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 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 40

Breakfast:  Eggs, bacon, roll...all right, 2 rolls, but they were little
Lunch:  Apple
Dinner:  McDonald's with my baby and her babies

Forty days.  Forty nights, too, I guess.  How biblical.  It seems as though I expected to breeze through this mess of an idea.  And, certainly, by this time I should be as healthy as it is possible to be and perhaps even a little svelte.  Or, at least, a little less bulgy, which I am, but not very much.  I am, however, walking like a champ.  I rarely even think of my cane, although I will be taking it along this weekend and on future trips, no matter how long they are.  It would be foolish to be stuck somewhere and not have anything to help me get around.  In the support of honesty, though, I am taking a whole shitload of pain meds, but I am still managing with the cane.  That has to count for something, yes?

I had this goofy feeling just a few minutes ago.  I spent the day with my daughter and the babies.  We played and made stuff and created stories with cars.  Actually, it was the little baby who made up the stories.  I just played along.  His big brother helped me to knit and was sad that he could not handle the needles, and I was thinking that he might be able to manage one of those round knitting things.  Once I get the yarn set, it should be fairly easy for him to guide the yarns and lift the stitches.  He has really good fine motor control and even managed to crochet a chain this afternoon, so the knitting thing is worth a try.  If it does not work, then I will have that cool device for myself.

Oh, the goofy thought was that it felt fine to walk and that I felt better somehow.  It might be that I am no longer choking and gagging and coughing out my remaining bits of lung, but it had a different quality to all of that tonight.  I felt fluid in a way that I have not for a long time.  I thought that being away from home for over-full days, two days in a row, and away from the crap here, might be contributing to that sense of well-being.  Then, I thought that maybe clearing my schedule so that I can get back into organizing this joint better and finding my way back into the studio might not be what I need right now, the part of that where I will be staying home and in the house more.  Then, I thought, what the hell.  If I want to have a tidy environment and do some messing around with sculpting or painting or some damn thing, that is what I should do, so I quickly dismissed the option of filling my schedule to the gills again and am hoping that I can manage better with avoiding the stuff that saddens me so.  I am going to give it my best shot.  Hope for the best.  Regroup if I have to.  Bitch, moan and complain as needed, but still get through it.  God, I hope I can do that.  If it does not work out as well as I would like, I can always fall back on stabbing myself into unconsciousness.

So, dinner.  The little baby, at two and a half years of age, has never been inside a McDonald's restaurant.  Sure, he has had the occasional burger and fries, I have even bought that stuff on my way to their house for lunch, but today was his first time inside one of them.

My daughter lives in a tiny town, so it was no surprise that the other mom and the dad that showed up in the playroom were toting children that are in my big grandson's preschool.  The boys had a great time, especially when the dad growled and chased them.  My little grandson was completely unfamiliar with the kind of play equipment they have there and it was nearly time to go home before he could bring himself to cross the threshold at the top of the stairs.  I would have been hesitant, too, because he had to leave the steps and step into a bowl.  He finally did it, and I navigated him up to the next level, where he sat, walked around and told me about how he was at the airport, another place he has never been.  They live a quiet, calm life and are just as simple as I am in their daily practices, you know, the day-to-day ones of ordinary life, so this was a big deal for all of us.

As a grandma, it was nice to meet my grandson's friends and their parents.  I hope we get to do more of that sort of thing during this summer at the park.

I am trying to stay hungry, at least most of the time.  I figure that it will help me to not overeat, the theory being that I will greatly reduce my appetite in the process, and to faithfully stick to standard portion sizes.  I am not sure how close I stayed to that at our fast food dinner, but I did have a diet soft drink, a grilled chicken sandwich, no mayo and I ate only half of the bun, but I made up for it with lots of fries.  And, catsup.

Early day tomorrow, so I am not sharing some things that I wanted and they will have to wait for another time.  I am close to running out of GP images, but this one is named "I will stand by you."

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 31

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch #1:  Taco place, medium-sized burrito, water
Lunch #2:  Wendy's BLT salad, half dressing, 4 french fries, diet cola
Lunch #3:  Nachos, big serving, made from real and mostly scratch ingredients, amazing chips, grilled flank steak, queso fresco, avocado, onions, tomatoes, jalapenos, cilantro, water, diet cola
Dinner:  Nothing yet, but will likely have microwave popcorn and a Snapple or two, the no-sugar ones.  Note:  Added to say that I had a Snapple, did not make popcorn, but did broil a small steak that was about to go bad.  Whew...waste averted.

So, anyway, no breakfast because I knew that there would be at least two lunches today.

Meeting, mentoring, meeting.  All three were between 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.  Yikes!

I was really hungry for lunch #1, so I had a smallish burrito, not the huge ones they sell there.  I was feeling not too bad about it, at least it had beans, lettuce and tomatoes.

Lunch #2 was with my mentee.  Today was our last session of the school year.  She made a card and envelope for her mother's birthday and I gave her a pen, a click-able ball point, and asked her what other gift could come along with a pen.  She guessed paper and a book, and she was correct.  Both of those things were in the scrap-booking box that contained enough art materials to see her through the summer vacation.  She really, really liked it, but she did not like it even half as much as I enjoyed sharing and giving it to her.

The third lunch was with a gallery owner who wants me to exhibit at her place.  I am not doing that any more.  It is a long and boring story, but another gallery fucked me over in February and I do not seem to be making any forward movement in getting over it.  You know, it is difficult for anyone, engaged in any kind of work that is meaningful to them, when it, their work, is not appreciated.

It is a universal human experience.  We do what is important to us.  Yeah, we do it for the money, but if we are lucky, we also get to do it for love of the work, or at the very least, find a way to wrestle some decent experience out of a less fabulous job.

I am not saying, nor do I even believe, that art is any different from other work.  They are all the same.  We do good work, we appreciate being appreciated, we expect a fair wage/payment/fee.  It is as simple as that.  Well, no, it is as complicated at that!

So, when someone who is like, oh, the boss or supervisor or manager or gallery person, when they screw you every way possible and then expect you to thank them for it, it does not matter if you are plucking chickens, selling books or exhibiting your art.

Like I said, I no longer exhibit.  But, I did have those wonderful nachos.  She wanted to meet at her gallery and it was so hot here today, that we went to the mall where she had something fixed at Radio Shack and we ate at one of the food places, run by a family and using their own recipes.  If you want fast food, this is not where you will find it.

And, that is how I came to have three lunches in four hours in one day.

I am going to spend Sunday with my daughter, where we will go to her church, send the boys off to a car show, and then go off to do womanly things together...lunch and a gun show.  They do not let you shoot any, although it is being held in a community center and they could easily set aside a couple of the bowling lanes with targets, just saying.  Anyway, on-site shooting aside, I am looking forward to trying out a wider variety of product than I can find in a shop.  As a child I was a member of the national association, long before Charleston Heston messed them up, although, in the interest of truth, he did not do it alone.  I shot skeet as a young adult, shotguns, 22 rifles and pistols.  I kind of miss it.  I have to share, though, that I have had my eye on an awfully nice Sig Sauer, even though it might be out of my price range.

And, I am watching again, right now, Jane Goodall's When animals talk, and it is at the part where they are showing how giant, pouched rats (about the size of a house cat and very placid) are trained to scent out all the left-over land mines (more than 40 million from decades of conflict) in Africa.  I love rats and had forgotten how endearing this big rats are.  Is it selfish of me to want one?  I mean, I really, really want one.  Sigh.

All in all, a good day.

My daughter said that I sounded close to healthy today, which I am feeling and hope that this keeps moving in that direction.

I had three lunches!

No one tried to mess with me.

I am running out of stockpiled GPs, so here is another angel.  I saw one of those wooden shapes that you can paint or color of tart up any way you like.  I am not buying much these days, save for travel, but I liked the shape and so I drew my own, more suited to July, but here it is: If you feel patriotic and you know it, clap your hands.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 25

Breakfast:  Eggs
Lunch:  Salad, 3 old chicken wing parts (over-microwaved), a couple of pecan halves, a couple of tiny, tumbled carrots
Dinner:  2 dollar menu chicken sandwiches (jalapenos added at home), small fries

Good grief, a quarter of the way through.  If I were not already feeling and seeing changes, for the better by the way, in my body, I think that I would be discouraged with so little time left.  I know that I am invested in making life-long changes and that I did not gain all of the tonnage in a few months, but I am a bit discouraged.  Not much, just a little.

Still walking without my cane and I actually felt confident tooling around work today.  I must have made a dozen or more trips to various parts of the building.  I still took the elevator between floors, often enviously watching other people take the stairs.  Too much bone-on-bone in my knees and hip to be able to navigate them quickly enough to stay out of the way of people who can use them with ease.

I remember thinking, during one of those waiting for the elevator moments that I will be able to fly up and down in another month or so, then remembering that that is simply not going to happen for me, not with these joints. 

The fiber babes met again at the end of the day.  I have been wanting to take on knitting again, so this is the perfect opportunity.  I am the second last person with experience, but did not feel intimidated by the skill levels of the other women.  I took out my cotton yarn and my number 4 needles and cast on for a wash cloth.  I made it halfway and will finish it at the gallery on Friday and begin a second one.

I decided that it was so cute that it and the second one could be for my grandbabies.  I just bought them Cars strawberry shampoo and we will be making bath paints next week.  With the wash cloths, they will be set to go.  I thought about making some swirled soap in the colors of the yarn, but quickly abandoned the idea.  Just too tired to mess with lye.

I scheduled an extra session with a client for tomorrow morning, and, huge surprise, have been invited to lunch at the Japanese restaurant.  I might not go, just have to see how the energy develops tomorrow.

What else...nothing.  I am tired and going to bed.  Watched the De Niro, Edward Norton film, Stone tonight.  Very film noir, but really, ponderous.  I liked it, sort of, decent acting, mostly, and Norton is as mesmerizing to watch as ever, but it seemed full of lost opportunities.  Or, I am just too tired and did not get any of it.  Probably the latter.  Maybe not. 

I am hungry.  My feet hurt.

I think this is the last stockpiled GP. 

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 22

Breakfast: 2 small peaches, eggs two hours later
Lunch:  Scallops, grilled vegetables, spiced apple ring, baked potato (butter, sour cream), roll, mint ice cream, decaf coffee
Dinner:  Steak, cherries

Wow, when I look back over this diary, I am kind of amazed at the kinds of foods that I am eating.  They are, almost to a one, of higher quality than what I was putting in my body three weeks ago.  I mean, good seafood and a steak, not bad.  It is taking funds away from my big travel plans, but I am happy to stay home and eat great food in the business of becoming healthier.  A fine trade-off and plan, all around. 

My previous diet was heavy on carbohydrates, brown rice, whole wheat pasta and bread, oatmeal, beans, lentils, popcorn, with only the occasional meat.  Lots of soups and slow cooker meals, still mostly carbs.  It was cheap and filling.  It was also terrible for someone who has diabetes, and that someone would be me.  I have been having problems with dairy for a long time.  Milk, ice cream and cheese nearly always gave me serious gastrointestinal distress.

Factor in all of the drive-through meals, taken and eaten on the run because it really is difficult to plan ahead for carry along meals based on my old, regular diet, and it is a wonder I had just the one heart thing.  You know, eventually I will find a way to say and write the real word for what happened, but for now it is the heart thing.  I should be troubled by an inability to move beyond being so vague and indirect and avoiding about it, but I am not.  Troubled, that is, not in the least.  I am curious about why that is, but not enough to actually get any forward movement going there.  This attitude is likely to come and bite me in the ass, but not today.

Even though I am not keeping track, anyone could see that there were simply and plainly too many calories eaten today.  The portions were good, but there was a serious glut of butter, and there really is not any excuse for the ice cream.  Lunch was at 2 and dinner at 9.  Both late and both times I was hungry.  I will have to return to some kind of snacking when meals are going to be late like this.  Carrying around a zipper bag of raw almonds should help there.

So, I finally figured out that writing here and saving as a draft is, oh, I do not know, like saving as a draft.  There have been a couple of times when something caught in my craw and because I am dedicated to writing in this diary at the end of the day, most of those things or issues are long forgotten by the time I stumble in here to spew.  Granted, most of them are best left forgotten, but there is the occasional something or other that is worth reminding myself.

Anyway, I called my chatty, story-telling friend yesterday (one of the ss women) to ask her to lunch.  I had decided that keeping our outings short, as in less than the usual 10-12 hours would go a long way to reducing the problems.  Now, this part seems awfully manipulative, and that is probably because it is.  But, if I limit the time I spend taking her places to a reasonable length, then there will not be sufficient time for her to feel the need to fill the time with the same stories, and the same demands that I chime in with opinions.  I estimate that 3 hours is long enough for lunch or dinner and a stop at the market so that she can get some groceries.  The market could be replaced by the pharmacy, it is totally her choice.

We are trying that this afternoon.  She was not sure that she could make it today, so we spoke again this morning.  She really want to do this on Thursday, but that means another very long day.  I am going to stand firm on not doing that anymore.  All right, maybe I will cave and do that with her once a month or something.  But, not every week and certainly not twice in a week.  Today I told her that I had 3 hours for lunch and/or shopping and that she could choose what we did and where I took her.

It should have worked, but I underestimated her dedication to staying out and about as long as possible and her ability to stretch events to their fullest.  We did not have the 3 hours.  It was 4 1/4 from the time I picked her up until I dropped her off.  It would have been longer, but I finally walked away from all of the last minute things she needed to share with me.

O.K., there were two times today when I felt like a jerk, a heel, a selfish bitch, a terrible person.  The first was after two hours at the restaurant when I mentioned that there was still grocery shopping to be done.  The second was during the shopping when my protesting joints would not leave me alone and I checked out my crap and waited at the front of the store for her to finish.  Now, in my defense, I did not tell her about the pain and I did tell her that she should and could take as much time as she liked to finish.  She was another 30 minutes and I sat and read a magazine.  She wants to do this again on Thursday and Saturday.  I just cannot.  They will be longer days and I just do not have the energy and time now.  Yeah, the selfish bitch rears her terrible, jerky head again.  Too bad.  I cannot keep doing this.

What else...I guess that is all.  Oh, I heard the best linked stories program today on NPR. Had I been wearing socks, it would have totally knocked them off.  I am trying, right now, to download the mp3 version so that I can listen to it over and over.  There was so much information that I could not grasp all of it.

WPR
To the best of our knowledge
The Examined Life
Examined Life - James Miller
Growing Up Jung - Micah Toub
Bipolar Memories - Aubrey Ralph
Science of Self - David Eagleman
Life of Montaigne - Sarah Bakewell

Then, tonight I watched the screen adaption of Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.  Holey-moley, what an amazing film.  Certainly, not exactly the book, but that movie did not a single thing to disgrace the original version.

Those two experiences, in the same day, were, still are, amazing.  Got to pay better attention to the stuff coming into my life.  I can be a better person if I just pay attention, listen, learn, take it all in and manifest it back out again.  I am also feeling marginally better, but that is preferable to moving backwards.  Fersure.

GP, yesterday's bran muffin.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 19, actually

Breakfast: sandwich and soda at McDonald's
Lunch:  Big Mac, you guessed it...McDonald's
Dinner:  Sushi, red velvet apricots, blueberries, root beer

It was a very long day.  Three nights of not enough sleep, although there was nothing I could do about any of it.  Early commitments, late nights, all culminating in yesterday, spending the day with a friend who had minor surgery.  You know, sometimes you just do what you have to do, and that is what I did.  She lives an hour or so away and whilst I took apples, whole grain crackers (not homemade) and raw almonds with me to serve as breakfast, I have to say that by the time I had driven twenty minutes and was about to enter the interstate, that McDonald's, incandescent and beckoning in the misty dawn was more than I could resist.

Well, I could have resisted, but I did not.  Got me a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit and a quart of diet cola (only for the caffeine, of course) and I was ready to meet the challenge of driving amongst the people who do this drive every day and who know exactly how to do it and were zipping around me like knights seeking the grail.  The sandwich went quickly, and it was perfect, probably because I was hungry and they truly are yummy.  The soft drink did not last the drive, but it did perk me up a bit.

I was there to watch her small children and when her husband showed up at lunchtime with more take-out, I ate my sandwich like a big girl, but I did not have cola or fries.  They looked really good, though.  Dinnertime found me on my way home, and starving.  Those quick, drive-through foods are nice and all, they taste fine and fill you up, but they do not have any staying power.  For me there is too much refined carbs, lovely though they may be, but just do not work for me.  So, I stopped at a nice grocery, kind of a high-end one that I use to treat myself, and that is exactly what I did.  I bought freshly made sushi, some of those amazing apricots, peaches, blueberries, tomatoes, peas and some diet soft drinks.  I ate in the car and then drove home.

So, I kind of redeemed my good intentions at the end of the day.  I do worry about taking the easy way and going back to my drive-through glory days.  It was so easy to justify doing it yesterday.  It would be easy to do the same just about any other day when I am not eating all of my meals at home or am rushing around doing errands or from job to job.  I have to prepare better and stick to eating the foods that I haul around with me.  But, man, those apricots were delicious, practically drip down your arm juicy and just sweet enough, the way that apricots rarely are.

I got home at 8:00, checked in on the computer, intending to make this confession last night, but could hardly stay awake, partly because of the carbs.  Slept more than nine hours and am just now feeling awake and ready to get going.  To be honest, I would have slept longer, but I had the beginnings of a headache and know that more sleep would not be all that helpful.  My plans are eggs for breakfast, taking a salad of lots of greens, vegetables and some left-over deli roast beef for lunch at the gallery and then meeting a friend for dinner at that Japanese place. 

Well, we will see, I guess.  I am seeing and feeling some small changes in my body.  Encouraging.  Last night I felt like weighing myself, but that would likely set me back on my old dependence on what the scale shows for the whole self-esteem thing, so I am going to continue to resist doing that.

I am off to make my eggs and get going here.  A new brochure from the travel place came yesterday.  I have already seen two day trips that look interesting.  My fast and junk food money is being spent on these trips.  Good for my health, body related, and for keeping my brain juiced up and keeping my body moving, with all that walking.

Gods, I really want to go back to bed.  Lordy.  No GP.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 18

Breakfast:  Eggs
Lunch:  Roast beef sandwich, whole grain bread (homemade), lettuce, mild pepper rings
Dinner: Taco Taco

Today was one of my long days, 12+ hours working, so this will be short because I have to be up and out of the house by 4:30 in the morning.  Long story, boring.

By the time my day was finished, it was nearly 8:30 and I was starving.  Fine.  I was not actually starving, mostly because I have enough flab to keep a small village going for at least a couple of weeks, were they so inclined.

But, I was hungry.  Stunningly so, headache and everything.  It must be because there is absolutely no snacking or between meal eating going on here.  Had I had dinner at a reasonable time, all would have been well.  I stopped at McDonald's for a couple of the dollar menu cheeseburgers.  I love those little squashy burgers.  Thin meat, smashededy buns, fake cheese, all hot and greasy, oh, yum.  Took one bite and spit it out.  Took a bite of the other one.  Chewed a bit.  Swallowed.  Took another bite.  Spit it out.

Oh...my...god!!  I do not like them anymore, Sam I Am.  What the hell happened?  They were fine, just tasting the same as always, but having it in my mouth was revolting.  After that first swallow, even the smell of them made me queasy. 

Alas, poor squishy burgers, I knew and loved you well.  But, it is clear that you are not on my top taste hit parade anymore.  So sad.

So, I sat there, in the parking lot, looking at my bag of never to be eaten smasholiciousness-filled burger buddies.  But, I was still hungry and very far from my home, which, by the way, does not have any easily eaten foodstuffs anymore since I decided to go all healthy on myself.  After yesterday's mistakes in walking too much I knew that I could not just stop and get something quick at the market, especially if it needed any heating or cooking at all. 

So, I did the next best thing.  I went to Taco Taco, got two tacos and a small meat and bean burrito.  I have to say that I took the first bite with some trepidation.  Was this going to be a repeat of the blasted burger bungle?  The tension built, my stomach grumbled, my hand shook, dribbling bits of cheese and teeny-tiny chunks of tomato on my lap, or where a lap will be when I get more healthy-er. 

Finally, my headache could take no more and told me to just bite the bullet  taco, and I did.  It seems as though I have, at least temporarily, lost my taste for fast food.  However, I was able to eat the tacos and burrito.  I did not barf.  My tummy is happy, my head is slightly happy and I just took two antihistamines so that I can go to sleep soon.

Lordy.

Tonight's GP is, well, I am not sure what it is.  Kind of looks like an iris or something.  Maybe.  Has no name, though.  You know, now that I look at it, it sort of resembles the love child of an iris and a snapdragon.  Kind of creepy, huh?

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 4

Day 4.  Wow, four whole days without any of the usual suspects in my usual dietary universe.

Breakfast:  Plain yogurt over blackberries.
Lunch:  More greens, medium tomato, the other half of that avocado, some vinaigrette.  Half an apple.  A chicken thigh, no skin.  Five or six of those green pea cracker things. 
Dinner:  Stir fry, with lots of celery (love, love, love celery), white onions, mushrooms, jalapeno peppers (like two whole ones), about a quarter cup each of pork and shrimp.  Steamed/fried in the pan, no sauce, only a little freshly ground pepper and some chili paste.  Diet cola, I am so weak.  About a cup of pineapple.  Three maraschino cherries (they are almost gone and will soon stop tempting me).

Alrighty, then.  Breakfast was nice and filling and absolutely delicious.  Packages of blackberries were a buck at the market the other day.  They are now all gone, but they were lovely whilst they lasted.  So yummy.  However, I was really, really hungry by 10:30 a.m., and it was all I could do to not eat my pencil before lunch.  I might have to add a bit of steel cut oats, steamed in almond milk or something.  I mean, I was really hungry.  Distressingly so.  It kind of makes me laugh right now because I am such a baby.  Yep.

Also, by the time 7:00 p.m. rolled around, I felt tired and hungry.  I cooked only what I wanted to eat, volume-wise, so was not tempted to finish any leftovers.  Now, I am thinking that doing that, cooking just the amount of food that I should properly be eating might help me to rein in my portion sizes, even though I am not paying attention to those, or calories, or the freaking scale.  Although, I have to admit that I am going to quickly become disenchanted with cooking or preparing every single meal with just the ingredients appropriate for each meal.  There is a compromise between preparing just enough for a single meal and making recipes or whatever that can feed me for days and days without all that freaking preparation.

I brushed my teeth right after dinner, in the pathetic hope that it will prevent me from eating any more of anything before bed.  I am not hungry, but I do experience hunger after I settle in for the night, as I read for an hour or so before falling asleep.  I go to sleep hungry and it has not killed me or anything, but my growling stomach is not the tiniest bit placated by my assurances that none of us is going to starve overnight.  My flab has assured my gut that it will keep the energy going until breakfast, but, honestly, no one is very happy about this.  I know that time, probably not more than a week or so, will take care of the extreme hunger pangs, but try to tell that to your tummy.  Really.   See how far you get. 

Besides, if you do not eat dinner until somewhere around 7-8 p.m., there is absolutely no reason to feel any measure of hunger before you go to sleep.  I suspect that the disconnect is in my brain, or my recent habits.  It is a stretch, even I admit that, but perhaps there is a way to blame this on one of the political parties.  You know, like they and their messages are poluting the energy on the planet and that is what is making it so hard for people to lose weight; like our flab is the only thing left on to which we can cling for comfort in an unsettled and wonky world.

Work today was as amazing as always.  I think that my clients are wonderful to trust me and go through the process the way that they do.  I am asking them to think of their lives in a way they have never before considered.  Many of them have few resources, which makes their willingness to take this journey with me all the more remarkable.  They, as a whole, totally, freaking rock. 

The ones who do not rock, well, they will continue to walk their darker paths for as long as it serves them to do so.  There is some quality of or need for suffering that is essential to how they are living.  From my outsiders perspective, it seems to be some kind of martyr complex, as though their suffering makes them better or holier or more sensitive or some damn thing, as opposed to us lesser mortals.  It is a very snobbish, superior self-view; they seem to relish sharing the details of how miserable they are, especially if it is in response to someone else in their lives who is not supportive of them.

Now, please do not misunderstand.  I have been where they are.  It is how I recognize it in them.  And, even with my experiences in moving beyond that ego-driven state, I cannot, do not discuss these aspects with them.  Frankly, it is not any of my business, but even if it were, they have to keep doing that stuff until the payoff in suffering reaches some limit beyond which they can move on to being more productive in their relationships.  And, you know, there is another quality to doing that.  It is that you become addicted or sensitized to the drama.  It is like a feel-good drug to be suffering so.  Pshaw all you like.  If you have been there you know exactly what I am talking about. 

So, tomorrow will be some cooking for the freezer.  Maybe a soup in the slow-cooker.  I have lots of frozen vegetables and a whole chicken that would take beautifully to that.  All those delicious containers of soupy goodness will be perfect for work lunches.  I have to begin making bread again, too.  Got to have healthy carbs to sop up the broth, you know.

A new book, fresh from the publisher, to read tonight.  Fiction.  It looks like a mystery, but with creepy stuff in it, as well.  It also looks like it may take only a week of bedtime reading to finish it.  Oh, and I got that Stephen Somebody's Rodale book about the new American diet.  Something about how we are missing micronutrients in some of the food we eat, ummmm, and bad stuff that gets in the food supply from poluted runoff or some damn thing.  I think he calls that stuff obesogens.  Huh.  Anyway, I tried to read it at lunchtime, but one of the security guards wanted to wax philosophic and it was difficult to read and murmur back at him. 

Off to bed, to read, to sleep, to dream of a body that moves through the world with more grace, more confidence and less stress on my joints.

My new guilty pleasure.

Simple thoughts

McDonald's will not serve you water.  They have water, they just will not let you have any.

The robins thought it was safe enough to come back north.  I am guessing that the past 2 1/2 days of snow and freezing temperatures were not on this year's schedule.  I know that it was not on the rhubarb's schedule.

Yesterday was A's birthday.  His friend, M, from school, was cute, funny and a handful.  His parents are sure to age prematurely.  I hope they have factored that into their life plan.  I really do.  My C was a handful and I never thought to plan ahead.

I am weary of sitting here at McDonald's, and my soon to be accomplished return to the car repair place seem to be almost more than I can handle.  Last night, when my sore throat, sore glands, sore sinuses and sore head were making sleep impossible, I begged to not be sick again.  Please, I implore you, body, do not be sick.  I do not have time to be sick.  More importantly, I do not have the heart to keep getting sick.  I accept a crappy immune system and seriously impaired mucus membranes.  I do.

Last night, the prospect of being ill again, so soon, only since the end of January, for cryingoutloud, was discouraging enough to have me thinking about an overdose of something.  That I do not have anything capable of producing an overdose seemed to not be an obstacle last night.  Today, the daylight, gloomy as it is, allows me to see the flaws in that plan.

I mean, you can no longer overdose on acetaminophen any more.  At best, you will just lose a leg and the final shreds of respect that your family holds for you.  If you have any doubts, just ask S.

When you are visiting your daughter and her family for three months, just following Christmas, it is not in your best interest to precede your departure to her house with a week's worth of fighting. 

If you do, on the two days when you have your catarracts removed, your daughter will refuse to hire someone to come in and be with you whilst everyone else in the household is at work or school, and she will leave you to spend the remainder of each surgery day in a restaurant.

You will have money for lunch and coffee and, maybe, cake, but you will not be able to see well enough to find your way to the restroom.  You and your ancient bladder will have to rely on the kindness of strangers to help you pee.  This one is not about me.

It is important, if not actually essential, to avoid laughing out loud when two men in very expensive suits walk into the McDonald's (where you are waiting whilst your car is being repaired next door) and one of them asks the counter clerk, "So, what's good today?" and then stands there and stares at her until she begins to recite the menu, which is posted on the wall behind her.

Especially when that man orders for the other man, and they end up with fries, one Big Mac (which they split), two soft drinks and a dipped cone.  Lordy.

Especially when he turns and you see that it is your old boss.  I mean, you heard his voice every day, for years.  Failing to recognize him sooner must be your heart, trying to protect your psyche from those memories.

This simple girl is taking her prescription cough medicine, her antihistamines, her nose goo, her pain meds, her mentholated chest rub, her snugly blankie, her book, a couple of cats, her simple thoughts and going to bed.