Merry Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas!  We have been extremely blessed with an abundance of love, laughter, family, and friends (and tech gadgets!).  Today was the perfect Christmas morning with a light dusting of snow that starting falling late on Christmas Eve.  I hope every one's Christmas is as blessed and special as ours has been!

Choosing to Laugh

I posted pictures yesterday of the spring flowers in the snow.  What I didn't post about was the crazy line at the bus station, partly because I was otherwise occupied and hardly noticed.  I read several blogs by women who are in situations similar to mine:  Trying to balance the demands of being a wife, mother, and employee at the same time.  One of those blogs was making me laugh out loud while I was standing in that line at the bus station waiting to come home to my family.  So obviously I highly recommend checking it out here at the Planting Dandelions blog.

I have been thinking some about regret.  What I really regret in my life is not appreciating and enjoying enough when things have been going well in the past.  So I truly believe it's time to put more effort into doing just that with the good things I have right now.  There are things that I wish were different in my life.  I would like to work part time.  I would like to live in a more rural area.  I would like to sleep better and feel more rested.  But none of those things preclude enjoying all of the wonderful things that I do have in my life.  I have a devoted husband and two wonderful children.  We have everything we need and much of what we want.  We live in a place and time where we know we're safe, secure, and free.  I'm allowed to post anything I want here.  Although I like to remind people that freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from the consequences of that speech.  It's a good life, and I'm choosing to enjoy it and laugh out loud as much as possible.

Springtime in Colorado

Sunday's official high temperature in Denver was 84 degrees Fahrenheit.  Today it's snowing.  I love living in a state that keeps me on my toes!

Choosing to Take Control of My Reactions and Emotions

It's been nearly a year since my last post.  I must humbly admit that I've made very poor choices during that time.  My work load got heavier and heavier, and I abdicated my responsibility for my own reactions.  I indulged my baser emotions and allowed stress to rule my life.  It affected my health and my family relationships.

I finally decided it was time for a new job.  My thinking went that if I started over with a new company, people wouldn't come to me with questions outside of my area because I wouldn't have been there long enough or worked in enough areas to answer all those questions.  Well...I was mistaken.  If people know you've done something in the past (and of course they know because you put those things on your resume); they're going to ask.  Four weeks in to my new job and I'm working more hours than I ever did at my old job.  I also gave up a lot of intrinsic benefits like location and proximity to my house thinking that it would be worth it for fewer hours and less stress.

So I've come to the conclusion that I am responsible for the way I react.  I am responsible for controlling my stress.  Even though I am busy, if I make the time to write a post, even a small one, it may help me to be more accountable to my readers and myself and to take responsibility for my reactions and emotions.  There is the potential of things improving at my new job.  I am hopeful that this will happen.  If it doesn't happen, then I will have some additional choices to make.  I will need to decide where my priorities really lie and what I'm willing to give up to have the time that I need with my family while my kids are still young.  I will share my decision-making process with you if it comes to that.

In the meantime, I will calmly handle my workload and put it away when I'm at home so that I can focus on quality time with my family.

NOT Choosing to be Awake

It's 2:20 in the morning and I'm writing a blog post.  I've struggled with staying asleep (and occasionally with falling asleep, sometimes in the same night!) for several years now.  At first it was just a couple of weeks in the summer but for the last couple of years it's been a problem from spring through fall.  I'm not one of the fabled short-sleepers who can get by on 4 to 6 hours per night.  I need 7 to 8+ hours per night in order to feel rested.  So I go around in a sleep-deprived state for more than half the year now.  This is particularly unsafe, especially since I drive to work every day.  Also, I really hate feeling like this.  I feel slow and groggy and like I just can't get my gears unstuck.

I read a study (can't remember where) that short-term sleep-deprivation didn't affect performance on projects that required intense concentration, but it seriously and negatively affected projects that required limited concentration.  You know, like driving or writing an email, which I do daily.  But I wonder if they had volunteers who were sleep-deprived over longer periods if they would have seen even the projects that required intense concentration suffer.    Or maybe I'm just trying to justify my errors to myself.

I've read several books over the years and I've picked up lots of tricks to go back to sleep.  I keep relaxing Celtic piano music and nature sounds with embedded delta waves on my phone.  I also have both the white noise and lightning bug apps on my phone.  So I have lots of listening choices to help me to drift off.  I've found that stretching my legs sometimes helps.  Sometimes getting up and sitting on the couch for a few minutes until I get cold helps.  Sometimes doing deep breathing and relaxation exercises helps.  And then sometimes (like tonight) none of this helps and I give up and read for awhile.

Two years ago I reached a point where I decided to try sleep medication.  It worked pretty well for me and I didn't have any of the interesting side effects that I've read about like sleep-eating or sleep-adventuring.  But it made it harder for me to fall asleep without it; and I just really HATE to take unnecessary medicine.  I'm pretty hard-pressed to take pain-killers unless I've had a headache for a long time and/or sleep won't cure it.  So while that worked out alright for me, it's not something that I'd like to do again.  Plus the other thing that can be hard is that most of the time I'm so tired when I go to bed that I fall asleep just fine.  Then after about 2 hours I wake up and can't get back to sleep.  In that case it's too late to take sleep medicine, so the only effective method is to take it preemptively before I even know if I need it, which is definitely not how I want to use medication.

So for the time being I'm just going through my litany of tricks and hoping that something will eventually help me to fall back asleep.  We'll see as the summer wears on if I still feel the same way.  Usually late in the summer I reach a point where I'm so tired all the time that I feel just about ready to give up.  If I reach that point again we'll see if I'm still so opposed to the medication.  Well, I've sat up for nearly 45 minutes now, I'm going to try and go back to sleep.  Wish me luck!  Although actually, never mind, I hope that you're asleep and can't wish me luck if you're reading this in any American time-zone!

Weekly Chart #6/15

I've reached my weight goal!  This chart is a posting of the beginning of my maintenance phase.

I knew that it would be hard to stop losing weight once I got started.  It's very tempting to see just how far I could go because it feels so good to have control over this.  But I've decided to stop now.  My waist is still larger than I originally had planned on, but I'm now wearing a size 6, so I think I'm OK with this size; I had been pushing the limits of my size 10 clothes back in December.

My waist-to-hip ratio is still higher than I would have hoped, but I keep losing inches off of both so I can't seem to change the ratio.  However, I think I'll ask my doctor to do a blood draw and look at all of my numbers at my next appointment.  If they're good, then I'm not going to worry about this ratio any longer.

So now I'm on to maintenance.  Here's what that means:

• I'm going to give myself an additional 50 calories per day a week at a time, until I reach my maintenance calories of about 1550 per day.  That way I can make sure that I don't start putting the weight back on.
• I'm going to continue to exercise.  I'll do strength training 3 times per week and at least 30 minutes of cardio 6 times per week.
• I'll continue to weigh in every morning so that if I start to move back up I can immediately address it by going to 1200 calories per day until it's back in line.

I originally started this for several reasons.  I'm happy to report that I'm healthier, stronger, and have more energy.  I feel more desirable for my husband, even if he always found me desirable, now I'm more secure.  I finally went shopping the other day (which I don't like to do) since my pants wouldn't stay up any longer, and I was able to see cute clothes and they looked cute on me.  This is a major accomplishment that I feel very proud of.  Of course it didn't magically transform the rest of my life, but it did transform my view of myself and what I can do.

Weekly Chart #5 (or #13)

I'm posting my fifth weekly chart, even though this is week number thirteen of tracking.  That means I haven't posted my chart every Sunday more often than I have.  Oh well, we all know what that infamous road is paved with, I guess I'm just contributing my paving stones!  Anyhow, here's my current chart:

I'm 6/10ths of a pound away from my weight goal today.  So that's super exciting.  The one area that I still really need to focus on is my waist size.  I think that perhaps my original goal of 26.5 inches may be a bit of a stretch.  But I still think I'd like to get my waist down to about 28 inches.  So that will be my next big focus once I'm on the maintenance phase of the weight.

My trick to keeping the weight off is going to be weighing myself every day.  That way if I over-indulge one day, I can nip it in the bud and get back on track the next day.  Maintenance won't be as exciting as losing weight has been; but I'll enjoy feeling better all the time!