"And I'm going to be 40....some day!"*

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I have made it to the night before my 40th birthday.
The kids are asleep, and my husband is asleep in there with them.
The dog is eating dinner. <crunch crunch slurp slurp crunch>

I am cross-legged on my bed with my laptop, an old teddy bear of mine, my sleeping/snuggling blanket (that my mom gave me) and a white furry bunny "tummy time" blanket that looks like a bear rug only it's a bunny.  I couldn't bear to give it away.  (Story forthcoming.)

If you are in the habit of checking here, you have noticed that I was not writing much this past week or two.  I've not been functioning all that highly.

Such a fat-assed waste + UPDATED: Wise Woman

I wrote this entry on March 16, 2012.  Today is the 18th.  I am going to go through this and write in responses that I imagine come from the "wise woman" within me.  (These will be in blue italics.)  This is a technique that my group therapist came up with, herself.  To me, I imagine my wise woman to be myself, only older, perhaps at the end of my life, with all the wisdom of having lived through the life I am struggling with right now.  The key is not to give advice, but to be accepting and present with the feelings of your present self, to soothe and comfort yourself as you might a good friend or young child.  I find it comforting to do.  This can also be done with drawings, where you draw one drawing about something you are struggling with.  Then with a different color or pen or whatever, you see what the wise woman would add or change about the picture.  It can be very interesting.

I have been upset this evening about turning 40 on Monday (I can see how that might be an intimidating milestone for you) and not being able to feel acceptable. (That must have been pretty rough, huh?) My husband took the day off (How nice of him!) and I stayed in bed until 4 or so as if it were a Saturday. (Maybe he felt good to be able to give you some extra rest.) 

LEED Let-down

Today I stepped on the scale and saw that I've gained 10lbs since before the Holidays.  So instead of the pancakes that I wanted for breakfast, I ordered eggs instead.  I shouldn't have eaten my toast but I did (my husband's regimen that I try to follow loosely has him eating no non-vegetable carbs during the week except on Saturdays, when he can have whatever he wants.  Trying to do it strictly stressed me out, which I don't need, so I've been more lenient.  Since the Holidays though, I've been exhibiting no control over eating whatsoever and there's been a lot of ice cream and soda.)

After breakfast we and the kids visited a nature center near where my husband works.

The Payoff of Laziness?

The Paper Source: Cupcake Apron

 So the other night I came up with around 45 possible topics and I don't want to do any one of them right now.  So I'm just going to go with the events of the day and see where the stream of consciousness takes me.  Hopefully I won't ramble too badly.


My daughter is in bed with me.  She just came in. Apparently she's cold.  She may have just been missing me.  I was not home for bedtime tonight as I was attending my Women's Cognitive Therapy Group.  This is the group to which the X and Y post's exercise belongs.  I came away with two assignments:

1) Choose a body part each day that I can accept for just that day without judgement.

2) Come up with a list of the payoffs of inactivity in the household to me.  What's in it for me when I decline to do the chores I need to do, considering that I then feel really bad about it. 

SIGH.  I suppose I can do this.  I don't know about the body part thing.