A journey of 1,000 miles.....

Begins with one single step. I had my first real challenge since I started this journey last night. We went out to the bar for karaoke, dancing (activity points) and of course the evil temptation of alcohol. I planned to just drink water all night, but a few minutes in it was clear that the temptation would be too great. So I gave in a little and drank Diet Coke all night. I even turned down free shots!! I was so proud of myself. I busted out some moves on the dance floor and got pretty sweaty, so I am sure I burned some calories. Then came today. My Dad is turning 50 this Friday, so I needed a gift on a super tight budget. So the kids and I made homemade cards. And then I fell back to what I do best......baking. Well, sort of. At Christmas time I had made some turtles which consist of a Rolo melted into a pretzel with a pecan pressed in and drizzled in white chocolate. My Dad had just raved about how yummy they were, so I decided that I would whip up a batch and send them to him in the mail. I am not sure it was the best idea to tempt myself this early in. The good news, not one Rolo entered my mouth. Just a few of the pretzels (not bad, fat free), and a handful of white chocolate chips. I am not going to point them, I already know I blew my points for the day. And the worst part is I wasn't hungry, it was just that mindless eating that I struggle so hard against. Now I feel like shit, but I am not going to beat myself up about a hand full of chocolate chips. One foot in front of the other, tomorrow is a new day, a clean slate. I can do this!!!

Admitting FAILURE.....

Is it just me or have women as a whole been conditioned that admitting failure or weakness is somehow a bad thing? We have to be able to do everything perfect, whether we work or stay home. Get up, go to work, do a great job, come home, have family time, whip up a quick delicious meal, never break a sweat, never lose your cool. Then you need to go to bed, of course have mind blowing life altering sex (gotta keep that man happy), and sleep a few hours and then start all over again. I want to start a new initiative, and I am putting this proposal on the table. Lets use me as an example, I have no shame. I am going to share all the things that make me a "failure" at life. I make sure my kids have what they need the night before so I don't have to get up in the morning and see them off to school. I mean I sort of get up, wander around like a zombie, mumble my good byes, make sure the basics are taken care of (yep, they made it onto the bus) and go back to bed. I like to sleep till 9 or so, and I have a 3 year old who doesn't. So I place him in front of The Backyardigans with a cereal bar and go back to bed. I can supervise with my super duper mom senses. FAILURE. Since I have been unemployed for the last few months I then get up and make a pot of coffee. I consume about 4 cups. Throw in some laundry, cruise Facebook, while the 3 year old plays next to me on the floor. I don't eat breakfast, neither does he, besides the cereal bar and the banana I managed to peel for him. FAILURE. Then we eat lunch, and most of the time after bargaining over eating a sandwich or a cup of goldfish, I give in and say "Eat the damn goldfish!" "Now go take a nap!" FAILURE. Then I get some quiet time when I plan for supper, change laundry, take the dog out, or putz around. If I am really ambitious I might just lay on the couch for a nap. FAILURE. About 3 my kids get home, we do homework, they get a snack (probably more of the DEVIL goldfish), then they park it in front of the t.v. for their hour of entertainment before supper. Then the 3 year old tyrant wakes and and I usually only have to break up 2 screaming matches, and 1 physical altercation, but that's just an average day. I can usually manage not to threaten their lives, and successfully managed to insert the word fricken' into my vocabulary, but won't go as far as to say the F-bomb has never been dropped. FAILURE. I dutifully make supper and cram in what is possibly my first and only meal of the day, so I eat way too much. But what the hell ice cream sounds good too. And I wonder why I am so fat? FAILURE. Now, if I am lucky I might even get to scrub out a pair of dirty undies(let's be honest I throw them away). Fight a 3 year old onto the toilet to poop. He is stubborn, he holds it for days. Bribe him, with chocolate.....hey it works. Then baths, and books, cuddles and kisses. One Zoloft and 6 hours of sleep later we start over again. Now maybe I am insane for admitting all of this. Maybe CPS will be knocking on my door soon. But in all this failure, this chaos, you will find 3 of the most happy well-adjusted children. They are loved, they are fed, they are clean. Life isn't all about perfect hair like a Pantene commercial. It's about a fat mom in sweat pants. It's about dirty faces, and punching your sister in the face when she eats your last gold fish. So rather than call this life a FAILURE, I am adopting a new phrase for it. REALITY. And guess what, I feel much better knowing my kids will have had a healthy dose of reality when they get out into the real world. Then maybe they won't feel like such FAILURES......

Reasons Why?

We get distracted by the dreams of our own, but no body's happy while feeling alone. And knowing how hard it hurts when we fall, we lean another ladder against the wrong wall....

Those are a few of the lyrics of one of my favorite songs. The saddest part of my realization is that I was not happy and I did feel alone even though I was surrounded by love. This Fall I was feeling quite off. I had just lost my job, my husband got laid off, and my life was basically sucking all around. So I looked around at my house....clutter. Mess, tons of things I didn't need and had no meaning in my life. So I purged, I got rid of a lot. If I hadn't seen it, used it, needed it, or thought about it in a year I got rid of it. It was hard. I put things in boxes and took them back out. I even cried. It took me 4 full weeks, but when I was done it felt awesome. Then I settled in to my unemployed life, I went Susy homemaker. I was cooking, baking, cleaning, spending my days folding laundry and reading stories. It was nice for a while, then I started to feel like crap again. This time it took me a little longer to figure out what it was. One day I bent down to pick up my son and I could barely stand back up, my knees were killing me. I had my hubby carry the laundry basket up the stairs for me because it was too much work and I would actually get short of breath. I couldn't get out of the funk, so I looked in the mirror. I looked really hard at myself and it hit me! It literally slapped me across the face. I was as heavy as I have ever been in my ENTIRE life, even 9 months pregnant. I weighed more now than I did the day I gave birth to my 11 pound son!!! Crazy! And when had that happened? All along, I was mindlessly trying to shut up that crazy Susy Homemaker bitch inside me by stuffing my face with chocolate. Not just chocolate, pretty much anything I could get my hands on. She was telling me to bake and eat, who cares if you are fat. You can't do it, you will always be fat. Don't even try, you will give up. But, standing there at the bottom of the sledding hill last week, watching my husband and kids slide down was torture. Because I knew it would be fun to do it, but I could only manage to climb that hill ONCE. I felt like and 80 year old woman. It made me want to cry. It made me angry. It made me say enough is enough. I am not leaning my ladder against another wrong wall!! I am getting my fat ass into gear! I WILL NOT LIVE ANOTHER YEAR OF MY LIFE WITH REGRETS! I am done. In the scale of things life is too short and I want to live the best life I can. So I am telling fat Susy Homemaker to go to hell!! I am going to be hot Susy!! LOL! So that favorite song of mine is called Reasons Why by Nickel Creek...and another one of my favorite lines from that song says:

Standing on a darkened stage, stumbling through the lines. Others have excuses, but I have my reasons why....

The Picture

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words....well this one was worth four. Those four words were OH MY FUCKING GOD! How have I let myself get this fat? So today I made to conscious decision that something has got to change. My knees hurt, my back hurts, my heart hurts. Everything in my body and in my life is telling me it is time to change. The saying I am going to do it is the easy part. The doing it is going to kick my ass. I guess realizing that I am turning 30 this year, I weigh 248 lbs, and I am slowly inching out of my size 18 pants might just be enough to motivate me. I have 3 active healthy kids that want me to climb hills, go biking, go swimming, take walks. I have become the mom that sits at the bottom of the hill because one time up nearly caused me a cardiac arrest. So sad, and I don't want to be sad anymore. I am blogging about this mostly for myself, I need to hold my feet to the fire. So if no one reads this ever, it will be fine. It will also save me the embarrassment of finally admitting that the weight on my drivers license is vastly misleading....GASP!! What I need is support, words on encouragement, and a collective kick in the ass! So if you do read this, comment, chat, share experiences, and be brutally honest. I won't take it personally. In fact, I might just thank you for it.

Life happens.....

Wow, seems like it's been forever since I wrote. I have been consumed with myself lately. I am not feeling up to par, so I get lazy and I don't do much of anything much less write. I have for most of my life ridden the roller coaster of my moods, and lately I can't seem to get over the humps so to speak. This winter when things felt really bad, I went to talk therapy and I lasted about 2 sessions. I have done a lot of therapy in my life, and I hate to say this, but I often wonder if it really helps. I hate talking about stuff that is over and done with, analyzing and over thinking everything as I regurgitate it to a therapist. I mean, hell, I do enough over thinking without the therapists help. I have long been opposed to any mood enhancing "meds" but I am starting to think that I have struggled with this long enough. Maybe it is time to say I need the help, and just take it. Perhaps it would lead to the peace I am craving so badly. I would love to go one day without feeling the crippling anxiety, constant mood swings, and overall bad mood that I seem to now have daily. I want to be happy, or at least feel that happiness is attainable. I have so much in my life that should bring me joy, but instead I get bogged down in the negative. I always have a glass half empty. I am so tired of what feels like a daily struggle to crawl out of a hole, I am constantly tired and have no energy. I want to have energy, I want to want to do things. I want to start enjoying life. I think it's about time........

The places we go in dreams.......

I have dreamed several nights in a row of a place I have never been. A place I have never seen, but yet it seemed so utterly familiar to me. I try not to over analyze my dreams, but this one has got me thinking. I am driving in the country on some old gravel roads. It is a hot day, hazy, a day that in itself makes you long for a glass of iced tea and a porch swing. I turn onto a winding stretch of road and I see it. It is an old stone farmhouse with red shutters. There is an old picket fence out front, the gate hanging by one hinge and lazily swinging back in forth in the breeze. There is a lilac bush full of blooms and tell tale signs of a yard that was once loved growing up to weeds. Outside there is an inviting porch, the whole scene is so surreal and beckoning. I pull in the driveway and step out. The house itself is beautiful but haunting, sad almost. The cold contours of the stones and then the bright red shutters, outlined against the green grass and clouds. It's the sort of place you could never find if you didn't know it was there.

I walk up to the porch, it has seen better days. I step up to the door, I turn the knob and step inside. The floors are wood, and inside there is beautiful craftsmanship everywhere. Solid wood trim and a beautiful staircase, obviously painstakingly made, now in desperate need of love. The smell is stale, old, dusty. For some reason though, I find it delicious and familiar. I walk through the house, and notice tiny things. A pair of old white curtains gently swaying through the breeze of a broken window. A claw foot tub, sitting perfectly regal, yet on a half rotted floor. A cast iron kitchen sink, with a red rust stain at the bottom. I can imagine the people that built this house. The person who lovingly laid the stones, and planed the wood for the floors. The women who tended her gardens, and planted the lovely lilac bushes. I imagine the lilacs on the table, in the room with the white cotton curtains. I imagine a life there, a simple, uncomplicated life. I spend the afternoon on the porch.

So that's the dream. I have now dreamed it several times. Is it that I long to be lost where no one can find me? Do I long for long summer days of iced tea, lilacs, and clean white cotton curtains? And what is the significance of the red shutters. Is it that even though I long for these simple, uncomplicated things I still need that punch of red to spice things up? This dream has really got me thinking......

So you just had to be a smart ass, didn't you?

My plan was to give 2 weeks notice at my old job, and I really tried to. I just can't keep a level head. When I tried to give the notice, my supervisor pissed me off by making some really snide and rude comments. Then, of course, I lost my cool and told her that since no one seemed to care to much anyway, that night would be my last. Hmmm, little did I know how ruthless they would be, they decided later to tell me that since I didn't give proper notice that they now refuse to pay out the remainder of my vacation time. Of course, I don't have a leg to stand on, they are not legally bound to pay it and I can't afford to fight them. So I screwed myself there, which I suspect, was their goal all along. The next day my husband came home with a piece of paper stating he was laid off. GO FIGURE!! Nothing can ever just go right and keep going, I have to always get one good ass kicking after another. They are telling him he will be called back by July, but I am not holding my breath. Of course, they laid him off 3 days before the end of the month and his benefits end the last day of the month of layoff. Of course, we could continue to pay COBRA-but since that is more than we even make in a month with us both working it's not really a feasible option.
So we have basically nothing in savings, and I have 2 weeks before I will see my first paycheck. He has filed his unemployment claim, so we will see if we can rob Peter to pay Paul this month and pray he gets called back to work next month. Since we are already planning on filing for bankruptcy, I refuse to pick up a credit card and put that in jeopardy. If he doesn't get called back in July, we will be back to square one and right back where we were 2 years ago!! God, it is so frustrating that after 10 years of marriage rather than things getting easier, they progressively get worse. Just when I think I have hit bottom, I bounce! Hit after hit is getting really tiring......