Life recap

Sorry, it's been awhile since I've written, mostly because I have been devoid of much free time lately. It's been an interesting month, full of both good and sad things.

First, the sad, so we can just get through that and onto the happy news. Mid last month, we got news that one of my grandfathers was going downhill pretty rapidly. He'd been fighting lung cancer (although never actually a smoker himself) for almost a year before needing to stop chemo because it was too hard on his body. Within a couple of months, the cancer took over his lungs entirely, and spread to his lymph system and throat. This was in addition to a weak heart. L. and I traveled to Eastern WA to visit him on Memorial Day weekend, and he had definitely taken a turn from the last time we saw him over the holidays. He was still mentally there, but it was clear that he was very tired and he was constantly going in and out of naps.

When we left, I had a feeling that it was likely the last time I would see him alive. And it was. He passed away about 2-1/2 weeks later at home with my aunts and grandma. We went back over last weekend for the funeral, and as you'd expect, it was difficult for everyone. We were all happy that he was no longer suffering, but it's always sad to say goodbye to someone you love. During the funeral, I stood up and incoherently blubbered my way through my memories of him giving me his history magazines when I was growing up and the interesting conversations we had. This is a man who made it out of WWII and the Battle of the Bulge alive, so he had stories and then some. Others stood to share their memories of him, and it was clear to everyone that he did so many things for people and shared so much of his life with others that he will never be forgotten.

We went to the funeral home to see him in his casket, and I have to say that I'm really glad I did that. Otherwise, my last memory of him would always be his frail body hunched over in his chair, hooked up to machines and the pulled look on his face as he slept. In his casket, he looked more like he did in better days, and my mom immediately gasped, "he really suffered, didn't he?" She was surprised at the difference between when she had last seen him (also during the holidays) and the way that he looked in his casket. I agreed that he had definitely suffered, and the end was not kind to him. but seeing him in his suit and his face no longer strained went a long way in convincing me that he is in a better place now and no longer suffering from his illness. I could not make it to his burial, being in the middle of the day on Monday, but I came home and made a fresh bouquet of peonies from my yard, which my parents took to the burial. He would have loved that, because he loved plants and flowers, and cared for not only his own yard, but also the yards of his neighbors and his church. I am seriously sad that he fell ill before L. and I got situated in our house, of I would have loved to have him visit and teach us about how to care for our yard and garden. He would have had a lot of knowledge to impart on that subject.

In happier news, I got a new position at work. I'm still writing technical documentation, but I'm taking on a new technology that has to be done from scratch and managing a couple of contractors for the task. It's a really awesome opportunity, and the contractors on this project are really great. I think it's going to be a really good move for me, and something that will make me happier in the long run as this project is full of the kinds of problems I just love to solve.

And finally, this last week, my friend A. from NY came to visit. It was so great to see her and spend some time just hanging out. We always have so much fun together, and she is someone I can be totally sarcastic with, which I love. I took Wednesday off so that we could go do something, and we ended up going shopping and getting our nails done. Unfortunately, in the middle of the day she realized that she was missing her ATM card, so there were a couple of hours of panic as we retraced steps and called to cancel the card. Fortunately, things worked out OK and no one had tried to use the card, so she was able to just cancel it without a problem. We also watched So You Think You Can Dance (known to L. and me as Shobie Doobie Doobie Dance, Dance, Dance) and Extras (with Ricky Gervais), so that was fun. I always like a good reality show and comedy show.

So, that's it for the moment. I'll try to be better about blogging again, but I'm literally doing two jobs right now until someone takes over my old position, which leaves me with little time for anything. But it will be totally worth it, especially since I feel energized about my job in a way I haven't in a very long time.

Not sure whether to be offended or flattered

I love Sephora, and tend to get most of my cosmetics there. I just received an email with recommendations that were just for me. The picks? All anti-aging treatments. Hmmm. Nothing that I've purchased from them ever were anti-aging in any way, so the only thing I can figure is that my profile lets them know I'm in my early 30s. So, ugh, I guess thanks. Except, I don't really care all that much about aging enough to slather tons of products on my already sensitive skin. The cosmetics that I do use are usually for sensitive skin and I rarely wear makeup any way. I'm just fine with looking like I've had a good life and somewhere around my own age.

Don't forget to bring a towel

What happened to the quality of towels? When I was growing up, my parents had (and used!) the same set of towels for like 20+ years. My parents still have them, although they've recently been relegated to duties other than drying people. But really, those were some seriously well-made towels.

Since L. and I got married, we received a plethora of wonderful, fluffy new towels as shower and wedding gifts. Tonight I was reorganizing the linen closet a bit, and ended up taking out all of the towels to refold and organize them better. Over time, as we do laundry, things constantly get folded in different ways and thrown in whereever they best fit. And at some point, I get fed up with looking at it that way and take everything out and redo it. This may sound odd, but I find it quite calming to do such a task, especially when everything else in my life seems so crazy. It's an easy way for me to put order into things quickly and feel an almost immediate sense of accomplishment. Also, I'm probably at least somewhat OCD, so having things in order just makes me feel better about everything in general.

As I was going through the older towels (ones that L. and I brought from our respective single lives into our marriage), I realized that some of the towels are a little worse for wear. And we're not talking about terribly old towels, either. Some of these are only a few years old, and yet they're starting to look threadbare or the edges are starting to unravel. Clearly they're not making towels like they used to. I'm hopeful that the ones we received as wedding gifts will hold out better over time. I love them and there's nothing like stepping out of a nice hot shower into a huge fluffy towel in a lovely color or with a nice pattern. I'm a huge fan of color, pattern, and texture. Just ask about the clothes and accessories I've purchased almost entirely due to discovering adorable lining or some other detail that no one but me knows about.

Meanwhile, as I went about my OCD task, Oli raced back and forth in the hallway and up and down the stairs. When he gets into this state, I tell him that I'll enter him in the Doggie 500 competition if there ever is such a thing. He's the dog equivalent of a race car. Occasionally, he would stop by his pit crew (me) for a quick pat on the head and a gulp of water, and then it was back to it. Sometimes he'd come bearing the gift of a chewie toy he'd discovered somewhere along his journey, and others just for a quick how-do-you-do. After expending that energy, he was happy to plod into his crate for the night to get some sleep. I'm sure he'll dream of funny things. If you don't think that dogs dream, you should see my dog in the middle of a deep slumber. There's definitely something going on up in that tiny head of his. I can only imagine what plays in his mind every night.

(Quick aside about the title of this post: Towelie is by far one of my favorite South Park characters of all time - who doesn't love an adorable, constantly-high, usually inanimate object like Towelie reminding you to bring a towel?)

Reunited, and it feels so good...

L. is coming home from Brazil on Thursday. This is almost two weeks earlier than originally planned. We are both beyond excited about this development, as I'm sure you can imagine. It sounds like he'll be able to continue working on his project from here along with the other folks who went there, except for one guy who will probably go back to manage things from that side. I'm really happy that he'll be able to be home for the summer. Overall, three months wasn't too terribly long for us to be apart, but it is a lot of work to keep the house going and the yard, as well as my work (which is always crazy) and our puppy. So, I'm looking forward to having him home for that, too. Afterall, he's not just a pretty face (even though he is quite handsome, in my humble opinion...).

Existential crises

You know when you get to a point in life when you suddenly question most everything about your path and beliefs? It's been on my mind a lot lately, mostly thanks to some random crap going on with various family members and friends that I'm not going to go into now. I've been reading the book Passages by Gail Sheehy, and apparently my age makes me ripe for this kind of mind play. I will say that it is exhausting. And I think it's good that I have an appointment with my counselor this afternoon to kind of get some of this goodness out in an appropriate way, rather than shaving my head or hitting cars with umbrellas a la Britney Spears or something.

Also, I don't likey the whole thing going on with the swine flu. Thankfully I haven't had to take prednisone now since January, so hopefully my immune system is mostly back to "normal" now (if there is such a thing with my body), but man. I don't like the sound of it one bit. Maybe being a recluse wouldn't be such a bad thing right now. Time to go crawl under a rock. Oh wait, I can't because I'm a responsible person and have a job and other responsibilities to take care of. Hmmm.

Weekly recap

I started my diet again this week, in a slightly modified way. I realize that I am prone to extremes. Often, I'm not living in the middle ground. Case in point - when I did 20/20, I really did 20/20. I followed it religiously and even turned down cake on my own 30th birthday. Then, when things wound down and we got to the wedding/honeymoon phase of last year, I totally went in the opposite direction. I ate anything and everything, and threw all of my knowledge out the window. Guess what that got me, especially when I started having awful health problems for a few months? Lots and lots o' pounds put back on the ol' ass.

So, this time I'm allowing myself to have some of the best of both worlds. I did really well this week. All protein shakes, lean proteins, veggies, lots of water, and only a few diet sodas. By Friday, I decided that I could indeed have a 6-pc chicken McNugget meal at McDonalds with medium fries and a diet coke. And yesterday I had a chocolate bar. I made sure that this still fit within a good caloric range and ate well the rest of the time. And guess what? I feel much more satisfied. I think it's unrealistic for me to think that I can never have any of the foods that are "bad" for you, when it's just as unrealistic for me to believe that I can subsist on those alone. So, the key has to be moderation, something which I'm not always great at achieving. But somehow, I think that this plan might work out better over time because it puts less focus on perfection, and more focus on living within my means.

At the end of the week, I'm down 5 pounds, which is really probably mostly water weight, although I did get out and walk a lot this week when it was nice. I also steam cleaned my carpets (no easy task), mowed the yard, and weeded. So, I got some good physical activity in addition to the reasonable diet. My hope is that if I continue with this, some of the weight will just continue to work itself off, even if it is at a slower pace over time than it was when I was in the 20/20 program. But that's OK. I've got time.

Alt, Ctrl, Delete

Today is my alt+ctrl+delete day, the day where I restart my diet and exercise regimen. I gained back 25 of the 45 pounds that I lost on 20/20, and it's very frustrating in part because a lot of it was due to how sick I've been and other various health problems which really kicked me off of the exercise bandwagon. But I also haven't been eating as well or paying as much attention to measuring and portions, so there's some personal blame to go into that, too.

But last week was a fairly stable health week with the exception of almost throwing my back out after gardening for hours on end for several days, and not really listening to that little twitch in my back earlier in the week when it started warning me that it was not happy. In any case, I decided that today would be the day that I get serious again and make up some lost ground. So, I started at stage 2 of the 20/20 diet process (lean proteins, protein shakes, and non-starchy veggies). Plus drinking tons of water and exercising. I got on the elliptical tonight and did some situps, so I'm sure that I'll feel some of that tomorrow. I started to do some push ups, but my elbow was really hurting, for some unknown reason. I have no idea what's up with that, but I decided not to push it too much (no pun intended), so I stuck with 5 and will see how it feels tomorrow.

So, here we go again. I feel like I've been on this ride before...

Questions that go unanswered

Recently, I'm getting a lot of "so when are you and L. going to have kids?" or "are you and L. going to have kids?"

It makes sense, considering we just got married in October and have our proverbial ducks in a row: jobs, check; marriage, check; house, check; relatively stable, check. However, it's a question that I continue to answer in a sort of wishy-washy way. Depending on how well I know the person, I'll actually divulge more or less of the truth. For people we don't know well, I'll say, "probably in the next few years." For people that we know better, I'll say, "perhaps, but we haven't yet made up our minds. It's not a priority for us." Most people who know me, know that children are not really a priority in my life. It's not that I don't see myself having kids - I can see it and sometimes entertain the possibility - but it's that I'm not sold on idea of having them.

Tonight there was a special on Oprah having to do with the new show, "In the Motherhood". I haven't seen it, but apparently it started on the Web and now it's a huge hit, so they're taking it to the TV network. The goal is to illustrate the funny and more difficult part of having children. A little less of the fantasy, and more of the reality, if you will. The part I found interesting was how many women kept saying, "no one tells you this kind of stuff" and "I just wasn't prepared for [something weird]." I'm not sure if these women were raised under a rock, but I think there are plenty of women who will tell you the realities of motherhood. There ain't nothing appealing about it to me. The crying, the tantrums, the constant testing, the sickness, the worry, etc. I think that changing diapers is probably one of the easier parts of motherhood, from what I've seen from my friends and family members. So, that's why I'm pretty hesitant to jump in with both feet yet.

Sometimes I feel like an alien inside of a woman's body. I just turned 31, and yet I have no ticking clock. Isn't this when everyone says that you're supposed to start freaking out and start picturing babies everywhere? Because if so, I certainly missed the memo. I'm still as far away from wanting children as I've ever been. Well, strike that. I'm almost as far away. I can definitely say that with L., I can see that he would be a good dad and try in every way possible to be there for his family. I didn't feel that way about my ex-husband. So, at least I'm off to a better start with L. on this one. But neither one of us is really tipping heavily in the having children direction. So, I dunno. We might want to just have a nice life together, and be our own family of two (well, three if you count the dog).

Part of my deal (and I think L.'s deal, too) is that we want everything to be situated and for things to be almost a guarantee. And children don't come with that. You can't take them back to the store when something goes wrong. And when difficulties happen, you have to work through them. Like my mom once said, "there's never a perfect time to have children, because they'll always interrupt something and cause your path to change." And that's friggin' scary for someone who has already had to deal with all kinds of change (good and bad) throughout her life, and frankly would like some smooth sailing for awhile.

I suppose part of my fear is that I have no maternal instinct whatsoever, so I feel as comfortable holding a football as I do a baby. But everyone says that that kind of stuff comes to you when you have your own child. I dunno. Everyone says a lot of things that don't appear to ring true for me. Although, I do think that in the end, I would probably figure things out and would make a good mother. I also think about the future, and I know that the whole point of having kids isn't so much for the here and now, but for later in life. And considering how much I love my family, I can see the value in continuing that process. So, we'll see. I guess until we decide, I'll just keep the answers a bit open-ended and leave it at that.

P.S. Is it a sign that I think dogs are cuter and more tolerable than kids?