Day 2

I ran with the sunflowers this morning. They were glorious, tall and plump with seeds. I run or bike that section of road nearly everyday and today was the first time I've noticed them. So I'm wondering, did they all blossom overnight or is this the first morning I was looking for them?

Day 1 1/2

After church, I felt much better. About myself, and life, and even my neighbor. God gently whispered in my heart that he knew me and loved me and was aware of my joys and hurts, as well as my neighbors and I wanted to give her a hug.

My hubby's asked for a nickname. He says that if the kids get them. He wants one too. He suggested The Norse God. I call him that sometimes when he does something particularly manly. Because, you know, he's got those grey eyes, and broad shoulders and incredible height like a broad Viking ship . . .

Anywho,

Yesterday was his birthday and he got a little weepy over his birthday gift. Which made me burst with joy! It is so fun to watch his eyes light up like they did.

Then I served individual lime coconut cheesecakes to him and the kids. I ate half of one myself. It was a pretty treat, delicious and completely excessive since I threw a get-together for him a few hours later—sort of spur of the moment—and invited a few of our friends.

Well, somehow a few friends turned into 60 people and we had a full blown shindig. I served lemon vanilla cheesecake, two kinds of pie, lemon curd bars and dreamcicles and ice cream sandwiches for the kids. See why the mini lime cheesecakes were excessive?

We laughed, and talked and—ahem—ate, while God put on quite a light show over the desert.

And I didn't need to eat to feel okay. Because I'd surrounded myself with people I adore and that was enough.

Day 1

Yesterday, I woke late. I really wanted to use it as an excuse not to go to church. I was feeling edgy and thought it was a good idea to avoid people until I felt nice again.

But I knew I'd feel better if I went.

Plus church gives me the chance to wear some of my favorite shoes. For this Sunday, it was a fantastic pair of wing-tips with HIGH heels that make me want to admire my feet under the pew. The kids call them my witch shoes. Because of how they look, I hope, and not because they reflect how I behave when I wear them.

The shirt I wanted to wear wasn't ironed. So I had to pull the ironing board out of the coat closet in my office and the iron out of the cabinet in the laundry room and hunt down the water bottle in the kids bathroom (Why don't I keep all this stuff in the same place?).

So I had to wear my hair curly. . .

again,

to save time.

Which reminded me that I really need a hair appointment but, you know, we are in a recession. So my roots had to show and it really made me want a lemon curd shortbread bar and grilled green onions, not together, of course.

We were late for church . . .

again.

We had to sit on the hard folding chairs in the back. Which made me want to tap my wing-tipped witch shoes on the hard wood floor. I didn't. Instead. I watched my Viking Princess color pretty ponies. And I wondered why we all can't sit on the floor, sometimes, with a box of bright crayons. Because every church going kid knows metal folding chairs make fantastic art tables.

To eat or not to eat...

I don't know what I want this blog to be. Sometimes I think I want to share only funny stories from my life. Sometimes I want to be a whistle blower to all the injustice I see around me and other times I want to share what I learn with others.

But what I want the most is to tell the truth. Even though it scares the bejeebers out of me. Because this year has been tough and I feel like I've been dragged through some kind of refiners fire and right now I feel like a big glob of hot bubbling goo.

I've realized I have old wounds I never let heal. Big painful wounds from my childhood and adolescence that I stuffed away and tried to ignore.

Food is my go-to-drug of choice for everything: celebrations, sorrows. It is the end all be all to personal comfort. When it comes to food my memory is freak-show good. Like put me in a side-show impressive. I may not be able to tell you everything I saw on my recent trip to New York, but I can describe in the finest detail what I ate and where I ate it. I can tell you what I talked about while I ate it and what I want to eat when I go back. In fact, I can detail meals from every significant event in my life and most of the insignificant ones too. I am completely obsessed with food.

It's been a constant battle for me. I am either psycho disciplined, managing to lower my weight to 105 lbs (I'm 5'4") and leading my doctor to warn me that my BMI is dangerously low. To eating NINE oatmeal raisin cookies in five minutes flat.(I can still remember how they smell).  When emotional issues get tough, I eat my way out of the sorrow.

I've never measured life by my accomplishments. I measure it by my fat or thinness. Could I wear my favorite sweater to the Christmas party without a slight bulge around my bra line? Yes? Then it was a good year. Did I feel like my size 4 capris were too tight at the 4th of July parade? Yes? Bad year why don't I kill myself now.

Well, now is a bad year. Not because I've gained a ton of weight, I have gained about 10 lbs. and I loath every miserable pound. But because of why I gained the weight. Because of the voices dictating that I am not enough to the point I want to bury myself in a bag of cheetos until I can't hear any of it.

I don't want my life dictated by food and weight and body image anymore. I don't want to shut myself away and numb myself with food! It's seriously messed with my mojo.

As an example, when I was in my first year of college I had the opportunity to travel to California with some fellow friends and audition for a talent scout. But I didn't go. I didn't believe I had a chance, not because of my talent. I was a good enough actress. I just thought I was too fat. Too fat to even try, too fat to even go on a road trip. I weighed 118 lbs.

I could list missed opportunities related to how I felt about myself for days.

A few years ago when I lost 65 lbs I thought I had it all figured out. But the only thing that really changed was my pant size. Instead of bingeing away my hurt, I controlled it by only eating 1100 calories daily (I was running 25 miles + a week and doing yoga, pilates and strength training for hours. and I had no refined sugar for two solid years!)

At the time I measured this as a great success. I had mastered my body and my life. It was time to pursue my dreams and write a novel. Not that I'd written all that much before. I mean, I did write sporadically when an idea would take hold but I was one of those writers who was waiting for the gifted story to come to me in a dream and write it down in a two week frenzy.(Since the weight loss didn't accomplish it.)

Long story short, (too late) I wrote a book but it took two years. I learned a ton and got rejected. Even if it would have sold it wouldn't have changed anything either.

I still hurt. I still have old heartaches and fears. They never went away. And now I know they won't. Not until I open the closet and let them out. Even if I consume all the oatmeal raisin cookies in the world. Which sounds like a better alternative. Frankly, being overstuffed and ill sounds better then letting in the hurt or all of the voices telling me I'm not good enough, smart enough, or pretty enough for a real life. A whole life. A happy life.

Which is where I am now, cleaning out my emotional closet.

I'm scared.

Not by what I'll find in there, I've been cleaning out that emotional closet for about six months now, but the pain that comes with it. So far, it really, really hurts.

Some days it's more than I can handle. Like today when my neighbor called to chastise me for having rude, hooligan children who won't play with her little darlings. It makes me feel raw and desperate for something—anything—to take away the agony of dealing with my past demons and HERconsecutively. So, I made a cheesecake—or two.

I had to run back to the only thing that has never abandoned me, or judged me, or sucker punched my self worth. Because I didn't have the cajones to tell this neighbor that I don't blame my kids one bit for avoiding her children. I wouldn't want to play with her darlings either!

I don't want to live in the future or the past anymore. I don't want to obsess over what I will or will not have for dessert tomorrow. I want to learn to live a real life without drama, or fantasy, or unrealistic expectations. I want to get to know me.

Care to join me?

Glossed Over- For all those women who sense they are being lied to.

For all of the women who feel they are increasingly being lied to in the media. Glossed Over, a blog about the discontent with media's depiction of women.

Warning: There is a great deal of discussion about the sexual objectification of women and cites examples from popular women's magazines that show the pervasive effects on us individually and collectively as a culture.

Does anyone really know?

Confession: I haven't written a word of fiction in five months.

Ahem. I should clarify.  I haven't written a word of intentional fiction in five months. My journal is stuffed with pages where I blindly convince myself I have no desire whatsoever to write fiction and really want to be a butcher, baker, candlestick maker, landscape designer, dressmaker or hatter, anything less painful and more fruitful than plucking away at the computer every day.

My house has never been cleaner than it is now. My children are happier, my laundry is neatly folded and lately my meals are bordering on culinary masterpieces. You should see my yard! Even with all the adversity I've experienced lately, from the outside it still looks like I am doing very well.

But the truth is, and this is really painful to admit. I need writing.

There, I said it. Out loud. For the whole world to see. Well, at least the five people still reading this blog. (Thank you faithful followers. I'm sure you are still hanging on because I owe you money or a lunch date.)

So here is the REAL question (the gut wrenching question I do not have an easy answer to): How do I write and still be the mother I want to be?

My own mother wasn't around much when I was a kid and she walked out completely when I was a teen. Her absence has left a hole in me that I will never be able to fill. (We have since reconciled and now enjoy a very healthy adult relationship but you never get back those years.) I promised myself that no matter my personal sacrifice I would always be 100 percent there for my children.

I mean really be there not just in body but in spirit.

But I also need to express my creativity. Otherwise I feel like an auto-bot going through the motions, waiting for the cake to rise or the bleach to activate on the whites.

Unfortunately when I write, I fall into a kind of hypnotic state and I am largely unaware of what is going on around me. Perhaps my expectations are unrealistic, because I also need a clean house and daily exercise and garden time and time with my husband. But how can I make the life I need work with the life my family needs? Shouldn't it be the same thing? And if so, how in the world do I accomplish it?

If anyone out there has a REALISTIC* solution to my problem. I'm listening.

*I'm already waking at 5 a.m. to run so rising any earlier to write isn't realistic. And if I worked my children any harder on household chores I'm certain I'd be arrested for violating child labor laws. 

Good thing? Bad thing?

And my streak continues.

I am beginning to think I messed with karma and she is out to get me. :)

My luck has been something else lately. It's just one thing after another around here. Please forgive my sporadic blogging. I've been trying to stay above water.  I suppose I can look at the mounting medical bills, near misses, cancelled plans and life dream disappointments as some kind of losing streak. Or I can look at it as one miracle after another.

Beginning with my son's broken arm in December, I have said again and again "it could have been worse." The gas leak, the house fire, my daughters accident with a sheet of metal, they all could have been so much worse. And now I've had my own health stuff that forced me to back out of a much anticipated family vacation, canyoneering trip and spot on the Wasatch Back 2010 Long Distance Running Relay.

But in each case, a window has opened after a door closed and we've had the money to pay the medical bills, made alternate plans for equally as fun vacations, and had blessings fall into our lap that have strengthened my belief that there is a God and he is acutely aware of me and my struggles.

My great grandma Milli, a little Italian firecracker (4'10") who only knew a few snippets of broken English, used to have a saying. I don't know it in Italian but the rough translation is "Good thing? Bad thing?"

Basically she believed that in life we don't really know what we will get. Some of our biggest struggles come masked as successes and what can feel like a streak of very bad luck can turn into our greatest happiness'.

I'll keep my eyes on the horizon.