Thursday, February 28, 2008

End of debt

I am so sick of owing money to credit cards and crap. I have owed money since around 1990 and none of it is 'good debt' like a house or investment loans. I don't own my house, I rent, and I want to build a house one day. First, I have to get out of debt.

As of right now S and I owe $20,555 and some change. When I met him I had debt left over from my marriage of about $5000, the rest is his. He also has student loans to pay off, it is not included in the above amount.

I made a deal with S after watching our spending for a year. We were putting $1500/month on the debts but only $500/month was being credited because we were spending $1000/month on the cards! I figured we would be lost without a firm goal in mind so we agreed that if we get the debt down to $14,000 by August of this year........we could buy a new couch! Now I know it's silly to accrue more debt as a reward, but I'm so sick of my ex-mother-in-law's couch in my house and I never seem to have the money to replace it. So. Knowing that the only way to get a new couch is to pay off a bunch of debt is quite the motivating factor for me. With S, well, he doesn't like debt, but I'm the one staring at the budget every month and arranging payments. Not that he doesn't help sometimes, but I prefer to do it all myself.

I can't wait for a new couch!

Chocolate Diary

So, I must not have read what I typed the other day about chocolate. I indeed had a chocolate doughnut that evening with a couple of chocolate chip cookies. The day after I had just two chocolate cookies and a tiny bit of chocolate at work. Yesterday I had a teeny pinch of chocolate chunk at work and today I had a cookie and a bite of chocolate caramel cake at work. So I'm not completely off chocolate. I haven't had my evening candy though! I'm proud of myself for that. It is the most difficult to give up - I have been having an evening chocolate bar/candy for most of my adult life.

Stupidly, the chocolate I've been eating has been mostly unconscious. I don't realize what I'm doing until I'm chewing it already. I definately need to watch that. What else have I been putting in my mouth in the way of food without being aware of it, I wonder?

I can do this, I really can :) The panic is starting to subside, but it's still there.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Chocolate

So. I've realized one of the reasons I've gained so much weight in the last year and a bit.

When my ex-husband left I lost about 10 pounds without even trying, then took off a bit more and got down to about 130 lbs. I was no longer living with constant worry and aggrivation so I didn't feel the need to eat chocolate so much. I also didn't have to worry about feeding him (he would frequently ask what was for dinner, and if he didn't like it, he wouldn't eat with the boys and me) so I would just make whatever I wanted to eat.

Enter S. My ex had been gone for a little over a year and I was just really getting used to living without another adult in the house. I remember the day - we were settling in to watch TV and I felt uncomfortable so I went and got some chocolate. Even though it made me feel a bit sick and icky to eat the whole thing I did anyway. I never addressed why I felt uncomfortable and instead went into the habit of eating chocolate every single night.

Now, I am a chocoholic. I have had chocolate in my life for as long as I can remember. I tell people that growing up my allowance was 50 cents and I would spend half on a comic book and half on a chocolate bar. As I got older I would buy more and more chocolate, eat it, feel guilty, eat more, feel powerless, eat more and feel hopeless. So the concept of daily chocolate intake was not unheard of to me.

The difference is, in the year I was separated with no significant other, I had no problem staying away from chocolate. I felt good about myself and could easily give it up. Now I have S and although I love him dearly, I eat chocolate every day, and it's difficult for me to get through the evening without M&Ms. Do you know how many calories are in those little bits of chocolate? Good lord I was shocked to discover I was eating an additional 600 calories a day just in chocolate.

This is all leading up to me saying out loud - well, typing for unknown masses to read - that I am going to give up my evening chocolate. I will do what I can to change my eating habits during the rest of the day (just make better choices, really) after I have a handle on the chocolate thing. For now, I'll change nothing else. I weigh about 170 lbs right now (yikes!) and if I'm right, getting rid of the chocolate alone should shed a fair bit of weight. The trick is going to be not replacing the chocolate with some other food. I've also taken to drinking tea most nights since S came into this house, with lots of milk and sugar. So I'll be cutting that out soon, too. But first I must tackle the Demon and it's name is Chocolate.

I'm starting to panic already.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Beautiful day and EMPowerplus

Today was such a beautiful day :) The sun was out and warm on my skin and actual puddles were forming in the edges of the snow.

I went back to work today after being off for a week because my daddy died, and I was surprised at how dry the streets were. I live in northern Alberta, Canada and it's unusual to have dry pavement in February. It is usually still very cold and snowy. So the warm sun, dry dusty - actually dusty! - roads and damp smell of melting snow was a delight to be had. I needed to run some errands after work so I included washing my car first and stayed away from the edges of the road wherever possible so my car could stay shiny and clean for more than a day.

I think (ok, I know) that I bounced Up again. I didn't sleep at all last night. Well, maybe an hour or two - I forced myself to stay in bed and keep my eyes closed - but I was up frequently to pee and felt like I hadn't slept a wink. Then I went to work and was able to go into hyperspeed at some points without feeling tired. I left work feeling very energetic so I washed my car and did errands before coming home and working out on my Bowflex. After a shower I forced myself to sit on the couch with my eyes closed. Otherwise I was sure I'd crash later this evening. I may have had an hour's nap.

The Down was only just on Monday. The boys had it off school (Family Day) and I was still off work. S's SAD lamp came on and simulated sunrise, which just pissed me off. I was fully awake long before I felt like I should be. And I can't convince my brain that the fake sunlight is real, it knows and my body knows that it is fake and still wants the dark morning. So I tried to lay down in the living room listening to the loud hum of computers and my older son getting up to find a dvd. I went to the basement and sat on the Bowflex for about a half an hour to try to get myself less angry. It didn't work. I spent my day seriously irritated, and by the time S got off work I was falling helplessly into the Down. I sat on the couch and stared at the wall for over an hour and a half waiting for bedtime. I knew if I went to bed too early I'd be up waaaaay too early. I was not capable of conversation and resented the entire world for making me have to deal with it.

I thought that was just me grieving my daddy, but in light of today's good mood and lack of sleep, I'm thinking it's more to do with Bipolar. So this proves to me that the EMPowerplus vitamins aren't working as a medication alternative. Keeping in mind I'm supposed to take 15 capsules a day and have been taking 4. They are expensive. I can sympathize with people in the USA for having to pay for medication without coverage. Anyway, I'll up the dose to about 9 a day and see how that goes. I really want to avoid chemical medications, so I should make a better go at this then I have been.

Oh - and I saw actual grass today! Ok, dead, yellow grass, but grass nevertheless! I wonder if Mother Nature is just teasing me, will spring be early or are we in for a major snow dumpage and cold front?

Friday, February 15, 2008

My daddy

My dad had surgery on O8Feb. I don't remember the name of the proceedure but it was to replace the arteries from the aorta all the way down to the femorals. The surgery was a success, for the first time in something like nine years he had good circulation to his hands and feet.

Twenty five years ago he suffered a major heart attack, permanently damaging the back and underside of his heart. During the surgery he appeared to have a heart attack but the anastesiologist thought he got it under control. There is an enzyme called troponin that measures the extent of damage to the heart after a heart attack. The troponin levels peak at some point and an assessment can be made as to the damage from the attack. My dad's troponin levels started to elevate immediately after the surgery indicating a heart attack. It must have been massive as the troponin levels continued to rise until his death on Wed 13Feb.

The doctor said the damage to the heart was so massive that if he actually lived through it he would need a heart transplant. But there was no possible way he would even get on the list as his entire vascular system was clogged or hardened from 50 years of smoking. So my mom decided to pull him off the life support he was on so he could die in peace. His heart beat for two and a half hours after the life support was removed, then he finally stopped breathing and let go.

My two sisters and my mom were with him right up until the end but I couldn't be there. I just didn't want to see him actually die. I had the opportunity to say goodbye before the surgery and after. I had some alone time with him before the life support was pulled and made sure to tell him that the very best of him is in me and will live on. My dad's only surviving relative other than us was his sister. She chose not to be there as well because she and my mom have never gotten along. Even when I did go into my dad's room after the life support was taken away I made a comment to my dad about his sister - that he would see her in eternity at some point. (My dad's sister raised him, she is eight years older and their parents were absent much of the time, so she was also a mother figure to him, they had an incredibly special and tight bond) My mom and sisters made rude comments then about how she won't be going to the same place as daddy, that she will go somewhere awful. They said this with my dad dying in the bed in the same room. Talk about no tact.

I feel very separate from my family at the moment. Daddy's favorite was me and he was mine. No surviving member of the family has called me to see if I'm ok, nobody has included me in any decisions to be made or preparations that need to happen. Nobody has asked me to help with anything.

My mom has threatened suicide as one way of dealing with all of this. Not to me personally, but to my older sister. I suspect that because both my sisters do not live in the same city as my mom and I that I will be the one expected to keep an eye on her. This is a burden I do not want. My mom has tried to kill herself thirteen times that I know of since 2001. I only ask that if she tries again she does it right. No suicidal gestures for attention or half-assed attempts. Enough. I don't have it in me to go through all that again. She was abusive to me when I was growing up. She didn't ever seem to really like me or love me no matter how much I tried to be lovable. No matter what I did it wasn't ever right or enough. I'm done. I don't do it anymore. And I don't want the responsibility of keeping her alive. Let it rest with my sisters.

Rest in peace daddy, I love you forever.