Not good, people. Not good at all.

Ya'll. My eating has SERIOUSLY gone off the rails. Just today for example: this morning I had a giant stack of blueberry pancakes (waving at Shauna!), at dinner I had a big hunk of lasagna and two big, buttery slices of Texas toast, and right now (as I type!) Hubby is out making an ice cream run for me.

Need I say what time of the month it is?

Treadmill still broken. Hips growing. Jeans tighter. Send help!

A slight change of heart and a very tired Missy

To all who commented or emailed for the new blog address:

Um, yeah. About that. I may have jumped the gun on that one. I have, in fact, started a new blog, but I'm just not quite ready to open it up yet, I guess. Quite the chicken, I am.

This time, I'm embracing it. Whatever.

Instead, I'll try to post here more for now. No promises, as I've said that before and not followed through with it...but I will try.

Today's topic: My insomnia. (Cue the yawn) I am so tired!

I go through periods of insomnia at least once a month and I hate it sooo much. Last night, I slept a grand total of two hours, from 1 to 3. Yeah. I did get some valuable rerun tv watching done, however. An episode of CSI, a couple episodes of Law and Order SVU's, even a Ghost Whisperer or two. (For the record, these were the extra shows tivo picked to record for me. I love some, and others not so much. But at 5am I find that the less I like a show the better for me to possibly doze off while watching it!)

Oh, and I watched the old 80's movie 'Real Genius' on hulu, too. I SO still love that movie! It totally holds up to the test of time, has awesome music (listen to it on headphones for full effect, trust me), and Val Kilmer used to be quite the hottie, I must say. ;-) If you get a free couple of hours and need some free entertainment...I highly recommend it.

Anyway, I wasn't able to nap at all today and tonight is my first night of the Fall Women's Bible study at church, so here's hoping I don't doze off while the lights are out! (We watch Beth Moore video's and it is all nice and dark and quiet...)

Oh, and I totally ate two (totally huge) glazed donuts today. Don't judge me, I NEEDED a massive sugar infusion and they so did the trick. ;-)

Later...

Monthly weigh-in

Weight this morning: 123.4
Feeling pretty good about that...one more month and I've managed to maintain the 40 pound loss for one whole year! I'm thinking of trying to lose seven more pounds over the winter...we'll see!

I've been pretty absent around here, at least it appears so. Actually, I've been writing a ton of posts that you never see. Posts that are honest, yet dark and depressing. I actually started a different blog so that I can get all of that junk out of me without boring you all with it! (If you are interested in seeing all the yuck in my brain, email me and I'll send a link...but be warned!)

Yes, I'm in a weird place yet again. Today, however, is a good day. So I'm going to just leave it at that. :)

Hope you are all doing well and enjoying what's left of your summer!

A blip?

So, I did a quick weigh-in this morning (after breakfast, even) just to see if maybe it was a fluke the other day...and I'm back down to 122 again! I was on the tail end of my monthly stuff on Sunday, so maybe that was effecting the numbers, I don't know. (Or it could have been the TWO donuts I ate on Saturday...but surely not, right?! LOL...) At any rate, I'm feeling more confident in going back to the workouts again, so that's good.

I was posting some recent pics onto facebook today and there was a recent one of me looking pretty puffy and lumpy...so now I actually have even more motivation. I really need to tone and firm. I still have all this extra, sagging skin everywhere and it's pretty annoying, not to mention that my belly still pokes out, too. I hate that! I'm thinking that some daily sit-ups are in order. ;-)

After a couple months of feeling extremely depressed and stressed, I'm feeling a bit better the past couple of days, so maybe I'll be checking in more often again. Lots of thoughts to share, not a lot of patience to get them down into a post though! The funny thing is, when I was down in the dumps these last couple of months I actually wrote a TON of blog posts that never saw the 'POST' button...

Hope everyone is enjoying the last few weeks of summer! I'm pretty ready for Fall, honestly. A regular schedule, college football, jeans and sweatshirts, bonfires and s'mores...it all sounds good to me!

Monthly weigh-in

Weight this morning: 124.2
A gain of 3.2 pounds!

UGH. This weight gain was all in the past week and guess what I started this past week? Strength training. EVERY SINGLE TIME I start strength training, I gain weight! It is SO frustrating. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do. Every time before, I stopped doing it so I could drop the few pounds gained, every time before it worked, so I suppose that is looking mighty tempting this time around, too.

Ah well...here's to next month!

Monthly weigh-in

Weight this morning: 121

Monthly weigh-in time again! Honestly, June zoomed right by me, mostly because I spent the better part of it in bed with a serious case of bronchitis and because even since I've been well, I'm kinda stuck here at home so the days are kinda all blending together into one big blob of blah. My eating has NOT been well the past few days (PMS, need I say more?) but given that I wasn't eating much at all for at least a week of my sickness, it all kinda evened out, I suppose!

I should add that my scale was acting pretty wonky today. I stepped on and off of it four different times and each time (but two) the weight was just slightly different then the rest. (119.6 and 120.4 were the other two weights, I weighed 121 twice) What the heck? Not sure what that is all about, but I took the one that showed up twice to be fair.

So anyway, here's to July, may it be a great month for us all! :)

Boring, random stuff

*I had not one, not two, but THREE blueberry muffins this morning. Now I feel pretty gross.

*I taught my daughter how to play rummy the other day, and now we play cards all day long. I used to let her win games when she was younger...now I wish she'd let me win more often.

*Remember when I said I was doing a bunch of small things to help lower our grocery bill? Yeah, about that. Not all of them took. First, my family HATED frozen concentrate OJ, and I was barely able to choke down our disgusting tap water so I basically stopped drinking water altogether. We now buy regular OJ and grocery store water again. Oh well.

*I haven't had a vehicle to drive in months now...and I've seriously become concerned with my sanity level. Stuck at home for a few days is no fun. Stuck at home for months is just plain wrong.

*For a few weeks, Walmart had Breyers Ice Cream priced at $1.98. Okay, first, Breyers is THE best ice cream out there. No really, it is. Second, that is WAY cheaper than we could buy ice cream cones...even at McDonalds which used to be our go-to summer dessert place. We we've been buying a LOT of Breyers.

*When we were at Walmart a few days ago, we noticed they'd raised the price back up to like $3.25 or something like that. Still cheap, but not less than two bucks! I was actually a little bit relieved. A couple more weeks of nightly scoops of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and I'd need to start counting calories again!

*My 13th wedding anniversary is on Monday. Pretty cool.

*Sorry about the boring random-ness of this post. Not too much going on to talk about when I've been home for the entire month of June. ;-)

Bathing suit shopping

No matter how much weight you lose, is it EVER fun trying on bathing suits? In my world, no. No it isn't. But I did find a way to make it far less painful than I thought it would be! Speed-shopping.

Yesterday I had roughly 45 minutes to find, try on, and purchase a bathing suit. I quickly tried on half a dozen, picked the least objectionable one, then paid and walked out the door with it all within that 45 minutes...no fuss, no muss. In a way, it was a blessing to be in such a hurry, because I didn't really have the time to dwell on the remaining lumps, rolls, and ever present weight-loss sag. I am still not even CLOSE to being toned, I look more like a melted candle then a fit and thin woman. Of course, I only have myself to blame, as I have still not really dedicated myself to a toning/strength training regimen. Or any regimen at all, really. I think my last workout was a month ago...

Anyway, I now own a swimming suit for the first time in a couple of years, and for the first time in about ten years it isn't one with a skirt-type bottom. (I have a very generous lower body) It is two pieces, but the top is long so they totally meet in the middle, even overlap, so it is just as good as a one-piece. The bottoms are boy-shorts, so there is adequate coverage I suppose, but not as forgiving as those wonderful skirt-bottom ones! Perhaps I'll post a pic for you guys, but it'll have to wait till I both shave my legs and let my ugly, red sunburn (with drastically different tan-lines then the suit so they REALLY stand out) fade away.

Now, if only I had a pool....

Living in a state of constantly falling apart

So, tonight has found me in the middle of a big, ugly panic attack. For the past four hours, I've been an outright mess. Thankfully, my Hubby has gotten good over the past 13 years at reading my moods and helping me work my way through them, and he hung in there with me and I'm starting to feel a bit better.

I thought I'd sit down and write a bit, maybe get some more of the junk out of my head so I'll be able to sleep, especially since it is now after 1:00 am and I'm on day who-even-knows-what (16 ? Maybe 17?) of terrible, sporadic, almost-no sleep. Seriously, my insomnia situation is starting to freak me out, but that is another post for another time!

I don't know if I've ever shared my mental issues on this blog or not, but they are a HUGE part of my life, going back into my childhood as far as I can remember. I have some depression, most of the time that part is pretty manageable, but my main issue is anxiety. High, uncontrollable anxiety. Panic attacks, chronic worry, obsessive thoughts, a paralyzing phobia. Every day, every situation, every part of my life is wrapped around and pretty much controlled by this, and frankly I'm exhausted.

Oddly, I'm getting worse with time, even though I always expected that with maturity I'd overcome it. It is starting to really scare me, the thought that by the time that I'm elderly I'll be without my Mom and possibly my husband (they are my two rocks throughout it all) and be even worse (!) and I'll not know how to survive it. This is quickly becoming one of my new obsessive fears. Nice.

One of the other things that always tended to help me deal with my mental issues was my spiritual life, but sadly I'm really struggling these days with my relationship with God. Truly, I'm angry and confused, and don't know what to do with those feelings most of the time. I usually try to bottle those feelings up and just have as much faith as I can muster...but then I come to this place time and time again. I can't ignore my questions and doubts and I come to the end of my faith. I just fall apart, and honestly every time I eventually find my way back, but during the lull I feel so lost and alone. Why is this so hard?

Phew. I'm kinda coughing up everything all in one psychotic post! Believe it or not, this is seriously just the tip of the iceberg of my mental illness. The good news is that I am actually feeling better after getting this little bit of it off of my chest! It's now 2:21 in the morning, but these days I'm quite familiar with being wide awake at this hour. I'm just happy that sleep tonight even seems like a possibility to me now...an hour ago I wasn't so sure.

So look...I'm aware that this is showing WAY more of my mess than I've exposed here in the past and I'm not going to edit it for now...perhaps with daylight I'll come to my senses and delete it, perhaps not. What difference does it really make, anyway?

Here's the thing:
1. I'm greatly flawed. Screwed up, even.
2. I'm pretty isolated in my life and don't really have many friends.
3. I can't afford therapy and I'm dealing with this non-medicated.

Those things all added up mean that I need an outlet from time to time, so if it ends up here, who am I to care? Sometimes I get tired of hiding the mess, sometimes I just plain need to blurt it all out. This? Was a bit of a blurt, I'd say. Whatever. I need sleep, obviously. :-)

Changes

Once upon a time I had a blog that WASN'T about food, exercise, and losing weight. I talked about my life, homeschooling my kid, my struggles, and my joys. Even politics. I ranted, I raved, I vented many grievances. Sometimes (oftentimes!) I even talked about nothing at all.

I made lots of friends, people I would never meet in 'real' life but who became a part of my life nonetheless. We bonded in the oddest ways and it was good...until it wasn't.

As time went on, I found myself sharing less and less of myself there, and I have no idea why. I didn't really have a bad experience, I just felt the need to move on...and so I did. Just deleted the blog one day and since then I've been completely without regret.

For the past year or so, I've had this little blog. It has been all about my struggle to lose some excess weight and keep it off...boring but helpful to me as I went along. Again, I met new people (although far fewer than the first time around) and shared a tiny bit of myself whenever the mood hit...which is also much less than the first time around. It has served it's purpose, this blog, and I've decided that instead of deleting it, I'm going to keep it around...but expand it a bit.

No longer will I feel driven to only post about my diet or exercise or (more often) the lack thereof. If I feel like posting about my favorite television show, a funny trip to the grocery store, something I read in the news, whatever...I shall. Does that mean I'll post more often? No idea. I'd love to say yes, but I know myself well! Does this mean that this blog will be as exhaustive as my original blog was at one time? Not even close.

I'll most likely continue to NOT post about my daughter or husband much, simply because I began to feel like I was sharing too much on the other blog and perhaps as my daughter gets older she won't be appreciative of her life being discussed online!

I'll most likely not be as political or controversial as I once was, because I've moved on from that place in my life. I've learned that the less I concern myself with such things, the better. I suppose in a way I'm the person I used to be so frustrated with -- bury my head in the sand and hope things will all work out -- but I have enough stress in my life, thankyouverymuch! Although I do occasionally still discuss those things with dear Hubby, I've no desire to share my opinions with others these days.

So anyway, just the heads up in case anyone cares. :-)