Peace, Love, and Chocolate

I got a call today from my friend Kimber . She's my only follower that knows me in real life. We're homeschool buds. I actually was introduced to the blog world thanks to her. Anyway, she called me to check up on me since I haven't posted in a few days....which was probably a good thing to do. I told her I was fine and have been pretty busy the past few days, which is true, however her calling me made me ask myself if those were the only reasons I've been absent.
  Well, I intended on posting garden pics, but hubby still hasn't plowed my plot. And that's ok, b/c in the meantime he found some good prices on seedlings and seeds for me...he's been getting me presents here lately ☺. It also rained which will make it easier to plow now. Then I needed time to inventory last years seeds to see what I need and don't need. I did make it to the garden store today to pick up the big stuff like lyme, fertilizer, pete moss and I got a few packs of seeds. I think I originally procrastinated b/c I wanted that to be my next post...about my garden. Well, Friday I went out with my fam to Chic-fil-A so we could spend some time together and let the kids play. When we got home hubby didn't feel like plowing b/c he had already done a lot of yard stuff...then we got into an argument. Then Joey and Niki ended up coming over on Saturday. I had been avoiding the two major cravings I was having last week since I knew the cravings were related to PMS and really wouldn't benefit me in any way. I avoided by eating fruit/yogurt parfaits and eating small bits of dark chocolate, but what I truly wanted was a peach shake from Chic-fil-A and brownies...not the healthy blackbean and avacado ones I made the last time ....the ones loaded with chocolate and sugar. I kept eating things that I thought would replace the craving, but instead I just fueled my desire to have those two things even more by eating yogurt parfaits...ha! Well, I had my small peach milkshake Friday and Saturday I made brownies and ate probably 3 or 4 pieces (2 in. pieces). I ate another one the next day too and had dessert when we ate out later that night...which was fudge cake and icecream. Then, today I had a brownie w/ icecream. So....avoidance towards my blog?? Totally. I have to be honest or else this blog serves no meaningful purpose. It would be just a place where I go to hear myself talk and feel pleased when I get comments...well..er...it would only be that and nothing else is what I mean to say.It seems that I avoid this for several days hoping somehow my mistakes will just disappear and hoping I'll stop feeling whatever it is I'm feeling that leads to the mistakes. Well, naturally I always analyze why I do these things...what mental or physical issue led me to being a chocolate crazed loon b/c I look at this whole weight loss thing as a big science project. Well, physically last week was a rough week. I had the period from hell. I suffered from anemia big time last week and was saving the info to share in a blog post since it's PCOS related. There was one night I literally didn't sleep at all b/c I froze all night b/c of iron defficiency. I had 4 blankets, my husband tried holding me and finally we thought to use the electric blanket which ended up warming me enough to sleep. Also, last week I stayed up all night literally most of the week....I got to bed around 3-4 in the morning. On the mental side of things, I've been miserable to be around this week. The staying up came from stress. Stress came from the whole homeschool group thing again b/c two of my friends are calling me to vent about the other constantly since they do not agree w/ how a new group should run...the whole effing reason we left our other effing group in the first place!! (Do I sound a little angry?) (Sidenote: I told one of these friends to talk to the other today b/c them running to me was stressing me out more).  Then there's been the stress of my 3 yr. old son going through a really funky phase here lately. Two times this week he woke up before me and quietly shut my bedroom door to keep me from hearing him. One morning, I woke up and saw a light on in the bathroom. I opened the door and my son was standing on top of my flooded counter (b/c he was having mucho fun running the water), making a mural on my mirror and wall with toothpaste. Then one morning I went to the kitchen only to find him with 2 steak knives peeling and chopping every banana we had (or as he calls them "mananas"). Yeah, totally put the knives way up high after that (I never needed to before b/c he just never really messed with much). That was two mornings my son almost gave his mommy a heart attack. He's also decided he no longer wants me to wipe his butt when he poos so 3 times he's pulled his pants up with poo still on his rear. He's pinched, slapped, and annoyed the crap out of his sister. He's taken to calling me "Kim" instead of "Mommy" this week and I've complained a LOT to my husband this week so that has only made us argue very frequently here lately. Being sole disciplinarian when hubby is working 12 hour shifts is hard enough, but when I'm having to discipline every time I turn around it makes for a disgruntled, unhappy mommy who has yelled way too much this week when she HATES yelling. Then, finally today my husband went to the urologist to get his "stuff" checked to see if the vasectomy worked....and it did....and it finished making it "real" that I won't have anymore babies which still hurts like hell.
   So, for the past three days I guess I was just putting all the bad stuff on the backburner and enjoying what I thought was peace, love, and happiness, but it was really peace, love, and chocolate. I turned to food to comfort me. Old habits die hard and this reminds me of something I read on Peta's blog, From Fat to Fantastic , this week. She said, "One of the things that I have been focusing on at the moment is looking at what I want my life to look like when I lose weight, it cant be the same as it is now. The life that I am trying to shed is set up for a fat person, it really is. I am trying to transition that mentally to start living the life of a non fat person. That means some changes though. Am I ready for those changes? Is my family? Well we will see, I am focused on motivating myself at the moment, as that is all I can control... me. I do know that I want to be surrounded by positive people, who are genuine and enjoy life. Anything less than that and I know I will be pulled down into a negative spiral which for me ends in food." Sorry Peta, I was only gonna copy a sentence or two, but your whole paragraph was just so damn good and said everything I've been thinking here lately. Then Chris from A Deliberate Life said, "So, what are you good at? If you feel there is NOTHING you are good at in regards to controlling your body or how it operates...then maybe you could challenge yourself to get control over one aspect this week. Once you have control over that area...it's like establishing a beach head or a perimeter. You don't relinquish it..you build on it. Grab another area and get a hold of that." This very thing that Chris talks about is one of the very things I've been trying to avoid doing....which is keeping me in a life set up for a fat person and setting me up for an early death. I was thinking about this whole weekend and finally had a small revelation. When I try to lose weight, I always change my food first b/c I always feel this is the easiest to control....I kinda take the coward's way out from doing the hard things, the things I have not been successful with and I always do it like this b/c I cannot manage stress. I always have a thought in the back of my mind that to tackle the hard things like exercise and quitting smoking, would stress me out more b/c I knew I'd fail. Wow....that's a hard pill to swallow. My husband has always told me that my stress would put me in an early grave and it's so true. Not only b/c of the ill effects of stress in itself, but b/c of how I let it paralyze me and control what I will and won't do! How friggin dumb is that?? Then I let stress handicap me to the point where I actually won't watch what I'm eating as much b/c in my mind I'm taking another stresser away....even more dumb! By not doing all these healthy things I'm actually creating more stress. So, I'm going to do what Chris said and get control over one aspect this week....the hardest one that I keep putting off, and in the process hopefully it will move me a step away from this "fat life set up". The Chantix is working now and I've cut down a lot from the amount I was smoking....I just need to make my final quit day and that day will be Sunday. This will be hard I know, but I've got to stop believing that I'm not capable of conquering or dealing with the hard stuff. This is going to be my beach head and I'm going to kick this habit for good and then maybe I'll stop babying myself. We shall see....please pray.

Rather than try to remember everything I ate this weekend, I'm going to post the positive things I did. Well, for one thing, when I wasn't noshing on a brownie I was eating healthy foods so that's a big change from the past. Normally in the past I would've let loose and ate everything bad. Also, when getting dessert while at the restaurant, I put it in the smallest bowl I could find which held no more than 1/2c. of anything. In the past I would have sought out a salad bowl to put my dessert in so I could have a lot. The other positive thing is I've been able to maintain my current weight through the mistakes...I guess b/c I was eating healthy in between. The negative side to my mistake is that I haven't lost weight here lately and May 11th is my two month goal and I'm 12lbs away from it. Then there's all the negatives I listed in the paragraphs above. I lived...I learned...now it's time to get very serious about my two month goal.

Sorry this was so long, but if you made it to the bottom....thank you for reading. I'll be dropping in soon to say hi and read more of your inspiring posts. ☺ You guys just don't know how much I learn from your blogs. Oh, and I wanna give a shout out to my several new readers. Thanks for joining up and letting me find your beautiful blogs. ☺☺☺