In the Pits

The last few weeks have been a real test of my new approach to life…as the saying goes, you win some and you lose some. And boy when I lose it, I really lose it. I'm actually kind of embarrassed and ashamed to even write this post.

I was doing really well up until I left for Baltimore on Monday. Of course during the trip, my whole routine was screwed up. I've spent the last few days in hearings and meetings that lasted most of the day, and on Wednesday we were actually working from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. with only a few short breaks. I've also spent the last few days eating mostly fast food and then drinking too much after the day's work. And in spite of my best intentions, I didn't work out at the hotel gym even once.

But the worst of all was, I binged at night in my room...candy mostly, that I'd buy in the hotel gift store. For some reason, I was feeling so compulsive, I couldn't stop myself from buying the candy. The only positive thing is I didn't make myself throw up. Thought about it but didn't. Yeah, I know, TMI. But this used to be my MO…eat tons of candy, and then get rid of it. It would have been easy in the privacy of my hotel room. So that was progress, I guess? On the third straight night in a row of visiting the gift shop, I did get very self conscious because I figured the guy at the cash register must be wondering what one person was going to do with all that candy. But it didn't stop me, I still bought it.

I didn't sleep at all last night for fear of oversleeping and missing my 4:50 a.m. airport shuttle to catch a 6:50 a.m. flight back to Seattle. By the time I got home this afternoon, I was pretty much a wreck.

So I spent the afternoon sleeping from sheer exhaustion, although I did take B to the park for a little while. Also turns out, hub had been really sick while I was gone, although he didn't say anything to me because he didn't want me to worry. He actually had thought he was having a heart attack because he was having chest pains and sweating…but he went to the doctor and had some tests done, and it turns out it was some sort of stomach problem. Although he joked that he had a pain in his heart because he missed me so much…awwww.

I'm sorry I haven't been following anyone's blogs, so I sure hope everyone is doing okay. I'll try to catch up this weekend. As for myself, I feel kind of defeated and sad right now, but I'm glad to be home, and I intend to get back on track right away. Tomorrow I'm going to have a good workout, and eat right and drink tons of water. I have a session with Dr D on Monday, which I'm looking forward to. I hope she'll help me get some perspective on why I failed to maintain control, especially since I wasn't expecting it at all.

It's not good that I fall apart so badly whenever I get out of my routine or comfort zone. Why do I still struggle, especially when I think I've got it figured out? Why do I still have these crazy thoughts and the urge to binge and purge? I really thought I was over that shit...that it was going to be different this time.

I really wanted it to be different this time.

A "New" Me

A while ago, I had a picture taken with a famous person. This person is someone I admire a lot, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to have my picture taken with him. As I've blogged before, I've always been quite photogenic. But because of getting older, my appearance in this particular photographic didn't please me. It wasn't a bad photograph, it was actually pretty good in general. I smiled nicely and my teeth and hair looked nice.

But of course the first thing I honed in on was the wrinkles which have started to appear on my face. The odd thing is, the picture didn't look like I "FEEL." I actually feel very young and happy, especially since I've been in therapy, working on my body image, and learning to accept myself. Still, lately it's always a bit of a shock when I see current photos of myself...I just think I look so OLD! I really wanted to frame this particular picture, and display it in our home, but I've put it off. I just was not happy with the photograph.

So the other day, hub asked me why I hadn't had the picture printed and framed so we could display it. I rather sheepishly told him the reason was that I felt I didn't look very good in the picture. He kind of rolled his eyes and said it was a great picture, what the heck was I worried about? Okay, that's fine for him to say that, but I wanted that picture to be PERFECT.

Lately I've signed up to follow a blog called Photoshopdisasters. It's a real hoot and they show some hilarious examples of poorly photoshopped advertisements, like the Ralph Lauren ad where they made the woman so skinny with a huge head and she looked deformed. Still, it got me to thinking…yup, you guessed it, I decided to see if I could get the photo Photoshopped! I found a website called Phoowa.com, uploaded the picture with the simple instructions "remove wrinkles and double chin from woman's face." Within one day I received a small photoshopped picture "on approval" from "Steve"...after I paid a mere $4 by Paypal, he sent me the larger version.

So here's a little glimpse of what was done...

This is the original version

This is the photoshopped version (I wish I could show you the whole picture as
it's remarkable how young I look in this version! LOL!)

When I got the photo back, not only had Steve made me look good, he had corrected some minor reddish blemishes on the famous person's face. We both looked great!

The next day I said to hub, "Do you remember that photo that I wasn't happy with?" Of course he did. So I showed him the new version and asked if he noticed anything different. He really couldn't figure out what I was talking about, which was good, because it meant it wasn't fake looking or a "photoshop disaster." So then I showed him both photos side by side and then asked him what he thought. He said "WOW~ the second picture looks like you got a facelift!" He thought it was pretty cool.

So, until I can afford a "real" facelift…for $4 I can have a temporary photo facelift whenever I want! Just having that new picture has made me excited now to get the photo printed and framed for display.

So...What do you think? Do you think I'm being superficial? I probably do need to keep working on aging gracefully and being less focused on my appearance. So please be honest...I really do want to know what you think...was this a crazy, vain thing to do?

P.S. Thank you to those who suggested how to fix my font problems. It definitely was due to the new version of Word I was using. So I typed this post in "TextEdit" and it came out really well.

I'm having issues...

...Blogger issues. I used to type up my post in a Word document, and then cut and paste into a new post. But lately...For some reason, when I try to create a post like that, Blogger gives me a weird error message about Html not being allowed (or something like that) when I try to publish. It changes all the text to some weird combo. Big and small, dark and light, different fonts.

Maybe it's the new version of Word I'm using on my new computer. Whatever it is, it's all very strange and totally annoys the perfectionist in my soul.

So if you've seen some strange text combinations in my recent posts, it's not the result of a schizophrenic state of mind (no offense to schizophrenics)...it's all Blogger's fault.

I shall try to figure out what's up with that...in the meantime, please just read the words, don't judge the appearance.

Two kind of tests...VPN and ECLNP

I learned a new term today... VPN...Virtual Private Network. I’m sure some of you techies out there knew what that meant. I, on the other hand, had no clue. The term has been tossed around at work for the last month, but I never bothered to figure out what the letters meant until I got ready to write this post.

VPN meant I got to work from home today and it was just like being at work! They did a City-wide test today and had about 20 of us stay home to test the system. If there is an emergency (like a pandemic or a snowstorm) and people can't get to work or have to stay away because they're sick, they can work at home. (This was one more reason I needed a new computer…they couldn’t install the software on my old Mac.)

Anyway, the test went well and the system worked great. I was able to sleep late because all I had to do was get out of bed and walk into the living room to start work. I sat at my laptop with my morning coffee, and my desktop on my laptop looked just like my desktop on my office PC. I didn’t even have to get out of my sweats all day. And I got to be home with B, and over my “lunchtime” we went to the park. Since I was home, we had to go. B didn’t understand that mom was working… then I also took some time to do my ab workout on TV.

Yep, this is my kind of job, except I think you have to be really dedicated to be able to work from home every day. And I did kind of miss the interaction with co-workers and customers.

Food and exercise has been pretty good this week. Again, I’ve been doing 5 days a week, and it’s really making a difference in both my body and my attitude. But the second test came on Sunday.

We had some friends over for a brunch, and hub fixed a lovely meal. That wasn't the test...this was: Our friends brought a gift…not flowers, not wine…no, they brought a huge white chocolate jack-o-lantern from Costco. (I wish I had taken a picture, it was quite beautiful.)

I don’t eat regular chocolate but I love white chocolate, and this was really GOOD white chocolate. I couldn’t resist…I broke that sucker up and ate a couple of pieces the minute they left . Then hub took it and melted it into almond bark. YUM! Then I broke it up into small pieces and I've been allowing myself 2 small pieces each night after dinner. Not so much "allow" in the sense that I can only have 2 small pieces or I’ll go berserk. But because I’m trying to lose weight, I do need to limit what I’m eating. And 2 small pieces seems like a normal serving and fits into my food plan.

I’m really surprised I’m being so disciplined. Even being home all day, I didn’t think about it (much) until after dinner.

I keep asking myself lately…Who is this person??? Someone who can eat white chocolate in a normal way. Someone not obsessing on it or eating it all until it’s gone. I want to keep this calm, happy person around.

So that was the second test...ECLNP (Eating Chocolate Like a Normal Person)! lol (As JC would say, I crack myself up.)

The fearful, angry, critical voices in my head seem to be further away and quieter each day. It seems as if I don’t need to quiet them with food anymore. It feels really good. Yes, normal feels good.

A good stomach ache?

In spite of my vow recently to work out 6 days a week, when this week is over, I’ll have exercised 5 days. Same last week and the week before. I’m starting to think that maybe 5 days is okay. I haven’t felt burned out at all, and I actually look forward to exercising.

I’ve been spending a lot of time at Curves. I usually go on my way home from work, and I usually do 45 minutes to an hour there (vs. the “normal” 30 minute circuit). The thing I really like is that I can stay additional time on any one machine as long as I don’t interfere with the routine of someone else. That’s usually not too difficult as because there are rarely more than 4 or 5 other ladies working out; sometimes I’m the only one. So I’ve been doing extra upper body work…there are about 6 upper body machines, and I usually will do extra time on each one. I've heard some people complain that Curves is monotonous, and I can understand that if you do the same thing every time; but I don’t.

Yesterday, I took B to the park and I wogged (walked/jogged) around for about 30 minutes. After I got home, I felt like I still needed to do something else. It occurred to me that doing one of the “on demand” exercise shows on TV might be interesting. I’ve never tried any of them, so what the heck, it will be fun, right?

Ha ha...

I picked out a 12 minute program called “6 pack abs.” I’m in pretty good shape, so this should be a piece of cake, right?

Ha ha ha...

To be truthful, it wasn’t too bad WHILE I was doing it.

This morning I could barely get out of bed.

I don’t know the technical name for all the muscles in the midsection…suffice it to say that each and every one felt like it was on fire.

So…what better way to loosen up those sore muscles than to do the same routine again? And what the heck...let’s add on12 minutes of “buns and thighs."

BIG MISTAKE...

I’m so sore right now, it’s an effort to breathe much less get up off the couch. Just goes to show you, if you don’t target certain muscle groups, they don’t get exercised. I’m hoping if I do this another couple of days in a row, it won’t hurt so much by next weekend.

In the meantime, please don’t ask me to get up off the couch...unless you want to see a grown woman cry.

~Graciela

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Got Sleep?

I’ve been having an amazing experience with my eating and working out over the last few weeks. In spite of all the stress I’ve been under, I’m still doing great. I don’t know what’s happening/happened to me, but I just hope it keeps up. Sometimes I’m afraid to believe it’s real…

I just found out I’m going to Baltimore for a conference October 27-30. Due to budget constraints, I was asked to make the trip as inexpensive as possible for my City. I had to make my own travel arrangements and I’ll get reimbursed after the trip. I went on Expedia and I’m amazed at the price of trips…I got round trip from Seattle to Baltimore, and 3 nights at the Sheraton near the Inner Harbor (near the Convention Center) for $525. (I could have actually gotten something for around $400, or even a bit less, but I was a little leary of the one-and-a-half star hotel that was offered at that price...lol)

I just found a quote from a study about sleep, and I need to take my own advice:

If you want to lose weight, experts say you need to get enough sleep. Specifically, researchers have reported that women who sleep 5 hours or less per night generally weigh more than women who sleep 7 hours per night.

So…goodnight!

I'm still around

Sorry I’ve been away…I’ve missed everyone so much. I feel so out of sorts when I don’t get my blogging fix. I’m hoping to get a chance to visit everyone in the next day or so. I had to spend a few days at my mom's house helping her with some things, so no internet. Then my 5 year old Mac laptop started acting up.

Here’s a quick update:

The good news is my neck is much better…thank you everyone for asking. The bad news is that now the right side of my jaw has been hurting badly, I think from the braces because I find myself clenching my jaw a lot. I had a massage this afternoon, and now I'm putting ice on it. I have an orthodontic appt next week, so I'll discuss it with my doc then.

As for my computer problems, my laptop had been doing some weird things, none of them good...Sometimes I’d turn it on, and I could hear it running, but the screen would be blank. Then it started going dark while I was working on it. I'd have to turn it off and back on...

So Sunday, Hub and I went shopping at the Apple Store and I got a new 13" MacBook Pro. They transferred all the stuff from my old one to the new one, so I didn’t have to do that either. I just picked it up yesterday afternoon. It is one sweet machine. While I feel kind of guilty saying goodbye to my old computer (*sniff*), I’m totally in love with my new one! It’s kind of like my old one got a facelift, because the desktop looks almost the same as the old one.

Now, on a completely different subject...I'd like your opinion on a situation that happened to me last night (and sorry, this story is kind of long drawn out and boring, so bear with me...)

I’m a volunteer member of my neighborhood Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC). I'm one of 10 citizens and we work with a lady from our City's planning dept. Not to get too much into the details, but we’re in the process of writing a neighborhood plan, which is basically a "vision" of what we'd like to see our neighborhood look like over the next 5 to 20 years. We've been meeting every other Monday for 3 hours in the evening (from 6 – 9 p.m.)

Most neighborhoods complete their plans in about a year. Not my committee..we are well into our second year and still several months from completing. The reason is that there are a few people on the committee who like to hear themselves talk. They argue, ruminate, question, go off on tangents, and basically just talk...Talk...TALK...until I’m ready to freakin' SCREAM. The chairperson tries to keep the meeting focused, but to be honest, he is one of the biggest offenders. I’ve brought the issue up a couple of times, both in private to the chairperson, and in our meetings (in a nice way, of course). It doesn’t seem to do much good.

I had a particularly harrowing day at work yesterday…and I’d been up since 4:30 a.m. to get to work early, because I knew I had to leave my office early to get to the meeting on time. The committee has a set amount of work we should be finishing each week, but we are way behind because of the talkers. We’re trying to prepare for an open house next week, at which we're going to present what we've done so far to our neighbors, so we had to complete everything last night.

About 9 o’clock, we were still trudging away and no where near being finished with what we needed to accomplish last night. This had been a typical meeting and at that point I was already exhausted. Then one of the talkers started splitting hairs about something totally stupid. All of a sudden I felt like I was having an-out-of-body experience. It was like I was watching myself do this: I got up from my chair, put on my coat, picked up my notebook, and quietly said to nobody in particular...”I just can’t do this anymore.” Then I left the room without a backward glance and drove home.

(BTW, I wasn't meaning "I can't do this anymore ever." I just meant I couldn't do it anymore that night. But I don't know if they knew that.)

Most of the people involved are retired, so I maybe they have a lot more energy for wasting time than I do, or a lot more tolerance for BS. All I could think was…”I’m missing Dancing with the Stars for THIS??"

I was SO worked up by the time I got home that it took me an hour to calm down. My husband knows some of the people (including the talkers) and knows how they are, so I was ranting and raving to him and scaring the dog.

So, my question is…was I out of line? How much are people supposed to put up with before they are allowed to get angry? All day I kept thinking of whether to apologize to the group, or talk to the chairperson (again), or the City representative, or just tender my resignation.

Then, I (we...all the members) got an email today from the City rep, which said:

Thank you for your suggestions last evening; your continued dedication to the neighborhood planning process is exemplary.

In only a few months, we’ll deliver the plan to the City officials and begin work toward adoption. Please know that the City truly appreciates your work and many look forward to the resulting plan. I want to highlight a special attribute of your CAC: all ten members remain committed to the neighborhood and to the process. I look forward to continuing my connection to the neighborhood throughout implementation of your upcoming plan.

This seems like she was trying to tell us (me) that she knows how frustrating this process has been; and who knows what was said after I left last night. I know I'm not the only one on the committee who has issues with the way it's being run.

Seriously...what do you think I should do?

1. Don't mention it again and go on like nothing happened?

2. Apologize to the group?

3. Talk to the chairperson and/or City rep again?

4. Tender my resignation?

5. Or something I haven't thought of?

I hate being in this situation.

~Graciela

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