I really don't like new year's resolutions. Usually people create impossible goals, and end up feeling like failures when they can't reach them. I certainly have been there, but I stopped making resolutions a long time ago.
That being said, I still think the beginning of the new year is a perfect time to stop and reflect on your life, and change directions if you notice you're not down the path that's best for you. And after a hard year like I've had, I really need some redirection.
Chad and I are going to have our traditional new year celebration soon, consisting of a movie and nachos, so I won't spend a lot of time on this post. But I wanted to write down what I want to change in my life, so it's maybe a little more concrete.
Number one, I want to start feeding myself properly. My body is an amazing gift from God, and I should nourish it with the best foods I can find. My goal is not to cut out junk because thinking in negative terms creates a vacuum that draws in the candy bars. Instead, my goal is to fill my plate with lots of good foods so that there's not much room left for foods that make me feel bad.
I also want to start exercising my amazing body so that it's strong and well maintained so I can do the things I love, like gardening and hiking. I'm going to go easy on the exercise, because I'm out of shape and I don't want to hurt myself. I also don't want to exercise so hard that I start hating it.
I want to make space in my day for the things I love, which means I have to change the way I think about my time. It's precious, and I should stop trying to find ways to waste it. This will also make space and time in my life to help me find more meaning in my days.
I want to start treating myself with the same respect and love that I treat others, because no one else will treat me that way until I do.
So how was your year? Was it good? Did you have rocky spots? Is there anything you want to change? Whatever 2015 looked like for you, I hope that 2016 is even better. Happy New Year!
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Monday, December 21, 2015
Life and Stuff
I've been enjoying writing about my garden the last couple of posts I wrote. It's nice to get my ideas and dreams down in words; it makes it all seem more real. It makes me feel like spring will come again, and when it does, I have plans.
What I haven't written about is my life, and that's because it's been pretty hard the last four months. It's still really hard for me to think about it, and even writing this much is giving me a cold sweat. But in case anyone still reads and is still interested in how my life is going, I thought I should mention some of this. Plus, maybe it will make it more real for me, and help me to deal with it.
I'm not going into full details. I don't know if I ever will. So let's keep it simple.
In September, I was pregnant for five weeks. And then I wasn't anymore. It was the most heart crushing thing I've ever gone through. Chad got a vasectomy in November (that's how long they made him wait, just in case he changed his mind). And now, for real, Chad and I will never have children.
I'm still recovering from everything that happened. I've felt like I've had a fog hanging over me for the last few months, but just lately it kind of feels like it's lifting. I'm taking things slowly. You can't push yourself to get over this sort of thing. And I do know I'm getting better, because I've been getting into my art again. Here's a couple pieces I've painted recently.
And I've been having these pangs of.... wanting more with my life. Wanting more friends, wanting meaning, wanting to get out of the house. I'm just savoring the wanting right now, the knowledge that there's so much I can do with my life.
So if I'm mostly writing about plants and such, well, that's just my therapy. It's soothing and it helps me to express myself at a time where I'm still having trouble being alone with my own thoughts.
What I haven't written about is my life, and that's because it's been pretty hard the last four months. It's still really hard for me to think about it, and even writing this much is giving me a cold sweat. But in case anyone still reads and is still interested in how my life is going, I thought I should mention some of this. Plus, maybe it will make it more real for me, and help me to deal with it.
I'm not going into full details. I don't know if I ever will. So let's keep it simple.
In September, I was pregnant for five weeks. And then I wasn't anymore. It was the most heart crushing thing I've ever gone through. Chad got a vasectomy in November (that's how long they made him wait, just in case he changed his mind). And now, for real, Chad and I will never have children.
I'm still recovering from everything that happened. I've felt like I've had a fog hanging over me for the last few months, but just lately it kind of feels like it's lifting. I'm taking things slowly. You can't push yourself to get over this sort of thing. And I do know I'm getting better, because I've been getting into my art again. Here's a couple pieces I've painted recently.
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| Red Onion |
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| Grapes |
So if I'm mostly writing about plants and such, well, that's just my therapy. It's soothing and it helps me to express myself at a time where I'm still having trouble being alone with my own thoughts.
Saturday, May 30, 2015
New Life Directions
When I was a teenager, my mom and I used to go hiking in a large county park. The trail I liked best had a pretty well hidden head, at the very end of the camping area, tucked back in the corner. It lead down for a long time, then through some very thick under brush. When you finally came out of the curtain of green, you found yourself on the top of a bare hill, looking out at the calm lake, patches of forest, tall waving grasses, and dozens of trail branches leading off into the trees and down around the water's edge. The thought of all those possibilities was so thrilling to me. I would want to stay all day long, exploring every possibility, finding out where each branch would lead me.
Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation in life, only in an intellectual way? You start down one path of study, some new thought that interests you, and before you know it, you've traveled down a dozen different branches and are nowhere near where you began.
Well, that's what I've been doing for the last month or so. I started innocently enough by going to the library to pick up some gardening books, to help me figure out how best to grow my apples organically. I went up the stairs to go to the garden section, which I've been to dozens of times before, but somehow managed to walk right past it. I ended up going to the dieting section, and saw right away the book Women Afraid To Eat. I was kind of intrigued, so I picked it up, then turned around and picked up some backyard orchard books that I'd come for.
As I've said in previous posts, Women Afraid To Eat really opened my eyes to the whole weight issue, and how obesity and overweight aren't really that bad for your health, and that fat prejudice is really strong in this country. I then immediately bought Body Of Truth, a new book about the science of obesity and the health issues around it. I felt so shocked that I had been pushed by society to hate my own body because of the way it looked and the way I was built. I was also shocked to see that I had real problems with eating. I wanted to keep reading and learning more, and I wanted to heal myself. I stopped watching what I ate so much, and really tried to listen to my body. I also tried to ignore the voice in my head screaming at me that I was going to gain weight by eating more!
I started reading all of the old Kimkins controversy again, delving deep into the sad stories of women starving themselves for the promise of a beautiful body. How sad, I thought, reading their blogs. I saw in them images of myself and the thoughts that have crossed my own mind from time to time. Twisted as it is, as I read these terrible tales of starvation, I even started to envy them and their big weight losses, despite all the stories of losing hair and menstrual cycles.
I became fascinated with how this related to anorexia, and I remembered that I wanted to read Portia de Rossi's autobiography, Unbearable Lightness. I knew that was at the library, because I looked it up once, but then never went to check it out. So Chad and I went one night so I could get it, and while I was there I also picked up the book Fat?So!, which is about how it's ok to be comfortable in your own body, even if it's fat. Well, as I was walking back to the stairs to go downstairs, Chad hands me this book called Women Without Children and said, "I dunno, I just thought it looked interesting,". Since we're infertile and decided not to pursue treatment, I decided it might be a good book to read.
I started with Portia's book. It was impossible to put down. I was so amazed at what that poor woman went through, trying to be good enough, to live up to her public image. It made me horrified that I was envious of the people who had done Kimkins. I'd never wish that kind of life on anyone ever, let alone poor confused women trying to find some self esteem. Although I truly liked Portia's book, I don't feel like I really got much personally from it, other than a strengthened conviction never to abuse my body just to meet society's impossible standards.
Next, I read Fat?So!, which was absolutely hilarious and wonderful. It's dated, being written in 1998, but I still love it and I'm even contemplating getting my own version sometime. I decided I need more body positive information in my life, and went out looking for it. That's when I encountered all the hate people have for fat people, and wrote that really sad post. Fortunately for me, I did find some great body positive sites and resources out there, and when I'm more focused, I plan on posting some links.
Reading all that body positive stuff, and seeing pictures of beautiful big women, made me start looking at myself differently. I realized that, you know what, I really am beautiful! It's just that normally, I'm focusing on my flaws, my thighs that seem too big, my big belly, my wrinkles, my lumps and sags. When I stop looking at my parts and look at me as a whole, I see something that I have never seen before, not really. I see... a curvy beauty with smooth ivory skin and rosy red cheeks, a wonderful smile and a lovely figure. At first I was really shocked by that. I was pretty convinced that I was ugly by this point. Then I started getting kind of mad about it. Why have I felt so ugly and unworthy all these years? Why aren't I allowed to feel beautiful in my own skin? So back to the library I went!
I had intended to get The Beauty Myth, a feminist book about society's ideal beauty and the way it's keeping women from really reaching their potentials. However, the library didn't have it, so I decided to check out some other feminist books while I was there. I got a classic, The Feminine Mystique, and a book called Never Too thin.
I started reading Women Without Children and The Feminine Mystique at the same time. Both are very good. I have to admit that The Feminine Mystique is a really heavy book. It took a lot of effort to read that one, because it's meant for someone perhaps a little more educated than I am, but at the same time, it was too interesting to put down. I realize that America isn't the same way it was in 1960, and women don't feel the need to stay home and be housewives, but I think some of the thinking still applies to women today. I especially could relate to the housewives of 1960, because I dropped out of high school, never went to college, and married young. I feel like maybe I did some of those things because I, just like the young women fifty years ago, am afraid to really grow up and make hard decisions for myself. (I'm not sorry I got married, of course. I think that was a life saver for me. Chad's a great guy.) The book really got me to thinking about the life dreams that I'd put aside to pursue my image of perfect housewife.
At the same time, Women Without Children really got me to thinking about my life without kids. Many stories of women who, for whatever reason, didn't have kids and were happy with their lives made me wonder if I could have that too. It talked about how infertile women ended up happier if they had something in their lives to make it fulfilling. It also made me think about my reasons for wanting to have children, and then showed me that my expectations about kids weren't really reasonable. It helped me to dig deep, past the hurt, to see the truth that was hiding behind the infertility. The truth is, I never really wanted kids. I hated kids growing up, and knew when I got married that I was never going to have them. But at a certain age, I started to think about my life as I started to age. I love having close family, and I want to continue to have close family once our parents are gone. I thought I could get that with kids. That's not a good reason to have children, though, because you can't know for sure what the kids are going to be like or what their wants and needs are going to be. Maybe they'll want to live across the world and I'll never see them. Maybe they'll be sick and I'll have to take care of them until I die. I don't need my own kids to have family. I have younger family that I could get close to, and I could make new friends to be my extended family.
Then I started to think more about those life dreams that I'd set aside, and how if I had kids, I probably would never pick them up again. I care too much about those dreams to let that happen to them, even though I've been ignoring them for several years now. So Chad and I had a long talk about life, kids, dreams, and what our future holds. I found out his reasoning for wanting kids was because he always thought he would someday, and also, he wanted to be a better parent than my sister (who is a very bad mom), which he admitted were bad reasons for wanting to be a parent. He also agreed that I need to start working on picking up the dusty old dreams and breathing life into them again.
Later that week, I ordered some female condoms to try. I realize that we're infertile, but we've decided we really truly don't want children. Leaving the door open like that will only cause heartache in one way or another. I'll either start to feel my loss of not being a parent again, or I'll get really comfortable with being childfree and find myself pregnant. I refuse to use hormonal birth control, Chad refuses to go back to male condoms, and both of us refuse to alter our bodies permanently. So we're going to do a combination of fertility charting (something I'm pretty good at by now) and female condoms.
When we knew for sure I wasn't pregnant, Chad took the money we'd been saving for a baby and spent it on a new computer for me. He also bought a new Wacom tablet, Corel Painter and Paint Shop Pro. My dusty old dreams, laid aside so thoughtlessly, are to be an artist. I am an artist, a really good artist, but for some reason, it seemed like I couldn't be an artist and a housewife at the same time. An artist is messy, and a housewife is neat. An artist is chaotic and unpredictable, and a housewife has dinner on the table when you get home. And a mom, in my mind, couldn't really be an artist. Art is free and unbound, but kids hold you down on earth. That's not to say that there aren't great mom artists out there, just that I personally could never do them both. And I want to be an artist. It's my deepest calling, and I'm ashamed that I've been ignoring it's pull for so long.
The trail that I find myself on now is bright and beautiful. I'm not entirely sure how I got here, but I have a feeling that the hand of God has been guiding me. I'm so grateful that I found everything I needed to find my way, and that my husband has been so supportive. I don't know what lies ahead, just that I'm ready to meet it.
Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation in life, only in an intellectual way? You start down one path of study, some new thought that interests you, and before you know it, you've traveled down a dozen different branches and are nowhere near where you began.
Well, that's what I've been doing for the last month or so. I started innocently enough by going to the library to pick up some gardening books, to help me figure out how best to grow my apples organically. I went up the stairs to go to the garden section, which I've been to dozens of times before, but somehow managed to walk right past it. I ended up going to the dieting section, and saw right away the book Women Afraid To Eat. I was kind of intrigued, so I picked it up, then turned around and picked up some backyard orchard books that I'd come for.
As I've said in previous posts, Women Afraid To Eat really opened my eyes to the whole weight issue, and how obesity and overweight aren't really that bad for your health, and that fat prejudice is really strong in this country. I then immediately bought Body Of Truth, a new book about the science of obesity and the health issues around it. I felt so shocked that I had been pushed by society to hate my own body because of the way it looked and the way I was built. I was also shocked to see that I had real problems with eating. I wanted to keep reading and learning more, and I wanted to heal myself. I stopped watching what I ate so much, and really tried to listen to my body. I also tried to ignore the voice in my head screaming at me that I was going to gain weight by eating more!
I started reading all of the old Kimkins controversy again, delving deep into the sad stories of women starving themselves for the promise of a beautiful body. How sad, I thought, reading their blogs. I saw in them images of myself and the thoughts that have crossed my own mind from time to time. Twisted as it is, as I read these terrible tales of starvation, I even started to envy them and their big weight losses, despite all the stories of losing hair and menstrual cycles.
I became fascinated with how this related to anorexia, and I remembered that I wanted to read Portia de Rossi's autobiography, Unbearable Lightness. I knew that was at the library, because I looked it up once, but then never went to check it out. So Chad and I went one night so I could get it, and while I was there I also picked up the book Fat?So!, which is about how it's ok to be comfortable in your own body, even if it's fat. Well, as I was walking back to the stairs to go downstairs, Chad hands me this book called Women Without Children and said, "I dunno, I just thought it looked interesting,". Since we're infertile and decided not to pursue treatment, I decided it might be a good book to read.
I started with Portia's book. It was impossible to put down. I was so amazed at what that poor woman went through, trying to be good enough, to live up to her public image. It made me horrified that I was envious of the people who had done Kimkins. I'd never wish that kind of life on anyone ever, let alone poor confused women trying to find some self esteem. Although I truly liked Portia's book, I don't feel like I really got much personally from it, other than a strengthened conviction never to abuse my body just to meet society's impossible standards.
Next, I read Fat?So!, which was absolutely hilarious and wonderful. It's dated, being written in 1998, but I still love it and I'm even contemplating getting my own version sometime. I decided I need more body positive information in my life, and went out looking for it. That's when I encountered all the hate people have for fat people, and wrote that really sad post. Fortunately for me, I did find some great body positive sites and resources out there, and when I'm more focused, I plan on posting some links.
Reading all that body positive stuff, and seeing pictures of beautiful big women, made me start looking at myself differently. I realized that, you know what, I really am beautiful! It's just that normally, I'm focusing on my flaws, my thighs that seem too big, my big belly, my wrinkles, my lumps and sags. When I stop looking at my parts and look at me as a whole, I see something that I have never seen before, not really. I see... a curvy beauty with smooth ivory skin and rosy red cheeks, a wonderful smile and a lovely figure. At first I was really shocked by that. I was pretty convinced that I was ugly by this point. Then I started getting kind of mad about it. Why have I felt so ugly and unworthy all these years? Why aren't I allowed to feel beautiful in my own skin? So back to the library I went!
I had intended to get The Beauty Myth, a feminist book about society's ideal beauty and the way it's keeping women from really reaching their potentials. However, the library didn't have it, so I decided to check out some other feminist books while I was there. I got a classic, The Feminine Mystique, and a book called Never Too thin.
I started reading Women Without Children and The Feminine Mystique at the same time. Both are very good. I have to admit that The Feminine Mystique is a really heavy book. It took a lot of effort to read that one, because it's meant for someone perhaps a little more educated than I am, but at the same time, it was too interesting to put down. I realize that America isn't the same way it was in 1960, and women don't feel the need to stay home and be housewives, but I think some of the thinking still applies to women today. I especially could relate to the housewives of 1960, because I dropped out of high school, never went to college, and married young. I feel like maybe I did some of those things because I, just like the young women fifty years ago, am afraid to really grow up and make hard decisions for myself. (I'm not sorry I got married, of course. I think that was a life saver for me. Chad's a great guy.) The book really got me to thinking about the life dreams that I'd put aside to pursue my image of perfect housewife.
At the same time, Women Without Children really got me to thinking about my life without kids. Many stories of women who, for whatever reason, didn't have kids and were happy with their lives made me wonder if I could have that too. It talked about how infertile women ended up happier if they had something in their lives to make it fulfilling. It also made me think about my reasons for wanting to have children, and then showed me that my expectations about kids weren't really reasonable. It helped me to dig deep, past the hurt, to see the truth that was hiding behind the infertility. The truth is, I never really wanted kids. I hated kids growing up, and knew when I got married that I was never going to have them. But at a certain age, I started to think about my life as I started to age. I love having close family, and I want to continue to have close family once our parents are gone. I thought I could get that with kids. That's not a good reason to have children, though, because you can't know for sure what the kids are going to be like or what their wants and needs are going to be. Maybe they'll want to live across the world and I'll never see them. Maybe they'll be sick and I'll have to take care of them until I die. I don't need my own kids to have family. I have younger family that I could get close to, and I could make new friends to be my extended family.
Then I started to think more about those life dreams that I'd set aside, and how if I had kids, I probably would never pick them up again. I care too much about those dreams to let that happen to them, even though I've been ignoring them for several years now. So Chad and I had a long talk about life, kids, dreams, and what our future holds. I found out his reasoning for wanting kids was because he always thought he would someday, and also, he wanted to be a better parent than my sister (who is a very bad mom), which he admitted were bad reasons for wanting to be a parent. He also agreed that I need to start working on picking up the dusty old dreams and breathing life into them again.
Later that week, I ordered some female condoms to try. I realize that we're infertile, but we've decided we really truly don't want children. Leaving the door open like that will only cause heartache in one way or another. I'll either start to feel my loss of not being a parent again, or I'll get really comfortable with being childfree and find myself pregnant. I refuse to use hormonal birth control, Chad refuses to go back to male condoms, and both of us refuse to alter our bodies permanently. So we're going to do a combination of fertility charting (something I'm pretty good at by now) and female condoms.
When we knew for sure I wasn't pregnant, Chad took the money we'd been saving for a baby and spent it on a new computer for me. He also bought a new Wacom tablet, Corel Painter and Paint Shop Pro. My dusty old dreams, laid aside so thoughtlessly, are to be an artist. I am an artist, a really good artist, but for some reason, it seemed like I couldn't be an artist and a housewife at the same time. An artist is messy, and a housewife is neat. An artist is chaotic and unpredictable, and a housewife has dinner on the table when you get home. And a mom, in my mind, couldn't really be an artist. Art is free and unbound, but kids hold you down on earth. That's not to say that there aren't great mom artists out there, just that I personally could never do them both. And I want to be an artist. It's my deepest calling, and I'm ashamed that I've been ignoring it's pull for so long.
The trail that I find myself on now is bright and beautiful. I'm not entirely sure how I got here, but I have a feeling that the hand of God has been guiding me. I'm so grateful that I found everything I needed to find my way, and that my husband has been so supportive. I don't know what lies ahead, just that I'm ready to meet it.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Much Needed Update!
So... It's been a while since I last posted. What's funny about that is that one of the last things I posted was a resolution to try to write and post more authentic stuff. But I think the truth is that I just got bored of writing, and it was starting to feel like work rather than something I did because I enjoyed it. I'm funny that way; I have many hobbies, because after a while the one I'm doing begins to bore me and I move on to something else. I'm currently making earrings. Last week I was sketching. And next week I'm going to be quilting. Who knows what August will bring.
I felt like I should write something though, because 2014 has brought a lot of change to our household as far as food goes. I guess I'll start from the beginning, and hope I don't put you to sleep!
In November of 2013, I decided I should allow myself to make cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. For friends and family! I'd make a batch of cookies every week and freeze them so I would have lots of cookies to give away at Christmas time. I made everything. I think I ended up making maybe 10 kinds of cookies, and had at least two gross of cookies in my freezer.
Except I couldn't just make the cookies and put them away. I started to eat them, secretly. Every time I'd make cookies, I'd eat cookies. And sometimes I'd sneak some out of the freezer. I figured I had more than enough for all my friends and family, and I didn't think one or two cookies would hurt.
Well, I'm here to tell you that two months of one or two cookies lead to 10 pounds of weight gain. I was pretty upset at myself. I swore that, come the new year, I'd get right back on the low carb wagon and lose that weight lickety-split.
The only problem with this theory was that, shortly into January, Chad and I embarked on a pretty epic remodeling project. I get overly excited about stuff, and started wanting to do everything and right now. It started as a project to fix the texture that was peeling off our 100 year old plaster walls, but quickly turned into repainting the whole downstairs and replacing the carpet while we're at it. Like a fool, I ordered to have the carpet put in three weeks from when we started this thing, which means we had three weeks to scrape, retexture, and paint most of our downstairs. Since Chad has to work, that meant that the majority of the work fell on me. It was an intense three weeks.
We managed to just pull it off in time. I told Chad that the only thing keeping me going at the end was sugar, caffeine, and pain pills. I was beat up pretty badly. And two days after the new carpet was installed, I found out exactly how badly I'd hurt myself.
I started to develop a really curious problem. When I sat down after being up and moving around for a while, the right side of my face would hurt. At first it was mild and could be remedied by getting back up and moving around some more. The next day, the pain was worse and I had to get up and do really vigorous exercise to make the pain go away. That night, when I had to lay down to go to sleep, was torture. Eventually the pain went away, though, and I finally got to sleep.
The next day was the worst day of my life. The pain was endless. If I moved around, the pain was bad, but if I sat down, it felt like my face was being stabbed by red hot knives. The pain went down to my jaw and neck and ran up to my ear and eye. I cried uncontrollably. I had my mom take me to the urgent care place; unfortunately, I totally stumped everyone there. The doctor finally told me that the only thing she could think it was was a condition where the nerve in the face is damaged and there's nothing that can be done for it. I asked her if she could at least give me a strong pain medication, because ibuprofen and Tylenol weren't doing anything for me. She sent me off with a prescription for a strong antibiotic and hydrocodone. I hated taking both of them, but I was desperate.
I kept crying and telling Chad that I just couldn't live like this. I was terrified that the problem was what the doctor thought it was, though I really doubted it. She told me to make an appointment with my regular doctor, but I decided to get into my dentist instead on the suspicion that it had something to do with my teeth. At this point, I had realized that the pain was being caused by changes in temperature, and that's why sitting down after moving around made it hurt. It's also why, at this point, I couldn't eat anything at all. The hydrocodone seemed to help a little bit, but it took about an hour to kick in.
The next day, I started to feel a little tiny bit better, though I was still in a lot of pain, crying, and generally miserable. I couldn't move without bringing on a wave of pain. I knew I had to eat, but I couldn't eat anything cold or warm or anything I had to chew. I ended up having Chad blend up room temperature soup so I could suck it through a straw, plus I drank room temperature milk. I was just glad I could get something in my stomach.
The visit to the dentist was extremely interesting. She took some x-rays and examined my mouth. She said my teeth looked fine, though the gums were swollen. The x-rays revealed something really curious. I had a huge pocket of fluid right above one of my top molars (at this point it had even gone down a little). There was nothing wrong with the tooth at all. She asked me if I had sinusitis, but I wasn't having any issues with my sinuses. She thought it was probably brought on by the flu or a bad cold and told me to just rest and continue taking the antibiotics the doctor had given me.
It took me about a week to fully recover from the pain, and another week to start feeling normal again. It actually took me a month or more to get my strength back. And unfortunately, the infection had slightly damaged the sight in my right eye so now it's a little near sighted, and occasionally the difference between the vision in my two eyes makes me feel disoriented. I got some glasses to help with the problem, but I'll never have my perfect vision back.
After that incidence, I was pretty sick with myself. I knew the infection was caused by the sugar, caffeine, pain pills, and excessive amounts of hard physical work. How could I have done that to myself? I knew sugar was toxic, but I shoveled it in anyway because it gave me quick energy when I had nothing left to give. I decided to go completely sugar and wheat free, for real. No cheating. No treats. Just good low carb food. I decided to give myself a reward if I made it to 30 days of being sugar and wheat free; I let myself buy $60 worth of spring bulbs to be planted in the fall. I figured going back to being low carb, sugar free, wheat free would help me to drop those 10 pounds I'd gained, too.
And I made it to 30 days. Then 60 days. But the weight wasn't doing anything. I may have even gained a couple of pounds. I felt better, but not as good as I felt when I first switched to low carb. I was feeling really desperate to move the scale and make myself feel better, to the point where I was starting to experiment with low carb calorie counting. I tried to cut my calories back to 1600 a day, but that made me feel even worse. At that point, Chad gently reminded me that it's probably not healthy to cut back on my intake if I'm trying to support a baby (which we're still trying to conceive).
I think we'll stop this post there since it's already pretty long. The rest of the story is much happier, and even though I can't say for sure that it ends well because life doesn't have neat little endings the way movies do, I can say that Chad and I are doing much better and feeling wonderful. So then, see you next time!
I felt like I should write something though, because 2014 has brought a lot of change to our household as far as food goes. I guess I'll start from the beginning, and hope I don't put you to sleep!
In November of 2013, I decided I should allow myself to make cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. For friends and family! I'd make a batch of cookies every week and freeze them so I would have lots of cookies to give away at Christmas time. I made everything. I think I ended up making maybe 10 kinds of cookies, and had at least two gross of cookies in my freezer.
Except I couldn't just make the cookies and put them away. I started to eat them, secretly. Every time I'd make cookies, I'd eat cookies. And sometimes I'd sneak some out of the freezer. I figured I had more than enough for all my friends and family, and I didn't think one or two cookies would hurt.
Well, I'm here to tell you that two months of one or two cookies lead to 10 pounds of weight gain. I was pretty upset at myself. I swore that, come the new year, I'd get right back on the low carb wagon and lose that weight lickety-split.
The only problem with this theory was that, shortly into January, Chad and I embarked on a pretty epic remodeling project. I get overly excited about stuff, and started wanting to do everything and right now. It started as a project to fix the texture that was peeling off our 100 year old plaster walls, but quickly turned into repainting the whole downstairs and replacing the carpet while we're at it. Like a fool, I ordered to have the carpet put in three weeks from when we started this thing, which means we had three weeks to scrape, retexture, and paint most of our downstairs. Since Chad has to work, that meant that the majority of the work fell on me. It was an intense three weeks.
We managed to just pull it off in time. I told Chad that the only thing keeping me going at the end was sugar, caffeine, and pain pills. I was beat up pretty badly. And two days after the new carpet was installed, I found out exactly how badly I'd hurt myself.
I started to develop a really curious problem. When I sat down after being up and moving around for a while, the right side of my face would hurt. At first it was mild and could be remedied by getting back up and moving around some more. The next day, the pain was worse and I had to get up and do really vigorous exercise to make the pain go away. That night, when I had to lay down to go to sleep, was torture. Eventually the pain went away, though, and I finally got to sleep.
The next day was the worst day of my life. The pain was endless. If I moved around, the pain was bad, but if I sat down, it felt like my face was being stabbed by red hot knives. The pain went down to my jaw and neck and ran up to my ear and eye. I cried uncontrollably. I had my mom take me to the urgent care place; unfortunately, I totally stumped everyone there. The doctor finally told me that the only thing she could think it was was a condition where the nerve in the face is damaged and there's nothing that can be done for it. I asked her if she could at least give me a strong pain medication, because ibuprofen and Tylenol weren't doing anything for me. She sent me off with a prescription for a strong antibiotic and hydrocodone. I hated taking both of them, but I was desperate.
I kept crying and telling Chad that I just couldn't live like this. I was terrified that the problem was what the doctor thought it was, though I really doubted it. She told me to make an appointment with my regular doctor, but I decided to get into my dentist instead on the suspicion that it had something to do with my teeth. At this point, I had realized that the pain was being caused by changes in temperature, and that's why sitting down after moving around made it hurt. It's also why, at this point, I couldn't eat anything at all. The hydrocodone seemed to help a little bit, but it took about an hour to kick in.
The next day, I started to feel a little tiny bit better, though I was still in a lot of pain, crying, and generally miserable. I couldn't move without bringing on a wave of pain. I knew I had to eat, but I couldn't eat anything cold or warm or anything I had to chew. I ended up having Chad blend up room temperature soup so I could suck it through a straw, plus I drank room temperature milk. I was just glad I could get something in my stomach.
The visit to the dentist was extremely interesting. She took some x-rays and examined my mouth. She said my teeth looked fine, though the gums were swollen. The x-rays revealed something really curious. I had a huge pocket of fluid right above one of my top molars (at this point it had even gone down a little). There was nothing wrong with the tooth at all. She asked me if I had sinusitis, but I wasn't having any issues with my sinuses. She thought it was probably brought on by the flu or a bad cold and told me to just rest and continue taking the antibiotics the doctor had given me.
It took me about a week to fully recover from the pain, and another week to start feeling normal again. It actually took me a month or more to get my strength back. And unfortunately, the infection had slightly damaged the sight in my right eye so now it's a little near sighted, and occasionally the difference between the vision in my two eyes makes me feel disoriented. I got some glasses to help with the problem, but I'll never have my perfect vision back.
After that incidence, I was pretty sick with myself. I knew the infection was caused by the sugar, caffeine, pain pills, and excessive amounts of hard physical work. How could I have done that to myself? I knew sugar was toxic, but I shoveled it in anyway because it gave me quick energy when I had nothing left to give. I decided to go completely sugar and wheat free, for real. No cheating. No treats. Just good low carb food. I decided to give myself a reward if I made it to 30 days of being sugar and wheat free; I let myself buy $60 worth of spring bulbs to be planted in the fall. I figured going back to being low carb, sugar free, wheat free would help me to drop those 10 pounds I'd gained, too.
And I made it to 30 days. Then 60 days. But the weight wasn't doing anything. I may have even gained a couple of pounds. I felt better, but not as good as I felt when I first switched to low carb. I was feeling really desperate to move the scale and make myself feel better, to the point where I was starting to experiment with low carb calorie counting. I tried to cut my calories back to 1600 a day, but that made me feel even worse. At that point, Chad gently reminded me that it's probably not healthy to cut back on my intake if I'm trying to support a baby (which we're still trying to conceive).
I think we'll stop this post there since it's already pretty long. The rest of the story is much happier, and even though I can't say for sure that it ends well because life doesn't have neat little endings the way movies do, I can say that Chad and I are doing much better and feeling wonderful. So then, see you next time!
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Nature, Friends, and Being Lazy
Chad and I had a lovely weekend. Usually, I feel like I need to give Chad lots of time to himself so he can read books or play video games, since he's worked so hard throughout the week. The funny thing is, the weekends where he does spend most of his time playing video games or goofing off on the internet are the weekends where he's the least happy, and the ones I feel most lonely.
But this weekend, spurred on by the desire to make advantage of every beautiful day we have this summer, I decided we were going out and doing stuff. So I went over to geocaching.com and downloaded a set of geocaches onto the new handheld gps Chad's dad bought for us. Then we headed out to Walmart to pick up some bug spray, because the mosquitoes have been terrible this summer.
While at Walmart, we ran into one of Chad's old school friends, who invited us over to his wife's birthday party that evening. After saying goodbye, we headed to the camping section with high hopes that we could find a deet-free bug spray. Luckily, I never leave home without first checking the Amazon reviews of a product I'm thinking of buying, so when I saw this on the shelf, I knew we were in luck.
So we grabbed our bug spray and our gps, and headed out to some local trails we hike on all the time. It was very fun out there. We'd never gone geocaching before, so it was a learning experience for us. I'd chosen a Ranger Rick geocaching trail meant for kids so we wouldn't have too hard of a time of it.
I was pretty glad we'd brought the bug spray with us, because as soon as we got under the trees, there were swarms of bugs after both of us. But the instant I sprayed the Repel on, they totally left! This stuff is ridiculously strong smelling, though. It's 30% lemon eucalyptus oil. It left a bit of a cooling effect on my skin, which I didn't mind because it was so hot out there. But don't touch your eyes when you have this stuff on your hands!
We saw lots of wonderful things out there on the trail. Like a bunny.
A pretty red flower growing in a marshy area. It looked a lot like a trout lily, only much bigger and also not yellow.
And some yellow lotuses (not to be confused with water lilies, which have leaves that float on the surface of the water, and are usually the beautiful pointed petaled pink flowers people think are lotuses).
After spending an hour and a half out in the hot forest, we came home and showered, and then headed over to Chad's friend's wife's birthday party. It was fun. We only knew a few of the people, but it was laid back and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. I got to hold onto one of their 7-month old babies. I took a picture of Chad, too, so he could see how cute he'd be as a dad.
Then we came home and spent a good long time on our front porch, just relaxing, chatting, eating low carb ice cream, and watching the sunset. It was a wonderful weekend.
But this weekend, spurred on by the desire to make advantage of every beautiful day we have this summer, I decided we were going out and doing stuff. So I went over to geocaching.com and downloaded a set of geocaches onto the new handheld gps Chad's dad bought for us. Then we headed out to Walmart to pick up some bug spray, because the mosquitoes have been terrible this summer.
While at Walmart, we ran into one of Chad's old school friends, who invited us over to his wife's birthday party that evening. After saying goodbye, we headed to the camping section with high hopes that we could find a deet-free bug spray. Luckily, I never leave home without first checking the Amazon reviews of a product I'm thinking of buying, so when I saw this on the shelf, I knew we were in luck.
So we grabbed our bug spray and our gps, and headed out to some local trails we hike on all the time. It was very fun out there. We'd never gone geocaching before, so it was a learning experience for us. I'd chosen a Ranger Rick geocaching trail meant for kids so we wouldn't have too hard of a time of it.
I was pretty glad we'd brought the bug spray with us, because as soon as we got under the trees, there were swarms of bugs after both of us. But the instant I sprayed the Repel on, they totally left! This stuff is ridiculously strong smelling, though. It's 30% lemon eucalyptus oil. It left a bit of a cooling effect on my skin, which I didn't mind because it was so hot out there. But don't touch your eyes when you have this stuff on your hands!
We saw lots of wonderful things out there on the trail. Like a bunny.
A pretty red flower growing in a marshy area. It looked a lot like a trout lily, only much bigger and also not yellow.
And some yellow lotuses (not to be confused with water lilies, which have leaves that float on the surface of the water, and are usually the beautiful pointed petaled pink flowers people think are lotuses).
After spending an hour and a half out in the hot forest, we came home and showered, and then headed over to Chad's friend's wife's birthday party. It was fun. We only knew a few of the people, but it was laid back and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. I got to hold onto one of their 7-month old babies. I took a picture of Chad, too, so he could see how cute he'd be as a dad.
 | |
| Both baby and Chad are shy, private people. |
Then we came home and spent a good long time on our front porch, just relaxing, chatting, eating low carb ice cream, and watching the sunset. It was a wonderful weekend.
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