Finding my Mojo again...

Creativity for me is a way to lift depression.  In July I started an online course called Soul Restoration through the Brave Girls website.  It has been very therapeutic to kind of reacquaint myself with my authentic self this summer, through art and introspection.  I have allowed myself to kind of go with the flow, just to paint, glue, journal with no rules, just let whatever comes out kind of flow freely.  I had let so much time pass by without spending a lot of time on creativity, which is such a big part of who I am.  The traumatic events of the past year kind of usurped my creative time, so it feels good to "make a mess on the dining room table" again.  The fact that my husband has been on a 3 week business trip helped me to really spend some quality "me time" with myself -- something that hasn't happened in a long time.

Something that I loved to do before my accident was scrapbook and make cards.  In fact I blogged about it up until April 2010, when life was starting to go kind of crazy.  I loved doing my papercrafting blog... in fact I wanted to start it up again after making a bunch of cards this weekend... but I got stuck because untechnological woman that I am, Wordpress has totally changed everything and I can't figure out how to use my old blog anymore... so I bit the bullet and started a new blog today, a fresh start from scratch.  I posted a little batch of Halloween cards I made -- it feels really good to have a little stack of new cards on the table.

In honor of Brave Girls, and the symbol of a bird that is used throughout the Brave Girls "message", I had to make some "birdie" cards as well.  Here is one of them...

 If you would like to make your own "birdie" card, feel free to use the graphic I created here:

My contentment level has risen quite a lot since I've made the time and effort to make space for creative play... it feels really good!

The Long, Long Move

It's been a rollercoaster summer.

We graduated a son, our youngest.  We dropped him off at college for the summer term.  We packed up a 3,000 sf house after getting rid of at least half of our belongings because of empty-nesting and downsizing (and mostly because we didn't want to pay ABF to haul a lot of unused stuff).  We left our home of 11 years and not in the way we would have liked.  We walked away from our home - yes, we defaulted.  We are in the process of foreclosure.  Something up until 8 months ago, I never, never would imagine finding ourselves in that situation.

After a bumpy 1,600 mile cross-country ride (a faulty auto-trailer) we finally made it to the southwest.  We found a nice rental (small!  1280 sf) and are still unpacking boxes. 

I got a letter from my former city public works department today.  Kind of devastating.  Basically saying that a complaint has been filed by one of our former neighbors due to overgrown weeds.  That's what happens when you have to walk away -- it kills me to think that the flower beds I once enjoyably tended are a weedy mess now.  The lawn that my sons mowed regularly is now an eyesore.  There was a time when I thought that people who got foreclosed on were flaky.  I'm that flake now.  But am I really?  Unemployment + illness + 7 months = financial disaster.  We borrowed from family.  We tried to talk to the bank - that went nowhere fast.  We went without.  We had a house with a lot of structural problems and weren't willing to rent in that condition, and didn't have the money to make the needed repairs.  And at the end of the day, that house was far away from our parents, children and grandchild, horribly underwater and no chance of getting our equity back within the next 20 years.  So when my husband was offered a job in another state far away, we made the decision to let it go.

The first month was hard -- it felt so unnatural to me to willfully not pay a mortgage payment.  At first it didn't feel right living in a house that we weren't paying the mortgage on.  It made me feel a little better to do the math and realize that the bank had still made a profit off of us with the interest we'd been paying those 11 years.  That helped relieve the guilt.   Also reading about the banks record earnings each quarter didn't hurt either. 

Watching our excellent credit score take a nosedive was painful too.  But we keep telling ourselves "we are not our credit score".  We have paid our other bills on time, and thankfully the foreclosure is the only hit we are taking for now.

I know there are lots of other people who are losing their homes right now... I am amazed at the compassion that friends and family have shown.  I can honestly say that not one person has made a rude comment to me about it.  I will say though that it is embarrassing when every person asks you "are you/have you put your house up for sale?"  I have learned the hard way never to ask that question to somebody again when they tell me they are moving.

The website Loansafe has been a big source of comfort to me.  It is full of ideas and strategies for people who are trying to save their homes, or how to walk away gracefully.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?  I hope I am getting stronger.  I think I am.

Putting my sweet tooth to rest for awhile

Today is day 25 of a life without soda -- namely my favorite Diet Sunkist Lemonade and it's close rival, Coke Zero.  The caffeine headache was a dull, off-and-on, nagging but not debilitating pain that lasted about 4 days.  Sleeping was restless for about 5-6 days but then the physical discomfort was over.  The psychological craving was strong for about 2 weeks.  I found that putting slices of lemon or lime in my water helped a lot.  I am trying to go completely off of artificial sweeteners, namely Aspartame (NutraSweet) and Sucralose (Splenda), and here's why:

1.  When the temperature of Aspartame exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood alcohol in Aspartame converts to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which in turn causes metabolic acidosis. (Formic acid is the poison found in the sting of fire ants).  Acidosis is defined as a disruption of the body's acid/base (pH) balance that can be a mild symptom or can indicate a more serious problem with a major organ such as the liver, kidneys, or heart.

 

Fire Ants?  No thanks.

2.  Sucralose (Splenda) was discovered in 1976 by British scientists who were trying to formulate a new... pesticide.  So the happy (!?!) accident was, they came up with Sucralose. (Maybe it will work on those Fire Ants...)  Sucralose has caused gladular and organ disorders in rats, and is also known to decrease good bacteria in our digestive system.

3.  One of the ingredients in Diet Sunkist Lemonade, and many other citrus drinks, is Wood Rosin.  Wood rosin is in that little pouch that baseball players smack in their hands to keep them from being slippery.  You've heard of fiddlers saying "Rosin up the bow!" -- more wood rosin.  It's also a major ingredient in lacquers and shellacs -- yummy.  It's put in citrus drinks to keep the citrus oils from separating from the water in the drink.  Does my body really need it's daily dose of Wood Rosin?  I think I'll be all right if I go without it.

So while I seem to have successfully conquered the Pop Monster, I am only on Day 5 of a Sugar-free and White Flour-free diet.  I am in the trenches.  This is hard.  I love all this stuff.  Day one was difficult, kind of antsy, but I got through the day.  Day 2, the bottom fell out -- a screaming, and I mean SCREAMING headache that no ibuprofen could shake, and it lasted a good 36 hours.  My whole body ached.  I felt like I was totally dazed.  It was a Sunday and I stayed home from church -- I felt like I had a bad case of the flu.  My eyes started watering like crazy.  Day 3, I had to go to work... what was I going to say?  "Hello, I'm suffering from sugar addiction withdrawal, and I won't be in the office today..." so into the office I went, the headache now starting to wind down, but feeling very fatigued and kind of spacy.  Days 4 and 5 are getting better physically.  Little intermittent headaches, not enough to warrant medication - I am trying to eat something about every 2.5 hours and that helps with the headache, so I think my blood sugar is just trying to figure out the new normal.

I am still REALLY craving carbs however -- so far I am able to keep everything in check.  While I am cutting out sugar and white flour, I am not yet "dieting" in the official sense of the word -- I want this to work once and for all and I'm eliminating the unhealthy stuff in baby steps.  Trying to have some protein with every snack and doing this in a manageable way that will work for me.  My favorite snacks at the moment are:

• Beef rollups - 2 slices of good, non-nitrate roast beef lunchmeat spread with chive cream cheese, and some shredded cabbage from a bag -- the cabbage seems to satisfy the craving for crunch that I miss from chippy/crunchy things.
• Sauteed apples and cottage cheese - I slice and peel a Granny Smith apple, saute it in butter and lots of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, and plop it on top of some cottage cheese.
   
• Bell pepper slices and hummus
• Almonds and walnuts

I am realistic and know that this is going to get boring after awhile, but I really want to feel better, have the energy that I need for the months ahead of packing and moving across country so I am very motivated right now... I'm going to use that motivation in my favor!  Hopefully in a week or two my energy level will be higher, my mind will be clear from carbo-fog and the cravings won't be as strong.  I am hopeful!

 

What if the kids found it after I died?

I am 50.  I am married.  I am moving from the Upper Midwest to the Southwest in 3 months.  My husband, after 7 months of unemployment, found a job 1600 miles away.  So now that he is gainfully employed, I am staying behind while the youngest finishes his last 3 months of high school and packing up 11 years of a home that includes treasures and trash from 1 dad, 1 mom, 4 children, and one mother-in-law.  We are downsizing from about 3,000 square feet to something closer to 1,300 square feet.  No small feat.

So when I got to the box that has lovingly contained the amazingly small, push-up bra that I wore on my wedding day, along with my peach lace see-through wedding night nightie, no longer did they hold the sweet sentimentality that they held for me when I packed them away long ago... my first thought was "Oh my gosh!  I'd be mortified if my kids found this after I died!"  And so they were unceremoniously stashed in a Glad Force-Flex bag, right along with the shredded credit card bills from 2002 and a stack of Us Magazines.  My kids were still small the last time I packed those things away.  So small that I wasn't thinking about things like death, illness, estate sales, senility and the eye-rolling of my children.

Now that I've been on the packing and un-packing side of a parent in assisted living, I have been guilty of looking at one woman's treasures with a raised eyebrow and wondering to myself, "What on earth..."

A good mama bear always does her best to protect her cubs.  I have hopefully circumvented the emotional trauma of them imagining their mother in that nightgown.