Wash the Windshield

Keeping the view of the road ahead clear.



Thursday, March 24, 2011

Reverse Anorexic

I don't know enough about eating disorders and I certainly am not making light of them at all, so I hope none of you are offended but I have to say...

I believe that I am a reverse anorexic. 

We're all friends here, right?  And honestly, I've never been one to be really vain about my weight or whatever.  I guess I've always been of the notion that you can take it or leave it!  Perhaps that may be due to the fact that I gave up my body for my son at a young age, but I have never really felt like i had to be super model skinny.

With that being said - here's the deal.

When i look in the mirror.... i think i look alright!  I mean, I know i'm not like getting the next hot-bod contract anytime soon, but ya know - I have a waistline.  And I have hips and for the most part, I would like to think that I have a "figure" so-to-speak.

I've always had hips and thighs.  I'm pretty sure my thighs have rubbed together since I was born.  ...and so do my daughters.

Let's be honest.... there's simply no shame in our game.

But the number on the scale  -  drives me insane.

I don't even OWN a scale because i don't want to constantly weigh myself and get upset about it.

And I certainly don't want Bekah to grow up standing on the scale every day.  So-  we just don't own one.

But that doesn't mean that I don't sneak over to my mom's every now-and-then and step on hers.

Let's talk numbers.

And i'm only doing this because:
1.) regardless of my weight - i know you all love me anyway (and come on, the more I weigh, the more of me there is to love!!)  hahahah!
2.) if for some reason i ever lose weight - this will be a good place to reference for my old statistics.


Now.  Here's the deal.

When I got pregnant for Chaston, I weighed like 145 or 150.  I gave birth at 183 pounds.

3 years later, I was about 150 or so when I got pregnant for Bekah.  I gave birth at 201 pounds.  At her first birthday (mostly due to stress and a little more than 12 months of nursing)... I weighed 118.  It was disgusting. 

I'm pretty sure people thought i was on drugs.  WIth everything going on in my life and the way I looked, I probably looked like someone that not only was on drugs but needed them to trudge through the crap in my life at that point.

BUt luckily, things evened out and became somewhat controlled and i started gaining my weight back to a healthy spot.

Fast forward to recently.  Since I evened out with Bekah (probably when she was about 3 years old or so) I've weighed about 170.  I do not like that weight, but no matter what I do, it's like always right around 170.

I can't stand the taste of water... so I've been buying the 0 calorie flavor pack things to make drinking water easier.

So back in January, I cut down to 1 mt dew a day (sometimes none, but if i'm out running around, i get one) and then i was trying to watch my calories as well as drink water.

And i started Zumba.  Faithfully.   2 or 3 times a week for an hour.  Then... i was doing this EA Active workout at home on the off days.

I started feeling better.... i felt like my legs were looking slimmer and my mid-section as well.

So last week, I decided i was going to get on my mom's scale.  Surely, after all this effort, I must be down to at least 110.  HAHAHAHAH!

Yea, 177.

One hundred to the friggen seventy-seven.

"ohhhhhhh it's all muscle".

NO.

Grrrr.

I don't want to hear that.

At this point, I am SO freaking frustrated.

Why?  because the number.  Which is so vain of me.


So.... luckily, all of my summer clothes from last year fit just fine.  The things that were tight, are still tight and the things that fit right, still fit right.

But in preparation for Spring Break, I went to try on a few different (and more comfy) capri's. 

This is where the reverse anorexia comes in.

When I stand in the dressing room mirror.. I think "dang it!  I look decent for growing 2 people in my body!"

THen, I hold up the capri's.  And I think, "these are like a parachute!  I definitely will need at least the next size smaller!"

But no, sweet baby Jesus, no ....

they fit.

perfectly.

Those big 'ol pants.... fit.

UGH.

So i don't know whether to really consider it a bad thing that i don't think i look as "thick" as I am... but on the other end of the spectrum... I really need to get myself in check!  I really hope that the clothes that i wear compliment my body instead of make me look like some cougar trying to be all young and hip.  Because that .... I am not.

and for clarification - i may be a cougar (not sure what the specifications are for that)... but trying to be hip?  Yea, not me.

At any rate...since there will be no Ricker's in sight for the next 7 or 8 days, I'm going to REALLY try hard to drink the ocean dry of (flavored) water.  I am going to walk the beach for exercize and mayyyyyybe bust out some zumba moves with Bekah in our downtime.  HAH! 

And then, when I get home, I'll show that scale at my mom's who the boss is.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

A Letter

Most of you know that I've spent a great deal of time over the past couple of years sorting through my thoughts and emotions regarding my childhood.  Specifically, as it relates to my "dads".  Because I am human, I think that I will (in some capacity) struggle with this in different ways for the rest of my life; however my goal when I started this "journey" was to be freed from the prison that those emotions kept me confined to.

As God would have it, I became "close" to a lady that had just started as the Children's Ministry Lead Pastor at church through the serving in the children's ministry that would eventually help me sort through my feelings with a little more depth and work to free myself from that burden.

After teaching my class for many months, she finally asked me one day, "So, what's your story?"  And that's all it took to turn on a well of tears that probably left her thinking that this once-put-together-elementary-church-teacher was a total basketcase.

I collected my thoughts and told her that my childhood wasn't the best and told her an EXTREMELY high level overview of my situation.  And when i say "high level overview", i mean that i didn't even scratch the surface of the depth of the situation.

She suggested that we have dinner sometime and maybe talk about it because she too, had grown up with a dad that wasn't around and struggled for many years in the same ways that I did.

After a couple of months, I got up the courage to meet her for lunch. 

And of course, there were tears.  And I was embarrassed that I was a grown adult, mother of two sweet children that should have moved on from this issue, but was now sitting in a restaurant crying about things that happened years and years ago.

She gave me some good suggestions on how she dealt with overcoming the issues she had with her dad, but at the time, it wasn't a proverbial "pill I was ready to swallow" just yet.  It all sounded good and wonderful, but I knew the time wasn't right for me to take those actions.  I still had some work to do on the inside.

I didn't forget our conversation that day over the next several months.  In fact, whenever I would feel a "trigger" that would make me start having the negative thoughts of the past, i would remember our talk that day and keep praying that soon enough, peace would find its way into my heart.

Fast forward to the last couple of months. 

I finally sorted through my feelings enough to determine two things:

1.) For a while I was "mad" at my biological dad because he "didn't want me"; but I have since realized through a few email conversations with him that, while he didn't make the best decisions when it came to me or my life -  he did what he thought was best for me, which was letting my step-dad adopt me.

The part that I really had to sort through was the fact that; had my step-dad kept his "oath" to love me unconditionally as a biological father would; many of the issues I've dealt with since my pregnancy with Chaston wouldn't be "issues".  But he didn't.

And I can't blame that on my real dad.

I had many opportunities in my childhood.  Traveling, good memories, a wonderful mom and dad that loved me, I never wanted for anything as a kid, etc.

But the minute I "blew it" so-to-speak ... by getting pregnant - it was blazingly obvious that my adopted dad's love was extremely conditional upon my success.  And in his eyes - I had failed.

Again - I can't hold my real dad accountable for that.  He had no idea when he signed the papers that things would end up the way they did.

So, I have been working on building a relationship with my biological dad.  He seems to want to get to know me, and as long as I don't set the expectations too high, there's no harm, right?

I think my next big step or milestone will be to accept him for who he is.  He's a different kind of guy.  Someone that means well, but perhaps doesn't always think the way that I would about my children.  But then again, the man doesn't really know me.  I would venture to say that all of you reading this blog know me WAY better than this man.

But I'm learning that it's ok.  Things are as they should be in this moment.

Last month, I was perusing youtube listening to some music during work and ran across a song that inspired me.  It was a woman (a mother of a little boy)... that had a similarly broken relationship with her dad and she really got all of her feelings out in the song.

Oddly, the song gave me a lot of peace about putting my feelings out there too.

And I started thinking of the 'healing' process as it relates to my step/adopted dad.

Let's face it.  I don't want to sound morbid, but we're not getting any younger.  And I fear that when something does happen to him, I may have a difficult time dealing with it for a variety of reasons, one of which would be eternal resentment toward someone who may have never realized how they affected me; both positively and negatively.  Like I said before, I had a good life as a child.  Many, many opportunties and the reality is - had he not been such a large fixture in my life for so many years, chances are - I wouldn't be the person I am today.  THis being both good and bad.

So I listened to the song about 400 times over the next hour or so and realized that it was time.  I had nothing to lose and everything to gain from that final step in moving on.

So, I sat one Sunday night in front of this computer, tears welling up.... same song playing in the background and I wrote him a letter.  The first page was "Dear Dad"  thanking him for the life he gave me and the sacrifices he made in order to raise a child that wasn't his.   I wanted him to know that I realize and appreciate all that he did for me and the opportunities that he gave me.

The last four pages were written after the greeting "Dear Howard".  I wrote it from an adult woman's perspective on life after children.  A bit sarastic but truthful at times, I thanked him for judging me, for making me emancipate myself when I told him I was pregnant and for teaching me how NOT to love my children.  I told him about my kids, how proud I was of them and how I always felt like he was so proud of me when i was a child.  I told him the only thing i would do differently is love my children forever.  No matter what.  I told him that I will never forget his first words when I told him I was pregnant, "I raised you and I"m not paying a dime for your kid".... and how I finished the semester at college and didn't returns so I could get a real job with benefits so I wouldn't have to go on Medicaid and Food Stamps.  I told him that he has never paid a dime for my kids, not even his tax money.  Then I asked him what it tasted like to eat his words.

I told him briefly about some of the things in my life right now, that I can only hope would make him the least bit proud of me.  And how sick it was that I still base a small amount of my personal success on his acceptance.

And it felt so good.

At the end of the letter, I told him that I don't expect anything from him; not even his love in return - but I wanted him to know that I know what unconditional love is because if he ever needed anything (help, care, etc)  - i would drop everything to be there for him.  Not because I have his last name, but because he's a human being and he deserves that kind of unconditional love.

And I thanked him again for everything - the Good and the Bad.

...then i signed my name.


It took me a week to mail the letter.  I couldn't get myself to put it in the mailbox. 

But I finally did.  I put the little red flag up, got in my car and drove away. 

When I got back home that day, it was gone. 





I haven't heard back from him.

I don't know that I ever will.  And for the first time in my adult life - I don't really care.  I said what I needed to say, there are no words left untouched and now, my life has to go on.

I still struggle at times wondering why....  but I quickly remind myself that it just might be a blessing that I am estranged from him.  And that my story is already written by the greatest author of all time... a God that is never surprised and always makes good come of rough times.... knows everything there is to know about me ; and loves me forever. 

Oh, and that peace in my heart i was talking about earlier...

it feels so good.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

The Portfolio

Some of you know, and others may not -  but this semester I decided to return to IUPUI in hopes of finishing my degree.

I had always said that I would go back after both of my kids were in school and I no longer had the obnoxious expense of daycare or all-day kindergarten.  With my daughter in first grade now, and working from home, I decided now was the best time as any to return to school.

So back in the fall, I re-applied  at IUPUI and got accepted.  I set up time to talk with an advisor and figure out where I was since leaving a decade ago and where I wanted to go.  With just over 50 credits under my belt already, I was incredibly close to an Associates degree and about half way to my Bachelors. 

This gave me an immense amount of motivation to get started.

My advisor suggested a class within the OLS departement where you spend the semester putting together a giant professional portfolio that you submit to faculty directors for credit for your experiential learning, or learning outside of the classroom.  After reviewing the requirements, I felt that I would be a great candidate for the class, especially with my experience over the last nine years at HP.

I talked to the professor and she agreed, and gave me permission to enroll in the class.  It all became a reality when I got the bill for the class just before Christmas... but I was so thankful for the opportunity and apprehensively while crying gladly wrote the check to the bursar and ordered my books.

The class is primarily online, but has met three times this semester to view examples of prior portfolios that have been submitted.  Apparently, the maximum credits that you can get is 24, and a minimum of 0.  Here's how the class works (because I know you all care! HAHHA!)

So, i paid for the 3CR class like any normal class.  If i turn in everything by the due dates (which is all in preparation for the portfolio - so like Extended Resume, Learning Matrix, Reflective Essay/Narrative, Reading Forum Feedback, etc) - I will get an A+ in the class.  So the worst case scenario is that i go through this whole semester, get no credits for my experiential learning and leave with an A+ in a 300 level OLS class and go on with my portfolio and continue my education.

The best case scenario is that I am awarded credit for my exepriential learning.  You pay the faculty $100 to review the portfolio and then like $25 per credit hour you are awarded.  (sure beats $250 /  credit hour or whatever it is for taking the class, eh?) and you move on with your life.

Here's the catch - after this summer's session, the OLS399 class will go down to 1 credit hour and will have to pay enormously more money for each credit hour + $100 per class you are writing for credit!  So... all of these changes further confirms the fact that I made the right decision in going back when i did.

So, back to my story, since this is my blog, and it's all about me :)  HA!  JK, kinda.

So, I'm writing for 21 credit hours in 7 different classes:

     -Leadership in Operational and Service Organizations
     -Self Leadership
     -Leadership in a Global Environment
     -Training Methods
     -Project Management
     -Meeting Management
     -Managemeent of Change

For each of those classes, I had to put together a "learning matrix" that showed 6-10 different learning outcomes to basically prove that I learned at least 70% of what I would've learned while sitting in those very classes (as a side note, i pulled the syllibi for each class to determine the course completion goals - that's how i landed on thsoe classes).

Sooooo - in my narrative/reflective essay (which I'm in the process of completing the rough draft by the middle of next week) - I have to speak to each of those learnuing outcomes to tell the faculty 1.) What I learned 2.) how I learned it 3.) what would've happened if i didn't learn it and / or what i learned from mistakes I made in the application of the learning).  This is all according to Bloom's Taxonomy - if any of you are familiar.

Sooooo anyway.  I'm already on page 7.... and havn't even begun writing to any of the learning outcomes, so far I've just outlined my personal, professional and volunteer background.  I can already tell that my portfolio will be more like a binder!

However, at the end of this semester, I will know how many classes I've been awarded credit for and can start building the rest of my academic plan from there.

The nerd in me is secretly enjoying this whole class.

...and I'm pretty sure - this might be one of the most boring posts any of you have EVER read.

:)

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Pumping

Seven years ago, "pumping" meant that every 3-4 hours, I'd sneak into the "milk and cookie" room at the HP office.... move the little pink and blue ribbons from the inside of the door handle to the outside; indicating to the world that the room was occupied.

In the room, was a desk, office chair, magazines, electrical outlet.... and my breast pump.

Yes, I said breast pump.

I would tell my co-workers sitting near me at the time that I was going to "pump" and would be back in about 20 minutes.

I did that for a year; not only so my baby girl would be fed natural goods, but also because I just plain couldn't afford formula.  There was no way.

So, that's how we did it for the first 12-13 months of her life.

Oh how time changes everything.

Now - pumping means going out in the garage, next to the washer and dryer and lifting up the crawl space entrance.... pulling out the lonnnnnnng connected hoses, plugging in the sump pump and ...

pumping....

...water from beneath my house.


I'm not complaining, because I'd take pumping water out from under my house to extreme ice/heat ANY DAY.

I'm merely stating a fact.

Last summer, my central air went out.  So, I cooled my house with a couple of tacky window units for the summer.

...and it was terrible.   I have no idea how people managed before central air.  I guess we're all just a little spoiled.

So, I toughed it out all summer and decided to wait until this year to install the central air, since prices would be cheaper once demand went down.

and so far, it's proven to be true.  I've gotten 4 estimates so far this last week and they are significantly cheaper than last year's estimates (thank God!).... but still land on my desk to the tune of about $3k.  Gasp!

But the good news is... if i should ever sell my house - it would increase the value, at least a little bit, knowing there's a brand new central air unit.  So, in the next couple of weeks, I suppose I will be biting the bullet, praying over my sweet checking/savings accounts and nursing them back to health.

That's what they're there for, right?

******
In other news, I wrote a much needed letter to my step-dad (adopted dad) a couple of weeks ago.  I don't want to be a debbie downer, so maybe i'll tell y'all about that in a few days.

What I can say is that it was incredibly healing and a turning point in sorting through a lot of the feelings I've had in the past couple of years.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

For Members Only

I love old friends.

You know, the kind where - life happens, you all take different paths, but somehow, by the Grace of God ... you end up back together again...

..and it's like a decade never passed.

Those kind of friends are so, so special to me.  It's like.. they know all the history.  All the junk... you've shared secrets, major milestones, growing-up moments and still - after infinite time... love eachother just the same.

I am so lucky to have friends like that in my life.  Now that we are all transforming into Mothers (which is such a joy to watch).... we are getting together more often, sharing our lives with one another and really enjoying the richness of true friendship.

...and there's nothing like it.

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped by to see Allison  baby Rachel :) ... when her mommy and I got to talking about all of our planned gatherings during 2011.  We determined the need for a "name" for our little club.  I was honored when she asked me to use my creative powers to come up with a name.

We knew the name had to be broad enough to include some of the extended members that join us for some outings that aren't high-school-friend related.

So I thought.

And Thought.

And thought.

And pondered.

I tried to make word associations.


The hot tamales?
No.

The sisterhood of the traveling parties?
No.

The Pendleton Prosti.... (yea, no)
No.

What is something we all have in common?
Awesomeness?
Yes, but that won't work.

Gorgeousness?
Yes again ... but we need to be a bit more modest.

Hmmm.

We all grew up in the 80's?  (All but 1 of us were born in the "80's".)

And we're all Ladies.

Woaaaaaah!!!!

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR....

The 80's Ladies.

DING DING DING DING.

The 80's Ladies it is.

Watch out for the official Logo and T-shirt order form coming soon.

Now here's the deal fellas (oh, and other people that may read this).

It's not just anyone that gets inducted into The 80's Ladies group.

No-sir-ee.

There are conditional special requirements.  I'm not really sure of those requirements just yet, butttttt.... they are real.  And might have something to do with an application and possibly food.

We all like food.

Well, maybe i should speak for myself.  I like food.

So, if you are reading this and you've hung out with the 80's ladies at one of their outings (make-up party, summer cookout, Christmas gift exchange, baby shower, etc)... then you are an honorary 80's Lady.

Consider it a priviledge.

If you aren't sure what the above functions are about...

Consider yourself warned.

You'll need to provide your own pen for the application.

And again, we I like food.


There are a bunch of super fun "outings" planned for this year.  Which I'm super excited about.  And i'm pretty sure we're going to need to sport our fictional t-shirts when we go on outings just so people will think we're insane someone special.

And that's that.

If you see anything relating to The 80's Ladies on the news... 

...bring bail money. 

:)