Where the Magic Lives

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.  ~Bill Cosby

Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better.  ~Samuel Beckett

With a lot of research and a lot of personal honesty I had to admit that I've done some seriously dumb stuff to my body in the name of weight loss.  I've messed up my metabolism pretty badly and the only way to get weight off now is to build muscle, eat real food and be patient while my body heals and rebalances.  Patience is a virtue I am still working on.  I want what I want and I want it now and as a single mom I don't feel like I have a lot of time and money to burn. Maybe that's just the "American" in me.

This time around it's different though.  I realized that in all of my other weight loss attempts, every diet, every gym membership, every DVD I bought was done with the same goal...to become someone else...to become someone that I liked better than who I am and then everyone else would like me better too.  Right??  Umm, no, unfortunately I had to learn...no, FEEL, what I already knew:  Being anything other than the person you were put here to be will only end in frustration and confusion.  Sara at 250 lbs and Sara at 140 lbs have one common denominator....Sara.  And if I don't like me nothing else in the world will change much no matter where I go, who I'm with or what I weigh.

Thus we have the first challenge in any attempt to do any kind of personal growth.  Before a single bite is taken or a weight lifted I needed to learn how to come back to center and be comfortable there.  Just me.  I started doing that, unbeknownst to me, when I started studying and taking reiki classes.  You invariably come back to who you are because that is where the magic lives.  As that happened I started to see dynamics in relationships I no longer enjoyed, things I used to think were funny now seem kinda mean and I put certain foods in my mouth (foods that used to be sinful cravings) and they just don't taste good anymore.  I prefer the foods and sounds that come straight from nature and the peace of a book over the tv. 

I pray for release everyday: release from my own negativity, release of these emotions from my body, release of the identity tied to the past.  Only in releasing can we move forward, so I hear.  I am far from perfect.  Release has been a challenge for me.  There is a big part of me that INSISTS on being recognized and identified, perhaps even justified.  But I continue to try try try again.  As bad as it feels to be down, the idea of staying down is even more intolerable. 

Into the Dream

Last night I was laying in bed thinking about personal power, resolve, inner strength and all that jazz.  I wondered if there was a way to transfer strength from one part of your life into another, like moving funds from your savings into your checking...except without having to wait 3 business days for it to take effect.  I dozed lightly and remember having a minor dream, more of a slight glimpse really. 

In the dream a mermaid was being pulled out of the water by her hair.  Something about it made me think I was the person hauling the poor thing out of the breakers by her hair but yet another part of me also thought I was the mermaid being hauled in like a fish on a line.  My vantage point in the dream would have basically left me standing on top of the water facing the rock ledge.  I could see the mermaid's bare back.  I could see that her hair was long and brown.  I could see the water breaking and crashing against the rocks where she was being pulled up.  I could see more than 1 person....2 or 3 at least. 

I didn't know how to feel about the image.  Were they hurting her, catching her like a prize?  Was she injured and being assisted out of the rough surf the only way they could get hold of her?  Was she even alive at that point??  I could do nothing but watch. 

I woke and immediately knew I needed to remember this dream because there was something there in the images and symbols.  There was some answer to my question.  So I started researching mermaids, their myths and symbols.  They have been portrayed as everything from protectors to demons.  As half human, half sea creature they have also been used to symbolize duality of the higher consciousness living simultaneously with a primordial self.  They are also associated with intuition and emotions.  So what does any of this mean to me? http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art29791.asp

Well, I have been trying to listen more closely to my intuition and to allow my emotions to come to the surface.  Stuffing my emotions down and not listening to my intuition is what got me into this situation in the first place.  But why is she being pulled out of the sea by her hair? I have gone over and over this dream and these images in my head.  I am not sure what to make out of it.  I know the answer is simple and I will recognize it immediately when I see it or hear it.  I have noticed an increased level of synchronicity around  me, noticing the same images pop up over and over.  I am curious to see if I will continue to have 'mermaid sightings' around me the way I kept having owl images and references crop up before I found the book Writing Down the Soul (which happened to have a blue owl on the cover, which I did not notice until 2 days AFTER buying the book).  If I do have an answer to this dream I will be sure to update it here.  I am curious if anyone else can offer any insight into this dream.

Conviction

It's funny how we can have such serious convictions in one area but falter relentlessly in others.  Or maybe it's just me.  For instance, I have no qualms about walking into a supposedly haunted or paranormally active home or room and taking a look around.  I've even cleansed homes and rooms with prayer and reiki knowing the dangers of such things.  However, a box of donuts sends me into fits of emotional turmoil.  Ghosts I can handle.  Pastry leaves me shaking in the corner. 

I grew up in haunted houses, terrified of the dark and what might be in it.  I also grew up overweight, terrified of being made fun of. Why does one struggle early in life lend us strength and conviction and another leave us feeling weakened and small?  Maybe it's so we know what it feels like in one area so we can duplicate it in that Universal Life Struggle set of lessons we signed up for when we came down here.  Maybe it's to learn balance.  Maybe it's to give me something to blog about late at night.

I remember when I stopped being afraid of the darkness.  I was laying in bed, feeling something scratching my leg where nothing should have there to scratch it.  I was exhausted and desperately needed sleep and this 'thing' was keeping me up.  In my grumpy-ass, sleep deprived state of mind I finally had an "Oh HELL no" moment and demanded it leave me alone...like a wimpy kid finally standing up to the playground bully.  But how do you stand up to food?  Food is sustenance.  Food is fun.  Food is everywhere.  Is it even remotely the same thing?  I think not.  But I figured out how to be strong in the face of an intangible terror, shouldn't I be able to somehow translate that to my fear of feeling those emotions I stuff down with food the same way I used to squeeze my eyes shut and hide under a blanket? 

One thing I have figured out is that life gives us a never ending sheet of Practice Problems just like in Math class.  It's like the Universe is saying, "You wanted to learn long division, so here's a page of long division problems.  Now carry it around with you and practice using your skills to figure them out.  Some of them are tricky!  Don't forget to ask for help."  I guess, after all this time and practice, I still need work on my long division, so to speak.  I know I don't always review my knowledge or ask for help when I should.  Perhaps THAT is the bigger part of the lesson than the long division (or the ghosties or the evil donuts).  There is a lot of power in the simple act of releasing the need to be afraid of something, even before the courage to defeat it kicks in. 

My dear friend recently told me to "Stop Telling the Story."  That means to stop associating yourself with a piece of the past and reliving those emotions and labels stuck to it like gum on your shoe.  It happened, now thank it for its lessons and release it.  It's beautifully simple, isn't it? 

The Bucket List

I was asked tonight what is on my Bucket List.  The question threw me a bit, not exactly what I was expecting from bar conversation.  I had to stop and think.  I didn't come up with much at the time because, honestly, the last time I made a Bucket List I was in a different place in my mind.  Things have changed, priorities have shifted, some of my hopes became to big to hope for.  Not hoping for them was easier than the thought of wanting and never having.  However, since the whole idea of this blog was to be transparent and honest perhaps it is time for a new Bucket List.  I'll list a few just to start:

1.  Go to Ireland and sleep in a castle.  My maternal side is of Irish decent.  It's where I get my piss-and-vinegar spitfire nature, my love of whiskey shots and my ingrained ability to slap a smile on my face when the life around me sucks ass.  I want to see if standing on the 'Mother Land' makes me feel anything.

2.  Learn Gaelic.  I tried once, I got the language CDs from the library and burned them for future use however the nature of the language is crazy.  It just doesn't make sense to my stupid American brain.  I would like to try again.

3.  Finally and permanently remove this 100 lbs Sad Sack I have been lugging around. 

4.  Make sure Stella gets her groove back...and doesn't lose it again. (That was about sex, folks, in case you missed the reference.)

5.  Jump in the car and just start driving.  See things, stop at places, meet people. 

6.  I want to eat a real shrimp po' boy sandwich in New Orleans.

7.  Shake Stephen King's hand.

8.  Publish a book, or 3.

9.  Own a home of my own with a pool, a garden, a small greenhouse and 2 Irish wolfhounds loping across the backyard.

10.  Create a business model that specifically caters to helping single parents get on their feet emotionally and financially so women like me don't have to struggle to make ends meet and feel like they are never getting ahead.

11.  Visit Salem, Mass.  I really feel grief for the people accused of witchcraft.  That may sound silly to some considering how much strife is in the world today, how many bigger things there are to think about, but I still feel so saddened by the Salem Witch Trials.  I use oils and herbs and plants, I am opinionated, I am independent minded.  Let's face it...I would have been one of the broads hanging from a tree back then. 

12.  Become a certified personal trainer/massage therapist.

13.  Go out on a boat and see a whale swimming next to us.

14.  Compete in some kind of cooking show on TV.

15.   ???  I've been sitting here debating this one.  This is the item that used to say 'Get Married.'  Used to because this is one of those things I mentioned earlier that I kinda stopped hoping for.  I still want it, you have no idea how much. But in order for me to live my life NOW I had to get OK with being alone for the long haul.  That's not pessimism or bitterness.  It's the reality that not all relationships will be great or faithful or even good and no matter what happens or who comes in and out of my life ultimately I have to be able to be ok by myself because there are no guarantees in life.  I don't want to idly throw this one down on paper, it's simply too important to me.  So I will phrase it this way...before my time on Earth ends I would like to experience a truly great relationship in which I feel loved and respected and wanted.  And more importantly I want that person to let me love them back.  Whether that relationship is bound by vows and paper or just a mutual agreement of honesty and monogomy, I would like to know what that feels like. 

Tell Me Why

I didn't realize how long it has been since I've posted on this blog.  For those of you who were following my previous blog mission let me just say that I went on 'strike' as a friend put it.  Job searching, weight losing, money making, life changing...the more I tried the worse things seemed to turn out.  I concluded that either I was doing something wrong or I was following the wrong path.  I couldn't see through my frustration and stress so I decided to just, for the time being, to stop trying.  It felt more than a little pointless.  I didn't go anywhere I didn't have to go or do anything I didn't have to do.  Christmas was a Reader's Digest Condensed version compared to what I did previous years.  I had a recurring sinus/throat/ear thing so I just stayed home and hibernated.

That doesn't mean I stopped thinking or feeling or questioning.  I just ceased trying to force a verb out of myself.  Since the only things we have any control over in this reality are our own actions I questioned why I was doing what I was doing and why I wanted to do it, I questioned my own motivation and my true feelings.  Some of what I admitted to myself was a little unsettling.  Some of it I already knew but had never acted to deal with.  The more I stayed inside myself and watched the world around me (like a fish watching the world from inside the fish bowl) chains of events drew up in front of me that compounded my feelings and have made me question not just myself but everything about this patchwork quilt we all live under together: our social rules, our contradicting values, why we believe what we believe about why we're here...and you all thought I was just making pee jokes on Facebook with my free time. 
***Never underestimate the quiet people or the funny people. 

I have shared my own issues and ordeals from time to time.  I have many of my own crosses to bare and I freely admit I have not been stellar in the approach.  I've wasted a lot of time being depressed and pissed off.  When I watched the world through my little fish bowl I saw a lot of ordeal.  I saw a lot of what my human mind considers unfair.  A part of me really does believe that we have a contract with our Creator when we come into this life, we choose out struggles and our inadequacies.  However, and this was one of the harder things I admitted to myself, there is a part of me that wonders if we say that or think that so that we can force some kind of order into the chaos.  We feel special if we think a Benevolent Creator God chose us to carry a burden for a higher purpose.  It gives us reason to survive and shoulder on when we want to throw everything down and say, "Screw this, it's too hard, I want out."  But the human in me wonders if we really aren't just some random speck of dust, some alien petrie dish of no consequence what so ever.  Is it all just randomness?  Why carry on with Faith when Chance seems to come run rough shod over everything you've love? 

The feelings came to a head when my dear friend Yolanda's 7 yr old daughter was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a form of eye cancer.  I felt punched in the gut, honestly.  Yolanda has endured so much in the past 2 years, more than anyone should ever have to go through.  This final news just seemed cruel.  When adults have to suffer it is terrible, especially when that suffering comes at the hands of other careless adults.  To see an innocent child have to endure something like this made me lose heart.  I mentally pounded my fists and questioned the Sky, 'WHY?  Why the little one?  Why the innocent?  Why are perverts and pedophiles, criminals and general assholes walking along the street perfectly healthy while a child falls ill?"  I want an answer, I really do.  And not from another human, I want an answer from the Source, if It is there at all.  Let's go old school...hell, lets go Old Testament.  Burn me a bush and talk to me.  I have a 6 foot ewe hedge next to the house.  Light it up, G, let's have a conversation!

I admire those of you who stand in the center of what I see as chaos and clutter, and smile with Grace and Humility.  I know my eyes look through a filter of my own experiences.  I see through a dusty haze of past troubles and stress.  Please understand that I don't want to be the pissy one all the time, it's just that much of what I have known has been stress, strife, negativity, insecurity and heartache.  I come to this blog and this day wanting to understand myself so regardless of what happens or Who is in charge, I don't dread each day wondering what shoe will drop next.  At one point in my teenage years (the summer before 11th grade) my family was basically homeless, not necessarily because of anything my parents did wrong.  My dad had been laid off, filed bankruptcy, my mom was ill and couldn't work, then our landlord's son lost his own job and we had to move so he could live in our house.  There was no money and no where in the school district for us to go for 6 weeks.  In that same time year my mom tested positive for Huntington's disease, a genetic and untreatable disease that took the life of her father, 9 of her 11 aunts and uncles, eventually her and now her sister is in a nursing home in Philly with it.  Do you understand that while all of you were giggling about boys and buying the latest shoes and hanging out at the pool I was being show a picture of my own personal Reaper?  The disease runs on a dominant gene so chances are, all or most of us descended from a carrier will have it. 

Fast forward to 1998.  My paternal grandfather, Poppop Cuthbert, passed away from age and untreated pneumonia.  Stubborn old coot wouldn't ask for help until he was too weak to get to the phone.  By the time my uncle found him he was past the point of no return.  At the burial, as my cousins stepped away to give me room to lay my rose on the casket, I see for the first time my paternal grandmother's headstone.  I was named after her so it was more than a little unsettling to see my own name on a gravestone.  Less than an hour later on the drive to the post-funeral luncheon my mom suffered a massive heart attack (brought on my the HD weakening her organs and body functions for 10 years) and died in front of us.  I remember watching the fire trucks roll up, the EMTs telling us we might not want to watch them attempt resuscitation and thinking, "She won't die here.  God doesn't let people die during a funeral, that would be cruel."  But she did.  It was a slap-in-the-face reminder that there is an expiration date for each and every one of us.  So I have been trying to find meaning in this crazy life, looking for things to make sense.  I WANT this struggle to be of value, to mean something.

So when my little 7 yr old friend, who ate s'mores at my house and flirted like a pro with my son (uh oh, she likes older men already!) was diagnosed I started asking other people, people who have experience the unexplainable hardships in life or who see them daily, how they continue to go on.  How do they continue to give a damn each and every day.  I got a lot of great answers, many of them leaning on the idea that there is a God and He is good and no one suffers needlessly, it only feels that way when we assume our Earthly lives are all there is.  The answer that hit most beautifully came from my friend, Mike.  He is a firefighter in Virginia and I asked his opinion since it is his JOB to respond to the 'worst case scenarios'.  He told me a story about 2 brothers from the NYFD who responded to 9-11, how they made sure to tell the other they loved him knowing this situation was bad and they may not come back out, yet ran in anyway.  Neither of them came out alive. 

Mike said,

"I am blessed to be a part of something greater than myself. I see the love that people have for one another every day, though it may often be far more subtle than the suffering. That is where I find God. My faith gets shaken constantly, yet God seems to be around there, if I listen or look for "him"."

Congratulations Mike, you made me cry, and coming from someone who SWORE no man would ever make her cry again, that's a pretty big deal. :-)

Awhile ago I posted a Facebook status saying I needed to find a better reason to give a damn, a bigger reason than Should or Need To because, like I said, I think we are horribly contradictory in our actions and values.  Let me give you an example.  In our world, we relate to what we find valuable in many ways, one of them is through money.  As I was flipping through TV channels, Charlie "Hot Mess" Sheen was being talked about on not 1 but 3 different stations.  The ticker at the bottom of one screen stated he made $2 million dollars PER EPISODE filming his show.  With 8 or 9 episodes per season, that's a serious chunk o'change for someone who publicly behaves in ways most Americans would consider inappropriate.  Then why does he get such a huge market value??  I flipped the channel again.  Jersey Shore.  Let me publicly state, on the record, that I despise this show.  Why?  They are not intelligent people, they have no real skills to contribute to humanity, they are shallow, foul, inappropriate, promiscuous, and sometimes violent.  The only real boost these fools may have given to society is few more jobs at the Valtrex plant.  I don't care if you find them funny or not, I'm not debating taste in humor, what appalls me is that they exemplify everything we tell our children NOT to be yet they make, as of July 2010, $30,000 per episode.  Multiply that by 8 episodes, add in the $20,000 to $80,000 they each make for personal appearances outside of the show and what you have is the message to world that in America, it pays to be stupid.  The kids from The Hills brought in anywhere from $90,000 to $125,000 per episode.  The New Jersey Housewives? $30,000 per episode plus appearances.

You want to know what teachers in Pennsylvania make on average?  Depending on region and years of experience it ranges from $26,000 to $50,000 per year.  Not episode.  Per year.  And to the best of my knowledge, they don't get paid extra for showing up outside of school.  How about our brave firefighters?  $30-50 thousand a year to run into dangerous and life threatening conditions.  What about the EMT who keeps you from dying outside of the hospital...$20-40 grand a year to save your ass.  Military service...$15-30 thousand depending on years of active service and rank for most enlisted soldiers.  (If anyone had more accurate info on that please let me know, because that breaks my heart, I sure hope my research wasn't correct).

Do you understand what I'm getting at?  Why do people who act terribly receive better financial compensation that the people who spend their lives trying to make the world a better place?  Why do non-profits created to help the people and animals and the Earth we live on struggle to get funding?  Why are intelligent people's manuscripts rejected by publishing houses due to lack of interest or funding yet Snookie has a book out? 

TELL ME WHY!!

Either enough people find it acceptable or the people who don't think it's fair haven't made enough noise.  I don't want to be someone who silently accepts what I don't like around me but shrugs it off with the "I can't do anything about it" mentality...and that's what I HAVE been doing.  I did it because it was too hard to see and deal with and I felt out numbered.  If I am to be a casualty of Huntington's disease, breast cancer, a drunk driver or just good old-fashioned old age, I want my time on Earth to mean something whether there is a God in heaven or we're just a bunch of atoms spinning around a big rock. 

My idea is a small one, but its a first step in the direction I want to move in.  I want to help the people who need help and support the organizations who make it possible for us to love and support one another.  I have been involved in a weight loss challenge for the past year and I have been struggling with motivation.  There are cash prizes for the top 3 winners (who are also losers....strange) but that's not enough.  We do a Pound for Pound donation to the food bank however I have never participated.  I would have to use food stamps to buy food to give to the food bank and that just kinda doesn't make much sense.  It's robbing Peter to pay Paul. 

I was inspired to do this by a woman named Mary Jacobson, a cancer survivor who competes in Strongman events to raise money for charity.  She was told she had cancer and was going to die, she had made arrangements for her daughter's care, picked out a caske...and then beat it.  That was years ago.  If you attend an amateur Strongman event you can't miss her...just look for the blond hair and the gun show.  So I will reach down and pull my head out once again for this whole weight loss/better health thing for a better reason than 'I want to win money or feel prettier'.  I will personally donate $1 for every pound I lose from now until the last weigh in of this challenge rotation (in April) and that money will go to charity.  If I do win one of the cash prizes I will add a 10% tithe to the dollar/lb total and I invite anyone who reads this and feels halfway inspired to sponsor me.  I don't care if it's only 5 cents per pound, what I want is for all of us to shift our intentions towards placing the financial value in the hands of those our hearts value, which is where it belongs.  After much debating I decided the final total will go to CaringBridge.org on Yolanda's daughter's behalf.  CaringBridge.org is a free online journal service where anyone experiencing a health crisis can create a personal profile on where they can post updates on their condition.  It allows friends and loved ones to stay updated and offer words of love and encouragement.  We have been using it to keep abreast of Yolanda's daughter's treatment and condition and I love the site already.

So what do you think?  Anyone besides me ready to put their money where their mouth is??

Day 85: The Law of Least Effort

Nature's intelligence functions with effortless ease...

with carefreeness, harmony and love.

And when we harness the forces of harmony, joy and love ,

we create success and good fortune with effortless ease.

- The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra

I fell away from writing and keeping track because I have felt like my efforts have failed.  My Quantum Leap has been anything but and I have been frustrated (and rather grumpy about it) for quite some time.  I simply didn't know what to do about it.  I felt like the harder I tried the worse things seem to get and I figured, "Hell, why bother trying if it will only get worse."

I went to the trusty Public Library for an iced coffee and hopefully a copy of the book "The E-Myth Revisited".  It was recommended to me by a friend who is doing quite well on the financial and investment fronts.  As usual, what I thought  I was looking for turned out not to be what I apparently needed.  Instead, right there in the middle of the business section was this conspicuously out-of-place little book by Deepak Chopra (whom I loooooove).  It is a small book with 7 short chapters.  And possibly the most pivotal book I've read in years, rivaled only by Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav which helped to bring me up from post-partum depression and grief from the mess of a life I found myself in at the time.

Basically the gist of what I've been doing wrong is simply this....I've been trying too damn hard.  I come from a frame of mind that obstacles need to be punched through, torn down, cursed at and stomped on.  I am absolutely guilty of walking into a situation with a pre-conceived, worst case scenario already in place in my head, bracing myself for disaster and disappointment. 

On page 41 of the book he states:

Most of us, as a result of conditioning, have repetitious and predictable responses to the stimuli in our environment.  Our reactions seem to be automatically triggered by people and circumstances, and we forget that these are still choices that we are making in every moment of out existence.  We are simply making these choices unconsciously.

My natural reaction is that life has to be struggled through.  That's what I've lived from the moment of my birth to the very act of getting out of bed this morning.  I came into this world pre-mature, a C-section damn near by flashlight thanks to a Somerset blizzard, and spent many days and nights in the hospital with jaundice, infections, insanely high fevers, etc.  As a family we've been broke, screamed at, smacked, teased, belittled at home and at school.  I was painfully shy and paralyzingly self-conscious so social situations always have a stain of panic and paranoia for me.  At one point in time, and I know I've mentioned this before, my family was technically homeless for a month and a half the summer of my Junior year of high school.  My knee-jerk reaction to everyday life has always been, even in the best of times, "What's going to go wrong next?"  So I psych myself up, go balls to the wall and try to POUND my Intentions out of the Universe.  I can hear Dr. Phil now...."How's that workin' for ya?"

It's not.  Clearly, it's not.

Since the weight loss challenge began I have gained 11 lbs, lost 7 of it in one week only to gain 6 again the next week.  Not only did I not get a job but my child support 'went away' as well and shows no sign of returning.  I've had to come to terms with the fact that a few of my relationships that I've been holding onto are not what I was hoping they would be.  That was hard.  Harder than a lot of other realizations and I have been experiencing a certain sense of grieving over the loss, not of a friend, but of my projected ideals. 

So what's a girl to do?  According to what I read, there are 3 things:

1) Acceptance.  Acceptance of people, places, events and situations as they occur, without judgement of whether anything is 'good or bad' because the hand that moves the world pulls the switches in exactly the right order according to the decisions we've made in the past.  This moment is the culmination of all those other moments and we got here exactly the way we needed to get here according to the choices we've made.  "When you struggle against this moment, you're actually struggling against the entire universe." (p. 57)

Not only am I getting upset about a chain of events that I have played a part in putting in motion, but I am reacting to my feelings toward the situation.  Deepak says, "These are your feelings and your feelings not someone else's fault."  Damn, that means I gotten deal with this shit myself! lol

2)Responsibility.  You can't blame anyone else for your situation, including yourself.  Those things we call problems are not growling monsters under the bed, they are simply a set of circumstances and within all of those problems are the seeds of opportunity.  It is never too late to take a situation and turn it into something much more beneficial to the life you want.  I LOVE what he says on page 59. 

"Reality is an interpretation."

3)Defenselessness.  That's the hardest of the 3 for me because my reaction is a constant state of being ready to defend....myself, my opinions, my ideas, my possessions, my son.  Relinquishing the need to defend your point of view simply frees up mental and emotional energy.  It's like unplugging the TV for a week and realizing how much more time you have to get things accomplished.  I'll be honest, I'm going to have to take Deepak's word on this one because I am still in a finger-pointing, cussing and fussing kinda place.  I am getting better at reminding myself not to judge the people or situation, I tell myself to breath and be at peace but the pin-ball machine in my brain will still get the better of me.  But I will continue to work on it.

There are a lot of other things in the book.  Lots of good things in such a small package, who knew?  As I glanced through the recommended reading in the back of the book I noticed one about a whole body approach to insomnia.  Yeah, I'll be reading that one next!  I will make an effort to make less of an effort.  If that actually works I'll simply be floored. 

Sara Smile

Day 61: Greetings from your Friendly Neighborhood Insomniac

Happy Halloween and Blessed Samhain, it's 4 am, do you know where your sanity is?  I seem to have misplaced mine.

I am more than halfway through this 120 Days and where am I now?  Well, I have gained weight, lost income and am now afflicted with a nifty case of insomnia.  That's pretty much the opposite of what I've been trying to do.  I've circulated many theories and reasons why, when I TRY to improve, things seem to get worse.  Why, when I want to ask for help or be proactive about my health, I am told that I can't be seen because I was given incorrect information.  When I need money I am told I'm too broke to give money to.  My numbers on paper don't meet the requirements.  I'm frustrated.  No, I've gone beyond frustrated.  I've gone beyond depressed.  I'm straight up pissed off.  I'm tired of giving a shit.  If something were HAPPENING, if a desired result was coming from my efforts then I could find something to grab onto but right now I'm just, well, insulted.  I feel lied to.  Being honest and hard working and moral and fair, doing the right thing and standing up for my ideals, praying and trying to have faith, it just doesn't seem to work for me.  Maybe I'm not doing something right.  I'm sure someone out there has some scripture ready to do already.  Either way I've been struggling to continue to find a reason to give a shit. 

If I could put it to you in visual terms I feel like I'm on this Cosmic rubber band and I run and try to get away from where I am but then the rubber band snaps me back to where I was and the inertia of the 'snap' carries me backwards to where I started and then some.  I keep ending up back at square 1.  I'm not looking for a $100 million lottery win or fame or miracles.  I just want something to work.  I want information I can use and that will help me.  (BTW...here's a fun tidbit of info...I recently found out that when you are collecting welfare benefits the assistance office will pay for a car repair so long as you are working...had I know that I could have gotten my car fixed 3 months ago when I was still on a payroll.  That's what I get for not playing the system). 

I've been having quite the interesting dialogue with God.  I've written and erased this paragraph about 3 times.  I don't know if I want to share what I've been discussing with God.  I don't know if I have the patience or the emotional stability for the debate that would ensue.  I don't know if I am really ready to let everyone see who I really am and how I really think.  I have always held the opinion that if you really knew me you wouldn't like me as much.  I wouldn't validate something for you anymore and I have trouble dealing with the thought that people just won't like me.  Perhaps therein lies the problem.  I am not living as authentically as I should be because to do that I would end up rocking the boat.  I would lose friends, I would disappoint family and then if that happens who do I have to turn to?  On the occasions that I have expressed my truer, more repressed feelings I have been accused to being stressed out or just being a miserable bitch.  Right now, I don't have the fight in me.  I can't sleep, I'm overwhelmed, I'm disappointed and I am facing the disturbing reality that I may very well not even be the 'average' that I hoped to avoid.  I wanted to be the voice of encouragement and success, the person who battled the obstacles and came out on top...but fear, instead, that I will never be more than the person reading those stories of success thinking, "I want to be like them."  My worst fear is not death.  It's that I really will end up like my parents in life...and I am seeing horrifying signs that THAT is the road I am on...yet no matter what I do, I can't seem to find an exit.  I am circling around the block.

What exactly defines the 'dark night of the soul?'  Does every person who attempted to be more than they presently were encounter this?  How do you know what is a divine challenge of your strength and what is a cosmic STOP sign?   

Day 56: Gut Feeling

If anyone is still out there checking in on this thing then thank you for hanging in.  I've once again fallen astray from my 'schedule' because, well, I just either had other things to do at 1 am (believe it or not)or I just didn't want to talk.  I tend to go to extremes as we've already established and I either keep completely to myself or I vomit every thought streaming through my brain all at once. 

Recently, however, I worry that I've talked too much about a few things and not necessarily on here.  I got a gut feeling.  It was a strong one, the kind I've had before and later wished I'd put money on.  I'm not claiming any ESP or stuff like that, I've just been watching the body language and hearing the vocal patterns of certain people and I don't like what I see.  This is why I have so much trouble following my instincts.  I sometimes get messages from my gut that I don't like and don't want to believe.  Some of you may think I'm a negative person or that I am the eternal pessimist.  I'm actually not, not by nature anyway.  I have developed it over the course of a life time of having high hopes for personal relationships and trust for the people around me and then getting let down over and over again.  I don't have solid evidence of what I feel, I have no concrete actions on which to base my feelings, it's just a feeling.  So I've pulled back to observe.  I will be watching. 

I have a weigh in coming up on Thursday.  I didn't post last week because I gained another 3 lbs.  That's 8 lbs in 3 weeks.  Yeah, it's been a bad month on a lot of fronts.  I suppose I shouldn't take circumstances personally, I mean, I don't think there are any zebras in therapy because they just can't trust the other animals at the watering hole.  They go in, keep an eye open, learn the signs of danger and run away if they have to hoping not to be the slowest one that day.  We are just beasts of a different nature pretending we aren't. 

One thing I can't handle in people in general is dishonesty.  I am not a perfect person by any means, I'm a beast at the watering hole just like anyone else, however I come by my imperfections honestly. That's what this blog is about.  I was hoping to show myself how amazing and on track I am-but I'm not-so I will record the reality of what I am at this moment in time. 

At least I haven't given up.  I start down a path, realize it won't work and double back and try a different path.  I find obstacles and hurdles and yes, I get depressed and stressed out, but I never give up entirely.  Sure, I'm up one day and down the next but I always come back for more.  I'm trying to leave no stone unturned so to some it may look like I'm 'losing interest' or 'giving up' or 'flitting about' but I'm not so don't underestimate me.  It pisses me off. 

I guess that's all I have to say about that.

I'll try to have a more entertaining selection tomorrow.  Apparently, I'm not getting rid of this insomnia any time soon.

Day 47: Time Flies

Has it really been almost a week since my last blog post?  So much for the daily posting!  I've been falling apart on a lot of things  had set out to do.  What I had set up for myself was a LOT to do in a day and I really started to feel the heat of it.  I spent most of last week feeling slightly under the weather, you know the feeling, when there's something coming but not enough to justify staying in bed with a bottle of NyQuil.  Yeah, one of those weeks.  I skipped my weigh in.  I actually forgot about it until about 15 minutes before I should have left and I only realized it was, indeed, Thursday because my dad asked me if I had a meeting or not.  What a crap-tastic week.  I felt like I went backwards in time instead of forward. 

I went for a very long walk today.  It was one of my 4 mile loops through Timbervilla and up the back end of the Masonic Homes orchard.  I had a lot of thinking to do and some decisions to make I suppose.  I have felt like I am constantly getting pulled in so many different directions.  I still need to find an income and I still need to be a mother to my child and I still want very much to open a bakery in the near future.  So many things are crowding together in my brain I started getting stressed out and second guessing myself.  Am I really capable of doing this?  Is it possible?  Am I kidding myself? 

What I concluded was this:  There is no difference, really, between poverty and abundance-not in my mind and let me explain.  What I mean is that the ENERGY that draws in abundance is the same kind of energy that draws in poverty, it's just, well, used wrong; kind of like you're just facing the wrong direction.  I came to this conclusion when I was walking along and thinking about my brand.  By brand I mean what do the products I make (soap, scrub or edibles) evoke in the minds of the consumers, what do they stand for and does the buyer expect the products to present?  I already knew the answer to that; it's "Over the Top."  I do things in a way most people wouldn't take the time to do.  I'm not great at everything but my strength lies in taking average and modest and making it decadent.  I have lots of room to grow, obviously.  So why doesn't the rest of my life reflect what I do for my products?  Hhmm, good question and therein lies the discrepancy that pulls me in 5 directions, drawn and quartered by my own lofty ideals.

The encouraging thing is that the capacity for abundance is already in place.  If I know how to draw in abject, bottom of the barrel, broke-ass poverty then I know how to draw in beautiful, decadent abundance.  I just need to flip it around.  That's all (I'm laughing at myself right now...oh, is that ALL??)  But think about it.  My life flips to extremes, right?  I am so miserable and bored being average and moderate that I somehow, subconsciously pushed my world to an extreme.  Since I didn't believe I could or know how to live in abundance I went deeper and deeper into poverty.  Makes sense to me....but then again, I have evidence that I make have gone, what's the technical term??.....ah yes, frigging crackers sometime in the past few days so I may actually be in the middle of a delusional psychotic rant.  If I am, I like it, it's nice in here.

This is one of the places I like to visit on my long walk.  It is on a path behind the Masonic Cemetery.  When this tree first fell I thought it looked like the legs of some giant, land-striding creature.  He was amputated so the trucks could get through. 

Day 41: Juan Valdez, you dirty, dirty boy!

My apologies, I have not been keeping up with the nightly blog.  Technical difficulties abound.  Some interesting things have happened in the past few days so drag up a rock and I'll tell you about them. 

Saturday night a group of friends and I went to Gettysburg to do a Ghost Tour....super excited, been wanting to do one for a very long time and we were going to the Farnsworth house which is exactly the spot you want to go to in that town.  It is one of the heavily investigated places for nationally televised ghost hunting shows.  Anyway, we couldn't get into a tour group until 11:00 pm so while we waited be decided to go on another, cheaper (oh hind sight!) tour up the street.  I wish I remembered the name of the shop where we bought the tickets so I could specifically tell you what NOT to spend your money on.  It was a $7 trekk up and down the freakin alley behind the house.  It was positioned somewhere between the Rupp House and the Dobbin House...I know because we 'toured' their parking lots!  At one point we moved off the alley to a muddy creek bed that supposedly was filled with the bodies of dead and dying soldiers.  We got the stink eye from a competing tour group because we didn't have 'permits' to enter onto private property...btw, that private property was a grass patch behind a garage.  Worst.  Tour.  Ever.  Our group kept getting smaller and smaller as we wandered from one parking lot to another...for an hour and a half.  I kid you not.  90 minutes up and down a heavily trafficed alley.

Later we got to sit down in the pub of the Farnsworth House and have some munchies and drinks.  They actually have a lot of the props left over from the filming of the Gettysburg movie on display.  The Farnsworth ghost tour was much better and started out in the basement of the house.  It was very, very creepy down there and would have been even more awesome had we not been 'visited' by a pair or drunks who were sipping booze from their Coke bottles.  They were beyond drunk, they were flammable!  We got to spend some time in the woods just below the cemetery and that had the potential to be really creepy, too.  It was a perfect night out...perfect temps and nothing in the sky but stars and a crescent moon!  But it's hard to get in the mood and really listen and feel what is around you with 25 camera flashes going off.  I have to give props to the tour guides, they were very good at their jobs and one of them finally told the drunks to chill out.  So that was a good time.  Aaannnddd...I got to test drive a brownie recipe I've been stewing over.  It was a mocha brownie with a pumpkin cheesecake swirl.  It was good but there's room for improvements.

That brings me to my next interesting point.  McDonalds coffee.  Love the stuff.  Juan Valdez is my sugar daddy and he treats mama nice. But when the chick at the drive through not only notices that you didn't order you're regular item but feel comfortable enough to comment on it, it's time to quit the habit.  At least at that drive thru. haa haa  No, seriously, I loves me some java but it really isn't good for you in larger quantities.  Caffeine causes blood sugar to spike and drop rapidly leaving your head feeling wired and fuzzy and grumpy and it also leeches calcium out of the bones.  A lot of caffeine also interferes with the body's ability to absorb Vitamin D properly as well.  One or 2 normal sized cups a day is not that big of a deal but I don't have 1 or 2 cups, I have the whole friggin pot.  I rationalize it by saying that since I don't use sugar in it anymore it isn't as bad...which is true...but it still isn't as great as a cup of mint tea or just clean, clear water.

No matter what eating plan, detox or routine I have done the hardest thing for me to give up is coffee.  I really just enjoy it.  Some people have a glass or wine or a cold beer, I like a mug of coffee, especially in a book store at a table leafing through some interesting reading a material.  It's an atmosphere, a moment in time, a snapshot of relative peace and quiet.  But I shall try to reign it in.  This just may be the excuse I've been looking for to finally buy a Keurig single-cup machine.  Yeah!   New toy!

Let me hear from all of you.  What are your vices?  What little bit of food Heaven simply talks dirty to you when ever it is nearby?

Sara Smile

Day 37: Thinner (or not) Thursday #4

Yikes!!  I don't even want to blog about the epic FAIL I experienced this week on the scales.  I'm gonna play the 'period' card for at least half of this travesty.  I actually GAINED 5 pounds this week.  Yup, 5 fat pounds.  I didn't want to blog about it or even GO to the weigh in.  I could have faked an injury, told people I pulled a hammy rescuing a kitten from a run away tree or something.  I knew things weren't good.  You know how I knew?  Because every time I bend over my underwear rolls down under neath my belly flab.  How much sexier can I get?  I mean really?  I am as swollen as the tick I yanked off my ungrateful cat yesterday.  If Starbucks Caramel Macchiatos were a living creature, I'm pretty sure I'd be stuck face first into its side with my engorged rear end saluting the world as it rolls by right now, waiting for an enormous pair of tweezers to abruptly end my snack.

Like I said, I'm  going to pull the period card for at least half of that.  Add at least 1 pound in retained fluids from salt cravings.  It rained a lot so I didn't do much.  I'm not saying that's an excuse.  Most of the group lost weight this week and 2 of our members are on Prednizone and they still managed to drop some weight.  My schedule got thrown to the wind this week and I let it get the better of me.  I know this is a symptom of my own self-defeating behaviors...going the opposite direction from where I want to be.  Instead of a quantum leap I seem to have managed a quantum trip over my own feet. 

I'm embarrassed and pissed at myself and just wanting to scream.  I'm having some issues with this school-issued computer and I can't figure out why.  I routinely erase cookies, temporary files and the history plus I just ran a virus scan.  No major viruses, just a few PUPs that I deleted as well.  But this things seems to take forever to load the page and then all of a sudden it'll be fine.  It may be my Internet provider, Century Link, but I'm not sure.

On top of that I have been researching the potential money needed to open my own small bakery and I am overwhelmed.  I feel like what ever track I was on just derailed and I don't know what I'm doing again.  I have a hard time processing my emotions or even simply sorting through facts without getting anxious.  So every time I come upon something I don't understand or is unfamiliar I feel like I'm dangling from a window.  Being conscious of my eating and thought process takes over such a huge part of my brain and energy that when something else comes up that invades that space I have this sensation that I can't do everything and something has to get set on the back burner.  I KNOW I shouldn't put my own health on the back burner so please don't leave comments as such...like I said before, I'm tired, not stupid.  All I can do is chalk it up to a learning experience and try to do it better next week. 

I hope that things start turning around for me.  I pray that they do.  I know my problems are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.  Only in America can we sit around complaining that we had too much food and free time to do NOTHING and got fatter as a result.  I am just anxious to get myself to a place where I feel good, where I feel like I'm not embarrassed to run into people from high school or college because I don't want them to ask me what I'm doing these days.  I know what I want and I have a pretty good idea how to get there and I get really pissed at myself when I can't seem to make it all happen the way I want it to. 

Anyway, that was my Thinner Thursday blog.  Not happy about it but I'm here to be honest and transparent.

Sara Smile

Day 34: Shifting and Sifting

I'm not even sure when the last time I posted was.  The weekend was pretty cool, I must say, but the last 4 or 5 days have come with a shifting and a sifting of ideals.  You can't walk down the street around here without tripping over a soap maker so I have been spending a lot of time thinking about how to create a distinct brand.  My pal, Hildy, and I made a trek to Spoutwood Farms in Glen Rock.  We didn't get 100 ft inside the festival without seeing 3 soap vendors set up.  It's not a bad thing, it's just food for thought.  It was a great trip because we've been wanting to get down there and check it out.  They host The Fairy Festival the first weekend in May and I considered getting a stand there but the cost is kinda, well, shocking, for the size of the place.  However it is exactly the right demographic.  But I think the tide on Shugified is turning slightly from the main event to more of a sideline.  It's not going anywhere, but I think Shugified needs to come back to the basics from which it sprang...a sideline to my baking.  It was inspired by my love of natural, real food and the decadence my baking has become known for.  So it shall become a gift item sold in my bakery which, hopefully, will come to fruition quickly. 

Yes, kids, I've finally relented and put the food business in motion.  I've been fighting it tooth and nail.  The last thing I wanted to worry about were the trappings of the food service business.  But I've had my last gummy croissant and over baked cookie from local grocery store bakeries.  It's time for The Kitchen Witch to step forward and show these shameful frozen and assembled pastry chop-shops what dessert is supposed to taste like.  The thing is, I know how to cook, not how to run a business but I'll figure it out.

There are other things on my mind, strange things that I'm not sure everyone or anyone would understand.  It comes from being a writer, I guess, or maybe writing is just how I know how to relate to the way my brain twitches and heaves.  As I was laying in Hildy's guest room, my son safely tucked away with his aunt and cousins, I had one of those feeling I get when I think I need to start writing something down.  It was the way the window looked, the way the light from the lamp outside sprayed out around the gap between the window and the pull shade, the way a factory somewhere in the distance droned on.  It seemed familiar but I didn't know if it was a memory or not.  I laid there looking at it, searching my brain, trying to pick up the resonance of the feeling.  I know enough about my writing process to know that it is this feeling that will lead to a silent movie in my brain.  Once that silent movie turns into a voice over, my voice narrating something about that movie, is when I know I need to start writing things down.  That voice over sounds just like me but is far more eloquent than the voice I use to speak out loud.  It's interesting when it happens that way, when there is no struggle, just words following a scene and a feeling.  As I continued to lay there the silent movie never started only, stutters of snapshots, like someone quickly flipping through a photo album.  I couldn't nail anything down.  When I finally fell asleep my dreams were dark and industrial, with brick buildings an fire escapes dripping night air onto dark alley pavement.  The dreams came in fits and sections as they are want to do.  The only other very distinct thing I dreamt about was buying a house.  It was a brick rancher but in all honesty the 'feeling' of the property was that of my old elementary school in Mastersonville.  I bought this house yet the spirit of the previous owner flickered in and out.  Sometimes he was there and sometimes he wasn't but I knew he was bad news.  He put on a nice front but he was bad.  I knew that one of his kids was considered 'kidnapped' but in the omniscient dream mind I knew he had killed his son.  In one instance, when he had flickered back out and I was once again proprietor of the house, I started pulling up the poured-cement sidewalk and I found corpses and skeletons, dressed in rotting, shredded clothing in shallow graves beneath the sidewalk.  Something about them reminded me of those horrible outdoor decorations of children with their backs to the street, as though they are on a perpetual time-out day and night.  It was wicked and sickening and awful.  I'm not sure where the dream came from....too much TV or too much Stephen King or something in my brain that needs to come out.  I don't know.  Well, I mean, I do know.  I've never had a problem understanding what my dreams mean, the vividness of it, however, has left me unsettled. 

And with that I shall bid you goodnight.  Sweet dreams, my friends.  (maniacal laugh)

Sara Smile

Day 30: Thinner Thursday #3

THE WINNER OF THE MERLOT CANDLE IS......HEATHER DRUMM!!!!

Congratulations, Heather.  Make sure you head over to the Pour Daddy's Facebook site and thank them for the sweet sweet discount they gave me so I could afford the purchase. lol

Now, on to new business.  As you may know, Thinner Thursdays are my weight in days at the weight loss challenge.  I was worried, more worried than last week because, as of 2 days ago, I was UP 4 lbs from last week's weigh in weight.  On the scale at the challenge tonight I was -0.8 lbs from last week's weight of 222.8 lbs.  That means I lost not only the 4 lbs from 2 days ago but also another .8 on top of that.  I went up in weight due to poor choices and stress and overwhelm but I got 'The Fear' in me and got it done.  If I can keep this momentum I will hopefully lose 4 or 5 lbs for next week.  That would take me out of the 220s and that much closer to Onederland, as we like to call it in the business (below the 200lb mark into the 190s).  I look forward to putting the 200s behind me instead of on my behind.  I haven't been below that mark since Kenny's 1st Birthday....he is now 11.  You do the math.

I can honestly say struggled with choices.  I took Kenny to the mall this week for sneakers and wanted to go to Arby's and devour a Cheddar Melt, snarf down a Cinnabon and then hit Starbucks for some stomach cramping concoction.  Why?  Dunno.  Pissed.  Annoyed.  Wanted to sooth some inner child that is sick of having to work so hard to care.  Of course it's counter productive.  Of course it's not the way to live.  Of course I KNOW people love me and I get in my own way.  I'm not stupid.  I'm tired.  But that it's any reason not to make a better decision.  Apathetic people piss me the hell off yet when it comes to myself I get...maybe not apathetic, but numb.  To make a continuous set of positive choices takes a level of deliberate intention that is kinda exhausting to me.  I had a curly fry dipped in horsey sauce before I realized what I was doing. And I did have 2 bites of Kenny's Cinnabon but that was it.  What actually stopped me from becoming an American carnivore was boots...knee high leather boots in the women's shoe department at Kohl's.  Yes, I'm that shallow.  Self-esteem, inner strength, self improvement, blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda.  I wanna wear the cute boots that I have never been able to zipper over my chunky, ashy calves.  And I want to buy them in a women's shoe store, not the drag queen section of Payless.  So I dealt with it and pulled it out.

So that was that and we will start all over tomorrow morning. 

Sara Smile

Day 28: Reset

I didn't do any blogging over the weekend because I really couldn't put into words what I was thinking.  That says a lot coming from me. I usually can always think if somethnig to say.  I actually spent most of the day Sunday watching movies and hanging out with Kenny.  I watched Shutter Island, Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Prince of Persia (yum!).  Yes, I was being lazy and unmotivated.  Yes, there are a lot of things I could have been doing that were more productive toward my goals.  But I didn't.  I allowed myself to get lost in the escapism of the movies, just thinking and watching and experiencing the stories through that open window we call the screen.  I was actually really sorry to have Shutter Island end because it was so compelling and interesting, the time period and scenery were unbelievable.  I'm still trying to figure out what actually happened at the end.  It really did me some good to allow the pressure I put myself under to ease a bit, to not be anything other than a spectator.  It helped to hit the reset button.

Last week was not great.  Kenny sick, we fell behind on school work, didn't get hardly anything done I wanted to get done, child support did not come again, focus on my weight goals waned in and out and I got really frustrated.  And all along side of that I'm still crunching ideas around in my brain for a way to make a business that stands out.

The good news is I seem to be getting a lump of back owed child support.  I won't hold my breath for next week, I'll just have to be careful with what I have for now.  I'm thankful it came because Kenny has out grown the sneakers I bought him with the weigh in money I won in the spring.  It's getting cold out there and flip flops just aren't going to cut it much longer.  I also think I hit upon a good business angle which I won't go into right now.  I want to keep smoothing it out and working the reality into my ever so high ideals.  It is a somewhat major shifting of gears but I think it'll be more lucrative than the way I was going at it before. 

I also took a break from educational reading and business enlightenment and sank my teeth (pun intended) into Salem's Lot by Stephen King.  Love me some Stephen King.  Why?  Because he gets inside your head and stays there.  I read It in the 7th grade and to this day I won't walk over a storm drain if I can help it.  They all float down there.  Freakin clowns.  King is just a fantastic story teller.  I will have to make sure I rent the movie from Netflix.  Vanessa and I tried to watch it many times when we were in high school but we could never get past the part where the vampire kid is floating outside the window.  lol  They usually screw up Stephen King books when they make them into movies but I want to see it anyway.  I get really attached to his characters and I want to see how they are portrayed in the movie, who plays them.   

I guess now I just keep plugging away.  Keep on chugging until some of these crazy ideas if mine become habit and bigger, better things happen all the time.  I've had more than my share of trials and I'm fed up quite frankly.  I want a better way and a life that I wake up looking forward to, not one I have to talk myself into dealing with.  So keep your fingers crossed for me and don't forget to leave a comment on last Thursdays blog telling me what your favorite fall scent is and what it reminds you of.  It puts you in the running for a free Merlot soy candle from Pour Daddy's.

Happy Hump Day, Everyone!

Sara Smile

Day 24: New and Improved

The look of the blog has changed a little bit and there is a reason for that!  I added 2 new pages to this blog for your reading pleasure. 

1st I added a recipe page called Eat It! where I will list recipes that I use for my weight loss plan.  You can find it under the Quantum Leap Frog banner at the top of the page.  I have 2 recipes on there now and a few more that I want to put up.  My recipes tend to be a little off the wall because I follow the beat of a slightly different dieting drummer.  I am sensitive to wheat and gluten so I am always looking for alternatives to flour.  I'm lactose intolerant so whey protein leaves me doubled over in pain and I simply won't do soy protein because I, personally, believe it is bad for the thyroid in large quantities.  I use alternatives for those too.  So if you would like to try some of the recipes on my blog and can't find the ingredients in your local super market I have created an Amazon store with a lot of harder to find ingredients already found for you.  The Amazon store has 2 categories:  Reading & Audio (it contains the media I am using along the way towards a new and improved Sara) and a Pantry (food items).  The Amazon store is the reason the blog now looks different.  I had to reconfigure the layout to give the store the space necessary to function properly. 

The store and recipe pages will be updated pretty regularly so make sure to check in on them from time to time.  You never know when you'll find something you like.  I used the Amazon store on another blog I follow and I was really impressed with how it functioned, so imagine my excitement to realize I could make my own on this blog!  It's pretty cool.

Now back to the reason we're all here:

Today I tried to get back into some kind of groove.  I needed to get Kenny back into school work (we'd taken a few days off), get myself back onto a better eating track and try to just get some things done.  I have yet to get done all of the items on my self-imposed Quantum Leap work list in 1 day.  I usually get the blog and the gallon of water in, sometimes the reading but other things just come up or I just shut down and need to veg out to let my brain unwrap itself from the knot it gets into around my brain stem.  Today I did manage to get a fantastic beef stew on the stove, drank my water, tried to multi-task but alas, my hitch sputtered out of my giddy up before the daylight did.  Making sure Kenny gets all his meds in at appropriate times interrupts my thoughts and I have been sitting up late at night listening to him breath in his sleep to make sure the cooler night air isn't making his chest tighten up.  I hate it when he's sick.  I'd rather be sick myself than hear him not be able to breath properly.  I had the Swine Flu last year so I know how it feels to not be able to breath without wheezing.

Kenny, however, thinks it's pretty cool to have a medical apparatus.  He can't wait to show it to his cousin who is diabetic and needs to carry supplies with him where ever he goes.  Hopefully the novelty will wear off and he will prefer to be healthy again.  I'm not a huge fan of General Medicine and not one to immediately lean on the medical industry unless I have to so I am not as enamoured with his antibiotics and inhaler as he is.  I have to keep Motrin on hand for the headaches he gets after using the inhaler and Benedryl in case he starts getting hives from the antibiotic.  He's allergic to certain types.   So right now he's pumped full of a variety of different chemicals and medicines and that makes me nervous.  The human body is too delicately balanced to be bombarded haphazardly with this and that the other thing the doctor adds to the list.  I think part of the reason we are all so sick and out of balance is because there is so much 'stuff' in our environment building up in our bodies and compounding into general maladies and eventually larger issues.  It's a little scary!  Did I mention he got 4 booster shots at his physical, too?  I am not sure on which side of the fence I stand on the Inoculation Debate.  I don't know who to believe about the nature of the medicines, how they are processed and what problems they can actually cause.  I've read the literature but there isn't conclusive evidence one way or the other that satisfies the nervous mommy in me. 

I sometimes wish there was a parenting manual that got sent home with you from the hospital...but then again it would probably have been published by corporate entity owned collectively by Monsanto, BP and drug manufacturers.  Who's to say the information wouldn't have been a very long print ad for their methods and products?

Speaking of Big Business, here's something interesting I learned from my Organic Gardening magazine.  Don't use recycled tires as planters....not even if you think you are being green.  And don't use shredded rubber from tires around your playground areas or near your garden.  Why?  Because as the sun and weather slowly wears away at the material, heavy metals used in the tired production process are leeched into the ground, into your soil and eventually into the ground water supply.  Nice, huh?  It pays to be informed. 

Until tomorrow, my friends...have a Happy Saturday!

Sara Smile

Day 23: Thinner Thursday #2

First things first.  Weigh in was tonight and what is the verdict?

-4 lbs

I was down exactly 4 lbs from last week bringing my weight down to 222.4.  I was really hoping for a double digit however I knew going into it that it probably wasn't going to happen.  I did a lot of stress munching and I knew I was not on top of my game.  4 lbs is good especially in a downward progression.  But to me it is a little bit average.  I'm looking for 'quantum leaps' here, not 'good enough steps' so I will have to look back at my week and try to find a better groove.  One advantage I have over everyone else in the group is time on my hands so there is no reason I shouldn't be able to kick this out.  I need to stay the hell out of my own way and stop over complicating things.

2nd order of business:  who won the lip balm?  Why is was Anonymous Amy!  Congratulations Amy ( FB me with your address!).  If you did not win this time don't fret!  Why?

Because I have another item to give away!  I mentioned it in yesterday's post but if you missed it let me fill you in.  What I have up for grabs this week is a fabulous Pour Daddy's hand poured soy candle.  It is 6 oz of Merlot-scented goodness and it is up for grabs.  All you have to do is post a comment with your name in it telling me what your favorite fall scent is and what memories it brings you!  I love the Merlot scent because it reminds me of fall nights with good friends at the Nissley lawn concerts. 

You can find Pour Daddy's on their Facebook site or at
      -Root's in Manheim on Tuesdays
      -Hershey Farmer's Market (across the road from the medical center) on Thursdays
      -Saturday's Market in Middletown on Saturdays
      -various craft shows and fairs around the area (see Facebook site for details)

Post your comment entries here and then look for Thinner Thursday #3 next week to see if you won!

Sara Smile

Day 22: Tomorrow is Judgement Day

So tomorrow night is my weigh in.  I've been tracking myself on my own scale here at home but my scale is usually a few pounds heavier than theirs, plus the challenge weighs in at night which will affect generally increase your weigh simply because you've been eating, drinking and retaining all day long.  I have done well this week, however I don't know if I've done the phenomenal job of it I was looking to do.  Life is stressful sometimes and doesn't always go according to plan.

My son has been sick much of the week and yesterday afternoon was spent at the doctor's office while he sucked on a nebulizer.  We left with 3 prescriptions: 2 for in inhaler and spacer and 1 for antibiotics for a blooming ear infection.  He hasn't had an ear infection since I pulled him from public school 2 years ago!  His blood pressure was elevated, probably from being dehydrated (nurse said his lungs were probably drawing moisture from his body to facilitate the phlegm production) which also gave him a wheezing cough, hence the inhaler.  It's scary.  Not as scary as watching ER attendants set his broken arm 2 yrs ago but still, you never want to see your child suffer.  Food choices were not fantastic yesterday and I caught myself 'stress munching' and just wanting to nosh on something in general.  I had waaaay too much coffee and I could tell I was getting dehydrated.

I am already grateful for my insurance benefits and food stamps, but never so much as I am now.  Paying for a doctor's appointment, medicine and Gatorade and OJ to get him rehydrate would have cost every cent I have.  I still have not heard anything about my child support so it would have left me with nothing.  So once again, I would like to thank all of the employed tax-payers reading this blog.

I know I am not the only one out here struggling.  Last weekend we went to the Old Fashioned Days in Bainbridge and there were a lot of small businesses there with their tents set up, hoping to make a decent go of it.  Had I known about it ahead of time I would have gotten a stand there myself.  Oh well, them's the breaks, kid.  But while I was there I came across a man who makes and sells soy candles.  My dear friend Holly and I had talked to him out at Root's and as we were walking away from his stand that day I said to her, "I would like to get one of his candles and give it away on my blog."  When I stopped at his stand in Bainbridge I decided: What the hell.  It's the least I can do for all you kind people who indirectly buy my health coverage and groceries each month.  I won't give you specifics on what I bought or how to win it until Thursday night when I post my weigh in results and pick the winner for the lip balm.  However I will tell you this:  the company is called Pour Daddy's.  You can find him at Saturday's Market in Middletown, Root's on Tuesdays, and the Hershey Farmer's Market across from the medical campus on Thursdays.  You can also find him and his specific itinerary on Facebook at Pour Daddy's on Facebook.  Go check him out and come back tomorrow to see how to win!

Sara Smile

Day 20: Do You Remember? It was the 21st Day of September...

I love this song and you simply can't watch this video without smiling...great music, impeccable fashion sense!

Earth, Wind & Fire - September

My cousin posted this on Facebook today and I probably listened to it about 6 times. I was chair dancing to it with my son's headphones over my ears so I could blast it straight into my brain.  He walked into the room, stared at me, shook his head and left the room again. 

Yeah, son, your mama likes to jam.  A friend once described my preferred taste in music as 80s Pop and 70s Cheese.  I think that sums it up well.  I listen to a lot of different kinds of music but the common ground to everything I listen to is that it either delivers a fantastic message or it makes me want to snap my fingers and shake my assets.   Earth, Wind & Fire is awesome, I love me some Tina Turner and James Brown.  Gotta have my 80s classics (I'm looking at you Wham!) and my hair band rock ballads.  Metallica and AC/DC changed my brain forever.  I was positively in loooove with John Mellencamp and I really did want him to make it hurt so good because, well, sometimes love don't feel like it should.

I had wanted to take dance classes when I was a kid.  It was a natural first step towards my inevitable career as a Solid Gold Dancer.  However, I wasn't allowed.  My mom claimed that "Christians don't dance."  That was secret code for 'it's too expensive and I don't want to have to drive you anywhere.'  So I went undiscovered and unfulfilled, secretly bopping around my room in the 80s to the enormous radio I inherited from my brother.  It was decked out with a radio, a record player AND an 8-track deck.  I can remember specific times in my life according to what songs I listened to at the time.  "Manic Monday" by the Bangles reminds me of eating a hollow Easter bunny in my room.  "Wild Wild West" by the Escape Club was popular when we moved in junior high.  I remember staring at the hideous wall paper in my bedroom listening to that song.  It looked like someone had cut the pages from the 1910 Sears & Roebucks catalogue and glued them to my wall.   "Fly Like and Eagle" by the Steve Miller Band brings back memories of watching my cousin preen himself in the mirror in South Philadelphia in the early 80s.  MC Hammer reminds me of trips to Philly in the 90s.   

It's nice, sometimes, to just get lost in music, to let the sound remove all other aspects of the world for a small amount of time.  I wish I had been a better musician or could carry a tune.  I admire and envy people who can make an instrument sing or raise the hair on my arms when they hit a note just right.  My sister bought me a ticket to see Celtic Woman in the Spring and the sound of Amazing Grace coming from the bagpipes almost brought me to tears.  On the other end of the spectrum the sound of  AC/DC's "Thunder Struck" on the bagpipes at the Celtic Fling sent electricity into the air and made me want to grab some randy chap in a kilt and get pagan on his ass.  Luckily I was able to refrain.  It was but by the grace of God no one around me was wearing patchouli.  All bets would have been off. :-D  (Patchouli has an interesting effect on me, somewhat like catnip)

What is your favorite music?  How does it make you feel?  Tell me, I want to know!

Sara Smile

Day 19: Procrastination Problems

I have been procrastinating writing for the past few days for a number of reasons.  I really want each and everyday to be a revelation, at least to myself.  I want to have something to SAY that shows that yes, indeed, I am moving forward and succeeding, but I get trapped in the mundane and have trouble finding miracles in the kitchen sink. 

I hate house work.  Anyone who has ever been to my house can see that clearly.  It's not that I don't know HOW to clean, I do, and I will shine the place up right nice when I get a hankerin' to do it.  But I hate the minutia involved in housework.  I want a nice, clean, organized environment but seriously, I don't want to be the one to spend the entire day standing at the sink to make it happen.  Call me selfish, call me lazy, call me negative but I firmly believe there was a woman somewhere who would have found the cure for cancer had she not been stuck in the kitchen scraping egg yolks off the fork tines.  One day, when I get myself even a little bit of money, I am hiring a house keeper. 

I know that all things in life are connected to the other things in life so I must sit back and reflect a bit to ask myself where this comes from and whether or not it plays a role where I find myself now.  I think one of the biggest things I hate about house work is that it is a thankless job that is never done.  There will always be more laundry and more dishes and more dust and more something.  Maybe it is the artist in me but I want to finish something and see it stay done.  Cleaning up the same messes make me feel even more trapped in the same loop I've been stuck in all this time.  It's not getting better, it stays at the same level of undone.  Does that make sense? 

Weight loss is the same thing.  Paying bills is the same thing. You do all the work and it's still never done, you got to do it all again the next day and if you (I) can't find a way to do it that fulfills, then it becomes drudgery.  I will never forget a moment I had when I worked at my son's daycare center.  I was the cook there and I enjoyed the cooking, I got along fairly well with my co-workers and I loved the kids.  But the job wasn't getting me out of debt, it wasn't even keeping my minimum payments on track and my son hated being there.  We had a particularly rough morning one day, snow on the ground and my son wasn't feeling well, and I remember standing at the back kitchen door watching the cars go by thinking, "We sure do go to a lot of effort to get somewhere that neither of us wants to be."  It was a turning point.  I don't want to live a life of drudgery to earn a paycheck to pay the bills that don't stay paid so I can have a house to sleep in before I go back to work to make the money to pay for the house.  It is insanity to me.  I've worked since I was 17, I put myself through college, I worked full time as a single mom for many years before I was laid off at the beginning of the recession.  I even went to grad classes part-time while working full time.  Lord knows I'm no stranger to a hard day's work and I appreciate and respect people who get up and go to work everyday.  I just think we are all missing out on something. 

I realize I am idealistic.  I acknowledge it is easy to sit back and wax philosophical about my earning potential with someone else paying for the roof over my head.  Trust me people, and many others out there can vouch for me on this, if I could pay for my own roof I'd leave here with my purse and the clothes on my back, shoes optional.  But I refuse to be exhausted, unfulfilled and stressed out about child care and travel if I can help it.  I tolerate too much as it is, I want what I want for a change. 

"Great," you say, "we all agree with you and wish you would go live your dreams so you stop complaining all the time."  Thank you for your moral support.  I suppose I am just having a difficult time laying down that foundation of success for myself because I have no clue what it feels or looks like.  Most people, especially the people in my immediate vicinity, are programmed to get a job that provides insurance, contribute to their 401K and hope nothing catastrophic happens between now and retirement.

I didn't go to college to get a job, I went to college to 1) get the hell out of my house and 2) to be something.  But I don't think I knew how to do that.  I didn't know how to be myself and I still struggle with that now.  I'm not sure anymore what is me and what is what I thought I should be.  I resent all the times I went on a diet or exercise plan because someone harped on me about my weight and I wanted to please them or get approval from them or at least make them shut the hell up.  I shouldn't resent anyone else for my own choices and reactions but I do and I am being honest about it.  I get pissed off when someone remarks about my 'potential' when they clearly have no clue what a struggle it has been for me just to get out of bed and deal with my life in its present incarnation.  I am to the point that I am leery of accepting a kindness from most people because, too many times in the past, when I've drawn boundaries for myself across the board, certain acts of kindness were held over my head from different people.  And that's just me being honest.  Emotions are not facts, though they often times bear the truth. 

So when you only half-way trust yourself and you only half-way trust other people where does that leave you?  Well...here, apparently. lol  And at the mercy of chaos and anxiety, prone to doubt and depression and anger that never gets resolved.  Speaking my mind often creates discord which I emotionally have a really hard time processing.  I grew up in constant tension and I f***ing hate it.  It infuriates me when my opinion is disregarded or morphed out of its original form or when I am labeled as stressed out or negative because I disagree with someone.  I have a long history of not getting along with Type A personalities because it drives me bonkers that someone in a room behaves as though their opinion or thoughts are the ones that should be heard and applied.  My own emotional filter reads their 'confidence' as 'arrogance' and I am set immediately on the defensive.

So I continue to try and figure out where that quiet place is, inside myself at least until I can find it externally, where I can trust who I am and what it is that I want and where I can let other people just be who and what they are without it compounding my own world.  I think we all struggle with this, some more than others.  I think if most people knew what it is I really think they wouldn't see me the same way ever again.  But that's a conversation for another time.

Sara Smile

Day 16: Thinner Thursday #1

Tonight was the first of 12 weigh ins for the Central PA Biggest Loser contest, Elizabethtown edition.  I'm am going to go ahead, humiliate myself and tell you what I weigh.

Hold on to your butts.  Their scale put me at 226.8 lbs.  I am 5'4" with a BMI of 39.0 (obesity grade 3 according to our chart) and a Body Fat % of 43.7%.   

When I started going to this particular group last Fall I started out at 248 lb with a BMI of 42.6 and a Body Fat % of 45.9%.  My highest weight 2 years ago was 265 lbs. 

So I've been heading downward over the past year and that's great, but now I'm greedy for success and I want more!  No more putzing around, no more sneak eating, no more "I'll walk extra miles tomorrow to make up for eating/cheating/not walking today."  No one loses 86+ lbs by doing a little bit here and there.  I have a plan that's no joke.  I won't have a whole lot of 'food fun' as I like to call it for quite awhile but hey, I've spent more than enough days of my life eating and tasting and procrastinating.  Now I want to know what it's like to be healthy and centered and full of energy.  Not to mention Stella needs to get her groove back but that's a whole other blog.

I'm afraid my plan is pretty ridiculously simple, so simple most people won't want to do it for so long.  Clean protein (chicken, white fish, lean beef, turkey), clean vegetables of the least starchy variety, lower sugar fruits, herbal tea, spices, water water water. I already know I'm sensitive to wheat and gluten (oh, ABC Water Gap Wheat beer with your twist of lemon, I miss you) and I don't do so well with dairy.  It makes me a bit snotty and gassy and bloated...how much more sexy can one person get?  So it will be treated with caution.  

I can hear the questions now:  How do you get calcium and Vitamin D without consuming dairy?  I take a coral calcium supplement and I go outside and soak up my Vitamin D the old fashioned way.  And I never use sun block...nooo, that shit'll give you cancer.

I'm looking forward to a big number next week.  Think I can hit a double digit??  Dare me...come one someone DARE me!

Seriously...leave a comment that says I Dare You with your name.  All the names will go into a hat and on next week's Thinner Thursday Blog I will pick a name.  That person will win a free Shugified Coffee Lip Balm!  So go ahead, triple dog dare me!

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