Weight loss challenge, week 12 (You hear that? It's MOMENTUM!)

It's week 12, you guys!! Week TWELVE. I was going to do a little video for today but I have kind of a lot on my plate today and bills came in the mail and yeah. I'm just not in a good spot to look even  marginally happy in a video.

But! I'll just tell you I did work out today, which will reflect on my wrap up next Monday, but let's talk about what I did last week.

I worked out three times last week. Not quite hitting my goal, but they were GOOD workouts! I did two of the 10 minute Beachbody sessions, an upper body workout on Wednesday, and then the ab workout on Thursday. The ab one is NO JOKE. It's absolutely no joke, my mid section hurt all the way through Saturday. On Friday I did a 20 minute ride on my recumbent bike, which ended up being three miles, so I was pretty pleased with that.

This weekend I did a LOT of lifting and carrying very full garbage bags because I did the whole KonMari thing with my clothes (more on that soon) and my back and arms were sore. Sunday Olivia had her dance competition (more on that soon, too) so I didn't have time to do anything. I was exhausted by the time I got home so I went to bed early. I actually fell asleep waiting for the kids to finish up their showers, so that's how that went.

What did you do this week? It's SO cold where I live and this week is just going to get worse so I should turn on the heat in my house but I just can't turn it any higher. I legitimately cannot afford it, so working out has been great in that regard. I find that it jump starts hot flashes for the rest of the day so I'm toasty, nobody else is, but at least it's once less person complaining. HA!

Goals for this week:
1. Four workouts over the course of the week
2. Weigh in and report back next week
3. Get back on track with limiting soda

What's on your list this week?

Exercises in memory

One of the things I struggle a lot with post AFE is my loss of memory. Easily the MOST annoying things is when people try to pander to me about my memory. Or try to relate. I hear a lot of, "Oh my god, I know- I'm so forgetful the older I get!" or "I get that- I can't remember last week either." and I'll be honest and tell you in my head I'm envisioning punching people in the face. I'm not proud of it but it really is a testament to the strength of my medication because I'm able to smile and nod my  head and move on quickly.

Because it is absolutely nothing like age related forgetfulness or being busy and forgetting what you did for a minute there. If you had to you could stop and think back, recall what you did generally and be able to tell someone. You can recall stories with ease and when your kids ask you what they were like as a toddler you can tell them. When your doctor asks you if you have had any problems you can talk about some symptom that's bothering you. When they ask when your last period is you give the general month at least, be able to tell them when you ate last or when you took your pills that day.

I cannot.

I cannot do any of those things.

Lately I am realizing that I forget that I forget. It's not so glaringly obvious every day to me anymore and for that I'm grateful. It's nice to forget that you forget. It's not so much of a problem then. And if I don't put any effort into remembering something, sometimes the memories is just there. Sometimes someone will say something and suddenly I have a memory, or a fragment of a memory, and I can join into a conversation like a normal person. Only the people closest to me can tell when the memory scatters away because I'll end a sentence with, "yeah... huh. I remember that." I'll abruptly end a memory as if I don't want to reveal all of it. I do. But I can't. It's gone, like I only get to borrow it as if it's not even mine.

Sometimes it's not so bad. Life gets busy and I have too much happening around me to remember what Olivia looked like when she was two. Then other times Jackson wants to see pictures of some trip he remembers and I have to desperately figure out when that was. I have tens of thousands of photos on my computer meticulously labeled but it doesn't really help most of the time because it's like looking at the life of strangers.

Then there are other times where I will try to challenge myself to remember and I start looking at old photos. I will ask the kids if they remember. I look back on old blog posts for an explanation of what we were doing, who are the people in the photos, where were we. 

Most of the time I cry. It's really hard to look through all of these memories and not have them in my mind. They are all so personal and I just want to be able to have them.  I try to imagine what I was feeling as I took the picture. Try to figure out why I chose that exact moment to snap a photo.

Sometimes it feels like having a house fire take all of your possessions. No  matter how badly you want those things back you can't have them. You can't replace them. All you have are what you can remember. 

I feel like everything has been stolen from me. It's actually pretty scary sometimes. When I forget where I live is really scary. I will often forget who I should call. How to make that call. How to ask for help. Where do you go for help. Did I have my kids with me? Maybe I forgot them somewhere and now someone has taken them and everyone is going to say I'm a bad mom. 

I worry that this is just going to get worse as I get older. I'm afraid the fact that it's not coming back isn't a good sign, like the longer I go without having my memory back means those memories are falling more and more into the recesses of my mind.

I know people try to compare their issues to mine to somehow try to make me feel better, make me think that it's really not that bad. I know it's bad. I know there isn't anything a person can say or do to make it better. You don't have to sugar coat it for me. It's OK to tell me when whatever it is that I'm experiencing isn't normal and it's damn sure not good, that it is really awful and you can't even understand it or how I do it.

It's OK to say it because I say these things to myself every day.

It's hard to look at pictures of the person that looks like me because I feel in my bones that person is gone. She really did leave and I feel like a fraud. I'm in the wrong body, the wrong life. These people think I'm this person and I'm not. I feel more disconnected than I already do. I try to think about what this mom would do in my situation. I hope I'm doing as good of a job as she obviously did. A lot of days I very much feel like I'm not up to par and my family is too nice to say so. I wonder if Matt feels a difference. I don't even dream anymore. Well, that's not true. The dreams I do have aren't ones anyone wants. It's just episodes of scary moments, a stereo playing a tape telling me I'm not supposed to be here and I need to go and all the ways I could do it, or me strapped to a table in a hospital actively dying. That's all that I dream.

It's a bizarre way to live.

But I do these exercises in memory often. I keep thinking eventually if I see these things enough my brain will come back online.

Suffocation

Way back when I had the AFE and all hell broke loose, we were already strapped for cash. We were barely making it and the plan was for me to get a job in the evening and that would help me get out of the house and a break from the kids but also give us another income (even if only a small one). It was clear that wasn't going to happen and we really didn't have a plan B. We were SO grateful to have had my friend Sarah start a GoFundMe for us because we had a $9000 insurance deductible (and thank god we had insurance because my bill alone was well over $120,000) and that helped us pay all of that, get the first round of medications, get groceries, and pay a couple of bills I hadn't been able to pay before I went in for Lucy.

Basically, it's what kept us from losing our home and I will never be able to tell you what that meant to us.

I remember (kind of) the first year being really awful because Matt hadn't worked as many hours at work that we basically built our life on so we were always behind in bills, over drawn, robbing Peter to pay Paul essentially. I would forget to pay a bill and then we'd have to scramble. It was just a really awful time and we had spent a LOT on our credit cards just to stay afloat.

Which, of course, catches up to you eventually and that's where we are.

Every month Matt gets two pay checks and he works an obscene amount of hours. He has to and I am SO grateful he has his job and gets a regular check, I'm so grateful he can work over time and is never out of things to do, I am so grateful he has the best employer. They have been so good to our family and I think people and things come into your life at the right time and we don't always know why but it becomes known eventually. That's how I feel about his job. They are so great. If he didn't have this job I honest to God don't know what we would have done then and even still.

Every payday we look at the bills and figure out a game plan, we budget, we menu plan, we decide what the kids can and can't do with friends or activities, we look ahead to see what's coming, and we do our best. We aren't frivolous spenders. I don't have clothes that fit. Matt lives in his stained and ripped work clothes. Our house is freezing, and I mean that. It's been well below zero the last week and our house hasn't been any warmer than 67 degrees so I can keep the utility bill down and I can't feel my hands most days. It's cold. We eat a lot of cereal (not even name brand... blech), we don't have cable, and even still - we are broke.

Scary broke.

I don't know what to do. I don't know why we can't just catch a break. I can't make Matt work any more than he does because we certainly can't afford to have him die of exhaustion. I get my disability check but (shocker) you don't get much when you're disabled and not older. And that's fine, I'm happy I get anything because I really don't know what we would do.

But this week feels like it broke me. After dropping the kids off at school I drove all the way home in full tears in breakdown mode because I feel like everything is caving in on me. I haven't felt well lately so Matt didn't work a couple of Saturdays to help me with the kids and that reflects on his paycheck, which was lower than I thought it was going to be. Which means I can't pay all of the bills. I have to put groceries on a paycheck. My mom had to borrow me money so I can get Olivia to her dance competition this weekend. I try really hard to not let the kids see me break like this and I'm always honest with them that we just can't afford some things. They know this, they understand it and never make us feel bad about it, but they don't know that it feels like we're drowning.

Adulting is so super fun.

It makes me think about my parents when I was growing up and how hard they both worked, how tired they always were, and how we just didn't have the money to get the things we really wanted. They did a lot for us and we definitely didn't go without but I think I finally understand the crippling pressure they must have felt for all of those years.

I can't even tally how much our debt has come to because I feel like that would be the straw that breaks me. I'm trying so hard to stay afloat mentally for my family and keep it together but all of this stress added onto it is just too much. I wish I was one of those people who could just let a bill sit to the side knowing it'll just get paid another time. I can't do that. I'm going to obsess over it. I'm going to obsess over the ones coming in. I know we haven't hit our deductible yet this year so I have to figure out how I'm going to refill my medications. I'm trying to figure out which ones I can ration so I can hold off on refilling them for as long as possible. I know an emergency room bill is coming. I know Olivia gets her braces off soon and I'll need to get her teeth cleaned so they don't look awful. I know before I know it we'll need to school clothes shop and get supplies. I know I'm only a couple years out from driver's ed and a car and insurance and it's all too much. I try to focus on one day at a time but my brain can't do that. It's a runaway train and I know how quickly time goes and I'm never ready.

Then I worry something will happen to Matt. What would happen? I'd have to move in with my mom with four kids. I can't work full time, how would I pay for anything? I don't know how to take care of anything financially anymore. I don't know how to put things in order. I realize how MUCH I rely on Matt for, he runs the show. I literally am just here. Then I feel bad about myself and I get angry that this happened to me and I think if this didn't happen I could work and things would be fine. So now it all comes back to me and how this is all my fault.

I've brought this stress on me and my family. I shouldn't even be here. If I had just died they have less bills to pay and I'm just a burden.

Do you see the cycle? It's unhealthy, I know this. I can't stop it, it just goes and goes in my head all day every day.

So I cry. I cry in the car. I cry in the bathroom. I cry in the shower. I cry when I wake up. I cry when I go to sleep. I cry during nap time. I cry every moment I have alone. It's suffocating me.

Purge, baby, purge

If  you're a Netflix junkie or mildly curious what people are talking about, you've likely watched an episode (or binged them all while eating popsicles in your sick bed) of the Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. It's all about minimizing what you own, keeping only what sparks joy, and freeing up the spaces in your home. Lots of research says that too much stuff or clutter around you increases anxiety, and I know that's true for me. I think I was able to always keep my anxiety in check by obsessively organizing and cleaning. Post AFE I am not able to do that so oftentimes I find myself staring at a counter in my dining room, often referred to as a "command station" area, which has become a catch all. Everyone throws things on it and apparently I'm the only one capable of doing anything about any of it. Which is annoying because what would they do if I was dead?

I digress.

I decided that I really have to do this. I started a few months ago and I focused on one specific area, like a closet. I emptied out, went through each item one by one and had a ton of trash, mostly because it was a linen closet, and when I put the few things back in, it was really nice. Interesting, I've been very reluctant to put anything back onto the empty shelves so I have been really good about keeping it up.

I know Marie has a method of doing all of the clothes at once (which I will do this weekend or next, I'm not sure yet), doing all paper, all komono (everything else), etc. It's a whole process. But for me to do this with toddlers under me, that's not really practical. I did Lucy and Penelope's room as one process and got rid of things that were too small, stained, things we just don't use/wear. It was really nice to just get one entire room done and close the door and know I'm done. For now at least.

I know my room is going to take awhile because Matt and I both have a LOT of clothes, mostly that we don't wear and it's always been easier to put them in a drawer and worry about it later. Get rid of three or four shirts when we are donating other stuff just to fill a bag. But the time has come... we need to really do it. But knowing that is going to be a joint process and probably not an enjoyable one, I decided I would start on my office because that's 100% me and my problem.

My office is kind of great, I spend a lot of time in it. It stores toys, all of my books, all of my scrapbooking, my recumbent bike, and a closet that is literally the biggest catch all I've ever had. I don't know what's even in there aside from purses and extra school supplies. It's a hot mess. But I decided putting it all in the middle of the room is not practical for me so I would go section by section.

I have these cubes I got from Michaels, but you can also get them on Amazon,  and they are GREAT. You can different kinds, some with doors or drawers, modular compartments, some with shelves, the possibilities are endless and it's perfect for any kind of crafter but also for someone who just has a lot of smaller things to store and you don't want them out in the open. They stack, you can move them around, they are really the best investment I've made in my office. Anyways. I have scrapbooked a lot since I had Lucy so a LOT of my supplies have been neglected. I decided I was going through each drawer and really make a decision- is this something I will realistically use knowing I don't craft much anymore, or is this something someone else could use? As you can see, that box is all of the ribbon I got rid of. Almost 75 rolls.

I decided to keep just this. Huge improvement because I had four of these drawers stuffed full of ribbon and now I have one drawer not even half full. I have nothing in my other drawers so I might just move these somewhere and downsize a cube or two. We'll see. 

This looks terrible but truly, I had stuff everywhere in my office. Matt looked a little overwhelmed and left me alone for the most part. 

I emptied out my scrapbook supplies from the closet, those are all gone. ALL gone. I didn't keep anything. I narrowed my stamp collection to half. I went through every pen, pencil, marker I had and only kept 40, just enough for one of each major color. All of my paints are gone (except the craft pain the kids use), I got rid of punches and tools, adhesive I don't like, cards and envelopes I don't use, so much stuff. I ended up donating a LOT to Penelope's preschool because I knew kids would love to tinker with this stuff at their art table and it's out of my house. 

The MOST daunting thing? Going through paper. I have thousands of sheets of 12x12 paper. Thousands. Easily. I went through so much and got rid of 3/4 of it. Did you read that? I hardly have any paper. (Not true, I have a lot but even Matt wasn't sure if my give away pile was the smaller pile and was VERY impressed that it was the larger!) That all went to the preschool too. I realized I've had paper for YEARS just because it was pretty. Like this stuff from SEI. I kept it because I literally could not part with it but I am going to use it on a page this year. I keep saying I'm waiting for the "right" photos for it but no- I need to use it. So my scrapbook area is DONE. It's kind of amazing and I feel not as overwhelmed to do more pages. I don't have as many choices to think about, it's back to being simple and easy.

My next project? Books. 

This is a before of half of my shelves. I do a purge every few months so I'm not THAT bad. Marie Kondo says you should keep less than 30 and that's not a world I want to live in. I just cannot. A person can't even ask that of me. A lot of my books I've read so many times so it's not like they just sit there.

I am going through one area at a time. Young Adult will be first, then non-fiction, and then..... everything else. I'll offer them to friends first, then I'm going to try to find teachers or organizations that would want them, and then donate. I already have a stack of books I'm going to mail to people so I need to work on that this week.

I have so much work yet to do in my office but having the scrapbook area done is a huge accomplishment. I just need to make some tough choices on books. I feel sick already.

Weight loss challenge, week 11 (the time I knew more than a doctor)

Welcome to week 11, lambs! I feel like this is going to be a good week, mostly because anything will be a step up from last week. If you remember from last week, I had some pretty lofty goals (for me) for this week. I wanted to do 3 workouts, 2 days on my recumbent bike, limit soda, and stick with intermittent fasting.

Amazingly, I only fell sort a little. BUT!! I had a really great reason!

I got really sick! It started super early Tuesday morning and I woke up throwing up, diarrhea, the whole bit. Didn't think it was a big deal, this randomly happens, I manage. After it was happening steadily every 15 minutes for four hours... I started getting a little worried. Technically, if this happens twice in an hour, I'm supposed to go to the hospital and be observed for adrenal crisis. Do I do this? No, I do not. Why? Because it happens all of the time and I don't want to be one of those people. I use the ER for legit emergencies. By the time my mom gets to our house, about 8 in the morning, I decided I can't drive anyone to school so Matt comes to get Jackson and I call Penelope in because I'm sure we can get her there but picking her up mid day is an issue. So that's squared away.

As soon as Matt gets back to work I realize I'm shaky, I am suddenly so tired I am having a hard time staying awake, I feel freezing except I'm dripping sweat down my back, and I generally don't feel well. My gut is telling me it's time for the ER so I call Matt (who literally had JUST punched back in at work.... sorry babe) and he takes me. This is another time where I am VERY grateful to have my mom here because she stayed with Penelope and Lucy because you just never know how long an ER visit is going to last.

We didn't even make it all the way there and I'm telling Matt to pull over and before he stops, I'm puking out of the car door. If adulthood came with merit badges, I just earned one for my sash.

We get to the ER and I can't even check myself in. I tell them I might be in an adrenal crisis, and I sit down while Matt does whatever you do to check in. The triage nurse sees me and I'm not kidding- I thought there were two of them because everything is starting to look slanted and wavy. I go sit in the waiting room and decided I'm going to lose my intestines so while I run to the bathroom, apparently, some older couple came INTO the ER with an actual dog that was NOT a service animal, who proceeded to poop all over the emergency waiting room. Honestly at that point I felt like if I didn't make it, I could reasonably blame it on a dog.

By the time it was my turn to go back I wasn't even sure I could walk back there and the nurse was so rude and completely over her shift. The doctor pops in, I tell him what I think is wrong with me, show him my ER info sheet I got from the Mayo Clinic and I kid you not, his actual words were, "Huh. So this is a thing?" I tell him what I need and how to treat me and he wants to refer to Endocrinology, which is great. Turns out they aren't even sure what to do so they say exactly what I said but invite him to call Mayo and see if they give a different answer. He didn't seem excited to do that despite I have the direct number and my patient number on my special sheet of paper, but you know. Do what you want, I guess.

You guys. This is now the SECOND time I have come to the ER for the same thing and the second time a doctor had zero idea what adrenal insufficiency is or what to do for it. I can't even.

So they get me the worst IV I have ever had in my life (courtesy of nurse who hates her job), they give me Zofran for the nausea and Dexamethasone (which is the emergency med for AI) and I'm not kidding you- within minutes I felt like I could run a marathon. I had already taken a triple dose of my medicine at home (like I'm supposed to) but it wasn't enough, obviously. So I sit there for four hours with an IV giving me fluids and medicine. I kid you not, the second that second bag ran out, I knew it. The last of my medication was administered a few minutes before and I immediately felt like crap again. They didn't want to call it an adrenal crisis because they "aren't confident with that terminology" so they called is gastroenteritis. Except my discharge paper says gastritis, which is completely different and not what I have, so that's nice.

I went home and went to bed. Matt got me popsicles. I drank a lot of water. I puked and pooped a lot. Slept even more. Took more hydrocortisone. Slept again. 

The next day I did not feel well at all. This time I had a horrible headache, I felt like I had a fever but I didn't, I was still puking and pooping, I had chills, my lower back hurt, I felt like crap. Penelope took this picture of me sometime after their nap. I slept when they did but I didn't hear them come down stairs, turn the TV on, get a snack, find their drinks, knock a bunch of toys down, grab my phone, nothing. I woke up when Matt came home to tell me we had to go get his truck. Honestly, I went in my dirty, smelly pajamas and my hair in a bun because the ends had puke on them.

Matt is SUCH a lucky guy.

I had two pretty OK days. I still couldn't eat because I had no appetite and I was still puking and pooping but it was more manageable. 

Then Saturday I got VERY sick again and decided to screw the ER and I just popped steroids all day until I felt marginally like I was going to live. Lucy made me carry around this bucket because she was very worried about me puking apparently.

BUT!

Through all of that, what did I get done this week? I got TWO workouts and ONE bike session. Not bad. I had no caffeine and didn't fall at the intermittent diet because I had no food and I threw up water, so that also counts as a win.

I kind of was a rockstar last week, you guys.

For this week I have the same goal: 

1. THREE workouts with Beachbody

2. TWO recumbent bike sessions, each being 20-30 minutes long

3. Reduce caffeine, no more than 8 ounces a day

How did you do last week? Do you have weight loss goals for this year? Check back next week and I'll hopefully have a video of me. No video this week because I legit look like death and I haven't showered since Friday. That's my #treatyoself for tonight. Seriously, Matt is such a lucky guy. HA!

Book Review: Schoolgirl Missing

Do you remember how well I did on my 2018 Goodreads Challenge? I got to 110 books with no problem. This year? You guys.... I'm four books behind. Well, three books with this one. I'm so screwed.

Schoolgirl Missing - Sue Fortin

When fourteen-year-old Poppy vanishes on a family boating trip, suspicion soon turns close to home – to the two people who should do everything to keep her safe, her parents, Kit and Neve. Can they really be responsible for their little girl’s disappearance?

Neve loves Poppy like her own daughter, but the truth is, she isn’t. And her very existence means Neve will never have a precious child to call her own. But would Neve harm her step-daughter simply to get her own way? In times like this Neve has always turned to her sister Megan to help. Megan will know what to do…

Kit would do anything to keep his family safe and happy. But his refusal to have another child has been causing a strain on his marriage. And he’s worried Neve’s mental state is growing increasingly unstable. But would he harm his own daughter just to prove he is in control?

As the frantic search for Poppy grows, Kit and Neve’s marriage is close to breaking point. And only one person can get what they want.

To start us off, I'm kind of teetering on a 3.5 star... kind of 4 star. I'm going to mark it as a 4 but just know it's a hesitant 4. I think what makes me on the edge is because this is an interesting premise and the story is good, it's just that every single character is a terrible person. Nobody has any quality that makes you think they'd be someone you'd want to know let alone have coffee with. Now I had a good feel for Neve at first but within the first few chapters that went to hell. Kit seems like a complete dickbag from the start and how these two ended up together, I'll never understand it. 

But we have Poppy, special needs and kind of a handful, and her dad Kit has no time for her and basically married Neve to fill the mother role so he can do his own thing. Which, alright, Neve figured once she showed him how great of a mom she can be he'd be willing to have a child with her and no- Kit is not about that life. So Neve is taking up hobbies and you and I have seen enough Lifetime movies to know where THIS goes. But Poppy disappears and suddenly everyone is trying to find her, untangle clues, and figure out this really kind of bizarre web of lies and past lives, and suddenly more unlikable people are in the story and yeah. It's kind of a lot.

BUT!

Once I saw where the author was going and how completely crazy this would end, I was kind of on board. You know when you watch Law & Order and the person you KNOW is the bad guy guilty of all the crimes walks out of the courthouse with a smug smile and winks at you? That's basically how this ending felt. I didn't really see this particular ending coming so kudos to the author for that but man... I really wasn't sure if she'd pull it off. This is my first Sue Fortin book and I'd be open to reading more because this was a pretty creative story.

   

Weight loss challenge, week 10

It feels like awhile since I updated, but here we are!

Goals for this coming week:

• Get 3 work outs in using Beach Body on Demand
• Use my recumbent bike twice for 20-30 minutes each time
• Stick to no more than 8 ounces of soda each day
• Continue with the intermittent fasting

I feel a very slow momentum but I think actually making the time, even ten minutes, to exercise really helped me. Mentally I feel no better and I have no illusion that I'm going to feel fantastic BUT! I am going to start the KonMari organizing challenge this weekend (more on that later) and that means I will be face to face with the sheer abundance of clothes that no longer fit. And I will have to make some really TOUGH choices. So we'll see. Think happy thoughts for me. HA! 

I also have to mention that I bought myself a resistance band thing. I've been skipping workouts that say you need one and now I went back and did them. This thing is kind of amazing. Seriously. I feel like a pro at this point. I got this 4-6 pound one and it works fine for even a weakling like me, but if you're more into it, you can get a heavier one, of course. 

I decided after hearing about my friend's really amazing trip to Jamaica that Matt and I really deserve to go on a trip, just him and I. It might not happen this year because hello, debt! But we are really making that a goal/priority for 2020. If I'm going on a beach trip I want to be in much better swimsuit shape than I am in now. So... goals. 

Have you started on any of your goals for 2019?