Craving Solitude

I moved into my own apartment when I was 20. It was a one bedroom, low rent place on the 3rd floor of my mom's building. I lived alone for about 1 month, and I spent the whole time trying to go out with other people. The few times I ended up staying alone, I was miserable and lonely, and ended up going downstairs to hang out with my family. After a month, my roommate moved in, and I haven't been alone since. I've been trying to find time alone for the past 20 years.

Which is kind of funny, really. I'm really chatty and social, and I think about being alone all the time. I am reading Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer, and one of the characters is a wildlife monitor living in a cabin up on a mountain, and she goes months without speaking to anyone. In the beginning of the book, she is speaking to another character, and is trying to remember how to have a conversation, and all I can think about is how lovely that sounds - living in a tiny place with just your books and animals for company. And then I start to think about how much I like flush toilets, and she only has an outhouse, and that would be a serious problem. Also, I am married, and I do actually like the guy I married, and the children we produced, so I guess I'd have to bring them along, and there goes the whole idea.

But I have a Pinterest board devoted to my little cabin in the woods, and I really want to live there. I can have indoor plumbing in a cabin in the woods, right? And internet service.

I am kind of obsessed with Bilbo Baggins' house, as imagined by Peter Jackson. Which I thought was kind of weird, but I am not the only one! You can Google blueprints! But, every time I saw the inside of his house on the Lord of the Rings movies, I pictured myself there, in a comfy chair, in front of the fire, with a book...

A friend of mine lived in the woods at the top of a hill in Bardstown, KY when I first met her, and I loved her house. Of course, they had a small child, and they were, like, 2 hours from a decent hospital, but it was so cozy and dark and lovely there.

This is all very amusing to people who know me well, because they all know me as very social and outgoing. Striking up conversations with complete strangers, and stroking people's hair, and shouting out "woo!" during workouts, which is more fun than you know, so don't judge me. I am social and outgoing...for a few hours...and then I am exhausted from all the people, and I need to be by myself again. So, I need my tiny Hobbit house, with my big trees (and indoor plumbing,) and I will spend time with my (small) groups of friends, and spend the rest of the time reading with my cats and my fireplace. And the occasional episode of one of the many excellent shows on television, because you can turn those people off. Right now it is Blacklist, which is excellent. James Spader is invited to come visit my cabin in the woods. Come on over, James. I have indoor plumbing...

Health stuff - not much to report this week. I have been a big, lazy slug, and I drank pop this week (horrors!) But I didn't drink any yesterday, and this morning I woke up early to walk (very quickly) with L, and we are boot camping tomorrow. I need to plan my meals next week and prep ahead - I am having a major problem keeping my calories in check when I am eating off the cuff. I texted goals (yesterday) for the next month to Mel, and I have committed to 3 boot camps and one long walk a week, in addition to planning my meals (still logging all my food, even when it is way too much.) I'll post my weigh in next week, as the last two weeks I've had to go in on weekdays, and I tend to forget my camera then.

How are you doing, healthy-living wise? What are your thoughts on the tiny house trend? (there are shows on HGTV now, which I love, although a lot of them are very expensive for the square footage.) Hobbit houses - yea or nae?

Checking in of a Sunday

Hi everybody!

It's been a busy weekend. The girl played in a local volleyball tournament - their team lost their first match, and I had no idea we would end up spending all day yesterday watching more volleyball, but they ended up winning the tournament. Go them! 

My sister and her husband and my mom came over for dinner last night. I made pork chops marinated in chili powder, orange juice, cumin, and other yummy flavors, mashed potatoes, and edamame. We ended up not having enough pork chops, so I made a small meat loaf to supplement, which must have been pretty good, as that was finished off first. I also drank a few Yoda heads full of wine, and got a bit tipsy, and we played this bizarre game my daughter made up a few years ago called "Picture Dictionary, A Different Kind" which kind of combines Win, Lose, or Draw, Charades, and Apples to Apples, but is not really like any of them. It is a ridiculous game that really has no actual goal, other than to make us laugh hard enough to spit things out, which happened more than once last night.

Also, I weighed in yesterday:

SW (8/4/2015): 281.8
LW:  280.2
CW: 278.6

Which looks good, but I did lose some muscle this week, and I was hormonal and grumpy, so I have planned out the week. Boot camp will be Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and hopefully Saturday (depending on softball schedule.) I had some pop this week, so there will be no more drinking that this week. I made blackberry vanilla smoothies, roasted cruciferous veggies, and some roasted chicken to put in with my lunch salads this week, so I am pretty prepared for the week.

These are my bullet journal pages for this past week - you notice today was very full, and I finished most of it. I did mow the front and side yards - I left the back for Tuesday evening, as I wanted to go for a long walk with my friend L, and I wouldn't have had time otherwise. Dude, I'm at 16,202 steps for today - it's been a very active day. Laundry is still working, and I'm going to fold that as soon as I'm done here.

This morning was pretty interesting - I was drinking my coffee and admiring the deer in my front yard, when my friend J started messaging me. I suggested we actually speak on the phone, so I called her - we haven't spoken in years. She was my first actual, adult (relatively :) friend - our oldest boys were very close friends, and we are Godmothers to each other's youngest. We met and bonded, almost instantly, when we lived in the Chicago suburbs, and then they moved back home to Texas. It was crazy - we didn't talk all that often, but every time we were lucky enough to visit each other, it was like no time had passed. I was so happy to spend time talking with her this morning, and I hope we'll be able to connect a little more often. Both of our boys graduated this year - when we lived near each other, they spent the night at each other's houses, played outside, and played a lot of Starfox. They shared a love for Star Wars and Pokemon. They are adults now, people.
Sigh.

The baskets of laundry are calling my name. I should go fold them. Or, perhaps, finish my book - I'm reading Kim Harrison's Witch With No Name, the last of the Hollows series. That may have to win out. What? The clothes are clean.

Weekend check-in and weigh in, amble through my day.

Well, hey there.
Happy September! I love autumn, and every day is a day closer to autumn, but of course, after a very fall-like August, we have started September with a week of very hot days. Like, humid, 90's, dog days of summer-type heat.
Of course, I spend all day in a climate-controlled office, so I guess I'm not really missing out. It's a little sad - I have a great job, but I spend an awful lot of time wondering what else I could be doing. Yesterday I got off work a little early and treated myself to a pot of hot tea, on a hot day, go figure, at a favorite spot in Oakley, Essencha. I love the smell and ambiance of the place, and I love to go in there and drink tea and read my book, and they are looking for part-time help, and I couldn't help but wonder if I wouldn't love to work there. I worked in the restaurant business briefly, when I was 20, and I really did not love it. There are a lot of people who turn into assholes when other people serve them food. I am the opposite, of course - if you are going to give me food and wait on me, I am going to bend over backwards to make you love me. Anyway, I doubt I'd love it as much as I imagine, but I sat there thinking, "if I was to quit my current job and take on a few part-time gigs, doing different things, maybe I'd figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life?"

Is it possible that, as I grow older, I grow more uncertain as to what I should be doing with my life? What a very disconcerting thought. So many women my age talk about how they are loving their 30's and 40's because they are more confident and they know themselves better. I suppose I do know myself better - I know that I still haven't found something I feel passion for - to a point that I want to make a career out of it. I would like to be outside a lot more than I am, that is for certain. And I desperately want to work closer to home and do away with this traffic, which makes me so angry that I want to beat other drivers over their stupid heads with my daughter's size 13 metal softball cleats - which rules out Essencha, of course.

This is not at all what I planned to talk about today, but it is what is spewing from the churning sea that is my mind today, so it's what you get.

Weigh in time! I weighed in yesterday morning, 6:00AM, after a kickboxing class.

SW (8/4/2015): 281.8
LW:  282.0
CW: 280.2

Ok. So we're going the right direction again. I definitely kept my eye on my calorie intake this week, much more so than I was, and I need to keep that up.

Today I woke up at 5:30 to go to kickboxing. When my girl was a baby, I used to hold her while sitting in my computer chair and my upper back would get stiff. Once, while holding her, I did some twisting stretches to try and get the kinks out, and I moved funnily, and pulled the muscle just between my right shoulder blade and my spine. I have no idea what this is, but it hurt like a mother. And every so often, that spot gets tender again, and I find it difficult to move my arm certain ways, and it hurts really badly when I look to my right. I was pretty freaking uncomfortable yesterday afternoon into the evening, and then again this morning, so I decided punching a bag was not going to work for me today. I decided to stay up and do some cleaning, some light stretching, and hit the grocery store before the Saturday rush. I got there at 6AM, well ahead of the rest of the world, but there were a lot of men there. I was literally the only female shopper I saw in the whole store. Isn't that weird? I have never been the only woman in a grocery store (aside from the employees, of course.)
Anyway, I had to get half and half for my coffee, and fish oil capsules, and the makings for taffy apple salad, which I am making for my baby sister's birthday lunch tomorrow. I ended up having a rather productive rest of my day - I freaking dusted, people! - and then took my girl and her friend shopping because she has "NOTHING to wear!" I want to say to suck it up, girl, and buy your own clothes, but she wants to buy shirts from Hot Topic, which is the kind of place I always wanted to shop when I was a teenager, and I am the weak, pathetic mom trying to live vicariously through her adorably quirky girl. I saw a Chewbacca in the Build-a-Bear Workshop (we used to live in that place when the Girl was little) and squealed loudly, prompting my daughter to kind of freak out and put her hand over my mouth and yell out "Mom! Shh!" which only drew more attention to the situation, while her friend was giggling hysterically and said, "your mom is so funny and cool." So, see people? I have been judged "funny and cool."

I am Madonna. Who kind of looks high in this picture, right?
Anyway, so there we are. I'm going to go read or something. Because that's what we cool moms do on a Saturday night.