...continued

My husband's PMS seems to be subsiding. I'm exhausted. Stress is a bitch. I had a good 2 days with my Dad that made up for how exponentially awful last Saturday was. I like it when he laughs, when he smiles, when he's full of hugs, and when little things seem so big to him. A strawberry milkshake. A thing of Chapstick. Really good lotion to heal his dry and flaking hands. A man-purse, of all things. He wallows in the attention. He wasn't always this way. There was a day when offering a remedy for some malady would have provoked him. Now he thrives on the attention he gets. He likes surprises. After 2 days like Tuesday and Wednesday, I hated to leave. I want more days like that. It made me happy to please him.

Nobody In My House Gives A Damn...to be continued...

Day #14

Not a happy day in my household. I'm pissed. I got up at 6am yesterday, unloaded the dishwasher, reloaded it, ran it, put clothes in the dryer, started another load, packed an overnight bag, and went to see my Dad. My parting words to my husband were, "Keep the laundry moving". I packed a bag just in case I decided to spend the night, but was truly on the fence. I got to Dad's at 10:35; I was anticipating bingo, but instead walked in on an old time hymn sing. I sat next Dad and kept him on the right page and sang my little heart out...until the did Amazing Grace. That was sung at both my Grandfather's and my Mother's funerals, and to this day is one of the most painful hymns for me to endure in the company of others. Sometimes I had to mouth the words because I couldn't register a sound. Tears welled up on the ledges of my eyes. I could hardly stand it. And I couldn't escape! I couldn't just get up and walk out, not where I was sitting. So I did my best to conceal the emotions, and teetered on the brink of disaster. Dad's mind was as unpredictable as my voice. A lot of nonsensical ramblings and lack of clarity about his surroundings. Not uncommon with his condition, but one of only maybe 2 days I've seen him this way. At one point, I needed to exit. I needed to leave. I needed to walk away and regroup. I found solice in the local farmer's market, where I could wander aimlessly and appear interested in uninteresting things. I bought a few of them. After that, I sought out the company of 2 old friends, twice, only I never found them at home. I found the most gorgeous orange roses tipped in red at the local Food Lion there, and bought them for my Dad. My brother helped me locate a discarded vase that wouldn't be the end of the world if it got lost or broken. They brightened Dad's room tremendously upon my return. I also snooted around until I found the photos of him and his lady friend, me and my childhood friend that had been taken down and stashed away by employees during his last room change. I put those up on the wall. It was getting late. I still didn't know if I was staying or driving home. I'm not a fan of driving at night, especially when I'm emotionally spent. One of the 2 friends I tried to locate, the lady friend aforementioned, was where I would stay when I would spend the night, but having been unsuccessful in finding her, it would be unfair of me to impose upon her at such a late time. I did however try a 3rd time to see her and was more successful. We had a nice visit, share some tears, and she did indeed encourage me to stay, but I didn't think it would be right. I went back to see Dad, found him a bit better than I had left him before, filled the car with gas, grabbed chicken tenders and onion rings, and hit the road. I got home around 9:30, exhausted. Started crying walking from the car to my own front door. All the emotions of the day could finally come out and play. I drank 2 glasses of wine and went to bed. I slept until 10:30 this morning. It's now afternoon, and I have yet to finish my first mug of coffee or breakfast. I'm too damned mad. Apparently, "Keep the laundry moving" translated to, "put the wet clothes in the dryer, start another load, and take the ones that were in the dryer and leave them in a mound on the chair in the bedroom." Nothing got done. The load left to sit in the dryer were my dark work clothes, all wrinkled. My dryer takes twice as long to dry a load as the washer takes to wash a load. Laundry is always a 2-day event in my house. So now I have 5 loads to go, and nobody understands why I can't stop crying. Keep the laundry moving. What if I HAD spent the night?!?! What if I hadn't returned until 4pm today? Do they think this shit gets done all by itself? And what was he doing all the while? He never left the house. No. He watched Battlestar Gallactica all day on Netflix! Nobody vacuumed. Nobody cleaned bathrooms. Nobody bought groceries. Nobody dismantled the F*%# Christmas tree. Nobody even hugged me when I walked in crying. It's not a good day in my house today. I lost another half pound though. Just for spite, I'll skip the fabric softener on his undies this week.

Day #12

The scales moved! Yay! I've decided I very much like ground pork seasoned with taco seasoning. Two ounces of that, an ounce of shredded lettuce, and 1/4 c salsa in a 60 calorie Oat Bran Pita makes a very delicious, hearty lunch (no cheese, and I didn't miss it)....That's like, under 250 calories. A small apple put me at 296 if I recall.

I made some delicious oven baked potato chips the other night...Have I mentioned those? Two potatoes made 2 cookie sheets worth, so yeah, you could eat a bunch of them. I sliced them on the mandolin thingie, spread them out as best I could on a cookie sheet covered with parchment, and sprayed them with Pam. I did one sheet with just salt...they turned a funky grey. The other batch, I used a smoked sea salt, garlic powder, and cayenne...OMG....they were awesome! I baked them about 30 minutes at 200, but then cranked the heat up to 375 to finish them. Some were perfect crisps, while others that overlapped didn't quite get chippy, but they were good.

Day #11, January 26, 2012

Weight isn't dropping like I think it should. I'm wondering if 1500 calories a day is still too much? I've been rigid with measuring and journaling, but I'm still hanging around 3 pounds off total as I approach the end of my second week. I've started walking a mile at a time. I've started taking the stairs 3-4 times a day, which my PT says is more than I should be doing this soon. I've added acai berry juice back to my routine; an ounce, 3 times a day. I have more energy and my mood in general is better, but I still feel like it wouldn't take much at any given moment to make me cry...I'm anxious throughout the day, especially in the morning and evening. I have more energy and do things later into the evening instead of crawling in bed at 8:30. I just now finished making food for the weekend for a co-worker who has a bit of a crisis going on. I'd normally be asleep now. So why is the weight not cooperating??? A lot of time and energy has gone in to making it happen, but it's not happening. :(

Day #9, January 24, 2012

Another good day. Steel cut oats with dates and cranberries for breakfast, my usual, safe, eat quickly lunch. Supper was a new recipe, the one I would have liked to have made last night had the salmon fillet we bought not been rotten. I returned it this evening and got a fresh one, and made Wasabi Salmon Burgers. I also tried my FB friend Kenlie's crispy spinach, AND I made oven baked potato chips that were deLIcious! I still have 270 calories left, and it's very close to bedtime. I'm back on my organic acai berry juice, 3 1oz shots a day. I DO feel better. I walked a mile after work too. It takes 12 laps to make a mile, and I obsess over keeping track of laps, so I came up with a way to do just that with little or no thought. Between my CVS card, my Kroger card, my Food Lion card, my Dick's Sporting Goods card, blah, blah, blah...I had 12 things on my key ring, so each lap, I flip one, loose, dangly one to my fist, the last of all of them being my car key, so that tells me when I'm done. It WORKS!

Day #8, Monday, January 23, 2012

Good news, but could have been better. Today is weigh-in day. I lost 2.5. It should have been more, but I have only myself to blame. I did fine yesterday up until supper, which came about 2 hours later than usual. We had to go out of state: I ate my usual breakfast at home instead of us stopping at BoJangles on the way. I had half a protein bar late morning. We stopped at Wendy's for lunch: I had a large chili and a side salad. We worked all afternoon scrubbing walls and ceilings in our empty rental property. We left there around 5:15 with a 3 hour drive home before there'd be food. I ate a half ounce of almonds. We had thought we'd stop at a favorite BBQ place and just get meat and brunswick stew to bring home, only we discovered they aren't open on Sunday. We didn't have a plan B. Fog on the mountain with zero visibility made me really squirrely. I ate the 6 saltines I had not used on my chili. I was tired, and getting really hungry. We got home at 8:30, without so much as a plan, only I knew I wasn't cooking. I decided all I wanted was scrambled eggs, and lots of them. Instead, my husband brought me 2 scrambled eggs, a slice of regular whole wheat toast, and a sliced orange. I ate it all. But I was in that zone, the point of no return, where I went far too long without eating, and I couldn't rationalize. I ended up having 2 glasses of wine, a cinnamon danish from my son's breakfast stash, and I crawled into bed with raspberry poptarts, totally exhausted. I paid for it on the scale, no doubt.
Today, I've been better. Breakfast and lunch were pretty routine. I left work at a decent time and went to the Rec Dept to begin my free membership. After enduring the application process down wind of the lady working the front desk who was eating Doritoes, I walked a mile on their track. One mile is 12 laps. Boring as Hell, but I'm contemplating the purchase of an iPod. Never had one, hate technology, but it would give me something "to do". It would also give me the advantage of having a valid reason to ignore people and focus on what I went there to do. There were only 6 of us on the track and I knew 2 of them. I don't like chit-chat when I'm trying to exercise, and I was on a mission to get in, do my thing, and be out before school children arrived. My day ends 51 minutes before theirs does, so with planning, it should all fall in to place.
Tonight, I'm blogging to pass the time to keep from pouring a glass of wine. My calorie bank has just enough left for supper, but that's the problem again..I don't know when supper will be! The boys are out test driving cars again! My son sold his, so now he's without a vehicle, so there's a bit of pressure to find one soon. I started to prepare food, trying a new recipe: Wasabi Salmon Burgers...only, when I opened the salmon fillet my husband purchased, it just about knocked me over! The SMELL! I've prepared salmon many, many times, but it has never had an ODOR. This is rank. I am not going to proceed until another nose verifies what I suspect, and if I'm right, somebody will be going back to Kroger to get their $9.99 back! So I don't know what's for supper...or when. I got on here to see if I could bake my own potato chips. Seems like I should be able to. I have Pam Olive Oil Spray, but I have regular Pam too. All the recipes I pulled up say to slather the thinly sliced potatoes with butter. I don't see that happening. By the way...Did I mention I walked 1 mile?!?! ;)