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Welcome
This is our corner of the Internet. We're happy here. We're definitely "we" -- this blog is a group project. We all post as "My Own". This is where we write the things we can't say on our own blogs for one reason or another. We hope you like it here as much as we do. We hope you'll stick around.
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The spam was getting hard to keep up with, so I have made a minor change to the settings.
Posts appear here after you send them to an e-mail address that includes a string of numbers. I have made a change to that number: the last digit is now "1" instead of "0". Everything else remains the same.
I am hoping this will fix the problem. A spammer is auto-generating posts, most likely because the e-mail address is in someone's address book, but it's also possible that there is a problem with this Blogger account and if that's the case I'm not sure how to reclaim it.
This is the first post using the new string of numbers. Crossing my fingers...
Admin
I want to have another baby. It is a crazy desire. I feel so strong and confident right now, I want to feel that with a baby. Farewell to the hesitant, unsure, lost mother I once was. Oh the bliss of cuddling a baby!
Then I remember the lack of sleep, and how close I am to having independent people under my roof...
Maybe when my friends stop having babies the feeling will pass...
This is probably a good thing to do no matter what, but if you're a guest blogger here, please change your email password. Someone has been autospamming the blog with drugstore posts; I'm removing them as I see them but it is a bit annoying.
I don't think there is any other way to deal with the problem except by shutting off the post-by-email feature, which is really the entire point of the blog. :)
I've started planning my funeral. Hopefully it is not for a LONG time. I've had my wedding, I've had my baby, I'm content with my home - what is left? For me, my funeral.
My father died of cancer, this week I have a test scheduled for the very same cancer. The test could also find a couple of other things but my fear is that they will find cancer and I will go through awful treatments and still die in a couple short years. What will my kids do without me? Loved ones? Everyone I know? My work that is finally going in a good direction? My pets? Eight days between when the test was scheduled and the test itself - fast by any standard for a "non-urgent" test. I'm up to day 4 and it is already getting hard to keep myself together. I want to curl up in a ball and cry. Instead I keep myself very busy and distracted, my house will be clean by the time the test happens. In a weird way, cancer is familiar and them finding something else is foreign and scary too. More scary still is that they find nothing and I go on feeling rotten as I have the past 6 months - wow, it's getting to be a LONG time... it is likely that whatever the result I still need a more invasive test soon too, more waiting, more fear.
I was watching a program about 9/11 and the memorials built to remember it and the speaker described it as being history that is still a part of current events, today - in 2013, and I was wondering, when does that shift from current to historic happen?
The first significant event I remember understanding (there were others before it that I could not understand as well) was when the Berlin Wall fell. I was in ninth grade and studying communism, we received the news mid-day (this was before the internet so I'm not sure how the news made it to us, I suspect by someone's office radio) and all other subjects were set aside for the day, we talked only of this and what it would mean for the people experiencing it, I went home and the discussion continued.
At some point the event lost centre stage and we spoke of it and thought of it less and less.
I remember 9/11 as a similar experience for me, I did not know anyone personally, I saw and heard so much about it on the news and discussed it at length with people I know. For me 9/11 quickly passed into the category of an historic event.
My children were born after 9/11, for them it is historic, it will be something to read in a text book one day just as the fall of the Berlin Wall will be.
In the last several years of my own life there have been many significant personal events - funerals, divorce. Though "historic" does not seem to be the right word, the effects on my life were significant and the strong feelings lingered much longer than a globally historic event.
Does how strongly we feel about an event define its status as a "current" event?
For the survivors of any trauma, for every significant event we experience, that event continues to influence our current feelings for a very long time, in some cases, our entire lives. Yet still we refer to them as past or historical. We do our best to live in the present, to have hope for the future.
I wonder if treating 9/11 a historic event as current, prolongs the strong feelings of loss? Vengeance? The fear of terrorism?
My closest friend currently is also my only single friend.
Now it appears she's found someone to date. It upsets me that we aren't the single gals anymore.
So instead of feeling happy for her, I now feel sad and ashamed for being jealous.
That's unfair. Maybe it's not the amorphous regulatory body that is making me cry, but rather the person who misled my organization into thinking we had certification from the amorphous regulatory body to operate...
When, in reality, we didn't...
And which caused said amorphous regulatory body to send us a 'cease and desist' order...
Which means the new exciting journey I began 4 months ago is for naught...
And I never should have left my job and life and successful theatre hobby behind...
So tomorrow I go back to work to work my ass off for another day, in a job that now doesn't mean anything, and hope that these tears will dry themselves up by now.
I just can't believe that someone didn't dot all the I's and cross all the T's. You would think that's something that would have been covered. That someone, somewhere along the way people would have ensured the fucking paperwork was done.
Everyone has regrets - it's the nature of things, I suppose, that most people don't make it to middle-age without having a few of them. But truly, there's only one thing in my life that I deeply regret, that I wish I could change And that's the fact that I simply don't like the vast majority of my family. It took me a long time to admit this truth to myself. I wanted them to be wonderful, to be the kind of family that I could come home to. I wanted them to be loving, educated, straight-forward and kind. And the fact of the matter is that they're none of those things. Many of them are mean-spirited, stupid, manipulative and completely lacking in self-examination. There's not a lot to recommend them, quite frankly, and the better I've gotten to know them, the worse they've become in my eyes. There are exceptions, of course, like in any large family. There are a few people to whom I'm related that I genuinely like and would want in my life even if we weren't family. But most of them are just awful, including every member of my birth family. And that makes me sad.
In chat with a friend: I had the best sleep of all time last night [spent the night with a guy].
I can't remember the last time I went to sleep with a guy's arm around me.
And woke up and it was still there
God the single life is fun but lonely sometimes.
You whine saying that your time on facebook makes you feel inferior to other mothers.
Seriously?
Just quit being lazy and get your shit done.
I am a facebook junkie and still get all my shit done! And my kids are not neglected either. They don't need to be entertained all the time by me!
My mother is turning into that old woman. You know the one - everything is about her, her current health troubles, her struggles in dealing with her aging body. Is someone in the family having trouble sleeping? Well, that's NOTHING. She hasn't slept well in MONTHS. Did someone in the family make a joke about wanting to be housebound with their spouse? Well, they should just be GRATEFUL they're not REALLY housebound (which is strange because while she is having some trouble with her daily activities, she is not, in fact, "housebound"). Did my latest weight-lifting session leave me stiff and sore? Well, you should just be GRATEFUL your body WORKS. The thing that's so supremely irritating about this turn of events is that she herself has never been grateful for her healthy body or her independence. She's the type of person who complains constantly, who will LOOK for things to complain about if things are actually going well. She appears to revel in her misery, wearing her martyrdom like the proverbial Crown of Thorns. I do not resent providing whatever help my Mother needs. But I resent her becoming THAT old woman, the one who's supremely self-centered and can't seem to accept her infirmary with some grace.
My uncle is 48, his oldest daughter is 21, she has a daughter (yes, he's a grandpa), I am 36. My uncle's girlfriend is 30. This creeps me out, especially when he wants to talk to me about her being bitchy cause it is "her time of the month". When he first mentioned her attitude to me I thought she was probably pre-menopausal, when I found out she is younger than I am... flabbergasted, no words... glad we're related and I'm not in your pool of fish!
A friend of a friend got me using the word boyscouting - I love it!
Wednesday I saw a handsome gentleman at a restaurant I met friends at. Cause I met my friends, I didn't make time for small talk, but he lit up when I smiled at him and when I saw him leave he seemed disappointed we hadn't chatted.
Today I was not feeling great but had to get a couple errands done. I saw him again but wasn't up for small talk. Totally felt like he was checking me out, I certainly wasn't at my best. Now that I'm feeling better I'm kicking myself for not introducing myself and getting his number.
How to randomly meet again... guess I'm going boyscouting!
Do you ever feel like things are going too well? How long can this continue? Is something terrible just around the corner? Will I be diagnosed with cancer after those labs tests I did following that check up where I was so pleased with boring, normal banter? Will a family member suffer some terrible injury performing a routine task?
If only I could just enjoy the peace in my life instead of dreading the future...
What if the future continues to be uneventful? What if the future has greater happiness in store for me?
Why am I worrying so much?
Have you heard of Brené Brown? She has two TED Talks, one on vulnerability and one on shame. She also has two books, "I Thought it was Just Me" and "Daring Greatly."
These talks and books have helped me change my life. I have more confidence in myself, I am a much better parent and I hope I am a better friend.
In addition to growing emotionally, my health has dramatically improved, what drew me to Brené's work also drew me to make other changes in my life. Recently I decided to try a couple of sports in addition to my independent walking, running & hiking.
I never understood how an athlete could lose so often and keep trying. I've realized that athletes lose so often and don't let it get them down and keep optimistic, to be able to try again. I realized that in the past when I played sports I could never stop from getting down, from feeling that sense of doom, from feeling like I let my team down.
I had someone score against me. My initial thoughts were:
I suck
I let my team down
I should stop playing
I'm never going to be any good
For the first time ever I've been able to change my thoughts and accept support from my teammates:
The score is X:Y, I might have allowed one goal but my teammates let in X-1 and they keep trying. I made a good pass there. I made a good block there. My teammates said, "Good job!" "Good play!" - and I believe they are being sincere. And though I'm still a little overwhelmed by the high speed and close contact, it feels amazing that I'm keeping up! I know I'll get better so long as I keep trying and stay optimistic the same way everyone on my team is - playing sports as an adult is a choice, no one has to play as part of gym class or give into peer pressure - everyone is coming out cause it feels good to be a part of it!
Playing sports and not being the star player, making mistakes and not being perfect is the most liberating feeling I've ever had! It's like I've unlocked the door to a jail I had put myself in!
That I am REALLY lusting after my husband (more so than usual?) I’ve obviously always found him quite attractive but entering my final trimester of pregnancy, I look at him and I’m ready to rip his clothes off and jump on him. I feel like the Big Bad Wolf, leering greedily at Red Riding Hood!
Ten years ago I was pregnant for the first time and I gained a whopping 70 pounds! I never lost all that weight and less than two years later I gave birth a second time surpassing my highest weight ever. Again, I never lost all the weight.
When my youngest was 18 months old I went on the South Beach Diet and I made it down to 10 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight but I felt AWFUL.... within 6 months I regained 30 pounds and gradually over the years it climbed with my stress levels.
At one point at a loss for what to try that would not make me feel awful like a diet or be too much of a time burden or expense I tried a hypnosis CD and book. You might laugh at this cause how can you think yourself thin but I honestly think this book has contributed to my long term success. I didn't like any part of me any more, the book helped me realize that and realize that I needed to like myself in order to have any motivation or hope of bettering myself. It took time and other significant life changes but I learned to like myself again. What was not so healthy was I like myself fat. My stretch marks were filled out so my skin didn't sag, I could eat whatever I wanted and not exercise.
At my peak around the time my father passed away, I was less than 10 pounds away from my peak pregnancy weight but I wasn't pregnant...
Last Thanksgiving I decided to start making changes, nothing extreme, no dieting, no gym membership, just manageable changes. I found a calorie tracking app for my iPhone and I targeted losing half a pound per week, which was a reasonable calorie budget of about 1800 calories per day. I started walking.
I was shocked at how quickly the weight started coming off just by being aware of what I was eating and walking. I'm pretty sure that before I was tracking I must have been eating 3000+ calories per day.
I also rediscovered my love of the outdoors. I LOVE walking outside!
By April I was down to 10 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight. I was amazed by how well things had gone but it was almost a disembodied feeling. I had no perception of what I looked like or what size I wore. I decided to stop tracking and see if I could keep the weight off without a conscious effort.
Six months later I'm up five pounds but my clothes still fit and I get more compliments now than when I was working at it, it's kinda like my body has reshaped itself now that my weight stabilized. I've kept my activity level up and even increased it now that I'm strong enough to do more, I actually was surprised to find some arm muscles, I think from gardening and painting!
I feel AWESOME! I like my body better than I ever have before! Stretch marks from carrying my babies, my boobs are different from breast feeding, I have back fat I have no idea how to get rid of... but I KNOW every inch of my body, I accept what is there is there because of how I treated myself and choices I made. I accept love and appreciation of my body from others, even though I know I'm not perfect. Pre-pregnancy if someone complimented me I would say, thanks but I can't lose that last 5 pounds; today when I get a compliment I smile, say thanks and usually I'm happy about it for days :)
I maybe years healthier than I was a year ago but it is time for me to step things up... I want to be able to swing across the monkey bars with my kids. I want to RUN. I'm going to start a run training program and pushups and other body weight exercises. I'll start tracking calories again but be a little more lenient in how closely I stick to it. If the scale goes down then great, less of me to haul across the monkey bars, but if the scale doesn't budge and I can haul myself across the monkey bars - I'll know how much stronger I've become.
It has been nearly two years since my Dad passed away.
I don't spend a lot of time with my extended family or friends parents but when I do, I can't handle the emotions that come over me...
I left a friends party early when her Dad was the centre of attention.
My Uncle is here visiting my cousin right now, to the home my Dad lived for many years but my Uncle never made it here when my Dad was alive. I couldn't help but think about my Dad as I gave the tour guide description of the area, imagine the things they would have enjoyed together. I was glad to be wearing my sunglasses and didn't get out when I dropped him off.
We've never been good at sharing emotions in my family.
I never want to stop missing my Dad, but I do want to get over being around other Dads and people who remind me of my Dad.
I’m finally pregnant! After the tears, advice and trying, trying, trying! We gave up and it happened! I’m 12 weeks as of today, so I feel like I can finally tell you guys – I had my 12 week scan today and could actually SEE the baby! I’m overusing exclamation marks! Justifiably so! Yippee!!
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