Life's been good to me so far

After a long stall in my weight loss, during which my hernia grew and my back pain increased and my eagerness to get in the freaking OR started to actually exist... I somehow felt incapable of (and/or uninterested in) putting any limitations on my eating. Too anxious about school, too sleep deprived to deal with any form of diet, too many roadtrips and whole days out of the house and too many priorities all around to make this tired issue another one.

The point is, I realized it sounded doable out of all the options, so I've went flour-free again. This is day 6, I believe, and the process has followed the same pattern I've experienced before - I get really depressed around day 3, less so on day 4, and then that part is mostly over. I feel way less bloated and experience less of the constant stomach discomfort I generally experience otherwise. I am hungry more often, and eat more overall. And, I lose at least half a pound every day, regardless of how I glut myself on meats, dairy, sugar, etc (in addition to produce, I mean, but nobody would expect produce to inhibit weight loss). I tend to feel way more flexible and comfortable when I haven't had glutinous things in awhile, and then I realize how used to feeling sluggish and hurting in ways that make me more sedentary I often am. It's also not hard at all, to just not eat the stuff. Considering how difficult most dietary restrictions are for me, that's pretty significant. Usually between 10-15 pounds down the effortless weight loss stops and I have to try in other ways, for that, though it is easier than it would be since floury shit is a lot of weight watchers points and I don't mind exercising as much when I'm not bloated all the time.

I was trying to figure out why I went back to eating flour last time, after about 5-6 months off that left me thinner and more energetic, and then I remembered - I was on vacation with Grant, just the two of us. We discovered a fabulous local farmer's market near our hotel, with fresh loaves of french bread, fresh mozzarella from some small farm, fresh organic herbs, heirloom tomatoes, artisinal salami, and great wine. It all seemed so wholesome and natural and irresistable, and it was a special occasion, so we bought it all and had it for lunch in the park, and then as a picnic dinner in the hotel room later.

And then, legit, it was NOT ROMANTIC AT ALL when I was in terrible pain and could barely button my pants, for the next 3 days. Also not romantic spending way too long in the bathroom over and over. But I had already messed up my system, so when we went to my friend Kristin's house up there and she started cooking me homemade pies and putting eggs and avocado on toast I went with it. By the time I got home from that trip, I was already getting used to my old-normal level of gastric discomfort, using the bathroom way less regularly, and regaining weight.

Then, in my quest to figure out pernicious anemia, my gastro tested me for celiac and I didn't have it, and some scientific articles came out that said the gluten free craze was a placebo-esque fad and I basically said, "oh, fuck it. Hand me a brownie."

Well. Whatever. This is very clearly a real and significant improvement, and if it's just a leap in the nutrient density of everything I eat and a reduction in empty carbs, so be it. If gluten really is an inflammatory substance that contributes to the horror show that is my leaky gut, well, I've got my bases covered.

Anyway, food related: I've been making frittatas 3-5 times per week, lately. I wilt a bunch of baby kale and spinach in irish butter, get it out of the pan, spray the pan (I don't have anything nonstick so this is necessary), put in a mix of 10 beaten eggs, almond milk, salt, fresh basil leaves, and tons of good shaved parmesan. Dump/spread all the wilted greens back in. Put more basil and parm on top. Move to the preheated oven til it's cooked through. Cut and serve with a pizza cutter. SO good. Ananda, Aaron, and Jake love it and tear it up every time. Isaac will eat a piece in a pinch. I tend to set it out for everyone with a lot of cut and salted tomatoes and avocados, knowing that is the only part Elise is ever interested in. Along with a huge freezer bag of belgium waffles from the last time we intentionally made way too much so they could be toasted as needed, greek yogurt, leftovers from whatever we most recently had for dinner, and a neverending stream of clementines and blueberries, this is what my kids subsist on until dinner every day.

Dinner tonight was Grant's creamy potato leek soup, which is really fucking good, but as he made some jazzed up cheesy herb bread for everyone else and I'm not eating bread I browned mushrooms and steamed/buttered broccoli, to throw in my bowl(s). Yum. I also ate a bunch of riesen while they had milano cookies. I'm telling you, this is really not hard ;)

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My day was great!
-Last night I met Kathy and her kids at Laura's, and we all had dinner/talked/generally hung out until late, when I returned home and watched shows and ate things with Annie until way too late, and it was all without consequence becaaaaause...
-Grant took Elise to Girl Scout Camp this morning so I could sleep in. She loves it there and does great stuff like swim, hike, craft, and sing songs all day, so I don't feel guilty at all watching Stats lecture videos, washing dishes, and watering/pruning plants for most of the afternoon after sleeping the morning away. She is the needy, energetic, more chronically bored child when home, who feels like she's really suffered if 10 minutes have passed entertaining herself, and the three little kids just bicker a lot when they're all here without structure and then tell on each other constantly. Her being at camp has made the days seem SO simple. Jake and Isaac just read their latest library books, play Minecraft, and build with Legos the whole day. They also took a walk and got some starfruit from one of our neighbors that is always giving us excess fruit off of his trees. I think Isaac + Elise is the killer combo, because usually Jake can get along fine with either of them for extended periods. And, picking her up is fun because she's exuberant and bouncy and full of stories about how amazing and wonderful camp was.
-I took the time to notice how pampered and generally blessed I am that I can do things like decide on a whim to go browse around one of my favorite stores for awhile, and swing by somewhere to pick up a few groceries on the way home from grabbing Elise. I also generally enjoy it a lot when Grant's working from home and I can take the car wherever I have to go, because it has air conditioning (moment of respect; this is serious - AIR. CONDITIONING.) and I'm just so over the van.
-SEX. Finally. So much better.
-Reading to the littles was fun at bedtime. I read Elise The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman, which I'd actually never read before even though we've had it here for years. She was almost absurdly into it. I should take video of her some time, she is truly hilarious. Jake and I are to the Department of Mysteries in The Order of the Phoenix, which means Shit Is Getting Real but also that's just a fascinating chapter as they move between all the rooms full of bizarre experimental magic. Isaac and I have started The Magician's Nephew, aka Narnia #1, and he is talking me into extra pages every time because (BWAHAHAHA) despite his concerns that they were going to be "kind of boring and dumb" he's been totally sucked in from the first night.
-I sat down with the big wall calendar and wrote all over it, and there is just something cathartic about putting it all down where everyone can see and feeling like I've got something under control.
-Jake finally agreed that I could trim his bangs, so he has eyes again.

My day was kind of awful!
-I'm really worried about Aaron. This is every day, as he's seemed chemically depressed for a long time, and before we figured out it was depression I thought he had some kind of chronic illness and was taking him from doctor to doctor because he gives himself tons of seemingly medical symptoms (periodic low grade fever, frequent swollen glands, stomach aches, headaches) with his misery. But every non-mental possibility has been ruled out. He is totally against therapy or medication and we've been skating a line that makes me feel obligated to force him against his will for a year or more, now. We talk about it increasingly often, even though I am normally dead against forcing anyone into talk therapy because that seems pointlessly ineffective. At 14, I also feel like he has a real say in the meds decision... He does everything you're "supposed" to do - go out in the sunshine, drag himself around to exercise, stick with things like dance and join roller derby even though he's sometimes loathing them because he knows exercise is important. He seeks social interaction and will sometimes just write everything he's thinking and feeling down, so that's good. He still likes talking with Grant and with me (about things other than his misery, which he never wants to talk about) and doing things with us. I struggle to get him to take every supplement ever shown to combat depression (probiotics, fish oil, folic acid). But...he cries randomly all the time, often at the drop of a hat, sometimes for long periods. Like there are never more than a few hours between his crying spells. He can't sleep at night. He feels and looks very, very, very sad almost all the time. The heaviness just radiates off of him in waves. Ananda has found ways to make fun of him for it that make him laugh in spite of himself, and Isaac and Jake tiptoe where they used to irritate him in little brother ways because they're actually worried about him. His girlfriend broke up with him and that set off this latest crescendo, but it's been over a month straight of this now, and he was also like this before that relationship (which really only existed via texting and only for like 2 months, not that 2 months of texting and a few hugs in the hallways don't matter when you're in 8th grade), too. Crying in classes at school. He's never mentioned anything suicidal but I really don't think he would, either. I waver constantly between thinking he'll be ok, he still has interests and hobbies and gets excited about some things, still smiles and laughs every day as well, he's a teenager...and thinking, fuck, should I like him checked in somewhere? I mean that's crazy and way too drastic, right? I've talked to my therapist about Aaron, and to Isaac's. They agree it's subjective and basically tell me stuff I already know (keep the lines of communication open, encourage him to blah blah blah, try framing x and y this way or that way). He's going to start dance intensives soon so he'll at least be having a better sleep schedule and more structure enforced, as I don't think this lounging and wandering sort of summer he's having is really doing him any favors.
-I have a deep crack on the outside of my left heel that's SO PAINFUL every time I step with that foot. I'm favoring it like crazy. I've ped-egg'd and buffed it down twice, and keep slathering it in lotion, but it's terrible. I toe walk on that side and limp around, when home. I grimace and walk normally out places. That foot is just a damn mess, I broke a toe last year and never went in for it and I think it healed badly. Ever since I have all sorts of stupid issues, a strange little new bump here and a really tender spot there. I suppose at some point I'm going to have to buckle down and go to a podiatrist but the thought of seeking out a new specialist and making more appointments for myself (I already get a b-12 shot and go to counseling every week, in addition to all the kid things I cart people to) is so unappealing that I'd honestly rather just limp and hope, for now at least.
-Also sat down with the budget today, after getting a bill from Isaac's psych and just...GAAAAH. So many extra things all piling up at once :/
-I'm basically ignoring texts from some of my favorite people because I just don't want to start a catch up conversation right now.

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Ananda came to me out of nowhere and asked if she can be homeschooled again and start dual enrollment at the college this fall. There are so many pros and cons involved. We've had two talks now, and I've hashed it out a bit with Grant. She's not 100% sure that's what she wants, and I'm not 100% sure I'm willing to do it, but it's looking like a possibility. She has places she wants to volunteer, and has spent a lot of time this summer with homeschooled friends who did/are doing dual enrollment. It will be a massive logistical pain in the ass for me if it goes this way, as homeschooled high schoolers who want real diplomas have to have real transcripts detailing every credit they complete, and must earn traditional grades that get averaged - otherwise, you can basically take the GED whenever you want. Between that and my not really knowing all the ins and outs of dual enrollment (credit minimums and maximums, what you have to fill out for the financial vouchers, who at the county approves it all, etc) it's fairly tedious before we get into things like me NOT wanting to have it out with her about completing work for me again, as I've gotten spoiled on that being between her and other teachers - and she "performs" for her teachers and does well as though there's no other option, unlike the endless procrastination and whining it started to be with me towards the end. And, it would mean acquiring outside help teaching her higher maths, when she has a great math teacher at her school, and that we'll be adding extra variables to daily life in the form of places she must physically get to regularly that other people aren't already going to.

I try very hard not to let things like "what is more convenient for me" play in to our choices for them. I'm not sure this is best for her on a purely "about her" level either, though. She LOVES her art teacher at school and the things she learns in his class, for instance, and the week of sleep away camp they do, and has a whole squad there that energizes her. I keep wondering how much of this is about relatively dumb shit, in the grand scheme of things, like not wanting to start getting up really early every day again, or enjoying having her hair dyed crazy colors for a couple of months and not wanting to switch back. Mostly when we talk it seems to be about a desire to have a diploma and AA sooner than she otherwise could, which, you know, why? Slow down. Enjoy your damn youth. Except that, obviously, nobody can learn to do that without hindsight. We have to decide before it's time to buy all the back to school stuff.

Well, I've got several half done LJ entries that have been sitting around open for various periods of time, a lot of it the kind of thing I often just delete rather than finish. I'm going to cut some of it below.

Life is pretty good :) I'm listening to a ton of Vampire Weekend pretty reglularly - this week's favorites are Horchata and Step, last week it was Walcott all the time, the week before that I was focused on White Sky and Oxford Comma. My Vampire Weekend Pandora station is a thing of beauty and joy, and has temporarily displaced NPR in our kitchen.

It's probably strange how relevant various iPhone apps are to my daily life. There is Pandora and NPR, and I use the Weight Watchers app anytime I eat or exercise, the C25K app 3 times a week at the Y, my camera very often. Texting throughout the day with Laura and Kristin, and Grant when he's at work, is pretty ongoing. I watch Khan Academy math videos and do Duolingo french lessons basically anytime I'm somewhere waiting. This of course does not count the goofing off that is Tumblr and Facebook.

I realized this weekend that I'm probably going to hit 500 tumblr followers anyday now. I suppose a lot of people like plants, and food, and my random pictures/bizarre sense of humor.

I'm also going to be down in the 230s this week. I started this ~*~weight loss journey~*~ in the 260s.

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Elise had a neurological evaluation up at Miami Children's Hospital yesterday. The PA that worked with us was very nice, she interviewed me for a long time and then examined Elise. Next she had Elise write her name, draw a person, identify various letters and their sounds, and then try repeatedly and without success to sound out a simple word (sit) whose letters and sounds she obviously is very familiar with. She's 7 and going into 2nd grade, and this is her first formal evaluation since mid-year during preschool, fyi. She actually had three evals during preschool, that went "barely behind in a couple of areas, ahead in others" then "pretty behind in speech and writing and patterns, but ok otherwise," and then "average to above average across the board." Then in Kindergarten it was clear she couldn't move at a standard academic pace, and I took her out mid-year. Throughout the last year+, for first grade, it's been very obvious that she has some short term memory issues, but they manifest in this maddeningly inconsistent way that's very hard to pin down.

I know from working with Ananda and Isaac that Elise definitely has some kind of reading disability - it is just a whole different world than teaching neurotypical kids. Aaron and Jake practically seemed to teach THEMSELVES compared to Annie and Isaac, and Elise is very much like they were - doesn't recognize a word we just did repeated exercises with a minute before, can't even string the sounds together mentally when I say them out loud one after the other, and even start to blend them out loud - and makes wild guesses that come out of absolutely NOWHERE ("igloo" for sit, since there's an i in the middle). There is this frustrating disparity that happens in these learning disability situations, where you have a kid who seems brilliant in conversation and who you watch figure out all sorts of complex concepts, who then cannot do this seemingly simple task.

Anyway, the PA also had her walk a straight line, hop a lot of each foot, follow her finger with eye but not head movement, and some other things. She seems confident that Elise no longer has any real neurological problems, but does have some kind or kinds of learning disability. Our next steps are an "N-met" test back at this same office, on a computer in a couple of weeks, to test her attention and focus, and then a psycho-ed eval at a university department. Hopefully that will be sooner than the N-Met, but I keep getting a voicemail and leaving messages so we'll see.

We've been waiting since late March for the appt she had yesterday, so I'm glad the other appointments are seeming soon. My goal here is to get her some concrete diagnoses to enter school with on August 18, so that she can get an IEP asap. The school she's going to is the one that did wonders for Isaac - he was in a class with 2 fulltime teachers and an aid for 22 kids, and he was getting before and after school tutoring in addition to having lot of "Reading Plus" work to do online at home, via their subscription.

Really what I've seen with Annie at home and Isaac at school is that, with a smart kid with a reading disorder, you keep trying new things until eventually something just clicks in a way that leaves you wondering whether it was the actual last method, or just them getting old enough. Annie and Isaac both read chapter books for pleasure regularly now, but I still feel nervous about Elise because of her history making it all seem like new territory.

And, it is still on the table whether or not Elise will be staying in school at all. But I want to give it a chance, and she is excited. I think the main variable is honestly whose class she ends up in.

She was excited to do the evaluation yesterday morning, and loved it, so that's helpful. There were stickers and a trip to Starbucks involved, too.

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Old partial nonsense rambling entries!

( #1, some thoughts on biking )

( Much )

( thoughts on birth control, and risk )

My hernia is always getting worse (bigger, more uncomfortable when I lay down or change positions, harder to accommodate with clothing, worse on my back) but for the last month, it's been getting worse at a scarier, more noticeable and much more rapid pace than normal. Obviously this is all subjective and hard to evaluate, but long story short is that I ended up in the ER for my annual "Am I dying NOW?" CT scan last night. This time, though, I got an exceptionally knowledgeable and interested staff of doctors and nurses who really heard me out and discussed my case at length. In the end, while my CT scan did not show a bowel obstruction/incarceration it did show a great big mess that (while not a dire emergency) really does need to be cleaned up as soon as possible for many reasons that could lead to a dire emergency. I had a long meeting with a couple of them before I was discharged that has put me on a totally new course. I am trying to laugh at the irony, here.

Points that were addressed:

-the general surgeon who did my small bowel resection and has been advising me on this hernia really doesn't know much about hernias and did, to some indirect degree, contribute to my having it since his sutures didn't hold my muscles together to begin with

-he is an older guy who really doesn't follow the latest procedures

-basically, never listen to that guy or my MD who trusts him so deeply ever again

-it's been getting worse because I've lost some weight and continuing to lose weight could rapidly lead to very dangerous crap as fat stops supporting and cushioning the intestines that protrude through my muscle wall and my muscles start coming back together around them. My weight is actually protecting me from incarceration now and it's imperative that I get this fixed BEFORE losing any significant amount so as to avoid dire consequences. SURGERY HAS TO COME FIRST, BEFORE WEIGHT LOSS. STOP TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT, IT COULD KILL YOU.

-I have the name of a hernia institute where they do nothing else and actually worked on one of the doctors I had last night who had a hernia fixed there and highly recommends them as industry leaders, cutting edge (harharhar), blah blah blah. I have crappy insurance but maybe between that and financing, we'll see

What the hell, you know?

They gave me dilaudid after I said I didn't need pain meds and before I realized what was happening. Holy hell that crap is strong. GEEZ. I was there most of the night and slept most of the day (Grant took the day off). I feel ok in the "constant pain as a lifestyle" way I always do lately. Mostly I feel bemused and also like Aaron must have when he used to crawl rapidly towards something dangerous and we'd pick him up (still crawling in the air), turn him in a new direction, and he'd take off that way.

So now that I've been at it for a bit and it's remaining something I feel good about, I'm "coming out" as a for health, for now, flexible-ish vegan. I don't like sabotaging myself by spreading the word about weight loss efforts that fail. This is a weight loss and digestive health and overall health effort...meat and dairy both make my whole entrapped hernia thing way more uncomfortable, dairy in general makes it like I have a cold and am itchy all over all the time. And both of those things (along with many other things) make me continually get fatter. So. This is my indefinite experiment.

So far it's working out really well and is almost shockingly easy (especially compared to the strict rigidity of Eat to Live). I have coconut ice cream in the freezer and coconut milk and creamer in the fridge, and dark chocolate is hidden in a closet. Neither coffee nor alcohol contain animal products of any kind ;) I will continue to consume honey, to eat animals at holidays and special occasions, and to not be hard to accommodate when I'm someone's guest.

The rest of the family is still eating whatever they want, though I feel this is only having a positive effect on what my kids eat.

Anyway, this has been about a week and a half now and I've already lost 5 pounds. I'm also "going to the bathroom" at least 5 times as much as I was before...frequency and quantity, good grief, I mean damn. It makes me feel SO MUCH LESS freaked about my hernia! Constant reassurance that I am nowhere near needing emergency surgery ;) Really, though.

And, I'm kind of shocked by how much LESS I'm eating. I mean I'm not putting any restrictions on myself at all as far as how often or much I eat, and I think it's still probably more than most people eat. And sometimes reactionary/not hunger related...it's just ending up being a lot less. Because it's more filling stuff? Because it's more nutritionally dense so my body wants less? Maybe both? Or maybe there aren't as many rich things to entice me ;) Sort of irrelevant.

I'm posting all that because I want to write about my menu plans re: tonight's grocery shopping. I'm psyched! I've been eating a lot of standard fare of ours, like kale and bean soup, salads, fruit, chips and salsa, curried chickpeas with brown rice, lentils, carrots and peanut butter, and oatmeal. But I've decided to branch out based on some experiments I've done, recipes I've looked up and things I've had out places. Some of the things I'm planning to do include:

-quinoa with a bunch of little sauteed junk thrown in, i.e., corn, peas, diced red and green bell pepper, onions, garlic and black olives
-coconut curry of onions, carrots, celery, broccoli and who knows what else, with rice
-sweet potato and black bean enchiladas with green chile sauce on top
-cauliflower tacos

I'm also mixing salsa into hummus because I'm weird like that, and bringing back the old but good waheni and wild rice mix that's loaded with mushrooms and cooked in broth that I used to make all the time. And non-dairy risotto full of mushrooms and almond slivers.

I am soy-phobic in addition to having a legitimate nasty reaction to concentrated soy protein, and Elise is out and out allergic, so standard "vegan alternatives" and manufactured fake foods don't work (or appeal, honestly). I've been doing some (non-protein) Odwalla bars and toasted edamame here and there and things like that seem to agree with me ok, as does soy sauce as a condiment. Also taking B12 every day, and I use nutritional yeast which has it.

Very much kicking around making this a permanent change. A real lifestyle change is what I need, and if I am not in a position to really alter my trigger-y and emotional eating, I can at least make sure I'm eating way better stuff. It's green and factory farming is horrifically disgusting. I've gone through weird meat aversions before and not eaten dairy for months at a time since I know it messes with me - it seems doable in many ways and much less restrictive than stopping to add up every calorie on Weight Watchers or stick to some precise very difficult formula with ETL.

I am totally reserving my right to watch Earthlings if I start to slip up too often, because I've been avoiding that, knowing it will ruin meat and cheese for me, like, forever.

I also think I found the place I'd like to get my surgery done when the time comes. It's in freakin' NYC, but having spent a week there that seems a lot more doable than it did when New York was like the moon to me. If I can go to Boston for months to have a baby, I can spend a week in New York for a surgery, right? It's not like it's happening tomorrow. They cater to and specialize in hispanic women, meaning this body type and this skin type. The galleries are SO much more things I can relate to (and would desire) than typical plastic surgery before and after galleries, I mean, gah. So while I don't feel GOOD about it...I feel better than I have.

It's interesting, not living in denial about my body. I have the peace that comes from accepting that I'm a work in progress and the hope that comes from knowing I'm doing things differently. But those are mixed in with the soul killing sight of myself as I actually am, rather than my standard idealized version. Don't get me wrong, I think in many ways I still have more confidence in my looks than many women do...but it's a whole hell of a lot less than I typically would. Being present in my own skin to experience my back aches and foot pain and hip weirdness is as jarring as looking in the mirror honestly is.

Also - I realize I'm "supposed" to be against street harassment, but damned if it isn't exactly the boost I need sometimes when men are telling me I'm beautiful or asking if I'll stop and talk as I ride by on my bike.

So, this week has been kind of a bust. Or not, depending on how you look at it. I can look back and name off the meals I cooked and the things I cleaned and the time I spent with Aaron or reading to the little kids, or the hours and hours and hours sleeping in and laying around with my illnesses. I read a book and two epic length fanfiction stories and took a great bath and wrote poetry for the first time in a year or more. I feel decidedly crusty - nose, eyes, throat, eww.

I'm thinking about New Years Resolutions. I made a LOT of them last year, and I think i did pretty well with them. I mean I had a fucking ton of really drastic resolutions and reiterated many times that it would be "my year", and I have to say that while I didn't do everything I wanted and see more to improve on...I am no longer the creature I was this time last year, hiding inside of myself. Keeping huge secrets from my husband in an increasingly unhappy marriage, wondering what I was supposed to be DOING with myself all the long hours of everyday, feeling hopeless and helpless. Uh-uh. Big shit for me, after 3.5 years spent just trying to hang on and survive following 2007.

2011 Resolutions:

-to be totally honest with Grant and fix this shit even if we kill it in the effort
I was definitely totally honest. About how woefully unsatisfied I was and trapped I felt and the massive doubts that were obsessing me. Through the help of objective friends, counseling on both of our parts, and hitting rock bottom, as it were (I think that was the day he spent sobbing and screaming while I took the kids to a party feeling like I wanted to die), we came to some huge conclusions. He realized he's got a major problem with codependency and we both realized what that actually is. He read books about it, joined web forums, started going to meetings. This was massive. Grant hadn't ever done any "work" on or for himself. He had to accept that it might be for himself because we might not pull through it. We started having fun, realizing our youngest kid is definitely old enough to be left for a few hours every week - doing stuff we've never ever done for no damned reason but that we hadn't, like taking baths together and going to the beach at night and walking around Miami on Saturday evenings and blaring music together blasting over causeways. I think I freaked him out a bunch of times telling him fantasies and wants I hadn't ever felt like there was any point saying to him, things I didn't feel like he could deal with, let alone relate to - I had this whole GIANT ENORMOUS ALWAYS ON MY MIND secret part of myself that I was just keeping for myself, like as though I was going to get a chance to utilize it with somebody else one day or something? Subconsciously though. And we broke through a ton of it and spent a ridiculous amount of money at the sex store and he actually found some independent desire and motivation to get it on that was really amazing for me. Is really amazing for me. He also realized he has dietary intolerances that were making him grumpy and tired all the time, and fixing that...there is really no way to explain it. It's like the best of Grant I ever got, is Grant all the time without corn O_o We thought it was sugar, like, forever, but I think retrospectively that's just because corn syrup=sugar so often. And that explains why going off "refined" sugars always made such an obvious, positive difference to him. I had to fess up a lot too, that I had tons of energy and passion that I just had to find my own way to channel and address because it isn't his job to regulate my moods all the time, and that shouldn't be threatening for him. I needed/wanted a social life outside of our family, and to do things for my own sense of identity (like school, and writing, and even silly things like tumblr). He had (sometimes has) this idea that if I'm having a bad day, he's failing or sucks, and it drives us both nuts. Suffice to say...Grant has always been a good friend to me, a great support system and provider and a kickass Dad for our kids. He's always been an ideal partner in times of crisis, which we've had aplenty. But the last 6-8 months of our relationship have without question been the best time we've ever had, personal relationship-wise. I was so desperately hopeless once we settled into no more babies, no more emergencies life and I felt completely unengaged and stifled as a woman...this is badass. We still stumble, both of us, in different ways, but overall I can't believe how this has all turned out vs where we were a year ago.

-to actually make birth control happen and stop courting fate
I sucked it up and got the copper IUD. Which was surprisingly empowering and also required jumping through an awful lot of hoops (multiple exams, around $700 all told for the device and insertion which I really had to go against Grant on, financially, an ultrasound a month in when my strings had dissapeared, a hellaciously painful first period). I really love it and feel very good about it at this point. I keep meaning to post an update - my bleeding is not changed at all from what it was, I haven't had increased pain since that first month, no spotting mid cycle. It's really like it's not there. I forget about it for weeks at a time.

-to step outside my own box and do things and live my freaking life
I don't know how to explain the level to which I spent 2008, 09 and 10 and sitting around in the house, talking about how one day I'd do something, hoping I wouldn't suddenly die everytime I got a little bloated. I mean. Damn. I guess I also spent a lot of time driving the van, taking kids to activities and hoping I wouldn't die. But I definitely didn't talk to people much anymore, and just. Ugh. Aaron and I going to NYC was sort of my first taste of "WTF have I been DOING? I didn't ACTUALLY DIE IN THE ICU, gah!!" Anyway, I think I did pretty well. I went out in the evening with Kristin alone, up into the city, multiple times. I had Jess here for a week and we went out and got my nose pierced. I took walks and lunch dates just Gloria and I, and met Dana for coffee. I talked to David and Memo on the phone and Heather online again, and texted the heck out of Sara and Robby at different points. I got closer to Cybele and Karen at PATH to where they're actual real friends and not just moms I talk to at meetings. I got past this weird irrational alcohol stigma I've had my entire life from my weird childhood and discovered drinking (at 29...I swear).

-to establish real social lives for my kids
Most definitely. Every one of them has real, good friends now that they see regularly, and A and A have the kind of fun and adventures up the road that make me kind of jealous remembering being their age. We got to TLC and PATH every week now, too, in addition to Elise being in preschool.

-go back to college
This is my most measurable success, I guess. Or obvious or whatever - I think the real biggest is Grant and I. But this is still big! I spent months and literally dozens of visits to advisement, financial aid, the bursar, and registration at two campuses, filled out tons of paperwork, gathered documents, filed appeals, and generally bent over backwards and got all my financial aid in place and schedule set up for summer. Still more logistics and bureaucracy for fall. But yeah between having something for me, being challenged with deadlines, having structure, talking to other students, it's been a really positive thing. We've also gotten refund money that's been helpful for us. And I'm off academic probation now, and about halfway done with my AA :)

-finish, edit and publish my short stories, and edit, get illustrations for and publish my children's book
This is about a half success. I did a lot of stuff I might not have without the goal in place. I finished the short stories (which feels very good to me...there are 20 of them, written over 3 years), solicited great editors who did a lot of helpful work for me, got an illustrator working on the kids' book who has done a bunch of good sketches and a couple of real drawings, and did TONS and tons of research on agents, self publishing, the changing industry, book length limitations, genres, etc. My artist flaked out in a "beyond my control" sort of way due to his life circumstances and that pushed his dates back by a whole lot, and I haven't actually finished making the changes on the short stories - this is what fell by the wayside once I was back in school. But I still feel like it moved forward in exciting ways and is all much closer to fruition now as a result. It's real, all but done and I know what to do next.

-lose weight
I had a plan for this. ETL one month, off the next. I thought I had it all worked out, like I'd be off October (Grant's, Jake's and my birthday, potential trip to New Orleans, Halloween candy) and December (Christmas season). I planned to "cheat" only for Thanksgiving day. And I was on ETL faithfully MOST of January, and lost 13 pounds. Then I started doing some horseshit like I do, like well ok I'll eat whatever I want this weekend and then go back on, but be on for SIX WEEKS rather than just a month, to make up for it. But then at the end of the weekend I'm like, well, maybe I should just do 3 weeks on (like I had already accomplished), 3 weeks off (which would be immediately advantageous). Except then when the 3 weeks off was over, I was like hey why don't I try Weight Watchers instead just as a trial and see if it works as good or better? There's an iPhone app! And it didn't. And I gave up. And I was so emotional about how many times I've failed at this and how I just keep gaining gradually year by year and how I'm gonna be either in emergency surgery for my hernia or a 400 pound diabetic with black feet like my Ma, that I was like, Ok. I can't even think about this anymore. It's seriously driving me insane. I'm going to cry and have a nervous breakdown if I think about losing weight anymore. So I didn't. I ate whatever the fuck I wanted for the rest of the year. I got pissed when I would note that, say, when I started sleeping at night again (part of Grant and I's relationship improvement plan) and not eating at night anymore for the first time in my LIFE, it made no difference. Or that when school and preschool started and I had to walk and ride my bike miles regularly, it made no difference. Au Contraire, I've gained back the 13 pound loss plus an extra 20. Or so. I just got on the scale this morning for the first time in 2 weeks and I'm up another 5. AWESOME. I talked to my gynecologist about testing my thyroid when I was getting the IUD since thyroid troubles run up the same side of my family the weight comes from, but since I was getting ready to be on Grant's new job's insurance plan we decided to wait so that it wouldn't be a pre-existing thing and we could potentially get it for free. I don't have other thyroid symptoms anymore, though. I'm just fatter all the damn time. And, I didn't talk about it here because it was too painful and awful, but I was in counseling a few months ago - a low cost study program thing the UM psych dept does, I wrote about that at first - video cameras and supervisors and things, remember? Well. After a couple of sessions the guy called me and told me I have a serious eating disorder that's beyond their ability to treat so he couldn't see me anymore. They gave me a name and number to some place I never called and I freaked out and just kind of dropped that whole experience down the well, so to speak. Filed it somewhere way back in the back of my mind to hopefully never think about again, basically. I just...fuck, you know? So clearly this is something I NEED to tackle, but I really don't even know where to begin. If I think about giving up just about anything I regularly eat or drink I just immediately feel like crying and like it isn't worth it because life wouldn't be worth living anymore if I couldn't drink coffee or couldn't stay up late snacking on bullshit with Grant on the weekends or couldn't have alcohol a couple of times a month or whatever the hell. I NEED a steak when I'm on my period, blah blah blah. *sigh* My sister is apparently really concerned about how much I've gained and talked to my mother about it and UGH. Ugh ugh ugh.


So, yeah. Lots of huge success, some partial success, and some mega fail. I'm trying to map out what I want to do with this coming year, now.

I think I'm gonna get to a point that I post here and it cross posts to the blog, so both places get all the entries. For now this is all that's happening (lj only).

Bizarre experiences in blogging:

1. David, my old friend who recently got back in touch? He's living with his brother and sister in law on the other side of the country. Botched surgeries came up in conversation and David said, "Yeah my friend had a sponge left in her during a c-section in Boston" and the sister in law said (this is paraphased) "Wut you know altarflame?" Basically she was reading my lj the whole time we were going through our myriad fiascos that year! She educated him on booju, which makes me lol forever at the craziness of our small small world.

2. Apparently my grandfather is reading with a great deal of skepticism (this is me waving at you, Pa!). My mother keeps calling me saying things like, "Pa printed out pages of your journal and highlighted parts that he thinks mean you and Grant are in trouble", and "He doesn't understand how you can afford x, y and z". Pa, print and question all you need to, just stop sending her my way about it so I don't have to hear. Or, write me an email, I am always happy to talk to you. I love you but this thing where she calls me up because people are up in arms and want further explanations is getting annoying.

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Grant has two very promising interviews tomorrow. He also has a job lined up to start February 1 if they both fall through, and nothing else comes up, but we are really hoping something else does work out because the fall back job - though positive in some ways - also has some issues.

Overall I am feeling pretty good about money. With the Carmax check for the Prius cleared we've been able to pay December, January and February's mortgage payments and catch up the electric bill to a zero balance and do all sorts of things we've been putting off (like getting 5 birth certificates at $45 per copy so that they're here for school records in a few months, and spaying the cat). There is still a lot left for living off of and getting a less cool second car, and Grant is making more money at his part time job than usual as the guy is being nice giving him extra hours while he's "unemployed".

Grant is also being nice - awesome, in fact - giving me many hours each evening to focus on market research, combing agent listings and crafting query letters. I really appreciate this as we aren't usually in a situation, with available time, for it to be possible, and we may be back in a place where it isn't again soon. For now, though, I am making really exciting progress.

Writing a query letter to an agent is like writing a research paper for school - they want to know comparative titles in the genre as well as what makes your book different from the others already out there in that genre. They want a tantalizing description of your work that would be appropriate for the back of the book on a shelf. They want compelling bio information and proof that you are marketable and they want it spaced properly, and it has to all fit on one page, with a wowing sample attached. It is really exhaustive work rewriting and editing queries for a project for the first time (or in this case four completely different projects), BUT - I have a lot of hope about it, because once you have that first draft at a point you feel good about, you can basically just customize the queries you have written to send out over and over to different people. So even assuming the agent I am querying first here rejects me, it will be a simple thing to keep sending queries out to new people constantly until someone eventually accepts something.

I'm grateful for email - this was a much more time consuming practice (as in waiting for replies) as well as way more expensive, when it all had to be done through the post office.


I've lost 13.6 pounds this month. Still holding strong with Eat to Live. ETL kind of flip flopped with writing and is now the thing I'm 2nd most excited about, because I plateaued for a few days. Then I lost another half pound, though, and am hoping I'm out the other side of the dead spell and about to see daily decreases again...I'm torn every day between not being able to WAIT for it to be February so I can eat what I want to eat, and really not wanting it to be February yet because I need to lose way more weight before the end of January :p Grant being home is wonderful because he cooks all kinds of awesome things for the rest of the family and I don't have to deal with that; but it's also terrible because he COOKS ALL KINDS OF AWESOME THINGS FOR THE REST OF THE FAMILY! He made these tantalizing loaded potato skins today and I had to ask Aaron to eat one, and moan, and tell me about how awesome it was so I could live vicariously.


Today was a day for reorganizing the library with extra shelving units we brought over from Grant Sr's (things we left there when we moved out that have been sitting empty) - our books had exceeded shelving capacity. It was a day to listen to a lot of Sublime and Prodigy. G and I took just Ananda and Elise out for a bit, and when they were all in bed the two of us went for one of our late night, half hour long power walks... one thing I really love about Bob living here is being able to do things like that.

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Kid Updates:

-Ananda is 5' even now, suddenly curvier, and basically has her earbuds in and a book in her hand 24/7. She does all of her chores without complaint and looks forward to Annoying Orange updates on Fridays. She does a lot of independent Abeka and Kumon schoolwork and is frequently either carrying, playing with, reading to, or helping Elise...otherwise she's locking her out of her bedroom.

-Aaron has found some new friends down the block and is over there with them everyday now. It's an 11 year old girl and 8 year old boy who seem REALLY nice (way nicer than the bullying across the street neighbor that is the bane of this property...) They play basketball and box ball and dodge ball and man hunt and sometimes 1-3 other kids from around here join them. This has totally revitalized him - he's like a different kid all of a sudden. He was having sleepovers twice a month with some friends and having Darian over here or going to PATH every week, but clearly he needs a lot more kid time with kids who don't make him miserable. I think he felt trapped in our yard like he had to hide behind the bushes by across-the-street bully kid :/

The two of them have had their biking horizons expanded to include a great big 6 block grid, when they're together, and are loving it.

-Isaac has regressed to a level of misery and nonsense that has me wracking my brain like "IS THIS A GLUTEN ISSUE? IS THIS SOME UNDER STIMULATION? WHAT IS THE PROBLEM I THOUGHT TYRANNY WAS PAST!!!" Basically he cries about everything, often for long and exagerated time periods, and he is randomly mean to his siblings again, and...I don't know. Maybe it's just the Isaac cycle I used to always talk about in a downswing and I should be thankful it's been so long. Perk: He's more affectionate than he has ever been.

-Jake is wonderful. He does his chores consistently and relatively easily, now, finally, and he tears up big plates of raw vegetables and loves doing schoolwork and is generally the freaking bees' knees. He's good to our pets and to his siblings and still has this grumpy edge and scowl of doom that are to die for adorable.

-Elise is a nightmare at bedtime, and extremely hyper/loud sometimes, but she's talking more everyday, and she's ADORABLE, and I can't believe she's really the youngest and getting so big. She talks about wanting to go to school everyday and plays independently or with Jake and Isaac (unless she's harassing Annie) constantly. She's VERY strong willed and stubborn.

The three little kids are always doing something together. Today they each had bags full of random things and were pretending to travel and have travelling adventures, all day. Last night Jake and Isaac had an epic plastic sword fight battle while she stood by dressed as a princess and cheered them on alternately.

Alright, I am OUT. It is way too late and I'm far too tired.

My hair makes sense up in a clip and piled on top of my head, with the curly bangs pushed to the sides, in a way that is kind of relieving. A girl cannot live in a headband indefinitely and I was getting tired of my family members bursting into uncontrollable laughter as I came around corners.

I feel accomplished because tonight is the first night this week that I've managed to get the little kids to sleep without any of them screaming, injuring each other or running out 50 million times. It's really very simple...if I take the time to read to them all in there, they go to sleep like decent children. If I skimp out on them and just yell "Get back in bed!" down the hall when I hear giggling, I'll be yelling for hours. The not-so-simple simple part of this comes into play when Grant is working night shifts and I'm sick with a messed up hand and DON'T WANT TO READ TO ANYONE. It is one of those things that is always great and easy once I get in there. I just don't always want to go in.

I feel like a failure because my bathrooms are disgusting. Deplorable. Awful. Like, wow, I think I'd rather go pee at a gas station. All this from one evening with them running amok. Aaron did stupid things like leave an empty AND A FULL toilet paper roll and MY BOOK on the edge of the tub as he took a bath, getting everything soaked and shreddable, so that Isaac and Jake went in next, and the pulp was EVERYWHERE by the time I came in to check their water level and bring towels. You may or may not know this, but wet paper is my ultimate weakness. I can deal with puke, snot, poop, headlice, giant palmetto bugs, but I seriously gag about wet, mushy paper. *shudders* I made Aaron get everything out of the actual tub, since we couldn't pull the plug otherwise, but the rest is waiting for me.

The other bathroom suffered some kind of Isaac poop fiasco coupled with an Elise pouring cups of water disaster.

Yeah. I'll be in there working on all that...in a minute. *sigh*

Ananda is on her first solo sleepover tonight. Her and Aaron have went together and spent the night with their friends Grace and Kai (sister and brother, 2 of my friend Michelle's 6 kids) a couple of times...but that's different. On the way there she was sitting in the front with me, which is a new thing. She was sitting with her (also-new) thinness folded into casual indian style, perfect posture, and I said, "You look like you feel tall". "I do!" she told me, surprised. With her bag that she packed herself and I didn't even influence beyond "You got clothes for tomorrow and pjs and something to do in case you end up awake later than Christina, right? And a toothbrush?" It's also different because unlike most of the playdates and friends they have, Christina's mom is just someone I kind of know. I mean I've kind of known her for years and trust her, but we only really talk to coordinate their get-togethers or finalize details for PATH activities. She's really nice, we just don't "click". Which means I stand in the doorway for a minute and she's very polite, and then I leave, if Annie is spending the night. Whereas I hang out until 9 when they stay at Michelle's, and we were all just there for dinner the evening before anyway.

When we drive places now, we listen to Y-100 on mute, watching the display to say "Bad Romance" is playing. Which usually takes under 10 minutes. Aaron and I both do the cat-scratch motion 3 times as we sing, "lahv, lahv, lahv". He is really, really interested in Lady GaGa as a person. He wants to know WHY she wears crazy outfits and what these songs are supposed to mean. We've done a lot of side-by-side, somewhat screened viewing of interviews and appearances together. What I find is that her song Speechless is about her Dad refusing to undergo heart surgery that would save his life, and how she wrote it to change his mind (it worked). That she and all the other dancers stand in a circle and pray before each show. That all her proceeds from her upcoming appearance in NYC are going to Haiti, along with her "HaitiLadyGaGa" shirt sales. That she was a total nerd in school and never felt like she could be herself and totally can't do relationships or men and her fans are everything to her to probably an unhealthy degree, but many many "different" people who are her fans are ravenous and passionate about her, the devotion is insane. She's also got a lot of songs nobody in this house is gonna be listening to anytime soon, as I don't need Isaac asking me what she means "take a ride on his disco stick". We're sticking to the radio edits of singles at this point. And my 8 year old son, who has one black temporary tattoo that says "Rock n Roll" surrounding his eye and another strip one across his neck (both done without consulting us, from a pack Annie got for Christmas, I assure you) says he is a Little Monster, too. That's what she calls her fans (after her Fame Monster album and Monster Ball concerts). He says he's been inducted into the Haus of GaGa. We watch as she breaks the glass case surrounding her piano, which is then on fire as she begins to play, and he shakes his head - "She's fearless." Marilyn Manson has a crush on her and says she's brought Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali to the mainstream pop world. I watched her swinging a spikey ball on a chain into a taxi windshield on Oprah earlier.

I REALLY LOVE THIS:


Speaking of fearless, and Aaron:


Also, here he is working his magic on baby Elizabeth like I mentioned a few posts back:


WHILE I'M STEALING MY SISTER'S PICTURES...

That's really...really...REALLY FREAKING CUTE. Do you SEE that LITTLE BABY? *explodes* Brian says the marker on his face spells out his name, so consider it a label. I think it would make more sense for him to be named random scribbles, honestly, knowing him as I do.

I've been reading a book of Mother Angelica's writing that Paige/likeinabook left here for me. I really, really love it and am getting a LOT out of it. Some of the talk about living with God in the moment and praying in the present seriously got me through my follow up ER-trip, which was in a room almost exactly like the one I was in, in the ICU, down to the freaky dentist style chair and surrounding noises.

I want to read so much fiction right now. The Thirteenth Tale on custard_kisses's reccomendations, Jane Austen because, well...I've never read any Jane Austen, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as I never understood what that book was about and now that I do, I'm really intrigued...alas, there is no time for leisurely reading of fiction anywhere I can detect in my life. I suppose I could use the 30 minutes every couple of days that I take to write a journal update but I do not have the kind of discipline to come up for air from a book I like. Books swallow my whole life. The Mother Angelica book is short bits that I read in the bathroom.


Today is my fourth day back on (my adapted) strict Eat To Live. So far I've lost a pound a day, again. It is nuts. Today I had one of my frou frou Liberte yoghourt's, full of grains and pear, for breakfast, and then very soon after half an avocado and a tomato diced up and salted and eaten on sesame terragon Back to Nature crackers. Note that both of those are things I ADORE and would eat all the time anyway. Laaaate lunch was my now-adapted white chicken chili, which no longer contains any oil, butter or other off limits things but is still awesome - I make it with coconut milk and cumin and and it is freaking delicious, loaded with onions, garlic, and 3-4 colors of bell peppers.... Dinner was a whole romaine heart ripped up with a sprinkle of almonds, dried cranberries and bleu cheese tossed throughout, and 4 bay scallops roasted up in the toaster oven alongside. I snacked on baby carrots and blueberries throughout the day. Antibiotics and probiotics. Voila.

I've developed this crazy goal that I don't think could ever be healthy or normal by regular dieting standards but is almost...modest...by Eat to Live standards, that I will try to be my pre-pregnancy weight by Annie's 10th birthday. I'm talking my OG pre-pregnancy weight, like when I was not yet a mother and got pregnant for the first time. I haven't been there in a decade. Heck, slightly more.

I'm so gonna do it.

For the record, that would be 168. I started Eat to Live at 233, was on it for 6 weeks and lost 26 pounds. So I was 207. Over the course of 2.5 months of free-for-all'ing I gained back 6 of those pounds. That I only gained back 6 having whole bags of Riesen on the first day of my period and pigging out on holiday food and things kind of blows my mind. Anyway, so I started this time at 213.8. So far my 3 morning weights have been 212.8, 211.8, and 210.8 -
Here I go, baby.

Sunday is my cheating day, which will slow things up a bit, but I can handle it. Ananda's birthday is June 1.

THIS Sunday, I have big plans involving lasagna, and another fire-gathering with s'mores ;) But I am not going to go CRAZY on Sundays, just do what I want in something like moderation. We're burning our Christmas trees for this fire, and I've sent out a facebook invite to a bunch of people. The weekend will be largely devoted to cleaning.



LAST THING! The cold weather that you all love to make fun of me for complaining about. My aunt sent me email pictures that I thought made a statement about WHY I get to bitch when it's record lows here. It was a picture of a green tree covered in ice, and I though - Exactly. THAT is the problem.

We don't have a season of getting cooler and easing into winter. We have 90 degree days aplenty in December.

When we actually HAVE a freeze:
-homeless people get sick and/or die, because they don't have the gear for it, and we don't have the shelters in place
-farmers' lose all of their crops - I live in an agricultural community
-peoples' homes (like my friend Kristin, and my sister!) aren't even equipped with working heat, and everyone's floors are tile, and you seriously shiver yourself silly inside
-you see the damage around for weeks afterwards - all the grass in my backyard is suddenly brown and crispy, and my banana trees look like they might not recover
-the reptiles actually FREEZE, like iguanas and small lizards and snakes and everything FALL, solid, from the trees, and lay there vulnerable until it warms up again

I really think it is different than what people experience when they're used to, acclimatized, and outfitted for "real" winters. My PATH friend Michelle walked out of her house this past weekend, slipped in ice that had literally NEVER BEEN THERE BEFORE, and busted out her kneecap...she spent most of the week in hospital after surgery and I'm taking her dinners because she can't even get around the house with crutches. It snowed in places this week that they don't even have snow tires available for sale, let alone do people know how to drive on roads with ice.

Anyway. I'm just saying. People are always like, stfu that's not even REAL cold, but I think if those people experienced a sudden drop down into the low 30s in the middle of summer they'd freak out and take to their blogs. THAT IS WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE when that happens.

I have barely ever been online, because I've had company come into town; Dama and her daughters are here ♥

I was honestly really freaked before they got here about them coming. I was so stressed about all these ridiculous asinine things I'd convinced myself had to be done before they arrived - like scrubbing the couch and cleaning out the van and making sure all the towels in the house were clean and put away - and it was completely impossible to do any of that while teaching Ananda and Aaron math, taking all of them to their activities, making Halloween costumes for all five, and, you know, THE USUAL cooking and cleaning for all of us. It crescendo'd into this anxiety that almost had me wishing we hadn't scheduled a visit.

Then they got here and the kids all dissapeared to play and she and I started talking and I chilled the fuck out and now I really DO NOT understand what my problem was. I think part of it is because she was bringing Brad, the military husband with the perfectionist cleaning standards, to my house, but it came to a point where I was like, dude. This man has been to war. He can handle the unmopped floor, I'm sure he can.

Anyway. They arrived on Halloween, and that night everyone dressed up and we all went trick or treating together. Her Zoe was Hermione, and she had braided her hair into a bunch of strands and so when she undid it, Zoe really had Hermione hair. Aaron found her a cauldron, Annie lent her a Gryffindor scarf and Isaac's clip on tie really rounded it out (she already had a robe and wand). Definitely a winner.

My kids, the Insects...
Ladybug:




Bumblebee:

I am so incredibly thrilled with how the two little kids' costumes came out. Totally satisfying.

Caterpillar:

The fluffy boas mean he's poisonous.

Ant:

This looked so much better the first time he wore it, to his dance class party. He had bigger, browner sunglasses, black shoes, and the extra arms were sticking out properly.

Butterfly:

Epic wings.

I've been thinking a lot about "the past". Everything: sibling dynamics when I was young, history with relatives, including Jud the evil x-x-stepdad, everything that went down with Bobby and I, how my mothering has evolved over time, things I'm mortified by now, things I didn't even realize I'd forgotten.

Two things teenage Tina did that I would never do now, with kids:
1. Take babies to the grocery store, to sit in the cart, wearing nothing but a diaper.
2. Allow the infant tylenol bottle's rubbery dropper top - attached to a full (if childproof) bottle to become baby's favorite chew toy. It's in, like, every picture of Ananda under a year old.

It's kind of insane how I look back at pictures of this hairless, bird-chested 16 year old holding a baby...or Grant, narrow and smooth faced...and I have a hard time, even just where I'm at now, thinking, "Oh yeah, obviously these sorts of people should be entrusted with raising children". When I went to the hospital for 3 days to have Aaron - by scheduled repeat cesarean, how times change - Laura stayed with Ananda. My sister Laura. She was the most qualified, I thought, she did a great job. But...Laura was like 14? Alone in my apartment for 3 days and nights with a young toddler. What the hell were any of us thinking? How did this work out? Because it really DID, is the thing.

How does God trust us with each other?

Moving on. Dama and I have...well, let me say this differently, I have held Dama prisoner and forced her to view 700000 pictures. Including this one...

That's my Nana in the front, the one who just had strokes this year. And me in the red pants. My mom by the swing with Laura in it.

I don't know what Christmas Eve is going to be this year. I need to talk to my grandfather about it. He wants to just call it off, and I kind of don't get that. She's home. *frustrated shrug*

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My good friend Heather's baby was born, and died, on November 1, 4 years ago. I was very aware of his birthday this year, and grappled hopelessly for something to say. I remember so clearly going through those pregnancies together; knowing we were having black haired boys, who would be so much calmer than our red headed tyrants, together; picking J-names we felt were chosen for us. I felt so miserably sad about my Jake being in the NICU, and then I came home one night and I saw her entry.

Heather - I will never forget your beautiful son.

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Shaun has been over a lot.

I'm inordinately frustrated by the lack of sugar pumpkins available in stores right now. We were all getting addicted to pumpkin bread. It better be back soon.

I've been eating things, here and there, that I shouldn't. I have kept my 22 pounds lost off, but I've kind of plateau'd at that weight because of the cheats. On the one hand this is comforting because, well, I'm having an easier time BY FAR of creating balance for myself without weird addictive extremes and it gives me confidence about keeping weight off in the future. On the other hand I do still have a lot more to lose. My 6 weeks on the "Aggressive weight loss plan" were up right as Dama arrived and obviously she needed to sample the organic fair trade hazelnut chocolate I used to be addicted to and should experience the soft garlic cheese, pesto and prosciutto sandwich I invented a few months back, and, you get the picture. *sigh* We just picked up our produce this morning and I'm fairly confident I can continue to make this ETL business happen. Tomorrow is basically a new day 1 for another 6 weeks, we'll see how this one goes. I feel a lot more confident that I can do it - in a humble, because God really can do anything, way - just also very resigned that it's going to feel really straining again at first. Whatevs. I haven't abandoned the program, just need to tighten things up again...

Aaron and Zoe are so freaking cute together. Sometimes I think they are really destined to be together, which I know is ludicrous because they're 7 and 8 years old. But Aaron has had a special face-hiding, blushing, lip-biting place in his heart for her for almost 3 years now, already. She threw up today, from this med she was taking for flu - it's a long story but anyway she threw up, in the van next to him where she was sitting. He did things like open her window for her and bring us her puke bag. He's so...innocent and sincere and totally abashed about this. She can hold his crazy ass cat that nobody can get near but him, and they spent a whole afternoon catching lizards and frogs from (what we call) the alley.

It's really WEIRD in general how Dama's oldest, Maria, is SO MUCH LIKE our oldest, Ananda - they are in the office blaring Taylor Swift and Kelly Clarkson and dancing and singing, and being sarcastic with the other kids. Then Aaron and Zoe are the two who care about the egrets and crabs at Anne's Beach, and can really get super sad and glassy eyed about any cruelty, and are OBLIVIOUS to a hilarious extreme. And then our third(s), Isaac and Luci, are the stand-out light featured ones who whine and cry about things with Ws for Rs. It works out. Elise really loves Dama.

I like giving her a vacation. She was getting Zoe the medication at the Urgent Care clinic and she took her blood pressure, and it was the lowest it's been in years. I like the idea that my house lowers peoples' blood pressure.

My brother started emailing me. We have to get down to the nitty gritty of his contract/guidelines/whatever. I am not especially enthusiastic about that, but, it is what it is.

I got a letter from my forever-friend Jess last week. Will be writing back soon. I hope she is down this way before the year is out.

I wrote another short story, and I'm really happy with it. I'm thinking about trying to get myself a test audience for some of the writing I want to submit, mostly for editing purposes.

And my birthday packages are trickling in. Dama got me an icon! It arrived a couple of days after her, a Theotokos and Christ icon I'll hang somewhere in the library, which I'm trying to kind of theme as our Christian art room.

So yeah.

It's late.

I'm out.

I had a good and productive day. I did just about everything I set out to do.

Got up early, took a shower, stuck to my eating plan. Did two math lessons with Ananda and Aaron - we're doing double math and little else for a short while because they have some holes in their math knowledge and I'm trying to get them up to speed there. I baked a couple of pumpkins and made pumpkin bread with the resulting puree, for tea. We went and got our produce in the morning, deposited checks in the bank, and Aaron got to his evening dance class on time. Also I finally remembered to get our toothpaste, which is only really at Whole Foods, while we were up there today.

Robby came over for tea. He had planned it with me last night over AIM. He showed up, almost 15, with his big hair with it's growing-out-highlights, extremely skinny jeans, 2 layered tops, and what for all the world appeared to be Ugg boots. Yes, yes, it is in the upper 80s here again - ah to be young, gay, and going to the redneck highschool. He was texting me from school today.

(for background, the other day he updated his facebook to say he just heard a teacher tell a kid who had his phone under the desk messing with it, "Either you're playing with your penis, or you're texting - either way, put it away son")
Robby's text: Ugh, they're doing FCAT reviews and I'm stuck in the same class all day, craving your cooking.
Me: Aren't you worried your teacher is going to accuse you of something embarassing in class for texting right now?
Robby: I've got it out, it's ok with him.
Me: WHOA.
Robby: lol, wow.

Most of our conversations are not nearly so ridiculous.

I pulled out all the stops for tea, with sugar cubes and honey in our silly honeycomb and coconut milk to pour into ginger peach tea in the little creamer. And the pumpkin bread, a big fancy bundt cake. We had it all on a huge red quilt in the sideyard with the rabbits hopping around in a pen nearby and chickens pecking crumbs off our plates and drinking from our teacups. The kids made him watch them do a ton of tricks and stunts and view an assortment of lego creations, and he helped me hang a Fisher Price swing I got for Elise off of freecycle the other day (as in, he climbed the tree to hang knots). He told us he was telling everyone at school today, in a British accent, that he was "having afternoon tea with the chickens later" and nobody believed it.

I invited him back for Friday, to come to game night at the bookstore with us. It's really, REALLY weird how Ananda and Aaron are at the super annoying tween age he used to be when he irritated me half to death. THEY are irritating me like that now. I really don't care for this stage of false bravado and general distain for everything. Give me infant-to-preschoolers or teens any day.

I talked to my friend Michelle...one of my friends Michelle, I actually have 3 Michelles in my phone now counting my aunt...and she got me all excited about planning Nancy's Birthgirlz event and selling books of my own and things like that.

I talked to my Dad for awhile and he told me this INSANE theory he has about how the Catholic Church doesn't allow priests to marry because that way the church can have all their stuff when they die, since they don't have any heirs to inherit it all. "Think about it, multiplied over all the priests - that's a lot of money, Tina". SO CRAZY.

He also told me less crazy and much more intense things, like about how his dad - my Pa - called him up and said he was going to kick the bucket and he had to teach him to cook some things first, so he went down there and cooked things with Pa's directions and really, he is glad he knows how to now. Pa always took care of all of us with food. I'm doing my annual "Scramble to get my paternal family together for Thanksgiving" thing. It's worked 3 times in my adult life, but none of those were last year or the year before...I wish it was easier to get everyone HERE from Key West, because I have room to put people up and to serve a huge meal. Everyone is down there, though, where there's no room for anything.

Having a reeeeeeeeeeaaally hard time not buying stuff. My birthday is 4 days away and I keep putting things in my Amazon cart, searching eBay auctions...I had an original birthday budget I was looking forward to spending, but since then some changes have occured that make that budget not such a good idea :/ I think that because I'm not eating constantly like normal, and also because I'm giving up a lot lately (my office for Bob to move in, pretty much all my normal time and attention from Grant because of his work schedule), I want more STUFF.

Also because a lot of this stuff is either Catholic/Orthodox books, art, or prayer aids, it is hard to feel like it could really be so "wrong" to get them. Blah. And I find such good DEEEEEEEAAALLS!!

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My last few days have been full of:

-Isaac's croup. This is awful. I'm trying to keep the humidifier filled and supplemented with Vicks liquid at night, and his chest smeared with Vicks, and we're letting him sleep in the tv room propped up nearly to a sitting position. Taking turns being out there with him. We were absolutely freaked a couple of nights ago, he was coughing himself purple, vomiting from coughing...the doctor thinks it's the weather. We had the first cold front of the season the other day and it was the first major drop in humidity in like 8 months, which is huge for kids predisposed to this kind of stuff. I'm trying to keep him full of liquids. He actually wants cuddles, which is rare for him - and is enjoying the ripple blanket I made him, that just got done last week.

-that weather was awesome...aside from the croup :/ Isaac enjoyed going out with hot cocoa, popcorn, and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" on the projector, in the backyard. It was 58 that night, which is A Big Deal here. We've been spending a lot of time outside. A and A have been taking nighttime bike rides with me to see peoples' lit Halloween decorations.

-I'm just losing more and more weight. I'm down 19 pounds now, from 233 to 214. In ONE MONTH. And right now, at 214, I'm due to start my period tomorrow..so by all rights I should be bloated and up a few pounds by my normal patterns. I think it just appeared to slow my rate of loss, this time. This is great because, you know, it's just great. It's also starting to suck a lot though, because it's really messing up my belly bigtime to have all the fat melting away. Just...yuck. The hanging and sagging, the protruding and freakiness, also I have new and previously unexperienced sorts of back pain almost every day now. But none of the accute hernia pain I used to have semi-regularly? So...I dunno.

-This also makes my impending surgery seem more and more immediate and terrifyingly real. I'm having trouble sleeping again. Then today I saw this great article about how much more likely people with PTSD are to die after major surgery because of how the stress and triggers impede their healing and even blood flow. Really, it was so awesome. *this is me stabbing myself in the eye*


I miss Grant so much. Even when he's here, he's not usually here. On the way home from church, or laying in bed cuddling, ANYTIME I ask him my standard, "What are you thinking about?" ...it's something about work. Always. I can't tell to what degree he has to work as much as he is, and to what degree he is a workaholic. He can't either. It's kind of making me nuts, when he's here. When he's gone, I have a fair amount of peace about doing the best I can with my day to day life regardless. Sleeping separately to care for Isaac is not helping our strain any. We sat on the deck watching stuff on the laptop tonight, and layed together for just a few minutes after he had to go to bed. He is supposed to be meeting me around Dance Empire tomorrow afternoon to trade vehicles, take the little kids, and allow me to go write for the 3 hour block of A and A's classes. It's like a partnership between people with separate lives. I'll take my deeply entwined and codependent constant intimacy back now, please.

The thing is I can try to give him all the space he needs to try to get promoted and try to make more money for us. I really can, I was doing that for a couple of weeks. We talked about it just a little, though, and he adamantly doesn't want me to NOT tell him about my day or when he's being kind of an asshole or when I'm thinking something he's not equipped to deal with at the moment. He says we've been making this work really well for a long long time because we are completely open and share every tiniest detail. He's right. But - ? How do I maintain that when he gets home for the first time all day at nearly 9 pm, in a bad mood and needing to be in bed by 10:30, having not even had dinner yet? *sigh*


I am mostly content and grateful.

I am constantly reminded of others' around me who have much larger problems to deal with than I do. And grateful for my ability to give my kids this life and to reach out and help some extras, as well.

They're becoming one and the same for me.

Sometimes I get kind of freaked by the "results" of this (modified!) Eat to Live program. Like...I lost 4 pounds in two days. I've lost 13 pounds in 11 days. That's insane! It's unhealthy! It's NOT OK, or sustainable!! But...yesterday's menu:

-breakfast was a BIG bowl (like 2 cups-ish?) of steel cut oats, with half a banana, some blueberries, a handful of raisins, a splash of coconut milk and about 2 tbs of flax seed meal mixed into it, making it a massive bowl all told. With a couple of slices of blood orange.
-lunch was a plate of raw veggies (half a red pepper, a couple of baby carrots, handful of sugar snap peas, tomato slices) and a handful of walnuts, with a couple of figs
-dinner was a biggish salad of spinach, blueberries, a full cup of chickpeas, cherry tomatoes, and lemon juice squeezed over top, with a plate on the side of plain steamed broccoli and garlic cloves - last 3 figs for dessert

Today:

-breakfast was lowfat plain yogurt I buy that comes with chunks of pear and some grains at the bottom, with fresh pineapple and a handfull of mixed raw nuts
-lunch was a heaping bowl of black beans with chunk tomato stirred in and about a third of a raw red pepper on the side, and about a cup's worth of plain baked sweet potato
-dinner was this stuff I made in the oven - layered sliced eggplant, sliced mushrooms, spinach, diced canned tomatoes, fresh basil leaves, sliced garlic cloves, a little salt. I ate a ton of it, like almost a whole baking pan's worth? With half a banana.

So yeah. Not starving myself (actually getting full at every meal). Definitely getting plenty of nutrition. I'm sure part of it is that I've started off with SO much to lose, and that I was eating such a RIDICULOUS quantity of almost exclusively high fat foods before that this is a radical change. I don't know though - I've done a ton of recon on crazily varied messageboards where people are following this initial 6 week program (everything from MDC to weight lifting sites) and it seems as though a pound a day is average throughout it...there are tons of people saying they lost 35-40 pounds in the 6 weeks, and kept it off even after abandoning the program altogether.

*shrug* I'll take it.

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I am going to be making an entire post about The Silent Mountain sometime soon. It is taking me much, much longer to read than books normally do, for a variety of reasons, but there is no way to explain how many different profound effects it's having on me.

At the same time, I continue to lean heavily on God and be amazed at Grace as I actually..don't eat stuff I shouldn't. Day after day.

And Anne Rice, who I follow on Facebook, keeps posting relevant things just as I get to parts of the book that are about them, and my head is just spinning in so many directions at once.

I'm doing a poor job of condensing this. Condensing, it's not really what I do ;) But...I'll expand it later.

For now, what I really wanted to share here is how deeply I'm delving into both Catholic and Orothodox theology and how strongly it all resonates, and how INCREDIBLY emotionally invested in reconcilliation I am becoming. A Catholic Archbishop in Russia just said, in September, that he thinks we may only be "months away" - this was after meeting with an Orthodox leader, and was published in various Catholic newspapers. Read about it here - http://www.ncregister.com/daily/catholic-orthodox_unity_in_sight/#When:15:10:59Z The SSPX bishops are also meeting with the Vatican this month. I WANT UNIFICATION SO BADLY. It is intense.

Orthodox Priest laments the disorganized state of Orthodoxy in general as being in the way of reconciliation - http://palamas.info/?p=870?a9e7f9e0

Catholic blogger talks about the differences in perception of reconcilliation between the Catholic and Orthodox - http://ericsammons.com/blog/2009/09/15/catholic-orthodox-unity-within-a-few-months/