migraine

Happy Mother’s Day!

If you missed my post from last week, go read it here.  I’ll wait.

Needless to say, I did not get Wolverine or any of my alternates as a Mother’s Day gift.  If I made good on my threats kept my promises, I’d currently have a potted plant, two handmade Mother’s Day cards, a box of Gigi’s cupcakes, a Sephora gift card and a pair of Anastasia tweezers up my twat.  To be fair to myself, I was considering shoving all that up my twat but the tweezers called my bluff.  I’m pretty sure E marched into Sephora and said “My wife has threatened to shove any Mother’s Day gifts that aren’t Hugh Jackman up her twat.  What item in the store would inflict the most pain being shoved up a twat?”.  Well played, E.  Well played.

It’s a good thing Wolverine or Star-Lord didn’t show up, anyway.  A migraine knocked me out of commission all afternoon and our dinner plans were derailed.  We’ll make them up next weekend.  What does matter is that I have two kids I have helped raise to the ages of 17 and 13 who love me, faults and all.

A long time ago, I told E not to buy me any more store bought cards.  They’re a waste of money for me.  You pay around $5 for a cheesy card with someone else’s words and feelings on it.  I told him I’d prefer a handwritten note instead.  It could be as short or as long as he wanted to make it.  I didn’t care, as long as it came from him.  He’s done that ever since and I’ve somehow managed to get the kids to do it also.  Landon made his at school and Gracie worked like the little Martha Stewart she is on hers last week here at home.  As usual, it’s the words, beautiful words, that touch me the most.  Not the gift card or the ridiculously expensive tweezers (which I really did need and has a story which I will post next week) but words.

Here’s what Landon had to say about me:

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I give him crap every time he asks me how old I am.  I’ll usually give him various answers but never my true age.  So, he said he wrote that I was 100 years old because he didn’t know.  I told him my true age so now he knows I’m 32.

Fine, I told him I’m 45.  Y’all are breaking my heart here.

Landon was correct that I love Harry Potter and eating Mexican food.  If you know me well, you got a laugh out of cooking being my super power.  I do cook.  I don’t enjoy cooking.  I do it to survive and to nourish my family but it’s not my “thing”.  But there are a few dishes that I make that Landon is just crazy about.  He loves my chicken and dumplings, crock pot chicken enchiladas, combo burritos, and homemade dressing.  If that counts as a super power, I’ll take it.  I noticed he wrote “pretty” twice.  I also really liked “brave, smart, silly, and sweet”.  I try to be those things and I’m glad he can see them in me.

I have a feeling that Gracie has my gift for words because inside her card were the most beautiful words a Mom could ever want to read on Mother’s Day.

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“To the best Mom,

Every day, there’s always a problem in our lives and you take care of those problems.  We always come to you for your help and advice.  You make us feel at home even when we are not.  You make rough times the best and the worst days some of the best days.  Your love and words will always be the best medicine for a heartache.  Thanks Mom!

Love, Gracie Girl.”

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If you’d like to read my blog post from last Mother’s Day you can find it here.  I hope all you Moms out there had a beautiful day.  Happy Mother’s Day, my friend!

Hips don’t lie. And neither does my ginormous ass.

I’ve been on a “journey” (I hate that fucking word when it comes to most anything due to its abuse by millions of women everywhere but there it is) with my weight for years.  I had lost almost 100 pounds, total, as of last summer.  I lost it after several years of amazing victories despite myself.  There were also amazing defeats, obviously, which is why it took several years but this failure takes the cake.  And Krispy Kreme doughnuts.  And pizza.  I have gained back, as of Monday, 42 pounds of that weight.  I have gained almost half of what I lost in total.

I was talking with my friend Kari on the phone yesterday for a good while and although we didn’t linger on my epic weight “journey” failure, I realized after I talked to her that I felt much better.  It was like confessional.  It’s like I’m not trying to be a closet failure anymore, I’m owning it.  Don’t misunderstand me.  If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you’ve seen my pictures.  You know I’ve put on weight since last summer.  Of course, we all try to choose the best photos to post but there’s no hiding weight gain like that eventually and even if you can, the scale will wake you up with the cold, hard, brutal numbers when you finally take that step to face reality.

As therapeutic as the conversation with Kari was, I feel the need for more confession.  I haven’t wanted to write blog posts lately.  We were on vacation in Orlando all last week but it’s more than that.  I’m angry at myself.  I hurt myself more than any enemy ever could.  I sabotaged myself in a way no one else could ever do, even if they tried.  I don’t exactly feel like coming here to make my regular four readers laugh, as much as I love you all.

Kari and I also discussed the “flavors” of different blogs.  Some are funny.  Some are serious.  Some will send you on a downward spiral into hell from which it could take days to come back from.  I don’t really “do” serious.  My teenage son is autistic, has Crohn’s, G6PD, migraines and epilepsy.  E and I have nearly lost both of our children, on more than one occasion, to medical issues that Doctors told us “almost never happen”.  I’m kind of done with serious.  I’ve had it with drama.  There is enough drama and sadness and tragedy in this world already.  I don’t want to put more sadness out there.  I don’t want anyone to walk away from my blog more depressed than they were before they came here.  I want to make you laugh.  I want to make your day better.  I don’t want to be the shit on your shit sandwich or your Debbie Downer.

But I’m human, too.  I have to unload this burden so I can move on.  And I know this isn’t the worst thing to happen to anyone.  Please don’t think I’m not sitting here feeling like a giant (literally) ass hole.  Because there are women out there at this very minute being told they have breast cancer.  Or that their child is dying.  Or that their husband has decided to leave them.  There are people burying their last parent today.  I do have some perspective on this.

I started a very intense diet (again) on Monday.  Due to the added weight and high impact exercise I should not even have attempted in the last few months, my knee is jacked up now but I will start low impact exercise today and get back in the gym.  I am happy to report that I am down 4.6 pounds so far this week and that’s a start.  If any of you write that off as “water weight”, I will come to your house and sit on you while eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut, fuckers.  I’m not even kidding.  Okay, I would only eat a rice cake but it’ll still hurt you like hell.  So just don’t do it.

Thank you for reading this.  I feel so much better, like after I get good and drunk on wine with my best friend Sylvia and then spend the next couple hours literally blubbering and ugly crying on her.  Yes, she’s a Saint and it’s only happened once (the blubbering and ugly crying, the wine thing has happened a lot.  A LOT.) but it was very purifying and this blog post has done much the same thing for me.

This is not a weight/fitness blog, obviously, but I will keep you updated on my progress every once in a while.

Love yourself, no matter what your struggle is right now.  Be kind to yourself today.  I love you all.