I get by with a little help from my friends...and family

Hormones. Man.They.Suck.

I feel so much better today it is ridiculous. I knew hormones were playing a part in what was going on the past two days but I wasn't giving them enough credit. Having said that I am headed to my lady doctor tomorrow to discuss some treatment options. I have pretty bad PMS...might even be PMDD. I discussed this with my lady doctor the last time I saw her and we upped my dosage of my anti-depressant that week to see if that would do the trick. It appears not to be willing to even attempt the trick!

I clearly have had some depression this year that I am not used to experiencing. I seem to be able to tolerate it most days. Other days not so much. I am also going to have her run some thyroid test because my lack of energy has also been overwhelming and I don't' know whether it is related to the depression or the thyroid disorder. We shall see. I was telling Middle Sister that most days I can keep my negative self-talk in check but on bad days it kind of spirals. She said I might want to start by changing my tag line from "doing it wrong since 1976" to something more..I don't know...positive. I took down the negative and am trying to think of something to replace it.

Yesterday my work family, Middle Sister and Sexy pulled me through. I have said a special prayer of thanks to God for them. I am so grateful to have a support system. If your reading this...thank you so much! You will never know how much your kind words helped me in my time of need.

Weight Watchers Update

SURPRISE!!! I lost 2.25lbs this week. I tracked about half the time. I had a miniature Reece cup incident involving plastic eggs and a sever lack of discipline and I made The Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes for Easter at my Mom's. I've linked the recipe. It is not point friendly. It is however the.best.mashed.potatoes.ever! Sexy peeled 10 lbs. of potatoes. He loves me. I love him. While he was standing over the sink peeling I told him that he had never looked more sexy. Honest!

One interesting thing about the past two days is that I stayed on points (OP). It is usually the first thing to go. I'm glad it didn't work out that way this time. Weight Watchers is having a walking challenge that culminates in walking a 5K on 6/6/10. Middle Sister and I are going to do it together. Hopefully this will help me get back into the moderate activity that really helps me stay on track.

Middle Sister is doing WW online. It has been fun to have that be one more thing we can talk about. She is having success and I am very proud of her. She said something to me last week that really helped. She told me to remember the reason I started all this in the first place. Which is so I can have a baby. It has really helped me to stay focused. Thanks Middle Sister!

 Also I've been getting daily tip of the day via email from PeerTrainer. Great info and it seems like a great program.

Lost

I have a post-it attached to my computer screen that says "Possibly Blog Post" at the top and underneath it is a list of things I want to write about but haven't found the time. On the list is "SAD".

There was a moment in February when I kinda fell apart. I just felt like I couldn't function anymore. I had not felt like myself for a while...probably a month or more but couldn't' figure out the problem. It felt like depression but I had only ever experienced situational depression. I couldn't figure it out. I have a great husband, great children, great job, great life but I could only focus on what was wrong with me and my life. I had put on a mask and most didn't even know that anything was wrong with me. There was a day though in February when I just broke. I couldn't fake it anymore. I consulted my google md and discovered that I might have Seasonal Affective Disorder. It fit all my symptoms. My mother has struggled with this and has one of those special lights she uses in the darker months. I was surprised I hadn't thought of is sooner. I felt so much better just having figured it out. It was almost spring. The time was changing. There would be more sunlight and I would be ok.

I would find my joy again. The joy I have in serving my family. In meal planning, grocery shopping and providing my family with nutritious food. In doing laundry and the bedtime routine. The joy I have in Church activities like Bible Study, Sunday School and helping to plan the community Easter sunrise service. The joy I have in watching my children at batting practice and soccer practice. The joy in my everyday life that had been so abundant in the past but seemed to have disappeared. Making those activities a burden. A chore. A yolk.

I had also had some problems with taking my vitamins and medications regularly. Including my thyroid medicine which probably contributed to lack of energy and my anti-depressant...which I don't know might be contributing the THE FREAKING DEPRESSION. (I am actually prescribed the anti-depressant for anxiety but whatever)

So here we are. It is April. I'm still not myself. I'm still not finding my joy. I still can only see what is wrong. What is wrong with me. What I am doing wrong. All the bad things about myself. I'm trying. I swear I am. I'm trying to see the joy.

In case you were wondering I gained last week. I'll probably gain this week to. This is of course on the list of what is wrong with me.

I was watching Oprah last night and she was talking about "Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to almost Everything". She was doing an update on a woman who had been on the show 5 years ago after having lost 150 lbs. She had gained it all back and had lost another 100. She and Oprah were talking about how you have to love yourself and your situation as you are right now. At the weight you are right now. The way you are right now. Otherwise you will just continue to gain the weight back. I'm so far from that place it is hard to even imagine it. 

I'm struggling. I know I will be ok but I could use your prayers right now.

Melting

I have this habit of using a word to describe something that is not entirely accurate and also not a common use of the word but it fits the situation.  This is similar to my habit of breaking into non-specific accents for absolutely no reason. These habits might be the reason my Mom started calling me eccentric at the ripe age of 26. I don't always make these things up...actually I often hear someone say them and just glom onto them and keep them forever.

I've discussed before that if someone in my house has a fever I say they are "on fire". This actually started on a trip to the ER at our local children's hospital where there were several newborns who were so read and feverish they looked like they were on fire.

When children are fit pitching snotty slobbering messes I say they are "melting".

Sassafras melted yesterday after soccer practice. She is 9 so I feel comfortable dropping her off and picking her up when I have things that require my presence at home. Yesterday the soccer field was a wet mess so they did drills in the parking lot. Drills to help them improve on ball handling and endurance. I think there was lots of running and jumping and unlike when they are actually playing soccer there was not much standing around catching your breath. In her defense she has been sick since Friday and I considered keeping her home from practice. I picked her up and she was a hot mess. Her hair was soaking wet and her face was bright red. As soon as she saw me she melted. Just dissolved into a heap of sobs. Once she was able to cool down she told me she was just overly hot and exhausted from the practice. This was my and Sexy's conversation about the whole ordeal.

Accentia: Sassafras was a sobbing mess when I picked her up from soccer practice.

Sexy: What happened?

Accentia: Well she said she was just hot and tired. After I got her calmed down and cooled off I quizzed her to make sure that was it. Did something happen at practice. Did someone do something or say something? Did you get hurt? She maintained that it was just a hot and tired thing *shrugs* (which is completely ineffective to convey anything when you are talking on the phone)

Sexy: She's a cryer

Accentia: I know...I can't relate. 

Of Weight Watchers Updates and Punks

Weight Watchers
I lost 1 1/4 lbs. this week. It was a miracle. I didn't track. Which means I'm not making the best choices. Clearly my choices were not soooo bad but still I'm sure that I could have lost more. I have been tracking online at fatsecret.com. I won a 3 month journal once in a drawing at my WW meeting. I am wondering if I might do better tracking on pencil and paper. I am going to start doing that tomorrow since we will be going camping some over spring break and I won't have internet access. I also know that, depending on the weather, we might be leaving for the woods before my meeting next week. This might also cause a disturbance in the force. I would love it if I missed my meeting, went camping and still lost weight!!!! That is the goal. S'mores are mocking me. I can feel it.

Punks
I call my kids punks. I use it as a term of endearment and of frustration. I can be confusing when I'm raising little human beings. Other times too.

I said of Sassafras on facebook the other day, "I love that punk". A friend was all "what is up with this punk business" and I was like, "hello The Pioneer Woman." Link provided for any of you who have been in a cave (with my friend) and haven't heard me obsess over her blog or her cookbook and then been forced by excessive linkage to actual go to her site and see that she calls her kids punks. She also uses it as a term of endearment and frustration. I heart The Pioneer Woman. She has ignited my passion for cooking.

Anywho, the punks have been particularly adorable lately so I thought that I would share.

Fighter Pilot is seven and starting to get some chores around the house.. beyond keeping his space clean. He now takes the laundry down to the laundry room. The was something I often had both kids do at my convenience but am now officially make it FP's chore. On his first attempt he came up without the empty hampers. He informed me that he was leaving the "hamsters" downstairs for me to empty. I promptly told him that emptying and returning the hampers to there normal resting place is part of his "chore"...welcome to big boy land! Then Sexy and I *rolledonthefloorlaughing* because hampsters...I swear it was funny. Ok, maybe you had to be there. what.ever.

Sassafras was on the phone the other day planning her birthday party. She was on the phone for 30 minuets. The food list included: pizza, chips, ring pops, fun dip, cupcakes, popcorn, skittles, m and m's and an assortment of doughnuts! The activity list includes: wii, ice skating, swimming and watching movies. The guest list included 10 girls. There will be a pairing down. I assure you...but to hear her on the phone was so adorable. My favorite part was this exchange:

Accentia: You might as well plan your breakfast as well (this was before doughnuts was on the list).

Sassafras: Do I have too? (to her friend on the phone) No skittles are fine I was talking to my (wait for it...wait for it) MOM.

People who find out that I am the bonus mom and am called by my first name often tell me that they had no idea I wasn't the bio-mom because the kids both call me "mom" when referencing me. I never get to hear it. It was awesome!

Weight Watchers Wednesday

These post are sooooo much easier when I've lost weight! :) I lost 3.75 lbs this week...woo woo! Most of last week and this week I have been tracking, eating my fruits and veggies, and just generally making better decisions.

I am struggling with the fact that I backtracked so much in February. It makes me want to throw my hands in the air and give up. But I'm not going to. I'm going to stop berating myself for what I did wrong and focus on the present and what I am doing right. Right now I am focusing on getting back down to what I weighed on February 3rd when I made my 10% goal. I've got 12.5 lbs. to go.

For my next trick...

I will distract you from the fact that I am not going to post about Weight Watcher Wednesday (because after all that forgiving and moving on I never got back on track and missed last week due to illness and have now gained even more weight back...like I'm back to a weight I haven't seen since September) by telling you some a cute and funny story about one of my kids.

Fighter Pilot is seven. This was the first time he watched the winter Olympics. He loved them! One Saturday when Sexy was in the garage working on his boat (more post about that later I'm sure) and Sassafras was busy watching the same four shows they repeat on the Disney channel (stop judging me) FP and I were snuggled on the couch watching the winter Olympics. Whatever event we had been watching ended and they cut to the start of the men's 15K mass start biathlon. I don't even understand what I just said exactly but that is what the event was called. So there are all these men who are skiing on cross country skies and they have what appears to be rifles strapped to their backs. We watch for a minute and then FP had a question.

Fighter Pilot: How long do they ski before they can start shooting each other?

I laughed so hard it offended him. The ultimate Olympic sport...where the only one still alive is the winner!

Putting my punks to bed

Bedtime routine is my favorite part of the day. I love that Sassafras and Fighter Pilot are clean and snugly. I love reading to them and having them read to me.

The part that has been complicated lately is the teeth brushing. The kids bathroom in the new house is smaller than in the old house. It is really only holds one person at a time. Since moving we have staggered bedtimes to accommodate the need to have only one person in there at a time. (Also, because Sassafras was offended on a daily basis that she had the same bedtime at a 1st grader and the same bedtime she has had since kindergarten. Nine year olds are so silly!) Sometimes we get backed-up and they both end up in there at the same time.

It is almost always disastrous.


The other night Sassafras was brushing her teeth and Fighter Pilot needed to use the facilities before he got in bed. They were both in the bathroom. I was standing in front of FP's bedroom door waiting to tuck him in and turn out his light. I hear him flush and he came flying down the hall and about the time he gets to me Sassafras makes that sucking wind sound that you make when you just saw something truly terrifying.

Accentia: What? What is it? Are you ok?

Sassafras: Um I'm fine. The toothpaste just got flushed down the toilet.

Apparently, FP had left the counter top wet and slippery when he brushed his teeth, then he used the bathroom and flushed the commode. Next, as if by magic, Sassafras' arm slipped and hit the toothpaste causing it to fly into the toilet just as it was finishing flushing.

As I approached the bathroom I'm preparing myself to reach into the toilet to get the toothpaste. Not sure what I was saving it for because you know it was going straight.to.the.TRASH. But it wasn't in the toilet. Sass wasn't exaggerating when she said that it got flushed DOWN the toilet.

So it turns out a regular size Colgate kid's toothpaste tube goes straight through our plumbing...no worries.