Sabotaging Self

I don't even know where to begin.

So we drove to meet my inlaws Saturday, to pick up our daughters who spent the month with them. We spent the night and came back yesterday. Long drive - took 8 hours total on the way there and 9 on the way back.

Money was already tight anyway. Hubby got a little bonus money on his check - $80 net. Yet, somehow, we still spent WAY too much money. Well, I say "somehow," but it's no mystery. We ate out too much at places that cost too much. We should have stuck with fast food, basically, but we didn't.

I was already going to be using every available penny from each credit card to get us through. So, anyway, I don't know. I think I've got it figured out, but I hate it being the second of the month and the next payday is not til the 15th, and already I'm in the red, with no groceries in the house. I'm fully annoyed at myself. The one good thing, I guess, is that we know for sure hubby is getting a little over $400 gross in bonus money on the 15th. I think that will catch us up, plus pay the couple "pop up" expenses: car registration, for instance. *sigh*

I'm sad that I can't even afford to take the girls to see Shrek at the $3 theater. And I'm beyond ashamed that I "borrowed" $180 from my oldest daughter (without her knowing) and now I can't pay it back. Sometimes I really hate myself. I can't even tell my husband about this because he will be so angry with me. I don't know how I'm going to get it back to her. She hasn't asked about the money - she probably has forgotten she even had it as of right now. It was money she'd saved up, and we went to spend it one day and she spent a small amount on a new bike. I kept the rest for her in my drawer, and suggested she look at a keyboard or something like that.....it was there for around 3 months.

Anyway, I have to get it back to her. I wish to God I could find a job to work from home. Every month I'm maxing back out my credit cards. And it's all my fault. I mean, there's no way to say it. It is completely my fault. I make a budget, then I don't stick to it. Or, I have an extra $20, then something comes up I have to spend it on. But I want to still spend it on something else. Then I end up spending $50 instead of even the $20. I am such an idiot.

Add back into this that we went out to eat with family last week, and I blew my healthy eating. Why? Because I had too much to drink. This made me too lax in my decisions. I also had too much to drink Saturday night.

Am I binge drinking?

This is the thought I have been having the last...few...times I've done this. I drink a little, start to feel "good," and I don't want it to stop. So I keep drinking to keep the feeling, but the thing is I compound the effect by drinking too much too fast. I think I'm self-medicating. And I think I have to stop. As in, stop drinking for a while. I did this after I had my second child, too. I was waiting tables, and I'd get home late. I started having a drink to wind down after I got home. But then I would have several. Then once my husband went out of town and I got completely plastered one night. I was so ashamed. My girls were there (asleep) but I was totally wasted. If something had happened, I couldn't have driven anywhere. I wonder if I would have tried anyway. Like I said, sometimes I really hate myself.

Baby's crying. Gotta go.

Gimme an M! Gimme an E! Go ME! Go ME! Gooooooo MEEEEEEE!

OK, so yes, I am tooting my own horn a bit. Why?

I made it out in field service.

AND, that, despite the fact that it was storming when I woke up. As it turned out, it didn't rain a drop while I was out. So very glad I went!!!

Ugh. And again, I say...ugh.

So today was weigh and measure day...and it sorta sucked. Gained from last week, though still down from two weeks ago. That wouldn't have been such a big deal, but just about every measurement went up a bit too. Hmph.

I had a phone call today about a job I'd applied for. It's a merchandising position, one day a month, $100-something flat pay. Easy enough. They wanted me to interview Wednesday morning. But I'm planning to go in service. I've been trying to get in service on Wednesdays for a while, and this was the first time I'm actually gonna do it. So I said I wasn't available. I know I did the right thing, but I was just stressing tonight (again) about money. And here I get this call, out of nowhere? Of course, maybe it wasn't exactly serendipitous that I got the call in the first place, huh? Maybe that was an effort to get me to focus on the money issue instead of my spiritual issues.

Funny, too, that I had that substitute talk on Tuesday, where I happened to be telling my householder about making decisions in order to "be rich toward God" rather than be overly concerned about material things. It was good for me - it reinforced our decisions. I mean, part of why we have done what we've done is that we're paying (literally) for past mistakes. We pay out more on money we owe, right now, than we do in rent. But, regardless, I could still put Nolan in day care and get a full time job and put all that money toward our debt, with the intention of that being temporary. Thing is, it probably wouldn't be. Seems that there will always be something that "needs" that money put toward it.

I remember once hearing a brother give a talk at the Hall about a subject he *really* needed to work on. I don't remember what the talk was about, but I do remember who it was. Basically, he was a rich, pompous ass. So I would imagine the talk was on humility or something like that. I asked my mom why was *he* giving that talk?!?! She told me sometimes Jehovah gives us the talks that we really need to hear. So I got that talk Tuesday, because *both* people had to cancel their parts that night at the last minute. Perhaps **that** was the serendipitous part.

What, me study?

I have accomplished more in the past two and a half days, study wise, than I have in.....a very long time. Add in studying the WT with Hubby Friday night, and it just blows all records for the past several years.

I have now, successfully, studied for the entire meeting tonight, including Bible reading, plus prepared a substitute talk. The School Overseer called me last night to do the #2. I told him last week that, while the girls are gone for the month, I could do a substitute talk if he needed it. I was already supposed to be a householder tonight anyway, but he said that person had to cancel. So, anyway, now I'm doing a talk in the front school tonight. This is actually my first talk in a really long time. I've had to cancel my last several assignments.

I feel really good about this accomplishment, small as it may seem. As the scripture says, 'he that is faithful in little is also faithful in much.' So, it's gotta start somewhere, right?

I weighed myself today, though I know I shouldn't have. I was still less than my starting weight, but a little more than my weight on Monday. It doesn't necessarily mean anything, and I also knew that might happen. So I'm not sweating it.

Baby's awake from his nap. Gotta go!

Success and Failure: Together again.

Yesterday was a baby shower luncheon thing for a friend, held at the Cheesecake Factory. I was sure I could be "strong" and had looked at the menu ahead of time, having chosen my entree and to have a goblet of strawberries for dessert. However, I truly did underestimate the pressure of being out with "the girls," which I can't even remember the last time I've done. I didn't drink, I did have my (*DELICIOUS*) salmon salad, aaaaaaaaaand then a slice of cheesecake, just like everybody else. Oh well. You know what? It was really good. I made the decision not to feel an ounce of regret. And now, it's over.

Mondays are my weigh and measure days. I started last Monday, and have been eating "core" (Weight Watchers) all week. I've been doing great, save for last night. If you "blow it," doing it the end of the week can be good or bad, depending. Good, because you don't notice the effects til the following week. So, in this instance, I had a nice weigh and measure session. I lost 5 pounds! And lost in almost every measurement. Hey, all those quarter-inches add up. Measuring, by far, tells me much more than pounds lost. There have been times in the past when I haven't lost pounds, but I could tell differences in my body. I always wished I'd been measuring the whole time. So this time I am! Anyway, the bad news is next Monday may not go so well, due to last night's meal. BUT, since I know so, I have a week to build myself up and work through it.

Our meeting is Wednesday this week instead of Tuesday, because the Circuit Overseer is at the congregation we share the Hall with. I kind of wish we always had the meeting on Wednesday. Oh, this reminds me....I made a "spiritual" schedule for myself, parsing out studying for the meetings amongst the weekdays. I was supposed to start it last Thursday, but forgot. Why Thursday? That's the day I start my Bible reading for the week. I've split it into thirds, Thursday, Friday, and Monday. Monday is also supposed to be study for the bookstudy day. So I guess I'm going to do the whole Bible Reading and Book Study today. Tuesday is studying for the School and Service Meeting. Wednesday is SUPPOSED to be field service. I've had that goal for I can't tell you how long. Then I've split the Watchtower between Thursday and Friday (along with the Bible Reading). Tuesday and Friday I need to go over service presentations, where applicable as well. I haven't scheduled in any "personal study" time in there. But this is a start. The hard part will be remembering to do it, since I've gotten so used to *not* studying.

Did I mention I had a job interview last Friday? I answered an ad on craigslist for a babysitter. It's for a lady who works from home a half a day a week. She advertised it for $7 an hour, but we agreed on $9. (I did my research and $10-12 came up as fair, being that it's two kids. I suggested 10, she countered with 9.) She wants me to get a background check, which is fine, and I know she's talking with someone else. I'm not positive if I've gotten it or not. She's supposed to contact me to make arrangements to do whatever needs to be done for the background check. Anyway, it's a 30 minute drive so I will use $5 in gas each trip, total. But, I figure that's $120 a month, sometimes more, that we don't have right now, and money is money. I can take Nolan with me, she seems great....I shouldn't pass it up.

I keep fantasizing, though, that the company in California I used to work for will call me and tell me the gal who was doing their A/R collections (from home in another state) had to quit, and offer it to me. $15 an hour, even for just a few hours a week, would really mean a lot right now. :-\

Baby is grunting. He'd woken from his nap a little while before I started writing. I'd peeked in on him and seen him sitting up in his crib, just hanging out. Now he's making noises to let me know he's up. What a sweetie.

I'm so glad I'm feeling good today. Hubby has the van because he had to travel today. (His car has no a/c.) So I'm planning some errands tomorrow. Looking forward to that too. Gotta go before baby gets too insistent. :)

The "perfect" situation? Yeah, I can ruin that too.

Our daughters are visiting my in laws out of state this month. So it's just me, hubby and the 7 month old. Have I been out in service yet? No. How many meetings have I missed? A couple. Including today. I just simply didn't want to make the effort, it's as simple as that. I did listen in to the talk and some of the WT though. Oh, and we had studied our WT together Friday night, so that was nice. I know I need to just move on and stop dwelling. But, now, I really just want to beat myself up.

There is a luncheon-baby shower thing for a friend this afternoon. Now I don't know if I want to go. I dunno.

I wish hubby had taken baby to the meeting. I wish I'd asked him. But I was afraid he would get annoyed.

Baby just woke up from his nap. Gotta go.

Doing the "D" word

I've been upset about my weight for a while. But I'm just now at the point where I feel I can deal with doing something about it. I don't know how to explain it....I guess you just have to be in a certain mindset to tackle it. And I suppose trying on bathing suits helped push me there. I see myself naked every day, but, I don't know, this did it for me, I guess.

I hesitate to use the word "diet," because we all sort of view that as a constant state of denial. And I don't think that works. We all have things we love to eat, and we have to be able to incorporate them, somehow, into our regular lives. Otherwise, we go insane. Really, our "diet" is just the things we eat each day. So, I'm not *going* on a diet. I am going to *change* my diet.

When I did Weight Watchers, I did the "core" program. Basically, there is a "core" set of foods of which you eat any amount, to satisfaction. You also have a weekly allotment of Weight Watchers "points" to use, and anything not on the core list, you have to use points for. Core foods are, basically, fat free dairy, lean meats, whole grains, beans, all veggies and fruits, diet drinks, and several condiments, etc. I use my points for things like *real* butter, regular cheese, and a glass of wine here and there. I also used to have a Weight Watchers ice cream treat just about every night. I think I will need to stock up on those, since I really do have a serious sweet tooth. (Sweet treats are the "thing" I *have* to be able to have.) Having that ice cream bar was always a wonderful way to end the evening after the kids had gone to bed. And guilt-free, at that.

It's a simple way to eat for me. Not much counting or tracking. I did really, really well on it, and I was actually eating out at lunchtime quite a bit. I had my staple menus at QDoba and Panera, and life was great. I have a new set of challenges now, one of which is just *getting* to the grocery sometimes. But I just have to work at being a little more proactive.

I'm starting off slowly. I have a busy week, preparing for the convention, then going there. I can't make a huge grocery trip when we'll be gone Thursday thru Monday. But I have adjusted a few recipes to fix this week, and making them mostly, if not all, "core." I am going to work at making mostly healthy choices this weekend at the convention. (Hey, we are allowing ourselves one "nice" meal out, and I may allow myself dessert at that meal.)

Day by day, right?

Bathing suit shopping: Torture does not begin to describe it.

I went bathing suit shopping yesterday and today. This was out of necessity. Last year I had a maternity bathing suit, since I was pregnant. The only other bathing suit I have, I bought 2 years ago, and doesn't fit me well anymore. I actually hated it the instant I got in the water, because it's one of those swim dresses. And I found out - too late - that once it gets wet it clings to every bulge, so it's not even worth it. Besides the floating-up-of-the-skirt-in-the-pool-showing-the-thighs-you're-trying-to-cover, and the bathing-suit-skirt-balloon-in-the-hot-tub that both happen regularly.

So what did I get? Another swim dress. :-\ But it's made differently, and is attached to the body-suit part at both the top and at the drop-waist. It covers the boobs quite nicely - hard to find anyway, but especially with my 36E milk jugs.

Two years ago, I'd been with Weight Watchers for about 6 months and had lost around 20 pounds. I was about halfway to my goal, felt good, looked pretty good. And, of course, got over-confident and blew it. I didn't quite gain all the weight back, but I was probably about where I am now - very close. Then I got pregnant, and I actually lost weight during my pregnancy. I gained a healthy amount of weight with my first two, so I hoped the same would be the case the third time. But, somehow, the day before I gave birth I actually weighed something like 3 pounds more than when I'd started. (I gained baby weight and lost other weight. Go figure.) A couple weeks after birth, I was a total of 25 pounds less than when I'd gotten pregnant. I still had some work to do, but overall it wasn't too bad. Control top pantyhose was enough to hold it all in if I was wearing a dress. And the size 12 jeans I bought were actually too big, but the size 10s *just* barely fit, so I was afraid to get them in case they shrank a little when I washed them. Now, those 12s are the jeans I have to wear spanx with, and they still *just* fit after that. I'm back up to....I don't know, I haven't weighed myself in a while, but I think I'm within 5 pounds of my highest weight, which was 172 when I joined Weight Watchers 2.5 years ago. I have no one to blame but myself. I went absolutely insane, drinking Coke every day, and having mounds and mounds of cookies and ice cream on a daily basis. I took for granted that the lack of impact on my body would last forever. But, of course, after those first couple months of mega-nursing a new baby, the body rebels....And I knew this.

So, anyway, here I am. The Convention is this weekend and now people who have never seen me in a bathing suit are gonna see me in a bathing suit, at nearly my top weight. And I'm stressing over the dresses I'm wearing, because they will be slightly difficult to try to nurse in. Especially with what I call the feeding-trough style joke of a "mother's room" where we all sit in a row next to each other and try to be discreet - some of us wearing things that aren't exactly nursing friendly. We love nursing our babies but we also wish we had our bodies back as our own again. We wish we could dress up and at least *feel* pretty, but we have trouble doing so and at the same time give easy boob access to the babes. (And a weight issue just makes it 5x as bad.)

Ugh.

A little about me.

I ask myself how much information to share here, because in a way, I'm scared to death that someone I know will discover this blog.

So what, you may ask?

Well, I guess I'm afraid of people I know learning my deep, inner thoughts. I don't really share them with anyone. Except, now, strangers. How, exactly is there safety in that? I don't know, except that at least I don't have to "deal" with someone who may have judged me adversely on a regular basis.

So, anyway, here I go.

I'm 35 years old. I've been married almost 15 years. I have three children: girls aged 10 and 5, and a boy aged 6 months. My husband works full time and occasionally travels for work, a few days at a time. I don't have a paying job right now, though I have been trying to find something part time in the evenings to help take up the slack. We can eke by on what my husband makes, as long as no serious emergency arises. But with $475 a month in a Chapter 13 payment, and $225 a month in medical bills (from my son's birth in December), plus our $6800 in credit card debt.....it's tight. I would like to have some income that would primarily go against that credit card debt, plus be there for "extras" that come up. The medical bills will be paid off, staggered by next August. (Paying one off, $45/month, next month - the first. YES!) The bankruptcy payment won't go away for about a year and a half.

Anything resembling a vacation is laughable right now. Even new clothes is kind of laughable right now. My husband and I are the worst off, of course. We sacrifice for the kids. They wear clothes primarily from the resale store. We're not in rags, I went to buy a new bathing suit yesterday - out of pure necessity - and the sight of the new clothes displayed on the racks in Dillard's looked so foreign to me. I almost cried, as the weight of my sacrifice was realized for but a moment.

We have lived in a three bedroom apartment for about 8 months now. We used to own a house, but when we bought it our first child was an infant, and we both worked full time. We made the mistakes of (a) letting someone else (the home builder and bank) tell us what we could afford, and (b) being quite short sighted on what buying a home would *really* mean later on down the line. As our circumstances changed, and our lack of desire, ability, and money to take care of a home became a glaring reality, we realized we *had* to change our circumstances.

Overall, I actually like my apartment. It's small, but that's good for us. Our girls share a room and the baby has his own room. When something's wrong, we call the management to come fix it. There is much less to take care of and clean. With three kids, one of which is an infant, I do a pretty good job keeping up with it. We have a nice space behind our apartment where the kids can play and ride bikes and we can sit outside and watch them. There's a pool, which we haven't used yet. And there's a park just down the road as well.

Unfortunately, I am a home-grown couch potato. I was an only child. When I was younger, I stayed a lot with my grandmother, and I just sort of entertained myself. Once I was old enough, I was home alone. I remember one summer in particular when I was around 13. I was just so bored. I was home alone, every day, all day, with nothing but the TV to keep me company. I'm kind of resentful about that, I guess. I think I would have rather been at my grandmother's. At least there would have been another human around.

Anyway, I was not raised in a family who enjoyed doing outdoorsy things, and so I am now the same way. I have a hard time getting motivated to go do much of anything. My girls spend a lot of time watching TV in their room. Having depression, and an infant, doesn't help. I get so overwhelmed with the things that need to be done, and I sort of shut down. Being 40 or so pounds overweight also doesn't help. Not only do I not have many clothes (see above), many of them don't fit me well as I've put on weight over the months. I hate having to squeeze into a 5-year old pair of Spanx (which are probably a size too small), a pair of jeans that I couldn't wear without the Spanx, unless I want to run around with a full-on mushroomed muffin top, and a carefully layered top and button down, just to go somewhere. Actually, I don't always do that. Sometimes I keep my daily uniform of three-year-old black yoga pants and black t-shirt on. I've learned I can throw on one of my two button-downs over it, and somewhat camouflage my paunch. This reminds me, one of my yoga pants has a hole in the inside seam near the crotch, and the other, I felt two little holes in the back. So I need to mend those up.

Putting this all in print sounds quite pathetic. And I guess it is. But it's reality. These are all some insights into me. Maybe you'll see yourself in one or two of them.

The other thing I'm going to drop on you, and get ready because this may be a big BOMB. I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses. My immediate family is , as is my mother, and my husband's family. I struggle with all the things I *should* do that I don't. No matter what part of my life is going OK, there is always at least one that is not. And it is this that I focus on. Usually, though, none are going well. I am poor, financially, spiritually, and emotionally.

I tell you all of this because the things I talk about will no doubt revolve around these three major parts of my life. I know this because, well, those are the things I think about the most, so I'll therefore talk about them, right?

Why am I doing this? Therapy, I guess. Sometimes "getting it out" helps." So....here I go.