How Do They Do It?

I am not above asking how to people not eat? It has always been a skill I do not seem to possess. I want to learn how people can eat one simple meal a day and not be cranky and irritable. I seem to spend my day thinking out my next meal and snack. Last year I got sick twice each for one week and had gum surgery. It was the best diet I had. Boy I loved weighing in at Weight Watchers those weeks! Here we are the day after Easter and all I can hear is the siren call from the chocolate that is living in my house. I hate being overweight, I hate the way it feels. I can't stand how my belly hangs when I sleep at night. You think that would be enough to motivate me. Somehow all day I forget and when night comes I suddenly remember why I need to stop snacking. Late afternoon is the worst. I could eat the calories for a large man just in the hours of 3-6. I keep hoping for some kind of quick fix. I fantasize about liposuction, some pill which will make the weight just drop off, anything rather than stop eating. Weight Watchers seems to work for me but I hate writing down everything I eat. That's the part that helps but I still hate it. The same way I hate writing things down in my checkbook. Who wants to look back at that mess? It's only getting worse too. As I near 40 it gets harder to lose the weight. Exercising doesn't help as much. I look back at photos and realize I was in pretty good shape years ago but I only remember feeling fat. Maybe I need to adjust my perception, but that's pretty hard when every tv show and magazine shows only size 0 women. I don't know, maybe a snack will help me think...

Are We Back in the 50's?

I've noticed some interesting things since I became a stay at home mom 8 years ago. The people I dealt with when I worked were very different than my fellow stay at home moms. When I worked, women were equal without doubt. No one even questioned it. If you responded in a way that could be construed otherwise you were thought to be uneducated and insensitive. After staying at home I would be surprised when a fellow stay at home mom would hurry off the phone when her husband walked in for fear that he would think she was on the phone all day. They would clean up their house before he got home so he couldn't remark on the cleanliness of it. There seemed to be this unwritten rule that since you were the one home not technically "working" then you had to provide a certain level of image and this image was directly taken from a 1950's sitcom. The troubling part was I was falling into the same role. I would pride myself by having the dishes cleaned and put away and dinner cooked before my husband walked in the door. We were supposed to be born of feminists who fought for equal rights. The first generations who went back to work instead of having to stay home. We had the ability to do either and shouldn't feel bad about it. So why did we have to change who we were? Is this our issue because we don't feel like we are bringing in our fair share? When you stay at home you don't get those occasional pats on the back when the project is done, or raises to show that you are appreciated. No one gives you an award for outstanding potty training. What do you compare yourself to? Is it our husbands who say they think we do the "hardest job in the world" but their reactions at times say the opposite? I've heard some mean and degrading comments that husbands have said to their wives regarding their "work" and watched those wives bite their tongue because maybe they believe it was warranted. Maybe we need to find a new ruler to compare the role of the stay at home mother to. It's not an easy role to define and not all of us want to wear pearls while we vacuum.

Dulling the Pain of Middle Age?

My sister just pointed out to me that more than half her friends on Facebook have openly written about taking Xanax and other prescription drugs regularly. I too have a handful of friends who are on sleeping pills, mood regulators, and drink almost nightly. I will admit I do like my glass (or two) of wine at night after the kids have gone to bed. What has happened in our lives that makes this such a common occurance? Is it that our lives are not exactly as exciting as we thought so we are dulling the thoughts that creep in at night? I do find that in the morning every day brings promise but at night I go over in my mind what is not right in my life, what I said wrong, and what I wish I had as opposed to being happy for what I do have. I remember telling a single friend of mine that long term relationships are not a series of highs and lows but more long periods of the same puntuated with a few highs and lows. Is it in your late 30's and early 40's that the sameness finally gets to you? Are we missing meaning in our lives or are we just bored? Maybe we need a hobby...

Am I One of Those People?

I've always been a positive person. Age never bothered me. I was always the youngest of who I hung out with so why would it bother me when everyone else was older right? I looked young too, being carded well into my 30's. Suddenly one Girls Night Out when I asked the bouncer if he needed ID his reply was, "I was going to ask for your social security card". Not an accurate dig but it made it's effect. Suddenly I had a few grey hairs over my ears. A crease showed up in between my eye brows. One too many mean looks at my kids I guess. But it was adding up. I was getting old. I couldn't be one of those vain people who cared that I was turning 40, could I? I had friends who got Botox and I thought they were crazy. I drove a minivan and didn't care because I felt the car didn't define me but suddenly I'm looking at sporty cars thinking I would look better in it. Who did I become? As I travel down the path of this final year of my 30's I'm not sure I know who exactly I am. I want to have a full life. I want my children to look at me with admiration of what I've done with my life. But this little part of me wants to look good in the part too. Is that bad?