20 Lashes...

So I was grading papers in the middle school office and noticed the blood pressure cuff...

Sure, why not.

150/98.

Yeah, I'm in trouble.

So I need to go back on my meds, and I need to talk to a doctor about it again, I imagine.

I turn 32 in two weeks.

I am too young to feel this old, for my body to be this old. There are too many things I want to do. Too many things I am doing.

If you ask me how old I am I have to fight myself not to say 16. Except 16 year olds strike me as naive idiots. At least immature morons.

Some 18 year olds strike me that way too. Even a 20-something or too...

Sometimes me. I shouldn't have stopped taking the pills. That I can fix tonight.

God only knows about the danger to my heart. Hypertension is not a joke or a game.

Then comes the question. When Nana goes to a home in May, will this get better. I'd really like to believe this is not me. What do I do if it is?

And now I yelled at Nana.

20 Lashes with a wet noodle. Fat Free of course.

Knowing

It has never been a secret to me that for most people I am a lot. It's that emotional lightning rod thing.

People, I imagine, find me amusing, entertaining, exhausting and a bit intense, if not at least a little crazy.

I worry about that. How I must scare and fascinate people.

Because I know the flip side of all this, the scared little girl who just wants someone to love her and for everyone to get along.

Why is that picture so hard for people to see?

It's really late, I'm really tired and with everything else, right now everything is making me freak. I am looking for hidden meanings in how long it takes people to e-mail me back and whether they do at all and what they mean underneath what they write. So, if this makes no sense, don't worry about it. I'm not sure it was supposed to.

Post Thanksgiving Nanaism

Nana was on the phone with my brother and he was explaining that in the cold Chicago wind his face was wind burned.

Nana says, "If I told you a dirty joke your face would be really red... But I can't remember any dirty jokes anymore... Sandy, do I know any good dirty jokes? Do you know any good dirty jokes we could tell your brother to make his face even redder?"

Only my Nana!

Happy Holidays.

On a different note...

A student sent me an e-mail yesterday about how he had gone looking on the Internet looking for good essays. He found one and just had to share it with me.

The e-mail he sent was one of the most hysterical things I have read in some time. Also, how cool is it that a student of mine was interested enough in what we've been talking about to go looking for it and critique as well.

Pardon me while I polish an apple on my shirt for a second.

This week Nana and I are babysitting two dogs that belong to a really great couple I know and their son. The dogs are Jack and Simon. Simon is a very old retriever/lab mix and Jack is some kind of small fluffy lap dog. The pair of them are a hoot. Jack helped me catch another mouse. Or more specifically, I caught another mouse in a sticky trap and Jack brought it and set it up on the couch for me. Wasn't that sweet?

Anyway, so for Thanksgiving we had a canine heard. Roo is not real keen on all of this, but Piper is in Dog Heaven. It's a good thing and Nana is amused if slightly confused. Counting to two was an occasional challenge for her. Four is down right difficult.

My cold is getting better and I still have two days before going back to work.

Good Day.

Taking One for the Team

My dad called to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving. As we talked a while, he asked me what was wrong. Daddy's always know, I guess. Because I am doing better, I have a lot to be thankful for and I'm being made to see what terrific friends I have in the face of a huge betrayal, but I am not exactly OK, yet. Daddies always know.

So I told him. We talked. Dad said I shouldn't have to work with someone who treated me that way. He said I didn't have to take one for the team this time.

He told me a story about a woman he knows. Her son had several friends growing up. They had sleep overs at her house, she knew their parents, fed them, picked them up from things. As teenagers they broke into her house and robbed her. This happened many years ago and Dad said he could still hear true pain in her voice when she told the story.

The young man who hurt me is an Eagle Scout. I am ashamed to say that, as I don't want his actions to sully the accomplishments and honor of the others that I know that hold that distinction... And the hundreds I don't know who I am confidant are honorable young men. He had eaten at my table, slept on my floor, I had gone to his Eagle ceremony, had dinner with his parents, I had cared for this kid when he was injured.

He is on staff at camp. This year he is going to be the director of a very important new department. Theoretically I won't see him much, but, as the safety officer I will cross paths with him.

Several of the guys have said to forget about it, to focus on the other guys who are wonderful, who love me, and the good things about camp. They are right. That's what I should do, what I will do, what I want to do, but I keep thinking about what Dad said, about taking one for the team.

There is something I could do. I could write a letter, to the head of the people that run camp and explain that I am not comfortable with that person anymore and why. In the past, there have been people who said, "If they come back to camp, I go." I hate those people, and I don't want to be like that. Then I think about what Dad said and taking one for the team. I'm not sure what to do.

This weekend a friend and I talked about how I would react to someone hurting me. We were talking about something that happened to someone else and how they fought back. I said, "If that had been me, I'd have just gone home and felt small, and let it be." and she said she wasn't sure that was true, and then I said, "You don't think I would have just taken it?" and she answered, "Well, if it had been some one else, you would have fought to defend them, but if it was you, just you, maybe you would have just taken it..." Lately I have been working on standing up for myself. Especially with my mom, but more than that.

The question I keep asking is how much is necessary. Is waiting to see what happens, and there may be more that happens that has nothing to do with me, is waiting and/or not doing anything at all "Taking One for the Team." What constitutes standing up for myself that I haven't already done.

How can I be so thankful for so much, be so happy with so much, have so many people who do care about me and I love them for it, love them regardless, and still be hurt enough after forty-eight hours that my dad could hear it in just my voice even though I am sick and my voice sounds funny anyway.

I told my Dad by the time school started on Monday I would be fine. I mean that.

I will be.

Giving Thanks

Thankful for the amazing people in my life that help me through, even when I am impossible. Lindsey, Stephen, LeeAnne, Polly, Dee, Beata, Lil' Bro, Daddy, Kay, Nana, Mark, Mike, Poje, my camp boys, the people of my church, at my school, Robin, Cindy, Adam, Jaimon, Amber, Mitzi, and the people in my "hometown" who were so wonderful to spend the time with me... not to mention all the families and loved ones of those people who loved them and supported them and helped them be the wonderful people they are...

Thankful for this beautiful apartment that arrived at the right time and the right price and has been a haven and home for well over three years.

Thankful for my job. The right job and the best place for me right now. Where I can make a difference and people notice if I'm not there... and call me to make sure I am OK.

Thankful for my dogs. Roo who loves me unconditionally, and Piper who loves Nana and plays with Roo.

New friends and new possibilities with older friends. Adam, Prospero, Tweak, Jasmine, Nikol, Marianne, and others...

Thankful for my health and even my body and they way it works and looks. It may not always be what I want, look like I want, but it is the body God gave me and it has served me pretty well when I have taken care of it...

Thankful for Nana and the lessons I learn from her every day. About patience and grace and thankfulness and service.

Thankful for my brother and my father who love me and continue to serve as true examples of Godly men.

Thankful to be a child of God.

Mostly, I am simply grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Not Safe

This past weekend was so wonderful. I came home feeling refreshed, excited and energized.

Now I feel violated and humiliated.

Facebook was something I always heard about, but wasn't really part of. Recently I got on it so I could keep track of a lot of the young people in my life and have a place to post pictures.

Someone, who I know through camp, thought it would be funny to post a picture of a whale lying on top of a person and say that it was a picture of me and another friend of mine (male) having sex. Several of my other friends pointed out that this was not really a funny joke and it should be taken down. It's been up nearly a week. The "photographer" has said to several people it's just a joke, all in good fun...

More than anything I am hurt. Not because of the implication that I have a sexual relationship with someone I don't. He and I flirt and are both comfortable with what our relationship is, so what's the point... It's the whale thing.

That is just cruel and unnessesary and it's not funny. Definately not something you do to friends.

Subsequently I have removed them from my friends list and blocked them. There is nothing else I want to talk to them about. Ever. True, they work at camp, but we are in different areas, and I just don't choose to have anything to do with someone who would do something like that, and further refuse to accept rebuke (by others, not even me, I have said nothing) and take it down. Maybe some of us make mistakes, but we correct them or appologize...

Worst, I hate like feeling a kintegartener sitting by myself in the sand box crying.

I went from feeling warm and loved yesterday to feeling unsafe today.

Not good, not fun, not right.

Going Home

There is a definition of home, that I particularly like.

"It's the place that when you have to go there, they have to take you."

This weekend, I went home.

The thing that is so wonderful about this place is that not only do I know it, I knew the streets and noted the familiar and the changes, but that they always take me here. They make me feel loved and wanted and of value.

That's not to say that I don't have those things other places, everyday, where I live my life, but this place, though I have been away, over five years, I am still wanted and welcomed and loved.

It is a safety net, a place of comfort. It is home.

The people that make it up are special and unique and when my heart owns them, I feel I am owned equally by their hearts. That makes them family.

So this weekend, I came home, and tomorrow I will go back to may home, but I will be leaving home to do it.

I miss my home here.

Watching movies and talking, standing in church, Sunday lunch, dinner at Perkins, watching all these children grow up, and the hugs. The hugs especially.

It is a comfort to know that while it changes, life changes, that home is still here.

Pardon The Digression

If you did not watch Grey's Anatomy tonight this won't make as much sense, but I'm having a moment and I had to put it some place. Bailey was complaining to Shepherd about being the great girl, with the terrific personality that the great guy who was her best friend over looked and took for granted. Probably because she was short, chubby and not as classically beautiful as others. She runs into that guy from high school now and he still treats her the same.

I know that feeling. I remember listening on the phone for hours to countless great guys talk to me about their lives and feelings and girls, helping them with their homework, projects, etc. They never saw me either. Yet I was always so grateful for the crumbs of them I got, desperately hoping that one day they would wake up one day and suddenly somehow, for some reason, see me. They never did. Not to mention that if they had I would have been so scared witless it would have caused my brain to explode (but that's another post and another neurosis...)

Now I do all kinds of things for young men all the time. Thankfully it's a teacher/big sister thing with no romantic delusions on my part. And for all that I love these guys, and have so much faith and hope for their future, I find that there are so many who are still willing to take and take for granted.

Maybe I haven't really learned anything.

Like the show said about how we are all still in high school, acting out the same stories and waiting for the same things that will never happen. Some days it feels that way.

Pardon the Digression.

Where it is.

Today we did the fit test.

On cardio-vascular I was poor (but it had been a month...)
On flexibility I was average.
On upper body I was poor (And I maxed out at 25% of my body weight)
On abdominal I was good!

We decided that the reason I could not carry the litters at my WEMT class was because with me being so much taller, at the angle I was I was lifting disproportionate to the others. Now the dead lift of someone on my back, that was a real problem. I can dead lift 100lbs, but most people weigh more than that. Many of my younger campers don't which is why I can pick them up... Adults on the other hand...

So now we have five weeks to see what we can accomplish. This is how we will set a pace for next semester. There is a five K here where I live in April. That will be my goal. We'll see what happens. My trainer is moving, so I will go back to the one I had before, but I think that's a good thing. It's time for the change and she and I were at odds all the time anyway.

And that's where it is.

Breaking Rules...

OK, I'm gonna break a rule, but she won't mind and this is hysterical. This is the note Lindsey left for me when I got home today.

Hi Sandy,
The dogs ate 3-5 Luna bars in your room while [Nana and I] were at Bible Study and subsequently threw them up in your room and in the hallway. I cleaned it up as best I could but there are still some visible spots. I put Resolve on the [supply/grocery] list. Anyways, if the dogs are acting funny, that's probably why.
~Lindsey

Did I mention I love this girl! I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself, then I saw the vomit "spots." OMG! These dogs did nothing small today! There are spots everywhere. Thankfully they don't smell like vomit. They smell like, you guessed it, LUNA BARS!!!! Peppermint and Chocolate mostly, but there are some other flavors thrown in there for good measure. I had a stash left over from my trip west for WEMT... Apparently the dogs found it.

I knew they were smart.

The carpet may never be the same.

Huh?

Today I covered another teacher's class for forty five minutes. One student began to complain about another students studying habits. They were quick reviewing for a test. The complaining student had moved to the place where the oddly studying student was sitting. I looked at the little whiner and said,

"Your feet nailed to the floor?"

He answered,

"Huh?" Then he looked at his feet.

Another student looked up at him and said,

"She really is a teacher. She won't give you the answer straight, she makes you work for it."

The kid sat there for another moment and then said, loudly...

"Oh! I can totally just move!"

Ya think?

Chess Queen

There has been so much lately, it seems, and in a lot of ways very little.

I think of the chess queen in "Through the Looking Glass" running as fast as she can just to stay in one place. Some days I feel like her. Except she seemed to accept that reality and so often I am fighting it. Somehow I doubt that I am that much busier than anyone else, I am just more vocal about it, or more noticeable.

Mostly I think it is that I am noticing more. More importantly I am participating more in my own life, I think. There is so much that I am no longer willing to accept.

As the next part of my counseling we are looking at all the traumatic events (over 50 of them) and isolating what those incidents taught me in terms of survival skills and how I dealt with the world. Honestly I thought just having to write the incidents themselves down was hard.

This is terrifying. It doesn't paint a pretty picture. The first time my mother hit me was because I wanted to play with a boy and she said he was dangerous. The fear of men that was instilled in that moment has been disastrous. How ironic that my mother is now completely frustrated by my lack of romantic prowess... Yet, these behaviors, choices are still my responsibility. I will not be like my mother and spend my life avoiding responsibility for my choices, blaming others for my lack of fortune... She may be the reason, but I will not give her the power that blaming her would.

So many of the people I care about are moving on in their lives. They are getting married, having children, going to do long term missions and I sit in this home, hiding behind Nana and words like care-giver stress to excuse the things I have not done.

The era of running as fast as I can to stay in place is ending...

It's time to kick it into overdrive and go somewhere.

Finished

The children of our church had their musical program this morning. I was so proud of them and they did a great job. The church presented me with flowers and I appreciated the gesture. Really.

But I told the choir director today that I was finished. At least for the time being. I needed the time for me, to do Shakespeare, to take a break, to breathe, to think. I told the youth pastor the same thing.

So now that I am not doing a project and as far as church goes, in between projects, I feel a tremendous sense of relief.

Today, I am finished.

One Down

A long time ago, when I was a girl, in college, some of the girls and I decided to have a girls night. The guys in our lives (well the other girls' lives, there were no guys for me then either) decided two could play at that game and had a guys night. US girls watched movies, giggled, hung out, all good. The boys played video games and plotted to roll our cars.

The showed up and rolled our cars, put Vaseline under the door handles, stuck oreos to the windows and put flowers on the hoods. The night guard caught them and chased them into the next housing area. One poor guy was running so fast he didn't realize he was over a pool until he had fallen in it.

The boys as a group refused to admit they had anything to do with what happened. However, as individuals, alone with their girlfriends, they went down squealing like stuck hogs. So we compiled a list of culprits.

Then several of the girls and I created a four woman revenge squad. We slowly and systematically hit the car (and bike in one case) of the gentleman who had rolled us. The boys began to live in fear. We labeled each vehicle "X Down and X to go."

As of this evening, there is one mouse down, and at least one more to go... Though I have to say I got more satisfaction out of wrapping toilet paper around some poor guys car then killing a mouse.

It's a zoo!

Two mice who refuse to be caught or die and

(drum roll please)

A Molting gecko lizard!

I live in a zoo!

I just bought out Publix entire store of traps... humane and otherwise...

This is war!

Crazy for the Mouse... or Mice

Oh, they are going to die.

All of them, all the mice, their days are numbered! They better enjoy that peanut butter they keep eating out of the trap... The Reaper is coming!

I think I have found my new obsession...

Oh, yeah, baby! Ya'll gonna die

HA HA HA (Manically)

Endings, Beginings, and Temperature...

My administrator came to see me today. I told my class (especially first period) that they could wear hats and stuff inside my classroom as with it being a poorly insulated metal building it was pretty cold and I had no intention of turning the heater on unless it was freezing. Ventilation heaters give me migraines in confined spaces. If they were warm, but I was a witch on wheels they wouldn't consider that a good trade off... But apparently parents called and complained today. Two sets. So now I have to use the heater at night to take the chill off, but I can leave it off during the day. OK. Fine.

A coworker forwarded this to me today. A male co-worker I might add. He thought it was pretty funny. I did too...

Being a Good House Wife

Also I got some awesome news yesterday about a couple things. One of those awesome things hit me like a ton a bricks, though. Not for the reasons I thought, but a ton of bricks none the less. My life is such an odd amalgam of people and experiences, but I have always lived a bit like a gypsy. Most of my friends have been able to accommodate that so far (often many of them live like gypsies too...). But one friend is leaving the ranks by next summer. For a good reason and I really am thrilled, but I think I grieved a little last night for the change that will come. Doesn't make us any less friends, nor would/will it, but things will change. It is a good ending, and a good reason for one, but it is an ending...

But also a new beginning.

Speaking of. I have an introduction to make. I've had some friends start blogging before, because they liked my blog, (check my blogrole, they're all there!) and now I have added another pelt, though from a very strange encounter and situation. I made a new friend when I was at WEMT class. It was strange how comfortable I felt with this young man, right away (though poor guy, as my patient, he died and as his patient I hit him...). It felt like I had found one of my camp boys, only he wasn't at camp. Though now he is going to be at camp, I think I've "kidnapped" him for three weeks this summer. He is totally the help I need, possibly along with one of "my boys" as well. I'm actually pretty excited about getting to work with him. Poor guy, he may not know what hit him when he get a load of our little operation, not to mention all my guys...

The point is, he has a blog now too. We'll have to see how he likes it. Being an EMT, a pretty cool person, and a genuinely nice guy, I think he'd have some cool stories to share.

The Hardest Job You'll Ever Love

Welcome to the blogasphere, Tweak!

Weird Day

For the most part today was a good day. I got at least three distinct pieces of good news.

On the other hand.

I got body checked over five times in less than five minutes. One of them bordered on molestation! I repeat, I am a six foot three inch red head wearing a bright red oversized sweater... Can't they see me? Earlier this week a kid ran into my chest so hard I had a bruise! What is with these kids?

Then when I got home there was a MOUSE sitting on my kitchen counter. I have traps all over the house. What happened to the suicidal mouse gene? So I guess that one was just really depressed but the others are quite happy! They are surrounded by traps and so they decide to eat on my kitchen counter!

Oh, but three different people said I looked wonderful today, one my former crush even.

So weird, but good, day!

Not a good night

Nana just woke up. She was in tears. She doesn't remember much of anything that happened today and she is afraid I'm going to leave her alone and also afraid that she is ruining my life. I held her while she cried. Then I tried to make her laugh and then I put her back to bed.

This is getting worse.

I keep thinking we can put off her going to a facility, but when nights like these happen I know it is closer rather than further away.

Some nights I think this might actually kill me.

It would be such a relief to not be responsible for her all the time. Then I think about my life with out her and it sounds so lonely and empty. I find myself scared and crying in the night too.

I told Nana if she went to sleep she will feel better in the morning. This is where I hope my advice is true, for both of us.

Good Night.

Sometimes more is just more...

Whoever said two is better than one never discovered there was more than one mouse in their living room.

First can I say, EEEEEEEPPPPPPPP!!!!!

Not only did Nana not hallucinate a mouse, apparently there are at least two! I don't care how cute they are or how often my mother read me "Mouskin" books when I was a kid. Those rodents' days are numbered.

Oh, and one ran right past the dogs. Roo looked right at it and didn't even move or perk up her ears.

Coward!

Not cool. Not cool at all!

TKAMB and Good vs Bad

I call To Kill a Mocking Bird, TKAMB. (That's right, an acronym...) The truth is I had never read the book until I had to teach it. Now I love it.

We had a great conversation in my class because of it today. The question of right and wrong and good and bad. While many of us can draw lines on right and wrong (though sometimes it is harder to figure out than I'd like) good and bad becomes more difficult. Today we were talking about the character of Mrs. Deboise.

This woman seemed awful. She said terrible racist things to the children. Yet Atticus, clearly good Atticus, respected and admired her. How does that work? We talked about Mel Gibson, and when we say the worst thing we can think of to someone we care about and then go back to the "I didn't mean it" later and whether or not that is really true. We talked about good people we knew that then surprised us with a not so good thing and whether that made the person no longer good in our eyes.

It was a really good conversation and I really enjoyed listening to my students today.

Recommitted

Today is Day 1 on my new commitment to myself and my health.

Starting today I am at 2000 calories a day, even on weekends (though I may incorporate a bit of a break/reward in there somewhere once a week or so... but not a whole day and not the whole weekend!), I'm going to work with my trainer 3 times a week, giving it everything when I do, and starting in January I am going to go back to running. I am going to try to find a 5 or 10 K that i can do in the late spring, before camp starts as the achievement of these goals. Maybe I can go to my "hometown" and run with the alligators, if there is one there then, I bet I could find running partners...

"Recommitted and it feels so good..."

Soup, More Mice (!) and Fat Lady Singing!

Hello Sunday!

Someone asked for the soup recipe, and I've posted that, before, so here's the link, though now I use chopped up crystallized ginger instead of ginger-ale and add about a cup of chunky peanut butter to dissolve, giving it a bit more Thai flavor, but it still works.

Orange Soup

So turns out Nana did not hallucinate the mouse. In my own defense she has imagined extra dogs, and people in the house before, so it's not like my assessment was cruel. I guess we have to go get traps. Hopefully that works better than it did at camp.

Also, and I can't remember if this was posted earlier, I am totally over my Crush. Seriously. I was surprised again to think about it this afternoon. Turns out my therapist was right. This so does not need to be a big deal. If I just recognize it, accept it for what it is and move on, it goes away and I am not crazy (er...) at all! Can you hear the fat lady singing?

And as a side note, I always thought facebook was really annoying. I joined this past week. It's not so bad and not as complicated or weird as I thought. I've even found some of my old students from Florida. They don't necessarily know that yet, and I may do nothing about it, but it's nice to see that they grew up... No significant disfigurements...

I am really looking forward to this week. Good things are coming I think.

Mice, Mayor's and Daylight Savings Time

Yesterday I took the dogs to the kennel/groomer as they had to be there today between 8 and 9 AM for their annual grooming (I may love 'em but they have SO MUCH HAIR!!!) as they can get a bit matted this time of year without a little help. They went last night as there was no way I could get then there in that window this morning, so I simply boarded them so they would be there in the morning (Don't I sound decadent, jaded and spoiled?) The point is, they weren't home last night. It was a bit odd without them and Nana especially was seriously out of whack.

This afternoon, after getting back from all my morning appointments, I happened to notice Roo's water dish in the corner of my room. There was a dead mouse floating in the bowl. EEEP! Poor thing. It's hair was still dry and fluffy above the water, but it was quite dead. Nana saw me throw it away and became obsessed with the issue. She has announced that there is another one, "looking for it's mama," in the living room that apparently has run all over, only when I was not in the room. She's been talking to it all afternoon. I have no idea if that's her way of compensating for the loss of the dogs for the day...

The whole thing made me think of that joke about the mouse that fell into the bowl of cream. The mouse just kept paddling until it churned the cream into butter and then it was able climb out.

Further, I emailed a newer friend today and asked about their business e-mail address. They said it was OK as long as I didn't send anything I wouldn't send to the mayor... or anything a normal person would wouldn't send to a mayor, but I'm definitely not normal so... Poor person, they only just met me and I think they got my number, I am definitely not normal... but they should also be warned, they might be mortified to know what I could send to a mayor considering the X-mas present I gave to Mark, the summer before last (I think there is a blog about that some where back about it, Christmas in July, not for the easily offended).

Lastly, today is the last day of Daylight Savings. It's not that I am sensitive (well, I am, actually, but not about this kind of stuff...) or that it matters, but I so wanted to find that jerk from my WEMT class and point out to him that I was right! And no, it's not just the way of the south, but everyone in America has the new DST time! No, I'm not bitter at all.

Oh and having retrieved the dogs, looking much thinner with all the "dead hair" brushed out, and exhausted for their journey, Nana is admonishing them to swiftly excise the dreaded mouse (oh how soon she forgets the four footed furry thing that was her company all day in the light of her old friends... fickle, fickle old woman.)

Actually this past summer there was this mouse in my clinic and I could not catch it. The Director of the Nature Lodge said smart people get smart mice... now my mice are drowning themselves and hanging out with Nana... does that mean I'm not so smart anymore, suicidal or senile? Who knows. Maybe I should start putting cream in Roo's water dish.

I'm seriously going to revel in that extra hour of sleep (I think I have it coming!) tonight. It might almost make up for having to do children's musical rehearsal tomorrow after church.

Now, should I send this blog to the Mayor?

Sabatoge

So today was a long day. I start teaching at 7:20 every morning. I usually get to work at about 6:35. That means I leave home no later than 6:00. I get up anywhere between 5:00 and 5:30.

This morning I woke up at 7:40. Do the math...

I had decided to make lunch for everyone at work. There was to be a big pot of chilly, my "orange soup" and chicken soup. Luckily the first two were done last night and already set up to go...

Then I had an off day... Though a friend of mine pointed out if I laugh this much on a bad day, maybe I don't really know what a bad day is... Maybe there is something flipped in my head? God only knows,

Anyway!

Then I went to work out and I did my cardio and the trainer and I started to talk. We talked for an hour. She has a theory. Not sure how I feel about it. She feels I am not really giving this my everything and that I am sabotaging myself and holding myself back. OK.

I think she is right.

This WEMT thing was a real eye opener for me in some ways. For the most part in my life there is nothing that I want to do that I can't do... But in the class I just couldn't do the things I wanted to do. My head was in the game I had the knowledge, but when push came to shove I couldn't do the physical stuff. It didn't ruin the trip, I'm glad I went, but, well, it was humiliating. They were all so nice and encouraging and supportive, and so many of them were in bad shape as well, and of everyone there I could do the least physically.

So my trainer and I are going to re-evaluate and try again. We are starting over. Friday we are going to redo all my baselines and see where we are. Monday I go back to 2000 calories a day, everyday, no exceptions until I go to see my brother for X-mas.

The questions remains though, as to what I really want and am I ready to get it? I turn 32 in a bit over a month. It should be time already...