Snippets From Our Life

If you were a FaceBook friend of mine, I hope you realize I didn't delete you (or technically your friendship either). I deleted myself. I developed a love-hate relationship over the past year and a half with FaceBook that turned to primarily hate the last six to eight months. Launching a FaceBook page was just a bit beyond my comfort zone in the first place. I'm a private person. I'm not one of those people who feels compelled to tell the entire world publicly what I ate for lunch or what random thought is running through my head at every moment. There were times I would go days and sometimes weeks without logging on, but then when I checked in I felt compelled to catch up and see what everyone else ate for lunch or randomly thought at every moment for the previous two weeks. I'm seriously OCD like that. Before I knew it I would lose ninety minutes with nothing to show for it...except knowing what all my friends ate for lunch over the past two weeks.

There were other periods of time that I couldn't muster the self-discipline not to check in every day. I do a lot of work on the computer. My counseling practice is all electronic except for the part about face to face sessions. What people don't realize is that there is a lot more to be done for each of those fifty minute hours than just the fifty minutes of chat time. My client intakes, insurance info, treatment notes, treatment plans, and billing records are done and kept electronically. My calendar is managed electronically. Sometimes (most all the time) when I flip open my laptop it's because I need to be doing the electronic work that goes along with each of those fifty minute hours. I've never been much of a procrastinator until the past year when I found myself doing everything possible electronically EXCEPT the work I needed to do. I couldn't quite resist clicking that link to FaceBook and reading about everyone's lunch, or checking all of my email accounts to see if there was anything new I needed to know, or perusing Craigslist for bargains, ...checking the weather...reading the handful of blogs I still follow...shopping via Internet.... I was highly distracted and something had to give; it was FaceBook. I told myself I would drop it for a week or two and if I ever still had enough down time to browse everyone's lunch menu I would re-instate it. Two weeks passed, then three, four...and I lost count. Whenever I thought about FaceBook, something else came up quickly enough that I never go to it. FaceBook became what it was supposed to be for me in the first place: not a priority among things that were much greater priorities. So please don't take it personally if you were on my friends list. As I said, I didn't drop "you," I dropped FaceBook. If you were a FaceBook friend, feel free email me directly instead; I'm still highly distracted by that.

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Yesterday I spoke to the editor of a local paper in which I advertise my counseling practice. We were discussing the renewal of my ad. They've published my articles a couple times in the past year as well. The most recent one was directly solicited of me by the chief editor to whom I was speaking yesterday. He had asked me last spring if I would write an article for them focusing on why, during these challenging times in our country, do some people lose it and shoot themselves, shoot their families, shoot their neighborhoods, or do other crazy random things while others maintain their sense of "okayness" and well being. He gave me up to 250 words to write this article. You know by now that I am long winded. If I had been given a two page spread, I could have cranked this article out easily in an hour or two. Writing what was requested from me in 250 words took me nearly the entire weekend.

Yesterday the editor referenced that article, and informed me that he appreciated that he didn't have to do any editing on it; he just cut and pasted it right in. He said he could tell I had writing experience because of this and because I got a great point across in very few words. He said that good writers can do that and that I did it well. That made my day.

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I had a flashback tonight that was contained within a flashforward. As I cleaned up the dishes from the evening meal, I saw my four and a half year old boy-child outside the kitchen window. He was half galloping half running exuberantly out to the chicken-coop-in-progress to hang with his daddy. I watched his yellow curls bounce with excitement as he ran, and I had a flashforward about 14 years in the future to a time when my boy-child doesn't half gallop half run anymore. I saw myself 14 years in the future standing at the same kitchen window and watching my nearly grown boy walking across the yard while having a flashback of today when he was still my four and a half year old boy-child half running half galloping across the yard to see his daddy.

My heart hurt a bit, and I had to resist running after him to sweep him up in my arms and smothering him in kisses while I still can.

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I took my almost seven year old girl-child shopping today for some new clothes. She is literally busting out of all her clothes, and it's killing me. We bought some size 8's some size 10's. TEN! She is just about to turn seven and she is beginning to wear some size TEN clothing.

She ran around to racks of clothing that looked very teenager-ish. The styles were made in her size, and many were inappropriate for teens or women of any age, let alone for a six year old. She grabbed various things telling me she liked this and like that while I was choosing some other pieces for her. She protested a bit to some of my choices and argued with me that some shorts I said were too short were not too short as far as she is concerned. "You are still SIX years old!" I exclaimed as a sales associate passed by. She smirked over her shoulder good naturedly towards me and said something to the effect of how she seemed a bit young to be getting into clothing arguments with me already. I only paused a moment in my mind to realize the dread I already feel about parenting my girl-child through the teenage years to come.

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My metabolism is still sluggish. My thyroid is getting better, though. Actually, my nutrition consultant said my thyroid is doing quite well now, but my liver is still suffering, and that is what is bringing my thyroid down. I've hit a wall with the weight loss after reaching a 17 pound loss a week ago. I bounced up four pounds in a few days and then down two again. I haven't lost anything significant in two moths. I'm discouraged except that I took measurements today. While I haven't lost any notable pounds in the last two months, I've lost another inch from the waist and inch and a half from the hips and inch from the thighs. My nutrition consultant said my body would change shape as I follow what he is teaching me and that it may not result in pounds lost, but will result in a mass change. While I'm excited to have lost a total of 3 1/2 inches from my hips, 3 inches from my waist, and 2 inches from my thighs since March, I can only lay real claim to a loss of 14-16 pounds depending on the day. Oddly, it hasn't been enough to drop me a full size in most of my clothing. Close, but not quite. Instead, I am at that annoying between sizes point where one is too big and the next smaller one is too small. I am still determined to lose that last ten pounds that will certainly bring me comfortably into the next lower size, but I am having my moments of frustration when day after day and week after week the scale doesn't budge. Despite my efforts. I hate this metabolic nightmare my body is in!

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Last night I got home from work "early" at 8:30 pm. I was opening the window in the master bathroom and saw some deer in the distance by our bonfire pit. It was a momma with her two babies. I had just been thinking recently that we hadn't seen any deer in our backyard for awhile. The kids creeped outside with me to peek at them in the dusk and the husband attempted to take pictures of them with his new camera until the flash scared them away. Apparently he didn't get one good enough to download anyway.

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We enjoyed a true RedNeck Fourth of July last weekend. We bought fireworks from a local tent, set up the fire pit and lawn chairs in the driveway to roast weenies and marshmallows for s'mores, and enjoyed our own fireworks show as well as those of the neighbors a few miles in the distance on either side of us.


























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The afore mentioned chicken-coop-in-progress is still in progress. Dear Husband has been working hard on it while I manage pretty much everything else around the house and mowing the lawn. Last Friday he took a day off from work to start the roof. I took the kids to the pool for the afternoon and when we got home Dear Husband was beat. The underlayment was finished on the roof, but it was naked and there were chances of rain. I climbed up and laid the tar paper before it got dark and laid and nailed the shingles the next morning while Husband handed them up to me and trimmed them as necessary. It rained on us for about half of the time. I've done roofing before, but this was the first time I did it in the rain.

Our closest neighbor wandered over with his son late Friday night while I was pounding the tar paper in place. "You do ROOFS, too?!" He exclaimed. I giggled as I thought about the time he came over and I was busy chopping wood with the chainsaw, and his wife's response about me being the one who mows our five acre yard.

Despite the fact that I had been rained on and tortured by giant flying June Beetles all day while up on that roof, Dear Husband apparently still felt compelled to try out his new camera while I was on the roof.

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And finally, I leave you with some images of life as we know it at our house. Don't look too close at Dear Son's shirt or you will see lots of little finger tip sized stains. Apparently he had a few allergies bothering him that day. He has this disgusting habit of wrapping his shirt around his finger and sticking it up his nose rather than using a Kleenex. Yeah...nice, huh?