Why Fly When You Can Drive

This is going to be a quick post before I clock back in today. I am a little out of sorts since I was on vacation last week. I know I'm always saying this but it's true that my life is like hanging onto the end of a runaway train.

Last week, we left early on a Saturday morning for a long road trip to Yuma, Arizona. "Why Fly When You Can Drive" is our motto. It's only 1,209 miles one way. Two hard days of driving each way. We've done the trip so many times it really doesn't feel that long to us.

Dirty or stained? You be the judge.

The bed photos here are of the nightmare motel we stayed in Saturday (White Pines in Ely, Nevada) after driving 12 hours. Of the two, we decided to take the burned hole bed. I slept in my clothes and it wasn't great sleep. I ripped them on Trip Advisor. Problem is that there isn't any service out in the middle of Nevada so I wasn't able to check the ratings prior to stopping. Lesson learned.

That's a burn hole.

All in all, the trip was really pleasant and it was good to be on the road with the hubby. He's lost a lot steam this last year and I did a lot of the driving. I don't mind it though. It's pretty much a straight shot south from Boise to Yuma. Driving through Vegas is never fun. I like to just say I survived driving through that city.

The one thing I know for certain is that sometimes it takes a 2,400 round-trip drive to think about things that I don't seem to find time to deal with on a normal day.  Things as in you-can-read-about-it-in-my-diary-when-I'm-dead kind of things.

Do you love a good road trip?  love, susan

Just One More

In a couple of days, it will be one year since the mother of my hubby's girls died. She left us on Mother's Day. For me, it was one of those experiences that I won't forget. Bittersweet. Heavy on the bitter. Sweet on the sweet. I think of her often and after writing to my stepdaughter this morning, I feel the need to write here.

 

Regrets are a funny thing. It sometimes takes me a while to figure out what my regrets are. Today I am regretting I didn't get know her just a little better. I knew a few things about her. She loved everything Elvis. She loved her cats. She loved politics. She loved to needle my hubs when we'd get together for family holidays. He was always a good sport about it but it was slightly uncomfortable for me. The things that drove her crazy about him are the same things that drive me crazy. I  can't help but laugh about that.

 

The sweet was that the Christmas before she died, I had gone out to the car with her to bring something into the house and we had a chance to have a few minutes alone. She asked me to watch over her family and I promised I would. She was the kind of woman I strive to be. The sweet came in her last 24 hours on earth when I was able to be there to help wash her body before she would slip into the arms of death. It had been a very hard week getting to death. Her last day was the very worst, not what we expected. The sweet came when I saw people show up to honor her life the following weekend. We laughed, we cried, we hugged. She would have loved that.

 

Just one more hug. Just one more time to hear her infectious laugh. That's what I'd wish for. I think of her often and hope she knew how much she was loved.

 

Today I will try to hug a little longer. Listen a little better. Slow down just a titch. That regret that I didn't know her better? I'll try a little harder with those around me. It's all I can do.

 

love, susan

Susan, the Volcano: A Life List

Weather This Week I like the numbers: 83, 87, 77, 72, 73, and 81 on Saturday. Yeah, man! My Favorite Moment(s) Last Week Last week seems so long ago. That happens when I have a great weekend. I received a text from a friend early Saturday who needed a photographer to take pics of her son and his girlfriend before prom. I said yes, and we had a ball. There's nothing easier than taking photos of beautiful people. The hubs and I went to a horse clinic (training) yesterday at a friend's place out in the country. It was a lot of fun and I got some fantastic (IMHO) shots. I also removed many items from various closets and 86'd them forever. I can see the floor of my closet for the first time in 10 years. Never again will I allow crap to creep in. I'm done with living that way. I hate clutter. What's Right in the World I woke up not so angry today. I've been in a funk all week, which was not sitting right with me. Morning pages (journaling) today nailed it. I'm not willing to stay in the battle of wills any longer. What that means is I have a right to live in a space that doesn't make me feel insane. What I'm Resisting Food struggles seeped in a bit with that taco crawl last week and week before. Not horrible but I am back on the horse again and feeling good about it. I have an annual physical tomorrow and looking forward to getting my blood work done. What I'm Thinking Road trip soon. We haven't been on one in a very long time and I am so ready to do it. This week I have the added bonus of driving 4 hours to the west side for training on Wednesday and over night. Thursday is going to be a long day. I'm up to it though. What the Future Holds Time will tell. If This is My Last Day on Earth I hope my last words are not bitter ones. I've been angry for the last week and I never feel proud of myself when I succumb to it. I am a self-described volcano and I blew last week. Letting off a little steam shouldn't hurt so much. Forgive me if you were in my path.

 

love, susan

Moments of Clarity: That Moment in Nashville and Many Others

That moment in Nashville I talked about in my bullet points yesterday ... yeah about that. I have had a few moments of clarity in my life and Nashville was one of them. My friend and I were laying around after a day of playing tourist, just talking and catching up with each other. I don't know what led to me saying it out loud but I told her I was tired of carrying around this extra bag of groceries in my gut. I was so uncomfortable all the time. I tried concealing my weight gain over the years by always wearing layered clothing, as if that could hide it. Ugh. Anyone who has extra weight knows what I'm talking about. It was hard to admit. She listened. She didn't tell me what I needed to do. She told me what she did to shed some pounds. She shared her experience.

 

I've had many other moments of clarity. Sometimes I chose to ignore them. Like the time I married someone, ignoring the nagging voice in my mind that it was the hugest mistake I was about to ever make. Yes, I did that. Or, the time I agreed to be the designated driver and ended up drinking and driving my friends home. So dumb. Oh, here's a good one. Once when I was a teen, I stuck my finger in the beaters of a hand mixer because I wanted to know what would happen. My mom was horrified and I was immediately sorry I had done it because I wasn't sure how to get my finger out of the beater. I can here her voice saying, Sue, what were you thinking?, to which I replied, "I just wanted to know what would happen." I have the slightest scar on my finger from that decision  all these years later to remind me to not be so impulsive. Luckily, I escaped those bad decisions. The clarity of the moments remain.

 

I haven't stuck my hand in a beater since then. Bad decisions have still been made. I have a mind that never shuts off. I've learned to stop making snap decisions. I sleep on good ideas for a long time these days. I don't share a lot of my ideas with others because I don't necessarily want to hear their opinion. I hold out for hearing experience. Your experience matters to me.

 

Tomorrow perhaps I'll write about some good decisions I've made.

 

Have you had moments of clarity? Tell me about them!

 

love, susan

 

 

 

One Year: I Am Free

I only have 10 minutes to write this post before I have to get in the shower so I'm going to make a bullet point post. Today is my one year anniversary of making a decision to change my eating plan. I wrote some notes about this journey that I'll leave here to maybe explore in further posts.

• That moment in Nashville when I admitted to my friend that I was miserable in my own skin
• Bought the book "Bright Line Eating" by Susan Pierce Thompson, PhD.
• Read the book
• Made a decision to try this program for 30 days
• Cleaned out my fridge and cupboards
• Bought fresh food to make a clean start
• Started my journey on May 1, 2017
• In July I saw the movie "What the Health" and decided to go plant based
• Learned that food is fuel, not entertainment, not a drug
• Sugar craving disappeared after the first 48 hours
• Journaled every day including my food plan for the day, made my bed, read something uplifting
• Didn't freak out, learned that I won't starve to death
• Have replaced cow's milk with almond milk and canned coconut milk for coffee
• Tried new things like tofu in my pho (Thai noodle soup)
• Eat two apples every day
• Plan ahead when I travel
• Doctor took "obese" off my medical chart

I'm down 30 lbs. and struggling to get the last 15 off. I've decided to read the book again and make a new 30 day commitment to follow the bright lines that I know works for me.

 

I am free from the constant craving for sugar. I never thought it would happen. During one episode of a relapse, I had one little old chocolate covered cherry at a potluck we attended which led to eight more going in my pie hole. Screw that. It was a hard lesson to relearn something I already know. I cannot successfully eat sugar in any form without it flipping on a switch in my brain.

 

May 1, 2018 is going to be a good day!

 

love, susan