Life has taken harder turns

I sit here recovering from a few things. 1. My skin was either getting eaten by something or reacting to something. Doc called it dermatitis, of course, but we all know that is a generic term for skin eruption and we don't know why. It is also on my face which is worse for me. A nice tube of steroid cream and it is finally healing. Mercifully. The set under my breasts itches horribly, though, so I am praying that set is the second set to heal. 2. This conversion at work. It has been a long 30 days. I have not been able to take care of myself physically the way that I like too. The end is almost here so I am hoping once I get back from Knoxy later this week, that will change. Hubby keeps talking about the tone in my body and how nice it is. No doubt, I have lost some. I hope to regain it quickly once my mind is over the conversion of WBXX. 3. Trying to figure out if something is eating me and what the "hail" is causing the "dermatitis." Hubby was out of town on Fri night, but I still pulled our entire bed apart looking for bedbugs or signs of them. Nothing. All I found was a lot of dust. I mean I pulled the bed apart. It is a king so it was tough work. The kids hung out in the bathroom because both hate the vacuum. Then yesterday I cleaned the entire upstairs. No bugs still, but at least it is clean and really cleaned. Stuff got moved and vacuumed under. Dust is gone. Bonus for that at least. No new bumps erupted last night so if there was a bug, I got it. 4. (and this one is a bit harder for me.) I am still trying to cope with my marriage and family life taking harder turns than I ever expected. It is a long, drawn out story, but I am not sure that my marriage will ever be the same again. I am not sure that it can be. It as that moment of you are going along thinking that your life is perfect...well maybe not perfect. Lord knows how stressed I have been with this conversion at work, but my family life has been great, and then something comes up totally out of left field that changes the foundation of your marriage. Part of that is me. I tend to retreat when I feel threatened, but stuff like this always leaves me wondering about the implications for the future. We are not quite 12 short years into our marriage. If this has come up so soon when we are both still not even mid-life, what will happen over the next decade? I marry for life. Anything less is not an option so what happens is the marriage ultimately dissolves? Do we trudge on just living together but not really being engaged in our lives together? I spent a good part of my youth wanting something more than I had as a child. Let's face it, my childhood was not the happiest. It was overtaken by my sister's illness and a mother who felt the need to control everything down to the tiniest detail. I spent days dreaming about what my life would be like when I was older, and I had control over my destiny. I would dream a lot about the person I would marry so in my mind I have spend years waiting for my husband. Years yearning and hoping he would be the right person and the right choice, and we would have a good life together. I thought we did until a week ago. Like I said, I recognize that part of it is me, but he should know that about me by now. I have never been one for surprises. Never. I need to prepare and let things sink in for a while. That is how I best cope. My initial reaction is always a negative one. I need to ponder and wade through to really get to the heart of how I am feeling. So what to do now? I don't know. I leave for Knoxy tomorrow for three days so the timing is either horrible or great. Not sure which....

Everything is swirling around

I had a good friend tell me yesterday that her husband said that their marriage is over. They have been married less than 2 years. What the hell? I feel awful for her. It is painful for me. I cannot even begin to imagine what she is dealing with right now. I want so bad to promise her it will be ok or that he will come back if that is what she wants. I want to fix it. She is one of the kindest people that I know. She is just a good, genuine person. So sad.
My husband finds it ironic that this happens as I go forward on my own "journey" back into therapy. I know I am not depressed, but it was nice to hear it from a professional yesterday. For me, the stress is overwhelming. The counselor actually corrected me. It is not the stress; rather, it is my anxiety when I get stressed that is killing me. I prepare my body for the worst and start thinking awful thoughts even over stupid little things. I just want to fix it.
The funny is that I understand my friend's husband (well, not in his wanting a divorce) in how he behaves otherwise and his thinking about things. He and I are messed up in similar ways. He thinks he is now better and "realized" that they have nothing in common and wants to leave. I found that as I got "better" I finally found the love that I had wanted for my husband all along. There were years when I loved him, but was not actively engaged in loving him. When I finally started to really get better and get on a better path, I really started to actively love and desire him. It was an answer to my prayers. For me, marriage is forever. I would never and will never consider leaving him, but I so wanted that loving, emotional relationship. I wanted it so badly that prayed for it. I found it finally and have been thankful since. It took 10 years, but we found it. Thank goodness my husband can put up with a lot. A lot of men would have left before then. Thank goodness he did not because our relationship is better now than it has ever been, and I personally feel that the wait was well worth it.

Still trying to get back to a normal life

I guess it is because life was so crazy for a while that it is taking me so long to get back to normalcy. I did get out of bed to hit the gym this am, and I did run yesterday and Monday, but I am still not losing weight. I am thinking that the sodium in my diet is causing some issues or my body is just holding on waiting for another trauma. I am not sure. It is driving me crazy. I so did not want to get out of bed this am, but I did. Then I so did not want to row, but I did. I am actually really proud of how much I have run this week and I plan to run another 5k tomorrow at lunch. If I can hit 15 miles this week, I will be really happy. The weight should be melting off, but it is not. I am gaining weight rather. Aside from the sausage (which is what I think has caused the retaining of water) we have the most boring dinner last night. Tonight is spaghetti and meatballs. We will see how that goes...
I feel sorry for my mother. I finally talked to my hubby about some competitive issues that I have. They have been on my mind a lot lately. I hate them. I hate the feelings they bring up. I talked to him about how my mother raised me to be like this. I tried to figure out why she did that and then it dawned on me that my mother was jealous of everyone else. I mean everyone. She never felt beautiful so she was jealous of anyone who was attractive. She never had large breasts so she was jealous of anyone who did (which is probably by she was so focused on my sister's chest for so long...well, still is.) She did not come from a wealthy family so she was jealous of those who had stuff. She had a mother who was not very nice to her so she was jealous of those who had nice, normal families. How sad is that? I am guessing since most days my father is not the best husband that she is jealous of women who have wonderful husbands. I am not guessing actually. I am quite sure of it. Talk about always focusing on what you don't have. Now wonder she is not happy in life. We all make decisions that affect the rest of our lives. One thing my mother has lamented on since I have been alive is the fact that she never got to go to grad school and oh, how is has affected her career. She makes it out like my father kept her from doing it by not making enough money. No. That is not the whole story. The truth is if my mother had not gotten pregnant right after they got married, she could have gone to grad school. Because she got pregnant and had a kid, she had to work to help support the child. That is the truth of the matter and the realization I have come to. For years, she has blamed my dad, but the truth lies with her. She complains how they struggled especially when my brother came along almost 3 years after my sister. Mom, it is called birth control. I guess part of me is just tired of hearing it.

Trevor Bane & Dale Earnhardt

Who would think that 20 year old starting in only his second Sprint Cup Race could win the Daytona 500. It was a great moment for racing. You could tell that even the other drivers were happy despite losing. It was pretty cool.
I did not watch NASCAR back when Dale Sr. died. I remember hearing about it. How could I not. I work in TV and it was all over TV. Seeing the memorials for it this week has been very sad. I imagine the event certainly messed up Michael Waltrip. It seems to have shaken him to the core, but this weekend, Michael Waltrip won the truck race exactly 10 years to the day after Dale died. How crazy is that? Michael Waltrip has never been a contender in a truck race before. I am not even sure he ever drove on before, but he did it. It was like divine intervention, or intervention from Dale himself.... There was something very poignant about it, and I will say that Dale Earnhardt would be excited to see such a young driver like Trevor Bane win today. It is great for racing in general.
For my two cents, I am happy that racing has started. I hate when it ends. For me, the start of racing means that spring is on its way. The end of the NASCAR season means that winter is coming so I hate it. I love the start of the season. With the start of NASCAR comes so many good things...spring, summer, flowers, warm weather, gardening, etc. It just gets better and better.

27 days and counting.

My birthday is on its way soon. I just realized that since February is a short month that it is closer than I thought. Yikes....
I do not mind getting old. I just do not want to look old. Yuck.
The kids are going to my mother-in-law's this weekend. I would be lying if I said that I were not excited. I so need a few hours away from them when I am not working or doing something for work or trying to jam in a shopping trip and the stations' deposits during lunch.
I have gained weight and it depresses me. I am up to 140. I was down to 134 for a while pre surgery. I expected to gain some weight, but not 5-6 pounds. I have got to get back down. I hate holidays especially Valentine's Day because it is just junkfood central. We also had cupcakes and donuts at work today. I ate neither which was tough.

My totem

We have this joke in our family about totems. To protect the dopey and clueless (and neglectful) I will not get into why we have this joke. Just know, we occasionally refer to our totems and what they might be. Mine is a hawk for sure. How do I know? This hawk that lives by our house follows me around. Last summer it would follow me in the am when I was out running. Then one day I ran by a fountain in our neighborhood and there it was sitting there looking at me. Just looking at me. I was outside on Sat for the first time in months and it swoops down about 20 feet in front of me. Then it was hanging out on top of a house close by this am. I feel like it is my life force which scares me a bit. What if it dies....
Speaking of death. God, I hate getting old. I do not want to stay young...the eternally youthful die young but I hate looking old and looking old goes along with getting old. I look at my skin and see lines that I never thought I would see. I look at my skin and see ridges where there were never ridges before. I find it gross. I used to have such pretty skin. People talked about how nice it was. I never wore foundation. I never needed to. Now I have to use 800 gallons of lotion to even out the shape and then foundation to even out the tone. So sad. I wish I had started a serious skin care regimen when I was in my 20's. Maybe it would have helped.
They did a study earlier this year that said that women consider 50 the magic age where men no longer notice them. Great...I am 15 years from that. Men used to look at me all of the time. Now they look by me. So depressing. Am I resigned to just being a mom and looking like the mom that I am? I want to feel sexy and vibrant. I guess that is part of the thing...I thought a lift and implants would do that. It does for my body, but not for the rest of me.

Karma: Ever wonder where your life is going

and how small things affect it? It has been a crazy 8 days. I mean crazy. Yesterday at work ended with me driving with a co-worker to some random dude's apartment to see if he mistakenly received our time calculators for MC. It is like what the hell. I cannot help but wonder how in the whole scheme of things, this is part of a plan. My karma is really not good right now. I need to do something to fix it. The same co-worker keeps telling me I need to do something nice for someone. Ok, what? I am nice to AE's all day but that is my job. Not sure what to do....
I have been reading the Candace Dempsey book about Amanda Knox. The trial in Italy was something I followed early on. I was curious to see if I could understand what really happened and if she helped kill her roommate. I have always loved true crime. That love started early when I read Helter Skelter for the first time at age 14 or 15, I think. After that, I read all I could find that Vincent Bugliosi had written. Then I went to Ann Rule, of course. But back to Amanda Knox. I guess part of my interest in her story in particular was that my father was one of the original defense attorney's for the Norfolk Four so I know very well about false confession and the tactics police use to get them. I can only imagine how much worse that could be with a serious language barrier. In following the trial, I wanted her to be guilty and then other days I did not. I guess part of that is that she is an American and I would not want to think that an American girl could possibly kill her British roommate. Then, I wanted to think her guilty because I really do believe that most of the times, the cops have it right. I have always said that I do not know whether or not she did it, but I do not believe that the evidence warranted her being found guilty. Being halfway through this book, I have serious doubts about her guilt. Things that I took at face value from the press are simply not true. The language barrier and American inuendos were too much for the Italian police. That is clear. So sad for all involved. I do believe one day she will be free, but so much damage is done in the meantime. I feel so sorry for her mother. As a mom, I have thought about her often as I read this book. How painful it must be to have her daughter locked away in a foreign country and know that there is little you can do to help her. The pain would be awful. It overwhelms me to even think about it.
I believe in karma and karma has balanced things out a bit for the Norfolk Four. The main detective who helped get the false confessions was convicted of extortion in 2010. I personally know about karma... I love it some days and hate it others. We will see how today goes.