altarflame (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
altarflame) wrote2009-10-17 12:23 am
altarflame) wrote2009-10-17 12:23 am
Entry tags:
- aaron,
- eat to live,
- food,
- god,
- grant and i,
- jake,
- money,
- pictures,
- weight loss,
- writing
(no subject)
I've discovered that I have a much easier time sticking to my (modified) Eat to Live ideals AND staying close to God if I go outside. Staying inside all day, like sitting around on the computer too much or being awake until 5 am, only has a negative effect on my whole life.
So I take my breakfast and lunch outside and eat on the deck most of the time now, on my shady bench swing. This is especially awesome if it's pouring down rain several feet away. Today was like:
Breakfast:
-One of my plain yogurts with a few grains and pears stirred in. I REALLY love this.
-half a peach (split with Elise)
Lunch:
-bruschetta - whole wheat toast rubbed with cut garlic, topped with sliced tomatoes, lots of fresh basil, and salt - seems decadent at this point
-scallops because I can buy big bags and thaw them 3-4 at a time and they're basically fat free...I bake them with seasoned salt and lemon juice on them
-a massively giant pile of steamed green beans with whole garlic cloves and slivered almonds
Dinner:
-big bowl of leftover kale and bean soup with a ton of nutritional yeast in it
-pile of raw sugar snap peas in the pod
-half a pomegranate
I also did 42 minutes of excercise on the Wii Fit, which is almost twice my normal 20 minute Wii workout. And included a newly-unlocked 15 minute run. Fifteen minutes straight of running...after 27 minutes of yoga poses, hula hoop and "basic step"ping...is kind of intense. But really gratifying. My Wii is consistently like, "I'm worried about you! You're losing weight really fast!" and I'm like, bwahahaha.
Grant's work schedule is ridiculous and insane. I don't think he's gotten home from work before 8:30 once in the past 2 weeks unless it was because he HAD to leave "early" that day, to pick up kids from dance, at like 6:30/7 (his scheduled hours are 8-5). There is a serious bitterness to unpaid "overtime", particularly when it goes down like it did last Saturday, and he arrives home at 4 am. Or the Saturday before, when he got here just before midnight. Probably half of all our communication now takes place via phone and email. Sunday we all go to church together, but then within an hour of being home he has to be working for the winery for hours, which continues late that night, culminating in a meeting Monday morning and then minutes, billing, updates, etc from that meeting in the afternoon. Then his actual workweek restarts Tuesday morning.
We've been managing some pretty great single-hour time slots alone together in the bedroom...we get the kids either asleep or in front of a movie and we can take a laptop in there and watch something on hulu, lay together and talk about aaaaaaall the crap that went down that day for each of us, or what have you ♥ It's a novelty to have the bedroom to ourselves...Elise is all moved out and until sometime while we're sleeping when her and Jake sneak in, it's the two of us. We've literally never had that before.
Honestly the kids and I have been doing great this week, having good days. Spending the afternoon at Laura's or at PATH, having tea outside with the chickens, painting and baking and reading. Everyone is old enough to give me some space if I just want to be left alone to read or knit or talk on the phone for awhile, or for them to all GET OUT so I can use the Wii without having to deal with endless questions and running commentary. We're way past the "can't take a shower without another adult home" phase. It's just so jarringly STRANGE to have this sensation of G and I having...completely separate lives. Just coming together for updates. Little stuff like packaging up leftovers for his lunch the next day and leaving reminder notes, or ironing his clothes for the next day, are how I'm "taking care of him" from afar.
He told me tonight, during our hour, that he's actually been thinking fondly of our time in Boston just because he wasn't working at all and had nowhere to be but with us. BEFORE Elise was born, of course... all those parks, and him taking A and A up a little mountain with a map and some supplies, and him and Aaron walking through the woods. The two of us just up alone by a window late, watching snowflakes fall.
It was totally different when we got back home...even at Grant Sr's house, we were deeply in debt from the extra time and expenses and his business was damaged, and he was working 7 (long) days then, too, pretty much until I went into the hospital and he HAD to stop. Completely.
This is all coming at me from all sides, bottle-necking me down the only narrow path I feel is left - him gone all the time to make enough money, the kids able to leave me be for periods of time, the fond remembrance of times with less working. Basically I feel like it's now or never and I have to start not just writing, but laboriously researching and sending my stuff out, too. Not when he can let me, but every single day. I've already talked to Ananda and Aaron about it. I'm going to try to explain it to Isaac, Jake and Elise tomorrow. And when Bob is living here, he can probably help with this. I am thinking of doing it either as 1.5 hours right after we all go outside and sit and talk together and have tea for awhile, or after a whole long day when everyone is beat anyway. I can set the alarm so that I'll know in case anyone tries to go outside, set them up with an activity, lunch, craft, or movie beforehand, and put myself behind a locked door. The tv thing being in the rotation won't be too bad, because we've really wittled the tv viewing down to only about 3 movies or shows per week with them for quite awhile now so that can just be then. There is a chance that Elise is just not ready for this yet, but I THINK that with her four older siblings right there and some sort of structured thing for them to start out with, it could work. It'll have to be experimental at first. But there are plenty of times throughout normal days when I don't see her for 45 minutes at a stretch just because she's playing with the other kids in another part of the house or the other yard.
I'd also like to devote a half hour of my normal day to this in ways that I can with them hanging around me - editing, addressing envelopes, that kind of stuff.
I feel so calm lately. About everything. Losing a ton of weight really quickly? Calm. Grant being gone all the time? Calm. Starting to send out my writing for publication? Calm. I know I can do this, with the weight. I know he'll be home later. I know I'll get rejected a million times, at least initially, but eventually somebody will take something. I mean, I get happy, I miss him, I get excited. But there is this deeply rooted calmness under all of it.
I highly suspect this is the "Peace in Christ" Catholics offer each other during Mass.
Aaron asked me tonight if we're becoming poor. I was like, what are you talking about? He said we keep talking about the budget and saying we don't have any money for every little thing and he feels bad like we're poor now. We ARE on a budget and not buying all kinds of things. But I'm trying to explain to him that people who own their own home, and have a couple of nice cars, and play Wii and have a kitchen always stocked with mostly organic groceries, are not poor. I was trying to explain to him how expensive things like cake and presents for Jake's birthday and dance classes for him and Ananda are. How we just went out and bought them all new clothes because they were outgrowing everything at once. I don't understand how a kid who owns his own drum set, accoustic and electric guitar, bike, skateboard and unicycle can feel sad about being poor. His eyes get all big when I tell him we never could have had a piano at home, when I was growing up, or even a bunch of pets because things like hay and litter and vet bills cost extra money. He seemed really confused as he walked off, which I do not get.
We do try to be frugal to some degree. It's a Craigslist'd, upright piano. The new clothes were all bought off clearance racks. But they're still NEW clothes, for 5 kids! We've gotten some of their dance class fees reduced or waived this year, but we're still paying for a bunch of dance classes. We haven't fixed a dented fender in the van because the insurance has a $500 deductible. But I don't think Aaron even knows about any of these sorts of things I'm talking about. They act excited as heck to shop at Goodwill and are perfectly aware that people starve to death in this world. Where is the perspective? *sigh*
I have been writing this as I wait up for Dama on AIM, because I want to dissect this whole Catholic Vs Orthodox thing a lot more, with a bunch of points I thought of today in mind. It's too obscure (and lengthy) to post about and I don't have time to even get started, with Grant. Ah, well.
A couple of people have told me they couldn't get into flickr because they don't have accounts. So. Here is my wild thing, Jake, in the costume Laura got him for his 4th birthday:
And here is the robot cake I made him:
So I take my breakfast and lunch outside and eat on the deck most of the time now, on my shady bench swing. This is especially awesome if it's pouring down rain several feet away. Today was like:
Breakfast:
-One of my plain yogurts with a few grains and pears stirred in. I REALLY love this.
-half a peach (split with Elise)
Lunch:
-bruschetta - whole wheat toast rubbed with cut garlic, topped with sliced tomatoes, lots of fresh basil, and salt - seems decadent at this point
-scallops because I can buy big bags and thaw them 3-4 at a time and they're basically fat free...I bake them with seasoned salt and lemon juice on them
-a massively giant pile of steamed green beans with whole garlic cloves and slivered almonds
Dinner:
-big bowl of leftover kale and bean soup with a ton of nutritional yeast in it
-pile of raw sugar snap peas in the pod
-half a pomegranate
I also did 42 minutes of excercise on the Wii Fit, which is almost twice my normal 20 minute Wii workout. And included a newly-unlocked 15 minute run. Fifteen minutes straight of running...after 27 minutes of yoga poses, hula hoop and "basic step"ping...is kind of intense. But really gratifying. My Wii is consistently like, "I'm worried about you! You're losing weight really fast!" and I'm like, bwahahaha.
Grant's work schedule is ridiculous and insane. I don't think he's gotten home from work before 8:30 once in the past 2 weeks unless it was because he HAD to leave "early" that day, to pick up kids from dance, at like 6:30/7 (his scheduled hours are 8-5). There is a serious bitterness to unpaid "overtime", particularly when it goes down like it did last Saturday, and he arrives home at 4 am. Or the Saturday before, when he got here just before midnight. Probably half of all our communication now takes place via phone and email. Sunday we all go to church together, but then within an hour of being home he has to be working for the winery for hours, which continues late that night, culminating in a meeting Monday morning and then minutes, billing, updates, etc from that meeting in the afternoon. Then his actual workweek restarts Tuesday morning.
We've been managing some pretty great single-hour time slots alone together in the bedroom...we get the kids either asleep or in front of a movie and we can take a laptop in there and watch something on hulu, lay together and talk about aaaaaaall the crap that went down that day for each of us, or what have you ♥ It's a novelty to have the bedroom to ourselves...Elise is all moved out and until sometime while we're sleeping when her and Jake sneak in, it's the two of us. We've literally never had that before.
Honestly the kids and I have been doing great this week, having good days. Spending the afternoon at Laura's or at PATH, having tea outside with the chickens, painting and baking and reading. Everyone is old enough to give me some space if I just want to be left alone to read or knit or talk on the phone for awhile, or for them to all GET OUT so I can use the Wii without having to deal with endless questions and running commentary. We're way past the "can't take a shower without another adult home" phase. It's just so jarringly STRANGE to have this sensation of G and I having...completely separate lives. Just coming together for updates. Little stuff like packaging up leftovers for his lunch the next day and leaving reminder notes, or ironing his clothes for the next day, are how I'm "taking care of him" from afar.
He told me tonight, during our hour, that he's actually been thinking fondly of our time in Boston just because he wasn't working at all and had nowhere to be but with us. BEFORE Elise was born, of course... all those parks, and him taking A and A up a little mountain with a map and some supplies, and him and Aaron walking through the woods. The two of us just up alone by a window late, watching snowflakes fall.
It was totally different when we got back home...even at Grant Sr's house, we were deeply in debt from the extra time and expenses and his business was damaged, and he was working 7 (long) days then, too, pretty much until I went into the hospital and he HAD to stop. Completely.
This is all coming at me from all sides, bottle-necking me down the only narrow path I feel is left - him gone all the time to make enough money, the kids able to leave me be for periods of time, the fond remembrance of times with less working. Basically I feel like it's now or never and I have to start not just writing, but laboriously researching and sending my stuff out, too. Not when he can let me, but every single day. I've already talked to Ananda and Aaron about it. I'm going to try to explain it to Isaac, Jake and Elise tomorrow. And when Bob is living here, he can probably help with this. I am thinking of doing it either as 1.5 hours right after we all go outside and sit and talk together and have tea for awhile, or after a whole long day when everyone is beat anyway. I can set the alarm so that I'll know in case anyone tries to go outside, set them up with an activity, lunch, craft, or movie beforehand, and put myself behind a locked door. The tv thing being in the rotation won't be too bad, because we've really wittled the tv viewing down to only about 3 movies or shows per week with them for quite awhile now so that can just be then. There is a chance that Elise is just not ready for this yet, but I THINK that with her four older siblings right there and some sort of structured thing for them to start out with, it could work. It'll have to be experimental at first. But there are plenty of times throughout normal days when I don't see her for 45 minutes at a stretch just because she's playing with the other kids in another part of the house or the other yard.
I'd also like to devote a half hour of my normal day to this in ways that I can with them hanging around me - editing, addressing envelopes, that kind of stuff.
I feel so calm lately. About everything. Losing a ton of weight really quickly? Calm. Grant being gone all the time? Calm. Starting to send out my writing for publication? Calm. I know I can do this, with the weight. I know he'll be home later. I know I'll get rejected a million times, at least initially, but eventually somebody will take something. I mean, I get happy, I miss him, I get excited. But there is this deeply rooted calmness under all of it.
I highly suspect this is the "Peace in Christ" Catholics offer each other during Mass.
Aaron asked me tonight if we're becoming poor. I was like, what are you talking about? He said we keep talking about the budget and saying we don't have any money for every little thing and he feels bad like we're poor now. We ARE on a budget and not buying all kinds of things. But I'm trying to explain to him that people who own their own home, and have a couple of nice cars, and play Wii and have a kitchen always stocked with mostly organic groceries, are not poor. I was trying to explain to him how expensive things like cake and presents for Jake's birthday and dance classes for him and Ananda are. How we just went out and bought them all new clothes because they were outgrowing everything at once. I don't understand how a kid who owns his own drum set, accoustic and electric guitar, bike, skateboard and unicycle can feel sad about being poor. His eyes get all big when I tell him we never could have had a piano at home, when I was growing up, or even a bunch of pets because things like hay and litter and vet bills cost extra money. He seemed really confused as he walked off, which I do not get.
We do try to be frugal to some degree. It's a Craigslist'd, upright piano. The new clothes were all bought off clearance racks. But they're still NEW clothes, for 5 kids! We've gotten some of their dance class fees reduced or waived this year, but we're still paying for a bunch of dance classes. We haven't fixed a dented fender in the van because the insurance has a $500 deductible. But I don't think Aaron even knows about any of these sorts of things I'm talking about. They act excited as heck to shop at Goodwill and are perfectly aware that people starve to death in this world. Where is the perspective? *sigh*
I have been writing this as I wait up for Dama on AIM, because I want to dissect this whole Catholic Vs Orthodox thing a lot more, with a bunch of points I thought of today in mind. It's too obscure (and lengthy) to post about and I don't have time to even get started, with Grant. Ah, well.
A couple of people have told me they couldn't get into flickr because they don't have accounts. So. Here is my wild thing, Jake, in the costume Laura got him for his 4th birthday:
And here is the robot cake I made him:
no subject
You could do it on facebook messages instead and let me spy...
I totally do not want to discourage you from your path towards Catholicism, but I am very interested in how you see the conflict between the two.
no subject
Seconded! (I'm a theology geek, I can't help myself.)
no subject
no subject
And Jake in the wild things outfit? Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
no subject
no subject
no subject
http://www.howdini.com/howdini-video-10469818.html
You can find stuff like that for anything. Last year I googled "how to make a dragon cake". Buying packs of each and every candy you need just one of for decoration can get expensive, though.
no subject