Grilling Season is upon us!

Mmmm.  I love grilling.  It means I get to share the cooking duties, first of all.  And second of all, it's tasty and healthy.  Win-win-win, I say.  Right now we have chicken breasts on the grill and baked taters in the toaster oven.  You'll notice a distinct lack of green things in our meal.  I don't even really have anything I could half-heartedly try to include!  So we'll have fruit for dessert.  Yum.  I just bought some cherries today!

This weekend has been fairly non-binge-y.  We haven't really done much of anything this weekend...  in fact, I'm not sure what all occupied our days.  While I'm sure there are more productive ways to spend our time, it was nice.  We did go get ice cream on saturday while we were out looking at trees at the nursery.  And it was delicious.  Mmmmm.  It's so freeing to not feel like a giant blob-o-fatass after eating ice cream.  Legalizing it apparently stuck.

One of the tools that my therapist has given me is the idea of doing something else when I'm feeling that urge to graze, or eat mindlessly, or binge.  We tossed around ideas, and one that we settled on that I was stoked about was coloring.  Like, in coloring books.  So I amazoned it up and found myself four fun adult coloring books.  Again, adult does not equal porn here.  It equals coloring books not filled with Disney fairies and and Pokemons (are those even still cool?).  Lots of geometric shapes, patterns, designs, etc.  One of them reminds me of this really awesome toy that I was always fascinated with as a kid.  I never had one, but I used to play with the one that belonged to my uncles, while at my Grandma's house.  The Spirograph.  Seriously, I loved that thing.  I may have to get one, matter of fact.  Although as I look at the one on Amazon, it sounds like a crappy new version.  Hmmm.  Anyway, sorry about the detour...

So I colored a fair amount this weekend.  Here is what I observed:

• I need to buy a pencil sharpener!  I have the red colored pencil pretty much worn to a nub.  
• I love color.  I like to mix up the colors and shapes and find stuff that goes together.  This felt familiar to me, much like I do with my bags and sewing.
• When I'm coloring, I'm really focused.  Kind of in a zone.  It's nice.  I'm not thinking about much else.  I was coloring while we were watching TV, and I could pretty much follow along by listening, but I was really focused and it definitely distracted me from thinking about snacking or worrying.  

The distraction factor is pretty much da-bomb-diggity.  It was peaceful and quiet in my head.  Kind of what I always imagine swimming should be.  You know, you see someone gliding thru the water, and you know it's all silent for them, and they are moving effortlessly, all strong, lean, and graceful.  In reality, swimming, for me, is a splashy, chokey, erratic, choppy non-peaceful experience.  I always want to find that peace and quiet and grace.  So I'm not sure what it says about me that I get that from coloring with colored pencils instead of swimming...  but I'll take it.  I'm way better at coloring than swimming anyway!

What could I do, and get paid for it, that allows me to be creative all day?  Because that would something I would very much like.