TJ North

I am going to try to get out of work early this afternoon. I have to pick up the car, get groceries, and head to the cabin. I decided to get it fixed and hope for one more year before I have to buy a new vehicle. In the meantime I have been drooling over the Mercedes ’smart’ car. It looks so cool, and makes so much sense. There are a couple of people in town who have them, and I hear through the grapevine that they do well for winter driving, even though they are small. I would just be worried that I wouldn’t be able to see over the snowbanks on my driveway every morning!

Biking around town this week has actually been a lot of fun. I will try to keep it up, although the temptation to drive everywhere again will be strong. But on the bike I have time to relax my brain between appointments, and as long as I stay in the lower part of town and don’t need to tackle the big hill it is quite enjoyable. Also cuts way down on the impulse shopping.

Otherwise this week has been hellish. I have a huge problem with one of my sons, made worse by the fact that his father is a world-class asshole. I can’t believe I slept with that man, much less married him! Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl. My son is a grown-up so I can’t solve the problem for him, but I can sure make his life miserable until he takes responsibility for the mess he is creating.

Only bad news on the scale too. I know why; I am fixing it, I am just too easily distracted.

I am blaming everything on the fact that June is a ‘blue moon’ month. All this wonky lunar energy is striking all around me creating an aura of disaster. Stand back, I say, stand back! I am counting the hours until July.

I have lost 7 lbs in six months, an average of .269 lbs a week. So why do I feel like I am shrinking? I feel like I am taking up much less space than I used to. At this rate I should have plenty of time to get used to the weight loss. And where am I losing it, I would like to know? The only thing I could honestly say is that my fingers are smaller and my ankles are thinner.

Groan.

Well, I didn’t make my exercise goal but I did come closer. Starting again…2400 minutes in 30 days. Can’t hurt, right?

And the positive thing about the financial disaster this month has become is that I can’t afford anything but the most basic grocery selection so goodbye cafeteria french fries, hello canned tuna ad infinitum.

I am feeling better now that I am back on the atkins thing. I don’t know what to call it - I am avoiding the word ‘diet’ cause it makes me roll my eyes. I slid way off today, by the rules of induction, but since I biked for an hour just getting around town I am cutting myself some slack.

I have put Loverboy on notice that I want to go back to school. This would be a big, big, commitment to do while still working, and would mean that the weekends would no longer belong to ‘us’. I have been thinking through this for several months, and I am confident that it is what I want to do. Here’s why:  I work in an environment where academic degrees are very important. I don’t have one. I never lied about that, I got the job on merit, but it is still an issue for me. Part of me rejects that any of this should matter, but I know that to feel like I have options and can leave here for a similar job if I want to I will have to fix this situation.

I wanted my forties to be the ‘me’ decade. I had kids really young, have been working hard ever since, and now that they are grown and on their own I am ready to pay attention to me. (But somehow when I planned my forties I was thinking more of beaches, motorcycles, and margaritas….lol.)

Life/self satisfaction - get healthy ( slowly working on that); formal education (take a deep breath and plunge in); act like an adult when it comes to money (slowly working on that); luxuriate in Loverboy’s love and support ( really liking that so far…;) )

Twitchy legs, aka restless leg syndrome, is a family affliction, although we never knew it had a formal medical-type name. It can be torturous, robbing you of sleep and making long trips hell. Imagine a feather tickling the inside of your joints until you have to move to make it stop. Immediately it starts again, and two, three five seconds are the most that you can stand before twitching again.  I have it in my knees, shoulders and elbows, and it has kept me awake for days (nights), and even at times forced me to pull off the highway and walk in circles.  Flights can be awful as there is no where to pace and your seatmate is invariably unsympathetic. Once a bout starts there is no telling how long it will last, and it comes more frequently the more desperate you are for sleep.

But I have discovered that the atkins diet cuts the symptoms to almost nil. I don’t know what the culprit was/is: sugar, flour, or some combination but after 24 hours back on this way of eating the twitchy legs are almost completely calm.

And with the car out of commission I have to walk or bike everywhere and that adds another hour or more of movement to the day.  Plus I am contributing much less to car pollution. All of which makes me feel better.

And FINALLY the ticker is moving in the right direction!

The universe giveth; the universe taketh away. sigh. Here’s the scene; Friday night, heading to the cabin, scretly chuckling over the taxman’s error, planning what to do with the money (retirement fund? new tires? new stove? credit card payment?) when wham! almost exactly halfway there, on that northern bush highway…transmission on the car goes blewey. Or whatever the technical term is.
Takes 6 hours to hitch a ride in to town, get a tow truck, track down Loverboy, get back to unload the car and then watch it be towed back to my town, then get to the cabin just as dawn is lighting the lake and waking up the mosquitoes and blackflies.

Talked to the mechanic. His diagnosis, after telling me it will cost more than the car is worth to fix it? “It’s broke.” That’s a quote. Then he did elaborate, “It stopped working.”  Needless to say I am having it towed to another garage.

This is a lesson - do not attract attention to your good fortune. Fate is a nasty little beast and will whip it away from you like THAT!

Whew boy! I am supposed to be on the road to the cabin and I still have to shower and pack! I am going to be a wreck when I get there.

Two strange but good things happened today…my gas bill came, and for some reason I have a $500 credit and so don’t have to pay…actually, won’t have to pay for several months, as the bill will just use up the credit. Absolutely NO CLUE why, I am sure I never paid a deposit or extra payment. I WOULD REMEMBER that amount. Maybe it will all disappear by the next bill, but right now I am grinning gleefully over it.

Then, the taxman sent me a big cheque. Now, I KNOW that one is a mistake. I even think I know what they did. But I am going to wait and see if THEY figure it out….lol.

Somedays the sun does shine.

It’s very warm this evening and I have to wait until it cools down a bit to take the dog for a walk. This weekend I will be at Loverboy’s cabin and the animal can run wild and free; tonight he is going to be limited to the neighbourhood. I am doubled over with cramps - I really do not want to go out but I am hoping that the exercise helps a bit. Also I am eating OTC meds like they are smarties. Dontcha love being female?

I have started re-reading the atkins book and I will start it again from scratch. I need to take control; and add some more specific exercise into my life. June is a ‘blue moon’ month - I am going to ride the lunar power cycle and start this whole thing over again.

My Mom says my Grandma is dying…when she does, she is last of her generation in the family and everything shifts. Plus my mother and her siblings will have an all out war over the inheritance. Even though it is not that big, they are carving out their positions. It will be bad.  I am already having nightmares about the funeral, from all perspectives.  Mostly from losing her…I still have dreams that we buried my other grandmother by mistake and she is alive.

I know I was lucky to have known all of my grandparents - and even my great-grandpa - for a long time, but it makes it harder when they go.

I don’t fear death, I believe it is part of the great circle of life, just one more stage before whatever comes next, and we shouldn’t fight it. 

For reasons that I don’t understand, that doesn’t make it any easier to face.

I have been spending a lot of time going over the blogs on this site and what a motley and interesting crew we are! Some blogs are very hard to read; there are people in a lot of pain, people doing some very unhealthy things to try and lose weight…I want to reach out with hugs and reassurances or even ‘tough love.’ I have to keep reminding myself that what I see is a very tiny slice of a very small point in time, and that all of them (I hope) are surrounded by friends and family who love and support them.

Then there are the people who are slogging through their busy and demanding lives and still have been able to make profound changes in themselves. Not just physically, but in their self-images and lifestyles. Whether they are at the very beginning of the process or well into it, I find reading their blogs so inspiring.  Not so much for what they are saying, or not saying, sometimes, but often just because they are doing IT. However they have defined IT for themselves.  (I know this sounds a little new-agey screwy, but hey! it’s my blog!   lol )

And sometimes there is deep wisdom to be found here too.

Loverboy just left. Poor guy spent almost the entire weekend working on my yard. He cleaned and trimmed and moved and cut and raked…looks darn good now. I bought some new lawn furniture and a firepit and I am going to enjoy spending time out there.  Now I feel ready for summer. (I did help too…lol) Next weekend we will be at the cabin and it will be payback time - he already has a list of chores lined up for me! I don’t mind as long as a) I have Friday night off and b) I get to go fishing for a couple of hours. He doesn’t really like to fish and everything with him has to be a major expedition. I can’t help but laugh sometimes…the cabin is on a little lake, barely a mile wide, and he talks about ‘rough’ water and although I have a healthy respect for water safety, there is no way you get anything approaching rough water on this lake. You get either little ripples, or big ripples…I grew up on a Great Lake - I can tell the difference.

It is cooling off a bit as the evening wears on so I will head out soon with the animal. He’s laying in the hallway, watching me closely. I have to do a bit longer walk tonight to make up for the shortened routes over the weekend, or the math will catch up with me and I won’t make my goal again this month. I think I will be closer this time though.  And I am just under the 1700 cal mark for the day. Yay me. A high protein, low fat, moderate carb day. I gave in to the siren call of the biscotti this morning, and that bumped the numbers.

Pleasantly tired, promising myself I am going to start this week off on a good foot and get to sleep before midnight.  Well, off to feed the skeeters.

{later} My brand new cell phone has developed a strange problem. The display screen is black. Everything seems to be working otherwise. Means I will have to trek back to the store for a replacement. It is only a month old, and of course I have no clue where to find the receipt. Sometimes I feel like there are a thousand and one little life annoyances lined up waiting their turn at me.

Ok, I am borrowing Leeda’s goal and I am aiming to lost 7 lbs by July 4. I would say Canada Day, July 1, but I want those extra 3 days! That will bring me to my first goalpost and get me a full manicure/pedicure session at the spa. Should I make the appointment now?