Documentaries

Things are going along about as usual. I have watched several documentaries in the past week I thought I'd mention:

"Forks over Knives" A dcoumentary focused on the work of Drs Esselysten and Campbell about nutrition and the effect of the American diet on health.

"Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" Focusing on two men who have serious health issues, this documentary chronicles the rigorous healing path -- including a two-month diet of fruits and vegetables -- that both attempt in a bid to rescue their health.

"Ashtanga NY" A documentary about the visit from India of the Ashtanga guru to NY during the 9/11 attacks.

"Running the Sahara" America's Charlie Engle (from Greensboro NC), Canada's Ray Zahab and Taiwan's Kevin Lin embark on an unprecedented quest to traverse the entire Sahara desert -- on foot. Along the way, the runners encounter the beauties and hardships that accompany modern African life.

I enjoyed them all.

Brief Update

Things here are ... okay. I swear stuff keeps popping up - I realized Friday my NC license plates have expired, but I can't get one in Florida until 1. They receive the title from the bank so they can create a Florida title (requested today) and 2. I pay them around $400. So now I wait for the title to get here and hope I don't get pulled over. I swear, I've never had this happen in my life. How embaressing! Also, I'm not sure whether I can register the car or if I have to wait for hub to get back since I still don't have a Florida license (still waiting on my marriage certificate from Hawaii).

I was very emotional Saturday night. I don't know why, I just was. I was planning to go to a hockey game with the boy, but I told him to take his friend N and I stayed home and watched Puppetmaster 1 and 2 (so many unanswered questions).

Anyway, some good, some tired, some blah. But overall gradually getting better IMO.

So Proud

I was having a pretty good Thursday morning, until hub called me. We've been expecting his unemployment to kick in for about a month - he got the letter saying (we thought) he'd been approved a month ago and asking for our banking information.

After 5 days of trying to get a human on the phone at the unemployment office, he finally did. What they said basically came out as "Since you quit your job you aren't approved - let us kno where you've applied for work and maybe we'll review your case and give you money." Never mind that several folks who transferred haven't had any issue since they qualiy under the "trailing spouse" provision. He was So upset, and I totally lost it. At work. As in cried off all my make-up and proved to anyone within earshot like I could curse better than any sailor or reality tv star. Yeah. One of my finer moments.

He called back a couple more times and got a better explanation of what he needs to do and it does sound like he will start getting benefits, but probably not back to the point he beagn applying for jobs.

I have pizza and beer for dinner last night.

Oh, and My NC license plates have expired but to get new ones in Florida I have to get the bank i have the car loan with to transfer the title to Florida before they'll give me plates. Between vehicle tax and registration, total cost around $400. I have NO IDEA how long that will take, but I'm driving with an expired plate until then.

Does it ever get easier???

Workout and etc.


The boy is home from school today. He called me on the way to work and asked me to call him in absent because he was sick at his stomach. I have another dr. appointment for him tomorrow - I hope they can do something, this is crazy.


This morning I did the lower body workout on Kathy Smith's "Lift Weights to Lose Weight" - I have to say I like the lower body workout even better. It was tough and all you really needed was a chair! I had a weight bench, so I modified and used that. It was hard! I was sweating (more than I would have liked!) and there was some points when I had to stop it was so tough. I felt like I had a good (thought brief) lower body workout. I can totally see these working.

I do have a Joyce Vedral dvd coming soon from netflix. I have a couple of her books - she was one of the very early proponents of women lifting weights like men (just lighter), but I've never seen any of her videos. So I'm curious.

Anyway, not too much else to report. Jordan and I took a short walk last evening. I watched the first half of "My Name is Bruce" which is a horror spoof starring bruce Campbell, spoofing his own career and movies. I made a yummy meal of baked salmon, scampi noodles, and a big salad. The boys picked at a salad - with my boy eating a little salmon later in the evening. So glad I cooked a good meal for them. Grr. (His friend N eats at our house more than he eats at home).

I got a good night of sleep and I'm taking tomorrow off work to take care of a bunch of errands. A mom's work is never done!

Have a good one!

Workout video

I'm doing great with walking - the dog and I actually walked twice yesterday! We did around 25-30 minutes in the morning, and then a long 40 minute walk in the afternoon. So this morning I decided we needed to sleep in. :-) We'll walk again this evening.

My stretch and yoga classes are going good - yoga is very difficult, but I am glad I signed up for these classes.

Weights - not so much. I haven't been very motivated to do my kettlebells - it's a major production since I have to shut myself away from the dogs. Since it wasn't gettign done, I decided to try a different tactic.

This morning I brought in a weight training video and came in to the office extra early so I could go downstairs and do it in the gym. I checked out a video from the library: "Lift Weights to Lose Wight" with Kathy Smith. It's 2 discs and each has 2 20 minute sessions - 1 for upper body and 1 for lower. Disc 1 is supposed to be the more basic of the 2 so that's what I did this morning.

Overall it's a good workout. I'll need to do it a couple of times to figure out the correct weight to use for the exercises given how many reps we do. Her queuing was a bit off (or I was) a couple of times, but generally it was easy to follow. She IS a little chipper for o dark thirty, but oh well. Like I said, overall a good workout.

I have a couple of other videos in my netflix queue I want to try. The guy who works down there says that when he gets caught up (they are down to 2 folks from 3 so responsibilities are being juggled) that if I come in that early he'll be happy to work one on one with me some. That would be great! I told him that right now I need all the motivation and help I can get!

The more things change, the more they change

The boy is waffling. Mom called and there aren't any tuition slots at his old high school. Since mom lives in a different county, he would have to go to the high school where she is. So he is really torn. I am meeting with a lawyer Friday to discuss giving my mom custody so she can enroll him and what that looks like down here and timeline etc. So, once we have those facts he can better make a decision.

We had a very good, genuine adult conversation last night. He asked if I felt I'd made the right decision going away to high school and he talked about how hard school is here and how he's feeling. He cried a little. I told him I knew he could be successful whatever he chose to do and that I would support him whatever he chose to do.

Have I ever mentioned that being a parent is the hardest job on the planet? At least if you give a rats butt.

Anyway, I ate exactly one meal yesterday which isn't great but ugh I was so stressed and felt like poo. Today I was sure to pack all my healthy food and eat it. Poor boy is liteally sick nearly every morning. The medicine the doctor gave him for gastritis doesn't seem to be helping, so I think we'll be headed back to the doctor. I feel sure it's stress, poor kid.

Being high strung can suck.

Anyway, I got a fair bit accomplished at work today. I certainly could have been more productive, but not much. Honestly, I did much better in that department. That felt good.

I walked the dog this morning and I think we'll go again tonight. I checked out a couple of weight lifting videos to try out at the office gym. No dogs "helping."

Some days better, some days not

I was up from 1 am to 5 am, just feeling really overwhelmed and stressed. I met with the counselor tonight, but even before I was feeling better. I took a nap, I ate some dinner. It's like I used up a lot of my emotions, and I'm feeling a little calmer.

With the counselor I was able to formulate some strategies for focusing better at work - that's feeling a little out of control so having that more in control will help. I just go and can't seem to get focused and organized. I am going to schedule my time so that I have appointments set for myself on all my different projects. At any given time I'm working on 4-5 different things, and I am responsible for managing my time. Needless to say, right now that's hard!!

The boy can't go back to his old high school, he would have to go to the school in my mom's district, so he's back to not knowing what he wants to do. I have an appt with the attorney on Friday to find out what we would need to do to give my mom custody - which is what we'd have to do for her to enroll him in school up there. I know this is the biggest decision he's ever had to make, but at his age I know it's one he's going to have to make for himself. He's too old for me to force him into staying he against his will - that would backfire bigtime.

Anyway, I totally pigged out last night & in the middle of the night to the point I felt ill. Not good. I didn't eat at all until supper - I just felt too dreadful. So that's not good, but I'm hoping that will subside. Hub and I are communicating better - really talking, making decisions, and that feels good.

So, better I think.

Frustration

As I've written before, financially it's very difficult down here. Hub is up in NC doing some work for my mom and then doing some work for an old neighbor. The issue is that he isn't exactly doing the work at my mom's with any sense of urgency. She's had him do a fair bit of work (or he was supposed to) while we were at her house and he treated it more like a vacation than a job. He's hoping I'll hate it here enough to move to the reservation. Let's just say I'd have to be pretty damn desperate. So he's banking on not staying. Leaving any time soon = financial disaster. So let's just say I don't think we are communicating very well.

One thing that will improve our financial situation is the fact that the boy has decided he wants to go back to NC. He is very unhappy here. I am very conflicted about this. On the one hand, he's my son and of course I want him with me. OTOH, I know he isn't happy and I'm not sure how well things will go here, so it's probably for the best. I was being flippant about the finances - it will help not to have him on the car insurance, but that has nothing to do with any decisions.

In short, I feel like my whole family is falling apart.

Hello cheese dip, my old friend

Once again I have turned to food to help cope with stress. Right now the major source of stress is two-fold:

1. Financial. I can't support us on just my paycheck. South Florida is crazy expensive, but I didn't get a raise when we came down. Example: car insurance more than double, property tax triple, home owners insurance 8 times what we paid in NC. That amount to thousnads of extra dollars a year and not paying income tax to the state doesn't even begin to offset the extra expense. In addition, we are faced with somewhere in the neighborhood of $7,000 of work that needs to be done on this house, in varying degrees of soon. Foundation - next year or so, roof and sprinkler system asap, plumbing not as important. Short term, we could mostly get by on my income plus hub's unemployment. He was approved a month ago and hasn't gotten any money yet. It should kick in soon, the back money will need to go to helping pay for car insurance ($2800 for 6 months) and car registration (about $500 per car). One option (although unattractive) is to become a one car family. I can take the bus to work and that would save us over $500 per month. but it makes it difficult (once hub gets a job) to go to dr appts, meetings, anything like that.

2. The boy. I don't even know what to say here. He is unhappy. Add that to his temperment of wanting what he wants when he wants it and a bad temper, and it's just awful. He stayed up till 1 working on his car the other day, and when I woke him up and told him he'd be grounded if he didn't go to school, he got up in my face screaming obscenities. Frankly, I sincerely hopes he takes some time off after high school (assuming he finishes) and does something else - preferably he'll go in the coast guard. He needs a dose of real life in a bad way. He doesn't do drugs or break the law, he just does not accept that he can't do what he wants when he wants. I know I'll miss him once he's grown, but right now I honestly don't enjoy having him around very much - especially with hub out of town for the nex tmonth.

Yeah. hub is up in NC doing work on my mom's house. She is not going to put it on the market before she comes down - frankly, right now I have no idea how long we'll be here. I love this house very much and I love having the pool, but I have no idea how people survive down here with the cost of living being what it is. We miss home. I hope hub finds a job as that will make things easier. Also, I should be getting a little money from my grandmother (I have no idea how much), but I'm hoping it's enough to get done on the house what we need to and get caught up.

Some good things: I am walking regularly, doing stretch and yoga at the fitness center at work (we can't afford a gym), and I am going to look for a decent weight lifting dvd so I can take that in and do it at work as well.

Work itself is okay - I'm just having a tough time focusing on it. I have a list of "to do" and I can do the easy stuff, but the more difficult analysis stuff just keeps getting postponed. Le sigh.

Today we are supposed to go to the Coral Castle. It's been raining since last night, so that may not happen today.

"Some things never change, some things do"

A lot has changed since I started this blog. People I read faithfully have stopped blogging, others have locked their blogs. I wonder what happened to them. I miss them.

I certainly haven't blogged faithfully. A lot has changed and I've struggled to figure out how this blog fits in.

A lot has changed this year. There are things in your life that you assume are unchanging constants: your relationship with your spouse, your family, your work, your habits. This year has taught me that the things that never change are awfully few in number.

This year has changed and challenged pretty much everything in my life. My family has faced, and continues to face, some pretty serious adversity. I've made the decision to go to counselling in an effort to cope with some of these events.

I'm not quite sure how this blog fits, only that I need it to. For a time this was about weight, then it was about fitness, now it's about health - mental, physical, spiritual.

Brain dump

Overall, I’d say things are going pretty well. I think I’m feeling less stressed & frustrated than I was at the end of last year. Whether that’s because I’m just totally wrung out and too tired to feel much or this past year has given me some perspective, or something else entirely I’m not sure.

There are things I like very much about living here:

I like taking the bus too work. It is a little time consuming, but it’s easy and the bus stop isn’t a bad walk from the house at all.

I love the new house – although I am feeling stressed by the slowness of getting things organized. The whole “building storage in the garage” is holding things up. I know it’s getting done, but progress in the garage seems slow, and is holding up progress in the house.

I am more active. I walk Jordan – sometimes morning and evening. We have a good neighborhood for walking. We get in the pool a lot on the weekends. We take the dogs to the dog park.

I worked for my old boss for 5.5 years. So a new boss is a change, which also has it’s good points. I like Sonia and the new team so far.

I am taking a yoga class at lunch 1 day a week. I really like the instructor - it’s power yoga so it’s TOUGH, but I’m hanging in there.

I signed up for 2 stretching classes, I have my first one this afternoon.

We are going to the beach this weekend – just to take a walk, so that’ll be nice.

I still have times of feeling angry or stressed, and there are times I still overeat due to stress, but overall it’s much better, and best of all I feel better. It’s hard to explain better than that – just overall my stress feels lower than it’s been in quite a while, in spite of obstacles and stressors that still exist.

2011 - the year of "new cheese"

I think I may have mentioned hub and I reading "Who Moved my Cheese?" earlier this year. "New cheese" has become a catch phrase in our family that means trying new stuff.

My big new cheese today was taking the bus home from work. I've never used public transit regularly in this country - it's simply never been cheap or convenient enough. But hub's truck get 13-15 miles per gallon, and we're tallking diesel. We simply can't afford to have him running all over the place in that thing - and there's no reason. My car gets 30 mpg and uses plain old basic gas. He has been taking me to work and keeping the car, but that adds up - both in expense, wear and tear, and in time. The bus stop is less than a mile from my house and there is one right in front of my office. If there weather is bad, hub can always pick me up in the afternoon and drop me in the morning at the stop. I was pleasantly surprised - it wasn't crowded, it was very clean, and it was a quick trip straight up Pine Island Road. Easy!

Hub may have a temp job starting Monday if his doctor's office gets the form back to the temp company which clears him for work post surgery. He has a form, but the agency needs it on their form. Fingers crossed!

The boy cleaned the pool filter yesterday and offered to wash the dishes today!!!! Maybe he's getting over his funk! That would be lovely.

What else? The puppy weighs 46 pounds, work still seems to be pretty good. I'm trying to be positive, motivated, showing my new boss I'm a go getter, etc. I really do enjoy my job, but being extroverted is tiring for me cause really I'm just a math geek in disguise. Ha ha ha.

The neighborhood is awesome for walks - morning or evening. I hopped in the pool when I got home from work today - very nice. I priced a pool heater ($3000!), which is crazy considering we can use the pool most of the year anyway and don't have to winterize it at all. It would be lovely, but it goes without saying I don't have that kind of extra cash!

Overall, I'm not feeling that great. Sunday night we watched "Talladega Nights" (don't judge me). Anyway, it's set in NC and seeing the scenery etc. just made me really homesick - for the geography, for my mom, for a lot of things. I sat up till nearly midnight, just kinda crying. It's a shame because the night was frog free and I could've gotten a great night's sleep.

Anyway, I felt like poop Monday and called in sick. I spent the morning sitting by the pool reading "Harriet the Spy" (why yes, it IS a children's book). My mom will likely end up needing gall bladder surgery - the logical thing is for hub to go up & be with her since he isn't working. He could paint the inside of her house while he's there as well. We'll see.

We have the guest room set up and largely finished putting stuff away in our bedroom & hanging pictures, so it's really starting to look like our house. We did A LOT over the weekend - my back was killing me!

One thing I didn't like about the old house was that the kitchen sink faced a wall, and the windows in the kitchen had an exciting view of my clothes line and the side of the neighbor's house. My kitchen sink looks out over the pool, which makes kitchen work a lot more bearable, except it makes me want to be outisde!!!

There are good things and I do appreciate them, it's just that I've been trying to stay positive in the face of hub abd the boy's ... lack of enthusiasm for the move, and I'm just wrung out. I swear, if you drop a bomb in front of me my reaction would be to say "well, huh."

Anyway, things are getting back to the new normal, whatever that turns out to be.

Work

So, I went to work for 4 whole days these week - that's the most days in a row since mid July!!! I like my desk (not as private as my old one, but newer stuff). My team are nice and our new boss started last Monday, so in that regard we are on a level playing field. I am slowly getting bck into the swing of picking up projects I had passed off and offering time on new ones. I have also jumped into taking advantage of the fitness center and am signing up for a couple of classes when the next session starts in 2 weeks.

The boy is being a lazy, ungrateful ass. I keep reminding myself that he is only 16 and this is hard on him, but there are days I'd like to throttle him. He refuses to do anything to help out around here AT ALL. UGH!!!!! He has met a couple of friends (twins his age) - their mom is very strict, so I like that. Maybe his attitude will improve.

I am setting up a schedule of getting things done around the house, but new (little) things keep cropping up. Not much progress is happening during the week - just your basic "manage to get dinner on the table and dishes washed."

I am walking in the mornings and starting fitness classes soon. I am cooking regular meals and getting my house (literally) in order. But I know there is a lot of stuff - the recent death of my grandmother up in Asheville and all the stuff that dredged up, the worry over hub finding a job, my frustration with the boy's attitude. There's a lot of stress and emotion just below the surface that I am going to have to deal with in a manner that doesn't include beer or cheese dip.

More updates

The house is coming along and we've done a lot of unpacking. The garage is still a disaster, but the guys are building some storage.

One the inside: we painted every room but the master bath (just ran out of steam I guess but we have the paint). We have a new dish washer (after hub re-wired the electrical so it would run without turing on the disposal), a new fridge, and a new ceiling fan in the kitchen. New ceiling fan in the family room. New ceiling fan in all bedrooms. Curtains in all rooms but the kitchen (if you saw my view of the pool you wouldn't want to block it either). Hub fixed the hot water heater (it didn't work when we moved in).

The pool is my baby.

More later!

A short summary:

1. My loan processor from Wells-F was either incompetent or negligent and her managers were a bunch of liars, While driving down I-95 22 hours prior to closing she was calling asking for documents she'd received weeks prior. On the day of our closing, we were repeatedly asked for more documents while being assued the loan money had been wired, which was a LIE. We didn't close, and both our interest rate lock and our contract expired. We were assured we'd be 'compenstaed' for the $1000 plus the delay cost us. Another LIE. The only good thing was that the seller agreed to close even though we didn't have a contract since our lawyer assured us we'd have to sue for our deposit (which was A LOT) and that we'd probably lose.

2. My grandmother died (dad's mom obviously). Hub and the boy were up in NC at the time, but I was stuck here alone with the dogs. My mom had a voicemaiil from my aunt when they got back to NC on a Wednesday, she called me on Thursday, she & the boy went up to Asheville on Friday, and grandma died on Saturday.

3. This house had loads of potential and a wonderful layout, but it's been making us kinda nuts. It sat empty. then was purchased as an investment by a bunch of crazy people (another time I'll write about how at the closing the representative for the seller was thrown out of the office screaming obscenities). The crazies hired Cheech & Chong to do the remodelling post being trashed by a renter. Let me tell you this one thing: The dishwasher ran (but didn't actually do its function) but the inspector thought it did not in fact run because the way it was wired it only got power when the disposal was turned on. That's all you need to know about everything in this house. Except the frogs were keeping us up ALL NIGHT. Thank you baby jesus for amphibian repellant and pest control people that show up same day.

Also, all the iguanas here have died due to severe cold 2 years ago and have been replaced by a new kind of lizard with a curly tail which, when they get large enough, get a bit aggresive and eat geckos etc.

Also, having a pool in the back yard does not suck.

It is the rainy season, whcih reminds me a lot of Hawaii.

I start work Tuesday. I feel fat and tired.

Still no house, still no closing date, but the realtor says we're close. Hopefully next week.

Seller agreed to make the needed changes to the title. They must be filed with the court, thus our closing is delayed a week or two. New date tbd.

As the stomach churns

The latest:

There is an "issue" with the title to the new house. Nothing major - it's the way the name of the trustee that owns the house is written (some legal technicality type thing.) No big deal, except that the owner has been slow to repsond and has kept inssting it's fine. Well, since the title company won't insure the title as is, and no insurance means no mortgage, no, it's not okay. Which is what I lawyer called and told them. They seem to be moving, but very slowly. Will I have a house next Monday? Who knows????

The crazies

My mortgage loan officer said to me the other day “If you haven’t bought a house in the past 2 years, you haven’t bought a house.” Meaning that the entire experience has changed dramatically – and it’s really not all about the bank! It’s more about what sellers are expecting, what banks are requiring, disclosures due to changes in laws, etc. The end result is a lot more paperwork going back and forth, and a lot more leg work for the buyer (at least in my experience). It’s been crazy. My to do list is insane – it’s color coded and I force myself to do 5 things per day off the moving list and 3 per day off the work list. And then I go to my mom’s. Hoo boy!

Also, I don’t think this is particular to my family, trying to organize anything is akin to launching the D-Day invasion. We’re juggling getting 5 dogs, 3 people, and 3 vehicles to Florida, getting my step brother to come down and help us paint the new house, hopefully come up and help my mom with a few things on her house, and squeeze in the fact that at some as-yet-to-be-determined time in the very near future, my ex stepdad is buying a new houseboat (he has a buyer for his who wants to take possession in 2 weeks). The wrinkle to my plans is the fact that he will need both the boy and my step brother to crew the boat from Florida to Wilmington. Last time they did this (when he bought the boat he has now) it took a week to get to Wilmington from Coccoa Beach. Schools starts pretty soon and the boy needs to be back home for that!

So things are pretty hectic. Also, I promised to paint an entire wall of aboriginal dot art on one wall in the boy’s bedroom – he was seriously in love with the tiki bar I made a couple of years back. But that won’t be done immediately.

I’ve picked colors for the 2 bathrooms, and I know I want a pale grey in the main living areas – when we get down there I am going to buy a few samples and paint swatches to see how they look.

I have to get our stuff re-packed and ready for the move down.

Gah.