feelings and truth

Totally not feeling the self love today.  Not liking my body.  Not liking my emotions.  Not liking my insufficiency at maintaining my house or cooking healthy meals for my family.  Just not feeling the love today.  But my feelings don't change what is true.  Here's to hoping that what is true will change my feelings.

TRUTHS:

• I am enough just the way I am.  
• I am loved and accepted exactly how I am.
• I am a daughter of God, made in His image to reflect His beauty.
• Beauty isn't in the size of my hips or thighs.
• My value doesn't come from a perfect body, a clean house, well behaved children, a great marriage.  My value lies in the fact that God created me.
• an ice cream bar is not the devil and having one occasionally won't kill me or inflate me 3,000 lbs
• I am not a super model but I am still beautiful in my own right.  (That was unbelievably difficult to type and I'm forcing myself to not backspace this whole sentence.)
• I am worth the time.
• I have something valuable to offer. 
• I have a voice and things to say and that doesn't make me difficult, contrary, or ungodly.  It makes me who God designed me to be.
• I'm worth protecting.

Some of those are significantly harder than others to believe much less feel. 

tagged

My darling Amy from  Perfectly Imperfect tagged me and I find things like this to be quite fascinating.  This caters to my love of lists and my love of getting to know others better. I particularly like that not everyone who does this will answer the same questions.  She asked 11 questions for me to answer, I have to give 11 random facts about myself, and then I will ask 11 questions for my tagged buddies to answer.  Here goes!

Rules For Bloggers: (you must repost these)

1. Post these rules.
2. You must post 11 random things about yourself.
3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post.
4. Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
5. Go to their blog and tell them that you’ve tagged them.
6. No stuff in the tagging section about ‘you are tagged if you are reading this.’ blah blah blah, you legitimately have to tag 11 people!

11 Random Things About Myself:

1. I met my husband just after my 18th birthday and we have been best friends since.
2. I'm a sucker for the color purple, butterflies, ladybugs and all things girly.
3. Lilacs are my favorite flower of all time.  I think God makes them bloom just to see me smile :)   I wish they weren't such a short lived flower.
4. I love being a mom, I adore my children.  But sometimes I don't like them.
5. When I was 5, I fell out of a moving car.  My face was like the stopper on a roller skate and skidded along the pavement taking all of the skin off of the right side of my face.  My kindergarten teacher was so distraught to see me like that she ended up quitting.
6. I'm pretty computer illiterate but look like a computer genius when compared to my parents.
7. I absolutely despise doing dishes more than any other chore in the world.  And my dishwasher is broken, which makes it a billion times worse right now.
8. In high school, I fractured my neck by being hit on the head with a basketball during gym class.
9. I really like nutritional medicine and while I will take regular medicine when needed, I will try the natural remedy first.
10. I am a very loyal friend and hate that natural progression of life means that I don't get to see every one of my friends as regularly as I used to.
11. I absolutely love when someone else brings me a meal and saves me from having to figure out and cook dinner.  I used to like to cook and loved to bake, now I hate to cook and like to bake.

My answers to Amy's questions:

   1.  What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment in life thus far? staying married.  I didn't know if I had what it took when we first got married.  That is a conversation Hubby and I recently had and a post in and of itself for another day.

   2.  If you could go back and change one decision you've ever made, what would it be? I really hurt someone many years ago with something I did.  I didn't know at the time it was wrong but I never made it right after I realized what I had actually done.  I have no idea where that person is on the planet now to make things right at this point so all I can do is tell God and accept His forgiveness.  

   3.  What do you consider to be the best thing about where you live?  it's not humid!  Summer heat can get in the high 90's or low 100's but I can still walk outside without sweating a gallon just to walk to my car.  Or in the winter, even when it gets super cold (which isn't that often) it is never as cold as the humid places I have lived.  It is never the kind of cold that freezes your lungs when you take a breath in.

   4.  What is your biggest fear? my husband dying and having to make it through life and parenting without his support and love

   5.  What is your biggest guilty pleasure?  Twilight books, and anything that involves both chocolate and peanut butter

   6.  What is your favorite song of all time? oh my, I LOVE music and my favorite song changes as the seasons of my life change.  Right now it is Martina McBride's "I'm going to love you through it"

   7.  Describe the best day of your whole life.  I've had some amazing days.  I think the best though was the day my 3rd son was born.  My doctor informed me he was crowning and if I reached down I would be able to feel his head.  When  I reached down, his head fully came out.  My doctor coached me but she let me deliver my own sweet boy.  My hands were the first ever to touch him and hold him.  I brought him up to my chest and they cleaned him and did everything they needed to do with him right there laying on my chest cuddling with his mamma.  Being pregnant and giving birth is among the most amazing of all miracles but being the one to actually deliver my son was the most amazing of the most amazing!

   8.  Do you have any recurring dreams or nightmares? yes, nightmares.  They have gotten less in frequency since being married but not less in intensity.  

   9.  If you could be anywhere else in the world right now, where would you be? Lying on a quiet beach with a good book and a cold drink with no responsibility and nothing to do but lay there and relax!

   10.  What is the best choice you've ever made in life? the best and the hardest has been that I deserve a full and happy life and recovery (and health, both mental and physical) from eating disorder, from PTSD, from a haunting past, and from all the things that have held me hostage over the years of my life

   11.  If you could do it all over again, what would you change? I would have found my voice sooner.


My questions for you:

1. What is your greatest dream in life?
2. In what ways has your life turned out like you had hoped?
3. In what ways has your life been not at all like you had hoped?
4. If you could give one piece of advice to someone, what would it be?
5. What is your favorite and least favorite chore?
6. What is your favorite recipe to make?
7. Do you have a book (or a movie) that you could read/see many times over and still love?
8. Who has been or is the biggest influence in your life and in who you are becoming?
9. What are 3 great, wonderful, positive things about you? (no negative self talk here!  no I'm this but...... comments!)
10. What are  you most thankful for in your life?
11. What is the best advice you have ever received?

Bloggers I tag for the above 11 questions:

(I'm not tagging 11.  Amy already tagged a few of mine, so I will just tag a few.)

    1.  Holly at Eating a Tangerine

    2. Holly at ...breathe, just breathe

    3.  Angela at The Spirit Within

    4. Jess at A Wilderness Love Story
    5. Missy at Beautiful Sturggle
    6. Steph at bright moments during dark times
    7. Sarah at Bearing, Eating, Being  (Sarah, sorry if I double tagged you. I probably did.)

sick list

1. I LOVE my doctor! It was so nice to see my own doctor. I haven't seen her since this whole sickness began.  I have seen another dr in the practice, talked to yet another dr after hours on call, and then saw yet another dr at urgent care over the weekend.

2. anti nausea medicine is the bomb!

3.  percocet is my best friend right now

4.  today is the first day since Thursday that I put on "real" clothes not yoga pants and Hubby's t-shirt

5. pleurisy SUCKS  (it's an inflammation of the lining inside the lungs)

6. I'm really looking forward to having a long enough attention span again to really blog

beyond resolutions

I don't make resolutions.  I used to.  When I stopped making them, it was because I never kept them and then felt the shame and guilt of not keeping my promises to myself.  Honestly now, it just doesn't cross my mind until someone brings it up.  But I do have goals for my recovery/mental health for the year.  See, my goals involve changing the way I think about things. Behaviors don't change unless thoughts change first.  I want to change my thinking.

Things I'm currently working on shifting my perspective about.....

food. Specifically, whole foods.  I have been contemplating for months that our ancestors lived off the land.  They ate potatoes and did not become diabetic.  They ate corn and wheat and other grains without fear of carbs.  Most were farmers and they ate the chicken, cows, pigs and sheep that they raised. They even sometimes had sugar, not agave but real white sugar.  And it didn't make them fat.

fat.  I mean seriously.  I just said that living off of the land didn't make our ancestors fat.  The problem is that with today's standards, they would be overweight.  My Grandfather used to lovingly tell my Grandma that she was "pleasingly plump."  She was never fat or overweight in any way, but she had the curves of a woman.  She had hips, thighs, breasts, healthy curves.  If I could be half the beauty my Grandmother was in her prime...... Oh wait, to be that I'd have to accept that curves are beautiful.

beauty.  Today beauty is defined with a thin and trim body.  Women in general have body fat percentages that have fallen far below what is truly healthy for a woman. We have learned to despise curves.  Either we fear their power, oh so many of us do. ( I know I'm guilty there.  Curves bring attentions.  Attentions sometimes end in violation.)  Or we fear the numbers on the scale.  Or we fear the BMI or the fat percentage.  Or we fear the way we may be perceived by all the other curve haters we are surrounded by.  Beauty used to be femininity, now beauty is strength.  How does one reclaim the beauty of femininity?

love.  I have never earned my husband's love.  I have never earned my children's love.  I have never earned my friends love.  I have never earned God's love.  Simply because that isn't the way love works.  I don't have to earn it.  I don't have to be deserving of it.  I may not feel like I deserve to be loved but whether I believe I'm deserving or not, I am still loved. My perspective needs to be in learning to accept that love rather than to keep trying to earn it.  I cannot earn what has already been given freely.

There you go.  That is a glimpse into my brain.  That is a glimpse of areas that have been deep on my heart recently.  Those are areas that I am changing my perspective about, one truth at a time.  It may take a while but I'm still going to speak the truth.  Maybe someday soon I will believe the truth is for me too not just for everyone else I love.

things I'm thankful for

• bogo coupons for my hubby's favorite soap
• roasted garlic hummus
• my son's new glasses
• both of my older kids got the teachers they were hoping for this year
• exciting news about a pregnancy that isn't mine but I am as excited as I ever was for any of mine.  This pregnancy is a miracle and I am super duper thrilled to be one of very few who know about it as of yet.
• My dear bosom friend K
• My sweet southern belle friend
• my job
• the weight room I get to use after work 
• chocolate and peanut butter and any combination thereof
• coffee
• COFFEE
• my J.J. Heller cd Painted Red
• fall weather and being able to wear my tall boots again
• hubby's day off being tomorrow :)

things that make me smile :)

• date night with hubby to see the final Harry Potter movie
• Miche purses, I think I may be addicted!
• an iced venti non fat 7 pump vanilla latte to start my morning
• sleeping till 9 because the kids spent the night with grandma
• my hubby having been on vacation this past week
• celebrating hubby's birthday on Wed and actually for the first time in years he was surprised by his gift
• looking at the hard work I've done to make hubby a Yankee wall to hang all of his memorabilia.  I'll post pics when I'm done with the wall, but so far it looks awesome!
• hubby renting Lego Pirates of the Caribbean again on his birthday.  That game is ridiculously fun and I wish we owned it instead of renting it.
• margarita grilled chicken from Chili's
• any time spent talking to or texting my favorite southern belle.  Girl, you make me happy every time I think about you!
• after 13 years, finally being smart enough to Google the translation of the postcard I had made for hubby (then fiancee) in France.  It's a picture of me kissing a gorilla and the words say, "you have beautiful eyes, you know."
• having my kids back home in their own beds after a night away
• Sonic happy hour = large ice tea with lemon.  mmmmmmm, thank you hubby for that.
• an email from an old friend just checking in
• puzzles
• my new job and getting to see adults again and that they will do complete tuition reimbursement if I choose to pursue a degree
• that after over 12 years of marriage, hubby still does silly things like use my pants for a hand towel.  He thinks it is funny to see wet hand prints on my butt :)

things that annoy me

• teenage girls running through Target, yelling across the store at each other, pushing each other in the cart, yelling some more, laughing louder than anyone should physically be able to laugh and then thinking they are cool for shouting spells from Harry Potter.  Have I ever mentioned how glad I am to no longer be a teenager?

• though I am pro-life and not ashamed of that stance, I find it unacceptable to see 5 ft tall signs with pictures of aborted babies on the corner of  very busy intersection where my kids and other kids could see.  Thankfully that trip the kids weren't in the car and were not exposed to the gruesome pictures that I was exposed to.

• people texting during movies.  Seriously?  Why would you pay the money to see a movie on opening day only to spend 1/4 of the movie checking your phone and responding to the messager?  And seriously, who would want to pay attention to their phone with Harry Potter 7.2 playing????

• my neighbor kids who were wondering if we had any fireworks to sell at our garage sale.  Uh, no, they are illegal here!  And then that they found some from somewhere and have been setting them off for the past 2 days.

• the customer service at McDonald's.  I had to return a Redbox rental anyway so I was ordering something for hubby.  I looked up at the menu and asked a question.  No response.  I asked again.  Then he says, "Yo, what do you want already?"  Taken aback that he spoke to me like that I looked at him to see it was not me he was talking to but rather he had answered his cell phone WHILE I WAS ORDERING!  I informed him that he was rude and I was taking my business elsewhere.  Hubby got Arby's instead.

• Children on my street who have no regard for cars and dash in front of your car as you are backing out or driving down the street.  One was almost hit last month.  The child yelled at the car who had to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting the child who appeared from nowhere in front of his car.  (Is it really bad that hubby and I privately call the 2 little girls who are the absolute worst about street safety, the suicide twins?)

• busting our backsides to have a garage sale that only brought in $40.  Um, can you say Goodwill pickup?

• the friend of my kids who we see regularly who brings out the worst in my middle child and I spend a good portion of my day breaking up fights

• when my kids play Lego Pirates on my progress and buy characters instead of letting me save up my studs to buy the big things that will actually help in the game.  (I'm not a video game junkie, just Lego Pirates and Lego Harry Potter!)

things I am thinking about tonight

• looking for a new church, maybe.  I love our church.  The sermons are awesome and the people genuine.  This morning, for the 1st time, I checked the distance bc I was running low on gas.  Our church is 20 miles away!  And every week my kids are asking if they have to go and if they can stay with Grammy while I go.  Praying about that one.  Really want God's direction.
• I interview for the job tomorrow morning.  While on one hand I feel fairly confident, I am all kinds of butterflies in my stomach about it.  My work experience for the last 9 years has been rearing children not earning a paycheck.  What if I have totally forgotten how to present myself as an asset to a company and bomb the interview?  
• if I get the job, I will soon need new clothes.  My current "work" clothes are shorts, tank tops, sundresses and jeans.  My work as a mom requires comfort not closed toe shoes and shirts that cover up my tattoo!  
• I have a lot to get done before I have people over to my house on Wednesday for a girls night out/Miche purse party.  Wishing I had a house elf!  
• Tomorrow after the interview I have a planning meeting for next year's MOPS.  I'm beyond excited to have accepted a new position in MOPS but also nervous because it is both a new position and a new(er) group.  I am leaving my beloved group that I have been at for 8 years and going to help out my friend who last year just started a new group at her church.  
• I wonder if my kids are going to melt down tomorrow with doing a park with my friend while I am in the interview and then doing a park VBS in the afternoon while I meet about MOPS.  Tomorrow night could be an ice cold beer for mamma and early bedtime for kiddos kind of a day!
• and a closing thought that has been on my mind all day, God is faithful even when I am not.  His faithfulness does not depend on me being faithful, it does not depend on anything I do, it does not depend on how much faith I have.  His faithfulness is constant and never changing.

list

I've got a lot on my mind and thanks to blogger being down for nearly 2 days, my thoughts are all jumbled and I don't know where to begin or what to say.  I love lists.  Somehow a good list is soothing to me so maybe I'll just make a list until I feel better.

• sometimes I really want to quit
• I fantasize about quitting and being the one to host the disease without the emotional side effects.  Maybe I could get in the e.d. guiness book of world records for being normal and sane and only losing my body and not my mind.
• if I eat with a smaller spoon i.e. a baby sized spoon, I feel like I am eating less and feel less guilty.
• I exercised to a goal yesterday instead of to a desire.  (that means I didn't do the exercises I wanted to do but the ones I felt I "should" do and I didn't stop when my body told me to stop but rather stopped when I finally got my brain to shut up.)
• I actually HATE exercising and usually do so out of guilt or self hatred.
• No one should ever comment on another persons weight.  Don't say "Oh, gee, have you lost weight?" to anyone.  Don't say, "Oh, you are finally putting weight back on." to anyone who has ever had any eating disorder.
• The only exception to commenting on someone's weight is limited to a very intimate circle of people.  I can talk about weight and numbers with my husband for instance and a few other select people.
• even when I am on top of the world and depression feels far away, I still wonder what it would be like to die.  Even when I am in the best place ever, I still sometimes think about what it would be like to kill myself.  
• I don't want to die forever.  Don't panic, I'm not attempting suicide.  I just think about what death would be like.  I don't want to actually die though.
• I'm pretty sure that my last comment makes little to no sense and now has someone out there worried.
• I can see that I am getting a little further along in my recovery because last night I ate that brownie that my brain was throwing a fit about.  I didn't want to disappoint my blogger buddies.  Six months ago that would not have been reason enough to eat something when my brain said "Don't you dare!"
• Though my hubby likes my boobs and has been commenting on them, all I can see in the mirror right now is the muffin top that I am certain is there rather than the curves he compliments.
• I am sad that Mike turned out to be a not safe man, or at least not safe for me and my emotional place in life right now.  I decline to comment on if he is a safe man in general because I don't know that one way or another.  But he was not a safe man for me and we are no longer friends.
• I learned some important things about myself and God's healing through the short friendship I did have with him though.
• I want to have a birthday party/bbq at a park this year.  I think the last birthday party I had was when I turned 18 (surprise party thrown by my high school friend) and only 2 people showed up to that.  
• I think it is kinda (translated absolutely and completely) selfish of me to want to have people come and celebrate me.  It feels weird and awkward. 
• The day before Mother's Day I couldn't stand my hair for a second longer and I took out the scissors and cut it myself.  It is a bit uneven but not terrible looking.
• My friend Steph is amazing, inspiring, beautiful and stronger than nearly anyone else I know. 
• Steph got a haircut that everyone else loves but she hates and her comment was, "It's ok, I don't have to look at it."  That was the inspiration to just cut 3ish inches off of my hair on a whim.  I realized through her that it is just hair and it will grow back.
• I feel like a total jerk because I forgot one of my closest friends birthdays last month.
• I'm tired of being broke all the time.
• I am angry that people are making insensitive remarks and making Missy cry.  
• I'm frustrated that recovery isn't easy or quick.
• I want to take a  solo girl weekend away and go meet Sarah in Florida.  It would definitely suffice as time away from my life and time spent with someone who blesses me in countless ways.
• I'm still taken by a quote from The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.  "Failure is not only acceptable, often it is essential."  I have been mulling over that quote for days.
• I freakin love the soothing powers of lists and coffee :)

Ok, so I do feel somewhat better.  I'm exhausted and cannot continue until I feel completely better though.  It is crazy soothing for me, I absolutely love my lists.  Lists give me the ability to take a deep breath.  Lists help me gain perspective.  Lists are comforting.

reasons I choose recovery

I am still at the stage of re-recovery that I am often having to make a conscious decision to allow myself to recover.  Only someone who has been here can fully understand that comment.  The past couple of weeks have been difficult on the recovery front from a physical standpoint.  Mentally I am hanging in there, some rough days but handling them better than I would have even 2 months ago.  Physically though, I just don't feel like eating.  It just feels like so much work.

The scale numbers that had risen have dropped again.  I want to be motivated and I am so not motivated.  I'm tired.  My medicine cocktail helped at first and now I am back to exhausted all the time again.  I'm also back to being severely iron deficient and my thyroid is wacko again as well.  I know that plays a huge role in why I am exhausted.  I'm just tired of being tired.  I'm tired of being too tired to care whether I eat or not.

So tonight, I am making a specific choice to pursue recovery.  Tonight I am going to focus on reasons why I choose recovery!

hands that still need holding

mirror messages from my son

my boys, they need me and love me and the feelings are mutual :)

being able to enjoy and look forward to Ted Drew's next summer when we go back

being able to fully enjoy silly things like the water mark left by my coffee cup that I could never intentionally create!