Roller Coaster Mood Strikes Again! September 21, 2011

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Hello all.  I hate to have to say this.  Really.  I do.  But here goes:  I give you fair warning that this entry may contain ranting, raving, whining, self-pity, and just flat out pissyness.  EVERYTHING is irritating me today!  Facebook, for example.  Another day, another layout.  STOP already!  Weight Watchers.  I just realized I’m down only 6.8 pounds since the middle of JULY!  What the heck!?  I have been doing Turbo three times a week, but I guess I have only been marginally good about what I’ve been eating, or something, because I keep see-sawing up a little, down a little, and it is so hard!  Right now I’m just plain tired of struggling with it.  At this moment I am truly hungry- my stomach is literally growling, but after I got home from taking the kids to school I just walked in the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, stood there staring into its depths for a moment, surveying a narrow selection of “breakfast-y” items, then shut the door in disgust and left the room.  I am so tired of having to think about what I eat, so tired of trying to think of something “healthy.”  Like what’s that mean, right?  I have been trying to keep a detailed food log for this fitness challenge.  We are supposed to log every food we eat, along with its calories, carbs, sugars, fat, and protein.  And let me tell you- it is a complete crap shoot.  Every website comes up with different numbers.  Not to mention the challenge of doing a detailed breakdown of something made homemade in a local restaurant.  I have the lady’s cookbook, but I don’t know how many servings are in her recipes.  Unlike every other cookbook in the known universe, she doesn’t tell you what constitutes a serving and how many the recipe is supposed to make.  Cookbook FAIL! 

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Also, I was all set to rant and rave about how it seems like everything I own is an almost-worthless piece of junk!  My car, my computer, my slow-cooker, my tennis shoes, my clothes.  Yes, I know, at least I HAVE these things.  Grateful I am, young grasshopper, really.  It’s just that my car randomly dies going down the road.  Just cuts out.  I have to shift it into neutral and restart it and try to remember not to step on the brake so I don’t get run over.  Although I have to say, I’m thankful it didn’t die so far today.  I went from Lone Grove to Ardmore and back this morning for Turbo and it didn’t die.  Usually it’s good for at least two on that trip.  The other items I mentioned are really very tiny little issues that could easily be fixed with a few dollars.  Except the clothes.  Can’t get anything new yet because I’m still paying for the clothes I bought before our Disney trip, only now some of them are already torn up or way too big. 

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See, this is why writing or blogging or journaling is good for you.  I don’t feel irritated anymore.  But I still feel hungry.   I’m not completely over the “What breakfast can I make that is a)healthy and b)not a repeat of something I’ve eaten 6 times in the last two weeks?” thing.  I usually make scrambled eggs, which I try to ‘healthy up’ by adding sauteed veggies like onions, spinach, or broccoli.  (Yes, broccoli in a scrambled egg.  It wasn’t any better than it sounds.)  And I add turkey bacon or sausage and a piece of whole grain wheat toast, usually dry.  Sometimes I have a healthy cereal with skim milk, but that lasts about 2 hours and then I’m hungry again.  I could have a sandwich with some lean protein lunch meat and spinach leaves instead of lettuce, but then what would I have for lunch?  See?  Eating healthy seems to demand that I focus on food constantly, which is the exact opposite of what I’ve been striving for, which is to view and interact with food only as a source of sustanance and not an emotional companion or boredom-reliever or any other role you might assign it. 

Anyway.  I guess what I choose for breakfast doesn’t matter, because I’m still sitting here writing instead of getting up and choosing something, and by the time I get around to it, it will be almost lunch time and ‘get ready to go to work’ time, and I’ll have skipped breakfast completely. 

(The above picture, by the way, I just picked to stick in this entry because a) it happens to be a picture of eggs, which is what I was talking about, and b) it’s just cheery and yellow, and everything yellow always picks me up.)

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I’ve been thinking a lot the past couple of days about people from my past.  When I woke up yesterday morning, I had been dreaming about a guy I liked in upper elementary/early middle school.  Today I was thinking about the guy who was supposed to have gone to my class reunion with me.  I don’t talk to either of them anymore, and I guess I’m just feeling nostalgic or lonely or something.  I miss people.  Not ex-husband people, fortunately.  Just other people I never really got much of a chance to know as a person but still really felt attached to, you know?  I wish I could look into a crystal ball and see what the reason or purpose was for these friendships, and also see when or if I’ll ever have anybody in my life again.  Love-wise, you know.  On the other hand, maybe I don’t want to know, especially if I’m supposed to stay single the rest of my life. 

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Well, now I’m past hungry and getting sleepy.  Guess I’ll either go force myself to pick something healthy-ish for breakfast and just fix it, or I’ll say the heck with it and go back to sleep for a while until I have to get ready for work.

Until next time,

D.

All the Reasons I’m Thrilled With Life. Or Not. June 24, 2011

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Hello all.  I regret to say that my plans for the next couple of entries have been somewhat derailed.  I had planned to share a day-by-day account of the Disney trip, straight out of my journal, some of which was actually written on the plane.  (all together now- Wooooww!)  Unfortunately, I haven’t had time.  I have a life, you know.  It’s a busy, busy little life.  I exercise.  I go to work.  I kill my car.  I serve cake at the weddings of young people who are goo-ily disgustingly yackingly in love.  I stay the night at my parents’ house when they’re not there because my house is being bug-bombed. 

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So yeah, those are definitely the things I have going on in my life at the moment.  Let’s start at the top.  I have continued going to TurboKick classes at TFP.  I have progressed to a tolerable level of uncoordination and I’m working on perfecting new moves.  I’m occasionally brave enough to do something called a triple-step, and also a burpee.  Or is it a Burpy?  Some exercise move where your hands go down, your butt goes down, and you jump your legs out behind you and back, and then jump up in the air when the music says “POWER!”  Except I don’t jump, because I can’t really get this body off the ground yet.  Or I’m scared to even try.  Or something. 

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The work thing is nothing new.  I am working at the same place.  The new opportunity I mentioned a few entries back, I haven’t heard anything new about yet.  I do know that I dread the next week or so of work, because we’ll be short-handed. 

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Which leads me to the next thing- serving cake.  A sweet girl I work with is getting married tomorrow.  We’re closing work early so we can all go.  I am the cake person.  I have to really watch my attitude, and as my beautiful baby sister advised, “Don’t barf on people’s happiness.”  I’m happy for the kid.  Everyone deserves to be happy.  The groom was a friend of my sister’s when they were in school.  In fact they went to prom together, as friends.  If my enthusiasm seems lukewarm, that’s because it is.  I’m a jealous old harpy.  People who are all lovey-dovey schloopy goopy make me want to yack. 

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I skipped one, didn’t I.  My car.  The story of how I killed it.  Well, I was just trying to have fun with my kids.  Trying to do something together as a family besides sit on our butts in front of the tv and count our dying brain cells.  So I took them to the nearest beach, which is at a lake just outside of town.  I was trying to pick a place to park, and I drove off the edge of the paved area, and I didn’t notice, when making the choice to park there, that the drop-off was significantly deep.  I bottomed out and apparently I damaged my steering rack.  I didn’t know for sure I had done anything serious at first.  The car drove just fine.  I wasn’t having any problems with it until a few days ago (AFTER I had driven it all the way from Ardmore to Norman and back!) when I noticed it was way out of alignment, and then the steering suddenly started seizing up when I tried to make a left turn.  So I managed to get it to a shop today, and they said it was a bad steering rack, and that they’d have to order a part for it, and the part and labor and all would be over $500 to fix.  Now I’m trying to figure out what to do about it.  I can’t afford to fix it without help.  My mother might be able to help me, but I don’t know if she’ll be able to or not. 

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Anyway, I’m mostly mad at myself for doing something so stupid.  I’m worried that we might have to cancel our cruise next year.  I’m wondering if God is telling me I’m not supposed to be going on the cruise.  The cost of repairs on the car is almost exactly the same amount it would have cost to get our passports.  I had been trying to decide whether to go ahead and get them or cruise without them.  The current rule is that they are not required for U.S. citizens taking a close-looped cruise (one that begins and ends in the same US port.)  But they are strongly recommended because if something happens that requires flying home from a foreign port, they ARE required for that.  Otherwise you’ll be delayed waiting for an emergency passport and permission to leave the country and enter the U.S.  by air. 

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ANYWAY!  We’re staying the night at my mother’s house, despite the fact that she’s out of town, because The Dictators (our cats, Hitler and Mussolini) have brought fleas into our house and I am being forced to get rid of them by bug-bombing.  So while we’re refugeeing from the Hot Shot Foggers, I’m also carless, and I have to work at 8am, and someone will have to pick me up and take me everywhere, and I am serving wedding cake at approximately 2:45 tomorrow, and I may be forced to stab my next year’s vacation plans in the heart with a sharpened rusty spoon.

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Why shouldn’t I be totally thrilled with life?

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Until next time,

D.

When Reese’s Attack… March 27, 2011

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Hello all.  Sweet success!  I was able to stay off the computer at home for a week!  No message boards, no checking prices on cruises, no eBay, no Facebook (except on my phone).  Unfortunately, this also translated to:  no tracking my Weight Watchers online, which sucks, because I never track on paper for more than a day or two after the meeting, which means I overdo things and will probably gain again this week!  Major suck-ness!  (If I could caption the photo here, I would call it My Evil Nemesis!)

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Also unfortunately, the week without computers did not have the desired effect of all of us getting off our royal butts and getting the house clean.  I left the kids notes every day for when they got home from school.  They like to think they did what they were told, but the truth is that they did just enough to keep me from ripping their heads off for non-compliance when I got home from work, but definitely not enough to qualify as a fully invested, whole-hearted effort to do what they were told.  And were they punished?  No, because I am weak and pathetic.  They always have some plausible excuse or reason for not getting things completely done, or they weren’t home after school because Grandma had to pick them up and take them somewhere, so I couldn’t get mad at them.  Further, * I * was always out of the house in the hours before I had to go to work, always in town running around getting one thing or another done, and I didn’t get any darn housework done either.  I hate getting onto them for not doing what I’m not making myself do.  It doesn’t seem fair, but them not doing what I tell them to and not getting punished for it isn’t fair to anybody either, right?

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And yes, I realize I am ALWAYS whining about this same topic, but it’s just not getting any better and I don’t know what to do!  Getting rid of the electronics on weeknights didn’t seem to help much.  I know I have to give it more time, that maybe this was just an exceptionally busy week, but the next few don’t look to be any slower!  Oh well.  Maybe I have to accept that my house will always look like a herd of rabid rhinos just ran through it, and that I will never have a garage that I can actually use for car storage, and that my kids will always half-a** everything as long as I continue to let them get away with it!

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All this week I was trying to take mental notes of fun, entertaining things to write about during my allotted blogging time, but nothing really good has presented itself.  I made cookies from a health-food store recipe today.  I doubt the kids will eat them.  I think they’re good, myself, but the kids’ taste buds ought to be working for the CIA.  They can spy out non-junk ingredients in anything, and they generally refuse to try anything reasonably healthy without a fight. 

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I have blown WW with a giant bazooka today.  The little beasties wanted to rent a movie and get pizza after church this morning.  Went to Hastings with the intention of renting a $3 movie, and instead spent $20, including candy for everyone and a $4 late charge!  I bought a dark chocolate Reese’s peanut butter cup and some Reese’s block thing, and ate the first in the car on the way home and the second during the movie.  *AFTER* I ate half a medium pizza.  It was thin crust supreme, so there was some virtue to it, but still.  Four pieces and I sneaked one piece of the kids’  pan crust cheese!  I need an intervention.  Friends and family, surrounding me with love, support, and pliers and wire for my jaws.  The movie was Megamind, btw, and it was really good!  Very funny. 

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Then this evening, we went to a church thing at a neighboring town’s congregation and they served a meal afterwards- hot dogs and chips.  I skipped the bun, but I ate two hot dogs and a lot of chips, chili, and bean dip.  I guess I have to just forgive myself and move on.  Start planning for tomorrow.  The scale is going to do what it’s going to do, and although in theory I have control over it, sometimes it feels like I don’t.  But I was good most of the week and I went to Turbo and PiYo this week, so hopefully an indulgent weekend won’t negate that completely.  SIGH!!!  Well, I’m off to make the kids get to bed and put away the electronics for another week.  Wish me luck.

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Until next time,

D.

This Is Crow. This Is Me Eating Crow. Any Questions? March 20, 2011

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Hello all!  Short hiatus, wasn’t it?  Yeah, I found out that when I spend unmentionable amounts of time reading message boards like CruiseCritc, CruiseMates, and DisBoards, I have to have a place to share my rantings, ramblings, and obsessions when there is not a proper forum for them on the boards, or when I feel like I might get immediately flamed, burned in effigy, or worse… ignored!  (GASP!)  So here I am.  I toyed with my layout here, changed it around a bit, and promptly went back to the way it was.  I am sooooo a creature of habit who is NOT OK with change!

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Y’all, I’m suffering from a case of terminal obsession.  All I can think about is the cruise.  I know, I know.  It’s FOURTEEN MONTHS AWAY!  I want to not think about it and live normal life, but it occupies an abnormal amount of my thought time!  The Disney trip, although much closer, is a distant second.  I feel like the Disney trip is pretty much squared away, with the exception of the RideMax touring plans I have to make, but I can’t make those until about a month out.  And of course, there’s shopping for new clothes, and last-minute stuff, but I’m putting that off for about another month as well. 

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I need to focus on updating the status of my everyday life themes, like:

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1)  Weight Watchers.  I finally jumped out of the rut and had a couple of good weeks.  I’m afraid I may have backslid this week, though.  We’ll see.

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2) The boy and his funny stuff.  For example, we finally watched The Blind Side the other night, and you know that part at the end where she warns Michael that if he gets a girl pregnant “out of wedlock,” she will drive up to his school and cut off his penis?  Well, when Daughter S. and I were watching that part and laughing our heads off, MY little man covers his entire face with his hands and says, “I KNOW what ‘penis’ means, Mom, and I do NOT wanna talk about it!”  Y’all- We. ROLLED!  He was not amused.

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3) Work.  Didn’t get the job I applied for, nor ever even heard from them, but have been tapped at my current job by default of being the only one cabable of doing it, to become the new specialist in an area we haven’t been serving much thus far- print services.  I’m not really enthused.  Further, the Girl Drama continues, thanks to She Who Must Not Be Named, AKA Crazy Co-Worker.  She is dishing out her Radioactive Silent Treatment to another co-worker this time, and I get to be the one she cozies up to and pretends to be all buddy-buddy with when she’s pointedly ignoring the other girl.  If it continues tomorrow, I’m going to tell her to grow up, and then I’ll be in the doghouse too.  Seriously.  We are all sooooo ‘way too old’ for this stuff.

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4)  Housework and Garage- EPIC FAIL!  I haven’t turned a tap around here lately (to use my mom’s favorite expression) and it is causing me immense amounts of angst and self-loathing as I continue to scroll, click, read, type, and browse my way through the message boards every spare moment I have.  Unfortunately not enough so to make me get the heck up and DO SOMETHING!  Until now, anyway.  Starting as soon as I finish this post! 😀

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5)  Divorce.  Ladies and gentlemen, I have finally filed the papers.  Officially.  It’s been a long time coming, since we’ve been separated for two years.  I am, in alternating moments, glad I will finally be officially free, sad that it all failed so miserably, and oddly, jealous that he has been totally ignoring me lately in favor of his two best friends.  I have to call the judge’s office tomorrow to make an appointment.  When it comes right down to it, I can freely admit that he is nothing but dead weight to anyone in his life, and I’m fortunate to be free of him, and if he happens to read this, which is really unlikely, well… I’m sorry, but truth hurts.  It is what it is.

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6) Parenting- I have not been very successful of late, at getting the kids to get up off their butts and do anything around here, primarily because ** I ** have not been getting up off my butt either! (DUH) But that all ends tomorrow.  At worst, it will be a hideous fight.  There may be pouting, grouching, slamming, and other variations on a theme, but I have decided that I am going to put away the PlayStations and the laptops from now until the end of April, at least.  Literally package them up and lock them away somewhere.  We have GOT to get a handle on housecleaning and cleaning out the garage, and this is the only way.  We will get them out and use them on Sunday afternoons only, unless their behavior makes it necessary for me to revoke the Sunday afternoon electronics time.  This is drastic, but a crucial step in both getting the house and garage in a decent state, AND bringing an end to my cruise obsession.  On orders from my therapist, The Golden Goddess, I was supposed to ban myself from the computer about 2 weeks ago, but I never did.  I cheated.  Well, I now know I have no choice but to bring it all to a screeching halt.  I will update here on Sundays, and I will savor and enjoy my blogging time, but otherwise, I am going on an Internet Fast!

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And with that I must acknowledge that it is bedtime for munchkins, and I am going to finish up here and get them ready to go back to school tomorrow.  (Kicking and Screaming the entire way, I’m sure.)  They have enjoyed their Spring Break Week Of Imitating Tree Sloths, and now it’s time to “get back to the grind” as Daughter S. glumly announced over supper earlier tonight.  Oh well.  One more ‘nine weeks’ and then it’s Disney World, baby!  Woo!

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Until next time,

D.

Tested By Fire (Parts 2 & 3 of ?) February 19, 2011

Hello all.  Today is another anniversary for me.  I didn’t realize the date until I was at work today.  In the middle of just another Saturday at work.  I was actually hiding in the bathroom checking Facebook on my phone, and I noticed the date, February 19th.  Two years ago today, my world broke.  Not to be dramatic or anything, but you know, it kinda was.  A week and two days after a tornado hit my hometown and killed 8 people on the same day that I found out I wasn’t going to have a job the next year. 

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It had been a normal-ish day.  Read: a difficult day.  I was teaching, as usual.  It was almost the end of 6th hour.  Speech class.  We weren’t doing anything.  I think they were supposed to have been finishing an outline or something.  The principal’s secretary beeped in on the intercom and told me I had a phone call.  I went to the office to get the phone.  It was my husband, and his first words were, “You need to come home. The house is on fire.” 

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My heart fell through the floor, and I said the dumbest thing ever:  “Are you kidding?!”  (Like he would joke about that, right?)  He assured me he was not kidding:  “No, I’m not kidding!  The house is on fire!” And I said “Well how bad is it?”  He replied, “I don’t know, but the firemen are here and there’s a lot of smoke.”  I told him I was on my way.  The secretary was sitting behind the counter looking at me, and I just looked down at her and told her my house was on fire and she said “Go. We’ll find someone to take your classes.”  I practically ran down the hall to my room, grabbed my purse out from under my desk.  I was hyperventilating, shaking, almost crying.  Things were falling out of my purse and I just grabbed them and stuffed them in the bag.  One of the kids asked me what was wrong and I said “Don’t worry about it.”  In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t been so snippy, but at the time, I think I didn’t want them to know or something.  I’m not sure.  I tore out of the room without a backward glance, ran out the side door, threw myself into the car and flew out of the parking lot throwing gravel. 

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My school was about 10 miles from my home, and my normal 15 minute trip probably took 5.  I could see from down the street, there were several fire trucks surrounding my house, and I knew it was bad.  I pulled up and parked on the street in front of the house.  The firemen were everywhere, but it looked like they were finished.  The front door was standing open.  I think they were dragging a big hose out and rolling it up.  I walked up, and they said I could go in.  RMB and I went in together.

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This house has been mine since it was built.  It was built especially for me.  Me and the kids and their father.   I was there when it was nothing but a concrete slab.  During construction, I crawled on my hands and knees and scraped plaster and wall texture off the floors, inch by inch, with a razor blade in the dead of winter.  I picked out the colors of the tile and the cabinets and the brick and the shingles on the roof.  The kids’ dad and I.  We were blessed to get this house because he has a CDIB card.  A certificate of degree of Indian blood.  Chickasaw, to be precise.  We entered the program at just the right time and we were able to get a new house, built on the lot we picked, with the colors we picked. 

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When I walked in the front door of the home I’d lived in for 13 years, first with The Dufus, and then alone with my kids, and then with RMB, all I could see was black.  The walls, the floor, every surface, every object in the house was blackened.  One living room wall and the door leading to the hall were charred.  The firemen had torn into that wall and chunks of drywall were scattered in the floor around it.  The living room windows were blown out from the heat.  The living room ceiling fan was drooping, melted, toward the floor.  The back door was open, and the remains of the couch had been thrown outside.  Most of the things in the living room had been heat damaged.  The entertainment center, the computer desk.  My laptop that Mom got me when I started back to college.  The digital camera she got me for my graduation.  The TV, VCR, the kids’ collection of Disney movies.  The flower arrangement that was the casket spray on my first baby’s casket. The coats in the entry closet.  All blackened and melted.  The smell was overwhelming, nauseating.

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I called my mom and dad to tell them what had happened.  I might have done that when I first got out of the car.  I don’t remember.  They were at our church building, sorting donated clothes and items that we had been collecting for the tornado victims.  School was almost out, and Mom went to go get the kids and bring them.  RMB and I had gone back outside, because we couldn’t take the sight, the smell, and the lingering heat.  Mom pulled up behind my car and she and the kids jumped out.  They walked across the yard, Mom hanging on to them, holding their hands, even though hers were shaking uncontrollably.  I walked in with them.  At first they just looked around in shock, then finally they started to cry.  Even RMB.  It was the third house fire he’d been through, and he said he didn’t think he could take it.  I did my best to comfort all of them, tried to tell them it was ok, that it was ok to be sad, and we’d get through it.  They couldn’t stand to stay in there very long, and we had to leave anyway.  The house was unliveable and there was no power and no water.  We knew Mom and Dad would let us stay with them, even though the kids’ dad and his wife and daughter were already staying there, since their house got ruined in the tornado. 

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PART 3

We went to the church building to look through the donated tornado clothes and find something for the kids to wear to sleep in and to school the next day.  Mom and Dad’s house was now our house, and would be, indefinitely.  We were pretty sure the Chickasaw housing people would rebuild the house, but we had absolutely no clue how long it would take.  At the start, I was hoping for two or three months.  I was being optimistic. 

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We went to Mom and Dad’s and tried to get settled in- just one big happy family.  My parents, me, my husband of only 21 months, my kids, their father, his wife, their toddler daughter.  Like a reality tv show from hell.  I only took a few days off from school.  Being me, I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone too much.  In the next few days and weeks, the rest of the family set about trying to remove everything from the house so they could gut it and rebuild.  I couldn’t be there.  I was stuck at school, trying to put on a normal face, trying to teach English and Speech to kids who couldn’t have cared less, all the while knowing it didn’t matter, because I wouldn’t be there the next year.  Meanwhile, everybody else was going through MY house, throwing out MY things, MY memories, without me.  I know, it was my choice to stay at school, but I didn’t feel at the time that I had a choice. 

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Over time, we emptied the house and the reconstruction began.  Living at Mom and Dad’s was challenging at best.  After a few weeks, the kids’ dad and his family got some relief money from FEMA and moved to another town where they could find a house.  Things got easier then, but by that time, RMB had left.  He and my dad had a difference of opinion one night, but that was just a convenient excuse.  He went to stay with his mother, and remains there to this day, two years later.  We’re still legally married.  I plan to remedy that with this year’s tax return. 

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So here we are.  Two years later.  The house was rebuilt, better and more beautiful than before.  Again, we got to pick the colors.  Wall paint, trim, carpet, tiles, kitchen laminate, everything.  Up until it was almost finished, RMB was going to join us when we moved back in, but at the last minute he decided he wasn’t coming back. 

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But we’ve survived.  Exactly 6 months after the tornado, we moved back into the house that was cleansed by fire.  Our lives were a literal mess before the fire.  A literal disaster.  The house was continually a filthy wreck.  My new marriage was a complete disappointment.  The fire took care of all that.  A clean, fresh start.  The kids and I are here now, alone again, and we’re happy.  We’ve been tested and come out on the other side, stronger and better than ever before.  Tested.  And passed.

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Until next time,

D.