Day 5 Freedom* from Caffeine

Very minor headache today. I suspect next week will be soooooo much better.

On the plus side, I have upped my water consumption which really means I went from drinking a swig of water per day to take my synthroid pill to drinking about 48 ounces (maybe more) a day.

We have FFA shows coming up this weekend and next week. The 12 year old is showing his goat, which will be sold next Friday (hopefully). Sadly, that left the 5 year old's goat, Fat Nannie, all alone in the goat pen and she cried all day yesterday.

Oh, and the 12 year old has offered to "train" me with my workout but says before we start, he needs a whistle, stopwatch, megaphone and . . . a cattle prod.



*See Hanlie's post.

Day 3 of Caffeine Deprivation

Other then the shaky hands, sweats, shivers, diarrhea, runny nose, bad-ass headache and visions of Jesus, I'm doing swell.

Can't wait until tomorrow.

Coffee

I've gone cold-turkey on caffeine (mostly coffee).

Woke up this morning at 4:22 and my head felt like it was going to explode . . . (grits teeth) I can do this.

I chose to quit coffee because that is all I drink. Coffee in the morning, coffee again in the late morning and coffee at 2:00 pm!

It had become a problem.

I cannot wean myself off the stuff, so it is best to just go cold-turkey.

I feel like shit and it is only day two! I know from past experience it gets worse as the week goes on.

I'll be white knuckling it.

Give the Best Years of Your Life to You

"I gave that bastard the best years of my life!" cries the over-weight, middle aged lady's reflection, while she is examining her facial creases. She puckers her lips and shakes her head at the amount of lines framing her upper lip. She had (erroneously) assumed only smokers would have that problem. She holds up her eyebrows for a makeshift eyebrow lift but that just produces deeper wrinkles on her forward. She stops and stares, then reaches both hands toward her hair line, pushing the forehead back and sees that the eyes get a bit of a lift. She thinks, "Oooh. That's nice. I may look like I'm startled but at least my forehead is much smoother."

As I walked away from the mirror wondering when this new found 'vainness' showed up, I asked myself, did I really give that bastard the best years of my life? Or were my roaring twenties the best years?

Was my life so perfect in my 20's?

Sure, I weighed around 110 pounds but my diet consisted of margaritas, tequila shots, and tequila slammers. Dinner would have been a wedge of lime.

I worked full-time during the day and attended college part-time at night. I lived paycheck to paycheck and lived to P.A.R.T.Y! My schedule looked like this: Monday night: (college classes) Tuesday night (nothing), Wednesday night (college classes), Thursday night (happy hour), Friday night (happy hour), Saturday night (club hopping) and Sunday (hangover recoop day . . . which always meant a little "hair of the dog"). This schedule would be repeated every week.

So I'm gonna say my early 20's to mid 20's were not my best years. Fun maybe, but not the best.

My late 20's had me moving to another state to attend college full-time. Looking back, I don't think those three years would be considered my best either. Mainly because I was waiting for my life to happen instead of making my life happen.

I met the vileman around 30 and though we spent a little more than a year apart from late 2001 to early 2003, during that time, he was always "present" (if that makes sense). In other words, I was unable to get rid of him back then.

I think my self-esteem took a dive off a cliff in 1995 and sunk like the Titanic.

My 30's and early 40's had me caring for others, yet ignoring my own needs. I worked but it was a job, not a 'career' and I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. I thought if I became a stay-at-home mom, I would have time to lose all the weight . . . I only gained more. My wardrobe as a stay-at-home-mom wasn't cute like I had envisioned. It consisted of shorts, tee shirts from Walmart and flipflops. Instead of getting more sleep, I got less. But biggest mistake of all, I quit living and experiencing things, using the excuse "I'm too fat" to meet new people, go to church, go to office parties, and so on.

The truth is, I haven't given anyone or myself the best years of my life.

The best years of my life are happening now. I'm happier, older, wiser . . . ahem; my drowned self-esteem has been resuscitated. I'm in rebuilding mode.

When you rebuild, you make it stronger and better.

And what about those wrinkles?

For now, I'm going to call them life lessons . . . I may have lost my way over the past 25 years but I know I'm now on the right path.

Thanks For Calling

***This is one of those Grrr (and not the good "grr") post. Feel free to ignore.***

Sunday night, I was caught off guard when my dad told me my ex-mother-in-law was on the phone and wanted to speak to her grandchildren.

Just to back up a wee bit, the vileman's parents have never wanted anything to do with me or my children. They had already done "grandparent time" as most of their grandchildren were teenagers and adults by the time my oldest child was born. Vileman comes from a very weird family and if you didn't travel down his mom's birth canal, you were shit to her.

I have spent many occasions being pushed out of family pictures - only vileman, his six siblings and parents were needed. At our first wedding in Las Vegas, there were 32 relatives in attendance and I wanted a picture of all of us. His mother said no, just the "kids" (her kids at that time, ranged in ages from 34 to 48). I asked another out-law (a brother-in-law married to one of the kids) why the spouses couldn't be in the picture and he told me to "get used to it."

It only got weirder as the years past. I could write volumes of atrocities performed by vileman's family.

At this point, I would like to say that just because someone is currently 81 years old and in fine health; she can still be a BITCH. That's right, a full-fledged, all caps BITCH.

Vileman has a dad too but he is spineless.

So Sunday's call was unexpected.

It was unexpected because it was the first time she tried to contact "her grandchildren" since vileman got into trouble.

I had expected a call from her on the day he was arrested. In my weird make-believe everyone is nice way, I had hoped she would call and give some emotional support to the kids and I.

Day after day passed, and no one in his family telephoned to check up on us.

My kids were never close to their parental grandparents and in fact, after the 5 year old was born, no one in his family called or sent a congratulations card and two of his brothers lived in the same town as us at that time.

I was beginning to think they didn't like me. (HA!!!!)


Anyway, Sunday's call . . . I know Grandma 'B' was put up to calling the kids by vileman. Sunday would have been our anniversary (the second time we married) and I suspect he begged his mother into calling the kids to find out what they know.

I wasn't going to allow her to tell the children anything about their father and how much "he loves them". I also suspected vileman was conferenced into the call somehow (paranoia - great destroyer!). He is about 2500 miles away from his parents but I still think you can do a conference call without the third party knowing.

When I got on the phone, I told her that the 12 year old needed his grandparents' support on the day his dad was arrested. . . not eight months later.

The 12 year old wrote them off a long time ago. He is very smart and has always known we were outcasts on vileman's side of the family.

Her excuse for not calling on the 25th or 26th was "there was a lot going on that day". I guess eight months later she had a free moment.

Needless to say, she didn't get what she wanted. The months of counseling/therapy that my children have gone through cannot be destroyed by a phone call with Grandma 'B' telling them lies about vileman. And that is exactly how it would go . . . Grandma defending her son. She won't be calling back.

I guess I'm a bitch too. But I'm just a lowercase bitch.

I'll Be Clogging on Valentine's Day 2022

A few weeks after my divorce was final, my older sister said something to me about being single again. I scoffed at that and told her I planned on staying single and wouldn't even think about dating until the 5 year old is in college. Should I survive that long, I will be 58 years old. I told the sister I would then take up clogging, since that seemed to be a great way to meet the old geezers.

Not to mention the cute little short dresses you get to wear.

But on a serious note, I have been told by 12 year old that I am "hyper-vigilant".

Well, duh.

His major complaint is that I watch his karate class because I don't trust the instructor.

He's right, I don't know or trust the instructor at this time, plus something about him gave me the creepy vibes. From now on I will trust my instincts and not suppress them.

During karate class, the parents sit on a bench in the studio where we are able to watch. So I'm not the only parent watching.

I'm just the only parent sending silent "don't touch my kid" vibes toward the Sensi. Ha.

I guess it's going to take some time . . . possibly until 2022.

Start at the Top and Work Inward

As you can imagine, I haven't felt my "prettiest" over the past seven months.

I have neglected my appearance, my body, my health and my skin.

If you knew me three years ago and saw me today, especially after my great escape, you would ask yourself "my goodness what happened to her?".

Does she smoke a carton of cigarettes per day? No.

Is she drinking dark whiskey? No.

Stress is a bitch and will age you overnight. If you don't believe me, just look at pictures of the Presidents on their first day on the job, then compare them to pictures six months later.

Astonishing.

The most noticeable (to me anyway) is the area around my eyes. Dark circles and wrinkles that were not present last spring.

The last seven months, I had two things on my agenda . . . keep the kids away from vileman and the divorce. I was able to check those two things off my list over a month ago, and now it is time for some self-love/self-care.

Before you think of me as a whipped dog, I must be honest and tell you that I started getting over six hours of sleep in September. This occurred after a few therapy sessions and the relief of talking it out allowed me to relax a bit. Unfortunately, the insomnia returned a few weeks before the divorce hearing and I'm still not back to six or more hours. But, I think once I'm exercising on a regular basis and taking better care of myself, I'll be snoozing like Sleeping Beauty.

One natural mood enhancer that occurred, was I got a haircut in late October. And a good one. Infact, it is probably the best haircut/hairstyle that I have ever had and I've maintained the cut by getting it trimmed every five weeks. The almost 45 years of bad hair days, including my years as an infant and toddler have, hopefully, come to an end.

Time to stop eating crap. The reddish brown dog loves to eat crap. He likes kitty cat crap, horse crap, and his new favorite . . . goat crap. Reddish brown dog craps a lot too. Keeping him away from crap on a small farm isn't easy.

I'm no better than reddish brown dog when I end up eating half a family sized bag of Doritos, washed down with a diet pepsi. It's crap. It won't be easy, but I can have self-control to say no to crap snacks and instead eat healthier.

Last week I walked four times. Today is the first non-rain day, so I will be out walking after picking up the kids from school.

I purchased my favorite face creams, luxuries that I did without for many months and decided what the heck, they make me feel better. I also picked up a multi-vitamin and a large bottle of glucosamine for the joints.

The DVD player is set up in my bedroom with my favorite exercise DVD's handy along with a 10 pound set of weights.

So, I have a hairstyle that I like and can maintain, I bought my face cream and eye serum (though I think only surgery is the answer at this point). Vitamins and minerals will be consumed. Walking is happening.

Need for improvement: food choices and weight training.

Wish me luck!