Summer

For the majority of my childhood my family lived in the middle of Nowheresville, Alabama. There was a school. A convenience store way down the street with overpriced milk- the big town was 20 miles away. We lived in a housing development between cotton fields that had 4 houses on it when we moved in and slooooowly started filling up. Since there weren't any houses there yet we spent a lot of time playing in tall grass and making forts out of the taller grass and jumping off of hay bales when the said grass was cut. We also collected "indian beads" out of the drainage ditch, played down by the creek sometimes, and lifted wood scraps from construction sites. And to this day it seems weird to not just have random pieces of lumber lying around if I need some. Don't ask me what I'd need lumber for now, but it sure was nice to have it then.

Pretty much every day in the summer my mom would drive us over to the crappy YMCA so that we could go swimming. On the way there was a hill in the road that would make your stomach flip if you hit it just right. We'd slather on the sunscreen and swim for a couple of hours. The bottom of the pool was really rough and for the first few days we'd come out of the pool with bleeding toes that would leave little pink spots on the concrete. We sure never worried about catching some sort of flesh eating bacteria from the pool back then- even though it was populated by an army of bloody toed children- there was enough chlorine in that water to make your eyes burn if you got splashed. We'd swim and play until it was time to go home, or we drove my mom crazy. I clearly remember the feeling of being baked from the sun in a damp swimsuit, completely worn out, and coming into the air conditioned house to get into dry clothes and eat a homemade orange and yogurt popsicle that had just the right amount of tart and sweet to it. The rest of the day would be spent quietly reading or playing because it was too hot to play outside and we were pretty tired. That pool was probably a God send to mothers for miles around.

When I was 9 or 10 I decided to try "science experiments" which pretty much consisted of mixing up vinegar and baking soda to watch if fizz. I kept little yogurt containers of all sorts of household stuff- vinegar, baking soda, baking powder, flour- really whatever I could get away with taking a few tablespoons of and keeping in my room. To this day the smell of vinegar reminds me of being 10 years old and realizing that all the dried up foam was really starting to stink and I should probably throw all of my science experiments out.

My dad and friends of the family built a play house for my sister and me. It was on stilts for a tree house effect since there was a serious lack of any sizable trees back then. We put it way in the back part of the yard and the platform was about 6 feet high. I'm sure it really pissed off the neighbors when they built a privacy fence but we could still see over it. My dad kept beehives in the backyard (boy, we must have been popular) and one day when I was sitting in the playhouse a honey bee came and landed right on my hand. I held my breath and watched as it crawled between the tiny hairs on the back of my hand and then up my thumb before it flew off. Despite suiting up and going out to the hives with my dad sometimes, and playing in fairly close proximity to them all the time, I only got stung once. One of the hives swarmed into a tree and my dad smoked the swarm (it's really the only way to calm bees) and knocked it into a sheet. One of those bees flew straight into my face and stung me just under my eye. I would guess I'm not all that allergic to bees because it barely swelled at all. I don't remember what you do with a mass of swarmed bees once they get into the sheet- probably try to reintroduce it to a new hive and see how it goes. Honey bees are some fascinating creatures. We only got our hives far enough to harvest honey once, and it was the lightest honey I'd ever seen. The bees were collecting pollen from cotton flowers to make honey.

If you live outside the south you might not even know that cotton HAS flowers. They are beautiful- little pale pink flowers that get darker as they get older. We would occasionally steal cotton bolls from the fields near the house just to play with the cotton or send them to incredulous friends up north. Farmers aren't too thrilled about people stealing cotton, but it wasn't like we took a whole lot and we usually took them after harvest- it's hard to tell a harvested field from one that hasn't been touched yet- the cotton industry is incredibly wasteful when they pick.

So some days in summer when the air is just right and it is really hot and I can smell fresh cut grass and the bottoms of my shoes feel like they're melting and the asphalt shimmers, I flash back to those days of being a kid in Alabama. When I drive back through that neighborhood now it feels trashy and sad, but to a 9 year old it was downright idyllic.

Well Fuck

In this post over here I was all snotty about not wanting to keep a food diary. Well I did. For a week. And lost three pounds of fat (and one pound of muscle, which is good) since my last weight check about a week and a half or two weeks ago. It may be a coincidence. Or it may not and I'll have to write down everything I eat for the rest of my life. I'm not complaining, exactly, it's just something I'm not used to thinking about. Obviously there's a brain shift going on or I wouldn't be writing about this so much!

Wheeeeee!!!

So this has shaped up to be a pretty good day. Now I'm paranoid about writing about good days because the last time I had a really great day when I was in a great mood and I blogged about it, I sort of crashed out about a week later. Let's not jinx it! But rest assured, things have gotten much much better in Heather-Land. I am sleeping mostly without Ambien (sometimes I take 1/2 of one, especially if I feel all wide awake and wired and it's 10:30 and I'm contemplating watching Conan, but that's really tapered off), I don't feel like I'm dragging myself to do stuff, and I'm much, much less anxious than I was 3 weeks ago. Once again, it is the knowing what is going on that makes a difference for me.

This morning I went to the dentist, and I didn't have a single thing wrong with my mouth. In fact, the hygienist called the dentist in so that she could look at beautiful teeth at least once today. Love that, right? I am a shining example of brushing and flossing. The prescription toothpaste is working. THANK GOD. Let's not jinx that either.

Around lunch time one of my bookclub buddies texted me that she was at a restaurant just down the street from work, so I high-tailed it over there for a delicious jerked pork sandwich. YUM. I had a good break from work and met new people and laughed and laughed (I usually do when I'm with her). It was great! I never get to meet people for lunch because I'm allllllll the way on one side of Nashville and almost everybody I know outside of work is allllllll the way on the other side of Nashville so I'd spend my whole lunch break driving. I like the change!

Then in the afternoon I got really stuck on how to format a report at work. The person who wrote it in MS Word was really schizo about formatting. It went from looking like this:
1.
-------> a.
-------> b.
-------------> 1.
-------------> 2.
2.
------->a.
------->b.
To this:
1.
------->1.
------->2.
2.
------->1.
------->2.
To this:

• bullet point
  

------->a.
------->b.

• bullet point
  

------->1.
------->2.

WHAT THE HELL?

So I got everything nicely formatted in Word with CONSISTENCY. And then I copied and pasted it in to Excel and it all went out the window when I merged cells. SIGH. So then I had to move everything around in cells and now I think it's probably still not quite right but it wasn't even my report to begin with. I just had publish it. So I sent it back to the person who owns it "for review" and hopefully he won't mess it all up again. Don't even get me started about page breaks in Excel. The afternoon actually went really fast thanks to all the concentration going on. I like that. So although it sounds like a really crappy part of the day it went fast and I had something real to work on, so I was happy.

Then after work I went to the gym and got on the elliptical for 40 minutes. In that time I burned 618 calories and went 5.32 miles. That is a RECORD for me, in all categories. I was so damn proud of myself! I've been logging all of my food in sparkpeople.com and I can hardly believe it, but I consistently do not eat enough food. Maybe it's a phase or something (hello outrageously hot weather) because there are days where I feel like I eat all the time. Maybe it's the psychological effect of having to enter everything in there. Maybe in a couple of days I'll eat everything in sight and get around 3000 calories instead of the 1750 I've averaged over the last week. (Which for a person my size, at my activity level, is not enough. I should be getting somewhere between 1950 and 2250. I think we can all agree that if I'm burning 600+ calories at least 4 times a week I need to be making sure I'm getting the right fuel in this body.)

ALSO, I have nearly completely stopped chewing on my nails! After the first couple of days it was not that hard and I have actually FILED them TWICE. I don't remember the last time I filed my nails before now. Progress people! As long as I keep my cuticles moisturized it isn't even an issue. I've found the same to be true with my face- the more I moisturize the clearer my skin is. Weird. I'm a dried up old spinster. Tee hee.

I hope that my last post didn't make anyone out there uncomfortable. I wrote it in the name of keeping this real. I know I'm not the only one who is struggling with content, and how much to say and when to say it and all that. But I'm going to keep on trucking. Last night I un-friended all of my work colleagues on facebook (I know that sounds harsh, but this is what linkedin is for!), which was another way for me to make sure that my professional life and my personal life stay separate. I mean, yes, I sort of would like to be anonymous again but I can't pretend that this is not a public blog in a public forum where anyone can read it and when a person writes in a space like that don't they ultimately want people to read their stuff? YES! I'm not going to lie about that, I think it is really REALLY cool that people read my blog. I think it is awesome when my blog traffic increases- I get super excited. (Especially when I post pictures of cuties like Jonathan Rhys Meyers or Robert Pattinson, good LORD I don't know where all those people are coming from but that sure does generate some hits. One day I will steal a page from daddylikey when she does "Inadvertently Ask Daddy Likey Day" based on google searches that point people to her blog... HILARIOUS.)

Anyway, dear reader (suddenly feeling very Bronte sister-ish, in the tone of "Dear reader, I married him." gasp!) that's enough rambling from me for one night. Did you have a nice "hump day"? God that term is gross. I hope it makes you giggle as much as I did when I wrote it.

I Would Just Like to Point Out....

That it is storming. AGAIN. We've been under so many thunderstorm warnings and tornado warnings in the past week that I have lost count. This is a really really weird Spring/Summer. It's gotten to the point where even I don't really care about the weather unless I'm actually out driving into a tornado or something. What can I do about it? I haven't acquired that super power to control the elements yet. And the HEAT- it's been in the 90s everyday for what feels like forever, but probably just since Wednesday.

Today I read that Heather over at pixelscribbles is having a similar problem with blogging that I am having. This blog used to be totally anonymous, but as I've let more and more people in on it, it is totally NOT anonymous anymore. And I am trying to get more comfortable with that. (To the point where I'm bringing it up randomly in conversations and then can't adequately express what the heck I'm trying to say and we ALL know I do better writing than talking so duh Heather, let's address this in the blog!) Three years ago I was talking about anything I felt like because it was a safe place to explore my feelings and opinions about a variety of topics. Now I am not shy about expressing myself (noooooo...?!) but (believe it or not... I know, you're not going to believe it) I sometimes feel like I'm not heard in conversations, or I don't want to interrupt so the moment passes, or I feel like someone who never gets their say is actually talking and I'd better let them have their moment, or I need to work things out a little more in my head so that I can really express my views on it, so it is better for me to write things. But now I wonder if the fact that I have more readers than I used to is getting in the way of writing candidly and honestly.

I also wonder if I'm getting sort of boring or if I'm a little TOO opinionated or if the people who know me in real life are sort of surprised about the topics I choose to write about here. I wonder about my format- should I have a theme? HeatherBakes has a great blog that is focused on food- all of the food she eats every day, which is much more interesting than it sounds because she's in chef school- with a little bit of life thrown in. Sal's theme at AlreadyPretty is on women and body issues. There are many many fashion blogs in my blogroll. I think I lack the focus for that kind of theme.... I mean, I can't just pick one! Would it be fiber/sewing stuff or food/body stuff or makeup reviews or TV I love to watch or what? I don't think it would work for me. Heather at Pixelscribbles and Heather at Dooce both write more journalistic blogs and not only are they really fun to read, I think I'm better at journally. I've always been a person who just writes whatever is in my head anyway. I think it is also good to be honest in writing, not just about good things but about more serious stuff like mental health and physical health and the feelings that come with that. I once found a link to my blog on another blog about panic disorder and anxiety, and I figure that if I can help someone out there recognize what is going on with them and get the help they need, that is AWESOME. (And I SWEAR I am not just picking Heathers to write about on purpose, there is a reason my blog is named what it is.)

Unless the topic is extremely personal, I've always used this blog as a journal and I think I'll keep it that way, at least for the time being. It helps me keep track of dates and what I was doing when. It helped me to realize my problem with the depression/anxiety ramp-up in the early summer. It has made me remember why I am doing what I am doing and kept me on track about things like exercise and the Great Nail Bite Out of '09. It is a good semi-public outlet for me. I think the only group of people I would NOT be comfortable getting in the vault (that was the only good line from The Women, "It's in the vault." Meaning, "It doesn't leave the walls of this room!") would be colleagues at work. And if that happened I guess I'd just have to suck it up. It's just that this is not the most professional side of myself, and it would definitely get in the way of me being open and real. I know that work-heather and life-heather aren't drastically different, but I'd like to pretend I'm on top of things at work. This wouldn't help!

Random rambling about food.

Hey Y'all,

So yeah, I have had a couple of things on my mind today (mostly food-related) and figured I would let YOU, my fabulous audience, read them. Because you read my blog like a prayer book and take time to reflect on my message to the world! (OKAY, who has been watching just a little too much Big Love? The FLDS group fascinates me, so this show is like CRACK. I am seriously loving it, especially Nicki. I'm not a Chloe Sevigny fan but that character is fascinating.)

Right, so, where was I? Oh YEAH, as a side note, does anybody besides me think that this dumb David Letterman/ Sarah Palin feud is totally fabricated for ratings? Conan O'Brien started just last week. I mean, I can't imagine the Palins and Letterman working together at faking a dispute like that, but it's lasted way too long. In today's newscycle these things only last that long because somebody wants them too. Normal people would have dropped it by now.

Sooooo the gym: boy I am really starting to get why people are all hooked on working out. I was there 3 days last week, and I've been 3 days in a row this week. I joined 2 months ago and started going regularly 6 weeks ago. I work out with a personal trainer 2 times a week (but for the past 2 weeks it was 3 times a week because appointments got shifted around), and then I aim to get some cardio in at least 2 times on top of that. Sorry for all the documenty numbers. I HATE doing cardio as a training session- it's really hard and I feel like it's something I could do myself and she makes me do things like the stair stepper or the treadmill at a minimum of 3 miles an hour with an incline of 10%. BUT it burns a lot of calories so I'll stop whining. Maybe. One day. The regulars are starting to talk to me so I know I've been there a lot. Anyway, I am getting stronger but not seeing a heck of a lot of weight loss. I'm trying not to focus on that because really this is for health more than anything else but it does get frustrating.

My trainer keeps saying things like "Food Diary" and I keep saying things like "LA LA LA I can't HEAR YOU!" I hate food diaries. And I think for the most part I eat fairly healthy. Ish. Today is a pretty typical food day, so here it is:

• A cup of coffee (I LOVE COFFEE, and I always regret drinking it. It kills my stomach but it tastes so good! It smells like heaven's kitchen (oh my god again with the goody goody mormon stuff)! It gives me lots of energy and makes my hair shiny. But it also kills my stomach. Normally I drink P&G Tips black tea.
• A bowl of oatmeal with cinnamon and a little brown sugar mixed in. Sometimes I add a chopped dates, almonds, and canned pumpkin too. Sounds gross, but as long as you don't put TOO much pumpkin in, it's good.
• Lunch was a chicken wrap from the cafeteria. Tortilla, grilled chicken breast, lettuce, tomato, some shredded cheese, and mustard. It's the only thing I'll eat from that place. Everything else is pretty gross. I did make them give me a spoonful (that's eating spoon, not serving spoon) of cherry cobbler because it looked SO GOOD, but it was really sweet and sort of icky. Sometimes I'll have baked chips with lunch but lately they've just had regular chips or those ones with Olestra (ewwwww) so I pass.
• A lot of water.
• Tonight when I got home from the gym my stomach was still feeling rotten from the cursed coffee (SIGH), so I made a smoothie from frozen bananas and peaches, spinach, light skim milk, light vanilla yogurt, hemp protein, and cinnamon. It was good, and seems to have calmed my stomach down. Later I might have a veggie omelet or something.

Okay, today was really NOT the typical food day because I don't think I ate enough. But health-wise this is my typical diet. My personal challenge is cutting out more red meat and adding more veggies. The other night I made hummus and ate cucumber slices with it, that was really good. Yesterday I cooked up ramen noodles (without the nasty flavor pack) and a sliced up chicken breast with a sesame sauce I made because I have a HUGE can of tahini that I got for the hummus and I'm not sure what else to do with it. Sesame sauce is good. I love tahini, it has that taste you just can't get from anything else.

Some days I just want to eat cheeseburgers. From McDonalds. And then I tell myself I'm not DIETING, I can eat whatever I want. And the craving magically goes away.

Okay, I didn't mean for this post to get all gym/food/body obsessed, but that's what's on my mind lately. I don't know a single person out there who doesn't have food issues, so we might as well talk about them.

PS Congratulations to the Armstrong Family of Dooce! This baby is cuuuuuute. Check it out. They picked a very cool name.

Dreams... and Smoothies!

So, I've been sleeping better (last night I didn't take Ambien, and I fell asleep around midnight at woke up at 9:20- PROGRESS!) but I've been having odd dreams. Now, some people seem to think that dreaming means you're healthy, buy personally I think it means that since you woke up halfway through the dream (because otherwise you wouldn't remember it), it's a sign of not-great sleep. But whatever, I am, as usual, digressing.

The other night I had a dream that I was running. I like running. I don't actually run except when I'm at the gym and my trainer MAKES me run, but I can see myself running when I'm ummmm, a lot lighter. Things just don't stay where they're supposed to when I run right now. Sports bras are on the way. TMI? Get over it. Anyway, running in my dream was nice, I think it was a race or marathon or something, but running in real life for more than 2 minutes might kill me.

I also have had a recurring dream that my freezer is empty. I don't think this is a dream that means I worry that I'll run out of food. My freezer is so chock-full of crap right now that it's probably wishful thinking that I could cram another thing in there. I opened the door and I was like oh FINALLY my freezer doesn't have 10 million things in it and I can find stuff. How refreshing.

This morning I ate a handful of nuts and went to the grocery store. When I got back I made a Green Monster Smoothie, that everyone and their grandma seems to be eating lately. I hauled out the blender and blended up:
1 frozen banana
2 handfuls of spinach
a few slices of frozen peaches
1 T peanut butter
2 T hemp protein
1/4 cup (or so?) vanilla yogurt
1 cup (or so?) of light vanilla soymilk

Zooooooom, this stuff is great! I don't taste the spinach at all, it's just a peanut butter banana smoothie really. This batch was HUGE, I need to get the numbers adjusted. Also, my blender HATES ME, it's going to die soon. I'd like to get this one (that's right- dream BIG), but I think that might be a little overkill!

Happy weekend everybody!

Cuff-tastic!

So I've been playing with some little sewing projects that I found on Craftstylish.com, which I'm going to add to my list of links over on the sidebar. It's a website done through Taunton Press, and they send out a weekly newsletter with really cool looking projects that are usually earth friendly and/or quick. So I pretty much just ripped off this tutorial and I have to say, this was one fast, fun, easy project. I can see a LOT of possibilities for this idea. The only question is, am I too old to wear little crafty wrist cuffs? NO, I don't think so!

So, I took some stretchy black fabric and used a ton of silver mylar thread in fancy stitches, and voila! Here's a closeup:(I think this is a good time to bring up the fact that I used to tease my mom about the "goose skin" (even I don't know where that analogy came from- I was making fun of her pores) on the sides of the backs of her hands. Ahem. Go ahead and click on that picture to enlarge it. Genetics, people! Genetics at work!)

I lined my cuff with some bright turquoise dragonfly fabric I got a long time ago at Mary Jo's in Gastonia, NC. So now it's reversible!I originally finished this with a fancy ribbon and button loop thingy that was sort of complicated and IMPOSSIBLE to get off by myself, so I changed it to a snap. It looks a lot cleaner this way, but I'm going to have to come up with another way to use my ribbon loop closer idea- it's pretty fancy.

PS Note my non-bleeding nails in the first pic. Okay, it's a little grainy but I swear things are getting a little better.

Habits.

I'm writing this at work and I will post it later because... well technically I'm done working but I'm waiting around to go to the gym instead of going home and then to the gym because if I did that I'd have all of five minutes at home so what's the point really? The guy in the office next to me thinks it is the funniest thing in the world that the Slim Jim plant blew up. There are people missing but it's still sort of cracking him up that there will be no Slim Jims for quite some time and what exactly are they putting in them that causes EXPLOSIONS? (For the record I don't think I've ever eaten one of those in my life. They look nasty.)

I'm doing the hardest thing in the world. I'm trying to stop biting my cuticles. Holy crap this is like kicking heroin. I gave myself a really nice manicure on Sunday night and bought not one, not two, but THREE different cuticle treatments (cuticle oil pen at work, shea butter in my purse, and a cuticle balm for my coffee table because I absently pick away at my poor little digits when I'm watching TV) so I'm not tempted to dig at dry bits of finger when I'm not paying attention. That really is helping them to heal up fast but I have looked at my fingertips and thought about not chewing on them approximately 15,343,954 times today. It's disgusting, and it's a deeply DEEPLY ingrained habit. I've been conscious of biting my nails since I was 7 years old, and I've tried stopping dozens of times, including hypnosis tapes. The worst part about it is that my cuticles itch like mad and I haven't gotten past that stage before. It's like (well, no, I guess it literally is) scar tissue that is healing up and itches like crazy and the only thing I've ever done to make it stop is gnaw on them. Now the only thing I can do is apply cuticle oil and rub it in and press on the sides of my fingernails really hard to try to get the itchy feeling to stop. It's such a small area and the skin is so delicate that it isn't like I can scratch them- then I'd be right back to where I was Saturday.

So there are a few reasons that I've decided this is the time to stop (again). #1 my nails looked disgusting and I was constantly hiding my bleeding stubs all the time and I'm sick of that because it feels childish. #2 I'm going to visit my mom next month which is always incentive to not keep up gross habits. (Hi Mom!) #3 Swine Flu. Seriously, how easily do you think I pick up viruses and bacteria thanks to having my fingers in my mouth all the time? Nasty. Time to stop. I'm tempted to post a picture on here of my hands as some sort of accountability and public humiliation but who wants to see that? Ummmm, NOBODY, I promise.

Big news this week: I have figured out what is wrong with me: Seasonal Depression. I used to get it in the winter, but I think over the past few years I've switched to the summer. From what I can find there isn't a definitive reason for people to have Summer SAD but I'm relieved just to know what is going on and that it will STOP because it won't be summer forever. I want to say that in the past I have been over this by August. So this should start calming down soon and then just go away completely and I'll forget what it was like to not be able to sleep, sort of like how I forgot what happened 2 years ago which is why I got Ambien in the first place. I'm gonna make it y'all!

Quietly Going Mad

This is not a very interesting or uplifting post. I'm glad it is the weekend. My closest friends and family know that for some reason I have just been going through SOMETHING lately, because my anxiety is ramped up to an 11 and I'm not sleeping on my own. (Hee hee, that was fun. I bet you were all like DAMN that Heather is awfully forthcoming with the personal information, and why would anxiety mean she's not sleeping by herself? That doesn't make sense... unless she's sleeping with some guy who is causing her anxiety, but in that case why not just dump him? Or maybe she's checked herself into the loony bin and she's sharing sleeping quarters, like in Annie? Wait, that was an orphanage, wasn't it? What is wrong with her? And why do I read this pointless drivel? This woman freaks out ALL THE F'ING TIME. Dammit woman! Get a grip!!!) Ahem. I am not sleeping without the help of drugs. That's not nearly as interesting as it sounded before, is it? I'm taking sleeping pills for 2 weeks, because I know that if I can't sleep, then NOTHING else is going to get straightened out. If that doesn't help the situation (tossing and turning until 5:00 am, with the occasional nightmare thrown in because WHY BE CALM?), I'll take the next step (I'm pretty sure that involves therapy).

Everything feels like it's pretty shaky in just about every area of my life and I'm a control freak so this does not sit well with me. I try to be laid back and zen about it and think ohhhhh, well, to each his own what am I going to do about it anyway? There's NOTHING I can do about ANY of the things that are eating at me. And that's okay. It's okay it's okay it's okay it's okay it's okay it's okay. OOOOooommmmmmmmmmmmmmm. My brain is not so great at letting shit go.

To help get myself over this particular little speedbump in life, I've been doing a couple of things that I really enjoy, like playing with lots of fabric/trim/sewing fun things. I just got all of the DVDs for the entire series of The West Wing off eBay, which I am over the moon excited about. I'm also trying to keep my apartment really clean (I always feel better then the clutter and dust are under control), but trying to not be OCD about it. It's getting to be time to go through some stuff and get rid of some things I don't use or look at any more. That will probably help pull me out of this slump too- I get really excited when I get rid of a lot of crap. The idea of buying a house is officially out- and that decision alone calmed me down a lot. It would be sort of like buying something you're not exactly sure you want and you can't exactly afford just because it's on sale. And finally, to make sure that I'm doing everything I possibly can to make/keep myself healthy I'm working out really consistently and eating probably healthier than I ever have before (I'm talking raw foods and hemp protein and fish oil- DUDE, if that's not healthy I don't know what is). And I'm just so ready for my vacation. It is in less than a month. Surely I can last that long.

Soooo, if I seem more quiet than usual, rest assured that I'm probably making trips to Goodwill or playing with cooking or dusting or napping, or just doing what I can to get back to my old cheery self.