Monday, November 30, 2020

Weekly Update: Hanging in there

 I was asked this morning how I'm doing and all I can say is that I'm hanging in there. This medicine is kicking my ass...literally. Main side effects: nausea, diarrhea, heartburn...I feel like a pepto commercial except pepto makes me even more nauseas if I take it. It is slowly improving, but I up the dosage tomorrow which worries me that I'll be back at square one.

I got to the point yesterday where I just wanted to cry about not feeling good. I just wanted to be wrapped up in one of those hugs where you just feel safe, but of course, covid, so that's not a thing. Still, I've been trying to do what I can.

Yesterday, I moved the Christmas tree from the kitchen where it's lived for the past year into the "wall" (aka the office/studio). The lights that someone put on it (We bought it from Goodwill last year already covered in lights.) aren't lighting up, so over this week I'll detangle all of those, check to see which strands actually work and then decorate the tree. I do need to pick up some more ornaments. I can't get to mine in the barn and only have maybe 8 from last year on it. I'm stopping at Walmart today so I'll pick up some more ball ornaments and maybe a few others. 

I also finished my last client project that's been sitting on my desk. I ought to be looking for new ones, but I really want to take the time between now and Christmas to focus on the house and preparing for the holiday. If something comes along, I won't turn it down because we can always use the money, but I'm not going to go searching. 

I'm almost done Christmas shopping which is nice. I have one thing for Ben, one thing for Roger, a couple of things for Molly, and something for Dylan and I'm done. It sounds like a lot, but they're all small things except for Dylan, who has still not given me any sort of list. I've threatened him with buying him nothing but ramen, but that doesn't seem to be phasing him. 

I still need to rebuild my card list. Last year's list is on one of my external drives. I need to find it and update it for this year. I've had a few people say that they'd like cards so I need to make sure that they're on the list. 

Overall, things are slowly coming together. It's not easy, but I'm trying to push forward and keep making little changes where I can. I've switched to wheat bread and Dylan gave me his old fitbit versa so now I have that to keep track of my movement. It still sucks, but hey, at least I have it verified that it sucks. Plus, the dietician called and they want to set up an appointment. I have to remember not to go in defensive. They're there to help me. I just hope I can make some of it happen. 

Anyway, that's life here. I've been super blessed that Eric has been messaging me to make sure I'm okay and to talk things through with me. It helps a lot. I've told very few people about this so knowing I have someone to listen is worth its weight in gold...or his weight in gold...heh..It's hard not to worry that I'm bugging people with this, but I guess the bonus of not telling a lot of people is that I don't have many to bug...lol. 

Okay, time to get back to life. I have just about 2 hours before I have to pop into Walmart, take Ben to his specialist, and pick up part of Molly's Christmas gift. I think I might see if I can get any of those light strands untangled and off of the tree. 

Take care of yourselves and each other!



PS 11 weeks

PPS 321 lbs.

Monday, November 23, 2020

Weekly Update: Well, here we go...

 I don't know how many of you read my "bonus" post this week, but if you haven't, I've been diagnosed with diabetes. That's a scary sounding word, but my doctor has assured me that if I get my act together and eat healthier, exercise, and drop some weight, it's totally reversible. So, you'll probably be reading a lot for a while about my attempts at those things. 

It's tough because I can't afford to just replace everything in my fridge/pantry. I have to eat what's here. Still, as things go, I'm not replacing some of them. No more buying muffins or cookies, for example. I have quite a backlog of cereal, but once that's gone, I think I'm going to try overnight oats. Once the kitchen floor is fixed, I'll have better access to my stove which will allow me to do things like cook eggs for breakfast. Protein protein protein is apparently the new name of my diet game. 

Speaking of the kitchen floor, I've created another schedule for myself which allows for at least 15 minutes of cleaning each day. I figure with that, it won't be too long before I can notify the owners about that floor. With really needing the ability to cook again, it's more important than ever to get that taken care of. 

Mostly, I guess that it's important that I'm only freaking out a little. I've let a few people know and they've been super supportive. Rob pointed out that I have support and love as I work on making these changes. That's so important right now. I need to know that I have people I can turn to on good days and on bad days. I've posted vague posts to Facebook about a health issue but I haven't gone further than that. The posts didn't get a lot of attention but the comments were supportive which was nice. 

Today I woke up feeling pretty good, went to the post office, and read over my list of things that I need to do today. There are a couple that I'm pretty meh about, but I need to stick with this schedule the best that I can. That means packaging up books to mail and cleaning even if I don't really want to. Does anyone have any idea where I put the packing tape?



 

Friday, November 20, 2020

Bonus Post: Diabetes

 Well, it's finally happened. My "inability" to take care of myself has led to me being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. My doctor assures me that if I lose the weight and start paying attention to my diet and actually get some exercise, that it's reversible. I have nobody to blame but myself. I'm at my heaviest weight and it's due to all of the crap that I've spent the past 5 months or so eating. 

I'm freaked though. I don't know how to fix this. Okay, I do. I mean, I lost 75 pounds in the past. The thing is...at that time, I had a place in my house to workout and a kitchen floor that didn't threaten to kill me whenever I step on it. Ben would tell me to stop making excuses and fix the problems. Really that's my only choice, but I'm feeling totally overwhelmed. 

I had to go and have more bloodwork done. I'm being put on medication. I might go see a diabetic nutrionist and she wants me to go see my eye doctor. I guess I'll have to call my insurance company to see if I can go before April because she doesn't want me to wait that long. 

I don't know, y'all. I'm super sad that I didn't love myself enough to prevent this. I'm not angry. I'm just sad. Anger is pointless and toxic when turned on myself. I haven't told anyone except Justin yet. I don't really want to make this a public thing, but I feel as if I need help. Even if it's just support and accountability. The reality is that I know I can't do it alone. It's going to take planning and preparation and a shit ton of house cleaning.

Maybe it's just as well that my editing jobs have slowed down. It may open up the time to work on the house. If I can get the house cleaned up, I can get the floor fixed. If I get the floor fixed, I'll be able to use my stove/oven again. If I can use them again, I can cook healthier meals. If I can cook healthier meals, it will help me to drop the weight and just get healthier. 

I have to go back and see my doctor in January. That's not a lot of time to get things in order, but I have to do what I can do. It's not going to be easy and I honestly expect that it's going to be a super big struggle, but if I did it before, I can do it again. I have to believe that, even when my brain says you're going to fail. That's exactly what my brain is screaming right now. You can't do this. It's too hard. You're going to remain fat and get sick and end up like Graham. Ugh. I do not want that to happen. I guess thank goodness he's pretty much shoved me out of his life. I'd hate for him to see that, but I need to be honest with myself. That's what's happening in my head.

So...I guess this weekend I add figure all this out to my list of things to do. I want to talk to Rob about it. I'd like to talk to Nick about it but come Tuesday it will be 10 weeks since I last heard from him. I've faced the fact that he's not there for me. He's not supporting me. Maybe I'll talk to Eric about it too. He's the only other person who knew about any of this. He actually wished me good luck at the appointment this morning. That was really nice. 

I don't want a huge support team, but I need a support team that I can rely on to support. And I guess that's that. I don't know what else to say about any of this other than it's stressing me out and it should be. I fucked up and I fucked up big time. Time to try to save myself because no one else can. 

Sunday, November 15, 2020

Weekly Update: A Day Early

 I hope nobody minds, but I'm writing this on Sunday night instead of Monday morning. My week feels topsy-turvy and I have no idea how I'm going to get everything done. So, instead of taking my usual down time tonight, I'm knocking a few of the easier to move around things out. 

The biggest things on my mind are a couch and a doctor's appointment. The couch currently belongs to my ex-husband and his wife. They're upgrading their furniture and I've been offered the couch. As I remember, it's not the most comfortable of pieces of furniture (which is why it's been in the basement tv area and not upstairs) but it also isn't falling apart. I guess mine isn't technically falling apart. It's just that the fabric over the springs has torn so the cushion gets shoved down between the springs. Still, a free couch to replace one that I'm constantly having to "fix" isn't a bad deal, right? The problem is that a) I love how comfy my current couch is and b) the living room isn't in "replacing a couch" condition. So, that adds more work to my first half of the week. That stresses me out because I know I won't have it done when the kids come with the couch. Why? I have to projects to get through this week.

Second thing? Yep. That doctor's appointment. Normally I don't fuss over them, but I looked over my blood test results and my glucose is really high. High enough that it could explain the constant fatigue. Crap. I'm still going to ask about a lung capacity test but clearly this is a big sign that I need to get my shit in order. I've been terrible this summer/fall with eating out/ordering in and having entire meals that are nothing more than milk and cookies. Covid depression craves comfort foods and comfort foods are so unhealthy for me. 

Now we just got news that we're going into a 3 week mini-lockdown here. I'm sure if I look at social media, people are already complaining. I'm already over it even though it barely affects me. It means no sit down going out for dinner. Well, maybe that's not such a horrible thing for me. I have no idea how to fix my diet, but I'm going to start with the obvious...no more buying chips, cookies, and muffins. I can't afford to not eat what's here, but at least I won't be bringing more in. I'll cut back on the sugary cereal as well. There are healthier options, I've just been ignoring them.

So, stress...blah...In other news, I finished writing and formatting Apo's Army last week. That's good. I have three stories written for Back to the Toy Store - also good. I haven't written anything in at least four days - not so great. I'm like 10,000 words behind for NaNo. This may be the first year in about five years that I lose. I just don't have the stamina mentally to deal with the stress and to come up with brilliant stories. I've put write 3-5 stories in my to do list for this week, but we'll see what happens. First priority needs to really be getting the living room ready for the couch. I'm so over the clutter in here. I'm starting to consider getting rid of an entire collection of books that I have on a shelf behind the front door. So many new to me books come in that I rarely go back to the older ones that I have. On top of that, I couldn't tell you one that I really long to read again. Clearing off that shelf would allow for me to possibly empty out a box or two of books just taking up space in my living room. I don't know though. I do know that I'm going to have the boys haul the not yet built bookcase out to the street on Wednesday. One of the cats scratched the hell out of the box and ruined the backboard on the book. These are super cheap shelves and I can afford to replace them when I'm ready for them. Until then, it's just more clutter that I'm tired of looking at. 

Baby steps, right? If I can keep getting rid of things, it will clear out in here. I wish Ben could come back out. He's such a huge help and motivator when he's here. If I didn't think someone would bitch, I'd ask the boys to take some stuff back with them to drop at Goodwill for me. I can hear a certain one of them complaining though. Ahhh well...I'll figure it all out somehow. 

And that's what's stressing me out. I can either do this or it will trample me but I'll survive, so either way...it's going to be what it's going to be.




Monday, November 9, 2020

Weekly Update: Sleepy Monday

Whew! I am one sleepy person today. Ben and I have stayed up later than usual the past couple of days which hasn't helped my usual level of tired. I have a doctor's appointment in a couple of weeks where I want to talk to her about why I'm so tired all of the time and sometimes short of breath. I just hope it's not something like diabetes (for the exhaustion) because a diet change is near impossible right now.

Mentally I'm doing okay. I'm getting things done. In fact, my next book is one story from being done and that story is already in progress. I've sent the art ideas off to Eric. The current plan is to launch it via Kickstarter in February. That seems so far away, but I just can't imagine the holidays being a good time to release it. 

The bonus? Because I include a preview section for the next book in the back of each book, when this is done, I'll have three stories already done for Return to the Toy Store. I'm not sure when I'll be releasing that one. I may actually finish writing it by the end of the month. Of course, then it will go to Eric for all of the art work. Depending on how the first book does on Kickstarter, I may or may not do the next Tales that way. Honestly, I'm a little nervous about doing it that way. If it fails, then that's a big embarrassment for me. Still, if it goes well, it allows me to pay Eric what he deserves. So, I'm going to give it a shot. 

Other than that, things are quiet. I have a project to get through this week. It's one of the rare occasions that I took one on for free. I don't expect that I'll do it again anytime soon. They always tend to end up being more work than the ones that I get paid for. I don't know why that is, but it's how it's been. Of course, they brought on another proofreader as well as me and she's turned it back in already. I didn't work on the weekend because that's my policy. I suppose it could make me look bad to the project runner, but I'm honestly not going to worry about it. 

That's really my goal right now...don't worry about it. Just take things day by day and try to get things done. So, here's to another week of getting things done!



Monday, November 2, 2020

Weekly Update: Blech

 I spent a good portion of the weekend either napping or laying on the couch watching movies. I don't regret either, but I wish I weren't so exhausted. There's no solid reason for it other than I must be getting sick. Blech. I actually went to bed at 9:30 last night because I felt nauseous and was getting a headache. I'm happy to report that I don't feel like I'm going to throw up anymore, but I can feel the headache lurking. I have a strong suspicion that I'm going to get my work done and then end up laying down. Did I say blech yet? Cuz blech.

There's not much else to report. This is week 7 without "the man."  I'm continuing on with life. I'll hear from him eventually and he might be surprised when I demand answers instead of just letting him get away with it. 

Oooh...NaNo started yesterday. I wrote another story for Apo's Army which is exciting. I only have eight or nine stories left on my list for that book, but I suspect I'll have to add more before I'm done. These stories seem shorter than what I wrote for Tales. That means more stories will be needed to hit my 100 pages that the book needs to be. 

For now though, I think I'm going to take a look at my weekly calendar and make some quick plans before I lay down. I know I have to vote tomorrow. I think my depo shot is due. I need to take Ben to OT on Friday and get the cats their flea meds. I have a project due in the next day or two. That's off the top of my head. 

Hopefully next week I'll have a better update for everyone. For now though...my body wins.




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