off the beaten path

Lately I've been taking the back roads home from work. It's not any faster, in fact it probably takes me 5 or 10 more minutes to my driveway, but I hate to sit in traffic, so I've been avoiding the interstate. Anyway, I've probably taken the back roads for the last 12 trips home from work, and it's kind of nice. Long, winding roads with little or no other cars...corn fields and horse pastures. Farm houses dotting the landscape. It's pretty, and it helps me unwind. by the time I get home I'm relaxed and calm and far far from the stressed out work "me". Last night, as I was driving home, I saw, for the first time, an entire field of blooming sunflowers tucked in between two corn fields and set back a little way from the road. It was so beautiful, I almost turned around to see it again. 12 nights I've driven past it and never seen it, but you can bet I'll be looking forward to seeing it again come monday.

And since I'm posting pictures...here's the newest addition...well, besides the puppy that is. 

Did you ever notice that when people talk about God, they just call him God, but when people talk about the devil, it’s always “the” devil? It’s like God is that nice boy you knew in college that held your hair back when you puked and God’s like “hey, you got a little on my shoe, but you said you’re sorry, so let’s just get you home safe and we’ll pretend it never happened”. But the devil’s like that really arrogant and annoying frat boy that talks about himself in the third person. And the devil’s like “hey Todd, The Devil’s goin’ on a beer run…you up?” , and his buddy says “yeah dude, The Todd’s totally up for that.”

I have no idea why I thought about that today. Just the kind of crazy shit my brain comes up with.

So I’m having one of those days when I just don’t feel like doing anything. There’s approximately 754 tons of crap on my desk and it all needs immediate attention and I’m totally not up to it. Nope. Not today. So sorry, try again tomorrow. Today I shuffle some papers around, walk to the kitchen and get a diet coke, complain really loudly to no one in particular that people shouldn’t be allowed to make tuna fish in a small office, walk back to my desk, shuffle some more papers, walk to the bathroom and check to see if the zit on my chin is gone yet, walk to the back and see what the boys in the warehouse are doing, walk back to my desk, look at the clock, and repeat.

This picture is my 2 year old and my puppy. Tell the truth, isn’t that the cutest freaking thing ever? Yeah, I thought so. Please excuse my son’s face. He fell off the bleachers at his brother’s baseball game, and since he inherited all of my coordination and grace, he decided to break the fall with his face.


 

Let me start by saying that I'm a nice person.  Yes, I get angry, and yes sometimes I come on here and I spout off my mouth and say mean things, but that's because I know no one's reading.  In person, I'm a nicey-nice never say a bad thing, always try to help, be the bigger person kind of gal.  Mostly because I have the softest feelings of anyone I've ever met ever, and I am super duper sensitive.  Don't tell anyone.  Anyway, I got up this morning and checked the mailbox and in it was a typed letter from a neighbor (no, not signed) that said "maybe you hoosiers (in missouri that's like calling someone white trash, and not intended to mean someone from Indiana) could find a way to park all your g.damn (he said the real word) cars blocking the sidewalk so no one can get through"    Yeah.  Isn't that mean?  I parked my truck on my driveway, and the back was partially blocking the sidewalk, and this is what I get.  I cried all the way to work.

My step-grandpa had an artery in his stomach burst last night and is in the ICU, and I had a customer just come in and tell me he'd take the cheap brand cuz he has terminal cancer and doesn't know how long he'll be around to use it.  So I guess everything's relative.

I did a new kind of squat last night, that I've never done before...I still can't use weight per doctor's instructions, so they were to exhaustion, but you stand with your legs really wide and your toes pointing out and you do kind of a plie squat but as you're doing it you use your hands to push your knees apart and stretch your groin.  Ouch is all I have to say about that.

My sister read somewhere that if you have "d" cup boobs, they can weigh up to 8 pounds.  so now I feel better because Monday I weighed 9 pounds lighter than Tuesday.  Must be the boobs.

Okay, so I took divaquest's challange, and all I can say is CRAP.

I have good intentions, really I do, it's my follow through that needs help. I've been reading about the people that have lost 4 or 5 lbs and it's killing me. I am not having the same amount of success, and yes, I know that everyone is different, and I know that I have not been perfect. But it still bums me out just a tad. And I also know not to be so concerned with the scale, but it's a nasty obsession I just can't kick.

But, on the bright side...my eating has been stellar. No cheats at all (did take a free day on Sunday). My workouts have been good...missed two cardio days--one last week when I was dog tired and had a headache, and one last night because I was at my son's baseball game and the heat index was 115 and by the time I got home I just wanted to sit in a bucket of ice. I sweat as much as I do during a good cardio workout, only without the workout. Drinking my water? Does diet coke count?

ah well, today's another day...

I cleaned my office yesterday...the number of dead flies between my desk and the window is both disturbing and impressive.

The thing about breastfeeding is, if you forget to take your pump to work, your boobs try to take over your body. It's not bad enough that every 2 hours I felt my milk start to "let down" so I had to pinch my nipples to make sure it didn't squirt out all over the place, but then by five, they were so full there was no stopping them, so I drove home with my shirt growing progressively more and more wet until the two big bullseyes over my boobs finally met in the middle and overtook the whole shirt. Thank God I didn't get pulled over.

Listening to new puppy bark is as bad as hearing the new baby cry...2 minutes seems like an hour and 1/2. Trust me. I know these things.

New puppy does not LIKE new puppy's kennel. And yes I know she'd be much quieter and happier in my bed snuggled with me, but frankly I'm not a big fan of pee on my bed, so I suffer through the bark bark bark bark freaking bark, all night long. Or maybe not, since using the mathmatical equation above it could really only be 10.6 minutes, but I'm pretty sure it's all night.

So I got my jeans out of the dryer this morning and they were feeling a touch *ahem* snug, so I was doing some deep knee bends to stretch them out a little (oh, like you’ve never done that) and the seam on the inner thigh RIPPED open. Now, to be fair, they are really old jeans and my thighs always rub together, so in the offending seam’s defense, the fabric there may have been just a touch more delicate than originally intended by said offending jean’s manufacturer. Totally not acceptable. And no, I haven’t yet lost all my baby weight, thank you for asking, which brings me to my problem…these happen to be the only jeans I have that I can fit my *ahem* ample figure into at this current time. The only other clothes I can squeeze into are sweat pants which as we all know are totally inappropriate work wear. What’s a girl to do???

Keeping my legs clamped shut so no one can see my fat peaking out is a good inner thigh workout.

For a minute there I had forgotten how fun it is to have a new puppy, what with all the yelping and barking and whining and 2 a.m. potty breaks and such.

The new taco bell opens today just down the street from work, and we all decided to celebrate by seeing how many tacos we can eat, and I said "It'll be just like a big mexican sietsa". But what I really meant was "fiesta", but I'd rather have a siesta.

I should have stayed home today

Why did I even bother getting out of bed? I've asked myself that question countless times today, as I am suffering from a major case of the grumps. Crabby with a capital BITCH. One of those days when you wake up with a headache, if you can really call it waking up, since you didn't sleep at all, and everyone and every stinking thing just rubs you the wrong way. If I could spit venom from my eyes, there would be a few less people around here today. And then, AND THEN, some crazy lady walks in from the street and starts begging us here at work for 60 dollars, which, apparantly she has been doing all up and down the industrial park, because soon after she showed up, so did the cops, who kindly escorted her crazy ass off our property. But here's the thing...they let her use my bathroom before she left. MY BATHROOM. I call it mine, because when you're the only woman working in a store that is only frequented by men (okay, there's that one woman, but I'm pretty sure she used to be, or maybe still is, technically a man, cuz her hands are the size of basketballs, and plus she has an adams apple), you can have the woman's bathroom "just so". MY bathroom is the only "public" bathroom that has ever touched my hiney, because my mother successfully drilled in me a irrational fear of THE DISEASE you catch when your butt touches the toilet seat, and although I believe nothing of what my mother has ever told me, I cannot seem to shake the fear of the grotesque butt disease, or what ever it was that I was destined to catch, and thus have practiced the "hover" ever since I can remember. Okay, I may have sat on the seat in the hospital, but come on, it's a hospital! If they're not clean, nothing is, and besides, I had just had a baby, and was just too damn tired to hover. So now, MY BATHROOM, has been defiled. I'm not being mean...It's not because she was crazy...I know you can't catch crazy, or I'd have caught it long before now, but I just walked in there and it SMELLS. Like a combination of dirty feet and poop and something else I can't place but makes me want to hurl. And the cleaning crew was just here last night, so now if I want to resume my hover-less peeing I'm going to have to go clean it myself, and that just sucks. I do enough cleaning at home, dammit.

Much better on my meals today, mostly because the birthday cake was all gone. Still drank about 14 diet cokes, but hey, it keeps my toes a-tappin'.

On another note, I think I may have found my new house-mate...

I think I shall go meet her in person tomorrow...

I thought I'd try to make today the first day back in terms of my new life as a nutritionally intelligent human being. Let's review, shall we???

7:30 am...Must have caffeine....diet coke on the way to work

8:00 am...picked off a piece of the chicken I brought for my meals today, and had another diet coke

10:30 am...piece of yellow cake w/chocolate frosting from co-worker's b-day yesterday, and a diet coke

12:30 pm...remembered my new "clean eating" resolution and had a portion of chicken breast and a portion of green beans, with a diet coke

3:00 pm...repeat of above

5:30 pm...starving. no, really. the only thing that can save me now is 11 E.L. Fudge cookies, and a diet coke.

7:30 pm...portion of egg noodles, with a portion of shredded chicken a la mexican. Ran out of diet coke, so I had 1 1/2 glasses of wine instead.

Oy Vay.

Hmmm...a little over a month since my last post...gee I'm good at this.


So, you ask, what have I been doing for the last four weeks? Well, I'd tell you, but frankly it's all been a sleep deprived blur. The only things I know for sure are: #1 My maternity leave is over and I'm back at work full time...bleck. #2 I had to have my boxer put to sleep...double bleck. #3 The other dog is driving me CRAZY with all the soulful howling and frantic searching of the house for the boxer, and the hiding in the cage and refusing to come out. #4 My baby makes me happy. #5 My stomach, and it's refusal to shrink back to pre-baby proportions, does not. #6 My 2 year old fell off the TOP of the bleachers and, due to the mommy-inherited trait of being completely without grace or coordination, neglected to put his hands down and landed directly on his head, scraping the entire surface of his face completely off in the process.

Yep, that about sums it up.

Yes I know I'm supposed to be on maternity leave, but things being as they are, I've had to go into work for one thing or another several times a week...totally not my point, but I wanted to explain why I was privy to the following converstion at work today...

side note...I work for a company that sells tools and equipment for metal working applications...

enter 18 year old strong southern accent having cutie and his adorable girlfriend...

cutie "ya'll got any iron?"

ray (the funniest and sweetest man I actually personally know) "what kind of iron?"

cutie: "oh, anything"

ray: "you wanna to make something out of it?"

cutie: "um, no."

ray: "what then? you just want scrap?"

cutie: "no sir...ummm"...cutie and girl turn and leave the building with a confused look on their faces.

Don't get it? No, you wouldn't, unless you know that what the 18 year old really asked when he walked in was "ya'll hiring?"

Poor little ray almost started a fight, and he didn't even mean to.

Get it now????

The thing about hormones is, they completely screw up that little part of your brain that's responsible for rational thought and behavior. And, my friends, post-partum hormones are no exception to the rule.

I sent my husband to the grocery store. Yes, I know, men are incapeable of grocery shopping as a general rule, but I was prepared...I had a list, organized by aisle, of everything he needed. I was brand specific. I was size specific. I was freaking insanely specific. Now, in his defense, and believe me, it's a weak defense at best, he did take one of our kids with him, which he claims is the reason he was "distracted" and unable to get everything I asked for. This is where I have a problem. When he says he couldn't "get everything", what he really means to say is "I got 3 bags of hot and spicey pork rinds and a tub of vanilla ice cream, so I figured we didn't need any fruit or vegetables." And when he says "I couldn't find the canned green beans or the bags of chicken breasts or the lean sirloin" what he meant to say is "well, I was trying to decide between the smores pop tarts and the blueberry frosted, and I figured that was more important". When he says "your son was throwing a fit and I barely had time to grab a gallon of milk and run for the front" what he meant was "I was standing there in the dairy section and I grabbed the milk, but then for some reason I couldn't find the butter or the yogurt, or the sour cream, or the cheese, or the cream cheese, or the cottage cheese."

He came home with 3 things I asked him to get and about 35 that were not on the list...guess how many of his choices are healthy? I couldn't make an actual meal out of the food he bought if you paid me.

But we were talking about hormones, weren't we? Did I accept this frustrating yet mildly amusing experience for what it was---my husband's loose interpretation of required groceries? Or did I have a complete mental breakdown? Oh, I think you know the answer to that. Yes, in my hormonally altered state I actually had a 45 minute sobbing fit. You see, my husband's inability to follow a list was clearly a deliberate and malicious act, aimed at showing me that he doesn't love or respect me. Clearly, this means that not only does he hate me and want me to suffer, but it means that for the rest of my life I can NEVER DEPEND ON ANYONE TO EVER HELP ME WITH ANYTHING....NEVER NEVER NEVER...I'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO REST BECAUSE NOW I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING MYSELF...That's right, it's me the martyer speaking.

Okay, so I'm over it now, but still...those hormones are a bitch.

I'm baaaaaack.....

Well, hello there! Where, you may ask, the hell have I been? Well, I'll tell you. I have been hiding in my bedroom trying not to lose my mind, while I ponder the meaning of life and the origin of the universe.

Actually, I've been having long and meaningful conversations with myself regarding the ebb and flow of my life. Isn't it crazy how the good comes with the bad and the bad comes with the good...or is that just me? I'm one of those people that gets worried when things go too smooth, because that means, of course, that something terrible is going to happen.

About 3 or 4 weeks ago, my 11 year old Boxer started to lose interest in eating. I figured, okay, he's getting on in the years, lets try some of that yummy yet extrordinarily bad smelling canned food, which worked for a bit, until he started throwing up everything, including water, and decided to just stop completely. Then, I found a tooth on his pillow, so I thought "well, that poor dear had an absess or something...no wonder he couldn't eat! And I decided to make an appointment to see the vet and check out his poor little mouth. I dropped him off Tuesday morning (the 4th) and then went directly to the hospital, because I woke up in labor that morning. 14 hours or so later, I gave birth to a perfect and beautiful (yes, of course I'm biased) baby girl. The vet called my hubby on his cell phone and said "everything looks fine...maybe he was just stressed out over the impending birth...pick him up when you can". I never really bought that story, because this was the fourth impending birth since I've had the old boy, and he never seemed to mind before, but I took him home and hoped for the best. No luck. He refused to eat, and I took him back to the vet for one last attempt at figuring out what was wrong. He has lymphoma. I have to give him steroids twice a day, and they expect that he'll live for about 6 more months.

see...good...healthy baby girl....bad...dog dying. Ebb and flow.

My daughter, by the way, is wonderful and beautiful and perfect.

Mental problems and the illusion of normalcy

I like to pretend that I have it all together. And, as a general rule, I do a pretty good job of convincing those around me that I'm in control. However, as the song goes "don't believe me when I say I've got it down"...my issues are abundant, and some days I don't even know how I manage to keep all the ends together. It can be exhausting.

Recently, I've been obsessively picking over my food issues. Not that I one day sat down and decided that it was far time I worked out all the kinks, and have since been systematically dissecting my thought and behavior patterns; no, that would be far too healthy. Instead it seems I keep getting side-swiped by illogical and irrational concerns that completely knock me on my ass, and threaten to send me running to the nearest closet with a gallon of cookie dough ice cream. Stupid things like getting angry (don't worry, thus far I'm able to keep it completely internalized), when my husband eats three bowls of cereal. Not stupid play angry, like "geez what a pig", but really in my heart angry that there might not be any left...like he's getting more than his share, and I'm going to be left out. Is that not the craziest thing you've ever heard? I mean, I know it's got to go back to my grandmother and the whole story I've told before, but jeez... time to grow up, eh? This morning I opened the fridge and saw that for his midnight snack last night he ate more than 3/4 of the cheesecake I had put in there to thaw...and I tell you what...it's a damn good thing he had already left for work because I was so irrationally pissed off. So I stood there in the kitchen, 1/2 of me wanting to stomp my feet and scream "how dare he!!!" and the other 1/2 of me telling the first 1/2 to shut up and get over it. And it's not like I'm in danger of starving or anything...I just get this crazy panic thing going when I'm faced with the remote possibility of not getting something...I know...I sound greedy and foolish, and while yes, I probably am foolish, it's really not a greed thing. I don't feel like I want all of anything, I just panic that I won't get any at all. I can't explain it exactly, but it makes me feel like the one place I really belong is in the big padded room at the local mental hospital.

You know what I hate today? People who like their husbands.

I think that the major reason I feel this way is that everytime I hear that someone likes their spouse, it makes me feel as though my choice of a lifepartner proves just how inadequate I am at judging the character of others. I know, I know, marriage is hard...but that statement just doesn't do it for me. Hard is one thing. I could handle hard. I just can't handle impossible. I can't handle feeling taken advantage of. I can't handle a lack of common courtesy. I can't handle being the only responsible one. I can't handle always having to be the bigger person. And the funny thing is, if you can call it funny that is, is that before two years ago when I was walking the path of the seperated-almost-divorced single mother, I was completely resigned to the fact that I was going to spend the rest of my life in a miserable marriage. I was beaten. I was in such a hole of depression that I had forgotten that light even existed. And then, once the shock of seperation wore off and I started to find myself again, I realized how bad it really had been. Find myself. That sounds so cliche. I guess it wasn't so much finding myself as it was waking from a long bad dream. Anyway, during that period when I was finally waking up, I remembered what happy felt like. I remembered what loved felt like. I remembered what respected felt like. I remembered what wanted, and liked, and confident, and capeable felt like.

And I miss it terribly.

It's been so pathetically long since I last ranted and raved. Pathetic, I tell you. I'd like to have some great excuse, preferably having something to do with being in some exotic paradise with no internet access, but the truth is I've just been super crabby and feeling sorry for myself, with a little bit of lazy mixed in for good measure.

I've been so emotional lately--it's a bad bad thing. When I'm around others, I manage to channel all my emotions into an angry or impatient outburst---when alone, I'm usually crying, and talking irrationally to myself. I gained four pounds in the last 3 weeks. I'd lie and say that I don't know how that happened, because the majority of the time I'm eating ice and suffering from heartburn, but the truth is, when I'm not eating ice, I'm eating Reese sticks. And, by the way, what is up with the ice? I swear I can eat an entire bag of ice in a day and 1/2. And it's not because I'm hot, I'm actually usually cold, but still I chew my ice cubes and the heartburn continues. Not to mention the times that I somehow manage to forget that on the left side of my mouth I have an extremely sensitive tooth, and I chew an ice cube there anyway, and then spend 7 minutes with my eye in a spasm, clutching the side of my face and trying to keep upright.

I'm starting to get really antsy to start back on the workout/clean food wagon, which for me, is beyond strange. I even searched through the garage full of un-packed moving boxes that have been sitting there since we moved in November, I know, shut up, I'll get to it eventually, and found my Leanness Lifestyle book---now all I need is the free time to read it. I know in my heart that I'll most likely fall back to the BFL, but in my opinion, it doesn't hurt to be well read. You never know what tips you'll pick up from similar programs, right?

A guy here at work has decided that he wants to train for a marathon in September...

me: have you started training yet?

him: no.

me: when are you going to start?

him: I figure the first part of August

me: are you serious? you can't start training that late!

him: that gives me like 6 weeks...that should be enough

me: do you have any idea how long a marathon is?

him: yeah, I just figure I'll start with 5 miles, and then just add like 1/2 mile or a mile each day

me: uh huh. hmmm. interesting plan.

him: the real problem though, is I know this girl that does like 5 marathons a year, and her best time is 4 hours and 45 minutes, and I like totally can't get beat by a girl, so I have to run faster then that. I figure I'll aim for 15 minute miles, that way I can walk a little if I get to tired.

me: Ummmm...I'm pretty sure 15 minute miles won't have you finishing in 4:45...more like 7 hours

him: you don't know what you're talking about

me: yeah, you're probably right.