On the Verge

My yard is just about ready to blossom in all its springtime glory. I think that cleaning the yard will be on the agenda for this coming weekend (if the snow which is forecast for Thursday and Friday doesn't ruin those plans).

Lilacs

Maple leaves

Bleeding hearts

Daffodil

It sure is difficult to be inside all day at this time of year when the weather is nice and nature is waking up after its winter slumber.

Food Issues

I've figured out what would make my relationship with food better: if I didn't have to eat anymore. I do just fine being strong until I start eating. But once I start eating, I don't want to stop, an evolutionary left-over from when food was harder to come by. I've never smoked before, but I have had some bad habits that I've been able to break, and it's easiest to just go cold turkey. But we can't do that with food. Our bodies require fuel to function, so there is no stopping completely and just avoiding it.

The other reason I struggle quite a bit is because my husband is a foodie. He loves cooking, eating, and planning meals. He tries to be supportive of me, but he definitely expresses his disappointment when I won't fully participate in eating events. Then I feel guilty for ruining his enjoyment. Which occasionally makes me angry since like a great many men, my husband doesn't have to worry about his weight. If he ever puts on a few extra pounds he just goes for a longer bike ride one day, and he's back down to his target weight. So I think it's hard for him to fully understand how difficult this is for me and why I need to modify my eating habits.

I think the third big issue that I have with food is that I'm exhausted. I'm so tired and I just can't sleep. It's awful to be so tired during the night that I can't keep my eyes open, but I can't actually fall asleep either. There's been a great deal of research that not getting enough sleep causes our bodies to crave calorie-dense foods for quick energy when we're tired. Last night was a particularly bad night, and I really need some rest today, but I got up at 4:15 and started my day. Then ate more than I should have during the day.

I tried a prescription for Ambien once before and it really did help me to sleep. I just didn't want to become dependent on the pills so I stopped taking them after the prescription ran out. However, I am to the point now where I'm seriously considering getting a new prescription. Maybe if I could sleep again I'd take one of the issues away and be able to manage my relationship with food better. This is all incredibly frustrating.

My tulips are just about to bloom

My neighbor already has one tulip opened up

Weekly Progress Report #13

Weight: 141.5 pounds

Weight Change: +0.7 pounds

It was a rougher week for me with food. Luckily I didn't do too much damage. This is going to be a better week.

Riding and Ranting

Fair warning: I'm going to rant today. Yesterday I was reading my news feed and I got really angry. There was a terrible tragedy here recently where a pregnant woman answered a Craig's List ad for baby clothes and was brutally attacked. Another woman who apparently can't have children had told her husband she was pregnant, and when the pregnant woman arrived at her house she beat her and cut the unborn baby out of her womb with a kitchen knife. The pregnant woman was able to get help and will survive, the baby did not survive. It was a horrible, unimaginable situation.

Then to add insult to injury, a local politician (who has thankfully been disavowed by both parties) decided to commandeer the tragedy for his own personal agenda. He said that the reason it had happened is because God is punishing the state of Colorado for not passing a personhood amendment. My blood was boiling. This former mother-to-be is physically scarred for life, and most likely emotionally scarred for life. The woman who attacked her clearly has mental health issues and wasn't dealing with depression properly. No one should be trying to use this situation for their own devices right now, or ever.

Between this situation and the Germanwings flight which was apparently intentionally crashed into a mountainside by the co-pilot, I don't want to read any more news right now. Sometimes I feel like May in The Secret Life of Bees with her wailing wall. It's just hard to read about people hurting themselves and others all the time. This is why I also subscribe to the Huffington Post Good News feed. Sometimes it's silly and fluffy, and sometimes it's truly inspiring and heart-warming. It's always a good reminder that are lots of people in the world who try to be kind to one another, rather than hurt one another. Some days I need the reminder more than others. Yesterday was one of those days.

In happier news, we really enjoyed taking our daughter to see The Breakfast Club last night. It was nice to have time with just the three of us. It was also fun to see the movie at the theater. The scene where they're all sitting together and Brian and Andy reveal what they did to get detention was much more poignant on the big screen.

I managed to get a bike ride in today also. This one was a real ride where I was actually huffing and puffing riding back up the creek path at the end. The weather was beautiful, and I ran across two little boys who were keeping a toad on the path safe.

Grape hyacinths in our front yard

The view on my ride when I stopped for a drink of water

The toad and his protectors

Flowers and Hassels

The cherry tree in my backyard is starting to bloom

Tonight's the night we're taking our daughter to see The Breakfast Club in the theater. I don't think I ever even saw that movie in the theater. I think the first time I saw it was on VHS at a sleepover. So I'm probably just as excited to see it as she is. I'm also looking forward to having some time to focus on just one child while my son is with his grandparents.

I'm glad we're doing something fun this evening since I had to start the morning off at the DMV to get my driver's license renewed. I had been told (thank goodness) that I needed to be there by 6:30 to stand in line outside for when it opened at 8:00. I was probably tenth in line, and by the time they opened the doors, the line was so long that they couldn't get everyone into the building. While it stunk to stand in line in 30 degree weather for an hour and a half (with people smoking), I was done by 8:30. I can't even begin to imagine how many hours the people at the end of the line had to wait. Colorado allows you to renew your license online 2 times before you have to appear in person for a new picture again, so luckily I won't have to do this again for 15 years. Except when I have to take my daughter to get her license in 2 years.

Since we have plans for tonight, I won't get to ride my new bike again this evening. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to though, since I work a half day on Fridays. It's warmed up to about 60 now and I'm kind of bummed that I can't get outside in the sunny weather. Oh well, I guess there's always this weekend!

Slow Down

One of my favorite albums (especially when I'm working out) is Our Darkest Days by Ignite. There's a song on the album called Slowdown and one of the lines in the chorus is:

When the day is through
All I want to do is slow down

While I realize that it's talking about doing too much, I need to keep this song on a loop in my head for another reason. I don't like making mistakes, even though I know full well that I am imperfect and will continue to make mistakes. I especially don't like it when I know the mistakes could have been prevented if I had just slowed down a bit. Yesterday was a doozy for mistakes as a result of rushing.

1. I posted a picture of my new bike which was blurry. I was rushing so much that I didn't even stop to notice that the photo hadn't turned out. I posted a bad picture here and on my social media account.
2. When a friend commented on said social media post that we should go on a bike ride together, I responded back that our "husband's could watch the kids." I didn't actually type that, but I didn't watch the auto-correct either. I'm not sure what our husbands were supposed to be possessing in that sentence.
3. I thought I ordered a digital photo frame for a co-worker's birthday (the correct use of  the possessive apostrophe). But when it arrived yesterday it was a lighted photo frame. You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now about shopping on Amazon. It doesn't always show only items that match the search term, and I need to actually pay attention to what I'm ordering or putting on my wish list (this isn't even the first time I've done this, way to learn from my mistakes!)

All of this makes me wonder if I shouldn't be slower to judge and more understanding when I see mistakes that other people make, especially grammatical errors. Most of us don't have an editor who can clean up our writing. Although I still feel justified in being annoyed with published books which contain errors and should have had an editor. I guess it's true that we (should) never stop growing and learning.

I enjoyed my bike ride very much last night, I think I'll get a lot more use out of this type of bike than I have since I was a kid and my bike was my freedom. I won't be riding it today though since it snowed today. Springtime in Colorado is pretty unpredictable. Although by this afternoon it was sunny and pretty, just still too cold to ride.

The moisture-splattered "view" out my office window this morning at about 10:00 AM

A flowering tree in front of bright blue sky

Another flowering tree

Food Issues and Exciting Week

Yesterday I had what Suzanne Collins referred to as a "hollow day" in The Hunger Games book. The past couple of weeks I had been very dedicated and motivated to eat the proper amount of food to lose weight. I'm not sure why, but yesterday it just felt so much harder. Instead of feeling mild hunger and just ignoring it, I was feeling mild hunger and wanted to feed it...a lot of food. I managed not to give in all day even though I was working from home and food was readily available. But then we took my daughter out to dinner for her restaurant birthday dinner (yes, lots of activities in my family revolve around food, which is part of the problem), and I totally fell off the wagon. But I'm jumping right back on today.

Although I know that it's normal for weight loss to plateau for awhile, it's still hard to keep myself motivated when I'm not seeing movement on the scale. When the numbers go down each morning, it's like success feeds itself, but it takes a different level of self control when the numbers stop moving for several days. I know that I could very easily give up again right now; it's happened several times over the last couple of years. I've put in too much work to just throw it all out the window again. So today I'm eating the proper number of calories again.

We have a very exciting week planned out. Last night my husband and I bought new bikes (which is why I didn't post last night).

Close up of the color

We'd been planning on making this purchase for quite some time and had saved our pennies up. My husband just fell in love with a bright orange bike, although it's not a color to which he normally gravitates. I was having a harder time picking out my bike. I knew that I wanted a cruiser because I just don't enjoy riding the sports bikes where I'm bent over the handlebars as much. But most of  the cruisers were really girly with flowers everywhere. While I do love flowers, I don't like them on my modes of transportation. Then I saw this sage green bike that just had a nice, subdued paint job. I rode it around and decided this was the bike for me. It's only a 7-speed, but I knew I'd use it more if it wasn't too complicated to ride or maintain. Tonight we're planning on taking a family bike ride and my son is super excited as he loves riding his bike.

Thursday night we're taking our daughter to see The Breakfast Club in the theater. She loves this movie and we're treating her to special night alone with mom and dad. My son will be spending the evening with his grandparents and will get plenty of pampering himself. Then on Friday night my daughter and I are going to see Cinderella with my mom, mother-in-law, aunt, and sister-in-law.

My mom likes to have "girls night out" and she's been trying to organize one for ages. We were just never able to firm anything up and didn't fit it into the schedule. So when everyone was over on Sunday for my daughter's family birthday party and my sister-in-law mentioned that she really wanted to see Cinderella, we finally made a plan and set a date.

Lots of fun going on this week while the kids don't have school or homework! I just hope that the weather continues to cooperate with all of our plans since snow is forecast again for tomorrow.

Weekly Progress Report #12

We've got our deck furniture out and we even ate dinner outside last night, though it was a little chilly after the sun started to go down. Spring is in full swing here in Denver. Chances are pretty good that we'll get at least one more snow, but for now it's sunny, warm, and beautiful.

Weight: 140.8 pounds

Weight Change: -0.2 pounds

This week wasn't nearly as drastic as last week even though I was just as dedicated. I'm trying not feel too discouraged since I know this is a normal part of the process, and last week wasn't a normal pace at which to lose weight.

I'm making an effort to really watch my language these days. My hair and nails had gotten pretty long not out of preference, but because I just never did anything about it. When people commented on it I would reply that it wasn't because I liked them long, I was just lazy. But that isn't true. I'm not a lazy person. The real issue was that I was choosing to spend on time on things that were more important to me than personal grooming. As long as I looked clean I wasn't overly worried about it. This weekend I decided that the length had become inconvenient enough that I was willing to give up time for other things to take care of it.

I still found time to read a book though. I recently watched a mediocre horror film (as so many of them are, sadly) called Devil's Pass. While the movie itself wasn't very insightful, it was based on a true incident that I decided I wanted to learn more about. So I did a little research and found a book called Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident. It was very well written and I devoured the book in just a little over a day. I don't know if the author really discovered the true reason that nine experienced hikers abandoned their tent in subzero temperatures without adequate clothing, but at least there seems to be some evidence for his theory. I'd highly recommend it if you have any interest in historical mysteries.

My kids and husband are on spring break this week. While I don't have time off from work, it's still like a small vacation for me since I don't have to monitor homework all week. I hope that whatever your week brings, you enjoy it!

Unwrapping the Gift

A couple of years ago, a friend sent me a link to Katrina Kenison's YouTube video promoting her book, The Gift of an Ordinary Day. I highly recommend watching it, especially if you are a parent of children entering the teen years, just be prepared with a box of tissues. In the video, Kenison reads a short piece she wrote which sums up the book. Her basic point is that we tend to take photos and commemorate special events as our kids grow; but when they're no longer young we really miss the ordinary days with our kids. It's definitely something I try to keep in mind as time continues to pass so quickly with my children.

Kenison's earlier book, Mitten Strings for God is my new go-to gift for friends who become pregnant. It's a book I wish I'd had when my children were toddlers that reminds people to leave time and space in their schedule to be a family together. Since I'm a bit of a bibliophile, my go-to gift for new babies is the book Love You Forever. Funny side story: One night when my kids were little and my father-in-law was over at bedtime he offered to read them a bedtime story. I told my daughter to get that book out for him to read. My father-in-law is extremely emotional and sensitive and of course he started crying. My husband told me I had been mean, but I wasn't doing it just to make him cry; I knew he'd also really like the story. The tears were just an added bonus.

Yesterday I went to pick my son up from school and as we were walking up the creek he kept wanting to stop. My first instinct was to rush him along so we could get home and take care of chores. But I stopped myself and decided to just let him be. The years are numbered now where he'll want me to walk along with him and watch the fish and ducks in the creek. Plus, the spring weather was beautiful and there were several bushes which were starting to leaf out.

Watching the fish swim

Watching the ducks waddle up the hillside

The bright blue spring sky

New growth

This morning I took my daughter out to get hair cuts and run an errand. She asked if we could also run past the craft store because she had some new ideas she wanted to try out.

T-shirt sponge painted with Dream Theater's majesty symbol

T-shirt sponge painted with moon and stars

I reminded myself to enjoy the time with her where the two of us could have uninterrupted conversation, a rarity at home with all the activity. I'm not sure why, but she seems to be more willing to open up and talk when we're in the car together.

I've spent the past couple of days savoring the gift of ordinary time I have with my kiddos.

I'll be doing a regular weigh-in tomorrow, but the results won't be as drastic as last week. It's not for lack of trying as I've stuck to my calorie counting, even skipping a meal out with my family because I knew I'd overeat at the restaurant they had picked. This happened the last time I lost weight, it's almost as if my body has to adjust metabolically to lowered calories. When I first start restricting the calories the weight practically melts off. Then I think my body goes into survival mode since it thinks I'm starving and holds onto the weight. But as long as I keep restricting my calories the weight will start to come off again. Luckily my daughter chose steamed artichokes and grilled chicken breasts for her homemade birthday dinner tonight, so I can easily stay within my calorie count for the day.

Happy First Day of Spring and International Day of Happiness

Lots of things to celebrate today:

• The vernal equinox making it the official first day of spring (in the Northern hemisphere)
• The International Day of Happiness
• My daughter's 14th birthday (which she shares with Mr. Rogers)

I'm so glad today is Friday and that I only had to work a half day. I got to come home in time to get a photo of my daffodil in the sunshine. It's a good thing too; it's starting to droop and might not have looked very nice tomorrow. I also noticed that the grape hyacinths are starting to bloom. Spring is officially here now, and I'm loving our beautiful weather and the flowers.

My girl is 14 today. She was excited about school because one of her language arts classes was going to see Insurgent so they could compare the book and the movie. I think she's planning on hanging out with her boyfriend after school (new development over the last couple of weeks), and then we're watching a movie together tonight. On Sunday the extended family is coming over for a party and my husband is using his new toy, a Rec Tec grill.

I hope you all have a wonderful first official day of spring, and that you're getting to enjoy some spring-like weather!

Exhaustion and Anticipation

I'm kind of tired of always being so tired. This morning when the alarm went off I couldn't believe that not only was it not yet the weekend, but that I still had another day to get through before I could sleep in. I just don't sleep well, and this week has been particularly bad. I wouldn't mind quite so much if it didn't feel like I was walking and thinking through molasses all day long. I wish I could figure out how to make this better, but I've tried pretty much everything and nothing seems to help. That's not entirely true, Ambien helped before, but I don't want to become addicted to a sleeping pill so I never refilled the prescription.

We're having pretty consistent spring-like weather here now, so I'm looking forward to the calendar matching the weather tomorrow. I've seen some beautiful sights the last couple of days with fresh blooms on many of the plants and trees.

I'm not sure what this is, but it was so cool I had to share a photo.

I think these blue and violet flowers may be the prettiest color ever.

Purple-flowered ground cover in a neighbor's yard behind a chain-link fence.

The tulips won't be far behind.

The lilac bushes are starting to leaf out.

A cheerful, sunny daffodil. Hopefully I can get a picture of it in the sun this weekend, there's no sun left in our front yard by the time I get home from work during the week.

Practicing Delayed Gratification

There a couple of horror-related items that I am currently anxiously awaiting...and I'll just have to keep waiting. The horror chick got me all jazzed to see Crimson Peak, and then Joe Hill and Stephen King got to see a screening of it and have been raving about it.

I looked up the release date and it doesn't come out until October 16th! I suppose a Halloween opening is fitting, but I wish everyone would stop talking about it since I don't get invited to screenings and just have to be patient.

I also found out last fall that Cemetery Dance Publications was coming out with a second edition of my favorite horror anthology ever, October Dreams 2. My husband ordered the hard cover edition for my birthday ($40 for a book, eek!) and it's supposed to arrive this month. While I do enjoy horror all year long, the first edition of this anthology was very specifically stories and author memories about Halloween. So I think even when it arrives, I should wait until September 23rd and the official start of autumn before I start reading it. It will be super challenging to have it just sitting there waiting, but I want to be in the right season for the stories.

I'm planning on talking to my son about this, because delayed gratification is something that he really struggles with as a result of his ADHD. He's made such drastic improvements lately that I think he might be ready to see me lead by example on this one. If any of you have children who struggle with ADHD and/or irritability, I highly recommend the fish oil (gummy) vitamins for children. The psychologist recommended that we try those and they really seem to be helping.

While I wait for autumn and all of its glories and rewards this year, I'll slow down and appreciate that spring is on its way. My neighbors have some pretty pink flowers blooming in their raised bed, so I couldn't resist sharing a picture. This one goes out especially to those of you who are still firmly entrenched in winter right now.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I wore my green today. My mom got me this sweater for Christmas and I remember when I opened it thinking I'd be set for March 17th. My husband is making our traditional St. Patrick's day meal of cheddar scones and corned beef. I was really careful with my food earlier today so I'd have the 687 calories left that I needed for this dinner because it's so yummy I didn't want to miss it.

I finally figured out looking at this picture of myself why I don't like pictures of myself. My left eye opens wider than my right eye (this is something lots of people in my family have), and the right side of my mouth lifts higher than the left when I smile. I don't think I would judge anyone else on this, but I certainly do judge myself.  The other part of the problem is that I'm not used to seeing myself this way, I'm used to a mirror image, so I always just think I look weird in pictures. While losing weight won't help with any of this, I'll feel better overall so maybe I won't mind the pictures so much.

It wasn't quite as warm today as it has been the last couple of days. Today's high was only 58. Though it was still mostly sunny and spring is definitely here to stay now, even though it doesn't officially start until Friday (which is also my daughter's 14th birthday).

Enjoy your day, however you choose to celebrate or not!

Spring Arrived a Few Days Early

Guess what was in my yard when I got home today! This daffodil wasn't there yesterday, it bloomed while I was away today.

It is warm here. Yesterday the thermometer on my back deck registered 90 degrees. My phone said 80 degrees, and it was probably more accurate as I think the sun was directly hitting the thermometer on the deck. Today was basically a repeat. One of my coworkers and I sat outside for a few minutes for our lunch break today. It's still technically winter time, and I was sweaty after a walk with my husband yesterday afternoon. It did make it pretty hard for me to sleep last night since the house warmed up to over 70 during the day. Hopefully tonight I'll be so tired that it won't matter that it's warmer.

Other than the sleep issue, I guess I'm ready for the warmer weather and blooming plants. I hope you're starting to see some signs of spring wherever you are too.

Weekly Progress Report #11

I lost weight this week. I'm feeling pretty dedicated right now. We even had a wine and cheese party last night, and I still managed to stay within my calories for the day.

Weight: 141.0 pounds

Weight Change: - 4.2 pounds

I'm starting to wonder if I have any idea how to be a parent to a teenager. I was good with young kids, I had that locked down from my days of working in the after school program. But at times it seems like everything that I say and do is the wrong thing where my teenager is concerned. Oh well, I guess I'll just keep trying to figure this out as there isn't really anything else to do.

The First Signs of Spring Weather

It is a beautiful, 60 degree day here in Denver. Spring is definitely in the air, even if we may still have more snow to come. It rained overnight and everything smelled so fresh and clean this morning when I went for a walk. One of my daughter's favorite smells is wet pavement, so I imagine she had a nice walk to the bus stop this morning. We're supposed to get more rain today, and based on the clouds to the west, I think it's a real possibility.

Between the warm weather and the rain, almost all of our snow is gone. There are two tiny little patches up against the fence in the back where it's still shaded because the sun doesn't travel a path this time of year to provide much light there.

I have a date with my son this evening. It's our final elementary school mother-son evening. I'm looking forward to having some time to just focus on him. I think my husband and daughter are going to watch a movie together since they'll be home alone this evening. I hope everyone else is having a nice end to the week also!

Busy Life and Sunrise

Last night was another crazy night in our household. My son's homework load was rather overwhelming, though this was his fault for not doing his work in class. He's actually doing so much better now than he was for awhile, but his current teacher thinks that by setting him up to fail she'll teach him responsibility. I wish she'd listen to us that the "hard-ass" methods just don't work with him. Anyway...we also had piano lessons and middle school orientation. I think it was sort of fun for my daughter to show her little brother around the school. We got home and had to write an email to my son's principal about setting up a meeting with him and my son's teacher. By that time, it was just time to collapse and get some sleep.

I had to move into a different hallway at work this week due to the recent lay-offs and consolidating office space. I can still see Pike's peak looking southwest out my window, but now I can also see the sunrise looking southeast out my window. There's a tall building directly south of my window, and it blocks the sun during the day, so I get some nice views without the hassle of sun on my computer screens. The sunrise was spectacular this morning since we had some cloud cover. I looked out at one point and thought it looked beautiful so I snapped a photo (with my camera phone through a window). Then I turned around a few minutes later, and it was even prettier. This happened a few more times, so I have a photo progression of the beautiful sunrise this morning.

I'm still struggling with the time change. I did fine most of the day on Monday, but starting on Tuesday, I was just wiped out. I'm hoping that I'll be better next week.