Tag Archives: food

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Four Ounces Of Potato

I was really proud of myself today.  I guestimated the size of potato to chop off that would be four ounces and when I weighed it, it was right on the money!

What does this have to do with dance?  I mean, yeah, this is primarily a dance blog and all, but it is related.  It’s all related.

My diet/lifestyle, my body, my body image, my self-confidence, my ability to dance and perform, how I think about life and myself, they are all inter-related.

In a way, I feel like a woman transformed.  Again, it is back to that potato.  You all know I hired a nutritionist to help me from being obese and the biggest girl in the ballroom to someone who is fit and normal sized.  Well, anyways, of course it involves portion sizes and such.  The food scale is a permanent fixture on my kitchen island these days and even stranger than that is that it is totally okay.  I use it all the time.  But I don’t feel like a food Nazi, and I always thought of “those people who actually weigh out their food” as food Nazis.  Go figure.  Yes, the scale has become my friend and I’m surprised by the minimal amount of resistance I had to using it.

Kartoffeln der Sorte Marabel

Tilmann at the German language Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], from Wikimedia Commons

So I don’t feel like a food Nazi.  Probably because when I’m “on” with my plan, I’m in it from a place of true choice.  I want to do it and it seems effortless.  The results may not happen as fast as I think they should or whatever, but the actual “doing” of the plan is a good thing.

And then real life, weekends, social events happen.  Sometimes I navigate them well.  Other times, like Sunday, I totally blow it.  I think my motto is two steps forward, one step back.  As much as a big part of me wants to change and is willing to do the work of it – namely going to the gym, dancing, doing the food prep and eating on the plan, there is also a part that is not completely on board.  It self-sabatoges.  As I told my nutritionist, “Samurai Saying: knock down seven times, get up eight…..or eight thousand when it relates to me!”

But still, I notice changes.  If I take a “food excursion,” it is still not even close to the magnitude that it used to be.  And, after this Sunday when I made some terrifically poor choices around food and drink, I was able to get right back on track Monday morning – and in the past being derailed like this could last days.

That, and my pants are looser, even if they aren’t falling off me (yet).  And the potato thing.  First, I actually know the size of a proper portion of potato, what four ounces looks like, and I am weighing it out, measuring all my food portions (when I’m with it), and I have discovered that I actually can be disciplined around food, and that it doesn’t always have to be a huge, horrible struggle…except for when it is.

Again, Stef, how is this related to dance?  Don’t worry, I’ll get there 🙂

You all probably noticed that there has been a blogging drought.  Part of that was due to the fact that Ivan left the country to go visit Bulgaria, and part of that was because I, for whatever reason, felt the need for a little hiatus from dancing.  I didn’t go to ballet.  I didn’t go to Inna’s class.  I didn’t blog.  I just needed a break after Desert Classic and honestly, I can’t exactly pinpoint a reason behind this.  A wise friend of mine told me “sometimes you have to step away from your passion to take the next step forward.”  I figured I’d focus on my diet (really it’s a lifestyle reset) and working out at the gym.  Well, I kinda did, if not as vigorously as I originally envisaged.

I was kind of burned out after the last competition.  First off I wasn’t where I wanted to be physically.  I also discovered I hadn’t done the mental preparation and how important that is.  Then the new dress that I feel highlights my big belly.  The bottom line of all this was the both Ivan and I agree we didn’t dance our best together….all except for the last two open dances.  This was after the Latin day in which I did mediocre, on the Rhythm day where I did really well in placements and even won the bronze closed scholarship for my age division.  After that win, Ivan and I were happy and carefree.  We danced those last two dances with joy and freedom, and apparently he even saw some Latin pros he respects watching us and getting into our performance.  Other than that moment of glory, though, we were pushing and pulling each other and it was no fun.  We wanted to so badly to show something that we ended up showing nothing.

So I came home and was relieved on some level that Ivan would be gone and there would be a break.  That, and also I was having some body image stuff going on. Mostly because I see how huge I am, even after all this work since the beginning of the year, and I can’t believe I ever danced when I was bigger than I am now. It is ludicrous that I dance at this size, but I did it originally 83 pounds heavier, and since the beginning of the year at least 30 pounds heavier. It has always been freaking hard, but with as difficult as everything feels these days, I’m amazed I danced before now.

The truth is, I haven’t weighed myself for about a month.  I can’t handle seeing the number on the scale if it goes up.  I feel like even when I weigh in next Wednesday the scale will be the same.  I’m kind of mentally preparing myself for that possibility.  Of course I’m hoping that I’ve changed at least a little bit, downward.  But anyways, because of the way I’ve been going about this process it hasn’t been a wham bam whiz bang go go go and just do it all 100% and get amazing results fast.  I’ve been living life in between the spaces.  I have days where I’m spot on, and others where I’m really not.  I’m finding that it really is about dusting myself off and getting back to it ASAP and working toward approaching that 100% from where I am, which is currently working the plan probably 80% on average, 95% when I’m really being a RockStar and 70% or less when I’m off the wagon.  It ain’t a straight line, that’s for sure!!

But the thing is, something has shifted.  Well, a few things, actually.  Whatever the scale says next week, I have a realistic idea of proper portion sizes.  I have created a habit of doing food prep on Sundays to set myself up to win for the week.  And the biggest thing is that, at least for the moment, I’m not beating myself up for my occasional poor choices.  I’m not punishing myself for not being thin already.  I’m not hating myself because I’m not 13% body fat or whatever like I think I “should” be.  Separating a momentary poor choice from shame has been huge.  I have never been able to just be like, oops!  Choose better next time and learn from the mistake.  But somehow I’m in that space at the moment.  Maybe because I’m gonna screw up some times – it is part of being human, and I can do nothing, absolutely nothing, in the moment to change my body instantaneously or to change whatever choice I may have made in the past that got me to where I am.  In the past, especially since I already feel bad about myself and my body, if I ate out of control it made me feel even worse and I’d sink into a depression and hopeless pit of despair that I was never going to get out of my fat obese body, that it was, in fact, impossible.  That actually, God put me on this earth and he designed me so that I could never be skinny.  Yes, I thought like that.  I still don’t know what the end result will be, but I do know that it can be a hell of a lot better than it is!  In any case, somehow I’ve managed to tease apart the entwined mess that says in my brain that my self-worth is dependent and related to my weight.  I have equated that the fatter I am, the less worthy I am.  When I am fat, I am “less valuable” than other people, I feel worse about myself, and I even feel like less of a human being.  I can’t express the amount of shame tied to my body size, shape, and the amount of adipose I’m lugging around.  But somehow I’ve found a bubble that says yes, you are in this situation and you can rationally acknowledge and own it and see it in the mirror, but you don’t have to be ashamed for being alive anymore.  More than that, you don’t even need to be ashamed to dance anymore.

That being said, I am committed to change, because damnit, I deserve better.  However, I don’t know how long this is going to take.  I thought it would take me a year to get to my goal.  Maybe it will happen that way.  Maybe I will go like gangbusters with the clarity, calmness, and centeredness I’m feeling at the moment and bulldoze though the process, making new changes every week, building on what I do that moves me forward until I have an entire new set of habits, and an entire new life and body.  Maybe it will take longer because I choose to take detours.  The deal is, no matter what, I’m going to be in this fat suit for a while longer.  I’m nowhere near shopping in the normal clothing section just yet.

But God bless Ivan.  I have been in the question around doing the next competition here in town in September, next month.  I already got the days off work and it is local so it is kind of difficult to say no, but then with my lukewarm feelings from Desert Classic and still being so big, I was also feeling kind of like maybe I didn’t want to participate.  Back and forth I would go.  I should go because I want to support one of the owners and see my friends.  I don’t want to go because what am I going to show that’s different from the last competition?  God my arms are fat… and on and on in circles.

But Ivan said two things.  First, when I came back to my first lesson once Ivan made it back into the U.S. (yay!) we had a good one.  It was relaxed but focused.  It was a lot of fun and we had good energy.  Ivan was like, “if you were maybe not wanting to go to Desert Classic I would have been okay with that.  I didn’t really feel like I wanted badly to go dance with you.  Also, don’t feel pressure about Galaxy because if you can’t do it, financial or whatever, it’s okay.  But after this lesson, I hope you going to be keeping the same energy.  I think people going to wanting to see you dancing.  And I want to go dancing with you at Galaxy.  I want us to build on the two good dances we did at the end of Desert Classic.  We always starting and stopping.  If we go to one competition and then not go to the next one we get comfortable.  We don’t work as hard.  We then have to work twice as hard to get back to where we were once again if we don’t keep going to competitions.  But mostly I wanting to go with you.  We have different goals than most people.  Our goals is to have the good energies like we had on those last two dances.  I think it would be good to be going.”

The second thing he said was, “Why you not wanna go?  Because you fat?”

And I was like, “Yes.”  Lol.

“Because we already knowing this.” He replied.  “We already seeing this.  You think I caring about your fats when we dancing like that?  I no caring.  In fact I almost forgetting your fats, until you remind me of them once again.  I looking at how you moving.  I thinking, I can’t wait to seeing the butt move on the time step in the cha cha.  I don’t caring that it big.  I just excited to see it.”

Leave it to Ivan to put it in a funny way but I think he’s right in some ways.  He’s right in that there are moments I forget about how I look.  In those moments I’m a free and I just want to move my butt, no matter how big it may be.  I’m dancing from a place of what I feel inside.  There is no judging or comparing or seeing all my flaws.  In those moments, I’m outside of myself and my personality.

So anyways, I am going to do the local comp.  This means, I think, that there will be more blogging in the near future.  That plus I’m waiting to get photos and/or video from the hubs from the last comp to share, plus I am wanting to do a “book review” series about books on ballroom.  It’s an idea I’ve had for a while but the author of a fictional book about ballroom approached me and I agreed to read her book and review it so it is the perfect excuse to finally do it for all the books I’ve enjoyed about my favorite form of dance.

But I digress….

So I’m going to the comp, and until then I’ll be measuring out my four ounces of potato, and hopefully that will translate into being a few (or a whole lot) of ounces lighter over the next month.  We’ll see!  Because I’m finding that as my body shrinks I feel better in it.  I have more confidence.  I can’t wait until I really like the reflection in the mirror.  What a freedom it would be to wear a sleeveless shirt or shorts or to have a dress I love and feel good competing in.  Right now I still see my body as a burden and a horror, though less a horror than before…which is mind-boggling to me.  How did I get here?  Where was I before I was fat?  How did I ever get to 313 pounds?  I still feel the same as I did 80 pounds heavier.   This stuff messes with my head…

But still, I’m chugging along, and I think I must be doing some things right, mixed in with the mess-ups.  First because Ivan wants to dance with me plus we have been doing good work on our recent lessons and, second, because tonight after class Inna walked right over to me and said, “Stefanie, you are looking good!”  I don’t know if that was in reference to my weight or my dancing tonight, but either way, I’ll take it!  Eventually the things that I do that move me forward will overcome those that pull me back.

In fact, maybe it’s happening on a small scale already.

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How Are You Doing, RockStar?

So since I’m on this mission to transform my body and shed a ton of weight and all, I decided that I might expand the blogs I follow to include those that resonate with me about the weight release process, besides having my usual favorites about dancing.  I think it is important to surround myself with as much support as I can get and I have been so supported in ways I never would have imagined through my blog.

One blog about this process that really resonated with me is called Unbearable Weight, maybe not partly because the authoress is about as wordy as I am (with my 2000 word posts and all lol).  Today she wrote this awesome post that really inspired me.  And it made me think that even though this blog here is about my dancing life, I can’t really separate that out from the rest of my life, and plus I’ve been letting you all in on my health goals and progress (or lack thereof at times), so I thought that since it has been a full week on my new Clean Eating personalized nutrition plan that you might be wondering how it went. I guess Chelle, my nutritionist was wondering the same thing so even though we are meeting in person tomorrow, she sent me an email asking, “How are you doing, RockStar?”

I’m lazy and don’t want to type it all out again (lol) so here was my reply because it pretty much sums up the week:

Hi Chelle,

I’m doing well.  I feel pretty good about how things went this week. I was adherent to the plan and for my cheat meal all I did was eat what I normally would have for the day but had 2 glasses of wine and made that terra pana chocolate dessert you had on your blog.

The only hiccups this week were that my eyes skipped the page and I ate the afternoon snack and dinner for Thursday on Wednesday so I just ate the snack and dinner for Wednesday on Thursday. I hope that is okay to do as I didn’t know if each day is specially planned or if meals are interchangeable across days (though you did say it was okay to switch the order of meals in a day like if I am working out and don’t want to have dinner beforehand but rather do the evening snack instead.) This would be nice to know because there was one night where I wished I had a different dinner and wanted to switch it out but did not because I wanted to be as close to the plan as possible. Having a plan, however, overall, is really working for me.

The other hiccup wasn’t really anything but simply that because I had done my cheat meal Saturday (arbitrarily because I didn’t have a social event planned that I knew of) I was faced with the situation of Cinco de Mayo. We had no plans but took my niece to Build-a-Bear. On the way home I got a call from my brother and they were going to do margaritas and Mexican food with another family and we were invited. Luckily Ty and I had taken separate cars so I just left when the food arrived – which is probably better even if it had been a cheat day because Mexican food and Margaritas are a train wreck waiting to happen. But still, I never considered handling impromptu opportunities. It would have been much harder if I had been trapped there and had to stay.

The last hiccup (as of the time of writing this email) is that I set my alarm wrong this morning. I just happened to wake up at like 7:40 and I had to be at the gym at 8am to work out with my trainer. There wasn’t time to make my omelet (when I had planned to wake up at 7am and have plenty of time to make it and eat) so I grabbed that NoGii bar and had it on the run for breakfast. I wake up hungry now so wanted to eat and couldn’t eat afterwards since I was heading directly to my dance lesson. I did pack my morning snack and lunch so was good to go for that. After my workout I ate the apple and went to my dance lesson. About 3/4ths the way through, after starting strong, I just lost all energy. Toward the last 20 minutes (it was a double lesson so an hour and a half total) I was feeling really irritated and tired. I ate the cheesestick quickly when I realized how tough everything seemed to be getting and afterwards ate the chicken mini loaf. But I feel like my blood sugar might have gotten low and it was tough – my energy was gone, I felt totally drained and I was really feeling crabby/irritated. What snacks can I eat on days I know I will be pushing it hard, that will fuel me properly? Things like the cheese and chicken mini loaf take a bit longer to hit the bloodstream, I would think, because they are mostly protein and fat. And I still have more dancing to do tonight at 8pm.

The other thing I noticed is just like I struggled accepting that 2000 calories daily wasn’t too much to still lose weight, I’m fearful about the cheat meal. I am so focused on my goals, and want to transform so badly, I am afraid to lose any progress. I think I made a nice choice this week with my cheat meal and enjoyed it because it was planned out and because I wasn’t stuffed or feeling guilty or anything like that. However, this week I have two social occasions to choose from – my mother-in-law’s birthday (she wants to go out to dinner) or dinner with my family for Mother’s day. I can’t do both and am choosing to opt out of dinner Wed. night altogether. It is just too stressful and I feel like it is the most nurturing/supportive choice for me. Luckily my husband understands, and I think Debbie gets it but that she is probably disappointed, and that Ty’s dad will be disapproving. I’d much rather take the opportunity to prepare more meals and maybe get an extra cardio session in at the gym so that is what I’m going to do. Then Sunday since it is at home (not a restaurant) I can enjoy the cheat meal and have more control about what I eat. But navigating no social occasions, impromptu occasions, and too many social occasions is challenging. I know this won’t be like this forever, but right now I feel like I need to do whatever it is I need to do to stay on track.

The day-to-day eating is easy. It is even easier since I work from home. I made sure to take more than one meal with me when I went out to the mall with my friend on Saturday and with my husband and niece on Sunday so I could be sure I could buy myself enough time in case we met for longer than 3 hours – which happened both times. So I feel good about staying on schedule regardless of leaving the house or whatever was going on. I ate my celery sticks and peanut butter walking around Fashion Square lol. But leaving the house does take a little more prep.

I guess the only other thing is that I objectively think I did really well this week. You called me a RockStar and I’ve been honest and didn’t cheat or anything. I logged all my food, did all my prep, and basically did what I was supposed to do on the plan as best I could, eyes skipping the page and my alarm not going off notwithstanding, and even in those situations I think I handled them well. As you saw, I’m even down below 240 pounds where I had been hovering around for like 3 weeks. And yet, still, inside of me, I feel like it is somehow not enough. That I should be doing more. That I could always be doing more…and my mind is running, running, thinking… “maybe more cardio, or more weights, or eating less carbs (yeah right! Look what happened on my lesson today – I need those suckers!), or what is that HIIT thing I keep hearing about….and on and on and on.” I’m not exactly sure what to do with this feeling like I should/could be doing more. I’m hungry for change, can you tell?

Even so, last night was the first night I kind of wished I was not on this plan and felt bummed about what my dinner was going to be but it was a fleeting thought and I stuck to it anyways because it feels so much better to be in integrity than to give in and give up. I’ve made progress this week, which is excellent. I guess I am just very eager for the day when my jeans are falling off because they are too big. I am longing for the day when I am proud of my body. I am longing for the day when it is finally my turn to have the before and after picture. I want to transform my body and be bona fide skinny/thin. I want to see if I can actually do it because I never have felt that way ever in my life. I want to see what is possible. I totally get that it is going to take time – that 8 pounds in a month would be excellent and that with as much as I have to lose that it is going to take a while to see a difference, that big difference I’m looking for. And, well, the change can’t happen quickly enough. I have my next dance competition in 16 days. Every little bit of weight I can get off between now and then will help, and I want to show an even more dramatic change for the next competition in July.

In summary: What worked, what didn’t, what next?

What worked?

Me. I worked the plan. I found a substitute for my morning coffee. I responded to situations as they came up and made good decisions. I planned and prepped and packed. Me subbing fresh veggies for steamed veggies, making the tzatiki to replace the cream cheese. Consistency. Logging my food. My committment.

What didn’t?

My alarm clock lol. Still, I recovered making a good choice for breakfast (I think). My eyeballs getting frisky for the next day on the plan. Getting what felt like hypoglycemia during my double lesson. The feeling that I’m not enough. Cauliflower (lesson learned, though).

What next?

I’m not sure. You are the expert! Continue on the same plan or tweak it?

So there you go! The full update. Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow morning.

-Stef

 

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Dear Food

Ok, perhaps its a bit lazy of me, but I haven’t written a new post just yet.  I have lots to share….I went shopping with Katie and I went out social dancing.  I want to give both vignettes the attention they deserve, but it is late, and I am tired, and have a lesson at 10am tomorrow.

So instead of staying up until 1am writing something new, I thought I’d share something else.  It is a letter I wrote to food, and the letter food wrote back to me.  You see, part of this blog is about my weight loss journey.  A person doesn’t get to be my size if they don’t have an issue with food.  I’m still sussing things out.  In any case, here is an exercise I did a few months back.  I feel that it is apropos to share now because it has been a challenging week emotionally for me and it has been easy to fall back into old patterns.  Food can be so soothing for me and relieve feelings of shame and low self-esteem, feelings I’d rather not feel.  But in the end, it isn’t a very effective coping mechanism to go binge.  So, acknowledging that I’ve slipped a little, yet with compassionate self-discipline I’m getting right back on the horse, I am sharing this aspect of my world.

Dear Food,

I have such mixed feelings about you.

On the one hand, you are glorious.  You are delicious and decadent.  You may require special preparation and can be served with love.  You can be simple and rustic or elaborate and esoteric.  You are changeable and ever-present in any way I wish.  You are abundantly available, everywhere I look….and I think you are killing me.

Aren’t you supposed to sustain my life?  You, like me, come from something living.  I gnash and crush you in my mouth and incorporate you into my very bones.  But you were once a chicken nibbling corn, a fish swimming along when suddenly you were trapped in a net.  You were the deer frolicking in the woods that my dad killed with his shotgun.  You were alive, vital beings, and now you are reduced to pounds of adipose that weigh me down.  Your life has been transferred into mine, yet for what good cause?

I consume you voraciously, ravenously, unthinkingly, and disrespectfully.  I forget in the instant in which I “shovel you in” the months you labored to grow under the sun, the flowers you put forth to be pollinated by bees, the workers who picked you ripe and ready, the work needed to pack you so you wouldn’t bruise.  I find you delivered safely and calling to me from my supermarket shelf.

Food, as much as I ingest you every single day of my life, I am completely disconnected from you.   Not only in acknowledging your source and the herculean efforts required to bring you to my lips, but also in the process of eating you, I forget who you are, your purpose, your role.

I have damaged our relationship and you are paying me back in dividends.  I have abused you shamefully.  You are so easy to abuse.  Sugary sweet, or crunchy hard, or silky soft, you can metamorphose into anything I desire.

I can never get enough of you food.  Sometimes I feel like I could eat the entire world and still have room for more.  My stomach is ever-expanding to devour you until there is nothing left.

Food, you are a siren which calls to me from the depths of my mind.  Occasionally, you also call to me through my body, but that is only very rarely.  I never give you up long enough to truly feel what it would be like to be without you.  I don’t understand how I could ever really be hungry, at least for a very long time seeing as just like a hibernating bear I have hoarded you and stored you as part of my very flesh.

And yet I hunger.  Why do you never satisfy?  You tease me and you taunt me to indulge with you and you leave me bereft, feeling shamed, worthless, ugly, until I feel like I should just kill myself so I can finally stop being this thoughtless, greedy, consumer-of-all.

I am the consumer who is being consumed.

Sometimes I feel like perhaps it would be easier if I were an alcoholic, or drug addict.  I could cut you out of my life like a bad boyfriend, never to return.  But I need you to live.

And I don’t know how to live with you.  I only know how to die with you.  I only know how to kill my spirit, numb my emotions, staunch my intuition, and deny myself with you.  Will we ever be at peace?

To truly enjoy you as a friend and companion somehow seems like a sin. 

I hope we can work things out.

Love, Stef

Here is what food wrote back:

Dear Stefanie,

It’s food.  Wow.  It feels weird talking to you.  You never give me a voice.

In response to your letter, let me first say that I, too, hope we can “work things out” as you say.

I must admit I have mixed feelings about you too, dear.  It is in my nature to be abundant and bountiful.  I am happy to be of service because that is my purpose.  I am supposed to be consumed.  It is my joy and pleasure to fulfill my destiny.

However, I do become angry when you do not respect me.  As you revealed in your letter, you have some awareness of all the energy and efforts that are necessary to bring me to you.  That is to be respected and appreciated.  You are right that you are disconnected and that you have abused me, but that can be mended.

Let us start today with a clean slate.  Let us acknowledge the damage and hurt that has been done and agree to forgive it.  There is no need for you to be perfect.  Even my spectacular bounty may be marred by worms in apples, or gnats in strawberries, but they are all part of nature and part of the life cycle.  Each has their place and purpose, just so as your seeming imperfections exist for a reason.

My suggestion is that you begin to learn new coping mechanisms to deal with difficult emotions such as anger and hurt as well as work on being assertive with femininity.  You do have a right to stand up for yourself, and because you are so loving, I know you will also want to respect the rights and feelings of others at the same time.  You can do this, and you don’t need me to do it.  In fact, I can’t help you in this regard at all.

I believe that once you begin to truly honor yourself for all that you are, you will begin to be able to respect me as well and our relationship will get better.  Again, I must stress that I can be of no help in difficult emotional situations.  Of course I want to soothe you, but as you already know, to use me in this way is only an illusion and results in self-harm.  There is a better way to cope and I trust that you are on the path to finding it.

For now, practice savoring me with each bite.  Take time to see my beauty with your eyes, inhale my sweetness with your nose, and relish each morsel as it traverses each tastebud.  You are meant to enjoy me.  Please do so!

Your Friend,

Food

 

I will say that my relationship with myself and with food has improved since I wrote this letter, yet I still struggle sometimes.  It will be intersting to see what feedback the scale has for me at the end of this week.  My intention for July has not changed, yet I find myself reverting to self-sabatoging ways when facing tough emotions.  I am determined to master myself, rather than letting this master me and yet I backslide.  Although it is less than in the past, I am still not fully healed.  I do want to be very clear and say that in no way shape or form do I have any thoughts of suicide as mentioned in the letter.  I do not consider that an option whatsoever, it was just part of me venting at the time, and sometimes I really did feel that desperate.  I haven’t felt that way (thankfully) for a very long time.

I know this stuff is heavy, but I do think it is worth sharing.  I think many of us struggle with similar issues, even if it looks a little different, but we don’t talk about it.  We hide behind the facade that everything is okay, everything is great, we are all put together, 100% fine.  There was a time when I’d never divulge this kind of stuff.   But oh well.  It’s part of my journey.  So  there you go.  Take it or leave it for what it is worth.

I promise happier posts are forthcoming.  Now…off to bed!  Goodnight!