Not resolutions

Somehow even calling anything a resolution seems like setting it up to fail.
Instead, I’ll just say: I’ve been thinking about trying to blog more.  So many thoughts are always rattling in my head, wanting to be birthed… 

But I hate to even use “blog” as a verb because it would be on my “Top ten words I never want to hear again” list for 2008, if I made one.  

I digress.

I decided to wait until after the holidays to seriously attack the weight loss issue.  I found that I was depriving myself, feeling frustrated about missing the holiday goodies, and still not seeing any change in weight.  What a frustration.  So I decided to eat whatever I want until the holidays are over.   I defined that as, Monday January 5.  This coming weekend is still part of my “holiday.”  Then I will start the South Beach Diet.  My doctor (neurologist) actually recommended it.

I’ve bought and read the book and recipes.  I’ve downloaded a shopping list.  I’m going to review the recipes with Greg over the weekend and see how we can dovetail the rules with things he wants to eat.

So – THEN the next resolution is to work on this diet for two months, then at the end of February, to decided that THAT is my weight and shape, whatever it happens to be, I will accept, and I will purge the closet of anything that doesn’t fit THAT weight.   I HOPE that weight will be around 125.  But whatever it is, I will live with.  Greg bought me a new scale for Christmas.  How sweet.  (Really. I mean that - to me it was a sign that he actually hears what I’m concerned about in my life).   I weighed in at 140 today.   So 15 pounds over eight weeks should be reasonable.

South Beach “promises” that most people loose 8-12 pounds in the first two weeks.  Water weight, I suppose.  Other sources say it’s not good or healthy to loose more than 1-2 lbs per week.  If I loose 2/wk for 8 weeks, I’ll be at my goal.

Birthday

So, yesterday was my birthday.  It was sort of depressing.  It’s been four years since my mom died, but I still miss her and the fuss she used to make, even long distance, over our birthdays.  She always sent a pile of presents, card, candy etc.    I had no gift to unwrap yesterday.   However, SO gave me a beautiful bouquet of roses, carnations and daisies, and an REI gift certificate.   We are going out to dinner tonight, because all I really wanted yesterday was to get home in time to watch Obama’s speech.  SO’s son and DIL came up and brought me a gift and a cake on Sunday, that was nice, unexpected and unnecessary, but appreciated.   Dad and wife left a voicemail that was really more them talking to each other on different extensions, but at least he called.  He either didn’t send a card, or it’s late.

My brother forgot a card as usual, but at least sent an e-mail saying he forgot.   My GF from college days sent an e-mail saying, sorry, the card’s been on the table for a week but she forgot to mail it.  I guess by the time you’re 48 you should not care if any big fuss is made over your BD.  The one place -Rotary – that always recognizes member’s birthdays each week didn’t this week.  I think that they just got busy and forgot the birthday section of the agenda.  I’m sure I’ll get an apology next week.  But it still makes me sort of glum.   I’m just a spoiled brat. 

I was glad to get home from my board meeting in time to curl up on the couch in my sweats for the big Obama event.  (An aside – having to WEAR sweats on my bd, because it’s so darn cold and rainy was depressing too).  Obama was not depressing.   It was a great speech, and I think he is reaching a lot of people who have not had any faith in our federal government for a long time.   I just hope that the momentum can be kept up until the election.

What’s that old saying?

I heard this first in relation to soldier’s comments about what it’s like to be in a war:  “Hours and hours of pure tedium, punctuated by moments of sheer terror.”   I’ve heard it kicked around in different forms for years.   I was just thinking that it describes my relationship to work – hours and hours of doing boring stuff, punctuated by moments of total stress.

I guess stress is a wee bit better than sheer terror, but it doesn’t do my body any good.  I suddenly have a dozen things piling up on me, and am behind on all of them.   Well duh.  I should have been more productive two weeks ago. 

When will I learn?

Hypocrisy

I am such a hypocrite.   I surf my favorite blogs on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis.  Wondering, “Why doesn’t she update more often?”  But I haven’t been here to post an entry in weeks.  I’ve been trying not to goof off at work so much, but am still stretching about 12 hours worth of real billable work into a week of being here.    It’s not hard when you get interrupted for trips to a job site 30 minutes away, or need to solve someones computer malfunction issues.  It’s odd – I really know nothing much about computers, but they still come to me.  They come to me with questions about billing, about roofing, about whether we should have a birthday cake for the August birthdays.   (Well, of course, I’m one of them!).   

I would like to eventually have some regular readers, but I’m not a regular enough writer to expect that yet.   I’m also going through some “internet identity” issues right now.  I’ve almost always used a psydonym when making public posts or registering for forums.   It’s simply that I don’t want the whole world to know some of the medical details or questions I post on forums, or read some of the more personal things I write.  I wouldn’t really want my business partners to be reading a blog about how I’m goofing off at work, written while goofing off at work.   So I’ve always been “Sheryl” on line. 

Now I am becoming involved with the TMA in a volunteer capacity, and needed or wanted to let the people I am working with know that I’ve been very active on the forum as Sheryl.   I haven’t mentioned this blog to anyone that I work with or know here in town.  I have not even mentioned it to my original circle of “electronic friends” that are now real world friends across the country.  Why not?  Not sure.   One concern is that I might start to drop out of the small circle of e-mail correspondence if I assume they are reading here instead.

I guess I’ll start to work on integrating all of these multiple fractured personalities into one full person.

L-o-n-g weekend

We’re just about at the midpoint of this long weekend, and it’s not quite turning out the way I’d expected, though I didn’t have any specific expectations.  Yesterday afternoon we went to SO’s son’s for a BBQ and to see the grandkid.  I expected to have the morning free to do something else, which I sort of did.  But I just wasn’t feeling right.  We slept until after 9, which was slightly bizarre, but I know I needed it.  It was almost noon before I got up and moving.  We walked to the park with Big Dog to see the little kids’ July 4 parade.  That was cute, but the walk was difficult, so I got sort of depressed that I am still having trouble with a 6-block walk.  My leg was weak and my knee kept snapping back.

We got back with about three free hours to kill so I decided to do some weeding and pruning in the garden.   I’ve been having an issue with getting lightheaded after standing up suddenly, or actually just after standing up at all.  It’s happened enough that I’ve now learned to be prepared, and to make sure there is something nearby to steady myself with when it happens.  This time I leaned against the truck after squatting and pulling weeds for a couple minutes.  Instead of the usual wave of blurred vision, this time I completely fainted.  Things went black and the next thing I knew I was on the ground trying to recover from falling.   So that was weird.   The even weirder thing about it was the way my mind went into some sort of dream state.   I can’t re-call any details, I just know it was as if I’d fallen asleep and was dreaming, for a few short seconds before I came back to consciousness.

So, I quit weeding and went to the yard and sat down for awhile, and listened to the baseball game.  I’m not sure what if anything else I did, but soon enough it was time to go.  The party was enjoyable enough, though everyone there was generally of son and DIL’s age, and almost all had kids under the age of five, I still managed to find enough people to make polite chit-chat with.  Having Big Dog there made for instant conversation, especially with the four-year-old set.  We did the social thing, visited with the old neighbor (SO used to live in the house Son and DIL live in now – he rents it to them).   Drove back home, walked down the street to the schoolyard to watch the ten minute fireworks show.  Came home, did the tub, went to sleep.   My stomach was still causing problems, and I felt sick most of the evening.

This morning we slept late again, although when I mentioned it, SO said “you slept late.”  I assumed since he was still lying there, that he had as well.  Whatever.   So I irritated him, I guess by not being able to wake myself up and get ready to go to the gym fast enough.  I wanted to put new pod-casts on my iPod before going, and asked for five more minutes.  I guess I underestimated how much this irritated him.  When we got into the truck to go, I said, “Sorry – it took me 9 minutes instead of 5.  I took another four minutes out of your morning.”  I guess one could interpret this as sarcasm or snottiness, though I didn’t mean it in an particular way.  His response was, “Why don’t you get off my F’ing case??  I’m so sick of your F’ing attitude!!”  Except the F word was fully articulated.   I almost thought he was kidding around, it took a couple millisconds for me to figure out he was actually serious.  I was pretty much stunned into silence.  I would have expected him to be irritated that I was slow, and would not have been surprised if he’d said something about the wasted time.  What was completely out of left field for me was the attitude comment.

I guess no one with a bad attitude knows that they have a bad attitude.  I know that my attitude is sometimes depressing, about how I’m always sick.  But I thought I had been going out of my way to be appreciative of all the work he does for me.    I’ve tried not to comment about how morose and silent he frequently is.  Occasionally I’ll tease him about being grumpy – but not lately.  I thought things were fine.  It never crossed my mind that he felt I was “on his case.”  Sometimes I feel like I’ve been living with a total stranger.

It was a very painful flashback to the explosions from the ex that would come out of left field.  I don’t know where this is headed.

Previous Post

Boy, I have just not felt like writing lately.   Things at work have suddenly become busy again.  I went from sort of twiddling my thumbs to having too much to do.  A good client wants a 75-unit housing project laid out when he comes back from his vacation.  Monday.  Another project’s starting construction, and the contractor has dozens of questions.  A third one is out to bid and lacking some important things -  Like ALL the electrical drawings.  Arg.   Then there are the little firm management details like the Secretary/Receptionist/Office Manger gave notice and we need a replacement ready to start by the 28th, if she’s going to be able to train with the outgoing person.

Oh well – I wanted to run an architecture firm.  Be careful what you wish for.

I am actually enjoying the challenges so far.  It’s not to a point of overwhelming and stressful.  That is a bad place to go, because it immediately affects my health.   I have been having some new health issues this week, which are hard to talk about.   Let’s just say I was constipated for months, and suddenly when I changed meds, it went to the other extreme.  My Neuro says that this is NOT a known side effect of the drug I changed to, so maybe its an infection or virus.   The immune-suppressing med that I started at the beginning of May is finally kicking in in full strength, I think.  They said it would take three months to be fully effective.   But I have gotten a cold, which is lingering, and the hole in my mouth from the latest crown is still sore, and now this -ahem, ”other” issue. 

It was so bad that I was having accidents during work.  That was just plain scary.  I think it’s getting better, or at least the otc med I’m using is helping.   Of course I’ve been too busy to get in to the doc’s and now it’s a long weekend.  Oh well.  The joys of a rebellious body! 

In other news, we are only using the hot tub a couple times a week, and I’m starting to have a bit of buyer’s remose.  But it’s done now, so there’s no point in that.   We had some people over a couple weekends ago (this is a very rare occurance, we are generally sort of a-social).  But they expressed zero interst in the offer of using the tub – one was rather overweight so I can see why she didn’t jump on it, but the others I thought might be interested.

Anyhow, we had our four days of hot summer weather, now we’re back to low 60’s and rain.  Just in time for the long weekend.   I could actually benefit from staying in and doing some paperwork and computer work.  But I’d prefer to go out and play.

Slate – Encyclopedia Baracktannica

This was amusing.

Slate – Encyclopedia Baracktannica

Days like this

There are the really good ones and the really bad ones, then there are the just blah ones.  I’m pretty “blah” today.  I’m feeling an inexplicable sense of sadness that doesn’t seem to have any real source.  As if I got bad news about someone or something and it’s hovering just below my consciousness.   Work has been busy this week.  The temporary slow down has not lasted, for us, at least.

Maybe it’s just that I didn’t get a good night’s sleep.  The pain level seems to uptick when I’m tired, and that makes me cranky.   Crankier.  

I was very frustrated last night.  I got a great new summer blazer on sale for $19.99 at the outlet mall.  But after getting it all ironed and ready to wear, I found that I could not squeeze into any of the pants that I’d hoped to wear with it.    I am just so frustrated and angry about being “fat.”  It is the ultimate “insult to injury” situation.  I have to be weak, disabled, sick, and now I have to be fat besides.  I feel I’m constantly hungry, and constantly forgoing food I would previously have happily wolfed down with no consequences whatsoever.  And yet I can’t make any significant impact on the scale.

I topped out at 145.something on return from the trip back East.  I got back down to what has become my new normal, around 141 by the beginning of May.  Since then it’s been a real battle.   I am currently at 138.2, but it seems to hover around 140 most of the time.  Any loss is followed by a gain the next week.   I know I’ll never be back to the 110 I was in high school, and I don’ t think I’ll even be back to the 120 I was in college, but I would like to get back to the 128-130-ish I was for the last 20 or so years.    I know – there are many people who would be thrilled to be this weight, and I don’t want to be petty our whiny.  I just want to get into my clothes, and feel good about my body again.

I guess I’m going to have to learn a whole new level of self discipline.

Nowhere (Wo)Man

I feel like the guy in the Beatles song, sitting in my Nowhere Land, making all my Nowhere Plans for Nobody.   I have not publicized my blog to anyone other than having left it in a few comments, so other than random blog surfing,  there is no way for anyone to have found it.  That’s okay for now.  I’ve thought about letting some of my friends know, particularly my small group of “Internet friends.” (Although they are much more than that now, they have become “real” friends)  Then I wouldn’t have to update as well as send e-mails.  But I think it takes away something to be relating via blogs and comments, versus just plain e-mailing when we have something to say.    I would feel a bit arrogant saying,  if you want to know what’s up with me, go to my blog, I will no longer, be e-mailing you.  No – that doesn’t work for me.

So, I might tell them, just for fun.   I haven’t told Greg, which feels a little sneaky, a little bit of a lying by omission.  If he ever asked me if I had  a blog, I’d say yes.  But I know he’d find it silly, a waste of time, and probably a little bit embarrassing.   I’m fairly sure he wouldn’t like the idea of some of the personal details of our relationship being published on the web.    That’s also why I do it semi-anonymously.  I’ve been reading a number of blogs lately, on MS and other topics, which are published publicly with the writers’ first and last names.  I’m definitely not comfortable with that.  I very definitely wouldn’t want my employees finding or reading it.      So maybe I should stop.    Nah.

 

 

Previous Post

I thought this would be an interesting meme: “The top 100 or so books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users. Bold the books you have read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish.”    I’m suprised that these are the most unread several are among my favorites, but then there are also quite a few I struggled with.   I read all of the Jane Austen books in one fell swoop.  It was a long summer somewhere in the early 1980’s.   This was a good reminder of several I’d still like to read. 

Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov – two people I know have noted this as a favorite – I’d better check it out.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West (This was delicious!)

The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum – maybe I finished it.  Can’t remember.  It was tedious, I recall.
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible – one of my all time favorites
1984
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse – I didn’t really get what all the fuss was about, I thought it was tedious.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince – confused for a moment with The Little Prince, which I love.
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present  (I’m trying, really.  I’m about half way, but it’s getting old)
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon - I loved this one too!
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel