I think that fall has officially arrived in New York State today. They claim that it arrived a while ago, but in my head, it's not officially autumn until you are no longer able to wear shorts in public and look like a normal person.
The color change of the leaves and overcast skies are also an indication of fall....but if I see you in shorts, I'm judging you. Shorts should no longer be part of your wardrobe selection in New York, unless you're exercising.
Which brings me to today's babble. The 80/20 rule is one of my favorites.....not to be confused with Van Halen's OU812, although it is also consumption related.
(I know, I know....they all can't be witty little winners. Sorry 😐 )
Anyway.....I did not inherit the Gym Joy Gene. I feel no rush of happiness when thinking about any exercise facility.
None. Nada. Zippo. Zero. Zilch!
Clearly, there must be a Gym Joy Gene in my family, because I frequently see pictures on Instagram of my older brother working out, or my little sister in the gym locker room, all jazzed up and ready to go and lift heavy shit.I look at those photos and feel a mixture of pride and envy; I'm very proud of them for taking such good care of themselves, but damn if I'm not envious of their drive to work out! (Or even to put on workout clothes.) The only drive I've ever had was the one that put my ass in a car to score myself some donuts!
Fortunately there's that lovely 80/20 Rule that fits right into my own physical activity and exercise regimen.
Scientific findings after my own heart!
Here's more about that:
(Seriously, where do they get these thumbnails for videos? It must be a conspiracy of some sort 🤔)
(Note: if you are reading this via email, you won't see a video. Click on the Blog title toward the top of the email to go directly to the page)
I'm on day six of Operation Healthypants and I can't wait until this day is over! As always, there are ups and downs, because as someone very annoying once said, you wouldn't be able to appreciate the sad times if it weren't for the happy times. That person may have a very valid point, but today it's just a bunch of obnoxious words strung together to amplify how disgruntled I am at the moment.
So here's what happened:
(Note: if you're reading this blog via email, you may not see the video. Please click on the following link Day 6 Video
This whole Vlog thing is definitely much more convenient, but just as equally strange. I'm far more comfortable sitting at a keyboard, typing the words as they come flying into my head. And at a home office, you can sit there in your jammies, sporting a bed head coiffure, with a charcoal mask on your face and no one has any idea that you look like a disaster. You just have to SOUND like you've got your shit together.
Most of my day is spent alone, so I do a lot of thinking. (I also do a lot of very bad singing along with the radio, but I promise to spare you from that hellacious experience).
Sometimes I'm mulling over the direction I can take the characters in my book (Yup... I'm STILL writing.). On a good day, ideas are flying in and out of my head... and they are literally flying, because it never fails that by the time I pull over to write them down, they're long gone.
In the midst of all of that, I think about things going on in my life or in the world around me. If I had a dollar for every time that I said, " this would make an excellent subject for a blog post!", you and I would be sitting somewhere having a fabulous lunch at an expensive restaurant.
Alas, you are over there, reading these ramblings, and I am over here, trying to get this out of my head and in writing. Next time, less writing and more convenient video.
So, without further ado, I present to you today's babble about my arch nemesis .... sugar.
Ps. Proof that my child doesn't just eat crap in case you decided that I'm a bad mother after hearing about what's in my garage:
I started this blog a bunch of years ago when my daughter was a wee toddler and I was trying to find a way to cope with being a working mom with a handicapped husband.
The main issue at that time was that I felt as though my daughter had bonded with my husband far more than she had bonded with me. Of course this is to be expected, considering that he spent every day with her, as he was unable to leave our home due to his medical condition. In turn, that meant that I was working every day and wasn't at home as much as we ALL would've liked.
I'm pleased to say that things have changed since then. With lots of work, communication, debating, arguing, hurt feelings, guilt, rejection, and forgiveness we have managed to find a situation where we all are happy together and everybody feels loved and supported (most of the time....no one is perfect!) I'd sum up that time period as "a pretty rough start to what has potential to finish as a success story". Yay for us!
Recent milestones outside of my little wolf pack have triggered some new issues that I need to deal with. It seems like the issues never end, doesn't it? I think that's the whole thing about life. We just keep plugging along looking for answers, and try to be grateful that we have questions that keep popping up. I think once you stop having issues, there's not a whole lot of breathing or bodily functions going on at that point (a/k/a you're dead).
Moving on, now I need to start taking care of my heath and this is the new general-issue that I'm tackling. I keep thinking that I wish I have appreciated youth and good health more. I took all of those easy years for granted!
Some of you may know that 2017 started off with a big old rough patch for me. From January through early May, I had all sorts of crazy symptoms, saw almost every kind of doctor (Im still avoiding the proctologist! 45 years and counting.....Score!), and ended up with absolutely no answers. It was a pretty scary time for me.
Worse yet, I'd become so desperate for ANY diagnosis, that every single doctor who told me they didn't know what was wrong with me got to witness 'Vicki In Tears'. And I'm not a pretty crier, just in case you were wondering. One physician stared at me in horror.
Surprisingly, I also became desperate to hear anything in regards to what was going on with me. And I mean anything. I would go to appointments to obtain test results, and tell myself that I would be happy even if they diagnosed me with cancer, because it least it would be an answer and I could treat something. I just wanted a chance of being me again.
As I mentioned, I never got any answers. Lots of treatments and medications and recommendations, but no answers. The one thing that I did have was a friend who knew exactly what I was going through. That in itself was priceless.
Wendy IS priceless. And a warrior. And wise. And she didn't leave me alone when I needed someone to keep heaving my ass up and push me along my path. (This'll freak her out....) She was like my own little mortal Jesus, carrying me when I was too pathetic to walk thru life. Lol!
"I worry when you get quiet. Send proof of life." Those words let me know that I couldn't just shut down and hide with my family. I had someone to answer to.
Then there was guilt. Guilt because while I was so happy to have someone who understood, I also love her greatly and wanted her to find answers to HER issue and relief of her own. She is still searching for that. She was my rock..... and she still suffers while I am feeling better.
I'm sure you're wondering what my point is here, aren't you?
My point is twofold.
Number one, I'm so grateful for Wendy. She taught me many things, but one of the largest lessons is my number two. (Meaning, my second point... not my poop)
Number two, nobody likes to go through crap alone. And there are a lot of us struggling with so many different trials and tribulations and dramas and traumas. We should try to come together and support each other, especially when you find somebody desperately trying to cope with an issue similar to yours.
(Side note: Dont sink...SWIM! It's essential to find someone who will float with you, not drag you down. If you feel like you're drowning with them, BAIL!)
So, I'm putting my shit out there. I believe that a good portion of the things that ail me are a result of the fact I'm extremely unhealthy right now. Granted, I rarely drink and I quit smoking over a decade ago. The only drugs I take or ones the doctors prescribe. I see a therapist regularly to help me deal with the ups and downs of life, as well as to help me interpret my husband.
I say interpret, because I swear we speak different languages sometimes and my therapist is excellent at Manterpretation. And no, you may not have his name and number, because he is totally fucking excellent and I don't want anybody infringing on his availability to me. (Lol)
Hopefully I'll be able to honor my commitment here, because what I'm getting at is that I'm going to be posting my journey on my blog. I hope to succeed, but I imagine there will be some failures along the way, because even though my husband tells me that I think I'm always right, I know it's not true.
Feel free to comment, offer encouragement, cry on my shoulder, commiserate, and any thing else you feel like adding along the way. And if you would like to join me in the efforts, I would be honored.
Here's my first entry:
Ps. Don't judge the hair and makeup....I work outside and I'm sickly, so cut a sister some slack!
Can you believe it? 2016. Who woulda thunk? I can remember when 2001 seemed like a futuristic date and we have breezed right past that one at least 15 times.
I'm still writing that book. Yadda yadda yadda. I won't bore you with details. Holding a printed copy with the words "Published 2016" inside is my big goal for the year. I feel like I'm giving birth. The amount of research and writing and rewriting and editing and cursing requires about the same amount of effort as it was figuring out what being pregnant was all about.
This evening we finished dealing with our Christmas gifts. Actually, let me preface that by saying that Allie's gifts were OUR gifts this year. I don't think there was one thing that she got that either Justin or I were not excited to play with. I'll tell you about the imported puppet theater that my mom got for her another time..... but I will say that I was so excited about it that I was the first one to have a hand rammed inside of a puppet's ass when Allie opened them.
We had a very slim Christmas. Funds were low, so Justin and I agreed that we shouldn't get each other anything. After all, we pretty much have everything we need. And what we don't have, we can just buy for ourselves. Instead we directed our giving to our daughter, niece, nephew and the parental units.
You know what?
It was freakin' awesome! The stress was minimal. No scrambling. No overspending. We just focused on Allie's enjoyment.
The best gift I got this year was a small taste of what the "financially impaired" people do. Other than discount shopping for gifts and cutting out "the luxuries", the most enlightening moment was buying coffee with dimes. Yep. Dimes. And it didn't even embarrass me or piss me off. Instead, I had this lightbulb moment where I thought, 'When we get back on our feet, I don't ever want to forget what this is like." And that was the best tasting cup of coffee I think I ever had!
So back to this door/gift situation.....
Way back in September, my friend, Rose had sent me some information via Facebook about this adorable thing she found..... and that she thought Allie would like:
How stinkin' cute is that? Allie loves it! She received it as a Christmas gift from her pain in the ass elf on the shelf, Elf Annette. And in true parental style, we decided to use it as a tool of manipulation.
Anyway, as with anything crafty that I do, I have to be a giant pain in the ass and super fussy about how it will look. I did research on Pintrest about different ways to display them, and then contacted them directly and annoyed them a little bit, and after she got the gift, I spent 5 weeks trying to find the "perfect shadow box" to use.
This evening, after the 7,482nd time that Allie asked, "When are we going to install my Fairy door? Can we do it now?" we finally gave in decided that the moment was right and did a Fairy door installation.
There is now an additional door in my home in which small winged creatures, of the non-insect persuasion, can spy on my child and exchange notes on the sly, all while leaving sprinkles of sparkly fairy dust which will surely end up stuck to my dog's super fluffy tail. And I will the Fairy will probably have cramps in my her right hand from writing on the teeny-tiny itsy-bitsy super-small note papers they give you to put in the mailbox. BUT..... it's all seriously cute, and she loves it, so it's worth it. SCORE FOR AUNT ROSE!!!
Justin was a champ about installing the shadow box, door and mailbox. The door and accessories themselves were very easy to install. It's all velcro and tacky adhesive that attaches easily but doesn't seem to ruin the paint when you remove them. Modifying and making the shadow box removable yet sturdy was probably the only part that required work. And despite the fact that I did the whole "an inch to the left......now up a bit.....too far, move it down......it's crooked..... now it's crooked the other way" thing, he didn't yell or throw his screwdriver at me!
(Although, when he finished and I took a photo of him and Allie next to the door, I DID sense some tension on his face.)
He's a gooder. I'll keep him. (Plus, he played "Elsa and Anna" with Allie today and he didn't give me the "this is hell, please save me" face even once.... major good dad points there!)
Here's Allie with her door. She was so excited and is already writing up teeny notes to leave for the Fairy. I'm sure I'll be posting this on the company's Facebook page.
The company is in Australia, but other than the 2 week wait time for shipping, they are wonderful to deal with. And the US to Australia exchange is great! Santa paid less than the prices listed. If you would like to check them out, here is their webpage The whole concept is just adorable! It's the Lil Fairy Door company.
Valentine's Day is around the corner.... I'm guessing that the Fairy will be required to leave chocolate for Allie this year. I'm praying that this won't become as frustrating as Elf Annette is/was. However, knowing that little pain in the ass precious being, if the Fairy is a friend of Annette's, she will be just as high maintenance as her elfish buddy.
Wishing you all a very Happy Valentine's Day!
xoxo,
Vicki
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