On my official list of things to do is the annual Woollybear festival in Vermillion. The Woollybear caterpillars come out like nobody’s business in October. Last year i frequently found them along my hikes.
They’re so cute and fuzzy! The festival is hosted every year by our local weatherman/celebrity Dick Goddard. This is a photo of me with my eyes closed (or as Lori says sleeping with Dick) taken with Dick Goddard at an APL event last summer.
I was pulling into a parking place at work the other day, the person in the car next to me got out of her Liberty and commented on how much she liked my car. She said she used to have one of those Jeeps and kept it until she ran it into the ground. She said she only got rid of it because her husband insisted it wasn’t safe to drive anymore and they sold it and bought the Liberty. I told her my car needed a bit of work done on it, but I was going to keep it as long as I could. If it runs and has heat, those are my two criteria, otherwise I don’t care. She said since she got her new Jeep, she likes it, just not as much as the old one. She said since she sold the old one, two other people have driven it and she wished she hadn’t sold it at all. I told her I keep hoping if I hang on to this one long enough, they will bring this style back. (wishful thinking) There’s something about Jeep owners. We are a loyal if not dysfunctional breed!
My local radio station has a club called the GFM. Grown-Ups For Miley! I am a proud card-carrying member. I have never seen Hanna Montana, but i have three Miley songs in my i-pod. My favorite, The Climb.
Still picking up glass in the living room from the HRC disaster of 10/1. ~sigh~
I received junk mail from Nationwide Insurance, on the front of the envelope the words “you’ve been pre-forgiven” were stamped in big blue letters. Wouldn’t it be nice to start every relationship out that way? You screw up, hurt someone’s feelings, and you’ve been pre-forgiven. Doesn’t sound bad eh?
It’s been all over the news lately, the government has now decided that women under the age of fifty do not need to have mammograms. (do you really want some fat cat without a vagina on capital hill making these decisions for you?) I have mix feelings about this, not looking forward to my first mammo, although I certainly understand the necessity. Of course they follow every news story with, your insurance may no longer cover your mammo, so I called today to make sure, and dang it they will still cover my mammo. There’s goes my excuse for cancelling!
I have eliminated the words blame and fault from my vocabulary.
I have been eating veggie soup at lunch more and more often. Got kind of tired of salad on a daily basis. I have been mainly eating Campbell’s harvest select light soup. It says right on the label zero points for weight watchers, so I figured it can’t be bad. What I missed is that it also says great source of fiber. With my IBS I do not do well with high fiber foods. This explains why I have been farting like there is no tomorrow for weeks now! I really think they should add to the label, Campbell’s select harvest light, the soup that makes you toot!
“Only becoming conscious of old and unchosen patterns allows us to change them, and even so, change, no matter how much for the better, still feels cold and lonely at first because it doesn’t feel like home.” ~Gloria Steinem
And on the twenty first day of November, in the year two thousand and nine, we shall mark the occasion of when Pepper finally forgave me for going on vacation. (it only took thirty five days)
Got a late start this morning, slept in, enjoyed breakfast, then got a mammogram. ~sigh~ It was a little uncomfortable, nothing you would volunteer for on a regular basis. Once it was over I headed home, walked into my parent’s house and headed straight for Pop and planted a kiss on his cheek. It’s so good to have him home where he belongs. I spent the day with my Mom and sisters. We shopped, we ate, we movied. I got almost all of my Christmas shopping done. I still need to make a trip to the Steelers store in Grove City, Pa. I got my Dad’s name in our family drawing this year, I am sure I will have no trouble finding something for him there. I also volunteered to take my sister’s boyfriend out shopping to help him pick out her Christmas present. She said they went shopping together and he was disappointed because she knows everything she’s getting and there will be no surprises. I told him to take it all back, and he and I will shop for her together. We saw the movie The Blind Side. I can not say enough about this movie, it was so good. (and yes somebody dies, although not a main character) It was very moving and it restores your faith in humanity to know that there are people in this world like the Tuoheys, it’s nice to know some people don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk.
I called my Dad in his hospital room earlier in the week. He answered the phone and I started asking questions. After a moment he paused and said, “who is this? ” (Are you feeling the love?) So when I called the house this morning to ask Mom if he was being released today, imagine my joy when Dad answered the phone. I let out an elated YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Before he could ask, I told him “this is Jan!” (he knew better) I then proceeded to name my other sister and both my aunts before admitting it was me.
He’s home, after a week in the hospital, he’s home. It’s so hard to watch your parents age, to see your once indestructible father weak, and pale. This time around it wasn’t his heart, but things are not good. He has been having continued health problems. Heart attack in July, collapsed against his walker with chest pains in September, and now pneumonia. The problem with Dad’s health is that it’s never one thing. There are always multiple factors affecting his health care. He was in the hospital for five days after his heart attack before they did an angioplasty simply because his kidneys and diabetes were unstable. It’s the same thing this time around. Not only did he need to be treated for pneumonia, but his blood sugar levels were high and his kidneys are still not functioning properly. Even today when he was released, his kidneys are not good, just good enough to let him go home.
Dad was home for Thanksgiving last year, he had missed Thanksgiving the two years before that, so when i got that voicemail last Friday my first thought was, it’s Friday the thirteenth. My second thought was, he’s a bit ahead of schedule this year. One of my many questions for him this morning was, “did you get it all out of your system? Thanksgiving is less than a week away, are we done?” He laughed and said “I sure hope so.” I sure hope so too. I know at the top of my list of things to be thankful for this year will be my Dad and the fact that I get to spend another Thanksgiving with him.
Thank you all for your love, support and prayers. I can not tell you how much it meant/means to me, and how truly thankful I am to have such wonderful friends in my life.
Every September there is a hot air balloon festival in my home town, literally across the street from where I live. I have my entire family up for a picnic, its tradition. We watch the balloons inflate and fly over my house. Two years ago one almost landed in my backyard! After the sun goes down and it gets a little darker, there are fireworks. The whole family sits out on the front lawn, (more often than not) huddled under blankets to watch.
One of the interesting things about Ohio is that we have a lot of wide open spaces and a few cities dotted here and there. I love traveling down towards the Columbus/Cincinnati area simply because you drive through a metropolitan area and literally five minutes outside of the city, you’re in farm country.
I love my parks. I am so lucky to have the CVNP practically in my backyard, Just a short drive away I can spend the day hiking in the woods, removed from the modern world. I can spend a day observing the resilience of nature,
the majesty of a waterfall,
or the awe inspiring flight of the blue heron,
stroll along the Erie canal,
or take a walk across a covered bridge,
all in my own backyard.
One of my favorite things to do is to take day trips and explore Ohio’s history. There are a total of eight presidents from Ohio, I have been to the homes of four of them. We can also boast Thomas Edison, born in Milan Ohio. I took a day trip there about two summers back. Milan is a small canal town, the basin of which was in Thomas Edison’s back yard.
I have a confession to make. I gained seven pounds while on vacation. I was so upset about this, I packed on three more. I am now back at the twenty pound mark. My knees hurt, again. I feel like I have lost so much ground. The last time I weighed this much was in February. I talked it over with my jc counselor, Jennifer. I have so many excuses for everything. I am tired, I am stressed, I started my period, the recent passing of a dear friend, Dad’s health. My favorite excuse of all my current excuses? It’s cold out now, it cost so much to heat the house i keep the thermostat set at sixty-two degrees. If i wear a short sleeve shirt I’ll be cold. I’m not kidding, I let myself off the hook FOR THAT!
Mind you if I got up and moved, I would be warm. I know this. My solution was to go out to Walmart and buy a few really cheap long-sleeved shirts to work out in. If they get ruined, who cares? I have been craving sweets, I went out and bought some weight watchers candy. I have been really down on myself about the weight gain, so I asked my friends to be cheerleaders. Every week I’ll weigh in, and I’ll tell them how much I lost and I want them to give me a big WHOO~HOO!
I am keeping a journal now. It’s not about what I ate, it’s about how I feel. Why I wanted that food, stress? Depression? Boredom? It’s about identifying patterns and finding a solution. It’s about eliminating the excuse du jour.
I knew October was going to be a different kind of month for me, going on vacation changed my eating and spending habits and I slipped right back into old and familiar traps. On the first pay of this month I went back to the envelope system. I have been picking up extra hours to rebuild my baby emergency fund, which will immediately be used to pay for some much-needed repairs on the car. Should be there in two weeks.
When I look at the big picture and how much I will have going on in the next few months, I get overwhelmed and panicky. Jennifer and Lori both talked me down with the same advice. Take it one day at a time, don’t worry about starting school after the first of the year. Think about what you need to do today. Isn’t that what the ten-year plan is all about? Taking it a step at a time, to achieve a long-term goal? As Leslie always says, we can do anything for two sets of eights. Instead of thinking about the overall picture and getting flustered, break it down into smaller steps and celebrate those little achievements along the way.
I am taking the steps i need to get back on track financially, now it’s time to get back on track with my fitness/weight loss goals. Instead of making excuses, find solutions. Rearrange my thinking and start making myself a priority. It’s time to get a little selfish and start thinking about me first. I have been saying for years that I need to practice more self-care. I tend to short myself on so many things. I don’t know why it’s so hard to get to then gym, once I am there I get into the workout and I enjoy it. It feels good to have done something positive for myself, it felt great last Friday to walk into to work and be able to tell Connie, I worked out for ninety minutes today. I think I may just need to cut myself some slack, ninety minutes is quite a workout, but I need to realize I may not be able to put in ninety minutes every single time. That’s o.k. It’s accumulative. Even on the days when I am really tired and really dragging, if I went down to the employee gym and just walked on the treadmill for twenty minutes it’s better than not moving at all. The solution to this problem, take my workout clothes into work with me, even if I don’t change into them while I am there. I will have the option of going to the employee gym or going to the one in town. Some other small changes I can make, take the time to put some lotion on before going to bed, and baby oil in the shower, my skin gets so dry in the winter. Start getting more sleep. I don’t know why I stay up so late when I know I have to get up so early. Then I am dragging through my day and I am too tired to go to the gym at night. For some reason I feel that if I go to bed early, I am “missing out”. I mean I stay up until eleven at night, so I can watch Eastwick?!? Are you kidding me? the show’s not even good. I loved Paul Gross in the first two seasons of Due South, but he sucks in this show.
With everything that has happened with Dad this year, not just the past few days, if I have learned nothing else it’s that time is short. You never have enough time to spend with the people you love. So take what time you have and make the things that really truly matter to you in this life your priority. I spent today sitting in a hospital room watching the Steelers lose with my Dad. I can’t miss Sunday afternoon football with Dad. That’s a priority worth having. I have so much real life drama going on in my world I do not need, nor do I welcome manufactured drama. I am over it.
I feel good about these choices, and I feel good about where I am right now. I have so many exciting (and terrifying) things happening in my world right now. I have really grabbed life by the horns and shaken things up. It’s about time I made my life my priority. No more sitting around waiting for someone and/or something to make my life better. No one can do that for me but me. Nothing changes until something changes. You think you’ve seen change so far? You ain’t seen nothing yet, my life is about to explode. Bring on 2010, for the first time the new year doesn’t feel like more of the same, business as usual. I’ve got mountains to move!
I spent most of the day at the hospital with Dad. He is doing much better, sitting up, talking, making bad jokes. Because it’s the weekend it’s pretty much all about hurry up and wait. We won’t know much until Monday. They have plenty of test to run, he’ll need a thoracentesis. His blood sugar level is 260 (high) and of course his kidneys have not gotten any better. I told him I would be spending tonight at home and I would come up to see him tomorrow before heading back to my place. I have to go to work tomorrow. He asked me if I would stay and watch the Steelers game with him tomorrow. I wouldn’t miss Sunday afternoon football with my Dad for anything.
