Feeling overwhelmed again lately. Feeling like everyone wants me to do things for them and they just figure I can do it because I'm home. Feeling like no one is seeing that I have needs, I have things I need to get accomplished as well.
I work part time so I can actually homeschool my kids, not so I can be available for every appointment or every babysitting emergency. Well, emergency is a strong word. Of course I'm available for emergencies, but these happenings aren't emergencies!

And I DO want to take my mom to her appointments, I just don't want everyone to take it for granted you know? Just because I work part time does NOT mean I am always doing nothing. Everyone else's wants come before mine; it's just assumed by my family that my husband and I are readily available and that we can drop everything to run errands for everyone else.
It's a situation where I can't really complain at this particular point; I don't want my mom to think she's the one inconveniencing us. It's really everyone else's inability or whatever to pitch in and at least offer to help. Case in point, my mom has to get her port put in tomorrow so they can give her the chemo starting next week. Tomorrow, I'm going to take her along with my three kids because I have no one else to watch them. We're going to hang out at the hospital and it's likely not going to be particularly pretty. An 8 yr old, a 5 yr old and an 18 month old with nothing to do. Yay! Now normally this would be okay, but my brother is actually taking the day off and is going to work on his deck! He's not offering to even BE there to help ME out! I am incredulous over this! It could be worse...like most other appointments we've gone to, I could also have his 2 year old tyrant of a daughter along with mine. Out of the kindness of their hearts, they've gotten her other grandma to take care of her for one day.

Normally my mom takes care of her 40+ hours a week. And has anyone arranged other care for her during my mom's chemo? Because she will be tired you know. No, they haven't. It's been suggested that I come out there as often as I can to help out with her. Granted the suggestion was made my by mom and not my brother, but damn! I'm trying to HOMESCHOOL here people!

My neice has just recently started throwing these knock down, drag out tantrums. How easy is THAT going to be to deal with, for me or my mom? I dunno...seems the spanking and the wooden spoon "discipline" have surely backfired, eh? I've never seen a child as angry or demanding as this one. Never spanked my kids and they don't behave like that, but of course what do I know?

Argh! I'm just angry today. And then I feel guilty for complaining at all, my mom's going through all this and here I’m complaining. But it's mostly about the other family members and not her :-)

Sometimes I get mucked up in the everyday-ness of my life, the way it seems I do the same five things over and over and over again.

But then I look up. I look up and see clouds rolling across the sky, or I look up and see the moon and see the three dimensional aspect of it, not just a crescent but a sphere in a spotlight. And I realize I'm on this planet, this glorious planet that's hurtling through space. I'm a tiny thing, a speck.

I realize I need to relish more, grab life by the proverbial balls. I need to plan that trip to the UK, even if I don't get to go this year. I need to find interesting things to do and interesting people to do them with. I need to not get so mucked up in the everyday-ness of my life.

The other day I was in a local store and saw a couple with two kids. Not an extraordinary occurance. The mother and father were people of size, but they just radiated a happiness that I don't see often. It just made me smile, and made me realize that we are just so much more than these bodies are capable of revealing. Size, heavy or thin, is just such an utterly unimportant factor but yet we're all judged by it.

A friend of mine posted to a message board about weight and health. She's about 20 lbs lighter than I am and the same height, 5'9". But she’s still considered "overweight". Her post was asking whether or not you could be clinically overweight but still healthy. She eats right, she works out at least 3 times a week, most times with a personal trainer. But she's still heavy, partly due to having PCOS. The consensus seemed to be no, she can't be healthy and overweight. That overweight automatically equals unhealthy. This is so ridiculous. By their thinking, she's still less healthy than a person of lesser weight who is a couch potato and eats Twinkies all day. Gimme a break. But some of these people are also ones who believe size 14 is plus size. Their opinions, though, are probably indicative of society at large. The assumption is that heavier people are less healthy just by virtue of their weight, not their lifestyle. To some extent, I can agree with that. I'm not going to say that weighing 300 lbs is ever going to be good for your blood sugar, your blood pressure or your body overall. But to just assume poor lifestyle choices based on outward appearance is just wrong.

I did enjoy one woman’s post. She called women of size "goddesses" and Referred to "goddess sized clothing" instead of plus sized. I liked that. This woman also is one who eats a natural, organic diet and does get regular activity. She’s just not a size 8. I find it sad that we all seem to want to get to somewhere we’re not, some weight we’re not, in order to be happy and love ourselves. And I’m definitely part of that mindset. I’m just not sure how to go about getting OUT of that mindset...

It's almost 6 and I?m desperate to go home and lie in my nice warm bed and not worry about my aching back or my aching throat.
I came to work armed with a pocket full of throat lozenges and a Tiger Balm patch on my back...the drops are gone and the patch stopped working. And two hours yet to go. Wahhhh!
I'm really hoping against hope the chiropractor can make this all better tomorrow. Well, the back at least. Not sure what he could do about a raging sore throat. And no other symptoms! It's not a cold or flu, just this sore throat from the devil himself.
Although I am pretty much alone in a quiet library, reading this laugh out loud book by Marian Keyes (I'm totally stuck on Irish authors lately...) and I can sorta relax. I'll try that...

Yet another bout of this back pain. It's so annoying!

And I know it's my own fault. Years of bad posture, this excess weight, lack of muscular support (i.e. no six pack, I'm not even in the beverage aisle) and holding my hefty kids. I still want to be able to hold the kids, so that won't change. But the posture, weight and muscle tone stuff I can work on. I have to work on. This is just one more reminder that I need to take my health seriously.

I had started working out again and that actually aggravated it. So I guess I need to stop the FIRM videos and all the step/weight stuff and start more slowly. I love weight work though…maybe it's that I wasn't doing it with good form. So perhaps walking and more intentional weight work. It's too easy to do it with bad form when you're doing it at the same time as aerobic work. And I need to take my diet more seriously, the quicker I get some of this weight off the less stress my back will have.

I KNOW all these things…so why do I continue to sabotage myself? Why do I know what I need to do, but I never seem to make a conscious effort to change it? And this isn't just health related, it's true with many aspects of my life. I know what I want to do, where I want to go…but I end up doing nothing and hating myself more intensely with each failure to progress as it were. I can’t even seem to stop the damned negative self talk. And why were there times that I was able to take control and do what needed done and other times I just feel overwhelmed by it all. What was different then than now?

These are the things I'd like to figure out, but I don't even know how to do that. I'm stuck in this quagmire of my own making. Part of me says I have to just do it, fake it till you make it and all that jazz. But then I want to know WHY I'm this way, WHY it's so hard for me to make an effort to change.

I guess my first step is the negative attitude I have about myself. I truly don't seem to like myself very much…I like the person I want to be, but not the person I am right now. Why can’t I just be perfect and not have to drudge through all this self exploration crap. ;-)

The journey is the destination.

btw, just to get some comments going ;-) anyone know where my blog title comes from? Extra gingerbread cookies to the first one to get it without googling...

I was just checking out my cool friend Kym's blog and reading some of the blogs on her list and I get to wondering where people get the names for their blogs, you know? They're really super neato names, but I wanna know! lol

Also. does anyone know if cats ever need c-sections or inductions?! lol My cat is definitely past her birth-by date and I'm getting worried. And still kicking myself that I didn't get her in to the vet before she got out that night...argh!

Off to edumacate my chillins...

So I'm inordinately excited about getting a new couch. Well, a new-to-us couch. Brother-in-law and his girlfriend decided they needed to replace their almost-new couch with a very-new couch so we commandeered the almost-new couch. Woohoo! It's comfy, pretty and...ahem...light beige. Light beige couch, meet three kids.
I've already set down some ground rules for what can and cannot be done on the couch. They're having trouble getting it straight, as would be expected.
But for now, the couch looks great and I'm loving my living room again. Don't take much to please me.