Impossible Butterfly

"Don't step on it!" Beansprout yelled.  I just about peed my pants, but obliged. Beansprout has become the Keeper of the Catepillars. When I was out gardening in my beautiful flower bed, he just about drove me crazy. Punctuated with the occasional, "LOOK OUT" my afternoon was peaceful, getting in my last annuals and stepping back to survey the fabulousness every so often.

I even learned to capitalize on his exuberance.  "Yo Beansprout!" I point my spade, "Your friend there is eating my plants!  You better get him off my plants!" the lovely little boy would oblige!  Worked every single time.  He never got tired of it, and I should know because I tried it a lot of times.

He was vigilant in taking care of those plants catepillars.

Why am I telling you this?  I should post this on my personal blog right?  Of course.  But the reason I bring that up is this:  he was vigilant!  He attempted the impossible.

You know and I know that taking care of all the catepillars everywhere is impossible.  No.  This is not a continuation of the philosophical questions that we talked about.  This is about Beansprout attacking the insurmountable with a vengeance.  You know what?

He convinced me.

Every plant of mine was stripped of every caterpillar in my sight.  They probly did get scared of me and just shifted with my perspective.  But, Beansprout did 90% of the impossible.  Awesome, no? Nothing is impossible.

However, Beansprout became complacent.  NO.  I did not make my poor son sit outside all day and night plucking away the caterpillars off my flowers.  He became complacent when he took ownership of one and put it in a jar.  I do the exact same thing when I'm happy and confident with where I am  BEFORE I've reach my goals.

I warned him.  I warned Beansprout to put fresh leaves in there.  Caterpillars can't eat potpourri ya know.  I tilted it speculatively each day and said, "He's gonna DIE.  You gotta get him more leaves!"  But he never did a thing.  Just seemed happy that the darn thing wasn't getting into any trouble in there.  On display and in control.  I knew it was doomed. One day I didn't even move the jar.  No butterfly from that dehydrated worm.

Hubbend looked at it that evening.  He evaluated it.  I said, "If ya hafta shake it, the odds aren't good."

So sad.  Lesson learned.  Do not get overconfident.  Crash and burn is possible.  Poor Beansprout.  Poor us 'cause we have to tell him.  Poor bingeing JourneyBeyondSurvival.  Can't handle real life or losing weight anymore because she is happy and satisfied at 194 pounds.  Twenty eight pounds lost and I felt like a winner.

Ha ha.  Funny joke's on me.  I think I'll go buy another small mint oreo blizzard and a bag of 24 mini krispy kreme crueller donuts.

But you know what happened?  Today, as Hubbend was heading outside to dump out the dried mess in of the jar the stinking caterpillar MOVED.  That's right.  It was alive.  It hung out all scared and conserving strength as the world around it decayed.  But when it mattered, that thing got going.  Hubbend took it out reverently and dumped it in the grass.

There is no way that poor thing is going to grow up in this house.  No metamorphosis in the dessert in the jar.  So, we changed the situation and gave it a better chance.  In a few days-I'm sure as far away from here as possible-there will be a great change taking place.

There will be the emergence of the Impossible Butterfly.

You and ME on the other side of our goals.

*photo by neesflynn*
maintenance weight:196.2
+- from yesterday: -1 pound!
10000 steps: met