No Escaping the Landscaping

Posted on June 11, 2016 by KatieComeBack

Sorry for being AWOL for a bit.

I’ll offer up the sad, half-deflated balloon excuse “I’ve been busy,” which, although true, is kinda overdone. But it’s finally summer in the Midwest (well, for this week, anyway) and in addition to all the other things going on right now (which I’ll write about later), I’ve been trying to take advantage of the super-warm (read: not snowing) weather by tackling a landscaping project:

Obviously, this is the “before” picture. I’d post a “during” but it’s downright depressing. And looks pretty much the same.

Essentially, we have a 47′ X 3′ strip of land by the fence that has transmogrified* into a freakin’ mint colony. And if you’re sitting there thinking, “hey, some mint would be nice to have” – please, for the love of all that is green and flowering, back away from the trowel. Mint is to gardens like fat is to thighs: Once it gets settled in there, all it does is expand, and it’s dang near impossible to get rid of, no matter how much time you spend attempting to whittle it out. If you don’t believe me, believe the THREE JAM-PACKED yard waste bags I filled with the stuff.

*Side note: “Transmogrified” is my favorite Calvin and Hobbes word ever.

Source: disemvowel

We declared war on the Mintvasion about a month ago, when we dug out every last mint plant (and much of the surrounding dirt, because guilt by association.) We re-dug it out three weeks ago, and re-RE-dug it out AGAIN last weekend. The next step in the Mint Massacre is to head out there with kerosene and a blow torch.

Site of most recently documented successful mint removal.

This is one seriously TENACIOUS herb, folks. Despite our sub-zero winters, it comes back stronger and fuller every year. To say this crap is “hearty” is an understatement – it’s practically indestructible. If Comcast or Verizon had this level of technology, your FIOS would stay connected well past the apocalypse.

As part of mint’s world domination plan, it sends out underground runners that are several feet long and majorly aggressive. I actually unearthed one that had grown RIGHT THROUGH THE TUBER of one of my peonies. Pierced that puppy clean through like a perennial Prince Albert. (And if you don’t know what that is, I suggest you not click this link at work. I didn’t know plants were into body modification, but that’s some hard-core shiz right there, yo.) Seriously, when the next Ice Age or Nuclear Fallout or Misguided Social Media Laughingstock Presidency wipes out the human race, the cockroaches (and remaining politicians) will be channeling top-secret communications and creepy beetle pornography through mint-root cable systems long after the rest of us are worm (and cockroach/surviving politician) food.

Pro Tip: If you want mint, plant it in a container. Not in your garden, or in the neighbor’s yard (hey, they started it with their noisy dogs, I know. But despite the incessant barking, you truly do not hate your neighbors, your ex-husbands, or door-to-door solicitors nearly enough to plant this herbal hellion. Neither do you live far enough away from them to do so. Trust me, the mint will find you.) Learn from my pain and keep that botanical bully on lockdown in a solid pot on a deck or stoop.

Anyway.

Once we’re sure the mint is gone, we’re planning to lay some contractor-grade landscaping fabric down to smother any zombie survivors. (Incidentally, did you know that “contractor grade” is higher than “professional grade”? Not entirely certain of the logic there – I’m guessing it was the brainchild of the same folks who created denim sizing.) We got a 20-pound roll of it, which is enough for a double layer barrier. (Mint insurance.) As we were buying this, I found these big honkin’ staples that help hold the fabric on the ground:

High Tech Pet Humane Contain Yard Staples for Above Ground Boundary Wire Installation

Source: Home Depot

In case you’re in the market for these, you should be aware that these have a special name….

Fabric fasteners? Landstaples? Barrier Bonders?

Nope.

CRAMPONS.

I sh!t you not. Witness:

Pardon my blur. Hard to focus when giggling maniacally.

I bought these over a month ago, and I AM STILL LAUGHING. #perpetuallytwelve

And no, I do not live near France. Or Canada.

Because we think it wise to have backup protection beyond just a single box of industrial-strength crampons (you know, for unplanned mint overflow or minor weed leakage), we’re planning to secure the fabric further by tucking it under over 100 feet of stone edging. Because, while we’re at it, we’re replacing that, too. We ripped out that black plastic edging strip that the previous owners installed – I just don’t care for the look of it; it mimics the vibe of pairing cheap flip-flops with a business suit. Plus, I’m hoping that since the stone edgers are flat on top, mowing will be easier – we should be able to avoid whipping out the weed whacker and just run the mower wheel right over the edging to trim. (By the way, if you garden, and you KNOW this won’t work, please do NOT tell me. I desperately need to cling to this one last dream I still have. Thank you.)

Eventually, though, we’ll get the fabric down and the edging (50 pieces, 22 pounds apiece) set around the border. Then, we “just” have to cover it with some trap rock.

https://i0.wp.com/brachtbros.com/wp-content/uploads/3-4-clean-dresser-trap-rock.jpg

Source: Bracht Bros.

I did the calculations, and it turns out we need approximately…uh…

<math>

Apparently, we’re back to that weird mystery sizing I don’t get.

I think I need roughly 1.5 metric cubits. Or tons. Or one whole effin’ sh!tload. Essentially, one ground-up failed planet’s worth. (Sorry, Pluto, you should’ve studied harder.)

I’m exhausted already.

Good thing I’ve continued to work these wicked guns of mine:

Fear the fierce, yo.

Fortunately, I do have a 16-year-old boy who 1) has no job (Xbox is NOT A JOB, kid) and 2) likes expensive electronic toys. I smell an epic deal…. I mean, this is why one HAS kids, right? To hold in front of yourself in pictures so no one sees your thighs, and to do yard work? Time to cash in on #2. <rubs hands together in glee>

“Hey…you know that Grand Theft Undead Bloodbath Call of Halo Duty VII game you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO HAVE? Here’s your crampons, kid, get to work.”

I’d offer to pay him in pizza, but seeing as he’s a teenage boy, video games are cheaper. Even though his fave is Papa John’s, which is super cheap, and…not delicious. We have all these great wood-fired oven pizza joints around us, and my offspring prefers what the hubs not-so-affectionately calls “Republican Pizza.” I suppose I should be thankful that my son’s champagne tastes only extend to electronics, right? I mean, he COULD be asking for crab legs and a car here.

I’ll share pics of the completed project, of course. Someday. We’re just waiting for the next weekend with the right weather – warm enough for me to be outside without gloves, yet not so warm that the hubs starts to wilt. In other words, the weekend where it is exactly 74.245 degrees. And cloudy, so it stays cool, but not raining, of course, because mud, and not sunny, because hot.

I think we had one of those days in May of 2008.

Suffice it to say that my pile of supplies might BE the landscaping for awhile.

Especially since it’s only recently been nice enough for me to get my bike out again. My apologies for the math here, but Biking < Landscaping. (This formula was, in fact, in your high school algebra book. You’ve just forgotten.) I took my first ride of the season last weekend, thinking, “hey, I’ll just zip around the lake.” Yeah…no. The hubs was done after one loop, but I needed to keep going. I clocked just over sixteen miles, baby. BOOYAH. I am a stud. A stud with unfinished landscaping.

By the time we finish this project, it just might be covered in snow.

So, until next time, here’s some gratuitous pictures of what’s been blooming:

Fire hydrant photobomb.

Yeah, I totally need to mow. Or gather the hay, or something.

How’s your garden growing this year? Are you a horticultural hero? Who’s your floral foe? Gimme the agricultural gossip in the comments!

Denim, Deciphered

Posted on May 14, 2016 by KatieComeBack

It really wasn’t fair of me to write about a multi-day shopping spree without posting pictures of the hoard.

So, without further ado…the haul.

To start our adventure in spending, I took my sister to this really cool tchotchke shop called General Store. If you lean quirky, you really need to go here. They have everything from bath and body to cooking supplies to home decor to local delicacies and treats. And, of course, clothes and jewelry.

One of the things I love about this place is that there’s a gift at every price point – whether you have $5 or $500, you can pick up some seriously cool shiz. (I’m filling my coworkers’ Christmas stockings from here. I usually give ’em alcohol, too, because I am an amazing boss who knows what people want. Or because they have to put up with my quirks and periodically remind me to eat.)

I started our basket with this phone holder for my bike. (So I can use my GPS. Not attempting selfies or texting while the wheels are rollin’. Although that would likely make for some most excellent viral-quality YouTubes. But I have a high deductible, so no.)

I’m hoping that if I can SEE the map while I ride, I can avoid an accidental extra five miles like what happened last fall. (I mean, it was a great ride, but…well, I’d rather not revisit that whole scenario in general.)

I also picked up a candle (sage and citrus – I only buy candles that smell like food) and some shower aromatherapy fizzies:

From Spa Girl – available at Amazon

I love these things. They’re basically “bath bombs,” but don’t have to soak in order to activate. You just get ’em a bit wet and they fizz yummy smells all over your shower. (Plus, who has time to sit around soaking in skin soup, anyway?) I got grapefruit and lavender/vanilla, and WOULD have picked up Pumpkin Pie, but can you believe NO ONE HAS INVENTED A PUMPKIN PIE SHOWER FIZZIE YET? Come on America, step it up already. Can we AT LEAST get a coffee one? Or bacon?

I also treated myself to a few pairs of super cute socks. (Which do not smell like food. Or anything else, thankyouverymuch. Even though I totally see the appeal in bacon-scented socks, especially if you have a dog.)

Later, we moved on to our local mega-mall. I ended up with three great blouses for work (two here, third was in my last post):

Left: Forever 21. Right: H&M

Incidentally, the blouse on the left was $8 on the clearance rack…which was all “buy one, get one free” – so I HAD to pick out something else, right? Because every time you leave free clothing on the table, an angel has to eat a beet. And beet stains are forEVER, especially on white feathers and harp strings, so I snagged a groovy pair of leggings:

They’re so thick, I could almost call them “pants.” In fact, I think I shall. And did I mention they were FREE? Best. Free. Pants. Ever.

For pants like these, you need this mid-calf length cardigan in dark green. (You’ll have to use your imagination a bit, because I suck at taking pictures.)

Clearly, I could use a camera upgrade. But it (the sweater, not my camera) really is dark green, not black, and is pretty much this one but not blue:

Long, fine-knit cardigan with pockets at front, high slits at sides, and no buttons.:

Available at H&M

And now for the obligatory bling segment.

I found two new pairs of earrings:

Left: Van Heusen. Right: The Limited

And a necklace:

The above came from a store called GreaterGood – you can read about their mission here. TL; DR: when you buy their stuff, the proceeds go towards fighting hunger, curing breast cancer, and saving animals. Unfortunately, I only spent $4 on this, so you need to go to their site right now and buy more stuff. Because THINK OF THE CHILDREN. And the kittens. <cue sappy melodramatic Sarah McLachlan tune>

As you can see, this was a very successful shopping journey. But there was still a Moby Dick on my horizon.

I still needed a new pair of jeans.

And ladies? We need to talk about denim for a sec.

Despite the many distractions documented above, the primary focus of my shopping mission was to find a pair of jeans that I LOVE. And by “love,” I mean “keeps you from doing that nose-scrunching thing whenever you pass a mirror.” Women everywhere know how challenging this can be. First of all, we represent a huge variety of shapes: Some of us have a big difference between hip and waist measurements; in other women, it’s less pronounced. Some of us pack extra padding in the trunk, while others don’t carry any luggage at all. And legs are not just long or short – our gams model all animals from chicken to elephant to turkey drumstick.

The array of denim options available reflects this diversity somewhat in that they all fit differently. Despite the variety, however, jeans are the universal equalizer in that pretty much none of us can find that “perfect” fit.

If that weren’t challenging enough, denim manufactures have created a mysterious sizing matrix that is confusing and largely illogical. Allow me to give you a peek through the secret decoder lens as we review the “system”:

Misses sizes: Even numbers, 0 – 20 or so. The theory here is that these are meant for “women,” so they’re cut a little more generously in the hip to accommodate a post-pubescent figure.

Junior sizes: Odd numbers from 1 – 17. Sometimes, though, you get a 0 or a 00 in there on the smaller end. (Seriously. 00? What even is that, and why are two 0s smaller than one?) Generally, these are narrower in the hip than Misses – so a Junior 7 could be tighter than a Misses 6, even though 7 is generally understood to be bigger than 6.

UK sizing: Even numbers, but not the same as US Misses. They tend to run a size or two smaller – so a UK 12 is closer to a US 8.

H&M: They list all the sizes on the tag, but…plot twist! Everything is a size smaller than you’re used to. Sometimes, two sizes. So if you wear a US 8/UK 12, count on needing a US 10/UK 14.

Keeping up? Wait…it gets better.

Waist sizing: Ah, finally. Something straightforward. HAHAHAHAHAHA no. In the US, this is in inches. 24-36, or thereabouts. Of course, this doesn’t take into account whether you have Junior hips or Misses hips or a Kardashian caboose, so whether something matching your waist size actually fits you will depend on the designer’s interpretation of shape and/or your forearm strength as you hike ’em north of your buttcrack. (For the record, clearing the cleft counts as “fits”.)

Chico’s: Last I checked, they had their own numbering system of 1 -4, with half sizes in between. Since most of their tops fit like a scaled-down circus tent, I have no idea how that actually correlates to anything. I think a Chico’s 1 is somewhere in the ballpark of a Misses 8? Juniors 11? Camp flagpole?

And if THAT doesn’t mentally waterboard you, you can visit Manifesta, They don’t sell jeans – but neither do they stock conventional sizes. Everyone’s a flower. Check it out:

We don’t want there to be an inherent order to the sizes, with women striving to fit into the smallest number possible. And we don’t want women to feel bad for ordering a size that society has deemed “unacceptable.” We just want you to get what fits. So to find your size, use your measurements, not society’s idea of what you should be.

(Thanks to Ragen at Dances with Fat for alerting me to this one.)

I do appreciate the spirit of their system – beauty at every size – but in my mental garden, the dandelions are choking out the daisies.

Anyway. The point here is that trying to find jeans that fit YOU will drive you straight to the donut box. Partner that with a lifelong battle with food and body image, and you have the ultimate exercise in frustration. (Well, maybe secondmost-ultimate. I haven’t forgotten about swimsuits, even though I’m trying to.)

To further complicate the matter, I really wanted a different style of jeans. (Because learning the second language of size isn’t enough – you need to now take art classes to speak intelligently about the style):

https://i0.wp.com/highstreetfitfinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/jeans-styles.jpg

Image: High Street Fit Finder

I’ve tried flare and boot-cut before, but invariably, they make the tops of my thighs look really wide – like each leg is an hourglass. (A great look for an overall shape, notsomuch for each individual leg. Especially when you’ve invested most of your life trying to camouflage your thighs behind flowerpots, purses, random pieces of furniture, and your children.)

I usually gravitate toward a skinny cut, which tapers at the ankle…but the problem with this shape is that the contrast of the narrow ankle with flatter shoes makes you look like you’re wearing swim flippers.

Not the look I typically aim for.

So I thought I’d try a few brands with a straight leg. BUT DO YOU THINK ANYONE ACTUALLY SELLS THIS CUT ANYMORE? What the heck – as soon as I decide I MUST have these, the entire style goes underground.

But I persevered. I searched high and low, trying on every brand in every store, no matter how high the price tag <coughcoughNordstromcoughcough> or how loud the bass (True Religion, I’m looking at you, and covering my ears while I do.) And I did finally score one pair at Nordstrom’s Rack (I had them on in my last post) and two additional pairs at 7 for all Mankind Outlet, where not only did they have a wide variety of straight-leg styles to choose from, they were also on sale*. Score!

*Which prolly means I will never, ever find them again. Ah well.

And they don’t look bad, really. <deep breath as Kate practices this picture posting thing>

My Bubba Keg and my new denim.

I realize that my sweater is all cattywampus, and clashes horribly with my super-awesome coffee mug, but you will pry that sucker out of my cold, dead hands after I am done clobbering you with it. AND THIS IS ABOUT THE JEANS. FOCUS, PEOPLE.

And, true to denim anti-logic, the pair I nabbed at Nordie’s is actually a size BIGGER than the ones I found at the outlet – but they’re TIGHTER. Common Core has infiltrated fashion, folks.

But they fit. And I don’t hate them.

That’s progress. Real progress.

This Ahab slayed her denim Moby Dick. For now.

Until we meet again, whale.

P.S. My sister ALSO found an amazing pair of jeans…as well as the very last pair of these in the entire state:

Good luck finding a pair of your own.

Best walking shoes out there. I know because I have them in blue glitter.

It’s like we’re related or something. 🙂

The Clarity of the Crystal Ball

Posted on May 7, 2016 by KatieComeBack

In my last post, I mentioned that my sister and I had tarot card and palm readings while she was out to visit.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve had various readings done from time to time. I don’t use them as the final word in setting my life’s course or anything. They’re more like those endless Facebook quizzes – entertaining (and fun to see how all your friends score), and they often validate your own insight into yourself. When you get feedback that resonates, it feels a bit like you have permission to be exactly who you’re meant to be.

And with my issues, I’ll take all the permission I can get.

But sometimes, what they tell you is so spot-on accurate, it’s jarring. That was my prior experience with Jeff Tyler:

This is Jeff. Read more about him here.

When I met him before, he solidly nailed some things:

* He asked about my career. When I told him that I work in HR, he said, “Yes, but not the way most people are in HR. It’s different, and I like you there, because you can do HR the way you want to do it.” This is actually really accurate. I’m not the stereotypical HR person; I like creating sense from the chaos at small companies, where I can roll up my sleeves and put in place just enough structure to function. In contrast, I find large, well-organized companies completely suffocating. (Plus, my company is privately owned…by a family – which adds a flavor of…uniqueness. More on that brand of crazy later.)

* He asked if we had been doing construction or remodeling. Again, spot on. At the time, we’d spent much of the last two years fixing up the short sale property we’d purchased – in addition to remodeling the kitchen, we’d repainted nearly every room, redone two bathrooms, and put an addition on the back. So yeah, I was all spackle-and-drywalled out by this point. He suggested that I take a break from that particular chaos, and “take time to just enjoy what you’ve built.” Although there was a bit more to be done, for now it was time to just be in our house – at least for a while.

* He then talked about creative energies. He said he saw me active in “some kind of art – music, words, something….that’s the only time you’re all there and real. That’s where you can BE.”

At that time, my blog was six months old, and I was finding it to be quite therapeutic. And I’m also a musician – I sing in a band, and while I’m no Sandi Patty, I don’t completely suck:

And he was right, again. I’m totally absorbed in the moment when I’m singing. Gone are the little gnats that cloud my happiness and nip at my joy and buzz distractions at me about my weight. It’s just the music and me.

And when I write, I drop the cloak that shields my soul from the social crows who might otherwise pick at it. I expose my jugular. OK, yeah, sort of anonymously, but still. Emotional vampires aren’t picky eaters; it’s still a risk, and feels a bit like I’m dabbing steak sauce on my pulse points…but when writing, I throw caution to the wind, and get real.

So it was a great reading, and I really dug this guy’s direct, no-dancing-delicately-around-the-tulips approach – and I thought my sister would, as well. She was receptive to give it a go, so off we went.

And once again, I got some solid insight. Some of my highlights from this round:

* Your workplace is kind of a mess. Yep….as I mentioned before, it’s a privately-held, family-owned company. And we have a new CEO, who is NOT family, so the resulting change in diet has given the drama llama more than a little intestinal distress…which alternates between noxious stink and hilarity.

* You’ve been working on spiritual growth, and you’re outgrowing who you were. But when you’re challenged, you revert back to who you used to be…and you don’t like that person very much. This was interesting to think about. Over the last year, I’ve been working on personal and spiritual healing, and trying to quiet the mental voices around my food issues. But prior to that, I worked myself out of a relationship that was mentally abusive. It took considerable strength to do that – leaving a marriage is hard, hard work; it’s even tougher if you’ve been mentally whittled down to nothing.

He had a point, though – in the struggles I’ve found in my current marriage, do I face them head-on? Not initially, no. I tend to revert to the same person I was in my prior marriage – timid, hesitant, reluctant to start conflict.

And he was correct in saying that I don’t like being that person. It isn’t me. It’s like jamming your feet into shoes that don’t fit. You feel pinched and uncomfortable and can’t WAIT to kick them off, and they don’t really go with your whole spiritual outfit, anyway.

* You have some toxic older friends that you need to move away from to preserve your energy.

I scratched my head on that one for a bit. I don’t really have close friends…sure, there are my Facebook connections, and my many “virtual” online buddies….but none of them are toxic energy leeches.

I shrugged it off as a “miss” in the reading.

My sister also got some interesting tidbits:

* You work really hard to hide your emotions. But you shouldn’t. You have really strong emotions, and you are a good person BECAUSE of those strong emotions – not because you hide them.

My sister’s always been a “feeler.” When we were kids, she was convinced that inanimate objects, like stuffed animals, had feelings.

Which reminds me of the Cabbage Patch story:

Anyone else remember Cabbage Patch dolls? My sister really, really wanted one. She didn’t get one for Christmas, because Cabbage Patch Kids were the It Toy of the year, and since people were generally losing their collective minds in their efforts to get one, Mom wisely opted out of the public stampedes and fistfights. So sis saved up her own money, until FINALLY she had enough stashed away. Off to the mall we went, making a beeline for the toy store. (This was a few months after the holiday rush, so the shelves were sufficiently stocked at this point. No taser required.)

My sister had her eye on a redheaded doll. She spotted one in the second row, behind a blond, curly-haired one. She moved the first doll to the side…

…and I said something to the effect of “aw, that doll’s going to be sad that you didn’t choose her.”

Looks heartbroken, doesn’t she.

My sister felt so bad about hurting the toy’s feelings that she LITERALLY BOUGHT THE BLOND DOLL INSTEAD.

And my brother spent the next several years torturing her with it. He gave her a voice, and whenever the doll wasn’t sitting next to my sister, he’d make it call out, “MOMMA! MOMMA! COME GET ME! I’M LONELY! She was prone to mischief, frequently body-slamming teddy bears and pinning dolls belonging to overnight guests too. (And sometimes our cousins, if they dared nap at our house. They’d wake up underneath a Cabbage Patch kid who you’d swear had a smug look on her face….)

“Antonia Larina”clearly had self-control issues. (Ah, siblings. Ain’t they great?)

Anyway. One of the reasons I wanted to have my sister see this guy was because of this stressful life situation she’s dealing with. Interestingly, he had some insight into that:

* You’re struggling with making a big decision. Perhaps you need to make a decision NOT to make a decision right away. Take this time to heal and fix YOU instead.

(For the record, this is EXACTLY WHAT I TOLD HER. Validation for my spiritual gift right there, folks. But wisdom is wiser when it comes from a third party. That’s why consultants are so expensive, right?)

* You need to stop beating yourself up. You’re hearing your mother’s voice of disapproval in your head…you need to stop listening to that and do what’s right for YOU.

Hmm. That didn’t feel quite right. Mom was never one to be overbearing with an opinion. Apparently (I found this out later) HER mother was pretty up front with how she felt about things, and was none too shy about making sure her offspring knew her stance. On EVERYTHING. And don’t we always swear to do EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what our parents did?

So we grew up with a lot of this:

Me: Mom, what do you think of my current boyfriend?

Mom: It doesn’t matter. I’m not the one dating him.

Sis: Mom, do you think I should cut my hair?

Mom: It’s your hair. Do what you want with it.

Afterwards, my sister and I debriefed about our readings a bit (yes, while we were shopping – at the outlet mall this time to mix it up a bit.)

And as we were searching for the best slip-on walking shoes and the perfect jeans, we realized something.

The damaging influences he had referenced – the toxic relationships, the disapproving parents – these weren’t playbacks of external experiences.

They were internal.

In my sister’s case, Mom never really frowned on her life choices. But my sister is so adept at self-flagellation, she was creating her own voice of disapproval. RIGHT INSIDE HER HEAD.

It wasn’t Mom’s voice she was hearing – it was her own.

And with me – the “toxic relationship” is, in reality, with…myself. It’s with the person who has food issues. It’s the condescending voice hissing insults at me while I walk around with a BMI of about 18, telling me I’m too fat to eat back the precious few calories I burned on my morning run. It’s that internal judge that hands out the verdict of “unacceptable” every time I look in the mirror and catch sight of my thighs.

The challenge? It’s really, really hard to divorce your brain. It’s awfully tough to break old thought patterns – to jackhammer out the long-ago-set concrete and haul the heavy chunks to the garbage dump.

It’s exhausting.

But if I move one piece at a time, and keep at it, eventually I’ll get there.

I had a small taste of what that might look like just this week. I was sporting some of my new stuff – a new top, and what I thought were decent jeans (I can never be sure – I get myself thinking they look OK in the dressing room, but once I get home and look at them in MY mirror…well, ugh. Thighs again.)

And you know what? I thought I actually looked pretty good.

Throughout the day, I reminded myself that I looked just fine.

(Even now, I’m hesitating to post this picture, because I’m still second-guessing those damn thighs.)

But some of the time? I think, maybe, I’m starting to believe it.

I’m OK.

I hereby give myself permission to BE. Just the way I am. A work in progress.

I hope my sister does, too.

Stay-cation Rejuvenation

Posted on April 29, 2016 by KatieComeBack

A couple of weeks ago, my sister came to visit.

I know for most families, this sort of thing happens all the time – on weekends, holidays, or any random day of the week ending in the letter “Y.” But I don’t live anywhere near my family, so this is more of an event. My parents are halfway across the country, and they’ve only come to visit once in the ten years I’ve lived here – they really don’t care for the hassles of travel (can ya blame ’em?) The only thing that enticed them to visit was my wedding. Barring any additional marriages, and factoring in my dad’s health, I don’t think it’s likely they’ll visit again.

My brother’s never visited, either. His wife…well, she likes to be near her parents. I’m told she dropped out of college (twice, if I’m not mistaken) because being away from Mom and Dad all week was asking a bit too much. (I don’t mean to be unkind with that statement. It’s just fact. And my brother literally lives across the street from my parents, so there’s a lid for every pot, I suppose.) Also, she’s kind of a germaphobe, despite having three boys, so hotels and gas station rest rooms really stress her out. (Also not being cruel. Being grossed out by public bathrooms is totally legit. With the amount of travel I do, I have to ignore the reports on how nasty these places are, lest I contract into an immobile, inconsolable twitch ball.

My sister is the more adventurous one. She and her spouse have actually been out to visit twice – once for my aforementioned wedding, and once for our annual State Fair, where you can see top-billing performers like Weird Al and REO Speedwagon* perform, AND you can get pretty much any food deep-fried and served on a stick.

*Side note: I didn’t get tickets to REO Speedwagon. To date, this is my life’s biggest regret.

This time, though, it was just my sister making the trip. She’s been going through some life-decision personal-type stuff, so she needed a break from reality. Plus, she had some vacation time to burn, so out she came.

I should mention that I actually haven’t had a bona-fide vacation in years. I use all of my paid time off for my kids’ stuff, and to visit family. Sure, I take time off – the week between Christmas and New Years is sacred rest-and-recharge-at-home time – but the last time I had a stay-overnight-in-a-non-family-member-town was our brief two-night honeymoon in 2007.

Suffice it to say I’m long overdue.

So when I heard my sister was coming, I decided to make it as close to a vacation as possible. I scheduled a day and a half off, and started making plans.

During the six days she was here, we:

Worked a volunteer shift at Feed My Starving Children, packing food for hungry people. This is a really cool organization; they’re tremendously well-organized and they help groups do a lot of good in a short time. If you’re looking for an opportunity to chuck some positive energy into the world, check them out. They make it stupid easy to make a huge impact: They set groups up assembly-line style, allowing you to pack hundreds of meals in just under two hours. You can volunteer at one of their facilities, or with a MobilePack event where the work comes to you!

(The food they pack tastes kind of like Rice-a-Roni, in case you’re wondering. They’ll usually let you sample it when you’re done. Incidentally, it’s vegetarian, and they beef** it up with some proprietary superfood vitamin-enhanced nutrient powder. Here’s the science.)

** Haha. See what I did there…

And speaking of food….

Tried a couple new restaurants. Well, new to ME, anyway. When you have food issues, you tend to stick with the tried-and-true…or at least the places where you have some hope of accurately tracking the calories in what you’re eating. But while my sister was here, I was able to give myself a break. I enjoyed pizza, a diner omelet, a MetaBoost Bowl***, AND a concrete mixer from our local Culver’s. (Because there is no Culver’s where she lives. Tragic. Simply tragic.) And I ate all of these things without beating myself up with the empty dish afterwards. (OK, I beat myself up a little, especially after Culver’s. But I did my best to forgive myself – and that alone is progress.)

***Kale, edamame, and unicorn sweat or something. It was really good, but I still can’t leap tall buildings or see through people, so I kinda feel like I should get a refund. #falseadvertising

Got coordinating tattoos. LOOK HOW CUTE THEY ARE:

It kills me dead how horrified poor Cookie Monster looks.

I mentioned a while back that my sis and I have grown pretty close, after basically not speaking for several years. So when she suggested we get tattoos, I was all over the idea. Once she found the basic design, I put our fates in the hands of an artist named…wait for it… Bleach Methane. (I mean…with a name like that, he has GOT to know what he is doing. Right? And check out his work – the dude’s got wicked talent.)

If you look closely, you’ll see that the tattoos are slightly different. We each got an eighth note – hers is an A#; mine’s a Bb. If you know anything about music, you know they’re the same pitch, written differently. How freaking poetic for sisters is THAT? We are geniuses, both of us.

Shopped like it was our job, yo. I live dangerously close to one of the biggest shopping malls in the country. I can’t quite hit it with a rock (because my aim is atrocious, and throwing rocks at buildings will generally get you arrested, even if you miss) but if I go for a run outside, I can literally SEE the mall from some of my paths. It’s a huge tourist attraction, and we spent the better part of three days there.

You read that right. THREE FULL DAYS. When they finally recognize shopping as an Olympic sport, you NEED us on your team. We’ll make the US proud. Feel free to contact me directly for the endorsement deals.

Took a yoga class. Because ice cream. And pizza. And because it feels good to stretch and bend. I really need to remember how much I like yoga – not the getting up early and sweating part (duh. Have we met?) but how accomplished, energized, and centered I feel when it’s done. I’m more serene, more confident in my ability to…well, to adult. It helps me shift my overactive, anxious brain from marathon-sprint speed to engaged stroll mode. And afterwards, I’m a little bit kinder to my physical self, having a refreshed appreciation for all the cool stuff my body can actually DO.

So yeah, I need to get that shiz on the agenda more than twice a year.

Visited a tarot card reader. I’ve mentioned that I’ve dabbled in the occasional psychic reading/aura photo dealio before. To be clear, I’m not one of those people who needs to IM a mystic in order to determine what side dishes to serve at dinner or anything. I understand that it’s more like reading a horoscope – if you WANT it to apply, your brain will find a way to make it appear so.

That said, my experiences have been really positive. I’ve received fairly consistent messages with my readings – specifically, I need to take better care of myself mentally and not be so hard on myself. Since I’m fairly self-aware, none of this is exactly talk-show-interrupting news.

But these readings often give me validation for things I’m feeling or experiencing. They motivate me to challenge myself, to make changes…or, at the very least, think over some of the things I need to think about. (Like promising myself to spend more time writing, and when I fail to do that, not beating myself up quite so much.)

Ultimately, after a “good” reading, I almost feel like the universe has granted me permission to be exactly who I am. And if that helps me be a better ME, that’s not a bad thing at all.

Everyone has a different view on this sort of thing, and I wasn’t exactly sure where my sister sat on this spectrum. But, at the very least, it’d be entertaining, right? And maybe she’d get some direction for what she was trying to work through.

I made appointments for us to see Jeff Tyler. I’d seen him a few months earlier at some kind of holistic enlightenment fair, and had a mini-reading with him. At the time, I was pretty impressed. I totally dug his approach – he’s direct, doesn’t BS you, and drops the F-bomb a lot.

PERFECT.

So we had our readings, and we each heard a lot of things…

…which I’ll share in a future post. 🙂

My sister flew back on a Wednesday evening. Her suitcase, packed with some of her new treasures, was just one pound shy of the weight limit. (Skillz, we haz ’em.) I’m hoping she was able to leave behind some of the soul-sucking stress she was carrying.

I know you can’t fill the pit of anxiety and depression with material things. New clothes and good food only give you a temporary feel-good boost; they do nothing to actually clean out the pre-existing clutter in your head.

But the exercise of unplugging from the daily thought patterns can help you disconnect from the stress that surrounds you. It’s a ray of light breaking through the fog to give you a view of the mountains you’d forgotten were just outside the window.

I had no idea how badly I needed the break until I took one.

Aaaaahhhhhhh.

Hey, sis? Same time next year?

100 Ways to Heave Your Blubber

Posted on April 22, 2016 by KatieComeBack

(My apologies for the inflammatory title. Just sharing the earworm, because I’m giving like that.)

Losing weight is hard.

Oh, sure, we’ve all given it a go. Whether it’s a New Years Resolution, a 30-day Bikini Challenge, or Every Freaking Monday of Your Entire Life, most of us have tried our hand at weight loss.

But most of us don’t make it to the finish line. Because losing weight is ongoing, tedious, exhausting work.

For a lot of us, it’s not unlike attempting a kitchen remodel. Witness the “before” shot of our kitchen when we purchased our short-sale house:

There were people LIVING HERE just a day earlier. Eew.

The appliances were older than me, the cabinets were practically wearing bell bottoms, and THE GREASE. <shudder>

That isn’t rust. IT’S GREASE YO

The microwave was originally black, and not supposed to be…furry.

Mmm. Who wants some squalor popcorn?

With a project like this, we look at the mess and decide we Must. Do. Something. Big.

RIGHTNOWRIGHTNOWRIGHTNOW!

So we start a complete overhaul, attempting to renovate our eating habits overnight. We tear out the chips and ice cream from the cupboards. We throw out our roomy, stretchy Thanksgiving Dinner/Chinese Buffet Pants. We plan out an exercise routine that would make Jack LaLanne (or Jane Fonda or Jillian Michaels – pick your generation; I’m old) proud.

But that’s the demolition part. The fun part. WHAM! BANG! CRASH! You rip out cabinets, you smash countertops. Big things are falling, huge changes are happenin’, you’re absolutely TRUCKING.

You got this!

And then, fatigue hits. You’re surrounded by debris and EXHAUSTED. You have twenty-seven cabinets to scrub, strip, and refinish. Each door has 6 holes to patch, because of COURSE new hardware doesn’t fit into old holes….and you don’t even have a place to wash a dish or nuke a bag of ~~popcorn~~ veggies.

What started as robust, vigorous progress has come to a standstill. You work all day – diligently – and see next-to-zero progress. Or worse, you find problems you didn’t know you had (mold? leaky pipe?) – and, even though you’ve been working your tail off, you lose ground and have more to do than you did when you started this whole mess.

Frustrated, you burn down the house and move.

Okay, no. Not really. (Although in the aforementioned kitchen, I won’t say I wasn’t tempted to invoke my inner arsonist.)

When it’s your kitchen, you can’t just give up working on it. You HAVE to get it to a place where you can at least open your fridge without a HAZMAT suit on.

So you keep going.

You can’t look at the project as four coats of paint on 27 doors each with six holes to fill and re-drill, because between math and paint fumes, you’ll lose your ever-loving mind. But you CAN fill one hole at a time, and repeat that until all the holes are done. (Which is – for the record – 162 times. But if you had told me that up front, I’d have whipped out the flamethrower.)

So, when we’re looking to make changes within ourselves – when we decide we’re gonna “get healthy” – maybe we need to use the same approach.

Instead of trying to bike ten miles tomorrow, maybe we should start with a walk.

Instead of twice-a-day workouts, maybe we shoot for a few times a week.

Instead of swearing off ice cream, wine, and pizza, maybe we could find ways to incorporate tastes of them into our diets, and/or discover healthier alternatives that we enjoy.

Instead of starving ourselves to death, perhaps we could just roll back the nachos and feed our bodies more actual fuel. (And chocolate is fuel for the soul, so don’t put it in permanent time-out.)

Image Source: SumAdvice.com

For some of us, the way to make permanent changes is to make small ones, tackling one step at a time.

Going back to the kitchen remodel here…In addition to the 162 holes on twenty-seven doors that needed refinishing, this particular kitchen was a nightmare of grease and grime. It took HOURS of scrubbing to get it clean. HOURS. HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS.

But I discovered that I had a decent floor under the uck. How’d I find it? One square at a time.

Tell me you can see the difference….

So how can we do this with our health journeys?

Well, we’re told “eat less and move more.” And we can take that in baby steps. Let’s look at “move more” for a sec.

Moving more doesn’t necessarily mean we have to set the elliptical to run as long as Gone with the Wind does. (Three hours and fifty-eight minutes. You’re welcome.)

But we do have the opportunity to pepper our days with microbursts of exercise. So instead of setting out to burn 500 calories….maybe shoot to burn 100. You have to burn off 3500 calories in order to lose a pound – so let’s do the math:

2 times a day X 100 calories X 5 days X 52 weeks = 52,000 calories.

52,000/3500 = 14.857 pounds

In other words, if you burned 100 calories twice a day for 5 days a week, you’d burn off nearly fifteen pounds in a year. That’s at least a dress size, yo. Time to go shopping!

And speaking of shopping…burning 100 calories isn’t terribly hard to do. I got this neat poster from the folks at Chobani. Have a look:

Source: www.chobani.com

Full disclosure: The number of calories burned depends on a lot of things – your metabolism, size, age, gender, etc. I’m female, over 40, and not six feet tall, so I have to do these activities a bit longer to burn 100 calories. But that said, I can shop forEVER, so with THAT activity, I’m probably burning a McDonald’s Value Meal when I go long.

Anyway. The point here is that with exercise, the important thing is to DO it. Take small bites if you don’t think you can swallow it whole. Baby steps are still steps in the right direction.

Today, I had an appointment at the airport. Now, our local airport is freakin’ HUGE. I know it always seems like a long walk to get from security to my gate – so today I tried to measure it. I skipped the moving walkways and escalators and moved along, bobbing tourists and dodging families with small children as I hoofed it to my meeting.

Unfortunately, the GPS doesn’t work so well in the airport. (I swear I was not drunk….)

MapMyFitness is apparently weirded out by fast food.

OK, I tried. I probably can’t trust the mileage on this jaunt. But I did learn that my hike took about 10 minutes each way – so by walking to this appointment, I got 20 minutes of brisk walking in. Not bad!

So – how about “eat less”?

Again, we don’t have to marry ourselves off to a diet of green leafy disappointment and broiled protein heartache. You and celery CAN see other people. You just have to use some discretion, obvs.

I’ve been watching my weight for 34 (yowza!) years now, and I use a few guidelines:

1. Don’t eat food you don’t like. If you’re cutting back, you don’t get too many calories to play with – why spend them torturing yourself? If you can’t stomach beets, QUIT BUYING THEM. For me, it’s cantaloupe. Probably one of the healthiest fruits out there, but it tastes like feet and swamp algae, so it is NOT going in my mouth, no way no how, even if eating it would save a kitten. Nope.

2. Don’t cut out foods you love. And don’t be shouting “BUT I LOVE ALL FOOD!” Nice try. Of course you do. But you probably have 3-4 favorites, right? If so, keep those in your diet. Not at every meal, or even every day….but you gotta have ’em, or you’re far more likely to abandon ship on your renovation. My list includes cheese, pizza, ice cream, and chocolate. And wine on occasion. And once or twice a year, a good hibachi meal. Forever is a long time, after all. It’s even longer if there’s no chocolate in it.

3. Decide where you can adjust. Here are my tweaks, corrections, and shifts:

* I generally don’t drink anything with calories. I’ve found I’d rather eat my calories than drink them. Years ago, I switched from regular soda to diet; since then, I’ve switched to herbal tea and water. I have coffee in the morning – but that’s medicinal. (Vitamin P for Personality!) And wine maybe once or twice a month – for dessert.

* I use low-calorie condiments. Mustard, balsamic vinegar, hot sauce, and salsa are among my favorites. I don’t use any type of mayo or butter. (I actually find butter kind of terrifying.) Mayo was a little tougher – I mean, how does one make tuna salad without it? But about a year ago, I came up with an alternative:

1/4 c fat-free Greek yogurt (shout out to Chobani, since I stole your graphic) 🙂
1 tsp grainy brown mustard
3 good splashes of hot sauce
Liberal sprinkle of sea salt

Mix it up and stir it into a can of drained solid white tuna (yes, buy the solid white. You deserve better than the greyish mystery chunks in Chunk Light. Trust me.) Mine also gets a healthy dollop of minced onion and pickle relish. It doesn’t taste like mayo, but it’s darn good, I promise!

* I try to cut back on added fat. OK, I know this is a no-brainer, but fat has nine calories per gram, so cutting back even a little bit helps. If a recipe calls for veggies cooked in 2T of oil, I know I can probably get away with halving that. With salads that call for olive oil, I can very often sub in fat-free Greek yogurt for the olive oil for a creamy version of the dressing.

And let me share a little experiment I did a few years ago. Have you ever seen people blot off the tops of their pizza slices with a napkin? Did you wonder if it could possibly make any difference?

I decided to find out. I own a food scale (I have this one):

Purchased from Amazon in 2010 and still works great, by the way.

So, I weighed a clean napkin, blotted my pizza slice, and then weighed it again.

The difference was 3 grams. That doesn’t sound like a lot. But at the time, I was eating four slices of pizza a week (half a large pizza that I’d split with the hubs). Math time!

3 grams X 9 calories per gram = 27 calories, X 4 slices = 108 calories.

108 calories X 52 weeks = 5616 calories, / 3500 = 1.6 pounds

Yes, folks, I saved myself 1.6 POUNDS over the course of a year JUST BY BLOTTING MY PIZZA.

If that doesn’t sell you on baby steps, I don’t know what will. Maybe new shoes? Or just the knowledge that if you keep plugging the small holes and scrubbing the small squares, eventually you’ll have a new kitchen:

We like a lot of color, obviously.

As I write this, I realize that I need to use the same approach on my marriage. I don’t need to swing a sledgehammer or set off an emotional M80 to see progress.

Instead, I need to focus on the fact that while I might want new appliances, the cabinets are pretty solid and might just need a coat of paint. And I can continue to patch the doors, one hole at a time.

Special thanks to Chobani for inspiring this post!

Your Fate in One Date

Posted on April 15, 2016 by KatieComeBack

Last Friday, the hubs and I attempted to go on a date.

I don’t know how often married people are SUPPOSED to date…but what relationship experts and the interwebz dictate is that you should go on an actual date periodically. You need to break away from the routine of work and cleaning and taxes and laundry and bills and kids and all the AAAAAAUUUUGGGHHHH in life and spend some time just existing as a couple.

Right?

I’ve mentioned before that I travel quite a bit; this takes me out of town a couple weekends a month. Over the last few months, the hubs and I have been on opposite schedules – he’s been out of town when I’ve been back home, and vice versa. The result is that we haven’t had a weekend together since January.

Finally, last weekend, the stars briefly realigned, and we found ourselves expecting a few days at home together.

All week, the hubs expressed how much he was looking forward to our weekend…to spending time together. He texted me daily with his anticipation, and told me again when I arrived home from work in the evenings.

But the weekend got closer and closer, and although the hubs had thoroughly communicated how much he was looking forward to it…we hadn’t actually gotten around to planning anything.

When Thursday came around, I broached the subject. My “so…what shall we do this weekend?” was met with “I don’t know. What do YOU want to do?”

Gaaaaaah.

!@#($*#$!!

I haaaaaate that answer.

Because we ALL know that it means, “I don’t really want to come up with any suggestions or ideas, but if I don’t like what YOU pick, I don’t have to take any blame for not enjoying it all that much.”

I went through that on my birthday last summer. And I experienced this REPEATEDLY with my ex’s family….

Me: So where do you want to go for dinner?

Ex’s Family: I don’t care. Anywhere is fine.

Me: Any suggestions? Preferences?

Them: Nope, anything will be good.

Me: Seriously. What do you people feel like eating?

Them: Whatever you want will be fine, I’m sure.

Me: OK. How about Chinese food?

Them: Eh. I don’t really care for that.

Me: Well, what about <insert local family restaurant that is mediocre at best, but I’m flipping STARRRRVING so I’ll take a sadness sandwich with flaccid fries at this point>

Them: Well, that’d be OK, I guess…but we just ate there Tuesday.

Me: Pizza, then. Everybody likes pizza!

Them: Pizza gives us heartburn. But if YOU want it….

Me: <explodes into guttural caveman war cry; whips out machete and Lizzie Bordens them all into confetti and dances on their entrails>

(Side note: Don’t eff with me when I’m hungry.)

Now, I know some spouses don’t “do” planning – perhaps you know a couple like this, or maybe you’ve lived this role. No, it’s not fair, but that’s just the dynamic you get sometimes, and you can choose to be mad for a lifetime over something that will never, ever change, or you can accept your fate as the household travel agent and at least ensure you book the hotel chain that actually washes the blankets.

But for those weekends where I’ve been out of town, and he’s been home, the hubs has managed to fill his dance card to the brim with things to do, places to go, and people to see.

So it’s obvious he’s perfectly capable of planning something.

If it’s important.

So I started the weekend kind of dejected that I didn’t make the priority list. And it was apparent that if we were going to have plans, I was going to have to be the one to come up with them.

So I figured I’d try to salvage the date a bit by picking something I’d enjoy. I decided to look at comedy clubs. I live in a pretty large metro area, and we have several to choose from. And we’d never been to one, and this might give us a chance to laugh together. Plus… booze. Comedy + alcohol HAS to be promising…right?

I poked around online and found that Pete Correale was performing at the club closest to us. I’d never heard of the dude (because I don’t have cable, and I live in a cave), but the comedy club PROMISED it was a hot act, and the trailer looked OK. So I bought tickets, put on ~~something sexy~~ a thick sweater and jeans, because even though it’s April, it’s freaking sleeting outside (come ON, Mother Nature, catch up here, my Christmas tree is finally put away so you can let Spring in now) and waited for the hubs to come home so we could start our date.

He came home a bit early, which was great. The show wasn’t for another four hours, so he suggested we head over early to eat (the club is on the top floor of one of our local highbrow malls; there were plenty of great food options there), and then we could just browse around until the show started.

(In hindsight, this is where it started to go south. A good writer would call this “foreshadowing.” The hubs HATES the mall, generally. He swiftly loses patience with the lollygaggers, aisle-hoggers, and aimless tourists who lack both general direction AND peripheral vision, and quickly bores with the sport of elbowing people out of his way. Yes, he was the one suggesting we go early, but dangit, I KNOW this song, and the ending is the same every time it plays.)

The hubs went to change out of his work clothes. And he came out – for our date – for our first evening together in MONTHS – in one of THOSE shirts. One of those shirts that states his beliefs boldly across his chest – right at eye-level for me. One of the shirts that blasts like an LED-powered billboard how spiritually far apart we are.

The shirt looked something like this:

Shirt from cafepress.com

On the surface, I know this isn’t that bad. He has every right to state his beliefs publicly. And it’s not in-your-face offensive, like a lot of the shirts he agreed to throw away.

But still. It’s a public testimony to all the things not OK about this marriage. It’s a reminder that he and I might not work this relationship out.

And he chose THAT to wear on our date.

And I chose to say nothing.

I mean, I don’t want to gut the mood, right? I’ve been looking forward to this evening all week – no reason to start it on a sour note.

Shake it off, Kate. Put on your happy hat.

We head to the mall, and I lead him to a pizza place that I’d recently tried. Dinner actually went well – pizza is kind that way. Plus, I was absolutely ravenous – I hadn’t eaten all day, because, you know, dinner out has more calories than I normally get in a ~~week~~ day.

So. Dinner. Then we had three hours to kill before the show started.

We walked the mall, checking out the tchotchke shops. Things were…pleasant, I guess.

It wasn’t overly romantic. It wasn’t hostile or tense.

It was just…kinda flat.

About an hour into our strolling, he sneered. Made a sound.

“What?”

“That guy down there. The one selling pillows. He had to pull his cross out of his shirt just now, so everybody could see it, I guess. Look, the guy in the poster has it too. I don’t know why he needs to do that.”

Um. Dude. May I direct your attention to your shirt?

The one with HERETIC in bold letters?

Hello?

The irony phone’s ringing, but his cell’s clearly on vibrate.

And I chose – again – to say nothing.

Because it’ll put a damper on the mood. Because I don’t want to pick a fight. Because I don’t have the energy to address the issue, not at the end of a busy week in a crowded shopping mall. Because I’m afraid the next straw will be the last one, and this delicate, fragile relationship we’re whispering and tiptoeing around will shatter into tiny splinters, irreparably and permanently broken.

We headed up to the show, and thankfully, it was good for some hearty laughs – and some yummy drinks. I enjoyed the break from the tension, as well as my personal “sunset”:

Alcohol saves the day.

But, despite the laughs…the evening left me disappointed.

Hollow.

Empty.

I reminisced about our early dates, where we’d talk and laugh over beer and nachos well into the wee hours; where we’d hold hands and just be content with each other’s company.

And I realized something.

If tonight had been our first date, it probably would have been our last. I would have seen that, although the evening was pleasant enough, and he was a generally likeable guy, we just had differences too big to ignore.

How does a couple go from being so crazy in love, so absolutely CERTAIN of their insanely aligned compatibility, to “I don’t know if I can do this”?

How does the landscape shift so violently in such a short time? And when it does, why is no one able to identify exactly where the volcano started or where the meteor fell?

And how does this happen to two intelligent, emotionally stable, experienced adults?

We could try to blame the whole Ashley Madison “incident.” But…that’s a symptom. Not a cause.

People change. They’re constantly changing. And they don’t always change together.

I feel like I’m on an island, watching him standing on a boat docked just out of my reach.

He’s drifting farther and farther away.

If I go to him – if I jump onto the boat – will it tip over, drowning us both?

If I don’t vault high enough, far enough…how long will I stay afloat in the icy water?

The boat sways.

Dips.

Lurches.

Do I have the faith to leap?

A Jawful of Sweet Tooth

Posted on April 8, 2016 by KatieComeBack

“Don’t you have a sweet tooth?”

This question was posed to me over dinner on Saturday. I was at the in-laws with the hubs, and we were enjoying one of my mother-in-law’s delicious home-cooked meals.

Let me preface this a bit by explaining that when it came to in-law assignment, I hit the absolute jackpot. Most in-laws, after all, are fodder for many a gripe, complaint, and vent. The very phrase “mother-in-law” is pretty much stand-alone comedy; no one has to actually SAY anything to quantify it, because, well….

Let’s try it:

Mother-in-law.

Right?

After a lifetime of hearing horror stories from friends, relatives, and the internet, I know I am very blessed to be able to say that this is NOT the case with my mother-in-law. The hubs is an only child, and when I married her son, she adopted me as her daughter. And my kids get the same love, affection, and holiday presents as the blood grandchildren. On Mother’s Day, my mother-in-law actually sends ME a card – AND a gift. (Which is kind of wrong. But… I like presents.)

In addition to being an excellent cook, she’s also been gifted with the crafting gene. She’s knitted me (and the kids, of course) many quality sweaters, hats, and scarves. And to clarify, these are not your grandmother’s creations featured on the Goodwill rack of Ugly Christmas Sweaters. These are things THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO WEAR IN PUBLIC. Case in point: A few months ago, I went to a local women’s art festival wearing a sweater and matching knit hat she had made me. I received no fewer than a dozen unsolicited compliments on the set. (And, incidentally, three phone numbers. From women. Hey, when ya got it, ya got it. <strut strut> ) Seriously, though – is there a higher compliment in the knitting world than accolades from legit professional artists?

And she really, really outdoes herself at Christmas. She doesn’t just include my kids – she incorporates them as equals. When her grandsons were born, she made them each a very elaborate Christmas stocking. I don’t speak craft-ese, but I believe they’re made from felt, cross-stitching, wishes, and pixie dust. Anyway, they are beautiful and look like they were a hella-tonna work. And the Christmas after her son and I got engaged, there were two new stockings hanging on the deer antlers* over the fireplace for my little cherubs.

*Yes, they decorate the deer head. Antlers are perfect for holding lights and stockings. (And other things.) Besides, the mantle was full of Christmas cards and the holiday letters that spell “LEON.” They’re meant to say “NOEL,” but I visit too often for tradition to stand unblemished. You’ve seen my Christmas tree angel. And the manger scene? Sometimes, if he’s really good, Baby Jesus gets a party hat or a stogie, or a visit from Batman, a giraffe, and some Disney celebs.

(Side note: I hope I didn’t offend anybody with that. But I’m of the camp that thinks Jesus appreciates a good sense of humor. I mean, platypus. And how babies are made. Followed by how they actually get OUT. Come on, man, that’s stand up GOLD right there.)

(Side B note: We just took down our Christmas tree earlier this week, after lighting it up one last time on April Fool’s Day. Yeah…I’m THAT neighbor.)

Suffice it to say that meals at my mother-in-law’s house are the furthest thing from “everyday.” When we’re up, she heartily takes on the challenge of feeding two carnivores, a very picky vegetarian, AND a gluten-free person. She plans detailed menus AHEAD OF TIME. She uses the oven AND the stove. Not just in the same day, but FOR THE SAME MEAL. And her meals have a main dish, several sides, fresh fruit, and a couple veggies.

And dessert.

There is always, always dessert.

Dessert is a treat, and since she’s a people-pleaser, she wants to ensure that everyone has a treat that they like. You would imagine that having a homemade dessert present at EVERY lunch and dinner would be an amazing act of baking heroics. But she knocks all expectation out of the park by offering two (or three!!!) homemade desserts. It’s become standard operating procedure to have pumpkin pie, apple pie squares, AND chocolate pudding available. Of course, there’s vanilla ice cream AND whipped cream. And this doesn’t even count the two or three flavors of homemade cookies just sitting on the counter – because cookies aren’t dessert, silly, they’re a snack.

Oh, and guess what? THAT ENTIRE FAMILY IS TALL AND THIN. If they weren’t such sweethearts, I would really, really, hate this so hard I can’t even tell you. But they’re all gazelles, willowy and lanky and lean as can be. At their family get-togethers, I feel like the dumpy garden gnome who married into a clan of pink flamingos.

(WARNING: I wanted to insert a picture here, but…. Let me just say you should NOT, for the love of all that is holy and good, Google image-search “gnome with pink flamingo.” You canNOT unsee that.)

(You did it anyway, didn’t you.)

Having food issues can be tough: you struggle with the dichotomy of wanting to be slender, but wanting, craving, NEEDING to eat the very foods that prevent you from getting there. After years of alternating dieting/starvation with binges of Thanksgiving-meal proportions, you and the elusive concept of moderation are, as the Brits say, like chalk and cheese. You’re just not coexisting in the same harmonious stew.

Now imagine marrying into a family where they serve you three full meals a day, with a small buffet of desserts at two of them, and in-between you’re surrounded by cookies and other snacks and (of course!) beer and wine, and EVERY PERSON IN THE ROOM EATS ALL THIS SCRUMPTIOUS, FATTENING FOOD AND NEVER GAINS A POUND.

Every person except you.

I’ve handled these meals much as you’d expect an OSFED eating-disordered person to handle them: randomly and illogically. My approach on any given visit is one or more of the following:

* I’ve eaten two big platefuls of food, followed by two desserts. (Commonly known as the “F it” approach.)

* I’ve feigned a migraine and “slept” through dinner. (Avoidance.)

* I’ve eaten only vegetables and fruit for dinner. (Restriction.)

* I’ve eaten one small, sensible plate of mostly healthy food at the table, followed by an ENTIRE (!!) batch of chocolate chip cookies at 10PM when everyone else was asleep. (Or peanut butter cookies. Or snickerdoodles. BECAUSE ALL OF THEM ARE AVAILABLE ALL THE TIME.) (I believe this is called the “hot mess” method.)

* I’ve brought my bike and put in 15 miles on the road in the morning…and then polished off several servings of pie a la mode: one slice at the table, one slice while pretending to clean the kitchen, and a third slice on the way home in the car while remembering I was SUPPOSED to be on a diet. (A permutation of “hot mess.” There are several.)

But most of the time – at least in the last year or so – I don’t have dessert. I’ve been learning that sugar is the gateway drug to a bigger binge; it flips my inner switch from “calm” to “anxious”, which has the domino effect of flinging my self-esteem into the virtual Port-o-Potty. After all, as any dieter knows, once you’ve had dessert, you’ve FAILED, and further efforts at calorie regulation are moot.

And, as I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been on a roll with keeping my eating in check, and I’m seeing actual PROGRESS, reflected in a weight I haven’t seen since 2009 (and not since high school before THAT.) So I don’t want to risk cracking the dam even a little bit, no matter how fabulous that ice cream cake looks.

(By the way? It. Was. Beautiful. <sniff> )

So my mother-in-law hasn’t seen me eat dessert in awhile. I typically munch on some fresh fruit while the rest of the family heartily digs in.

So last Saturday, as she’s spooning hot fudge sauce over the ice cream cake (half chocolate, half vanilla, just in case you have a preference) that I once again politely decline, she asks me the question:

“Don’t you have a sweet tooth?”

Do I have a sweet tooth? Inside my head, an answer screams.

Yes. As Godiva is my witness, dear Mother of Milkshakes, YESYESYESYES YES! I want to rip the spatula out of your hand and shovel that delicious chocolatey goodness directly into my gaping pie hole. I want to smother your home-baked cookies in both peanut butter AND that homemade fudge sauce and eat them until the snap from my jeans pops off at a velocity that takes out a window. I want pancakes and cotton candy and deep-fried Oreos and doughnuts, all frosted with buttercream frosting and topped with coconut.

But I can’t.

I can’t have any of this, because my self-worth is tied up with my self-control. Because every time I use the washroom, I look up at the mirror and judge my thighs. Because no matter how good I feel about myself today, the scale will be there in the morning, just like she is EVERY morning, tapping her foot and waiting to issue me a failing grade. And even on that rare day when even she can’t find anything negative to say, there’s always a store window or glass door to reflect my current valuation back at me.”

Sigh.

I don’t say any of this, of course.

I quietly shake my head and help myself to some watermelon (45 calories a cup.) I bite my tongue, paste a serene smile on my face, and silence my wistful soul.

I pretend to be satisfied.

I pretend to be happy.

(Cover image source)

Weight for It…

Posted on April 3, 2016 by KatieComeBack

I started this blog to help me deal with two things – my food issues, and the challenges with my marriage. As of late, though, I haven’t posted on either of those things, so I’m probably due to provide an update.

Sigh.

It is entirely possible I’ve been avoiding the subject. Because that’s how I handle things. I don’t. Instead, I eat (or don’t eat) to turn my focus on something I’m good at vs. the thing I really need to handle.

It’s like seeing a hungry alligator in your garden, and thinking, “Hmm…the tomatoes are wilting…I’d better get some water.”

Yeah. Pretty much that.

But I’m at the airport. (Again.) And my flight is delayed. (Again.) Because of my mad travel skills, I did manage to devise a plan that just might get me home tonight: At 4:45, I switched my delayed-by-nearly-two-hours 5:31 flight to the 3:13 which was delayed by three hours and is now leaving at 6:18, so I’ll land exactly forty-seven minutes before my connection leaves. (Didja follow all that? Forget that controversial Common Core – airport math is what y’all SHOULD be teaching nowadays.)

So I have some time to kill. I can fill this time with food, of course – but the “gourmet” options here really aren’t worth the calories (see my posts here and here for the not-so-delicious details), and I can’t choose which kid will need to forfeit college just so I can afford to snack.

Since I’m cheap, I still have a couple of pounds to lose, and the Wi-fi is free here….writing wins.

First, the weight. I’ve been waffling around about 5-10 pounds higher than I want to be for – yikes – nearly a year now. (And, if I’m completely honest with myself, for like two years before that.) It’s been a roller-coaster – I’d have periods of deprivation worthy of sainthood, followed by a sudden seismic shift where I’d fall face-first into a Smartcar-sized bag of kettle corn and eat until my insides kersploded. So I’ve kept gaining and losing the same couple of pounds.

Since January, though, I’ve been solidly disciplined about eating 1200 calories a day. Every day. I have literally only had four days where I exceeded that limit. Well, OK, there were like 3 days I was at 1202 or 1210. But the fact that I allow myself that much flexibility is progress in this whole recovery, or pseudo-recovery, dealio. I realize how absolutely bonkers this sounds. But the beauty of EDNOS, or OSFED as it’s PC to call it nowadays, is that you are frequently eating in a manner that is contradictory and illogical. Allow me to illustrate some of the typical behaviors of this madness:

* Go out to dinner with friends and order a garden salad with no dressing. Arrive home and eat an entire bag of potato chips and a pint of ice cream.

* Treat yourself to ONE brownie. Then another. Then, since the day is ruined, finish the ENTIRE PAN of brownies, six spoonfuls of peanut butter, and the 1/3 bottle of leftover wine in the fridge. That way you can “start over” tomorrow.

* While shoving the aforementioned brownies into your mouth, carefully weigh and measure out exactly 28 grams of pistachios and 237 grams of fat-free Greek yogurt for your lunch tomorrow.

* The next day, log a killer workout. End the day six calories below goal, successful but starving out of your FREAKING MIND. Ah…gum! But wait…ten calories. Tell yourself you’ll chew off the surplus, because four calories, come on, man. Chew the gum and regret it five minutes later, because NOW YOU’VE GONE OVER. AGAIN. Do twenty jumping jacks and go to bed grumpy and dejected, vowing to do better tomorrow.

After reading the above, you likely fall into one of two camps. Some of you are nodding along like it’s a well-loved tune from your high school days, waving lighters and saying, “Yes! EXACTLY!” And the rest of you are shaking your heads sadly, staring in much like you would at a mangy deer at the petting zoo, wondering why the thing just sits there allowing itself to decompose from apathy and grubby, sticky hands versus taking a flying leap over the fence and catapulting itself to freedom.

But like I said, I’ve been on a roll here. I’ve been super-strict with myself, mostly because I HAVE to be in order to actually lose weight. My basal metabolic rate is low enough that even occasional dalliances can totally destroy a week or two’s worth of progress (I blathered on about that here. But don’t click it if you’re a woman over 40 trying to lose weight, because it’s effing depressing, and while chocolate and wine improve most situations, they do taste much better without tears in them.)

Another speedbump: I haven’t been able to exercise much. Inexplicably, one morning in December, I woke up one day and was slapped with a big “nope” sticker from my right hip. After a few months of physical therapy, it seems that I’ve been leaning on that hip to pick up the slack from a bum left knee, so, frustrated by the unfair burden, it quit without notice. (Can’t blame it, really.)

Now that the hip is stronger, the knee is complaining to its union steward that I’m forcing it to perform tasks outside its previous job function. After the grievance was filed and dismissed, the knee is now functioning, sporadically and unenthusiastically, like a disgruntled employee copping a bit of an attitude. So, I’m slowly and gradually trying to re-increase my running, but I’ve had frequent setbacks and roadblocks. I’m up to 3/4 of a mile at a time now, on most days, anyway. It’s not where I was, but it’s better than I’ve been. It’s maddening that it takes me an extra fifteen minutes to burn the same number of calories – I mean, that’s fifteen minutes of precious, precious sleep I could be having here, people! If you know how I get along with mornings, you’ll understand that there are LIVES at stake here….

Side note – The hubs used to think it was cute to call my first-thing-in-the-morning persona “Fluffy.” He wasn’t that far off:

From thefairytaletraveler

But, although progress is slow, and not always steady, I’m down 9.5 pounds since the first of the year (yes, the cliché diet. I KNOW you did one too) and am now the lowest weight I’ve been in two years – even a half pound lower than I was at the conclusion of the very stressful Ashley Madison diet, where I lived off adrenaline and fury and lost six pounds in a week. But there’s been no binging, very little deviance from The Plan, and while I have a few random days where a couple of pounds sneak back on in the middle of the night, the general trend is downward.

So, Kate, how’s your marriage these days?

Well…hmm. I haven’t packed my things and relocated to Arizona yet – so, while we’re in remission, the jury’s still out on the life expectancy.

We’ve had some really, really good days. When I focus on our relationship as we have it today, and filter out all the white noise from the spiritual differences and the now-infamous indiscretion, things are actually pretty good. We’re generally compatible. He picks up after himself. He’s supportive and affirming.

But when I look closely, I can still see the cracks. A T-shirt will appear in the wardrobe rotation, and while his current collection isn’t nearly as inflammatory as some of the shirts he used to have, they still highlight the chasm of differences between us. We’ve attempted to begin discussions on spiritual issues – I want to understand his viewpoint, but I find it challenging to listen from a neutral position, especially when he struggles to present his thoughts without anger.

It’s exhausting. Having these discussions is like working with Jillian Michaels.

Photo from jillianmichaels.com

We get started on a conversation, and after an hour or so of defending, diffusing, and explaining, I’m wrung out. Spent. Badly in need a break. But the hubs insists on one more point, one more thought, and I can’t just lie there and let that stuff go without a response, so I push myself to the point of mental sports injury, leaving me feeling bruised, depleted, and desperately needing some Gatorade. (And by Gatorade, I mean wine. But I’ve already had my 1200 calories for the day, so no wine for you. Sorry.)

So, some progress, but no final prognosis. Definite cracks, but not completely broken. It’s quite easy on some days to relax my focus and pretend I can’t see the damage through the thick layer of glaze resetting the pieces.

Holding together.

Holding promise, but not quite ready to hold water.

Salvageable, with work and care.

Still a vessel that we both feel is worth preserving.

As long as that’s true – and as long as I still have fuel – I’ll keep firing the kiln.

Ordinary Folks, Powerful Feels (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on February 28, 2016 by KatieComeBack

I mentioned in my last post that I’d just returned from a safety conference, and mentioned how these things normally go. (Hint: Zzzzzzzzz)

This week’s conference, however, was decidedly different. And it, along with some events over the weekend, kicked me right in the feels.

The conference started with two dynamic speakers. First up: Tony Crow, founder of INJAM.

https://youtu.be/zHXmLBS–oI

“Tony Crow worked for TXU for 20 plus years. During this time he attended numerous safety meetings. He heard and knew the list of safety rules. THey were so ingrained that he instictively followed them….

“But on February 15, 2003…Tony was accidentally shot. He was totally blinded for life.”

(You can read more about Tony’s story here.)

What the above doesn’t tell you, however, is that Tony was shot by his 17-year-old son.

On the way to the hunting spot, Tony and his son passed a truck with passengers who were obviously hunters. Tony remarked to his son that, due to the amount of orange they were wearing, they were OBVIOUSLY not locals. He chuckled as he commented that they must be from the big city.

He regrets that comment to this day.

While they were out hunting, Tony told his son he was going back…and on the way, he saw one more quail. He made a game-time decision to go after it, changing direction from where he told his son he would be.

His son, thinking his father was elsewhere, saw the dog point. And he shot.

He didn’t get the quail.

He shot his father.

In the face.

Instantly and permanently blinding him. Forever.

Think about that for a minute.

You’re suddenly blind. Permanently.
Your son – not even an adult yet – has to live with the knowledge that he pulled the trigger.
Your life has changed forever. As did the lives of your wife and son and family and friends and coworkers. In an instant.
You could have prevented it.

Tony was an ordinary guy. And one day, a terrible, terrible thing happened.

Tony turned his tragedy into a non-profit, and now tells his story nationwide. He reminds us all that safety is never off the clock….and that accidents hurt so many more than just the injured party.

INJAM – It’s Not Just About Me.

And you know what? He’s right. And I realized that this applies to so much more than safety – it applies to mental health issues, too.

Selfishly, I looked at myself first. I stared down my food issues and disordered eating for a good, long while.

Can I really pretend that I’m only hurting myself?

Do I really think my coworkers don’t know exactly what I’m doing?

How can I possibly believe that this doesn’t impact my children? My husband?

While my daughter, thankfully, seems to be very well-adjusted, how can she NOT be impacted by having a mother who weighs and measures her food? I’ve tried really hard, of course, to keep my issues from her…but let’s be real here – teenagers are not idiots. True, they often appear to not be listening, but they have a well-honed radar that quickly targets the very things you hoped they’d gloss over, like how much you really spent on those boots, or how much you actually drank in college.

What is she actually hearing? What am I teaching her?

My son has, on occasion, called me “bony.” That shouldn’t be a good thing. Yet, I can’t help but feel flattered. How twisted does one have to be to view this as a compliment? (Not very. I betcha $5 at least six of you reading this feel the exact same way. Fess up, ladies.)

Side note: I should add that my son is freakishly strong – like Bamm-Bamm.

Source: Wikipedia

When he first started kindergarten, he loved wrestling the upper-classmen. It was nothing for him to take out a fourth grader. I remember when he was seven, he was carrying around his 13-year-old cousin – who, at the time, weighed about 90 pounds or so. Now, he’s super helpful when his dad needs help moving a piano, or when my daughter is feeling lazy and wants Doritos, but doesn’t want to leave her room – she then gets a piggyback ride up the stairs.

Anyway.

Coworkers? I don’t want to flatter myself by pretending anyone pays that much attention to me, but….

I manage a small team at work, and it’s just common knowledge that I don’t really eat. I don’t get invited out to lunch anymore, because I never go – I’ve turned down too many invitations for them to continue to bother. When we have work meetings, I bring my own snacks – or just slug a bottle of water. When our CEO was new, he held department meetings, providing lunch during the meet-and-greets. I brought an apple.

“What, my food’s not good enough for you?”

“Nope.” <crunch>

(I’m still there a year later, so I guess it wasn’t complete career suicide.)

And then there’s my husband.

I know he and I have had our issues, but you know what? He does a lot of stuff really, really right. He’s working so hard at fixing “us.” And my contribution? I’ve been trying to silence the voices inside my head that cut me down – or at least, not give them a megaphone by repeating what they say out loud.

If a candy bar falls to the floor, and no one eats it, did it really fall? And does it still have calories?

What candy bar? <omnomnom>

So, we’re not talking about it. Inwardly, I’ve decided to sweep it under the rug, at least at home.

My logic, as flawed as it may sound: I’ve mentioned before that over the last year or so he’s been doing a lot of research and reading to shore up and quantify his beliefs. For awhile, he was pretty angry about the whole thing. This came to a head about a year ago. Since that time, he’s gradually begun to let go of the anger, and we’re starting to talk more. Slowly, and carefully. Gently pulling back the bandages to see if the wounds have started to heal.

But I still don’t like it very much.

So I figure that if he can explore spiritual stances I will never agree with, I am certainly free to diet, exercise, and lose as much weight as I want, regardless of how much he claims to not want me to.

Makes sense, right? I perceive some of his anger as unhealthy and damaging. He’d say the same about my eating habits.

We’re even. Size invisible, here I come.

But since it’s not just about me…let’s talk about other stuff. When you hear “mental illness,” what comes to mind?

Do you think about the recent workplace shooting in Kansas?

Do you connect this term with the random rambling, scraggly homeless person you see on the street?

Do you remember yourself, or a relative, struggling with postpartum depression?

Do you recall a relative or friend who self-medicated with alcohol, drugs, or food?

More importantly, did you TALK about any of this? Or did you pretend that the issues – or the people themselves – were invisible? If you did discuss it, was it in hushed tones? Behind closed doors? Was it…scandalous? Embarrassing? Humiliating?

Cherokee Doll wrote the other day about the stigma, shame, and guilt that mental illness can bring.

“The stigma surrounding mental illness is well known and remarked upon. Although there is a wider movement to de-stigmatize mental illness and other invisible illnesses, the fight is only beginning. Victim blaming of the mentally ill is widespread, casual, and accepted. Rarely do people bother to stop and put themselves in the shoes of the mentally ill….

“No one would speak to a cancer patient that way.”

Her post illustrates so well some of the challenges with mental illness, and highlights the hurdles we as a society haven’t been able to clear.

hurdlepile

Somehow, instead of mocking, shaming, and creating memes for social media, we need to find a way to help each other climb over the obstacles and clear the hurdles together.

“…I am VERY painfully aware every day of my life how much pain me and my illness have brought to those around me…just know that I already inflict enough of that guilt upon myself. You don’t need to throw it in my face too. I have spent a lifetime blaming myself. No need for you to jump on that bandwagon too. I hate me more than you ever could.”

How can we help each other heal?

Extend a hand. Lend an ear. Hug often.

You may not be able to pull someone out of the darkness – we’re not mental health professionals, obviously – but you’ll give them something to hold onto.

Hope. Love. Understanding. A reminder that they aren’t invisible, and you know that they still exist…and they matter.

It helps to heal. And healing helps all of us.

Because mental health issues impact ALL of us.

It’s not just about me.

The next speaker was (spoiler alert) a man by the name of Frank DeAngelis. But I’ll talk about him in my next post.

(to be continued)

Dissecting the Funk Frog

Posted on January 9, 2016 by KatieComeBack

Yeah, I know. It’s been a while. This funk that I’ve been in since – wow – November – seems to have settled in for the long haul.

I’ve been trying to pinpoint the issue, to roll back “effect” so I can find the cause. This is a coping trick that helps me (sometimes) when I get an overflowing cup of the feels. Often, emotion crashes into me like a runaway truck, and my priority at that point is to roll off the road and pick gravel out of my kneecaps, notsomuch getting the license plate of the bus or piano or proverbial cartoon anvil that’s just knocked the spiritual wind out of me.

I’ve found that just putting a label on an overwhelming feeling helps drain its hold on me. If I can identify it – if I can call it out, give it a name, loosely label what it is – it loses some of its ability to smother me and I can start to come out from underneath it.

“I am feeling anxious. This feeling will pass. It is OK to feel this way.”

Believe it or not, that small acknowledgement helps. From here, I can then ask myself if there is anything that might make me feel better. (Tonight, it was paying bills, of all things. Go figure. I suppose the getting-done-ness of an annoying pending task helped in some way, but I’m not taking it up as a recreational activity. 9/10 do not recommend.)

But whatever’s dragging me down these last few months is engulfed in a thick cloud of fog, darting craftily in and out between the trees to keep me nervous and off-balance. After a lot of squinting and head-scratching (and, unfortunately, way too much snack food) I can only make out vague shapes and shadows of what I think it might be:

My dad. I did get to see him over the holidays, and on the plus side, he’s still alive. But he doesn’t have long – months? weeks? Every morning, I check my phone for the news I’m dreading. Every morning. Kinda wears on a gal after a while when you start every single day checking for a pulse.

My marriage. He’s trying. He’s been attentive, kind, understanding, and overwhelmingly helpful. All the things you’d ever want.

But it takes time to accept that something you once believed to be somewhat magical is really quite pedestrian. Ordinary.

It’s like Grandma’s prized antique vase:

vase

After years of admiring it, cautioning the kids to “look but don’t touch,” and hearing great stories about its perceived rarity, you take it to be appraised on Antiques Road Show, where you discover (after a four-hour wait in line behind someone with a fugly Volvo-sized painting that you’re pretty sure was created by a dog and a four-year-old) the prized glass sculpture that she so carefully guarded and protected was a mass-produced grocery store giveaway in the 1950s and has a market value somewhere between Betamax video cassettes and books on how to survive the Y2K disaster*.

Why Worrying is a Waste of Time - Y2K

*Ah, Y2K. We were all doomed, remember? Everyone was up in arms about how 1/1/00 was essentially gonna shut the planet down, because computers didn’t know that “00” meant 2000 instead of 1900. We all held our breath on New Year’s Eve, and…nothing happened. Well, except this: There was an older gentleman who was quite well-known in our small town for founding one of the larger local businesses. He was a community icon, especially after he turned 100. And the year he turned 105, he received a letter from the local elementary school reminding his parents to sign him up for kindergarten. HAHAHAHA

Anyway, even if your vase isn’t priceless, you can’t just throw it out, right? Because Grandma LOVED it, and its place on her mantle has given it a rich history and some good stories. So you still treasure it, but…it’s just not the same vase you thought it was. You just don’t have quite the same… reverence for it. It’s nice, but viewing it gives you just the smallest twinge of disappointment, because it’s simply not what you made it out to be. It’s an unstirred blob of cornstarch in your coconut cream memory pie.

Work. Normally, my busy season ends right before Thanksgiving. This year, it lasted all the way until December 23, at which point I attempted to take a few vacation days. But I didn’t really get the break I needed, because apparently, I’m SO important that they felt the need to call me EVERY STINKING DAY (three times one day. THREE. TIMES. Am I the HR freaking pharaoh?!?!) with questions, problems, and general bad behavior of certain employees. (I blame the full moon. Really. Ask any HR person, or anyone who works in a hospital, if there’s any truth to the full moon being fertilizer for the crazy daisies. They’ll affirm heartily.)

But the holidays are over now, Open Enrollment is closed, we’re all set up to print the ACA tax forms (I think, anyway; besides, the deadline’s been delayed AGAIN, so I have two more months to ~~royally eff them up~~ issue them. Oh, and that also means you won’t have them by the time you want to file your taxes. THAT won’t confuse anything, right?) and the OSHA logs (over thirty of them. !!!) are ready to post. I might be due for some relief shortly. Fingers crossed. Although I did hear that the CEO has some “ideas” he wants to discuss, so if you need to find me, I’ll be hiding under my desk behind the 2008 termination files.)

Fat. So, through all this, I’m still fighting the food demons. I went from swearing off food to eating ALL THE THINGS so no one else can have any. Here are some more of the things I can no longer have in the house (because I will tape them to my face and inhale until the bag is empty):

CC_coconut-crunch-new

Sweet & Salty

I can also no longer have no-bake cookies, because my motto seems to be One Batch, One Serving. I made two batches over the last three weeks. Moo.

Peanut Butter-Chocolate No-Bake Cookies

(If you don’t quite hate yourself enough and want to get in on the self-loathing, go here and make these. Use brown sugar and sub out the butter for more peanut butter, because butter is gross. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I cannot be held accountable for your cocoa-covered countenance of shame, or the repercussions of locking your family out of the kitchen.)

Topping off the snack-food skyscraper was an influx of gift cards (Merry Christmas!) to my favorite public binge site, Benihana. This is one of those Japanese cook-on-the-table types of places, where you sit around family-style while they twirl knives and pitch shrimp tails in your pocket. During the entertainment, you get four or five courses of food, a veritable stir-fried Mount Unami that no one could POSSIBLY scale to the summit.

Except me and the hubs. We take great pride in declaring that to-go boxes are for quitters, and that the ability to finish the whole thing is what makes America great.

And we ate there twice over the last two weeks, finishing every bite and washing it down with one of these:

Yeah. It’s as good as it looks.

Contributing to the waist-pinching is the lack of exercise. I try to run a few days a week**, but that’s been tabled lately because somehow, I hurt my hip. I say “somehow” because I quite literally have no idea what I did to it. One day, I got out of bed, stretched, and felt a stabbing pain. YAY. This week, I finally caved and went to the doctor (Happy New Year! Here’s your $5000 deductible!) so I’m hoping they can get me back on track.

**Don’t get me wrong – I don’t actually LIKE to exercise. But without it, I find the stress builds up inside and doesn’t have an outlet. It just sits there in my gut demanding I feed it naughty things like kettle corn and chocolate pudding. Exercise, like coffee, keeps me from having to chip through the frozen ground to bury the bodies.

The doctor thinks it’s something that can only be healed by using crutches for four weeks.

Whoa there, Doc.

<BEEP BEEP> BACK UP THE TRUCK.

I have to navigate a ginormous parking lot every day, and I live in America’s Frozen Tundra, AND I have to juggle my coffee and my morning smoothie, so unless these suckers come with cup holders and an ice pick, I don’t see crutches being a reality. Plus, airports. I have five trips to take between now and the end of February. While crutches might be handy to take out unruly children and line-cutters, I don’t think they’re gonna expedite my last-minute dash to my gate.

I did get an MRI yesterday, so hopefully that’ll give me a more palatable answer. Like something that requires weekly massages and heat therapy.

And speaking of therapy….I should probably add that I quit that, too. Why?

Because the therapist called me fat.

OK, I should clarify. She didn’t mean to, I don’t think. But while we were talking, Dr. P made a comment about “your size X body.” Essentially, she mentioned a size that, intellectually, I know is viewed as “slender” by society….BUT IT’S A FULL SIZE BIGGER THAN I ACTUALLY WEAR. So my brain immediately assumed that I look 10-15 pounds bigger than I AM, which is 10 pounds bigger than I WANT to be. You see how this works? I’ve been working so hard to accept myself at my current size, and one offhanded comment just burnt all progress to ashes. So forget it – we’re back to a goal of Size Invisible and I apparently need to lose twenty pounds*** in order to be acceptable.

Incongruously***, I dealt with all of this last night by downing a healthy (HAHAHAHA) portion of Cab Sav and most of this:

40% Reduced Fat Original

***Classic eating disorder logic here, amiright?

But today is a new day. I’ve broken my clichéd New Year’s resolutions about twelve times already, but thankfully, there’s no punch card of restarts.

Today, I can start anew.

What I’ll choose, though – food? weight loss? health? remains a mystery.

Carrots in My Carryon

My emotional baggage is packed with food

Tag Archives: body image

No Escaping the Landscaping

Denim, Deciphered

The Clarity of the Crystal Ball

Stay-cation Rejuvenation

100 Ways to Heave Your Blubber

Your Fate in One Date

A Jawful of Sweet Tooth

Weight for It…

Ordinary Folks, Powerful Feels (Part 1 of 2)

Dissecting the Funk Frog

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