More affirmation

In all the whining I've been doing lately, I got a couple clue-by-four swacks to the skull. And then I got knocked down about a thousand pegs last week when a few people in my life lost a friend to suicide. Sadly, I didn't know him, but I had met him and he seemed like a good guy. Hearing about those involved, and the lot they were handed in life, certainly makes mine and the challenges I've had from childhood to now, look like a freaking cake walk. Then 2 friends ended up in the hospital (same building actually).

I mean, if the worst of my day is wondering how the hell I'm going to cover my bills, then I have really no true reason to whine.

Then, the other day, I forgot my electronic leash at home, and didn't have a yarny project in the mom-bus either. I had a magazine in my midst  though, and enjoyed the quiet while waiting for my son to come out of JROTC drill practice, as the Blur slept, and the cool breeze wafted through my opened windows. If I'd had a folding camp chair in the back like I have done before, I would have sat outside in front of my van to read.

I picked up where I'd previously left off in the magazine, and as I turned the pages, found this blurb about connecting with people. And it just made sense. I do this stuff too, and I have often thought rather defiantly "dagblastit, I shouldn't be chasing people down to stay connected with them like I am." I have tried to keep in touch with friends, and tried to reconnect with those I feel are important in my life, but it isn't always reciprocal. If I am to continue the friendship though, I do need to step back and leave the ball on their half of the court for a bit to see how they play it.

This topic came up while I was talking to another mom friend at church yesterday and she shared some of the same challenges I'd been having. I read the blurb to her, and she nodded, saying it made sense. She and I both share some of the same opinions about certain groups of people around us, and how their behavior reflects poorly on them and their associated places. I often wonder if I should even bother swimming upstream to try to get anyone to pay attention to their own behavior, or if they'll even care that I'm trying to get their attention at all.

Or maybe I should just do as the story in the article suggests, and leave others to discover how awesome I am, and how being associated with me could be mutually beneficial (or even just beneficial for one party only). I'm going to give this other approach a try, and see what comes of it. After all, if I'm not spinning my wheels over people who can't hear the noise of my tires, then there's no noise to hear over other noise and it's just quieter that way. And Lord knows, I have enough mental clutter as it is. So, if I can dislodge some of it, then maybe I'll have fewer A.D.D. brain moments because I'm not caught up in trivialities of other people.

Looks can be deciving

So since my last post ... when WAS my last post, anyway? (hang on, I must check this)
Ok, so it was like not even a week ago, but it sure feels like forever.

Our world has been rocked lately. And it put all my previous whining into true perspective. The other day, a man took his own life. This man was 23, held the rank of E6 in the Navy on a nuclear sub. I can't go into details because it's a very sensitive issue and there is information that does not belong posted on the internet. But just know that this man's end was the culmination of a lot of ugly. His ex-girlfriend and the neighbor found him, right after he ended his physical existence on this earth. You can't ever get that gory image out of your mind. My husband was friends with this guy, too. They would spend time watching football and playing poker at the various neighbors' houses in this neighborhood of folks who have come to be friends. And the loss of this young man has resonated throughout the neighborhood and is making its waves throughout the base where he was stationed. The things I'm hearing, if true, are just mind-boggling.

On the surface he had his whole future ahead of him. But his past haunted him every minute of the day. The monkeys kept scratching and clawing his back. And then a series of events sent him over the edge. The guardrail on that mountain road gave way and he went down with the speed of lightning.


This loss has made its way into my household, as my husband is suffering the loss of a friend, the ensuing information is coming to light makes him shake his head, and he's trying to help his friend, who found this young man, cope with his experiences. It has certainly given both he and I a smack in the head for a minute. We're not doing all that wonderfully, but we're here to deal with it. And we're not feeling in such a pit that we think our only recourse is to end our own existence on this earth. I can't imagine how horrible that feels, and the thought of ever getting there scares the bejeezus out of me. The things I'm hearing make me grateful that the crap I got handed as a child was only as much as I got handed. I am just flummoxed by what I hear, and I can't imagine the testicular fortitude it took to carry onward despite all that.

So please keep the young man in your prayers, and anyone who knew him. They need to be able to make peace with this. And please keep your prayers covering the friend and ex-girlfriend who found him, just minutes after he took his own life. It's such a heart rending situation, and some of the circumstances are utterly mind-blowing.

Is it Rum-Thirty yet?

It seems that the last couple of weeks has been trying to just get me and drag me away like zombies on the prowl for brains. It's been a series of heinously annoying occurrences, punctuated by snarky stuff from my toddler. I have no idea where she gets it. I mean, I'm genteel and graceful, and sociable.
pffffft~ who am I trying to kid. I'm none of that junk.

Highlights include communication failures abound, and I mean prolific ones. Working weird hours to avoid having to intrude on friends or pay some stranger I dragged in off the sidewalk to watch the Blur so I can work has resulted in contentious exhaustion. And my favorite - Tuesday, we woke up late, and the ensuing travel was craptacular. I put 100 miles on my van before even stepping foot into my first store for my first service call of the day. All told, I put about 145 miles on my bus. If I'm going to drive that many miles in a day, can I at LEAST end up somewhere interesting?

I am SO looking forward to the first opportunity to safely imbibe at home, with minimal risk of needing to drive anywhere. The chaos is like that insidious virus at a job. It creeps into EVERYTHING and starts looking like a bunch of overgrown vines that cover a wall. Nobody is enjoying anything, unless it involves making other people miserable.

Rum, on the other hand, provides a nice veil of DILLIGAF for a brief time, and by then, I'm mellowed out enough to stop harping at all the BS landing at my feet. I anticipate the first available time slot to enjoy Rum-Thirty. Except, I have no idea when that will happen, given all the driving I have to do. That sort of thing seems to be frowned upon around these parts.

Life carries onward

My Crackbook post this morning:

Today, I honor those who died in buildings, planes, fields ,and on streets, and those who have suffered the effects of any and all of it - by holding my head high and living my life every day. Why honor them this way? Because the attempt to paralyze us can't be successful. The hatred can't be perpetuated. The lives lost can't be in vain. The joy mustn't be successfully stolen.


And further proof that life must continue and move forward: My toddler.

We've been working on the potty training thing since Clone went to camp at the end of July. So far there has been measurable success with the #1. It's the #2 that's going to be what drives me to drink. She'll keep her panties dry all day, overnight, while away from home. She won't, however, even admit that her backside is about to lose its contents. So, Mommy gets to be the primary mess cleaner in that regard. If you could hear me speak about it, you would just know the party this is for me. It's a real kegger, that one.

So, the Blur got quiet after dinner, as I was trying to plug the INSANE schedule of: 3 workers, 2 students, and Princess-poops-her-pants into the Cozi online calendar, as P-p-h-p pooped her pants. My husband was amused. Of course he was, he wasn't the one who caught her hiding behind the door that I opened to allow the lovely balmy breeze into the house. So she was carted off to the bathroom to hose her and her Boots-adorned panties off, without benefit of the kind of hosed shower head I need to make it easier on me.

Me:   "Seriously, child, this is not nice. You should poop in the potty. Or at least tell me you have to          
           poop so I can give you a diaper."
Blur: "Boots is not happy"
Me:   "I'm not either."
Blur: "Yea, I pooped on Boots."
Me:   "uh huh. What are you going to tell me next time you poop."
Blur: "sorry."

I've got nothing. Because I know she's right.

Making steps forward

I did call one friend, and apologize for leaving her hanging.

I knew she would be 1,000,000% real with me, and sure enough, she verbally Gibbs-smacked me with an iron skillet.

She said that our friendship was deeper than dishing out the day-to-day bullcrap at each other and that I shouldn't apologize for living our everyday lives. She went on to say that she knew that if either of us truly needed help, that we both knew the other would help in what ever way is possible.

Well, now I feel a bit stupid.

And then, I thought more about it. DUH, Trish, that's pretty much what constitutes almost all of your friendships that are worth a damn. We may only catch up with each other online, or in passing, or not at all for weeks at a time. In one case, years pass with no contact. And we can pick up where ever we are, and jump in for how ever long we have mutually available.

Then, I called L back and thanked her for her wisdom shared during our previous call, and relayed a sense of relief from at least one of my perceived burdens with one person. Some of the wisdom she'd also shared in the earlier call was that she and I are the type of women that dig in when we must, and we don't require incessant hand-holding from our friends, nor do we do well having to handle needy friends who must have their hands held all the time. We can pick up the phone if we truly need some kind of help - literal or mental/emotional, and there is a friend who can do just that.

So really, THOSE are the kind of friends that fit me best. And those are the most enduring kinds of friendships. And I'd rather have that, than a variety of people flitting in and out of my life because we're just incompatible. That will still happen, but I'm discerning the kind of role I want people to have in my life each time I encounter them. Likewise, I would expect nothing less of others when dealing with me.

Here I was carrying around this weight of guilt over being a bad friend, in a manner that would rival the fruits of a Jewish mother's laying it on thick. Does it assuage my guilt at all? A bit, yes. But then it piles it elsewhere, under the column titled "Foolish Errors & Worries". I am a much more confident, independent individual than I was even 20 or 25 years ago. But I have things ingrained into me that will never leave, and my inner child will forever be present. I hear her voice all the time, and I'm constantly learning how to parent her - much like I parent my own children, and much unlike how I was parented. I see the same kinds of insecurities appearing in my children, and with it come those exact same pangs I had as a child. And I hear myself telling my real children and my inner child the things I needed to hear at those times, but no one said to me.

Because really, why do I care if no one wants to play with me now that I'm an adult? Why do I take such trivialities as personally as I do? So, when my Clone brings to the table these complaints that girls at school are doing X, Y, or saying Z, I have to fight back my own insecurities that I felt at her age and beyond. And then I have to tell her the things my socially-challenged mother didn't know to tell me. Some girls are afraid of what everyone thinks, and it prompts them to behave poorly towards someone they once regarded as a friend. There are some girls that want to be seen as cool, no matter the personal cost to them or others. And that unfortunately, there are going to be people in the world that purport themselves as a friend, when in fact they may only be looking for personal gain. We must learn to listen to our instincts when something is even remotely off kilter about a person. We must also not be afraid of being real with people, and not be afraid to let go of the weight of burdensome friends. In turn, we must respect the decisions of others when they decide that we are not the kind of person they want or need in their lives. And to expect that when you're 1,000,000% real with people, you're going to find yourself on their chopping block.

And it will be okay to be there on occasion, because you're going to move onward to more fruitful things like friendships that don't drag the day-to-day BS, or incessant drama, into the friendship. Or if it does, you and that friend recognize it for what it is, and once it's behind us, it stays there. And even when your friend thinks you're out of your gourd for doing things a certain way, you respect her opinion, and she respects yours. And the differences don't harm the friendship, because the value of the friendship trumps the differences of opinion. Unfortunately, I'd let myself lose sight of this important revelation in evaluating my friendships over the years.

The wheels on the baggage go round and round

I noticed a friend who has lived in my computer for many years deactivated her crackbook page again. She does that periodically because she recognizes what the vortex does to her life and that she needs to step away from it. I applaud her for that, because she has ovarian fortitude that I lack in that regard. Slowly though, I am actually nearing that point myself. I'm still stewing over my losses, and haven't given a whole lot of effort to the attempt at amends. I'm still deciding if I even want to, or actually should do it. I know I should, at least to apologize for leaving certain people high and dry from my end of the fence. They may not see it that way, and just see it as their own evolution that left me in their dust. I won't know till I take that step though. I'm still working up my nerve to do it, just like I'm still working up the nerve to get back on the motorcycle. It will happen, I just don't know when my cajones will appear and make it happen.

In any case, I was talking to L on the phone since she isn't online at this point, and we shared our burdens with each other, looking at the blessings and silver linings of each situation. Interestingly enough, there were parallel threads with us both. I'd experienced my own version of her disappointment, and likewise, she'd had her own version of the one I am experiencing. She said even though her mind has reasoned that she needed to cut ties with people, she still feels IMMENSE guilt for doing so. We talked of forgiving others, and ourselves. We've always heard that we should forgive those who have done wrong by us. And for many folks, forgiving equals letting those offenders back into your picture. Forgiving, in fact, does NOT mean we have to allow them back. It just means we don't let the hurt they caused to remain as a weight on our own shoulders. Reconciling is a completely different bird, that has feathers of forgiveness in its plumage. Forgiving just means you don't have to lug around that heavy baggage of resentment, guilt and revenge.

L is also Catholic, with an excellent Southern Protestant upbringing full of Biblical Scriptures. She's got excellent timing with the verses she shares with me. This recent conversation bore "My yoke is easy and  my burden is light" to which I remarked "yea, cuz I put wheels on my baggage." That imagery sent her into a bit of a giggle. Leave it to me to not let things stay heavy too long. Levity is one of my many coping mechanisms. Lately though, I'm not as light-hearted, snarky, sarcastic, amusing, interesting, humorous,  - the usual Feisty stuff. I'm feeling weighed down with mental and emotional clutter. And it's causing difficulty pretty much everywhere. Rather than chucking the burdens, I put wheels on them and schlepped them EVERYwhere with me. All I'm doing is wearing out my shoes, my shoulders, my heart and mind. The whole problem is getting to be pervasive, and that is really annoying. I liken it to dragging a suitcase along on a plane, along with a bunch of other loose odds and ends that won't stay in another bag, and keep falling out of it. If I'd checked that suitcase, I could have less difficulty handling whatever was spilling out of that other bag. Nope, instead I put wheels on it, compounding my own challenge, and the trip becomes a chore, instead of an enjoyable journey.

What baggage have you put wheels on, and schlepped along behind you? How much of it should you have just jettisoned, restructured, or framed differently?

The suck sucks.

"Embrace the suck, for the suck is part of the process" - AJ Jacobs, Real Simple, May 2012
I literally JUST read this line in an article about being creative and how that prolongs mental acuity, and had to stop to brain-dump. I've been stewing on things for several days. And I don't like what I've recognized. 

I have royally screwed up on something very important to me. And I managed to blindside myself with it to boot. It's been a long time coming, and I was oblivious to it till it was too late to save as much of it as I could have. Of course, anyone who knew me from childhood knows I take comfort and refuge in my oblivion, as I'm painfully aware of so many other things that spurn any number of thoughts and emotions.

What have I killed? My relationships with people who aren't in my face daily, or live in my computer. Therein lies my problem. My most valuable connections have become those that live online. It started when I found out my friend was given a proverbial death-sentence a few months ago. For the record, she's still defying those doctors, albeit not quite as feistily as she has in the past. I learned via her blog, a few days after her post. It wasn't via phone, in person, or heck, even a private message on crackbook. Ouch. I'd made myself unavailable and less present in her life, and learned this detail like pretty much everyone else did.

Then, I decided that with the first day of school, I should celebrate the quiet my days can have between the schlepping tasks that I mourn having to do. I posted a "hey let's do a woohoo/boohoo coffee at my house", and 99% of the responses came from people who live in my computer and so many miles away that it requires days in a car, or boarding a plane and me schlepping them from the airport for the visit to happen. One person made it, one person was on the way out the door when something came up, one person simply had too many things for her own family to do she couldn't come. Everyone else was either working, or doesn't see me as important in their life to come join me. I haven't made efforts, why should they, right?

OUCH.

I reasoned that I'd deferred my social life to my husband's school schedule, need for study and homework time that didn't involve also minding his spawn so I could be the social butterfly. That's only partially accurate. A part of it is also fiscal. That mom-bus is not the beacon of fuel efficiency, and with all the driving that I *must* do for my family of 6, there comes a point that I fail to muster the wherewithal to do any driving if I even wanted to do it. Plus, given the unemployment/underemployment of our lives the last couple years, I simply couldn't afford the 60 mile round trip to the yarn shop, 16, 20 or 60 to a friend's house when I have to spare the wear & tear, and fuel just get where I must be.

Honestly though, the larger blame falls squarely on MY shoulders. I could have picked up the phone. I could have dragged the toddler with me, and shortened the visits according to the toleration she or my friends demonstrated with the situation. I relied too heavily on a virtual connection to people, and my personal connections fell by the wayside.

So now, I have almost zero turnout to an invitation, I get a cool reception when I try to join a conversation at church with people who were happy to see me 2 years ago, I find friends from church have ended the virtual friendship online after other friends were strongly disagreeing with what was said on the internet. I apologized to the now-unfriended friend, but I think that relationship is soured terribly over it. And I'm the loser in it all. She's an awesome person. And then I had NO idea she had some major and scary health issues involving surgery. No one tells me anything anymore, and that hurts too. I do care, but my actions state otherwise apparently. Again, that was my mistake, and I failed them and myself.

I have friends who have moved into another circle that I doubt I'll ever join, simply because my kids probably won't be attending the parish school. These families post pictures of communal activities, and I think "wow, that looked like fun", and then the sour "would have been nice to be invited". And I look, and everyone present has a child at the school. I understand that they're connected that way, and I hold no ill regard for it. But in at least the 2 parishes where I've been for more than a few months or years, I see it every time. I am (or at least was) friends with some of these people prior to their joining that club of school parents. It stings. I called a couple of them out on it about 5 years ago and was told it was imagined. Really? Then how about asking the people you know from church whose kids do NOT attend the parish school if they want to carpool to and from youth group meetings, or go sit at Starbucks or Panera while the kids are there, so we don't have to drive all the way back home or find something nearby to do so we can save the gas going home and coming back again 2 hours later. So far, none of them have. I'm not in their faces often enough to remind them that I want to have a friendship with them. And I don't want to be that annoying fly who keeps showing up and buzzing around unwanted. So I leave them alone more, furthering the chasm in our friendship.

The other night I told my husband that I basically left a friend whose husband deployed last year high and dry. When we learned of the impending orders, I told myself that I would make myself available to help her when ever I could, because she was amazingly available when Blur was a baby. I understood the stresses of deployment, having dealt with it myself when the boys were raucous preschoolers who drove me to want to drink (and I did). And what did I do? I figured that she was busy with work, baseball for her son, gymnastics for her daughter, had help from her mom, helped her mom with grandma, had come to rely on another friend whose kids went to the same school - and I left her alone. I was either afraid of imposing on her, or I was impeccable with the timing of a call (shower, bathroom, walking in to work, at the game...take your pick, I'm stellar with timing), or I was afraid to call and catch one of those moments. BIG OUCH. She's moved on to other friendships that don't include me. She's still happy to see me, but I don't know that our friendship is the same either.

I suck as a friend. I have long known this about myself, because of a genetic tendency to circle my wagons when certain kinds of chaos appear in my life. It's not entirely an acceptable excuse.
I'm sitting here with my eyes welling because I am mad at myself and, yes, even those I call friends, acquaintances, etc. Mostly I'm mad at myself. I've hurt myself, and my friends. And knowing that about myself sucks. I really DO value my friends, and the friendships I have with them. I just fail to show it. And I'm sorry. I need to call these people directly and apologize, but at the moment, this measly apology for the world to see online is all I can muster at this moment. I'm still raw and angry and hurt. And I know myself enough that I need to make peace with myself and this situation a little before I make those calls. I don't want to start out apologizing for being distant and unavailable, and end up unleashing on them, negating the apology by blaming them for their share of the chasm in our friendship.

So, if you're one of those friends I've let fall off my radar, or I've fallen of yours, I apologize. This is me attempting to embrace the suck that I've created, so I can try to figure out what to do next about any of it.

Life, and how you live it

Today, I was scheduled to read at Mass. No big deal, it's old hat by now for me. But somehow, in rushing around to get out the door (forgetting to bring my electronic leash), I ended up with some kind of unprovoked anxiety, complete with elevated heart rate and shallow breathing. I was having the worst time centering myself and clearing my mental clutter. I was pleasantly surprised to see our pastor Monsignor H celebrating Mass today, versus our usual, the associate pastor, Father L. Whoever schedules the priests really needs to consider a rotating schedule, and not hogging Msgr H to whatever Mass that person attends. We love Father L, but Msgr H has some awesome homilies that we don't get to hear as often. Seeing Msgr H in the vestibule, I stopped to greet him and share my delight in seeing him in vestments instead of just his collar. He always has a thought provoking question when we encounter each other. I love how his mind works to make me think about things I wouldn't normally.
Today, he asked "Do you think it's a fair question to ask what people's mindsets are walking into the doors of the church, and what they are as they leave?"
I said "Absolutely, it's a fair question. I know for myself I'm usually rushing to get here on time, and be early when I'm reading, and then sometimes fighting with traffic, and inconsiderate drivers en route. Today was not horrible trying to get out the door on time, but I was a bit rushed because I had to be early. I made great time driving here with no issues. But somehow, I ended up with a bad adrenaline rush that I've had the hardest time clearing away so I can be calm. So I imagine that others are fighting with distractions and diversions and struggling to clear their minds before Mass starts." He shared his thoughts, but wasn't able to finish them, as someone else needed to speak to him. Such is the life of a shepherd.
How awesome was that kind of Divine Intervention in hearing what I needed to hear, and articulating what was going on with me at that exact point in time. I somehow managed to get myself squared away so I could do my job. All the readings talked about living. Today's Gospel reading mentioned the word "life" 9 times. Then Msgr H's homily talked about the readings talking about life, and living it appropriately. He moved on to talk about the NASA Rover Curiosity, and how it will explore unknown places. He asked us to imagine a rover exploring our parish, and how it could be determined that the parish was alive. He asked us to imagine a rover exploring our hearts, and determining if we were living our lives appropriately.
I'm certainly guilty of letting the diversions get more of my attention than they deserve. Right now, I'm supposed to be matching up my coupons to the sales this week so I can restock the house with groceries. We're nearing "Mother Hubbard's Cupboards". But I had to get this out of my brain before I got too diverted and lost it, because I really felt like I needed to share it. I am prone to being easily distracted and my focus gets placed somewhere other than where it's most needed. I prefer to blame my ADD brain, which is only partially accurate. I still am responsible for what I do, and what I fail to do, regardless of how my brain is wired. Today's conversation with Msgr H gave me food for thought, and the homily drove home the point. With school starting, I really do need to make wiser use of my time, and allow fewer diversions to detour my day as much as I have allowed them to do up to this point. I could be so much more productive and have fewer "aw, crap" moments in my life.

How about you? What kind of diversions detour you from what you should be doing? What else can you accomplish if you set aside any number of diversions in your day?

Sleep deprivation

I live it.

I am a night owl, by some strange quirk, and it makes for some interesting events. Even as a kid, I was wide awake late into the night when my peers were getting tucked into bed HOURS before I even cracked the first yawn. I'm not a morning person, and require coffee-kick-starting. This week, Evil Genius has been going in to work at FIVE IN THE MORNING. Kill. me. please. This means I get up at 4:15 to take him to work, because he doesn't have a car yet. There have been a couple days that I got up after only a few hours of napping, and one of those nights, I don't even think I caught what could be considered a nap. Dinner has suffered for my lack of energy to think, much less plan or prepare food for the less-occupied household. It's much quieter since Clone and Beast left town with my father-in-law last week. Clone is at camp, and having an ABSOLUTE BLAST! The pictures I am seeing of her show a radiant smile and sheer joy. And I'm eternally grateful to the two aunts who trade their services as nurses in exchange for camp tuition. It would be fiscally out of the question if I had to cough up the cash for her to go. So, I get to live vicariously through my daughter, always a slight pang of envy because she's been given this amazing opportunity. Beast is helping my father-in-law clean up PawPaw's lake house. PawPaw died right before Thanksgiving, and left the house to the grandchildren. It avoided some of the pesky debates that would have come up otherwise. My son and his father's father are a fair bit alike, even though the boy has feet that are identical to my dad's, minus the gross toenail from an injury.

But life here must go onward, and onward it does go. The rest of us here are going to work, pecking along...and I'm just barely scraping myself off the couch some days. I'm thankful for the McCoffee the boy brings to me in my mom-bus, with the requisite creamer and sugar to doctor it up to my taste. Smart child that he is, he brings me a large. I have trained him well in the art of avoiding a cranky mom. Of course, if he got a car so he could take himself to work, or managed to not be scheduled any earlier than say, 6 in the morning, I could probably deal with it. But the sleep deprivation is a minor trade-off for getting a child to his job. This is especially monumental considering there was a time I was seriously thinking this boy was going to be the death of me, himself, or others in the process of getting him through adolescence.

Food...and my yammering about it

Growing up broke, living off 2nd (or 8th) hand tangibles, I didn't have the same kind of upbringing my peers got. Mom didn't learn to cook from her mother, or anyone else. We ate some gross stuff, some weird stuff, and lots of carbs. The only thing Mom cooked well was roasted chicken and egg noodles with TONS of butter, but it was probably margarine. Dad's parents were Irish immigrants and the only way his mother cooked was to boil everything, and you brought the salt shaker to the table. To this day he STILL salts his food first before tasting the first bite.

So when my sister went to the doctor at the end of 2011 for an issue with sleeping 99.999% of the day during certain parts of her cycle, her doctor sent her to an endocrinologist who told her on the first visit that if she didn't get the carbs out of her diet, she was going to be diabetic inside of a year. Well those labs came back the opposite - sis is actually hypoglycemic. She still needed to get off the carbs though. Her physiology just doesn't do well when wheat is involved, plus she has other allergies to tomatoes, beans (legumes), and I forget what else. In her search for foods and recipes that she COULD eat, she found Paleo-style eating. And she's done really well eating this way. She eats more calories per day than before (1500 easily vs the <1000 she ate previously). She weighs less, feels better overall, and has more mobility where she previously had injuries that plagued her ability to walk through the house. Of course she weighs less, she's fueling her metabolism instead of scaring it into dormancy for lack of sufficient fuel. In turn she's been preaching her diet to anyone that would listen, and anyone whose eyes glazed over after several hours listening to it anyway.

Prior to her diagnosis I had been cutting back on my sugar intake for a few months. I've encountered varied levels of success in the last year. I found that in general, I crave less in the way of baked goods, carbs and sweets in general. It started by simply reducing the sugar in my coffee by one spoonful. After a while, I didn't need as much sugar in my coffee. This does not entirely apply to coffee I have gotten from McDonald's or Chick-Fil-A, as their brews are just really bold and strong. It's not bad, so much as just stronger than I usually have my own home brewed coffee. Even then, I'm not putting as much sugar in the strong coffee as I was before making a conscious effort to reduce the sugar intake.

Sis found an Irish blogger who eats Paleo, and shared the link with me. We're all over on crackbook too, but seeing as how this is a slower paced, easier to follow blog I'm just gonna share it here. The little I've perused, has been interesting. But the crackbook page/wall/timeline (what ever the hell it's called anymore) has some useful bits too.

In the meantime, my sister's improvement can be summed up nicely with: it's a VAST improvement over a year ago. My improvement can be summed up with: I crave protein and vegetables frequently before I'll crave sweets. Tonight, Evil Genius wanted to eat at Subway, and I didn't want anything. Except, they have white chocolate macadamia cookies and those are some of my favorites. And I only ate one cookie. A year ago, I would've eaten 2, and seriously considered eating the others. And the one I did eat seemed like a lot to me.