Virtual Coffee

Welcome back to another session of Virtual Coffee, sponsored by Amy at Lucky Number 13!

I'm here drinking my coffee, and I just finished my pumpkin oatmeal. Weirdest thing ever, Leia actually just licked the oatmeal bowl clean. (And yes, I did just write an entire post about her digestive problems, so no, I should not be letting her consume other exotic, outside human foods.)

Anyway, you might be wondering why we're having our coffee in my upstairs hallway, outside the bathroom. Well, the thing is, I just cleaned the entire top floor of my house yesterday, whereas the bottom 1.5 floors are still total pits. Nathan built a blanket fort in the middle of the living room, and filled it with various toys and debris, so the living room is off-limits for company.

Also the kitchen ... So, when we moved in, there was a trash compactor in the kitchen. Let me make this clear to anybody contemplating a trash compactor: Do not get a trash compactor. Why on earth would you want a trash can that was also an electrical appliance? It is always breaking, and the bags for it are expensive, and it stinks like nobody's business. Anyway the thing finally crapped out the other day and Bill removed it, then dragged it to ... a few feet farther into the middle of the kitchen. And so not only do we have a trash compactor in the middle of the kitchen, we have a big, gross gaping hole where the compactor was. So we're not hanging out drinking coffee in the kitchen either.

Anyway, should we talk about the weather? The weather was so nice last week, so nice. And the weekend kind of sucked, weather-wise, but yesterday we got a little bonus warmth in the afternoon. And now today ... bleh. Which gives me an excuse to go to the mall all afternoon. I need some more Bath & Body Works lotions and body washes, because my supply is dwindling. And yes, I know, I could buy perfectly nice toiletries at Target or Walgreen's, but dammit, I'm on this stupid diet and I'm already depriving myself of good foods, so I have to reward myself with good lotions instead. Because I think if a nice body wash makes your post-workout shower more pleasant, or you can put on a good-smelling lotion at the end of a hard day, those are worthwhile purchases.

In other news, my family and I are driving to Milwaukee this weekend for our annual trip to the Midwest Gaming Classic, which is a classic video game convention. For those who don't know, my husband is a law professor who teaches a course on video game law, so obviously he is the one who initiated this trip. Some people assume I'm going to find the whole thing to be a big drag, but I'm just happy to go away for a weekend. The hotel has a pool for Nathan to swim in, and it's right next door to a big mall. And there are some fun things to do in Milwaukee, such as The Domes plant conservatory and, umm, cheese-eating.

I probably won't do the cheese this year, though. I have a renewed resolve for Weight Watchers, largely due to the fact that I finally got off my ass and went to the grocery store to buy some appealing produce products.

And if I can close on a serious note, I just want to say that I am blown away by the responses I've gotten to my post last week about my time in the depression program I call Crazy Camp. I am so touched by your support, and also the trust you put in me by admitting to your own mental health struggles. I am thinking about all of you, and I hope you find the help you need. I am always here for you.

Thanks for coming to coffee!

Share Your Breakfast

The Kellogg's Share Your Breakfast program is a campaign to reduce childhood hunger. You just take a picture of your breakfast and upload it to their site, and for every picture Kellogg's will donate the money for a free school breakfast.

This is a picture of one of my favorite breakfasts, pumpkin oatmeal. The idea came courtesy of Ashley. It's half a cup of quick oats, half a cup of water, half a cup of canned pumpkin, and one tablespoon of brown sugar. You microwave it for one minute. It's 5 points on the new Weight Watchers program, and, as Ashley pointed out, it allows you to get in a whole serving of vegetables at breakfast.

Katie has already become a convert to pumpkin oatmeal, and you should try it, too!

SuperIma Sunday Check-In

It was a fantastic week! The sun was shining, spring was in the air, I was basking in the afterglow of a good report from my doctor, and I reflected on how much better off I am than I was three years ago at this time. And I set my SuperIma goals in the true spirit of self-care with which Leigh Ann intended, so there was no guilt and self-loathing. (Okay, there was less guilt and self-loathing.)

Last week's goals were:

• Cap off my housecleaning after an hour: Well, some days I didn't clean at all, and other days I cleaned for more than one hour, so I think I probably averaged out to an hour per day. This week was filled with such beautifully unprecedented March warmth and sunshine that it seemed like a waste to spend afternoons indoors cleaning when we could be at the park. So I guess you could say that not only did I achieve my goal of cutting my cleaning short, I actually surpassed it. I'm such an overachiever. Or underachiever. Whatever.
• Get Nathan to bed at 7:00 each day and take the rest of the evening for myself: This mostly went well. As predicted, there were some challenges due to DST and the fact that it was still light out at 7:00. But the ample fresh air and park time wore Nathan out enough that he usually fell asleep by 7:30, with the exception of one really bad night when he didn't fall asleep until 9:00. But I think he did get enough sleep, and his behavior was better, so ... WIN. And I, too, won because I spent every evening watching TV or reading, and not feeling guilty about it. You know, while I was on the treadmill at the gym the other day, I saw something in the garbled Closed-Captioning of one of the TVs, and I couldn't tell you what the show was or who said it, so this is kind of irresponsible journalism ... but anyway the unknown person on the unknown show said something like, "Women tend to feel like if they aren't working all the time, they are lazy." OMG, yes. I totally feel this way. It's like if I'm not either cooking or cleaning or doing something vaguely professional-ish on the Internet, I feel guilty. But I think with this week's SuperIma goal, I gave myself permission to not be working all the time and to not feel guilty about not working all the time, and that lack of guilt went a long way toward making it a better week.

So, this week I am setting the same goals: (1) Clean for an hour per day, and (2) Get Nathan to bed by 7:00 p.m. and take the rest of the evening off. In the interests of complete accuracy, I do have to note that I have to spend some hours this week memorizing my lines for the show, because the deadline to be "off book" is this Friday. So that will sort of cut into my "me" time, although I guess technically my participation in community theater is something I'm doing for myself, so memorizing lines will still be "me" time. (I'd really rather be at the spa.)

And, somewhat obnoxiously, I have formalized my goals into a chart.


(Saturday is all X-ed out because we are going on a trip.)

There's no bigger buzz-kill than a chart! But the message behind the chart is, You have three categories of daily responsibility, and once you have worked at each for an hour, you are free to relax without guilt.

Have a good week, everyone!

Just More of Her to Love

WARNING: This is an entire post about my cat's digestive problems. Click away now if squeamish, pregnant, and/or eating.

Okay then.

You all know that Leia is the best cat I've ever had. She's sweet and friendly and doesn't wake you up in the middle of the night begging for food.

However.

She is the puking-est cat I have ever owned in my life. I could probably count on one hand the total number of times that all previous cats in my life combined have vomited.

Leia, on the other hand, has thrown up approximately 100 times in the last week.

Okay, slight exaggeration. She's probably thrown up about 6 times in the last week. Generous cat that she is, Leia recognizes that even God rested one day a week, and that the Resolve carpet cleaner should be afforded the same luxury.

At this point you might be wondering if I have sought medical attention for Leia's digestive problems. (Okay, in fairness, nobody is wondering that. Everybody is just wondering why on earth somebody would waste a portion of the Internet on a post about a cat's puking problems. And the answer is, I'm trying to post every day, people. It's hard to think of topics.)

Anyway, yes, I did take Leia to the vet about this problem a couple of years ago. And if you think my hypochondria is just limited to my own medical problems, or just the problems of other humans in my family, think again. I was fairly convinced that the vet would tell me that Leia had stomach cancer or some other terminal illness, and I had already envisioned our tearful goodbye before having her put to sleep.

In actuality, the problem was that Leia was too fat. The vet showed me an x-ray of a normal cat, and then an x-ray of Leia. He pointed out how Leia's pockets of fat were compressing her abdomen such that her internal organs were all rearranged and smashed. Essentially, her fat was pushing on her stomach and making the food come back out.

I was supposed to put Leia on a diet. Like my own dieting efforts, I was only marginally successful with Leia's weight-loss plan.

And so, the cat keeps on puking. Bill has become so frustrated with her that he has started to refer to her as "your cat" in conversations with me.

After the most recent incident, I suggested maybe we start feeding Leia a different kind of food.

"Maybe dog food," suggested Nathan.

It's worth a shot.

Saturday in the Park

I finished reading Matched. It's a young adult novel about life in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic society, so comparisons with The Hunger Games trilogy are inevitable. However, the government in Matched was way less cruel and punitive, and claimed to eliminate individual freedom of choice for the sake of its citizens' well-being. It's the classic question of how much freedom we're willing to give up to ensure safety and happiness. Naturally, the seeds of rebellion are planted, and perhaps because this book lays the foundation for a trilogy, it was more informative than action-packed. I'd recommend it to people who liked Hunger Games, even though I think Hunger Games was a lot better.

Next I think I'd like to read either:
(1) The Paris Wife, a fictionalized account of the life of Ernest Hemmingway's wife
(2) Minding Frankie, which seems like one of those sweet little stories about quirky characters in an Irish village

In movie news, I finally got The Social Network from Netflix. Yes, I know, I'm timely! Not only that, I'm uninteresting, because I haven't even watched it yet.

What also makes me cool is, right now I'm listening to Chicago's Greatest Hits. (Chicago the band, not the city.) I got the CDs from the library and ripped them to my computer. Who doesn't love "You're the Inspiration"? And what is "25 or 6 to 4" about, anyway?

Other tidbits of information:

• I'm supposed to be "off book" (that is, have the script memorized) for Snow White by next week. I have absolutely zero interest in learning the lines. I think I just need to paint myself in a corner so that it's like, Oh God, I have to have this memorized by tomorrow! and then I'll be motivated.
• My kid needs to get out of my bed. I realize this sounds like an easy task, but if it were, I wouldn't have had him in my bed every night for the last several months. He was never a co-sleeper before. Just one day randomly he decided he was scared in his room, and he crawled into our bed at night. And then the portion of the night he'd spend in his own bed got shorter and shorter, and now I just flat-out give up and let him start the night in our bed. His presence in my bed has had some negative implications for various areas of my life, not the least of which is my eating habits. See, with him in my bed, I don't watch TV or read in my bedroom in the evenings. This means I hang out more downstairs, which is where the kitchen is, which means that I have easy access to food. And with my post-7:00 compromised will power, I end up eating everything in sight, ruining the rest of my good-eating day. Anyway, in an attempt to get Nathan out of our bed, we are buying him a new, more comfortable bed this weekend at Costco. Currently he's still in the converted crib/toddler bed (the fate of an only child, because he never had to give it up for a younger sibling), which means he's sleeping on a hard mattress designed for a baby. Our thought is that if we get him the same comfortable type of mattress we have (assuming Costco still sells the same brand as they did when we bought our mattress), maybe he won't wake up in the middle of the night and come into our bed. It's kind of a last-ditch effort, one for which we don't hold out much hope. If that doesn't work, we'll need to resort to actual parenting and enforcing policies. Dammit.
  
• Yeah, so Weight Watchers is ... umm ... I didn't even weigh in this week, I've been cheating so much.
• At least it has been warmer. We've been able to go to the park every afternoon, which tires Nathan out and makes him fall asleep more easily. Which is an especially good thing because Daylight Savings Time often throws a wrench in bedtimes. Like my Chicago CD says, "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?"

Have a good weekend, everyone!

This and That

First of all, I want to say a big fat thank you to everybody who commented on Tuesday's post. I should have said it yesterday, but I started yesterday's post early, before I got all the comments on Tuesday's post.

Anyway, thank you! That was a hard post to write, and I appreciate your support. And I want to send an extra dose of love to those who are battling depression. IT WILL GET BETTER. And I hope you get the help you need soon. DO NOT GIVE UP.

Tuesday's post was one of those reminders of why blogging really can make a difference. I love it when you guys tell me, "I don't know you, but I feel like you're my friend," or, "I'm so glad I found your blog." Oh and by the way, I appreciate the readership of those who do know me, too. As I've said before, sometimes it takes the written word on the impersonal Internet to really get to know somebody you thought you already knew in real life.

So I'm glad that my blog, no matter how small and unpopular, can make a tiny difference in people's lives. But I have to admit that in spite of all my warm fuzzies, I still obsess over the pageview stats for my blog. I had this goal to get to 1,000 pageviews per day by the end of 2011, but it's mid-March already and I only get 100 on a good day. I guess I'll have to have something really controversial happen to me so I can write a post about it and go viral.

In other news, who loves the sunshine?! Everyone does! I really marvel at how much sunshine and daylight improve people's moods. Yesterday we got the kind of pure, bright sunshine and warmth that I don't think we've seen in several months. It made me instantly happy and energetic. I was the patient mom I wanted to be. I took advantage of teachable moments when they arose and gently reprimanded when necessary. And we got so much done! We went to the gym, the library, Target, and the park.

And so I resume my annual March delusions of maybe the weather will be like this from here on out.

Anyway all that outdoor excitement tired me out, and so last night when I was supposed to be working on memorizing my lines for the show I'm in, I watched two episodes of Hoarding: Buried Alive instead. Now, is this a different show than Hoarders on some other channel? Why are there two shows about hoarding? And, more importantly, why do I get sucked in to these shows? I know the obvious conclusion to the show is going to be that the house gets cleaned out, and yet I keep watching through the whole episode so I can find out what happens at the end. I tell myself that my interest in this show stems from my interest in psychology, but really I think I like watching it because I can taunt my husband about how his collecting interests are just a few steps away from hoarding like the people on the show. And the worst is that I always watch the hoarding shows live, which means I have to wait through commercials, and I should DVR it, but it's just too embarrassing to record Hoarders.

And on the last night's episode, this woman refused to tear down a shrine she built to her dog, which included a small plate with a piece of the woman's own birthday cake under cellophane. She said the dog died before the her birthday and she wanted to share some cake with him. Uh-huh. And on another note about that same show: I know opening up your craphole of a house to TV cameras might indicate that you don't have the same level of shame as the rest of us, but please replace your missing front teeth before you go on national TV. Maybe you have some dentures lying around in those piles of yours.

Okay, off to fight the good fight for another day!

We Can Work It Out

So, remember my ridiculous bout of hypochondria last week, the one where my neck glands swelled up and I was convinced that I had cancer?

Well, so on Friday, when I had my cell phone attached to me in the hopes that the doctor would call, I had an appointment with my trainer at the gym. I explained the whole gland-swelling situation to her, and her first comment was that she used to experience the same thing, and it was a result of working out too hard.

Working out too hard.

Now, there's no real way to know what the cause was (except that it was not, thankfully, cancer). The doctor speculated allergies and gave me allergy medication. Just to be safe, he prescribed an antibiotic in case I had some kind of undetected infection. And in case the glands were swelling up due to over-training, I took the weekend off from the gym.

Something in this multi-pronged attack made me feel better. And let's not discount the healing effects of peace of mind. I think we've all had some mystery ailment that just disappears on its own once a medical professional gives us a clean bill of health.

But, hypothetically, let's just say that part of the problem was that I was exercising too hard. First of all, I am the last person anybody would ever expect to have an over-exercising problem. It's kind of like how everybody thought I drove like an old granny, and yet I still managed to get a speeding ticket (stupid Iowa state troopers).

But, you know, Jill could be right. I could possibly have been pushing myself too hard at the gym. What I like about Trainer Jill is that, unlike so many other gym personnel, she doesn't work you too hard. She works you to an appropriate level of challenge for you. Obviously it is easier to individualize a workout plan when you're doing personal training than when you're teaching a group exercise class, so I can't be too hard on the other instructors. But the fact remains that Jill believes in moderation.

And so I realize once again that I have trouble defining moderation.

I do know I have a "go big or go home" attitude about the gym. As in, Well, I managed to get here, so I might as well knock myself out. And I have a bit of a denial problem when it comes to accepting that maybe I am like 50 pounds overweight and should not be attempting the exercises of some of my thinner fellow gymgoers. Then there's the not-so-insignificant fact that a harder workout will get me to be thinner faster. (Or so I thought. Jill says over-exercising can actually be counter-productive to weight loss, because it slows down your metabolism. Yet another one of those counter-intuitive human body things.)

Also doing cardio every day makes me feel better. As I've said before, I see myself as a car that has been sitting in a garage, undriven, for too long. My body needs to go out and get used so I can blow out some of those exhaust fumes.

And isn't every single article you read in every single publication always upping the ante for the amount of exercise that "experts" recommend? You could feel good that you're doing the treadmill three times a week for half an hour each, and then somebody in Parade magazine is telling you that you should be doing it five times a week for 45 minutes each.

And I want to train for a triathlon, and I want to be able to swim 3 miles in a lake, and, and, and ...

I would say that I can't win, but I think I can. See, ever since the conversation with Jill on Friday, I have turned off a little bit of my workout guilt. I didn't go to the gym yesterday, and that's okay. Sure, So-and-So goes every single day, twice a day, but So-and-So is not me.

I have also started paying more attention to my own heart rate (seeing as I own this fancy $60 monitor) and not letting my heart rate get too high. I've been saying that if I do want to exercise most days, I need to exercise at a more moderate pace.

It seems weird to me, somebody who is overweight having to cut back on exercise. But I need to do what is right for me and not turn exercise into yet another example of a situation where I feel like I'm not good enough.

So, I am learning to be reasonable. At least when it comes to exercise. All the other things, that will come.