Just 40 Days

 What do you do when you bring up a 'topic' that seem to put off those who you wish to engage?I This has always been frustrating to me.  I consider myself a realist.  I tell you like I see it. As a mother, I take pride in not 'babying' my children.  I called it as I saw it.  My children, still, to this day, do not appreciate this quality of mine.  (They range in age 32-38)  I will be 60 this year. I am approaching my 60th year of life, in the midst of a pandemic, and having lived through nearly six months of quarantine and apparently, I still don't get it.  My children walk away when I mention a serious topic.   Serious topics include:  Neighbor relations, family obligations, interracial interactions, religious beliefs or obligations, general household chores or responsibilities. REALLY!!??? I take a deep breath and don't know what to do.  How can I instill my beliefs into my family.  How do I engage them in a conversation...

This has been a period of...I don't know.  It's been a period of everything! 

Although the last day my students were at school was March 16th, as the IT for our buildings, I continued to go to work.  That all stopped 10 days ago.  I'm not sure how I'm doing with this change. I do know that my dog, Aiden, is wondering why I'm always home and thinking, 'is this too good to be true!"  I've been living in sweat pants! I'm trying to stay productive and continue to help the teachers and staff with their new relationship with technology. My staff is well equipped and trained in technology - they just have to use it now! Video conferencing is the new norm.  I actually look forward to the 3:30 PD Virtual Happy Hour. Meanwhile, I'm cooking dinner and eating more than usual.  Today's goal was to take a shower and make sure my jeans still fit.  I'm good for now.  Stay tuned!

My weight is trending down!  I'm happy to report I saw 190 on the scale today!  I haven't see that number since before my first foot surgery in 2016!  Slow and steady wins the race!

I popped a cough drop into my mouth the other day and it reminded me of my grandma and grandpa Herman.

As I was driving home from work today, the odometer on my 2018 Jeep Compass turned to 20,000 miles. I leased the Jeep in September of 2018.  It is the first time I have leased and I found myself thinking about mileage and how many trips I could take until my lease is up this September.  I have 10,000 left in the lease and eight months to use them...or to not exceed them.  I do not like this pressure.

I've been fasting  16/8 for three weeks now and I'm seeing results. The scale read 194.5 this morning.  What I'd really like to see is ten less pounds than that: <185.  Even though I weighed over 200 pounds when I started intermittent fasting, I've been hanging out in the 190's for nearly three years.  I'd been gaining and losing the same ten pounds over and over again.  With this lifestyle change (16/8) I hope to change that pattern.

As my eyes age, they feel heavier, like there is too much skin around them.  It feels like it's hard for me to open them wide but when I look in the mirror they look fine. So I guess they are.  This got me thinking about seeing the big picture.

Kids these days do not look out the car window.  They are too busy watching a movie on in car screens or looking at their phones.  No wonder they don't have the big picture when they learn to drive!

You were my 2nd baby, a scheduled c-section but the navy surgeon only worked on Fridays! It was Friday the 13th.  You were perfect! 

Family Bowlers Those who are familiar with my story know that my daughter Haylee was killed by a distracted driver in 2014.  She worked at a bowling alley for about 15 years or so.  Some might say, she grew up there. There were many times that I had to go to the bowling alley just to see her. I even joined a bowling league once, just so I'd see her once a week.  I will always remember the time she wanted to move back home and I told her the rent price.  It was much higher than the previous time she lived at home so she was shocked.  She asked if it was negotiable. And I said sure, do you want to wager some on bowling?  So we headed to the bowling alley where if she beat me, I'd knock $50 off the rent.  She won the first and the second game.  Feeling pretty confident, she said double or nothing for the third and I agreed.  Needless to say - Haylee did not win that game so the rent stayed the same! I really don't bowl much anymore, just...

As I mentioned yesterday, perhaps I'm in a midlife crisis.  I've been reading several articles and blogs:  The Midlife Crisis ,  10 Signs , and  Is it Real?  to name a few.  So I've decided, I am in a crisis and it is in the middle of my life.  But I'm not going to buy anything elaborate --- except maybe that trip to Ireland I'm planning this year.  I've been overly stressed and overwhelmed. I've been worried about my health and well being and I do feel inadequate in both my family and professional life though and that bothers me.  Nothing really has changed except my perception.  At least that's what I keep telling myself.  It's all me and how I look at things. And then I don't believe myself --- which causes a crisis!  UGH!

I think I remember reading a book called Courage to Change a long, long, time ago.  Perhaps I'll google it later to refresh my memory.  In the meantime, so much is happening around me that I'm feeling that I need to make some life changes and it scares me.  ---- Or maybe I'm having a mid-life crisis because I turn 60 this year! Either way, change is scary.  Maybe courage is too strong of a word.  Maybe I just have to brave. Maybe I have to stop thinking about it and just jump!  --- I wish.  The change I'm talking about would be major: like selling a house, moving to a new city, leaving family and friends, starting a new job,  or winning the lottery.  Those things take time. Back to that mid-life crisis thought - I've been divorced thirty years - wow!  I've done alot of by myself!  I need a vacation!

Hunger pains at work. Finally, my stomach growled today!  I couldn't remember the last time I felt hungry.  It's actually a good feeling. I think that growling feeling is telling me that my body is trying to work like it's supposed to.  That means that this intermittent fasting is working!  It took about a week!  Hopefully, my hunger won't make me hangry!  (just kidding)

It's 7:00 in the morning, in January, in Toledo, Ohio and as I was driving to work, not one, but two tumbleweeds on two different roads crossed my path.  Seriously?  I can't remember ever seeing such a sight.  Cold winds blowing in again only to be followed by warm air tomorrow.  Our weather is so unpredictable!

It's a lifestyle. After months of research and feeling awful, I have finally decided to commit to a new way of life.   I had to make sure that I believed in it and would be able to do it.  What is it?  Intermittent Fasting.  I have chosen to feed myself only during an eight hour period.  The same eight hour period every day.  During the other sixteen hours of the day, I may have water, coffee, or tea. I tested the times out for about three days to make sure I could stick to the range.  I am a morning person and breakfast is my most favorite meal.  The problem is that I wake up before 6 am and usually eat right away.  If I ate breakfast at 6 am, that would mean my 8 hour feed time would end at 2 pm!  That would leave 8 more hours of awake time that I could not eat and that would be difficult for anyone. I read some articles about breakfast, how important it is and some articles on how it really isn't that important. I decid...

I saw this old Family Circus cartoon and it made me remember my grandmother.  Although, I too, had to walk all the way to the TV to change the channels. I've been a grandmother for over thirteen years now.  My granddaughter doesn't know a time without the Internet or Youtube and has never used a VCR. Times are different. Does that mean that times are better or worse than before?  Or are they just as easy or hard but in a different way?  As an adult, I know that life is hard...and sometimes it's not.  But many children don't get to learn that.  We live in a society where parents shelter their children from failure. Some parents use technology as a baby sister, so children are learning about life from strangers and fiction on the Internet.  Children are exposed to so much adult information WAY before their minds can process it. It's depressing them.  It's causing them anxiety.  Heck, it causes me anxiety as I try not to worry about them....

It's the first Sunday of 2020 and I spent the morning reading, watching the news and listening to television preachers.  I've completed a few household chores and having been trying to adhere to the intermittent fasting lifestyle I've chosen for myself. Currently, my oldest granddaughter is treatment for depression.  I am worried about her and her dad.  I'm worried about all of my children.  I think about the saying:  Faith is worry that has said its prayers.  (A twist on Courage is Fear that has said its prayers.) I think about what my youngest son, Paul, said to me:  Think what advice your mom and dad would give you... I work with young teens all day and teach teens how to use fitness equipment at the ymca.  Most of them are innocent young minds, doing what their parents tell them to do. Some have body awareness, some are more concerned with what other kids are doing.  They are typically who I expect them to be.  But over the past...

Walking into a gym or fitness center is one of the hardest and yet most beneficial thing a person can do for their self. That's what I did today.  It may have been two hours later than I thought, but I did make it to the YMCA and did 10 minutes on the stair climber and 20 minutes on the recumbent bike.  I actually broke a sweat on the stair climber. So that's an answer to my question of yesterday:  But how do I get out of this grand slump of funk?  Exercise is a good way for me to improve my mood.

It's been so long since I have taken the time to gather my thoughts in a meaningful way and write them down.  My head has been jumbled for months.  I've been slacking in the self care department.  In fact, I have had a very bad case of the the 'I don't really care' attitude.   Did you know that having a bad attitude is tiring? A bad attitude leads to the 'poor me's' and to the blaming of others for why I feel the way I do.  I've been silently angry at most people.  --- This is most damaging as it inflicts harm only on myself.  And so I write.  I think about how changing my attitude, will change everything around me.  But how do I get out of this grand slump of funk?  How do I quit going through the motions of life and actually start living again? Good questions you may say.  Now I only have to come up with good answers.  They don't even have to be good answers, they just have to work for me.  I think of statemen...