My Not-So-Quick Takes

I'm trying something new (because my blah-g feels stale lately) and linking up with some of the ladies who keep me entertained daily. It's seven quick takes... here's what I have:

1. Out of respect to the single working mom of three boys that I spent more than a decade of my life being, I never, ever, ever will say that I am bored. Pinky swear. I will, however, admit that this peaceful existence here at the mountain house does, occasionally, lack excitement. We're in such a routine....

• 8am - I wake up, watch Good Morning America
• 9am - shower and get dressed, watch the first part of Kelly and Michael and switch to Zimmerman trial. Eat something so I can take first meds of the day. Make coffee. Mom wakes up sometime in the 9 o'clock hour. Crank up the old laptop and connect with the outside world. 
• Noon - change to Atlanta News briefly. Do something in the way of eating lunch. More meds on bad days if the pain is hanging around. 
• 1pm - Watch either How I Met Your Mother or more of the Zimmerman trial.
• 2pm - Watch two hours of Grey's Anatomy and eat a bowl of ice cream.
• 4pm - back to the Atlanta News / Zimmerman trial. Austin wakes up and wanders upstairs. (I'm not kidding).
• 5pm - Watch The Five - it makes me happy. I adore all the folks that are on this show. 
• 6pm - Dinner? Maybe? We generally eat light. I do a lot of salad-y things like tabbouleh or pasta salad - things that we can eat at different times. Or frozen pizza. We live on frozen pizza here since we're not anywhere near a delivery zone so we can't just call Dominos. We watch Toddlers and Tiaras and... yeah, we live it up. 
• 7pm - I watch the Big Bang Theory, get in my sleeping clothes, take my evening drugs and/or head down to the Whine Cellar for my alone time where I read blogs, read whatever's on my Nook. play sudoku and just enjoy my happy place. 

I fall asleep anywhere between 9pm and tomorrow. You just never know. It's not boring but it is predictable.

2. Did you notice that my routine is mostly tv and internet? Yeah. I need to work on that. My mom is much more well-rounded. She works in the garden or does yard work or goes fishing. We both get up a gajillion times a day to feed dogs/cats, give dogs/cats water, let dogs out to the Poop Pen. The furry creatures are a lot of work but we love them. I figure you can't go from "giver of life" and "nurturer" to a phone call once a week or so without having some living being who still needs you. For us, it's the fur babies. For me, mostly, it's my Trouble Kitty. The odd thing is that if I'm upstairs in the main level where all the animals are, he doesn't cuddle with me. If we're in the Whine Cellar he is my Siamese twin. (Another reason I love my Whine Cellar)

3. Does everybody get what I mean by "Whine Cellar" or is that a private joke that I only share with myself?
The mountain house has three levels... the main level has the master bedroom, kitchen, living room and a bath and a half. The top level has two huge bedrooms and a full bath (that I co-opted for my private dressing room). The bottom level is a finished basement with a huge living room space, two bedrooms and a bath. Since it's sort of mine and Austin's territory, and since I am a notorious whiner, I refer to it as the "Whine Cellar". Eventually I want to have a kitchenette put in the Whine Cellar but that will have to come after the disability is approved (which is hopefully before the end of this calendar year and/or the end of my little nest egg).

4. More on the post about being an anti-social extrovert: I love being in my 40's because I think it is a time of life when you start to live without apologies and realize that you are who you are. That's not to say that we never have room for improvement because we do. I do. I also can't avoid the fact that a lot of people have disappointed me in the past decade. A lot. I've suffered a lot of battle wounds and there is some measure of me that just doesn't want to bother with human interaction in order to avoid any more scars. I've also grown oh-so-very-weary of trying to explain/excuse what it's like to live life in pain. I don't go for the dramatic moaning and groaning. Most of the time I don't even want to draw attention to myself - I just want to quietly slip away. Or just not be there at all, which is what happens most of the time. Eventually if you never go anywhere people stop expecting to see you so you don't have to explain why you weren't there.

5. From a spiritual standpoint a lot of Godly people have done things (or not done things) that made me NOT want to be a part of the Christian lifestyle. If/when your life takes some seriously unplanned paths you can't help but think "if there's a God, He really must not like me" but I am also quick to say that I am so incredibly blessed. This is not the life I would have picked for myself but I just can't help but see those metaphoric footprints in the sand. If you're not interacting with people hardly ever it becomes very easy to not interact with God either. And for me... my Christian walk was centered on preparing myself for the day by praying my way to work everyday. Lord knows that some of the employment/life situations I've been in over the past decade required an enormous amount of prayerful preparation. It doesn't take a lot of prayer to prepare for a day of channel and web surfing. You could say that I need God more than ever because of the pain and because of the uncertainty of this whole disability process - but there is so little that I absolutely have to do in the course of a day - that I don't have that absolute terror that "only God can get me through this day" and lean on Him like I used to.  This kind of goes back to that post I did two days ago about my inheritance - just because you don't NEED your family any more doesn't mean that you no longer interact with them. And you shouldn't only interact with people because of what they can do for you. I'm working on being present in relationships with people and with God not because of what those relationships can do for me but because people I love - and people who love me- DESERVE my attention. (Was that a long walk for a short drink of water or did that make sense?)

6. Obviously I am no good at quick takes. It's raining and the satellite went out. Mom, Pop and Oscar are at Lowe's. Austin is downstairs. It's super quiet here right now and I have actually had a few minutes of uninterrupted thought which is a catalyst for long-winded blogging for me, apparently.

7. It's the weekend and I have no plans. What are y'all doing this weekend? Any fabulous plans for the 4th of July?

Hope you have a happy, happy weekend and don't suffer from the extreme Summer weather. Love and hugs, y'all.

lots of random stuff from Wednesday

Menu change from yesterday… I ended up having lunch at the Japanese Restaurant that doesn’t serve miso soup… I had hibachi chicken and rice. Fairly healthy. No major derail. I went lightly on the yum-yum sauce (while Stasha had a little shrimp and rice with her bowl of yum yum sauce!) – which I *think* is mayonnaise based and used more of the ginger sauce which seems to be healthier. Not sure but it seems to be. I had my snack as planned BUT… when I got home… I decided to reward my son who has been so cooperative with our new eating plan. A big bag of chips that I bought the day before Christmas has gone unopened and he has chosen instead to enjoy oranges and kiwi and star fruit and tuna wraps and grilled chicken and salmon. He’s doing a great job and he looks thinner. So we… um… well… you see… we ….

Ordered pizza for dinner. And garlic bread. And as a “thank you” from our small town pizza place… they sent a free order of breadsticks. SOOOooo. I had two pieces of cheese pizza, a piece of garlic bread and a breadstick. An unscheduled deviation from plan but… would you believe that I got up this morning and was down a pound from yesterday? Crazy.

I did, however, notice that I had a harder time going to sleep last night. Without a doubt it was all those carbs… got me sugared up… I didn’t sleep as well… woke up at 3:30 and again at 5:30. So… yeah. I’m not beating myself up over it… we’re eating 90-95% healthy… an occasional pizza is ok. Once a month instead of once a week. I’ll have to look at some healthy way to make pizza. He’s been really receptive of the other small changes – such as brown rice instead of white rice.

Austin was complaining about his jeans being too tight and I sorta just ignored him. His autism makes him super sensitive to how things fit and – although you might not be able to tell by looking at him, the little ragamuffin – he’s really picky about his clothes. Obsessive might be a better word. My dad found some golf shirts for him that he LOVES because they’re a softer knit than usual. He wears those all the time… sleeps in them even because they’re so soft. He wears only soft sided shoes – can’t stand leather – so they wear out quickly. He’s very particular about his shoes. He has certain jeans that in his head are designated “nice jeans” that he will only wear on special occasions. He can be completely out of clean laundry and he’ll wear dirty laundry instead of wearing the nice jeans in a situation that he doesn’t deem worthy. Crazy kid. Anyways… yesterday when he complained about his jeans being too small I caved and said, “fine. I’ll go buy you a new pair today”. Totally not in the budget but… what can you do? I had him turn around so I could see the tag to see what size was too small so I knew what size to go up to and… he had Cody’s jeans. Which are smaller. Duh.

Been another busy morning. My head is spinning. I love my job and I love when the days go by fast.

I got an email about our disaster relief certification next weekend. I am SO excited about this! We have a meeting about it after church on Sunday to discuss travel arrangements and lodging. I guess I better figure out what to do with Austin overnight. Maybe he can stay with Devin. (just called and left message for Devin’s mom) (she just called back and said he could stay with them! Yay! That’s a relief! Austin will be soooo excited!) There are several people going for the certification that I really enjoy so I’m looking forward to spending time with them.

So far today I’ve had ½ a pomegranate, 1 cup of fat free greek yogurt and 1 tablespoon of milled flax seed. YUM! I skipped snack – was too busy – but was still really full from breakfast. Have I mentioned how much I love pomegranates?

I’m not going to talk about what I’m eating the rest of the day. Apparently my plans change often. But… unless something changes in the next twenty minutes I’m having pinto beans and brown rice with celery, peppers and onions for lunch… with a fresh tomato.

And now it’s a done deal. The pintos, rice and tomato were awesome. A perfect and filling lunch! Yay!

I’ve been reading a lot about Tim Tebow’s controversial “pro-family” Super Bowl commercial…. And how it has no place at a sporting event. I’ll wager that the bulk of the commercials aired that night will have sexual undertones. What does sex have to do with football? Or beer? Or for that matter, the majority of the things that will be advertised – what was the big one? Godaddy.com? – what do websites have to do with football? Why do I, as a Christian, have to accept everything the world wants to expose me to… yet non-Christians have to be insulated from anything remotely biblical? It’s ridiculous.

There’s this huge “no hate” campaign to promote acceptance of homosexuality – and you know I love me some special gay people in my life. I don’t hate. But my rainbow love doesn’t change God’s word. I don’t hate people who have had abortions – but it’s still a sin. I’m sick of having to accept what the world has to offer and having MY faith and my beliefs and my God and my bible be mocked and discarded and shunned or referred to as hate.

You ain’t never felt loved until you’ve been loved by a group of God-fearing, Bible-believing Christians. Not the self-righteous people who play church… but people who truly follow the Lord. My very survival has come only by the grace of God and through the love of my Christian brothers and sisters. There are people in my life who might have been in a better financial position to help me… but instead it was the hard working, blue collar, living paycheck to paycheck saints who made sure we kept our heads above water... who sent me walmart gift cards and anonymous donations... who paid bills I couldn't pay and bought things I couldn't afford to buy. It was the people at the church who cried with me... picked me back up... dusted me off... made sure I had what I needed... didn't judge me for being poor... didn't judge me for being divorced... didn't judge me for being sad or weak or sick or lonely... they just loved me. Talk about no hate... there's no hate in TRUE Christians.

AS YOU KNOW… I adore Timmy and think he’s going to do amazing things for the cause of Christ. I have watched his career with great interest – not just because I love to see the Gators win – but because I love to see the example he sets of a compassionate Christian young man who lives his life according to the will of God. Anyone who attacks Tim Tebow and what he believes, attacks me.

Well… lunch is about over. Gotta regain my focus and try to sell some stuff this afternoon. I have a great prospect from this morning but no big ticket policies. Gotta put my telemarketing hat on and start ringing some phones. Good times.

Hope you all have a Wonderful Wednesday!