100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 62

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch:  Japanese restaurant, where I was a good and healthy eater, without any icky stuff...health-wise, that is
Dinner:  2 smoked port chops

This might not work because my computer is being all wonky.  It has for the past two days and I am so hoping that it is my connection or something and not the machine.  Fixing this, my sweet baby, is possible, but it will severely cut into my traveling money.  Oh, no!!!

I just ran a full scan and nothing came up, except for a few dozen tracking cookies.  I am hoping that it is all of the research I have been doing here for work.  Lordy.  It might also mean that I cannot upload a GP today.  Frankly, I am still fighting that exhaustion from a few days ago and cannot dredge up the energy to really care.

So, anyway, I had to go out and get stuff for the weekend with the babies and decided to have lunch at my favorite place.  I heard, whilst dining there, that there might be a Chinese buffet place opening up in the near vicinity.  If that happens, and it is a nice place, I am going to have another temptation with which to struggle.  I will worry about that if and when it happens.  It is just that it is wonderful to go there, eat only what I want and have absolutely no waste.  Today was garbage day and I had to toss out too many things again.  There was all that lovely lettuce and greens that the refrigerator froze, which is guess is not exactly my fault, but our crappy appliance.  But, there were berries, a whole bunch of fresh ginger and the turkey that I had frozen a few months ago, taken out to cook yesterday and then forgot about it in the microwave until this morning when I had to heat up the cats' breakfast.  What a freaking waste, and it is usually worse than that.  So, dining out at a cheap place actually saves me money, and, I mean, how messed up is that?

Next was the actual errands, the market, where I bought food for me and for all of the special meals that I want to make for the babies and their parents this weekend.  I have offered take the babies tomorrow and send mommy and daddy out to play and then stay overnight so that they can either stay overnight somewhere else, or sleep in on Sunday whilst I wrangle the babies. 

So, I bought some of their favorite stuff and got home and there is not any of those cooler boxes anywhere.  The largest one I found was the one in which I take my lunch to work.  Clearly, the berries, tomatoes and other vegetables for the lunch kabobs, the thick slices of ham and roast beef, and let me not forget the frozen pizzas they love, well none of that, except for a few of the vegetables, is going to fit in my tiny cooler thing.

Where the heck are those things?  Maybe I got rid of them during the last big divestment, but I doubt it.  Wherever they are, they are in a place where I cannot find them.  That means that I have to stop at another market on the way to their house tomorrow to re-buy all of the fresh stuff, which was most of what I bought today.  Not a huge problem, because I can eat that stuff, and there is always a chance that it will actually be eaten and not tossed in a week.  I guess.  It just seems like a huge waste of money to have to buy that stuff twice.  I will get over it.  Sigh.

This is such a small problem and I am obsessing about it.  What a dork.  Besides, something came back to bite me in the ass today.  I have been keeping a relatively low profile and minding my own business ever since the whole threats from my friend's boyfriend a while back.  You know, even if someone asks for your help with something, they might have some other agenda that prevents them from being nice when you do exactly what they ask you to do, and then their boyfriend calls you and says seriously unkind stuff to you and, well, it is just a mess.  Kind of like that sentence.  Sorry, Diary.

Anyway, I offered help, support and a bit of advice to someone yesterday, prefacing it with apologies about how I hope I did not overstep anything.   I heard back from that person and it seems that I was, despite my cautionary stuff, completely misunderstood and that was shared with me with a huge helping of snark.  So, I apologized again, as sincerely and genuinely as possible, but I think that this whole mess might have irreparably damaged what, to this point, was only a tentative relationship.  Big picture wise, I guess that I took a risk, was rebuffed and no real loss for either of us, but it still bothers me that I upset that person whilst simply trying to be myself.  I think that is the most painful part of this, that being me is enough to make some go all snarkalicious on my ass.  It was a huge 'ouch' and since I rarely have to learn that kind of lesson twice, that person should be pretty darn safe from me from now on. 

It still stings a little, but I guess that is part of the learning process for me.  I just need to mind my own business.  Plain and simple.  Even if someone asks me to get involved (friend/boyfriend/crappy telephone message), I will resist and change the subject by pretending to have a stroke or an aneurysm or rabies.

So, early day tomorrow, and a busy one, too.  'Nighty-nite, Diary.  Maybe I will get lucky and have a dream about how I helped someone and did not make a huge mess of it.  Yeah, like that could happen, even in my dreams.  Lots more sighs.

Location is still broken, so here I am, all scrambled up, which is also part of the name of the GP that is slowly loading.  It is named Scrambled Hearts and, seriously, how appropriate is that!  You probably cannot see it, Diary, but in addition to the wonky heart in the middle, there are smooth places and choppy chopped-up places and part of hearts all over the place.

Well, let me give that GP a try.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 61

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch:  Frozen dinner, enchilada thing, 2 snack bags of cranberries
Dinner:  Last of the roast beef, horseradish/mayonnaise mixture, green beans
Snack:  Cheddar Crackefuls, 2

In the past 24 hours I have slept for more than 14.  I woke early, was up for a few minutes and went back to bed, sleeping until noon.  I have managed to stay up all day, and whilst I do not feel ill, I know that I could have easily gone for a nap or two.  I am headed off in a few minutes, but I only got up at noon because the telephone rang.  I always answer the phone, you just never know when it will be important, although it rarely is.  This is going to be long and it is all the fault of that telephone call.  (Note:  I just re-read this, sort of, and it is long and boring and biased.  Even so, I stand by it, typos, rotten syntax, rambling, confusion, preachiness and all.)

I think that the most important work that we do in our lives is to live the best life that we can, take care of our families, even the members who drive us insane.  So, family first.

Next is our faith community, which does not even have to be the church to which we belong, just a place that does good works.  Even if you are of a different spiritual path, they will be happy to welcome you into their social service work.  I accept that many people will always put God first, but that is not my way.  Whether you believe anything about a higher power or not, the first thing most of us experience is family, and to my mind, even with a God, that God gave us family...and later friends...first, long before we could even begin to come to faith, so that must mean something, yes?

The next step outwards is our neighborhoods.  Over the years I have lost contact with the people who lived nearest to me, as they moved away and other people moved in.  We live in a sort of transitional area, with people stopping here on their way to someplace better.  We are here because it was the only location we could afford and it has served us well for nearly 36 years.  I know and am conversant with only four other families.  That is kind of shameful, because I do not know if there is anyone around here who does not have family or friends that check up on them.  I would just hate to find out that someone needed help and did not know any of us well enough to reach out.  It makes me think of that woman in Australia that died and no one missed her for years.  I mean, how sad and unfortunate is that. 

So, anyway, this is inspired by a telephone call requesting a charitable donation.  When I expressed my inability to help them, the woman was nice enough, though clearly disappointed that I did not hand over my inconsiderable wealth to her.  That, the last part, is not true, but when I asked to be put on their no-call list, because receiving these calls is so distressing to me, she got all snarky and called me selfish before she disconnected.

That reminded me of a similar call, oh, about ten years ago, from our state's public radio system.  I had been a regular contributor for decades, but that time was one of struggle for me and I just could not make even a small donation.  This was around the time of the annual fund drive (they only had one each year then), and the station or a volunteer, most likely, was making cold calls to former contributors, and when I explained that I could not donate anything that year, her response was something like, oh, surely you can't be so cheap that you can't send five dollars or something, and, well, that stung a bit, too. 

An earlier experience, around 35 years ago was a call-center call for the Special Olympics.  The guy who called was really rude and pushy and when I kept trying to explain that we figured out what we could afford to donate each year and then chose a few organizations to whom we would make that donation, and that I was happy to add them to the list for the following year because we have donated to them in the past, he called me a couple of names, ones I am unwilling to share here, mostly because I am trying so hard to not curse any more.

Even though those three incidents were locally based, they did nothing to diminish me desire to do stuff that was not about me.  You know?  And, see, I am all over the place today, Diary, so sorry about that.

Over the years I have participated in tons of local and far-flung charitable programs.  I think that being involved in stuff beyond my own, personal needs is important, maybe even essential for my own well being.  I have volunteered and donated for all of my adult life, and began taking my daughter to things like the community food programs in the city near us, when she was nearly five years old and allowed to participate.  She helped to read the recipes and create a shopping list, do the shopping and the cooking, and come along to the sites.  There she could only help to clean up the tables and bring extras to the participants, but it was one of the things that helped her to become the generous and careful person that she is today.

All of this brings me to where I am on this issue today.   I suspect that few people will agree with me, Diary, but I have some strong feelings about this.

If you are going to be charitable, then do it locally.  It is my belief that the only exception should be for any service, product or other support for our military personnel and their families.  As far as the governments of the world are concerned, if they are going to use military force to solve, ameliorate or defer their issues with other governments or groups, then, as far as I am concerned those creeps are on their own.  Unfortunately, in order to play their little war games, they need bodies to become fodder for their dreams of manifesting on the big stage their own insecurities and shortcomings, aspects they are unable to manage in their personal lives.

Seriously.  All of that filters down to individual people suffering.  I care about that aspect, I really and truly do.  If anyone cares to dispute my dedication to helping wherever help is needed, I am perfectly ready, more than willing, and able, to duke it out with you in person.  I do not consider myself a particularly violent person, nor do I endorse or support violence of any kind, and I am not the teeniest bit comfortable handling up-close-and-personal weapons, much less those of mass destruction, but I am willing to stand up for my beliefs, and this is one of them.  Alrighty, I am being ironical about the whole duking it out part.  I would not hit anyone or even have an argument because I do not do conflict of any kind, but just because I am a pacifist, it does not mean that I am a doormat.

The keep it local thing extends to adoptions, disaster relief, world-wide relief efforts and anything else of which you can think or find an organization willing to lend a helping hand.  Seriously.  I feel that strictly and that strongly about this.  I empathize as much as anyone when the call comes for assistance to a far-flung country experiencing a natural disaster or governmental screw-up or, well, anything.  I used to do that, too, jump to put in my pittance so that it would join all of the other pittances to make enough to feed the hungry, support medical aid, send blankets, baby clothes, clean drinking water, encourage and support local-based enterprises and the entrepreneurial spirit, animal husbandry and all the rest.  I used to financially support the efforts of a whole bunch of organizations, both local and all over the planet.

I know that giving is essential to living for me.  I need to share what I have with other people and organizations that help those who have even less than I do.  Were I lucky enough to have more money than I knew what to do with, I would be even more generous.  Frankly, I am more prosperous than many of the people on the planet, but whilst that is not an entirely separate issue, this is already too long and even I am losing interest in this, so much the worse for you, Diary.

However, during all of that donating, there were always situations, circumstances or conditions in my own community that went begging for funds.  I have always supported local needs, whatever they might be, but not to the extent that I could have, because my efforts were diluted by all of the other stuff I was supporting.  The truth is that even when you know about something or a lot of somethings, you simply cannot help everyone.

As for the arguments that there will always be countries who simply cannot help their own people, that is certainly true, but it is often the consequence of poorly designed or implemented efforts, and way too often corrupt officials and governments.  Frankly, the keep sending aid to those places means that you are actually supporting the local despots and that little, if any, of the money and supplies sent to those places ever filters down to the people who really need it.  Any doubts about that can quickly be shattered by a little research.  And, the plain and simple truth is that corrupt or clueless officials never seem to be educated and encouraged, much less censured or punished in an effort to change their ways, meaning that the people will always be suffering with no end possible or in sight.  

I know that makes me sound supremely selfish, but it is not possible to do everything and I decided to have more focus and immediacy in how I donate and volunteer.  I honor whatever and however other people choose to use their resources, but this is what works for me; my preference is to be as up close and personal with my giving as I am with everything else in my life.  Whatever you do, great, and there are sufficient personal opportunities for you to help someone, because your own community is full of volunteer opportunities just waiting to be filled.  Some of the more easily found are your faith community, veteran's organizations (even our tiny village has one), schools, hospitals, your local volunteer center, correctional facility, and so much more.

I care about people first, but just as important is your local humane society/organization, and whilst this is an issue that deserves it's own conversation, I am going to share a bit of what I have learned from 28 years of rescue work.  One of the more important things I learned from all of those years is that if it is possible to influence and teach children about humane treatment of animals, it often filters into the home, and through that child's life, how essential it is to be a good caretaker and steward of every living thing.  If you fall under the thrall of a group that claims to be a non-kill shelter/group, it is certainly better than nothing, because even a group that claims to be no-kill, well, the first time they turn away any animal (any condition, temperament, health) and even if that is related to the limits of their resources, that animal has to go to a municipal shelter or organization, which takes in every animal that comes to their door.  No-kill groups/shelters have the luxury of taking only the animals for which they have a decent chance of finding permanent homes, but that means that they are simply passing the burden to a facility that often has no alternative but the euthanize animals who are not lucky enough to find decent homes.  Municipal shelters have limited resources, as well, but they never turn anyone or any animal away from their doors.  If a no-kill organization passes on a single animal, for whatever reason, then they, and everyone who works or volunteers with them, hold the same responsibility for the eventual death of that animal, just the same as if you had been there, held the animal and used the drugs to end it's life.  No different.  Clearly this holds a large amount of energy for me, but right is right, no matter how one tries to nuance it.

So.

There are local volunteer centers all over the world.  Just go to Google and type in

volunteer center (then add your city, town, county, whatever)

You will find links to your center and they are wonderful at matching the interests and skills of volunteers to the needs in your own community.

Here are some links to find local places that could really use your help and/or donations.

Big Brothers Big Sisters
http://www.bbbs.org/site/c.9iILI3NGKhK6F/b.5962335/k.BE16/Home.htm

Habitat for Humanity
One of the many great things about Habitat is their ReStores, where they sell materials that were left over from projects and/or donated materials that they cannot use in their projects.  This is a great opportunity for volunteering, as well as finding home building and repair materials for your own projects, whilst support some seriously wonderful work.
http://www.habitat.org/default.aspx

American Red Cross (There is likely to be a similar organization where you live.)
http://www.redcross.org/

Volunteer Match
http://www.volunteermatch.org/

Corporation for National and Community Service
This includes:

•     AmeriCorps
•     Citizen Corps
•     Learn and Serve America
•     National Conference on Volunteering and Service
•     Peace Corps
•     Senior Corps
•     Volunteers for Prosperity
•     Federal Civil Service
•     Foreign Service
•     Military
•     State and Local Government
•     U. S. Public Health Service
•     Veterans Affairs
•     Volunteer.gov/gov

http://www.serve.gov/

This kind of mess is what happens when you are not getting the right amount of sleep.  Just saying.


Location still broken.  Alas.  How will I know where I am? 

GP
Bloom where you are planted.

Oh, I like this one

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 60

Breakfast:  Eggs
Lunch:  Frozen chicken pecan thing, 8 ounce can of pineapple, cuppy thing of applesauce
Dinner:  Japanese

Busy day at work, and less time than usual for lunch, so that was wolfed down posthaste.  Two less than sane clients, but both are harmless.  It is just so frustrating to know that there are always going to be people that I am unable to help.  One of them is now convinced that she can get a job that requires specific certification without having to actually take the training and pass the certification testing.  I did not even try to disavow her of that notion.  It would have made absolutely no difference, and so I saved myself the heartbreak of trying to help her with this hurdle.  I know that she will be back and I know how unlikely it is that I will be able to help her then. 

I was able to go to fiber club after and finally finished the tiny sweater.  I crocheted a nice collar on it and finally gave up with half of the top row to do because I simply could not see those teeny stitches.  I left early to get home and detoured to my favorite place and had a quick and satisfying dinner.  No extras, no fruit for dessert, no tea, nothing, just an entree and I was out of there.  I wanted to stop at the pharmacy on the way home, but sort of crashed and by the time I got here I was done, and well done at that. 

Straight to bed.  And, just my luck at trying to post during the changes.  Not sure I like all of them, but it is pointless to worry about something over which I have no control...just like everything else.  Rats, the location thingy is broken.  Great.

There must be a GP in here someplace.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 59

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch: Beefsteak, watermelon
Dinner:  Nothing, just not hungry yet. Need to add that I just had a cup of tomato soup, one of those little applesauce things, some probiotic chocolate and another cranberry snack pack thingy.  The chocolate is just plain weird.
Snack:  Cottage cheese

Lunch was more steak, with half left for lunch at work tomorrow.  I had bought bagged salad, but the produce bin must be all wonky, because it froze the stuff.  Very disappointing, as I really wanted to take a big salad tomorrow.  Rats.  I really should eat something soon, or else I will wake up and have to make something, not a fun thing to do.  I do not know how it happened, but we seem to be out of canned soup, which is what I wanted tonight.  And, some more of those rice/seeds crackers.

Tomorrow is my long day at work and I was finishing up some resource stuff and it got me to thinking about what I do and how I do it.  Truth is that I am really good at this work.  I have said this before, but everything that I have experienced in my life has brought me to do this work.  I am a tiny fish in a big pond, living in a village, but with two large cities on either side of me.  I work in the smaller of those.  Whilst I am valued at work, I am relatively unknown as the person who provides these services.

That said, our local workforce center, the literacy council and one of the nearby prisons refer people to me as someone who can help them craft the documents they need, especially when there is scant previous work experience.  They often send people with special needs and challenges, people that they simply do not have the staff or resources to help.  I have to say that that aspect of what I do, the trust that those organizations have in me is sometimes a bit overwhelming.  I am so aware of the great responsibility that I have to everyone who comes to me, high school students preparing for their first jobs and right on up to upper management people who need only a bit of fine-tuning on their résumés.  Oh, I should mention that I help people craft résumés, CVs and other job seeking documents, as well as honing their interviewing skills.

I help them find local resources, including social services, educational opportunities, literacy help and lots more.  I teach basic computer skills and how to navigate the Internet and use that to search for jobs and other information.  O have helped clients with tax and governmental, legal and other issues.  Clients have needed help creating their own businesses and marketing the products of their hobbies.  I am currently working with a client on patents.  Anything that has to do with creating and supporting income, well, that is what I do.  It is all about investing in the future and supporting people in finding and manifesting the work they are called to do. 

It can be difficult for people to do the deeper work involved, but only because no one has ever suggested that they should.  I and the work have made several people sweat, a few literally.  One woman is a semi-regular, as she struggles with a particular aspect, and she cries sometimes, but I suspect that she is a tender person who is inclined to shed more than the occasional tear.

There are days when I do more counseling than anything else, and although that is a natural extension of the main body of work, it is an area in which I wish I had more experience and training.  I am looking into the possibility of returning to school in the next semester, or the one following.  It is a huge commitment and I am not sure that I am up to meeting it.  Anyway, I do not have to decide until the last minute, as the classes with which I need to begin are never full.

So, anyway, I was thinking about what a job is, what it means to have a job and all that jazz.  For me it is the work I have done and what I am doing now.  It is about how I work a few days each week to improve my skills and move closer to being the really good resource that I want to be for my clients.  It is also about managing on the money I have, because I do this work, and a couple other jobs as a volunteer.  That is wonderful and all, but it means that I spend most of my time working for no wage.  No money.

I am, at least for now, content to do it this way.  If I decide to go back to school, things may have to change, and that is a huge part of the decisions I have to make.  This is truly huge, big picture stuff, even though we never use "big picture" anymore. smiley: smile

I have to figure out how the quality of what I do will be improved by taking those classes and how the quality of my life will change if I make this commitment, particularly where my family is concerned.

I was reading something this afternoon about the experiences of store staff who sell lottery tickets.  It was pretty compelling stuff, and whilst I am too conservative to participate in the state lottery, it is nice to entertain dreams about winning a whole shitload of money and making my life easier and making some other dreams come true.  But, I will never have that experience because I will never play the lottery.  However, if the Universe would like to drop that same pile of money on me, I promise to be an excellent steward of said fortune and would make it count, not just for myself and my current, personal, problematic issues, but for the world around me, most especially my community.

I have so many thoughts about what a job means and could mean to my clients, but that will have to wait for another time, because I absolutely have to go and search for some soup or something.

I made some new guilty pleasures today, but I cannot remember what any of them are.  Oh, a surprise.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 58

Breakfast:  Watermelon, corn
Lunch:  Corn
Dinner:  Cottage cheese, seedy rice crackers
Snack:  8 ounces of canned pineapple in juice, 3 snack-sized packages of dried cranberries...oh, the shame
Snack:  Cottage cheese...and hide the crackers!!

So, anyway, I bought these crackers because they had few ingredients, brown rice flour and a whole bunch of seeds.  I thought that I could eat something healthy and if they were terrible, so much the better.  Not that I wanted terrible tasting crackers, but it would be at least one thing that was reasonable in my cabinet.  Unfortunately, they are really delicious.  I was using the quiet around here today to catch up on refining some resources for my clients.  By the time I got around to the crackers, I was deep into some complicated stuff and before I knew it, the cheese was gone and I had been dipping my hand into the cracker bag and had eaten lots.  Too many, but at least they are healthy, yes?

The second snack is not yet eaten, but that might happen any minute now.

Yesterday's SAD is over it seems.  I am back to what passes for normal here, eating wise, and it feels much better.  I intentionally ate much less today.  Yeah, I know that you cannot make up for overeating like that, just like you cannot really catch up on missed sleep, but it made me feel a bit more virtuous or something.  You know, this whole eating issue is such a burden for me.  I have a freaking lifetime of neglect, lack of resources, guilt and shame to last a dozen lifetimes. 

All I want is to come to some reasonableness, some measure of comfort, a ceasefire, if you will, before I die, which if I am unable to accomplish this might be much sooner than I want.  It is O.K. to not want to die too soon, yes?  To not lose any toes to diabetes or go blind or have a stroke, yes?  Yes.  But, if I continue to be unable to find the courage, some responsibility or strength of character to care enough about myself so that I can embrace health and all of the work that it requires, then I am going to die in the near-ish future, or wish that I would.  I can do this crap for other people, why is it so difficult to do it for myself?  Whatever.

GP

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 57

Breakfast:   Oh, why bother!

Today was, still is a little bit, one of my stomach anxiety days...SAD, fer short.  I just made that up.  Lordy.  They do not happen often, but they are a source of uncertainty for me.  It begins with strong dream images that carry over into the morning.

No breakfast, but not because I am not hungry.  I feel hunger, but I am afraid to eat because it will begin an avalanche of eating.

There will not be any food choices that will sate my hunger.  No matter what I eat, healthy or crappy, substantial or light, there will be no lessening of feeling hungry.

When this happens, I try to eat very little and spread out what I am eating over a long period of time.  I am never successful at appeasing my need for food and the gnawing in my stomach, the growling and all that, but I always hold the hope that if I keep at it, that it will work on one of the SADs.  There is often a significant amount of swearing on SADs.  I make no apologies.

So, Diary, this is what happened and what I ate today.

I awoke and did my best to divest myself of the dream images.  I waited a couple of hours before eating and then I ate.  And ate.  It seemed like I was hungry beyond comfort every hour or so.  And, so I ate something every hour or so.  I managed a couple of two-hour gaps, but it was a struggle.

2 ears of corn, with a little butter and even less salt
3-inch thick slice of a small, seedless watermelon, with a little salt
Some crackers, really nice whole grain ones that are very, very satisfying, well, at least on a normal day
About a dozen cherries  I would have eaten more, but that is all that was left from yesterday.
8 ounce lobster tail, with butter
Sugar-free ice cream bar
Sugar-free ice cream bar
6 ounce steak, rare
More of the Kruncher chips, which really bothered me, so I smashed them up and put them out at the feeding stations for the raccoons and the crows.
In addition, I have been drinking even more water than I usually do, in the vain hope that it would keep me topped off and unable to feel hunger.

At the steak, I was up to 6:00 p.m., and I have managed to not eat anything else, but it has not been easy.  I am looking at that list and I am thinking holy crap.  Even worst is that, here I am at 8:30 and I could easily eat something.  I know that I will want to eat again before I go to bed, and that is just insane, and that I will cave and have something.

And, I have messed-up my meal plans, well, not as though I do any actual meal planning, but I had a generalized plan for the groceries I bought when I was out taking care of a friend yesterday.  The lobster was to be tonight's dinner and the steak was for tomorrow.  I also bought plenty of greens for salads, but none of that would do to satisfy me today, so I left them alone, knowing that I would still eat other stuff.

This has been happening for the past year or so (maybe longer, I really cannot remember), every few months and it is driving me crazy.  It is not so horrible when I am at home, but it has happened twice when I was at work.  The first time I had to go downstairs to the employee lounge and buy a couple of packets of crap from the vending machine.  The second time I was prepared, because I kept a bag of raw almonds in my office stuff just in case it happened again.  A much healthier choice, but just as upsetting.

This is nuts.  I suspect that it might be hormonal, if only because I cannot think of anything else.  How dumb.  For a while I thought that it had something to do with particularly vivid dreams, but I remember many of my dreams, sometimes several each night, and there are plenty of times when disturbing dream images follow me through my day, but there is not the insane hunger problem on those days.  Maybe I have some kind of imbalance or some dumb thing.  I bought some probiotics, bilberry, turmeric and some mixed vitamins for diabetics yesterday and will start with those tomorrow.

It only happens occasionally, and without any warning.  And, I am spending too much time thinking and writing about this.  But, it bugs me because it is such an out of control feeling, desperate and some other stuff that I am unable to define.  Just plain nuts.  As soon as I finished the meat, I felt better, as in much better.  Now I am wondering if I finally ran out of room in my stomach or if it had something to do with the protein.  Nah, if that were so, it would have been like that with the seafood earlier.  Even so, I might try meat or eggs the next time this strikes.  I just wrote a note in my planner.  It might be time to accept that this might happen again and to track it more carefully.

Aside from manifesting my inner Cookie Monster, without the cookies, I fell sort of all right.  I still have this hope thing going and since no one bothered me today, well, it is all good, you know?  I have an inner smile to keep CM company, and here it is:

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 56

Breakfast:  Eggs, bacon, hash browns
Lunch:  Taco Taco, small burrito, two crunchy tacos, huge soda
Dinner:  Crappy, limp salad, a couple of spoons/tastes of some truly heinous clam chowder, some oyster crackers and three lemon wedges
Snack:  The better part of a pound of cherries on the way home from my crappy day, some Kruncher chips

Breakfast with my friends, great coffee, lousy and surly service.  What the hell is wrong with people?  Seriously, the world seems to be full of seriously cranky people, which is somewhat comforting because I can be very cranky and cranked-up, although I keep it to myself, well, most of the time. 

I ate out three times today and accept how messed-up that is.  The lunch one was a place where you are not allowed to give tips, and the counter guy there left his counter during a lull and went around asking everyone if their food was O.K., and if they needed anything, which is totally not the kind of sweet service one would expect in such a humble place, but there it was and the guy was so nice.  When I had ordered and paid for my food, I saw a sign for a lemonade drink that had fruit, as in actual fruit and juice, in it and asked if it had been sweetened, and when the counter guy confirmed that, I mentioned that it looked really great, but that I had to avoid sugar and his reply was, "Well, in that case, just to help you feel better, that stuff is nasty, nasty, nasty!"  He referenced it again when he wandered by to ask if we needed anything.  Such a nice touch.  It happened again later at the drug store when a young guy came up to me and asked if he could help me find anything, which he could and which he did, telling me a couple of cool stories about rock climbing in the process of being super-duper helpful. 

The world is full of nice people like that, which makes the perpetual corps of doofuses (or, is it doofi?) just that much more noticeable.  Dinner with the friend that needs hauling everywhere had the same kind of person.  Sad service and really bad soup.  And, you know, when it comes to receiving service, I am a very low maintenance diner/customer/client/ordinary person.  I never send stuff back when dining.  I am a good consumer so that I never, ever, ever have to return anything to a store.  I do not request any kind of special attention and just go with the flow as much as possible so as to avoid even the merest suggestion of any problem.  I am just as non-confrontational in public as I am in the more private parts of my life.  That makes me sound like a doormat, and I guess that I mostly am that.

Whatever.  You know, I get to where I can stand up and then it just drifts away, that feeling that I have the ability and self-responsibility to do it.  Just...drifts...away...poof...there it goes.

And, it is not helping that I was clearing out some of the junk that I never revisit from my computer files and stumbled into the writings of a friend who lost her son a few years ago.  I read and then went back in time and read from the beginning of that loss, the tragedy and pain of losing that lovely boy.  Then, I was no longer weeping for my own losses and problems, but for the absence of that sweet and wonderful boy and all of the people and places and things that we no longer have in our lives, individually and collectively, all that stuff that makes life worth the struggle, at least it did before it came up missing. 

I know that my sorrow is not unique, at least in the larger aspect of a life, mine, yours, the lives of everyone.   You know that saying about how happy families are alike in their happiness, but unhappy families are unique in their unhappiness.  Yeah, like that.  But, even though our individual pain is specific to the qualities and experiences of each of our lives, the entirety of sadness connects us because we all feel loss and sorrow and pain pretty much the same, as only human bodies and minds and hearts can...that is what connects us.

So, my friend's pain at losing her son is sort of my pain, too, because I knew and loved him in my own way, but it mirrors all of the suffering of my own life.  I feel the same qualities of pain for her loss as I do for my own. 

It is like this stupid visual disorder that I have and that other people, not many, but more than enough, have and when someone reads about what another person's symptoms are like and how it fucks up their life, someone else might say that they really do not have anything to complain about because they view their own symptoms as being less somehow, and that is total bullshit.  The difficulty each person has is equal in significance to that of another person and to compare them is pointless.  We all suffer at our own level of discomfort, pain.  And, it is, it is how we are connected.  

So, I am feeling sad about all of this stuff again, and instead of trying to get rid of it, I think that I might want to, might actually honor it a bit tonight.  I do not intend to wallow, but I am going to allow myself to feel it as fully as possible, immerse myself in the experience, re-experience it as completely as I can, acknowledge it and then let it pass through me, fall away from my physical body and into the earth, my planet, our Mother, where it can be honored and transformed into something good, something wonderful, something life-affirming.  I can do that.

I did not draw this GP, but I did pay for it in a collection of clip art and it (and the slight alteration I made to it) perfectly suits my general lack of understanding and intelligence today.  Yep.  It does.  But, I can transcend it, yes? 

Yes.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 55

Breakfast:  Frozen dinner thing, turkey I think, with potatoes and green beans
Lunch:  Small can of pineapple rings, can of soup
Dinner:  Leftover cheese popcorn, microwave popcorn, half a chocolate bar

I also had lots of diet soft drinks.  Water just seemed too icky today.  I also forgot to go and gallery sit.  I am not sure how that happened, but it did.  I should probably rummage around for more soup or have crackers and peanut butter or something reasonable, but I think that I am going to pop some more corn and have a whiskey with it.  I am making all sorts of bad decisions, so what, really, is one more.

It just was not such a great day.  That happens and tomorrow might be better, I am guessing.  Right now it seems like too much trouble to meet my friends for coffee, but I am not making that decision until the morning.  I contacted my friend, for whom I run errands and take her out for meals and we are going to check her frozen and refrigerated stuff to see if any of it was ruined by last night's storms, although I am not sure how successful that will be now that the electric power has been restored.  What a mess.

I have a new GP, made earlier today in some dumb effort to be more hopeful in a world that does not  hold much hope lately.  It is so disheartening to have a couple of nice days, begin to feel better and then come back to more of the same crap.  I need hearts.  You know, you should be able to feel safe in your own house.  It is not like I am asking for happy or anything, I know that is never going to happen, but safe would be nice, like really nice.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Days 52 - 53 - 54

I cannot remember what I have been eating for the past three days.

I know that there were, for breakfasts:
some hard-boiled eggs
some instant oatmeal
a tiny poppy seed muffin
lots of coffee
2 bananas
orange juice
more boiled eggs

What the heck did I have for lunches?

Oh:
a six-inch roast beef flatbread thing from Subway at a tollway rest stop, and a couple of apples and another hard-boiled egg for lunch yesterday.

Then, today, it was Perkins, the senior turkey dinner, with fresh broccoli, mashed potatoes and a roll, but the food was cold and I did not eat the dressing or the roll, but did manage to choke down most of the rest.

Dinners were better.  Two fabulous Amish meals, one hosted at a working farm and the other at a nice, family style restaurant last night.

There were plenty of temptations along the way, but I totally resisted most of them, and only partially caved on two others.  One was an amazing donut with the best pastry cream ever, and a piece of pie last night, from which I took two nice bites and a third of just the whipped topping.  It was a thin layer of the best cheesecake I have ever tasted, a layer of freshly made raspberry jam, pastry cream, the whipped topping and a drizzle of more jam.  It was delicious and the pride of eating just a couple of tastes was the most delicious part.  As we were leaving, they gave each of us a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie that was more shortbread than cookie and I left that behind.

Still, even with all of the will power, I know that my calorie intake (even though I am not counting them) must have been in the stratosphere.  Oh, well.

So, anyway, I was in Amish country for the better part of the past three days.  It was nice to be away, but I worried the entire time about the consequences...here...of actually daring to go on this little trip.  And, I am going to share, Dear Diary, that that particular problem resolved itself.  I am not saying that it will not rear it's huge head again at some future time, but, for now, it is a sleeping monster.  And, all I have to say about any of it is that sometimes, doing the right things for the right reasons and being assured that you will still have to pay some insane and unnamed price for some equally insane and unnamed violation will come to naught.  That means that nothing horrible happened when I returned home late this afternoon.  Nothing.

Unfortunately, it is not because I am a decent person, you know, that right-thing/right-reason person.  Nope, it is because someone who is not me tried to betray me and in the process totally and completely messed up on the betrayal thing and ended up messing up his own plans.  Unfortunately, that still turned out to be my fault, and whilst I am not certain exactly how that is supposed to have happened, I am fine with it.

Besides, when I found out about how messed up the other stuff got, like really and truly messed up, like huge issue messed up and financially seriously messed up, it was impossible to take any relief, much less any pleasure in what happened whist I was away.  And, even though I am very relieved about much of it, I have already tried to help remedy it.  There is no doubt in my mind that being supportive and helpful will still come back to bite me, it is what I am going to do.

And, I am going to schedule and pay for more of these little trips.  It was fun going someplace very different and meeting lots of cool people, well, except for the woman who kept trying to push me out of the way all the time.  I had such a wonderful time, that when everyone else went on a whole bunch of shuttle trips and did all kinds of fun shopping and stuff, I stayed at the hotel, had a couple of apples for lunch, read a huge portion of one of the books I took along and fell asleep whilst reading.  Right there on my bed.  Freaking glorious.

When the tour director person (or whatever her job title is) walked around on the coach asking each person what their favorite part of the trip was, my answer was the nap.  No one to bother me, interrupt me or do anything to me.  It was an absolutely heavenly experience and I hope to have at least two more this year...trips and naps!

It will be interesting to see what happens around here over the next few days.  Tomorrow will find me booking two more trips, both longer than this one (3 days), and the consequence chips may fall where they like.  Not worrying my pretty, little head about any of it.

Now I just have to figure out what there is around here for dinner tonight.  Maybe some soup or something.

GP?  Neigh...errrr...yep!

A couple of final thoughts.  One is that, in the interest and service of honestly, I have to admit that I have caught myself smiling a couple of times whilst typing this.  Yeah, I am glad to have avoided the whole promised/threatened consequence thing, but I am a little amused that things turned out the way they have.  I sincerely do not wish anything bad on anyone, not even someone who is not me (SWINM). Really.  That said, I am smiling about some aspects of the stuff that got messed up.  

I know that makes me a bad person, but I seem unable to stop those muscles from making that face, the smiling one.

The other thought is that maybe something changed.  Maybe it is me.  Maybe not, but something did.  It will be interesting to see how this manifests, and if it will help me stay on course here and actually be healthier at the end of this project.  

I feel hopeful. 

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 51

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch:  Japanese restaurant  Yum
Dinner:  Frozen lasagna

It seems like the only breakfasts that I am eating these days are the drive-through ones on the days I have to be out and about early.  Not so good.  Have to do better.

Anyways, I was out returning library books, getting my meds and a couple of gifts, and I was sort of on my way home when I stopped at my favorite clothing store and I bought stuff.  Lots of stuff.  Three over shirts (one is a wonderful pale rose linen, yummy), two tops, 2 pair of socks (compression for my diabetic legs), 2 bras and some undies.  Whew.  Everything was on sale, like a big, huge sale and I spent a pittance on all of it.  I knew that it had been a while since I did any clothing buying, but they found me in their computer system and it has been more than six years. 

So, now I have nice summery clothing.  It is kind of nice.  I am trying to not feel guilty about spending the money, but with all of the traveling I am doing in the next few months and the presents and stuff for the babies, I mean, really, what difference is a bit more going to make.  This is the money left after paying the few expenses I have, so off and away with the guilt, I say!

I had an interesting conversation with the store clerk.  She mentioned that I seemed to be choosing sizes that are too large for me and gave me some items in smaller sizes, just to try.  She told me that my clothing is just kind of hanging on me, and I guess that she is right.  So, it seems that I have lost some weight and the stuff I bought is 2 to 3 sizes smaller than what I have been wearing.  So, bowing to her expertise, I bought the smaller sizes, but it feels weird and I know that I am going to miss having all that loose fabric behind which I can hide.  Sort of.  Anyway, it feels odd, mostly because I have been eating out so much and I know that I have gained back some of the flab that I lost over the past several months.  Weird.

So, short and shorter. I am now in the second half of this project and not even close to meeting my expectations.  Man.  There is some unpleasantness in my future, some bad stuff coming down.  I do not know if I am prepared, but whether or not I am, it is still coming.  I am going to find out if taking a stand and standing up for myself is going to work.  I can only do what I can do, and it has to be enough, yes?

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 50

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch:  Nothing
Dinner:  Nothing, yet

So, anyway, Dear Diary, I have been feeling so good about just everything.  A life is not static.  Stuff happens.  Uncertainty is the one thing of which you can be certain, especially if you are going to do more than stay home in your little cave and not be involved in anything.  Oh, lordy, does stuff happen.  You know, I would not have it any other way.  Really.

A lot of days without serious problems, except for the usual ones around here.  I went to the fruit festival yesterday and it was great and then today happened.  It is not worth writing about here, but it was pretty terrible and it was made clear that it was, not exactly punishment for having a life, but sort of like the consequences of doing things that someone does not want me to do.  I kind of crumbled into pieces earlier, but am better now. 

I was trying so hard to make this work here and praying about it and asking for some way to resolves some of the stuff.  Well, you often get exactly what you ask for and that manifested early this morning.  It is just that I was unprepared for how it happened, as in caught completely off-guard.  You know, just when you think that being a good person, doing all of the right things for the right reasons, that all of that love and support will come back to you in some measure, it does not.  Well, that is the way it goes.  I should not ever be surprised, but I am.  Over and over. 

Once I recovered from the shock, I was fine.  I will be better, but, gosh, I do not think that I will ever get used to this and that I will always be stunned when it happens again.  The deliberate cruelty is, what, a new heartbreak every single time.  I have had hours to think about this and, whilst I am sort of, kind of all right with being a person who can still have the whole breaking of the heart thing, it would be fine with me if it never happened again.

I will be gone for three days this week, which will only make things worse, big-picture-wise, but it is too late to do anything about that.  I am going to think of it as the calm before the storm and enjoy as much of it as I can.  I need the time away to make some plans, figure out what to do, stay sane.  You know, like that.

It is interesting, though, that I am sort of, kind of back to feeling good.  The bad stuff is really only beginning, but I was, am, able to bounce back even though this sadness will be with me for a while I am guessing.  At some point, I am just going to have to accept that maybe what the heart wants is not what is best.  I am resisting that.  I have to, if only to know for certain that I did everything possible to make this work.  It is all so sad. 

But, I am strong, and strong in a way that I have not been for a long time.  Maybe I never had this kind of strength before.  It feels new, so perhaps that is true.  Anyway, nothing here is going to destroy me, not the stuff that happens, not the made-up stories, not the misunderstanding from others, none of it.  I have this crazy feeling that I do not have any responsibility to defend myself against any of the stories and the consequences of stories being told.  I know, Diary, that I am being obtuse, but I am doing that a lot lately.  Even writing this to myself in this manner seems like a defense, but I am hoping that it is not.  If I cannot be seen for who I am, then, well, so be it.  Hell, I do that for other people, they can do it for me, dammit!

Anyway, I am still not hungry, but might have some ice cream and go to bed early.  I have some serious divesting to do tomorrow.

And, bloody hell, I still feel good.  Man.

As for GP, the hearts are feeling as though they are part of the sadness, so I am off to make something more cheerful.  Be right back.
Alrighty, here goes.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 49

Breakfast:  2 breakfast sandwiches
Lunch:  Some kind of ravioli with goat cheese, herbs and a pale pink sauce, 2 slices of a baguette
Dinner:  Caramel apple with nuts, some Pringles
Snacks:  Fruit ice cream, chocolate dipped, several samples of salsa, fruit donut, fruit daiquiri

Today was all non-home food.  I think that the caramel apple has done me in, because I can barely stay awake.  So, this will be short and sweet...fruit festival pun!

Early day, lots of fun and plenty of butter and fruity olive oil on my bread.  The village had several shops dedicated to European countries.  One was Irish and I bought truly cool  family heraldic things for someone who is not me, some cool toys and name pictures for the babies and a necklace for me, which I promptly deconstructed to free the two elements that I wanted from it.  Shortly after that, we saw a sign for daiquiris of the festival fruit, which we had.  It was a cool place and we decided to return for lunch, which was amazing, even though the waitperson brought me the wrong thing. 

After that we wandered around, visiting shops, sampling an stunning array of salsas (one of which had a delayed effect and left me sweating, a habanero mixture that really was not all that hot to begin), buying small gifts and listening to music.  At one area there were musicians that are likely to have little work other than festivals and another area featuring a group that would have kept us sitting and listening for hours, which we did not have.

I really, really wanted an ear of freshly roasted corn, but lunch filled us and ice cream bars freshly dipped in dark chocolate finished us off.  So, no corn for me, or anything else for that matter.

When I arrived home, I found that one of my friends had bought a caramel apple and slipped it into my bag.  You know, strictly in the spirit of being a good friend, it only made sense to have it for dinner.  Now I need a serious nap, and I am guessing that it will be only a few more minutes before I fall asleep.  I wonder what my blood sugar level is.  Lordy.

It was a nice day.  I am glad that I went and I think it might be worth a return next year.  And, it involved walking nearly all of the time, like six hours of trekking around.  No wonder I am tired.

Another GP heart. 

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 48

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch:  2 hot dogs, relish, jalapenos, yellow mustard
Dinner:  Baked cod, baked potato (sour cream, butter, tons of pepper), cole slaw

Planning ahead for dinner, there would be no serious food during the day.  So, I had funny food, a pair of hot dogs from the gas station, one of my favorite guilty pleasures of all time.  In decades of having them, I have only gotten sick one time and that was earlier this year.  I have to admit that it put me on alert, but it never made me think of never having them again.  It is only every few months that I do so. 

My son-in-law's sister loves them, as well, and it was one of the ways that we bonded, because she did not really like me all that much.  She did not have much of a chance, though, because I am relentless and will wear you down until you simply cannot resist me.  It would be nice if some people just liked me for who I am, but if I have to persist, then that is what I am willing to do.  In my sixty-four years, there are only a handful of people who have not succumbed to my will, one of which you can guess, Dear Diary.  Yep.  No amount of anything has helped there.

So, anyway, dinner was to celebrate the birthday of a friend who I met on pilgrimage to England and Wales a long time ago.  She moved to the D.C. area to be closer to family a few years ago and when she comes back it is always worthy of celebration, but this time it coincided with her birthday so that is what we did.

The restaurant is kind of a bar/tavern that grew.  Years ago it was a nice place to go for lunch and have a nice burger or reuben sandwich and excellent fries.  Well, tonight, it looked the same from the front, but once inside, it was like stepping into an alternate universe.  I mean, the place was huge.  And, it was packed.  And, it was expensive.  Holey-moley.  It ended well, but tomorrow's trip to the fruit festival will find me with less cash.  Probably just as well, since the food there is supposed to be amazing.  Like, truly.

All in all, not a bad day, food wise.

However, I did learn a few things.

I learned that I could have an outstanding week, bi-polar issues aside, and I think that it was because I stood up for myself.  Twice.  Once last week when the most recent attack took place, and again this morning when an attempt to do it again happened.  I will never win even a moment's peace here, but, crap, I stood up for myself and the world did not end.  I know that retaliation is coming.  Not only because it always does, but because I overheard part of a telephone conversation.  At least I know part of what is coming.  Forewarned is forearmed, and all that jazz.  Anyway, I have to practice this standing up and make it a part of more of what happens around here.  After this thing this morning, I just sat there, here actually at my desk, and threw myself on the mercy of the Universe.  Oh, please, allow something or some way to manifest so that I can move on.

Which brings me to the second thing I learned today, and it is that it is fine to hold on to my dreams.  Wishes, hopes, dreams, they are all worth having, even when they are impossible, even when you probably do not deserve to have them come to pass.  Yeah, even then.  Sometimes they are all that keep me going, that yearning for a better life where there would not be all of this mess and stress.  The truth is that I could pack my crap and leave any time I wanted.  O.K. that is true, but it is not the whole truth.  Diary, you know what binds me here and when that is resolved, well, we will see what happens.

I learned that if your friend, the nun, tells you a story about one of the people she serves in her community and makes a stupid comment about how not bright one of the men is because he is a member of a minority, that I can ask her what that means and just let her talk until she realizes that her assessment of him is more related to inadequate educational opportunities than lack of intelligence.  However, there was nothing I could do to dissuade her from the whole race thing.  I mean, if you cannot count on a nun to be fair and balanced, then who can you count on? 

I learned that even when a friend is generally despicable, I can still find a way to be a friend.  It was not easy, but I did it. I think that feeling so good helped, but this has been a concern for me for a long time and it was nice to take the high road and try to get over some of the other stuff.

I learned that even when I feel like stabbing myself with a fork, that I can get through a dinner with her and still be friendly and conversational, even when the other her bails and moves to the end of the table to avoid her, the first one.  Hours later, still making me smile.  However, she...the first her...is not going to be a part of any of my future travel plans.  I go away to get away, not to take any of the stuff with me.

The birthday girl invited me to visit her and when two other of our friends overheard (not the her), they invited themselves along and the birthday girl was delighted.  I said that I would meet them all out there, D.C., since they prefer to fly and they decided that they would love to take the train, as well.  Sigh.  I am not all that worried, since I have months to make other arrangements to go alone and not hurt the feelings of anyone, all women that I love.  It will work out.  Yep.  Oh, and the learning here is that I now realize that I am not willing to spend my away time with anyone.  I mean, how selfish is that.  Really selfish.  I have some serious work to do here.

Alrighty, another heart.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 47

Breakfast:  Eggs
Lunch:  Japanese, very late, mid-afternoon
Dinner:  Diet Rite, cheese popcorn, orange sherbet

It seems that I have given up, yes?  I feel like I am still invested in this process, but the facts, and my ginormous butt, bear false witness to that.  Still, I begin every day with a joyful spirit and enthusiasm to eat well, get some extra walking in there someplace and prove to myself that I am capable of making and keeping a commitment.  Ending each day is much the same, enthusiasm-wise, but with the bitter knowledge of how I end up laughing in the face of my determination.  Hah!  Take that, Resolve!  Ho, there, Steadfastness, where do you think you are going?  Whoa, Tenacity, stop dilly-dallying and get everyone back on track.  Why do you think we made you the leader, just so that you could sit there, stick there and wave a pom-pon once in a while?

There are too many players in this whole thing...no wonder I cannot get it all together. 

I should be really upset about my lack of doggedness, but I am not.  I have had one kick-ass week and I am still feeling great.  I think that there is a new bone-on-bone place  rubbing away in my right hip, the nerve pain has amped up a bit on my face, and someone who is not me found a new way to manifest his inner, mean, (expletive-laced) bastard, but none of this seems to make any difference.  Not even the crazier than usual local folk who come to chat with me at work, and most especially the guy who came in to interview me as a potential employee of his to help him with his attempts to avoid being shut-down by the government because they do not want him to get the patents and produce the things he has invented that will save the world. It was a very interesting hour with him, I have not committed to being hired by him, declined his invitation to exchange telephone numbers and addresses and will not be going to his house to help de-bug it from the eavesdropping equipment the secret operatives have installed there, even though they taunt him by calling him on the telephone and telling him to put down his book and leave the house.

Truth be told, I think that the crazier than usual folk are my favorite kind of people.  They have found me at work and at the gallery.  It is never an inconvenience to have them stop by and chat away like they are making any kind of sense to be, because the whole world is not making any sense and it is my guess that those guys have a head start on the rest of us.  You know that saying about how just because you are paranoid, it does not mean that they are not out to get you.  Yep.

I am not a fan of Karen Kingsbury, but I accidentally watched a film made from one of her books this evening, and I like it.  A lot.  Like, really a lot.  I wonder if I am bi-polar and in the manic phase.  Really, that would explain so much. 

Whatever the cause of my decent moods, bless it.  And, even though it was not the best kind of choice to make for dinner, I am please by having eaten only orange food.  The only thing that would have made it complete would have been an orange soda, but the diet ones taste kind of icky and the regular kind tastes kind of not so great for my blood sugar.

Whatever is going on here, it is chasing the complaining right out of me, which is always a good thing.  And, I have a new Richard Laymon book to shiver my timbers tonight.  I hope that there is lots of gore in my immediate future.  So, on to the GP.

More hearts, I think.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 46

Brealfast: 3 eggs
Lunch:  1/2 roast beef sandwich, 3 strawberries
Dinner:  Japanese place

I am feeling pretty darn good.  I wish that I was not such an emotionally responsive person.  It would make my life much easier.  I would not over-eat when I am sad.  I would not over-eat in celebration when something great happens.  I would not cry all the freaking time.  I would not be so moody, cranky, bitchy or all over the place all the time.  I would not be so sensitive that the slightest disapproval from anyone would not send me shame-spiralling all over the place.  I would not worry about a tiny percentage of the stuff that has me stressing all over the place.

But, then again, I would also not be feeling so nice today.

I had the opportunity to be the person I believe myself to be, you know, that person who does the right things for the right reasons and is able to put others above her own, petty concerns and really do some thing meaningful.  I cannot give any details, but I was able to do that today.  I helped two people who have extraordinary life, cognitive and emotional challenges.  It was sensitive and difficult work, but I did exactly what I believe that 'good' person inside of me is capable of doing.

There is hardly a better feeling.  Tomorrow might be back to the same old crap, but, at least for today, I shone like a freaking star, hell, an entire constellation...nah, like a galaxy.  Yay me!

I do not even care that my hips hurts like a bitch or that my computer seems on the edge of a major breakdown and keeps disconnecting itself every ten seconds.

More GP hearts on the way, but for today it is all about the eyes.  Looking inwards or out upon the world, the eyes truly have it.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 45

Breakfast:  Eggs
Breakfast:  Bagel, cream cheese, 1 bite of a chocolate donut hole, which I immediately spit out, too icky for even me
Lunch:  Small turkey sub sandwich, chocolate chip cookie
Dinner: Japanese place

I fell and failed at the volunteer thing when I saw that they had bagels and cream cheese from Panera.  That the donut hole was fairly heinous is of small consolation.

I flew home afterwards to do more laundry and then took my friend to her doctor appointment.  She had plans, unshared by the way, of a big, long, late lunch and then shopping.  My compromise (another way of saying that I kind of refused to do the other stuff, but in a nice way) was to drop off her new eyeglass prescription and pick up some fast food for her to take home.  She was hugely disappointed and, I think, a little angry with me.  I felt badly about that, the whole disappointing her part, still do feel some guilt in not just going along with what she wanted, but I have to do this tough love stuff with her.  As it was, just the appointment, dropping the prescription and doing the drive-through at Culvers took more than three hours, mostly because she dawdled and had to talk to every stranger we encountered.  I promised to take her to lunch when we pick up her eyeglasses next week, but did not mention shopping and am hoping to avoid any more of those 8 to 12 hour days.  I simply cannot do those long days anymore, and if that makes me a shitty friend, then, so be it.

I really did not have much time, but it was going to take less time to eat out than to shop and cook something, so I took the easy way and went to the Japanese place.  A quick in, order, eat and I was on my way in barely more than a half hour.  Nice.

I managed to finish the laundry only 25 minutes past deadline and shower and all the rest before anyone else went to bed, but I was unable to find my lost library book.  It is backstock, so I was able to renew it five times before someone else wanted to borrow it, as I kept hoping that I would stumble across it and not have to pay for the darn thing.  I have never lost a library book before, so I guess it was time to add that to my life experiences.  Having to pay the replacement and processing costs is a good lesson in responsibility, but one that I would have preferred not to need.  If I ever find the darn thing, I will donate it back to the library.

So, I ate too much today...huge, freaking surprise...and was not a good friend and did not finish the laundry on time.  Triple fail.  However, the morning's volunteer thing was amazing and one of the organizers told me that since I seem to be doing so much for them, they might as well hire me.  I laughed, but I think that he might have been just a little serious about it.  I am not sure that I am interested in working for the government, but it might be worth considering, especially since I would like to move, sometime before I die.

Gosh, it is late and I have an early and long day tomorrow.  One of my favorite clients has an appointment tomorrow, and whilst she might be trying to scam me, she is so charming that I do not mind. 

'nother heart.  It is broken because I am saying more goodbyes.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 44

Breakfast:  Lean Cuisine dinner, pecan chicken something, I think
Lunch:  3 natural hot dogs, mustard, canned beets
Dinner:  Cashews, 2 crackers with peanut butter on them

I spent today using as few calories as possible.  Both of my legs hurt from all of the walking this weekend.  Swollen and sore, joints and muscles.  So, it seemed to be a good idea to not eat very much.  I am not counting calories, but I have done so for most of my adult life, and I estimate that there were somewhere around 900 of them in today's foods.  That seems close enough.  I could check, but then I would have to use some of those calories to haul myself out of this chair and go look.  Rats.  I just checked and it was 1150 calories.  Too many to even think about having lost any tonnage.  Even though that, the weight, is not supposed to be my focus, it is disheartening to find that today was most likely, at best (a hopeful best), a draw in the in and out department.  F.  (I am trying to not curse.)

Tomorrow is not going to help any.  It is a day of volunteering for the big city near me.  It is part of their summer employment training program for young people.  We did all of the interviewing weeks ago and their training began today with a week's worth of orientation.  I have not any idea what they did today, but tomorrow is like a job fair, if you know what is.  Each of the tables/stations will not be hosted by potential employers, but with information and help related to finances, how to choose a job category (like that is even possible these days, but bless their hearts for building the concept into the program), and all of the expenses that are part of living.  Housing, health care/insurance, vehicles, clothing, household expenses, families, pets, the whole works.  They will have to set up an actual savings and checking accounts with representatives of a local credit union (like a bank), do the paperwork for a 401k account and a lot more.  It should be interesting, especially since they did not notify the volunteers that they were chosen to participate (that would be me and other hapless souls), and aside from arriving a half hour before the participants, there does not seem to be any training that I can tell. 

They are going to give us a light breakfast, whatever the hell that means.  My guess is that it will be coffee and donuts.  My guess is that I will try to get up extra early and make some eggs, or that I will dilly-dally and have to drive-through for some more of those yummy breakfast sandwiches and a big, steaming cup of fairly decent coffee.  Honestly, tomorrow is laundry day, so it is more important to get a load running before I leave home.  There is a lunch offering, but I am guessing that it is more of the same sub sandwiches, chips, cookies, canned soft drinks and other snack things.  So, I will probably be skipping that as well and getting one of those great salads from Wendy's.  I hate to miss that part, though, because sitting around with the other volunteers is a great resource opportunity for me.  Those people are all professionals and I have much to learn from them that could help me with my clients. 

It really is a surreal experience.  There they all are, HR people, executives, radio personalities, and then there is me.  The same thing used to happen to me when I was part of the RIF (Reading is Fundamental) program in the elementary schools in another big city near me.  Doctors, lawyers, police officers, bank officials, veterinarians, businessmen of all kinds.  Then, me.  I am hoping it means that they keep asking me to do these things because they believe that I have something to offer, but it is very humbling to be in the company of such important people.

I should have enough time to come home, toss in more laundry, maybe heat up another of those frozen diet meals and get going to pick up one of my women, who has a doctor's appointment in the afternoon.  Then home again, to shower, wash hair and do one last load of linens, since I am nearly out of clean towels.

On a more personal note, something sad happened today.  The woman who owns the gallery has been expecting some important mail and was not certain if it would come to her place here or the one in another state, which is where she is now.  Something did come last week, and I called her to let her know that it was there and had to leave a message on her voice mail. 

I hate voice mail.  You never know if someone is going to check or if it actually will be there when they do check or some damn thing.  I do not have it, so I always figure that no news is good news, which in my life is pretty much the case.  But, she does have it and she was concerned and I called and left a message.  She did not call back, even though I left my phone on until after midnight.  She knew that I was out of town, but did not call in to ask for more information, which, frankly, I would not have had because I did not open the mail.

This afternoon I heard my phone beeping and when I checked, there were two messages.  Apparently, my friend was not able to reach anyone who could check on the darn mail (there are four of us) and was frantic worrying about what it was.  So, being the good boyfriend that he is, her boyfriend (I digress, but I love that us older babes can still have boyfriends and actually call them that.) called my cell phone and left a stunning message about how upset she was and then made a couple of mild threats.  Yeah, stunning.  I was guessing that the second message was also from him, adding the few things he might have missed saying in the first message, but it was from my friend, who assured me that I had done the right thing and not to worry.  This was later followed by another call from her, where she raged about all kinds of things and the bottom line is that I was the recipient of a whole bunch of frustration about a whole bunch of things. 

I think I have to be finished there, at the gallery.  I am not looking forward to seeing her boyfriend again, although I will miss seeing her.  I have Thursday off and think that I might take the morning to gather my work and leave my keys there.  She is in another state and I am the only person who keeps the gallery open during the week, so I will not risk running into anyone.  This is all too complicated and today was kind of scary.  No, it was a lot scary and I have enough to deal with in my own life, without taking on the pathology of another relationship. 

I am really going to miss going there.  I like welcoming people and talking about the art there and just art in general.  I like having my stuff there and having people like it and sometimes buy some of it.  Yeah, that extra money is nice.  It paid for most of my traveling.  I will miss the other artists and the, gosh, so wonderful discussions we have, and the musicians that drop by to play and I will even miss the street people who stop in to chat a while.  I am going to miss all of it so much.  Even on slow days, there is hardly a more lovely place to sit and knit or read or just sit.  I can still do art stuff, and I still exhibit other places, but this place, this gallery, was special.  It still is special, it is just that I will no longer be a part of it.

Well, you cannot have everything, but it was a little piece of heaven in contrast to much of the rest of my life.  Everything comes to an end of some sort and I have to allow myself to experience this break and be patient for the next thing that might come along.  You know, if I were still busy with the gallery, I might miss that next thing or things.  So, in the end, big picture and all, it is a good thing.  Sad, but ultimately good.  I hope.

So, aside from the food issue, not a bad day.  Well, I guess it sort of was, but I am not going to dwell on it.

What's left?  Ah, GP.  I have a bunch of hearts in the guilty pleasure realm and after the happenings of the past couple of weeks, I need all the hearts I can get, so that is what it will be for the next week or so.  Hearts.  Some of them are on the dark side, but I guess that is appropriate, as well.

What the hell happened to being all light and happy about this?  You know, my intent was to stop complaining all the damn time, but I seem to be stuck on the pain and not able to concentrate on the gain, gaining of better health and a more healthy attitude and outlook.  That is/was my goal, if I actually had goals, I mean.  I kind of suck, yes?  Yes, I do.  I am sorry, I do not mean to be so sucky.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 43

Breakfast:  Eggs, bacon, hash browns (icky, ate them anyway), raisin bread toast, coffee (lots)
Lunch:  Culver's bacon burger, sweet potato fries, diet cola, root beer float
Dinner:  Nothing - amended to add blueberry yogurt

Back home.  Had a good breakfast, except for the toast and hash browns.  My intentions were good, but not good enough.  Lunch was on the trip home and, frankly, there really is not any reasonable menu choice for seriously healthy eating.  There was one salad choice that I could see, and it was some berry thing.  They may have others, but I could not find any on the menu board whilst I was waiting in line, and since the lines were full of our coach members as well as the hapless locals that decided to eat when we were there, I was reluctant to engage in conversation with the counter staff about making modification to what I did see.  In my defense, I did not choose the grilled reuben sandwich, something I wanted very much since we were rushed at lunch on the trip up yesterday and I was able to eat only some of the inside of the reuben I ordered then.  I think I forgot to mention that.  Sad, really, because it was made with homemade marble rye bread.  I will bet it was delicious.

I did fall victim to the fries, but they were of a kinder, gentler potato.  I have absolutely no defense for the float, except that it was the smallest size.  Truth be told, I did not much enjoy the burger.  It had too much processed cheese and mayonnaise on it.  I scraped as much off as I could and then did not eat the last quarter of the thing anyway.  The float disappointed, as well.  Huh.

The tour director passed out more candy, chips and peanuts on the way home and I asked her if her final offering was going to be insulin.  She thought it only mildly amusing and I am guessing that was only because a fellow traveler laughed and she was trying to be a good sport to my smart-ass-ed-ness. 

I ate the little bag of chips, but not the rest.  Still, no dinner for me.  Rats, I still have to take my meds and they need to be taken with food, so it will have to be the little yogurt with blueberries. You know, if I do not start taking this healthy thing seriously, I am going to end up worse off than when I began over a month ago.  Hell, I am nearly halfway through the process and the only weight I have lost is where I did not want to lose any.    Sure, I do have one less chin and less flab in a couple of places.  Big deal.  Small victories, nearly insignificant in the larger war.  I seem to lack the will to do this getting healthier thing.  I sense sabotage from within.  A decidedly bigger deal.

As for feeling, well, I felt well during the weekend.  No stress, no thinking about stuff.  The new pain med worked great and my hips and knees did not bother me a bit until it was close to time for the next dose.  I could take another one now, but I am going to try to fall asleep without it, thinking that being back in my own, comfy bed will be enough to help me fall right to sleep.

I am feeling kind of cranky because it is steaming in here.  I will manage.  Two days away from everything should be two more notches on my Belt Of Courage.  I need to be more brave and every little bit helps.  I worried that these little trips were an attempt to escape from the here, but I think, I believe that they are steps towards being more self-sufficient and less dominated and afraid. 

On the way home, it was raining and I spent a lot of time looking out of the window at all the lovely countryside.  And, I kept thinking, oh, I could live there...and there...and that place...even there in the little town that flashed by.  I want so much to be somewhere, anywhere else.  Cannot do it.  The whole running away from things thing.  I have to find a way to live here, with everything, or I will never be able to settle somewhere else with comfort and confidence and the surety that comes from making the right decision at the right time and for the right reason.  I have the right reason, in spades, but the right time can come only when I have worked through all of this crap.  Just have to pull up my big girl panties and do it.  I need some serious therapy and have for a long time.  Wonder how to fit that in the budget, under the travel, of course, which is a sort of therapy of it's own.

I knit a wash cloth and the body and one sleeve of a really tiny sweater.  I think that it will end up being only two inches square, or not much more than that.  I am using four, 000 needles.  Very small and I have to really pay attention because whilst it is fairly easy to un-knit with larger needles and yarn, I am also using a very fine yard that is intended for making stretch socks.  My eyes finally gave out on that grey-skied, rainy ride home.

GP, which is kind of like the icing on the guilty pleasure of these little trips.