Choosing to Correct My Course

I'm fairly embarrassed to report my weigh-in today; and rather disappointed in myself.  When I stood on the scale this morning I had actually gained weight, so today's weigh-in is 136.6.  Once again I was going down at the beginning of the week and thought I'd be able to report a loss of about 1 1/2 pounds for the week.  But after an extraordinarily difficult day on Friday (parenting is the most rewarding, and most difficult task I've ever undertaken), I made really poor choices on Friday evening and all day Saturday.  I did manage to go for a run/walk on Saturday morning.  I was planning on going for a run but my 9 1/2 year old son wanted to go with me, so we had to do a combo.  But I learned long ago that unless I exercise basically all day, I really can't make up for poor food choices by exercising.

I don't know why I'm having such a difficult time getting my head back in this mode.  Here's a picture of me in the summer of 2011 after I'd lost 35 pounds (I actually needed the belt to hold those pants up, it wasn't just a fashion accessory).

My sister-in-law once told me that she didn't know how I did it, that I was like a machine and refused to make a poor eating choice.  But that's not the experience I'm having now.  I guess the good thing is that I seem to be identifying my triggers and figuring out when I have the most difficulty.  Now I just need to figure out how to deal with them.  The weekends tend to be tough because not only do I have more access to food, but I'm married to a "foodie."  Please don't misunderstand; I'm not in any way implying that this is my husband's fault.  But he's such a good cook and he enjoys food so much, that sometimes I feel like I limit my time with him if I don't eat the same things he's eating.  And I like to spend time with him, so I guess I need to discuss with him how we can hang out with different types of food and/or without food.

I don't make New Year's resolutions per se, but I do try to focus on areas where I want to improve.  At the end of December I had written down in my journal that I wanted to lose weight so my joints would be less achy and my clothes would fit better.  I also wrote down that I wanted to work on being more appreciative and kinder, and to complain less.  I really want to make better choices that lead to me being a better person and having a more positive impact on those around me.  So far I'm not doing as well as I'd like on any of these.  But one of the advantages of not calling these "resolutions" but instead areas where I'd like to focus, is that I don't have to feel like I've failed in early February.  I can just refocus and continue to try harder.  I can make course corrections and keep on journeying.

Alexander and Blah!

Today was not a good day.  Some really crummy stuff happened, which was the last thing I needed coming off of two particularly stressful weeks at work.  I just keep thinking of Alexander right now.

So once I finish cleaning my house this afternoon, I think I'm going to plop in front of the TV for the rest of the night.  I know, probably not the best thing to do, but I just don't have it in my to anything more tonight.  Tomorrow morning though, I'm going for a run.  I don't care if it is snowy and icy; I'm going stir crazy and I need to get outdoors and exercise.  It's just more soothing to the soul than exercising indoors.  Besides, I need to be training for my upcoming 5Ks anyway.

On a related note because I like to listen to music when I run, does anyone have any good recommendations for earbuds for miniature ears?  I have got seriously tiny ears, I think they're smaller than most infant's ears.  I did find one brand that fit really well, but they don't seem to last for more than about 4 months (and I'm very gentle with them); and I just don't want to spend the money to replace them again.  So anyone know of any high-quality children's sized earbuds?

Bookworm

I think I may have mentioned a time or two that I like to read, and I read a lot.  I read for pleasure.  I read for information.  I read for escape.

One of many overflowing bookshelves in my house.  It would be worse, but now I use the Kindle app.

I really enjoy reading history books, but I've noticed something kind of odd about the changing way that historians are writing.  I read a very good book called Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul:  Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty by John Barry.  Another good one was The Fall of Anne Boleyn:  A Countdown by Claire Ridgway.  Both of these were well written books that I really enjoyed reading.  But I remember thinking it was a bit too obvious how much the authors liked and admired their subjects, to the detriment of others players during the time.  There's nothing wrong with having an affinity for one's subject, but whenever there was an historical disagreement or conflict, the authors always assumed their subject was in the right and the other player was in the wrong.  It just didn't seem terribly objective.

Then I read another book called Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie.  While he also clearly liked the last Russian Tsar and his wife, he could be more objective about them as people and didn't always just assume that they were in the right.  He was in fact pretty realistic about Alexandra's eccentricities.    Then I realized that the latter book was originally published in 1967, while the first two books were published in 2012.  So then I started wondering:  Are we slipping in our requirements of objectivity in reporting/writing in general?  Maybe not, but sometimes it feels that way.

Then today I saw an article on NPR to which I did not have a very positive reaction.  Engineers at MIT have created a book that you "wear" so you can experience physical stimuli to match the protagonist's emotional state.  It's kind of an interesting idea, but I don't think it's something I'd ever be interested in.  A big part of the appeal of a book over a movie is that every experience is what I create.  I don't think I like the idea of someone else figuring out what I should imagine or experience.  I want to have my own physical reaction and create my own pictures in my head.  Of course now I sound like a cranky old person opposed to technology.   But my husband thinks it sounds interesting, so maybe it's just me; but then he doesn't like to read quite as much as I do.

It's the Little Things

Sometimes it really is the little things that matter.  I'm so excited to use my new journal.

I finally used up the old one (I think this is number 6 lifetime).  Yes, it's a little lame to get this excited about a new journal, but it's got a beautiful Celtic design on the front and it's green, and leather!  This is my first leather journal and it just feels good to hold it.

One of the other little things that I really love is this tea infuser that my in-laws got me for Christmas a couple of years ago.

I LOVE tea, and loose leaf tea really does taste better.  I can't use it all the time since I just don't have time in the morning before work to heat the water in the tea kettle and then allow the tea to steep in the infuser.  But I always use it when I'm working from home and on the weekends.

Part of why I like these "little" things so much is that they help me get through the "big" things.  This year is going to have several big things to get through.  I'm turning 40 this month.  My daughter is turning 13 next month, I'm officially going to have a teenager.  My son is turning 10 this summer (or "a decade" as he calls it).  My husband and I will be celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary this summer.  We'll also be sending our newly minted teenager to Europe on a school trip.  I'm definitely going to need tea (maybe spiked) and a place to record my feelings to get through that time.  I'm very excited for her and proud of her and know that the trip will be good for her.  But I'm going to have major Momma anxiety while she's across the Atlantic ocean for 2 weeks.  Sometimes it really is the little things that can make the difference between stress and coping!

On another note, it's cold here.  I mean, bone-chilling.  I've lived in Colorado since I was 9 months old and most winters we've had a really cold snap.  But this is the third time this winter we've received a weather warning because of the windchill urging us to limit out time outdoors to avoid hypothermia and frostbite.  I think I saw the thermometer reach 1 degree (Fahrenheit) today, but with the windchill it still feels like 14 below.  I guess I'm a wimp, because I don't like this any longer.  Although it is quite lovely.

What's In a Name?

There's a reason that I named this blog "choosing my course".  I believe that what truly defines us is the choices we make.  I know that I'd rather define myself by my intentions, but that's not reality.  Some people abdicate their responsibility for their own choices.  Some of the people that I love do this and it makes me very sad and frustrated.  The reason I originally started this blog (even though I didn't post very often at the beginning), was because I got a slap in the face and realized I needed to take control of my own choices.

My parents were supposed to go to Alaska for vacation in the late summer of 2010.  But my dad was feeling so crummy that they had to cancel the trip.  That fall my dad had a heart catheterization and the doctor came into the room afterwards to tell us about the results.  He told my dad that he had been given a second chance to make different choices back in 1998 when he'd had a heart attack and quintuple bypass.  My dad had actually died that night, but thankfully my mother is a geriatric nurse practitioner and my parents had called the ambulance previously.  So when his heart stopped he was already on the stretcher and the EMTs were able to revive him.

The doctor told my dad that there wasn't much more they could do for him.  The bypass surgery was to give him the opportunity to exercise, eat right, and control his type II diabetes.  My dad hadn't chosen to do any of that.  I know that he feels like some of those choices have been taken from him because he was injured in both the Vietnam war, and again when I was in Kindergarten.  So he's in a great deal of pain most of the time and it makes it difficult for him to exercise.  He also fights depression from a rather unhealthy upbringing with an abusive father.  But the reality is that he could still choose to eat right and start small with exercise.

My dad still hasn't made any different choices and still doesn't feel well.  But I heard the doctor loud and clear that day.  I had allowed myself to get a bit overweight at 150 pounds.  I'm only 5'5" so that was too heavy.  That was when I started recording all my food and exercise and in only 3 1/2 months I lost 35 pounds and got back down to my high school weight of 115 pounds.  (I actually went lower than that for awhile so I started adding back in more calories, because that was just too skinny.)  I felt strong and healthy and proud of my choices.  I've allowed myself to put some of that weight back on and am now working to take it off again.  For some reason it's been harder this time, but making myself accountable on here should help to at a minimum shame me into making better choices!

So I actually picked the name for this blog very consciously, in an effort to remind myself that it's not what I want or intend that matters.  It's what I actually choose to do that matters.  One of my favorite lines from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech is, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."  I truly believe that we discover the content of our character by the choices we make, and that is a valid way to judge myself.  So I'm going to continue "choosing my course," and while I have no illusions that I'll always make the right choices, I will keep trying and getting myself back on course.

Lack of Progress

As I had anticipated, my weigh-in yesterday was disappointing.  After doing fairly well early in the week, I gave in to my desire to stress eat at the end of the week and so the scale was right back at 136 when I stood on it yesterday.  I wanted to stress eat again today after getting about 4 hours of sleep last night and still being in the middle of my annual crush time at work.  However, I've avoided doing so thus far.  Now I just need to eat a good dinner.

I have a whole new level of sympathy for single parents after a weekend without my husband.  Last night when I was attempting to sleep without much luck, my son came into my bedroom at about 10:30 telling me he'd thrown up.  I know that I should be a loving and supportive mother who comforts her child who just got sick, but my son has a talent for making himself vomit whenever he wants to get out of something.  Of course what he wanted to get out of was going back to school on Monday.  I've mentioned that things are pretty crazy right now at work and there was NO way I could miss work today.  So I had my son brush his teeth, I put the soiled blanket in the hamper, (I am still feeling extremely grateful that it was just one blanket and I didn't have to remake the whole bed or get a cleaning bucket out.!), got my son a drink of water, and told him to go back to sleep.

Given the continuing sleep issues I experience, this was not conducive to climbing back into my bed and falling asleep.  So after tossing and turning for about an hour and feeling freezing cold and achy (my body's normal reaction to exhaustion), I got up and took some ibuprofen.  I don't like to take medicine and I certainly couldn't take a sleeping aid at 11:30 at night when my alarm goes off at 4:15.  But I thought just taking away some of the achiness might help me to actually fall asleep.  It did eventually work and I was sleeping pretty well when the alarm went off, which tends to make it quite jarring.

I did manage to complete my workout and get my son ready and off to school on time this morning so I wasn't late to work, so that was a huge achievement!  Tonight I'll pick my husband up from the airport with a whole new appreciation for having him as my partner.  Raising children is hard work, and I am very lucky to have help most of the time.  I'm also really lucky in that my parents and my in-laws are close and always willing to help out, although I don't like to impose too often.

This week I will make better choices about food and eating, and I know I'll have more encouraging weigh-in results to report next week.  Also, my work clothes will fit better!

Calgon, take me away!

Today has been quite the comedy of errors.  It started yesterday afternoon with an email from my son's teacher that he needed to redo a writing assignment this weekend because he had rushed through it.  Now, if we put math homework in front of this kid, he gladly works through it; but writing is a completely different story.  It's like pulling teeth getting him to write.  My husband did try to get him to redo the work last night, but Friday nights are tough since everyone is worn out from the week.  The reason my husband tried so hard to get the work done last night was because this morning I dropped him off at the airport to go to a concert.  So now I'm fighting through this writing assignment all by myself.

We also had a birthday party to attend today.  We went to Target and picked up a birthday card and gift card.  We got home and I noticed that Google Now showed that I was supposed to be at the party at 2.  It was 2:05 at this point and I was very confused.  I had received the Evite that stated the time of the party from 6 PM to 8 PM.  I did see that I got another Evite email, but I had assumed it was just a reminder.  Nope, it was an update to the time.  (Side note:  I guess it's good, if a bit scary, that Google Now reads my email for me.)  So I told my son to grab the cards and we'd go.  That's when I realized that the clerk at Target hadn't given us the bag with the cards.  We had to go back to Target and they had to watch the security tape of us checking out to confirm that we indeed hadn't taken the cards before they could replace the items.  We finally arrived at the birthday party 45 minutes late.

As I write this out, it doesn't look as bad as it felt at the time, but I was practically in tears.  Although I did realize that I needed to provide a better example of how to handle (admittedly minor) adversity for my children so I made myself calm down.  Of course now I have to shamefully admit that I don't think my weigh-in tomorrow is going to be encouraging.  I was using excuses to "justify" eating junk, and too much food.  This after the past couple of weeks reading Gretchen Rubin's posts on loophole-spotting.  Oh well, tomorrow is a new day, and I know it will be better than today.  And I will make better choices than I did today.

I realize that I'm giving away my age by referencing an old commercial in the title, but it's just so fitting.  However, it's winter in Colorado and my skin is dry enough.  So instead of soaking in a bubble bath, I think I'm going to watch Blade tonight.  There's nothing like vampires and Wesley Snipes in a tight shirt to take me away from my troubles!