Timebomb

My plan was to post on my blog more often, but like everything else in my life right now, those plans have taken a left turn somewhere near Albuquerque.  There have been a number of reasons for my sporadic posting.  Time management has been a huge reason, but another reason is I don't want to use my blog page to just bitch and moan and cry out "Oh whoa is me."  It gets tiring for both me to write and for both of you to read.  But I'm afraid I've been having a rather large pity party for myself lately.  I'm so easily defeated sometimes and when I get to feeling that way, it's hard for me to lift my head out of the sand to see that I'm blowing things way out of proportion.  I've been having moments of clarity again, so I feel confident enough to write a little bit here again.

So what's been getting me down?  It's actually a series of smaller things that, by themselves, aren't so bad, but once they start piling up, the load gets heavy.  I think, for the most part, the unexpected sadness for my Mother's passing that recently popped back up again got the ball rolling.  I think I mentioned earlier that at the beginning of May, the non-stop advertising for Mother's Day really caught me off guard and kind of reopened the wounds I thought were healing rather nicely.  The first half of May was really, really hard for me.  Hell, it's still harder than it should be, but I'm coming around again.  May is my favorite month of the year for a couple of reasons.  One, spring is in full tilt boogie.  I'm usually in my summer wardrobe by the middle of the month (shorts and tee shirts, both at work and at play!).  The windows are open and we're starting to get some amazing days weatherwise.  Add to that that May is my birthday month and that's why I love this month.  But Mother's Day is in the mix and that brought me down.  Not getting a birthday card from Mom, as minor as it may seem, brought me down further.  And a few days before Mother's Day having Ken's Mother end up in the hospital, nearly dying, just added to the fun.  I really wasn't ready to spend ANY time in a hospital yet, but I manned up and did my duty.  Thankfully she's feeling stronger and better and is home now.

So that's my base.  Add on top of it car problems, very minor, but car problems nonetheless.  I wasn't too happy about that.  And more aches and pains.  My knees haven't been right since the beginning of the year.  They were feeling a whole lot better in March and it got me back to the gym, which I missed desperately.  But the last couple of weeks they've been acting up and it's been upsetting me.  My left foot, too, has been acting up.  I believe I have another neuroma in it and it needs to be addressed, but I've been putting it off.  Odds are, the treatment will be a series of shots to the foot to kill the part of the nerve the neuroma is sitting on.  I believe it's a shot once a week for six or seven weeks.  It did wonders for the one in my right foot.  I've also been going through some unpleasant dental woes.  I went in at the beginning of the month to get a crown on a cracked tooth.  Tooth didn't hurt or anything, but the dentist has been worried about that tooth for about a year.  I ended up chipping it and thought it was time to address it before it got bad.  My mouth has been in some hurting shape ever since.  I was supposed to get the permanent crown on Wednesday, but I still can't bite on the tooth and it still hurts too much.  My dentist is pretty convinced it's not a nerve issue, but instead some sort of infection.  I'm on an antibiotic now and we'll see what that does before taking the next step.  And finally, in the department of aches and pains... I've been working out my arms at the gym.  And I've been loving it.  Until last week.  I've managed to take my weight lifting and somehow bring back my carpal tunnel in a big way.  My poor wrists hurt like a bitch all last weekend.  They've been calming down this week, but if they continue like this, I'm probably looking at surgery.  

So are you with me still?  Missing my Mom plus my entire body falling apart with a splash of car troubles have really gotten me down.  But I'm sick of being so down.  I'm over it.  And I'm really working on pulling my shit together and getting out of this funk.

Oh, and I was basically accused of being an asshole by someone I'd prefer to think of as a misjudgment on my part in the area of friendship.  I really should listen to the mutual friends we have about this person instead of thinking there was a chance at being friends.  Live and learn, I guess.  Live and learn.

But let's talk about what's good.  I'm getting married in a week and a day.  This is something I never in a million years thought I would ever do.  Me.  Married.  My boss asked me today if I'm starting to get nervous about Wedding.  I told her that to be perfectly honest, with everything going on at home (in the way of preparations) I haven't had a chance to think about it.  The only thing I'm really nervous about is getting as much work done at work before taking off for my vacation.  And it's true.  I have a feeling by the middle of next week I'm going to be nervous as shit.  But I'll also have so much else going on that maybe it won't happen.  I'm so looking forward to having a houseful of people.  The wedding is going to be small, with only a handful of friends.  I made a rule when we were planning the wedding.  I only wanted to invite as many out of town friends as we could house overnight.  My reasoning is that I HATE going to out of town weddings because of the expense.  I didn't want to pass that expense on.  Ken and I had arguments about it and I (mostly) won.  I wanted to invite a couple more, but we ran out of space.  So we have a handful of out-of-towners and a handful of locals.  After the wedding, we're having a party at the house and we've invited a bunch more people.  Out of the guest list, everyone has accepted but three.  One was a definite NO, one was dependent on a pet sitter and one needed to confer with her wife about the wife's schedule.  I'm really looking forward to just hanging out and having fun.  It's been nearly ten years since we've thrown a party, so my party skills are definitely rusty.  I'm sure there will be plenty of missteps, but fuck it.  It'll be a great time.  I'm off from work starting Thursday.  Thursday morning Ken & I will get our license (for the second time.  We're getting to be pros at this!) and then take a trip to the airport to fetch our first group of house guests.  The next group may or may not arrive on Friday (still up in the air) and everyone else on Saturday morning.

I'm going to try to blog some more between now and June 2, but if it doesn't happen, it's because I'm extra busy.  We've got so much going on to get ready for this event.  If it were up to me, we'd be done, but Ken's in charge of all this and he's got so much lined up.  Today we had a crew of maids in.  Someone is coming to power wash the house.  We've had landscapers here to do some work.  Ken spent last weekend shopping for plants for the back patio.  We still have supplies to buy for the party.  I'm not even scratching the surface on the list of things to do.  Unfortunately with his Mom getting sick, a bunch of things had to come off the list because that took up a lot of time we needed for prep work.

And that's it for now!

Bad

I hate myself when I let myself get so upset about things I can't control. I've been a mess since leaving work. I got to my car to find a big puddle of anti-freeze under it. I don't need another car problem right now. My car is getting up there in age and things at starting to go on it. I'm getting to the point where I need to figure out if it's worth keeping anymore. But I've grown so comfortable not having a car payment for the last few years. Ugh. Financial strains always give me an upset stomach. And the thought of a repair or a car payment is making me want to vomit.

Here we go with just another random post about not much of anything.  It's clear I just haven't had the time (nor the inclination, if you wanna know the truth) to do up a proper post since last week.

So, what's new with me?  Well, I'm in the midst of another dental procedure gone horribly awry.  Last Wednesday I went in to get a new crown started and I've been in pain ever since.  I left work for a while this morning to go to the dentist to have him fiddle around and try to get me back on track.  I hurt like hell right now, but it seems like I'm able to chew on that tooth again, though all I've chewed so far is salad.  I need to eat something a little harder and see how that goes.  Dental procedures never seem to go well for me.  This is my fourth crown and the fourth time there's been issues with a tooth being crowned.  I'm nothing if I'm not consistent.

I look at teemagnet.com every day.  It's probably not a good thing.  The site collects the offerings of 8 t-shirt of the day sites on one easy website.  Right now I have four different shirts in transit.  Like I need more t-shirts.  But dammit, I deserve them.  The entire time I was obese, I didn't fit into fun shirts like these and I vowed that when I was a human size again, I would treat myself big time.  I've got a Hitchhikers Guide shirt, two Doctor Who shirts and an Arrested Development one coming.  I can't wait!

Speaking of being human sized again, I'm still having trouble reconciling the number I see on the scale with how my body feels and how my clothes fit.  The number has been higher than I like, but my pants are getting a little looser again.  I've been in the high 190s, but my clothes are fitting like they do when I'm in the high 180s.  It's all because I'm doing more than just plain old cardio now.  I've been pretty faithful to the weight machines and it's definitely changing my body.  I know I've said before that my arms aren't significantly bigger than before, but I definitely feel a big difference in them.  I find myself constantly feeling my arms.  They're bigger and they're getting stronger.  And I'm starting to notice changes in my chest.  And the more I notice, the more I want to work those areas of my body.  I'm so mad at myself that I waited until I was well into middle age before I started to do this.  But otherwise, I fucking rock!

This weekend we got together with friends for one last Game Night before Wedding.  I had so much fun.  But I also ate meat.  I've been really good with avoiding meat.  In all of April, I only ate meat once and I didn't miss it.  This weekend we got pizza and the chicken and garlic one looked so good, I really wanted it.  And I keep needing to remind myself that I'm not a vegetarian, so it's okay to have a little meat now and again.  My entire goal is to just reduce the meat intake, which I've done.  But I still can't forget where meat comes from and that's where my problem is.  It's been seriously freaking me out when I think about my meals being slaughtered.  I don't know why this has happened after 45 years, but I'm not upset that it has.

I'm apparently the Anti-Christ.  To put it bluntly, calling someone out for their bullshit, self-centered greediness and attention whoring makes me that, I guess.  So be it.  I'm proud of it, actually.  You know, losing my Mom last year changed me (for the better, I think).  I don't have time for bullshit anymore and I'm getting less afraid to say something about it.

And on a related matter, I've been having this awesome runs of great self-esteem lately.  I really don't know why exactly, and to be honest, it's been a little tough to handle.  I'm always so down on myself, it's kind of become who I am.  But lately I look in the mirror and I like the person who is staring back at me.  Half the time I think he's quite handsome, even.  I really don't know who I am anymore, but in such a great way.

I'm so wishing Wedding was here already.  I'm so anxious to get this party started.  I'm super-thrilled to see my friends.  I'm really excited to be just as miserable as all my other married friends.  Bring it on!