Third Time's a Charm

Third Time's a Charm

The first man

I fell in love with

broke my heart

when he left me.

The second man

I fell in love with

broke my spirit

when he abused me.

The third man 

I fell in love with

broke my walls

when he came back for me.

PJ Friday - Whoop, Whoop!

It's PJ FRIDAY in our house - whoop, whoop!  A day when B and I go no where and do nothing, including getting dressed - unless we want to. After our socializing- and errand-filled week, we are pooped and just stay comfy.  We love it!

Every Friday afternoon the hubs comes home to find us in our PJs.  He hates it!  LOL  He has all these rules of an appropriate life and one of the many, many (illogical to me) ones is that all persons should get dress and be ready to leave the house or receive guests, at the very least in the AM, but preferably within 2 hours of waking.

He's also very distasteful of the fact that I don't necessarily shower every day.  If I take a shower at night before going to bed because I'm feeling dirty and/or sweaty from the work I've done that day, I don't feel the need to take another shower the next day!  Unless, of course, I get dirty or sweaty that day, too.  I hate climbing into my bed all dirty and sweaty.

Weekdays he doesn't necessarily know if I've showered or not, but on the weekends he's all over me.  Once I've eaten breakfast, the question comes: "You going up to take a shower now?"  If I don't smell, my hair isn't greasy and I have plans to do sweaty work that day, I'm not showering until after the work is done.  Showering is not my fav thing to do so there is no way I would subject myself to two showers in one day.

But the questions still comes.  "You going up to take a shower now?"  "You going up to take a shower now?"  "You going up to take a shower now?"  Until he can no longer stand the suspense and has to ask, "Are you going to take a shower today at all?"  If we don't have any plans and are just going to stay home all day, sometimes I'll just torture him by not showering.  That's called "tough love".

IDK why my personal hygiene is any of his business unless he wants a little sumpin'-sumpin'.  And when that's the case, all he has to do is tell me that and I'd be all over a shower like white on rice!

The Next Right Thing

As I told you in the previous post, Blogging Again, I'm currently reading Glennon Melton's book Carry On, Warrior, The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life.  And, boy howdy, is mine messy!

Glennon says she has three prayers to Jesus: "Please!", "Thank You!" and "WTF???"  I stopped praying, stopped talking to God sometime over the last few months and I don't even know why.  But that snowballed into my old Catholic guilt mentality - I can't turn to Him when I haven't been in touch for so long.  What do I say to Him now?  (Side note: I was raised Catholic and have received all my sacraments.  The hubs and I were married in the Catholic church and B was baptized Catholic.  I no longer practice Catholicism because it's a religion and I don't believe in religions; I believe in God.  Religions are people who get in the way of me and God with their rules and condemnation.  But I will blog my God story in the future.)

But then Glennon said "Please!", "Thank You!" or "WTF???"  So this week I've been praying thank yous.  Folding the hubs laundry, all by myself in the basement yesterday, I even prayed thank yous.  I had an overwhelming incident yesterday full of loud noises, kids running around, wall climbing, battling each other in which I now see I should have prayed WTF??? to calm my overwhelminess.  Yes, I am declaring overwhelminess a new word.  Deal.

Glennon also says that we can get overwhelmed with everything there is to do and maintain and keep track of that we panic.  Life itself can be so overwhelming that we can't handle it all and get stuck or escape into something unhealthy.  That's me; I get overwhelmed very easily!

She advised all I need to focus on is doing the next right thing.  That's it!  She likened it to driving home at night on a country road with no street lights.  Your headlights only allow you to see the next 10 feet in front of you.  It's scary, yes.  I worry about what else is out there in the dark, lurking, waiting to jump out in front of my car.  But it's alright; I can get all the way home, safely, just those 10 feet at a time.

So I've been focusing on the next best thing.  That's it.  The next best thing yesterday got me to walk out of a situation before my overwhelminess came out of me in front of children.  And last night, I added please to my thank you prayers.  I went to bed last night and woke up this morning without any worry or anxiety pressing on me.  (Wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that it's PJ FRIDAY in our house - whoop, whoop!)

This morning I weighed myself.  I told you in Blogging Again that I weighed 176lbs.  This morning I am 172.5lbs.  Lightening my mental and spiritual burden had a side effect of lightning my physical one, too.  ;o)  But I know I won't always make good choices and I'll fall off the wagon many more times, I'm sure.  But it's OK.  God gives me as many do-overs as I need.

Blogging Again

I went to see Glennon Melton of Momastery speak Sunday night.  I was so excited and happy to see her in person that I went completely out of my mind and didn't bring any tissues with me!  "Luckily", I had brought a fleece cardigan incase it was cold in the church and after crying for 45 minutes I finally started wiping my face with the cardigan.  Not very comfortable, nor pretty, though.

She spoke right to the place where I was in that moment.  Without even knowing she was doing this, she answered questions and calmed doubts I've been having about myself and my blogging for quite sometime.  What she was saying about life, marriage, parenting, friendship, Jesus and blogging were all how I felt, too.  She inspired me to start blogging again and blog for me - not worry about who's reading or what they do or do not want to hear - but blog to purge my mind and soul of what is pressing on it and let everything else just fall where it may.

As part of our admission, we all got a paperback copy of Glennon's (I call her Glennon, not Mrs. Melton, because she's my sister now, see.)  book, Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life.  I love books and especially love owning a copy of a book!  There are different ways in which people love their books.  Some people love hardcovers more than paperbacks and vice versa.  Some people love their books with reverence and feel they are precious collections to be cared for gently.  They are carful not to break the spines, they do not write in their books and they use bookmarks instead of folding down pages.

I love my books differently.  If I am lucky enough to own a book, I don't care if it's new or used, hardcover or paperback, pristine or stained and ripped.  I love them all the same.  I read with a highlighter and a pen handy, highlighting things that resonate with me, words that cause those Oprah "A-HA" moments, and write notes in the margins about why something spoke to me or what in my life is an example of those words.  Sometimes when I get wrapped up in a library book, I find myself reaching for the highlighter.  Thankfully I come to my senses before I I use it!

There is so much highlighting in the 1st 37 pages of Carry On, Warrior that instead of highlighting the sentences, I started circling whole paragraphs.  In those 1st 37 pages, she is writing about me.  She describes herself, her feelings, needs, fears and even coping mechanisms and they were or are all mine at some point.  I'm keeping a notebook with me while I read her book and started writing my thoughts down in it when they wouldn't fit in the margins.  I realized I was writing down blogs posts.

I circled the entire 2nd paragraph on page 25.  It begins, "If, anywhere in your soul, you feel the desire to write, please write.  Write as a gift to yourself and others...Writing is not about creating tidy paragraphs that sound lovely or choosing the "right" words.  It's just about noticing who you are and noticing life and sharing what you notice."

OK, I told myself, here is the sign and the help you prayed for.  I had a talk with the hubs about all my worries and doubts and lack of love for blogging recently and what I really wanted to blog about and he told me to go find my smile (anyone seen City Slickers?)  So, here goes...

I weighed myself yesterday morning and I am 176lbs.  My weight this past year has not been this high since I was pregnant with B.  I gained 44lbs with B and topped at 187.  However, when I left the hospital after delivering him, I only weighed 10lbs more than I was before the pregnancy - yeah!  But it took me 10 months to take those 10lbs off - boo!  I gave birth to an 8lb 1oz baby boy and lost 26lbs of retained water during our 4 day stay in the hospital.

I've been bigger than I want to be most of my life and it's always bothered me.  I've rarely been comfortable in my skin.  That is, until I turned 40, 2 years ago.  I had always bought clothes that were mostly comfortable when I was standing but pretty uncomfortable, read: tight when I sat down.  I was over my mom's house and lamenting over my weight and clothes and she brought out some capri pants that no longer fit her (they were too big for her to wear) for me to try.

I scoffed in my head, because every bottom my mom owns is elastic waist - no buttons, snaps nor zippers for her.  That was old lady-ish to me.  Oh, how the judging comes back to bite us in the ass every time!  I tried some things on and they felt nice.  I sat down in them and they felt nicer.  I couldn't believe it!

I took 2 pairs of capri pants home with me and something wonderful happened when I wore them - I was completely unaware of my clothes for the 1st time in decades!  I hadn't really been uncomfortable in my skin all that time, I was merely uncomfortable in my clothes.  I was constantly aware of how my clothes felt and was constantly pulling, tugging, adjusting, stretching them away from me.

Without focusing on my clothes I didn't think about my appearance at all.  Well, at least not until I looked at myself in a mirror.  *sigh*  But that was OK!  I only looked at myself in a mirror while washing my hands after using the bathroom.  The rest of the day I was free - literally and figuratively.  I might not be the size I want to be, but I was finally comfortable wearing the size that I was.  The mental freedom from that was enough.

Then my hair started going kaput after turing 40 and no matter what I did or what I used on it it looked terrible!  No more volume, hardly any curl, and it only had 2 looks - dry and frizzy or dirty and greasy.  I even tried the baking soda and vinegar method of washing my hair from April 2013 - January 2014.  It took over 2 months to get the right formula for me and for my hair to adjust, but my hair looked good all Summer and Fall.  Then it just died on me.

So, for the past couple of months, I've been using Salma Hayek's Curls & Waves hair products.  I saw her demonstrate her skin, hair and makeup products on a talk show last year.  She and I have similar hair but I refused to try it then because I'm cheap; I've bought Suave and V-05 for decades because it's $1 or less.  But I had to step out of my box if I wanted to my hair too look better, just like I'd stepped out of the box with the clothes.  I'm so glad I did!

Then B and the hubs helped me pick out some liquid foundation at the drug store in March (never worn it before) and I've been doing my hair and makeup most days.  An amazing thing happens when I do my hair and makeup - when I look in the mirror, I can't take my eyes of my face.  I think I am pretty.  I'm proud when I look in the mirror and I don't even think to look below my chin at the rest of me.  As long as my clothes are comfortable, I don't even think about my body.  Most of the time.

When it's shower time, I'm painfully aware of how big I am in that mirror that starts over the double sink vanity and stretches to the ceiling in the bathroom.  But I'm not beating myself up about it.  I know what I'm doing to stay this way and I know what I have to do to change.  And when I'm ready to do something about it, I will.  The hubs wants me to be healthier and he wants me to be happy with myself.  Now I know how he felt all those years I wanted him to quit smoking.  Ain't nothin' nobody can say to get you to want to change and sometimes you dig your heels in deeper just to spite someone else.

But I'm learning from Glennon that the holes in me cannot be filled with food and I can't escape them in a bottle.  Years and years have proven that to myself, but it's still hard to let them go.  However, I need to try.

We Tried Grilled Pizza for the 1st Time and Loved Them!

My pizza - tomato sauce, mozzarella, peppers, onions, spinach, ground beef and parmesan.

I pinned The Happy Housewife's Grilled Pizza recipe a while ago and finally added it to this week's menu plan.  All of us are glad I did!  Since it was Leftover Wednesday, I chopped up grilled chicken and hamburgers along with some onion and snacking peppers to top our pizzas.  B just had a plain cheese pizza.

Look at this beautiful dough; can you see the spices in it?  It smelled so good!  My kitchen was covered in flour and it took a while to clean up, but it was worth it.  I used my stand mixer to make the dough and accidentally turned the speed up too high, too soon.  ;o)

After I rolled out the dough, the hubs oiled them (we used Wegmans Basting Oil instead of olive oil) and grilled them up.  This is actually the 2nd set of crusts.  The 1st three got charred.  Although B does not like his crust that way, the hubs and I don't mind.  I cut them up and saved them for snacking/dipping later.

The 2nd set of crusts were much lighter.  The hubs worried that the bottoms would char again while we waited for the cheese to melt.  Therefore, after topping our crusts, we put them in the oven instead of back on the grill.

I was fine with that; we'd gotten the grill flavor on the crusts already.

Following the recipe, we divided the dough into 6 pizzas and each of us only ate half our pizza at dinner.  We will all be eating the other half at lunch.  Everyone agreed that grilled pizzas were to be added to the dinner rotation.  :o)

The hubs' pizza - ranch dressing, grilled chicken, ground beef, spinach, mozzarella, parmesan, sesame oil.

After Surgery

So many of you have inquired as to how I am doing after my surgery and I apologize for not responding to everyone.  Recovery has not been a bed of roses; every other day is a bad one, and I wasn't eager to type it all out.  So I won't.  I will say there has been a lot of pain (which is almost gone now), unpleasant side effects and tears.  But it should be all uphill from now on.  I did my hair and put on makeup today for the 1st time since March 30th; that did wonders for my mood!  ;o)

Everyone at the hospital was kind, detailed and solicitous.  Some were even funny.  I had no idea the hospital was a teaching one.  I panicked when they told me.  I was already in my gown, shower cap and booties but almost bolted at that news.  I watch Grey's Anatomy; I know what happens at teaching hospitals!  I was not going to be some guinea pig with a 007 intern practicing on my head!

They assured me that if any residents were to be in my surgery, I would be told ahead of time.  "But I don't want any intern working on me," I insisted.  They would let me know of any residents were there for more than observation.  "When?  In recovery?"  The doctors would come to me before surgery and let me know what everyone's roll was.

The first "doctor" I met was the anesthesiologist's intern!  Oh, hell to the no!  He's just going to observe.  Mm, hmm, he better, because I will come back and haunt him if he doesn't!  He didn't just observe; he held a mask on my face and told me to take deep breaths.  The mask was supposed to cover my nose and mouth but he managed to put it over my right eye, holding my eyelid captive in mid blink.

They either didn't hear me or ignored me and I couldn't move the mask myself because one of the nurses had just finished wrapping me up in styrofoam and strapping me down to the table.  I looked like a mummy in a psych ward with Sammy Davis, Jr. eyes.

The bones in my ear were supposed to be gone by then but the doctor still didn't know if he'd be able to put the prosthetic bones in that day.  If the mass removal went too long, or if the middle ear was too inflamed, he would have to do it another time.

When surgery was over the doctor went to the hubs in the waiting room and told him that after he removed the mass he was shocked to see all 3 ear bones still intact!  Each showed signs of erosion, but it was minimal, they were all attached to each other and attached on each end!  There was no need for prosthetic ear bones.

He's done thousands of these surgeries but said he'd never seen that before.  I guess none of his former patients has had as many people praying for them as I had.  Thank you all so much for your thoughts, prayers and love!!!  Y'all worked a miracle for me and I am so grateful!

Thank you to those of you who brought us food the 1st week after the surgery.  It was such a burden off me to not have to worry about feeding us!  And there was always enough food not only for dinner, but leftovers for lunch, as well.

I thank my bestie, R and her husband.  Her husband took a day off work to stay home with one sick child and pick up the other after school, so she could sit with my hubs in the waiting room.  That was a wonderful gift to the hubs!  He didn't sit there, alone, and worry or play what ifs in his head and the time did not drag on.  He and my bestie talked about everything, he said, and had a wonderful time.  He is so grateful he had her there and so am I!

I want to thank the hubs for taking care of me, holding me, wiping my tears, administering medicine, taking care of B and the house and holding it together.  It's so hard for men to see a loved one ill.  They're fixers; that's what they do.  It's in they're DNA.  He kept his frustration and anger (born out of fear) over not being about to  fix me or take all the hurt away for me, from me.  Internalizing that isn't good for a body, but he knows once I'm able to climb out of my tree, he gets to go right up his.

I still can't hear in my left ear, but it's still healing.  My hearing won't be checked until 6-7 weeks after surgery, to give everything time to heal and swelling to go down.  You can't see the hole in my head because the doctor drilled where the back of my ear meets my head, and then covered the hole with a fold of skin (double layer for double protection).  My left ear pokes out further than my right now; that may change after time or it may stay the same.  I don't mind.

Thank you all.  I hold you very dear in my heart and am sending your prayers back at you.  MUAH!

A Bad Day

B and I both had a bad day yesterday, for different reasons. When I tucked him in for bed he was stiff and not his snuggly self.

Me: Are you mad at me?

B: No. I just.......don't have good feelings about you right now. Is that OK to say?

Me: It's OK to not have good feelings about me and it's OK to tell me. I'll do better tomorrow.

He smiled.