All posts by dotyness

I'm a mother, a hockey fan, a photographer, a sugar and nicotine addict, a non-smoking smoker, a struggler, a connoisseur of the absurd, a reader, a traveler, a writer, a student of light and shadow, a foodie, a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a crazy cat lady. I talk to myself more than I care to admit and perhaps even more than is healthy. I'm in a time of great change and turmoil so now I'm talking to you as well as to myself.
Thought Patterns

It Is Just the Start of Summer Now

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Cason at Arlington National Cemetery. I did not get a better shot of this empty one because the one behind it still bore its soldier. To continue to photograph seemed disrespectful.
Cason at Arlington National Cemetery. I did not get a better shot of this empty one because the one behind it still bore its soldier. To continue to photograph seemed disrespectful.

Batten down the hatches, friends – it’s time for a rant.

I just turned on the television to watch while I was eating my breakfast.  Good Morning America was on.  I watched only a few minutes before becoming too angry and nauseated to continue.

Amanda Bynes, Memorial Day sales, and a reporter would couldn’t tell us that a chair once priced at $1000, now on sale for $600, was discounted 40%.  In her world it had been discounted 30%. Really? Even I, with my math short-circuit know the answer to THAT one; but, that’s not the point.

The point is, Amanda Bynes, another child star is in free fall because she had more money than guidance.  Sad? Yes.  Newsworthy? Not this weekend.  What young soldiers were killed this week? What were their names? Where were they from? Who did they leave behind?  Why, on this weekend especially, are we not hearing their names, their stories?  Why are we not thanking their families for the sacrifices they made – “they” being both the soldier and the family?

Because our media is out of touch with the rest of the country.  The values and priorities of gargantuan population centers like New York City and Los Angeles are, by necessity, far different from the ones in Wesson, MS. That’s fine. It’s to be expected and is, in and of itself, not an issue.   Those two population centers are also the news and entertainment centers of our country – they are our mouthpieces.  The issue is that our mouthpieces are shouting values that are defined by only a very few of our citizens.  Those few present their own values and interests as the norm (because in their minds they are) when they may not be aligned with our country as a whole or with our country’s history. And, on this day, our history isn’t about celebrity jail time or furniture sales.

TODAY, this weekend, we honor those who fell in service to their country, to OUR country – a very specific group of men and women who put their money where their mouths were.  Celebrities and ordinary citizens alike who CHOSE to serve.  They voluntarily put themselves into harm’s way and they died for it.  Is it REALLY too much to ask that we remember them and thank them for one day out of the year?

Arlington National Cemetery. Surely there are enough stories worth telling here.
Arlington National Cemetery. Surely there are enough stories worth telling here.

But, it’s not Memorial Day yet, you may say.  That’s not until Monday.  Right. 1. Their deaths are worth only one day of recognition, not three? 2. Is the conversation really going to shift that much? I doubt it.  Are our airwaves going to be filled with stories of those soldiers in both the near and distant past who have died in service?  I doubt it. Will we even see as many stories about them as we will about building a barbeque pit?  Sadly, I doubt it.

The reporter mentioned that our biggest decisions this weekend would be: beach or backyard? burgers or hot dogs?  Our biggest decisions ought to be which National Cemetery to visit, which fallen to honor, how to help surviving families.

Maybe I just didn’t watch the show long enough.  Maybe there was more on there than just the pap that I witnessed.

I sure hope so.

Exercise, Habits, Thought Patterns

The Positive-Thinking Blog Goddess Has Clay Feet

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Alright, to be honest, I have this title because I gave it to myself.  I got tired of waiting on you guys to do it and Kathryn Hepburn said that “Well-behaved women rarely make history.”  So, I commandeered it.  Nobody else was using it, anyway.

The tiny little snag is that the title doesn’t exactly fit all of the time – the goddess has feet of clay.  Like last night, for instance, this was my Facebook status:

feet of clay
That blue object destroying the feet there is actually a PB&J.

“I’m exhausted. I’m cranky. I’m beginning to feel frayed. I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Sunbeam bread, Ruffles chips, a diet coke and a piece of Ruby Carson’s coconut cake. I can’t have those (especially not the last one); so, I’m going to the gym to walk. Crap.”

Hardly the stuff of a Positive-Thinking Blog Goddess; however, since the goddess is actually just me, it works out as authentic, which is okay, too.

I didn’t want to go to the gym.  I wanted comfort food loaded with carbs.  I wanted my grandmother’s coconut cake. I wanted to eat every morsel of that, then fall into a sugar coma.  Instead, I went to the gym and walked five miles.  (If I walk 25 miles a week, I can fulfill the modified 300 Mile Challenge with the 501st Brigade Support Battalion.)  The cranky Muppet part of me really wants to say that the walk and the endorphins did me no good – I should have just opened up the JIF.  But, the truth is, I did feel better – not conquer-the-world better, but better, nevertheless.

Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing we’ve been talking about all along?  If it were my nature to bebop on down to gym or pop out for a quick run all the time, I would never have had a weight problem, an attitude problem or any of my other myriad issues.  I would be that happy-happy-happy all the time-time-time person and you would have turned away, nauseated, at my first post.

What we have been talking about and continue to talk about is changing our verbs and changing our behaviors, not our natures.  I’m not sure we really CAN change our natures; but, I’m 100% certain that we can change our behaviors.  I am also 100% certain that we cannot change our behaviors successfully 100% of the time, always doing what is best for our current and future selves.  We will fail.  We will backslide.  We will willfully rebel.  I will look my conscience right in the eye and take a big bite of cheesecake.  It’s going to happen.

What is also going to happen is that I will feel a dairy-induced bellyache followed by some shame for having rebelled.  Then I’ll eat a Tums and make a better choice the next time.

In the meantime, it is essential that I both acknowledge and forgive myself for the clay feet I really knew I had all along.

Thought Patterns

The Best Delay Ever

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Yesterday, I was scheduled to have lunch with a business associate and new friend at  Olivia’s Good News Cafe in Franklin. My morning had been hectic with a few minor annoyances, and, as it happened, it was about to gather one more. The bad news for The Good News was that they had gone out of business. Rats!  I had been looking forward to healthful food choices from a restaurant that was almost completely locally sourced.  After some grousing, we decided on another healthful place; so, I drove there.  Now, my companion’s morning had been a perfect storm of delays and she was late. Since I got there before she did, I roamed around, checking out the buffet while I waited.  Suddenly…..

Inside my brain, I was a 14-year-old Beatles fan.  There was squealing, jumping up and down, even a little fainting – okay, so maybe no fainting, but there was definitely squealing and jumping.  Right there, getting his lunch, not ten feet away was my favorite Nashville Predator – defensive-man Hal Gill.

483082_10151286665863197_938172438_nI’ve been a fan of his since he played for the Pittsburgh Penguins and I was just thrilled when he joined the Predators at the end of the 2012 season.  Yes, in the photo that is my ONLY Preds shirt with a player’s name and number on it and, yes, it is #75, Hal Gill.  I <heart> Hal.

Many years ago, when M*A*S*H was the biggest show on TV, my sister saw Alan Alda in the cathedral in Cologne, Germany.  As anyone might have, she asked for an autograph.  He politely refused, saying that he was there on a personal trip.  None of us had ever really thought of that before – a celebrity being a private person, wanting to do private things.  Fearing a scene, Mr. Alda immediately left the cathedral after my sister’s request.  She felt AWFUL!

When I saw Mr. Gill there with his wife, I didn’t want to mess their day up; so, I debated what I should do: leave this private couple alone? or pay him a quick, discreet compliment?  I opted for number two.  I stepped near the couple, said I didn’t want to intrude, but just wanted to quickly say how much I love watching him play hockey.  Both of them seemed a little surprised that I had recognized him outside of his normal context; however, they were both very gracious, thanking me for my comments as I moved away. A friend was a little bummed that I didn’t get a photo, but since Mr. Gill was there as a private citizen, not as a professional athlete, I didn’t think it was appropriate to intrude that far.

To that point in the day, I’d run into several potentially annoying events.  I’d chosen to remain positive in dealing with them (although those below the speed limit drivers in the passing lane are a CONSTANT test).  I believe that by remaining positive, I remained open to the world around me which allowed me to notice who was standing there.  My positive reactions led to a chance encounter that, even without the photographic memento, will be the highlight of my week, month, or, heck! who knows how long?!

If Like attracts Like, then positive attitudes attract positive experiences.  The trick is to remember to maintain the positive attitude.  Um, I’m really not so good at that trick.  However, my experience at the buffet has given me another touchstone to help me persevere in the struggle to hold a positive attitude.  Although I have neither photograph nor autograph from this encounter, I do have a Preds’ puck on my desk from before.  I’ll be using that puck as my positive thinking talisman for the foreseeable future.

So, what about you? Are you hard-wired to be bubbly or is it a struggle for you?  If it’s a struggle, what talisman do you use to remind yourself to become or stay positive?

Accountability, Thought Patterns

No, Muffin Top Is Not a Friend of Strawberry Shortcake

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When I was growing up, people got Dunlap Disease – when the spare tire around their middle had Dun Lapped over their belts.  Now, people have muffin tops.  How cutsey!  Right?

Wrong.

strawberryshortcakeYou and I have been together for a couple of months now and, friend, I’m going to tell you the truth – a muffin top looks like just what it is: an inner tube of fat right around the waist.  It’s not cute.  It’s not fashionable.  It’s abdominal fat.  Abdominal fat leads to abdominal obesity and that, my friends, is Trouble with a capital T.

Abdominal obesity has been linked to increased rates of Type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease.  The implications there are far too serious to refer to their cause as something as innocuous as Muffin Top. That’s like calling John Wayne Gacy “Johnny Giggles.” It just doesn’t fit.

Abdominal obesity can kill you or (perhaps even worse) keep you alive but incapacitated, debilitated and even a burden on your family.  Think about that for a second.  I don’t know anyone who truly has the goal of being the center of their family’s life.  Maybe there are people out there who want every person thinking about them all day, every day.  Maybe they do want to be a duty, a burden, a millstone around someone else’s neck.  They may be out there, but, because you’re reading this, I’m fairly confident that you aren’t one of them.

On 24 July, when my nurse practitioner broke through my weight delusions, I asked myself if I wanted to meet my grandchildren.  That’s a real question.  I’m in my mid-forties and I don’t anticipate becoming a grandmother in the next several years; so, I had to ask myself if I planned to be around by the time they got here.  Or, will my son have to tell them about me?  Will he have to tell them what kind of person I was because I died too young of a heart attack brought on by my own refusal to push away the french fries?  Really?  How stupid is that?  How embarrassing! How utterly tragic.

Or what if my unhealthy food choices and poor exercise habits lead to a debilitating stroke?  What if he never has children because he has to spend his adult life taking care of me? In that scenario, he is forced to give up a promising life of his own to take care of me when I was too selfish to take care of my own self.

I realized on that day that neither of those eventualities interests me.  I want to be healthy and active well into my 80s.  I want to be the grandmother that rides bikes, gardens, rock climbs, rides roller coasters, reads bedtime stories and cooks all kinds of weird vegetables.  I want to be around to meet those children.  I want to pass on the knowledge that I’ve gained and learn things anew by looking through their eyes.

Maybe I won’t be around.  Maybe I won’t meet them no matter what lifestyle choices I make.  However, I’m going to work on stacking the odds in my favor (remember? I’m the House).  If I don’t meet them, it won’t be because I let Muffin Top have a say in it.

Accountability, Exercise, Habits, Thought Patterns

I’m No Rocket Scientist, But I Know When to Fire a Thruster

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Minute course corrections.  You see it in any space movie.  The astronauts fire thrusters for various lengths of time to roll the vessel, propel it a little, get out of the way of something, or for some other mysterious and dramatic reason.  As I was walking the dogs on Sunday, I saw how I have to make those same minute corrections and calculations all the time.

mars_landerThe first thruster I fired was a pretty big one.  It got me out of my chair and putting on my running shoes.  I had to fire it for several seconds there to overcome the inertia of the large stationary object that was Me. I had to fire again when I was wavering between going to the gym and going to the park.  You see, it’s easy to stop walking on a treadmill; but, when you’re at the park, you have to walk back to the car.  You can’t just stop mid-lap.  Once at the park, additional firings were required to stay on course for the five mile (four times around the outer track) walk.  My internal conversation included whining about my calves, whining about needing to use the restroom, whining about the impending rain, and even whining about needing a trash can to throw my gum into.  There was so much whining going on, you’d have sworn it was a Seinfeld episode.

The stone truth of all of this is: I am bone lazy.  I would rather lay on the couch and watch movies than go work out.  I would rather eat ice cream and cheese puffs than cucumbers and hummus.  I have unhealthy circuits in my mind.  Those circuits were reinforced over the better part of 45 years.  I would love to tell you that (mostly) two years of conscious effort to change the circuits has successfully rewired them.  That would be a complete lie.

I have to revamp the circuitry with nearly every decision.  The good news is that I can do it – that there is hope and that success is possible.  It does it get easier with continued diligence and I am hopeful that eventually, I will be able to make those corrections effortlessly and perhaps even unconsciously.

I trust that as I monitor my systems and stay the course, eventually, the thrusters will fire on their own.

Thought Patterns

Changing My Verb in Five Easy Steps

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Okay, I’m totally lying about the easy part; but, it sounds good, right?

Over the last few months, I’ve distilled this whole transition process down to a Five Step Verb Change:

  1. wish – I wish I could lose weight, etc.
  2. want – I want to find a better job, etc.
  3. will – I will get healthier, etc.
  4. am – I am exercising more, etc.
  5. did – I did accomplish my goal.

Bridge supports 1A - Saltsburg

Those are the five distinct stages I’ve identified.  Unconsciously, I had expected some sort of metaphysical valve to be there, allowing me to make progress up through the stages without sliding back down.  How naive was that?!  I mean, we all know that we regress.  It’s even the second law of thermodynamics – the entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems spontaneously evolve towards thermodynamic equilibrium—the state of maximum entropy. (Ha!  And you thought chemistry would be useless!) To those of us who don’t speak chemistry on a daily basis, what that means is that left uninterrupted, things move from a state of order to a state of disorder. If we don’t act to at least hold our ground every day, we lose it.  There is no such thing as maintaining a current state with no additional input.

If we cannot reasonably expect to even maintain a current state without expending additional energy, how on earth do we expect to improve it?

At my heaviest, parked on the couch, Ben & Jerry on my left, Chester Cheetah on my right, how did I expect things to get any better?  I shouldn’t have; but, the bizarre truth is that I actually did on some level.  I refused to believe that I was that fat or that unhealthy.  I carried that belief with me right up until the nurse practitioner burst my bubble with a blood pressure reading. I’ve told you before, I’m not all that special.  The laws of physics and chemistry apply to me.  I had to act on my fat, unhealthy system to change it.

There were certainly five steps to improving my situation, but not a single one of them was or is easy.  However, I didn’t have to tackle all five of them at once or even all one of them at once.  I could and do deal with them a bit at a time: but, I have to deal with them or I have to admit that whatever goal is at the end of those five steps isn’t really worth it for me.

Either I decide that the goal is worth the battle or I decide that it’s not.  In either case, the core requirement is self-honesty – as Polonius said, “To thine ownself be true.”  (How about that? Shakespeare and chemistry all in one place!) Once I’ve done that, I can either put positive energy into achieving the goal or I can remove  negative energy of guilt and stress associated with a goal that isn’t really mine.

In either case, I’m the better for it, regardless of whether or not the steps were easy.

Accountability, Exercise

Walking With Our Boys, update

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The war attached to this monument really doesn't matter. It matters that we remember and honor the sacrifice of our veterans, whether living or not.
The war attached to this monument really doesn’t matter. It matters that we remember and honor the sacrifice of our veterans, whether living or not.

I have done a really poor job of updating those miles being walked and run to walk our soldiers home.  I will rectify that this week – my mouth to God’s ear.

An update for today, though, our group, the 501st Brigade Support Battalion, lost five more soldiers this week.  In addition to sending up positive energy, thoughts and prayers for those deployed, I’m sure you are including those who love them, as well.  This week, those five circles could use a boost.

I’m headed to the gym right now.  I’ve not made this project the priority I should have.  That changes right now.

Accountability, Habits

Food Diary Gong Show

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gongsh2Well, friends, I’m going to keep the MyFitnessPal weight loss counter on the site because LoseIt doesn’t offer one; however, I just don’t like the site for logging food and exercise.  I am going back to LoseIt for my daily logging.

My chief complaint with MyFitnessPal is this nutritional information anarchy that seems to be going on. When a user submits a new food for the LoseIt food database, the proposed item doesn’t immediately go in.  Apparently, someone is checking it.  Conversely, on the MyFitnessPal site, anyone can insert anything in the database.  Other users then give it a thumbs up or down for accuracy.  Ummmmm.

See, here’s the thing: I could insert information for a hot fudge cake and give it a total calorie count of 100 per 3 pound serving.  I could then get 20 friends to go in and give that posting a giant thumbs up.  So, I’ve entered information that, while wildly popular, is totally delusional.

I am way too OCD (or CDO) for that.  I need information whose accuracy I can reasonably trust.  For my tastes, MyFitnessPal loses me.

{{{{GONNNNNNGGGGGGGG}}}}

Depression, Habits, Social Issues

It’s More Than a Choice

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…but that’s as good a place to start as any.

262982_10151093166318197_1706639653_n

Reading through some of my posts, if you don’t know me well, you might get the idea that I’m happy-happy-happy all the time-time-time.  If you do know me well, you just soiled yourself laughing.  Go change.  We’ll wait.

Years ago, there was a book making the rounds called Happiness is a Choice.  I don’t believe that and I believe that psych wards are full of people who would agree with me.

I know people who struggle with bipolar disorder, unipolar major depressive disorder, and other psychiatric conditions that are biological in origin.  These are often endocrine issues – just like diabetes.  Who in their right mind would tell a diabetic to “Buck up! A sugar coma is a choice!” No one, right?  Yet, every day, all day long, people tell those suffering from depression that they could be happy if only they wanted it badly enough, if only they chose to be. How archaic and counter-productive.

Earlier in the week, I was discussing a bad study habit with my son.  We discussed how this habit was reinforced during his pre-college years.  Now he is dealing from the fall-out and blaming himself 100%.  He doesn’t want to be “that guy” who blames all of his short-comings on someone else.  I told him that finding the genesis of the habit isn’t blaming anyone.  It is simply examining the habit, finding its causes and edges so that he can develop workable coping mechanisms or effective habit-changing behaviors. Finding the edges defines the habit, not him. I do not believe that he is to blame for the behavior’s inception.  I DO believe that he is to blame for its continuation if, after recognizing it, he does nothing about it.

Likewise, if I know that I have depression or other biologically based mood issues, I cannot reasonably blame myself for their existence. However, I can blame myself completely if I do not develop, implement and maintain coping mechanisms or follow prescribed treatment.  Just because my body is predisposed to produce this negativity, does not excuse me from spewing into the world around me.  I’m not Vesuvius. I’m not even Italian, for goodness sake!

A positive attitude is very difficult for me on some days.  On those days, I find myself jonesing for calorie-dense foods more than usual. I find myself pulling the covers over my head rather than going for a walk.  I find myself giving in to the darkness.  While I’m not always responsible for my moods, I am still responsible for how I respond to them.  Do I take the easy road and let them win? Or do I take the harder road and fight for myself?

On Tuesday, I posted a photo I took this summer at a serenity garden on the campus of Tacoma Community College.  On that photo, I wrote, “I am responsible for the energy I bring into this space.” I don’t recall where I first heard that; but, I have it written on a photo of an F-18 on my desk, too. It’s a good thing to remember.

Maybe I can’t choose to be happy, but I can choose whether or not to be a jerk.

Habits, Motivation, Social Issues

Celebrating 16 Failures!

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She who never gives up
A constant pep-talk from my aunt/friend Judy.

Early yesterday afternoon, I was feeling super tired and ugly cranky. My colleague Ed suggested that we have a little lunch before we continued our tasks.  Coconut milk curry beef restored my body and positive conversation restored my spirit.  At our bistro table, in the warm sunshine, Ed shared with me the Theory of 17.

The basic idea is this: every success comes after 16 failures.

How many times did I try to quit smoking? How many times have I tried to lose weight? control my temper? learn a new skill? develop a new habit? change something about myself that I don’t like? I can’t really count that high: so, I’m just going to say LOTS.

It is just so easy to allow ourselves to be discouraged, to accept that we are never going to succeed, to say “forget it” and grab another doughnut, stay in a job we hate, let our tempers loose, stay on the couch, whatever. We’ve TRIED to change.  We just CAN’T.  (It works better if you whine when you read that.) One of my least favorite sayings is, “Can’t never could.”  I hate that; however, there is real truth there.

Ed also reminded me how often we give up just before the miracle.  We give up on the 14th effort, or the 15th or the 16th.  We were closer than we thought and we just barely missed it. How tragic to give up on ourelves when we are so close to being what we want to be?

In an address at Harrow in 1941, Winston Churchill said, “(N)ever give in, never give in, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” Obviously, he was talking about something more dangerous than a snack cake – he was talking about war.  Wasn’t he?  Let’s think about this for a minute.

The Nazis exterminated groups of people – artisists, homosexuals, Jews, Romani, etc, over the course of about 12 years.  They slaughtered some 11 million people in total, which makes for about 917,000 victims murdered annually.  According to the National Insitute of Health and the Center for Disease Control , there are some 743,000 annual deaths in the US that are directly attributable to obesity or tobacco use.  Look at that for a second.  At least 743,000 of us VOLUNTARILY kill ourselves every year with food and tobacco.  If you add in the number of us disabled by weight-related arthritis, smoking-related COPD, obesity and smoking related heart disease, we are doing a better job of committing genocide on ourselves than the most efficient genocidal machine in history. It is a Reflexive Holocaust.

We have the power to change this and we don’t need rifles or grenades to do it!  Take a walk break instead of a smoke break. Pick up a banana instead of a candy bar (or even one of those “healthy” protein bars). Create a support system.  There’s no need to be in that foxhole by yourself! You’re fighting.  I’m fighting. Our friends are fighting. There is NO shame in saying, “I’m feeling a little weak right now, help me through this, would you?” There is no shame in failing.  There is shame only in the refusal to try. If WWII ended with VE Day and VJ Day, then we can have VMe Days.

Try! Fail! Celebrate that failure and know that you are one failure closer to celebrating VMe!