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 23

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch:  Corn, butter
Dinner:  Smoked pork chop, iceberg and celery salad, dressing, green beans, butter

Man, all the damn butter.  Too bad, I love it, try to use it responsibly and refuse to give it up.  So, there!

I learned something today.  Well, I actually learned several things today, but the first one is that if your lunch is four ears of corn over a period of slightly more than three hours, that is still too much corn.  At least I do not have to take any fiber tablets today, or even tomorrow, I am guessing.  I wish there were smileys or emoticons here, because I am still cracking up over how this all happened.

You know, I intended to have an ear for lunch, but it led to a second one 40 minutes later and then sort of went downhill after that.  I tried to resist, but all that I did was to stretch it out until the accumulated carbs made me drowsy.  I slept for nearly three hours and finally had dinner late.  It was like a carbohydrate avalanche, for heaven's sake.

Now, dinner is the way that I want to eat all the time.  A small portion of flesh and a lot of vegetables, filling, tasty and the good kind of carbohydrates that will keep me going and metabolizing well and not being so drowsy after.  I think that corn is measuring up to be my sweet craving.  I must resist buying it whenever it is cheap enough.  Gods help me when the harvest comes in this summer and the corn is local and ambrosiatic.

Back to feeling like crap, but I am determined to overcome this mess, especially the ear pain.  Allergies must surely be a part of it, so decongestants are always on my market list.

In addition to avoiding the lovely, golden corn, I think that I have to add romantic films to that list.  Today's torture was Tangled.  I love children's movies, but when did they become so...so...adult-y romantic?  For some reason, my longings to have someone in my life who gives a whit about me have been ignited somehow.  I am lonely in a more personal, intimate way that I have been for decades and decades.  I remember the early years of our marriage and how it was fine.  I felt loved and cherished.  That it was all in my head is irrelevant, and that he only cared about what I could do for him means nothing because it was my belief that there was true love, caring and affection coming in my direction.  Sometimes that kind of self-deception is just fine and it works for as long as it work, often a very, very long time.

Eventually I smartened up.  I did not like being wiser about any of this, but another eventuality is that I became accustomed to it, refused to think about anything other than just making it through whatever happened, and transferred my energies to our daughter, other people and lots and lots of work.  That has been functioning well.  Well, until recently. 

It is probably a year now that the status quo ante here is not working quite so well.  And, that film tonight, well, an adult woman, ancient really, should not be gently weeping, or feeling sympathetically parallel to the loss and yearning of an animated character.  She simply should not.  But, I am, and it totally sucks.  I am going to die without anyone loving me, not even in the way love manifests in a freaking Disney film.  I get it, you know?  I know that the chances of an ugly, useless person like me just does not have any chance in the realm of adult relationships.  I should be happy and satisfied that I have an amazing life, full of family and friends and truly kick-ass and meaningful work.  I am.  I am happy and satisfied and clearly grateful for every damn thing that I have.  I understand how seriously ungrateful I am to want more, when there are so many people who would give just about anything to have the wonderful life that I have.  I wish that I were not so greedy.

The coincidence of the GP is just, plain sad: