Yawwwwwwnnnnn....

Very tired this morning! But there's a reason for that and you are looking at it! I stayed up until 2 am last night customizing and setting up my blog...and realizing that I am a total dork when it comes to knowing html. A BIG thank you to my pals Annette and Kevin for the time you spent with me last night online patiently helping me decipher the html of my template and getting this page set up JUST the way I want it.
 
Now. Let the blogging begin.
 
I think I am really going to like this a lot. There are so many neat things that you can do! I even like setting the I-mood up there that you see, which I plan to set every time I post to my blog. It only takes a second. I added the buttons for the stitching and Friday Five questions (thanks again, Annette) and hopefully that'll help those reading get to know me a little bit better about stitching and other things. I plan on posting some answers to those questions a little later today and getting some interesting stuff going on in here. Moira's Little World is just that...it's my little world! I don't do much overall...most days consist of long hours working at my job (I'm an insurance adjuster specializing in residential fires), a couple of hours at the gym each night pumping iron and whatever shreds of time I have left at night are spent relaxing on the couch with one of my fifty projects. I don't have kids. My kids are my Labradors Katie and Simon and my cats Gabrielle, Moira and Taylor.
 
Being online for such a long time last night made me remember how connected I once was to the stitching community...and how I really withdrew when I started my quest to lose weight in early 2003. I didn't mean to...but it just kind of happened. I started connecting more with people interested in weight loss and body building, and not stitching as much, and...well, you know how that goes. I really want to not only reconnect with my old friends, but really make some new ones, and it does seem that there is a very tight community out there for stitching bloggers. I'm totally with that...I want in! I promise, for anyone reading this, I'm going to keep this entertaining and interesting so you will come back.
 
And to kick that off for interesting, I'm going to confess something here, in my private blog, that I haven't had the courage to post on any stitching sites anywhere or tell anyone other than two close stitching friends. I don't know why I'm embarrassed about it, but I am, sort of, even though it explains a lot about me. As you can see from clicking on my Body For Life transformation, I underwent a HUGE physical transformation last year. Total weight lost was 67 pounds, but I estimate once you factor in the gain of muscle, it was more like a 70 pound loss. I went from a tight size 22 to a size 10, where I live currently. But that's not the confession. The confession is that as a result of trying to diet down and train for a physique competition (note I said trying...I didn't make it, which is part of the problem for me in my head), I developed obsessive compulsive disorder and about the worst case of self-esteem and distorted body image that my therapist has seen in a while. In layman's terms, basically I obsess about everything I put in my mouth making me fat and no matter what, I see fat in the mirror and wake up every morning with a sense of terror that I won't be able to fit into my new clothes. It's a disturbing way to live, and I'm working on it, but I thought I needed to go ahead and air that right now as it will shed a lot of light into my ramblings about food, weight, working out, etcetera. I'm not looking for sympathy, as I know that there are a lot of people that would kill to have lost the weight that I have, and I feel so silly sometimes whining about feeling fat in a size 10. A year and a half ago, I would have KILLED to be in the size that I'm in right now, but yet it's not good enough, and I know why...because I still have the image of a figure competitor in my mind as the "perfect body" and well....once you see your six-pack, it's hard to move back to a smooth and soft midsection. *sigh*
 
Anyway. Like I said, I'm working on it. Annette told me that blogging is therapeutic, so maybe this is what I need to get past this stage in my life. I know OCD is a lot better than what it could have been...my therapist said that she is surprised that I didn't end up with a serious eating disorder or depression, and that it is good that I came in when I did. I'm trying to change my playmates a bit and step away from my competitor friends. They are good people and I love them for who they are, but they can make me feel very bad about myself sometimes without even knowing that they are doing it. I have lots of stitching friends, both online and offline, friends at work, and stitching has always been a great way for me to take time to think about what's going on in my life. It will be again. And I really want to make more stitching friends through blogging and getting more involved on the bulletin boards now that this quest to slim down is over. I have to focus on the fact that my eating habits are about a million times more healthy than they were a year and a half ago, my blood pressure and cholesterol levels are way down, and my body fat level is significantly lower than what it once was...I was in the high 30s and now I'm somewhere around 21-22% body fat, which is a perfectly respectable place to live. I just need to get the image of my chiseled six pack out of my head. It still exists, but women just weren't meant to maintain that low of a body fat percentage and that's the bottom line.
 
Okay, enough of that...for now.
 
Yesterday morning at about 8:15 am I got a call from my boss telling me that she would take me off fires and claims this whole week...if I would just sit in for her Wednesday through Friday while she goes on vacation to Chicago. I was thrilled at the prospect...it has been SO long since I've gotten any time off claims and this is going to be a great week, at least I hope so. I was fairly productive yesterday, I hope to be so again today, and while I'll be doing "boss" stuff the next three days, just having the mental time off anything new is going to be just wonderful. And, since I won't be out in the field climbing roofs or digging through fire debris in the heat, there is no excuse for me not going to the gym. Last week I begged off two days in a row because I was just so tired, and this week there can be none of that! I'm there, every night!
 
I didn't get to stitch last night as I had hoped because I got sucked into the vacuumous blogging world, but I hope tonight to find a few hours to work on In the Arms of An Angel. I've also got my Precious Moments Noah's Ark up on Q-snaps as well. One of my new things that I started doing with this new 50-project rotation was to have two projects going at all times so that way I wasn't locked into one all the time. I just pick which one out of the two that I work on each night, with the only provision being that I have to finish the ten hours on the one that is first in the rotation. Right now I have three hours on the PM Ark and 45 minutes on the angel piece, so as long as I keep working a little at a time on that PM Ark and get it done before the angel piece, I'm in good shape. I really don't know why I started that PM ark now...it's starting to be one of those pieces that I really wish I hadn't started, but at the time seemed like a good idea. At this point though, five years after starting it and 160 hours in, it's really too late to just toss it in the UFO pile. I did that with my baby afghan, and it is going to come back into my rotation at some point. I don't like having UFOs...they take up space in my tiny cross-stitch closet! And with a 50-piece rotation, I really will only have to work on my projects a few times a year. Working on the PM ark a few times a year will not kill me or make me hate stitching!
 
I suppose I better go walk the troops now and start being productive at my work for today. But I will be back later to post some more interesting stuff to read, namely the answers to some of those questions that I referred to! Thank you for stopping by, and if I haven't terrified you confessing my OCD, I hope you will come back soon.