quickie update

Tags

divorce, getting healthy, goals, health, life, limits, love, moods, motivation, not gonna go there anymore, recipes, smoothie recipe, stress

Josh has known about this blog for a very long time but, I had thought, didn’t read it unless I asked him to. Apparently since I kicked him out he’s been reading. Last night I got a super nasty little text from him about some things I said in last night’s post. (immediately after one where he sent me a text kiss) Anyway, because of that there will be no more talk of him. No sense adding fuel to the fire.

Moving on…

Day three of getting up and on the treadmill and I’m drinking a healthy little smoothie for breakfast. Here’s my standard recipe:

• 1 C frozen fruit
• 1 single serving container of yogurt, I tend to go for either Greek or low carb in a flavor that goes well with the fruit
• 1 C lowfat milk, you could use a non-dairy milk if you prefer

Toss all of that in a blender and kill it. This makes the perfect size serving for me and in this terrible heat we’re having right now it’s a lovely light way to start the day.

What’s your favorite quick healthy breakfast?

 

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highlights since last I babbled at y’all

Tags

anxiety, divorce, friends, goals, life, limits, love, mental illness, stress, work

I did NOT get selected for a jury, thank DOG. The case involved alleged sexual assault of a young girl by her father. As soon as I heard that I had a very hard time not jumping up and ripping that guy to pieces with my bare hands. Apparently his lawyer sensed my hostility and everyone agreed that I was not an appropriate juror for that particular case.

But while I was at the court house I was able to file the papers for the divorce, at least most of them, and give the nice clerk my $157. I had neglected to have Josh sign something that said he’d been given copies of everything so I had to get him to come over this afternoon when he got done at work.

He’s still wearing his wedding ring.

In all other respects he’s still being the same shitstain I kicked out on July 2nd. So much so in fact that not even the paper towel sweatband he was wearing (because he hasn’t taken all of his shit with him which would include several way more appropriate, and comfortable, garments) made me feel bad for him. He looks bad. Really bad.

I, however, look fabulous according to all of my pals at work. I should, right? I mean, I’ve lost 250lbs since the last time they saw me. They all commented on how they’ve never seen me look this light and happy before, and the one gal has known me more than 14 years. So that was good. And I got to spend a little time redecorating a bit and rearranging some stuff.

Perhaps now life will start to settle. I’ll put the form in the mail tomorrow morning and once the court receives it my 60 day countdown clock starts. After the 60 days are up I call the clerk and find out when my court date is. On that day I’ll go back to the courthouse at my designated time with the rest of my paperwork, be sworn in, sit on the stand, answer the judge’s questions (which are just a rehash of what’s on the paperwork), and then it’ll be done. So hopefully sometime towards the end of September this will all be behind me.

On a much lighter note, I’ve been working on the shrug, I walked yesterday and today, and I’m in much better shape with the class I have scheduled for next Wednesday than I thought I’d be. Yay.

life worth living weekly update – July 12th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

Another strange, but entirely awesome, week. WOOT!

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug. Trying this one again. Not yet, but I have joined the second sleeve to be worked in the round so the end is in sight.

Stress Management: I really want to start water aerobics again so I’m going to focus on finding a place. I’m also on vacation this week so I’m going to do my very best to relax. Got in plenty of relaxing, still haven’t for sure found a place to do the water aerobics.

Health: I got some new vitamins, new shampoo/conditioner, and I’m going to try to find a different moisturizer. I need to just get back into taking care of my physical health. Picked up even more vitamins and I’ve been using the new moisturizer every day. I like it even better than the first one.

Financial:  I need to make sure that I can cover what’s left for this month including paying for the divorce paperwork. I’ll be selling the Honda so that’ll help. When I sold the Honda I paid off a small loan that I had with Mom, my line of credit at the bank (and then closed it), and my credit card (kept that open for emergencies). I also spent some time looking at what my finances should be now that it’s just me and things will be soooo much more comfortable.

Simplify:  I don’t think I really even need this anymore. YAY! Yay!

 

Goals for this week:

Turns out I do have to report for jury duty, at least tomorrow morning. I’m not pleased by this, but there isn’t much I can do. It does mean that I’m going to try to get some of my work done at home, assuming I can get back into my account. I put in a request to have my name changed back to what it had been before I left on Thursday and they actually did it.

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug, seriously. It shouldn’t take more than a few more days, tops.

Stress Management: I’m aiming to get back on the treadmill at least 5 times for a minimum of 15 minutes each time.

Health: I really need to get back on the healthy eating bandwagon. There’s been a bit too much crap in my diet lately.

Financial:  Even though my situation is more comfortable now, I have got to quit buying shit like I’m loaded.

 

life worth living weekly update – July 6th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

It definitely wasn’t the week I thought I’d have, but it was pretty fucking awesome.

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug. No, but I did work on it.

Stress Management:  I really REALLY need to get back on the treadmill. I didn’t do this, but I’ve been pretty damn active the last few days.

Health: Skin again. For some reason my hands are just trashed. I sort of did this but not as well as I should have.

Financial:  Pay day is tomorrow, time to get serious. It’s amazing how much more money I have available now that I’m truly only paying MY bills.

Simplify:  ??? Not sure about this one this week. I got rid of a TON of stuff. I loaded the Jeep full 3 times with stuff we took to Goodwill.

 

Goals for this week:

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug. Trying this one again.

Stress Management: I really want to start water aerobics again so I’m going to focus on finding a place. I’m also on vacation this week so I’m going to do my very best to relax.

Health: I got some new vitamins, new shampoo/conditioner, and I’m going to try to find a different moisturizer. I need to just get back into taking care of my physical health.

Financial:  I need to make sure that I can cover what’s left for this month including paying for the divorce paperwork. I’ll be selling the Honda so that’ll help.

Simplify:  I don’t think I really even need this anymore. YAY!

 

quick picture post

Tags

building a life worth living, getting back my mojo, getting creative, goals, life, mental health, mental illness, motivation, normal, projects

That’s the black and white vest that plagued me for so long. It’s done and I wore it to work this morning. I was teaching a brand new class, my third of the summer, and wanted a little something to make me feel pretty. You can’t really see it but I also made the necklace and earrings I have on. Hopefully I’ll be back later with a slightly longer post. ❤

life worth living weekly update – June 29th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

The nicest thing I can say about last week is that it’s over. (I think I said that last week, too.)

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. I FINALLY finished the black and white vest and I did make good progress on the knit shrug.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. Nope. Because of the severe issues with my legs I only managed one time and only for 10 minutes.

Health: Back to working on a healthier diet. Tomorrow morning I’m trying the soaked chia seed breakfast again with some tweaks. I got the chia breakfast thing figured out and it’s amazing. My diet did some up and down things last week but I managed to lose one pound. So yay.

Financial:  I need to look at the budget again, closer, and see where I can make changes. I want to get things paid off. This didn’t happen because of all the medical shit with Josh. I simply didn’t have the energy or inclination.

Simplify:  I actually went through my printed patterns last night and got rid of the ones I knew I wouldn’t ever actually make. I think going through the craft supplies is probably my next stop. I don’t have too much excess of anything, except maybe yarn, but if nothing else it’ll refresh my memory of what I’ve got. I didn’t get rid of anything but I was able to straighten up the yarn storage and figure out what all I’ve got.

 

The challenge is officially over and I officially did not do well. I’m going to keep plugging away at finishing the other two projects. I’m thinking the next time I do this sort of challenge that it’ll be just a little easier, like maybe not shopping for anything but groceries or something.

Goals for this week:

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug.

Stress Management:  I really REALLY need to get back on the treadmill.

Health: Skin again. For some reason my hands are just trashed.

Financial:  Pay day is tomorrow, time to get serious.

Simplify:  ??? Not sure about this one this week.

 

so much to tell you

Tags

anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression, divorce, goals, health, life, limits, love, mental health, mental illness, moods, motivation, sick, skin conditions, stress

I’m not really even sure where to begin, which isn’t like me. So let’s see…

I did walk on Friday, only 10 minutes, but still. And my total for the week in terms of weight loss was one pound. I’ll take it.

Josh had the appointment with the cardiologist Friday afternoon. He almost certainly has blockages in his heart and his legs. On Monday he goes in for a scan of his legs and then on Wednesday they’ll do an angiogram. Not sure what they’ll find or when he’ll come home. I honestly don’t think it matters. He isn’t taking any of this seriously and I’ve decided I really don’t care. If he doesn’t love me enough to take care of himself then there’s no point in worrying about any of this.

Mom and I went shopping today, as per our usual Saturday morning fun. We did the big farmer’s market downtown, Kohl’s, Barnes & Noble, and Hallmark. She had some wicked good coupons at Kohl’s and gave them to me so I ended up with a swimming outfit for $1.06. It’s really workout shorts and a tank top that should be alright in the water and will cover the truly unsightly bits on my legs.

This afternoon I got the sewing done on the black and white vest. WOOT! I still need to trim the threads and clean up a few rough edges, but it’s essentially done. I am so fucking excited to see the ass end of that project. The knit shrug is coming along nicely as well, I’m thinking maybe tonight I’ll get to spend a little time with it. Although, maybe not, because…

MENTALTOASTER is a thing! My friend got the URL registered, WordPress is installed, and now we’re working on some final details and what it should look like. My intention is for it to be a positive place where anyone wanting to get or give support on nutritional/health type issues can go, particularly if that person also has mental health issues. I will definitely let y’all know when everything is live and ready to roll.

life worth living weekly update – June 21st

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

The nicest thing I can say about last week is that it’s over.

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. There was some progress made. See below.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. Didn’t go as well as I wanted it to so this goes back on the list. Again.

Health: Skin care (hands, feet, and now my face – yes, I bought moisturizer finally), new crud for my hair, and back to eating healthier. We took a trip to the farmer’s market yesterday morning and I’ve got some great veggies to keep me company. Mostly good with this one, though not entirely. I did manage to lose weight last week, which was a damn miracle. Still working on a balance.

Financial:  I need to get my spending under control. Seriously. It’s really hard to spend what you just don’t have. I did take the time to go over our budget and print a copy.

Simplify:  Even if I don’t manage to get rid of anything, the closet needs some love. This actually happened almost immediately after I posted last week. We didn’t get rid of much but Josh did manage to move most of his winter stuff in his cedar chest to free up some room in there.

I made great progress on the knit shrug last week, as evidenced by the one pic I shared. I need to bind off that sleeve and then start the other half. I had the kid frog the crocheted vest yesterday. It was sad, but it needed to happen. There was no fucking way to salvage that damn thing.

I have yet to get back to the black and white vest and I still haven’t touched the dragon cross stitch. I honestly don’t think there’s any hope in hell of getting this all done in time.

Goals for this week:

Staying out of prison is a legit goal, right?

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. This is rolling over from last week, AGAIN. Sweet Ceiling Cat am I tired of this bullshit…

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum.

Health: Back to working on a healthier diet. Tomorrow morning I’m trying the soaked chia seed breakfast again with some tweaks.

Financial:  I need to look at the budget again, closer, and see where I can make changes. I want to get things paid off.

Simplify:  I actually went through my printed patterns last night and got rid of the ones I knew I wouldn’t ever actually make. I think going through the craft supplies is probably my next stop. I don’t have too much excess of anything, except maybe yarn, but if nothing else it’ll refresh my memory of what I’ve got.

 

the best laid plans of Mama OR why Tuesday kind of sucked as bad as Monday, but maybe only on the level of sucking tadpole nuts

Tags

adventures in cooking, bipolar disorder, crochet, getting creative, getting healthy, goals, health, husbands are like large children who still don't listen, life, limits, meds, mental health, mental illness, moods, projects, random shit that falls out of my brain, recipes, skin conditions, stress, stress management, the world is full of fucking idiots

Holy fucking flying squirrels, TIME OUT!

I will spare you some of the gory details because I’m polite like that, but dammit, what a day. Josh still doesn’t have everything taken care of for his pre-op crap and somehow that was my fault, even though I’ve been nagging him about it since we found out it needed to be done. Evidently I was supposed to completely plan out all of it to ensure that he got to class, got the supplies he needs for class (that place closes at 5pm and is on the other side of town), got all of his homework done on time, and got the pre-op stuff done (had to be at the doc’s office before 6pm) AND all of this had to be done this week.

Needless to say he’s at home today because the goddamn EKG didn’t go well and this way he not only gets a day off work but can do all of that other shit plus have time to fuck around. Apparently life is good when you’re an idiot.

I met with shrinky-poo yesterday and that, fortunately, went really well. I mentioned to her this glorious rash I developed after setting up the garden with Mom a few weeks ago and evidently, get this, I am ALLERGIC TO THE SUN. Long term lithium usage apparently makes you sensitive to natural sunlight so it’s likely that any time I’m outside for any length of time I’ll turn bright red, bumpy/blistery, and itch like mad. Ah yes, you’re jealous, I get it.

Last night after all the excitement I though to myself, “self, we should totally work on that crocheted vest. Fucking thing is damn near done. Let’s get on that right now!” And so I did. Then this happened…

that’s one of the “sleeves” and there is a 360 degree twist in it

that’s what it looks like all laid out; notice how incredibly ruffly the sleeve bits are? ick

and that is one of my man-hands laying on top of it to show how ridiculously too fucking big it is

I put it in time out and started working on the knit shrug instead while I decided the fate of this monstrosity. The yarn is phenomenal and it deserves to be turned into something truly lovely. So I really think that it’s going to be frogged (ripped out so that the yarn can be reused, for those of you who aren’t knitters/crocheters). Right now I just can’t hardly bear to look at it.

One of the other things I decided to do last night was try some new recipes involving chia seeds. (yes, I am 100% jumping on the healthy hipster food bandwagon and I apparently like torturing myself) I made a really good smoothie that I will absolutely make again, probably tonight. And then I decided to try this breakfast thing. Kind of like oatmeal but made with the seeds. The recipe looked easy, sounded tasty, so off I went.

fish eyes, yummy!

surely adding more milk will help, right?

the rest of that bottle of milk PLUS some frozen blueberries! surely this is all it really needs, right?

So now I’m sitting next to a bowl of what looks remarkably like fish eyes with rabbit turds floating in it, hoping like hell that the blueberries defrost and I can maybe eat this shit. The flavor isn’t bad, honestly, it’s the texture that’s a little strange. And I’m really thinking that I may need to put a safety belt on the toilet later.

One of these days I’ll learn.

life worth living weekly update – June 14th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

This week was really pretty odd. Josh started back to school and was gone three nights. This is good but it always takes a little time to adjust. And evidently one of my meds doesn’t like me getting a whole lot of sun. I have a rather wicked rash that looks horrid. But it was a good week overall.

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. I did work some on the crocheted vest though not as consistently as I had wanted to. My plan is to get the black and white vest done today.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. I walked four times on the treadmill and I can’t remember if I got 25 minutes in each time or not. I am adjusting the speed and incline so that my workout sessions are a little more intense.

Health:  I’m going to focus on my skin this week, primarily my hands and feet. I need to continue to do this so it’s going to carry over. But… I’m also going to get back to eating better. My habits over the weekend kind of went to shit. I want to lose a little weight this week so it’s back to eating salads for me. This was a little hit and miss though I feel like I did really well with the skin stuff. The only night I did do everything was last night and I had a mani/pedi yesterday. The eating better was mostly better. It would have been great if I hadn’t gone for ice cream twice. But I didn’t gain any weight last week and that’s good.

Financial:  I want to try to take a long hard look at what I’m doing with my money and where I need to make changes. (other than just not going shopping) Didn’t get to this.

Simplify:  I’m not sure right now what makes the most sense to do with this right now. And actually, I may just put it off in favor of spending more time with my 28 day challenge. I did manage to take a small load of stuff to Goodwill. There’s much temptation to dig into the closet again and get rid of a few things, just not sure if that will happen this next week or not.

This isn’t much of an update, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

For some reason I just haven’t been able to stick to the plan I had laid out for myself. I am still making progress, which is good. I also made another vest yesterday that just needs a few tweaks and then I’ll call it finished and that one wasn’t part of the original plan. But it was super quick and very funky. Anyway, I’m going to try to get back to this today.

Goals for this week:

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. This is rolling over from last week, AGAIN.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. Trying this one AGAIN as well.

Health: Skin care (hands, feet, and now my face – yes, I bought moisturizer finally), new crud for my hair, and back to eating healthier. We took a trip to the farmer’s market yesterday morning and I’ve got some great veggies to keep me company.

Financial:  I need to get my spending under control. Seriously.

Simplify:  Even if I don’t manage to get rid of anything, the closet needs some love. The shelf above the rod is where Josh and I keep our t-shirts and it’s an utter mess. I’d like to get him to go through his clothes sometime this week, just not sure if it’ll happen.