February 2020 – Sweat & Sparkle

Sleepy

Well, this doesn’t happen often, but I was wrong! Ha ha. My weigh-in on Saturday was not a gain after all. It was a microscopic loss, which I can’t explain, but I’m just happy it wasn’t a gain.

I was also wrong about that lazy, lounging-around weekend. I did so much manual labor that I felt like I should be pulling a paycheck. We got a lot done, though, and we managed to make it fun, so I didn’t really mind.

Then, the last two days, my body decided to announce, loud and clear, how displeased it has been about my shoddy ways of taking care of it. I coughed all day on Monday, then had a horrible stomachache yesterday. As soon as I opened my eyes, all I wanted to do was sleep. I took my stepson’s dog for a walk and came home sweating like I had just run a marathon, wiped out. I listened to my exhausted body and went back to sleep for a bit.

Today I still feel tired, but not sick, so I am back at work, trying to catch up and dig out from beneath the pile of emails, questions, papers, etc. It’s drizzly and gray today, the perfect day to sleep all day…or maybe I’m just not quite 100% recovered yet!

Unhealthy

I already know that tomorrow’s weigh-in will be a gain. There’s no avoiding that. I could go into all the excuses, how many hours I’ve worked this week, how tired I am, but even I know all of that is just rationalizing bad choices.

I could get angry. I could give up. I could use it as evidence that I just can’t do this, and then gain some more next week.

Or I could look really long and hard in the mirror and ask myself how much I really want to lose weight, get back into shape, get healthy. True, I have a crazy schedule. But now I am skipping workouts even on days that I do have time, claiming I “deserve a break”. God, I am rolling my eyes at myself even as I admit that.

I don’t have to work past normal quitting time tonight, and I am so excited. My husband has already texted me, saying he’s happy I will be home early, and then we have all weekend together, too. Do I see some lounging around, being lazy, in my weekend? Most definitely.

But what I also see: sitting down with my planner, scheduling my workouts for next week, and making meal plans. Things aren’t going to change themselves. I need to put in the effort.

And it’s become very obvious that I have been putting very little effort into myself lately. I just plain look tired. I look and feel unhealthy. My under-eyes are black as raccoon rings. I am the heaviest I have ever been in my life. I have trouble just walking, because my extra weight hurts my feet and knees and back.

I could bore you with every ailment, but you get the picture. I am currently the poster child for the middle-aged stereotype: out of shape, worn out, letting myself go.

It makes me sad. There’s such a disconnect between what I used to be, and what I am now. And I don’t like it. I feel like I don’t completely know myself anymore.

Ugh. I have a lot to work out, inside and out. And it starts this weekend. Time to think, unwind, recharge, make plans, and get back into this game, like I mean it this time.

“I’m starting with my intuition
I’m starting with my strengths
I’m getting back my old ambitions
Returning once again.”

–Fire In Me by John Newman

Home

images Weekend, where are you? I miss you already.

On Saturday, I kicked off the weekend with several hours of yard work, finishing up some raking, pulling weeds, starting to get the yard ready for spring. My neighbor was having a birthday party for his son, so I was entertained by half a dozen little kids on bikes and scooters, zooming around to impress me, waving at me as they darted by our front yard.

Sunday was a drizzly day, and after my manual labor day, I was thrilled to have a quiet moment rocking gently in a rocking chair on the front porch, listening to the soothing rain while I read a book. When I got chilly, I retreated to the warm sofa with my husband, until he suggested going out to lunch. My stepson and I laughed, because both of us were still in pajamas and had to hurry up and get dressed. What can we say? We were fully enjoying a lazy day.

We stopped at a bookstore after lunch, and not long after we got home, without planning it, the entire house was quiet and peaceful, since all three of us were reading. A light rain outside, cozy under a blanket, just being happy with my husband and stepson…it was pretty much a perfect day.

The older I get, the more I appreciate days like that. No running around, bright lights, crowds, noise, parties, blah blah blah. Just people I really care about, being together, sharing our time with each other.

A quiet moment is a rare moment in our house. Usually it’s like a zoo, with so much talking, joking, wrestling, picking on each other, laughing. If it starts to annoy me, I remind myself it won’t always be like this. The kids will get older, grow up, move away. There will be time enough for quiet later, and then I will be wishing for more noise, voices, laughing.

My older stepson likes to pick on me, a lot of short jokes, mixed in with imitating me, karate chopping me, etc. A long time ago, my husband told me he hopes that it doesn’t get on my nerves, and he reminded me that my stepson can’t joke around like that with his biological mother, saying, “You just can’t play with her. She gets mad.” So he said my stepson gets a little carried away, but he’s only happy he can play like that, joke with me, and that I laugh and pick on him back instead of getting angry. It’s our way of showing affection, and it works for us, and that’s all that matters, really.

I glanced up from my book yesterday and for a moment watched my husband, glasses perched on his nose, and my stepson, reading their books, with my stepson’s dog curled up tight to his side, and I was just content that everyone was happy.

My husband any my stepkids have been through a lot. Knowing that our home is a place they can relax like that, let down their guard, and just be themselves makes me happy, because that’s the kind of home I want, too.

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Protected: Say What?

Rather Be Dead

49d9692d123b49e5c5b2e34d6f2f0cef When two of your school-aged children have F after F in school, and when the youngest one is already completely failing one class and hovering on the brink of failing another, you (as a concerned parent) launch into action immediately, correct? You make sure they do their homework, talk to their teachers, help the kids with lessons, whatever it takes to get them back on track.

Well, that’s what a good parent would do. Anyone care to venture a guess whether Psycho is doing any of these things?

I honestly try to shy away from posting much about the drama and bullshit on here, but for god’s sake, enough is enough. It’s Psycho’s fault the kids’ grades are suffering, period. She offers no stability, no sanity, in their lives, tearing them from home to home, wrapping them up so tight in her psychotic drama that they can’t breathe. They are forced to pay for her poor life choices, but as long as she is getting what she wants (attention, sympathy, money from her daddy), then it’s all worth it to her.

Bottom line is, she simply doesn’t care. Kids failing school? *shrug* What does that have to do with her life? The kids are nothing but pawns anyway, not real people, right?

My biggest crime will always be that I care about the kids. Psycho has no idea how it feels to see the kids hurting and to feel even a twinge of concern about it. She has no idea how difficult it is to see the scars on them, inflicted deliberately by people who are supposed to care about them, and to give a shit about that. How could she? She is completely, utterly absorbed with herself, and that leaves no room to waste a thought on anyone else, least of all the kids.

I have never known anyone so unashamed of being thoroughly worthless and useless. I have never seen anyone congratulate herself so much on being selfish and pathetic.

So as much it hurts to see the kids neglected, battered, and tossed around yet again, at least I am not like Psycho. I could not bear that. I would rather be dead.

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