Project 365, week 30

Week in  pictures July 24-30

Hydrate

Freeze pops!

The return of Fort Bun

It wasn't healthy, but it was dinner

Because everyone can use a little Shag

A cuter little bunny tail you never will see

If only the computer could transport scent...

Woe is me and other stuff

Well hello there internets. How's life?

Oh me? I'm still angry. I'm also feeling like a negative nellie lately. Hence my absence from any kind of regular posting. Sometimes it's hard to be upbeat and I'm having a hard time with gratitude lately. And nobody wants me to constantly spew my bad mojo out, least of all me, so I've been taking a little break.

Honestly I've seriously considered turning off my phone and computer for a week and just taking a "vacation" from the rest of the world. Wouldn't that be nice?

Anyway, in the hopes of getting out of my funk I've decided to just get all my complaints out in one really awful post. Here goes.

• I want Roommate to move out already. I want my home back. I want my alone time back and my alone time with my husband. I feel like I'm living in You, Me and Dupree. One night last week Andy and I went to bed before him and when he finally turned in he left all the lights on in the apartment. What the heck?! Also, if he hangs his effing wet towel on the bedpost (of my grandmother's bed) one more time he is going to be downgraded to all-air-mattress-all-the-time status. I want to cook dinner and eat it with just Andy and not feel like I need to invite him to join us. I am counting down the days until August gets here, because for better or worse he is moving out in August. Even if his apartment falls through he is moving out in August.
• Last Thursday and Friday I didn't eat a single home cooked meal because of some unforeseen circumstances. On Saturday my stomach staged a revolt against me. 
• In two weeks time we start "operation get released from all my doctors and start negotiating a settlement" and just thinking about the process that is coming has me torn between bursting into tears and throwing up. Y'all, I just don't want to talk about the accident. I don't know if I can talk about the accident. I don't know if I'm strong enough.
• Andy and I went out Sunday and on our way home we saw a car upside down in a ditch. And I mean completely upside down on it's roof with the wheels still spinning. There were people stopping and Andy and I pulled over too. We were going to try to do what we could to help, but I was pretty much paralyzed with fear. The whole day of my accident came back and I started to breathe heavy like something was sitting on my chest. Then I started to cry. I told Andy I didn't think I could be much help, but thankfully about that time someone had helped the driver out of the back windshield and he appeared to be alright. At least not seriously injured, and the first responders got there, so we left because we didn't see it happen and there clearly wasn't much for us to do. But I hate that I reacted that way. Especially since I used to be pretty good in stressful situations, but now it looks like I'll be dissolving into a sobbing heap at the first sign of trouble. I don't like that about myself now.
•  On Monday our hot water heater took a dump and I hadn't had a shower yet that day. We don't have a plug for our bathtub because the old one was all gross and old and I threw it out and haven't replaced it yet. So I took a bath with water that I heated in a pot on the stove. Except I got it too hot and had to turn the cold water on and try to mix the two waters together. The whole time I was alternately burning or freezing myself. It was great fun. They got the water heater fixed on Tuesday, but not until later in the day and it took nearly three hours for the water to get warm again. 
• I'm running longer and longer distances and I'm so proud of myself. Good right? Um well, it would be good except that the guy who sold me my running shoes is a complete idiot and talked me into something that worked fine when I was just doing short workouts, but now that I'm getting more serious about it my shoes are a major problem. I'm pretty sure I'm getting shin splints and I've been getting blisters on my arches. On my arches!! Who get's blisters on their arches?! It's painful and it makes me afraid to go run. Also, those shoes were expensive and they have at least half their life left and I hate to waste that. So I'm going to try inserts to see if that helps, but it makes me really angry. And running is a major stress reliever for me, so yeah. Maybe that's why I'm in such a bad mood lately.
• We have new neighbors. They are around our age and they have a three year old. Andy was worried about the kid being loud, but so far he hasn't been a problem at all. We don't even notice that he's there. What you do notice is that they apparently have a huge stereo system that they like to turn way  up and each evening we eat dinner and watch television with the constant thump! thump! thump! of whatever music they're rocking out to. Clearly they don't realize they share walls with other people. Andy and I have always wanted a surround sound system, but haven't ever gotten one because we share walls and we didn't want to be inconsiderate. However, that is quickly moving up to number one on the shopping list. It doesn't even have to be a good system, so long as it's loud.

There it is folks. All my angry, ungrateful, whiny feelings out there for the world to see. Do you understand why I haven't been posting? Who wants to read that every day? Or write it, for that matter?

I'm going to go stick my head in the ground now. Leave me something happy to help get me out of this funk. Thanks!

Project 365, week 29

Week in pictures July 17-23

My first cherry pie

Cool after the rain

A great way to spend an afternoon

I love a man who knows his way around the kitchen

Cotton candy in the sky

Oh happy day!

Flying high

Patty cake

Be gentle

Angry

Yesterday I went back and read a lot of the things I've written pertaining to my car crash.

These days I try not to talk about the accident a whole lot or dwell on it. But I have a meeting scheduled with my lawyer next month and I wanted to go back and see how I felt then. Versus how I feel now.

I'm not talking about how I felt physically. I know how I felt. Like ass. But there wasn't a whole hell of a lot I could do about it except move forward, so I kept an upbeat attitude about the whole thing. There were definitely bad days, but for the most part I kept my chin up and endured with as much grace as I could.

It was easy back then to keep telling myself that it would be over soon enough. "Eventually" didn't seem so very far away.

I remember when we were talking about my second surgery with Dr. F last year and he said he didn't want to do it until I was emotionally able to handle another surgery. I understood where he was coming from, but I also knew that I needed to get it over with. I didn't want to be well and then have to do it all over again. The surgery and the sickness and the pain and the helplessness. I knew I wouldn't fair as well the second time. Best to go ahead and get it over with while I was already sick. So we did, and I continued to put on my brave face. Always enduring, rarely complaining.

I wasn't trying to be a martyr. I was just trying to get through it, one day at a time.

And then October came. Six months after the crash and finally, finally things settled down on the medical front. I still had some procedures ahead of me, but I had time to take a breath and just be. That's when the emotions took over. Everything that I had been suppressing for so long came right up and smacked me in the face. All those feelings that I hadn't let myself feel; the grief and the sadness and the fear. Oh the fear. How do you deal with the fear and the knowledge that you very nearly lost your most precious gift - your life?

Now, fifteen months after the crash, all those emotions are still there along with some new ones. I'm frustrated and I'm angry.

I remember talking to Andy a week after the accident about everything that had happened and everything that still needed to happen. Neither of us thought my recovery would take so long and we both thought by the end of the year we'd be done with it and we'd be able to move on. Six months, we thought, or twelve at the most and that would be the end of it. We could move on.

That hasn't happened. I feel like the day of the accident our life just stopped. We've been in a state of suspended animation ever since. Everything we do or plan is based on some future event - after this doctor's appointment, after that meeting, after, after, after...

What about now? When does now happen?

I'm in a constant state of stress. And that makes me angry.

I don't sleep well a lot of nights and then in the mornings sometimes I would like nothing more than to stay in bed all day. And that makes me angry.

I still have a missing tooth. And that makes me angry.

My lip and chin are still numb. I haven't regained any feeling in them since last September and two weeks ago I drooled on myself at dinner. And that makes me angry.

My right sinus cavity is constantly sore and my nose is still swollen, not to mention crooked. And that makes me angry.

I don't know what physical side effects are going to follow me around forever or present themselves at some inopportune time. Physical side effects that are the result of some one else's bad decision. And that makes me angry.

I don't even know who to be angry with. Accidents happen.

That's what I tell myself, that accidents happen, but that doesn't change a damn thing that happened to me or to my family.

I want my life back.

I am over it. And I am angry.

Project 365, week 28

Week in pictures July 10-16

I'll spare you Andy's caption for this photo

Watching the storm roll in

Queen City

But I don't want to go to bed

An instant classic

I'm so weak

A 90's video marathon

A quandry

In stark contrast to yesterday's post about getting healthy, this post is about dessert.

It's no secret that I like to bake. And I like dessert. I like to bake dessert and eat dessert.

About once every couple months I have a serious chocolate craving. It usually last a week (sometimes two) and every sweet thing that comes out of my kitchen involves chocolate in some way.

Actually, most of it doesn't make it out of the kitchen, because I eat it.

Anyway, my chocolate craving has struck again. About a week ago I made a chocolate pie. It was great, but I guess it didn't quite satisfy because yesterday after dinner I was struck with the overwhelming urge to eat some more chocolate.

Brownies were on my mind.

But one of my other weaknesses is the combination of peanut butter and chocolate so no-bake cookies were at the top of the list too.

I found a quick and simple recipe for brownies and I just happened to have all the ingredients in my pantry. Plus I've made no bake cookies a hundred times over and I'd never made the brownie recipe. The new recipe won out in the end.

I should have gone with the no bake cookies.

The brownies are more like cake. I like a good fudge like brownie and these are more like cake with no icing and it isn't even really good, stand alone cake. You know, like the kind that doesn't need icing because the cake is delicious by itself. I did mix in some chocolate chips I had lying around, but they don't make up for the lack of icing.

My chocolate craving still isn't satisfied with the mediocre brownies.

So the question is this: Do I suffer through until we've eaten all the so-so brownies, or do I go ahead and make the no bake cookies; hoarding them all for myself and leaving the brownies for Andy and Roommate to finish off?

As you can tell, this is a very serious situation I have on my hands. What would you do?

Motivation

I took a little break from running for a while. Now quite a month.

Because it was just so hot. (Ok, it wasn't really that hot, but it was hot enough and with no air conditioning in our apartment that meant as soon as I got hot I was guaranteed to stay hot the rest of the day. No matter what I did.)

And then I'd taken off so long it was hard to make myself get back out there. Inertia is a tricky, tricky beast.

Also, I knew I was going to be in serious pain when I did manage to make myself move again.

But I did it. One day last week I did a short run and you know what? I felt really good. My pace had only slowed a few seconds and my body seemed to feel stronger than ever.

Then I took two days off. For no good reason other than I just wanted to sit at home and read a book. So, for no good reason at all.

It's hard, this whole self motivation thing. I'm locked in a constant battle with my worst enemy, myself.

During one of those lazy days off I was perusing Facebook and came across something that rocked my lazy world.

I found the group for my ten year high school reunion. This fall.

Talk about a wake up call. It's like the universe said "Hey you! How's this for motivation?! Get up off your kiester and start moving! You haven't had a kid, so pregnancy weight is not a viable excuse!!!

Yeah. I hear you Universe.

You guys. Back in high school I was a twig. This is what I looked like my senior year:

See? Twig.

I was completely unhealthy. I was also obsessed with my weight and had a terrible body image. (One of the many reasons I stopped weighing myself on any kind of regular basis.) My last two years of high school I fluctuated between 90 and 95 pounds. But I still thought I could stand to lose some weight.

I guess you could attribute that to the fact that I was a teenager and there isn't a teenage girl on the planet that doesn't go through that at some point. But y'all, I was so thin there was a giant dent in the muscle of one of my thighs.

Plus I had an anxious stomach and any amount of stress completely destroyed my appetite. I was in the typical unhealthy teen relationship added to the usual daily suck of high school. My appetite was pretty much non existent.

And when I did decide I was hungry my favorite meal was a whopper with fries.

How did I ever make it to 28?

My weight has been under control for many years now, but I gained it in fat instead of in muscle. Don't get me wrong, fat is necessary and much preferable to the string bean that I once was, but too much isn't healthy.

And that's why I started running in the first place. To get myself in the physical shape I should have been in all along. And as 30 draws closer I know I need to do this for myself now. Because the longer I wait the harder it's going to be.

So it's with those things in mind that I'm back at it. When I run and all I really want to do is stop and have a milkshake I play these images over in my mind: 1) The non muscular stick I was as eighteen, 2) The non muscular, slightly flabby person I am now and 3)The toned, lean and HEALTHY woman I want to become.

And if that doesn't work I concentrate on the how the flab around my middle is jiggling with each step and I imagine that it's slowly melting away.

The goal is to be well on my way to that third image by the time my reunion rolls around.