Tag Archives: mental health

The Love/Hate Challenge! Part 4: COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE

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And here we have part four of what was, for most bloggers, a simple challenge:

lovehatechallengeDA RULES:

  1. List 10 things you LOVE
  2. List 10 things you HATE
  3. Nominate a few suckers to do the same

(Really, this is getting ridiculous now.  Part FOUR?!?  Stand up and flush already!)

Like I said in my last post, it’s hard for me to condense “hate” and “love” into a compact form – it doesn’t do the words justice, ya know?

So do you think we can wrap this thing up here and ship it out?  Place your bets, peeps.  <dealer spins>

10 THINGS I LOVE and 10 THINGS I HATE (in unranked order)

PART FREAKING 4:  ALL ABOUT COFFEE

Coffee and I have such a long relationship, it gets its own post.  YAY COFFEE

7.  I love coffee, but hate when people pretend to love it.

Coffee and I have been seeing each other regularly ever since high school (really, isn’t that where most haunting life rituals and obsessions get started?)

I first picked up the habit to meet a dual need of 1) keeping warm yet 2) not ingesting any additional calories.  Every woman in America who’s ever flirted with dieting or food issues knows that coffee is pretty much calorie-free AND that caffeine keeps you both awake and kills your appetite.  Also, I’ve mentioned before that I have Raynaud’s Syndrome, and keeping your hands warm when you’re trying to play clarinet and march around a football field when it’s sleeting presents its own unique challenge.  (I usually failed.  But as long as you keep marching, nobody cares.  You can’t really expect a clarinet to be heard in a stadium filled with 90,000+ drunken fans, anyway.)

I drink my coffee black.  If you truly love coffee, you will too.  Adding sugar, cream, and sprinkles to it means you are drinking dessert. It’s a coffee-flavored milkshake – THIS IS SO NOT THE SAME THING AS COFFEE.

Now, don’t get me wrong –  I have NOTHING against dessert here, folks.  There’s a time and a place for it.  Just don’t lie to me and pretend you are drinking coffee.  Because you are not.

This is like the Pizza Lie, which I also hate.  If you tell me “we’re having pizza”, this will lead a gal to have certain…expectations.  Such as red sauce…maaaaaayyyybe white.  But there will be sauce on the crust.  There will also be cheese. No cheese = NOT PIZZA.

And there may be toppings within the realm of socially acceptable parameters.  Cured meats?  Sure.  Ham, chicken?  Also OK…but pushing it.

Veggies?  Slow down there, cowboy – there are a few that are OK, but this ain’t a free-for-all.  Feel free to chuck on onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, even olives, if that’s what puffs your sails.  But when your pizza starts to look like a not-so-cleverly disguised salad, YOU HAVE CROSSED A LINE.  Broccoli?  Oh hell no.  Cauliflower?  You’re joking.  Arugula?  I may have to stab you.

And don’t even TRY to pass off Thai Stir-Fry, Taco, or Cheeseburger as “pizza.”  That is food on a crust.  It may be edible.  It may not suck.  But it is not pizza.  Just like milkshakes who once participated in a flash mob with coffee ARE NOT COFFEE.  They’re…acquainted – a third-degree connection on LinkedIn at best.  But firmly in the category of Not Coffee.

8.  I love my coffee mugs, and I hate tiny coffee cups.

In my twenties (OK, and my thirties…and maybe a couple times last week) I drank a LOT of coffee.  This did not go unnoticed by my coworkers:  At one of my first jobs, the boss had handmade pottery mugs made for each of us for Christmas one year.  Everyone received a normal-sized mug except me.

Mine held HALF A POT OF COFFEE.  SCORE.

I drank three cups of coffee a day at that job.  (That’s a pot and a half, for those of you who haven’t had any coffee yet today, and/or don’t math, or both.)

Now that I’m older, and need to work a little harder at things that used to be easy (Sleep? I’m giving you the death stare) I’m down to just one cup of coffee a day.  (It’s about 24 ounces.  BUT TOTALLY COUNTS AS ONE CUP, just like when you pick the biggest slice of pizza in the box and count it as “one slice” on MyFitnessPal.)

For my daily commute (40 minutes without traffic – attempting this without a shot of caffeine is a hay bale on the NOPE farm) my mug of choice is a Bubba Keg, one of the only travel mugs out there that both holds a sufficient volume of coffee AND fits in a standard car’s cup holder.  Which doesn’t sound that significant, but you’d be surprised how hard THAT combo is to find.  I have a few older versions of this one:

BubbaKeg

Buy one at shopbubba.com. Really, go do it.

When I’m at home, and can get up for frequent refills (because cold coffee is just a black vat of sadness and disappointment) I rotate between these mugs:

coffee mugs

Note my champion photo editing skills. Snort.

From left to right:

A.  I got this one from a friend about 15 years ago as a gift.  I haven’t been in touch with her for at least 10 years – the only reason I keep it is because it’s incredibly sappy and, like, totally ironic to use first thing in the morning when I legit want to punch people smack in the happy.

B.  I bought this in NYC when I went to my FIRST BROADWAY SHOW EVAH.  My true soulmates will know which show this is.  The rest of you can no longer Drink With Me even One Day More.  Also note that this mug was from the ORIGINAL tour – not the recent refresh that generated the movie.  Which means that this mug is older than some of you reading this post right now.

This kind of blows my mind because that means this mug has survived <counting furiously in my head> FOURTEEN MOVES.  That’s gotta be some kind of physics miracle.  I mean, doesn’t everyone break at least six coffee mugs when they move?

C.  I got this from a local church as a welcome/guest gift around move nine.  I love the message – who can’t benefit from a reminder that they might be loved? – but it also sort of irritates the hubs, due to him being an avid nonbeliever.  So this is the mug I use most often.  Heh. (Hey, cut me some slack.  I’m reaching for this BEFORE I’ve had any coffee.  It’s either passive aggression or a body count.)

Anyway – the point here is that there are PLENTY of coffee mugs out there that hold more than a shot of java.  Hotels and conference centers of America?  I’m raising my eyebrows and pointing finger-guns directly at you.

You’ve noticed this, right?  When you have the “privilege” (read: lost the office Fantasy Football pool and ponied up by “volunteering” for conference duty) of attending an offsite training session, seminar, or conference, you’re rewarded with hard, unforgiving chairs in a room with the ambiance of a meat locker and the treat of mystery chicken in secret sauce for lunch…and to top of the indignity of it all, they serve a sad excuse for coffee in little baby-sized cups.  Your grandmother, upon spotting the array, would have picked one up, shrugged, and stuffed it in her purse to repurpose as a thimble.

Seriously, when you have an audience that has been involuntarily restrained for four, six, EIGHT FREAKING HOURS in a freezing-cold, mind-numbing coffin of monotony, is there some sick and twisted delight that meeting planners take in ordering coffee cups that would be an inadequate helmet for a window-bombing sparrow?

I don’t ask for much.  But at 8 AM, when faced with a full day of detailed, riveting Powerpoints and presenters who obligingly read them aloud to you word by word, GIVE A GIRL SOME SERIOUS JAVA or someone’s gonna get cut.

Hmm.  I guess I hate conferences, too.

I get to go to a couple of these a year.  You’ll know if I’m ever at one you’re attending.    I’m the chick walking in ten minutes late, muttering obscenities to herself while balancing three miniscule cups of coffee to the last remaining seat in the front row.

Feel free to introduce yourself.

AFTER the cups are empty.  AFTER.

So…I’m not quite finished yet.  Dealer is collecting chips from those of you who bet red.  I think one more post will do it.

And today’s nominee for this challenge….Walking After Midnight.  Because she hasn’t posted in awhile.  <poke poke>  😉

The Love/Hate Challenge! Part 3: Ride Away from the Fat Wagon

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So about…uh…two weeks ago, Chelise from Caterpillar to Butterfly nominated me for the Love/Hate Challenge:

lovehatechallengeDA RULES:

  1. List 10 things you LOVE
  2. List 10 things you HATE
  3. Nominate a few suckers to do the same

And this challenge has dragged on for awhile, partly because I procrastinate, partly because it’s summer, partly because I haven’t been traveling (so I haven’t been stuck in an airport with absolutely nothing to do but dodge creepers, germs, and crappy food), and partly because I can’t keep it short once I DO start. (Like here in this post I already have over 100 words and I HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED ACTUALLY SAYING ANYTHING YET.  Man, I am exhausting.)

Part of the problem:  If I feel passionately enough about something to LOVE or HATE it, there is NO WAY I can explain that in less than a bound dissertation.  I mean, if you truly HATE something, how on earth do you adequately describe THAT in under 200 words?  Or under 500?  If it’s only one page, isn’t it more like “slight irritation”?

Anyway.  Taking another swing at the verbal piñata and makin’ it RAIN, baby….

10 THINGS I LOVE and 10 THINGS I HATE (in unranked order) – PART 3:

6a.  I hate butter.

I can hear the <whoosh> of people rushing to click “unfollow” now.  Yeah, I know.  It’s pretty much un-American to not like butter.  But hear me out.

It’s Oprah’s fault.

I was a fairly normal, butter-loving kid, who grew into a butter-eating teenager (well, when I was eating at all; at that point, if I remember correctly, I was in the middle of my 900-calories-a-day diet.  So I was quite aware of the calorie bomb that is butter – but I still ATE it, because sometimes ya gotta.)

It was November 15, 1988 when everything changed.  That was the fateful day that, despite a schedule chock-full of band, choir, AP classes, and boys, I just happened to be home from school, and just happened to be watching TV, when Oprah strutted out on stage with a black turtleneck, size 10 Calvin Klein jeans, and…this.

Anyone else remember this? (If your answer is “No, I wasn’t born yet” – shut it.  You can watch the clip HERE.)

As a teenager who, at the time, barely moved the big weight to the three-digit notch on the doctor’s scale (slam some water and wear boots and a sweater so the school nurse gets off your back, you know the drill) – this was life-altering.  I was HORRIFIED.  The Radio Flyer Lardcart was a GIANT DEATH WAGON OF BUTTER that, in addition to being un-heart-healthy and just plain nasty, WOULD MAKE ME FAT.

And ever since then?  Every stick of butter brings me right back to…

Mmmmm…don’t you want some TOAST right now?  <gag>

Looking back on this now – with the perspective and experience of twenty more years of dieting since then – some thoughts/observations:

1. Oprah lost the weight after four months on a liquid diet.  I seem to remember it was Medifast, but I can’t find a source to confirm.  What she DID share:

“I had literally starved myself for four months, not a morsel of food, to get into that pair of size 10 Calvin Klein jeans,” Winfrey recalls.  “Two hours after that show, I started eating to celebrate, of course, within two days those jeans no longer fit!”

1a.  It took you TWO days to grow out of those?  Color me impressed. I can bust a button in a week, but two days is ACHIEVEMENT, yo.  Not that Oprah is known for doing things halfway.  But still.  !!

2.  It’s a little mind-blowing to realize that you can be one of the wealthiest, most socially dominant women in the WORLD, with every resource and support available to you, and still not have whatever it takes to have a normal relationship with food.

That’s…powerful, yet humbling.  Depressing, yet oddly reassuring.  I mean, if SHE struggles with this…doesn’t that give me permission to, I dunno, maybe not beat myself up quite so hard if I can’t do it?

Folks, this is Oprah.  She can do ANYTHING.

And she’s just as human as the rest of us, putting on her pants (and Spanx) one mortal, flawed leg at a time.

I don’t know whether to high-five her, or give her a hug.

You can read Oprah’s Weight Loss Confession here.  It’s a little stilted, and I detect the faint smell of false bravado from her accounting of it all, but what struck me was this quote from her trainer (Bob Greene):

“She didn’t really learn how to be happy. I think she learned more survival tools and not how to be happy,” he says. “That’s where Oprah has a lot of work to do.”

Well.  Huh.

That’s why I started this whole blog dealio in the first place.

Because that’s where I have a lot of work to do, too.

3.  Size 10?  Are you kidding me, Calvin?  They’re AT MOST a 6, prolly a 4 nowadays.  Gotta love vanity sizing.  <eyeroll>

OK.  On to a “love”….

6b.  I love riding my bike.

Generally, I support the principle of physics that states, “An object on a comfortable sofa stays on a comfortable sofa.”  (Or starts to LOOK like the comfortable sofa.)  Suffice it to say I’ve never really been a fan of exercise.

But I’ve always loved to ride my bicycle.

My first bike was a hand-me-down from one of my cousins.  How it worked in our family was that you learned to ride on THIS bike:

schwinn

Note: Not actual bike. Pic borrowed from http://ratrodbikes.com where some dude named “dogdart” was selling it. But he’s in PA so it COULD HAVE BEEN MINE YO

…and then, on your 10th birthday, you got a 10-speed bike – NEW, from the little bike shop downtown, which incidentally was owned by the dad of a girl who rode my bus and sat next to me in band, and we weren’t really friends because she was popular and I was fat, so she was only my friend on the bus for the four years her parents forced her to play clarinet.  And her dad was also my parents’ tax accountant, and eventually he went to jail for tax fraud or something, and his daughter dated the high school football captain who ended up calling her a slut and breaking her heart, so I guess being popular isn’t all glitter and unicorns.

But I loved that bike.  It looked a lot like this one:

Photo from http://www.sweatershoppe.com/

Also not actual bike. Original is currently mummified in my parents’ basement. Photo borrowed from http://www.sweatershoppe.com/

That bike was my ticket to freedom.  It was my getaway car – I’d hop on that thing and be off on an adventure.  It wasn’t unusual for me to take off for four, five hours at a time, just riding along, stopping to pick wild blackberries on the side of the road or catch crawfish at the creek.

Later, when I got a speedometer, I got to see how far – and how fast – I could go.   I grew up in PA, which is very hilly – those gears came in handy, and the payoff was zooming downhill, at 30mph.  (Without a helmet.  Between that, riding in the back of the station wagon without seat belts, and sleeping in death-trap cribs, how did anyone survive childhood in the 70s and 80s?  Never mind roadside pesticide blackberries, copperheads under the rocks at the creek, and generalized Stranger Danger.)

Once I got to high school, I quit riding so much.  But years later – after college, marriage, two kids, and a painful divorce – I got a gift:

Actual photo. You can tell by the craptacular background.

Actual photo. You can tell by the sucktacular composition and the general lack of housekeeping.

It was another hand-me-down bike…but it was in pristine condition, purchased by a friend who had more money than ambition (she also smoked a lot and drank a lot – while I don’t judge, I suspect this hindered her desire to hop on a bike.)

I didn’t use the bike much at first; it sat largely unused for several years.  But recently, I’ve rediscovered the sorts of things you can explore while you’re escaping from the world for awhile:

Lake1

At the top of a hill in rural Wisconsin. A REALLY BIG HILL. #worthit

bikeflowers.

Like a little firework burst.

bikeflowers2

I love these. They’re like little snowballs. IN SUMMER.

swans

Tucked behind a small bend.

On a bike, you’re not focused on exercising.  The goal isn’t necessarily to burn calories.  (Yeah, I track them.  When an hour of hard riding burns off like four Oreos, you take credit every calorie you can get.)

When you’re standing on the pedals to kick a hill’s butt – when you’re flying down the other side, drinking in the thrill of the speed and the relief of the breeze – when you’re taking in, free of charge, all that nature has to offer – you’re not worried about the size of your thighs and the bulges around your waist.  You aren’t beating yourself up over the amount of space you occupy.

You can just…be.

You’re free.   At least for a little while.

Even if it’s temporary – even if life keeps me tethered to a lot of heavy, messy, cumbersome things –  I’m so very thankful that I can remember what it feels like to fly.

Six down, four to go.  Light.  Tunnel.  ONWARD!

Today’s victim select recipient is Mermaid in a Mudslide – she has such a variety of topics, I suspect she’d be all over something like this.  Plus, her posts make me smile.  🙂

The Love/Hate Challenge! Part 1: Let’s Talk About The Weather

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I mentioned in my last post that Chelise at Caterpillar to Butterfly was kind enough to nominate me for two things.  This second bit is a challenge.  I’m gonna have to break it into chunks, because once I get ranting, it’s like planting zucchini – once it sprouts, it NEVER STOPS COMING.

lovehatechallengeDA RULES:

  1. List 10 things you LOVE
  2. List 10 things you HATE
  3. Nominate a few suckers to do the same

OK, nice and simple.  Except…ten is a lot.  Like lots of a lot.  And I don’t want to just regurgitate stuff I already wrote about.  That feels…kinda lazy, and sort of missing the point of the challenge, no?

Plus, “hate” is a pretty strong word.  Do I really HATE hate ten actual things?  Maybe we can agree to use “hate” here like we do in the common vernacular, versus its actual, too-dark-for-my-blog meaning.  Kind of like my kids do with “literally.”  (No, you will not literally starve to death if we don’t eat now, and you will not literally die if we do not buy this dress.)  So here, “hate” literally means “strongly dislike.  Mkay?

This may take awhile….

10 THINGS I LOVE and 10 THINGS I HATE (in unranked order):

1.  I hate to be cold…and I love being warm.

I despise being cold.  In addition to getting cold easily, and needing more layers than most folks, I have this lovely condition called Raynaud’s Syndrome that turns my fingers into Frosty Pops when it’s cold outside:

raynaudsAnd by “cold,” I mean anything under 40 degrees.  Which, in the Midwest, is fall/spring weather.  For winter, 20 is a warm day, and I would cry except the tears would freeze and glacier-slice my nose off.  Which might scare small children.

“So why did you move to Minnesota?”  BECAUSE I’M AN IDIOT.    (Well, technically, it was for a job, but I got the job because of a boy…but that’s a story – which, incidentally, still ends with “because I’m an idiot” – for another day.)

The good news is that it’s July and it’s WARM outside. It’s been close to 90, and I’m sitting outside as we speak just to soak it all in.  I cannot get enough of the WARM!

Unfortunately, the hubs (along with most normal humans, come to think of it) doesn’t like it much warmer than, say, 78.  That’s the tipping point for me where, if the sun’s out, I MIGHT be able to leave the sweater at home…as long as we’re not going anywhere, like out to eat, or shopping.  In that case, I’ll need to bring the sweater – or a parka – along for when we go back inside.

Which brings me to….

2.  I love my space heater, and I hate air conditioning.

So the building I work in used to be a window factory.  They eventually went out of business.  Why?  Well, in short, their windows totally blew goats.  In the summer, when the sun is shining, my office very quickly gets up to 84 degrees.  (Which is 100% hunky dory in my book – this is the first place I’ve EVER worked where I could actually wear seasonally-appropriate short sleeves in the office and not be looking to supplement my body heat with an auxiliary bonfire built from junk mail and personnel files.)

But in January?  I GET ACTUAL FROST ON MY WALLS. SOOOO NOT OK BRO.

So since I’m a unique, delicate orchid, I got special permission from HR* to have a space heater.  I crank that sucker ALL.THE.TIME and year-round.  (Yes, even in summer – my office will get up to 90 and BONUS!  Nobody stays more than five minutes!)  HEAT HEAT HEAT!  Aaaahhhhh.

*Yes.  This is the department I run.  I did ask myself very nicely, though.   And, after much deliberation, my request was approved.  Our HR team ROCKS!

Back to the sweater in my purse.  I live in the Midwest, where the temperature is below freezing pretty much from October through April, and for two of the three last winters, we’ve had snow in May.  Yes, you read that right.  Snow.  In.  May.  IN MAY PEOPLE!

So why, for the love of all things good, pure, and holy, must you attempt to replicate our annual deep-freeze INDOORS in the summer?  Do you not recognize the sheer insanity of recreating the Arctic Circle INDOORS WHEN YOU GET IT FOR FREE SIX MONTHS A YEAR?  Al Gore is TOTALLY going to smack you upside the head with a sustainable hunk of bamboo.

Sigh.

So I keep a sweater in my purse, just in case there’s an emergency and I have to go to the drugstore to pick up medication, or get groceries, or need new shoes.  It’s all about survival, peeps.

3.  I love sunshine, and I HATE SNOW. 

This is probably obvious, and somewhat redundant, given the first two.

No surprise on the sun here.  Sun = Warm.  But beyond that, I’m a big believer in the whole seasonal affective disorder thing, too.  You know how it is in the winter….

You wake up, and it’s dark. You drive to work…in the dark.  You drive home AFTER work…in the dark.  Day in, day out, for months on end.  By Valentine’s Day, we’re all a bunch of grumpy, pale vampires, just looking for an excuse to sever a random artery.  (I think this is why we began the tradition of passing out cards and chocolates in the shape of a heart.  So we don’t all kill each other.  Even though we want to kill SOMEBODY.)

So let’s talk snow.  I used to LOVE snow.  Snow was beautiful.  Snow was EXCITING!  When snow was a-comin, the energy was palpable.  People would be abuzz with wondering how much we’d get and what would be closed, and then when the snow DID come, we’d all stay inside all day and just watch it fall.

Aaaaahhhh.

So when I had a chance to take a job outside of Erie, PA, I jumped at the chance.  Erie gets TONS of snow!  And I LOVE snow!  SNOW SNOW SNOW!!!!

What I didn’t know at the time was that snow in Erie (a.k.a. “The Snow Belt”) is NOT like snow everywhere else.

You see, when it snows in Erie?  Nothing special happens.  Nothing’s closed, nothing’s rescheduled, nothing’s delayed.  If you venture to the grocery store, you will still be able to find bread, milk, toilet paper, and all of the ingredients to make chili.

In other words, it’s just another day.  Just another day….with snow on top.

And let me tell you what a day in Erie is like:

Get up early, because the weather is probably terrible.  Dig out car from 4-6″ of snow.  Drive to work while another inch of snow falls.  After working a few hours, tackle nature’s slip-n-slide to get some lunch.  Brush two more inches of snow off your car.  At day’s end, scrape your windshield and dig out from 3″ of newly fallen snow. Drive home in a whiteout.  REPEAT EVERY F#@$#NG DAY BETWEEN OCTOBER AND APRIL.

I wish I were joking.  I moved there in mid-November, and by Thanksgiving we had THREE FEET of snow.  THREE.  FEET.  And it just does NOT stop.  And if you’ve absolutely HAD IT and just canNOT go on another day, you can’t even freaking hurl yourself off your roof to end it all, because you just land in a snow pile.  You’re not dead; the closest thing ya got is making a snow angel.

I lived outside of Erie for three long, cold, brutal, hellacious winters.  And eventually, I moved to…Minnesota.  Yeah, it’s stupid cold here – but you don’t have to shovel cold.  (The tradeoff is that the ground is frozen solid, so there’s nowhere to bury bodies….)

Spring always comes.  Eventually.  No matter what that stupid groundhog says.  Right, Punxsutawney Phil?  RIGHT? <cocks gun menacingly and shows him THIS>

So – that’s three.  Seven love/hates to go.  I’m gonna nominate my soulmate fattymccupcakes because she’s hilarious, and because I bet she has some ideas for this that I can steal be inspired by.  MWAH 😉

The Courage to Change, The Patience to Persevere, the Guts to Grow

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I am thankful today to have not one, but two, nominations from the gracious Chelise at Caterpillar to Butterfly.  I’m thankful because these awards and challenges give me something different to think about – and therefore WRITE about.  They give the repetitive, demanding voices in my head a new sound bite to discuss.  They’re a nice respite from thinking simultaneously about how fat I am and WHAT IS THERE TO FREAKING EAT IN THIS PLACE YO

Sigh.

This first nomination was super-sweet of Chelise, because while I’ve been trying to pull myself out of a lifetime of food issues, and sometimes I feel like I’m making progress, it’s certainly not been a beeline target.  More often, on good days, it’s like I’ve been sitting on a precarious perch in a dunk tank, blissfully oblivious to the pool of denial swirling below me, until life lobs a hefty, matted tennis ball squarely at the target, sending me plunging back into the muck and leaving me to clutch at any floating debris I can find.  Sometimes it’s a life preserver; others, it’s a crocodile.

Two steps forward, one step back, and sometimes, all we can do is keep treading water and looking for a safer buoy to cling to.

But that’s what makes us courageous – it’s the ability to keep going.  It’s what gets us through the day, worn and weary, but alive.  It enables us to get out of bed the next day to face the same demons and confront the same pain.

Yeah, sure, some days we don’t actually GET out of bed.  And that’s OK – because we’re doing we need to do to recharge for the next battle.  We’re still breathing.  We’re still alive.

Courage doesn’t mean you don’t rest.  Being brave doesn’t mean you don’t admit you’re tired.  I mean, even heroes need to take a break from saving the planet once in a while.

Being strong just means you don’t quit.  Every valiant knight and crusader has felt fear – they just haven’t let it stop them.  And sure, occasionally the bad guys – anxiety, fear, hopelessness – temporarily take us down, but the joke’s on them, because we’re slowly, gradually learning from each and every battle, bruise, and scar just how to throw a carefully placed sucker punch right back.

There are a lot of folks on WordPress who struggle with a variety of things. In reading the challenges of others, you see incredible strength.  It’s inspiring.  It’s contagious.  You also see the heartache – the beauty and the pain in the raw, unfiltered honesty.  And that’s where we all support each other – if we all lean on each other in a circle, nobody falls down.  (Or we all fall down.  Especially if wine was involved.  But at least we do it together.  And it would be freakin’ hilarious, as long as no one spills the wine.)

couragetochangeaward

The “Courage to Change” Award

  • I want to acknowledge that it takes courage to put ourselves out there for the world to see.
  • It takes courage to work through the pain that binds us.
  • It takes courage to make changes in our lives.
  • It takes courage to leave behind everything you have always known (mentally, emotionally & sometime physically) and do things differently.

Courage is:

  • the ability to do something that frightens one
  • strength in the face of pain or grief

The guidelines for this award:

  • Award it to whomever you chose and let them know
  • No questions to ask
  • No questions to answer
  • If you receive the award, there is nothing you have to do but KNOW others support and believe in you! However, I hope you to pay it forward and encourage someone who is on their own personal journey to freedom (from whatever they may be struggling with).

My picks for the “Courage to Change” Award:

Nikki at Undiagnosed Warrior and Cass at Indisposed and Undiagnosed – these two young, strong women are very talented writers who have been kind enough to share their quests to get diagnoses for debilitating, undiagnosed illnesses.  Their strength, their perseverance, and their tenacity as they struggle to get well are amazing.  They are brave and show continued courage.

Zoé at gathering the pieces of me – I have said it before; this is some of the best writing you’ll read online.  Her writing is art; it’s poetry, and it’s raw and beautiful.  She has been incredibly inspiring as she outlines her struggles to be well.

THANK YOU, ladies, for putting it out there.  You help me, you help countless others – you make WordPress a better, richer place.  We’re all in this together – lean over when you need to.  I pray for peace, healing, and laughter for you every day!

Next up:  The Love/Hate Blogger Challenge!  (Thankfully.  I can only take so much of this warm and fuzzy goo.  Tree’s dry, no more sap for awhile.)  😉

The Liebster Award! a.k.a. Cube Cat, Aliens, and Grammatically Correct Memes

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I am embarrassingly late in responding to this generous nomination from Chris at Surviving the Specter.  Which is actually OK, as I am never on time for anything.  If I’m ever on time, or early, please assume what you are seeing is an alien apparition of me, and blast me to confetti with lasers.  For the planet.

Anyhoo….the award.  Chris was kind enough to link to some history behind this, so I’m stealing that to share, too.  GO TO HERE FOR HISTORY KTHX

liebsterpicSo, like all awards, this one has some rules, too:

liebsterpic_001OK, if we’ve met…that is too many rules.  And I get to the middle of #2 before I suddenly remember it’s been a REALLY long time since I made pie, and speaking of pie, my cat is so fat that he’s no longer round…he’s…a box.  I know cats like to SIT in boxes, but…WHOA MY CAT IS MAGICAL AND MORPHED INTO A SIZE 14 NIKE AIR BOX

OllieboxAdmittedly, without the swoosh.  Seriously, though, the dude needs backup lights.  I’m a terrible cat momma.

<slap> Focus.  RULES!

OK…did #1 already.  Here are Chris’s questions for me:

1.   In what state and/or country do you live (if outside the U.S.)?  I commute daily between the state of Confusion and the state of Denial.  Geographically, I grew up in PA, but nine years ago, moved here:

stay-for-the-car

 AND EVERY JANUARY I QUESTION MY SANITY.  <sigh>

2.   What is your favorite genre of music and THE band that goes with it?
OK, there is NO WAY I can pick just one.  What I like depends on the barometric pressure, the moon phase, and how much I weigh today. 

When I sing (did I mention I’m in a band?) I love ballads and good, throaty jazz.  On the radio I love P!nk and Ed Sheeran – I totally want to fix up my daughter with him, so they can have a flock of adorable redheaded baby girls and start a traveling quintet.  (She’s seventeen; it’s almost legal.  I just want what’s best for me her, ya know?)

3.   What is a life quote of yours?  I posted about this before – it’s also my favorite shirt:

shirtfront4.   Where do you find solace?  Like that corny Johnny Lee song, I look for it in all the wrong places – at the bottom of a giant bag of popcorn, inside a cereal box, in the arms of Ben and Jerry.  I don’t ever FIND it there (you’d think I’d learn to look somewhere else first….)

Where I actually FIND it varies.  In nature, it’s around water, or around giant rocks.  Sometimes it’s at the end of a run, hike, or a bike ride.  Sometimes it’s on the clearance rack at the shoe store.  Oh – and in butterflies.  Seeing a butterfly makes me feel peaceful.  I have convinced myself that butterflies are spirits coming to check on me to make sure I’m doing OK. (Sorry, Grandma, for bouncing you off my windshield the other day.  Love you.)

5.   What are three triggers you have?  Well, if I’m in *that* mood, I can make anything a trigger.  But through therapy (and wild guesses) I have identified some common triggers that make me feel fat AND give me an insatiable desire for ice cream, popcorn, and an entire jar of peanut butter:

  • Feeling irrelevant among my loved ones (especially the kids when they don’t “need” me.) 
  • Feeling self-conscious or un-confident. 
  • Any of HALT:  Getting too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.  Or hormonal.  But that ruins the cool acronym.  THALH?  HALT-H? (uh, no, that sounds like a hemorrhoid cream.  Let’s just stick to HALT and assume hormones are in the mix.)

6.   Insert your favorite meme in the space below- Well, it’s NOT the one above.  That one just makes me sad.  And cold.  I like this one better:

helltoupee(Note that I got the little booger thing over the E there.  I keep it classy, yo.)

7.   What is a coping mechanism you use to combat your mental situation? I do my best to take care of myself – getting regular exercise and adequate sleep (or trying; some nights it’s more like “well, just lie here and rest….SHUT UP, BRAIN, your ONLY JOB for the next seven hours is to BREATHE.”  Suffice it to say it doesn’t always work.  OK, it hardly ever works.) 

I also try to remind myself that it’s cyclical; I know Sunday nights will be bad, as will every 4th or 5th week.  I just keep repeating to myself, “In a few days, this will be better….” over and over again.  I really should write myself some Post-It notes or something, right?

Oh, and I swear.  A lot.  Violently, rapidly, and voraciously.  F#@% YEAH!

8.   When you sit down to write a blog post, where does your inspiration come from?  Alien probes, subliminal messages from the government, pesticides, and high fructose corn syrup.  Or the hubs, my Facebook feed, funky shoes, and my cats.  (I’m not anywhere near as deep as a Pennsylvania pothole.)

9.   Right here, right now, say something to the person who has hurt you the most, beginning with, “I promise to…”  I promise to not junk-punch you if I ever see you again.  Mentally (as I mentioned elsewhere today) I’ll be dumping week-old clam chowder on your head, but I promise to appear to be cordial.  You KNOW that’s generous; I suggest you take it and back away slowly.

10. What one regret do you hold onto that you wish you could let go of?  I sincerely wish I had been kinder to my college boyfriend. 

He was my first relationship after a badly broken heart, and I used the relationship with him to play out all my anger, anxieties, and frustrations of the prior one.  I relentlessly messed with his head and repeatedly broke his heart – simply because my former boyfriend had broken mine.  Essentially, I used the poor guy to get my revenge on my prior love.  I know it was a crappy thing to do, but I was far too broken myself to recognize it. 

So Dean, if you’re out there, I’m sorry – you were a decent fellow who always deserved so much better. 

11. What’s the most valuable piece of advice someone has given to you?  “You miss all the shots you don’t take.”  Apply for that job, ask that guy out, bid on the shoes!  The answer is always NO unless and until you ask!  

OK, so now I have to list some folks to take on my questions list.  I’m sure you’ll find this stimulating and thought-provoking.  <snort>

  1. What is your favorite shoe?  (If you can’t answer this, we cannot be friends.)
  2. You won a million dollars.  What random gift would you send me?  (Wine is never the wrong answer)
  3. If you were going to go to a deserted island, and could only take three things, WHY WOULD YOU GO IN THE FIRST PLACE?
  4. What’s the scariest thing on your bucket list – and when are you doing it?
  5. What movie, song, or comic book hero most closely represents YOU/your life?
  6. What did you want to be when you grew up?
  7. You have to give up one of your five senses.  Which do you sacrifice and why?
  8. You have a seven-week sabbatical from work – paid time off.  Whatcha gonna do?
  9. What skill do you wish you had?
  10. What do you find most intimidating?  Most motivating?
  11. Do you believe in ghosts, spirits, the afterlife?  Why or why not?

NOMINEES:

whereshappy

tatisgalaxy

sinsandsecrets

peaceof8

8 + 3 = 11 so I think we’re all done here.  School of Close Enough gives me a B+, so…peace out, y’all.  🙂

What Your Incessant Quiz-Taking Says About You

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Unless you live under a rock – one not equipped with satellite internet – you’ve probably stumbled upon a veritable potpourri of assessments, quizzes, and tests.  My social media streams are absolutely polluted with them; trying to purge your feed of their appearance is as productive as attempting to cure Rapunzel of head lice – no matter what you pick, spray, smother, block, and hide, MORE JUST KEEP HATCHING.

Most of these are “entertainment only” (read: meaningless time suck) and have become a bit of an invasive species, subject to a quick “share” and “forward.”  (Even on LinkedIn.  Come ON, people, that’s the ONE corner of the internet that should be a save haven from “Which Kardashian Is Your Style Icon?”)

But others are actually somewhat – and surprisingly – insightful.

1.  The Glorified Horoscope.  These are the zebra mussels of the internet.  Once your social media stream gets infected, you either have to burn all the boats and set fire to the ocean, or just try to wait for it all to eventually, slowly die off.

You’ve probably experienced this:  one of your Facebook friends takes a quiz, and “shares” the results, inviting you to take the quiz, too.  By day’s end, roughly 42% of your friends have shared THEIR results, and the thing spreads like a bad stomach bug, barfing all over your NPR newsfeed and obscuring the new pictures of Pluto.  Just when you think it’s petered out for good, your mother’s results pop up on your feed, and then all of HER friends get in on the game.  Sigh.

These quizzes claim, in a matter of minutes, to offer you valuable insight and self-awareness as to

<insert mystical music and cloud of patchouli>

~WHO YOU REALLY ARE~

Yes, it’s true – in moments, you can find out which character from Friends you are – AND which one you should date, or what your taste in seashells, color patterns, or flowers indicates about what’s really going on inside your noggin.

We all know that these are nonsense, right?

Well, apparently, Monica was spot-on marrying Chandler, and lily lovers are wickedly independent and have killer shoe collections.  I mean, HELLO! <ring ring> Validation calling!

(Okay.  I took a few.  Don’t judge.  You know YOU wanted to.)  <runs to the interwebz to find out the correlation between Shredded Wheat and my penchant for backpacks>

The beauty of these things is that they’re as substantive as cotton candy, and the descriptions are written in such a way that a good hunk of them can pretty much apply to anyone.  Like daily horoscopes and fortune cookies, they’re closer to “one size fits all” than any piece of clothing can ever claim to be.

2.  I’m psychic and/or magical.  There are some other “quizzes” that claim to

<cue filmy scarves and hammered dulcimer tones>

~READ YOUR MIND~

Here’s one example:  Pick Pocket Money Trick.  Use this on your friends and you can MAGICALLY guess how old they are AND how much change they have in their pockets!

MAGIC.  I’m sure Ellen’s people will TOTALLY be begging you to be on her Tuesday show. <eyeroll>

People – this isn’t “neat” or “clever.”  IT’S MATH.  If Common Core focused on teaching THIS kind of logic, maybe we’d be raising a society of rational human beings instead of a plethora of entitled, egocentric, everyone-gets-a-trophy, forever-on-Mom’s-insurance-and-cell-phone-plan progeny.

But I digress.  Because I’m a geek (see Shredded Wheat, above) I actually convert these things into algebraic equations FOR FUN.

So here we go.  Let’s say I’m 29 (SHUT IT) and that I have 76 cents in my pocket.

  • Age (A) = 29
  • Coins (C) = 76

We also know that the answer is a four-digit number – so “the first two digits” means your age times 100 – this pushes your age into the thousands and hundreds column, and  will leave the last two digits (the tens and the ones) for coinage.  Our formula looks like this:

((2A+5)*50)-365+C+115 = 100A+C

Let’s solve the parenthetical expression on the left:

100A + 250 – 365 + C + 115 = 100A + C

Now let’s math out the numbers that don’t have A or C on them – 250-365+115.  Guess what that equals?  ZERO.

100A + C + 0 = 100A + C

See?  Wasn’t that fun?

Side note:  I was a math major for a whopping three days.  Still got it.  <strut strut>

If the above was complete gibberish to you – well, you probably have other talents.  Like maybe you can parallel park, or get past level 452 in Candy Crush.  Or maybe you’re just really pretty.  🙂

3.  Insightful Personality Assessments.  If the above just isn’t doing it for you, there really are some fairly useful tools out there on the Interwebs to help you learn more about yourself.  I swear I’m not feeding you some HR brainwashed psychobabble here – these can be extremely helpful to your own spiritual (and career) development IF you are open and receptive to understanding:

  • more about yourself and how you respond and react to others.  (Good AND bad) AND
  • how your <ahem> unique quirks and foibles are perceived by others, AND
  • how others react to YOU, and modifying your approach in the spirit of furthering communication.

In other words, everyone’s different – and different is OK.  Coexist and all that.

Most HR folks – or employees occasionally subjected to HR folks outside of annual benefits enrollment – have probably taken some form of Myers-Briggs-based assessment as part of “professional/career development.”  If you haven’t gotten your “letters” (i.e. ENTJ, INFP, etc.) yet, you can take a simplified version of this test at 16personalities.com.

Although I don’t love this methodology (because in one session, I (deservedly) was given the nickname “Steamroller,”) I took a whack at it.  It’s highly subjective, of course – but interesting all the same.

What am I?  The Debater.  What I found the most interesting (read: accurate):

ZOMG I DO THIS TO THE HUBS ALL.THE.TIME.

I also learned:

  • I rip apart arguments JUST FOR FUN (see algebra above…yeah.)
  • Arguing both sides helps me understand them better.  But I more do it because it amuses me.
  • I sometimes hurt people’s pwecious widdle peewings….and I don’t really care.  (And this can damage relationships.  Uh.  Duh.)
  • I’m not a huge fan of conformity or grunt work.  (Really – are there people who live to file?)

To be fair, this wasn’t really earth-shattering.  I’m pretty self-aware – flaws, pits, and all.  But it feels somewhat…I dunno, validating?  to see that I’m not a walking freak show.

(THERE ARE OTHERS.  BE VERY AFRAID.)

Chris from Surviving the Specter got me thinking about these assessments the other day.  His blog led me to The Enneagram Institute, where you can take the RHETI (Riso-Hudson Test.)  If you only take one quiz on this page, TAKE THIS ONE.  It’s quick,  free, and pretty thorough for the price!

What I like about this:  There’s TONS of detail in the explanation/description of your “type.”  Also, if your scores are close, there’s an entire section on “misidentifiers” – so you can see if #2 or #3 really fits you better.  I had one score just barely above three others, which were tied – and reading the misidentifiers helped validate my label.  (This seems to be my lot in life….I guess it comes from my need to argue every side of things, being The Debater and all.)

So here’s my rainbow: HybridPersonalityWhat I learned:

* I have a basic fear of being trapped, and need to sustain some freedom.  Interestingly, when I was a baby, I HATED my playpen.  Mom would plop me in there and I’d scream and cry like I was being stabbed.  But, interestingly…if she left me in the room with the playpen, with the side DOWN so I could get in and out by myself, I’d happily crawl in and sit in there and play ALL DAY. Hmm.  No metaphor THERE.  </sarcasm>

* I’m not terribly intellectual, but my brain moves really fast.  (Again, no huge enlightenment there – I’m reading Cosmo, not Tolstoy.)  Often, it won’t shut off.

*  When I’m stressed, I become critical and perfectionist-ish.  <picks up megaphone> Cue the eating disorder!

* I have chutzpah.  THE SITE SAID SO.  And “chutzpah” is one of my favorite words on the planet.  Coincidence?  I THINK NOT.

The details of my type (Type 7, The Enthusiast) are here, but don’t read about ME – go get your own test done.

I know these tests are oversimplified. I know it’s silly – bordering on ridiculous, really – to think that all of planet Earth could be categorized into eight or sixteen or even 1600 “types.”

But if you’ve ever taken the time to find out what your finger length or your wall color “says” about you – why not invest a few minutes in discovering what you “say” to others?

Rather than comparing yourself to a fictional character or a zoo animal, have a look in the mirror.

Study what you see.

Get to know YOU.

Warts and waterfalls, flowers and flaws.  All of it.

Be fabulous, just the way you were imperfectly, wonderfully made.

I mean it.  Or I will totally find you some more algebra to do.  I HAVE MATH AND I KNOW HOW TO USE IT.  Heh.

The Unproductive Habits of Food Disordered People

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We all have bad habits.  Right?

I have a lifelong habit of biting my nails.  Lest you think I’m a freak – only fingernails, and only my own.  And more specifically, I’m really just chewing off ragged cuticles and evening out chips.

But still, I know it’s kinda gross.  It’s unsanitary (dude, hands touch EVERYTHING.)  Plus, I had braces not once, but TWICE as a kid – and I’m sure the gnawing and chipping does nothing for proper tooth alignment.  And, most importantly, try as I might, I can’t seem to find nutritional information for fingernails.  (Most likely because I haven’t looked.  Because if I look, I might find out that fingernails actually HAVE calories. And if this is true, I’ll have to log it on my food tracker.  And heaven knows I don’t need one more thing to obsess over in the eating department.  I can totally see me looking at my hands at day’s end, going, “I bit off FOUR nails today!” and proceeding to run maniacally around the block and frantically doing 50 jumping jacks to burn it off.  Or saying “eff it” and diving headfirst into a bag of popcorn and hating both myself and the fat sad sack I have become.  Yeah, probably the latter, since it’s bikini season.)

The hubs has noticed.  He knows better than to complain about it (Obviously, I bite.)  But one day, we were wandering through a drugstore, and he hands me something and says, “Look, honey – snack chips!”

snackchips

Har dee har har.  <eyeroll>

Part of the problem was that my nails just wouldn’t grow all that much before they made like fashion denim and ripped, chipped, and tore.  Once you have an uneven nail, or a ripped cuticle, you sort of have to address it, right?  I mean, it’s like having your slip showing, except on your hands, and it’s a ratty, tatted slip that really SHOULD have gone in the garbage, but you forgot (read: fell asleep in front of the TV) to do laundry, so….Easiest answer is to bite it off. <snap> <ptoo>

Over the years, I’ve made several attempts at ending the phalangical feast.  And I am proud to say I am doing better:

growingback See that ONE ragged cuticle there?  I DIDN’T BITE IT OFF.   yet  GO ME!

(On a side note – I had some stomach/malabsorption issues a few years ago; I was pretty low on a lot of vitamins, iron, etc.  After over a year of testing, poking, prodding, and biopsying, my doctor threw up her hands and said “Try giving up wheat.”  And after about six months of a wheat-free diet, the above pic is how much the whites of my nails have grown in about eight days.  So, while medically, I very clearly didn’t have celiac….something was glitched up in glutenville.)

As I work toward recovery for a lifetime of food issues, I have come to realize that I have a ton of really unproductive food habits.  I’m going to list them here – one, for self-awareness; two, to hold myself accountable…to some of them, anyway.  (I’m not freaking Mother Teresa – give me a C for effort here.)

1.  Eating in front of a screen.  Yes, I know what all the studies say – if you eat while you’re doing something else, you won’t “notice” your level of satiety.  But, darn it, I LIKE entertaining my mouth when my brain is pigging out on the televised version of junk food.

Plus, during the week, I eat my lunch while I’m working – I can get out of the office a little sooner that way.  Since I often have to work until 7, every minute of daylight counts.  So, in the spirit of full disclosure, I won’t be working too hard on this one.

However…when we bought our house, we actually built an addition on it to make sure we had ROOM for a dining table.  The construction loan’s paid off, so maybe I should use the space for more than storing Kohl’s coupons and scrapbooking supplies.

I don’t cook every evening, but on the evenings I DO make dinner, I’m sure it wouldn’t kill me to sit at an actual table with the hubs and eat, undistracted, and chat about our day.  Heck, it might even nourish our marriage a bit.

So how about I shoot for two dinners a week at the table?

2.  Eating out of a giant bag.  Curse you, Costco, and your ginormous sacks of salty and sweet munchable deliciousness.  Some of your snacks are packaged in such a way that one bag has- wait, lemme look….

ZOMG

TWENTY-TWO SERVINGS.

WHAT.

HOW IS THIS EVEN LEGAL.  Didn’t Obama pass something addressing this with the Affordable Care Act?  I mean these suckers are larger than most airlines allow for a carryon (and NO, I will NOT be checking my popcorn, thankyouverymuch.)

Give me a standard, grocery-store bag of popcorn, and I can EASILY chomp my way through it in a single sitting.  NOT EVEN A CHALLENGE.  Chip clips are for QUITTERS, yo! This means I can do some SERIOUS damage on Costco’s monster face-troughs that I swear I am NOT BUYING THIS TIME but somehow inexplicably make it into my house anyway.

While I haven’t plowed through an entire bag in one sitting yet, I can certainly polish it off in two sessions, and I think the only reason I HAVEN’T finished one in one swoop is because I’m mortified that I actually COULD.  (Plus, here’s what happens when I get dangerously close to doing so.)

So what I’m trying to do is not sit down with one of these things, because that’d be like sitting on the sofa next to Adam Levine and promising to look, but don’t touch.

(Adam Levine…mmmm….did I mention I bite?)

<cough> Sorry.  BUT HE’S SO PRETTY.

Anyway, I’ll measure out a reasonable portion and sit down with that.  One day, maybe I’ll just haphazardly pour out a bowl WITHOUT measuring it….but that will be after the genie grants me three wishes (a billion dollars, the ability to fly, and the ability to cancel out calories on any foods I wish.)

3.  It’s all or nothing.  Ladies?  You’ve done this, right?  Meticulously followed the diet for several days, and then dared to sample a Hershey’s Kiss or a peanut butter cup, and the entire dam broke, flooding your gut with whatever you could rapid-fire throw down your pie hole?

Why do we do this?  I mean, when I get a flat tire, the smart thing to do is call AAA.  The stupid thing to do is pull over, get out my gun, and shoot out the other three tires, the headlights, and the windshield.

BUT WE ALL DO THIS.

While I think AAA has had stranger calls, I won’t plan to bother them with my tales of unharnessed gluttony.  But I do need to find a way to interrupt the broadcast.  I can:

  • Go for a walk, a run, a bike ride.
  • Drink water (see below.)
  • Plan out the next day’s healthy food.
  • Go pull weeds.  (There’s ALWAYS something to rip out of the ground….)
  • Do my nails (hard to eat with wet nails!)
  • Whine about it here.  🙂

4.  Drink enough water.  During the week, I’m pretty good about this.  I drink two twelve-ounce glasses in the morning, adding a third if I went for a run.  I drink 20 oz of herbal tea and 20 oz of hot water (because I’m chronically freezing) while at work.  I’ll try to get 1-2 more glasses at home in the evenings.  Also, I need to keep up the fluids on weekends (besides wine.  WHY CAN’T THAT COUNT <sobs>)

It’s been said that it takes 21 days to break a habit.  Frankly, I call BS on that (and so does this article, which states it can be upwards of 245 days or more.)  And I’ve been trapped in this food funhouse since I was ten years old, so maybe it’s me, and not the habit, that needs breaking.

But if I can do just one thing a tiny bit healthier than how I did it before?  That’s progress.  Some days, I might be hanging by a fingertip from the edge of a cliff – but as long as I don’t let go – as long as I keep hanging on – I have a shot at getting two (well-manicured) fingers up there tomorrow.

I’ll get there one finger at a time.

Sanctuary on a Sunday

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Sundays are hard.

I don’t know why this is – I mean, I don’t hate my job, so it’s not a dread for Monday or anything.  Could be something as simple as a couple days off from the regular routine, I suppose – differing hours of sleep; variation in eating patterns (and more likely to be consuming things I shouldn’t be eating, like fat, sugar, salt, sugar, and sugar.  Oh, and sugar.)

So today, I was visiting the in-laws with the hubs and all of our kids.  I feel like I need to clarify something here – my in-laws freaking ROCK.  I married their only child, and they’ve totally adopted us – not only me as a daughter, but my kids as their grandchildren.  (Which means that my kids have way, way too many Christmases.  Three sets of grandparents will do that for you.  Lucky them.)

My mother-in-law is the sweetest person ever, and she spoils us rotten.  Unfortunately for me, this usually means she’s got our favorite treats prepared when we come to visit.  This weekend, for example, she had at the ready two batches of cookies, a pumpkin pie, a sheet of apple pie squares, chocolate pudding (the good kind that you have to cook, not that crappy instant pseudo-pudding that tastes like sad puppies), and vanilla ice cream AND whipped cream to top them off.  WE WERE ONLY GONNA BE THERE FOR 24 HOURS.  Sigh.  Oh, and there was wine. 

I walked into this temptation trap after a week of overeating – and yesterday, when I took a picture of my tattoo, I saw how fat and squishy my back has gotten, and…just…ugh.

Boom.  And there it goes.

It’s no surprise that I overate, right?

So today, I’ve been anxious and restless.  My mind has had more deer flies than the standing water in a swamp.

You’re so fat. 

Your thighs are HUGE. 

Look at that back fat. 

Everything squishes where your clothes touch you. 

You look pregnant in that shirt.  All the lumps show.

I tried batting them away, attempting to distract myself with something – anything.  But you can only swat so many away before you’re drained, sore, and defeated.

And, as bizarre as it sounds, while I’m degrading myself for taking up so much space, I simultaneously CANNOT STOP THINKING ABOUT FOOD.  I want ice cream.  Popcorn.  Pudding.  Ice cream.  Pizza.  Cookies.   Ice cream.  Peanut butter.  ICE CREAM.

I’m in the uncomfortable, illogical dichotomy of wanting to eat and wanting to be thin.

I hate the wanting.

I decided that I needed to get out of the house for a while.  Because it was sunny and bright outside, and the sun makes me feel better.  It was really warm, which meant no one else would want to tag along.

(Side note:  Midwesterners are weird.  They’re absolutely stoic in January when it’s 26 degrees below 0 – they actually SIT OUTSIDE and go ice fishing and drink beer and stuff AND THINK THIS IS FUN – but turn the heat up above 80 with just a TOUCH of humidity and they wilt like a puff of cotton candy at the State Fair. I’d like to see them survive a DC summer, where we counted 90/90 days – over 90 degrees and over 90% humidity.  Being an orchid, that’s my kind of weather.  But the locals whine and complain, and I return the favor when the temperature dips below freezing.  Or below sixty.  Like I said, I’m an orchid.)

(Additional side note:  26 below 0 is stupid cold.  I mean beyond OMG and WTF.  This is a new level of cold.  You can actually throw a pot of boiling water in the air and it freezes before it hits the ground.  And one time?  A friend of mine took a deep breath outside on one of those mornings, and his PORCELAIN TOOTH SHATTERED.  Like I said.  Stupid cold.)

Recently, the hubs installed a trailer hitch on my truck, and we invested in a really good bike rack so we could take more rides in more interesting places than around our neighborhood.  I had brought my bike along for this overnight trip thinking that I might need some exercise (because food – see above.)

I was so glad I did.

I headed out, not having any clue where I wanted to go.  The in-laws live in a very rural area; while there aren’t really many landmarks, or road signs, if you don’t turn you can’t get lost, right?

It was hot, but there was a great breeze.   There were lots of hills, but the sun warmed my skin and sweetened the bitter messages my brain had been telling me.  I pedaled faster.

And it was a gorgeous day.  Plenty of gorgeous wildflowers:

lake2I saw some bulls – with REALLY intimidating horns – chilling right next to the road.  Clouds of butterflies and flocks of ducks scattered as I rode past.  A wild turkey crossed the road a few feet ahead of me.

And there were lakes everywhere.

Lake18.6 miles later, I felt a bit better.  With that sort of scenery, how could you not?

I’m home now, and unfortunately, I’m still fat.  I really need to hunker down and focus on eating healthy amounts of food, and eliminate some bad habits (OK, destructive patterns.  I’m trying here, people.)

But my journey to seek the sun nudged the beat-myself-up-meter just a little to the left. I’m disappointed in my body, sure.  I wish I hadn’t indulged in so many treats.  And I certainly am not looking forward to this week’s weigh-in.

But despite its flaws, my body did something well today.  I rode hard and rode well, uphill (yes, both ways were uphill, you weren’t there so you don’t know) in the hot sun.

I rode my way to just a little piece of sanctuary for my soul.

Despite all the things I still need to work on, I can be thankful for the ability to do that.

Dragon’s Loyalty Award and Random Katie Factoids

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What’s better than your run-of-the-mill, everyday WordPress blogging award?  AN AWARD WITH DRAGONS.

I wanna be a dragon.  You can fly.  You can cook your food by breathing on it.  AND YOU CAN FRY MORONS BY BELCHING ON THEM. I mean WHAT is a better response to being served a heaping serving of steaming asserole than to insta-char the jerk into a silent block of carbon?  *POOF* and YOU’RE a briquette….<mic drop>

(Side note:  I actually wrote about how charcoal briquettes came to be once.  Never accuse me of not having diverse interests.)

A hearty thank you to Chelise at Caterpillar to Butterfly for the nomination!  (Chelise writes about codependency recovery – she’s a good read – plus her name is like the BEST. DRAGON. NAME. EVER.  Right?)

dragonsloyaltyaward

THE RULES:

  • DISPLAY THE AWARD CERTIFICATE ON YOUR WEBSITE
  • ANNOUNCE YOUR WIN WITH A POST AND LINK TO WHOEVER PRESENTED YOUR AWARD
  • PRESENT 15 AWARDS TO DESERVING BLOGGERS
  • DROP THEM A COMMENT TO TIP THEM OFF AFTER YOU’VE LINKED THEM IN THE POST
  • POST 7 INTERESTING THINGS ABOUT YOURSELF.

The rules, the way I’m doing them, because NO ONE TELLS A DRAGON WHAT TO DO:

THE RULES (Dragon Kate-style <roar>):

  • DISPLAY THE AWARD CERTIFICATE ON YOUR WEBSITE (I’m good with this one.  Copy, Insert, CHECK.)
  • ANNOUNCE YOUR WIN WITH A POST AND LINK TO WHOEVER PRESENTED YOUR AWARD (That makes sense. No reason to be all ninja about it, right?  Although a ninja/dragon battle would be super rad.)
  • PRESENT 15 AWARDS TO DESERVING BLOGGERS (Uh…do I even KNOW 15 people?  Maybe I’ll divide that by, like, three.  Because three’s a crowd, and when you have three people, you ALWAYS end up with two against one.  Thus, three ALWAYS divides, so I come up with five.  Because math.  It’s legit.  Common Core says so.  It’s explained at a simple fourth-grade level here.)
  • DROP THEM A COMMENT TO TIP THEM OFF AFTER YOU’VE LINKED THEM IN THE POST (That feels like cheating.  Like making the Easter eggs beep and buzz so you find them before they self-ferment into noxious holiday grenades.  If they deserve the award, they’ll find themselves mentioned here.)
  • POST 7 INTERESTING THINGS ABOUT YOURSELF.  (Um.  Well.  The odds are better that you’ll find seven more interesting things on a pack of gum, or in a toddler’s diaper.  (Hey, my kid ate crayons.)  But I’ll try.)

So here are my 15/3 nominees:

fattymccupcakes, because she is freaking hilarious, and because she told me the other day that I AM HER NEW FAVORITE.  You may commence the weeping and gnashing of teeth now.

luvbearlvx, because he actually DOES cry, plus he claims I need to up my snark game.  <thunk> GAUNTLET DOWN, BRO.

The Persistent Platypus, because she went on a diet this week and diets suck, so maybe dragons will cheer her up.

Walking After Midnight, because we are coffee soul sisters #teamDunkin

Remember the Good Stuff, because she writes a lot of feel-good warm fuzzy things that are always a pleasure to read.

And now, since I know you’re all just dying on the vine waiting for my seven fascinating personal factoids that will enrich your life and resolve global warming:

1.  My all-time favorite letter?  Q.  Q and I have a lot in common.  Loving Q means you’re never lonely, because Q is always with U!

<insert three-hour time delay while Kate pleads guilty at Bad Pun Prison>

Q is HIGHLY underutilized.  When I’m trying to mess with someone’s typing, it’s easy to approach from the side and sneak in a few random Qs when they’re typing.

Q Q Q qq QQ

See?  Immediate hilarity.  YAY Q

2.  I collect frogs.  In addition to having them all over my office, I have one on my laptop:

laptopone on my car:

FrogTruck(Shout out to Vinyl Disorder for the decals.  They rock.  Clearly.)

And one on ME! (I’ll let you guess where.  NO, it’s NOT on my butt, you sicko.)

frogtatt

I love the tropical poison dart frogs.  Cute, but deadly.  I can relate to that.  And then there’s the acronym that can be a soothing reminder to the scathing voices in my head:

  • Fully
  • Rely
  • On
  • God

We could all use more frogs.  PLUS THEY EAT BUGS.  Bugs suck.  More frogs = fewer bugs.  Winning!

3.  My fingers are double-jointed.  I can bend the tops without bending the middle joint….

freakfingersFREAAAKKKKYYYY

And so is my thumb.  The top of my thumb bends back 90 degrees.

weirdthumbIt also “clicks” when I bend it back to a normal position.  Over and over and over again.  It’s super fun when you have people around you who hate, with the fire of a thousand suns, the sound of knuckles cracking.  <click click click> They cringe, cower, and eventually cover their ears and hide under the table, curled up in the fetal position shuddering and weeping silently.

Heh.  <click click click>

4.  I can’t pronounce the work “coagulate.” When I say it, it sounds like “co laj a gate”.  It’s a sickness.  I can’t fix it.  I don’t even try any more. 

5. I have two birthmarks.   One is a strawberry hemangioma on my upper right arm. I was quite self-conscious about it when I was a kid – I mean, it looked like a moose had randomly given me a huge hickey.

The good news is that the doctors have reassured my parents that it will TOTALLY go away by the time I’m twelve or so.  (Seeing as how I’ve turned twelve three times, and am edging uncomfortably close to Twelve Number Four….I’m less optimistic.)  

The other is a flat, brown mole on my left ring finger.  If there’s a dermatologist in the room, it usually catches her eye, because apparently, it looks a lot like cancer.  But it’s been there all my life.

chocfingerWhen I was a kid, I fondly called it my chocolate mark – I told people that was born with the label that, like, REQUIRED me to eat chocolate ALL DAY LONG.  (This had the effect of distracting them from the moose hickey, which, while interesting, will never be chocolate.)

6.  I am allergic to cockroaches.  This seems to be pretty unusual, given the odd looks I get when this comes up in conversation.  Which happens more often than you’d think. 

How did I discover this?  In college, I got a summer job cleaning dorm rooms.  (High glam here, folks.)  I started breaking out in horrifically disfiguring hives periodically.  It’s a unique look that the world wasn’t quite ready for – understand this was 30 years before Lady Gaga, and we’re not quite ready for her, either.  Think having your entire lip swell up is chic gorgeous?  Try HALF YOUR LIP.  Stunning.

So off I went to the allergist, where they performed a scratch test.  Essentially, they draw a grid on your back, and put a drop of allergen in each box.  Then all the allergists come over and play Hive Reaction Bingo: They randomly select different allergens, and when the square is called, they take a needle <shudder> and just barely scratch your skin so the drop seeps in and the aforementioned allergen infects you.  Whoever’s square flares up the most wins a prize – probably a tongue depressor and a lollipop.  And, of course, bragging rights. Obvs.

So it turns out I’m allergic to dust mites, birch trees, and cockroaches.  It’s quite the icebreaker.

7.  I’m deathly afraid of canned biscuits. 

biscuitsofdeathBECAUSE THEY EXPLODE.  You gently tap them on the counter, and JUST when you’re starting to feel the beat, BOOM!  Biscuit blams out of the container and scares the ever-loving shiz out of you, causing you to scream like an evil clown with an ax just popped out from the broom closet.  Out of sheer terror, you drop the can and it crashes to the floor, taking with it your ruined dreams of dinner and world peace.

I don’t eat canned biscuits anymore.  (Because gluten, and because chemicals.  Delicious, toasty chemicals.)  But, when I used to, there was only one way I could possibly get the dough out of the can:

  1. Gently, slowly peel label back JUST A LITTLE BIT.  Gently.  Slowly.  STOP when you start to see brown paper.
  2. Hold can in right hand.  Stand next to countertop, minion, little brother’s head, or other hard surface.
  3. Use left finger to plug left ear.  Shrug right shoulder up to plug right ear.
  4. Squinch eyes shut as tightly as you can.
  5. Begin chant of “LALALALALALALA” to cancel out surrounding biscuit explosion noise.
  6. While chanting and holding position above, whack can firmly on counter 3-4 times.
  7. STOP.  Peek cautiously out of one eye. If can is open, relax and access biscuits.  If can is still intact, IMMEDIATELY return to Step 1.  Repeat steps 1-6 until you see biscuits.

So there you have it – the seven most interesting things about Kate.

Dragon-approved.

Really.  Go ask one.

And bring marshmallows, just in case she doesn’t feel like chatting.

The Road to Recovery Has Potholes and Pitfalls

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I haven’t written anything about food issues in a while.  This wasn’t intentional, nor was it any sort of avoidance.

I just haven’t had anything dramatic to write about.

It’s been nearly three weeks since I wrote about food – at the time, I had a pretty typical binge, followed by a couple days of pretty hardcore restricting (for the uninitiated, that’s where you really don’t eat….anything.)

But since then?  It’s been…fairly quiet.  While I recognize that this isn’t exactly “recovery,” it’s still progress.  There are a lot of things I’ve done right these last couple of weeks:

1.  I’ve been eating a fairly healthy 1200 calories a day.  I do want to drop a couple of pounds, so yes, I’ve been tracking and measuring my food…BUT I’ve been doing it in a way that I’m sure the Weight Watchers Wizards would approve:

  • I’ve started most days with a smoothie – made with REAL food, thankyouverymuch, no Frankenfood or lab-created powders.
  • Mid-day, I’ve had a healthy lunch AND a snack
  • In the evening, I prepared a sensible dinner followed by a SMALL treat (vs. an entire bag of treats.  Do NOT underestimate how big this is.)

2.  I have been running 3-4 times a week.   Regular exercise helps me burn off all that extra angst/cortisol so I can think, focus, and eventually sleep.

Side note:  If you don’t know what cortisol is, CLEARLY you don’t read the same magazines I do, because it’s the Cristiano Ronaldo of hormones these days. 

Wait…you don’t know who that is, either?  HE ONLY HAS LIKE A HUNDRED MILLION FACEBOOK FRIENDS YO. 

Sigh.  Cristiano Ronaldo’s boring page about sports and why you should care.  (Go directly to #4.  YOU’RE WELCOME)

<snaps fingers>  Focus?  FOCUS.

Back to cortisol.  Essentially, it’s the fight-or-flight hormone.  Your body makes it as a response to stress; it prepares the body physically to handle running from (or stabbing) a rabid bear, or a tough jungle swing over the swamp to avoid alligators or whatever.

Nowadays, we don’t have too many legit physical stressors.  Instead, we valiantly fight things like rush hour, IT issues, or Facebook drama.  So our bodies pump out all this cortisol, prepping us for battle…and we don’t burn it off.  Confused, our bodies make us crave sugar, build abdominal fat, and give us a lot of stomachaches.  YAY.  (Read more about cortisol here.)

3.  I was BEING KIND TO MYSELF.  I bought a couple of new dresses that, if I may say so, make me look fabulous.  And I FEEL fabulous in them.  <struts runway-style in front of picture window and checks self out>

In all the above, I wasn’t getting crazy sauce all over the walls DOING any of this.  I actually didn’t measure out my lettuce for my salads.  (Yes, people with eating disorders do this.  Because lettuce DOES HAVE CALORIES and THEY ADD UP.  OK, I’m still measuring mustard, BUT THIS IS STILL PROGRESS SO SHUT IT)  And on a couple of days, I actually went OVER 1200 calories by a few, and I – miracle of miracles – just shrugged and figured it’d all even out.

Whoa.  Who is this goddess of zen?

I was feeling pretty victorious at this point. CHAMPION WARRIOR MODE

catunicornwarriorToday I was PLANNING TO WRITE about how great I was doing – and last night – LAST NIGHT – this happened:

badguysposter

<sigh>

The frustrating thing is that I don’t know what triggered this.  I wasn’t hurting.  I wasn’t angry.   The hubs and I haven’t fought – nor have I fought with him in my head instead of out loud – in several days.  I was a little tired, sure, but show me any woman in her 40s with teenagers and a full-time job who isn’t, right?

I suppose I may have simply just been too hungry.  Hmm…actually, the more I think about it, the more this makes sense.  I was playing a variety of sport-like games outside with my son – Wiffle ball, kickball, basketball –  and I remember feeling completely out of gas.  I mean, I’m not normally channeling Michael Jordan or anything – remember, I’m no athlete – but I could NOT make a SINGLE basket yesterday.

When we came inside, I thought maybe I needed a snack.  And that’s precisely where the dam broke.

It started with the popcorn – yes, the king-sized pillow bag from Costco; WHY DO I LET THESE INTO MY HOUSE – and half a bag and a Concrete Mixer later, I was filled to the brim with junk food and regret.

This morning, I feel pretty sick (well, DUH, what exactly were your expectations after eating half a silo of cheese popcorn, Princess?)  It’s a veritable food hangover.  I’m bloated and headachy; my stomach is rebelling like a cat who’s been trapped in a closet for fourteen hours and recently got out and promptly shredded the curtains.

It’s my own fault, I know.

But instead of hanging my soul on a hook in the basement and using it as a punching bag, let me see if I can learn from this.

What can I do differently next time?

When I get past the point of being hungry, I should start with a small, measured snack (measured simply so I don’t finish the entire package of whatever) to see if that alleviates the feeling.

I need to accept that some days I’ll be hungrier than others, and I need to trust my body to TELL me that it needs food.

Right now, my body’s so accustomed to being ignored, it only whispers, so I’ll need to pay really close attention.  That’s the hard part; I’ve spent so much of my life telling myself to shut up and denying the basic need for food that I truly have little idea what genuine hunger feels like.

This morning, I’m determined.  I had a couple of really, really good weeks running on the road to recovery.  But sometimes, you get distracted by the scenery and forget to watch for potholes.  So I tripped and fell.

Today, I’m brushing the dust off.  Taking a couple of tentative steps.  Hmm.  Nothing’s broken. It stings a little, but it’s only a skinned knee and a lightly bruised ego.

It’ll heal.  I think I can keep running.