It's Enough

Often I need to step back and remind myself to give myself a break once in a while. I've spoken before about how the standards I hold myself to are often impossible to meet and when I don't, the voice in my head is more than happy to tell me all the ways I've fallen short.

--Minor digression-- When I first started seeing C for therapy, he asked me who the voice in my head was. At that time and even now, I'm not comfortable saying out loud that the voice is very reminiscent of a certain petite female with whom I shared a home with for 18 years of my life. So at the time we named the voice "He who shall not be named" as I found it highly amusing. I just call the voice "Mort" now for short.

Mort is pretty hard on me and also pushes me to make crazy goals with the hopes and knowledge that I will fail.

Last weekend, I looked in a mirror and was disgusted with myself...again. I vowed to make dramatic changes this week and going forward. I would no longer eat out at lunch with my coworkers, I would eat breakfast every day consisting of yogurt smoothies so I'd get my calcium and a little protein first thing, I would no longer drink caffeine, I would no longer eat out with my family other than maybe one time a month, I would exercise more. I think there may have been another goal or two, but at this point I'm not sure.

I went out to eat with my coworkers 4 days this week. I brought home Little Caesar's Pizza for dinner last night. I didn't turn on the Wii exercise game once. I overate at home. I bought Everlasting Gobstoppers at Target in the Valentine candy aisle.

Mort is having a field day.

The logical, realistic, rational me though says that I need to give myself a break. I did give up caffeine this week. Even though at one point I drove through the Caribou Coffee parking lot so very close to giving in, I continued driving and didn't stop. Even though I had a horrible week at work, I didn't drink a drop of coffee or buy a soda from the vending machine. I tolerated the caffeine withdrawl headaches and made it. I drank disgusting Yoplait Light Smoothies every morning this week. (I've never been a fan of breakfast, so eating anything in the morning is going to turn my stomach. At least I can just gulp these down and be done with it.) I took a 10 minute break 3 times this week and did two brisk laps around the warehouse which is about the equivalent of 2 square blocks in total. I did at least try to make smarter choices when we went out to lunch.

In my mind it's not much and I failed horribly, but I need to allow myself to accept that at least for this week, it's enough.

Over the Top

My friend, Zazzy, has gifted me with the Over the Top award and the accompanying survey to fill out. I was swishing around thoughts this morning for what I was going to blog on today, so this is a nice surprise and will help to get the writing juices flowing. (Eww....writing juices...that sounds sooo nasty!)

1. Where is your cell phone? I only have a pay as you go phone that's in my purse, but is hardly ever even charged--a lot of good that does me!!

2. Your hair? Chestnut brown with a little auburn/blonde thanks to my friend color #63 L'Oreal Feria.

3. Your mother? Well intentioned. Also the voice in my head when I don't quite live up to the lofty expectation of the moment.

4. Your father? Have grown into a comfortable but very distant relationship.

5. Your favorite food? Just one?? Medium Rare Prime Rib

6. Your dream last night? Something to do with cardboard boxes...

7. Your favorite drink? Was Cherry Coke Zero until very recently. Now it's water.

8. Your dream/goal? To be content. To stop always asking "What if?" and instead be happy with and take time to enjoy "What is."

9. What room are you in? My cubicle at work

10. Your hobby? Making photo books. I just wish I had more time to spend with it. It always feels rushed when I work with photos now.

11. Your fear? Losing my daughter, Alanna.

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Skinny and content. Strange how I always associate part of my happiness with my weight and physical appearance.

13. Where were you last night? At parent/teacher conferences

14. Something you aren't? Impulsive -- Foot Loose and Fancy Free

15. Muffins? Cranberry and Orange

16. Wish list item? A vacation with my daughter where we could visit an archaeological site.

17. Where did you grow up? Small town in the Black Hills of SD

18. Last thing you did? Made a cup of tea

19. What are you wearing? Khakis and a green long-sleeved shirt

20. Your tv? Just one, upstairs

21. Your pets? My 15 year old cat and two geckos

22. Your friends? Few and far between

23. Your life? Blessed

24. Your mood? Stressed

25. Missing someone? My younger self

26. Vehicle? Mazda 626 with the engine light constantly on

27. Something you're not wearing? Nailpolish

28. Your favorite store? Target

29. Your favorite color? Midnight Blue

30. When was the last time you laughed? Last night

31. Cried? Yesterday morning

32. Your best friend? my husband, J

33. One place that I go over and over? Work, even if I'm not physically there I'm often "going over" things from work in my mind or in my conversations with J at home.

34. One person who emails me regularly? Scott

35. Favorite place to eat? Anywhere with a really good soup and salad bar

Ok, here's the hard part for me. I don't really have many blogs I read in order to pass this on (and Zazzy and Minnesota Nice already have one), so I think I'll hold off on passing this on for the moment and try to expand my reading list.

Back to Basics

Goodness, it's been a long time since I posted here. I admit, I've thought about posting off and on but I always either get distracted or decide that frankly it's a little painful to post and decide "not today".

Today a good friend reminded me through her blog that I've been remiss in posting and when I thought about why I hadn't been posting the reasons all pointed to one thing, "it's easier not to."

It's easier not to not due to the time it takes or the discipline to remind myself to post, but because when I think about this semi-anonymous outlet I think about it in terms of divulging things I wouldn't normally talk about with the general populous. I created this blog as a hiding place for me to talk freely. Somewhere to expose a bit more of my soul from time to time or just post about the little things that happen that frankly most people couldn't care less about, but that for whatever reason I find amusing.

I've had a pretty crappy past few months from an emotional standpoint. Externally, I've been putting on a damn decent front and if I look through the window from outside my life it looks pretty nice. Nice home, good job, husband who's thoughtful and a good dad, beautiful daughter, supportive family, etc. So it feels selfish to post anything negative. How dare I want to run away from home or work when I'm fortunate enough to have a home and job at all!

Anyway, so now it's back to basics. Let's try this blogging thing again. I can't guarantee the content will be entertaining, but I'll try to at least commit to content and see where we go this time.

Who Matters

I'm normally not a fan of forwarded emails, but once in a while I get a good one.  Tonight I got an email with this sentiment that I really liked (unfortunately I don't know who the original author is):

"There comes a point in your life when you realize:

Who matters,

Who never did,

Who won't anymore,

And who always will.

So, don't worry about people from your past; there's a reason why they didn't make it to your future."

I sometimes (more than I'd like to admit) let my thoughts drift to people in my past and mistakes I feel like I've made.  I get caught up in worrying about how people labeled me in my youth and what they would think of me now.  This sentiment is a good reminder to myself that it really shouldn't matter what happened in the past and I definitely have nothing to prove to those I look back at who said hurtful things in my younger days.  

Happiness and Regrets

One of the tv shows I enjoy watching is "House".  I was catching up on this week's episode tonight and had to write down this line as it seemed rather poignant.  The plot focuses on a woman who was a top cancer researcher and left her career to do something that would make her happy over something that she felt she "should" be doing.  Towards the end of the episode she's talking to one of the dr.'s treating her and he remarks that he often thinks about what he will regret when he's lying on his deathbed reflecting on his life.  She answers him, "You're going to spend one day of your life on your deathbed.  It's the other 25,000 we should worry about.  Go to bed happy tonight."

I often have to remind myself that no one will look back on my life after I die and say, "Gosh, she was a great Business Analyst." or "She really had a knack for redoing templates at work and project management."  At least I really hope that's not what I'm remembered for.  I'd hope that people look back on my life as being a good mother, wife, and kind person.  I'd like to believe that those things I do outside of my 40 hours a week at work make an impact on others and at the same time make me happy.

I would love to find a job that I could also count in the makes me happy column, but I'm not sure I'm ready for that leap yet.  For now I content myself with enjoying the people I work with (well most of them anyway).  

I do think I'll have regrets in the end; I'm guessing most people do.  I hope though that if I can confine them to the part of my life that falls lowest on the totem pole of overall importance that it won't be so bad.

Granola Contraband

Yesterday in true Mommy fashion after work I picked up Alanna, went to Costco to pick up a multitude of items on the grocery list, then took her to Target to get new tennis shoes and the remaining household list items.  

In a likely vain attempt to try to take small steps towards losing weight and save money at the same time, the items on my list included diet soda (so I wouldn't be tempted to spend an insane amount at the overpriced soda machine at work) and healthy snacks.  One of my coworkers has been raving about Kashi granola bars so I thought I'd pick some up while at Target.

In the granola bar section of the store, it was obvious all of the Peanut Butter flavors had been pulled from the shelves due to the recall.  So I picked out Chocolate Raspberry, Trail Mix, and Dark Chocolate Cherry.

At the checkout, the guy began ringing up my items and got to one of the boxes of granola bars.  He scanned it, stopped, looked at the screen and got this deathly serious look on his face.  I honestly thought from the look that perhaps the computer had frozen and he was going to have to rering the items that were already bagged and in my cart.  He looked me square in the eye and in this secret service tone uttered, "Ma'am, I can't sell you these granola bars."

I quizzically raised a brow and said, "Why?  They're not peanut butter ones.  Those were all gone from the shelves."

He replied again in this OMG serious tone that they were marked for recall.  He then proceeded to wave over an Asst. Manager type young lady.  As she was walking over, he continued ringing my items and came to another box and the computer must have told him it was an evil bad box and that it too could not leave the store with my person because he got "that look" again.  "I can't sell you this one either", this time with almost a tone of sympathy as if my granola bar box had just passed on to the next life.

At that same moment, Asst. Mgr comes over and looks at me (I kid you not!) with this accusatory gaze and asks, "Where did you find these granola bars?"  

Because obviously I had uncovered some secret contraband stash of recalled granola bars and was in league with a whole group of people conspiring to purchase them openly at the cash registers.

After I replied that I found them on the shelves in the GRANOLA BAR SECTION (don't worry, I was nice about it even though the DUH was coming through very loudly in my head), she rushed off with little red baskets one can only assume to remove the foul boxes and have them promptly destroyed by people in HazMat suits.  The world can breathe easy once more.

Boom Blox

I've been rather disenchanted with several of the recent Wii games we've purchased and hesitant to buy new ones without really really exploring the reviews.  

We loved the Wii when we first got it and played Rayman Rabbids all the way through in a weekend as a family and had a great time.  We also are huge fans of Mario Kart and Mario Party 8.  Alanna likes the Pokemon Wii game and we've all had a few laughs with Wii Fit.  I also have been known to jam out with Guitar Hero from time to time.  

Overall though, there are few other games that we've come across that we all like.  There are several others we have that we enjoy from time to time or individually, but we've also found a lot of duds over the past two years that we've promptly traded back in.

Tonight, however we found a winner.  Boom Blox  is just awesome.  Of course, we've only had it for one evening, but so far so good.  We've started playing it in single player adventure mode and just taking turns, but apparently it also has multiplayer mode.  It's like a three dimensional jenga style puzzle game where you try to complete the puzzles by blowing up/toppling over blocks with baseball throws.  The mini storylines are also super cute with a fairy tale fun style.

Highly recommended and it's all I can do to not sneak back downstairs and complete a few levels on my own--although I'm fairly certain that J is actually doing that right now so I'd have to battle him to steal the Wii remote away!

Quick Surgery Update

First off, just a quick update on Alanna.  The surgery went absolutely wonderful aside from some last minute nerves on Alanna's part (completely fine and to be expected).  In this particular case, I have to admit that perhaps my therapist, C, was right--nobody tell him I said that!! :)  I often find myself upset that no matter how hard I've tried to make sure that I don't "pass on" my lovely anxiety issues to my daughter, that sometimes she exhibits signs of having an anxious personality.  I beat myself up for "giving" that to her.  C has said time and time again and I believe Zazzy has also pounded it into my head once in awhile that I am the best mother for her because having "been there done that" I can help guide her through it when it does rear it's head.  

In this case, it proved to be helpful.  Alanna was terrified of the anesthesia when we got back to the OR.  She had practiced in the waiting room with Surgery Bear and was all geared to go and even excited about it, but lost her nerve when the actual time came.  The anesthesiologist had to hold his hand over her mouth with the tube because she wouldn't wear the mask, but he was having difficulty getting her to relax and take some breaths in.  I held her and told her that in order for him to be able to take his hand away she needed to calm down and we could do it together and then we did our deep breaths as a team--like we do sometimes at home when she gets upset.  It killed me to watch her stop squirming and pleading to go home as it took effect and fall asleep, but I know ultimately it helped that she and I had practiced time and time again calming down.

Dr. Wood is confidant that things look good and we're just astounded at how resilient she is.  She came out of surgery and promptly ate two popsicles and requested a Happy Meal.  You can not even imagine the relief we feel.

Thank you for listening to my ramblings/anxiety on the topic and for the words of encouragement.

It's so easy

I often forget how easy meal planning and cooking is if I would just make the time to do it.   It's so easy to fall into the rut of feeling rushed and resorting to "helper" style meals or even worse, just picking up fast food or ordering a pizza for dinner.

This weekend while I had time alone, I actually took the extra 15 minutes (and yes, it really only takes that small additional amount of time!) to think through meals for the week and plan my grocery list accordingly.  All of the meals I planned take under 15 minutes to prep and under an hour to cook.  They're all also far healthier options than my rushed fare.

I also find that if I make the extra time once I get home from the store, maybe an additional 30 minutes, to wash and chop veggies and/or fruit that we are more inclined to eat it.

I prepped a tator tot hotdish yesterday and just popped it in the oven today.  I also had all the veggies chopped up to make a veggie pizza which was easy for Alanna to help with and she LOVED eating it.

Did I mention jello?  I'd totally forgotten how easy jello is LOL.  I swear we had jello nearly every night when I was growing up.  Toss some fruit in and mini marshmallows and it doubles as a dessert.  Alanna can only have jello and clear liquids in the morning on the day of her surgery, so I promised she could pick out three or four flavors she'd like.  Tonight we did a "test jello" run and it was another of those things that smacked me in the face as being obviously easy and something she enjoys helping with and eating.

I know it's not gourmet cooking, but I do enjoy just being in the kitchen and if I do the little easy meals that are healthier than what we tend to gravitate towards in a rush, I can allow myself something I like to do and hopefully cut our budget and waistlines at the same time.

It's going to be ok

I've spent a lot of time this past week convincing everyone that Alanna's surgery is going to be ok.  She's confident and happy and actually looking forward to her surgery and the multiple flavors of jello that Mommy is making for her to enjoy on Thursday before we go.

I have continued to go to work and put on a brave face.  I have been an expert in vascular malformations for family, coworkers, and teachers.  

I got the copy of the doctor's notes on Wednesday evening in the mail after a particularly trying day at work where a difficult coworker made my afternoon pretty miserable with her drama.  There's nothing quite like seeing in black and white that "Alanna's mother understands the risks of surgery include..... and has decided to proceed."  Of course, none of the risks of NOT doing the surgery were listed.

It hit pretty hard, but I picked myself up and went in to work yesterday morning.  The surgery preop nurse called and we discussed all of the things I need to remember next week and I answered all of her questions and held together really well.  That is, until the question about if there was an emergency in the operating room, would I want them to do everything possible to save my daughter.  The next hour at work, I hid at my desk and tried to see my computer monitor through tears.

But I sucked it up, made it through the rest of the day and made it through today.  I told myself all of the same things I've been telling everyone else.  

J and Alanna went to visit Grandma this weekend.  I tormented myself about if I should go with or if I should stay home.  This visit has been planned since shortly after Christmas and the intent was that I would get a Mommy alone time weekend.  In my mind I leap to the worse case scenario and how awful of a mother I must be to have an upcoming surgery for my daughter and to not spend as much time as possible with her before hand.  On the other hand, I know I can't live my life in fear of the worst outcome and that I'd be admitting I don't believe things will go well.  

I HAVE to believe things will go well.  But I've spent so much time telling everyone else that and I have no one to tell me that.  I just need to know it's going to be ok.  

Truly, I didn't intend for this blog to start off so needy and I apologize.  I promise once things do start to be ok that I'll rant about my evil coworker or traffic or how illiterate I am with my new cell phone or other mundane things.