Sweaty, Hungry, Tired --- and Glowing?

As I shave some of the excesses off my lifestyle, one of the loveliest outcomes is feeling things I haven't felt in a long time.

Like how great a good honest sweat feels... Not the kind I get in this part of the world just from going outside for a few minutes on any given day between June and September. The real kind. When I get home from four hard laps at the park and collapse on my bed 'til the air conditioning dries my sweat.

How wonderful it is to feel genuine hunger... When I eat nothing from 7:30 p.m. until I'm sitting at the breakfast table at about 7:00 the next morning, I actually feel hungry as I'm tucking into my meal. It's crazy how long it's been since I truly felt the pangs of a good honest hunger. I became so used to satisfying every passing whim of a craving, that I never had time to feel an empty stomach.

And you just can't beat feeling truly, physically tired at the end of the day... Crawling into those crisp, clean sheets and that tightly made bed feels so good when you've actually earned your rest. Knowing that I've put in a good day's work from sun up to sun down. I swear I used to have days where I'd look back and realize I'd accomplished absolutely nothing. I wouldn't even be tired, but I'd go to bed because - well - it seemed like the thing to do at 10 p.m. How good it feels to find myself yawning at bedtime! And not because I've spent most of my free time that day watching TV or surfing the net, but because I've washed dishes, made beds, cleaned windows, ironed clothes, re-stocked my pantry, scrubbed the vegetable bins in my refrigerator, and put in a good workout. Not all in one day, of course! It is an amazing thing to feel the same sense of accomplishment from each and every one of these seemingly monotonous tasks as somebody might feel in winning some great award or distinction.

A coworker of mine paid me the sweetest compliment yesterday morning. (I guess I should call her Co-worker #5.) We ran into each other on the way into the building and she told me she thought I'd looked "glowing" lately. Glowing? She said she'd been wanting to ask me if I'd been seeing somebody - she thought I looked like a woman in love. Well, no, but cool!!! (It must be those "creamy engagement ring circles" I've been using with the cold cream in the morning!) Who knows? It may be the cold cream, it may be the water, it may be the -4 lbs. And it may just be that rush of success in feeling like I'm finding my way through the woods after all those years of feeling confused and hopeless and out of control.

Cutting the Cord

I'm venturing into the world of 1940s culture this week with a special seven-week mission. For quite some time, I've been thinking about diving into a vintage cultural mission here and there, but - between mastering the weekly kitchen cleaning and making a success of this diet and exercise thing - well, let's just say I haven't been lacking for mission material!

It's time to cut the cord to television. TV plays an outsized, overblown role in my life. And maybe this has a lot to do with living alone... In any event, I've gotten used to turning on the television when I get home from work - and it stays on until bedtime. It's comforting background noise. Especially during the long, long summers here when all my windows are closed tight for the air conditioning and I can't hear a peep from the outer world. Sometimes I see something really exciting that I hadn't planned on watching. But most of the time, I just end up listening to or watching a bunch of tired schlock I didn't get anything out of and don't remember 15 minutes later. Not a wise use of electricity, nor of my time.

What would my world be like if I didn't have that shiny little box to rely on for half-minded entertainment? Would I pick up new hobbies? Would I be a little less interested in celebrities? Would I feel deprived of anything? Would it force me to find some live entertainment instead?

Mind you, I don't think television is the devil incarnate or anything. I just want to put TV back into its proper place. So it's something I turn on specifically to watch a single program - and then turn off when that program is over... The timing isn't any accident. I had to wait until the finale of American Idol aired last night! (Had to see me Krissy boy take that title home like he deserved!!!) My other favorite reality show is Big Brother. (Yes, I'm hanging my head in embarrassment at this one.) Anyway, Big Brother doesn't get underway until July. So there's going to be a seven-week moratorium on TV here at the Jitterbug household. In fact, I think I probably ought to just unplug the thing so I don't turn it on absentmindedly! I'm curious to see what a post-television world holds for me...

Patriot Red

As I got nearer and nearer to this lipstick step in my 1946 grooming routine, I started doing a little research. Here's my question: Was red truly the hottest color of the '40s when it came to lipstick? I mean, I know we see a lot of red lips in modern movies set in that era and on WWII reenactors - but I've always wondered if that was true to reality. So I set forth on a completely unscientific survey using vintage lipstick advertisements for sale on eBay...

My completely unscientific results? Red was hot, hot, hot - it was all over the place! In fact, I think I only came across two or three ads (out of about 40) for non-red lipsticks. And they were in the deep pink family. There were all kinds of reds, from brown reds to clear reds to blue reds. And - most wonderfully - lots of lipsticks christened with names evocative of the times, like Patriot Red, All Clear Red, Furlough Red, Mrs. Miniver Rose, and Victory Red. How could a gal resist?

I embarked on several trips to the cosmetics aisle and came away every time overwhelmed by all the choices. How to pick the right red for me? I may have taken the easy way out, but I finally settled on a shade by Almay called "Red." Plain ol' Red. It's probably what you'd call a true red - without any undertones. And a matching lipliner.

I've had lipstick issues since I was about 22 and worked for a woman who always had some garish color smeared across her lips. (She used to try and match her lipstick to her brightly colored blazers.) Well, the lipstick usually ended up on her teeth --- and I've had an aversion to it ever since. Nothing brighter for me than a shaded lip gloss on special occasions. Needless to say, I had no idea how people would react today to my new lips. Here's the rundown:

Co-worker #1: "Ooh, pretty lipstick!"

Co-worker #2: "You're wearing lipstick? Fancy-schmancy."

Co-worker #3: "Look at your lips!" *kissing sounds*

Co-worker #4: "You've lost weight."

Well, I have lost 4 lbs. That's official as of this morning. I'm back down to 190, and that's after about six days without any ice cream or frozen dairy treats. Connection? You tell me... What's funny is that I could've sworn the lipstick made my face look a little fatter than normal when I left the house this morning. Maybe I was wrong!

Week Twenty-seven: The Mission

It's not entirely a mystery why I lost two lbs. a couple of weeks ago and promptly gained it back. It did take me a few days to sort out what must've happened, but I think I've narrowed things down. The week before last, my freezer was stocked with Drumsticks. You know the kind I'm talking about - those tasty, nutty morsels of chocolatey-caramelly goodness. The week before that, nary a Drumstick in sight. I was trying to be "good" that particular week by buying Fudgsicles instead. The one-stick kind. Could this minor change in frozen dairy treats be the reason my workouts actually had a chance at doing their job? I think so. I can easily eat two or three Drumsticks in a sitting, whereas the Fudgsicles weren't as satisfying so the box was around for awhile.

This is one of the not-so-pretty realities of life 50 lbs. past a healthy body weight. When no holds are barred when it comes to cravings. I've had a Drumstick habit off and on for about two years. Well, no more! NO MORE!!! I declare my independence from ice cream this very day! The ice cream is gone, the Drumsticks are gone, the Fudgsicles are gone, the Blue Bell Chocolate Cherry Bars are gone... This is my July 4, 1776!

Fitness
Walk 30 minutes a day, four times during the week.
Walk 50 minutes a day, both days during the weekend.

Reducing
Ice cream: I love you, but you done me wrong. Ice cream and frozen dairy treats of any kind are herewith banished from the Jitterbug household.

Grooming
Here's the next step in the 1946 morning grooming routine. After drinking a glass of water, brushing your teeth, washing your face, and powdering your nose, you're to dress up your lips with a coat of lipstick.

Put on some bright, pretty lipstick, making the edges neat and blotting away the excess.

The ice cream thing is going to be excruciating, but I'm a bit nervous about the lipstick, too. Can I pull it off without looking like a clown? We'll see...

Streamlining Housework

If you haven't noticed me grumbling about cleaning my kitchen lately, it's because I haven't been. (Grumbling, that is!) When I decided a few weeks ago to split up the big jobs into alternate weeks, it made all the difference in the world. Cleaning the kitchen still means a good solid two hours of work once a week, but the work just seems a lot more manageable than it did before.

And there isn't anything I really enjoy about this particular chore. When the job is done, though, my kitchen looks so nice. I catch myself doing a double take or two just to see how lovely it looks with a shiny sink, clean countertops, and a stovetop that positively gleams! If I can find something interesting on the radio, it always makes the work go faster, and I take a few breaks to drink some water and to put on some hand lotion. The good stuff. If I going to baby my hands at some point during the week, this is definitely the time to do so. Working with all that soap and water can be super drying to the skin.

Speaking of cleansers, soap and water aren't the only things at work in my kitchen these days. I use baking soda when cleaning the interior of the refrigerator/freezer and Comet to scour the sink. Cellulose sponges and dishtowels are my tools of choice, with an occasional Brillo Pad on a stubborn drip pan and - once in a great while - a paper towel. It's funny. On the rare occasions that I'd do any kind of cleaning in my kitchen in the past, I would never have set foot in there without a roll of paper towels and a canister of disinfectant wipes. I guess I was just afraid of having to put any kind of elbow grease to work. I thought chemicals could do the work for me. These days, I can go a month before having to change the roll of paper towels in my kitchen. And that's one of the small rolls! Paper towels get used now only for spot cleaning.

As I get accustomed to the mechanics of cleaning the kitchen, I catch myself finding little ways to make the work go faster. Here's my latest discovery: If I remove the drip pans before scrubbing the stovetop down (Is that what those metal trays under the burners are called?), then pop the lid and clean out underneath the stovetop, then wash the drip pans in the sink --- the stovetop and the area underneath it will be practically air-dried by the time I'm ready to reassemble the whole affair. That means my dishtowel will get less wet on that particular job and I can use it longer before having to replace it with another. I love finding little techniques like this to streamline the work!

Sadly, I don't think there's a soul among the women I talk with on a regular basis who could understand my excitement over something like this. Shoes? They could understand. A decorating idea for a dinner party? They'd get it. We just don't talk about housework in this day and age. It's that hidden thing that must be done, but isn't very fashionable to discuss. How are girls supposed to learn how to maintain a home if it's no longer cool even to mention the process? If our mothers hardly have enough time to keep house themselves - never mind teaching their daughters how to do it - and it isn't fashionable to discuss it with your girlfriends, how are we supposed to learn or better our craft? Housework's become the great unmentionable among women, and yet it's getting done is indispensible.

One of the other things that gives this little housekeeper a thrill these days are the ads for Parkay Margarine and Kraft Dinner that have been preserved along with episodes of The Great Gildersleeve from 1941 and 1942. The ads reference a rhythm to housework that must have been completely familiar to listeners of the era... Kraft Dinner - which we now call plain ol' macaroni and cheese - was billed as a fabulous option for dinner on Monday nights. A night when Mother must have been worn to the bone by the wash... As the announcer describes all the perks of using a product like Parkay Margarine, he mentions the baking that would have been done in a Christian household on Saturdays. (The program was aired lived on Sunday evenings):

I wonder how many of you housewives baked a cake or some cookies yesterday for your Sunday dinner today. A lot of you did, I’m sure, because there’s nothing like that real home-baked flavor. Well, here’s a hint for the next time you bake. For luscious, extra flavor in cookies, cakes, and pastries, use delicious Parkay margarine for the shortening...

My own 1945 menu for dinner this evening features a wartime meatless dish:

Peanut Roast
Pennsylvania Cabbage Salad with Sour Cream Dressing

The dessert, Apricot Whip, is made with raw egg whites, so - rather than play around with salmonella - I may substitute a Dried Apricot Cake. Is there any Parkay in the house?

Again! Again!

My youngest niece (and goddaughter) is one today. Little Poppet was the life of the party in her ivory floral dress - with matching bloomers, of course! We celebrated at one of the quieter parks here in the city. A picnic breakfast and a lovely lemon cake. Her big sister "helped" quite a bit when it came time for opening gifts, but Poppet was blissfully content just to hold her cards and gaze at the pictures. Kitten wore a bright pink plaid sundress and wore Auntie out with her new favorite game, Ring Around the Rosy. "Again!" "Again!" Actually, I think I did spend too much time in the heat and sun. I fell asleep when I got home and didn't wake up until almost 5:00!

The highlight of my morning was the first thing my sister's mother-in-law said to me: "You've lost weight!" Could it be? Is all this work and deprivation paying off --- even though I can't see it in my own mirror??? I scoffed it off and muttered something about "three pounds," but inside I was jumping for joy.

So, I've slept off the party and am working on my water for the day. On to the kitchen...

Displacement

39 ounces down, 25 to go!

You know, one of the side benefits to drinking all this water on a daily basis is that I'm going to be drinking less of the other things I'd normally drink to quench my thirst. Like Vitamin Water. I love this stuff, and - truth be told - it's not nearly as bad for me as some of the other things I used to drink. Like Pepsi or Gatorade or Coffee Coolattas. Vitamin Water contains 125 calories to a 20-ounce bottle, and I'd guess I was drinking about 1 1/2 bottles per day before I started on the water. I haven't sworn off Vitamin Water, but I do have a quota when it comes to the real stuff and that competitive edge in me feels driven to make that quota every day. So it's water first - and by the time I make my quota it's bedtime and I'm not thirsty any longer. That's 185-190 calories a day I'm turning away. Hey, that's gonna add up --- more than 1,300 calories a week, more than 5,200 calories per month. YIKES!!! I'd better stop. I'm freaking myself out!

The weather is really heating up here in the American Southwest and, with it, my routine is adapting a bit. I can only keep the windows open from about 11 p.m. 'til 7:00 a.m. Which puts a crimp on all the fresh air I'm used to putting to work for me when it comes to housework. I can't open the windows to air out my mattress when I'm changing the bed linens on Thursday evenings. I just hung my quilt and blanket and pillows outside to air on the landing, but it's still in the high 80s, so I know they won't feel quite as fresh and crisp afterwards as they used to... On the plus side, if I put a freshly washed garbage can or wet bucket out there on a sizzling Saturday afternoon, it's dry in a flash!

Now I understand how housewives in four-season climates must have felt when after being cooped up indoors all winter they threw open the windows and dragged everything outdoors for a breath of fresh air. Beating the dust out of carpets, cleaning out fireplaces, letting the sun shine in on even the darkest corners of the house. Things just work a little backwards here. Think how happy I'll be come December!

The biggest change with these temperatures is that I've taken part of my weekday walk indoors. There's a basketball stadium about a ten-minute walk from where I work and the building is open during the day to walkers. You can walk laps around the stadium on one of the upper tiers and savor that lovely air conditioning. What it means is that I'm spending about 20 minutes in the broiling hot sun in order to get to and from the stadium - where I only have time to spend about 10 minutes! - but even taking 10 minutes off the time I have to spend in the noonday sun is worth it. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to make this work. Maybe a month. But what matters is getting it done now. I'll let next month worry about itself for a change.

"...one more glass to the good"

You know something I love about the 21st century? We've learned that you don't have to beat your vegetables into submission by boiling them to a pulp and smothering them in white sauce, bread crumbs, and cheese!

Parsley Potatoes
Baked Broccoli
Lettuce and Tomato Salad
Coconut Blanc Mange
Cherry Sauce

I guess the good thing about a dish like Baked Broccoli is that it makes a simpler broccoli recipe look absolutely lovely in comparison. There are so many lighter and more flavorful things you can do with an easygoing veggie like this one. The Parsley Potatoes were tasty as always. The Lettuce and Tomato Salad was a surprise! I had only glanced at the recipe before Sunday and didn't get a full picture of what was in store for me. Very Art Deco... like shiny, little, red domes on the salad plate...

**********

Lettuce and Tomato Salad

3 Tomatoes
Lettuce leaves
6 tablespoons French dressing

Scald the tomatoes, remove the skins and chill the tomatoes. Just before serving time, cut them in halves, crosswise, and place one piece, with the outside upward, on each serving-plate with one or two leaves of white, crisp lettuce underneath. Pour over each portion a tablespoon of French dressing.

**********

The Coconut Blanc Mange was, well, meh. Kind of a soft, bland pudding with the coconut doing must of the job at holding it all together. It might've been a little better if made with whole milk. Or maybe a dash of coconut extract. My Cherry Sauce was a miserable failure. It never really thickened and the ingredients didn't meld. Well, it's probably for the best that I'm not discovering fabulous new desserts these days!

Today marks the second day of my new water regime. I set the goal for this mission at eight 8-ounce glasses per day as that seems to be the gold standard when it comes to H2O. Apparently, that rule of thumb has been around for awhile. Dr. Walter H. Eddy, a professor of physiological chemistry, was interviewed for a newspaper article in July 1940 and advised that adults drink two quarts of water per day to maintain optimum health. What do you know, two quarts = 64 ounces!

After using a measuring cup marked with ounces to determine how much water the various glasses in my cabinet held, I figure I was probably drinking about 40 ounces per day before this mission. I downed 64 ounces yesterday without much difficulty, but I'm not there yet today and the day is short. I think I've just got to remind myself --- when I'm thirsty, reach for water first.

The Evening Independent's Alicia Hart weighed in on this very topic in December 1943:

Few of us ever drink the eight glasses of water a day which are recommended for health and a clear complexion. Maybe it's the idea of eight glasses all together that appalls us. But properly spaced throughout the day, eight glasses are not as many as you imagine.

For instance, petal-skinned film star Gene Tierney, who has just kept a date with the stork but will be back at the studios very shortly, makes a habit of having a tall glass of warm water with a half lemon squeezed in it before breakfast each morning.

If you like, add a teaspoonful of mineral honey - clover or alfalfa - to make it more palatable. It's a marvelous morning pick-up and a boon to clearer, smoother complexions.

And when you feel hungry in the middle of the day, yet you know very well that you ate a substantial enough lunch, drink a tumbler of water. It'll fill the void and you'll be just one more glass to the good.

Also, if you've been trying to lose weight, drink a glass before lunch or dinner and you won't want to eat so much. No, actually, eight glasses a day aren't too hard to take at all.

Intervention

The scales giveth and the scales taketh away.

I stepped on the scale this morning for my weekly weigh-in and found myself right back there at 192. Yep, the same 192 I thought I'd left in the dust a week ago! I'm trying not to panic. That's my first instinct. "You mean to tell me I've been exercising for nothing for the last two weeks!" "OMG, I'll just have to stop eating. Yes, that's it. I'll fast." Fear takes over (followed shortly by quitting the whole thing altogether), but no longer. I don't have the luxury of playing that old routine out once again. This may be a setback, but I know I'm on the right path to success. It just means that it's time for a mid-mission intervention, effective right away.

Fitness
Walk 30 minutes a day, four times during the week. Walk 45 minutes a day, both days during the weekend.

Reducing
This time, I'm adding something: eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day. Let's see if this - in concert with all of the other guidelines I've placed on my eating - can't help me naturally eat a little less each day.