Finally!

On Sunday, in the afternoon, just a half day before school began again for the rest of the Winter session, it began to snow. My first thought was "Crap! Not again!!!" My second thought was to confer with the oracles of weather. They were not freaking out, which was odd for them (perhaps they, too, were sick of being snow bound with increasingly cranky kids...) And in a lovely reversal, we went to bed with a blanket of snow all over the houses, trees and driveways and awoke to just an average, dismal rainy Oregon morning. Phew!

So one of my resolutions this year is to finish my projects started last year. What a change it would be to complete a quilt during the same fiscal year it was first conceived! Well, that hasn't happened yet, but I have hopes... Yesterday I sandwiched Kyra's new twin/full quilt and got a couple of blocks stitched. Man, that thing is bulky! Today I spent a bunch of time looking at alternative ways of getting this done. I think I've already decided that I want to do only small pieces unless I can borrow a thing called a "HandiQuilter", a system by which you put your sewing machine in a device and move the machine instead of the quilt, which is rolled neatly on these rollers instead of being bunched and pushed through the tiny opening of my machine. Or maybe next time I'll just send it to be quilted.... This is my least favorite part. I like doing the borders and the free motion quilting. I suppose if I were smart I'd do free motion all over it, but there would still be bunching. I will have to revise my notion of doing a queen sized quilt for my room. That or try out the "quilt as you go" concept.

As for my other "weightier" resolution, so far it is hit or miss. I spent a lot of time in my sewing room yesterday instead of snacking, on one hand, and doing stuff like ironing and laying out my quilt and pining it, so that was labor-intensive. On the other hand, I made break and bake cookies and ate some. Sigh. Today I intend to do more quilting (I just did the other 3 squares in the middle row; just 5 more rows of 6 across left to do.... Ack!) but I'm also toying with the idea of baking. I was thinking of making snickerdoodles with chocolate chips, or rather chocolate chip cookies with cinnamon, whichever. Would they be chipper doodles? Or snicker chips? Hmmm.... And how not to eat them all before everyone comes home. 

I was having an interesting conversation with one of my sisters the other day. She is thinking of joining WW. She want to lose like 20 lbs, but that would be well below the weight chart. If she goes by what WW says someone her height should weigh, she would only need to lose 13 lbs. Do I encourage her or not? She was saying that she is still working on her bulimia and is now mostly doing it just "recreationally". I don't get that, although I suppose eating just for the sake of doing something probably is the same thing except without the vomiting afterwards. It occurred to me that the hardest thing for her would be to eat all the points for each day. I can see  her trimming off a few just to speed up the process, but WW is all about not doing things in a speedy and unhealthy manner. Anyway, she was bemoaning the fact that she is not as thin as our other two sisters and she is tired of being the "chubby one". I'm sorry: that's my role, not hers! 

But her envy of my other two sisters is the unhealthy thing. I suppose I would be lying if I said I didn't envy it, too, in a way. I hate taking pictures with my sisters because I do look so big in comparison, and it's hard not to compare when you are side by side. I don't want to look emaciated by any means. Would I be happy if I were normal sized? What is normal?

I'm at a loss at how to help my sister when I can't help myself. I can't make her snap out of her habits and behaviors anymore than I can get myself to do it. Sigh...