And…. Fail.

For the last two (three, four?) weeks I’ve just dropped the ball. On a lot. Mostly I’ve been frantically busy at work thus not giving me the time to balance my checkbook anally like a normally do. And there was Easter which interrupted my recording of what I eat, and exercising. Or did I stop the latter before that?

Either way what happened is simple. It’s what always happens. I’ve eaten too much, exercised none and spent lots. New news? Hardly. Theme that’s lost it charm? Definitely.

Ugh, even I don’t care anymore. I’m sick of writing the same old news, the same old failures. I’m bored with it. I’m over it. I can’t imagine how you feel about it.

I’m trying to be on the whole, “today is a new day” bandwagon, but I”m not feeling it. Fundamentally, I sort of don’t care.

I don’t care if I can’t afford to buy it.

I don’t care if I shouldn’t eat it.

I don’t care if I should exercise, my clothes don’t fit, I’m going to be a contestant on the Biggest Loser instead of watching it.

It’s not a priority for me.

I realize that I should really rearrange that sentence to say, I’m not a priority.

A part of me wonders if the reason I was so successful the last time I tried to lose weight and was so successful saving money and paying off debt before is that both occurred while I was in therapy. And both stopped occurring when I stopped therapy (well and also had a baby). I didn’t feel like I was getting anything out of therapy. I could talk to a friend for a $25 co-pay a month. There was nothing wrong, everything was fine, it was just talking about my day. But maybe on some level something else was happening? Something else was working on my sub conscious?

I’m self-sufficient (right word?) enough to believe that I should be able to do this on my own. Which is why all those years that I should have been in therapy because there was something wrong I wasn’t. So why go when everything is honky dory? I think its the plague of all mothers that we always put ourselves last. There are so many other things, there are the kids, and the house and the husband, and the school forms, and the yard, and the dogs, and the dishwasher, and the garage door is broken, and we need diapers and we’re out of milk, the bike tires need air, have you called the plumber, when is there time for me amongst all that? (Also, all of the above sentences are true things I’ve got currently floating in my head.)

I can’t justify spending time exercising when there is so much that needs to be done around the house. I can’t justify not buying something for my kids because I know they would love it so much and/or need it. (Though while I needed a new stroller, I probably didn’t need to buy a Maclaren this weekend! But it provides me a very large amount of joy!) I can’t stop myself from going out to lunch because I love spending time with my co-workers and need out of this super hostile environment.

Sigh. I’m going to try again. Because like I’m always telling Bear, you have to at least try. So I will try and start small again. Not look back at the times I’ve failed or even when I succeeded, but focus instead on now and not then. (Also, remember Now & Then? What a great movie.) So as I drink my 240 calorie coke that I just bought for a dollar I will focus instead on good things I’ll do after I finish my coke.

Something went Awry

Let me paint you a picture:

Black flats from Target, red & white snowflake fuzzy socks from Bath & Body Works, white and black snowflake pj bottoms, white and blue Columbia jacket. Broken glasses (Bear broke one of the sides last year), newly highlighted and cut hair in a ponytail. Glass of Riesling, cigarette, sitting on my porch step looking at my two dogs, a yard full of leaves, sticks and dog poop.

How did I get here?

This morning I woke up earlier than I usually do on Mondays, my proverbial “day off”, and was highly productive. By 9 am all the laundry was sorted, the dishwasher loaded and on, Bella fed & medicined and down for a nap, Bear and I had breakfast, a to do list was made, eggs were cooking for dyeing.

Then something happened. Something went awry and sent me off kilter and I’ve been struggling to get back since.

I can’t quite figure out what it was. Was it that when I went to do the laundry I realized that the H had put a load of sheets in on Friday and they were still wet in the washer never being put in the dryer? Was it that when I incesentally called Athens he didn’t come and I thought he had jumped the fence? Was it that I stupidly checked my emailing awaiting the Prof’s response to the mistake I realized I had made end of the day Friday?

One of these things or all of these things sent me into my bed with chocolate and Desperate Housewives. Then I got a little of my mojo back. I got some laundry done, we finished our pirate easter eggs, the house was vacuumed, the fridge cleaned, the dishwasher unloaded, the kitchen counters cleaned. Then Bear went down for his nap, but Bella wouldn’t sleep. She didn’t want to sit, she didn’t want to play, she tugged on her ears and squirmed in my arms only wanting to stand.

I fought the urge to scream, “You can’t stand! I’m not going to hold you up all day.” I did however leave her in her room with her tea set and toy cell phone and told her to call someone who cares.

I hate this part of my personality. Something goes wrong, so slightly I can’t even pinpoint it and it spirals me into shutdown mode. Or eat three double stuff oreos and want to cry mode. But no tears come. I’m not a crier.

I drank some of said Riesling, felt stupid about it and dumped half of my glass down the drain. Bella’s sleeping now and so is Bear. I could and should work out. Something I had been so good about until this weekend. Now its been three days since the treadmill and I saw each other and I have no desire to go back to the basement except for another load of laundry.

I want to eat more Oreos or a hamburger, or anything. I want to go to the store and buy something, something/anything to make the children happy and relieve the guilt I feel for so thoroughly not wanting their company right now.

Fucking Prof scheduled me into a meeting at 8:15 am tomorrow to discuss the mistake I made. Really? It can’t wait until later? I’m sorry I relied on an inventory 3 months old. I’m sorry I relied on the Devo Assistant to mention to me that we were out of reply cards, which she didn’t. But is this something we need to talk about at 8:15 AM? Why do I check my work email on my day off? Why when I so passionately hate my place of work currently?

Maybe it was the email from the Dr. of Ops scheduling a lunch meeting with me and our other friends to talk about a big announcement. Maybe its the jealously that she got a promotion? won the lottery? … something I didn’t get.

Something happened and I can’t recover from it, so I’m stagnating.

Anxiety, Overeating and the Fear of Judgement

I know when it happens. When that moment that I want to just devour anything possible happens. It just happened now upon reading the H’s email that the MIL can’t watch the kids early enough for us to be able to see the movie (we already bought living social tickets and need to use soon) before my MN best friend’s birthday party on Friday. Within the same email he mentioned that the garage door is broken, and can’t be fixed but needs to be replaced. I got filled with the desire to eat – anything. And massive quantities of it. Then our IT Asset Manager came by asking me if I still had that loaner laptop. Yes, in fact I use it every single day, all the time, as the primary laptop in our house since my 2003 Apple is quite finicky and slow. They need it back tomorrow. I didn’t have the courage to ask if they would just give it/sell it to me after all he said all they’re going to do is wipe it and recycle it.

My co-worker, the New Mom, was then just telling us a story about how she cried in front of the Prof in a meeting on Monday just because of all the anxiety she had this past weekend. As she was saying that I felt the overwhelming urge to a) start crying b) hug her c) tell her all of my own woes. Instead, since we’re having a hallway conversation at work, I remained composed despite what was going on in my head.

This all happened in a span of five minutes. In those five minutes I went from being “good” and sticking to a reasonable diet all day to falling nearly to shambles. If I had the access I would have eaten three McDonald’s meals already. If I hadn’t spent the entire day in spreadsheets analyzing my budget I’d go home and pick some up for the family for dinner. But honestly we don’t have the $18 that would cost.

I feel like I’m holding in too much. The H falls asleep moments after we get to bed so I can hardly engage him in a conversation. Bear is up until shortly before that so I’m not about to talk in front of him. I don’t want to burden my friends. I always feel like I’m bothering them. It’s something in 26 years I’ve never learned, I can never seem to go to my friends with troubles. How strange, what else are friends supposed to be for? I fear judgment above all else.

While I was just in the pumping room I jotted down a list of things that are currently stressing me out. I had 17 items on the list. I ordered them by how much stress they cause me. #3 was what people think of me only surpassed by money (#1) and my weight (#2). Oddly enough two of three work related ones didn’t show up until numbers 15 and 16.

I can’t psychologically convince myself not to care. Almost all of my worries are in some way correlated to other people’s opinions of me, my family and my home. Only two single worries of the 17 are actually just about me. And one is the Prof. His ineptitude and negative demeanor only affect me, and thus its 16 on the list.  #17 is my back pain (which is directly related to stress). How interesting that of all the things that worry me the last two are the ones that are just affecting me. I’m not even going to list my 17 because of what you the anonymous reader could possibly think about them.

Feb Resolution/Detox Fail

So another month in 2011 has come and gone and I have met no goals that I have set. I’ve decided perhaps I’m just lazy, selfish and irresponsible. What it comes down to is a fundamental  I don’t want to that dictates what I do and do not do. What I do not do is exercise, eat well or keep budgets. What I do is eat McDonalds, socialize with friends, lay around and spend money. I seem to be acutely aware of my transgressions but have no actual desire to change anything. Its an awful situation to be in (and realistically a probably easily remedied one) because I know everything that I do wrong, but I just don’t want to change it.

In essence I didn’t exercise once this month. I started out really good entering in what I ate daily for about 11 days and then I stopped. That was also the last time I weighed in — eek not looking forwarding to seeing how that number has fluctuated in the last 3 weeks. I’ve definitely accrued new debt. I’m constantly kicking myself for the fact that I could have paid of all of my credit cards but didn’t and instead accrued back debt that I had just paid off. Oh and back in November didn’t refinance the mortgage when the rates were 4.25%. FAIL. I did per the detox email The New Godmother weekly my spending and the first week there was definitely a feeling of nervousness of showing actual figures to someone, but that quickly went away after the first email. I feel inclined to continue sending it weekly to her, but I don’t feel like its having the desired outcome. She now is aware of the same thing I am — we eat out too much. I buy the kids too much stuff. These aren’t things I didn’t know.

Something new I’m going to try for March is not carrying credit cards with me. If I don’t have them then clearly I can’t spend. What I’ll wind up doing is maybe taking cash out and I can only spend the cash I have on hand. This will become effective tomorrow. Because I’ve already had two happy hours this week and tonight is a friend’s birthday dinner. Maybe better would be only carrying the card when I know I have to spend something like tonight’s dinner or next week when I’m having lunch with a co-worker for her birthday. We’ll see. Clearly I need to get back into the mode I was in last spring thru summer when I was a debt reduction powerhouse. I think what helped is that I didn’t pay daycare for almost 6 months so I had lots of excess cash and what doesn’t help now is that I pay 3x the amount in daycare than I did last year. We got our state tax refund last week and are expecting our federal one any day now and the H gets his yearly bonus in 2 weeks which is great, what would again be greater is that with that money we would be in a great spot, in a lets go on vacation great spot, but instead its just short of covering all of our debt. And not accruing more isn’t really in sight. We still have not figured out what to do about the fact that Squeegee died and the SIL is going to be needing her car back soon.

And exercise? Well yesterday I should have bought the Living Social deal for the Bikram Yoga studio in Woodbury, but I didn’t. As much as I complain every single day that none of my clothes fit me (which they don’t) another month passes and I’ve done nothing to remedy it. It comes down to the excuse that I’m too tired, too busy and work too late. Which are also all good excuses because when you don’t come home until 6:30 by the time you make dinner, get everyone to bed you’re: a) exhausted b) its 10pm and time for bed and c) rather watch Idol in bed and eat double stuf oreos.

I can’t wait until Bella is 3 before I get my ass in gear like I did with Bear. Mostly because when Bella is 3 I intend for her to have a 1 year old sister by then and if I’ve added more pregnancy weight on top of this pregnancy weight well then my friend I would be huge.

Referenced Blog Posts:

January Resolution Sum – up

February Detox

2011 Resolutions

2011 New Years Resolutions

It’s that time of year: when you make promises and wishes for the new year and most likely do not follow through. What? I’m just being realistic!

Mine are in keeping with what I imagine everyone says, “lose weight, save money, pay down debt.” However, I’d like to make it a little more practical so I’m going to break it down to tangible goals similar to my attempt last year until I got pregnant and threw my resolutions to the wind.

• Get back to pre-pregnancy weight.
  • Goal: Last time I weighed myself (which was awhile ago) this would mean losing 15 lbs.
  • Deadline: I’d like to do this by bikini season ideally July when I go to Orlando for a conference.
  • Action Steps: Means stop snacking on random shit, stop drinking coke, eat normal sized portions. (This will be applied after tomorrow’s Fogo de Chao devouring).
• Exercise
  • Goal: Possibly run half marathon with @zwjohnson
  • Deadline: Monthly
  • Action Steps: Go to the gym 12 x every month for Medica discount.
• Financial/ Career
  • Goal: Don’t accrue any new debt and attempt to pay off existing. Adding $1,860 in monthly daycare expenses means paying down debt ceases to be a realistic possibility as all my money will go towards daycare expenses.
  • Action Steps: Use refund money to pay off windows and fridge. Stay in the Green for budget! Have a garage sale this summer. Ask for raise at January performance review. Look for new jobs.
• Take better care of my dogs
  • Action Steps: Take to dog park more frequently, run around the block with them, leave Kong filled with treats to prevent boredom.
• Be a better Parents and apply some of these Mommy Resolutions
  
  • Action Steps:
    • Play with Bear every day (and Bella too)
    • Make sure Bear washes his hands before eating (we’re terrible about remembering that)
    • Bear should watch less tv (or movies)
    • At least once a week family dinner
    • We should also bathe the kids more often
    • Have Bear clean up his room before bedtime
    • Start bedtime routine with Bella
    • Have Bella sleep in crib not swing for daytime naps
• Me and The H Time
  • Goal: Spend time with the H not watching TV, without the kids or friends
  • Action Steps: The H possibly accompany me to Orlando for conference, Mexico in December for 5 year wedding anniversary. Scatter some date nights throughout the year. (And actually go somewhere not have McDonalds and watch TV, or hang out with Friends.

Future Goals:

Find a way to logistically have another baby in 2012 or 2013:

Current plan is to try in January, February and March of 2012 and if we don’t succeed try again after my 28th birthday. I really don’t want to be pregnant on my golden birthday (no idea why this is important to me) so i’d need to have a baby before or after.

• This would require us getting a minivan (we’ll be done paying off the Subaru February 2012 and the Deathmobile is well the Deathmobile)
• We would need to make the basement office a livable room and move Bear there or the kids would need to share a room or we’d share a room with baby or most unlikely move to a bigger house.
• Would like to have no debt at this time.
  • End of 2012 Bear would be in school so we’d have 2 in daycare (not 3!)
  • We would have had a year with no car payments (though I imagine minivan costs much more than our Subaru Forester also assumes Deathmobile can make it this long)
  • Hopefully we’ll both have raises/new jobs at this time.
  • Very dependent on how 2011 goes financially…