Back to the light theme…

OK, this is a public therapy post, so if you aren’t into that kind of thing, don’t read further.

My daughter pointed out to me yesterday that my blogs and posts have been generally a bit “down” lately.  This gave me one of those ah-ha! moments…I am feeling very out of sorts these days.  While I am no heavier (weight-wise) than I have been for the last couple of years, I am heavier than I should be and FEEL very heavy.  I have also been feeling mentally heavy, not a good friend, not a good employee, not a good family member.  I feel as if I have nothing to give and am constantly amazed that not everyone feels that way about me.

So, now that SillyTaterTot (http://sillytatertot.blogspot.com/) has smacked me upside the head with personal enlightenment, it is my job to make things better.  Today, after my haircut, I’m stopping by the grocery store to stock up on veggies and fruits and healthy smoothie fixings.  I am going to eat better this week.  Hub is home and he can use filling up with healthy stuff, too.  I am going to exercise…walking, if nothing else.  I will also make more of a commitment to our Wii Fit.  Baby steps.

Thank you, SillyTaterTot…

Light at the end of the tunnel…

Real estate sales are starting to pick up in our neck of the woods.  With interest rates dropping to recent lows, lots of folks are refinancing, which can be pretty smart, depending on what type of loan you are refinancing.  Lots of people who want/need to sell are starting to see action.  And there are people who want/need to buy and who are seeing prices and interest rates they just can’t pass up.  This all makes me very happy on a number of levels…as a homeowner who will need to sell in the next few years, as a legal assistant who depends on real estate transactions to help fill her work hours, as the mother of grown children who are struggling with housing needs themselves, as an American who celebrates every ray of hope that things are going to be okay.

Speaking of light, yesterday I was sitting, err, reclining on my bed with my laptop on my lap working on my night job (acting and directing and everything else with my community theater group) when I realized that it was 5pm and it was still light!  And not barely light, light light.  WOW!  Of course, at 6 o’clock this morning, as I type this, it is still mostly dark.  You get something, you lose something.

Speaking of light, I am so very NOT light right now.  I have been carrying around extra pounds for a long time (10, according to my doc, 20, according to me), but this is serious.  I have been a junk food consuming maniac for the last few weeks, with my gluttony hitting a high this week.  One night this week, my dinner consisted of a whole container of Chunky Monkey and two bottles of water.  I need to take inspiration from my daughter (sillytatertot.blogspot.com) and go back to my veggie eating ways.  This weekend, I’m going to prepare my bowl of cut up salad goodies (red cabbage, carrots, celery, peppers, jicama, cucumber and whatever else from the veggie aisle that appeals to me) and my bowl of mixed beans (chick peas, kidney beans, cannelloni beans are my staples) and eat from that all week.  A bowl of veggies with some fat free ranch or Italian dressing whenever I feel hungry will make me feel a lot better, I suspect.  I may even cook up a batch of that zero point soup I used to make when I was in Weight Watchers.  It can’t hurt.

OK, it is getting light outside, which means it is time to get ready for work.  I’m going to try to keep light thoughts today.

It’s expensive to be proactive…

Because I am hypo-thyroid (have been diagnosed and on meds for 29 years), I see my doctor regularly…blood tests, mammograms, all those things that “they” want you to do regularly…I had my repeat colonoscopy a few months ago and for the next couple of months, received a slew of bills from all those associated with the procedure.  The hospital bills us, as does the doctor who performed the procedure, the anesthesiologist, the lab…when all is said and done, it has cost a few hundred dollars out of my pocket, plus a few thousand out of my insurance company.  And that is just for an “elective” procedure.  My husband’s “necessary” procedure reaped the same flurry of bills which will total a pretty penny (I love that phrase).

We have insurance.  I don’t know how good it is, but we pay a lot for it and we have it.  And still it costs us hundreds of dollars to take care of ourselves the way the health professionals advise.

I shudder to think how someone without insurance or without the means to pay the uncovered portions must feel as each envelope is retrieved from the mailbox…sick and hopeless…makes my stomach hurt.

I admit my addiction…

I am addicted to the internet.  I don’t feel any better, saying it aloud, but it is one more step along my road to accepting myself AS I AM.

This morning, after brewing my one-cup, I checked my email, my Facebook, my Twitter, my Google Reader, my Blackberry, my NYTimes.com morning news, my GrowingBolder.com, my theater websites…all this before I get dressed for work!

And people look at me funny when I say I am shy…online is the PERFECT shy person’s refuge.

Happy birthday to my St. Paddy’s day baby…

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday, dearest daughter,

Happy birthday to you.

And many more…

Happy birthday

Let it snow…HUH?

OK, it is March 9, it was 60 degrees yesterday and IT IS SUPPOSED TO SNOW TODAY???????

All right, I’ll take a deep breath now and calm down.  I love snow!

I have to pick a song to use for my Charlie Brown audition this week…can’t be from the show, but should be in a similar vein…hmmm….

SNOW????!!!!!!!

Spring forward…

It sounds like such an active step…SPRING forward!  A command to get your head together and SPRING forward.  My guilty secret is that I don’t ever change my clocks until the Sunday morning after the Saturday night changeover.  Of course, the important things (cable box and computer) update themselves, so I have benchmarks.

All right, this isn’t fair…Buddy has ticks already…it is still winter!!!!!  They are supposed to be dead!!!!  ACK!  I am not ready for this…

I am the king of all I survey...

Auditions for You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown this week…I think I’m going to audition and hope against hope that they cast an ensemble chorus.  If I don’t get cast, I’ll work on the show in some capacity.  Spring approaching…auditions for a musical…seem to go hand in hand…

Headaches…

All right, it must be day 3 of a migraine…I woke up with no tell-tale knife thrust pain over and behind the eye and a medication hangover.  My stomach and head will be so glad to be rid of the onslaught of irritating drugs.  Migraine meds are one of those blessing/curse things…nothing better than to pop that imitrex or fiuricet and have the pain slowly but surely recede…nothing worse than three days of meds and the completely hungover feeling…day 3 is still a headache day, but from the hangover, not the migraine itself.  Light at the end of the tunnel…

Just out of curiousity, what do you take for your migraines?

Happiness is…

The forecast of a foot of snow tonight…

My husband snoring (we call it “purring”) at my side…

All three cats sprawled on the bed at our feet…

Two genuinely nice and creative and talented grown children…

A ham basting in brown sugar, maple syrup and pineapple juice in my crockpot…

Twitter, one of my new passions (I’m StarStrukLynna at twitter.com)…

A community theater group that does really good theater…

Friends, both “real” and virtual…

An incredible and loving extended family on both sides…

And so much more…