Weight watchers

I spent money on it. I have to use it. I am officially doing weight watchers.I have 30 points daily and 42 bonus points to play with. I'm 200lbs and my goal is to be 135 by my birthday. I'm not feeling good about spending money on weight watchers, but I obviously need help keeping my control. This is the first step in helping me to get helthier.

The next step is actually getting to the gym 3 times a week.

Then I'll figure out my money situation...

One step at a time!

Wistful Spring Looking to Midsummer

My plants are short and stunted, as if they're feeding off my energy lately. I can't seem to get up the motivation to do anything. I've gained all the weight I'd lost back and then some (Though some of it must be water weight from my lady-times. I can't have gained 10lbs in a week) I can't seem to keep my house clean, and I have no idea what my money looks like, and I'm too scared to look. I got denied for 3 out of 10 jobs I applied for without interview. I'm having a hell of a time getting moving this spring.

But Midsummer is around the corner, and beyond that my license on the 1st of July. Maybe, just maybe I can start up some momentum by then. I just need to get disciplined.

Things I want to be better at:

1) cleaning
2) writing
3) eating/dieting
4) getting to the gym
5) sticking to a budget

Nastalgia

Nostalgia is nasty, hence the title.

I started reading all my old books, getting rid of the hard copies and replacing them with kindle versions. Through reading them I've discovered some of my favorite books as a young adult are actually horribly written. I still paw at them with an almost religous fervor, but every plot hole and poor discription wounds me.

I go to my parent house occasionally. It's the house I grew up in, but it is no longer my home. My room has been gutted and is now my youngest brother's room. The house has been through so many decorations it's no longer the house I knew as a child. The only place I have is a toothbrush in the guest toothbrush drawer.

I'm a different person than I was. Every trial I face changes me for good or ill and I can never go back to what I was before. Sometimes I forget where I came from. I shed the past like a snake. Honestly the person I was a year ago seems like a character I read in a story. Who was I? I was many people leading up to this person now. I am the echo of the Laura's before me.

When a snake sheds it's skin, right before there is a darkening of the skin and the snakes eyes glaze over. It is blind and lashes out at anything that may be a threat. I feel like that snake these days. I'm scared of myself and who I'll become as well as the world around me. 

When I get my license and a job I'll have shed my skin. Who will I be? I hope I'm industrious and moral, not like I have been lately. I want to look back through nostalgic eyes and not recognize the person I've been and love the person I am, being happy, but never satisfied with the person I am.

Nature friends

I have a Robin and a groundhog that live on my property. They have come to be A stable comfort in my every day life. The Robin has little baby chicks that sit around with her mouth wide open waiting for mom to feed them. Sometime she doesn't fly off when I come and visit. She eyes me was a nervous glance but stays put.

The groundhog I rarely see. His name is Rufus. He's fuzzy in reclusive. I watch him at my window sometimes. He scratches out some food from the lawn. At least I think it's food I don't know what groundhog eat.

I've come to view them as neighbors friendly neighbors who just live lives like everyone else. With the loss of my best friend, they and my ancestors have become my best friends. The people I talk to the most.

I mean I have Joe but he's not the same. He lives with me.

In a primitive way I think my robin friend understands that I'm a friendly neighbor. She tolerates my need for company with a begrudging humor that most exhausted mothers have for friends who come over.

And I thank her for the consistency she provides in my life. I can even tell her apart from other robins. She has a line of grey feathers just under her dull red breast. It curves slightly like dunes in a desert. I think she's old, older than other robins, and therefore is less wary of me.

I talk to her as she watches me look over her best to check on her two little chicks.

Nothing is impossible

I see a lot of posts these days about how nothing is impossible with faith and willpower. To an extent I believe in it. Adaptability, grit, and creativity goes a long way to making things happen. Luck as well plays a major part. But there can be a lot of damage done by telling people that anything is possible. 

I encourage those people to try flying off their roof. Some things are just unrealistic.

In my worst state, people told me I could be better if I just tried harder and had faith in whatever pleased them. No, what got me worse was hard work. It put me out longer than I was well. What got me better was luck getting me to the right Doctor, and pills that push back my symptoms. Pushing too hard still puts me out. Faith has nothing to do with it. I know my limits because I've explored them. I've adapted my life around them. To the people who say there are no limits, they just haven't discovered theirs, and they are lucky.

A man with celiac disease can't eat gluten. Their are ways to get the flavored similar, but fact is they can't eat gluten.

People who have broken spines don't just get up and walk around. And they certainly shouldn't go bungee jumping.

Four year olds with towels on their shoulders can't fly.

Liver transplants shouldn't drink.

Sometimes that person you love will never be with you.

Surviving Mt Everest without a guide or provisions is suicide.

People can not make flames in their hand with their mind.

I should never be alone with a group of students in case I have a seizure.

Not everything is possible and that's okay. Yes, you should push to become better. Yes, amazing and wonderful things are possible for those who try hard, but there are hard limits on what a person can do. 

At 30 without a proper degree, poor eyesight, and a bad case of FND and Tourette's...I'm never going to be an astronaut. I can become an astronomer, and charter a flight into space one day, but I'll never pilot a shuttle or do experiments aboard. There are limits set by my body, age, and society. 

Being a badass is not finding what you can't do and overcoming it. It's finding what you can do and overcoming the challenges you face until you master the challenges.

There are so many things that are possible, just not everything is possible.

I'm not an optimist, nor a pessimist. I'm a realist.

Dieting...again.

I fail at dieting. It's not that I don't want to. It's that the will to eat pervades my thoughts. If I'm bored, I eat. If I'm hungry, I eat. If I'm thirsty I eat.

Sometimes I drink my calories. Mostly it's coffee with a lot of milk.

I have a goal. To be 135 lbs by my birthday. That way I can rock the bald look on my terms. I haven't lost much weight. in 2 weeks I've lost 3-4 ish lbs. But with Joe getting out of school, we're going to go to the gym almost every day. I now have a strict eggs for breakfast and veggies for lunch. Well see how that goes.

I hope I don't boredom eat. I might start boredom smoking instead and then buy myself a vape pen. (Not out of want, but because it's a thing to do) It's not the best option, but I need something to kill my time and I'm so sick of housework it's not even funny. I am weak.

I mean, It's not like I'm not applying to jobs and using free weights and walking to places...It's just there's so much time in the day, and only a few hours of it goes to working out and walking and cleaning. You'd be surprised how much time you get after you loose the ability to watch TV and you can only play video-games for an hour or so.

When you think your over your divorce

When you think you're over your divorce, go to a wedding. There is nothing as heart wrenching in seeing the beginning of something that is so beautiful, and reminds you that it could all end tragically.

It reminds you of your own beautiful beginning. It traps you in that day and your happiness. All the while knowing it ended.

The surest sign you're over you're divorce is when you can go to a wedding and not feel heartbroken once. 

It takes a lot of weddings but eventually weddings become happy events again. You know that not everyone divorces. Yours was a fluke and happiness can find you again, even if you're alone.

5k casual

I'm going to try and do 5k a day. I started today with testing a path. It's a lot hillier than the boardwalk by a long shot, but I walked it. 

I had to take lots of breaks too. One of my breaks I looked it up and even with an abc license there's no alcohol allowed in the park. That ruins my friend bbq and pot luck idea...oh well.

Here are some pictures I took along the way. I'm sure there will be more in the coming months.

You're better than that

I hate that people don't know me. They think they do, but they really don't. How can they, I don't even know myself?

I've been raging a lot lately. There's so much I can't do. I want to watch Game of Thrones. I want to see the new Captain America. I want to be free to do everything I used to. I am so close to being able to.

I'm lonely. I think I've forgotten how to talk to people. My friends come over and all I want to do is stay quiet and listen to them talk. There is nothing in the world I want more right now is being smack dab in the middle of a good and fun conversation and not contribute anything.

I drink alone. I don't do it every night. Hell I don't even do it every week, but I enjoy drinking alone. I'm not an alcoholic because it doesn't interfere with my life, and I don't drink often.

I'm always hungry. I'm uncomfortable when I haven't eaten in a while, not because I want to eat, but because I'm scared I won't see my next meal, or I'll be too sick to make anything.

I don't listen to music often. I like music, but I like silence better. It helps me think. Talk radio I enjoy as much as silence because it gives me something to think about.

I prefer stories. The longer and more complex the better. I like them because I like seeing other people struggle to achieve their goal then succeed or fail based on their decisions. I don't enjoy self help books even though I'll pick one up occasionally.

I spend most of my time talking to myself, and coming up with ways to get out into the world. I'll then pretend I'm at the job as I walk around my house. I've been a translator, a metal singer, a famous author, an office clerk, a teacher, an abstract artist, and a maid. Every time I do it it makes me feel like I'm out in the world.

I bite the skin around my nails and pick my nose. It's gross, and I try not to. But there it is.

I'm like an angsty teen sometimes. This post is full of it. Ha!

Doctors update

I went to the doctors last Friday. We are very pleased how well the meds are doing. I'm almost completely normal.

I need to call the med company to see if they have financial aid for my meds. The doctor said they should have a program for it. My pills are $350 a month. That's 1/3 of what I make on disability! If I want to get a job, though, I'll need these pills.

The doctor is very aminable to signing foo on getting me my license back too! I can't wait to drive again. So many people have been kind enough to give me rides, but it's time I drove myself. The freedom that would give me would be amazing! Soon I will have it. It's a countdown to July 1st.

Hand me downs

I visited my parents recently. While there I picked up a bunch of goodies. The best of which are a pool cue, a fishing pole, a camping table, and a build your own clock. All of which, in my humble opinion, are badass.

I'm learning to play 9-ball with my boyfried's father. It's the goal to get good enough to hold my own against the man who played it most of his adult life and owns his own table. The rocking part about it is my new cue, aside being beautiful with sun bursts and fluer de elise engraved on it, is that it's been both my grandmas and my mothers. They both played pool and now I have their legacy!

I also stole my dads fishing pole since he never fishes anymore. I'm getting a license the next time we go camping so I can get up early with Travis and Jess and do some trout fishing. I'll never be a hunter because firearms and my flavor of Tourette's plus my FND are a bad combo. But I can still fish. What's more, I enjoy fishing!

I also got my grandparents old camping table. It was old and weathered so I decided to refinish it. I sanded it, took it apart, stained it and slapped a few coats of polyurethane on it. When I'm done I'll put it back together and make a bag for it. 

Last I got a paper clock that you put together yourself. My brother said pieces are missing, but I haven't checked, and if there are some missing, I may be able to make them. It's just card stock. 

Digging up the past: goals

I found an old document on my harddrive titled "Badass 101". It's a list, and I've actually done some of them.

Things from the list I've done:

Fire a gun

take a CPR class

First Aid trained

Things I still need to do:

Rock climb

learn to clean a gun

chop wood

twist an apple in half with bare hands

break a coconut on a rock

toss stuff into the air and cut it

off roading

Parkour

Do a tough mudder

Eat a rose off the stem

Play guitar

Belly dance

So now I have some more goals. Maybe not this year, but sometime soon I'll get them done.

Monthly budget

Income: 913

Rent: -300

Electric: -44

Water: -25

Blue apron: -60

Groceries: -80
Cat litter: -20

Credit card 1: -50

Credit card 2: -26

Med bill 1: -25

Med bill 2: -10

Med bill 3: -30

Vet bill: -6

Pool visits: -27

Fishing license: -50

Amazon purchases: -60

      * bathroom scale 

      * incense for altar

      * lip stain

      * fish hooks
      * Mjolnir Pendant

      * 5 lb weight

Remainder for emergencies and putting towards credit card 2:  106

Next month I pay for vet visits for Rowan and willow

5k vacation

"If you can't fly then run. 

If you can't run then walk.

If you can't walk then crawl

but whatever you have to do

keep moving forward."

~Martin Luther King Jr.

I completed my first 5k and had a mini vacation on Wed-Thursday thanks to me dear friend Val. She drove 2 hours to come pick me up, and drove another 3 to the beach, the whole time being sensitive to my weird FND car sickness (I can seizure if I'm in the car too long. We had to take a 30 minute break for me to cool off and me take my pills.) All the while being entertained by her fabulous 4 year old Lili! 

There were some hard core memories heading to Virginia Beach. We had both lived there at one time so we kept pointing to things that we remembered and places that held special and mostly negative experiences in our lives. But the fact we shared them together made them bittersweet.

The first memory was of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. It is the spawn of aweful driving and traffic in the 7-Cities area. A truely aweful place, to be sure, but still beautiful because you are driving almost on the ocean then you go under the ocean. It's super neat. 

20 minutes later we were in Virginia beach. It was supposed to storm all day Thursday so we decided to do our virtual 5k that night instead of the next day.

We got to the room unpacked really quickly and I put on my number and snapped a quick picture before heading out.

We took a leaisurely pace as I'm a cripple and the 4 year old was also doing the 5k. We averaged 2.82 miles per hour. I took a couple pictures.

It started to drizzle and lightning and thunder called in the distance. It brought to mind Vikings when Floki was saying that Thor was cheering them on (I haven't actually seen the scean, but I've been told about it) It made me feel as if Thor was cheering me on,

Eventually Lili started getting cold so I took off my sweatshirt and gave it to her. It was a dress. With her hoodie up she looked like a little alien. The whole 5k she just wanted to play in the sand. She was a trooper the whole time. Eventually it got too much and we walked in the sand.

This is a picture of us all with my medal (Theirs hadn't come in yet) We were wet, cold, hungry, and exhausted. Val bought us booze and we went straight to bed.

 A funny story not related to the race, while Lili was getting ready for bed she asked me what my mjolnir pendant was. I told her it was Thor's hammer. She proceeded to hit me with it saying she was Thor. So I squeeled and played the slayed Jotun to the nines. I don't know if that was blasphamy, and frankly I don't care. That was adorable and fun. I'm sure Thor would have gotten a kick out of our little warrior.

This was the trail we used. Val kept us on track using the Nike+ app.

So apparently when you run you get a medal. I didn't think it was a big deal until after my race when I realized that I had done something worthy of an award. This is my first medal! It is Star Wars, and I'm stoked about displaying it!

I'm going to build something like this:

I really like the quote because once I accepted my handicap, I found peace. In that peace I met an amazing doctor and now I'm on the road to recovery.

Anyway the next day was still icky, but in between rains we hit the beach to play in the sand.

I made a little sand castle alter to the land spirits. I gave them a chunk of my skin since I had no tobacco to give (I was with Lili. I didn't want her to think that cool Auntie LaLa was a smoker and therefore it was okay to smoke)

Because it was rainy we went to the aquarium. My phone went missing so Val took all the pictures.

After the workout I got the night before, I was shaky and a fall risk so I borrowed a wheelchair because I stupidly left mine at home.

All in all it was an amazing experience. I'm already planning another virtual race as well as a non virtual race soon. I'm going to fill up my display board so quickly. But since it's my goal to do 4 5ks this year, that's okay.

I'm going to do The Disney Yellow Shoe Race

Another Miles for Medals race

And also I'll be doing a 4th of July race with a bunch of people! I may be slow, but I'm hooked on 5ks.

Goal reached: 200 Blog posts!

Today I reach my fist goal for the new year! Today I have succeeded at two hundred blog posts. One down 11 to go!




Goals 2016:

• Get a job
• Publish a novel
• Volunteer regularly
• Get Tattoo or peircing
• Start Sanctuary
• Go Back to school
• Pay off debt
• Pay off credit cards
• 200 BLOG POSTS!!!!!
• Have a productive garden
• Do 4 5ks (1 OUT OF 4)
• Attend one public festival