Enough is Enough

Yeah, I know, I said that a couple of days ago. I meant it. I still mean it. So why didn't I go to the gym today? Because my house was filthy, I had a headache, we had to go grocery shopping, and yes, I could still go now, but I'd rather start tomorrow. I know, I know, "start now!" and all that, but really, if I start tomorrow--on Sunday, the "first" day of the week--it will set better in my head. Don't ask. I'm a freak.

But I'm ready to go back hard-core. I've been kind of pussifying my workouts since I got sick in November--I haven't gained any weight back (that I'm aware of, I haven't weighed myself in a week) but I've really just been maintaining. I really, really want to drop that last ten pounds. Not necessarily because I feel like I have to, but because I want to accomplish that goal. I did it before, I can do it again. I want to know I have plenty of wiggle room in all my clothes and not worry about one off week making everything too tight. I want to look in the mirror and think not "damn" but "DAY-UM!" When it's finally warm enough, I want to put on a swimsuit--ANY swimsuit--and not question how I look in it at all. I can do it. Icanarod, Iwillarod, Iwinarod, Iditarod!*

Part of this is going to involve no longer putting every piece of crap food I can find in my mouth. I think my candy binge is over--I left the bowl out last night when we went to bed. Really all that was left were the dregs (Lemonheads and jawbreakers and DumDums suckers, ick), but I didn't intend for the stupid fucking dog to have her way with them. Stupid whore. At any rate, she did for me what I couldn't do for myself (get rid of the candy) and for that, I have to thank her.

I'm also going to try to stick with the gluten free diet as best I can. I really did feel better last week when I was behaving myself. On Friday, when I let the bake sale beast overtake me with a cupcake, a brownie and 2 slices of banana bread, I developed a headache and felt generally shitty the rest of the night. Go figure.

I also need to beef up my workout routine. By that, I mean I need to resume weights and strength training. I will continue my cardio, but I'm going to dedicate myself to weights on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays (Jimmy Buffett's performance schedule).

I think I'm also going to go the route of my husband and start taking a daily photo of myself. I hate, hate, hate how I look in pictures. I don't think I take good pictures at all and maybe if I start taking one of myself every day, I'll start to look better in them. Or I'll just get used to seeing myself on camera.

I just really need to pull myself out of this mid-winter depression shit before it takes over and I drown in a sea of Doritos and self-loathing.

One thing that helped my mood--sort of--I finished our tax returns today. I planned to just get started on them, but once I did, I realized I actually had all the forms and info I needed to complete them. So I did. It only took about an hour (gotta love HRBlock dot com) and it turns out we're going to get a nice little chunk of change back. Nothing major--I thought about putting it into savings, but it really only amounts to a little under a payday for us. Bummer. That said, we're going to investigate replacement windows for the whole house. If we can do it with our refund money and little or no credit, we're going to go for it. I hate blowing a wad like that all in one shot, but dammit, our windows suck ass. Half of them don't open and a few of them won't even shut. I shudder to think how much money we've spent heating and cooling the outdoors because of our shitty windows. So new windows it is. If we can't afford to do it with just our refund money, the plan is to use the money for a few other minor home repairs (a new bathroom sink, maybe new area rugs and an island in the kitchen), pay off a couple of bills, and put a little in savings.

So many things I need to do, so little time. It's overwhelming, indeed.



*Vague Ellen Degeneres reference. If you read "My Point--and I Do Have One", you get it.

Enough is Enough

I have fallen into a rather nasty pattern lately of eating like a pig and avoiding the gym. I feel like a sloth and I'm depressed.

It ends tomorrow. Tomorrow is Friday. The weather's supposed to suck balls. Regardless, I am going to the gym and I'm going to stop eating so damn much.

No More Donuts

My diet plans have been thrown under the bus this week. It started Monday morning when our team lead brought in two boxes of Dunkin Donuts. Two. Boxes. Dunkin Donuts. There's no other donut out there, in my opinion. Even though I'd carefully packed my breakfast and my lunch and already had a Soy Joy bar on my commute in, I couldn't help but stuff one into my face. And another one after lunch. And another one today.



I haven't made it to the gym since Sunday, either.



Did I mention there were also Hostess cupcakes and Doritos last night?

Eh. Tomorrow's another day. This evening, I had legitimate reasons for not hitting the gym, which I won't go into here--but I used the time wisely. I trimmed the too-long lining on a skirt and re-hemmed it, and did a little work on my most recent gaming case project. I've got some other projects I'm itching to get started on, but I need to make another trip to the fabric store before I can get moving on them.

I did get to spend some quality time with the toddler today, and the older one, too. Sometimes it's nice to have a kid on your lap. Even if that kid is damn near as tall as you are.

Lists

Things I wanted to do today:

Laundry - check.

Pick up Bob's prescription - check.

Go to Target and get Bob a pair of shoes (because his "new" shoes stepped in dog shit this morning and the sole is starting to come unglued already, anyway), vitamins, more Soy Joy bars, and Mucinex and Tylenol PM - check.

Make gluten-free pancakes and quinoa pasta for meals at work this week - check.

Get my laundry done - sortof check (it's in the dryer. Close enough.)

Go to the fabric store and spend some money - check. (Now I need to do something with it.)

Go to the gym - check.

It's 1:37pm. Looks like I'm off to a good start, at least.

________________________________________________

It's now 7:24pm, and I need to add a couple of items to the list:

Pick out clothes for tomorrow -

Pack breakfast and lunch for tomorrow -

Start working on content for HaveItHandmade -

Pack Bob's school bag - check.

Do nails - screw it. I'm going to splurge and get a set of acrylics next weekend. :P

The Happiness Project

This morning, while waiting for Bob to get his hairs cut (by a real, live professional--paid child support means no more botched, awful-looking mom haircuts!), I flipped through Woman's Day magazine because there was nothing more meaningful to read. And I saw a blip about Gretchen Rubin, the mind behind "The Happiness Project." It seemed like something I would have an interest in checking out and possibly duplicating, so I messaged the URL to myself. On the next page was an ad for a medication used to treat adult ADHD, and given I'd just messaged myself a reminder for a website, I thought perhaps that, too, was something I should consider.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. First things first--this Happiness Project thing. I'm definitely interested. I feel so much lately like I'm just rushing through one day right after another. My weekends feel like so much sand pouring through my fingers while I try desperately to hold on, to eke out just a few moments of fun and/or relaxation and get everything done at the same time. If it sounds impossible, that's because (I've found) it pretty well is. So if there's someone out there who figured out how to be blissfully happy without winning the lottery, and she wrote a blog about it, I'm willing to add that blog to my Google Reader and make time for it.

But I went to the site today and it looks...busy. It looks to me like an overwhelming amount of knowledge. I found my eyes darting back and forth over the various portions of the page, and then I thought of that Vyvanse ad again.

My oldest son has been diagnosed with (among other things) ADHD. During his last inpatient hospitalization, I told the treating psych to not give him Benadryl (their first line of defense against hyperactivity--nice, huh) because he had taken it before for allergies and it not only didn't sedate him, it didn't have much effect on him at all. I mentioned Benadryl has the same non-effect on me--I once took about 800mg of the stuff for a very itchy case of sun poisoning and not only did I not fall asleep, I felt fine. And this doctor said, "you know, that's a sign of ADHD."

Yeah, well, maybe it is. It wouldn't surprise me to be told I had adult ADD. Not so much the "H," which I would consider a blessing--but certainly the A-D. My brain is a whirlwind every day, from the moment I get up until long into the night, a flurry of activity and thoughts that I have no real control over. I get up in the morning and have a certain list of items I must accomplish prior to leaving the house--shower, sinus rinse (don't ask), makeup, hair, dress, make coffee, get Bob up and in the tub, and leave. Sounds simple enough. Yet every morning I manage to see something shiny at some or multiple points and end up largely sidetracked and distracted and end up nearly running out the door because I've gone over my time limit. It takes me forever to get anything done because I'm always doing 999 things at once.

I usually laugh it off by saying I have ADMD -- Attention Deficit Mom Disorder -- that the demands of being a parent AND a spouse AND holding down a full-time job AND trying to make time for myself and some of life's simple pleasures is simply too taxing for any one brain to manage and therefore I am rendered a dingbat. And for all I know, it's the truth. But when I see ads for one little simple dose of amphetamines that claims it can make it all better, I have to wonder.

In the meantime, I will wait til after the kids are in bed and Ben is busying himself taking weird photos of toys and cats to peruse Ms. Rubin's blog. And I will start thinking, in the back of my mind, about what makes me happy.

I know what makes me unhappy--feeling like I'm going to explode every time I eat something. It's getting ridiculous. So I've decided to go back to the gluten-free diet. It's been several years since I attempted it, and given the sheer volume of GF products in the grocery store (the Grocery Store!) now, it might actually be less challenging. I bought a package of Bob's Red Mill GF bread mix today, and made it--making bread was very scary but thanks to my food processor, I pulled it off. Unfortunately, I developed a GIANT air bubble right under the top crust, so my slices look like half a slice under a canopy. So I now have to learn how to bake bread without that happening. The good news is, Bob's mix is really, really good--leaps and bounds better than the disgusting rice loaves I used to get back in the day. Which makes me hopeful--if the availability of GF products has improved in 8 years, perhaps the quality has followed suit.

Being stuck indoors for months also makes me unhappy. So today, when the weather warmed up considerably and the sun started to consider peeking out through the cloud cover, I told Bob to get his ass outside. Then I put boots and a coat on the toddler and took him out, too. He grabbed his lunch box and happily started off down the sidewalk. I followed. Bob got on his bike and came with, and the three of us ended up circling the block. It took about 40 minutes and it was the best part of the month so far. The toddler enjoyed himself so much, coming inside sparked a 20 minute meltdown. I knew that kid and I had a lot in common.

La Familia

My family of origin is irritating the shit out of me.

Without going into details, why must people plan events without first confirming the guest(s) of honor will even be able to attend? And then reschedule at the last minute when they discover their error (in this case, 2 days prior)? Why is it so that only one family member out of 6 (plus respective spouses) works weekends, yet everything has to be planned around that one family member's schedule?

And whatever happened to grandparents who wanted to spend time with their grandchildren and didn't mind driving across town (or to a neighboring town) to do so? I suppose it was different when I was a kid--both sets of my grandparents were mostly retired by the time I was old enough to hang out with them. Grandparents today still have full-time jobs. And some of them are intent on living out the "roarin' twenties" they missed the first time because they were...having kids. Still, asking them to find the time to spend one afternoon out of an entire month or more of afternoons with their grandchildren...doesn't seem like such a tall order to me. Though it apparently does to some people. I appreciate grandparents with jobs are very generous at birthdays and holidays, but seriously--I'd rather my kids got one gift from them per year and were able to spend more time with them instead.

I suppose I'm just tired of my kids getting the short end for no reason other than they're not convenient. Really? Maybe I should pack up the troops and move to Florida (like I've been threatening for years) so they can see just how inconvenient we can be.

Back in the Saddle

The toddler got a rocking/bouncing horse for Christmas this year. It's pretty awesome--bungee technology has replaced the old flesh-catching springs of yore--but for about the first week after the holiday, he wouldn't go near it. Only after Ben demonstrated what it could do and gave it a name ("Rufus") did he show any interest. Now it's fairly common for him to perch on it while watching his favorite tv show.

I felt a bit like I'd climbed back on my own horse today. Going in to work to start Week 3 didn't feel nearly as odd and daunting as it has the past two. It helped that (1) the fog that's been hovering over the metro area for the past week lifted; (2) I washed my car yesterday, and that combined with (1) allowed me to actually see where I was going; (3) I wasn't afraid for my life due to icy interstates; and (4) I'm sort of settling into this new morning routine.

Although I was highly annoyed this morning. Some stupid bird made its way into our furnace and flew out at my face as I walked to the dryer this morning. (Said bird has since been found dead in the basement--thanks, cats.) And speaking of annoying and germ-ridden things, db is back on his "drugs are bad" kick and I had another lovely email from him waiting in my in -box this morning. Uuuugggghhh.

Still, things are going rather well on the work front. And tomorrow they're actually going to spend some time with the whole team reviewing our case management software. Yippee! Maybe now I'll finally really know what I'm doing, instead of just thinking I know what I'm doing.

Out of the Fog

I woke up last night around 10:30, on the sofa, sweating my ass off. And I felt like my normal self. So either I'd recovered from puking, or whatever nastiness had entered my system had finally found the exit. Either way, I was grateful.

I woke up this morning ready to kick ass and take names. And pissed that I lost a whole damn day of my weekend to being puny. Hmph.

Now I'm perusing the Target ad and wondering if I can feed the four of us for the next 15 days on $250...

I have sewing to do, laundry, cooking, grocery shopping. I need to go to the gym later. I have to leave here to fetch Bob at 5:40. I haven't showered yet and it's already 10:22.

Guess I should get moving.

Siiiiiiick

I don't know what happened.

I had a skim latte and a peanut butter granola bar for breakfast. I had a (shitload) of steamed cauliflower and broccoli with a little cheese and some chicken for lunch. I had another granola bar and a small vending machine bag of chili-cheese Fritos for a snack. I also had a couple of Hershey's miniatures. I had a few slices of a chicken/red pesto pizza we made for dinner. And around 7:00pm, when I dropped off Bob, I started seriously thinking "I don't want to go to the gym. I want to go home and lie down and possibly die."

I felt like absolute shit. My head hurt, my stomach hurt, and I could easily have fallen asleep in my car, had I not been responsible for driving it. Still, I figured if I went home, I would lie down, not get up til morning, and feel like a sloth. There was the possibility a workout would wake me up and make me feel better. So to the gym I went.

I got on a treadmill and started walking. It became apparent relatively quickly I would not be doing anything more strenuous than that. I managed to eke out 18 minutes of walking before I decided I needed to get to a restroom STAT and then leave.

Once I got home, I took my place on the sofa with a blanket and didn't move until Ben prodded me and moved me upstairs to our bed, where I huddled in the fetal position until around 3am. At that point, I got up to pee, and while I was seated on the toilet with my pants at my ankles, my dinner decided it wanted to exit post haste. This is a rather unfortunate situation, indeed.

Note to self--our bathroom sink doesn't drain so well, so unless you're certain it's dry heaves, refrain from puking into it at all costs.

After that, I felt considerably better, so I thought perhaps the red pesto just hadn't set well with me and went back to bed, planning on a normal Saturday of grocery shopping, working out, an anniversary lunch with Ben at the Indian buffet, and cleaning the house. Instead, I woke up feeling like I'd pulled an all-nighter--that dehydration headache and achy feeling that usually I only feel after I've consumed mass quantities of hard liquor. Ick. I took a couple of Advil and swore I would sleep it off.

I got up an hour later, showered, dressed, dusted the upstairs, put my face on, and the three of us went to the Indian buffet. I was doing pretty well until I looked down at my plate of vegetable korma and had a sudden flashback to the contents of my bathroom sink c. 3:15am.

Ew.

After that, I stuck with kheer and masala tea. When we got home, I resumed my position on the sofa and stayed there, drifting in and out of consciousness, for the next several hours.

Bleah.

I don't know if I've eaten something that isn't in agreement with the rest of me, or if I've caught some sort of nasty contagion. I just want it to exit my body, post haste.

Another Sunny Day

It's sure looked inviting enough out there today, what with the sun beaming brightly down from the sky. Too bad the Weather Channel says it's only 26 degrees. I'll stay put, thanks.

Words cannot express how glad I am tomorrow is a "normal" day for everyone. Sort of, anyway--Bob will be at db's after school til 8pm, which isn't normal for a Monday (but necessary in light of last Wednesday's storm). The point is, my house will be empty except for dog and cats from roughly 8:00am until 5:15pm. As it should be. Hopefully this return to the norm will put everyone in a better mood. As it is, we've all been pretty on edge today--no major drama, but you can tell there's that general feeling in the air like we could all of us snap at any given moment because we're sick of looking at the family room and the same t.v. shows and each other.

I did get the pictures hung in my bedroom today. I am glad for that. They're not positioned exactly the way I wanted, but they're up, and that's 100% better.

Laundry is getting done...bags are packed and ready...lunches and breakfasts are prepared...emails have been sent to the school...notes have been made on to-do lists...now it's just a matter of getting back to the grind.

I find I get more worked up lately over preparedness than anything else. It's a little ridiculous, because no matter how prepared I am, it never feels like enough.

Cauliflower is roasting in the oven. It smells fantastic. I hope it actually is.

I made pumpkin pancakes again this morning. Here's the best of the batch:

What a Difference Ade Makes

(You won't get that title reference if you're not a "SYTYCD" fan. Don't feel bad.)

So the first week of January has come and gone. As has one of the worst weeks of winter weather (alliteration! yippee!) I've seen in years. As has my first week of my new job.

I'm sick of January, sick of winter, sick of my kids and husband being stuck at home (indoors) for going on almost a month, sick of not wanting to go anywhere or being able to go anywhere because it's too fucking cold and icy and miserable, and sick of driving in this shit. I'm not a speed demon, but I prefer to drive considerably faster than 35 mph on the interstate, thanks.

I think I will like the new job, however. So far, so good. I'm still new and the work is not routine and I'm incredibly freaked out about screwing something up and not realizing it, and I don't think any of my co-workers particularly like me much--but it's only been a week. There was really only one day I wanted to cry, and that was Day 2, and after I went to the gym and ran for 40 minutes, I felt better, and I went in the next day and suddenly things started to make a little more sense.

As is usually the case when there's any kind of change in the routine, I haven't yet figured out quite how to use my time this year. I don't really have much time or access to the internet at work, so I'm finding my presence on certain bulletin boards and social networks and even email is becoming sketchy at best. I want to maintain this blog, though, I just need to figure out when to do it.

I also want to get my sewing site up and running. The trouble is my sewing area is in possibly the coldest spot in our house, and with temps running around -20c lately, sitting in a drafty corner of our family room is not really anything I'm interested in.

The "ARCTIC BLAST!" (as the weather people have grown fond of calling it) is scheduled to end early this week, however--so hopefully, I will find myself having a little more time (my commute will be faster when I can drive the speed limit and not crawl through ice and accidents), a little more energy (I haven't been to the gym as often as I'd like this week because IT'S FUCKING COLD), and a little more insight into how to spend my minutes (as opposed to sitting on the sofa, completely brain dead after a day on a job I don't know how to do yet). Hell, it's supposed to be in the 40s come Wednesday--if that happens, I might just flip my lid and run outside topless. Or not.

I'm also incredibly pissed at Bob's doctor right now. He had a follow-up scheduled the last week of December--when I had vacation time to burn at my old job and he wasn't in school--and the SOB canceled two days before the appointment. And rescheduled for next Wednesday, at the precise time Bob's db father was supposed to pick him up at school. So I called to try to reschedule and no can do, the asshole is booked solid at both offices for like, the next 6 years. And he won't phone in any more refills on Bob's medications until he sees him. WTF? So after I expressed my feelings on the unfairness of it all, the good doctor agreed to a "phone follow-up." Why that wasn't made possible in the first place I have no idea. In the interim, they left a partial refill for one of Bob's prescriptions at the local office and I had Ben and the boys pick it up yesterday.

I looked at it today, and it's the wrong script. Clarification--it's the right medication, but the wrong dose. Bob takes 10mg in the morning, 10mg four hours later, and 5mg four hours after that--total 15mg per day. This dumbshit wrote him for 15mg tablets twice a day. Nevermind this is a stimulant and 30mg/day would send Bob through the ceiling, this is also a class 2 drug and pharmacies will only fill it as written, no substitutions, no nothing. And he's out of it as of...Monday morning, when he goes back to school after 3 weeks off. Ugh. So I figure I'll go ahead and fill it, split the tabs in half, and see how he does on 7.5mg.

Except the pharmacist tells me there isn't even a 15mg dose MADE in this medication.

Shit. Fuck. Screw.

This is at least the third and possibly the fourth time Dr. Dumbass has fucked up one of Bob's prescriptions. And it's never the wrong medication, it's always the wrong DOSE. Which is almost worse, because I don't usually notice until after I fill the shit and start giving it to him and notice the pills look different. At one point, had I not figured it out, I would have cut Bob's dose of one of his key medications in half. We're not talking about aspirin here, where half the regular dose might just be a little unpleasant. This is serious pharmaceutical shit. And for the prescribing physician to be so careless and then cavalier about his carelessness--really pisses me off.

So I think Monday I'm going to try to talk to the doc in charge and kindly explain to him that I work for attorneys so I know how unpleasant a malpractice suit could get, and instead of all that, I'd prefer to just move my son's care to one of the other less assholish doctors in the practice. Considering how most of them react when they hear they're dealing with a lawyer or someone related to a lawyer or someone who has a lawyer for a neighbor, I have a feeling they will comply.

This has also been the first week of our new "Living Poor" situation. So far, so good. I haven't spent any money this week other than $4 on a latte at FiveBucks because I needed a new cup, and $3 to the firm charity committee in exchange for wearing jeans to work yesterday (which is bs, but I didn't want to think about clothes yesterday morning). I also sprung $21 for pizza for our dinner last night because I was feeling generous. But we've been doing really well about using cash for groceries and eating out and as a result, have been eating out less and using what we have in the pantry more. And so far I don't feel horribly deprived. I'm sure that will change when I go back to Target and start getting hit with spring fever and seeing all the cute tchotchkes in bright pastels they have in every aisle, but I will try not to let it get to me and remember stuff can't make me happy.

Yeah. Right. :P

New Year, New You!

Whatever. I was exactly the same yesterday morning when I woke up as I had been the morning prior. Maybe another day older. But essentially unchanged. And I'll be glad when January 15 rolls around--not because it's payday (it isn't for me anymore), but because all the Resolutionaries will have fallen off their respective wagons and returned to their old selves and can stop going on about how it's a NEW YEAR! and a NEW THEM!

I'll also be glad for January 15 because by that time, my new job won't be quite as new, and we'll hopefully all be well over our Holiday Hangover--that sluggishness and mildly depressed state that comes from the long holiday break, most of which is spent hiding indoors because it's balls freezing cold out there. (And you're broke, so you can't do anything anyway.)

I went to the gym yesterday and spent 45 minutes on the elliptical, then for shits and grins (and because the place was very dead), I decided to see what the rowing machines are all about. Mama like. After 2 minutes I had burned 27 calories (according to the machine) and was about to pass out. I can see how this could be an exciting addition to my routine. Cardio and strength all at the same time? Kick ass!

Ben decided last night we should try taking the toddler out for lunch at our favorite Indian buffet, Swagat. I needed to meet up with my parents to give them back the video camera they got Bob for Xmas (which went tits up by 12/28), so I called them to see if they wanted to meet us. Surprisingly, they met us for lunch--I don't think Indian food will hit their top 10 list anytime soon, but they did pick up the tab, which was an unexpected and pleasant surprise. The toddler was even well-behaved and didn't make a mess. I packed his crayon cache in the diaper bag on my way out the door, and I credit it for keeping him entertained while we ate. It caught the attention of a little girl and her mother at the next table, so maybe these things will sell better than I think once the website is up. It caught my mother's attention, as well, and she wants to try to sell them as a fundraiser for some church thing she's involved in. I'd take a $5 hit on the deal, but it might be worth it to get the word out. Nothing like "free" advertising, after all.

I'm going to get out of my pajamas in a few minutes and go to the gym. As much as I'd rather call it a night--it is really that frigging COLD out there--I will suck it up because, well, I'm afraid if I don't, I'll pass out on the sofa before 9:00. And that would be lame. Really, really lame.