hereicome

this is hard to explain. is this the depression? what is this? i have the week off. i did a workout yesterday. i was shopping for, like, five or six hours today. i know that isn’t a work out but it IS exhausting. it was fun, i got a bunch of cute new clothes for my job. a good handful of stuff i bought was totally unrelated to that.

when i was talking to my doctor about depression, she asked if i ever had manic episodes. my mother was/is (???) diagnosed bi-polar… anyway, i looked at her funny. i really don’t think so. she asked if i ever shopped frivolously even tho i may not have the money for it. i laughed and told her that i wish i DID have the money for it. i know it isn’t severe, and shoot maybe it’s just paranoia from my mom’s diagnosis but i do have moments where i feel out of control on the inside. i was just explaining to hubby recently how lucky he is with me (modest, right!) because i DON’T spend money frivolously. it has always been tight for us at least a little. but at my worst i would spend maybe 4 dollars for lunch one day or something like that. never splurge. even when money is okay i can;t bring myself to pay more than about 12 bucks for a shirt, you know.

but today, shopping, it felt like that. i was alone, MIL was not feeling great so she just stayed home with munchkin. but i FELT isolated too. thats not entirely right, but it is. i was sort of IMing with a friend throughout the day. but everything outside of me felt slowmotion and  sluggish. inside i was all hyper movement and dizzy. my thought couldn’t go in a straight line. i spent five hours at TWO stores. what the heck?? who needs to do that? i did. i needed to look at everything in those stores (ross and tj maxx) multiple times to make sure i didn’t miss any of it. and see if, while i was out buying stuff, there might be anything else i needed. i was excited to be shopping and also frantic, like i might never get to do it again. like if i didnt want to take it home today i may not get to later. like this stuff was THAT important.

i got a journal, a notebook for a friend, a book for my husband, a dog bed, phone cases, hair thingies. i stared at throw pillows and side tables and candleholders and purses and i have no idea why. i mean if you asked me then i had an answer. it seemed reasonable and okay. but i dont think it was.

i am supposed to follow up with my doctor about the zoloft this week. that is, IF i can remember to call her. it has taken me two days to make an appointment for my dog with the groomer and he is in $h!tty shape. i just cant make myself care about any of it, you know?  my poor dog. he is getting dipped and clipped in the morning, thank god. and if i let this go one more time he is finding a new better home.

it felt like the zoloft was working. something was working anyway. its so hard to say when it feels like everything changes in the same moment. was it the meds? the job? the hubby’s help getting control of the house work? the success in losing weight? the ENJOYMENT of that process? i don’t know but it was something.  and i thought, maybe it wasn’t the meds. i mean i have not taken them in over a week now. you know why that started? because i forgot. i just kept forgetting. and one day it was a week later and and i was still feeling okay. still doing good anyway. still going for ridiculous hikes in yosemite and pretending like i was ignoring housework because i was tired from working all day.

what is going on inside my head? why is it okay for me to just let it all go. go back to the crappy “before” version of how i was doing. why don’t i care enough about my weight GAIN to get back on track. why don’t i care ENOUGH to get the effing kitchen clean? why are my dogs still living outside because i am too lazy to re-potty-train them. i mean, clearly i know it can be done. why am i lying about that? you know what… even at their best they were never totally housebroken. does that make me a terrible pet-owner? i think it does. because the only reason it has never been 100% is because of ME. because i won’t stick to it. i won’t stick to anything. that is a terrifying thought.

i was thinking earlier how impressed i am with myself sometimes regarding my son and my parenting. i realize i have some anger management issues (thank you DAD) that i never fully dealt with and dont really know how. i have always been incredibly careful about how that comes out when my son is around. it doesn’t feel totally healthy to ‘bottle it up’ but i am not putting it out there for him to see and fear because *I* dont know what to do with it. i was thinking how natural somethings are. my connection to my son is totally instinctual and beyond thought processes, just instant and immediate and true. what if i can’t stick to that either? i mean, i don’t … i don’t know what i mean. my mom was really not the best. really. i know a lot of moms weren’t and a lot were SO much worse, but here is mine.

she never has one single happy memory to share about my infancy and childhood. for *my* baby shower, MIL chatted with her (only my husband has met her, and only once, after my son was born) and heard about how sour i was. i never smiled, i cried incessantly, i weighed 10 pounds at birth and after 10 hours of labor she nicknamed me ‘butterball’ b/c it was about an hour a pound. that would be funny and cute if there were other sweet stories. there aren’t. my husband’s grandmother decided that i was probably a grumpy baby b/c my mom didn’t like me and i knew it. she could be right.

i dont mean any of this to whine. i am where i am and it is mine to own, deal with, and get through. its stuff i have known for ages. its stuff that has made a lot of good parts of me too. i wouldnt trade it, generally speaking i like my life. hell, i even love it a lot of the time. i know it doesnt sound that way. but i really do.  thats why my stupid brain isn’t making sense to me right know. how can things be good, and i STILL don’t care? even the stuff i had to WORK SO HARD FOR lately doesn’t seem to matter to me right now.   i dont get it.

Good stuff today:

my munchking is awesome. probably awesomer than yours :p his mommy says he’s special, you know…
doggy is getting a clip tomorrow
i spent a good chunk of money today, mostly on needed items, nothing over $15, and guess what. NO ONE DIED!!
the house is ever so slowly getting cleaner through the week, and nobody else is b**ching about what’s messy still.
i bought the dogs a bed today, a show of commitment to get them in the house more with us. i mean it. i always mean it, but, i mean it.
i blogged. is that a good thing? i will count it as one.

so go into thursday already, and i am still slacking off plan. i was so fired up about yosemite over the weekend, and then i SO overdid it while i was there, WOOPS! hubby and i are still ridiculously sore, completely exhausted, and since my idiotic calorie deficit morning in yosemite, i seem to have set my body onto “OMG I’m starving” mode FOREVER. Okay so i know it isn’t forever, it is actually getting better. Just a lot slower than i was expecting. i guess thats what i get for expecting at all

so anyhow, no evening walks with the family yet. the in-laws are coming for dinner tomorrow and we haven’t had the energy to catch-up on the house. so we are trying to drag ourselves through as much of it as we can manage tonight.  maybe i will be able to convince hubby-kins that friday night, and another this weekend, will be a good night for walking. a guy friend called me hot today. jokingly/teasingly of course, but it was nice and i feel like i should try to live up to it or move toward it or whatever.

and i am now helping two, count ‘em TWO, friends with their wedding plans. one is even telling me her in-laws to be want to pay me so they can all rest assured that they will have nothing to fret over on THE DAY> i told her of course i have been and would continue to do it for free and happily, but it sounds like they won’t take “NO” for an answer. darn!

anyhow, nothing major going on over here, just thought i would check in.

oh yeah- for accountability purposes i am ‘purging’ here: 4 chocolate chip cookies @130 calories each!! a bowl, prob 2 servings, of cinnamon toast crunch cereal, pepsi (this is all AFTER my LATE dinner!,  a BACON sandwich (there was other stuff too, but that bacon’s the killer!) and only 1/3 of my daily water. BAD BAD me. (we finally went grocery shopping, so some of this is done with now for sure!) Must do better tomorrow. maybe i will write it 100 times at work “i will stay on plan and be a healthier happier me” lol.

good night! and here’s to a better tomorrow!

Hi buddies. Back from Yosemite. Let me tell you an eventful, but altogether GREAT day. I am SO SO SO sore right now. Hubby and I are limping around the house.

Let me start at the beginning. We left at 6:30 this A.M.  About 20 minutes into our drive a stupid bird flew right in front of our car (they do that all the time, right. No worries, they’re quick!) and smacked into the windshield.  I have no confirmation, but am rather pessimistic about the bird’s survival after the encounter. The window was fine, so we kept going. Not five minutes later I point out to hubby a baby deer on the side of the highway. No mom. We slow down and the baby is facing AWAY from the road. Indecisive. And at the last minute does an about face and bolts across the highway a little too late or early depending on how you look at things. yes folks, that’s right. We hit a baby deer with our car. We watched her slide about 20 feet after bouncing off our car (a flat square Scion XB) as we are frantically pulling over and the pickup behind us does the same. as we jump outta our car, Baby Deer hops up, a little wobbly but definitely using all four legs (as dog parents and rescuers it was our instinct to look for a limp or worse) finishes her scared run across the road and down the hill on the other side. The pickup driver saw her continue to run. He had pulled over b/c he had a gun in the truck and thought Baby Deer might be mortally wounded, and he would have to put her out of her misery (welcome to small town, CA Apparently that happens a lot out here). Well we are shaken but glad she ran off of her own accord, knowing that if we had touched her any chance she might have had to stay with mommy would be gone. We continue on, wondering if we should have taken the hint to go back home and crawl in bed.

I am happy to report that we made it to our destination with no further incidents, even though we did see about 8 more deer, including a fawn who jetted AWAY from the highway when the scary cars drove by (proud mommy deer hanging by the side of the road continuing to eat breakfast. Smart kid she’s got!)  and a coyote who looked a lot like one of my dogs. I always think that when I see a coyot, too. weird.

Had breakfast (which included NO protein, I later realized)  and then loaded munchkin into the new hiking pack/kid carrier we bought and set out on a nice 6 1/2  mile hike. Forgetting to notice before we depart that it is ENTIRELY uphill. no joke. because we went one way and planned to take the shuttle back down (from mariposa grove to wawona, in case you know the area). Yeah, woops!! none of the hike guide lit we read mentioned a hill even though some people we passed along the way seemed to have found the guide which mentioned a ‘gentle’ slope. HA! I am embarassed to admit how underprepared we were, thinking we would only be 2-3 hours… instead of the 4 plus it took us. becasue hubby was hauling the kid, i let him have most of the water and powerade we packed. and most of the trail mix (that the munchkin would LET him have, anyway!! LOL).

man o man, was it SLOW going!! and we are in SO MUCH pain it is ridiculous. like i am avoiding bed right now because the pain is so intense that it actually hurts MORE to sit or lay since i spent most of my day walking.  anyway, we FINALLY made it, hit the gift shop at the grove for some snacks and water before catching the shuttle back down to our car where we SCARFED our lunch (deli meat, cheese, wh.wh. crackers, grapes, granola bars, lots and lots of water). we sat by the river for a bit so munchkin could run around and play (meaning, throw rocks!) and hubby fished a little. of course I have been running on a huge calorie deficit until lunch time, and seriously dehydrated (i was dizzy and starting to worry at the end of that hike!) so once we packed it all up and went home i tried dozing off. well, with the baby’s car seat behind mine there was literally no way to ‘lay down’ or against anything i gave up. so of course i started grazing all the food we had… cheetos, another muffin, pepsi (mmm… pepsi) thank goodness i finally found the almonds.

we are home now, munchkin is bathed and asleep. we are showered and pain-killered, and we settled in for a movie. yeah, great. the DVD player just shat itself. totally dead.  no hope of resurrection.

ah well at least the deer was okay.

g’nite buddies!

so i had to work today at my new job (and i bet there is no holiday pay ;)  ) but it was so much better. partly because the office was quieter and mellower so i was able to at least go online to read news and kill time. it makes a big difference when you can do NOTHING but stare at walls usually.

my weight is up two pounds, and i am wondering if i just weighed myself in a ‘good hour’ last week, you know with how much fluctuation water weight can bear…

oh oh, but i DID finally drink all my water today. i have started wearing glass bead bracelets on my left wrist, which feel unnatural for me. every serving of water i drink i get to move one bracelet to the right wrist. this way i can keep track and not give up halfway through the day. a friend found that tip in a magazine for me and just in time. with starting a job again i was struggling.

happy weekend friends

I can’t believe it, buddies. I feel like such a moron. I was offered a job Tuesday, started it Wednesday, and realized immediately it was NOT for me. Did I NOT just spend the last few months working on myself and understanding that I need to work somewhere I can feel like is contributing to the greater good, the community, my neighbors, SOMETHING!?? I think I was still beating myself up for the last two jobs I had to turn down (perfectly good jobs, but not realistic for my family, so i KNOW those were good decisions but still… I turned down work) that I jumped at this one.

It is at a huge and gorgeous vineyard where concerts and weddings and neighborhood picnics are held. But it is way too hot to take walks in the afternoon and still be presentable for work after lunch. Lemonade and iced tea flow freely, as does chocolate and half priced deli menu. And I feel like I just took an ENORMOUS step backwards in my career.  I have added the stress of post-work chores and weekend to-do lists to my family without adding the income I had decided upon. I am bringing home no more than what unemployment was paying me.

What the EFF was I thinking?? What did I do? I feel all this hard work slipping away that I have done over the last three months or so. The weight, the depression, the aimlessness… I find myself wondering if I quit right now, will it make a huge negative effect on my unemployment check when I reapply (it is a temp position, so that IS a possibility). Quitting, buddies, I am deliberating on QUITTING after two days. What is this about?

So I am covering a woman’s maternity leave. A woman who is in all likelihood NOT coming back once her child is born (she had to go out EARLY)  since she lives two hours away (OMG, seriously!). The company’s contract with the temp agency is up in three months at which time they would likely hire me on themselves, for a theoretically higher rate. I will clearly have spare time on my hands in this position and could TRY to make myself very useful in a number of departments. But ultimately, am I even going to be happy? I mean, this is in no way contributing to society (so far as I have been able to figure) so I can see getting very fed up with it eventually anyway. So I am trying to look at it as something to do (and contribute to my social securit, as hubby so kindly pointed out) and fill in my resume until I can find that exact right job I am after. I just have to keep looking, and be prepared to bail on this company once it comes up. I hate the thought of doing that, but honestly a no-experience straight out of high-school person could do this, they just happened to be in too big a hurry to find that person and I was dumb enough to say “okay”

ugh. i need to figure out how NOT to fall back into a black hole, emotionally, while I work this all out. I can not miss out on my son’s life because I am at a  job that makes me miserable. I can not bring myself to walk away form a job either, knowing the economy and the depth of my search before this.

Okay, buddies. sorry for the venting. Hope you are all well. I will try to update this weekend. Hopefully on a cheerier note

when there are vultures circling overhead during your a.m. walk? LOL gotta love wildlife, huh?

i got hubby to bring my ipod home from work (yes, MY ipod) and my in-laws have the munchkin ALL morning and through 2:30 today. it is strange having all this time to myself. i thought i might sleep in, i thought i might walk my 3 miles, i thought i might scrapbook, watch a movie, fold laundry. i really had (have) no idea. i know it feels lonely, though. is that weird? usually when my in-laws have munchkin it is just at their house, a mile away.  my FIL volunteers at Jamestown Historic Railroad Town as a docent and train mechanic, sohe and MIL take the baby with them or the morning, MIL keeps FIL company and munchkin keeps MIL company and gets to ride trains and run around the park. this is a new arrangement and today is the first.

even weirder, i do my walk at the golf course community my in-laws live in because it has sidewalks and i leave the baby with them. it was strange to do my walk and not see munchkin when i was done. (awww, sadface)

on a brighter note, i missed my ipod. i forgot how great it is to have music in your head while moving. in honor of my re-discovery i might start a forum thread for work out songs

and i still have no idea what i am doing with the next 4 hours of my day… (besides surfing around BS of course )

went extremely well, i am happy to report. i got a LOT done in the morning and relaxed in the afternoon. i even sat down for an hour to write (a la angie’s dare) and do some visualization. it felt great, and by the time my opportunity rolled around, i didn’t even want a nap.

i skipped water aerobics this morning and slept in a bit, then went for a three mile walk, and got to see two baby foxes playing near their mama, how cool is that?? i felt very lucky, and it reminds me that i want to get a wildlife book for this are, there are so many neat birds and lizards and things that i would love to know more about.

and the best news ever… IT’S FRIDAY!! aaah yes, that relaxing, fantastic, moment when you let go of the week and your next two days are just open and full of possibility and my oh my do we have a full weekend ahead of us: a car show, maybe some exploring at a new park (depending on the smoke-  or a trip to modesto to do our monthly costco trip),  some new plants for my pond, and we are going to check out a new church, which is really exciting. it would be nice to find a place with people our age (i finally conviced hubby to branch out and try a non-denom. church, as our specific church is full of only retireees… not a bad thing but i would like to make friends with some people around here, you know?)

so all in all i am excited for the next few days. and oh yeah, i am down 3 more pounds. WOOHOO!

I dragged my sorry butt out of bed this morning just to make sure the trash got out to the ‘curb’ in time. I totally thought I would go back to bed as I have the last couple days. I have been sleeping in and napping in the afternoon, and I can’t tell if it is because the major parts of my depression are sneaking back or if it the new anti-depressants I am taking. Drowsiness is a ‘temporary’ side effect… another week or so to see if it gets better.

Anyway, I realized as I stared at my bed that I wasn’t really tired anymore and I would just lay in bed for an hour feeling guilty, so i put on my ‘workout clothes’ and popped in my dance DVD. Holy cow, those squats ‘games’ yesterday with the baby really got me b/c I can still feel it. But i made it through two 10-minute workouts, plus got my shower and finished a book before the baby woke up.

AND I came to another important realization… I feel most energized and productive in the mornings. So that means I am revamping my daily schedule. Instead of spreading out my to-do list over the entire day, and only getting the morning half done, I am busting up all the chores I can this morning (resolved to do away with the TO DO list today) as they appear and as the baby allows. Right now I have a second load of laundry going, the living room is straightened, and munchkin is happily playing in his pack-n-play outside pointing at the dogs. I can load the dishwasher while he has breakfast, and vacuum with him later (he loves to help) and at naptime I have some ME time.

I plan to write some (thank you angie!) and if I need to take a nap (it feels very likely at this point) at least I earned it. And then this afternoon I can take it easy and spend one-on-one time with my son. YAY. sorry to bore you with the mundane details of my housekeeping (sometimes it feels like it’s all I do) but I am excited to see how this works out today.

depending on the smoke (we have over 800 fires here in CA thanks to a weekend lightning storm) hubby and I may do the three-mile walk this evening, we’ll see.

i’ll try to keep you posted

No, no — i am not about to compare pilates to self-torture… although come to think of it (lol) - nah.

At water aerobics this morning I decided that any workout where you have to be reminded to ‘engage you core’ is just silly. If your workout isn’t working out your core, it just isn’t a core workout, why force it? You never remember to anyway, at least I don’t. It’s all a sham, I say!!

I watched a movie last night called ‘Secretary’. Not a movie for the weak of heart (i dunno if it is a matter of heart… at any rate, read on to know why the disclaimer). It is a bout a girl who cuts herself and gets a job as a secretary to a dominant, ego-driven lawyer. They develop a sort of S&M relationship. It is actually kind of a cute love story if you are okay with the rest of it. Anyway I found it so very VERY interesting that I related to this female character. Not for cutting. I don’t cut, though I have a handful of friends that did at one point or another and the movie seems to have that right on. But it was written well enough that you can see the emotional reasons for her cutting. And it is insane how like any other emotional avoidance tactic it is. Some people cut, others drink or use, still more become promiscuous or narcissistic, gamble or shop, and then there are those who eat, or don’t eat. I don’t know how clearly this connection would have jumped at me if I hadn’t just read the book I did on compulsive eating (i still intend to re-read it, take notes and share, btw) but WOW was it loud and clear here.

We use these vices to ‘take control’ of our otherwise uncontrollable lives. We have various rationalizations for what we choose to escape to, but at their root they seem to all be one version or another of distracting from the real source of pain, and having some measure of control over ‘this’ pain. At least that way we can say or “if only i could stop drinking/cutting/eating/etc my life would be so much better” instead of saying “if only my parents/spouse were less self-absorbed and would stop hurting me” and feel like we are capable of fixing life once we have a handle on our problem.

That’s why so many people are sort of hit hard with reality once they stop using (food, drugs, sex, money…) and see that their life isn’t perfect. Fixing this one problem you thought was so HUGE just changes a little piece of your life, if that wasn’t the real problem. And it usually isn’t the real problem, so the question is:

What am I hiding from behind all this fat?? All this food?? All these shopping bags?? All these cocktails??

What indeed?

YAY Friday! so, even with my slow start this week, and my STILL sore arm (anyone know how long that’s supposed to last after a tetanus booster? three days is getting insane) I managed to eek in 3 workouts this week, YAY. I dragged hubby and munchkin on a three mile walk last night. Because of my arm hubby had to push the stroller, but it was nice anyway. we are putting in a fence tomorrow, so i can start on my pond safely after that, yay!

um… i have a LOT to do today to prepare for the weekend and Father’s Day… yikes! so, i am off to blog surf and then bust out my housework before munchkin wakes up. HAPPY WEEKEND EVERYONE!!!