Tortoise, Turtle, Huddle in Your Shell, and How Was Your Weight this week my dear? A little slow?

In some TOPS groups, they say they "turtled" if their weight stayed the same from one week to the next.  That's me, this week.  I'm a turtle!

I am a person who does not do physical things quickly, and as a child, my sister dubbed me a turtle.  I was also shy and a social misfit, which probably added to it. My sister even gave me a stuffed turtle one year.  As a defense, I adopted the turtle as my mascot, named the stuffed one Toby, and started collecting turtles. I had a hand-drawn turtle poster, a tiny ceramic turtle, and numerous others.  I had a hand-me-down live turtle but sadly, I neglected him and he died.  I think I even had a dress with turtles on it at some point.

Eventually, I decided that I did not want to reinforce myself as the image of a turtle.  I did not want to hide out sluggishly in my little shell, trying to protect myself from the world by being invisible.  I wanted to be bold, outgoing, and if not athletic, at least not afraid to try.  I got fairly good at volleyball, still stink at tennis and baseball, and loved soccer and Speedaway, a popular game at my high school. I also loved crab soccer. The bigger the ball the better I did.

I was a 6th grade cheerleader and had a lot of fun with that.  As a disclaimer, there were only 6 or 8 girls in  my two-room school upper-grade class, so most of us were cheerleaders. Looking back, I feel bad about the girls we left out.  At the time, an immature 11-year-old, I was just grateful to have finally found a way to fit in.

At 16 I ran for Miss County.  As the youngest one there I had an interesting experience, and came out as 3rd Runner-up, which sounds really great until you realize only four of us ran!  But they gave me a giant trophy and my boyfriend of the time told me I was the most beautiful
woman there, and my dad was way proud of me for trying and claims he heard audience members claiming that the girl in the yellow dress should win.  Ah, Parents!

I went off to summer camps, and the first year I got stuck with a terrible group of girls, bawled with homesickness but stuck it out, thanks to a terrific counselor and an older sister (not the one who called me a turtle!) who let me hang out in her tent a lot.  The second year I called home once but stuck it out. There were boys at that camp--worth staying around for!  After that I was home free. I loved summer camp, made some really good friends, organized a skit my last year, and eventually, as an adult, became a counselor.

Now I go out of my way to greet newcomers at church.  I strike up conversations in grocery stores.  I got things organized for the Biggest Loser contest at work.  At times I still want to crawl back into my shell, but weight-wise, no.  I don't want to be a turtle!  I threw out all my turtles!  I want to make quick progress.  And I want to stop writing this blog and go exercise, so ta-ta for now!