I don’t know that The Callipygian Chronicle is dead, but she will be dormant for the foreseeable future. My vision and voice is now being poured into my business, where I’m posting images and content a few times a week. And being able to be me, truly me, in that space has unlocked a lot of trapped creative energy for me.

You can also find me on facebook or Google+ (which I don’t post to, yet).

And because I like images, here’s a recent one you may have missed.

Some time after the holidays, the muse left. I don’t know what scared her away. Or why she has stayed hidden for so many months. I only know that I suddenly had a deep hatred of every photograph I took and an even stronger resistance to taking new ones. My work sucked. It wasn’t worth paying for. My camera sucked. My business model sucked. My follow through sucked. My budget problems sucked. My ability to make this work…sucked.

Talking about it sucks, but here I am, talking about it.

I don’t know why I encounter creative blocks like these (and always have). Nor why it is so hard for me to break free of them once they occur. I haven’t quite broken free of this current funk. The muse has not returned. But, it’s possible, she may have booked her return flight and is on her way home.

Not so:

And there you have my first, very public, admission of my starting weight and clothing size. They are just numbers, and I am divorcing myself from being attached to them. I am much more than my body. So much more than my weight. Every day I make choices that move me toward a healthier, more athletic body. Just as in the past I made choices that moved me toward a rounder, tired, and unhealthy one.

I still have at least nine more months before I will be at goal, perhaps as long as a year. I am completely okay with that. This is merely a marker for what I’ve done so far. A year, in which I have learned a lot, but have been out of balance. My work is at a standstill and I have lost confidence in my creative eye. I know that will change in time. I can feel it starting to change, now. But, for these last few months my attention has been taken up with tracking what I eat, planning meals, planning exercise, recovering, and pushing forward.

It’s also been filled with me coming face-to-face with some of the beliefs I’ve held about my body and about food. The introspection and the change takes tremendous mental energy. And time. And, sadly, it hasn’t left me much space for anything else. I have stopped reading the blogs I have loved (I miss them, but I just don’t have space for other’s stories right now). I rarely visit Facebook. I pay only mild attention to the news and current events. The news of Osama Bin Laden’s death, barely a blip on my radar.

I feel like I have spent most of my thirties on a different road of introspection. I’m getting tired of it, now. I’m wanting all this much-needed change to be done. I am done with having so much unfinished business in my head. I am done with having so much to fix. Fixing it all is tiring. Change is exhausting.

Wow, didn’t expect to go there when I started writing this piece. On that note, I’m closing it out. More…in the unforeseen future.

• Number of workouts: 26
• Pounds lost: 16
• Inches lost: 3.5
• Distance from goal: 74 lbs
• Favorite workout: Yoga
• Least favorite workout: Boot Camp
• Favorite new discovery: mint water
• Biggest challenge: Eating less than 1500 mg of sodium

Journaling:

So, um. Yeah. That happened.

16 pounds. Half inch off my waist. An inch off my bust and thighs. The hips and arms are being stubborn, but we’ll forgive them. One month. A lot of change.

First months are always big ones. If you make it through (which is FAR from a guarantee), it’s usually the month you lose the most weight. I’ve done this enough times in the past to know that. And while I’ve never lost that much before, I’ve also never had so much to lose.

But what I’ve gained this month has been something else. On January 5th, when I took my first yoga class, I was dripping with sweat within the first minute, collapsing on every downward dog and trembling through every pose. A month later, I find myself bending and stretching in ways I couldn’t have imagined before. And that transformation is as much internal, as it is external. A week ago, when the intensity of a boot camp class brought up all my worst body insecurities—when I actually had to fake wiping sweat, but I was actually wiping tears—I somehow managed to push through. I finished. I claimed the exercise back for myself. I let go of whatever I thought other people were thinking of me, and I finished the best I could.

I am, and almost always will be a recovering perfectionist. And I have allowed myself to be imperfect on this journey. I have eaten cheeseburgers, ice cream, and yes, birthday cake. I have also pounded it out six times a week at the gym. Sweating, panting, and yes, twice, crying. I have done it when I hated every minute of it. I have done it complaining and groaning. But I have done it for me, for my heart and for the life I now believe I deserve to have.

It has taken me so long to get to a place where I believe I deserved better. It has taken me even longer to get o a place where I believed I was strong enough to deliver better to myself. But right now, this is place where I’m living. A place where I believe I am capable. And a place where there are no expectations, no standards I have to live up to. It’s only me—being mindful, and dedicated to delivering my body and mind the things they’ve been begging for: nourishment, movement, and forgiveness.

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 35. I felt so grateful to have another year under my belt and a new one to look forward to. I went to yoga in the morning.

I went to the doctor in the afternoon.

I called the doctor because I had another  spell of vertigo on Monday, right at the end of yoga class. I turned on my right side and the whole room flipped. And hour later I was vomiting from the motion sickness. A few weeks of better food choices and exercising was not going to be my panacea. I came face to face—in yoga class of all places—with the fact that I wasn’t going to clear this problem up on my own. I needed medical intervention.

But when I sat in the doctor’s chair, an old problem, one I like to pretend had gone away, came rearing it’s ugly head. The nurse took my blood pressure: 174/121. high. Very high. The doctor prescribed medication. He told me to start treating salt like poison. Ordered labs and referred me to an ENT to further investigate my vertigo.

And there it is. Another reason moving more and reducing my size no longer optional. My life depends on it…

And this morning, after a rough night of child-interrupted sleep, I woke up irritable. Both my daughter and husband were sick with colds and everything I had planned to do today was thrown off. And, I have very high blood pressure. And I need to lose weight.And I was a grouch. And I wanted to eat a pizza covered in french fries and feel better.

But instead, I went to the gym. I stepped on the elliptical. The battery was dead on my ancient iPod. I had to listen to their god-awful early 80’s rock. I jumped on, started to move. I worked hard. Sweat poured down my face and arms. When I wanted to quit, I closed my eyes. I kept going.

20 minutes later, I jumped on the stationary bike. After three minutes, I wanted off. I was done.I closed my eyes again. I stated breathing. I took my glasses off. I thought about being labor. I thought about how I learned to take it one contraction—one  minute—period at a time. I thought,

“You gave birth to a baby without drugs. And you think you can’t do this?!”

20 minutes later, I was done. Drenched in sweat, tired, but done. A small victory. In the face of a major set back, I chose to accelerate. And I left that gym energized, calm, and 100% happier than I was before I arrived.

And tomorrow…I’m doing it again.

Velocity is distance, over time.

Velocity is the next chapter of the one little word I chose for last year, Movement. I’m proud of the movements I began and the steps I took. I’m proud of the skills I enhanced and then launched into a new business.

In 2011—the year I will be full-fledged adult at 35-years-old—I’m looking to take what I began last year and kick it into high gear. I want more than my career and business moving forward. I want my health to move forward. I want my body to go places I haven’t allowed it to go, because I’ve been afraid of failure and terrified of pain.

In 2011, there will be movement. But it will more deliberate than it was last year. And more balanced, too.

As I spent last year honing my photography skills, building my web site, acquiring licenses, and devouring any and all information I could find…I was battling recurring episodes of vertigo. I was left winded after climbing the smallest flight of stairs. Minor exertions would send my heart rate soaring. An hour on the dance floor could leave me barely able to walk for days.

On January 26th, I turn 35-years-old. But I am currently living with the diseases and health problems of someone twice my age. That way of life has become unthinkable to me. And I am now on the very first steps of a two-year-journey to regain my health.

And now, I’m going to say something publicly that I didn’t think I’d be able to say:
I have 90 pounds to lose. Virtually, an entire person.

Taking a breath.

It’s a lot of weight.

Most of my friends would be stunned to know how much I actually weigh. Because I gain primarily in my thighs, I don’t look the same as a person who puts on weight primarily around their waist. But I know the truth, and so does my heart when it strains to pump blood through my veins. So do my aching knees. So does my lower back.

My body knows how poorly I have been taking care of it. And so do I.

Shortly before Christmas, I decided that I would begin to make serious changes in the new year toward a healthier and more balanced me. So, on January 3rd I joined a gym for the first time in my life. And on January 4th I worked out for the first time. And at least five times a week since then, I have continued to show up.

Preventing preventable disease is no longer optional in my life. I want to run faster and longer in February than I did in January. Repeat in March. Repeat in April. And so on. I don’t care about being thin. My goal weight was chosen only to help me live with a BMI that does not put me at risk for disease. I am in no hurry. I have no end date in mind. I merely guess that it will take years. It may take more. Or less.

I know the direction I want to go and I am moving toward it. Right now, I am putting a lot of mental energy into my weight. But I have big plans for the direction I want to take my business this year, and I am excited to see that evolve.

I will be sharing a small part of my journey toward health on this blog, I know how annoying it can be to get hot over the head with someone’s newfound religion. Sharing publicly keeps me accountable in a way that keeping my weight loss effort a secret does not. I am maintaining a food and exercise diary using My Fitness Pal and I am sharing scrapbooking pages monthly with a Move More Eat Less 2011 flickr group. It will probably be a few months before I feel confident enough to share those pages here. But when I am ready, I will share.

In the mean time, I’m making conscious choices to move me toward inhabiting a healthy and balanced physical body. I hate the elliptical and the treadmill. But I love lifting weights and doing yoga (oh man, do I LOVE yoga). The end of the month is fast approaching and I will share some progress then. Until then, I’m celebrating living for 35 years on this planet and feeling incredibly optimistic about the years that lie ahead.

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 8,300 times in 2010. That’s about 20 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 78 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 196 posts. There were 29 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 34mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was April 29th with 152 views. The most popular post that day was December Daily: Day 5 & 6.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, iheartfaces.blogspot.com, partyperfectblog.blogspot.com, aliedwards.com, and yolandahowe.tumblr.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for rainbow birthday party, rainbow cake, callipygian, rainbow cake recipe, and cinnamon roll pancakes.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

December Daily: Day 5 & 6 December 2009

(Roy G Biv) Rainbow Birthday Party: The Cake July 2010

Birthday Party Planning: Menu June 2010

Party Planning: Activities with a Rainbow Theme June 2010

Ate: Cinnamon Roll Pancakes March 2010
1 comment

There’s probably a better word choice, a singular latinate phrase that could sum it all up more articulately, more academically. But I lack that word, and I’m not getting a thesaurus out to find it. In 2010 the game, and the way I played it, changed in a profound way.

I launched a business. I designed and built a web site, using every ounce of skill I learned a decade ago when I attended deign school. I read and read. Camera manuals. Books on exposure and portrait lighting. Pricing. Taxation. Sales. Marketing. Photoshop. Lightroom. Outside of college, I have never read so many non-fiction books in a year.

My daughter left every last vestige of babyhood behind. Goodbye high chair and training pants. Goodbye Mommy & Me preschool classes. Goodbye help getting dressed and fastening shoes…

I have some thoughts on what awaits me in 2011, but I will get to those later in the month, as I usually do, around my birthday (my 35th!). For now. I’m sharing this look back at 2010 in pictures that I posted last week on the intrinsic images blog.

Click the image. Video will open in a new window.

P.S.—In case you’re curious, my December Daily is delayed but not dead. Some last minute client business made it too hard to create the daily layouts while doing what I most wanted to do, which is remain connected and enjoy the season with my family. So, I continued to take pictures and make notes throughout the season. The finished layouts will come in time.

Sick and a little overwhelmed, today. Finished this one up yesterday. Hoping I find my way past these magazine style pages. I think next year I am forcing myself to go non-digital. Because I’m finding my work pretty, but it’s missing something. Something messy, and disorganized, and imperfect. Something soulful.

Here’s the journaling:

Today was a work day. I shot my final family portraits for the season. This is a shot I took while I waited for them to arrive. It was breezy and 50-degrees. Spring weather for most places, but a typical chilly fall day for us. I don’t know if we will live here forever, so I wanted to capture  December as it looks off the Southern California coast.

And as the Happy Holidays sign in the palm trees remind me, there are bits of Christmas everywhere if we have our eyes open to see them.

Noting much more too add. Fighting a cold today and playing catch up on multiple projects.

Here’s the journaling:

Today we took a trip to a neighboring community to visit their festival/craft fair known as Santa’s Magical Village. Unlike so many things, the festival is completely free. There were various craft stations for the little kids, which were run by teens. Lyra loved painting and spreading glitter glue on her ornaments, along with decorating and then munching a plain sugar cookie. Photos with Santa were donation-only and camera-toting moms like me could take as many shots as we wanted for free. I kind of blew it on my settings, so we will live with an imperfect Santa picture for this year.