For a while we’ve had a make shift grill out of a metal grate and some stacked up concrete blocks.

I decided a few months ago we needed to invest in a proper barbecue. I looked at outdoor electric grills when I was in Wal-mart but in the end I opted for a small table top grill that we can just transfer coals from the fire into and then cook on. So far it’s worked very well, although it is a bit small; but with the lid on it things cook thoroughly without losing too much moisture.

Me: Gods, I’m tired…
Max: I’ll do it!
Me: uh…okay…*gets shoved back*
Max: Do do doooo….

*insert an hour or so of playing with munchkin attempts to make food with asides of um….what do I do noooooooooooow??? *wail* and are you sure you don’t want me to? No I has to learn!!!*

*insert also the fun of putting the munchkin to bed and the Hunt for Lucky (his dalmatian plush who he has a new LOVE for given Gran loaned up 101 Dalmatians*

Then…

Max: Ooooh ff12–again? where you at?
Me: Miriam…but I’m stuck, hey wait you played this before didn’t you?
Max: Yeah, but…HUNGRY!! I want burgers…(outside) K—, I’m hungry but I don’t know what I want…
Kore: Um…okay? Leftovers?
Max: Actually I do know what I want…
Me: We are on a diet…
*affirmative nods from the rest of the head*
Max: Actually I do know what I want. I want a burger and fries.
Me: *head-desk*
Rose: NO! We don’t have any anyway…
Kore: You’re out of luck ’cause we don’t have any of those things.
Max: *pouts* *explores kitchen* OOOOH!
Me: No no no no no
Rose: What did he? Oh, no!
Kore: What?
Max: Lookit! Look what I found *holds up pack of brownies*
Kore: If you’re going to make those make them cake-like please?
Rose: what the…why didn’t she?
Max: Oh, ’cause I thought…who am I kidding I’m gonna make ‘em
Kore: s’why I didn’t even try?
Rose: Those are those chocolate square cake things right?
Me: Why do I even try? Why?
Towers: Leave me out of it.
Me: :p~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ all of you.
Max: Do-do-doooooo makin’ the brownies, makin’ the brownies.

*Brownies get put in oven before it reaches temp because he didn’t set the timer, and couldn’t be bothered to wait*

Max: Okay…stillshrine it is…hm…oh, yeah, there are these things you have to turn and stuff to face the sword and then…*explains a bunch more of the game*
Me: Okay, so where are those things?
Max: Oh, I don’t know. Ami had to get us through that part last time it was all puzzle solving and stuff I got bored.
Me: *head-desk* shouldn’t you still remember anyway?
Max: I guess…
Me: *slam head on metaphoric desk several more times* wake me up when there are brownies.

Musculature is an issue because of the fibromyalgia. Excessive strain on my muscles becomes worse for me because my body is unable to repair damaged muscle tissue as quickly as others might, so I have to be very careful and slow when it comes to exercising like that because those microscopic tears that everyone experiences when they move around from day to day and exercise do not heal and just get worse if I don’t get enough sleep, which I often don’t.

However I realize that there are other psychological issues which impede me on the weight frontier. On the basic level it’s hard to stick to a diet, it’s even harder for nine people to stick to a diet and that’s often been a chunk of my issue, if there’s just one of us alters who is not on board for the weight program it falls apart. It just takes one of us, and often times this has been Max, to go “OOOH CHOCOLATE! NOM-NOM-NOM!” and eat an entire bar or box, or make his super White Russians with kahlua and chocolate syrup as well as milk and vodka, and then there’s a general dissent because it’s “Oh, well he had candy, why can’t I?” and so on until it devolves and we’re back to snacking on junk food and being lazy about things.

Additionally I came to the conclusion that on some level there’s a desire to be unattractive. My step-father was very into thin women, and would harp on my mother to a greater extent but also me about weight. I know when I was pregnant he was very displeased that I was getting fat, and kept insisting that I should diet, even though in many ways I was eating much healthier while I was pregnant than I had before as it was important to me to make sure the future munchkin was not addicted to caffeine or born unhealthy due to something I ate or exposed him to. I stopped bleaching and dyeing my hair even, refused additional x-rays when I fractured my elbow. I didn’t eat sushi or rare meat. I didn’t drink. Max was very silent during most of the pregnancy, actually. These are things that most mothers-to-be do. They allow themselves small treats, but generally they cut back. I ate more fruit than I ever have while I was pregnant, no wonder the munchkin is such a fruit bat.

However, my condition was extremely distressing to him; and he would tell random people when we were out how displeased he was and how disgusted he was about my weight. Most people looked at him like he was off his nut. Anyway, my point is that I wonder if this has stuck with me on some level, and I’ve subconsciously not been giving weight loss my all because it makes me unattractive to him, and therefore if I do run into him again there’s less likely to be those comments about my butt or my breasts that he was so fond of, or the attempts to touch said areas, and the squeezes and the kisses. As it is I haven’t seen him since I stopped working at the gas station, and even there he had not shown up since Christmas because hubbie Had Words with him.

Though I realized this past week, that this is still giving him power over me. My fear of him is still on some level ruling my existence, and so I should stop. He does not need that power. He does not deserve that power. I deserve to, as I’ve said before, become healthy for me, and to lose weight to help me, to help there be less strain on those muscles, to help me sleep better, to have more energy and to be there for my family, to be able to run around with my son for more than five or ten minutes at a time. All those things. For that I should be healthy.

My eating habits have been pretty crappy too, if I’m being honest. There have been a few good meals in there, tuna salad and grilled salmon with asparagus and wild rice, but then there’s been a lot of crappy meals in there that involved cookies, candy and scones with jam and cream, and the five days of being sedentary other than the 7 hours at work.

However, despite all that and the fact that I wasn’t using even safe diet pills or unsafe ones. I did stick to my NO SODA and NO CAFFEINE rules, and I’ve lost 4.4lbs, so something good is going on.

That’s my weighing scale from this morning. I was very surprised, because I expected to have not lost, or even put on a pound or two. This does not mean I’m going to continue eating badly. In fact this has spurred me with great passion to fix that portion of my diet as well.

We had another walk with Mum and Dee (the dog) this morning, and depending on my work schedule that’s going to continue every day that we can, weather pending and appointments and all that. Until my stamina is built up, then I’m going to slowly integrate Couch to 5K back in until I can do week 1 of that properly and then move on with that.

I did however find it silly that the box told me I had to add velveeta “cheese” spread to make it the actual “three cheese” macaroni that the box claimed it was. Silly box. Velveeta is not cheese. So, I got out the last of the Four Cheese Mexican grated bag that we had leftover from taco night and put that in there instead and added some bacon, so now I have Five Cheese Macaroni and most if it is actually *gasp* Real Cheese.

I’m such a weirdo.

We’ve had some fun things happen, and that’s been nice, and I’ve meant to write about those but instead I got overwhelmed with the crappy things which started a week ago Monday, and while I’ve handled them better than I would in the past I’ve still withdrawn I noticed. On the upside I didn’t withdraw into a shivering, cowering ball. I withdrew to my circle of friends and my family and to computer games.

A week ago, on Monday morning, I was woken up by my husband letting me know that his insurance had reset and we had a deductible again, on the upside not a $4200 deductible, but a $1200 one. I had to cancel that days chiropractor appointment and then later on after I talked to the insurance agent who really couldn’t tell me anything I elected to err on the side of caution and cancel the rest of the ones we had scheduled. I then canceled all my therapy appointments because they would be $98 a session out of pocket. I kept my psychiatry appointment because if I cancel that I get booted from his office, and I don’t get my medicine, and those are important, and generic so only $5 a piece out of pocket anyway.

I found out the Topamax that the new pain specialist subscribed was available in generic and while the most expensive of the generics is “only” $25.

Tuesday there was some drama at work that I’m not going to get into. It’s sorted now. It was stressful then. It wasn’t directly involving me, but could have thrown my job into jeopardy.

Then all hell broke loose with my car. On Wednesday I was driving Mum to the store and my car’s temperature warning sounded. I pulled over quick as I could and discovered that my car was indeed overheating. Thankfully we were less than 3 miles from my Mum’s boyfriend’s shop and have AAA, so I got towed. While we were waiting memory filtered down of an incident about a year and a half before where my car’s coolant lines ruptured and the mechanic then had speculated there was a very good chance that the coolant related sensors were not going to work so if the coolant ever got low I wouldn’t get a warning on the dash. It turned out that was right. I was out of coolant but also the water pump was broken. The mechanic (who works with Mum’s boyfriend YAY for favors) replaced it, and only charged $75. He also gave a warning that the car’s radiator is on it’s way out and we should try and replace it as soon as possible. He did some things to help lengthen the amount of time we have but it’s going to go, and it’s an expensive part. He gave us a place that we might be able to get one relatively cheaply but they’ll have to order it for us. Still that’s something. It’s just a rough time right now.

Due to that, and giving Kore a bit of a break with the rent so she could sort out BF’s vet bill, we’re down to the wire very badly right now. It’s going to suck for the next week until my husband gets paid. I’m extremely, extremely glad that I was able to negotiate settlements with the credit cards otherwise, well otherwise we’d be looking at the prospect of a $350 overdraft.

We’ll make it I have faith that we will. We’re fortunate to have friends that have been helping us out. One treated us to food yesterday.

I get paid from my job tomorrow, and we’ll see how things are. Kore and I have another tarot special going on right now for Halloween and that’s already had a couple of hits which is exciting.

My therapist actually called to check on me last week. I decided to write her a letter which she should have received today or get tomorrow. It was one of those things we decided to do at midnight when we couldn’t sleep and decided “now or never”, especially because there’s way too much information to leave in a voice mail or explain over the phone, or really even in a single therapy session. Life always seems to be that way lately.

I’ve only been here a month tops, and so to be celebrating a birthday so soon feels strange. I just got here, surely there should be eleven more months before I celebrate? But no, legally I was born on July 30th 1980 at 6:05 a.m. GMT so that is my birth date no matter what the state of my head.

Kore was asking me just before what sort of cake I would like and I was telling her the various tasks I have to do for the day and how we have a chocolate cake mix and she goes, “No, doofus. What cake would you like for me to make. I can go get something while you’re playing taxi driver…don’t make me cite your quote of me on your own blog!”

That’s always fun to hear. But she was right I was doing it again. Well, I’d like, oh, but so-n-so doesn’t like that, and oh what about…but. She said, “It’s your birthday. It’s what YOU would like for YOURSELF. Don’t worry about the rest of us we’ll eat too. It will be yummy.”

We’ve come to some sort of conclusion, I think…so I suppose I should just sit back and wait to see exactly what of the various things I mentioned, but…she will come up with.

Still, I find that it’s just a birthday. My ILs were mortified that they’d inadvertently tasked with with driving them to and from the airport on such a day but to me it’s eh. There’s none of the fun things that I experience vicariously through the munchkin now. My birthday’s mostly just the day that I have to make sure the tag gets renewed (which I did it arrived today!) although for maybe the second time EVER since I turned 16 I don’t have to work on my birthday. Woohoo!

I used to be the envy of other kids when I was in school because my birthday was on the summer holidays so I wasn’t subjected to all the humiliating primary school rituals like hair pulling or bounces or whatever else…but at the same time it meant my parties were usually small, so many kids were out of town, so there were differences. Either way birthdays were usually pretty fun. We could run around like mad things in the back yard, or go down to the school field and investigate the nature reserve.

When I was older we would have sleepovers and watching nightmarish movies and try to get drunk of Barcardi Breezers…heh. Give each other makeovers and try to freak ourselves out.

I know I’m going to have a fun time, but I suppose I feel less like celebrating. It’s not all about what presents do I get? For most of me. It’s just kinda cool that I get a day off, I get to help out and be useful, I’m gonna get dinner cooked, that’s nice; but then I work Friday and Sunday and my husband works all weekend, so yeah…not quite so much in the way of fun.

This brought him to our pantry, which is across from the fridge, “Mummy I have berries?” which is what he calls the Special K bars that myself and Kore have for “emergency snack breaks”.
“No, honey, I’m making you an omelette, remember? It’ll be ready soon.” I put the potatoes in the oven to bake and stirred the bacon and onions that were pre-cooking.
“I HUNGRY!”
“Yes, I know, but you need to wait, because food will be done soon. If you’re still hungry AFTER you eat the omelette you can have the berry bar.”
Pout. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Pout, “Mummy?” my dear sweet angel said, climbing back up on to the dining room chair, “You open this, Mummy?” he showed me a berry bar, sneakily snagged from the pantry while I was cracking eggs.
“No, I’m not going to open that. I told you that you can’t have that right now.” I scraped the bacon and onions into a spare bowl and poured the eggs into the small frying pan.
“I HUNGEEEEEEE I HUNGEEEEEE THIS!” he brandished the bar at me his face contorted into a scowl.
I stopped slicing cheese and took the bar from him and set it on top of the flour canister, “No bar right now. You said you wanted omelette.”
“I not want omelette,” he snarled.
“Fine. Don’t eat then. Mummy will have your omelette.”
I waited, knowing that it was coming, but still when he began The Tantrum it managed to threaten to shatter my eardrums. For one minute 43 seconds, not that I counted, he screamed and yelled and ranted about how he was NOT hungry omelette but hungee ‘This’ meaning the bar. He reached up and grabbed it down, tried to open it himself, told me how cross he was with me when I took it back and put it on the fridge, and how he would not have omelette, because the omelette was too hot and too yellow and not berries.
I said that was fine. He would not eat at all.
He glared at me. He folded his arms and glared some more — jutted his bottom lip out until I thought I’d be able to use it as an omelette plate itself, and sighed the sigh of someone who has just lost their best friend.
My dear darling son. I foolishly thought that when he turned three we’d be free, free of the tantrums and the terrorizing, but alas I have discovered what many mothers realize the terrible twos give way to the trying threes, and there’s no respite between the two stages.
So, I did what any mother does in that situation. I proceeded to set the table and make my own food and sit down to eat it as though nothing was going on.

A few moments later, thoroughly disgusted with my lack of compassion my son returned to his normal look, reached over got his fork and began to spoon food into his mouth.

“Dis good omelette, Mummy. Thank you,” he said, “I get more?”

So, I scraped for things that were good that had happened, and it was hard but I found some and over the past two days I’ve been realizing that perhaps my GP was right when he said I needed to see the psych and get back on some anti-depressants. However, we can’t afford those so instead I’ve decided I’m going to make myself focus on the positive things until I get myself out of this slump. I’d rather not be popping pills to mask my problems anyway.

My brain is strong. My mind is strong. It has to have been to have been able to get me through the things that I have survived, so this little economic crunch and loss of job and all the rest of it I can get through this. I’ve been through worse!

People always talk about the power of positive thinking, but it’s hard, and I recognize that, it’s very hard to start the climb out of the hole, but I have to, my family needs me, and frankly I need me. Yes, I’m tired. Yes, I feel like crap, but you know what? There is a LOT of good in my life. I’m not around my abusive step-father any more. I’ve cut out several people who bring negativity into my life, and here I am bringing it back in. So, I need to CUT IT OUT.

Today, for example, yes there have been some bumps, but you know what? I got laundry on the go, and in doing so cleaned up some of the mess in the munchkin’s room. I rearranged his closet, and he and I had a great time doing it. We played games, and hid under covers, and rebuilt his toy box, and had some quality snuggle time while we played Boomshine and made pretty music and sang and danced, and I’m still tired, but I can already feel my mood improving.

Rather than yesterday where I spent most of my time irritable, irritated and I bet irritating to those who were around me and having to deal with my shitty attitude.

So, what if I only got $95 on my final paycheck? That’s $95 we didn’t have before, and sure we’re not going to have much money because I had to delay the mortgage payment until tomorrow, which means hubbie’s paycheck is going to be thoroughly toasted by not only the mortgage but three credit card bills and the phone bill BUT we will have a place to live, and we may be eating ramen and hamburger for a week or so but we can make that damn tasty with stuff from our herb garden and we’ll have food, and a place to live and we’ll be together.

Ramen can be freakin’ tasty, and Kore and I are both damn good cooks so we can come up with some great meals with what we have, we had the foresight to stock up on meat and things whenever it’s on sale, so we’re not going to starve.

We have so many blessings. We’re in a safe place. We have really good people in our life, and we can appreciate that. We have plenty of DVDs and old video games that we’ve acquired over the years, so if we have to turn the cable off to save money it’s not like we’re going to be starved for entertainment, especially as several of us can run role playing games which will also help stimulate the munchkin’s imagination.

Add to that great things like freecycle — and we can pass along several of the things that munchkin doesn’t need any more to other people in our area, and perhaps get other things for him in their place. I don’t need his Pack’n'Play any more or his Rock-It exercise center, but I imagine there are other people who would be able to use them, rather than us just throwing them away.

What is it they say, pay it forward?

When hubbie gets up and asks me how the morning has been instead of whining about whatever it was that might have frustrated me for a moment I’m going to tell him about the fun we had playing tickle monster and how helpful he was as I was sorting out his room. It’s a small start, but I’m putting out positive vibes into the house and that should help keep things upbeat, and if that continues for a few days it should become habit and will hopefully spread throughout everyone who lives in this house and just keep building and building.

Here goes nothing!

It’s also hard because with us eating fresher food, better food for us or grocery bill has gone up by a significant amount each week, almost $100, so that makes it tougher. I dislike the fact that endeavoring to improve our lifestyle costs so much more. Why is healthier food so much more expensive? There are never coupons for fresh broccoli or asparagus. There are at least some times reductions in the by-the-pound price for meats, but overall we find ourselves now paying out the nose for trying to improve our family’s health. This seems more than a little unfair.