And then there was light...

I am so in the weeds.  I didn't do much in the way of starting the 2012 today.  Now, hear me out!  Did you know that the banks were closed and the mail didn't deliver today?  Seems to me I’m not the only one who is getting a slow start on the year!!

Hubs and I stayed up until 1:30 this morning.  I don’t have a good answer for that.  We were watching the second season of The League.  There’s some objectionable language and adult material but good gravy the writing is hilarious.  I’m a sucker for good writing.  So, we kept laughing and kept queuing up the next episode and then there were only two more episodes left and we figured “why not?”.  And you know why not?  Because it was flippin’ 1:30 in the morning when all was said and done.  Because when I finally decided to check the time this morning after falling in and out of sleep while children kept a rotating door of tattling, whining, fighting and being hungry, it was 11:15.  Oh my.  That will eat up a day.  So after doing the eating “breakfast”, checking facebook and email routine, I went to the grocery store lo about 1:15.  Along with approximately the entirety of the rest of the city.  I returned home at 4:30.  I think you see how it was tough to be all resolute in the midst of all that.   Against many odds, I still managed to be somewhat successful with my first two resolutions so I’ll do a recap/status update combo.

Resolution number one is to want less.  On the one hand, I still want stuff today.  Just in general.  Just stuff.  But remember, as part of the wanting less I added in the whole spending fast.  And you know what?  I did it!  Sure, okay, just for the first day but I’m still owning that and being all proud.  When I finally gained access to the innards of the store, the Starbucks clearance sign beckoned me and I nearly succumbed to the Christmasy to-go cup goodness.  I’m always up for to-go coffee cups that I can reuse until the cows come home.  I remembered my vow of poverty for the month (I say spending fast, I say vow of poverty.  Potato, puhtahtoe) and I didn’t even hone in for a closer look.  I just kept walking.  I gotta say, I felt a little liberated.  And did I mention – proud, baby!  After the grocery I schlepped over to another store to buy a rug for just inside the front door.  But it was because Hubs asked me to.  Not because I wanted it.  Proud, baby!

Resolution two is context eating (TM implied and express payment expected should you coin the term and pretend it’s all yours and stuff…).  As I mentioned just in the paragraph above this one, I went to the grocery store.  I spent some good time there doing some price comparison and intentional decision making about ingredients.  I bought very little that was processed and concentrated much more on having fruits and veggies to snack on.  I didn’t go completely organic but I did buy organic milk.  That’s a tough one.  We go through A L O T of milk.  Between kids who eat on average 1.72 bowls of cereal  EACH on every day of the week (I came up with that average based on the amount that makes it into their stomachs vs. what gets spilled on various surfaces vs. what a dog scams out of the situation – it’s all quite scientific really…) and Hub’s protein shakes that bookend the day, we go through a gallon an hour I think.  Half our household is of the female persuasion but there are hormones in all of us in various degrees and flavors.  I don’t really need funky milk hormones added to the mix.  I don’t need princess and peanut popping out mammary glands in their single digit ages.  Puberty is hitting earlier and earlier and affecting girls a lot harder than it used to.  Between soy being in nearly everything and hormones in chicken and cows increasing – it’s changing things.  And as a result, I clutched my $5 gallon of milk and weighed out the cost.  Clean cow milk and a more natural time-line toward womanhoodliness won.  I’ve found organic milk for cheaper and sure hope to again.  But I guess until more peeps demand that's the only way milk should be, well, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.  I spent about a hundred bucks.  I used very few coupons and bought quite a few items that had been marked down.  I mention the amount (in all it’s approximation) because I want to be accountable to the goals I’m setting forth.  Now you know my learning curve. 

That brings you up to speed and sets us up for another resolution.  I thought that I would reveal two but I don’t know how long-winded I am tonight so we’ll start with one and see how it goes. 

3.  Lighten Up.  I’m uptight.  I just found this out about a couple of years ago.  I have to admit, I remain a little surprised by this revelation.  Also a little surprised that I didn’t know before AND that it took so long to reveal itself.  You would have thought that the fact that “Lighten Up” is one of those phrases that pisses me off every time someone says it to me would have been a pretty big clue but somehow, it wasn’t.  And I’m defensive about being uptight.  I would probably deny it right here and now if you told me I’m uptight.  Even if you pointed at my computer at what I’m typing right this instant.  Oh.  I’d still deny it.  I’m also a control freak.  I mention that because I’m so new to this whole thing that I don’t know if all uptight people are also control freaks OR if all control freaks are also uptight people.  I don’t know how all this works, really.  But I am both.  As long as you don’t call me out on it.  And then I’m neither. Also, does anal retentive mean the same as either of those?  Because I'm that too. It's true.


I can act like a horse's back-side but I cannot consciously make a fool out of myself.  I cannot laugh at myself unless I'm the one cracking the jokes.  I am never relaxed.  For all the lounging around I do pretty much all day every day, it's never me "chillin' out".  I don't do that.  I have antsies in my pantsies.  I don’t know why I am this way.  I talk to my mental health conversationalist (MHC) and have some inklings as to where this might be coming from but I’m so Cameron Frye wound up that I could definitely produce a diamond out of coal.  It’s big.  It’s a large portion of why I drank so much.  It’s super hard to be uptight when you’re buzzing, so buzzing frequently gains serious appeal.  Like every day frequently.   However, buzzing frequently, like every day frequently, is expensive, unhealthy in lots o’ ways and verboten on a God-fearin’ scale.  He didn’t say don’t drink.  He just said don’t get drunk.  And so did Hubs.  And so did Scooby.  And I don’t have the capacity to drink without going all the way to drunk (aka buzzing – sorry but I’m not buying into those being different states of intoxication… and neither do the cops so take heed) so I had to stop altogether.  Mostly I’m fine with not drinking.  I still have those days.  I still get hit with HALT (Hungry Angry Lonely Tired).  But I’m 7 months in and I know that as long as I don’t start, well over half my battle is won.  And while all that may have come across as self-righteous look at me go, I mention it because I still struggle with finding a viable and healthy un-twist-her-up-per.  MHC says that I’m guarded, protecting myself.  Her.  With all her years of education and training and medical degrees and what-not.  What does she know??  Whatever this is, whatever the reason, it’s robbing me blind.  It’s keeping me from being fully engaged in any situation with any person all the time, every time.  It’s like a puzzle that starts trying to connect and is missing just this one lone hold-out piece.  I keep that piece locked so deep within me that I don’t even know where it is or how to ransom it.  And 2012 is the year this changes because I can’t be the woman I’m meant to be this way.  On my best days, I know I have something to offer the world.  Something unique and worth sharing.  But even on my best days, I don’t even know what the true potential is.  It’s time to find out.  I saw this excellent quote to whom I do not know to credit – “The meaning of life is to find your gift.  The purpose of life is to give it away”.  And there it is.

That’s all I can do for today. Getting all vulnerable poops a girl out! Get some rest.  2012 seems to start tomorrow with the schools and post offices and banks reopening… Smooch.

In the beginning...

Wow! How was that for a start? I don't know about you, but that is the best New Year's Eve I have had since – well, likely since the one where I got married. I was surrounded by special people, delicious food and a renewed sense of hope and expectation. But the healthy kind of expectation. Not the kind that always leads to disappointment. Sure. There are different kinds of expectation. We'll go with that.  Also, I looked kind of cute so that doesn’t hurt. 

So we begin with the day after - the official start to 2012.  Kind of.  It’s just that I am not fully invested in January 1, 2012 as the actual start of the new year.  I’m not trying to weasel out of the whole deal.  Look.   When you are up until midnight to make sure that the clock strikes 12 and the world hasn’t ended and you make sure to get at least one smooch in for the year, by the time you get home and settle in, well, it’s late.  Some of you whippersnappers don’t have issues with that but this past year ushered me into my forties and I can’t party like it’s 1999 anymore.  My point is that if I’m going to sleep at 1:30ish in a.m., I’m not well equipped to have a get up and go attitude for the next day (or same day, to be more precise).  It was about 10:30 when my day officially started after having to get up and quiet the kids and drive the sitter home and what not.  By 12:30 it was nap time.  I have a hard time imagining that it was much different for the rest of you all.  Maybe it was.  More power to ya.  For me – tomorrow is the new beginning.  So let’s talk about that means.

As 2011 ended, I realized that I had spent the entire year being a consumer.  Like in ALL meanings of the word.  I destroyed, devoured, used up, and spent.  If it was on sale, I bought it.  If I bought it, I stockpiled it.  I bought coupons (my bad. I bought  coupon services…) to save money so that I could buy more.  I ate lots –much out of boxes and cans and made out of plenty of sugar and chemicals.   And as much as I ate, I despicably threw much away.   I drank.  A lot.  And realized that whatever I poured in, I wanted more.   I burned through my life with useless time sucks as though it was a limitless resource.  And even if I don’t buy into doomsday predictions (which I don’t), I still know that time is finite.  I took it all in.  And aside from a considerable increase in trash, I contributed very little in return.  It was my year of entitlement and abuse of resources and blessings.  My theme for 2012 is Intention.  I mentioned yesterday that rebuilding doesn’t happen by accident.  It’s intentional.  If I want to ensure that I have a different year, I have to come off the sidelines and be ready to play the game.  I’m not going to wish the weight off or hope that opportunities for anything and everything fall into my lap.  Granted, some of my resolutions are the old stand-bys, but I’m hoping the details of how or why I’m pursuing them will keep things interesting enough to keep your attention. And mine.  So, without further adieu – I present resolutions one and two of my 12 for ’12.

1.  Want Less.  I have too much.  And I don’t even really know what all I have.  But I can already tell you that I’m loathe to be separated from it.  The flip side is that I am also so over the amount of stuff in this house.   It gets on my last damn nerve.  I don’t need another garment for anything unless I have to walk a red carpet on the fly.  That seems unlikely since no one, not even myself, has discovered some sort of singing, acting, directing or production talent in me.  So.  I have clothes for any season that will present itself.  In a myriad of sizes, no less.  Probably the same could be said for shoes.  I’m not as adamant about that yet.  What is that?  You know how many pairs of black boots I have?  4.  And you know how many pairs are just right?  0.  That’s so obnoxious!  And yet I still scan 6pm.com on a regular basis just in case they have the perfect pair of black boots.  It’s an illness – women and their shoes.  I own books that I don’t read.  Our library system is one of the top in the nation so if I don’t have it, they will loan it to me.  After I get my account out of hock.  What?   Let’s just say that I’m doing my civic duty to contribute to the operational costs of a facility that is great for the community.  In a completely non tax-deduction format called late fines.  So, I don’t need to buy books.   I haven’t purchased music since I don’t know when except to tell you that it was an ACTUAL CD.  We can’t fit furniture anywhere else in the old homestead.  I have my jewelry situation down to specific pieces that I wear all the time.  I am a scrapbooker that could potentially open a small store with my supplies.  A kiosk at the very least.  No crafting products need to be replenished.  I might need more purses.  I have a bit of a Coach addiction.  But to be fair, I scour thrift stores for that fix.  When I take the time, the evidence is overwhelming:  Not only do I have everything that I need, I have well beyond what I want.  And that is offensive.  As part of resolution number one, I will be doing something radical.  I am going on a one month spending fast.  If I can’t eat it or clean with it, I resolve not to buy it.  If I am tempted to buy it, I have to run it by Hubs.  If it costs a penny or $10, I have to tell him about it BEFORE buying it.  This is a big deal y’all.   I am a wee bit sneaky and have from time to time brought things into the house that maybe I didn’t mention at the time of purchase.  I’m also a big fan of the buy it now, return it later strategy of shopping.  This tends to go about the same way as returning books on time.  It’s far more expensive than late fees.  For one month I will abstain from both these practices.  I’m excited and nervous all at once.  I hope that if it reveals some icky stuff about myself and what I’m invested in, that can be countered with strategies of how to do it all differently. 

2.  Context Eating.  Something horrible has happened to our food.  People have been talking about it in different ways for a while now and I’m starting to really understand what the hullabaloo is.  Here are some documentaries that you can watch on Netflix (swoon – what an enabler that site is.  And a blessing.  And also a curse.) that will straight up rock your world:  Food, Inc., Food Matters, Forks Over Knives, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  As a result of watching these movies, taking a hard look at my pantry and the grocery store and the changes in how our bodies look and act, I am equal parts horrified and angry.  Here’s what I believe – God whipped up our world.  He picked up some dirt and made a man.  He took a part of that man and made a woman.  He made water and land and animals to fill up both.  And he gave Adam and Eve all of it and said it was theirs to name and inhabit and tend to and what-not.  And Adam and Eve blew it by doing the only ONE thing God said not to do and got in trouble and got kicked out of paradise.  But their responsibilities didn’t change.  They were still supposed to tend to stuff only now it was supposed to feel like work.  They still had all the same vegetation and animals to eat on.  And whether you believe that story or one about a curled up cave man stumbling upon an ability to bar-b-q dinosaurs, here’s the same truth covered in both those ideas – food had a beginning.  A fruit fell off the vine and was ready to eat.  A fish flopped around close enough to a person to become sushi or tuna tar tare or some such.  Or smoked salmon if fire was handy.  The bottom line is that for ages, generations, a building did not have to be involved with the eating process.  I figure about the 1950’s is when things changed drastically.  Stuff had been put into bags and cans and boxes prior to that but not like this.  We needed food that was fast.  We needed t.v. dinners.  We needed convenience.  And it’s been a downward spiral since then.  Coinciding with that downward spiral is another in the state of the health of people.  We are tired and bloated and lethargic.  We are fat and diabetic.  We have heart problems and cancer.  And we seemed resigned to that just being a sign of the times.  Really?  Is this as much as we hoped for all along?  That we would make it this far but at the expense of being on cholesterol medication and addicted to carbohydrates?  I can’t believe that.  And riding right alongside the increase of convenience food which required all myriad of chemicals and additives to ensure that the food would be ready whenever it was called upon to be consumed and the decrease in our health is a shocking turn of events on farms.  As we all continued to make resolutions to eat better, we realized that red meat needed to be decreased in our diet.  We looked to chicken breast as the appropriate high-protein low-fat go- to meat for meals.  So you know what happened?  They started giving the chickens some sort of weirdo chemical that made their boobies so big that their own scrawny chicken legs couldn’t even support their own weight.  I don’t even have words for my reaction to that.

 My conclusion at this point is that the further our food winds up from it’s original context, the less nutritious and more useless it is.  If it has to have a preservative, a flavoring, a coloring, sugar – what is it’s purpose at that point?  I did a juice fast for two weeks a few months ago.  I wanted to lose weight and cleanse my body – and really, I did it to prove to myself that I could.  I was astonished that I was ready to do it for even longer but one of the juices made me hurl and I lost my appetite after that.  Also, I sort of forgot that part of being healthy is exercising and my muscles sort of started atrophying so I thought I should give it a rest already.  But I’m ready to do it again.  I looked better.  I felt better.  And I know now exactly which vegetables are truly disgusting and have no business in my home.  It’s all about the learning people.  But I was using fresh fruits and vegetables to clean my body out – to clear out all the residue from all the non-food.  I’m committing to conscious context eating (I’m pretty sure that I’m the first to use that term so go ahead and add a TM right smack there and I’ll cash in when someone decides to hone in on my genius).  This is the year that my food is consumed as close to the source as possible – which includes eating local and seasonal fresh fruits and vegetables, organic milk and animal products and a severe decrease in products that have to be opened to eat.  It’s going to cost more but I hold this truth to be self-evident:  everything costs something – time, resources, money, emotional investment, and I am not paying with my health any longer.  Whew!  That was one heck of a spew!  I have to go sort out my coupons now as most of them have become irrelevant and are going into the recycling bin.

Hubs has alluded to my being long-winded so I should wrap it all for today.  I have about 6 hours left to consume all the contraband in the house before the actual official start of 2012.  Thanks for taking the time to join me today.  I hope that your year is off to a fantastic start.  Smooch.