Whew!

OK, both kids are back in school, I've taken 2 yoga classes this week, and I just downloaded an Tabata MP3, which I will do later today, before my Pilates class.
The past couple of days have been a bit stressful.  It turns out that switching school districts in the middle of the year involves not only a ton of paperwork, but I have to plead with the school board to let my son stay in his current class for the last 3 months of school.
And there's still no guarantee that WG will be able to continue at HER school.  But if there's an issue there, we're hiring a lawyer, because she is THRIVING.
The biggest problem is that no one in either district is returning my phone calls and emails, and everyone is assuming I know what the proper procedure is for all of this.  How the hell would I know?!?!?!  Thank goodness for the (current) school secretary. When I drop LG off she's always willing to answer whatever questions I have.  I owe her big time!!!!!!
Of course, with all the mishugas, I've been doing some stress eating.  Including stuff like pizza, which not only doesn't get rid of the stressors, it gives me a stomach ache.
Oy vey.
But it's a process, right?
That's what I keep repeating to myself.
Plus, I'm hoping some Tabata drills will help me burn off some of this frustration!

On a completely different topic, "Doctor Who" is currently between seasons, and I'm filing the void with old episodes of "Law & Order" (the original).  And some new ones.  But mainly many of the episodes I missed in the 90's when I was either working at the theater company or in grad school.
Like many of my generation, I've had a crush on Sam Waterston for nearly 30 years.  I was lucky to see him onstage a couple of times when I lived in New York, and he's one of my favorite actors.   He Played "King Lear" a few months back, and I so wish I could have seen it!
Which has got my brain up and running (OK, more like mall-walking) again on the track its been on for the past few months. The subject I've been beating you all over the head with: teaching.  Specifically, teaching voice.  This morning I heard back from my friend at the previously-mentioned theater company, and I WILL be helping out the weekend he's teaching his workshop here.  I'm SO excited!!!!!!
More that that, I can feel change coming on.  In a good way.  That sense of a part of me waking up that I mentioned last time? It's getting stronger, and I'm feeling more optimistic than I have in a long time.
And, to tie it back to my body issues, I really believe that they're strongly tied to all of this.Getting away from other peoples' expectations and all the "shoulds" and doing things out of guilt, and finding what I'm meant to be doing. Aside from being my kids' mom, which, I believe, was fated.  :)


Finally, yesterday in yoga class it hit me that I was there as a student, not an instructor.  When the teacher gave me an adjustment, those old self-critical voices (yes, the Noisy Nattering Chipmunks) started up, but another voice came in and said "It's OK. You're not teaching this class.  It's OK to be the student once in a while."
And THAT shut the chipmunks right up, let me tell ya!
It was awfully nice.
I really like that voice.
I think I'll listen to it more often.

Le Sigh

So the 49ers won't be at the Superbowl this year.
But the Pats WILL, so that's good!
I don't follow football regularly, but I hope the Pats kick Giant patootie!!!!!!!

LG was home sick on Thursday & Friday, and it looks like WG is getting his cold. Who says kids don't share?

The workouts are going well.  The Tabata/HIIT drills suck, but they're over quickly.  They're not as intense as they might be for some, but they're killing me, lol!
I'm combining those with my Slim in 6 workouts, along with yoga and,of course, my Pilates classes. And this past week I subbed a class called "Pilates Beam."  It's a little padded balance beam-like object that you stand and lie on to do the exercises.  It forces your core to work harder, since you have to balance.  I taught it in the evening at Crunch, and it was really fun! Being there at that time reminded me of my younger days, when I went to the gym in the evening with all the other 20-somethings, the music was loud, and people checked each other out A LOT.  OK, so I wasn't always crazy about that last bit, but it was a nice change of pace.

The veg diet is going well.  I have a bit more energy and less brain fog, so that's nice. :)  It's also forcing me to be a bit more creative with my meal preparation.  I don't always want to eat a block of tofu and a salad, after all.  Also getting fewer headaches, stomach aches, and reflux.

I'm also doing a bit more creative stuff. Writing (for fun), getting ready to audition for an improv company, and I just found out the Shakespeare company I used to work with will be in town for a weekend training and I'm hoping to be able to volunteer at it. There also seem to be a few more teaching jobs available, as the economy creeps back up.
I've been hearing for some time now that if you open yourself up to possibilities, they will appear.  Could that be what's happening?  Maybe, since I'm no longer taking jobs because I feel I HAVE to for the money, the job I WANT will show up? That'd be great!

Not that it would stop me from bi*#*ing about it, lol!

Anyway, it's now Monday and WG is home from school.  She probably could have gone, but just to be on the safe side we kept her home today.
Which means I GET HER ALL TO MYSELF FOR 6 HOURS, YAY!!!!!!!!!!!
I hate when the kids are sick, but I LOVE it when they're feeling better and we can hang out, one-on-one.  There's so little time for that, usually.Tomorrow they'll both be back in school and life will go back to it's regular schedule.

All in all, I feel like a part of me that's been sleeping is waking up.  The creative part, perhaps.  It's good, it needed a nice long nap.  Poor thing was tired, overworked, under-appreciated, and wanted a vacation.  Well, it's been 9 years, and it's back: tanned, rested, and ready to go!

Groovy.

Aaaaaahhhh!!!!! Part Deux

After taking a week of staycation,  I went with Hubby & the kids to Yosemite again.  This time we stayed at a hotel for two nights, met up with some friends, and were very active.  We went on some hikes and got to skate on Tenaya Lake.  Folks were calling it a once-in-a-lifetime experience: Touolome is at 8500 feet, so the roads up to it are usually closed in the winter due to all the ice and snow.  This year, however, it's been unseasonably warm and we've had very little precipitation, so the roads are open.  And there's enough ice on the lake to skate, although you can hear the water moving underneath (a really funky pinging sound) and also hear the ice cracking in the shallow areas.  A little scary, but SOOOOOOOO fun!!!! I hadn't been skating on a lake since I was a kid, and now we got to share it with OUR kids.
It was also pretty cool, and kinda freaky, to stand in the middle of the lake and look out at the area where we were swimming during our camping trip over Labor Day.
We got home at 1:00 yesterday, so there was time to rest, unpack, and get ready for the week.  I'm feeling MUCH calmer, much better.  I will just have to remember that 2 /12 years without a vacation AND working 6 jobs, along with taking care of the kids, is a bit too much for my sanity, lol!

I also just got back from a visit at the weight loss center and, good news, we're going veggie again.  I'd been adding in more animal protein to clean up my diet (I'd been eating A LOT of carbs and not digesting them well).  But the weight hasn't been coming off.  So she suggested that maybe I'm having trouble digesting all that chicken :) and we'll try some plant proteins instead.
Which makes me REALLY happy, lol!
I'll still eat eggs, but no dairy (unfortunately I think I just cannot digest it).  I'm hoping that I'll not only lose the weight (finally), but will have a lot of energy.

So we'll see how this goes.  I'll keep you posted, if you're interested. :)

Fingers crossed!

Time to Bite the Bullet

And add some Tabata to my workouts.  Gotta get my heart in shape, and I've been reading that these types of workouts can also help protect the body from the effects of things like chronic stress.
Not that I have THAT.
(Looks around, whistling and not making eye contact...)
And, let's face it, I'm DESPERATE to get this *&^%$#@-ing weight off! Now that my diet is more under control and I'm feeling better, I really want to lose weight. And since I'm already working out 7 hours a week, I don't care to add more hourlong cardio workouts to my schedule.

And the thing is, when I look at photos of myself, I don't recognize me.  Who is that rotund person?  It makes me sad that I feel this way, but it also makes me sad to see myself this way. The weight is a symptom of other things, and it's not happy-jolly weight! It's stress and fear and shutting myself up.  It's loss and feeling out of control, and not in a good way!  That horrible feeling of having no say in what direction my life goes. Which, I realize, is not really true.  But I'm so used to giving up my voice, my opinions, and my power to others that is has become my "normal."
And,of course, the more out-of-control I feel, the more tightly I hold on to things that I cannot control at all, that no one can: others' reactions, the economy, the outcome of elections, what happens to my kids when they're at school, etc. etc.
That's what eating disorders are about, after all: control.  Those of us who feel powerless, or who are perfectionists, or (quite often) both will either try to have mastery over our appetites or turn to food for friendship.
I get lonely, so I go to the grocery store, or sometimes the bookstore (although less of that since I got my Kindle). Before the kids came along, I'd go to the gym, ALL THE TIME, due to that loneliness.  But now I either have to go someplace I can take them, or I just don't go to the gym because I work there and REALLY don't feel like spending my free time there as well, thankyouverymuch.
And, of course, it's no coincidence that I gained 20 pounds after my dad died.  20 pounds which I have yet to lose, added to the 10 I'd already put on when we moved here.
So it's not about calories in/calories out,or whether I drink my coffee black or with a bit of creamer.  It's about what's going on inside me.  What is it that makes me feel broken, and how can I fix it?

This morning, as I was putting WG on her bus, a neighbor walked by carrying his toddler.  Probably about 18 months old.  And I got a pang.  I was waving my daughter off and she seemed sad.  I just wanted to go after the bus, take her off, and keep her home.  I also wanted to go back in time for a few minutes and hold MY toddlers! Because they're growing up way too fast, and I guess I was feeling left behind.
I had LG just before I turned 32, and WG 2 years later.  My 30's, as I mentioned in my last post, are a blur.  I barely remember them.  It's like a lost decade.  And I suppose I feel a bit cheated: I was too tired to enjoy them, lol!

I suppose I'm feeling a bit depressed these days. And I just have to feel it.  The only way out of the quagmire is to keep slogging through.

And to know that it's not gonna kill me.

Why Wait?

In less than 8 years, which will go by quickly, I'm gonna be 50.  When I first met Hubby, his mom was 52.  Which doesn't seem possible.  Because we just met a couple of years ago, right?
My 20's were a sometimes-excruciating voyage of discovery.  In those 10 years I finished college, traveled and performed in the U.K.,  became a professional actor and teacher, moved across the country, completed my Masters, met my husband, moved to L.A to pursue my career, went through 2 eating disorders and therapy to help, and we bought our first home (a condo).
My 30's are a bit of a blur:  we got married, had 2 kids, bought an actual house, and then another. Those kids were diagnosed with autism and started school.  We moved to San Francisco, I became a Pilates teacher, and lost my dad.
Now, 2 years into my 40's, I'm reassessing and finding out what's most important.
While I no longer think of 50 as old, it does make me wonder about the things I've accomplished and what I still want to do.  The older I get, the less the latter has to do with outside stuff: I'm not trying to be a millionaire, or buy a sports car, win an Oscar, etc.  I DO want to learn to REALLY relax, be at peace with myself, and take good care of my family.
And get a good teaching job at the university level. Preferably tenure-rack, but at his point I'll take what I can get.

Life goes by so quickly.  I may have already lived more than half of mine already, and much of it has been spent in fear, guilt, or simply trying to disappear.  Which makes me so incredibly sad! Part of me thinks I have wasted years of this wonderful gift, while another part of me remembers that I used the tools I had in order to survive.  Now I have better tools, and it's time to use them.

I used to teach voice classes.  Not singing, but for the stage.  I worked with a number of teenage girls in my classes.  I like to think I helped them FIND their voice.  And I'd like to do that again.

I lost my own for a while, but I'm finding it again.

Happy New Year!

Party animals that we are, Hubby and I fell asleep at 10:00 last night.  I'd set my alarm for midnight, so we could wish each other Happy New year, which came out more like "Rphynyooozzzzzz..."
This morning I took a shower with my yummy-smelling bath stuff (thank you, post-holiday sales, for sweet-smelling bath products and VERY cheap shoes!), then went to a yoga class.  A VERY crowded yoga class.  At which I missed shavasana because I had a coughing fit and had to leave the room, so I hung out by the pool (the class was at the Equinox where I used to work).  Then I went to Philz Coffee (BEST coffee in the world!), then a little walk, and home.  Took a quick bike ride, too.
Tomorrow we're taking a day trip to Yosemite.  Where, apparently, it'll be 61 degrees. Not exactly the snow-covered winter wonderland it normally is this time of year.
Which is just fine with me, lol!
I'm also on vacation this week.  My classes are covered and I'm gonna chill as much as possible.  The kids go back to school Tuesday, and I'll start packing things up, donating others, and throwing away yet more. Then I'll be back to my classes, apply for a part-time teaching job a UC Santa Cruz, and get the kids ready to move.

Oh, and tomorrow is our 11th wedding anniversary.  (May 6th will mark 17 years together, which doesn't really seem possible.  How can we be THAT old?!?!?!)

Happy 2012, everyone!