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.

Intelligent, Stunningly Beautiful and Engaging

I am happy to report that I shared a great weekend at the beach with my family, started reading book number three in my eternal list of books to read.

Now I am home and am contemplative of so many things. There is much I'd like to jump into; however, I am moving very slowly. I've already done so many things, jumped into each of them, only to find I didn't have the time I wish I had to give my full power to them.

Who doesn't want to be a woman that does it all? I'm figuring out HOW TO so I can share my experience when I start my (coming) podcast.

But just to keep my brain rattling, I signed up for a Coursera program called Principles of Obesity Economics offered by Johns Hopkins University. I'll bet you can guess why. I am going to fail this class because I started past deadline (didn't understand the start date due to vague emails sent) and I am flunking the quizzes. I can retake all the quizzes but I decided I wouldn't. The most important reason for me in taking this course is to understand the way economists, consumers, businesses and governments view the model of obesity...and to figure out where and what the incentives are for each mentioned party.  I'm understanding well, even though I'm failing quizzes, and I'm taking a lot from the lectures...most of them get my brain clicking and my hopes swirling.   I don't even feel like a failure and I'm failing. It's funny. And fun to learn.

I've signed up for a number of nutrition and food-based courses offered by different universities through this website and I am pretty excited to learn more and more.

And by the time I get my home space in order and feel content with the direction of my personal diet and exercise, I'll be happy to get the podcast going and share all sorts of findings via the program.  I have thought about it...and I could be ambitious and push myself to do, do, do. I'm pretty good at doing that. But, I'd rather stick around to go, go, go...and not burn out too quickly.

Also, I'm seeking the advice of a few other people who will help me be an even better Wendy - by which I mean business woman. More focused. More disciplined. More fun. More happy. More accomplished. (Yay!)

Doing more by doing less? I'll take it and I will love it! So will you.

One Successful Day

I am happy to report that I've been low carbin' it for this entire day - successfully so! No drive thru crap for breakfast or lunch. I didn't even get myself something sugary while at the Dunkin Drive thru for somebody else.

I started the day with chicken, tomato & pepperoni breakfast - yes, I did - and proceeded to get groceries, do dishes, clean up the kitchen, get laundry done, talked to mom, called people regarding her business stuff, called her health care people, called her local pastor, and booked interviewees for this weekend's radio show.

And I had the whole day to do it with. I didn't have to crunch it all into four hours of after work crunch time. I. FEEL. GOOD.

I've had to do some uncomfortable things lately...like admit I can't do everything (why do I keep thinking I can?) and slowed myself down a LOT. Tomorrow, I will have a prepared breakfast AND lunch to keep me from getting messed up and to help me navigate past that Island of Drive-Thru Hell that I have to drive by every day to and from work.

I know from my past experience that preparedness is my best help with this stuff and I'm glad I had today to do things that would help me face tomorrow prepared for at least a good eating day.

It's only been one day without carbstuff and, while I still needed a midday nap, I feel...so good. Accomplished. And even energetic a bit. :)

Today is...

my happy birthday! Yaaaay! I didn't go for cake or anything tonight, just a NY strip steak, grilled asparagus and my new best friend: cauliflower mash... or as my b.f.e. calls it: "notatoes." Dinner was great.

My daughter presented me with a very, very thoughtful gift this afternoon. Recently, I'd gone through storage and started to purge a whole bunch of things...designating some things for consignment, some for yard sale, some for donation....things like that. She saw that I was donating a heap of you-only-wear-them-once prom and wedding party dresses and asked if she could have them. I said she could if she made good use of them (only because I'd intended to donate them to a prom outreach that gives dresses to girls in need) and she said she would.

Well, I'm not sure where the other dresses are...but, she recreated the one I wore as a bridesmaid in my oldest sister's wedding for a porcelain doll. She and her grandmother made the pattern and sewed it together so now I have a little version of the dress I wore on the doll. I was taken by her creativity and initiative and thoughtfulness - really taken. I'm stunned in the nicest way. I put the doll on my dresser so I can admire her work and the care she put into making it.

I make kind of a big deal about things I love, so she's rolling her eyes at me as the night wears on and threatening to take the dress and the doll back if I don't stop gushing. I can't help it though... who thinks of that?! At high school age?!

So, yeah, I had a lovely weekend and a couple of great days off with unbelievable surprise and tasty dinner. I'd say this is a very, very good start to a new year.