The Good...the Bad...and the...

Holy Crap I can't believe LIFE is going by soooo fast!

I can't believe it's been over a month since I've managed to pop on and say, "howdy!"

I've been MEANING to write something for a couple of weeks or so. I have had plenty of excuses...been paving the road to hell with them and everything:

* The kids got out of school. If the government wanted to do something useful, they'd fix this problem straight away.
* Just prior to the kids getting out of school, my younger son broke his arm in the last baseball game of the year...resulting in surgery for him and more grey hair for me.
* My husband's 96 year old grandmother fell and broke her hip...or broke her hip and fell...depending on which school of thought you follow. Either way, it sucks for her. Either way, it sucks even more for my in-laws. I'd help if I were there or they were here...but as things stand, all I can do is call and worry.
* I've been given extra work to do at work. This is great on some levels...I HATE not being busy...and sucky on others...I HATE dealing with other people's messes. I'm sure I'll eventually get things set straight, but right now it's causing extra stress. We all know what happens to my ass when I'm put under extra stress, right? It isn't pretty.

If I sat here and thought about it for a lot longer, I could spread my web of excuses farther and wider than the Gulf oil spill. You know what, though? I don't want to dwell on my reasons for being a screw up. I have no real justification (unless laziness and gluttony are justifications??!!) for the scale flat lining this month.

Sooooooo, I'm going to focus on the positive things that have happened:

* My house is no longer in imminent risk of quarantine. (Compare this to a month or so ago when I wasn't allowed to walk!) I'm no Martha Stewart. I'm not even sure Martha Stewart is Martha Stewart. Does ANYONE really know how to 'properly' fold fitted sheets? Who the hell does she think she's kidding, anyhow? But, I digress. My home doesn't have to be perfect, but I like things to be relatively tidy. It was causing me a lot of stress not to be able to get up and do the most simple of chores. Now, if I see a sink full of dirty dishes, I can hop to and knock them out...or, I can hop to and knock out the teenager that left them for me...depending on the mood of the moment. It's a win/win situation either way.
* Physical therapy is going well. Since I started, my knee has only gone out on me once. It crapped out while the hubby, kids, and I were making our way through the grocery store. I think it was a prophetic sign that I shouldn't take them grocery shopping with me. The more physical therapy I do, the more gung-ho I get to start my 'real' workouts. The more physical therapy I do, the more I think it might be an interesting career choice.
* Assuming physical therapy continues to go well, I should be released soon. Assuming I get released soon, I should be able to start thinking seriously about my return to fat camp. I don't want to hurt myself again, so I'm being very cautious. I've said it before and I'll say it again, "fat people shouldn't do jumping jacks." Next time around, I'll be a lot more careful with the high impact cardio.
* I have started following Dr. Oz's advice about 'automating' meals. I'm doing a really good job with this during the day...during the week. Subway is a Godsend...especially on the days I have to leave super early for physical therapy and don't have time to eat breakfast before I go. (I have to take my morning medicines on an empty stomach.) If you haven't tried their new egg white breakfast sandwiches, smack yourself for me...now!! They open at 7 a.m. It's almost too easy to run in there, have MY Subway boy start putting together MY breakfast sandwich (English muffin, egg white, pepper jack cheese, spinach, tomato, onion <250 calories) and then get started on MY lunch sandwich (usually turkey, spicy mustard, and all the veggies except peppers and olives) while the breakfast sandwich is in the toaster. If I think I'm going to be super hungry, I can grab a yogurt and some apple slices for a snack too. If I don't have physical therapy in the morning, I eat a Fiber One bar at home **YUMMY!!** and then stop at the HEB salad bar to make a salad for my lunch. It couldn't be more simple. If only I could get family dinners and weekends figured out!! Any suggestions? The personal chef I interviewed still hasn't called me back. What a sissy.
* My hubby actually said that he WANTS to go to the gym with me tomorrow! Wouldn't it be a wonderful, splendid thing if we started going to the gym together regularly instead of sitting at home in front of various and sundry lit up boxes of doom?
* I've been given the green light to plan a trip pretty much anywhere for my 40th birthday 'celebration.' I don't care what anyone says, 40 is not the new anything. 40 is 40. I am not looking forward to this birthday AT ALL. The idea of marking this enormous milestone sitting on a beach somewhere with an enormous cover up over an enormous ass is totally and completely unacceptable. I will meet my goal before I cross this particular point on my life's timeline. Period. End of discussion. Are we clear, ass?

1200 Characters is less than I realized:

(I tried to update my profile this evening...wrote all this and after trying to post it, found out that my estimate of 1200 characters was waaaaaay off! I thought it was worth posting anyway...for y'all to get to know me a bit better, so I'm cutting and pasting and sticking it here.)

I'm a wife and a mom. I've done a fairly decent job of taking care of my family for years...sometimes at my own expense. Right now, I'm learning how to take care of myself...sometimes at my family's expense. I'm HOPING to learn how to put everything together into one neat package. It's not an easy task.

I'm a cancer survivor but I don't think that defines my character...just an interesting tidbit of information.

I'm a retired scuba diving instructor. I had to stop teaching to save my hearing. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision. God, if you're listening, I'm only thinking in print..please don't get any funny ideas...and please, anyone that reads this that is actually hearing impaired (or whatever the politically correct term for deafness is nowadays), PLEASE don't take this personally or as any sort of devaluation of your disability. I do have some hearing loss and I do take it seriously. That's why I gave up a career I loved more than I can even explain. I just value peace and quiet greatly and live in a fairly noisy household. The idea of losing my vision horrifies me...but my hearing...sometimes I could take it or leave it.

I've lived my backwards. I got married young...had kids young...skipped going to college to get married and have kids and teach diving. Now that I'm older and my kids are getting ready to head off to college themselves, I'm seriously considering going back to school to study physical therapy. Had I gone to college straight out of high school, I would be a marine biologist right now...probably doing something exciting like counting sea urchins or worrying about the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Funny how life changes your plans, isn't it?

I know from being a scuba instructor that I'm a good teacher. I've spent many hours working with physical therapists over the years (slipped discs, dislocated shoulder, dislocated elbow, blown out ankle, etc.)...I know the exercises. And now, I'm helping a dear friend who had a stroke a while back do her PT...and with every success she has, I love the process a little more.

So, now you know a little bit about me...and if you hadn't already guessed, I also LOVE to write. I'm sure that every person with one of these blogs loves to write...we're all a little voyeuristic, aren't we? At any rate, I love to write...hope to maybe put all my jibberish together into something resembling a book someday. In the meantime, I'll barf it up here...and hopefully, a few of you will find it worth reading.