Dear Girl in the gym who needed to pull down her shorts and up her shirt to prod at her flat stomach in the mirror,

I was going to be all snippy and say things like I can bench press you and I may be fat but at least I can do math.

But your skinny ass looked so damn critical and annoyed and unhappy.  So honey, let me back up the snark and say that you don’t need to go to the gym to worry about those things.  Do that in your house.  At the gym, worry about how your body feels.

Hugs,

The pudgy girl sweating buckets on the elliptical who left with a smile on her face because her body felt awesome.

PS.  Get some 34DDs.  With the right bra and shirt combo, you can be 5 months pregnant and look like you have flat abs.

——-

Dear Target,

You disappoint.  And FYI: no one’s interested in bright red food utensils made in China.

Sincerely,

The lady who kept most of her money to give to a different store.

——

Dear Whole Foods,

You do not disappoint.  How much would it cost to let me in after hours, turn on all the bulk spigots, and roll around in it?

Luv,

A woman who is frufru enough to buy quinoa and whole wheat pastry flour but also frugal enough to not pay frufru prices

—-

Dear Shoulder,

What.  The.  Fuck.  I get it.  No more iPhone games until you’re feeling better.  Now feel better.  Damnit.

Yours Truly,

I mean it.

When I started working for my grandmother, we (I) set some pretty strict rules.  The biggest of which was that I would not participate in any medical issues.  This was promptly discarded two weeks in when I had to remove a tick from her inner thigh.

EW.

But aside from parasite removal, I’ve held to this rule.  The thoughts behind it are 1) I’m not medically trained and 2) I’m only there two days out of the week.  If she needs help with daily things like eye drops and taking her blood sugar, she needs more help than I can offer.

I’m around to widen the gap between an independent apartment (albeit one with maid service and cafeteria privileges) and a fully assisted living facility (aka nursing home).  She wants to maintain her independence and her quality of life, so I am there to do things like help write checks for her bills, order perfume off the internet, handling her more personal shopping requests, research/discuss/aid in complicated matters such as taxes, the property in WI, etc.

The one thing I did not plan for or anticipate was how I would also become a big part of her social world.  Specifically, her dining entertainment.

My grandparents ate out 2 nights a week for as long as I can remember.  Now, not only does she not drive but she can’t see well enough to feel safe in just anyone’s vehicle.  She also hates to be far from her own bathroom and hates to break up lunch/dinner plans with friends to request a ride back early.

At first I felt awkward about how much we ate out.   It was definitely a job perk I hadn’t counted on.  Nor really appreciated since it was also around this time when I started trying to get healthy.

A few times I tried paying for the smaller meals.  And a few times I succeeded.  But it really bugged her.  Once I mentioned it to my mother and she was adamant I let Gma pay because she truly enjoyed being able to go out and treat me.

So I became deft at ordering salads and splitting desserts.  I would take a long walk in the afternoon while Gma napped and follow it up with some more aerobics while catching up on Glee and House.  Despite this weekly decadence, I managed to make progress.

Then the cancer came.

Here’s the thing.  When someone has little time left and they still have an appetite?  You encourage it.  Gma started having very specific restaurant requests and once there, very specific preferences.  I don’t think I will ever again sit down to a table where someone orders salmon Florentine with french fries.

The problem is that Gma is very much a social eater/drinker.  She’ll have a glass wine with dinner if you are.  She’ll have dessert if you do too.  (Gone also were the days of splitting desserts.  She wanted her own, damnit.)  She wouldn’t even enjoy her soup/salad if I didn’t have something as well.  This happened often since I’d order an entree salad and no soup.  Then she would stop after every fork/spoon-full to ask if I wanted some.

So, I began to eat more.  I ordered wine and dessert.  When and if I ordered an entree salad, I’d also order some vegetable side to come out when her soup/salad course arrived.

Throughout our journey with the cancer so far, Gma has had few physical manifestations that she is ill.  The cancer is already in her lymph system, so one side effect we were told of was the possibility of lymph fluid building up in her abdomen.  And that seemed to be happening, as her stomach grew and her pants grew tight.

But the oncologist didn’t hear fluid when she went for checkups.  Yet Gma kept patting her belly and talking about how it just seemed to be growing and growing.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

I’m not quite sure why I didn’t put 2+2 together myself.  I guess because in a way I wanted her to have some signs of sickness?  That sounds horrible, but it’s also what she wants.  It drives her bat shit crazy that she’s been given this death sentence and doesn’t have a damn thing to show for it.

Finally, everything clicked (for me at least) when we saw her regular primary care doctor and she got on the scale.  She’d gained 8 pounds in three months.

I still did have to point out to her the connection.  I was leery to do so.  I didn’t want her to feel the need to stop her marvelous eating and enjoyment.  But I finally had to speak up the next time we saw the oncologist to give an explanation for the large belly does not equal horrible lymph system run amok.

While I probably in part get my stockiness from my Gma, she’s a pretty petite lady these days.  She can stomach those 8 pounds as long as she’s also willing to shell out some money for new pants.

But I however, cannot afford them.  The pounds or the pants.  I don’t have cancer (that we know of) (yet).  My food and exercise choices are made in part to ward off the possibility.  So now I am back to no desserts and (for the time being) no wine.  Which means she is too.  At least with me.

Thank god she has cocktail hour three times a week with other residents of her community!

I bet my Thursday night hot yoga classmates wish my weekly leg shaving did not occur on Fridays.

So!  I got bigger during the holidays!

Actually, all throughout last year I got bigger and smaller.  And then bigger some more.  And then some smaller for a change.

I would get really fed up and determined I was going to stay on track and just do it and <insert positive sports metaphor here>.  For about two weeks or so the scale would comply with my wishes and show numbers sliding down the rabbit hole.

Then it would stop.  Repeat until you feelings lean more towards failure than fed up.  Every time I eased up on my diet and exercise, some pounds packed on.  Clothes felt (feel) tight again.  I’d hit a good patch of uninterrupted weeks and start the whole cycle over again…and yet.

Let me back up.  To March 2009 when I went to my doctor and said despite new exercise routines and diet I was not losing weight.  Blood work showed borderline hypothyroidism.  Weight gain (and difficultly with weight loss) is a symptom.  As were a few other vague issues I’d had that I attributed to my lifestyle.

I received medicine for hypothyroidism.  And the weight came off.  Not easily, but it did.  I felt I could concentrate better, my energy level was better.

The thing is – the medicine I received, T3 & T4 hormones, would have had this effect whether I truly needed it or not.  And after a year, my blood work showed I had a tad hyper thyroid.  Besides being asymptomatic any other way I could see (in fact, my weight loss had already started to slow down), the hormones had started messing with my heart.

Every since my doctor decided to take me off thyroid medicine without doing any follow-up lab work to reassess my thyroid levels, I’ve wanted a new doctor.  When I came to her with a girlie problem that is a known system to hypothyroidism and she offered 3 possible cures that did not include looking at my thyroid levels, I knew I’d never go back to her for a regular physical again.

But I have not wanted to use hormones, lazy thyroids, or other impaired organs not in my control as an excuse.  Tom and I also quit hiking as frequently around the same time because it was getting hella-hot in FL.  When I started running and hot yoga I packed on 6 pounds of lean muscle and looked awesome no matter what the scale said.  (Yes, I just complained about the heat in FL and then blithely mention I PAY to do exercise in a 101 degree room.)

Besides not hiking, I hit the height of my travel plans over the summer.  And then ever since my 5K race at the beginning of October, I’ve had one injury after another.  I keep telling myself that I can’t look for other health problems as an excuse when the tried-and-true “eat less, exercise more” hasn’t been fully tested for months now.

Then on Christmas Eve Eve, I had a tiny cancer removed from my calf.  I would have mentioned it but carcinoma definitely does not deserve its own post.  (Yes, I wear sunscreen religiously.  But I am a pale, freckly, moley girl like my mother.  Who’s had about a bazillion removed so you can imagine her sympathy level.  “Huh.” I believe is a direct quote.)  I had stitches right smack dab in the middle of the front of my leg.  I spent between Christmas and New Year’s Eve sitting with my leg elevated, drinking and eating.

So obviously, especially on the heels of a nasty New Year’s Eve hangover, I wanted to start this year back on track.  And to just do it.  Possibly even be the eye of the tiger.

Except…lord I am just so tired of it all.  Tired of failing.  And tired of doing nothing about failing.

Instead of getting back on track, I’m taking a small side detour.

Oh, I’m back to my regularly scheduled workouts.  And I cut out alcohol for the month.  I’m getting about 5 to 9 servings of vegetables a day.  Very little refined sugar.

But what I’m not back to is plugging in numbers to an app or a spreadsheet.  I’m not hopping on the scale every morning ready for it to decree my day a success or not even before coffee.

It feels…right.  I can concentrate on how food tastes and how exercise makes me stronger instead of equations and graphs.  It also means I’m not trying to work the system to figure out how I can have an extra glass of wine or piece of cake.  (I do keep a food/exercise journal for data in case this flops and I am weighing myself here and there.  But neither of things for now is used to determine my daily course of action.)

I am being strict with one particular app.  The calendar.  If I haven’t seen progress by March, I will find a new Dr as well as a personal trainer/nutritionist.

Overall, I still weigh less today than I did one year ago.  I have more muscle.  I have greater stamina.  But I know I’m not done with this journey and I’m ready to get help to achieve it if need be.

This post is written because I am trying to stick to my resolution to write every day.  I have a half-dozen, half-started documents in a file labeled “2012 writing”.  But today my brain is mud and staring at a blank Word document seems more daunting than filling up a WordPress widget.

Once upon a time, I started a blog because I had very strong feelings and wanted an outlet for them.  I also had given up writing for years and missed it like crazy.  I enjoyed blog writing a lot.  And even before my divorce was final, I think I had found a voice as a “romance” or “dating” blogger.

Man.  I’d love to go on a first date right now just to be able to wax poetic about it.

But not enough to go through a second divorce.  Even if I did keep my own name this time.

I also gave very little thought as to how…accurate? factual? my blog posts were.  I considered it fiction, based loosely on my life.  I wished to entertain and if that meant I wrote I was devastated when a guy didn’t go for the first kiss when in real life I was nonplussed?  Ah well.  The show must go on.

These days I feel a bit at a loss when I write here.  I’ve gained a husband, but lost a voice.  I want to write well again, not just rush to put something up here because too much time has past since my last post.

So I’m writing every day.  Sometimes therapeutic, sometimes instructional.  Sometimes funny?  But I’m giving myself the space to do so on my hard drive.  Away from the pressure of other eyeballs and mouse clicks.

Hopefully this means posts will get more frequent and funnier around here.  But don’t hold your breath.  It’s only January 9th after all.

So far my 2012 has started with:

1) A gray hair in my EYEBROW.

2) A zit on my chin.

3) A wicked hangover everywhere else.

At least it’s shaping up to be a memorable year.

Tis the season!  Except it’s 80 degrees here.  Blech.  After several weeks in NC, Tom is home for a while and loving the warm weather.

Tom will actually be home quite a bit these days.  Because he accepted a promotion which puts him back to managing a single warehouse instead of installing/training/maintaining work flow systems on warehouses across the US.

I tried to write about this earlier but it depressed the hell out of me at first.  Accepting a new position now means no hike for us come March.  And as a new warehouse won’t be opening until after 1st quarter (maybe 2nd quarter?) of 2012, it’s feeling unlikely he’ll be ready to let it go and hike come 2013.

It’s not like I didn’t just spend an entire year scrimping, going without, holding off on a real job search, and meticulously planning this or anything.  Oh wait.  I did.  AND I HAVE THE SPREADSHEETS TO PROVE IT.

I have mostly gotten over the crushing weight of a year of my life spent planning for nothing and the dream of completing a spectacular goal with my husband dashed.  Mostly.

One thing I should say is that Tom did allow me to veto this move.  If I had said we have to hike or else, he would have turned it down.  But he had already expressed concern over our financial future with the hike looming and I could not in good faith tell him we’ll be fine and let it go.  That is one “I told you so” I cannot allow him to utter if we become broke and live out of our tent on the AT for good.

Another thing Tom has agreed to, which has mostly brought me out of my funk (mostly), is that I have somewhat Cart Blanche on my 2012.  If I want to not pursue a “real” job and go hike for awhile by myself, he will support that.  If I want to take a job that means I’m traveling M-F, he’ll man the home front as I did the past two years.  As long as we have a financial plan that can support my decision, he’s on board.

Kinda hard to hate the person who’s ruined my life when he’s so nice about everything.  Hurmph.

Right now, we are very up in the air with what and when things will happen.  We will end up moving.  Right now, it looks like just here in FL.  (This is part of the depressing thing for me – I knew this was a possibility and felt the upside would be the chance to move out of the state of sun and sand and back somewhere you could hike under pine trees.)

There is a small chance we could move to north GA, near Atlanta.  This is my preference and kind of Tom’s as well.  (The area we’d move to in FL is not pretty or exciting or in a good location for anything but warehousing.)  He was hand-picked for this FL position and someone else for the GA.  But Tom feels there is a possibility a player may back out and the deck will be reshuffled in our favor.

So…we’re moving somewhere at sometime in the first 6ish months of 2012.  I may or may not still attempt some kind of long hike and/or vacation and/or travel.

Basically, everything and/or nothing’s changed!  Merry Christmas!  (Oh right…I was going to write about our holiday plans.  First Christmas we’ll celebrate with my inlaws!  I asked what I could make to participate in the big meal and they requested a 3-ingredient appetizer that is Tom’s speciality and not mine and 1 of those 3 three ingredients is a meat I don’t eat!  If I don’t report back, please post bail to HickTown, GA!)

Over a year ago, we had a homeless person living in our neighborhood.  I found this out by coming upon him sleeping in a sort of pagoda that is part of the nature boardwalk I sometimes take Lady dog on in our morning walks.

It’s a small, fairly well-off neighborhood.  (As in, I believe our neighbors wish our condos were not dragging down property values).  And while I chose to buy here in part for the locale and ease of commute to several Bay area destinations, it’s not really feasible to get from here to anywhere by foot.

By the time I had decided what I wanted to do to help this person out -left a ziplock bag with clean socks, a clean shirt, some wet wipes and fast-food gift cards under “his” bench- he had figured out his daily commute from our safe park to where ever was not worth it.  A few days later, I retreieved the untouched goodie bag.

This is not something I would have done in Chicago.  Growing up, I saw a homeless person in my neighborhood every day.  Several times a day if I went somewhere besides around the block or school.  I did carry some change to hand out and supported Streetwise.  But moving from Chicago to a tourist destination meant the homeless in my area were no longer in my face on a regular basis.  FL cities do a lot to make sure people looking for the Disney experience don’t experience pan handlers as well.

Because of this, when I see someone on a street corner with a cardboard sign I almost always give them something.  And I make a point of taking off my sunglasses, looking them in the face, and asking if they are having an OK day.

Yes, it makes this little privileged white girl feel like she’s really…connected…with this soul who wants her dollar.

For what it’s worth, I started doing this because of the positive response and handshakes I received each time.

But this guy sleeping in my neighborhood…he really made me think about wanting to make a real difference to someone.  Making a real difference in a 30-second interaction because I have already committed the other 23 hours, 59 minutes and 30 seconds of my life to making a difference for animals that cannot hold a cardboard sign and are usually dead when by the side of the road.

This brought up many discussions with friends about what to do for a panhandler and the unfortunate substance abuse that often goes along with being down on your luck.  Does handing someone a few bucks equate to handing them their addiction?  And is that our place to judge?

The end result is that for over a year, I have carried in my car’s middle console 5-dollar gift cards to the most established fast food restaurant in our area.  This ensures the receiver must purchase food (or be savvy enough to trade it for something else).  The receiver gets enough from me for a meal – I know if no one else stops for that person all day they will have one meal.  This also ensures I have a conversation with the receiver – I am upfront with what I have on me and give them the option of accepting or not.

I also usually have in the car somewhere a new clean T-shirt and new socks, but I have never had an instance where the stoplight was long enough to determine if those would be welcome additions as well.

Even though I am a little privileged white girl, just giving away five bucks willy-nilly needs accounting in our budget.  I mean, I don’t even get Tom a lotto ticket every week.  So he was a participant in the discussions that led to this decision.  He agreed with my solution and as the primary driver on our weekend errands has given away more than his fair share of cards.

Today, coming home from a way too involved and time consuming but enjoyable afternoon with friends at a street fair, there was someone with a cardboard sign at our turn from US 19 onto Ulmerton.

Me: I can’t read what his sign says from here….We have one card left, do you want to give it to him?

Tom: Yes, I think I do.

Me: Don’t forget to ask him if he really wants it.

Tom: I know, I know.

(It’s possible I say this EVERY TIME Tom gives out a gift card.)

The gentleman came over, hurrying with a limp (affected or not, who knows).

Tom explained what we had to offer.

The man’s eyes lit up like we offered him his weight in gold.

We had enough time to watch him limp back to his post (we were several cars into the lane, so it wasn’t safe for him to dally by our side).  He turned his back to the line of cars and unraveled the package, clearly excited.  (I wrap each card in its receipt.  I do not want the restaurant to have a reason to deny the person.)

Me:  Thank you.  I’m so happy you are on board with this.

Tom:  Baby, we work hard to be kind to all the animals.  That should include people.

Ahmen.

Sometimes I reread my posts where I’ve said, “I’m really not <insert personality trait here>”, and I think, “Oh hell YES YOU ARE!”  Just usually not about the particularly topic, or in a particular situation, or around certain people.  It’s rather funny to see my pathetic juxtaposition punchline that only holds true to those specific words.

But one thing that is always, always, always true is that I’m not one to read instructions.  I have personality testing and years of extra screws from build-your-own-furniture kits to back me up on that one.

And I have the beans.

Today, fed up with the ingredients on a can of beans that were other than “Beans”, I bought dry beans to cook for the first time ever.  (Besides lentils, which I only started cooking this past year.)

I knew you could not just throw them into your tofu-Mexican-mix and chow down minutes later.  (I suppose we could call it tofu- fajita-less-fajitas, or tofu-taco-less-tacos.  Or bunch-of-veggies-with-some-tofu-crumbles-and-Mexicanish-spices-to-be-eaten-in-a-bowl-because-I’m-not-wasting-100-calories-on-a-wrap.  You get my drift.)

I had heard of soaking beans overnight before cooking them.  I have a vague memory of watching my father or Tom doing such.  I’m probably remembering some movie scene, but whatever.  Point is, I knew I should read some directions.

And I did!  I read that I could soak them over night, or I could bring them to boil for 2 minutes, then let them sit for an hour.  It was about 4:15, so plenty of time to get my beans good and soaked before dinner.

At 5:32 I became concerned with the…crunchiness…of said beans.  (A mixture of black and pinto, if you are curious.)

I was so concerned that as the mushrooms, onion, and bell pepper sauteed just a wee bit longer, I pulled out the bean packaging and read some more.

It turns out that after the soaking instructions, there are COOKING instructions.  Which include another hour or TWO in some more hot water.

Thank goodness I was prepared.  I may not read instructions, but I do a mean grocery trip.  Along with beans, mushrooms, onions, tofu, and bell peppers, I also bought wine.

This post is courtesy of my first glass.

Gotta go check the beans.

1) Can you believe I considered participating in NaNoBloMo?  This is post #4 for November.

2) I would also ask if you can believe I twisted my ankle, but I think we all know you’re not surprised.

3) I am not quite over my whirlwind traveling (which went something like Gainesville-Vegas-Gainesville-Chicago-Gainesville-Gainesville-Georgia-More Georgia-Gainesville).  I have never been so excited to NOT have plane tickets.

4) Tom and I scooted up to his parents’ for Thanksgiving.  And then promptly went camping for 3 days.

5) I am lucky he was such a poor visitor before we met.  Everyone is just happy we show up at all.

6) Except his grandmother.  Whose first words to me were how she never sees us.

7) Her second were how I never see my mother.  Whom I just saw (See #3, Chicago).

8) And yet even with a chip on my shoulder, I became grandmother’s champion for a new computer since she likes to play solitaire and reboots her old one 7 times a day.

9) Which means Tom and I will be headed back for Christmas.  Otherwise his grandmother will just have a nice big box on which to lay out a phsyical deck of cards.

10) I twisted my ankle somewhere on day 2 of hiking/camping.  It was pretty bad.  Not just some roll-stumble-recover deal.  Actually falling down and yelling OW.

11) I still managed about 4 more miles that day and day 3 (the walk from camp to car).

12) I felt pretty badass about that.  When I wasn’t feeling stupid for falling  in the first place.

13) I also felt relieved because with my ankle history, it was bound to happen sometime.  Good to know I can recover.

13 1/2) (Dear Ankles, Please do not take that as a challenge.  Love you!)

14) Of course it does means I am not running again.

15) Bleargh.

16) But I do highly suggest hiking 20ish miles in prep for Thanksgiving.  We got back just in time to shower and slide into our chairs.

17) Then it was EATIN’ TIME!  Except…his family?  They make cornbread stuffing with boiled eggs in it.  And no pumpkin pie.  Or sweet potatoes.  It was like everyone was on a no-sugar/no flavor/bring on the extra eggs (I found whole slices in the asparagus casserole???) diet.

18)  Somehow I managed to fill my plate twice anyhow.

19) My mom has decided to visit neither of us (me or bro) for the holidays.  It will be her last in the old house and she doesn’t want the hassle.

20) We’re not visiting her because we just did.  And we don’t want the hassle.  Who knows, this may be my last Christmas in this condo. (Fingers crossed)  I’ll soak up at the sun and lack of snow while I can.

21) But we’re all still in touch more because I got everyone addicted to Words With Friends.

22) Thank goodness for nerdy, wordy, tech-savvy family.