Speaking of Zombies...

I rather dread today. I have a two hour trip to my parent's house to celebrate my nephew's first birthday, then two hours back. I love my family dearly, but . . . well, I'm sure many of you have had that same 'but' from time to time. Mine has lasted for about eight years now, shortly after they all realized that they were going to have to accept the stranger that is my now husband into the family. I think that they were hoping that I would fall for one of the guys my sister, dad and I worked with, or someone who my mom introduced me to. My parents were hoping he would be Catholic, I think they should be happy he was even christian, most of the guys that have been interested in me were atheist.

As I think about the trip and how much I don't want to take it, I can't help but think that it would be the perfect time for a zombie apocalypse to hit. It would be a great excuse not to go, I mean, excuses can't get much better than 'all my survival gear is at the house, loading it into the car would be like feeding myself to the zombies'. We could live in the basement for a while, we have plenty of food down there to survive and plenty of ways to keep barricaded in.

Anyone who knows me know just how seriously I don't want to go by wishing for a zombie apocalypse. I HATE zombies. They are my least favorite supernatural creature. I have a BA in communications so I keep up on pop culture as much as I can, but I cannot make myself watch the Walking Dead despite how curious I am about it. I am making baby steps towards watching it, but I have other stuff to watch first. I even want to see Warm Bodies, but can't do it. I was proud of myself for watching Zombieland, but that movie is just freaking hilarious and I love the cast.

So, I guess since I love my family I will make the trek to see them...but still some kind of apocalypse would be nice.

Stress Zombies Gnawing at My Brain

That sounds like it should be the name of a song. Stress zombies gnawing on my brain, la di da.

But I digress.

Getting to a healthy weight is one of the biggest things that is going to lead to my happiness, for those wondering why I keep talking about my weight. I'm not morbidly obese, but I am considered obese. So when I post about things like exercise and dieting, that's why I'm posting. I just wanted to explain that before I got started today.

Yesterday could have been a bad day for me. I woke up later than I wanted after taking medicine for a cold I was catching (I should know better than to do that). Then I spent the rest of the day worried about when I would get my workout in. It was only the second day of my revolution and I didn't want to fail so early in the game. It became a little stress zombie, painfully chewing at my brain.

It's hard to do a long workout when there's a little one in the house, especially since she's a little Houdini. She just turned two at the end of December and has been climbing everything including baby gates and cribs since she was 18 months. In order to give myself piece of mind, and keep her from breaking any bones, I had to switch her to a toddler bed because every morning she would wake up, climb over the rail and drop to the floor. Now she knows how to open doors, turn on the stove and get past the "child proof" everything.

So I waited it out, the zombie gnawing even more with lost chance. Then, when my eight year old got out of school the little one finally decided to take a nap. I asked the older one to clean her room, which is across the hall from the little one's room, and keep listen for the little one should she wake up. I successfully got my workout in without, and even managed not to stress eat.

I think the most valuable lesson I learned was not to let the stress zombie gnaw at my brain so much, to be patient and I should be able to find the time. And honestly I'm better for it, I didn't wake up early today either (it's my first week of harder workouts so it's tiring me out), but the zombie isn't getting to me as much today.

Revolution Starting Point 1: Happiness

So it begins today. I’m still hammering out the details of my revolution, but I do know that the first of it is happiness.

Happiness is something that much like my weight loss is something that I struggle with. In fact, I’m positive that my unhappiness is directly linked to my being overweight. I’ll have pockets of it here and there, but it never lasts.

The longest stretch of happiness I can remember was for about two years, four months of that was when I first met my now husband the rest of it was when I was basically a non-traditional college student at age 21 (it doesn’t seem like it, but it is non-traditional). I had big plans for my future because I was kicking butt and taking names in college, owned a house that my sister said she would buy from me, and was completely comfortable and happy with who I was (well, for the most part, I had about ten pounds of tummy I wanted to get rid of which I laugh about now). It was the only period in my life since I was eleven that I hadn’t needed anti-depressants.

Then I got pregnant. I bawled when I found out, I don’t think that he understood exactly why I was distraught. He might understand better now, but I honestly doubt it. So, depression and pregnancy set in. I took to eating and gained way too much weight. I asked about it and the doctors shrugged it off, then the month that I hadn’t gained any weight they treated me like I had committed a crime.

I had my daughter and between work, school and raising her I had no time to worry about losing weight. I put everyone and everything ahead of myself, and have continued to do that since.

So, over eight years have passed. I managed to graduate from college but since I’ve had to move where his job took us it meant living in small towns nowhere near places that would have jobs in my field. I ended up settling for a job as a pharmacy clerk, which turned into pharmacy technician. In 2011 I got hired at a major university hospital and thought that it was the last place that I would ever work only to find out shortly after getting hired that I was pregnant. When I was 35 weeks pregnant they fired me for failure to meet expectations during my probationary period, without ever having ever talked to me about my performance or given me any written warnings. To make matters worse, after I had the baby and began looking for jobs I found out that when potential employers contacted my former supervisor that she would not recommend they pursue hiring me without giving them an explanation. So I have trouble getting my heart into the idea of being a pharmacy technician again. That doesn’t mean that I’m not still trying to get a job as one, I just haven’t had any luck because ultimately the calls go to the supervisor.

But this is turning into a rambling. Overall, happiness is my starting point, or at least doing something about my depression. For the first time in almost two years I’m going to have decent insurance so I set up a doctor appointment and will hopefully get something for the depression. 

Unfortunately the appointment isn’t until the 22^nd, but knowing I have the appointment has eased my mind a bit. And at least this will give me a chance to lose a few pounds so I’m not grimacing when I step on the scale at the doctors’ office.