Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Whittler

Do you know after you have dessert and it was oh so good and you don't want another FULL piece because then you are a porky hog.... but you would like a little more?  So you take the knife just sliver a piece off.  It's really just icing anyway.  And since that was so good and everyone is still talking you figure it's safe to take one more skinnyskinny piece.  And you sit there for a minute thinking you are satisfied.... but you go back in for a skinnyskinnyskinny piece. The cycle continues until the pan is empty and the knife and spatula have been licked clean.  If you engage in this activity you are a "Whittler."  You just whittle away at it bit by bit and no one notices (maybe you sneak into the fridge in the middle of the night) and then BOOM!  it's all gone.
Some people look down upon or even tease Whittlers.
But I think it's an excellent habit to bring into every area of life.
Today I did some much needed whittling.  It wasn't a Edwards Key Lime Pie.  I would have devoured that in one gulp today.  I whittled the pictures on my camera.  I was taking blurry pictures of Koley- that's all I can take these days- and started playing with the features.  In the top corner it said 388/797.  797?  What's that number mean?  Is that how many pictures I have on here?  No I don't. GASP. Ohhhh. Yes I do. 

So I went through and deleted all the blurry ones, the almost duplicates, and the ones where I can't see Kole's  face.   I learned this trick from my sister Andi.  She's a professional and I guess I'm a sentimentalist.  But the truth is what am I going to do with nearly 800 bad pictures.  I thumb through all of them and give them all value and say they were priceless.  They aren't.  They are poorly taken.  They aren't in focus.  They aren't even of the front of Koley.  (I think this problem started many years ago when I couldn't throw my stuffed bears on the floor because they had "feelings.")  Pictures don't have feelings.  I kept repeating that to myself as I whittled and whittled and then got the axe out.  I'm down to 186.  Yeah 75% of the pictures I deleted.  For. Ev. Ver.  But what's left are gorgeous, quality pictures that I want to save.  I think 181 are of Kole, 3 are of Ken, and 2 are of animals at the zoo.

Other things I've whittled lately:
1.  The frozen cookie dough in the freezer (sorry Kenmo)
2.  10 pounds of body fat. (Go Patty!)

6 comments:

Julia said...

Ahhh....the blessings and curses of digital photography. I take no less than 5 pictures of the exact same thing. I swear.

DoublClik said...

I took 435 pics in a half hour session this past Saturday. My shutter fingers has a life of its own when im working with a client. it's a nerve thing. Anyway I do hard core whittling of duplicates, especially when the client won't change position unless I tell them too!

Poulsen Family said...

Wow, you've whittled away 10 pounds while also finishing off the cookie dough? That's impressive.

Anonymous said...

I am the same way. I have a hard time deleting even the blurry ones! lol

Anonymous said...

Oh and congrats on whittling away 10 lbs!! That is AWESOME!!:)

Brett and Tiffany said...

Awesome! Brett's family is the kings and queens of whittling when it comes to food. No one EVER takes a whole piece they just go back and slice a little bit each time! I like that word though! I didn't know it had a name!
Great job on "whittling" 10 pounds! I know that is a HUGE accomplishment because it is hard to do (for me anyway)! The good thing about whittling it away is it stays off better instead of doing some silly diet and losing it and then gaining it back!