Ridiculous I tell ya!

​I sometimes think my life is straight out of some looney toon cartoon!  Expect the unexpected is what I need to start saying in relation to my life!   This last week has been exactly that!   Rashes, car breakdowns, rain,  x crazy dog, etc.   ok, the dog is a puppy…so she is supposed to be crazy!  But otherwise, life has been nuts!

Rainy Weather 

So let’s start with the weather.    It was overcast and rainy for about a week and a half.  When the sun would shine long enough to actually mow, I would be working!   We even had hail three times…that I know about! (Picture of hail on the front deck below)  So the grass was growing like crazy!    

Yes, I know.  Rain and fast growing grass is be expected in April and May!  Thankfully, this weekend we had some sunny weather and we were able to get out and mow.   The grass was so long that we had to go much slower.  So what can usually be done in a combined 7 hours took about 9.  Fun fun!   But hey, push mowing is good exercise right?

Around the house we also got a few things planted.  My father in law put up some shelves that had formerly been in their garage.  And he started to build me a counter to fit into the great abyss.  My washer and dryer sit at a right angle to each other …not side by side.   That leaves a corner of space that I can’t access or use in the Landry room.  It is annoying because it’s not only dead space, but I have dropped stuff back there and have to contort…or move a machine to extract it!  So I had a grand idea of putting up a table/counter back there.    It’s in the works!   It is half built at the moment..:but it’s on the way!   I also got a plan in my head for a rocky hill that sits along the road.  Right now it is all weedy and overgrown (and an eyesore).  I have a plan in my head for how to turn the eyesore into something that at least looks like we care…if not is pretty!

Car Breakdowns

It’s the old car…the one that Jason typically uses to commute to work.  Last year , the car was giving us a warning light..and then up and died on the side of a highway.  The alternator went out.   The mechanic that we went to had the car for like two months and well…we will NEVER go back there due to some other issues.  But hey, the car was running.  Or was it.  We actually didn’t drive that car much in the next 6-7 months as Jason was injured….(you can read about the axe accident here).    He went back to work in late February.  And by mid April he mentioned that the light was flickering again….intermittently.   We took it to our new mechanic…and they ran all sorts of tests.  Drove it.   Checked the alternator.  You name it.  Everything was good.  The mechanic was like, we can put in a new alternator if you want.   But the mechanic went on to say, ‘honestly, if it were my car I would run that one until it goes out…then put the new one in.   So that is what we did.   This morning the alternator went out while Jason was on his way to work. …like he is quite literally waiting for the tow truck as I write this.

Car problems …yuck!!!

Poison

Last fall we had been working on cleaning the brush piles and all the overgrowth by our shed.  It was going smashingly (until the aforementioned axe accident).   Except….I picked up poison!  That was in lots of places on my body.   Like really? How?   I would be in misery for about three weeks and have a week or so reprieve and then boom…I would contract it again.   For about three months.  Then it was gone….no more poison…and blew side mi the of peaceful skin!   Until two weeks ago…back in the same area.  I was so careful!  Long  pants.  Long sleeves.  Gloves.  I was cognizant of where I touched my body …keeping my hands away from my face, etc.  and I scrubbed down with strong soap afterward.    Three days later it began.   And it spread.  And spread.   I seriously have poison just about Al everywhere!   I kid you not!  I think my feet are the only thing not affected!   I seriously have poison underneath my bra!   How????   I’m counting the days until this bout is history!

Jason luckily, is immune.   So I have made my vow that I will not be helping to finish clear that area.  He is on his own!   We try not to use poison since we have animals, but we have caved because we need this poison gone!    

 Fun fun!

Points Challenge

I started my points challenge on May 1.   You can read about the points challenge plan here.   It is going well.  I am adding up my points.  I know that there is room for improvement.  But it has also opened ky eyes to a few ‘problem areas’.  For example.  The first day I only earned 2 points for fruits and veggies!   That’s horrible.  So I have been really making an effort to rebuild the habit of lots of fresh fruits and veggies!  

So it’s working to help me bring awareness to what I’m doing on a variety of different levels!

Weigh In

So I restarted and got more focused on my health at the beginning of may.  I started my challenge.  I have been wracking up points.  How am I doing?

I have  no real clue.  I have hopped onto the scales once or twice.  However, I haven’t really paid attention to the numbers or what is happening.  Why?  I’m fighting a mammoth case of poison.  I am full of potions and lotions.   Medicine messes up and skews the numbers on the scale.  So I am just staying the course…the weight will drop and when this poison is behind me and my body can go back to normal, then I will find my weight!  Until then, carry on business as usual!

Emotions

I am battling some serious emotions and feelings.   This last  year had been wave after wave of depressive feelings.  It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions.  It’s been extremely difficult.  I feel like I’m pulling out of it and then I get kicked in the teeth again.   (Or at least it feels that way). I know that my emotional state affects my weight loss efforts.  And the reduced weight loss just plays into those emotions exacerbating some of the stuff that I am already feeling.  It’s just difficult!   I’m fighting it though.  I’m fighting the urge to just let myself sink into a depression. I’m gonna make it.

So that is the update on my crazy life.  I’m fighting for my mental health and my physical health!   I’m determined to win!

A Year for the Record Books

​I’m telling you, this year is the year that is just not letting up!  It’s been one thing after the other!  Some good others bad!  It’s been nuts!

The first part of the year was swallowed up whole as we hunted for and bought a house. 

We settled on our house and then commenced the never ending move that stretched almost two complete months. We finished the move, drove back to the apartment (an hour and fifteen minutes away from our house) grabbed the last and turned in our key…and smiled because life would slow down then!  And quite literally my mom had a stroke the next day.    The madness of life continued as I tried to continue taking care of the house, the yard, put in my  time at work and make trips to see mom.  (I’m about 35 minutes away so any visit starts with an hour of travel time.  

Summer flew by like crazy as I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off.   I literally fell into the habit of cleaning the house at 6am…why?  Because that is when I could carve out a few minutes to do it.  I can clean the toilets and the bathroom sinks on my 15 minute breaks from work….which is what I do. I prep foods for dinner during my lunch break so that I can clear up an evening to go see mom after work.   I literally run around trying to make the most of every minute.  (Jason works a 9-1 hour day and has a 1 hour commute each way…..so his time is just as limited.).  I kept my head above the water…even though it felt like it was just barely.  

My weight maintained but only because I remained so busy.

I started Weight Watchers at the beginning of September and and had some success as I lost almost 10 pounds in that first month.  I was tickled too because I was super stressed due to some fear about the longevity of my job.  The end of August and most of September also marked a nice vicious case of poison.  All over my arms, legs and torso.  I pushed through with over the counter medication, but did not have a fun 3-4 weeks.  Things started to turn at the end of September.  The poison cleared up for the last week of the month.  Even better, at the very end of September I found out that my job was secure.  The timing for both of those things was perfect as  we had the first week off for vacation and to celebrate our anniversary. 

Our vacation was a staycation.  We decided to do a few little things local but to stay at home and work on the shed.   The shed on our property needed some love.  The leanto portion on the back was ready to cave in.  So we spent the week clearing the brush around the shed,  tearing that down (the leanto is 20x10), burning everything in the fire pit (one piece at a time) and starting the rebuild process.   I actually managed to maintain my weight over our vacation week. That is all thanks to being so active because I was ravenous the whole time!   

 On the third day of our vacation, I woke up and felt some itchiness…yes, I had managed to attract poison AGAIN.  (This was actually before we cleared the brush…so go figure).   The poison kept getting worse.  So bad that I ended up in the Urgent Care on the first day back to work after vacation.  They gave me steroids and sent me on my way.   

Steroids…well you know what that did to my weight!   Seeing it pop up did something to my mental capacity and will power and I began to struggle with tracking my food.    Oh, and the worst part of it?  The steroids did NOTHING for the poison and rashes!  Oh my word, the poison was so horrible!  What I thought was a bad case in September was nothing compared to this!  My complete torso was covered…my legs..arms, neck and even patches on my face.  My torso and thighs were the worst and I maintained this fire engine red color for weeks.  It wasn’t just itchy…it was painful.  Horrible!   Finally about the third to fourth week of October the bright red and terrible pain and itch had passed leavening me with dry scales skin.   I am still dealing with that and with bouts of itchiness.   What a month!

At the end of October they started to talk about sending mom home from Rehab.  She is super excited.  My brother and I not as much.  She is NOT ready to live on her own and we know it.  Ratchet up the stress another notch.

And then on October 27th, I went to visit mom after work.  I drove home and got home after dark.   I pulled in and saw Jason at the chopping block splitting down some firewood.  All was completely normal as I got out of the car.  I turned to head into the house and Jason had already gone inside.  I walked into the kitchen and noticed Jason bent over, but I was rushing to get dinner on the stove and in the oven since it was so late.  I greeted Jason and his words weee ‘I just cut myself’.  I asked if it was bad, still not shifting my focus from the stove and my dinner plans.    ‘Yes, really bad, I need to go to an urgent care’. I turned, shocked because he avoids doctors at all costs! That is when actually took stock of my kitchen…aka the crime scene.  Yeah, the axe slipped…went through his shoe…through his sock and right into his foot.  I grabbed a clean towel for him (he was using his sock to try to staunch the blood) and we headed out to urgent care.   Just as a side note…if you arrive with a foot wrapped in a blood soaked towel, they hustle you right back to a room.  The doctor wakes in soon thereafter and took one look at his foot and said ‘yeah, you most likely severed a tendon’ and sent us to the ER.  (They wrapped the foot …so that he was not leaking blood everywhere…which was nice of them, but slowed down our care in the ER as he was at that point not a bleeding priority).   X-rays and a phone consult with a podiatrist as they were also not sure of the status of his tendons.  We got home super late and I scrubbed the kitchen floor at 2AM and then went to bed.  I was up at 4:30 and out the door early for some other things concerning mom’s discharge…but made it back home in time to take Jason to his appointment with the specialist.  The specialist ordered an MRI because the tendon damage possibility could still not be determined.  Well on Monday we had the MRI and got the results.  He severed one tendon and nicked a second tendon.  Surgery or no surgery.  It’s possible they will heal on their own.  But possible that he needs surgery.  It’s up in the air and I believe we are going to try the least invasive, no surgery option.   At the worst, he will need surgery eventually.  At the best…it heals on its own.    So he is supposed to be no. Weight bearing for the next couple weeks…then a restrictive boot for a few more weeks.     Yes, I’m stressed to the max!

Ohhh and he can’t work…his employer is a small business with only a handful of employees…there is no short term disability.  We are now (and for the unforseeable future) a one paycheck family.    I’m trying to remain calm.  But it’s difficult.

So life is crazy.  So very crazy.  My eating has been steady…but not great.    My emotions are in an uproar as I feel like I am failing at everything I do.  Trying to do it all and falling short at everything.   Last night I sat on the couch trying to occupy my mind and I had a thought.  It was a thought that I had held onto tightly during the end of my marriage.   And that thought and mantra was ‘I can not control much of what is happening in my life and surroundings.  But I CAN control what food I put into my mouth’.  (For the most part…at 1AM leaving the ER having not eating in 14 hours…there wasn’t many options for where to pick up dinner…but I still had control over what I ordered.).    

  So if my food is the only thing I can control….control it!!!    This, this morning I pulled out my WW app and I have entered my food into the tracker.  I’m going to revel in the control I can have!!!

Love Hate

I have a definite love hate relationship with running.  Sick as I was on Monday (and I don't remember much about monday...I pretty much spent from 12:30 AM until about 9PM on the recliner, sleeping), I still asked the doctor when I could resume running.  Yeah, even after my torturous run on Saturday I was concerned about running.  She kinda laughed at me running on Thursday but she cleared me to run.  Well, it's Wednesday night and I'll say pretty definitively that I will NOT be running tomorrow morning.  At this point I'm HOPING for this weekend.

And here is where the love comes in.....I reallly kinda miss running.  I did get out in the car twice today as a passenger. As I rode down the roads that I typically run I found myself thinking "I run on this road"  with a sound of nostalgic longing evident in my mental voice.   Wow...go figure.

Today I actually sat upright and tried to move around a bit more.  I feel sluggish and slow but no where near as exhausted.   The cough, rattle in my chest and the tightness in my chest has not let up though.  GRRR   And the rash...that the doctor said would respond immediately to the oral steroid regime is still kicking loud and strong.   Lucky me!

The longer this goes on, the more concerned I'm going to be about this half marathon.  I don't have much wiggle room in my training schedule.   Right now I feel I can probably still recover from this week of involuntary enforced lethargy.    We shall see.

The good news from my week of sickness???  Even with being on an oral steroid which apparently causes weight gain (water retention) I have dropped 6.4 pounds.   True pounds?  We shall see if I can maintain the through next week (or through whenever I am well again!!)

So my poor little Ethel....she has arthritis really bad in her back legs and doesn't jump up on furniture anymore....I left her up if I am around (and set her down when she wants down).  I was laying on the couch yesterday and I thought it was mertz nosing around....but before I knew it...my little achy kitty cat had somehow crawled herself up onto the couch to be with her mommy!   I moved over to allow her to lay with me.  She was so proud of herself.   She has spent hours with me on the couch yesterday and today.  HOURS.  That first visit when she was so proud she stayed with me for 6 hours straight. (no, I didn't move either).    She does nap but overall she is a GREAT nurse!