance. It, they actually, are in the top of my closet, if anyone would like them. I have one old fashioned and one digital that supposedly also calculates body fat and percentage of water. I have decided to accept my body as it is. I'm not *really* overweight. I did a triathlon this year, for crying out loud. Okay, it took me four and a half hours, but still. And with no new clothes, everything still fits from this time last year.

I had a wonderful time this past month with all the write-ins, making healthy choices as best I could from the menus at Panera and Cosi, and then indulging a little bit if I wanted to, to reward myself for my word count. I'm also having fun experimenting with cooking, and continuing my training, which are other blog posts.

so I shall leave you with a picture of my thanksgiving leftovers, and go make pancakes. And perhaps catch up on the blogs I've not read all month. My rss reader just might be about to explode...