An Entrance Essay?

So many, many things are going on right now.  I've just been letting you guys hang out there, without an update saying "Why yes, yes I am alive."  

So.. Here I am, alive, and busy as I've ever remembered being busy in a long long while.  

The new job is awesome. I love it.  Filling out papers, filing them, moving the things you filed, emailing people and instant messaging them.  It's a dream job for this teenager stuck in a grown up's life! Lol. 

Also, I'm trying to get registered back in college, to finish my degree (gasp, I know, shocking right?)

So here's the latest and greatest... My entrance/application essay..

The prompt:

Describe a goal or challenge in your past that required perseverance and determination to accomplish.

The (my) Response::

Many statistics show that a majority of the U.S. population is morbidly obese.. I am not exempt from that statistic. My father was raised in the south where most meals were fried and entrees were accompanied by gravy. This style of cooking transcended the generations and was a staple in my childhood nutrition. That was one of many factors that led to my “weight issue” beginning in childhood. Though it was never hindered me it was always something I found disheartening and isolated me from my peers.

When I became a mother, I felt a much stronger desire to be healthy for my kids. I had a desire for them to have healthy eating and exercising habits. So in 2012 I made a resolution, like most people, to lose weight and become healthy.

To become healthy I decided a long term goal, to be at an average weight for my height according to the Body Mass Index (BMI) standards. I broke down that goal into small, reachable goals, tasks and guidelines to assist in that. I knew that I had to measure my caloric intake, increase the amount of water I drank and most importantly increase my amount of aerobic activity. Utilizing only these three guidelines I met my first goal of losing ten percent of my original weight.

While I have not yet met my long term goal, I have maintained my first small goal. I am also utilizing those same guidelines, with modifications and additions continually, to reach my next goal of twenty percent of my original weight. This is not something that will happen overnight, or something that can be conquered easily. This requires daily discipline, with long term gratification that will greatly improve my life, as well as those around me.

I am an Emotional Binger

I like to think that I'm not an emotional eater. I like to think that I'm just a person, with a lot of (very strong) emotions, who happens to eat to, ya know, survive.

Yesterday the truth came out.

I went to see my surgeon, to set a date for gallbladder removal (Friday).  And of course you have to weigh before you can even talk to a doctor, much less see one to schedule something, like surgery.  So I'm all chatty cathy with the nurse, "I haven't weighed since Fat Tuesday," little chuckle," I gave it up for lent." She just nods and starts moving the weights over (yes we are that old school around here). "Alright, two eighty-two. We're going right..."

I didn't hear any more. Two hundred EIGHTY-two?! I was two seventy on Fat Tuesday. 

I reigned in my downward spiral of thoughts and answered, yet again, that this would, in fact, be my first surgery.  After the nurse left me in the room, my thoughts went wild.

Some how I made it through the appointment, set my date, and went back to work.  And I basically ate my way through Tuesday afternoon.

I didn't track it. It's all a blur of shoving and chewing, in private where no one could see me, ask me questions, or demand any responsibility out of me for my decisions.

And here I am the morning after confessing my emotional binge. It's not easy, it's really embarrassing, admitting these faults. But I must hold myself responsible. I refuse to let ONE bad, unscheduled, weigh in set me back! So this morning I drank my coffee and my slimfast. I'll eat a healthy lunch and dinner. I'll attempt to get my 8 glasses of water in.

This is not a set back, it's a setup for a comeback! (Thanks Joel Osteen!)

Losing Star or Jennifer

I am at this really awkward to admit phase in my weightloss.

I don't have any memories of weighing less than I do right now.

Is that healthy? No. Is that at all encouraging? No.  Is it terrifying and honest? Yes!

I knew this mental block was coming. It came the last time I was losing weight. I have these concerns, which are silly and inconsequential and plain ol dumb. But I still have them. 
Am I going to look like Star Jones post weightloss? Or am I going to be fabulous like Jennifer Hudson?

Thoughts that plague my "healthy lifestyle" mind.

Pass the water, I'm losing my sanity!

Sometimes I Consider Thinking

When I made the decision to be a single mom, as in not continue unhealthy or craptacular relationships with the sperm donors who helped to make my active, mostly fun, and gorgeous children, I didn't think of a lot of things that have come up, especially recently.

I thought about having to explain that their "Daddy" wasn't their father.  What I didn't expect was not to be in a healthy relationship (married) when my daughter started asking. I also didn't expect her to start asking at the right bold age of three. THREE.  I just assumed she'd be too busy learning to potty or some little preschool ditty about colors in  the rainbow or tying shoes or something, not parents and families.

I thought about having to comfort, punish and be the security for my kids.  I did not think about the fact that they would both be just as stubborn as their aunt. Or that no one would ever been a decent substitute for me. On one hand that's all awe and sweet on the other its a plain ol' pain in the butt. Heaven forbid I shower, or use the rest room, or want to do something crazy like go to the WalMart sans kids.

I considered and appreciated that having my kids closer together meant that I was getting most of the child rearing done at one time (for the most part).  I didn't really consider their ages, and what that would mean. That my daughter would be going through this trial phase and learning her toddler body, while my son would be going through a starting interest in the bathroom or the stubborn 18+ months old. (They call it the terrible twos, my kids couldn't wait for 2 they started early!)

I thought about the chores that I'd be the only one responsible for once I moved out, laundry, dishes, mopping, dusting. I didn't think about how I'd have to try to have the energy reserved from working my 9 (sometimes 14) hour days to try and put the house to rights while the kids were up.  I didn't think about having to reserve even more energy to fight the kids to go to sleep, and then to stay up and finish whatever it was that I didn't get done before they went to sleep.

I didn't consider the mommy guilt that would come from trying to date on regular date nights.  I didn't think about how my heart would tear just a little bit every time my daughter accused me of leaving her, even if it was with my mom or brother, where she was definitely well cared for and loved.  I didn't think about how my soul would be pulled in different directions, one side wanting to be this amazing provider for myself and my kids, the other side wanting to just stay home and cook, clean, and be like those old school women who raised their kids, cattle, made clothes, cooked from sunup to sundown and still had an awesome relationship with their husband.

Sometimes I think that I may have been better off to stay in a craptacular relationship, just so someone else would be here to hold one screaming (spoiled) child while I deal with another screaming (spoiled) child.  I don't really think that, like.. 98% of the time I fully believe I've made the right, healthy, wonderful decision to raise these kids by myself, until God leads the man that I'm supposed to be with into my life and I trip right over him.   The other 2% of the time I really wish I'd 'made' someone, anyone stay around and help me.

But when that 2% of the time comes around, I do what I do when I'm on the treadmill and want to stop, I keep going until I my (undiagnosed and probably inaccurately self diagnosed) obsessive compulsion won't let me stop because I'm not at a whole/round number of time/miles/laps.  So I end up back in the 98% of the time, and kiss their heads and hug them tight and get over my single self.

Somedays I Hate Everything

I have a decent life. It's not great, but I get by. There aren't a lot of extras, but extras are just that extra.

But somedays I hate everything.

I hate my jeans. I hate my body. I hate my vehicle. I hate my kids' behavior (not the kids themselves). I hate my job. I hate my phone. I hate being single. I'd hate dating. I hate tv. I hate radio. I hate silence. I hate exercising. I hate being fat. I hate EVERYTHING.

These are the days I have to mentally slap the silly out of myself. I have to fake it. I have to rise above all this hate and dissatisfaction. It sucks. I hate it, too.

Somedays I hate everything.

Me, as Tom Hanks from The Green Mile

I wear a few hats, like most moms or parents even.  I'm head chef, nutritionist, chauffer, assistant, planner, personal shopper, really the list could go on and on. But the last couple of nights I've added a new hat, bedtime warden.

I've never hid the fact that my daughter has always slept in my bed. And my son was a very independent sleeper. However I decided (Dear Lord help me) to put Poppa in a toddler bed, and T in a twin bed.  Now Poppa gets up and comes to my bed, at ten til five. This is not conducive to good sleep for the kids, or for me. 

So I decided it was time to implement one of my new years resolutions, the kids sleep in their own beds.

Now bedtime reminds me slightly of The Green Mile. I put the toddlers in their respective beds/rooms and sit. I sit in the hall, where I can see them and they can see me and my no nonsense steely eyed glare, atleast that's the goal.

One awesome night, and one crap night. Maybe by summer we can all sleep through the night in our own beds.

I Don't Punch

I'm not much of a puncher, I just don't have the upper body strength for that kind of defense.  But somehow in my junior year of high school I punched through a window.

I know, crazy right? Wait til you hear how it happened!

I was inside cleaning, shocker right? And my sister and her friends were getting ready to go to the pool, the boys were outside waiting, impatiently, for the girls to change into swimsuits (Floridian girls and their swimsuits is a whole different post.).

So these impatient high school boys were waiting, and teenage girls being teenage girls had to redo, well, pretty much everything. So the boys decided to annoy me by knocking on the window where I was cleaning.
FUN!! A game. I can play games, I'm a cool big sister like that. So I knock back, why not? (I'm pretty sure you see where this is going.) They knock back a little more... well just more, louder, longer, there. Okay, fine, thats cool.  I knock back. Great all's good. They knock again. It's more, again. So I knock back more, again. Except when I go for my second "knock" my hand goes through the window.  I remember looking down and just thinking "Oh shit. I'm bleeding." Then it hurt.

I'm the daughter of a nurse, I got this.  I checked the wound, pulled out some remaining glass. Then wrapped that hand up with a (clean) dish towel and put a bag of frozen peas on my hand.  Raised my hand above my heart, then called my mom (and cried).

So, that's kind of like punching isn't it?