The Road to Health is Paved with Good Intentions

I began this post several different ways with a few different titles before settling on the one I did.  It's been two years since my mom died.  It sucks and it will continue to suck for the foreseeable future.  The time from Mother's Day to June 2 is particularly difficult. Being a mother without a mother on Mother's Day is tricky.  On the one hand, I want nothing to do with the holiday because it's just a reminder that I don't have a mom to celebrate.  I can hear people say, "You do have a mom and she's there with you in spirit."  While that's true and I do believe in the afterlife, it offers no consolation in the moment.  I don't want her there "in spirit"; I want her there in person so I can talk to her, laugh with her, hug her, and celebrate her.  Although I'd rather skip the entire day, I am a mother and have four beautiful children who want to talk to me, laugh with me, hug me, and celebrate me.  Trying to balance those em

I'm from Utah.  I lived there, on and off, for most of my life.  Honestly, once we moved from my childhood home at 16, it stopped feeling like home.  True, I would claim it when people asked where I was from, but it wasn't "home" for me.  I visit Utah regularly because my immediate family and almost all of my extended family live there.  During the visits, I always come to the conclusion that I don't ever want to live there again because "fill in the blank" and am happy to leave.  It was so easy to find something about that state to hate that I'd use to cover my real emotions.  Therapy changed that. We've known about this trip for awhile.  My brother and his wife were celebrating a big milestone in their marriage; one that I absolutely would not miss.  As the trip drew closer, I found myself being very wishy-washy about when we should leave.  My kids would miss school and there were field trips and school activities that were making it difficul

I knew a woman who used to joke that as women we have an eleventh commandment: Thou shalt feel guilt.  I thought that was such a funny thing for her to say, but I've since realized that there's a lot of truth to it.  Part of my homework from counseling is to write my emotions.  I'm supposed to open a door to the emotions I've been sup pressing and let myself feel them.  There are two things I've learned from doing that.  First, I'm angry and second, I feel guilty. My husband moved to Texas almost 3 months before me and our kids.  The housing market in our area was (and is) very competitive.  We were told by our realtor that an offer contingent on us selling our Utah home wouldn't be accepted.  He had a place to stay, but it wouldn't accommodate our entire family.  As he was trying to find temporary housing, I stayed with my only sister and her family.  We were with her for a few weeks before my husband found a place for us to stay and then we joined h

On New Year's Eve, my husband and I decided to do a cheat day for obvious reasons.  We had some friends over and we indulged in a variety of foods and it was glorious.  The cheat day continued into New Year's Day basically to finish up the leftover food.  Two days later I noticed that my knees were hurting.  I hadn't changed my exercise routine and yet they were achy.  I noticed that the tissue above my knees was swollen also.  The pain and swelling lasted a few days and then cleared up. My husband had to work on my birthday so we celebrated with a keto cake a few days before.  My husband loved it, but I wasn't a fan.  It was too sweet for my personal preference.  Because of that, on my actual date of birth, I decided I wanted a real cake so I made a Texas sheet cake* in it's original goodness including flour, sugar, and butter.  It was delicious.  The interesting part is that within a day or two I noticed that my knees were hurting again.  At this point I had hur

When I started this blog, my intent was to talk about my journey with diet and exercise.  Although I'm a private person, I don't mind talking about this side of me.  I can talk about what I'm eating, whether I'm losing or gaining weight, how I'm exercising, or any other weird body thing without thinking twice.  Maybe it's because we all have issues with these things, so why not be open about my own experiences?   I was on track to complete my first six week program of diet and exercise and looking forward to the next six week program.  I had formulated a few experiments that I was going to do, but all of that crashed when I hurt my back.  Instead of experimenting, I'm just happy that I can sneeze without having  excruciating  pain.  I went from being able to touch the floor with straight legs to barely being able to touch my knees.  Trying to straighten my legs when I'm sitting with my feet up is ridiculously painful. The interesting thing about hurt

There was a day about two weeks ago that for whatever reason, I wasn't able to exercise.  As the day wore on, so did the depression.  I was a little surprised how quickly it came and how heavy it was.  In that moment I realized that all my exercising, supplements, and eating healthy were helping keep the depression away, but they weren't healing me.  Sure, I'm mostly happy, but I wouldn't say I'm joyful or light or at peace.  My husband and children deserve a joyful wife and mother.  I deserve to be a joyful wife, mother, and woman.  That's when I decided it was time to seek professional help. This isn't the first time that I've thought about seeing a counselor, but it is the first time I've acted on it.  During my husband's deployment, I was encouraged to see one, but I told myself that I didn't need to, and that I was fine.  I was strong enough to handle my husband being gone, my two small children, and being pregnant.  I was Superwoman