150 Steps...In the Present Moment

I was a bit...um...upset yesterday and the day before what with the whole  lopping-of-the-profile-by-the-facilitators-without-our-knowledge-or-consent   incident. Actually I was beyond upset, but was instead a seething ball of rage. Today my anger and rage have faded. I don't have that horrible churning, roiling, boiling sensation in my gut that I had all day yesterday. This is in large part thanks to a visit to the gym and sparring with the Ringmaster. I beat the living hell out of that heavy bag last night. Poor Ringmaster. He took quite a pounding.  In the midst of me knocking the stuffing out of my sparring partner I actually scared some guy right out of the room. He walked in looking to work out on one of the balance balls, took one look at me pounding on the bag, and literally  scurried  away. I must have looked pretty pissed. Not today. Today I am just tired. Tired of being angry. Tired of waiting. Tired of having so little control o...

I woke myself in the wee hours of Memorial Day, starting up from a dream. In it, I had been holding a little girl of Asian descent named Molly who had just been placed in my arms. She was going to be our daughter. It felt so excruciatingly good and right and I just couldn't bear to continue. I forced myself awake. I couldn't sleep much after that. ------------------------------------------ I've tried not to think about the adoption process as much lately as time keeps passing. Apparently, my subconscious feels differently. I'm not sure where the little girl's Asian background came from (though we are open to any race in our domestic adoption) and for some reason my brain latched onto the name of my mother's cat. Who knows why. All I know is that the joy I felt in my dream almost hurt, it was so extraordinary. And it was only a dream. What will it feel like for real? Tempered with a healthy dose of fear, no doubt. That part was blessedly missing from my noct...

Our adoption facilitators officially suck. Suck suck suck.  I'm so aggravated at the moment that I'm not even certain that I'll be able to write a coherent blog post. "So, how exactly do they suck?" you ask. Well, after three months  of our profile being "live" we are "allowed" by the facilitators to finally make changes. So my lovely and very thoughtful husband makes some changes to our profiles and sends said changes along with a few new photos to the lady who does all of our profile stuff at the facilitator's office. He receives a confirmation message from the Profile Lady stating that the changes will be made post-haste. Two weeks go by.  No changes. So Chris sends the Profile Lady a quick e-mail just saying something like, "Hey, noticed that our profiles look just the same. Wondering when you're going to incorporate the stuff we sent you two weeks ago?"  He receives a reply stating that our stuff is in ...

I don't want my weight to be the central story of my life anymore. It seems as though for as long as I can remember I've worried about my weight and had others worrying about, commenting on and being concerned about my weight. As a kid, I was bullied and tortured by other kids because I was fat. Then I shot up in height and lost a lot of weight in high school. Suddenly I was thin and had no idea how to be a thin person. Boys noticed me, but for different reasons than when I was fat. I actually had boyfriends. And then over the years as I struggled with leaving home, college, jobs, and learning to become a grown up my weight went up and down and up and down and up and down. And then my weight went up and then up some more and then up some more after that. Until last year when I reached the heaviest I've ever been. And all along people have noticed and commented -  when I've been thin when I've been heavy and at all stages in between.  Truth be told....I...

The whole "wearing my pants down around my knees" phenomenon among young guys (and some unfortunate young women.) I saw one the other day whose pants were just below his butt cheeks. Below his BUTT CHEEKS people. And he was wearing a BELT (apparently so the pants didn't fall off altogether?) What the hell is up with that??? Facial piercings and nipple piercings. Yeah. Just don't get that.  Ouch. And - as comedian Bill Engvall would say - people who "landscape the private property." DEFINITELY don't understand that at all. Eeeuuuwwww. People who are cruel to animals. The continuing trend in foo-foo-shi-shi restaurants to pile food in a single tall column on my plate. Why our cat Cecil wanders around the house with her favorite toy in her mouth MOANING pitifully and then when I actually throw it for her she just stares at me with a look of blank incomprehension.  Why I can only manage to keep my house tidy for a few days before it slides back int...

I'm feeling kind of disconnected from the adoption these days with nothing adoption related to "do" except wait. Life has just kind of been rolling forward via its natural tendency to do so. Work, eat, watch  tv ,  Facebook , blog, ignore the basement, sleep, repeat. Yesterday, we spend the afternoon and evening with our little sister-in-law S while her parents attend a concert. We take her to see  How to Train Your Dragon  (we've all seen the movie already, but enjoy it just as much this time, especially S who sucks down a slushy and a good  portion  of a medium popcorn) and then out to our favorite Mexican food place (where 11 year-old S kicks my butt in our favorite card game and laughs at me when I sweat profusely through my enjoyment of a very spicy bowl of chili.) Arriving back at her house, S and I take her little dog J out for a walk. Despite J's petite size, he pulls crazily at the leash and we hurry to keep up with him in his quest to smel...

This is me. This is me sitting on the couch. This is me sitting on the couch writing a blog post. This is me sitting on the couch writing a blog post when I should be getting into my gym clothes. This is me sitting on the couch writing a blog post when I should be getting into my gym clothes and going to the gym. This is me sitting on the couch writing a blog post when I should be getting into my gym clothes and going to the gym where I should be doing thirty minutes of upper body weightlifting. This is me sitting on the couch writing a blog post when I should be getting into my gym clothes and going to the gym where I should be doing thirty minutes of upper body weightlifting followed by thirty minutes of  cardio  on the bike. This is me procrastinating. OK. This is me. This is me ending this blog post. This is me ending this blog post and heading into the bedroom to put on my gym clothes. This is me ending this blog post and heading into the bedroom t...