Teacher Sick (Warning: Naughty words rant)

 We started Thanksgiving Break on Friday afternoon. I spent Thursday night, some of Friday, some of Saturday and ALL DAY SUNDAY in SO MUCH PAIN! My period, which shows up now about once every three months, showed up with the fucking cavalry, and I want to curl up into a tiny ball and make all of the world just fuck off right now. It's gross, it's painful, I don't like it. One of my good friends is - unfortunately - having a hysterectomy because of reasons, and right now I am so fucking envious of her.

On top of that, and the reason for today's post, I have something akin to a cold, or something. It started Friday night. Now, this is something I'm used to. Nearly every break, I spend the first few days sick. (Yes, I am wishing that Thanksgiving Break was longer.) I'll be fine after a few days, but it almost always happens. 

According to WebMD, I have what is called "leisure sickness."  It's where you have a job that is so stressful that you build up this strange immunity and "put off" being sick until your body can handle being sick, which is when you're "not stressed".  I guess it's like if I am going to have a cold, or the flu or something like that (or, I guess, my period) my body realizes that I am too stressed out to deal with that illness right now and instead files it away for "later" when I'm not as stressed out.  And later comes during holiday breaks. 

Apparently this can happen for emotional distress too, I think. I can deal with emotional stress and not get emotional about it.. until I'm on break. So I not only spend my first few days of nearly every vacation in a ball of pain and phlegm (pretty picture, I know), but I'm also a crying, emotionally wrecked ball of phlegm. So much fun.

Fortunately, Thanksgiving isn't until Thursday. I should be done with all of this (hopefully) by tomorrow and be able to make wonderful pies for my family for Thanksgiving as well as some broccoli in brown butter with cotija (because I can't find mizithra cheese anywhere). 

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I'm going to go drink a Monster, write five thousand words and crochet until all the stress leaves my body.

Yay!

Episode 83: Back at Square One

Like an interminable game of chutes and ladders, I have slid back into the first spot of the board again.  I gained 10 pounds, at least, since the wedding, and my body is feeling it and my health - both physical and mental - have declined. My darling AM has been patient with me, and caring and loving, as I have mentally and emotionally tortured myself because of the great burden of guilt that weighs down my thoughts and my body.  But he loves me, and because he loves me, I can fight from this pit of toxic despair and go on.

~~end emo rant~~~

OK, so I have backslid.  That doesn't mean that I can't get back up and do it again.  I have the tools, I have the support system and I have the ability to be better than I have been.  The first step is admitting there is a problem, and there is and I can help that and move on from this... whatever it is... and start using my coping mechanisms.  This blog is one of them. Even if I only post for myself, even if it is just my thoughts and a few things once in a while, I can use this space to think, to clear out and to consider the journey that I am on.  If I want to have children, if I want to live a long happy life with AM, this is what I have to do.

I have watched my friends get healthier lately, and I have stood by as a cheerleader and a supporter as I wave my little flag from the sidelines of My Fitness Pal, Fitbit and Superbetter, but I need that support as well, and I have been ignoring the cheerleaders on the sidelines of my life. My apologies. When one finds oneself at the bottom of a pit, all you tend to look at is the dirt walls, and not look up to see the many faces and hands that are there trying to help you come out of it.  This weekend AM reached out a hand and gave the top of my down-turned head a good smacking (metaphorically) and then offered his hand to pull me out.  So, I'm climbing out, and while the walls are slippery and there are many pitfalls, I know I can make it out.

Calling all cheerleaders, you are needed... and gratefully appreciated!

Love and Lollipops,

ToryLynn

Episode 66: Putting Color Into Life

Today we went to the Farmer's Market behind the Weberstown Mall.  We got up, even before breakfast, put on clothes, braved the cold, crisp morning (at 8:45) and went out to see what sort of fresh produce they had for us today.  What you see in the picture is what we bought.  Fresh veggies, raspberry jams and some pomegranates.  They are all glorious (and barely fit in our tiny tiny apartment fridge).  The plan is to make some really awesome veggie soup, since we're on a type of Weight Watchers.

 In fact, I'm sort of cheating.  I have no money and very little resources to rejoin Weight Watchers at this time, but I have all of my old book and all of my old program stuff, so we're using these as resources, with some help from some web sources, to create our own version of Weight Watchers.  I haven't given up on the whole milk or the whole fat yogurt, as they seem to be better for my digestion than the low fat stuff (I don't get nearly as may ucky tummies), but we are adding many more veggies and things to our diet.  I feel healthier.  According to my Wii, I have lost about 5 pounds in the last two weeks.

Just looking at that picture makes me happy!  The colors, the vibrancy, and I've noticed that since we have been eating better, cleaning our apartment more often and working out a bit more, my whole life seems to be coated in this new vibrant color.  A year or more ago, I was feeling kind of in the doldrums.  I lived in a beautiful place, I had everything I ever wanted, but it wasn't satisfying. I was unhappy.  I was overweight. I was lazy and in pain and everything seemed like crap.  I was taking medication for bipolar disorder and it wasn't helping much.  And the food I was eating was awful!  Looking back at my Weight Watcher's books from a year ago, I was eating fast food daily.  One day was Wendys. One day was Subway. One day was Taco Bell.  Fried foods, foods full of fat, foods full of fillers. These were the things that I was putting into my body, and my body fought back with depression, acne and weight gain.

Now I eat what you see on the table.  Fresh fruits, fresh veggies. I make my own breads sometimes.

 I take a vitamin daily, and I cook my own food. I have even, on occasion, made my own butter (which is absolutely delicious!)  I know exactly what goes in my food. If I write down a recipe, or a list of ingredients, I can pronounce every single one of them.  I still eat meat, though we do have our Wegitarian Wednesdays, and Pizza Fridays (our one little concession to the "how do you pronounce that?" foods).  We will eat out, but we go places where we can eat healthfully.  We found this great little sushi place (at Sherwood Mall, no less) that makes great rolls and you can watch them make them, so we know exactly what goes into them.  All of these things have greatly improved the quality of my life.

I plan on keeping up with this blog some more.  I want to write and keep track.  I want to post about how I organize my life, how I make it can make it better, and how I have learned to enjoy a life lived in less space and fewer calories but much more enriched.  I'll post some of my recipes that we have found particularly yummy, some ideas for keeping life organized, and my adventures of jumping off the high dive of life and just, well... Weighting in the Deep End!

Keeping happy and healthy!

ToryLynn

Episode 33: Wherein I break a habit by overdoing it

Morose. Morose Morose Morose Morose.  I like that word, Morose.  I've sort of liked it ever since I heard it on Chasing where Jay comes in on a brooding (yet hot) Ben Affleck (Holden), and says "Well, look at this morose motherfucker".  I just like the word.  Apparently I overuse it though.

I am morose today.  I am sour, glum, moody, crabby, cranky, disconsolate, saturnine, ill natured, splenetic.  If I didn't have to go to work to do my post-observation conference, I probably wouldn't go.  I will go though, with my best smile on and in my most comfortable clothes I can get away with at work (black jeans, black shirt and my new trendy sweater).

I think my observation went well yesterday.  I find out today during my prep, but my students were (mostly) on task, the lesson was well prepared.  I knew what I was doing. If only I could be as well prepared every day.  Teaching is draining. Life is draining.  It's not that I'm exhausted (although I did get up at 2:45 this morning) it's just that I'm drained.  I feel that life has ebbed out of me today.  I know that it is chemical, some neuron in my brain misfiring or some lack of hormone or something, so I am not going to worry about it. I will be on an upswing soon enough.  I can handle this affliction without adding more chemicals to my brain that I don't need.  I will sip my coffee, suckle the caffeine teat, and try to energize myself for just two more days of school until the blessed blessed weekend.

Morose! (You know, the more I use the word.. the less meaning it has.  Maybe I will stop using it.)

(By the way, of all the Kevin Smith View Askewniverse movies, my favorites go in this order... Chasing Amy, Dogma, Clerks, Clerks 2, Jay and Silent Bob, Mallrats.  I have a signed 10th anniversary edition of Clerks.  It is awesomesauce. Oh now I wish I could take those to school and watch them.  Now that would cheer me up.)

Episode 10: Emotional Eating

I'm depressed today.  Recently, I have been on this huge upswing, riding high, sort of on a giggling manic, but today my mood took a dive and I feel horrible.  Part of me wants to chuck this diet and head straight for the ice cream that is in the fridge.  Part of me wants to rip open the bag of Creme d'Menthe bits that AH bought me to make cookies out of - once I had a few extra points - and devour the entire bag.  I hate being depressed, but what I hate worse is being an emotional eater.

The problem with being an emotional eater is that I may head for that bag of chocolates, or down that half gallon of ice cream and it will make me feel temporarily better with the sugar rush and the endorphins that make my blood go whee!  But in the end, I know it will make everything worse. I will end up on a sugar high, an artificial mood, for a little while, and then I will crash worse than I started.  I will look at the empty container and the guilt will creep in.  I will think "Oh! I was so awful!  Look what I did.. I am never going to get thin."  This will, of course, build on the cycle of emotional eating.  I will get even more depressed at the thought of gaining back all the weight that I just lost, at my deteriorating health. Everything I do or think will have a black cloud of doubt and gloom cast over it and I will get even more negative than I already am.

The other part of depression is the lethargy.  I do not want to move. I do not want to think. This slothlike feeling goes hand in hand with the depression and all I want to do is sit on the couch and watch sappy romantic movies and cry my eyes out. (The Notebook being the movie I cannot watch during these downswings as it will leave me a pile of sobbing goo on my couch.)

In my head, I know I just have to wait for it to pass.  I know that my mind is just playing tricks on my body and I have to wait it out, don't do anything drastic, and try to surround myself with positive thoughts and influences.  I need to accomplish something that will make me feel better about myself.  

Writing is out of the question. There is nothing more depressing than sitting down to write when I'm in one of my "moods" and finding all the poetry coming out of me, or even writing, being about heartbreak, sadness, and death.  As a former recovering Goth kid, this was the tenure of much of my teen angst writing.  I could work on my novel, but my mood will inevitably shift to that of my characters and they may do something drastic.  I'm all for editing, but really often, the characters run the story and I just write down what they tell me to do.  Right now, they're telling me to go eat all the ice cream in the fridge and write them into torrid love affairs that will all end badly.  Not an option.

Instead, I think I will go clean something.  Empty the dishwasher, clean up around my desk (which has the detritus of probably 3 weeks of lack of cleaning surrounding it), maybe even get up the nerve to finally sort out and clean off my dinner table... but I wouldn't hold my breath about that.  

Altogether, writing this made me smile a little bit, which is good and I can feel my spirits picking up.  I had better go clean something while I still have the energy.

Thanks for reading!  (and to my followers! I have three now! How awesome is that!)  I hope you have a lovely everything.

-ToryLynn