Weight a minute; Fat's not what I said

I've been feeling pretty crappy for quite some time now-physically, mentally, and emotionally. There's not much I can do about some of it except find better ways of dealing with it. However, I know that I need to take better care of some aspects of my health & that will help with other parts. First and foremost, I need to lose a significant amount of weight. Heart problems & diabetes are on both sides of my family, so I need to do whatever I can to prevent these in myself. When I saw that one of the awesome gals I follow on Twitter, Mother Tongue, (AKA: Heather) & a friend of hers had decided to launch BlogapaLOSEa today, I debated it for a few days, discussed it w/Hubs, made excuses w/myself why I COULDN'T do it...and then signed up to do it. I need the support, people. I hope my support will help the others that are doing this. The contest ends 5 days before my birthday & honestly, even if I don't win, it would still be a great birthday present to have lost some weight, gained some friends & be healthier.

This is a full-length shot of me; something I avoid like the plague, but a new one will be posted every week for the next 12 weeks. According to my scale (lying bastard!!), I need to lose 60 lbs to get to my reasonable goal weight. You'll notice I haven't shared my current weight or goal weight with you...I'm just not ready for that yet. maybe once I start losing a little bit. Those of you who know me, if the suspense is killing you or something, email me & I may be persuaded to tell you.
Things I'm doing to kick this off: Trying to remember to eat during the day. That may sound counter-productive, but one of my epilepsy medications tends to make me tired & just "blah", and I don't eat until dinnertime-then I eat a huge dinner & snack all evening. Oh, except for the Dr. Pepper that I sip on all day...It's generally only one 20 oz, but I think I'd like to try to turn that into several glasses of water, or caffeine-free iced tea w/Splenda. One of the most important things: I have to get off my ass & exercise. Thanks to Craigslist, Freecycle, Cheapcyle & other second-hand sources, we have a fairly nice home gym with a treadmill, elliptical, recumbant bike, Ablounge sport, 2 different size exercise balls, and a variety of bands & weights. Now all I have to do is dig them out from under the mounds of boxes & other crap piled around them and actually use them for their intended purpose. Hey! That will count as exercise too!

I do not expect to lose the entire 60 lbs in the next 12 weeks-that would be an unrealistic & unhealthy goal. However, I will be going from a somewhat sedentary lifestyle to a more active one, I will be eating & drinking better, and I'm hoping to see at least half if not a little more of it gone!

The Mantra of the Month in September's Shape magazine was just the inspiration I needed:

"I will change...gradually."

"Big changes are tough to maintain. If you make your goals too monumental, you risk feeling disappointment when you can't get there fast enough-and you could give up. This month focus on modifying your life incrementally. So before you commit to making every meal from scratch, brown-bag it a few times a week. Or instead of immediately trying to run five miles, go just one and then add on a few minutes each time you work out. Small steps won't get get you where you want to be quickly, but they'll get you there, and that's what's most important.
~Jared Matthew Weiss

I'm going to cut it out & put it on my fridge to remind me that this is a journey...and a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single Stepp!

Dumbening

Lisa: [writing] Dear log, can it be true? Does every Simpson go through a process of dumbening? "Hey, that's not how you spell 'dumbening'. Wait a minute… 'dumbening' isn't even a word!"

I had to start off with that Simpsons quote because it describes how I've been feeling lately pretty accurately...I've been experiencing a dumbening. The technical medical term for it is Psychomotor Slowing, and it's a side effect of both my epilepsy & the medication I take to treat it. But seriously folks, how many of you would know what the hell I was talking about if I threw that term at you? What it amounts to is that I'm feeling incredibly frustrated because there are things I *KNOW* I should know how to do, but can't remember, or can't concentrate on. I have several unfinished craft projects in the basement, including my son's baby/toddler blanket. I used to be able to fill notebook after notebook with stories & poetry, and now sometimes I have to force myself to sit down & return an email. Earlier this week, I wanted to take a picture of my son, so I picked up our digital camera & then just looked at it...because I couldn't remember how to turn the damn thing on! It wouldn't have been so bad, but for the fact that my 4-year-old daughter was standing right next to me and said "Why aren't you turning it on, Mommy?" Right then, I was so upset & frustrated, I pretty much wanted to hurl the camera on the floor in a big dramatic scene. However, since that would have terrified my daughter (and since I'm not stupid enough to throw an expensive piece of equipment on the floor), I simply said, "Oh, I think it's too dark in here to take a picture." By the way, you just push the button on top of the freakin' thing to turn it on...I remembered that about 1 full minute after my son stopped doing what I wanted to take a picture of.

I don't know if having 2 seizures in one day a few weeks ago (which I haven't done in approx. 20 years!) fried off a few extra brain cells or what, but it just seems like I have to work a little harder to concentrate & I've been mixing up more words. Of course, my neurologist did increase my medication after that, so that probably also has some influence. I see my doc on Friday & can chat with her about it, but honestly, I doubt we'll do much because this is probably the best med I've been on. I've been on one that made my weight balloon up, made me nauseous (at the same time!), made me suicidally depressed & made my hair fall out in clumps; one that made my hair fall out in huge handfulls & made me pretty sleepy; one that made me want to sleep 20 hours/day & a few that really just didn't work for me. Oh yeah, there was the one we talked about putting me on that can cause a toxic rash...have I mentioned that I'm paler than my red-headed husband & have pretty sensitive skin, prone to odd rashes? Yeah, let's jump right on that one-NOT!

So many people I talk to are amazed that I'm not more upset by not being able to drive for months at a time, or not being allowed to take baths-having to shower instead, which is hilarious to me since I've had 2 separate seizures in the shower, or the precautions I have to take with my kids. Well, I don't care about driving; sure it's a little inconvenient when I want to go somewhere NOW & have to wait until someone is available to take me, but hey-I have 2 kids...when do I get to go anywhere I want to go anyway? We've had to make some adjustments & thank goodness my husband's work schedule is flexible so that he's been able to get our daughter to/from preschool. It would be easier if we had public transportation, but unless I hijack one of the cows from the farm that backs up to our subdivision, I don't think that's an option.

I'm actually looking forward to the Epilepsy Walk in 2 weeks so that I can meet some other local people with varying kinds of epilepsy. I hope we manage to not only raise money for epilepsy research but also awareness/support. I want them to find medications that will stop seizures without the "dumbening" or other horrible side effects. Better yet, I want them to find a way to just stop the seizures...no medications required. What I *REALLY* want more than anything, is to know that my children won't have to deal with this like I did.
Our team page for the Epilepsy Walk: www.tinyurl.com/Steppilepsy

I didn't mean for this to just be one big, long whiiiiiine. (O Noes! Someone call the Wahhhhmbulance!) While there are some very real problems that go along w/this disorder, there are some very real annoyances too. I mean c'mon, sometimes I just like to stare off into space & daydream...don't you? And you don't have to ask me if I'm feeling OK *every* time I mix up words or pause to gather my thoughts...however, if I'm flopping around on the floor like a fish out of water, feel free to provide assistance. All in all, I always have considered myself one of the luckiest epileptics because I've talked to & seen people who have it so much worse. When Hubs & I were going through our fertility treatments, I stumbled across a quote that I saved because I thought it fit it many areas of my life, and it definitely fits here:

There will always be someone whose suffering is greater than yours,
It does not mean your pain doesn't matter.

Moving Day

I've decided to re-start my blog here, so I've moved the (pitiful) 2 entries I had on my old site. And I had to laugh when I noticed that the 1st was in Feb, the 2nd was in April & I plan on starting up again this month (June)...apparently, I'm on the blog-every-2-months plan. What can I say? I've always been sort of a non-traditional, do things my own way kinda' gal.


Speak No Evil 04/01/2009

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My husband has written on his blog about some of the things children say and I just thought I'd expand on it, especially since yesterday morning provided me with the perfect opportunity.
I was dozing on the couch (as I am wont to do since my children have a habit of rising before the roosters) when my darling 4 year old daughter asked me "Mommy, what's that word on the refrigerator?" Now, we have all kinds of crap on our fridge, my daughter reads at a 1st-2nd grade level, and I've been exhausted from one of my meds (which I will thankfully be going off of!), so I barely lifted my head & said "Can you spell it for me, honey?" to which she replied "F...U...C... (about this time, I bolted upright on the couch & whipped my head towards the fridge, just as she said the last letter)...X" (WHEW!)
It turns out that she had been looking at our Leap Frog Fridge Phonics letters, and I had scooped several of them up off the floor the night before-apparently putting them back on the fridge in rather unfortunate placement. I explained to her that it wasn't a word, it was just how the letters were put together when I picked them up off the floor & it could have just as easily been XFCU. Her response? "That's silly! You can't even say that!"
Now I can only hope that I don't get a call from her (church-run) preschool letting us know that Miss Thing has informed the class that "FUCX isn't a word."

Invitation 02/16/2009

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So I kept saying I was going to start a blog to purge everything out of my mind (like brain-vomit) and couldn't possibly handwrite a journal again because the partial-OCD in me would want to rip out a page every time I made a mistake. Hmm, maybe I should look into ring-binder style journals...nahh, I think my mom & brother's snooping through my diary during childhood scarred me...and yet, here I am publishing a blog on the innerwebs.
Anyway, those of you who know me know that I tend to be a little, um, "all over the place" to put it nicely. So basically this blog is going to sound like it is written by a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic w/Tourettes who remembers to take her medication only occasionally. In reality, I do not have those particular heath disorders, but have/have had more than my fair share of others & am not ashamed to talk about any of them-including the "girl stuff." Oh and by the way, it's not paranoia if they REALLY ARE out to get you.
So, I'm not sure how often I'll blog-could be frequently, could be a while between blogs. I'd like to claim that I have a life too, but we all know how often I'm on Facebook. I do however have a 4 year old, a 10 month old & a husband who occasionally acts like a 2 year old, and they do keep me somewhat busy. Until next time I'll leave you with one of my faves from good ol' Shel Silverstein, which is where I "borrowed" the title for my blog:

Invitation
If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in! Come in!