Good News Sandwich

Good news and bad news my lovelies. Actually I’ll make it a good news sandwich – a good thing, a bad thing and another good one, how is that? In fact, you should probably go MAKE a sandwich to eat while you read this because I’m warning you it’s going to be LONG. I meant to sit for a minute this morning and catch up with blog comments when I did the blog hop but I ended up running really late and didn’t get a chance to. It’s just as well, none of you need me to spread any mopeyness that I might be feeling. My first good news is that I have officially canceled all of my weekend plans (except my hair appointment, because nobody needs to get a lesson in just how grey haired a 29 year old can be). I’m going to RELAX, no exercise, I will eat a ton of vegetables and watch movies or something fun. That is GREAT news.


Here is how I did yesterday:
Burned 2092 calories
Consumed 1455 calories
Deficit of 637 calories – ugh. But I guess it couldn’t be helped.

Here is how I did Tuesday:
Burned 2830 calories
Consumed 1507 calories
Deficit of 1323 calories

So the bad news, and this is more annoying than bad, is that I’m going crazy…let me explain why. I’m exhausted. I’ve over-used that word since Monday but let me tell you that my brain is TOO TIRED to come up with a synonym. Monday I was just tired, I’m always tired if I haven’t had what I deem to be a relaxing enough weekend. Tuesday I felt like I was too tired, like something might be wrong. Then Tuesday night things went downhill.

I wish I could convey to you my relationship with Husbandcake, of course I think it is the best marriage someone could dream of. We are needy, and miss each other after only a few minutes of being apart, and we are compassionate, because we both have faults like everyone and we have learned to be accepting of each others’. We don’t have Serious Fights. When I say don’t I mean since we moved in together in 2001, we’ve had three Serious Fights, and I guess I qualify serious by two things. First, the arguments lasted longer than 20 minutes which is rare enough and second, the fights were actually about us, as opposed to just being two people who needed to blow off steam because they were annoyed about something unrelated. We bicker back and forth, we annoy each other (and I vent to my friends, but still feel comfortable telling him exactly what I say to them), but at the end of the day I don’t live by “don’t go to bed mad” – I live by “don’t be mad for more than 10 minutes” and that is a blessing that not a lot of people can manage.

This picture of us all happy is to soften the blow ahead...

With that in mind we had a Serious Fight Tuesday night. The biggest fight we’ve had in almost three years. It lasted about an hour and involved both of us leaving the house for periods of time to calm down, something that has never happened before. It might have lasted longer…but as we were really getting to working stuff out I got so tired I couldn’t stand up anymore. I could hardly even sit up and I was thinking that I wonder if this is why people are hospitalized for exhaustion. Of course, I know I am completely overly dramatic and I mostly attributed my shaky legs to that, and we went to sleep pretty soon after that with the promise to talk more the next day (we did, and everything is good again, with plans to keep it from getting to that point again).

Of course, after that I woke up the next morning to a cat on my pillow and my eyes puffy and red. I am allergic to those darn cats and when they sleep near my face I am sneezy and feel awful in the morning. Between that, my stomach ache and the fact that I could barely stumble into the bathroom – I just had to take my stomach medication and stay home. But it felt (feels?) like the world was ganging up on me and I just don’t get why. I was doing SO WELL, feeling so happy and thinking of all the milestones I’ve had in the past two weeks. It could just be that all the changes are too overwhelming and my body, pets and subconscious were all trying to get me to stop and calm down. So I listened.

I slept almost all day yesterday off and on. I tried to watch March of the Penguins maybe four times, but kept sleeping through it. I didn’t feel groggy necessarily but still felt so drained. Emotionally, physically, mentally I had nothing to give even to myself. I barely burned 2000 calories all day long. I ate soup almost all day because despite the warm weather and beautiful day I felt cold. I spent the moments that I was awake talking to Husbandcake about serious things, having some really good conversations and enjoying being near him.

All that, while significant, is only the background for today’s bad stuff. So after my day yesterday I expected to wake up feeling at least a little rested. I felt so much better emotionally but still am feeling physically like I ran a marathon yesterday. I got ready this morning, and sat at my computer for a minute before seeing the time and rushing to leave the house. We crate our puppy Chips, he is potty trained for the most part but anytime we’re gone longer than a couple of hours, he’s just not too trustworthy. Usually he runs into the crate, he loves it and sleeps there a lot and knows that he’ll get treats. This morning he decided to play the can’t-catch-me game and just bounced around running away from me. For about five minutes straight I chased him and he ran away, pouncing back and forth and wagging his little stub of a tail in a way that any other time would have been so adorable.

You'd never know he's such a little terror, he's the cutest thing in the world!

I sat down on the floor, and cried. I cried until he came over to me and climbed in my lap to make me feel better. I am just so emotional. Even now I’m embarrassed that it got to me in that way, although I know that it wasn’t the dog, it was a huge pile of things and that one small annoyance was just the thing that made it all overwhelming. I don’t know how I went from so happy on Monday down to where I was Tuesday night, back to feeling happy and back down. And although now I feel calm and good but I am wondering, in the back of my head what will set me off next. Now you can see why I cleared my schedule for the weekend. I’m not up for anything that could be even remotely stressful, although I do believe I will have to have a therapy session with my therapist my friend who is a therapist who I unabashedly take advantage of Erin.

Oh wow…after ALL that my good news seems so superficial. It’s really not, so bear with me. I am one of those people who loves to dress to reflect my mood. I consider it a great thing that my closet is full of girly ruffles and bright colors. And when I’m feeling “bleh” I like to wear things like my jean skirt, which in my head is all frumpy and lazy-looking. This morning I could not find a single thing to wear that reflected my mood. Seriously. My beloved frumpy jean skirt fell off of me. My fitted shirts hang loosely, and all of my gray and dram dresses are limp and shapeless on me now.

You guys all know this isn’t the first time I’ve noticed my clothes fitting loosely – in addition to it I ordered a bunch of workout clothes from Old Navy and returned all but two tank tops because it was all huge. But it continues to hit me at odd moments, simultaneously befuddling and delighting me. I mean, I wore that skirt just last week and it was looser but not anywhere near falling off when I stand up.

Now that I’m over the whole episode with Chips this morning, that delight is seeping back. I know in my head that losing weight is not going to keep me from having bad days. I could have a great weigh in and a horrible day because I don’t want my weight to define me. But it makes me feel a little ungrateful to actually feel unhappy during a month that I’ve been doing SO well in. I also know that change isn’t just hard to make, it’s hard to deal with. Even though it’s a good change, it’s a strain on me and on my amazing Husbandcake to shake up our whole lifestyle. The faster the change (and I’ve lost ten pounds in only two weeks) the more strain it is. Who would have thought that emotionally I’d almost want to lose the weight slower so I have more time to adjust?!

Friends, I have rambled long enough. I’m so grateful if you’ve read this far. It’s difficult for me to not even go on and on, because I have always been one to over-share about the crazy that goes on in my head. I probably could have said something like “so I have been up and down lately” and that would have truly sufficiently gotten the point across. But I am happy to have all of you to share my crazy with, and to get it out there in hopes that it will be over SOON and I can go back to feeling (at least somewhat) carefree and happy to be headed where I am headed!