Saturday, February 23, 2013

downtown tonight

for a short week {work wise}, it was jammed packed.  kinda.  in a good way though.  it's late, and I'm tired, so I'm defaulting to my usual list-style type post.  hope y'all are good with that!

1.  last saturday night I worked a casino with some of my girls.  it was for our community league and of course, I always take the night shift.  apparently I'm stupid.  or crazy.  or both.  regardless, other than almost falling asleep at 130 am, it was a lot of fun.  and an interesting study in human nature.  people are interesting creatures.

2.  monday was a holiday here in lovely, snowy alberta.  an extra day off work was both needed and enjoyed.

3.  I don't really remember the part in the middle.

4.  so I took friday off work.  and booked John and I into a hotel room downtown {some of my friends gave me a gift card for a hotel for christmas.  best gift ever.} for a 24 hour getaway.  you know, every couple of weeks or so we'll get rid of the kids for a night, but then I see all the mess and things that need to get done around the house.  so I don't really rest.  actually leaving the house, allowed for some real rest.  we drank our faces off {it was national margarita day yesterday...}, watched hours of rescue me on dvd, went to a GREAT mexican place for dinner, and slept.

I didn't feel guilty about leaving my kids for one wee minute.  and I didn't feel guilty about my messy-needing-the-floors-washed-and-every-space-dusted house for one wee minute.  no laundry, groceries, cleaning, kids sports.  nada.  sweet bliss.  if we had some extra cash on a semi-regular basis, I'd do this more often.  okay, really I'd get a cleaning person to clean my house if we had extra money, but you get the point.  today we got up super late {okay, John did.  I was up around 10ish, made coffee and read my book} and walked around downtown a bit.  John had to catch the lrt to meet up with my dad and the boys to watch the oilers play, so I wandered around, went to the market and had coffee by myself.  by the time I had to pick Nate up for his soccer game, I was feeling refreshed.  rested.  good with the world.

5.  this brings me to my lenten commitments.  the no-sugar thing has been going fairly well.  I've been really good about not eating refined/added/fake sugar, but this week the goal is to cut back on the natural-ish sugars as well:  honey, agave, maple syrup, etc.  that said, I took 24 hours off.  I knew that this weekend "away" was coming and I chose not to worry about what I ate.  it's why I held off on starting the whole30.  that said, I've been working on cutting a lot out of my diet in advance so that the withdrawal isn't so harsh.  grains aren't too hard.  legumes, well I can live without them; I'll miss hummus though.  dairy is do-able {although I LOVE cheese.  LOVE.}.  it's the sugar.  and my scale.  I weighed myself only once this week.  this is progress.  changing my relationship with food is tough.  it's going to get worse before it gets better, but I am going to work at it.  oh, and the other big thing I've noticed is that I'm cutting myself a bit of slack as of late.

in the past, I've thrown the entire lent thing out as soon as I made a mistake or got off course.  this year, it seems like I have a bit of grace for myself.  I believe this process of denial is a worthy cause.  to expect complete and utter perfection is a bit harsh.  there is more I'd like to add to my journey of lent, but it seems that one small step at a time is all I can manage.

and on that note, I am blogging from my bed and falling asleep.  I didn't even really do my usual re-read/edit process.  forgive my grammar errors.  and don't point and laugh at all my sentence fragments and lack of capital letters.  THOSE are on purpose.

oh, and go check out tyler bryant on the internets.  his music was piping into my earphones earlier today.  a soundtrack for happy rest.

Monday, February 18, 2013

ready or not

I have had a lot of stuff in my head as of late.  way too much.  so much that I've had this blog post started and restarted and restarted again for a couple of hours now.  mainly because I don't know where to start.  so in lieu of being the girl who writes nothing and generally ignores her blog or becomes the list girl {my standard default!}, I'm going to hunker down and just pick one of the random topics out of my head.

so let's talk about lent.  

but I'm going to backtrack for a couple of minutes.  so 1/3 of my new years resolutions didn't pan out.  I did two weeks without booze, two+ weeks totally gluten free and it was good.  the 30 day shred bit fell apart when I banged up my lower back.  pain had been loitering for a while; then I fell on the ice and landed on my ass.  oh, and then I ignored the tinge in my back.  so last weekend I leaned over to untie ty's hockey skates and ka-bang.  I couldn't move!!  needless to say, I've been to my chiropractor a couple of times over the last week, but really, I should have given up that damn shred when I first felt that tweek!  regardless, I can't work out right now.  and even though I did a great job on 2/3s of my resolution-revolutions, I've been beating myself up over the whole thing.  stupid, right?  so what does this have to do with lent?  everything and nothing all at the same time.  since I felt like shit, I ate like shit.  'cause that makes sense too, right?  ha!  the last three weeks have been an uncontrolled bit of chaos.  I don't do chaos very well, but it often leads to a breaking point.  the more I recognize these signs, the less I fear them.  in other words, I'm not surprised that my back seized last weekend.  a forced slow down.  restore.

now in my world, we don't do ash wednesday, but we do ash sunday.  saturday was my mardi gras.  I've been thinking for some time how my honouring of lent could be tied to my one word for 2013.  cut something out of my life in order to see restoration.  since I started with my health and considering with my struggles for the last couple of weeks, I decided that cutting refined & artificial sugar out of my diet for 40 days would make the most sense.  stupid, crazy, hard is what it really is.  

as I'm writing this, my brain is telling me that I need sugar.  lots of it.  more tea may be in order.  I've done this detox before.  it really, really sucks.  this time around though, I'm making a bit of a plan.  for the next week, I'm eliminating all refined and fake sugar {mainly because I have a hot date with my hubs next weekend and I'd like to have a nice meal and a drink with him}.  then I'm going to do the whole 30.  I've been reading a book called "it starts with food" and I've come to realize that I have such a toxic, unhealthy relationship with food.  I use it as entertainment when I'm bored.  it rewards me.  it punishes me.  when really, it just needs to sustain my life.  I've given all my power to food.  it controls me.  I am highly addicted to sugar.  it controls me.  and in this lenten season, I've decided to take back my power.  to restore my relationship with food so that I don't give it the control, but so I am always in control.  self-control.  my nemesis.  and in that regard, I'm breaking up with my scale for lent as well.  so I guess I'm saying this:  I'm not just giving up something for lent, I'm going to spend the next 40 days actively working on health restoration.  and during this time, I'm committing to at least two blog posts a week, with a focus on joy.  right now, my lack of sugar is leading to a lack of joy.  {tea is helping a tad!}

I'm not taking any of this lightly.  in fact, quite the opposite.  it sure seems like a lot to take on though; I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed.  this type of diet overhaul scares the shit out of me.  I feel weak.  without willpower.  uninformed and ill equipped.  knowing nothing.  perhaps that's exactly where I'm suppose to be.  so although I wasn't perfect today {pretty darn close though...}, it's in the trying that restoration comes.


Saturday, February 09, 2013

all my life

so there was this time in my late twenties where I was obsessed with ruben "hurricaine" carter.  the movie "the hurricaine" had just been released and after seeing it I read every book I could find on ruban carter.  OBSESSED.  sad but true.

and this is my motus operandi.  nearly obsessive compulsive over the strangest things.  csi.  nancy drew.  anne of green gables.  long boarding.  sherlock.  and now, a new obsession,  eeeekkkk!  the rock documentary.  yep.  I know.  I'm a little crazy, but they're addicting.  and now I really, really want to be a rock star.  and I want to be dave grolh's girlfriend.  okay, shut up.  I'm married.  but you know what I'm saying, right?

so, here's my promo for all things good and special:
1.  go watch "sound city".  it's AMAZING.  so, so good.  if you love music, this is worth your time.  have I ever turned you wrong?  ha!
2.  then go watch "the other f word".  it's darn good too.
3.  and then borrow some skates and go hit the rink.  it's good for the soul.  trust me.  SWEET BLISS!
4.  I'm planning to watch the grammy's tomorrow - and be completely envious of the fact that I'm not in the room with all those rock stars.  and I'm looking forward to watching mumford and sons play.  live.  real, true music.

and since my brain is not happy with the rest of me, I'm keeping this short.  oh, and I'm watching "elementary" with my sleeping husband.  good times.