SUGAR ON TOP OF SUGAR ON TOP OF SUGAR

I'm not a sweet freak. I mean, sugar is nice, but CHOCOLATE is the main reason for life on this planet.

My daughter baked enough sugar cookies this afternoon to feed a small African nation in preparation for a Christmas-decorating class that she does not want to even attend let alone teach at a church function tomorrow.

More negative emotions have been sown in these cookies than all the opponents in the Republican party of Obama's health-care proposal.

Rather than have the kitchen implode with sucrose and stubbornness, I suggested that we refrigerate one sample of the frosting overnight (so perhaps the rest could be prepared early tomorrow rather than at the demonstration).

I had momentarily forgotten that I gave birth to the second most competitive person in Northern America, who insisted that the refrigeration would not change anything, and advance preparation would be impossible.

Game on, girlfriend.

The winner will be announced tomorrow.... if I live that long after posting this entry.

MILES AND MILES BEFORE I SLEEP

Don't you just love those little pedometers you can hook on your belt that PROVE after a hard day of getting up off the couch and walking all the way to the pantry to get another soda and bag of chips and then walking all the way back to the couch that this was the equivalent of running .00087 of a marathon?

So I have been tallying up my actions over here which obviously, since they are all way outside my comfort zone, must add up.

1. SLEEPER IN A STRANGE BED
My grandson graciously offered to let me sleep in his bed (the temptation of sleeping on a huge air mattress that doubles as a trampoline probably aided in that decision), so I am surrounded by Star Wars sheets, Star Wars pillows, and Star Wars posters.

This constant aggressive behavior of fictional characters in a purely imaginary galaxy, and well as the baleful face of Darth Vader looming in the back of every illustration, must be sucking out the calories in my body at, what, shall we say 1,235 every hour? And since I sleep eight hours at night, and normally about two every afternoon at nap time, with an occasion twenty minutes thrown in here and there....


2. HIGH ABOVE THE CHIMNEY TOPS
There is a reason old people live with ranch-style houses, and install elevators and little chairs that grind and moan themselves slowly up the stairs - it's called knees. Or lack thereof. We get too little lubrication in our joints (and some other locations, but let's not get into that right here) and bones too thin and the ever increasing CRUNCHCRUNCHCRUNCHCRUNCH sound of bone grating on bone and whittling them both away to nothingness.

There are stairs here. Which are necessary to tackle and overcome anytime I want or need clothes, privacy and/or sleep.

So if the Great Bisbee Stair Climb (an annual event about 26 miles from my home) is the equivalent of a 5k ("but feels like a 10k!"), going up and down these stairs for a) toys forgotten, b) clean laundry to go up c) dirty laundry to come down, c) climbing up for numerous naps during the day.... well, let's put it at 20k, okay?

3. MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE
My son-in-law is on a business trip for a week, so I have both cars at my disposal - the enormous Ford Explorer, where the back seat covers approximately one full-size football stadium and has an average MPG of .007, or the Toyota Pruis, which is a very, very quiet skateboard with a shoebox cunningly disguised as the automobile body.

But to run either of these cars, even the keyless hybrid, you must carry this MASS of keys. Keys for both cars, for the house, for work, for the church, for nostalgia of some other place and time and some obviously for some other country and/or century. They leave my Capri's hanging down around my ankles from the sheer weight and my back muscles seriously strained from their sheer weight.

So that is, well, probably carrying 25 lbs. on that 20k....

Wow.

I'm amazed I haven't been hospitalized as anorexic yet.

LIVING ON THE EDGE

How bad can your diet possibly become?

Let's see....

A McFlurry
Tacos

Subway (which isn't terrible, but...)

And grapes with a spider's web inside along with the dead spider.

Yeah. Not good.

PUSHING THE EDGE

There are some things which actually are possible in life:

1. You can go without Diet Coke.

2. Life does not stop without chocolate.

3. And you can not be embarrassed by wearing outrageous red lipstick if you do not have any mirrors around and nobody tells you until you get home.

Yes, it is possible.

But I'd really rather not.

Yogurt + Fiber One

Spaghetti (which, eaten in the presence of missionaries, counts only as negative calories since you get a spiritual message at the end of it)

Salad (which counts as only a vegetable if you don't like the salad dressing on it very much)

TWO pieces of chocolate pie, but the second piece only because it was saved just for you

So that adds up to, what, 3 calories?

Now, this coming week - more exercise by more closely following my three year old granddaughter, who never seems to stop.