Color Me Bad

I am down another 1/2 pound this week, I am not losing weight fast, I hope that means that I will be able to keep it off. Slow and steady...

I thought of the reasons that I have had trouble losing weight, I almost feel like when I take a pound off I uncover another issue that needs to be dealt with. This week I uncovered my propensity to reward myself with food, when things are stressed or I feel slighted, I feel I deserve to eat something unhealthy but tasty. How backwards is that? When I am feeling low I feel like I deserve to eat something that will only continue the cycle.

I need to make a list of things that I enjoy doing that I can reward myself with when I am feeling slighted, because trust me no one feels more slighted in a family than the stepmom. I enjoy reading but that isn't always a reward, for me it is almost a compulsion. I cannot imagine not reading everyday. I enjoy hot baths but my tub takes so long to fill and I get bored so quickly I feel terrible about filling the tub up for only a few minutes. I used to enjoy taking showers in the dark when I was a kid, I guess I just need to get over the obstacle that is dealing with my hair after a shower.

I want to enjoy taking a walk, but I find it hard to get the motivation to go out by myself. I have a bike I could ride but Vegas wasn't designed for bikers and in the area of town I live in... I don't have a death wish. Maybe I should look into getting a coloring book and just color, it is hard to feel bad coloring a picture.

"...Sinner"

I think I have firmly established that I am not perfect, in fact I am far from it but I received the above message from someone that stung a little. I know I should not care what other people think but sometimes I do, there was a time when I lived my life with more consideration of what people thought and since this message came from someone that knew me well during that time I guess I am a little more sensitive about it. The humor is this person doesn't know the beginning of my transgressions, they were making a statement based solely on my body art and their prejudice against it.

My path to this place in my life has not been easy, I have struggled with and against myself mostly. I have some things I am not proud of but at the same time I am not ashamed of anything I have had to go through, it has made me who I am and most days I like the woman I am. I wish I hadn't been so stubborn, maybe I would have learned the lessons that life was trying to teach me sooner.

I don't think I am done with this topic, just done for now. I need to contemplate more on why this struck me the wrong way before I can articulate it fully.

Distance and Perspective

I haven't written and alot has happened but I needed to gain distance and perspective before I could post. After leaving a friends house two weeks ago Thursday night I ended up hitting a median when my water bottle spilled. I was not aware at that moment but I had busted a hole in my oil pan. I kept driving and about a mile up the street the car started making a weird noise, I pulled over off the road and then the engine seized. Did I mention that it was 1 in the morning? Did I also mention that I was in an area of town that I don't want to be stranded in at one in the morning? I called my dear husband who came to pick me up. While he was driving us home at 2 in the morning he was pulled over for a speeding ticket.

So now my life is a battle with the insurance company, they don't want to cover the damage because they say I left the scene of the accident, remember I didn't know I had damaged the car this badly. I feel insanely terrible about this, I just don't have luck with cars. If the insurance company won't pay for the damage I am afraid that we will not be able to afford to repair the car. The car isn't paid off yet, I feel sick just typing this and thinking about the potential damage to our already shaky credit score.

My anxiety has been through the roof this last week, my husband and I have been at each others throats fighting about the most inane things because of the stress. Last week it seemed like every day was another drama or another stress added to the pile. I physically didn't know how much more I could handle.

During all of this I had my Weight Watchers meeting last Thursday, I only gained a pound. Not too bad since I was not tracking my points the way I should have been. I have moved up a notch on belt. I have been feeling a little under the weather but I think that is mostly leftover stress.

The biggest issue from all this is learning that I maybe share too much information about myself with too many people, who then feel the need to tell me how they believe I should be living my life. It is so silly but too often I still feel like a child when I talk to my parents, I guess I am still seeking their approval when I should be concentrating on my life and my family. I guess I need a little distance and perspective on that before I can post on that topic further.

New necklaces are up on the etsy site www.bibblesandbaubles.etsy.com
Check them out and let me know how they look!

When Life Gives You Lemons, Grab The Spray Paint!

Somehow two kitchen chairs were broken in the last month, I know they were cheap but seriously did the warranty just expire?

So I did what anyone would do when faced with people staying at the house this weekend and no kitchen chairs. I went to Goodwill and bought 2 new chairs, they were ugly but sturdy. I then stopped at a local thrift store where I found a really cute but slightly wobbly chair. They wanted twice as much as Goodwill had wanted for a chair but I caved in and bought it because I had a vision of a pink chair at my table.

I made a trip to my local hardware store and bought 3 cans of spray paint, I am now the proud owner of a summer yellow chair, an ivy green chair and a soft pink chair. Which has lead me to the conclusion that I need a new table and then a couch, or at least slipcovers.

The Elephant in the Room

I have accomplished a few things today that have been hanging over my head like a knife. The most important one frees me significantly and I feel almost giddy about it right now.

The less significant one is that today was my first full day of WW, this is my first time for joining any type of weight loss group outside of a gym. I am skeptical, not of the plan but of myself. I have started so many unfinished projects in my life that thinking about it makes me feel very ashamed. My house is a testament to unfinished art projects and only half finished baskets of laundry (cleaned not put away) I am a procrastinator of royal proportions.

My procrastinating has cause quite a bit of headaches for me in the last few years, even with all of that I am unsure of why I do it and how to stop. My fear with WW is that this will be another unfinished project and I will never live up to the person I know I can be.

Sometimes I wonder if it isn't a self fulfilling cycle of fear. I am afraid to fail so I sabotage things so that I can't "fail" while not realizing that my actions are what is causing me to fail. Of course I would love a wonder pill that could magically make me a better person but that in unrealistic and right now I need to deal in reality.

I know I did not get here overnight and I know it is going to take me a while to dust myself off and get back to where I need and want to be. I guess it is one bite at a time while I eat this elephant.

Confused Rambings of a Night Owl

So I am up too late again, this is becoming a weird routine. I used to wish that I could be an early morning person, one of those people who went to bed early and woke up refreshed ready to seize the day in the morning. Instead I have become a person who is more comfortable awake when the sun is asleep. I know alot of this has to do with my current work situation, or more honestly my lack of work situation. I have been designing necklaces but that doesn't really require set hours.

I have suffered from sleep issues since I was a kid, I remember I had a whole year from the day I turned 10 until my 11th birthday, I was not able to sleep at night. The only exception was when I would sleep in my little sisters room, I was suffering from terrible reoccurring dreams.

Now I find myself suffering something very similar, only it is not a reoccurring nightmare, it is my inability to let go of the stress of the day. I get very panicky when I think about all the things in my life that I can't control. I stress about the direction my life has taken, I stress about poor decisions that I have made that are still affecting me and my family. I can feel my body tense up even right now as I think about these issues.

The hardest part about this time in my life right now is that I would rather hide than deal with anything. I would rather act like a child, I would rather put my head in the sand, I would rather daydream, anything other than deal with the reality of being an adult but I don't have this choice because my loving husband does not want to be married to a child. He wants a wife and a partner, I think he is being fair, I know I am not.

I get so overwhelmed by the enormity of life, the complexity of dealing with the relationships I am involved in. I know I am procrastinating and being lazy, I know I should be the early bird.

I just don't know how.