Stress eating

I worked today. And thanks to the advice of a very dear friend, I left ON TIME. Can’t wait to be done at the office. Life is so much less stressful with such a load off my shoulders!

Just after I got home, Mom called. She started talking to me about tomorrow’s dentist appointment and how she needs an OB/GYN exam and do I know any OB/GYNs in the area (ummm…no…if I did, you’d have an appointment already!)…that, layered on top of the morning’s work stress, the 5 year-old making a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich (“I can do it MYSELF!”), Mom’s Fox News blaring in the background, the dog barking…it was all too much. I started slamming and banging things, and looked for any excuse to get off the phone.

Once I was off the phone, all I wanted to do was EAT. Inhaled a slice of cheese while I made a sandwich for lunch. Made 8 pb&j sandwiches for Big Sis’ lunches, plus one more for myself. Inhaled.

I did manage to save the chicken sandwich I’d made myself for a few hours before I demolished it.

I KNEW I was stress eating, but I couldn’t make myself stop entirely. It’s so ingrained, it’s the quickest, easiest way for me to destress. I know I should substitute a healthier behavior, but in that moment, I didn’t want to.

The good news is, I stayed away from the huge pan of chocolate chip brownies on the kitchen counter.

And when Mom called back an hour later to talk more about dentist offices and such, I let the machine get it. I know she hates when I do that, but I’d just spent an hour trying to calm down, and I knew if I answered it, I’d just get spun up again.

So I watched the Biggest Loser. And while I watched them endure a Last Chance Workout, I grabbed a pair of weights and worked out my shoulders and arms, which have been in stress-related knots for days.

It feels much better now.

Feeling lighter

Last time I posted, it was how I had too many responsibilities.

Well, I’ve dumped a few of them. Don’t worry, the kids are fine. The dog is still with us. And so is Mom.

But I quit my job.

My last day is February 11, so I still have a few days left. But I already feel lighter!

I liked working there, but it took more of my time and energy than I could spare. I bit off more than I could chew.

The good news is that I recognized this before I hit rock bottom. I’ve gotten burned out at jobs before (I seem to prefer the non-profit sector), so this time I recognized the warning signs, and didn’t stay out of a sense of duty.

Plus, my vacancy has already been filled by another staff member, so I’m not leaving anyone in the lurch.

With my extra time, I’m planning to hit the gym each morning after I put the kids on the bus. Hopefully, it’ll ensure I’m ready for whatever happens with Mom or the kids.

I didn’t have to work today, but I did end up spending the time I would have spent at the office taking Mom to have lab tests done.

Like I mentioned briefly before, Mom is going to be evaluated on February 12 to see if she’s a good candidate for a kidney transplant. That involves a whole mess of doctors’ appointments, because she has to be cleared by all of her specialists before she can be considered. Between Mom, the kids and me, I’ve got 10 appointments scheduled in a 3-week period.

So life is still crazy, just not AS crazy. Thank God.

A chip on my shoulder

I’m fired up this morning. And NOT in a good way.

I feel trapped. Too many responsibilities. Here’s my day: (the kids are off of school, so they’re along for the miserable ride today) work (don’t even get me STARTED on that), lunch with Mom, Mom’s doctor appointment (which she was supposed to schedule a week ago when she was actually still sick, and which she’ll have to use to make arragements to get tests for a possible kidney transplant), then tonight I have book club (I haven’t finished the book).

Plus I’m fat and miserable, and I don’t have any time or energy to do anything about THAT.

I’ll have to fill you all in on the kidney transplant thing later. Or maybe not.

If I don’t get myself together, I’LL be the one arranging a kidney transplant for myself in 20 years. I’m trying to prevent my kids from having to endure all this crap (through taking better care of myself), but who has time when I’m taking care of them AND my own mom??

I have SUCH a bad attitude today!!

WFMW: Host a Wrapping Party!

If you’re a procrastinator like me, this idea is a gem! To give you an idea of how bad I can be, when I has Little Sis 5 years ago, the midwife suggested to me that perhaps the reason both of the girls were born a week and a half past their due dates is my tendency to put things off.

She was serious.

So this is how my Christmas Eves USED to go: dinner, church, put out cookies and milk, give the girls their annual new pair of Christmas pajamas, get the girls to bed, and wrap gifts. The wrapping would begin around 10:00 pm. By 10:45, Mr. Hoagie began to droop and headed to bed.

Which left me wrapping. And wrapping. For hours. Oh, sure, I’d put on Christmas music and get myself a nice beverage…but after three hours, I was decidedly LESS than merry.

After putting myself to bed at 2:00 am, and having the girls wake me at 6:00 am, I was MUCH less than merry. Especially since I was also in charge of making a four-course breakfast and taxiing Mom over, all before 7:00 am.

So at some point last year, I read an article about having a wrapping party.

BRILLIANT! It’s the perfect girls’ night in, complete with music, food, and drinks.

We kick Mr. Hoagie and the girls out (to dinner and a movie), and us girls wrap, and talk, and chat, and eat (preferably Christmas cookies). The best part is that it’s SCHEDULED (for a much more reasonable hour than 2:00 am), and we who don’t love to wrap get company. And sometimes, those who DO love to wrap (these are usually the people who already have all their gifts purchased and wrapped before the party, but come anyway) will pitch in and wrap YOUR gifts!

Even if I don’t get everything wrapped, it still gets me a big jumpstart, which is enough to get me to bed my midnight on CHristmas Eve.

And that, my friends, toally works for me.

For more great ideas, check out Works for Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.

An open love letter to the boss of my mom’s aide

My name is Sandwiched, and my mom is a resident in the senior apartments at the North campus. I’ve heard rumblings in the last few days that my mom’s all-time favorite aide, J, may no longer be with the nursing program. I’m hoping it’s just a vicious rumor.

My mom was one of the first people to sign up for the community nursing program, and it has been a huge help to her, and to me. Before that program, either I would have to be on hand to help Mom out (several times a week, while trying to juggle a job and a young family of my own), or for a while she had hired some help from Home Instead. They hardly ever sent the same person twice, so we’d have to keep getting the new people up to speed on Mom’s needs.

The community nursing program started, and it was quite literally a Godsend: complete with Mom’s very own angel, J. If at all possible, J took better care of my Mom than my sister and I did. My sister and I would always end up getting annoyed with Mom, or getting into a typical mother-daughter spat. Not with J…she and my mom would spend the entire time giggling like schoolgirls.

For years before she moved into the building, doctors had been trying to get that woman to exercise. It never happened. At least, not until J started doing an exercise class for the residents. It was a blast! Mom attended faithfully for a good long while…well, longer than anyone else had ever gotten her to exercise, anyway.

Whenever I had to leave town, I felt at peace knowing that J would check in on her while I was gone, whether she was on-duty or not. If my sister or I couldn’t be watching out for her, J was like the third sister we never had. We knew she had Mom’s back.

Sadly, J’s schedule changed, and Mom was taken off J’s rotation. But she still continued to come by and check on her whenever she could. In the meantime, another aide was assigned. She handles the basics, but she’s no J…and to top it off, whenever the new aide does Mom’s laundry (weekly), she never dries it completely. Just brings it back wet and lays it all over Mom’s apartment to dry.

J is a wonderful representative for your company, and I’m hoping you’d never let an employee of her caliber leave without a fight. She’s like family to us…I’m hoping you’ll treat her as an important part of yours.

Thank you for your time,

Sandwiched

UPDATE: J had quit over being denied a benefit she had been promised. As I wrote the letter on her behalf, they made her an offer to come back, and she accepted. Yay!

WFMW: Getting rid of fruit flies

Here’s a relatively painless way to get rid of fruit flies in your kitchen:

1. Fill a small container with apple cider vinegar.
2. Cover container with clear plastic wrap.
3. Poke a few small holes in the plastic wrap.
4. Wait for the fruit flies to become trapped and drown.
5. Empty and repeat as necessary.

The fruit flies find their way in, but can’t get out. It also helps if you make sure your kitchen is free of any sticky, fruity spills.

For more great ideas, check out this week’s Works for Me Wednesday; it’s a themed cleaning edition!

You catch more FRUIT flies with vinegar!

Squeezed tight

I’m feelin’ the sandwich squeeze this week.

On Sunday, we did a 5K at our local zoo. It worked out great! We brought both kids (ages 5 & 8), and though Little Sis needed to take a few shortcuts, both kids made it through the whole walk. They dragged their weary butts across the finish line, and we retired to the car. The kids were ready to go home (it was only 9:30 am), but Mr. Hoagie and I were planning to stay and take advantage of the free zoo admission.

After a granola bar and three minutes of sitting still, they were bouncing around the backseat and raring to go again.

Go figure.

We spent almost 3 more hours at the zoo, then stopped at Olive Garden for lunch. By the time we got home, Mr. Hoagie and I were wiped out because we’d gotten up at 5:45 am. We napped while the girls played quietly in their room.

When I woke up, it was time to address my weekly Sunday dinner with Mom. I try to get together with Mom for Sunday dinners most weeks; it’s the one day of the week that her dining room doesn’t serve dinner, so it’s a good excuse to get everyone together.

Mr. Hoagie wasn’t feeling well, so he didn’t join us for dinner at Eat n Park.

I felt guilty for taking everyone out to eat (the second time that day for most of us). I know it’s better for both our bodies and our wallets to eat home-cooked meals (something I used to loved to do; I was quite the foodie before Mom moved into town), but I had no groceries and no energy, so…here we were.

Again (can you tell this happens more than it should?).

On Monday, I was focused. I was up at 5:00 am to go to the gym. Home again by 6:30 am, tagged Mr. Hoagie on his way out the door, and off to get a shower and get the kids ready for school.

Big Sis was a mess that morning. I started waking her up at 7:00 am; by 7:35, she was still in bed. And NOT happy. She pretty much had a full-blown tantrum all the way through 8:15 am. She couldn’t even eat breakfast at home, she was so upset, so I took her to the bus stop and told her she’d have to eat breakfast at school. Even the other parents at the bus stop could tell she wasn’t herself.

Kids were on the bus by 8:25 am, and I was at the post office by 8:30 am. Hit the ground running at work. Staff meeting at 10:00 am, so that meant that I didn’t have time to finish everything I needed to before I left to pick up Little Sis from kindergarten.

We had to come back to the office for a while. Which meant that I didn’t have time (or energy) to go grocery shopping for us and for Mom. And I DESPERATELY needed to. But I couldn’t make it through the store, deliver Mom’s groceries, and get home by the time Big Sis got off the school bus.

So I went home and did two loads of laundry.

By late afternoon, I was tired, cranky, and feeling thoroughly put-upon.

I made it to my Weight Watchers meeting (first time in weeks!), then ran to the office supply store for something for work, and the pet store because Mr. Hoagie announced that we were out of cat food (this morning, he found a bag in our storage room. *sigh*).

That cranky, put-upon feeling lasted through Tuesday morning, when I hit the snooze bar as my alarm went off again at 5:00 am. So much for my healthy streak.

I awoke to find Big Sis in the bathroom with intestinal issues. I’ve had to keep her home from school Monday and today.

And I had to call 10 (TEN!) different people to find someone to cover for me at work today.

And Mom and I STILL don’t have groceries.

There’s dance class tonight AND Girl Scouts. And then I should stop into work to see how things are going…at 8:00 pm. Ugh.

In the meantime, I feel I’m a failure as a mom, employee, housekeeper and chef.

Save me.

I’m back, baby!

Well, I’m back.

It’s been a crazy month. We came home from our cruise in August via Chicago, and days later, school began.

Big Sis is now a 3rd grader, and Little Sis started kindergarten.

And the day before school started, I started my new job.

Overall, I love it. The work is comfortable and familiar, and I love feeling useful and needed. It’s nice to be able to cross things off a to-do list and leave the building knowing I accomplished something.

The official office hours are supposed to be 9 am to 12 noon, but I usually arrive about 8:30 am just after I put the girls on the bus. I duck out about 11:45 am to pick up Little Sis. If the office is quiet, we’ll go home for lunch and I’ll do some laundry and cleaning. If we don’t go home, I might take Little Sis out for a quick lunch and out to run errands. If the office is busy, I can bring Little Sis back with me and set her up in the next room with some quiet activities and maybe a DVD or PBS Kids.

Life is busier, but so far, it’s a good busy. Before I started the job, I truly had no idea where the extra three hours a day was going to come from. But somehow, the Lord provides, and it’s all worked out okay so far. I don’t get to spend as much time with Chiquita, though. Instead of taking her to the doctor and out to lunch, for instance, we just hit the doctor’s office and head back home. The basics are getting covered, though. And even though she had a fall last week (thanks, Phillips Lifeline!), she’s in good health (well, for HER, anyway).

Regular exercise hasn’t made it back into the routine yet, but that wasn’t happening even before I started the new job. I did make a truly valiant effort to make it to the gym before Mr. Hoagie left for work each day, but that lasted all of a week before I got thrown off by Mr. Hoagie having to go into work early.

Oh yeah…and blogging isn’t routine again yet. Obviously. But I’m working on it!

WFMW: Flylady

This is a repost from a while back. I’m still struggling coming back from vacation, and staring into the gaping maw of school AND my new job starting next week. Not sure how it’s all gonna go, but I know that I’ll need Flylady more than ever!

I’m sure a lot of people already know about Flylady. I first heard about her from my in-laws. My father-in-law was “encouraging” my mother-in-law to adopt some of her habits. (Which is ironic, because she does ALL the housework singlehandedly just fine, while her husband critiques her.)

Anyway, when I got home, I checked out the website and signed on. I’ve been “fluttering” along, off and on, ever since. I started fluttering a bit harder after hearing that one of my neighbors was a Flybaby too.

The great part is that you’re only asked to do what you can, when you can. Very slowly, I’ve learned to build habits. I “swish and swipe” my bathrooms, not everyday yet, but maybe three days a week, which still makes a big difference! I now do a load of laundry (almost) everyday. (Of course, that was partially instilled by the fact that our dryer died and we had to use the clothesline for about 2 weeks.)

Basically, housework feels like a lot less of an emergency. Which is a HUGE relief. I can see the tops of my kitchen table and counters a lot more often.

With each habit I acquire, I acquire that much more PEACE.

Peace TOTALLY works for me.

For more ideas that work, check out Works for me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.

Vay-cay!

Ahhhhh...

You may be wondering where I’ve been.

Or not.

Well, I’ve been on a lovely little vacation. Much needed.

And this one was a REAL vacation. Which means that we did not bring Chiquita, NOR the kids. The whole idea was that I needed a break from taking care of other people.

It all came together when we got an invite to a family wedding. Plus my in-laws had been hounding us to let them have the girls for a week this summer. Add to that the fact that I was starting to fantasize about running away someplace tropical and never coming back, and an idea was born.

We had planned to do a cruise to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary, but it never quite happened. A week in August opened up, and we started jumping through some hoops to make it happen.

We started with the wedding date. We checked the availability of cruises before and after the wedding. We came up with one before that worked out well. The only problem was that my sister had already booked a plane ticket to come see us that weekend.

Hmmmm….

So I talked her into flying out, putting the girls in our minivan, and driving them to Chicago. Piece of cake. (They made it in 8 hours flat, thanks to the promise of a new episode of Wizards of Waverly Place upon a timely arrival.)

But our flight left two hours before my sister’s arrived! Now what?

I arranged a sleepover with our next door neighbors. The girls came home Saturday morning, visited Chiquita for a bit, and drove all afternoon and evening.

My sister kept them the next day, taking them swimming and generally spoiling them rotten. She delivered them to my in-laws Sunday night. All day Monday and Tuesday, Mr. Hoagie’s brother took them to museums, shows and movies and generally spoiling them rotten. Wednesday and Thursday, Mr. Hoagie’s parents hung out with them, taking them swimming, rock climbing, bowling and generally spoiling them rotten.

In the meantime, Mr. Hoagie and I enjoyed this cruise. I’ll post more details soon; I have lots of pics, too!

In other news, I just got a job! It’s part-time and starts next week, as does school. So bear with me as I figure out my new responsibilities and schedule. I may be posting intermittently for a while.

It feels good to be back.

Kinda.