Friday, February 13, 2009

Frozen

But not because I live in Northern Michigan. Because I have so much to do! I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets frozen when there's too much to do. I just don't know where to start!

Have to run out and pick up something for the shop, and while I'm out I need a few last-minute things for my daughter's baby shower tomorrow. (I should make a list so I don't forget anything - yet another thing to do!) Then I need to get the last of this week's orders packaged and taken to the post office before Pete leave for work and takes the car. (I don't drive anyway, can't see well enough anymore, don't have a license.) While he's working I'll bake the cake for tomorrow and organize the activities, start some laundry, and clean some bird cages.

Wow, now that I have it all written down, I don't know how I'll get it all done! I guess I'd better go get dressed and get started...

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Self-employment, the New American Dream

I love my shop. I call it a shop because it's easier to say than kitchen, and then I'd have to distinguish between the kitchen up in my house, and the kitchen out of which I run my business. Anyway, this is my "happy place" as my friend Roxanne calls it, and she's right. I designed it and had it custom-built. I chose every stick of furniture and every piece of equipment. I made it exactly what I needed it to be, nearly 3 years ago, and big enough that I'd never run out of space - at least not for a few years.

Guess what? I'm out of space. Businesses grow if they are healthy, and mine is. I've been blessed. God and I are in business together, and He directs my steps. I tithe from my income, and give Him the glory whenever the opportunity arises. It would be an idyllic situation if it weren't for the actual WORK - lol!

Even after 7 years, I love what I do though. Each of the products I lovingly created and perfected give me satisfaction. When I can sit back after a hard day's work and look at what I've done, I can thank God sincerely for giving me the talent, the ideas, the ability, and my shop.

Yup, it is a dream all right! Enough of a dream that, when people learn what I do, they exclaim, "Oh you are so LUCKY! I've always wanted to have my own business, be my own boss, make my own hours..." When I hear that, here is what I WANT to say, even though I never do:

First, in the life of a Christian there is no such thing as luck; our steps are ordered by the Lord. Even in the humanistic sense of the word, we make our own luck. Nothing comes of wishing to accomplish something, but it does happen with research, foresight, insight, dedication, and lots of hard work. It can happen but you have to MAKE it happen. And then you have to work hard to KEEP it happening. There's no such thing as auto-pilot.
Most nights (sometimes early mornings, even!) I go back up to the house exhausted and in pain, needing drugs (aspirin usually, and occasionally a flexeril) just so I can sleep. Nothing lucky about any of it.

Second, you are never your own boss. Speaking for myself, I have a servant's heart - I have to. And I'm not the boss, God tells me in no uncertain terms what I should be doing next and how I should be doing it, and where I've messed up and what I've got to do to fix it. That's just how it is. If I weren't a Christian, I'd still be working for my customers and they (but often in less certain terms) would be telling me all of that. None of it is about me. I'm reminded of one of the bird fairs in our state where I had a table. My sister was there, and was approached by a woman who asked a question about one of my products. Gwen told her, "You can ask Sherry, she's right over there" to which the woman replied, "That's THE Sherry??? THE Itty Bitty Birdie Bites lady???? Oh I could NEVER talk to her!!" When Gwen told me, I approached the woman myself. I am her servant, if she is my customer. I've never been one to go all ga-ga over "celebrities" and certainly I'm just a housewife with a job like anybody else. It isn't what we do that's important, or who we are; it's Who we are doing it for.

Lastly...OH how I wish I could make my own hours - hahaha! I didn't want to get up when my alarm went off at 6:30 this morning, but I had orders to package and ship before my husband left for work at 12:30. Nor do I usually want to work when I could be playing my keyboard or watching a favorite TV show or spending quality time with my husband or even doing the laundry! And on the rare day when I don't have a bunch of orders to package and ship, there is still the paperwork to do, the records to keep, more product to make, articles to write, emails to answer...in short, the hours make ME!

Having "my own business" isn't about being my own boss or setting my own hours. (If I could set my own hours, they'd certainly be limited to 40 per week - lol!) It's about giving of myself to my customers and thousands of pet birds. It's about all the conversations I have with Jesus and the great music I listen to, being edified while I work. But mostly it's just about using the talents I was given, with a servant's heart, in my happy place.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Low Carb-ness, part II

Just a quick bit about my own particular version of low carb eating, then I'll go on to other things :).

I started LCing about 5 years ago. Original plan: lots of veggies and meats and fiber. Most of my foods were high-fiber at that time. Lost 54# and then stopped. Started reading about low-carb-high-fat and loved the mere thought of it. (I've never been a big sweet eater, but bring on the butter, baby!) Switched over to that and have never looked back! Quickly lost another 36# for a grand total of 90# off by (a) keeping a 75% fat-20% protein-5% carbs ratio, and (b) minimizing my ingestion of grain-based products with the exception of occasionally using brans or gluten in my baking. Even though my caloric input for most days averaged 2500-3000, I was leaving trails of fat behind me everywhere I went.

But in the bathroom mirror (evil thing, it's since been removed!) I didn't like what I saw when I stepped out of the shower. I'm not a vain person but even *I* couldn't stand the way parts of my body were going south, and in a most unattractive, very uncomfortable way! Even trying to fit my clothes onto the saggy hanging flesh was horrible. So I decided to quit losing even though I still had 100# more to go. Carrying that weight was better, for me, than making my body any more grotesque than it had already become.

To maintain I adjusted my ratios to more like 60-30-10, and during our occasional restaurant outings allowed a carbier treat than I'd done for the previous 9 months. I happily continued this way for the next 3½ years...then in October 2008 I had a stroke. (One good thing to come out of this was an examination of my arteries while I was in the hospital, and I was told they were "squeaky clean"!)

During my 6 days in the hospital I was put on a "heart healthy" diet of about 90% carbs but at that point I didn't care; when my appetite returned, I just ate what they gave me. When I came home with horrific awful disabling headaches and vertigo, I wasn't shopping or cooking, my husband was. And he wasn't well-versed in carb-consciousness, and I frankly was too miserable to care. So for the next 11 weeks, I just ate what he gave me, thankful that he was such a good caretaker of me (and our 16 pets including all of my parrots, and my business, and our home, in addition to his job...). When there is so much pain involved in just moving, nothing else really matters, except the love and care that he showed me during that time.

Just before Christmas I found myself in yet another hospital, this time for 4 days. Again, the carby "heart-healthy" diet, but this time I got a diagnosis (CSF leak from the lumbar puncture I'd had the day of my stroke) and a remedy (15-minute procedure called a blood patch) for my awful pain , and by the time I came home, the pain and vertigo were gone, I was SO THANKFUL, and could start resuming my life. (It shocked me how weak I'd become during those 11 weeks of total inactivity, part of it from the original stroke but I sure lost a lot of strength afteward too!)

Meanwhile, all of those weeks of inactivity and carbs had left me 38# heavier. No matter, I had my life back, the weight wasn't an issue to me. After the holidays and a trip with my sister, I have decided that it's time to get the extra weight back off and I am now back to my 75-20-5 ratios. I'm not weighing myself, I'm losing, and I'll know when I get there, but of course I'm feeling so much better again and it is good to be back to LIFE again after nearly 4 months!

It will be 5 years on low carb, come April. As far as I'm concerned the way I ate earlier this winter is simply part of the nightmare that started last October, and like the awful pain, vertigo, weakness, and other things, will just go down as part of my history; I refuse to give it any more importance than that.

Will I ever want to lose those last 100#? I don't know. I will play that part by ear. If I'm ever in a position to have surgery to remove the excess skin, then yes. If not, then I can't say because there is nothing worse, for me, than the way my body looks from what I've done to it. Not the weight loss, but the gains that stretched it out in the first place.

Some day I'll shed this "earth suit" anyway; until that time comes I will do what I believe to be best for myself, and that will ALWAYS be eating low carb. For my health.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Turnips - oh yeah, baby...

Root vegetables, other than carrots, weren't something I ate much of as I was growing up. As a result, I never really had an interest in them. But now, eating low carb, it's a whole 'nother story! I recently got some turnips on sale, and had to use them. Since my husband had roasted chicken for our dinner earlier and had left the pan on the stovetop, I peeled and diced a couple of turnips and tossed them in the chicken drippings with a few pieces of bacon, and put it back in the oven. About 20 minutes later I had THE most delicious vegetable dish I think I've ever eaten! The turnips were dark brown and caramelized...I put them in a bowl with a little (1 Tbsp or so) shredded cheddar cheese on top and had them for my afternoon snack-meal-thing. (Hubby is at work and I usually don't have full meals when I'm alone, I just sort of graze.) So sweet and tender, a little sticky...oh no, my mouth is watering just thinking about it! And about 12gN carbs for the whole thing.

As my dad used to say, "You can't beat that with a stick!"

Moving Day! A New Beginning

Well, sort of...today I moved my blog over from another blogging site, because there were so many times that the other site gave me grief that I was tired of dealing with them. A friend has been urging me to move here after also having issues with the other site...so here I am. As you can see (I only moved 18 posts!) I haven't been blogging that long to start with. So it didn't take long to move. I think I'll be happy here :).