Go read this

I was reading the latest blog post over at a merry life entitled judgements and the comment that Mary posted from Screaming Fat Girl spoke to me so much that I wanted to link the post here for you all to read (if you don't already follow Mary.) That comment describes me so well that I figured it must apply to many of us here. Go check it out.

Random things

You know that point when you are sick, when you feel like all you can remember is being sick, and all you see in your future is being sick, and maybe you should just succumb to the fact that you are never going to feel good again? Yeah, that is where I was yesterday. Today I feel incrementally better. It would be nice to be able to hear again, and not hear myself echoing in my head so much. My own voice is EXTREMELY annoying! I told my hubby he is not allowed to comment on that.

On a completely un-weightloss-related note, we are now the proud parents of two baby chicks. My second oldest is in 2nd grade, and they were studying life cycles, so they hatched chicks and then we had the option of whether or not to take some home. Hubby has wanted chickens forever, so now we have two. I really will enjoy their egg-laying goodness when that starts to happen. And eggs are healthy protein, right? So maybe this could be related to weight loss. Woohoo!

Also, I finished my semester a couple weeks ago, officially obtaining 2 associate degrees. Or so I thought. When I went online to check the status of said degrees, I found that one of the pending ones was not the English degree it was supposed to be, but rather Arts and Culture. Huh. After emailing back and forth with a counselor, who insisted that I must have petitioned for the Arts and Culture by mistake (hmmm, as an English major, I am pretty sure that I would have noticed myself filling in the blank with any words that were not the exact spelling of ENGLISH) I was informed that I qualify for that degree as well. So the counselor turned in a new petition for the English degree, and I will now officially have 3 associate degrees. Doesn't that add up to a bachelors?

Ok, hopefully next week this will be back to a weight loss blog, and I will be able to once again breathe through my nose, sleep through the night, and get my butt out for some walking.

Sick

I will say this for being sick - it does wonders for getting your eating back on track. I have had no trouble for the past 5 days keeping my portions under control and making better choices. And by the time I am well again, it shouldn't be too hard to keep things going that way. And that is great. Unfortunately, I am actually watching my thighs spread out a little more each day as I haven't worked out at all in two weeks, despite the fact that the number on the scale has gone down. So the backlash is that I am really motivated to get out and exercise, only I can't actually breathe through my nose and I keep falling into coughing fits, and the only thing I can do for more than five minutes at a time without feeling dizzy is lay down. Grrrrrr - it is so frustrating. Why can't the motivation and the means come at the same time?

Goal setting

I wrote something for the blog the other night while in bed - actually wrote it out in pencil in a notebook, as my computer was in the other room (and I forgot how therapeutic it is for me to hear the scratching of a pencil across paper!) and then over the course of the weekend got bogged down with what is either super allergies or a cold with a sore throat and haven't been up to posting anything. But right now I can manage a solid five minutes in front of the computer before I need to go and collapse back into bed, so here is what I wrote:

After another week wherein I have been unable to get a firm grasp on my eating exercise a good mood, I have decided that the only way for me to begin to drag myself out of this pit I am wallowing in is to DUN DUN DUN... set some goals. Both weight related and non-weight related. So, last night, after I got the kidlets to bed and put on a movie to fall asleep to (I get tired of going to bed alone in the silence when hubby works nights) I started what could turn out to be a pretty healthy (no pun intended) list of goals for myself. 


In order to keep myself on track and accountable, I thought it would be a good idea to share my goals here. Rather than overwhelm you (and myself) by listing them all here right up front, I've decided to start with posting one and building from there. (I tend to get all motivated and start too many goals at once, and then when that predictably becomes too much to handle/accomplish, I freak out give up and end up feeling like a complete failure all over again. So I'm going to do this one step at a time and see how far putting one foot in front of the other takes me.

Goal #1: No eating after 7:30 p.m. (and it should be stated that these are appearing in no particular order - some are not more important that others in the grand scheme of things, they are all important.) Eating before bedtime is a problem for me, most noticeably when hubby is working at night - I get lonely and I snack to fill the time. Well, no more! If I find that I can't control the urge to fill the vacancy between the time the kids go to bed and the time I go to sleep with munchies, then I will simply go to bed a little earlier. 


Ok, so I started with something kind of small, due to the fact that I am going on day #5 of sickness or allergies or whatever this is, and am feeling weakened. The only good thing about it is I am not eating a lot because I don't feel like it. I'm going to go make some tea now.

Anger

After my last post, Chris commented that depression is anger turned in on oneself. She then suggested that I find someone who I can talk completely honestly with and try to get to the bottom of what I am angry about. My mouth opened a bit, and then I closed it, and opened it again, and closed it, and thought “Am I angry?” I am certainly plenty of things: disappointed, disillusioned, irritated, cranky, fearful, hopeless...but could these emotions be masking an underlying anger that is just festering away unnoticed? I haven’t yet found someone to really spill my guts to, and while usually it would be my husband, I will tell you a secret that popped into my head a few minutes after I read Chris’ comment. I think he might be who I am angry at. If the feelings that I have been experiencing really boil down to anger, that is. But the thing is, I think that I am kind of afraid to really be angry with him. Or I feel unjustified in it.

You see, he lost his job in Utah in July of 2006, and we spent several months floundering while he tried to start a home business. In October, we were inspired to move back home to California, and hubby arranged for us to stay with his mom for an unspecified period of time. Back home in Cali, he worked doing a bit of freelance stuff while still trying to get something going from home. We lived that way for about a year, with money coming in intermittently, until I felt impressed to tell him that I really felt like he needed a stable steady job and we needed to try to get out of here. Now, I don’t want anyone to think that my husband is a slacker or irresponsible – he really felt that the right path for us was for him to start his own business, and he was putting everything into it that he could, but it just wasn’t happening. At any rate, he went through a couple of different jobs, bussing tables and building cabinets while he returned to school to work on finishing his degree. Now he has worked at a new restaurant for almost a year, and has been training to be assistant manager, which should be happening soon. HOWEVER, we have lived IN HIS MOTHER’S HOUSE for over 3 years now, with 4 children, and I am a homemaker without a home to make. I can’t get a job because his schedule is always changing and there isn’t anyone to keep the four kids for me where it wouldn’t cost what I would be making. Meanwhile he does all the work of an assistant manager on an hourly worker’s pay, and has been reluctant to push the issue at work because they are basically waiting for their next store to open in July to move the guy who is getting paid for assistant managing over, thus making room for my hubby to move up and get paid for it. I think that we, his family, are getting screwed in not seeing him because they are working him all the time and not getting compensation that makes it worth it. And maybe it upsets me that it doesn’t really bother him. He is the one who looks at the future and plans that way – I am the one who looks at the now and can’t stand to live this way anymore. Part of me feels like if he really cared about getting us out, he would find a way, but the more rational part of me thinks that he is trying to build something and work his way into a position that will mean we can move out without having to struggle.   

So all this time, I have labeled my feelings as something, when maybe what I am really feeling is anger. The reason I have been afraid to feel that is it isn’t all his fault – I have been complacent in the decision making, voicing my opinion but not always forcing it, and he really is working to change things. But I am angry that his plan has us living here for an undefined amount of time, while I want a date by which I will be out of this house. It makes me feel like I am being unreasonable. It makes me feel like I am looking for someone to blame for our situation, when really I have to take an equal part in the blame. So maybe it is the situation I am angry about? I feel like I am in a somewhat hopeless situation, and it makes me short tempered and irritable and like I want to EAT. And then I eat, and I get angry at myself, and hate who I am, and what I am feeling, and what I look like, and the whole thing is an endless cycle. How’s that for vomiting my emotions all over you all?

Down

I have been absent the last couple of weeks, which I doubt anyone really noticed, but I have felt it. The first week I was in Disney World, having tons of fun and generally forgetting about reality for as long as possible. Upon my return, however, I found that the unhappy place that I was beginning to inhabit before I left was still here, waiting for me. The first few days I was back I thought it was just the jet lag, but as the days continued to pass by and I wasn't feeling any better emotionally, I knew that it was something more. The signs - constant fatigue, even after recently waking up, inability to make myself get up and get moving in any form of exercise, trying to fill the void with all manner of sweets, irritability with everyone around me, inability to focus, and a desire to cut off all outside relationships and not talk to anyone. The world feels like too much for me. I am somewhere between just being a little down and being depressed. And I don't have the will to pull myself out of it. Everything just seems so pointless, and while the voice in the back of my head is telling me to get back to eating healthy and working out, and to get dressed and pretty and get my homework done and get out of the house, I just can't seem to comply. Any suggestions?