Category: Uncategorized

frustration

Image result for myfitnesspal

why is everything that’s supposed to be easy so fricken difficult? I downloaded some stupid calorie counting app to my phone, you log what you eat and it also counts your steps, you tell it if you are trying to lose weight or maintain weight etc. first freaking day… I try to log two tortillas with cheese, didn’t even get to the tea w/milk because I can’t even get it to accept the stupid tortillas. The search function is SLOOOOOOOW and then when I find the damn food there is no obvious way to “enter” it. I’m hormonal over here people! When I try to log something 3 times and it still doesn’t work I tend to shed a few tears and delete your crappy app. I really felt like destroying my iphone with a hammer so, managing my moods.

I tried googling how to do it but that was useless. Now I feel frustrated, stupid, and still weepy. Menopause sucks, weight gain sucks, technology sucks and drives me up a wall. I am NOT going to text my techie husband at work and ask him to fix this for me. It’s my first impulse but I know how overworked he is and how idiotic I seem when I can’t figure this shit out like a grownup. I hate how I always run into roadblocks every time I try to do something positive for myself. I just want things to go smooth. How come nothing ever goes smooth?

i think i finally figured it out. Hormone levels still dangerously unstable. *sniffles*

random tuesday update

Had a rough go of it for a bit. i’m fighting an infection and i slipped and fell on the stairs. i’m ok, not really injured, just sore and exhausted.

Halloween was fun. my husband and i went as Crowley & Aziraphale from Good Omens. We went to 3 parties and, of course dressed up all day on Halloween.

Now we’re in a post-Halloween malaise slump. I’ve been cleaning, decluttering, and getting a little more work done in the shed. there is most of a loft now! ^_^ so exciting. I may finally be able to use the space!

PARDON my RANT

my husband posted on facebook that having a new brewery in town, and excellent pizza, etc all right down the street amounted to a conspiracy to keep him pleasantly plump. it was a cute and funny post, worth a laughing emoji from me and several others, but I also replied “You look HOT.” which a friend of mine felt she had to add a ‘shocked’ emoji.

you know how i just posted that I want to be kind? This is not inspiring that trend. i know this chick has some issues around … appearances? being pretty shallow? I don’t know. What I do know is that she complained to my husband that she was really upset because her husband would “basically never be in shape again” … as he was undergoing cancer treatment… for real. My sweet husband, taking this for a wild overstatement to blow off steam pointed out that being fit is hardly the most important aspect of a person and that her husband just being alive at this point is pretty damn awesome, giving her a chance to backtrack, she doubled down. She said it was extremely important and no one could be sexy if they were overweight. My husband is overweight and out of shape due to working full time and being in school 1/2 time. He couldn’t find the time to exercise for approximately 5 years and only started back recently. At the time of the discussion with this friend, he felt it as a real knock, I thought it was maybe her being utterly blind to how her words might hit my sweet husband because she was consumed with her own shit and thinking only about her husband.

Maybe it isn’t fair to revise that judgement based on her shocked emoji but I have revised it. I think she just went out of her way to be openly shocked that I find my husband sexy and it pisses me off. My husband knows he is overweight, his post stated that, he doesn’t feel “hot” he is down on himself over his weight. I don’t have a problem with him being heavy, pleasantly plump indeed. He is gorgeous! Yes, he was also gorgeous when he was in shape, and he was confident and felt better about himself, but I find him sexy ALWAYS. He can gain weight, lose weight, lift weights, not lift weights, it doesn’t matter to me, not in that way at all. I would like to see him be as healthy as he can be and live a long healthy life, but that man is sexy as hell no matter what he weighs. And here comes this friend of mine, adding her shitty 2 cents to MY COMMENT.

I want to be kind but I also want to defend those I love with Blood & Fire. I’m just not down for any kind of bullying and this chick is messing with the self-esteem of one of the best people I have ever known. My husband is intelligent, funny, handsome, hard-working, kind, generous, and many, many other good things. He is amazing and he adores me. He compliments me, encourages me in everything I do, accepts me for the broken, stubborn, nut job that I am, and has loved me through the ups and downs of over 20 years without ever once demeaning me or putting me down. I find all of that sexy. Washboard abs are not a concern of mine. I do not want my husband worrying that he might not be enough for me in any way. So when this person decides to be shitty, even if it is supposedly some sort of “joke,” I am NOT amused. I think I might actually have to say something to her. I’m not sure I can walk past this one.

She recently asked me to decorate for and throw her Halloween party for her, to bring all my decorations to her house and all that. She seems to have wanted to pay me for this but I don’t have the time and can’t even attend this party… so she wanted me to come by before I went to work (7:30pm-midnight) and “just decorate.” I declined, I have too much on as it is. Yeah, so adding being shitty to my husband to that and I don’t know if I want to be friends anymore. UGH!

who do i want to be?

I want to be kind. I mean… I am kind, for the most part, but I get angry, get shirty with people, definitely cuss people out in traffic. They can’t hear me cuss them out, I only use my horn if it’s a safety issue, but i DO cuss them out. I’m certain that doesn’t count as nice or kind. Kindness is magic. So i’m working on that.

I want to be a good mother who helps her kids become functional, happy adults, and i want to be a good wife who helps her husband find happiness in this stressful world. I want to be a good teen librarian who provides books and programming that make a positive difference in the lives of the teens i serve. I want to find some success as a writer and an artist. I want to be the kind of friend that people want to spend time with. i want to be healthy and fit.

Obviously i have a certain level of success at some of these things but i’m working on improving in all of them. It’s all a struggle but hopefully worth it. I guess we’re all works in progress until we’re dead but wouldn’t it be nice to hit a comfortable plateau? (sorry for the random capitalization, my keyboard is having some issues.)

bleh…

I’m lying in bed at 11am feeling fairly awful. I felt ok when I woke up, had tea and toast, hung out with my hubby for a bit, now I’m headachey and kind of nauseated. UGH. Not what I wanted today.

Spent all yesterday visiting with my husband’s cousins at/around one of their weddings. It was a cute ceremony, a nice reception, and a long day. I am utterly wrung out and I really need to be getting things done today. 😦 At least I don’t have to drag myself to work tonight and can just rest.

A good day’s effort

In keeping with my NEED to keep moving forward on my little art studio I pushed myself to cram the 8 broken chairs from the shed into my car and take them to the transfer station. They only charged me $10 for all of them! I also pushed this poor, tired, achey body of mine to cut down the staghorn summac and pricker bushes that have taken over the front yard. I got a lot done… at a cost. ha ha

about 100 scratches from the thorns.
A pile of vanquished vegetation
A flower garden ALMOST free of summac and pricker bushes.

I’m beat now, of course, and now I may need to go and drink beer at our new local watering hole.

Physical and Mental can get in Sync Any Time Now….

I’m physically falling apart and mentally starting on an upswing. It’s actually super weird because I feel like I can tackle anything, in my head, but my body does Not agree. Usually my head is the one dragging me down, telling me I can’t do something, and I’ll feel physically confident even though I am a huge klutz with limited skills.

I’ve been quite tired for a bit now and achey. I keep getting minor injuries, bruises and that, from crashing into things, (klutz) or stumbling, or the other day when either my IBS was acting up or I had food poisoning. Yeah, I seem to have lightly pulled a muscle in my back … from puking. LOVELY. I keep turning my ankles stumbling just enough to keep them achey. It’s ridiculous.

Meanwhile, I’m busy cleaning, decluttering, working on fun projects for work and for myself. One project is I’m knitting house scarves (Harry Potter reference) for the teens at the library. When I show Sorcerer’s Stone in December I’m going to have puzzles the teens can complete to enter a drawing for the house scarf of their choice. I really hope I can get all 4 done in time. I’m only halfway through the Griffindor scarf at the moment.

I’ve also been reading more, trying new recipes, getting ahead scheduling events at work, managing my time better and saying NO to things I don’t have time for or don’t want to do. I’ve also been working on enlisting the kids to do more around the house. There’s just so much and they need to develop the skills for when they’re on their own. (whatever they may believe about me exploiting their labor)

Before I pop off, here’s a book recommendation: Hollow Kingdom; by Kira Jane Buxton. It’s insane, funny, touching, heartbreaking, filled with expletives and still reverent. I don’t want to give anything away. It’s Wonderful.

Successful Programs & Future Plans

The Teen Advisory Board is growing. When I started last December there were 4 or 5 members it has grown to 9. They are talking about programs they’d like to run; a Ukulele club, an LGBT support group, etc. It’s very exciting to see them realizing that they have the power to steer Y.A. programming at the library.

I just had 12 kids show up for an Interactive Graphic Novel workshop this past weekend. Not the most I’ve ever had show up to something but a very encouraging number for our small, rural library. I think we had 9 show up for the Sumobots workshop last month which is a good number as well. My Bullet Journal workshop only had 2 teens but they were enthusiastic.

Next month I am having a Breakfast Cereal & Cartoons Saturday Morning slothfest, and December will have a Harry Potter theme featuring an ornament making workshop and a showing of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” with butterbeer, puzzles and prizes. In January 2020 I will be starting a year of monthly fairy tale movies in keeping with next summer’s theme and I will be starting “Book Boot Camp” a book club of monthly shifting genre’ to get readers out of their comfort zones. Laser Tag at the Library is also on the table but we need to check the equipment first to make sure it still works. I am feverishly working on all things fairy tale for next summer and hope to offer some amazing workshops for the local teens & tweens.

I’ve never had a job like this before. It’s so interesting and exciting planning and bringing off programming for this age group. (11-18) I feel so lucky to have this job, to have a supportive and wonderful boss and coworkers who are helpful and encouraging. It is impossible for me to leave work at work, I find myself thinking up ideas for programs and “quickly looking up one thing” for work that turns into me designing posters and brochures for a couple of hours. When I can finally use my studio I’m definitely going to have a space for working on programs and planning events for the library.

Progress

I’m getting somewhere.

After a long time of feeling like no progress was being made in almost any areas of my life I am making some headway, however small, in more than one area.

Decluttering: In the past few weeks I have filled up the trunk of my car twice and dropped everything off at the Survival Center. Several bags of clothes, a few boxes of books, some household goods, and loads of CDs, DVDs, and video games are all gone. I’ve also been making an effort to put some items away that had been left in awkward places for MONTHS. Moving some of the things I will use for my studio to the shed has helped too. The house is feeling less out of control and more livable. I’m getting somewhere!

Meal Planning: Officially back on track after mucking it up for a while. It’s been 2 solid weeks now that I have planned everything out and I’m doing well. I even turned down an invitation to go out tonight for someone’s birthday because it would muck up the schedule and becauseI hate biggish plans last minute. I like small invites like let’s go get coffee/tea, are you free? But Dinner and movie on a Tuesday? The movie theater they are going to is over an hour from our house and the movie wouldn’t be getting out till after 10:00. My husband has classwork and we need to be here to make sure the kids do their homework too. I don’t know these folk’s exact schedules but I am willing to bet they don’t have to be up at 6 am tomorrow. I initially thought they meant this weekend some time. Spontaneity seems fun but I don’t have that kind of freedom.

Work: I am getting near to having things planned out three months in advance as my boss requested! Once I nail down a couple of dates for events and get some flyers made I will be right where I want to be and will just have to keep up planning for that 3rd month in the future as I go. Awesome. I am also about halfway through with pulling together my plans for next summer’s Summer Reading Program. I am starting to feel less overwhelmed and under-qualified. ^_^

My Son: His therapist reports progress is being made! He is less depressed and some of his other issues are lessening in intensity and he is feeling better. He reports he is doing well keeping up with school work and doing well socially! BAM! ^_^ That is awesome.

There are loads of areas that are still pretty much sucking but I am just going to be happy about all this progress right now. Things are good. Things are good!