Shallow.
April 28, 2009
I think gifts are nice.
Nice.
Not great, but nice.
I’ve never really been huge on receiving gifts – always been the girl that was much more into reading the cards and saving those.
I don’t really know why – I’m as materialistic as women get – I think it’s just that I like picking out things myself.
I do like ‘just because’ gifts – not so much for the gift itself, but because of the thought put into it.
I love ‘just because’ cards.
But what I hate – gifts for birthdays around Christmas, wrapped in Christmas paper. brothers and sisters with close birthdays not getting separate parties. receiving a gift for my birthday a month in advance.
Things like that just set a pall on it for me.
Make it not as much fun – not as thoughtful or loving in a way.
Doesn’t mean it’s not given with as much thought and love as I could dream of – just…
it ruins it.
Like finding out a surprise accidentally, instead of being actually surprised.
I’m going to feel partially deflated until the 19th because of it.
Thoughts in a bubble.
April 27, 2009
I don’t know why the time seems to be passing by so quickly.
Being stuck in a mental haitus over this court bit is painful, but at the same time, it’s refreshing – I can’t travel the anxiety highway at high speeds for months in a row.
I don’t think anyone can.
Wedding planning is what it is.
I’m trying to figure out the point of wedding favors at the moment.
While they can be so cute stacked up on the table, they seem to me to be a pointless waste for the most part.
I’m glad the club has so many rules about what can and can not be used for our send off.
It definitely limits choices.
I’m not sure I’m going to go this route.
Nick’s trip was pretty good – we’ve discovered talking about the wedding brings us nothing but headaches, but after he realized that I’m still the woman he loves and not a taffeta-wearing-bride-of-Frankenstein he calmed down.
I hate that he’s gone now.
He brought me the puppy – she and I both have been moping.
The five months to go part is exciting, but in the way that roller coasters are.
I’m slowly going up the first hill of the coaster and the clacking around me and speed are driving me insane…
But when it gets here tons of things will happen at once and I’ll still be insane.
As long as it’s good insane.
Registered for my wedding.
I never realized how wonderful it is to register for things.
It’s like having the shopaholic bug, feeding it, and not hurting your checkbook in the process.
You FEEL as though you’ve accomplished the most amazing shopping trip of your life – and yet you’ve none of the pain to show for it.
They told me to register for everything I liked and I did.
I just didn’t realize I’d like SOOO much.
Ah well, lesson learned.
At least I know there will be a lot of things I don’t get – and that I’ll like everything I do.
It still was a lot of fun.
I feel like I’m floating along lately – you’re getting the worst of me, though if the worst is only negligence to an online unread community, then I suppose we’ll all survive.
That’s nice.
To have the worst in me at the moment not be so bad.
As the days wear on.
April 14, 2009
Met with a DJ today.
Liked him.
Booked him.
Wondering if I can talk him into wearing a powder blue leisure suit.
The real reason I’m not the next Emily Post.
April 13, 2009
I’ve figured out something.
It’s bad when you think something tactless and don’t catch it until the moment the words escape your mouth.
It’s worse when you don’t catch it until 6 or 7 hours later.
I would hazard a guess as to the side of the family that particular genetic anomaly stems from.
And either way I’d guess I’d be correct.
It’s good to have a balanced amount of unbalance on both sides.
Keeps things eventful and yet, strangely predictable.
How fast does taffeta burn, anyway?
April 13, 2009
I’ve decided that three days is the perfect length of weekend – despite the fact that I’ve yet to accomplish anything.
That doesn’t mean I’d have said no to a fourth.
I’ve got quite the weekend coming up – sort of a family visit meets the hell of wedding planning that should tell me a lot about the years to come.
It’s not that I don’t like hosting – it’s that I suck at it, having grown up in a house where everything is very much ‘serve yourselves.’
Until I visited Krista, I didn’t realize that friends visiting other friends get waited on and/or spoiled.
Sure, I got the pick up the meal when you can afford to part… but the other?
Things that my Mother In Law does? Like setting aside towels and little gifts and shopping for each and every person visiting?
I feel a bit like I’m in Oz and Willy Wonka’s factory every time I visit either of them.
But things like that don’t occur to me until AFTER people leave.
Ah well.
So this will be a hosting event on a much larger scope than I’m used to.
Which should be interesting.
I can’t juggle, so hopefully there will be other forms of entertainment.
Like me shoving wedding dresses into small barrels and burning them for the sheer joy of it.
To make things fun, I might throw in people that enjoy planning and throwing such events and cashiers at various markets that ring up my purchases while on the cell phone.
Cave dweller.
April 9, 2009
My imagination is, and will always be, the death of my practicality.
Two days into this diet that killed my ability to have starches and simple carbs and I literally want to tear people to shreds.
Now. The question is – is it because I’m not supposed to have them, or is there something that my body really craves in them that it’s not getting?
Two days shouldn’t be enough, but already I’ve started feeling just not great.
Rather like having my back hurt just because yours does.
I’m clueless as to how I’m supposed to eat more than 1200 calories without soda – much less 2000.
And I’m wondering also if this feeling has to do with the fact that I didn’t buy any beef of any sort – nor pork. I’m allowed to have them, but having long wanted to go towards more bird-related and/or vegetarian ‘meats’ because of the heaviness involved after consuming a beef meal, I took this opportunity to fill my cabinets with meat from both sides to see which I like the best.
I’m a little disgruntled that I can’t have my staple Morning Star Chikn Nuggets (why are they spelled that way?) but at the same time, I have to assume that the rather built-for-endurance trainers I have at my disposal probably know a bit more than someone that is considered obese by BMI standards.
(excuse me while I daydream about cupcakes.)
Why am I such a baby?
The simple truth?
Imagination and power of suggestion.
I am woefully susceptible to both, and found myself drooling last night at my father’s Subway sandwich.
Only because I knew I couldn’t have it.
I am the wimp of wimps.
My dinner of Egg Beaters, spinach, and turkey sausage in a scrambled sort of colorful mix was actually fantastic – I would eat it every night if my system wouldn’t object eventually – not to mention the trainer.
I just don’t respond well to change.
Any change.
And right now – the change is starches.
Thank GOD I have something to whine about other than the wedding and the custody battle.
Starches seem a weak third topic, but a topic nevertheless.
Ah, sweet potato fries, how I miss thee.
Take that, Martha Stewart.
April 7, 2009
I think what’s always kept us on the right track is that no matter whether we have good days or bad days, we’re comfortable and we ENJOY each other.
There’s a lot to be said for having someone around that knows you so well.
Nick and I met online a little over four years ago – he was in grad school, I was working hard hours as a single mom.
I’d never wanted to marry; I had never thought that that kind of commitment was for me.
I was a 24 year old single mother and planned to stay that way – and then he looked up at me in Starbucks with that shy little grin.
I was a goner.
There have been ups and downs. For the first two years of our relationship we were in the same city, but once Nick got his PhD two years ago, he moved to Minneapolis to continue working on his career and I stayed behind to continue working and raising my daughter.
But we’ve made it through.
The day that Nick proposed was actually a bad one. I’d had enough of the distance – I missed him terribly and thought that because we hadn’t made plans to meet in the middle that this distance was going to last forever.
I met him in Minneapolis to talk – to decide our next step – and the first day was brutal because we had so much fun and I just knew that I couldn’t live 14 hours away when I wanted to be with him every day.
The next day I laid out all my grievances. I talked to him about missing him, about wanting him around for the day to day, about compromise. We talked for hours and eventually decided to take a break to take our baby (our beagle Alchemy) to Loring Park to get some fresh air – where she proceeded to roll in the mud and chase squirrels amidst the gorgeous flowers.
And that’s when he proposed. After all the talking, all the months of missing him, with our incredibly muddy dog at our feet, the cathedral bells ringing around us, and flowers everywhere.
It couldn’t have been more us.
Couldn’t have been more perfect.
He had listened to me talk and offered up support and solutions for hours and then proposed – having had the ring for months, waiting for a time to surprise me.
And he did. And I said yes.
I’d never planned on a husband, but found one anyway.
And not only that, but I found a man that would hold me when I’m crying, listen when I’m upset about anything, make me laugh when I can’t find my way out of a dark day, and surprise me when no one else can.
He stood beside me for four years, through ups and downs, and beside me for that awkward weekend when we spent so much time fighting for us.
So while my proposal wasn’t classically romantic and full of flowery details, what it was full of was the realization that no matter what, we’re both in this together. I can count on him not to run away from the problem, count on him to communicate, count on him for support, respect, and love and to sometimes cross that line and meet me beyond the middle.
I couldn’t be happier to be planning to marry this wonderful man.
Missing confidence… and carbohydrates.
April 7, 2009
I’m bouncing with the lack of satisfaction in my life at the moment.
Not unhappiness…
Satisfaction.
And caffeine.
I know I’m supposed to put the soda down, but you really wouldn’t like to see me this morning without some caffeine.
And it’s not that I can’t quit, but it’s more a Zoloft-induced “Why the hell should I?”
At least it’s not diet. No aspartame. No wonderful formaldehyde clogging my body.
The filing on my desk is glaring at me, daring me to do something with it. And I will – today, perhaps.
Abbey has a therapy appointment at 2:45 and although I don’t want to go anywhere that requires moving at the moment, I will – I have to give the therapist written permission to talk to the guardian ad litem, whom I have not heard from.
I have a gym session tonight – and a nutritional counseling. It should be fun, considering the fact that I eat junk, have always eaten junk, and even though I combine that with healthy food, I don’t believe the two cancel each other out. I have never eaten on a regular schedule – can’t envision what eating 3 meals a day would be like, much less 6 – who gets hungry that many times in a day?
And the worst part? I simply gag at the taste of fresh crunchy vegetables.
It’s not like crackers – one crunch and that’s about it.
It’s crunch after crunch after crunch.
The mouth version of a chalkboard screech.
Mostly that’s the problem.
Raw carrots I just plain ole detest.
I’m nervous.
Nervous about doing something.
Nervous that I’ll psych myself out of it before I even get started.
Nervous it won’t make a difference.
Nervous that I’ll end up at the point where I think surgery is a good idea again, just because I don’t want to look this way anymore.
I’m nervous that Nick will agree – that he won’t think I’ll have done enough.
And I think I’m nervous because I might be giving up my illusion of control. That I put these bad things in my body as a choice instead of a long-overdue-to-be-broken habit. An addiction. My own addiction… to having been used to being small, to being able to eat whatever I wanted and the superiority that comes along with that.
And being reduced to this failure – this getting older where your body betrays you.
And so I’m nervous because I wonder if I CAN do this.
And if I can’t, what that means about my own personal control.
So you see, over all I’m worried that I don’t have what it takes.
For so many people, this is so easy.
They get up, they go to the gym, and they keep their bodies in shape.
I love working out, so that’s not much of a stretch.
But the eating.
How people can eat right, eat only veggies, eat things without those wonderful embalming preservatives – that amazes me.
Haven’t they ever tasted those?
What happens to make them so self aware that they make the right decisions JUST to make the right decisions?
Nick and I would disagree – but the truth is that we both eat crappily. He simply adds more veggies as snacks into the overall awfulness, but he’s a man full of starches, empty calories, and preservatives as well.
How are we supposed to teach, in the future, what it’s been impossible for us to learn?
For me, for weight, for health.
For him, for health?
Overall I’m blowing this one period in my life out of proportion, but I’m seeing the effect the choices my family and I have made showing up on my child, who isn’t built to be as thin as I was, who has a slower metabolism than I started with.
Every day with this matters.
And I want to do right.
Hopefully having someone hold me accountable will make a difference.
Still I feel this morning as though I’m fighting a losing – and uphill – battle.
Some Wishes. #1? A nap.
April 6, 2009
What is it about going somewhere out of town that, no matter how much fun you have, you always breathe a sigh of relief when coming home?
Even if the house is a wreck, as mine was.
Even if there is no laundry done, as mine wasn’t.
There’s just something about sitting on your own couch that no other feeling can replicate.
I wish I’d had a good night’s rest, but I didn’t.
I can’t really explain why.
Perhaps it’s the several tons of junk food that I ate this weekend in the pursuit of fried happiness.
My trainer will be so pissed on Tuesday, but you know what? A little anger is good for the soul.
I’m simply helping her process feelings better than she might have otherwise.
Besides. We haven’t had the nutrition talk yet. So this weekend doesn’t count.
I went into Tennessee to visit with my soon-to-be sister in law Amanda and my BIL Jesse.
Jesse’s quite the hottie and Amanda’s quite the beautiful lady.
I can’t help but think they’ll have gorgeous kids.
Not that that really has much to do with anything.
Just a random observation that slips out do to my overwhelming tiredness.
I’m still pissed about JC.
I clicked on the contact all friends and favorites list – a good majority I already know how to reach.
But it seemed easier than going down the line when all that just pissed me off more.
It seems a weak excuse to me when I know just what Dave went through trying to keep ITW going.
How much money came out of his own pocket.
How working on it was a full time job for him – in addition to his actual full time job.
And it was just him!
So to come suddenly and say they can’t do it anymore without any warning or software malfunction – I have to give them low marks.
Whether or not it was a shoddy site or not doesn’t really matter – it was much better suited than this one for noting and reply purposes and I’m going to miss that very basic format.
Abbey was a terror this morning.
Not in the ‘hang her by her toes’ way, but in the way that suggests that things are moving right along with her hormones.
She left her hair curly – it’s getting curly as she gets older… where the hell did she get that from?!!? – for the Easter egg hunt yesterday at the church with Melissa and her two siblings…
(Slight interruption here as I ponder the humor of allowing kids to search for Easter eggs on church grounds that also hosts a haunted house on Halloween and then telling me, the CATHOLIC, that I’m going to hell…)
… she didn’t seem to realize it would be very interesting the next morning when she woke up.
And it was.
And it was THE. END. OF. HER. LIFE.
Apparently bad hair days are much more traumatic than they used to be – and the fact that I had warned her it would happen in the hopes of getting her to shower before bed didn’t matter because her SOUL had withered due to the frizzy mass of tangles.
And then she burned her finger with the straightener.
DO YOU HEAR ME?
BURNED her FINGER.
I tried to call the hospital to get the Med to send the helicopter, but no such luck.
Apparently she’ll just have to live with it today.
Doesn’t anyone understand that that’s too much to deal with in one day? A soul withering and a burned finger?
Life is SO unfair.
Welcome to my world.
Step in, the water’s tumultuous.
The big ones.
April 3, 2009
I believe my brain has become incapable of making plans and sticking to them.
Things that I want to do often get overruled by the tiredness in my body or in my bones.
Because they’re too different things you know.
My social life used to be varied and colorful.
Full of different people and places and events and situations.
But the Mom factor has kicked in and I’m afraid that lately I find myself at work, in the gym, consoling my 12 year old, or sitting on the couch knitting or reading.
There isn’t anything wrong with that – other than the fact that you don’t simply sit and read. You sit and read and eat Oreos.
It’s a law. Google it.
So, this lifestyle has led to a great many complications – I’ve disconnected with people I love, people that make me laugh, and a life that provided a lot more energy than I seem to have at my disposal lately.
I got my hair cut yesterday – always a fun event for me, since it’s a luxury I rarely allow myself, but I’ve never been able to carry on conversations with hair dressers and am not sure that it will ever improve.
But with this new hermit ability of mine, my lack of talking earlier has now become a good imitation of a deaf mute.
How rude have I become?
How out of touch?
Even here, this place that is so totally my own, I have aspirations and plans for what I’d like to do – and absolutely no knowledge.
How does one sit on their butt and live solely for the life of their family?
What happened to me saying I would always keep a part for me? To keep myself from becoming one of those women with no friends who lives entirely vicariously through their children?
I have two subjects of late.
Abbey/custody battle (which to me run one and the same) and the wedding.
And what SANE person wants to hear about either?
The people that love me can pick up the phone, but you – the absolute public – stranger danger – don’t give a rat’s ass.
And I don’t care about your wedding either.
Weddings are stupid.
Marriages are something else.
Why do the two ever have to meet?
So the point is that I feel as though I have no point.
No reason.
An ability to answer the phone at work and to knit socks and such in the off time is hardly a lifetime pursuit and the one avenue I can even see myself heading in at the moment has been derailed by my fiance and his need to plan everything and fit everyone into their own globule.
I know so much of who I am and like so much of what’s inside of me and my character at this point in my life that is seems a shame not to share it with everyone else.
:: cough cough ::
Okay.
I really mean that it seems a shame not to find something that makes me truly happy – that I can count on, that pays more than the bills, but doesn’t rip out my soul.
Telling someone they’ve lost everything they’ve worked for – well, it rips at you.
And so I guess the real quandary at this point would be where I go from here – this job, this story, this point in my life.
And no one makes a ‘find Lish a perfect job’ dartboard.
Which has made this search entirely more difficult than it needed to be.
