I edited last night's rant a bit for clarity and to take out some overly-detailed information. The rest of the rant remains as true as it was when I was venting it in my stream-of-consciousness way.

But on to more important things, like the future. Today is the first day of Catherine's bodily makeover. Why not wait until New Year's Day, the traditional starting day of diet resolutions, you ask? Because I got on the scale this morning and nearly screamed - let's just say that holiday excess has taken its toll. I need an intervention. It's really scary how not paying attention and letting my diet drift has created such bloated havoc in such a short time, but the evidence is before me. And beside me. And behind me. It's basically evenly distributed all over me.

That itself is a problem - I've always been able to, as the saying goes, "carry weight well." When I gain, I gain it uniformly, so it's possible to do as I did and slowly gain 30 pounds and never really notice until I had to buy decent looking clothes again. Couldn't do it - nothing can look right on this body.

So, I'm done lying to myself and ignoring the problem, and I'm on the South Beach Diet, effective this morning. Yesterday I cleaned out the fridge, and this morning I will restock it with only SBD friendly items - low fat cheeses, meats and fish, lots and lots of low carb veggies. I need more roasted veggies tonight.

For those curious about the South Beach Diet but unwilling to invest in the hardcover book, Prevention has put out a little guide with a 30 day South Beach plan that condenses everything you need to know into a few pages. My beef about the SBD book is that a lot of it is recipes, which is nice, but they're not necessarily things you'd want to make every day, they're a bit frou-frou for my taste.

I also have knitting resolutions. Unfinished projects are getting finished in January, and abandoned projects are getting frogged. I don't have a vast number of unfinished projects, but I have a few I'd call lingering reminders of my attention span issues. Bardot is certainly at the top of the list, and I promise the Girlchild here and now, before God and everybody, I will finish it before the end of January. Catherine will get herself together in the next 30 days, and form habits that will last. Yep, I said it, and I'm gonna do it. Really.