Midlife Natalie

So I started to write this way back when and then stopped because something better came along.  Not sure what but it distracted me nonetheless, and now I see that this isn’t even relevant.  Publishing anyway because who knows when I’ll get back here to write something for modern times.

When life gets busy I tend to be singularly focused.  That focus is on what is right around me.  School when I’m at school and home when I’m at home.  I rarely see or know what’s going on in the rest of the world.  I saw today that there is a massive hurricane about to hit the east coast.  I’m sure I’ve heard something about Sandy before today, but because of all the things going on in my little world I didn’t realize it.  My little world has included the district 5th grade track meet, having to get my kids to and from school everyday while their dad was out of town, making sure dinner was prepared for all 7 of us most days this week, dressing for the themed Red Ribbon week days, and juggling our extra-curricular schedules.  I admit I don’t have to do all of this alone.  Sweet Tea helps as well.  She often has to remind me of events that have slipped my mind.  Most of the time those are things where a decision has been made that doesn’t include any responsibility for me so I completely forget they are happening.  That happened this week.  Sweet Tea said something about one of the kids having plans to do something and that blah, blah, blah, and so on and so forth…and I had no idea what she was talking about.  I told her I didn’t realize that was happening and she reminded me that I was standing right there during the plan making.  I wasn’t responsible for getting said kid to the place she was going so I guess I tuned out.  I shouldn’t have because I was responsible for picking said kid up the next day and then running a couple of necessary errands with that child.

And did I pick that kid up?  Yes.  I think.

On to modern times.

I finally read the Hunger Games series.  I saw the movie a couple of months ago and it sparked my interest in the book.  I ordered it on my kindle and had it within seconds.  This is why I love my kindle.  I can make spur of the moment book purchases without putting on pants!  Anyway…so I read the first book in an evening…dropping the ball on all other activities because I can’t focus on more than one thing at a time.  (See old news above.)  I loved it but was very disappointed that it wasn’t the end.  I decided I was going to pretend that they went home and lived happily ever after despite the fact that I didn’t know who Katniss would ultimately choose.  I was able to ignore the other books for a while.  Then last week a teacher at my school who is pregnant was looking for a few good reads for while she’s on maternity leave.  Our librarian talked up the Hunger Game series so she checked them out.  I couldn’t get around the idea that I didn’t know how they ended so I pulled out my kindle and purchased them.  I spent every bit of downtime this past weekend reading.  They were good.  I came away satisfied.  I was team Peeta from early on.  I wanted to be team Gale, but so much happened to Katniss in the arena…things Gale wouldn’t ever be able to relate to that it didn’t seem like he could support her like Peeta could.  Anyway.

The librarian also gave me a copy of the book Crash, by Jerry Spinelli.  I wasn’t a big fan of Maniac Magee so I didn’t know if I would like this book.  I did.  It was an easy read.

And last but certainly not least, my youngest is not doing well in Language Arts.  She hasn’t been turning stuff in it seems.  When I got online and saw the extensive assignments I understood why.  She has never been good with choices.  Anytime she feels overwhelmed she shuts down.  I’ve learned to take some of her stress away by removing some choices.  When we went back to Turkey after a 7 month stay in the states she started having meltdowns at breakfast every morning.  I used to be a short order cook for breakfast.  I didn’t mind making whatever the kids wanted, within reason of course.  Toast, cereal, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, all of it took just a few minutes.  The problem was that AG didn’t know what she wanted and then everything everyone else chose looked better than whatever it was she chose.  I finally started making one breakfast, eliminating everyone’s choice, and everyone was happy.  They just all ate the same thing.  And her mornings improved drastically.  Now I see that almost every assignment in 8th grade Language Arts has options.  You can choose between 5 different projects for the Tell Tale Heart.  For an original story there are two parts, but part 2 has 2 options.  For a novel study she can do one of four things to illustrate her novel.  I think she saw all of it and shut down.  Now we have less than a week to get 4 assignments done.  It’s going to be a long few days!

Yes, it’s been two months since I posted anything here.  Until last night I hadn’t even checked to see if there had been any activity at this site.  I guess it’s the nature of the beast.  The beast being school starting and life getting busy.  Honestly though, I haven’t been that interested in blogging.  I just wanted everyone to know that I am alive and trucking along.

That being said I did want to mention that my friend, Mike Shain, aka The Ol’ Injun, passed away in September.  Mike was an encouragement to so many of us in this online community with his words, funny stories, cartoons, and good will.  I have missed my daily quotes and know that there are so many others out there who miss him as well.  Peace, my friend.

This is a crap post.  One of those things that isn’t really about anything, but I’m taking the time to write it anyway.  I can’t call it a post about nothing, because you will read it and know something, but honestly…it’s not anything important.

Today makes day 7 of my diet.  And while I don’t count my weigh-in until tomorrow morning I will venture to say that I will have lost as many pounds.  7 pounds in 7 days.  My doctor said I would lose between 4 and 8 pounds the first week.  I haven’t cheated at all which is a major accomplishment considering we’ve had all kinds of snackie foods in this house.

In other news, we are going camping tomorrow.  Yay!  We are headed to the Guadalupe River where we will soak and float a couple of days away.  Yes, it’s hot.  Yes, the tent will probably be a little on the warm side at night, but I’m thinking the turbo fan and the turbo fun we’ll be having will make up for it.

I start back to school on August 17th.  I have a week of meetings and prep work before the kids come back.  I’m not looking forward to being away from home every day, but I am ready for routine again.

I’ve been in a hot debate with myself as of late about my health.  I feel fine.  Mostly.  I have the occasional headache or tummy trouble or minor joint pain or whatever.  But I wouldn’t say I feel bad.  The thing is…I know I could feel better.

In May I went to the doctor for a yearly exam so that I could renew my migraine prescription.  She wanted to do a full battery of blood work just for the fun of it.  It had been a year since my last blood work so I thought it was probably a good idea.  I was right.  The results were in, and I needed to make some changes.  I was a minor diabetic, had high cholesterol, high blood pressure, low vitamin D, and low vitamin B.  I have always had fights with my blood pressure so that was nothing new.  I knew that the last time I had blood work done I was borderline high for cholesterol, but she determined that neither thing needed to be treated with medication.  When the results came in this time the whole diabetic thing threw everything else into a necessary to treat problem.  I knew the last time I went to the doctor that I needed to pay attention to my diet because of the threat of diabetes, but I didn’t do it.  I didn’t care.

I’m not sure what made me not care so much about my health.  I had a lot of other things on my mind in the past year.  I could list them all here, but they would only stand as a list of excuses.  I don’t need to make excuses.  I didn’t take care of myself, because I was too busy doing too much else.

Today I went back to the doctor.  I stood on the scale and couldn’t believe where I was.  Even after being diagnosed with all these things in May I still let myself eat what I wanted and live the way I wanted.  All summer I still didn’t care.

I thought back to the fall of 1999.  I had my last baby in the summer of that year.  I was 5’2″, close to 200 pounds, and I didn’t really care.  I was too busy being a mom to worry about my weight or health.  In the spring of 2000 I decided I needed to do something about it.  I wasn’t really doing it for health reasons as much as for pride reasons.  Our family was planning to move overseas.  The company we were going to be working for had a weight limit.  They provided very good health insurance, but you had to be under a certain weight to be employed by them.  While that might sound harsh I totally got why they needed the limit.  Most places they sent people were going to require some sort of  physical activity.  I wasn’t about to be the reason we couldn’t go.  I didn’t know what the limit was I just knew I had to lose a few pounds before we would be accepted.  I started watching what I was eating and walking on my treadmill every day.  I lost about 35 pounds.  I was 163 pounds, and we were approved to go.

While living overseas the first couple of years I gained about 15 pounds back.  I knew then that my weight limit was a generous 171 pounds and I was slightly over that.  I started watching what I ate and walking everywhere and slowly but surely lost weight again.  I got down to 134 pounds.  I hadn’t weighted that little since the day I got married!  My clothes fit, and I looked and felt better than I did in my 20s!  About this time I decided that no matter how much weight I lost I was never going to lose the flap of skin the hung over the c-section scar from 4 kids.  I decided that since I had worked so hard to lose the weight I would look into getting a tummy tuck to finish myself off.  We came back to America in the summer of 2006 for a 7 month stay and within 2 months I had gained 9 pounds.  America and it’s delicious fried foods was going to be the death of me!  Despite the slight weight gain I decided to go ahead with the tummy tuck.  Twelve pounds of skin and fat were removed.  I had a flat tummy for the first time in my life!  Even as a kid I never had those rock hard abs!  It was great!

We went back overseas after our furlough, and my weight fluctuated a few pounds.  Never much.  I walked everywhere, ate food that was hormone free and healthy, and had honestly never felt better!  In 2008 we left our assignment and came back to the states.  My husband and I separated, divorced, and I came out.  Through all of this I was gaining weight, losing a little, but gaining it back.  I mostly contribute it to the difference in lifestyle.  And by lifestyle I mean the fact that I didn’t walk anywhere, ate the way-too-generous portion sizes America loves, and sat around a lot!  Slowly but surely I was gravitating toward old habits.

And here I am today.  Today I look at where I’ve been and where I want to be.  I see how the lifestyle I lived overseas isn’t exactly possible in my city.  I can’t walk to the grocery store or to a friend’s house.  I don’t live close to either.  I am not eating all organic fresh foods, because I don’t want to pay the extra money for it.  But there are things I can do.  I can limit my portion sizes.  I can limit my sweets and eat complex carbs.  I can exercise for the sake of exercising.  I can do something.  So that’s what I’m going to do. 

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Pictures in the slideshow are various weights over the years.  If you start with my heaviest picture that was October 1999, next is fall 2007 (black long sleeve shirt), me and Sweet Tea December 2011, November 2001 at a meeting before going overseas, lowest weight (pre tummy tuck) April 2006, October 2007.

I would love to see that April 2006 weight again.  That’s my goal.

I’m too busy playing Triple Town on facebook to actually write a blog post, but I did feel the need to let the masses…though they be few…know something.  The last two blog posts have had comments from a fellow who goes by the name Bansy.  He left several comments that some deemed aggressive.  He seemed disturbed by the idea of me being homosexual after living for so many years as a heterosexual woman.  He and I had several exchanges on this blog as well as through email.  At no point were any of those exchanges deemed aggressive by me.  He asked questions and I tried to answer them to the best of my ability.

A few days ago I received an email from Bansy.  He had reread the posts and comments and had this to say,  “ I realise they’ve come off as VERY aggressive and intrusive which wasn’t my intention.  I have been in a real tizz of late…” 

He apologized for the way his comments came across and told me to delete them if I felt that it was necessary.  I don’t find it necessary.  He seems like a nice guy who is having a bad day.  I totally get that!  I have absolutely no problem with people leaving comments on my blog.  I don’t mind giving someone an audience even if we don’t share the same views.  I won’t condone hatred or mean-spirited comments.  I don’t feel like Bansy’s were over the top on either account.  I had no problem publishing them.  He is welcome to comment again.

Sometimes I wonder why people feel the need to make comments about others when they don’t know them.  Does it make them feel superior somehow?  There are also those people who make negative comments about people they do know despite the fact that they haven’t experienced the same life.  I received a somewhat negative comment on my last post from someone who I cannot identify.  I don’t know if I know them personally or if they are just someone who happened upon my blog.  It doesn’t matter to me really.  I’ve said all along that as long as the comments aren’t filled with profanity or mean spirited towards another person I will publish them.  One might argue that the comment wasn’t really that mean or could have been said in jest, but considering the post was about food and the comment was about being gay I think mean was what they were going for.

A blogging friend wrote this in a recent post.

How grand life would be if there was a clear road map, where all detours and roadblocks and traffic jams and treacherous winding mountain roads could easily be avoided. What I’ve come to realize is that there a world of nuance; each person’s path no more valid or worthy than another. There are women who are born lesbian, those who make a choice, those who dabble, those who identify as bisexual, those who come out late—those who live within a spectrum of subtlety. And, there are those, unfortunately, who will continue to struggle in their lives because they will never be able to find the way to break free and slip into the warm, enveloping, healing waters of that pool full of shades of grey.

I completely and totally agree with her views.  Who am I to discount anyone’s story?  Who am I to say that someone’s reality or experience isn’t worthy of being considered?  I don’t define what is real and what isn’t.

And if you want to read the full post you can visit here.

I had every intention of making The Pioneer Woman’s Steak Bites for dinner on Tuesday.  My youngest ended up going to my sister’s for dinner, my oldest was working and all the other kids were at their dad’s.  That meant Sweet Tea and I were alone for dinner.  When she offered a date night I jumped on it!  I put the mostly thawed steak in the fridge to save for later.

Wednesday was the 4th, and we spent it with friends eating way too much and chilling by the pool.  I thought about bringing the steak there, but since there were only 2 steaks and 9 people I decided against it.  We were already bringing a Mandarin Spinach Salad, Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad, Boudin, Bloody Mary fixins, and Popcicle Cocktails so I figured we were contributing.  I’m glad we didn’t decide to bring steak because we had BBQ chicken, Teriyaki chicken, 2 types of sausages, chicken wings, grilled shrimp, boiled shrimp, baked beans, seafood pasta salad, broccoli salad, deviled eggs, stuffed jalapenos, as well as what I made so I don’t think the Steak Bites were missed!

This morning I had a crown lengthening done to prepare for a crown on my tooth.  Because I have stitches in my mouth I don’t think Steak Bites is the best option for dinner.  The steaks needed to be cooked so Sweet Tea is broiling them.  She’s also making fried yellow squash.  I had a bite of one and it was delicious!  Since I don’t want to try to chew meat I might be eating more than my fair share of squash for dinner!  Aw…darn.

I guess I’ll put Steak Bites on the menu for next week.  I should be able to chew just fine by then!

I’m not a big TV watcher.  I like to sit down on occasion and watch a show, but most of the time I’d rather be on the computer or reading during my down time.  In my apartment I had basic cable with no DVR.  It was more than enough for me.

Sweet Tea likes to watch TV during her downtime.  She has a few shows that she enjoys watching each week as well as a couple of channels that consistently have shows that interest her.

When we bought our house we got ATT uverse with a Showtime plus package.  We are able to DVR stuff as well as pause and rewind shows in progress.  Since moving in I have watched a lot of TV.  So much of what is on TV now is reality based programing.  Swamp People, Holmes on Homes, American Colony, Animal Cops, Gator Boys, and many others are seen in our house on a semi-regular basis.  I’ll watch them if they’re on, but I’m not all that interested.

Sweet Tea loves Dexter, Weeds, Eureka, Bones, Fringe, and House.  Sometimes I’ll sit down while she’s watching one of her shows and watch it with her, but more often than not I’ll sit in the same room but be surfing the internet.

Through the magic of Netflix she’s introduced me to a show called Dead Like Me.  I’ve only seen the pilot episode, but it was quite good.  We’ve got that one in our queue to watch together.  Another show I’m enjoying watching is Rizzoli and Isles.  Sweet Tea read the books and says that the show is nothing like the books, but as long as she doesn’t compare them it’s pretty good.

So I’ll add Dead Like Me and Rizzoli and Isles to my very short list.  The list that so far only contains CSI and any true crime related shows.  Which I guess could be a long list, but since I don’t watch any of them on a regular basis I consider it short.

I do have to admit that I can barely operate the DVR or On Demand part of the whole system.  I usually give up before I figure it out.  So either Sweet Tea needs to be here so she can set the TV up for me or I’ll just surf the net.  Works for me!

Pride was this past weekend and Sweet Tea and I decided to celebrate with our church.  A couple of months ago we agreed to help some friends of ours with the church’s float.  Those friends ended up needing to drop out of the process and a new-to-the-church guy stepped up to lead the group at the last minute.

We met Saturday morning to piece together the float.  It was a hodgepodge of banners, balloons, lights, and crosses, but considering we were all new to the float making process, I think we pulled it together well.

Sweet Tea and I were assigned positions in the marching configuration.  I was a “wheel watcher” which just meant I walked next to the truck making sure nobody got too close to the wheels as we traveled.  Sweet Tea walked in back with a bottle of water to help keep a puppeteer hydrated.  She also had beads to hand out.

Ready, set, go.

The parade got underway and we did our thing.  I was surprised at how many people there were.  I was surprised at how loud all those people were.  I was surprised at how much those screaming people smelled like beer.  As I smiled and waved I saw all sorts of people.  Older heterosexual couples out supporting the cause.  Young families with two dads or two moms or the traditional mom and dad waving flags and enjoying rainbow sno-cones.  People of every age and stage were there to support the idea of equal rights for every glbt person and to celebrate with us.

There were a few that got to me though.  One girl who looked to be in her mid-twenties reached out and grabbed my hand and shook it saying thank you.  At first I wondered why she was thanking me.  I hadn’t given her any beads or done anything to get her attention.  Then I realized I was representing my church and christianity.  I was saying that she was welcome to come, and we would love and accept her…no exceptions.  And she was thanking me for it.  It was powerful.

Another woman stopped me and gave me a hug.  She didn’t say anything, but she had that look on her face.  The look that said thank you for accepting me for who I am.  I’m not sure if she was a male to female transgendered woman or just a man dressed in drag for the occasion, but either way it was moving for me.

The parade wound through the streets of Montrose and our part was eventually done.  We were exhausted from being on our feet all day.  Back at the church Sweet Tea and I helped undo our handiwork and finally took the long drive back home.  We were too tired to go out afterwards and celebrate with the masses.

I knew 2 years ago when I saw christian churches marching in the pride parade I would be okay.  I saw evidence that it was possible to be gay and be a christian.  I saw a group that I could belong to and be accepted by.  I am so glad I got to be a part of the celebration with such a great group of people!  I look forward to doing it all again next year!

So we went to Austin and I had a Purple Rita.  It was good, but I think I prefer a strawberry rita instead.  We did find out that the Purple Rita has Everclear in it which is why they limit them to 2 a piece.  I was fine with one!  I wasn’t about to get in the same situation I was in last weekend!

In other news I’m getting old.  I know…there a millions of people on the planet older than me.  There are numerous people who read this blog who have lived longer than my almost 43 years, but technicalities aside…I am getting old.  Today I plucked a hair from my chin.  The hair on my upper lip is darker than before, and there are age spots on my arms and legs where there were once just cute little freckles.  I was diagnosed with mild diabetes, my cholesterol is high, and so is my blood pressure.  My vitamin D is low as well as my B12.  I was told to take fish oil for my dry eyes which now need glasses for seeing up close.  I’ve started calling the 6 pills I have to take at night before bed my dessert, because that’s what my grandmother always called hers.  I have put them in a weekly pill box not so much so I don’t forget to take them but because I am getting lazy in my old age.  I don’t feel like having to open 6 different bottles every night.  My hair is thinner and most definitely grayer underneath the color and highlights.  The skin on my face is splotchy.  The dermatologist I saw said it was called Melasma or pregnancy mask.  The thing is I’m not pregnant nor taking any kind of hormones which is apparently what causes it.  I’m just naturally hormonal.  And old.  Great.

I don’t mind getting old most of the time.  I just wish my body wouldn’t decide to turn against me all at once.  If my face is going to go crazy on me at least my hair should look good.  If I have to be on blood pressure pills I should at least have perky boobs.  If I am going to have to wear bifocals I should be able to eat cake without it counting.  I’m just saying.

Now who wants to meet for dinner at Luby’s?  I hear they have an old timer’s special!