I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
Saturday afternoon. Well, I didn't do so well on my resolution to eat well, but...I did sleep for about four hours last night. Yessssssssss! I would be happier with more sleep, but even the amount that I had was a wonderful thing. Then, today, I took a two and a half hour nap which left me feeling so refreshed that I can't stand myself. Yes, I'm still coughing and a wee bit congested, but I slept and that makes a huge difference in how I'm feeling.
Talked to Chris for a little while (what a surprise, huh?). He and his mom went shopping, supposedly just for a new joystick for his computer, and he said something to the effect of "oh, yeah, we'll be home WAYYYYYYYYYY before 4 o'clock". Well, I called the house just before 4 o'clock (his time, not mine), which is when I woke up from my long nap, and there was no answer. I called his cell and, lo and behold, there was the love of my life. (Note: No cellphone known to mankind gets a signal at Chris' house. Don't ask why, just accept it, as I have.) I said, "I thought you were going to be home by 4 o'clock, Sweetheart?" to which he replied, without a hint of shame, "Well, we went to WalMart!". I KNEW it! Those two are dangerous, I tell you! Over the holidays, they would get up at like 3 o'clock in the morning, drive 45 minutes each way, just to shop for Christmas gifts at WalMart. They did this multiple times. Crazy, I tell you! Anyway, Chris was adamant before they left that they were just going to Office Depot, to get his joystick, and, if they couldn't find one there, they'd go to Circuit City, but definitely no WalMart. Hah! People say that women are shopaholics, and I definitely lend credence to that, but the male of the species is not immune to the shopping bug, especially not mine. (I love you, Sweetheart, just in case you're reading this!)
It's been really nice to see so much activity in my comments section, and I just want to take a moment to acknowlege everyone.
To Danelle's question about how long Chris and I will be living an entire continent apart and "who's moving?", the answer is, basically, we're not sure. It's fairly certain that Chris will move here, at least for a little while, because of my great job and salary. The job market isn't healthy anywhere, and it's especially bad in SW Virginia, NE Tennessee. There just isn't a high tech industry presence anywhere near his home, and that's where I'm most likely to find a job. I mean, if we're going to have to move somewhere that's a six hour drive from his folks so that I can find something, why not stay here and just fly out? The entire flight process takes about eight hours with layovers, so that's not a huge difference. Long term, though, I can't imagine Chris being happy out here. He's a small town kid and, much as he wants to escape that, what he wants to escape to is a slightly larger small town. Me, I'm a city girl, born and bred, and my idea of a small town that's near his location is Knoxville, TN, which is "the big city" for Chris and his family. At this point, I'd say we're looking at a year, at the very minimum, before anyone relocates. Not wonderful, but there you go! Oh, and good luck with your driving interview!!!
To Suzanne, a SAHM with four little ones, thanks for reading! You have my admiration and respect for the work that you do. What part of the country are you in?
Shannin is a friend of mine from eDiets, and I'm so very glad to find that she's been here, reading, for a while. I miss my eDiets friends and, perhaps, once I've gotten myself together, I'll be able to go back and face them. At this point, I'm not even going to weigh myself until February 2nd because I don't want the number I see there to discourage me.
For Lori, I so appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts with me. I love reading your site every day; it's really nice to see someone else who is struggling right now. Sometimes, I feel like I'm the only one who can't get myself under control. Your thoughts about why people comment, or not, really hit home with me and cleared away a lot of the gunk in my head.
Lisushi and Marmy, thanks for letting me know you're out there, too. I've never been to New Zealand or Australia, so it's exciting to think that I "know" the two of you who live down there.
Finally, last but definitely not least, Jennifer, I wonder if you know how much you inspire me, both in your upbeat attitude and your lighthearted writings? I so very much appreciate your frequent comments and support. I hope you're having a really awesome time in SF with Scott (splurge on Ghiradelli, it's worth it!)
Alright, enough of the admiration and love, I'm going to get back to work. Happy weekend, everyone!!!
And now for something completely different (from my sick whining)
Friday morning. Blessedly, I am feeling a whole lot better this morning. Even with about an hour and a half of sleep last night. No, it wasn't from the congestion, which is almost gone, or the coughing, which wasn't bad, either. I just. Wasn't. Tired. How can this be? I had twitchy/itchy syndrome: I just couldn't sit still and just rest for the life of me. Well, I suppose once it gets extreme enough, my body will let me go to sleep. In aid of that noble cause, I'm going to take a slow half hour walk about two hours before I want to go to bed, which should put me out on the streets with my Brooks laced up about 8pm. I'm not sure how much fun it's going to be to be out walking at 8pm, but I'm willing to risk it in order to get some SLEEP. Am I obsessed with this? Possibly.
On a more positive note, I am feeling a hundred times better than I was even yesterday. I've got a lingering cough, but it's not bothering me too much, and a pretty unpleasant sore throat, which I'm managing with Advil and salt water gargling. TMI? Sorry about that!
One of the many blessings about feeling better is that I can actually start to focus on my pledge to take care of my health in 2004. To that end, I've stocked up on Glucerna products. I've got meal replacement shakes and bars, as well as snack shakes and bars, which I'm planning to use for breakfast and lunch for at least the next week or so. These products are specifically formulated to help control blood sugar for diabetics, so I'm hoping they'll help me get my numbers back where they're supposed to be. I'll be using DietToGo for dinners right now and the occasional lunch, too. Eventually, the plan is to get to Glucerna for breakfast and one snack a day with DietToGo for lunch and dinner, and my daily decaf, nonfat, one packet of Splenda latteas a second snack. (I'm restricting the lattes right now both because of my cold and because all of that milk packs a pretty good blood sugar wallop. I'll reintroduce them in a month, I think.) I am convinced that much of my misery with this cold has been because of my blood sugar woes and I know that I just, generally, feel poopy and low energy because of them, too. I'm so looking forward to feeling good again. I want to work on the cardio portion of my health program, too, but that's going to happen a little more slowly, I think. The stretching, though, is something I can probably do starting tonight, so that's one of my goals.
For this weekend (starting this morning), my goals are: 1. Eat my meal replacements exclusively except for dinner which can be either DietToGo or a healthy fast food option like Subway or Rubio's 2. Stretch for half an hour at least once 3. Go for at least one slow walk for half an hour
They might not seem like lofty goals, but they're a good place to start!
As promised, here are a couple of pictures of my ring. I took them with my webcam, so the quality isn't superb, but you can get the general idea, I think.
If the image doesn't show up for you, either, here's the URL: http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-12/523409/Picture8.jpg
Here's the URL for this one: http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-12/523409/Picture9.jpg
Wednesday afternoon. You know, sometimes an action that seems like a total mistake upon first review improves considerably upon reaching some distance and perspective. So it has been for me with my posting about wishing more of my readers would post comments. That message has opened up some great dialogues with readers (not to mention helping me through some of the nastier parts of my cold mistery) as well as shining a bright light for me on the intolerance, self-centeredness (yes, it's a word...I looked it up! LOL), and, frankly, vulgarity of others.
I have, in the past, censored myself from certain topics because I didn't want to offend. I've also refrained from commenting on others' sites for fear of putting myself "beyond the pale", which, I now see, is ludicrous. It's the same, stupid trap I fell into when I was a lonely, outcast little girl: don't say anything, don't think anything, just sit very still and perhaps they will like you. Well, I'm here to tell you that it's no more true today than it was in 1975 in Miss Lee's third grade class at Sakamoto Elementary School in San Jose, California. The popular kids will always be the popular kids, and the outcasts remain outcast. The greater truth, however, is one that I'm just beginning to see: there are a lot more of "us" than there are of "them", and it's about time that I stopped worrying about what a few narrow minded, smugly self satisfied people think and start living, and writing, as I please.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, or, Why You Should Never Post an Emotionally Charged Plea When You're Not Feeling Well
Tuesday morning. From the fact that I'm posting at 3:45am, you should be able to guess at how wiped out and poopy feeling I am right now. I can't sleep and thought I'd check my email to see what I'd missed since Sunday night. I am overwhelmed by the response, both in the comments and through email. I don't regret any of what I said, because it was how I was feeling at the time, but I do regret that I didn't sleep on it and give some thought to the tone and content. I have a very loyal core of readers who take the time to write to me all the time and, it appears, I have a loyal core of readers that take the time to come and read what I have to say, although they don't leave a trace. What I've realized is that both groups are equally involved, and that, much as I do most days, you pick and choose where to leave a comment, mostly based on which subjects get under your skin.
So, I really appreciate the thoughts of those that responded and the loyalty of those that don't comment, but read regularly. (To lisushi, who just happened upon me the day I decided to go all Sally Fields-y and needy, I promise that it does get better!) I'm going to try to respond to everyone, either here or in a private email, once I'm feeling better. Until then, it's back to the battle against the common cold!
Sunday night. I'd like to preface my comments with the fact that I haven't slept for any appreciable amount of time since Thursday night. Keeping that in mind, I'd like to echo what Danelle is talking about on her site. It's really freaky sometimes, writing and writing, and not hearing a whole lot about what I write. Now, I'll grant you that much, if not most, of what I write is pretty banal, but isn't that the point? Has the blogging thing gotten so rarified that if you're not posting something of historic or political or literary significance that there's no point in acknowledging it?
According to Site Meter, I get about 20 hits a day, a number which astounds me. I mean, I was giddy (no kidding!) when I told Chris that and showed him my site again over the holiday. There are 20 people out there in the whole, huge world that read what I have to say. Me. Denise. That is so completely gratifying. Gratifying, and terrifying, too. Terrifying because it makes me feel that I have to write something, even when nothing inspires me. It's been especially tough since the fires and theft of my training equipment, right around Halloween. I've been in a terrible funk, with nothing positive to say about my weight (I'm gaining), my marathon training (on indefinite hold), or my life in general.
I started this site, way back in April, to release the negative feelings I was having about myself and to spew to a blank canvas those things that I was too shamed to say to anyone I knew in real life. Somewhere along the way, I found out that there were actually people reading what I had to say, and that changed this site forever.
What I want, now, is to change things again. I know that I haven't made it particularly easy to participate in what I have going on, for the simple reason that I haven't had anything much going on. I'm going to give it my very best try to make my life, and this site, a whole lot more interesting, richer in content, and to make them stand for something. In return, I'd like to ask all of you, my loyal 20 readers, to pipe up, regularly, and tell me what you think about what I've said, what I'm doing, or where I'm going. I'll do the same with all of you, assuming that I know who you are (which, of course, I can't know unless you tell me). We could even have discussions across sites, which would be interesting and thought provoking, I'm sure.
I'll tell you this for free, though, I'm so proud to be part of a community as diverse and active as this one is. To know that there might be people from other countries, countries that I've never even visited, that have read something I've written is exhilarating and I'm endlessly grateful for the technology that makes it possible.
OK, now is your chance to tell me what you think about what I've said. You know what to do, right? Just put your finger on the mouse, click on the "Comments" link, and let it flow. I am anxiously awaiting your insights.
