Thread: April's Journal

it's your personal journal, you can say what you want.
hope things are going better for you, april.

oh man.. april.... *long sigh*... i sure wish things would calm down for ya... holy cow...
okay.. *deep breath*.. YOU ARE STILL CHEAT FREE even WITH all of this STUFF going on...
you have my admiration... good thoughts headed your way..
i am a step parent.. its HARD.. its BRUTAL..
husband just got a VICIOUS letter from his son (in jail) oh man... and he was so happy to see the GED that accompanied it..*sigh*... the boy is OVER THIRTY fergodsake...and STILL able to break the mans heart with stuff like that..:-(
thing is... HE is the step father to MY three kids and they ADORE him... *shrug*
i recall a time when i would REFUSE to be in the house when his kids came for their VISITS when they would pottymouth.. go wild and cause havoc in the house.. (all the while my kiddos taking notes on how the difference in behavior was tolerated...)
i would check into a motel for the weekend..
*sigh*.. probably wasnt the best thing to do.. but my sanity in the situation was on a thread... and i didnt need to add MY bad vibes to the already lousey situation..
((((((((april)))))))))) i wish you peace on this day..and i wish you a chance to make room for APRIL in all of this..
kim

Gosh April, I hope things calm down for you. Sounds like you need a long weekend away from everything. Is that at all possible?

Thanks, everyone, for stopping by. Hearing from you good folks means more to me than you'll ever realize.

Mary Kay - things will calm down. I've known for quite awhile now that most times I manufacture my own stress. I need to learn to be proactive instead of reactive.

Carrie - hope your night out in Lexington went well.

Kim - I'm truly blessed in that I have wonderful stepchildren. They could have made my life a living Hell, but they didn't and don't. The divorce their parents had was very amicable. In fact, I see their Mother quite a bit and we all go out for dinner on the children's birthdays. It was strange at first because there's this sterotype that the ex-wife and the new wife are supposed to be mortal enemies. But, it's simply not that way. We figured that if we all got along that we could show the kids that divorce doesn't have to mean the end of a family.

Rob - regarding the long weekend away, well...I would want to spend it with my best friend, and since that person also happens to be my husband, and since he works weekends, 3rd shift, that's not possible.

Thanks, people, for the kinds words.

I've decided I'm going to try for 70 days cheat-free. Allow me to explicate what cheat-free means for my situation. It means eating clean...totally. No low carb products of any kind, except the low carb tortillas about once each week. No sugar in any form, plenty of water, and plenty of vegetables.

I've made it 18 days thus far. Seventy would put me on October 18th, and if I can make it that close to Halloween without a cheat, I can make it through the Halloween candy-fest in this house without cheating.

I'll report here in my journal how I'm doing with the 70-day challenge.

Down to 211 this morning. Weighed at the doctor's office Friday when I went for the blood pull and weighed 217 on his scales. Weighed this morning at the doctor's office when I went there to discuss my bloodwork results and weighed 214. The nurse was astonished. I wasn't. The walking and cheat-free days are paying off. Plus, I've lost 3 inches from my waist. Yay!

My scale is kinder and gentler, plus I weigh sans clothing at home, so I'll take the 211.

Today makes 20 days cheat-free for me. Here are my bloodwork results:

LDL = 99
HDL = 64
VLDL = 13
Triglycerides = 65
TOTAL CHOLESTEROL = 176

Total cholesterol to HDL ratio = 2.75 (good cholesterol)
LDL to HDL ratio = 1.54 (bad cholesterol)

My doctor is thrilled with these numbers. That's the good news.

The bad news is that -- at the very last moment -- I decided to ask about my moods and depression, the "snowball effect" I feel and how overwhelmed I feel about life in general at the end of the day, and he promptly put me on a low dose of Zoloft and wants to see me again in 2 1/2 weeks.

C'est la vie...

april, so glad to hear about the weight loss, your cheat free days, and the positive blood results! very happy for you, truly.

how do you feel about the medicine your doctor prescribed? are you comfortable w/ it? i'm sure you already have ... but do your research, etc. b/c zoloft can sometimes cause some unwanted side effects. but since it will be a low dose, perhaps you will not have any.
thinking good thoughts, sending them your way.

Good morning April. Haven't chatted with you for awhile.
I've decided to join you in your 'eating clean' plan.
I haven't really been off-plan - but have given into the shakes/breakfast bars once in a while. (and a little lc choc bar maybe once a week)

I am just so tired of not moving - I've been so good.
So, starting today - no more bars (easy, I don't have any left), maybe one shake a week, and that is the Curves powdered one with Carb Countdown milk.

I'm feeling happy and healthy, but 3 lbs in 2 months is a little disappointing. So, I'll give the month of September clean eating and see if that helps. If not, it's either an egg fast, or fat fast, or whatever to kick-start. Re-Induction won't help - I don't have cravings, I'm not eating off plan. so - no shortcuts for 4 weeks.

PS - I'm really glad to see you have such good blood work. And listen to your doctor. Your 'overwhelm' comes across pretty strong, and has been for awhile. See if modern medicine can be of any help.

CLEAN EATING for SEPTEMBER!

Your 'overwhelm' comes across pretty strong, and has been for awhile.

I'm very sorry. Yeah, I've read some of my posts lately, and they have come across as pretty strong.

Nothing at all to be sorry for. That is why we are all here - to be honest and support each other.
I'm glad you express yourself here. I didn't mean you came across strong - just that it is easy to see you are constantly under so much pressure.

april.. dont change one thing about your straightfoward un-sugarcoated comments.. thats what i come to read here.. not some softsell of how life is great and SUZY SUNSHINE stuff.. i want to know HOW someone is coping.. how it affects what they eat and why...
please... dont stop writing as you do.. it is a breath of fresh air!

I'm not changing anything except my outlook on life. Mary Kay is right....I'm "down" lately and my doctor told me that he knew it took a lot of guts to address the issue with him and now we're going to do something about it.

Mary Kay is just looking out for me (as always), and lemme tell ya....I appreciate her!!

Hey....I appreciate EVERYONE here. You all are like my family!

Well, I had to write a very difficult e-mail to my newphew this past weekend and I got an unfavorable response this morning. Sometimes in life you just have to put your foot down for your own sanity, and I did. The letter was harsh and to the point, but I closed letting him know that I love him. His response, basically, let me know that we will never speak again.

*sigh*

On an upbeat note, today marks 28 days cheat-free for me. I almost caved last night due to TOM starting any second now, but I didn't give in.

TOM finally started yesterday. I'm up one pound because of the bloat. That's nothing compared to other times when I'm up as high as 6 or 7 pounds from TOM bloat, so I'm not sweating it.

It's raining here this morning and quite chilly compared to when I mowed the grass Monday. I suppose we're getting remanants of Hurricane Frances. We took 10-year-old Abby to the dentist last night and came away feeling jublilant. No cavities! YAY! She hadn't been to the dentist in over two years. It was time.

Work is picking up. This is our busy season in the steel industry. To top it off, we retained a new account that we've been after for nine years. They delivered their first load of steel yesterday. We're supposed to receive 1,800 tons of steel from them in September. This is a major account. It means we will hafta hire another entire shift. It also means that within six months, we will have money coming in for the first time over and above our expenditures. We may even get to reinstate our profit-sharing program. That's really wonderful news!

I've been doing something in the past few days that I've never done in my life. I'm learning to say "no" to people. Larry (a co-worker) asked me last week to stay past 5:00pm to help him sort out some files in his office since he will be managing the new account. Initially, I told him I would. But the more I thought about it, the more I couldn't understand why this task couldn't be done between the hours of 8 and 5. So I sent him an e-mail yesterday telling him I couldn't do it after 5 because I have a life outside of work. He didn't speak to me the rest of the day. OH WELL. Also, I sent my nephew an e-mail this past weekend telling him that I can't stand his wife and that I didn't want to deal with her ever again and didn't want her in my home ever again. He wrote back and told me that they were a package deal and that I would never see him again, either. Again, OH WELL.

Now if I could just learn to say "no" and not feel guilty about it. I'm working on that.

April - good for you. You need to learn to get your needs in first. This is a big step.
And if your nephew feels that way, it is his loss. We don't know the whole story, but I'm sure it took a lot to get you to feel that way.

Sounds like you are still doing well on plan. I may have to take a few shortcuts for a few days, but nothing real bad. Just have to learn different ways to haul things around and get stuff ready. Going to have them bring me over a higher stool for sitting at the sink so I can finish getting my veggies ready.

Thanks, Mary Kay. I appreciate your input. Hope you're feeling much better soon.

*sigh*

John was fired very unexpectedly today. He was unemployed for 9 months last time. He was coming up on his one-year anniversary with this job.

Man, I'm upset. Very upset. Lost medical and dental insurance -- the whole shebang.

There are no breaks. None. I'm so angry I could chew nails.

At least nails have no carbs, eh?