Neglected Blog

I've been meaning to update this forever! I've done tons of work in my yard and around the house and I haven't posted about any of it. I will soon.

I also haven't posted about my workouts. That's because they are virtually nonexistent. My foot is better, more or less. It turns out the the magic cure is a pair of very expensive shoes - the ugliest shoes on the planet - made by MBT.

I told you they are ugly! One month of wearing them though and my plantar fasciitis is almost nonexistent - just like my workouts. I still haven't made it back into the gym on a regular basis. I've been going to yoga on Monday evenings on most weeks.  Why is it so hard to get back into once you're out of the habit of going? It used to be so easy to work into my everyday schedule and now...

Watch for new posts in the next week or so.

Listening To The Universe

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not religious in the least. I do not believe in God. I believe in religion even less. However, I do believe in “The Force.” That is, I believe in an energy which connects every living thing across time and space. Further, I think that this force speaks to us, guides us and protects us.

It was pointed out to me this evening that I am extraordinarily stubborn. Much to my chagrin, I have to admit that this is a fairly accurate statement. I have been injured in one way or another for quite some time now.  At best, I have ignored these injuries and at worst, I have complained about them bitterly. I supposed it’s not surprising then that these injuries, which started out somewhat mild, have progressed to the point where I have to choice but to address them.

I think that the Universe has been trying to tell me to slow down and take care of myself and my body. I think it started out as a whisper and I ignored it. After all, I am pretty stubborn.  Now that whisper is more like a bad 80’s hair band playing in my living room.  I have no choice but to listen.

So, I’m listening. I am going to start looking at my injuries differently. That is, not as the bane of my existence, but as an opportunity to take care of myself and start healing my body. After my last post, I took 30 minutes to stretch and I’m surprised at how much better it made me feel. Not only did it make my body feel better, but it calmed my mind too. Considering that my stress level has been rising at a break neck speed, as evidenced by what feels like rocks in my back, I need to relax.  Big time.

I’m not any good at this. I don’t know how to relax. I don’t know how to slow down. I’ve never been able to meditate and any time I start a stretching or yoga program I do it for a day, two at most, and revert to my old ways.  At this point, this kind of behavior is no longer an option. I hurt all over. My left foot, my right ankle, my right knee, my hips, my lower back, my mid back, my upper back, both of my shoulders, and my neck hurt. I can’t live like this.

What, exactly, am I going to do about it? First and foremost I’m going to take better care of my body. I’m going to look for a decent yoga class to go to once, but ideally twice a week. Once upon a time, I did have one I liked to go to, and it did wonders for my body and mind. I’m going to stretch on my own for 60-90 minutes a day. Yes, that’s a long time, but right now I have that kind of time and no excuse not to do it. I will also continue to, or rather be more consistent about icing, massaging, and stretching my left foot. Second, I’m going to clean up my diet. My diet is not all that bad right now, but it could be better. Wheat bloats me to no end and makes me feel puffy and soft. Wheat is out. I often try to avoid it, but have been backsliding a lot lately. Also, my alcohol consumption has been slowly but surely increasing over the course of the last 3 weeks.  I tend to drink less when I’m exercising regularly and since I haven’t been doing that I’ve been drinking more. This has got to stop. I make the worst decisions about what to eat when I’ve been drinking. So, I’m going back to my old stand-by rule for alcohol: no more than 2 in a night an no more than 4 in a week. Finally, I haven’t been drinking nearly enough water – back to 2-3 liters a day.

I could probably use to do more, but this is enough for now and a darn good start. I just hope the Universe agrees.

Puddle of Misery

I haven’t posted in a long time. This is why.

I am working on various projects around the house – all in various stages of completion, but none of them far enough along to post about. I’m hoping that a few of them will come together soon so that I can share what I’ve been working on. Seems like even the smallest projects take forever to complete.

In other news, I’m rather depressed. I missed going to my chiropractor last week because I was in all day workshops in Florence last week. I thought that keeping off of my feet would help the plantar fasciitis, but it is worse this week, even though I wear my new tennis shoes with special insoles religiously. I’m really frustrated with it. I haven’t had a workout in over 3 weeks! I feel like if my stupid foot is going to hurt like this I might as well be high on some exercise endorphins. See, I’ve recently come off of one of the two anti-depressants that I was on, Zoloft. Exercising really helps with the depression and not being able to work out is making me pretty miserable. Not to mention flabby. And as if that wasn’t enough, my right knee is starting to hurt from trying to keep my weight off of my left leg. I feel like my body is just breaking down on me! I’m only 37 years old. WTH?? I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I know that being on my feet working on my house is probably what is making my foot worse, but I can’t just lie around! It would probably be in my best interest to just go into work every day and sit at my desk 10 hours a day. But summer II starts in 2.5 weeks and once that happens I know I won’t have any time to work on the house at all.

So, that’s it. I’m a puddle of misery today. Most days I don’t feel quite so bad, but seems like today I’m having myself a little pity party. It happens to the best of us, right?

<\begin drama>

As I mentioned in this post, I didn't do my workout over the weekend as planned. I'm chalking it up to one heck of a bad week. A (not so) brief summary of my personal drama.

Monday - Lose my phone.

Tuesday - House inspection is done.

Wednesday - Get into a hair-grabbing, weave-snatching fight with the ex-boyfriend. Not literally, of course, he has no weave...but if he did.

Thursday - Inspection report comes in. There is too much moisture under the house and it looks like the left side piers are sinking. Other than that, pretty minor stuff. It dawns on me that I might be homeless at the end of the month instead of in my new house. =( I also file an insurance claim on the phone. The good news is that they are overnighting it!

Friday - I have a 3pm appointment with the chiropractor - I'm storing ALL of my stress in my upper back and I eat, drink and breathe stress these days. I leave work at 2pm, so that I can swing by home for my new phone. I get home and find that UPS has not left my phone; I must sign for it. I go back to work to call UPS (cause that's the only phone I have) to ask if I can pick it up that evening. NO. The sender didn't make the option available. What? Since when can't you just go pick a package up if you aren't home when it's delievered? Call T-mobile, they say. There's a T-mobile across the street, maybe they can do it faster than I can, automated call centers being what they are. I drive over to T-mobile. Nope, they can't change the delivery options. I must call customer care. It's about 2:30pm by now and the chiropractor's office is a solid 30 minutes away. Total breakdown ensues.

I just remember standing there thinking - I can't go all weekend without a phone! I'd been without a phone all - and a crappy one at that - week and I've had no one to talk to about it! Tears flooded my face. A very kind lady at T-mobile, Donna, bless her heart, called T-mobile for me, then got the insurance company on the line, and stayed on the phone with them to get the pick-up option changed while I left for my 3pm appointment, for which I was 30 minutes late.

I spent the entire drive to my appointment crying. I think, I'm supposed to close on the house by the end of the month and now that's not going to happen. I'm sitting in the car, stuck in traffic, thinking of how sucky my current living situation is. How I can't stay even one day past the end of the month. How I must get out no matter what the cost. How I'm going to be homeless at the end of the month because my perfect little house isn't perfect after all. I think, 'ef it, I'll pack my things in a moving truck and live out of it. I think 'ef it, I'll quit my job, pack my things in a moving truck and leave SC. And I cry and I cry and I cry.

I show up to my appointment red faced, eyes swollen, still crying.

<\end drama>

I realize now that everything is going to be OK, but I did spend the weekend obsessing about it - instead of working out (which would have helped with the stress, I know). I did, thanks to Donna, get to pick up my phone that evening. Even if I can't move into my house at the end of the month, I have a friend with a warehouse who said I could store my things in it until I do close on a house. My current living situation will be rectified by the end of the month. Even if it means I have to go live in a seedy weekly rate motel for a few weeks - at least then I'll get to sleep in a bed every night. The current owners of the house had a contractor out on Monday to look at the problems with the foundation and I should hear back from them by tomorrow. If they really want to sell the house, they are going to have to fix whatever is wrong with it one way or another, so they may just do it now - it just means I might have to wait a little longer to close.

It's times like this that I just need to remind myself that things, as craptastic as they seem now, have, in fact, been worse. I have lived through worse than this and come out stronger and better for it.