Weight Watchers Update

For those who are following my trek with Weight Watchers, or who have their own weight loss journey, just  thought I would add a quick update. In 5 weeks I have lost 9 lbs total, which is not a HUGE amount, but I am losing slowly but surely. I am down one size from a size 8 to a size 6 in pants and dresses (Yay!!!). I was a size 2/4 before...3 years ago before I began gaining. I am  not sure if I will get there! 

I have lost inches as well:
Hips: -2.5 inches
Arms: -0.5 inches
Waist: -4.5 inches This is what I am most pleased with!!
Bust: -3 inches
Thigh: -1.5 inches

It has been SLOW going the last 2 weeks. I have managed to only lose about a 1/2 pound per week, but Weight Watchers states 1/2 a pound-2 lbs per week is healthy (maintainable) weight loss. I hit a plateau that lasted about a week and was so disappointed. What finally helped (I think) was eating more. I had not been using all my daily points (which may have helped jump-start my loss), but then I was hungry all the time. I am now eating all my daily points, though I only use about half the weekly bonus points. 

Feeling good about my journey so far. I have come to like some healthy things believe it or not. One of my favorite snacks is vanilla almond milk and Special K Cinnamon Pecan Cereal. Hope all of you are doing well!

Helping Others Who Face Divorce: What to do

Returning to normal life was very difficult after separating from my husband of ten years. I was afraid to just go to the grocery store by myself, let alone more family-oriented places like church. I felt there was a flashing neon sign above my head saying in large, bold letters “NOT WORTHY” or “HUSBAND HAS LEFT” or even “DAMAGED GOODS.” I knew that there were plenty of people that cared about me, that would come alongside me as I healed, but what I didn’t realize was how many people would mean me well but do me harm, or would only care about me as a topic of conversation to fill their free hours. I told people right away, heck, even posted it on social media that we were splitting up. I did not say anything negative about him just that it was over.  I asked him first if that was okay, and he was fine with it. My thoughts on that were that eventually the world would know anyhow and I would rather tackle it in one fell swoop than have to tell my story again and again. It was a Friday when we separated, and by Monday, most of the people in our world knew the news.

The Good

During this time, my parents were my rock. They took on many duties with the kids, knowing I was mentally exhausted just from making it through the day. They cooked, they cleaned, they comforted me. They gave my sons love that I was incapable of expressing for months. My attention was on the separation, the divorce, re-entering the dating world, and holding down my job when I felt like everything else was spinning out of control. If you can help someone you love that is going through this rough time, help them with their children (if they have any). It is likely that your friend is just going through the motions and will continue that route for a while.

Like I said previously, I was teaching junior high and high school students at the time, and they were phenomenal. If you ever want to know how to help someone through a tough time, ask a teen. Seriously. I think they are better equipped at the rawness that a life can encompass than adults are, and less hardened by time. My students showed up as quiet supporters. They brought me coffee and breakfast throughout the next week. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t have some form of unconditional love from them. The students that normally acted out a bit, were quiet. My classes were easy to teach. I have never felt so loved and respected than during that hard week. They would hug me, tell me stories to make me laugh, and all the while not much was ever actually said about what I was going through. That really helped. When I was hurting the most, I didn’t have to say anything.

My boss at the time was also wonderful. I will never forget the kindness he showed me. Whether you personally are religious or not, I will say that he showed me the true meaning of what it meant to be a Christian. He offered me time off, but I declined. Work was a welcome distraction. He let me know that he did not expect my teaching for the next few weeks to be stellar and would understand if I took it easy and showed movies for a while. He told me he knew I was a great teacher and would get it back as I recovered. He also texted me out of the blue once Christmas break started and asked if my children had a Christmas tree at home, and that he would bring one out to the house if we did not. The tree had already been up at the time, but his offer is never to be forgotten.

The secretary at the school I was at sent home some wrapped presents that she and her son (one of my students) had picked out for the boys. She told me she wasn’t sure if I had shopped yet, and her son insisted that they contribute to a happy (as happy as it could be) Christmas for my children. It still brings tears to my eyes.

During this time I also received a fair amount of messages on Facebook from old friends I had gone to high school with that were my age and had been through a divorce. I cherished all those emails, as it made me feel like I wasn’t the only one out there that had been down this road. If they made it through, so could I. 

Snippets From My Saga: Part 10

One of the hardest things for me for a while was being around my own children. They were constant reminders that I had failed them. Because of my mistakes, and those of their father, they would have to suffer through having a broken family. They would have to endure shared parenting, split holidays, and ruffled emotions as they transitioned from one house to the other. They may someday have to make two Mother’s Day or Father’s Day gifts in school because we had each moved on. I was embarrassed for them. I didn’t want them to ever have to explain these awkward things to their teachers, or worse, their friends.  I once told my own mother, after months of acting somewhat unattached to my sons, that it hurt me to look at them. I saw everything that was supposed to be that never would be.

They knew I was hurting. I will never, ever, forget the wisdom of my young boys that I received at that time. For a short time before he left, I wore a heart-shaped locket with pictures of my boys on one side and of us on the other. My younger son, only 2 ½ then, commented when I took it off. “Mommy doesn’t have her heart anymore, because it is broken.” I remember clearly a conversation with my older son (5 then). “Mom, you just need a knight in shining armor to come for you,” he said, “but I am not sure they exist.” When I began dating again, and found a man I cared about enough to introduce to them, my eldest asked me simply, “Does he make you smile, Mom?” During these months after the divorce was final, I tried to never speak badly about their father. I knew he loved them, and that we would need to work together to parent them even if we were no longer a couple. 

CNA School Thus Far...

This week has been oh so busy and very interesting. Last week the boys started back to school, and my baby boy started kindergarten! Boy how time really does fly! It seems like only yesterday that I had him. I had told myself that there was no need to be one of those silly, sentimental moms that cried when her child started school-after-all this is a good milestone, right? Yeah. I failed. I teared up seeing him in line, all excited for kindergarten, and again the next morning when he so proudly boarded the school bus with big brother. Guess I too am a sentimental fool.

I began school on Monday, and have now successfully made it through week one. This shouldn't be that much of an accomplishment, since the first week was only three days, but I will tell you what, three days of active listening and anxious learning (demonstrating brand new skills!) is exhausting! I am really enjoying it so far though. It seems I am learning so much in such a short amount of time. And I keep having to reign in my Hermione Grangeresque know-it-all-ness lest I be universally disliked by my classmates! It would seem that me having already taken my prerequisites for nursing like Anatomy and Medical Terminology means that I know a lot of the vocabulary and conditions!!! I keep trying to be somewhere in between answering all the questions during lecture and staying quiet and pretending I don't know some of them!

My instructors (we have two that team teach) have told us some amazing stories. I enjoy both for very different reasons. One is very strict and by-the-book, and one is much more calming and funny. Both seem like great nurses. The other day in lab (where we practice our new-found skills), our instructor (who is a bit rough around the edges) gives us this scenario: "Pretend your patient has MRSA and has had a blow-out. There's s*** everywhere. Now show me how you would gown and glove up and de-gown and de-glove without getting it on yourself!" In lecture the other day I realized I was absolutely fascinated by the mix of Anatomy and actual real-life scenarios and conditions. I had taken four full pages of notes in two hours. I'm not sure everyone else did, but I figure it can be what I take from it-so I'm taking all I can. We heard a sad, but also kind of funny story about a CNA student that absolutely flopped. During her clinicals she was given the task of caring for a women with a colostomy bag. She walked right out of the room, into the hospital, and said, "I picked the wrong major!!! I'm not doing this." Wow. Poor patient. From that story we were to take this lesson that I think is golden, "It's okay to get grossed out, even to go heave in the bathroom sometimes. It is okay to vent in the break room or at home, BUT you need to be very cognizant of where you are and what feelings you portray when you do vent. Always think, what if I were the patient?" Of course that thought is to govern all that we do and the manner in which we do it.

Snippets From My Saga: Part 9

I have never known guilt like the guilt I felt when my ex and I first separated and then divorced. I felt guilt at so many things, some big and some small. I felt guilt that my parents had paid a lot of money for me to have the perfect wedding, but I somehow could not make the perfect marriage. I had searched so long and so hard for all the perfect ways to do things. I felt guilt that I had not listened at all to my own parents, to family, or to friends that maybe I should not marry so young. I felt guilt that many of my so-called friends now had no idea how bad things had been at home, because I would not share that. I felt guilt that I had failed.

 I felt maybe there was something I could have done differently. Maybe if I had listened more, and pursued my own goals less we would have made it.  Maybe if I had asked more questions about his job, cooked better, or cared less about having clean house things would not have gone this way. I know that there were times I could have tried harder to be interested in the things that he was, or to care less about how much money we spent, or to have gotten ready faster (he hated how long I took!). I had never in my life failed at anything. I was a good girl, a good learner, a good worker…how did I get an ‘F’ in what mattered most?

Often I was bitter. I had so many goals once upon a time. I was such a smart girl, and good student. If I had not have ever married, I could have done anything. I could have been a doctor. I have to admit that I pined after what could have been much too much to be healthy. Had I never married him though, our boys would not have come to be, and just the thought made me feel guilty as well. Traveling down those paths was not a good choice for me.

Snippets From My Saga: Part 8

I used to joke that I was a single, married mom. He hated that. Because his job kept him away and working weird hours so much, I felt like I was the only parent around a lot of the time. It was normal to attend church with the kids and not him, or outings, or even family events. I often felt so alone. My own parents helped a ton, and I am sure it gave my sons much more than I could have, but it never filled the void of loneliness for me.

Want to know something weird? Whenever I was alone at these public places, I would play with my wedding ring. It was gorgeous, decently sized, and it was a symbol to me that I was loved and part of a union. It’s probably silly how often I looked at that ring, thinking that even though he wasn’t there, at least we had each other. When my wedding ring came off, my hand felt naked without it. I wear nail polish all the time, and whenever I remove it I hurry to put another polish back on because I hate the way my nails feel without it, naked, weak. That’s exactly how my finger felt without that ring. And though it was probably purely psychological, I needed something there. My mom knew this, and gave me a ring of hers that had a sapphire and tiny diamonds. Those are my sons’ two birthstones, and I slipped the ring on my left wedding ring finger, a symbol to myself of what I was still a part of. I still had a family. Though divorce would take away my marriage, I would always be a mom. Eventually the ring moved to my right hand, but even then I would look down and know that something was missing, the skin from years of being under a ring, pale and solitary, a stripe of what once was. 

Snippets From My Saga: Part 7

I grew up as an only child, and I reveled in the time alone. I never longed for others to play with-I had myself. My imagination kept me busy for hours on end, making up wonderful stories and entire worlds in my head. Then I discovered boys. Having a boyfriend made me feel alive and validated. Each poor boy I dated was to become the person I would talk at for hours on end, a built in companion and best friend. I didn’t have many friends in high school, but I wasn’t quite a loner either. What I had was one close friend at a time, many acquaintances that I enjoyed just fine but didn’t get too close to, and always a boyfriend. I was a sort of serial monogamist when it came to relationships. While I dated (and before actual dating had steady boyfriends too-in junior high) quite a lot, a short relationship for me was 3-4 months, and a long one was a year or two.  My favorite ex-boyfriend (that sounds weird doesn’t it?) moved on after over a year and a half with good reason, because I had become enamored with another boy.

 In my daydreams back then I longed for what some people see as normal and mundane. I wanted to be with my true love (whoever it was at the time) forever. Simple enough, right? (She says wryly). I wanted to be practically inseparable, except for when we had to go to work (I always imagined careers for us both), and to be the best of friends…one of those couples that is married for over 50 years and still holds hands. I still see those couples now and wish that for myself- all youth and vigor gone, but still in love.

When he left, I felt as though my world had shattered. I wanted to curl up in a ball in a dark place, never to be found again. My heart was breaking, but the weird thing was that it wasn’t breaking because I was still in love (because sadly, I wasn’t); it was breaking because my plan, the plan, had fallen apart and all that was left was pieces. I felt like I had died. I didn’t know who I was. I had been his wife, and I had been a wife for over ten years…my entire adult life thus far. Who was I when I was no longer a wife?

Snippets From My Saga: Part 6

We married after just under two years of dating, becoming engaged at just six months into our relationship. We were young, a junior and a senior in high school, and many people warned we were way too young to be married. It was not a romantic proposal, but a good story nonetheless. As we chatted on the phone endlessly one night, he asked, “What would you say if I asked you to marry me?” I challenged, “Are you asking?” Him: “yes.”  Me: “yes.”  I knew I was young, but I was head-over-heels in love and had always wanted to attend college as a young, married woman, not alone. I am not sure why that was in my fantasy. The wedding planning began, and one month after I graduated, and one year and one month after he did, we were wed.

Even now, since I am finally past most of the bitterness and pain, I can see his smile during some of those better times. I can see my Boxer puppy, Rusty, and how I adored that dog and he didn’t, but he thought it was cute the way I babied him. I can see the excitement of having our first home built, choosing all the flooring and colors. We drove by that house every day to watch the progress! The first time it snowed since we had moved to Oregon, he was as excited as a small child, and we grinned as we looked at our home, our cars, and our dogs in the fluffy snow, taking tons of pictures.

It was he who told me I was pregnant with our first child. We had been trying for just a month, and when I had peed on the stick I was way too nervous to look. He went into the bathroom, bringing the evidence of a pink plus sign out for me, wrapping me in his arms and swinging me around. He surprised me by painting our bedroom while I was pregnant the color I had chosen and was planning to paint, telling me I was not to touch it; I was “with child”! He held my hand during an emergency C-section, and hardly left my side when our first child was born, having to spend nine long days in the NICU. 2 ½ years later I would tell him I was expecting again, with a hand-made card “drawn” by our son, letting him know he was soon to be a big brother. 

 

Snippets from my Saga: Part 5

We stayed together for the typical reasons. The children needed us both, and neither of us could imagine a home that was bereft of their mom or dad. We clung to all the history that we shared together. When I would think of starting over, it exhausted me! Another person would have to learn how I liked my eggs, took my coffee, who the slightly crazy family members were, and fear of all fears, love my children like his own. When I would think those thoughts, I would give my head a violent shake, as if to clear the absurdity from my mind. For him, I know that he too worried about similar things. I knew, and put up with his crazy schedule. I “gave in” any time he wanted romance, unlike some wives out there! I took care of our sons, and I was (sometimes) fun to be around. I knew and loved his family, and (to those who have been there as well this will make the most sense…) I had been there with him through the years. The making of a life happens in each and every moment. We think it is only the big moments, but we could not be more mistaken. The making of a life does happen with each decision, but also with each touch and smile, with each move, with each minor illness and movie shared. Whether we had meant to or not, we had made a life together, and it was the only one that either of us knew.

 Rewind back 10 ½ years earlier to a beautiful July day in Central Valley California. I was dressed in billowing tulle that floated into a long train behind me. A fitted bodice of sequins and pearls adorned the top of the dress, and delicate white spaghetti straps clung to my tan shoulders. My hair, then a golden blonde, was down in spiral curls to below my shoulders, and pulled gently off my face with a headband and attached delicate veil. On my feet were ballet flats, as I wanted to be comfortable on my big night. The wedding was set for four o’clock that warm, but not too unbearably hot, afternoon. It was at a private golf course and country club. The walk down the aisle was to actually be a walk down the green to an altar of roses. He wore all white as well, with brown socks, what started as a joke looking at old wedding photos of his parents and his dad’s mismatched socks showing, and then became a purposeful tradition. His parents, married at the exact same spot years earlier, loved the idea. In hindsight, they too, are now divorced. Perhaps that particular country club is bad luck?  Ah, but I digress.

The wedding was a dream. A large wedding party with six bridesmaids and six groomsmen and two flower girls and a ring-bearer-I know it was a beautiful sight; I have the pictures.  The girls were decked out in floaty ice-blue dresses, and the groomsmen wore vests under their tuxedos to match. The flower girls wore navy blue. Ice blue, navy and white, gave the appearance of cool on a warm summer day. There was dancing and food galore, and looking back upon it, it truly was a wonderful day.