The Highs and Lows of This Time I'm In

 Happy Tuesday!

The big question on everyone's mind (my mind) today is: What to do with all this time? In the past few years time has become so insanely irrelevant that I can't seem to remember what happened to the days, or the hours, or the minutes. And now that I'm not tethered to a desk or a job, I'm feeling pretty off-kilter. Even more so than I have been, which if you knew me in person, would really shock you, because man I have problems with time.

But this morning, I slept in, slightly accidentally, but still did it. And a magical thing happened, I allowed myself the space to not feel guilty about what I "should" be doing. Where I should be, what jobs I should be applying to, etc. Instead, I let my puppy girl (who's over 2 years old, but will always be my puppy girl), climb under the covers with me, and we hung out and stayed warm while my husband got ready for work. I eventually got up, took my puppy girl for her walk, came home, made all 3 of us eggs for breakfast. Then I watched 2 episodes of Grey's Anatomy before I started doing some job applying and unemployment stuff. I've been so much more productive today because I haven't made myself feel worse for being where I'm at.

I am trying very hard to find work, and I had an excellent interview yesterday, and I have some meetings with various recruiters over the coming days. But there's only so much that I can do, so much of this process is a waiting game that I have no control over. And that lack of control is SO hard. I came off of such a high yesterday after that interview went well. But now, waiting and waiting for the follow-up, is pretty quickly hacking at my soul. No matter how hard I try, I just cannot will the process to go faster. 

So instead, I have to be kind to myself, and the process. I have to give myself the benefit of the doubt that things will work out, with time. Part of what I've been doing today is thinking about, what are the things I would wish I could do while I was at work? Cleaning out my personal inbox was one, so that's what I've been doing today. Organizing my inbox. Not glamorous, not fun, but making me feel better. Making me feel like I have some control, and even giving me a little energy to possible tackle the dishes that are staring me down from breakfast... but that's TBD.

I've also found myself leaning heavily into cooking. I really do love cooking. Not just baking, like I used to when I was younger, but I really enjoy finding new recipes and new things to try in the kitchen that push me. So in honor of that part of myself, here are two recipes that I tried this weekend with GREAT success, and I suggest everyone try.

Carrot Soup: https://www.budgetbytes.com/carrot-soup/

Challah: https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-challah-bread-181004

Here's to more highs than lows! 

-E

I'm Back! And only mostly against my will...

 Happy Friday World!

It's be a looooong long time since I've thought about popping on here and actually writing a blog, but these days, I feel like I need to. In the short version of this story, I'm currently unemployed and trying, fairly desperately, to find a new job. 

For the first time since I was 15 years old, I didn't leave a job on my own terms. It has been a straight shot to my ego, for sure. I've never not been the breadwinner, the boat captain, the busy employed chick. This is a whole new thing for me, and I'm having a really hard time knowing where to begin. 

Don't get me wrong, I've been applying to jobs like a madwoman, and I've been reaching out to friends and old coworkers like nothing else. But I don't know where to begin, for me. I've always had that existential, "Who Am I?" questions rolling around my brain. I have never been so far from an answer. I don't think I realized how hard I held onto my job title as the answer to that question. Or my advanced degrees as the answer to that question. So who am I now? 

I often find myself thinking back to 2012/2013, peak Elizabeth finding Elizabeth time. I was in my early twenties, and things were just on their way up. There are days I wish I could go back there, but I can't. I need to figure out how to find that sense of wonder again. How to find the things I believe are worthwhile and help me find myself again?

I'm hoping, that by coming back to writing, my first love, that it will help me find a path, help me find things I enjoy and spark some opportunities in ways that I can't begin to imagine.

So, let's see what happens!

Welcome to the Wild West (Also known as Pandemic 2020)

So this year, it's almost half way over, and it's been quite a doozy. And while I've got a lot of opinions about it, and a whole hell of a lot of emotions, I really don't want to talk about it. Plus, I doubt anyone wants to really get that intimate with my anxiety. So, onto something a little more joyful!

While this year has sucked for a whole slew of reasons, it's still a big one here in Apartment Land. Firstly, our roommate, and my best friend, bought her own condo and moved out, so now it's just me and my man Ryan. Which has been a nice adjustment, even though I miss Melissa terribly, the dynamic in the house has changed, and I'm enjoying the different pace that life has taken. New seasons of life, and all that. Then, in less than 2 weeks, Ryan and I are going to close on our own condo! This is incredible news, but it's crazy. Where I have been these past few years, I never thought I'd be in a place I could buy, especially with a partner. It's been a whirlwind, but we're both excited to settle into a place that is ours, together. Apartment Land, was my apartment with Melissa and then Ryan joined us, so it's been a bit crowded and a bit piece-mailed together to make it work. So to have a place that is both of ours is going to be an incredible change. Plus, poor Ryan has been moving every year, sometimes multiple times in the same year, since he moved to Massachusetts 3 years ago. So going to a place that we know we won't be leaving from in the next year or two is definitely a huge selling point for him.

So with all of this change, the moves, the painting, the change of towns, plus everything going on globally, I want to be able to have a place to talk about what we're doing, what we're cooking, and how we're making our place ours. I grew up thinking there was only one way to "do life" school, job, marriage, kids, home, etc. Reading the blogs that I have over the years, I realized there were so many different ways to make a life, and I want to be able to pay that gift forward, show someone else out on this vast internet another way that I spend my time, my life. So hopefully there will be much more writing, much more cooking, and a bit more paint scraps around this place.

Hope you stick around!

Day 2

I'm still alive! Which, given that I decided to go to the gym tonight, was not even remotely a guarantee. But I did it, I had a good day of eating, I did a really great hour+ workout. I'm feeling really good at about this! I did not expect to feel this good, granted I'm only 48 hours into this battle, and I haven't even slept off the workout. I can only imagine the soreness I will undoubtedly feel tomorrow. But for right now, I'm riding this endorphin high as long and hard as I can.

In my early 20's I took up jogging, and I loved it; once I build up my stamina, I loved running the roughly 3 miles around my old bus route (why yes, I did still live at home with my parents, because Massachusetts rent is ridonkulis.) But when I was 24, I lost my Auntie Di, who was just my favorite person in the whole world, to Ovarian Cancer, and then 2 months after that, I moved to Virginia to go to grad school. So let me tell you, the grief was REAL, and suddenly I was eating my feelings like I'd been doing it for years. No training wheels required. Plus, I just didn't have the drive to run anymore, it was a combination of that grief and just not knowing or feeling comfortable enough to be out and about alone in my new VA neighborhood. So just like that, I stopped cold turkey, after running a 10K race in July of that year. It was the longest race I've ever run, still to this day.

As a disclaimer, I say "jogging" and "running" but I bet most people out there could have (and definitely still could) walk faster than I was moving. I could go for miles, but there weren't any land speed records being broken. Second disclaimer, I'm (clearly) not a small girl, but I also have NEVER been a small girl. When I was running miles almost every day, I was still about 200lbs, I like to think this is courtesy of my Dad's gene pool. Even for all of the weight I had, I was never an emotional eater. I ate mostly because I was bored and in front of the TV, and as a child who loved reading, I was incredibly sedentary. But I remember the night before we lost Di, being up in her apartment in South Boston, and there was just so much food around (because we all know when someone is ill, people send food), and at one point, I stood up I announced to the room, which was just a couple of my cousins, that it was time for me to start eating my feelings, and from that cupcake on, I haven't stopped. So those 3-4 years when I was running was the healthiest and the smallest I'd been since I was really young, and I fucked it up in a big way.

All this is to say, that this whole getting back on the wagon bit is going to be so hard for me. There is such an emotional component, that I'm sure my therapist is going to love hearing about tomorrow. So today, as I get ready for bed after a great day of eating, and a fantastic workout, I'm going to be grateful that it wasn't as hard as I've been dreading. I know those days will arrive, sooner rather than later, but hopefully the endorphin train will be here to meet them when it does.

What about you, dear reader? Any emotional eaters or people who's track was derailed by grief? Any people riding the workout/endorphin high too?

Good Night Lovies!

Let's Try This Again

Happy Monday!

I'm back at it again, and by that I mean both trying to blog, and trying to get my weight under control. So, you know, the usual around here. I re-read my old posts and I just cannot believe how similar of a situation I'm in with wanting to be the inspiration I'm missing, but also how far off the wagon I've fallen. If I thought I was heavy 2 years ago, DAMN do I have some news for my older self, and it ain't good.

As of my first "Official" weigh in this morning, I've officially broken the 300lb mark. That is (sadly) not a typo. I weighed in this morning at 300.9lb. And I nearly cried. Though, those tears would have been composed of mostly soda and grease fat from my weekend. There was a great Fair I attended Saturday (Big E for the win!) and then an annual Football Cookout that I attended Sunday that made up my last meal, well last weekend, before this diet started. So, I lived it up! And then the scale refused to lie to me and tell me I was 100lbs soaking wet. That jerk. So now I'm sitting at my desk at work, in the beautiful city of Boston, eating a Smart Ones frozen lunch and being stared down by a banana that got the shit kicked out of it in my lunchbox on it's commute to work. Who knew my lunchbox served as a worse vessel to commute in than the Red Line? (For those readers not from New England, trust me, don't ever ride Mass Public transit if you need to be anywhere on time, or at any high rate of speed, and you wish to be comfortable doing it.) Now that I've naively assumed anyone was reading this, let's move on.

If you've read my previous 2 posts, you'll know that the last time I attempted this was 3 years ago, and I was living in a different state, since then, I've high-tailed it back to Massachusetts, mostly with my tail between my legs, and I left an incredibly terrible relationship. I didn't realize how toxic it was at the time, but now with the gift of time and space, Dear God no wonder I was so miserable. But seriously, getting out of that relationship, and through the ensuing years, I relied heavily on food to make me feel better, to fill that gap for companionship, and any space that might have remained available in my pants size. The term "Emotional Support Taco" is a thing at my house, and since I live with roommates, I'm not the only one who says it, though I am the undeniable creator of the term, and the movement. I live too close to a Taco Bell for comfort, and the scale reminded me of that this morning. But I'm ready for some healthy change. ...I hope. I have a new job that isn't nearly as horrendous as my last gig (where I worked for a verbally abusive person who thought because they MD tacked onto the end of their name entitled them to treat their workers that way), I've gotten back into therapy for the depression that I've been pretty solidly entrenched in since my college days, and I've found a wonderful partner who I love and adore, and who is also going on this health trip with me. So the goal is not to scare him away when the inevitable Starving-for-Chocolate-Monster rears her ugly head. But only time will tell!

If you've made it this far into my babbling, I applaud you! I'm hoping to use this space to talk, about a little bit of everything, the struggle, the success, the process, and maybe give and get some good book/Netflix/Podcast recommendations along the way. I'm going to try to update this place and be here more consistently, really sharing myself, I want to be able to be myself through this whole process, journey, spiritual awakening, or shit-show of a diet. So get ready for some GREAT Dad jokes, some weight-loss stuff, and definitely the mouth of a sailor.

See you around!

Big Steps

Happy Monday Ya'll! 

I made the big decision this weekend to use a couple of Amazon gift cards that I got for Christmas to purchase a Fitbit. I've been really trying to find something to inspire my reintroduction to taking care of myself, and this seemed like the perfect excuse to feel a little fancy, and to get my ass back into shape. The beautiful Charge HR Fitbit arrived today, and as I type it is charging on my computer. I have my profile all set, (with my Dad as my only friend haha) and I'm ready to start really getting some steps in and tracking my sleep. I think I'm really interested the most in how I'm sleeping. I am also interested in seeing the scale go down, down, down. I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I weighed 7 lbs lighter than the last time I weighed myself. But I also know this isn't from doing all of the right things, it's probably from skipping breakfast everyday and only sometimes eating lunch at work. This is not the healthy way to lose weight, its just what's happening. So now the goal is to let the FitBit do some of the work for me, at least in the motivation dept. Onward and upward!

Until next time,

Elizabeth

Starting Something New

Welcome to my blog!

It's been quite a long time since I wrote on a blog. And it seemed like time for me to create a new one. My old blog did a lot of great things, but I utilized it mostly as a way to feel more "legit" about reading other bloggers. But I never really used it as a tool to help me create, cultivate, and dream of my best life, so that's what I'm looking to do here. I have been doing a great deal of thinking about the inspiration that I used to draw from some of my favorite bloggers. So many of their lives have changed, whether it's from work, having children, getting married, or just changing their own life focus. I found that there was this hefty void because I had drawn so much of my inspiration from them, even allowed myself to grow, learn, and love myself vicariously through their posts.

So I decided to create a new place for me, one where I'm not scared to share where I am in this life, and what I want to do. I want this to be a place that I keep track of my progress, my strength, and my incredible ability to work hard. I want a place to recognize that I'm not perfect, but that doesn't detract from who I am or what I want to accomplish. Part of all of this is stemming from the beginning of the New Year, part of it is stemming from my recognition that I need to change. I'm the unhealthiest that I've ever been, and this can't continue if I hope to life past 40 and to have a family. I am also the unhappiest that I've been in years, a great deal of that comes from my being 500 miles south of my family, friends, and home. I'm a New England girl living in a Mid Atlantic world, and I'm not a big fan. I am also currently battling some work issues that I won't go into detail about here, but I'm hoping can be solved with some of these changes that I'm looking at.

So I want to keep track, I'm not sure how I want to do it, whether I just want to track goals monthly, quarterly, every 6 months, or just yearly. But I want to see my progress. I want to take the time to recognize the change that is occurring, that I'm working towards. So here I start, day 1 on the blog. I'm going to attach my 101 in 1001 list, because I loved working hard to accomplish my last one and I think that has been a great metric for seeing progress, change, and positivity in my life.

Thanks for stopping by, hope you stick around.
Elizabeth