A minor set-back of a week

Well, it's been a while since I had chance to even blog, let alone take some concrete action towards making things happen.

It was a tricky weekend.  My son had arranged to go BMX-ing with a couple of his friends for both afternoons, and my daughter was working, so I was looking forward to some bonus 'me' time.  Sadly the weather had other ideas and it chucked down all weekend, meaning that both friends cancelled (BMX ramps too wet, and apparently teenage boys don't go out in the rain anymore!), leaving my boy fed-up and bored - a lethal combination for Tourettes.

I took him into town and ended up spending a fortune on lunch out to lessen the time we were both stuck indoors at home.  He still shrieks outside, but it's diluted and less frequent, and the thought of bumping into Someone That We Know, or, horror of horrors a Teacher From His School, serves as a very adequate mind distraction for a while.  However, there's a limit to how long you can drag a 13yr old boy around a few shops in a small town, so I forked out on a couple of cheap dvd's for him and we trundled home.  It was a very stressful evening, relentless, and a long, long time before he slept that night.

After crying myself to sleep in despair, I decided that Sunday I would just take him out, whatever.  He happily pootles along on his bike while I walk, hopping up and down kerbs and speeding off, speeding back again - he ends up covering twice the distance I do.  When my daughter went off to work, we went.  It was freezing and raining, but we just walked and cycled.  For miles.  We stopped for coffee on the way, and we picked up a few bits at the supermarket, but in the end, we were out for 4 hours.  Result.  He was way better in the evening and was even asleep by 10pm.  Boy, was I aching the next day!

And then a bit of a set-back.  By Wednesday I was feeling decidedly manky - no voice, and a throat that felt like knives slicing it.  To cap it all, the special needs child I look after on a Wednesday decided to go into full kick-off mode and I spent all day trying to restrain him from alternately killing other children, and escaping the building.  Result?  I trashed my back and have spent the last 2 days in agony. 

I have a back problem at the best of times having wrecked it in a car accident when I was 19 and travelling Australia.  Curiously it can cope with any amount of physical sport, dancing, karate, you name it, but if it twists a certain way, all hell breaks loose and I can barely move.  I can go months with no problem, then one day I'll reach for the shower gel and bang, instant agony which then costs a fortune to fix.

So, feeling a bit sorry for myself today.  The voice has returned slightly, bringing with it a streaming cold, a visit to the osteopath hasn't afforded much relief, another round of that on Wednesday (my poor overdraft), and the housework has gone to pot! 

Oh well.  Let me spill the gratitude and be positive.  I'm thankful to at least have access to an overdraft, and therefore the money to pay to get my back fixed.  Feeling ill has re-iterated the fact that I need to sort out the diet pronto, and find ways of managing the stress.  It's all good, all another prod in the back to propel me along.  I'm also smiling hugely after finding a bunch of flowers and a massive Lindor easter egg on my doorstep when I returned home - a gift from my lovely friend to cheer me up!

I also logged into this blog this morning to see where I left it, and found a truly lovely comment from Debs Beschler.  Thank you Debs, can't tell you how uplifting that was this morning!

Please dear Universe, please can the cold and the rain go away now, and please can we have some sunshine for the 2 weeks' holiday over Easter, so I can get my boy outside.

I quite enjoyed our 4 hour walk to be honest, felt good to get some proper exercise.

I'm going to rest up this weekend, not moving too well anyway, and shift this cold, catch up on some sleep, make some more plans.  I have 2 weeks off from the end of next week, I'm really really going to use that time to clean up my diet - plan it, buy it, tweak it, find recipes, etc. 

That's my action goal for the next 3 weeks.

Getting cross with myself

So, I have a childfree evening and had planned to sit down and make some serious headway into creating a healthy eating/exercise schedule. 

Has that happened?

No.  Instead I've made porridge for tea, again, got some stuff ready to take to a friend tomorrow, dipped in and out of facebook, checked my bank balance, read some blogs, looked at facebook again.....and now it's 8.30pm.

Achieved?  Nothing.

I have notebooks and diaries everywhere listing 'the perfect diet and exercise schedule', all with start dates for probably every month over the last 3 years. 

Not sure what the blockage is on this one, when I know 100% that feeling better about how I look, being able to get back into all my old clothes and regaining my health and fitness, will restore a massive amount of my confidence and self-belief.

Yes money is an issue.  It's cheaper to have a bowl of porridge for tea than it is to prepare a lovely, fresh, wholesome salad with homemade juice on the side. 

Yes the weather is cold, and salad isn't doing it for me right now.  Yes I am tired and lethargic (undoubtedly the result of a shoddy diet).

But are they the real issues here?  Can't figure out the psychology when I am so passionate about 'real' food.  It's like a form of self-sabotage.  I don't get it.

So then I asked myself the question - 'if money wasn't an issue, would I be eating differently?'  I'd like to think that yes I would.  I'd have a breadmaker and a juicer and one of those Vitamix blenders that I so covet.  I could buy organic vegetables from farmer's markets and the local wholefood shop.  I could belong to a box scheme and have organic fish and produce delivered to my door....

Hmm.  Money may not buy happiness, but it certainly gives you more choices.

Hence frustration and crossness with myself tonight.  For being defeatist and disillusioned as much as anything.  Does a baby take its first steps, fall down then give up?  No it doesn't.  It tries harder.

Come on woman...get it together.

Two quotes are springing to mind tonight:-

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.  

(Theodore Roosevelt)

 

and this other one:-

 

Courage isn't always a roar.  Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying "I will try again tomorrow"

(Mary Anne Radmacher)    



Expanding

We had an unexpected snow day today.  I live on the south coast of England and we rarely have much snow to bother with - one or two days a year as a rule - but today was a good one.  A bitter, bitter wind had caused the snow to drift in places, which left my little boy almost knee deep in it at times!

It certainly accelerated the housework plan along for this week, which is going well so far, leaving me a completely free evening.

 The next major change to my life is diet, exercise and self-care.  She exhales loudly.

A bit of background history first.

When I was in my teens, my diet was appalling.  I mean appalling.  I used to eat sugary cereal for breakfast, followed by a cup of weak and milky tea (I loved the way my mum made my tea, and I still drink it like that today, except I prefer it with soya milk).  Sharon and I used to stop at the shop on the long walk to school and buy as many sweets and crisps as we had money for.  I never used to take lunch, instead I'd stop at the shop on the way home from school and buy a pasty or a sausage roll because I was so hungry.  At the time, we took in students for extra income, so our dinners were often something with chips - cheap and easy for my mum to cook up and the food of choice for the young Europeans.

Unsurprisingly I had a dreadful complexion.  I was always really skinny, - flat-chested and ribs-sticking-out kind of skinny - so I wasn't too worried about gaining weight, but I was terribly self-conscious about my skin. 

I began to do lots of research and became very interested in nutrition.  When I left home, I turned into a bit of a health freak, and diet and fitness became a passion of mine.  I ate wholefoods, mostly organic bought from local farms, dipped in and out of vegetarianism, avoided chemicals as best I could, juiced, and drank pints of water.  I also did karate, played football for a local club, trained at the gym and ran miles.

This was me when I had just met my husband-to-be.  I was 26, looked 16, fit, toned, healthy, not an ounce of fat on me!

My babies came along over the next 5 years.  After the first one I gave up the karate and the football, but kept up the running and squashed in a fitness video here and there, and all was well.  After the second, I was running a business, running a big house and garden, bringing up 2 kids and becoming increasingly unhappy with my husband who liked to come home from work, wait for his dinner and slob in front of the TV all night.  Exercise went out the window and whilst I still ate pretty healthily and organically, I was allowing fast food and desserts to creep in on a regular basis.  By the time I left him, I was a size 12 - almost three dress sizes bigger than my average weight, and I had cellulite for the first time in my life!

From then on in, I've struggled with my eating habits.  I've been divorced for ten years now, eight of those I've lived on my own, and financially I can't afford to eat the food I am so passionate about, which depresses me a lot.  I feel really strongly, I mean REALLY strongly about the state of the food in this country.  It's shocking what you can discover about the processed food industry when you start researching it, and it saddens me that most food we eat isn't 'real'.  Even organic fruit and vegetables - whilst there are strict guidelines which govern how these foods are grown, there are none in place for their storage, which means they are stored along with other veg in big vats of slime for anything up to a year.  Don't even get me started on milk - the average child in their child years, consumes six wheelbarrowfuls of sugar just in milk alone...why?...why do we need to have sugar in milk?  And now, because the government are so concerned about childhood obesity, they plan to replace the sugar with artificial sweeteners.  It's what I have read, but it's frightening.

In the nine years I have worked in a school, the number of children coming through with special needs and disorders has increased dramatically to when I first started.  I honestly believe it has everything to do with what they are being fed - mine included, I hold my hands up and admit that my children eat a diet I am ashamed of.

But the honest truth is, I don't earn enough to be able to eat organic wholefoods anymore.  I try and make healthy choices, but so much of what we eat is covered in chemicals and processed in some way.  If only the government would subsidise organic farming and health foods instead of funding millions to the NHS to treat our sick nation....

I feel so PASSIONATELY about this.

Anyway.  Andrew felt the same way I did about all of this, which was refreshing for a man.  Where he lives in Brighton there are beautiful fresh and organic wholefood shops - hundreds of baskets of all different kinds of fruit and veg, lovely freshly prepared dahls and other dishes, shelf upon shelf of organic everything.  Heaven.  I used to love shopping for our weekends there.  (We did eat an enormous amount of Green and Black's Organic Chocolate though....and Booja Booja truffles...ohhhh). 

I had regained my size 6/8 figure very soon after meeting him, sharing the cost and reverting back to a more healthy lifestyle.  We used to walk for miles and miles aswell and I had been dancing Modern Jive several times a week for three years by then, so I was very toned again.  After he left so suddenly, I was so broken, I just couldn't eat.  I used to feel physically sick all the time.  I lost a ton of weight really quickly, then came down with meningitis, which just about finished me off.  My weight plummeted to under 7 stone and the doctor told me to do whatever it took to get the weight back again.

So for the last 3 years I have basically sat on my bum and eaten junk.  Partly out of fear of being so ill again.  Partly comfort eating.  Partly lack of money to buy the food I really want to eat and severe disillusionment with the state of the food I can afford.  Partly because I'm too exhausted to prepare separate meals for all three of us (my son likes most healthy food, but my daughter would rather chop off her arms than eat fruit and veg).  My body is a mess really.  I weigh nearly 9 stone, which isn't overweight at all, but it's all cellulite.  I'm still bony and flat-chested up top, but my bum is way too big, I have a muffin top and nasty, dimpled thighs.  My skin is horribly dry, I get huge spots, my hair is brittle and frizzy and I have shadows round my eyes.  I haven't danced for four years now, and the only exercise I get is walking round the block with my son to get him out of the house.  None of it is good at all, I have no confidence and I feel unattractive.  And for the first time in my life I look my age!

It has to change.

I have to find a way to turn all of this around.  I have always wanted to grow my own vegetables, for as long as I can remember.  I know it's hard work and plants get eaten and succumb to diseases etc, but I feel so passionately about it.  I have moved so many times that I can't put down roots in a garden and the cost of setting up a plant pot garden is just money I don't have to spare.

I will find a way.  Gradually.  Baby steps.  One step at a time.

I refuse to buy into the belief that once you get to a certain age you can't fix it, that all the cellulite and the untoned muscles are just all part of ageing.  I'm not prepared to accept that at all, and I'm determined to find a way to claw back my holistic lifestyle.

So this is my commitment to myself:

I will make slow, steady, permanent changes to my diet and lifestyle week by week, until I am once again living in accordance with my holistic principles.

Ultimately this means:

Changing from processed foods to fresh meals, even if I can't manage organic right now.

Scheduling regular exercise into my life.

Going back to dancing (my love)

Swapping chemical skincare products for natural, organic ones.

Buying a juicer and a breadmaker.

Growing as much of my own food as I can.

Taking care of my body, i.e. dealing with the horses' hooves that are meant to be feet, looking after my nails, exfoliating and moisturising my skin, getting my hair professionally coloured.

Each week I am going to make a change, commit to it here on this blog, and stick to it.

Please Universe, may I win the lottery.....

 

First steps

It starts with a dream.  Add faith and it becomes a belief.  Add action and it becomes a part of life.  Add perseverance and it becomes a goal in sight.  Add patience and time, and it ends with a dream come true.   (Doe Zantamata)

 

Well, it is now 4.30pm.  It has taken all day to get this house in order.  I've changed the sheets, hoovered the whole house, washed most of the floors, cleaned the bathrooms, done several loads of washing and ironing, made soup, stole a truffle from my daughter's drawer (oops, that's not going to end well), and generally seized control of an escalating mess.  Admittedly a friend popped in for half an hour and I've done a bit of blog hopping, but still....a WHOLE day basically doing housework.  I've not even been outside.  No wonder I am under-achieving.  Has to change.

 

This is my first step, with immediate effect. 

 

I am going to fit all of the housework into my main working week, ie Monday to Friday.

 

Aside from the washing and kitchen chores which are ongoing on a daily basis, everything else will have to fit into that time slot, leaving the weekends free for quality time with the kids, and quality time for me when the kids aren't here.  That should end the frustrating time-wasting at the weekend when I feel I should be cleaning, but I really want to be doing something more meaningful, and ultimately several hours are wasted drinking tea and looking at nonsense on the internet.

 

However.  I am a perfectionist and I actually like the feeling that comes from knowing the whole house is clean all at the same time.  It's going to be a bit of a challenge to my comfort zone to do little bits each day, and then to not worry about it at all at the weekend.  But that's a good thing.  Challenging the comfort zones of my existing life is what this blog is all about.  Identifying outdated patterns that no longer serve and which are holding me back and replacing them with ones that are going to propel me towards my dream.

 

I just took a moment whilst I was eating my soup (leek and potato with tons of black pepper), to reflect on that pattern of spending most of the weekend cleaning, wondering why that came about.  Two reasons mainly, aside from being too busy in the week.

 

First:  When Andrew and I were together, I used to spend my whole childfree weekend living with him in Brighton.  I used to go Friday night and come back Monday morning, to minimise the void I felt when the children weren't here.  When he left, those weekends were interminable.  Hours and hours of emptiness when I was too broken even to go and sit in a cafe by myself.  So I cleaned.  The whole house, top to bottom, every childfree weekend.  It gave me a feeling of control when nothing else made sense.

 

Well, that pattern can be thrown out the window now.  I am at peace with being alone and whilst I still miss the kids, I need the silence to recharge otherwise I wouldn't cope with the Tourettes.

 

Second:  I rented this house from a friend who I met at sailing school.  We got on really well, she met the man of her dreams and was in the process of moving away with him, hence she offered me this house at a very cheap rent.  It's a 3-storey, terraced town house built around 6 years ago.  I jumped at the chance - it was far more spacious than the little house we were currently renting, closer to schools and work, and she said I could have it for as long as I wanted.  After moving 8 times in 8 years, it was a relief to think we could stay put for a while.  She left lots of things here for me, mirrors, the odd bit of furniture, tools, bath rugs etc, and a few things of her own in the loft.  Every now and then she would come over to visit us and take a few things of hers from the loft.  Then she began to come over when I wasn't here and take a few things - always hers, but the bath rug would disappear, the loft ladders went, then some tools, her post (which I used to forward to her), and so forth.

 

It freaked me out a bit.  She never took anything of mine, but it was still disconcerting to come home and find things missing.  Once she even left the backdoor unlocked.  Then she started taking extra rent out of my account without telling me.  Anyway, the upshot is that we fell out over the rent thing and haven't really spoken since.  As landlords should, she continued to text and ask if she could come and get some stuff, but then she would come when I wasn't here.  I began to feel uncomfortable and panicking about the house being a mess when she came, worried that she might use that as an excuse to chuck us out.  So I made sure the house was spotless after the weekends, hence the weekend cleaning thing.

 

I can't really change things at the moment, but I'm going to let go of that fear of the house being untidy if she comes in.  It is holding me back to spend the weekend cleaning, and I'm all about reclaiming my life back now.

 

I'll review this first step next weekend to see how well it has worked out.

 

 



 

Procrastination again

I'm torn this morning, between wanting to slob with my computer and make a few plans in accordance with the blueprint of my new life, and the dreaded housework.

The pattern of my life is such.  When my children are here, I don't clean much.  Partly out of some earth-mother tendencies and guilt that I should be spending quality time with them (which usually translates to the odd word here and there to my daughter whilst she is facebooking/texting/twittering/scrolling pinterest/watching TV, and nagging my son all evening about homework).  And partly because the Tourettes thing drains every ounce of my energy and if I can survive to the falling asleep stage without having a nervous breakdown, then it has been a successful evening.

That means that the cleaning gets left to the times when the kids are at their dad's (Tuesday and Wednesday evenings after 6pm, and every other weekend).  Being that on those two free evenings I am exhausted from the day job controlling dysfunctional 7 year olds, the cleaning doesn't get done then either.  Mostly I make toast, eat crisps, let the cats in and out a thousand times, do the ironing and get lost on the internet looking at motivational quotes and other people's art.

Which leaves these childfree weekends.  On Saturdays I like to have a stroll along the seafront, and park myself in the corner of one of my favourite cafes (I have several, depending on what day and time it is) with a bucket of coffee and the paper.  It's another form of procrastination, of course, avoiding the real issue of what I should be doing, which is making plans, and more importantly, getting off my backside and taking some action towards improving my life.

And so to Sundays.  Now I have a whole house to clean, three floors, three bathrooms, four bedrooms and a separate loo.  The frustration sets in.  Stupid woman, why don't you pace yourself through the week, clean a bit every day (I do, in fairness, clean the loos more than once a fortnight, and do the washing every day), then you would have a whole weekend to do more meaningful things.  Like sit in cafes and read the paper.....or perhaps have a new and improved life.

So, that is this morning's thought.  One of the first things to address when I come to make my plans.  Now...onwards with the cleaning.  At least it's good thinking time.

Dreaming BIG

The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that is difficult.    (Madame Du Deffand)

 

Why is it when you crave chocolate, nothing else will do?  Having removed most of the sugar content in our house in an effort to 'do something positive' whilst waiting for the Tourettes appointment, I now find myself opening and shutting the fridge a zillion times looking for chocolate.  I have hidden some chocolate rolls in a cupboard for my daughter, but they are the jammie ones, and I don't really like those.  The goodie drawer is now full of nuts and three packets of quavers, but I'm not in a quaver mood.  Annoyingly, I know my daughter has a half-eaten packet of Thorntons Cocoa Dusted Truffles in her dressing table drawer.  To die for.  Only available to buy at Christmas it would seem (I have searched online, and everywhere is out of stock...even Amazon!) I bulk bought several packets at Christmas and shared them with my daughter, but sadly I bulk ate mine, while she practised restraint.  And I know she will have counted them, so no chance of sneaking one.  I have done so in the past and owned up, believing, you know, honesty is the best policy and all that (and knowing she would have counted them...) I still don't think she has forgiven me!

 

So my dream life.  I still don't quite know how I should be writing it down.  Anything to do with the Law of Attraction states that you need to write dreams as if you are already living them, so maybe I'll use that as a kind of outline and then go into more detail around the planning part.

 

I'm living in my dream house (dear Universe, please see additional blog posts for specific details) that I have paid for myself.  I can easily afford to maintain it, pay the bills and have the money to decorate it how I want.  It is a colourful house, full of love and laughter, and the oven works.

 

  My son has grown out of his Tourettes and spends most of his time in the great outdoors, riding his bike and doing things that boys should be doing.  He and his sister now get on great, and our family life is peaceful and full of joy.  My daughter and I spend many happy hours creating together, watching trashy reality TV and sobbing over impossibly romantic movies.  She has a wonderful boyfriend who treats her beautifully and he feels like part of the family.  (If this life takes a while to manifest, then perhaps said boyfriend is now her husband and grandchildren are imminent).

 

I am a successful photographer and an artist, making a steady and pretty decent income doing the things I love to do.  I spend my days capturing beautiful moments for people to treasure, and creating art that inspires (with some dozing in my hammock and a bit of shopping).

 

 I have a greenhouse and a vegetable plot and chickens (and a gardener who looks like the guy off the Diet Coke ad), and I can afford to buy organic food instead of the Value stuff.  I can even afford to have friends round for dinner.  

 

I own my car and I can fill the tank right to the top with petrol and do as many miles as I want to.

 

At last I can afford to buy clothes...and jewellery...and shoes, and I can wear things that reflect me, not my overdraft.  I shop at Fat Face and White Stuff and Joe Browns and go to Oxfam only to find quirky boho things for my house and to make art with. 

 

 I get my hair coloured professionally at the hairdresser's instead of messily in my bathroom and have a massage once a week.  I can afford to belong to a gym and choose to do all the classes or not to go at all if I don't want to. 

 

My cellulite has all gone, I am fit and toned, have pretty nails, and my feet don't look like horses' hooves.  In fact, I'm not at all embarrassed by them.

 

I have returned to dancing several nights a week, and am taking private tango and ballroom lessons (I have a dance studio in my house).  I've got some very pretty dresses and some very sparkly shoes, and my daughter and I go on dance holidays all over the world (particularly to Argentina to tango with those smouldering latin types).

 

My friends and I spend happy hours having lunch in vintage cafes, or curled up on squodgy sofas in coffee shops, discussing plans and ideas and life in general (and the guy in the Diet Coke ad).

 

My cats don't eat caterpillars and then vomit them over the rug in the lounge, nor do they miss the litter tray and poo on the floor.

 

I'm guessing that I really ought to insert 'find my true soulmate and live happily ever after' in here somewhere, but I'm a little disillusioned with men at the moment.  If  a grown-up, honest, committed man (taller than me, slim, plays chess, doesn't mind paranoid women with trust issues),  falls helplessly in love with me whilst I am creating all of the above, I'll happily insert.

 

So there it is.  The life of my dreams.  It probably doesn't sound overly 'big' in terms of dreams, I mean, I don't want a mansion or a boat or seven Gucci handbags or anything, but to me, right now, it feels huge.

 

Now I have to figure out a way of making that dream come true.

 

 

 

 



Procrastination

Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.   (Walter Anderson)

 

I've been putting off starting this post all evening.  I am a terrible (or should that read 'brilliant') procrastinator.  I've changed the kids' beds, done the ironing, done a load of washing, pfaffed around on facebook, read some blogs, wandered aimlessly between rooms....

 

Not that I don't want to give a voice to my dreams, commit them to paper or begin them, I do, I truly do, I'm just not sure where to begin, or how to write it all down.  Should I describe my life as it is in the future, as if everything I hope for has already come true?  Should I break down each area of my life, detail it as it is now, then describe how I want it to be? 

 

The good thing about writing this blog is that it really focuses the mind.  I've never been good at keeping diaries, I can write for England when I get going (though having children has fuzzed up my brain somewhat), and writing it all down in a diary not only takes up too much time, but also too much paper.  Plus, I can plan and set goals and write lists till domesday, (and I do so, year after year) but for some reason, when they're hidden away in a diary, I don't have any sort of oomph to make it all happen.  As far as I know, no-one is reading this blog (except, perhaps, my best friend), but the thought that it is out there, for anyone to see, somehow makes everything real.  This promise that I made to myself back on Day 1, now feels like I have shouted it to the world from the rooftops, and if I don't fully commit to this, then I am seriously letting myself down.  It's like having someone nagging at me constantly, nudging me forward, a voice in my head that won't let up.  I like it, this accountability.  It's good.

 

I've just done some more wandering, made some porridge (porridge?  It's 8.30pm for goodness sake!).  More procrastination.  There's a fear looming here, isn't there?  That's what this is all about.  Think.  Think.  What am I so afraid of?

 

The gap between where I am now, to where I want to be, seems huge, insurmountable almost.  What if I write all my dreams down and I can't do it?  What if I just can't make any of them happen?  What if I'm dreaming TOO big?   What if I'm no good at the things I really want to do, the things that have been mulling around my head for years and years?  What if the person I think I am inside has been hidden away too long, lost amongst all those years of trying to fit in, and now just completely incongruous to this life I have created? I'm scared, if I'm honest.

 

If you want something very badly, you can achieve it.  It may take patience, very hard work, a real struggle and a long time;  but it can be done.  That much faith is a prerequisite of any undertaking.    (Margo Jones)

 

Well.  As I see it, there are two choices here.  I can settle and wait for life to happen...or I can go for it.  Push through the fear, have faith...BELIEVE... Do I still want to be in the same place this time next year? 

 

No.  I can be better than this.