No energy

This week's fitness blatherings at Fit by Forty.

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I'm not a high-energy person even on a good day, but this week my energy reserves have been especially low. Right now as I type this, I am fighting the desire to go back to bed. I'm not sleepy and I don't feel sick; it's more like somone stole my bones and I am holding my body up by sheer force of will.

It is almost 2:30p and I haven't even cleaned the bathrooms yet. My huge mug of Saturday morning coffee didn't help a bit. I can't let another weekend go by with the top floor of the house looking like this, though. The mess in the kids' rooms is making me sad. They won't clean anything properly without adult supervision but I just don't feel up to it. Perhaps another cup of coffee is in order.

Who called my husband?

I went to my dentist, who told me that my tooth had to come out as soon as possible. He said it was going to be a difficult tooth to extract so he referred me to an oral surgeon. The staff was very nice and worked me in for a consultation the same day. The extraction is scheduled for this coming Tuesday. Cost? The total is $605 but we only have to pay $200. Thank God for insurance!

What was ABM's reaction to this, you say? All he said was, "We'll work it out somehow." Which one of you called him? I already know that he doesn't read my blog, so one of you must have had a little chat with him. Whoever it was, I thank you. I will be much more relaxed when they put me under next week.

I just sent my baby away

I've been feeling a bit run-down this week, so I was planning to take a nap after work today. Instead I was whipped into a frenzy of activity by a call from M's band instructor as soon as we pulled into the driveway. M had been invited to go on the band's annual weekend trip to Atlanta a few months' ago. This is an 8th-grade trip, but a few outstanding 7th-grade students are invited if there is room. Unfortunately, we knew we couldn't scrape up the cash quickly enough to pay for M's ticket by the deadline so we declined. Today, a student backed out whose ticket had already been paid by a local church fundraiser. The instructor didn't want the ticket to go to waste so he called to see if M could go.

Since the band is leaving at 7:30a tomorrow, we had to do a quick job of getting M ready. Phone calls to ABM, e-mails to get a copy of the itinerary, lectures to M about how to behave while she is on a school trip -- my head is now about to burst. I'm such a laid-back parent that I am sure I forgot to ask the instructor something that a more responsible parent would have thought of right away. I'm not going to stress about that. M has my cell phone, I have the cell numbers of all the chaperones, and ABM and I both have relatives in the ATL.

My real concern is how she will relate to the other girls. M has matured a bit in the past few months, but we are still dealing with things like hygiene issues. I was an unpopular kid in school and I don't want her to make herself unpopular by being the smelly girl. She is also more innocent than your average 13-year-old. I hope those 8th-grade girls won't pick at her and call her a baby.

Someone to watch over me?

This weekend, one of my teeth cracked. I've already posted about what rotten condition my teeth are in, so this wasn't a surprise. This tooth has been bothering since I got a root canal and filling in it about four years ago. There have been many days that I wanted to grab a pair of pliers and yank it out myself.

Anyway, I finally have a reason to go back to the dentist. I just got dental insurance which makes me feel a little more comfortable about going. The thing that is making me uncomfortable is ABM's attitude. Whenever I go to receive medical treatment for anything, he complains about the cost. I try to remind myself that he complains about the cost of a lot of things, including his own visits to the doctor, but I still end up feeling guilty about costing the family money.

What I really want is a man who takes care of me. I don't necessarily mean a man who makes enough money to allow me to stay home, although that is my ultimate dream. I'm talking about a husband who takes care of me with his attitude. "Honey, I know that tooth is bothering you. Go ahead and make the appointment; we'll find a way to pay for it." The sad thing is that ABM used to be that man until I beat it out of him. Early on in our marriage, I was young and stupid and thought that I shouldn't let a man do anything for me because that gave him permission to order me around. Our marriage survived my childish attitude and is better than ever, but there are some aspects of ABM's former personality that I will never see again.

Cut to the chase

Every so often, Hallmark sponsors a movie on CBS. Every break has a Hallmark commercial. I like these movies; the predictable nature of them is comforting. However, for my money Hallmark could skip the movie and just string all the commercials together. They are very cathartic. The great thing is that during these movies you get to see the long form of each commercial. I'm watching a Hallmark movie now. Since I haven't watched one of these in a while, the commercials are all new to me. I've already boo-hooed over one where an 50-ish man learns how to read so that he can read all the Father's Day cards that his grown kids sent him when they were little. Sappy, yes, but a string of those is a quick way for me to get out all my pent-up emotion.

Have you seen this?

A couple of days ago, Daily Gadget mentioned a new product called Playaway. It is a small mp3 player that comes loaded with a single audio book. You can't erase the book or upload the book to your computer; it is a dedicated mp3 player. The device is about the size of an audiocassette and has the image of the book printed on its sliding cover. It also comes with a lanyard, so you look like you have a miniaturized edition of, say, Stephen King's Cell hanging around your neck.

I can't decide whether I think this is wasteful or not. My first reaction was that we would be filling the landfills with these things. Once you read it, what do you do with it? Of course, you could just treat it like you would a regular book -- trade it with your friends or donate it to a library when you are done with it. The bookmarking feature is nice and you wouldn't have to tell anybody what you are listening to because they could see it for themselves.

The price seems a bit steep to me, though. The Stephen King book I mentioned is $49.95 in this format. After doing a little research, I found that this is the standard price for this audiobook (the MSP, as it were). However, you don't have to look too far to find a better price. Audible offers it as a download for $34.97, or $17.48 if you are a new subscriber to their service. Amazon offers it for $31.47 on CD or cassette. You could trade a CD just as easily as you could trade the Playaway and save a few bucks.

Health Update

As you can see, I'm not exactly losing weight. Read my ramblings about it at Fit by Forty.

One thing I wanted to mention here was the change in my tracker. My goal on my old tracker was 175 pounds but it is 200 pounds on this one. I raised it because I thought it was more reasonable for the time that I have allotted myself, which is to reach my goal by my 40th birthday next January.

Becoming a stereotype

Years ago a person was viewed suspiciously if she admitted that she had friends that she only knew online. In the minds of less computer-savvy people, those of us who hung out online were socially-inhibited folk who couldn't interact with people face-to-face. Perhaps there are still people who cling to this idea. This week, I became living proof of this theory, at least a little.

At work, I put out on my desk little things that please me. Since we aren't allowed to keep personal objects in our cubes, this display changes daily. Yesterday, I had a copy of Uncanny X-Men, a copy of Generation T, and two card games that I just got in the mail (Bang! and Give Me the Brain!). One of my coworkers stopped and asked me about the stuff on my desk. I couldn't talk. I mumbled something about liking comic books and put my headphones back on. Then I realized that I must have appeared rude, so I followed up with a well-written e-mail about the graphic novels I've read recently and what books are on my to-be-read list. It turns out that we have a few similar interests, and we exchanged a few nice e-mails before work was over.

This morning before devotions, this same coworker tried to talk to me about something I had mentioned in one of the e-mails . . . and I couldn't talk! To make matters worse, this person is known to have a bit of a self-esteem issue. She is always worried about whether people like her or are mad at her about something (part of her job is counting how many errors we make in our work, so she isn't being paranoid). I think I may have made things worse by not talking, but I couldn't think of a single intelligent thing to say when I was face-to-face with her. It's not a reaction-time issue because I am great in IRC chatrooms where a quick wit is a requirement.

What on earth is going on with me? I've been returning to hobbies and music that I haven't indulged in for years and I like that, but I don't want to return to some of my old behaviors. Once upon a time, I couldn't even talk to a salesperson to ask for an item out of a locked case. I am too old to turn into that girl again.

As you guys know, I am pretty antisocial most of the time but I have been in a talkative mood lately. Maybe I should say a typing mood because I still don't want to talk to anybody at work. I've been doing some socializing online (IRC, e-mail, Skype) and now I want more. I gave up chatrooms years ago because people can be so childish. If you go in the right one on the right night, however, it can be very fun. There is a chatroom that was set up for fans of a particular podcast and I have enjoyed hanging with these folks on the past two weekends. None of my buddies are online tonight and I am feeling a little lonely.

Luckily, I won't be lonely this weekend. Rabbit and her husband are coming over on Saturday. This will be fun because they are coming over specifically to play games. When other couples come over we play games with them, too, but there is always an awkward moment after dinner when I'm not sure if the couple actually wants to play. I always want to play games when we have other adults over because I crave more competition than I can get from my kids. ABM doesn't usually mention games when he invites couples over, though, so I sometimes feel like I am foisting my preference on them ("Oh, no -- they've lured us here with food and now they are going to make us play strange games that we have never heard of!").

The good thing about having Rabbit over is that she likes any gathering that doesn't involve the four of us just vegging out in front of the TV after dinner. After our last dinner, she was the one who suggested that we have regular game nights. She even bought a copy of one of the games we played that night. We are definitely going against the boardgaming stereotype of wives that have to dragged into gaming by their husbands. In our circle, the wives are the gamers. The men will try anything I bring to the table but left on their own they would still be playing Spades (if I could drag them away from the TV).

Get it while you can

For the past week or so, I have been feeling more like my old self. Maybe I should say my young self because I haven't felt like this since I was 16. It's like someone recharged my brain. I want to write, read, play, and dance! My body is tired but my mind is going a mile a minute. Unfortunately, I know that I am going to hit a wall when real life hampers my ability to do what I want so I am enjoying this spark of vibrancy while it lasts.

I forgot to mention this on Saturday, but I have set up a weight loss blog over at Extra Pounds. It may seem silly to try to write two blogs, but I just felt that all my weight-loss gripes should be in a different place.

Do they really want to hear us talk?

On The View yesterday, one of the questions in their Hot Topics section was whether our husbands and boyfriends really want to listen to us talk. This brought to mind something that I've been doing lately. I find myself starting silly conversations with ABM because I feel like we should be talking. We may spend two or three evenings in a row sitting in the same room but doing different activities and not talking much. It is a nice, companionable silence. Then I start worrying that our relationship will suffer because we aren't talking, so I try to start some deep conversation that will bring us closer. Ha! All I end up doing is annoying ABM. The stupid thing is that I can be perfectly happy just enjoying my hobbies in the same room with him without talking. My insecurity about the quality of our relationship causes me to mess things up. Add this to the list of things I need to give up in my 40s.

Reciprocal reading

That is my new blogging term: reciprocal reading. We've all done it. This is the act of reading someone else's blog because they left a comment on yours. I do it quite a lot. Despite my best efforts, I can't keep up with all the blogs that I like. Many times I don't realize that I haven't read someone's blog in a while until that person leaves a comment on my blog. So if you want me to remember that you are still out there, drop me a line!

Rah Rah Sis-Boom-Bah

One of the most difficult adjustments I've had to make as a parent is learning to participate in events. When I was in school, I rarely went to pep rallies or dressed up for Spirit Week. These school rituals were of very little interest to me. ABM, on the other hand, can be found all through his high school yearbook participating in various activities. I guess the kids inherited his genes because they're all joiners, too.

This week is Spirit Week at the elementary school. C2 has gotten into it more than the other kids. She put together a truly tacky ensemble on Monday for Wacky Tacky Day. Tuesday was School T-shirt Day, but C2 knew we weren't going to buy t-shirts so she didn't make much of a fuss about that. This morning, however, we had a bit of a meltdown.

Today is Twin Day. C1 and C2 stopped dressing like each other a long time ago, but they still have one or two items in their closet that match. C1 insisted that they both wear these knit jersey dresses that they got two years' ago. C2 has gained a bit of weight since they last wore those dresses but she didn't seem to have a problem with the choice. I didn't find out until this morning that she wasn't happy. That's when I found her in tears because she was sure that the dress made her look fat. Since we only have about 10 minutes before the school bus would be at our front door, I could have told her that Twin Day wasn't that important anyway and made her wear the dress or made her wear something else. Instead, I drew on my limited Mommy reserve and found the matching T-shirts they wore for the family portrait, washed the stain out of one of them, dried C2's tears, and privately counseled C1 not to make a fuss because it was very important to C2 that she be able to participate in Twin Day. I was late for work but it was worth it.

Tomorrow night, I get to put my Mommy skills to the test again. DJ chose dance for his elective so now we all have to go to the school dance to watch his group do the hustle. How do I hate this? O, let me count the ways. This event manages to include extended time with the MIL, other people's kids, a crowd, keeping my kids in line in public, fending off their requests for snacks for which I don't have the cash, and anxiety over whether DJ will mess up his routine and start crying. Luckily, I am off on Good Friday so I can recover from all of this.

Identity Crisis

I'm surrounded by liars everywhere I turn
I'm surrounded by imposters everywhere I turn
I'm surrounded by identity crisis everywhere I turn
Am I the only one who noticed?
I can't be the only one who's learned!
--"I Don't Want to Be" by Gavin Degraw

This morning in devotions, the speaker mentioned the old saw that people's identities are tied to their professions. According to this ida, when a person ask herself, "Who am I?", the first answer is "I'm a doctor" or "I'm a mechanic" or whatever. It occurred to me that I don't do that. Why? Because I'm just Dani. I don't feel that I am accomplished enough in any one area to attach that to my identity. If I say "I am a knitter", that sets up espectations that I can't meet. Even calling myself a mother or a wife feels false. If you put a surveillance camera in my house, it wouldn't take you long to exclaim, "What kind of wife/mother are you?" I don't fit the mold; in my mind, I'm just a girl who chose to attach herself to this man and care for these children. So if I can't identify myself by what I do, how do I figure out who I am?

Staggering in the ring

"Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." 1 Timothy 6:12

There was a period of three years where I felt myself growing steadily stronger in my Christian faith. The stronger I grew, the more I wanted to surround myself with other Christians. Then I came to a point where I wanted to give back. I taught Bible study, Sunday school, and worked with my husband on creating a youth worship group in our church. I turned my back on many things that I once did and loudly renounced those practices.

Now I feel like can't live up to the life I built anymore. Going to church became a job and an obligation rather than joyful service to the Lord, so I dropped out. Morning devotions at work have become something to be tolerated rather than a refreshing way to start the day. I've returned to doing many of the things I abandoned. Most of these things would not even raise the eyebrow of a non-Christian, such as enjoying a Chris Rock comedy routine. However, I know that my former Sunday School students would think I was a hypocrite if they could see me.

I've tried to live in the Land of Denial, but I don't think I can anymore. I can't shake the feeling that I am not following the correct path. For a while, I tried to convince myself that God wanted me to take my current job. I had prayed fervently to Him, begging Him not to let them offer it to me. When they offered me a temp position, I assumed it was His will. Misery was my daily companion and only the fact that I was a temp helped me drag myself out of bed each morning. I prayed yet again that they wouldn't offer me a permanent position, but a month ago they did. I had to accept it because ABM almost developed an ulcer when the seasonal layoff time came around again. So my husband feels relieved while I feel trapped. Not only that, but I feel like God laid this trap for me.

Where does all of this leave me? I don't know. Many believers draw closer to God as their coping mechanism, but I feel myself pulling further away. I am thankful for the many ways that God has blessed me, but I can't pretend that I am content with His plan for me. It's like being a teenager: you're old enough to know that your parents have your best interest at heart, but your limited life experience doesn't allow you to see how their restrictive rules are going to help you. My faith isn't strong enough to endure this weight on my chest indefinitely, so I've been returning to my old ways to take the pressure off. I'm still in the ring, but I'm staggering.

Health Update

The site I use for my ticker is down so I'll just let you know that I gained half a pound. This puts me at 268.5 pounds. Considering that I didn't exercise and I'm on my period, I'm glad that it wasn't worse.

As I was lying in bed this morning trying to figure out how to approach the day, I began thinking about different outlets for my creativity. It occurred to me that my blog needs a little more focus. To that end, I may move my weight-loss ramblings to Extra Pounds. I would still do a brief update here on Saturdays, but the majority of my whining would be over there. In addition to sparing you all that blather, the Extra Pounds site will give me the tools to create a great-looking blog that has the flashy trackers and graphs. Everybody wins! I'll let you know by next Saturday if I am making the change.

Must learn to adapt

The MIL is going to be here until 10p and her presence is throwing me off. She's not doing anything but sitting unobtrusively on the couch, yet just having her here makes me feel like I can't go about my normal evening activities. I feel guilty fiddling around on the computer and I am certainly not going to exercise while she is here. Although we get along better than we did when I first married ABM, I still can't shake the feeling that she thinks I'm odd and that her son does all the work in this family. When will I start feeling like "a woman fully growed" and stop letting her unsettle me?

Of course, there is a positive side to this -- my desire not to appear lazy in front of the MIL will push me to do some housework. This house is a wreck and I don't like it this way, but it takes a lot for me to overcome my fatigue and clean on a weekday. Having someone in the house usually does the trick, even if it is only a neighbor kid visiting. So there's my silver lining for today :-).

Today's Exercise: Biggest Loser Workout (routine #2)

According to the six-week plan on the DVD, I am supposed to alternate between Routines 1 and 3 and 2 and 4. This means that during the first week I was supposed to do Routine 1 on M-W-F and Routine 4 on T-Th-Sat. The problem is that the first week is low-intensity and then the next week is high intensity. I did OK during the first week but I couldn't even make it through 15 minutes of the high-intensity stuff, as you can see by today's number. Perhaps I should stick with the first-week schedule for a while. It still makes me sweat but I can make it all the way through the 40-minute routines.

In other health news, ABM has decided that we need to drink more water. Since he already drinks at least 60 oz. a day, what he really means is that I need to drink more water and he is going to be supportive. He bought each of us a 32-oz water bottle with a handle and a pop-up top. He said our goal is to drain it twice. I'm about 8 oz away from meeting the goal today. Who knew that a bigger bottle would make a difference? I just put the bottle in the spot that is usually occupied by my coffee cup and I kept reaching for it out of habit. This is big for me because I don't normally drink much of anything and the few liquids I do consume are sugary (coffee and tea, mostly). I did cheat a little, though, by adding some lemon juice and two teaspoons of Splenda to the bottle. I know that the lemon is OK, but some people would frown on the Splenda. I figure that some liquid is better than none at all.

Liza with a Z!

Showtime is premiering the remastered TV concert from 1972, Liza with a Z. I don't subscribe to this channel but luckily this is a free preview weekend. I didn't even realize that this concert was on DVD. I remember bringing the soundtrack album for this concert to music class when I was in elementary school. That was when I got my first inkling that it might be odd for a nine-year-old to like show tunes, especially a black one. For those of you who were born after 1979 and your only image of Liza Minnelli is the bloated and slurring has-been, this DVD is a necessary rental. She really knew how to put on a show.

Hip New Librarian?

Things are a' changin' at my little country library. Last year they got the snazzy new search software running. Then they enabled patrons to reserve books online. Next, all kinds of cool books started showing up on the shelves. I was so excited to find that they had this and this! Most of their craft books date back to the 1970s and 1980s, so it is refreshing to see some new titles. They've also added comic book compilations to their collection. Right now I have two volumes of the Uncanny X-Men waiting for me. I've rediscovered my love of the library.

This is the kind of photo that would make a husband appreciate your stash a little more.

Health Update

Nothing makes sense. Last week I watched what I ate and worked hard, only to gain four pounds. This week, I haven't done anything and I lost a pound. What gives?

Anyhoo, I have had enough of my pity party. Everything goes in cycles with me, and I don't intend to let the lazy cycle last much longer. I just got a new dance video from Netflix and I need to test it out.