Thanksgiving thoughts.

Have I mentioned before that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday? No, it’s not because I like having a handy excuse to eat and eat all my favorite comfort foods until I’m so full I have to unbutton my pants.

I love Thanksgiving because it’s all about love and family. Sure there are the uncomfortable moments with the in-laws and that one uncle who just doesn’t know when he’s had enough to drink. For the most part though, it’s the last American holiday to have avoided the rampant commercialization that has all but sucked the joy out of the others. It’s the herald of the Christmas season. It’s warm and cinnamon scented and a day set aside to snuggle up with gratitude and the ones we love the most in this world.

I am grateful for so much in my life. I have so many blessings and so much love that I cannot help but be thankful for all of it. So bring on the feast and celebration, I intend to fully enjoy all that life has to offer, including dinner and desert tomorrow. Hopefully the damage won’t be too bad, at least I know it’s not permanent. Then once the leftovers are gone and the sun rises on Monday morning it will be back to struggling to eat less and pushing myself to move more.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Enjoy!

It cheated!

Cannoli cake – 1, Xina – 0

I would say I want a re-match, but who am I kidding. It’s better if we just avoid each other from now on.

The littlest things bug me sometimes.

I have to learn to not care so much about what other people think. I'm an emotional eater. I can totally see that now. It's something I have to work on, and I know I'll get there eventually, but it's hard. I think up until now I've been approaching it wrong. I get upset or hurt and them try to resist eating. I think it might do me more good to just not let things upset me so much. Easier said than done, I know.

On a positive note, my blood work came back and everything looked good. I just have a vitamin D deficiency and I'm borderline Anemic. The doctor wants me to come in for a follow-up to discuss those two things. I'm not surprised about the vitamin D. I burn after being exposed to sunlight for longer than 10 minutes so I always wear sunscreen. I also seem to have a minor intolerance for dairy, so I avoid milk. As for the anemia, I've been told I have this since my son was born. Nothing seems to get that up. I've tried eating spinach until my poop is green, doesn't seem to matter. I guess I'll have to take an iron supplement, but I hate doing it because I always seem to get constipated when I do that.

I"m not losing anything, but I also find myself cheating every 3 or 4 days recently. My baby sister had her baby shower last weekend (I am so excited to be an aunt finally! I can't wait!) My company finalized the merger yesterday so I am now officially no longer employeed by O. inc. which is sad because this was the first real, career-type of job I've had and I really owe this company a lot. I'm sure there will be more opportunities at Company M. since it's so much bigger and all -BUT- I am nearly buckling under the anxiety of not knowing what is going to happen to me and my job. Will I have to re-locate? will my position be eliminated? will I be laid off? will I be reassigned to a different department?...... These are the questions keeping me up at night.

Worry sucks. It's really a useless emotion. And I have more than my fair share of it I think. I also worry in the worst way, I obsess over things. I worry about events that have such a miniscule chance of ever actually coming true. I can't stop the anxiety, I mull it over and over, imagining the whole scenario playing out in my head. It really does me no good whatsoever. I've wasted so much time and energy on worrying about things that I have no hope of changing, things that are completely and utterly out of my control. I have to learn to let go and trust God more. If anyone has any tips on how to acheive that, please let me know.

That's all for tonight, take care of you!

Ahhhh I needed that!

My mom and sister came over last night to watch my son so Hubby and I could go out and celebrate our anniversary. We went to see Due Date (very funny, I love Robert Downey) and then went to Houlihan's for dinner. We had a really good time. We laughed, we held hands, It was just what we needed to re-connect as a couple. I wasn't exactly on plan last night- but I didn't go overboard either. This morning I am back on track and staying there.

Today I am basking in the afterglow of a perfect romantic evening.

Sak seems to be okay. The big episode I was dreading seems to have receded. So I either dosed him with the right mixture of medicine to head it off early enough, or the fates were just messing with me a few days ago. Either way, I am eternally thankfull to God above that he didn't have to go though that again. This little reminder that he is fragile will be with me for a long time to come. No more taking his schedule for granted.

I'm about to head off to get my hair cut this morning. Tomorrow is my sister's baby shower. I am very excited to become an Aunt for the first time. She's a little girl and I am thrilled to be able to buy all the cute little frilly pink things I was denied when shopping for my boy.

Oh and my weight? 216 yesterday (didn't weigh myself this morning). The lowest number I've seen on the scale yet!

Happy Anniversary to me!

I would really like some cheese with my whine please!

I am really unmotivated right now.


And I’m not just talking about weight-loss. I’m pretty much unmotivated to do anything at the moment. I have a ton of work on my plate at the office and I don’t even want to begin to sort through it all. I have to clean my apartment in the worst way and I keep putting it off. I haven’t even started my Christmas shopping yet. I have bill collectors calling me because I procrastinated sending out all of our bills this month.

I just don’t know what’s wrong with me. The only thing I want to do right now is spend a day or three wrapped up in a warm blanket and read a good book. Alone. With no interruptions.

Tomorrow is my 4th wedding anniversary. I love my husband very much. He’s a good man. In many ways he’s superior to most other guys. He takes on a lot of the childcare. He does laundry and cleans the bathrooms. He loves me more than anything else in the world. I’m taking some time off tomorrow and my mom is watching the boy so we can spend some time as just man and wife and not mom and dad. This is good. We need this time. We should have more of this time together as a couple. We don’t get enough.

I’m nervous about leaving my son though. So far he’s been okay, despite the return of the head tilt yesterday, he seems fine so far. So I’m not cancelling our date, but in my mind I’ve already put myself on stand-by alert. I am hoping that after today, if he still seems normal that I will be able to believe we dodged a bullet and finally relax again.

And I’m hungry today. I forgot that I was out of egg beaters at work so all I had was a cup of coffee. And I have a box of cereal that I’m not allowed to eat staring me in the face. And I have a chicken parm lean pocket in the freezer- also off limits. And it’s only 10:30 and I have 2 hours before my lunch break. I might have to sneak out early.

Grumble grumble.

I definitely have my cranky pants on this morning.

This really sucks

For the first time in a really long time it looks like my son is about to have one of his episodes. The old warning signs were all there this morning. Now it's just a matter of waiting for it to hit. Right now he's with my mother-in-law and I'm checking in periodically. If past history is still accurate the attack will likely start later this afternoon or maybe tomorrow morning.
I hate this.

I hate the waiting, feeling powerless to help him. I hate watching his little body slowly contort until he can no longer maintain his balance to walk upright. I hate the confused look in his eyes because he doesn't understand what is happening to him.

I hate knowing that he will slip away from me for a few hours. That's the worst part of it for me, worse than even the persistant severe vomiting. He slips away to somewhere in his head that I cannot follow. He becomes almost catatonic and goes limp. It's scary and I don't know if he's in pain or not. I cannot comfort him when he's there.

I know it will resolve on it's own and that aside from possible dehydration and his discomfort there isn't much to worry about. But it still sucks.

And I'm angry. I'm angry that small children are allowed to suffer and be sick in this world. I'm angry at God for letting this happen. I'm angry that we went so long without incident that I finally allowed myself to relax and feel that we were safe and had gotten past this thing.

I'm sad that I can't stay home with him. I feel guilty that we need tohave both parents working to make ends meet. I worry that this is coming back again because my husband got a job and so he isn't able to stay home with him anymore and it screwed up his schedule.

I just want to yell curse words to the universe right now.

Can you say YUM!

I have a new love.


This is a true, deep, passionate love. Now that I found it, I don’t think I can imagine a future without it in my life.

Spaghetti squash.

I have done low carb off and on a few times. I can get over my cravings for sweets fairly quickly. (and if not I can usually whip up something that satisfies the urge with a little ingenuity.)

But breads and pastas are my downfall. I have to admit, I don’t much care for soy or almond flour much. I only whip up the baked low carb stuff when I just can’t take it anymore. If the craving strikes hard for pasta though, I don’t have much recourse. I try to kill it with the best possible alternative, which up until now were small amounts of home made whole wheat pasta with extra fiber added to the dough. I was almost tempted to try to may soy noodles (I still might attempt this) but then I thought, heck let me try the spaghetti squash thing.

It takes time to prep- I’ll warn you up front. You have to bake the squash at 350 for about an hour until it’s tender. Then cut it in half and scoop out the seeds. Then you take a fork and use it to pull out the spaghetti-like strands of squash from the skin. Top with your favorite sauce and voila! Low carb pasta. I made mine up with alfredo sauce and added grilled chicken, zucchini and mushrooms. It was really very good. Actually, I liked it better than pasta and my husband who does not do low carb and is very reluctant to try new veggies even said he really liked it a lot.

I also think it will be good with pesto, and maybe even shrimp/chicken scampi. I’m not sure about tomato sauce, but tomato is usually higher in carbs anyway.

So if you are like I was and read about this squash and have always been scared to try it, don't be scared. It's good. Real good.

Oh. My. God. Good.

And right now it's very much in season, so give it a try!

Crash.

I am starting to lose faith in people.

This morning on my way into work someone cut me off and my car skidded into a stop sign. My tire was flat and I busted a tail light and got a few scratches on my bumper. Ok, I can totally live with that. I’m fine. My son wasn’t in the car. I’ll need a new rim and probably new tires.

But here’s the part that really has me fuming. The guy that caused the accident never stopped. He had to have seen me skid out. I know he saw that I crashed. But did he take the time to stop and see if I was even okay? No. He just kept going to wherever it was he was in such a hurry to get to.

What happened to human decency? Common courtesy? No one else stopped either- not the people driving behind me or on the other side street. I didn’t have my phone on me so I had to try to flag someone down to help me. Finally a very nice man stopped. He was a volunteer fireman off duty. He called the police for me and waited with me until they showed up.

Even if I had no part in an accident I wouldn’t think to keep going after I witnessed one. Not until I at least stopped to make sure the person was okay. It just wouldn’t occur to me that getting to work on time would be more important than helping someone who might potentially be injured or need help.


In the end the police came out to take a police report for insurance purposes. He said it wasn’t my fault, but then explained that since the other vehicle didn’t stop, I would be on the hook for my deductible.

Why can’t I catch a break? Grrrrr. This really grates my cheese.

South Beach here I come!

Weight: 217.2

So I got up this morning and went to get my blood work done. I spent the last 4-5 days eating a "normal" amount of carbs because I wanted to make sure that the numbers reflected what my body is really doing and not the diet I was on. It was lovely! I indulged in bread, fruit, rice, a couple of cookies and I even made lasagna for dinner on Saturday. But now that my draw is done it's time to start the regimen that my Doctor prescribed. He wants me to follow the South Beach diet and start excercising more. I've heard good things about South Beach, I know it's a little easier to live with long term than Atkins which is what I usually do when going low carb. So this morning I had 2 eggs, turkey bacon and turkey sausage and am about to have my coffee with fat-free half and half and splenda. Since I had breakfast so late I will likely skip lunch and just have a little snack instead. Maybe some low-fat cheese. We'll see.

I'm trying to psyche myself up for this round, but I have to tell you- I'm kind of sick of dieting and the whole eating whatever I wanted without thinking about it I was doing the last few days was really nice and I'm going to miss it. But I have to establish this new habit before the holidays set-in. I'd hate to un-do all the sacrifices I've made over this year.

Walking on Eggshells

So I think my mom has Border-line personality disorder.


She flies of the handle for very minor (and sometimes imagined) infractions. She is overly jealous of my time and other people in my life. She has ruined more days than I care to admit or think about. I just don’t know what to do about it anymore.

Examples of what I’m talking about here-

When I gave birth to my son she stormed out of the room in a tiff because my in-laws came up to see me and the baby. She was angry with my husband for eating a hamburger. She was angry at my 3 hour old son because I had to get a C-section and she didn’t like the way everyone was fawning over him.

She gets angry at Christmas because she feels like my in-laws buy too many presents for my son. She takes it personally like they are trying to show her up and make her look cheap.

She got offended when I said I wanted to have a family outing with just my husband and my son without her coming along. She gets mad at my sisters and my husbands/boyfriends at the drop of a hat. It almost feels like she is angry that our relationships are working out better than hers did. I think she would be secretly very pleased if we were to get divorced or break-up with our men.

She is constantly hinting that she would like us to move in with her to “help us” save some money. That will never happen.

The most recent example is what happened on Halloween yesterday. My husband had to work. So I dressed SAK up in his costume and went over to my MIL’s house to show him off on my way to my mom’s. My MIL gave him a little Thomas the Train flashlight because I told her no candy.

We get to my mom’s and he is of course a little pre-occupied with his new toy. He didn’t want to put it down to go Trick or Treating. She FLIPS OUT on him. Using the F-word and slamming the door. Threatening not to give him the toys she got him, etc. I yell at her to calm down and she finally walks around the neighborhood with us, but sulks the whole time. When we get back to her house she throws the matchbox cars on the floor in front of him and says “here’s your present, not that you want it” then stomps off to the other room and breaks down and cries.

After I finally go down and try to talk to her she finally pulls herself together and begins acting normally again. Thankfully, my son didn’t seem to take her bad mood personally or be affected by it too much. She later said she was in a bad mood before we ever came over because she visited my grand-parents graves that morning.

This has been the story of my life. I feel like I dread having “big moments” because every time she finds a way to ruin it for me. I love my mother but I also hate her. I don’t want to cut her out of my life, but I also will not allow her to abuse my son emotionally like that. I just don’t know what to do! I can’t really suggest she go see a psychiatrist because that alone would send her into a tailspin. There have been times when part of me just wishes she would die already, and of course I feel utterly guilty for even thinking such things. I keep trying because I think that maybe if I just try a little bit harder each time that maybe I can finally make her happy. But it only gets better for awhile and then it's back to this utter nonsense. The only solution I can fathom is to move my family as far away from her as possible. I can't do that though until I know what's going on with my job. If I can put some physical distance between us again, I think it will be easier to have some emotional distance.

I'll be okay, I just needed to get that off my chest.

Thanks for listening!