The Seinfeld Schedule

Once upon a time I felt success. It came from getting on my treadmill every day for a week, and soon every day for two. Then a month. Then 74 days came and went and I was still getting on the treadmill in my bedroom, pumping up the speed and beating out however much mileage I could cover for however long I could reasonably stay on without becoming bored, irritated or angry. I was so glad of myself then. I'd reached a few pre-set mental milestones and was feeling the win....then I quit.

It was a flu-like bugger that rendered me helpless. I was bedridden one, then a few days. And on those days I managed to allow my mind to believe I'd failed. I didn't make 75 days. Part of me wished to get back on the treadmill and resume count, and I couldn't. I'd have to start the count over.

So I didn't go on the treadmill again. Not for ages. As in 10 months.

Call it a New Year scramble or what-have-you...I am walking again. I started this Monday and am on day four. Rather than spew all my hopes at this blog post (and set expectations!) I am only letting you know that I'm four days in...this minute.

Why I Won't Play Tetris

if you can't watch the sun rise,
i'll watch it for you.
if you can't get on your feet,
i'll stand up tall.
if you want to feel the ocean,
i'll run through it.
you gave me life, the greatest gift of all.
if you can't say you love me,
i'll just know it.
if you can't take a breath,
i'll drink mine in.
if you can't fight the fight,
i'll find the will, mom.
i'll savor life, your greatest gift of all.

I wrote that for my mom two days before she died. I felt so strong -  yet so helpless - then. I was willing to do and to be whatever it took to help her carry on in this world (because she so wanted to live) and I was struggling to let her go to be free of pain. She was in so much pain. I had to look back in my timeline and find this poem to read it again...mostly to remember what I promised.

One of the hardest things to do so far is the "I'll just know it." I do know it, innately, that she loves/loved me. And it's heartbreaking that I can't hear her tell me.

I love my mom and I miss her so deeply my heart hurts. 

What's nice to notice is that I am savoring life. I recognize the importance of taking care of myself and modeling that for my own daughter because of the insurmountable obstacles that eventually cost my mother her life.

I liken the end of my mom's life, and maybe my own life, to that game called Tetris because for a while she was able to navigate easily despite a barrage of difficult decisions and laborious tasks, right? Especially in her last five years on earth. She'd avoid pile ups and think really quickly and find last-second fits to the constant puzzle that rained. She would hurry to the next uncommon thing to come down toward her and pray and pray and pray and try and try and try to make the right adjustments to get all the pieces where they needed to be.

But life was too fast. Her burdens were too many. Her health was too out of shape. And she died.

I don't want my end game to be a scramble for survival. I want to come to a successful end I can be content with and glad about. I want to grin at my final score and know I rocked life.

I promised to fight that fight up there in that poem, but I can't play my mother's game and win. I have to play something more rewarding....more slowly, methodically, strategically in all fairness to myself and everybody else.  I wish she could do this with me.

#TweetYerEats

I have a confession to make: I am not so good at passing up confections and there are times when the worker at the Drive-Thru window still gets my pay.  I can not say, nor would I believe, that I'll never ever ever ever do either of those things again.

I've gotten to where I can pretty quickly and easily determine when I am gaining weight.  Taking control by using more real foods more often in my diet, limiting simple carbs, drinking more water all has helped me to feel and function much better. So when I'm slacking or retreating, it's not difficult to notice feelings of sluggishness. I can't excuse away the tight feeling of a waistband either.

I do notice that whenever I stop paying good attention to what I'm eating, I stop moving as much and I stop working as much and I stop enjoying as much. I get in a funk and I snowball. Snowballing is no fun at all.

Most of my feelings are mom-related because she is my weakness, living or not. I miss her. I get sad. I feel blue. I lose motivation. I lack ambition. I skip cooking. I buy prepared crap. I stop doing things around the house. I put off work. I reason myself into a cocoon of depressed feelings and unhelpful fatigue - and when what I eat gets that out of whack, too, I am only making it harder to succeed.

How to combat this behavior? Is there is a way that will make me think twice...or three or four times, even, before caving into temptations that won't do me any good? My nutritionist would like me to keep a food journal. I hate the idea. I hate the tediousness of keeping track. I also hate using online record keepers.

I can dip into the reasons why with my counselor some other time. Right now, I want a "fix." So, I asked myself, "What's something I can do to be accountable for the food I eat - if  maintaining a food journal is never going to happen?" And then it came to me. I can tweet what I eat.

I love two things about the idea: I get to share food I (very often) make from scratch. I get to take pictures with my phone. I also love that if I am going to get more than a hot tea for breakfast at the Dunkin Donuts that is conveniently placed near my door, I'm going to need to tweet it.

A lot of my problem eating is done in solace when nobody else could know. But I know. And my body shows it. And I feel what it does to me. And my life span suffers for those choices.

I started tweeting today. Just meals, not snacks. I will probably work up to snacks if I continue this trend. I hope I continue this trend. It's an idea that could really work for the kind of person I am. I love to cook. I love to amaze. I love to inspire. I love to encourage. And, what's more, I love to feel good and know that I really could live to be eighty what's-it. It's in my genetics to do so! Now, if I can just stop screwing with that.

So, I've started a hashtag #TweetYerEats and I'll post my food (breakfast, lunch and dinner) @wendytime  You are welcome to join me if you like.

Maybe I Need Therapy

I find that when I've got time to prepare meals (or portions of them) ahead of time, I do so much better on this thing. It's when I've run out of ingredients for things I'd planned to make (the people around here eat things up very quickly) that I have a very difficult time sticking to it.

So, I've got today at home while I'm trying to piece together things for/about my mom and her health care and home and work money troubles and I've got butternut squash in the oven. Spaghetti squash is next. Then I'll make a meat loaf and crumble up some beef and store it.

It's the little things that help me feel prepared and supplied and able. Without that feeling of being supplied, I go straight for the drive-thru.

And lately I've considered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy because it's like I'm wired wrong up there. If things have not been "just so" then I have tended to quickly and easily get derailed which means I am stuck at this weight...because I'll do really, very well for a while, then something will happen and I stop swimming. I sink.

So, yeah. I am really not afraid to pull out all the stops and try every tool. I sincerely want to break through barriers, not just leap over them to do a few laps around just to leap over them again. Like, I have to wonder is this something mental? Is it really JUST will power?

Selfish, Maybe

My house is full of crap. All of the upstairs is extra packed with stuff that has either come from the basement or accumulated because nobody cares and we are living like hoarders with little paths to our doors and not much else. I'm confined, hating it, cannot WAIT for the downstairs to be painted, get shelving, and to get shit done putting things back and sorting what's to give away and stuff.

I've got Thursday and Friday off and the basement is scheduled to be ready for all that redistribution I've been looking forward to for ALMOST A YEAR. Finally, there will be room to move, space to run around, breathe, smile, relax and enjoy my home. I can have people over again! I have Thursday and Friday to help organize where everything is going and has got to be - I'm the wife and the mom, it's what I do. I do that.

But, wait! I am also the daughter... I am technically the only child in a house that once had four and, by default, I am responsible for the care of my mother when everyone else is busy and/or is tired of doing it. I get it, and I am ok with loving my mother and being there for her. I'm a little upset that I have to be right NOW, with basement getting readiedness and two whole days to stay home and sort and organize things....two days to make my house the way I want it.

We were even going to skip Thanksgiving and just band together to get it done.

But, mom. And my uncles are maxed out taking care of her and their own needs. Her hired help is beginning to suck a whole lot and has a shitty attitude...and nobody seems to know whose job what is anymore. There needs to be someone to go there, sort people out, manage the care, stop the bickering and tell the grown-ass people who live off of her to get over themselves and contribute to making her house a positive environment or GTFO.

Guess who's job that is?

I can do it from here, but I can do it from there.

And if I go there, I have to neglect here. Sure, here can be done when I get back, but I won't have another two days off for it...in months. MONTHS. because I work 7 days a week. And don't think for a moment if I go up to my mom's I'll get a lot accomplished. There are too many control freaks in the equation and I am not her proxy.

I'm going to call her proxy, my cousin, tonight once I hear how mom's doc visit goes, and then I have to decide whether I have to skip this couple of days I've looked forward to for a year...or if I'll sort my house and go to Mannheim Steamroller after all.

I selfishly want to stay home.

I love my mother, though, more than I love my days off and Mannheim Steamroller...so I will be there if she needs me and that's the bottom line.

Down another 3 pounds, btw.

Square One.

Hello, square one. It's poo to see you again, but here we are. I've been feeling lost and kind of alone with this weight loss stuff lately...and I've lost focus on diet and exercise and I've lost the ambition to get up and go, go, go.

Part of this comes from the changes I've had to make outside of any personal weight loss or gain. Maybe all of it does. All I know is that this weekend, I spent most of my time staring at the fridge, unable to figure out what to make or eat. I barely had anything. I let the treadmill be a clothesline. (Insert heavy sigh and sagging shoulders here!)

I let go of routine prayer in favor of sleep.

I still have hope inside of me. I am not completely desolate! I'm just having a rough couple of days following a major and difficult decision to let go of a job I love, but am no longer good at doing. I'm too busy for it. I'm not committed to it like I once was. I wasn't being a good partner and, as much as it hurt to recognize it, I had to let it go.

That's two jobs I've decided to let go of. And even though I know my decision was the right one, it was a tough one, and I've had a post-breakup weekend like you wouldn't believe. I even skipped a bunch of meals and then ate a slice of cake. I did! Not proud, just being honest about it.

I know I'm up a few pounds because I feel differently when I get out of bed it's more like a lethargy takes over than a spring from the mattress ready to rock these days. I feel differently in my skin - the way a woman does when PMS is settling in - and uncomfortable and everything.

I told myself to get back to square one today. What is it about square one that makes you feel completely stupid? It is as if everything I've learned and know how to do has been lost and now we are starting over....even if that's not true. I know a lot and can do a lot. So, I guess I just have to find that nut of knowledge I've been keeping somewhere and crack it open again.