Just Say "NO"...and Push Away

It's official! After nearly 7 months, I'm nearly fixed.....

The SAD (seasonal affective disorder, which I PROMISE is a real medical abnormality) is leaving to make room for the longer, sunnier days of the never-ending-Utah-winter. Hubby has a job that he doesn't hate, thus improving the constant need for medication just to get me out of bed in the mornings, which in turn has come full circle with my GAD being miraculously mended thanks to iPhone apps that have helped me rock the 5 am workouts. All of my internal organs have seemed to settle back into their original placement pre-surgery, and I can almost feel my lower abs gaining some strength again and staying put instead of popping out of my abdomen like an alien baby. So, as it turns out, the brilliant doc was right. Also, as a tiny bit of frosting on my cake of life, I am cancelling next week's appointment with said doctor because I am only willing to pay a copay when I'm feeling suckish - not when I feel fabulous. And, I do....I really do. Apparently he knew what he was talking about when he literally ordered me back to the gym. It's my daily dose of happy, even when I hate it.

I am narcissistic enough to think that any of you actually care that I've conquered this year's bout of SAD before I tear away the February calendar page. I feel compelled to update because I don't want a blog that just bitches about how crappy I feel. It's all about the good, the bad, and the ugly here, so you're getting every ounce of all of it. I don't keep a journal...never really have. (Unless you count the spiral notebook with some sappy daisy-covered meadow with a litter of adorable, fluffy puppies on it that I finally shredded and disposed of in my mid 20's in an effort to remove the proof of my idiotic teen fantasies. Pathetic...)  So, this is the only journal I'm likely to keep with any kind of consistency until such time technology is available that can read my every thought and archive them for future reference. As I can hardly remember anything at all anymore, the "iMEMBERnow" should come in handy someday. Can't wait for Apple to invent it. (That is probably a gajillion dollar idea, by the way - think of me in 2020 when you see it on the market.)

Anyhoooooo...... I am setting some goals to keep the GAD in check and I'm selfishly using you to help keep me on track. So, here it goes......

1) I'm saying "NO" to anything containing the gooey goodness of caramel (which in my house is darn near anything really worth eating) - I can only promise this Monday - Friday; the weekends don't count
2) I'm pushing away from the table after dinner, served only on a small dinner plate and not rerounding, no matter how long it will be before it's on the menu again
3) I'm swapping Wednesday's AM school car pool with hubby so I can get my enlarged ass to spin class (ok, honey?)
4) I'm not skipping any more strength training workouts on the schedule just because I know I'll hurt so bad the following day that I cry out loud in pain while walking down the stairs; 4 days a week - minimum!
5) I'm hitting the open road on the bike on every sunny Saturday possible (well, except if it's too windy because I hate feeling like the wind is stronger than I am)
6) I'm doing a Century in June with sista and don't want to allow her to smoke me - it's embarrassing

There you have it.....what will you Just Say "No" to?

As a side note, I'm saying "YES, ABSOLUTELY YES!!" to having this girl's abs......even if I have to buy them.

Surprise #5

My fifth surprise arrived exactly one week before the surprise deadline. For a summary of the previous 4 surprises, you'll have to humor me and actually read the previous blog entries. I'd also LOVE for you to follow my blog so it looks like more than just me and Steven actually read it.

Surprise #5: whew, it's a doosie. One I've waited on for quite a while.  How can I say this politely.........there is no way to say it nicely and without sounding like a total beyotch, so I'm just gonna come out with it....I have neighbors who have successfully sold their home. Now this could mean alot of things. It could mean that I'm thrilled that they weren't a short sale or a foreclosure, thus further plummeting the fair market value of my own home. It could mean that I'm excited for them to move on to bigger and better residential opportunities. It could mean that they profited from the economic and housing market downturn and got a house twice as big for half the mortgage. It could mean that maybe they owe less on their home than the actual selling price and maybe even turned a little profit for themselves. All of those things would be great, and I hope for some or all of them for my sweet neighbors.

Or, hypothetically speaking, I might be happy that I won't hear the annoying, systematic, continual sound of a basketball hitting the pavement at 7:30 AM on a perfectly wonderful morning in which I might choose to sleep in. Or perhaps I might be thrilled that the kids can stop instigating a verbal confrontation with one another which inevitably involves their respective parents having to smooth things over before things get really ugly. It could quite possibly even be that I won't ever again come home only to see every single wood chip from my flower beds spread throughout my entire sidewalk, stairs, and landing leading up to the front door. And, I don't know, since we are talking hypotethicals, by the ending of said children (both mine and theirs) bringing out the absolute worst in each other by intentionally slinging dog crap at each other across the fence. Hypothetically.........

Surprises 2, 3 and 4

I don't want to lose count of my 5 surprises, so I will itemize them as they arrive. Surprise #1, the desire to go back to the gym, is still a work in progress. I did make it to the gym a few times last week, but wasn't feeling 100% thanks to a cough due to cold, and I didn't make it as many days as I'd originally hoped. I'll keep pushing through though, and am committing to 5 days of workouts this week. Already I'm at 3. And not just the "I show up, give my fingerprint, put my crap in the locker room, stretch, pretending I'm really pushing through that elliptical workout" workout. Seriously, my muscles are in a state of rebellious confusion, not knowing whether to stretch or snap, and they are revolting. I'm still trying to remember what "hurts so good" feels like...

Speaking of this week, our schedules are in a temporary state of influx. Thanks to Martin Luther King, the girls were home from school for a long weekend on Monday and Tuesday. I opted to take Monday off as both an excuse to stay home with the girls, as well as a mental-health, get myself together day. A day off is like Chicken Soup for the Soul. I didn't even spend it in bed watching bad reality TV and catching up on the DVR full of more bad reality TV (which is about all I've done for 5 months). After a trip to the gym, a morning of total house cleaning, laundry, lunch out with my girls, a trip to Target, making dinner for the family, and baking a surprise for Daddy, I felt INCREDIBLE. Thus.....Surprise #2. Seriously, I felt better and more like my hardly existent, not-so-old self. It was both exhilarating and liberating. The feeling that I am finally pulling myself out of the SAD doldrums and "two-step forward, one-step backward" post-op recovery - I think its almost safe to say that it feels like it's all behind me (and I'm totally not talking about how big my butt is right now). It's good to start feeling more like myself, before all of this hormonal and menopausal upheaval occurred. I'd almost forgotten.

The doctor gave me a few "absolutely no......" items for what should have been an 8-week waiting period. Without giving you enough details to draw yourself a mental picture, suffice it say that 8 weeks is a VERY long time. Why is it that when someone tells me "absolutely no.....you can't", I'm all the more eager to do it? Literally???  Although my official 8 weeks isn't technically over until tomorrow........you get the picture. Surprise #3 - NONE of my fears from surgery, hormones, etc. has been manifested and you have no idea what a relief that is. YAY ME! (It WAS a surprise after all, which is the only reason I'm torturing you with TMI.)

Surprise #4 - I sent my handsome hubby off to work this week. You have no idea how timely Surprise #4 really is. No idea......  Someone wise (me) once said, "Everything happens for a reason". It's been difficult to imagine the reason behind this particular everything. Several things I do know - no matter the difficulty placed before him, I have never doubted my hubby's love for me and our kids; no matter the financial complexities this "recession" may have caused, I appreciate all that we still have and have somehow managed to hold onto with more humble thankfulness; no matter where we live or the jobs we choose, I appreciate every sacrifice  and difficult decision we've had to make over the last 13 years; and I am lucky to have my husband, my kids, my family, my friends, my job, my health......all of it! Because not everyone I know has made it through with all of those things still intact. But we have, and as a bonus, I am still completely twiterpated by my marital bestie. So for all of those times I verbally asked where MY blessings were through the trials.....finally.....I can now consider it all one, big, all-encompassing blessing. In retrospect - although that is definately hard to realize when you think your life is going to hell in a handbasket.

There just might be something to this "waiting on a surprise" thing. Every day I am anticipating something fantastic. Maybe I'm turning into an eternal optimist. Now, that WOULD be a surprise! Until then, I await Surprise #5. Stay tuned......

5 Surprises...

As much as I was looking forward to tearing away that last 2010 calendar page, I’m a little disheartened that 2011 hasn't started off with as much fabulosity as I’d hoped for. By the 1^st, we’d managed to not only contract the stomach flu, but we also smuggled it across the Idaho/Utah state border to share with everyone in our household. Mikayla, Brooklyn, and Steven (all in that order and also in order of severity) shared a sick bed, while I went to work praying I wasn’t contaminated and spreading icky flu  germs to everyone I know. By the 5^th we were on our way to meeting the new insurance deductible that kicked in only shortly after meeting it for the 2010 plan year. Is that tax deductible?  Also on the 5^th or 6^th, I was met with the disappointment of hitting neither the winning MegaMillions or Powerball numbers that were purchased in Idaho, probably at the very Maverick where we stopped to buy our own tickets and fill up with gas to make said journey home carrying the flu. Crap!  On the 7^th, I received an email forward promising all manner of surprises and good fortune by merely forwarding it on. So, before I tear off a single page of the 2011 calendar, I’m going to start counting the 5 surprises I was promised by forwarding along the email. Let me digress……

As any of the 8 people who actually follow my blog know, this year has been nothing short of a struggle. I’m not going to bother going into all the reasons why…that would defeat the entire purpose of my 2011 goals from my December 2010 blog article (see below). What I will admit again is that I am still trying to overcome some issues from 2010: a tiny bout of depression, a more than tiny weight gain from said tiny bout of depression, a broken give-a-damn which helped bring about the tiny bout of depression, a medical diagnosis that scared the living daylights out of me, thus requiring a medically necessary surgery, and a 6-8 week recovery time of which I am only at week 6. (But, I’m back to being nearly perfect now, so no need to worry! I’m cured!) At my last doctor’s follow-up I was complaining about all of my post-surgical “differences”, despite feeling physically healed. The doctor went through my list of prescribed medications, including all the new menopausal hormones I have the privilege of taking now, and together we tried to identify all of the differences and what is realistic to expect in upcoming weeks/months post-op. At the end of what seemed like a long list of “differences”, the topic of exercise was raised. Would you believe there is no pill for him to prescribe that will make me want to go back to 5 am workouts? I expressed my displeasure in the pharmaceutical industry. The good doctor basically said (and I paraphrase), “SUCK IT UP, BUTTERCUP!” At the conclusion of his peptalk, he rescheduled me for 6 weeks out (February 16^th), and told me to get back to the gym pronto and that I had the next 6 weeks to figure something out on my own. If not, we’d start tweeking the meds, adding this…decreasing that…and I would perhaps need the next several months to get it figured out, or I would likely be taking enough testerosterone to turn me into a man. OK…..several more days of doing nothing  would put me back in a size that I’m not that interested in returning to. Honestly, I’ve got 5 more pounds before I don’t have a single article of clothing that fits. And, although my boss was quite understanding when I showed up in sweats for 4 weeks in a row because nothing fit post-op, I’m quite sure it’s not a very flattering office wardrobe. Honestly, why is it easier to do nothing and bitch about it than it is to do something and feel good about it?

Well, I am officially done bitching (only about this, of course). Thanks to a friend who called last night and said, “What’s the deal? Are you going back to the gym or not?” Apparently, she was in a similar quandary of having a broken give-a-damn too. So, we promised each other we’d be there at 5 am and I was excited that together we could bitch about hormones and weight gain, and the skinny biotches with incredibly perky new boobs who wear a only bra to workout in, and whatever else we wanted to. So there….I went back to the gym today. Apparently, when you don’t go to the gym for 4 months, gym management sees fit to make changes without consulting you. What……….? Now I have to bring my own lock? And who thought removing the paper towel dispenser was a good idea? Now I have to blow-dry? No membership card scanner? Now 24-Hour Fitness uses finger print technology? You’ve got to be kidding me….

Whatever. The point is that I am trying to find my give-a-damn. The one that helped me lose 60 lbs. The one that got me into those skinny jeans with an ass that looked like it did before age and gravity stole it away from me. The one that took me to the gym every day, made me sweat, got me through spin class, and made me proud to be an almost forty-something. Well, now I AM forty-something and want to look and feel thirty-something again.

So, back to the surprises………I forwarded that stupid email (from paragraph 1, in case you forgot) to 20+ people and my 5 surprises and good fortune are due by January 28^th. I can’t wait to tell you about each and every one of them, as I am certain they will come.

Surprise #1 (took exactly 3 days to arrive): the desire to go back to the gym

Stay tuned…..