Diet - Day 3

Haven't had any crazy cravings, haven't looked at anything and thought, "Just one won't hurt" so I'd say it's going pretty well. Finding myself more tired, don't know if that's because I'm not eating often enough to keep my blood sugar up, or what. OR If it's my SINS - Stress Induced Narcolepsy Syndrome. Last night when I got home from school and realized I had no one to cook dinner for me, and I couldn't just grab whatever, that made me kind of sad. Sad because I had so many other things to do, that stopping to make dinner was a hell of an inconvenience. Making and eating breakfast was fun this morning. I picked up chopped ham, and tossed some in a pan with butter while I was getting ready. A few seconds (minutes? Who's counting) later, I heard a sound like popcorn popping, and turn to find the small cubes of ham popping right out of the pan - and onto the floor, much to the dogs' delight. Must revise that plan for tomorrow.

Diet - Day 2

Woke up with a blazing ocular interruption - what some people might call hallucinations, but having spent a really, really lot of time with retinal specialists, I know that it's just the result of something overstimulating my optic nerve. It floats over my vision, sometimes it blinks, shimmers or looks wavy. If I stand or sit still for a few minutes, it will go away.

Of course I blamed it on the lack of sugar in my body. I'm pretty sure my body is drawing up a letter of secession from my brain for making a choice like this. Actually, I still feel pretty good though. I was really too busy yesterday to dwell on it.

One admission here - I won't have anything concrete to measure my success against, as I still refuse to step on a scale. Later, after I've lost some of this weight, THEN I'll check the scale so I can monitor my progress. No sense in depressing myself over it - and giving me a number to obsess over - right now.

And so, on to finish my finals so I can also put this hellish semester behind me.

Diet - Day 1

Haven't killed anyone. That's good, right?

In my attempt to be fancy and cultured with this diety thing (you know, I misspelled that and it came out "diety" - freudian?) I made a version of Rachael Ray's chimichurri in my blender. It was a total loss. Going to buy a food processor and try again.

My little man had his first communion this past weekend, and his 1st grade teacher snapped this picture. Love it so much, had to share.

Stolen Cars and Areolas

It's been a weird week.

Yesterday someone abandoned a stolen car right in front of our garage, blocking in my car. Awesome. After having our garage broken into, and our front window broken, if we were the only latino family on the block, I'd start to worry. So since it's not racially motivated, what the hell is it about our house that just invites this stuff?? Like the hobos sitting behind the garage drinking thier breakfast, not wanting to leave because, in their words, "We ain't hurting nothin'" Or the guy who passed out against the garage door and fell in when we opened it. And no, we don't live in a bad neighborhood, but we do live down the street from the scummy liquor store.

Had a conversation with a customer that included the word areola. Yes, it made me laugh. My professionalism may have suffered a hit, but that's ok, because when your customer says "No, I mean it, I could see her areola!" what else are you going to do?

I'm trying to write a research paper. At the risk of sounding like a petulant child, it's just not fair to have to write these papers AND attend class. I mean, I can do one or the other, but I have serious trouble doing both.

It's All Relative

When I was young, everyone told me that once you're an adult, time will go by so fast you won't know what happened.
Oh. My. God. So true.

My oldest child will be 14 tomorrow. How in the world did that happen? It happened so gradually that I almost didn't notice he's becoming a man right before my very eyes. Just add water and copious amounts of groceries, apparently.

Each day, I have a mental to do list, and I'm finding things get put off for ridiculous amounts of time. Especially phone calls. I just don't have the time to make them. Sure, I make plans to SEE people, but I'm often running from one place to the next, and by the time I want to make those phone calls, it's past the polite hours of non emergency phone calls.

In some cases, I look back and realize it may have been literally months since I've spoken to someone, or that I've owed someone a response or answer for weeks (Ummm, sorry Titi Doris and grandma....)

Here is the sad part. The people I have lost contact with, they don't use text messaging. I don't mean to sound like a 12 year old here, but it really is the quickest and easiest way to communicate. I mean, email is good too, but they don't have that either. (Talking to you again, Titi Doris and grandma ....)

I'm off to go text someone now.

Somebody That I Used To Know

Ugh - that song has been mercilessly playing in my head, and it just won't go away. I'm far too old to be hearing random xylophone solos in my head.

At this moment, I'm sitting in a class that I usually love, listening to a professor that I usually love, talking about a topic that - you guessed it - I usually love. But today I just don't have the patience to sit still for this long. Especially knowing I'll be hopping on a plane soon to go on vacation. How is it that the days leading up to vacation suddenly seem to last longer than the last ice age?

Today's conflict - what good is a blog without conflict? - is that I need need NEED to get my fat ass moving and lose some weight. The last few months have been a study in sedentary life for me, and my body is feeling and SHOWING the effects. Problem? Besides me being lazy? I'm so out of shape that exercise sucks more than it usually does. Solution? Atkins.

In this case, the somebody that I used to know is named Dr. Atkins, and he came up with the faddiest of fad diets - the low carb craze that swept the world a few years ago. After having my second child, I needed to lose some weight, so I jumped on the bandwagon and did Atkins. Sure, it sucked, but I lose a lot of weight. And even after getting off of the diet, I didn't gain the weight back. It was all good right up until my horrid experience with prednisone, and the weight gain from that vile drug. That weight never went away. Even when I dieted, even when I exercised - which admittedly, wasn't much. Now I find myself embarrassed by my weight. I literally apologized to my husband for "being a cow." He, of course, says I'm not. But the fact is that we both know we're overweight and not getting any younger, so we've decided it's time to kick start a new lifestyle, otherwise we'll be in our 50s and too unhealthy to do anything.

I am NOT going to torture myself by going on vacation and starting a diet at the same time. My plan - and I do have one - is to begin Atkins after returning from vacation. Hubs is going to do it as well, which will make it easier for both of us. I'm excited about it, because I know if done correctly, it works. I'm nervous about it, because let's face it, if it was so easy to watch what I eat, I'd have been doing it all along. The nice thing is that even though the fad officially died, it's still pretty easy to stick to it the way it was meant to be done. Not with low carb versions of food, but with fresh veggies and lean meats. So I think it will actually be better this time around, because I won't be trying to buy everything in the store that says "Low Carb!" on the label.

Coming soon - my weight loss journey! This blog has seen a lot of my life come and go, so I may as well document this phase, too. I may even get bold enough to step on a scale so I can measure my progress. Scales are not my friend, so I don't ever look at them. I go to the doctor, she writes down my weight in my chart, and she doesn't tell me. She's cool like that. She still tells me I need to lose weight, because she's a doctor after all.

And with that, I will say that I'm going to enjoy my red wine, my mashed potatoes and my Cheerios right up until D Day. And when I start crying for "just one McNugget" please, dear readers, remind me that I can do this, ok?

A New Low

My dinner consists of Fritos and Mountain Dew. I'm sitting in a class discussing a lot of -isms and peace treaties. Is this the college experience I missed the first time around? If so, I don't think I missed much. I miss my waist line, and I guess I have Fritos and Mountain Dew to thank for that.

EDIT: Next class, next bunch of faceless seat fillers. Until one in an I <3 Zombies shirt sits down in front of me, and we have the geekiest conversation about zombies, vampires and other fun stuff AND how much our kids like them too.... and then find out that the odd duck who sits in back in a tie and jacket every day is actually a stay at home dad, and he dons those clothes just for school. Wow. And you know what's funny, on my way across campus this afternoon, I realized that I literally don't know anyone here. Any friends I've made here have already graduated, or seem to permanently reside at the other campus. Now, I'm a very, very social person, so it's kind of weird for me to come to school and NOT bother to talk to anyone. Sometimes I forget that lots of the people here are also struggling with work and parenting outside of school, and maybe that's why we all LOOK like zombies when we're here. I suppose even small connections with the people is good, right?