It’s In The Genes

Good Morning,

Today is Homemade Shampoo Day Three and I still mostly like the results.  I do find that my hair doesn’t appear to be as shiny and the colour seems to have darkened a bit but it’s falling out less (YAY!) and still looks clean.  According to Ray it still smells the same as always and according to a coworker it smells like really sweet candycanes.  LOL!  After having done further research on homemade shampoos, I’m going to change my recipe a bit.  Most “recipes” indicate to “wash” with baking soda and then rinse with dilute apple cider vinegar (ACV).  This might work alright for people with strong, thick hair but as someone with thin and somewhat weak hair, that pH shift and opening and closing of the follicle all the time isn’t awesome.  So, this weekend I’m going to switch to a more neutral pH recipe and go with just coconut milk and aloe vera.  I really like the idea of the natural cleansing so I’ll stick it out for a while and see how it goes.  And, whether you’re interested or not, I’ll keep you posted!  😉

Last night was my “personal evening” to watch my own television or what have you.  I decided to re-read my book, Paleo Solution.  I’m not sure why I felt compelled to do that but as with all things, if you listen to yourself, good things happen.  On the very first page of the book, this review caught my eye:

“Now you will finally look, feel and perform as well as your genes will allow.”

That was like a frigging fireworks show on the page, bells and whistles were going off, lights were flashing: “…as well as your genes will allow.”.

Tara wrote a comment on my blog the other day about how she’s never known someone who digs as much as I do and I will fully admit that I listen to and try to interpret every nuance of every little thing.  Which can be exhausting.  I was food-logging for a few days because I thought maybe I could find something that wasn’t agreeing with my body and then I whipped that food log duotang into the recycle bin last night.  Ray dug it out and asked why I wasn’t doing it and my (rather crabby) answer was that it doesn’t matter.  I have already given up SO MUCH in my diet and my life (foods, treats, most alcohol, time, energy, money) and I simply refuse to give up anymore.  So maybe eggs or peppers are causing me inflammation.  At the moment there is nothing that I would be willing to do about that.  I loved toast. Gone.  I loved baking.  Never do it anymore.  I loved bananas.  Rarely eat them.  I could use the simplicity of ordering in sometimes.  Never in a million.  I like wine in the evening.  Cut WAY back.  I’m on the border of having eliminated enough things that I am approaching the elimination of enjoyment.  I’m staying here.  I’m happy here.  I like the food, I’ve got the prep/cost/planning pretty much down to a science, we’re in the very top of the population as far as quality of food and quality of life/health.  I’m staying here.  With eggs for breakfast every day and roasted peppers and mashed potatoes and huge scoops of cumin and paprika in nearly everything I cook.  I’m staying here.

I don’t have any more time, any more money or any more desire to change anything.  Yes, I’ll cut back on my intake to lose 10-15 pounds but I’m not changing anything else.  I’ll go to the gym when I can and I’ll walk the dog and I’ll bike to work and I’ll continue to cook our every meal.  But this is it.  This is my pinnacle and I will now fully declare that I’m fine here.  I think I could change and shift and cause myself all sorts of heartache…..and that very little would happen.  I’d still be bouncing around in this general area but having to put in a tonne of extra work for little extra benefit.  You want to know why else I’m staying here?  Because I actually think that “here” is as good as my genes will allow.  I could weigh less, yes.  But my skin quality, body comp, hair, nails, attitude, health stats, life……this is as good as my genes will allow.  I’m here.

Regarding my sore body, I’m still going with my plan from the other day, serious hydration, no sugar and very limited alcohol, supplementing with gelatin and Omega 3, walking, stretching, core work and eventually yoga.  I’ll use our gravity board more and ice and lose those 10 pounds noted above.  Maybe everyone has some level of daily discomfort (do you?) or maybe I am hyper sensitive to my body.  I just keep thinking, what if I change everything and do the AIP and eliminate all those foods and then something else crops up….or worse yet, it only sort of works.  Then what?  When I have next to no room left to make any modifications, what do I do?  When I have no more enjoyment, no more flexibility, no more fun?

 

I’m choosing to go with staying here….this is it……it’s who I am……

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Keep Going

I would not normally put up a post that’s this short and I do not normally share these sort of pics.  But…I’m not feeling it right now; I feel awful physically (Alien?), I’m exhausted (boring job with no stimulation or human interaction?) and I needed to remind myself that it’ll be alright.  I ran my “intake” numbers this morning to ensure that I am eating enough and not shortchanging myself on carbs.  It’s all good so I really just need to keep going.  Just put one foot in front of the other, wait for sunnier days and just keep doing the things that I know are right and wait for the results that I know will come.

 

 

 

Golden Egg

Wouldn’t it be great if you got your slate wiped clean every single day?  If, every day, you got to start again with a gold star or an A+ in your chart?  I don’t think this is an original idea by any stretch but it’s been on my mind lately.  As a person who is on a seemingly endless quest for balance, I feel like this “New Day” idea is going to factor greatly in to where I go this year and how I get there.  I feel, for the first time ever like what happened yesterday doesn’t matter. I think that this is one of those clichés that everyone “says” but that you have to grow into understanding and really believing.

What I did yesterday, last week or last year doesn’t count.  I drank too much over the holidays and previous to that, ate too many chocolate almonds when I was going through my work transition.  Doesn’t matter.  I used to be a weight-room regular and had the physique to prove it (*).  Doesn’t matter.  Good or bad, it really doesn’t matter.  You wake up in the morning and start wherever your actions dropped you at the end of the day before.  If you ate crap and drank too much then your starting point is behind bloat and guilt.  If you ate your veggies and went for a walk then your starting point is in the light of self-respect and self-love.

I keep reading these articles that say that as you get past your early 30’s, certain hormones slow down and this changes and that changes and the things your body did before don’t happen as easily now and it was starting to get kind of depressing….like, through whatever circumstances I experienced or perceived, I missed the window on ever getting “there”.

Since “there” doesn’t really exist and there is no official road map to navigate to “there” and I’ve already made the declaration that I cannot wage war on myself anymore, what’s a woman to do?

I’ve put some goals down on paper and shared them here but I kept trying to fill in a long term goal.  My pie in the sky, golden egg, mystical rainbow, dream destination.  I realized that I don’t have one.  I’m not going to run a marathon, I have no tropical vacation planned, I’m not getting married….I just have my regular life and I want to love living it.   So my desire is to wake up each morning in the light of self-respect and self-love.   I would like every morning to be the achievement of my long-term goal.  Did I live my life in the balance of health, happiness, activity, relaxation, reward and discipline?  If the answer is yes?  That’s my mystical-rainbow-dream-destination-golden-egg.  It’s immeasurable and never ending and I’ll never “get there”…but with the right decisions I can go there every day.

(*) I only realized by recently looking at a picture from almost two years ago that I was in pretty decent form!  Since I had no balance and nothing was ever good enough, I never even noticed the excellent shape that I was in and that’s a crying shame.

My Car Analogy

I didn’t have a cookie last night.  This is to say, I bought grain free cashew cookies (holy crap they were expensive) the other day and gave myself permission to have a cookie in the evening if I feel like it.  If you’ve ever read my blog in the past you would know how I feel about sugar.  One tiny taste and I’m catapulted down the rabbit hole and it takes weeks or months for me to pull myself together and clean up!  Needless to say I was a little tentative when I bought the cookies but I felt that the enjoyment of a small cookie from time to time would be working with my desire to find and maintain balance.  From a purely financial point of view I refuse to share these cookies with Ray and I wondered if that would trigger my instinct to guard food.  My point is that why would I give him a $1.25 2” cookie when he can and chooses to eat whatever cookies or Halloween candy we have around whenever he feels like it.  No, the $15 cookies are mine.  The first night I sat down with my coffee and had a cookie.   The next night I had another cookie with my coffee while watching television.  Last night I didn’t, last night I had an orange with my coffee and then went to bed.  I noticed last night that now that I’ve got these little cookies in the fridge and that I am permitting myself to have one (every night if I want), they aren’t controlling me.  I don’t dream about them all day long at work and I don’t sneak eat them before Ray gets home.

I wondered this morning, have I never tried this?  Have I never given myself permission to have a treat that fits into my life without destroying anything else that I have going?  Not cheesecake every night or a handful of chocolates….but a cookie with evening coffee?  Really?  I’ve never done this?  Have I never allowed “healthy”, “gym” and “fitness” to coexist with “treat” and “enjoyment”??  I don’t think I ever have.  If I was in “enjoyment” mode then I was eating inappropriate treats too frequently and not doing anything considerable for exercise.  If I was in “healthy/fitness” mode then every thought in my head and action in my life somehow was directed towards that.

Honestly?  How exhausting!  Like stomping on the gas pedal, right to the floor and lurching forward at rocket speed (hopefully without getting injured) and then slamming hard on the brakes to come to a complete standstill (hopefully without putting my head through the windshield) and then putting my foot to the floor again and expecting, no demanding, to be at maximum speed immediately.  STOP!   GO!  STOP!  GOOO!

Jesus Murphy, seriously, stop.  Just stop.

I went to the gym on Wednesday and then again this morning.  This morning was the first weights workout I’ve done since August.  I’ve lost muscle.  I’ve lost strength.  I’ve lost definition.  But, considering that I’ve found my balance and my sanity, I was able to remind myself that since there is no more STOP-GO-STOP-GO-STOP anymore, it doesn’t really matter.  It doesn’t matter if I lose 1 pound of my 15 every week.  It doesn’t matter if it takes me two months (or three or four) to get back to lifting the weight that I was at previously.  And during the time that I’ll be losing that weight and building that muscle I’ll also be eating a cookie and drinking red wine and lying in bed reading a book and putting my head in my dog’s warm, squishy neck and taking a nap.  So will it all be slower?  You bet.  Will my results be different?  Maybe.  Will it be more enjoyable, less anxiety driven, more liveable?  Hell yes.

I don’t really know how I did it before, how I would get myself all ramped up from nothing to everything over and over again.  I do know that time and again I would become extremely frustrated because it always felt like I was starting again, like I never got anywhere, like I never could get any further than where I could get. It’s funny now, that I couldn’t see the flaw then.  I would stomp on the gas for the same general duration and then hit the brakes.  Stay stopped for around the same length of time while doing the same sort of things each time.  And then stomp the gas again until I couldn’t anymore.  And, surprise, I could never get any further.  You’re shocked, right?  I was.  Often.   Eventually the speed at which I was moving and the duration that I could keep going for were dramatically reduced until eventually I just ran out of fuel.  I kept trying to stomp on the gas and nothing would happen.  No go.  Stalled.

Eventually, through much self-reflection and asking for help to a few different people, I’ve been able to put a new kind of fuel in the tank (peace, kindness, realism) and by gently feathering on the gas pedal I’ve gotten moving again.  Gently.  Slowly.  Quietly.

Tonight we’re going to our favourite pub for dinner with Ray’s kids and then they’re coming back to our house to decorate our tree…with some drinks in hand.  I thought about what I would eat at the pub.  The trap with “balance” is that it’s easy to forget that sometimes you have to take things away to keep the equilibrium.  I’ve been adding cookies and couch time to bring back my ability to have enjoyment while still being healthy….but in this case I need to take away some indulgence at dinner time.  So….I will have a salmon salad at the pub (it’s so good anyway!) because lunch today was shepherd’s pie which was a bit heavy and we’ll be drinking which is extra intake as well.  French fries and a bunless egg & chorizo burger would have been delicious….but this time it just doesn’t fit in.  It’ll be there the next time around and when I do have it I’ll know that it’s because it fits.  We’re doing our Christmas shopping this weekend and going to one of our favourite salad bars for lunch.  We’ll also finish the decorating and I’ll do some cooking….of what I’m not quite sure yet.

Happy weekend!

Practicing Balance

It’s been a few days since my last post and I’m happy to report that I’ve gained a pound and a half and gone to the gym twice.  OK, so I’m not technically “happy” about the gain, but normally, that gained pound and a half would send me into a spiral and an internal rage filled with mean words and hate-face.  I’m working very hard on not caring about it.  Because?  I didn’t do anything to deserve the gain except be a woman and get my period.

What I have done is gone to the gym twice for a total of 2,000 meters rowed and 4 miles run.  What I have done is eaten healthy, whole foods.  What I have done is gone outside and gone on a date and gone to bed early.

I was emailing with my sister last week and admitted that I have never had balance.  I’ve said I’ve had balance….but in reality I swing wildly from one side to the other.  No booze, no sugar, no starchy carbs, gym hard four times a week, long & fast dog walk every day.  And then, later, when that insanity wears off I swing wildly over to the other side and drink and eat chocolate and barely get off the couch.  And to be perfectly honest, regardless of which side the pendulum is on, I can’t say I have ever really been happy with myself.  When I’m on the “gym side” I never worked hard enough, never lifted heavy enough, never gave up enough enjoyment to get where I thought I wnted to be.  When I was on the “couch side”…well, you can imagine, I was berating myself for having fallen down.

So where do I want to be going forward?  I want to be at the gym a couple-three days a week, I want to sit on the sofa and watch my shows on a Saturday afternoon.  I want to drink a glass of nice red wine as many nights per week as I feel like (just for health-sake I will limit that to one glass per night) and on the days that I just don’t feel like wine, I’ll drink tea.  I want to make brownies and let Ray eat three quarters of them and take one in my lunch as a treat.  I want coconut macaroons in the freezer for the long, dark winter nights when we cuddle up on the couch and feel like a treat.  I want every meal I eat to be veggie-heavy because I feel better physically when I do that.  I want to try yoga.  I want to sleep in on Sunday mornings.  I want to ride my bicycle to work.  I want to sit on the couch on Friday night and listen to music and talk to my man.  I.  Want.  Balance.

I’ve always wanted to be one of those people who can walk their dog up to Starbucks and get a coffee and then walk back home.  Fortunately our home is about a mile and a half from a Starbucks, through a gorgeous forest.  Unfortunately, I always behave as though I’m on some sort of speed mission and when you always have to be walking at the max of your ability, it’s hard to sip a coffee.  I’ve always wanted to be one of those people that can go for a stroll.  Why must I always be running, in a rush, not able to enjoy the moment?  Because I have no balance.  Until now.

So….while it’s only been less than a week, I have been practicing my balance.  Yesterday we went to the chiropractor and then out for a coffee.  I had a red tea latte and a chocolate pecan tarte (grain free).  It was delicious….but so sweet that I stopped myself at the halfway mark and brought the other half home.  I’m eating it now with a coffee.  Today we walked our dog to the drug store and then came home and decorated the outside of our house for Christmas.  It was a tonne of work and between that and our walk, we spent most of the day outside.  Now, after doing some precooking as well as making dinner, I’m tanked out on the couch under the electric blanket (with the aforementioned piece of tarte and a coffee).

It feels good.  I feel good knowing that on Tuesday I’ll go back to the gym in the morning and it also feels good knowing I get to sleep until 6am tomorrow.  It feels good that I didn’t look at the clock or my iphone all day.  I feel good that I enjoy my new job and the people I work with.  I am happy that I’ve met the people that Ray works with and that they are all really nice, fun people.

I don’t know why I feel different.  Maybe it’s knowing that I’m going to treat myself nicely regardless of how far I run or how much I eat or what the scale says?  Maybe it’s knowing that I’m going to do the things that are right for my body and my health and my heart?

Maybe, a month before I turn 35, I’m figuring out one of the tricks of life.

Free & Easy Down The Road I Go (?)

So….back to Portland on Monday.  It’s a good thing I’m writing this post today and not yesterday because I was SO upset about it.  I was (and still am, a bit) feeling sorry for myself and was/am highly annoyed that the reason that I have to disrupt my life is because some flake in our Portland office can’t get her shit together and she’s about 2 months behind in setting things up to incorporate my division into hers.  So instead of telling her to pull it together (or else!), I have to fly down there and spend a full week or two doing her job.  Away from home, dog, hubby and comfort.  DISLIKE!

Plus, the last time that I went down there I felt so awful when I got back, it wasn’t even funny.  The food down there is shit, there are no likeminded health conscious folks in that facility and being away from home is hard emotionally….so if you’re an emotional eater………………well, you can guess how it went.

This time though, I’ve at least got an idea of how it’s going to go so I’m going down there extra prepared.  The hotel that I stayed at last time has an amazing restaurant with gorgeous food that, with some minor tweaks, is fully approved for breakfast and dinner.   It’s a bit pricey, but you know what?  They’re sending me away and I have dietary restrictions so it’s the best I can do.  Lunch and snacks are going to be a little more difficult, but I’m revising my carry-on baggage and going to include a soft sided cooler that will contain almond butter, hard boiled eggs, approved pepperoni and cooked chicken.  Then, before checking into the hotel I’ll pop into a Safeway and get some fruits and veggies and hopefully an approved salad dressing. 

The other part of my hesitation of going to Portland is the fact that I’m finally back in a good place with going to the gym regularly and I’d really rather not have that all effed up.  Bright side though is that the gym in the hotel is not bad (not awesome, but not bad).  I’m preparing myself mentally for going to the little gym each morning to ensure that I set myself up in the right frame of mind before the chaos of the day ensues. And then, because I’ll have nothing to do in the evenings after work, I thought a walk/jog in the hotel neighborhood might be just what is needed!

In the first 14 days of My Restriction (which is what I’ve taken to calling my 30 days Clean up/Dry out) I’ve lost 10”.  Not sure about weight since I don’t weigh, but 4” around my midsection, an inch in each thigh and calf and an inch in each my hips and my rear.  That’s a decent result for some hard slogging to get back to where I should be…..and I don’t want to chuck it all away because my idiot company is sending me away for a week.  So…..I’m going to take absolute stellar care of myself for that week away, even better than I do normally, so that I can come back in a week or two and not be further behind than when I left.  

That’s about it for me right now. I was all thrown off yesterday when I found out I would be going back to Portland next week, especially when they asked me to come tomorrow and stay over the weekend…not!  I’m feeling a bit better and more balanced now and I have a plan to work with.  It irritates me that I already HAVE a plan but that I now need to spend more time and money making my existing plan work within a new, unstable environment…….but……..I guess that’s how it goes. 

Eating in the way that I do, prioritizing exercise in the way that I should, valuing my home life as I do makes travelling at all very difficult for me, travelling for work is next to pulling teeth!

Plugging Along

It’s Week Two, Day 10 of my no alcohol-no sugar-no junk food-go to the gym reset.  As with all logical, grounded, centered women, I now feel, having made it through the last 10 days successfully, that I should be down 9 pounds and ready to run a 10K.  What?  No?  It doesn’t work that way?  Why is it that when it’s a matter of drinking and eating crap and not exercising that the days blend easily into weeks and into months, but when you’re cleaning up your act and making the right decisions that every day is elongated and accentuated and 10 days feels like 100?

 

Anyway, I have made it through 10 days successfully with no alcohol and only veggies, protein, fat and some fruit.  I’ve also been to the gym four times, one of which was a 6am spinning class yesterday morning.  And while I suspect I have not lost 9 pounds (I wouldn’t know since I don’t weigh but it seems incredibly unlikely), I do feel So Much Better than I did at the start.  I feel more centered and stable and in control.  Amazing what food & some exercise can do, hey?  So, onward I go, not with any parade or fireworks, just plugging away day after day because this is the right thing to do.  And, in a month or two, when I feel like I’m fully reset…..I am REALLY going to enjoy a glass of wine!

 

On the home front, Ray still hasn’t found a new job…..which is a bit startling to us since we really felt he wouldn’t have any issues doing so.  I suspect his resume touting his 36+ years of experience are perhaps a bit off-putting to potential employers as it is a sneak peek at his “nearing retirement” age.  We may need to get after re-wording that portion of his resume!  He’s doing alright though and contemplating just putting a stop to it all and entering official retirement.  We have a lovely, large basement suite that we can consider renting out to the right person and that would be a great additional income as well.  Unfortunately he hasn’t really gotten over the fact that, since our relationship developed, we’ve both had our “chores” and he does his stuff and I do my stuff…….but that was arranged back when we both had full time jobs.  Now I’m the only one working and he’s still only doing “his chores” and leaving me to do the rest.  He has a terrible habit of saying “I wanted to wait for you so that we could do it/go together.”….which in any other time would be sweet, but we don’t need to put the garbage out together or unload the dishwasher together or go and fill a propane tank together.  YOU go do it while I’m at work and then our “together” time can be something enjoyable!  It’s a learning process.

 

As for me, I’m still absolutely solid in my work hours, 7:30 – 3:30 with a full 30 minute lunch break (that sometimes stretches into 40 when Tara and I get chatting).  My stress level has gone down significantly at work…..possibly because I have no commitment anymore to a business that is dissolving……but also because I refuse to answer my work phone or email after 5pm.  Since the only manager that we have left saw fit to leave me here in charge of everything for over two weeks, I’ve decided that if he’s not that worried then neither am I!  It’s a very weird position for me to be in.  I’m a do-er, I like control and results and I’ve had to step back and just let things fall where they may because this was not my decision and there are people much more highly paid than I am who are responsible for making decisions and driving this change……this is not my issue. 

 

Anyway, that’s it on my front.  Day 10 of Forever.

Cleaning Up, Drying Out

All the things that I/we have been doing to gain some comfort in a time of insane upheaval, uncertainty, stress, fragility?  Ya, those aren’t working anymore.  Sure, sitting on the rocking bench outside in the sunshine with a cold beverage and some potato chips worked for awhile.  Chocolate worked for awhile.  Stronger drinks worked pretty well for awhile, too. 

The thing is though, it’s been almost three months, from mid-May to where we are now.  And nothing’s changed.  Well….some things have changed, but certainly not for the better.  So all the lazy comfort-y things quit working, what do I do now?

Clean Up and Dry Out!  I quit drinking alcohol on Sunday night and mean to stay stopped until September 6^th (that’ll be 31 days), whereby it’ll be a once/week thing instead of every day.  I closed the mouth-gate on anything that isn’t veggies, meat, fruit, fat, coffee or water until September 6^th after which it will become “treats” again, not the norm.

I’ve been looking for some ease within my hard-to-live life lately.  Lazy, easy, effortless.  It hasn’t worked at all and in fact it’s had the opposite effect.  I came to the conclusion on our week-long holiday that it never would work, either.  If you can’t get yourself some sort of comfort sitting in warm sunshine and trying to drown your anxiety in a lot of vodka and potato chips there, away from your regular life, it’s certainly not going to work here in the midst of the crazy!

I was worried, that once I realized that it wasn’t working, that I would become resigned to feeling like crap and being depressed and listless and stressed and unhappy, that there was no light at the end of the tunnel.  But what actually happened, when I picked a date and time to change directions, is that I feel empowered.  Somehow it’s stopped the spinning wildly, out-of-control, messed up head feelings.  I feel like maaaaybe I have a plan again, like I miiiight be able to find my mid-ground again before too long.  In a daily grind of uncertainty and stress, it feels good to have set up some boundaries and guidelines for myself.  Structure. 

I’m not so ridiculous as to think that it’s all simplicity going forward…..coming down off of sugar, chips, vodka (then rinse and repeat as needed) is awful.  Considering that I found this new need for structure/plan during Alien Week, it’s possibly even worse.  Being reminded by my very hungry tummy, just how quickly real food is burned as fuel is uncomfortable.  Knowing that I Have To Find A Way to get to the gym in the mornings makes me feel icky inside…..who wants to go back after an absence this long?!  But, that powerless feeling of wishing for something but doing nothing to actually get it is gone. 

It’s absurd to me now, having a bit of clarity, that I would throw down everything that I’ve worked and sweated and cried and fought for…….it seems absolutely crazy to allow my personal self to implode in the catastrophic way that was coming.

I’d love to end this post and say “I’m good now, I’m back and solid and completely in control.”.  That would be cocky and arrogant and completely untrue.  What I am is at least standing back on the right road with a road map and a plan and a destination in mind.

Stress Response

Do you know what your stress response is?  I’m talking about your Huge Events stress response.  Or your Lots Of Big Events All At Once stress response.

I once believed that I was highly capable of dealing with stress, that I was good at compartmentalizing and doing what needed to be done, moving forward, keeping my head screwed on straight.  In fact, there was that one year where Ray was so injured he couldn’t walk, I had just been hospitalized and then diagnosed with a heart condition and I was moving into Ray’s house while Kyle was moving out.  I actually handled that one fairly well.  Went to work every day, came home, cooked, dog walked, gym’ed, took care of Ray while his injury and my illness went on for nearly a year.

Then last year I had the car accident that totaled my vehicle and injured me.  And?  I completely shut down.  While, yes, I was hurt, I was also so emotionally and mentally crushed that I couldn’t leave the house.  For two weeks.  And I stopped eating.  Me, the person who eats All The Time, just stopped.  It got to the point where Ray would have me text him a video of what I was having for lunch so that he could check up on me.  I ended up having to get sleeping pills and anxiety medication just to get through the day.  When it had all blown over, Ray told me that he was surprised that I handled it so poorly.  Honestly, my feelings were hurt because here I was, the person who takes care of absolutely everything, took a unintentioned hiatus from sanity/rationality/life for two weeks and he dissed me for it.    He was right though…………I handled it like crap.

In the time that has come after, I’ve worked on relaxing, deep breathing when upset, logical self chatter and better compartmentalizing.

Yesterday morning my boss told me she’s quitting, the company has walked away from bargaining/mediation with the union and are about to give 72 hours strike notice, the HR manager of the company told my boss too bad for me that I’m going to have to cross my husband’s picket line, I’ll have to “figure out how to deal with it”.  My grampa is ailing, we’re going to be completely broke, I still have a car accident to settle (which I cannot afford to pay for if it does not come out in my favour) and we’re looking at official work stoppage at the end of this week. 

Cue the shortness of breath, lack of appetite, consistent vomit-feeling, chest pressure and blank-brain.  I really need to pull my shit together; Ray and I are our own little island as far as this goes and I can’t be expecting him to take care of me because this time?  We’re up the same creek at the same time.  In order to “pull my shit together” I’m trying to immerse myself into my job to pass the time and distract myself…..however all the work that I’m up to my ears in is to ultimately make my hubby’s job (and that of the 80 other employees on strike) obsolete.  I’m feeling incredibly conflicted at the moment.  Nauseated, headache, emotional, stressed, angry, overwhelmed, annoyed.

Last night I was awake from 11pm until about 3:30pm dissecting things.  Things that are unknown or assumed or that I can’t do anything about.  Around 2am I decided that I wanted to go to the gym and I really should have, it would have been more productive than laying in bed stressing myself to vomit status.  The stupid thing is that I had so much anxiety over going outside in the dark, having to talk to the front-desk-gym-guy (who I actually do quite like), what would happen if Ray woke up in the night and I wasn’t there.  All of that was swirling around with everything else and I ended up just laying there for hours.

I realize that there’s probably no rhyme to this post and part of it probably sounds like whining/pissing & moaning….but it is what’s going on and that’s what my blog has always been about; balancing healthy with reality.  Well…reality has stormed the fort, big time right now………I’m just trying not to let go of the “healthy” part!

In For It

10 day strike notice was given at my company yesterday.  Husband and I work at the same place so we’re in a unique and highly stressful situation of limited/reduced finances, the high potential that the company will just close our plant permanently rather than deal with the strike and the political and relationship issue of me having to cross his picket line (I’m not in the union so I’ll still be working).

My Grampa has been in the hospital since last Wednesday with a wicked lung infection in his already deteriorated respiratory system.  He has COPD (emphysema) from decades of being a welder.  While they have mostly cleared the infection, he is now on full time oxygen and dealing with issues of acute aging.  He’s 82 and declared to me last night that he doesn’t feel like his life is worth living anymore. 

I am stressed to the max right now.  I don’t even know what to worry about at any given moment.  Last night I had a good hard cry………well……….I was going to.  I started to.  And then Grace came to the rescue while I was laying on the floor of the hallway sobbing and stood on my back and started licking my face like it was her job.  Ray says that she is a professional in the area of misdirection.  I say that God made tears salty so that your dog will lick them while you cry.  It’s strangely comforting.  I also drank some cheap wine and ate a couple chocolates.  That helps too.

I don’t know what next week will be like.  Hell, I don’t even know what tomorrow will be like.  I’m fully in one-day-at-a-time mode right now.  I have gym plans next week.  I think I need a hard sweat to help release some of the stress.  Whether I can actually get myself there or not……..can’t commit right now.