Cleanse and Cash

Time is passing so quickly these days as it always does when you feel you don't have enough of it. Business is strong, homeschool is ticking along and slowly, all of the items our "to do" list are being crossed off.

A few weeks ago, I resigned myself to the fact that we will have to hold a garage sale. It is the most efficient way of divesting ourselves of the things that we will not be able to bring with us on our journey across the Pacific. The mere thought of that day makes my stomach hurt. Friends of ours recently had a garage sale of their own and unfortunately, the local paper got the date wrong. A week before they had planned, on a rare, quiet Saturday morning when neither of them had to work, they were startled awake by an insistent POUNDING on their front door.

At 6:30 am.

I'm not the most rational person on most days. I experience a near constant internal dialogue where the kind and reasonable side of my personality wrestles with the larger, impatient, head-shaking, wincing, angry, I'd-like-to-beat-the-tar-out-of-you side.

Let me just say this one thing. If I advertised a garage sale for 7:00am on a Saturday morning and had people thumping on my front door at 6:30am, it would be fugly. I've clearly communicated this personality defect to my husband and asked that he specifically mention the possibility of bloodshed should anyone try to be the uninvited, unwanted, early bird on said morning.

So last weekend, we power washed the garage floor, cleared all the shelves and then filled them, by theme (small appliances, lamps, seasonal, books, etc), with all those things that need a new home. It was enormously satisfying. I was also forced to open two boxes that were being stored in the garage and which hadn't seen the light of day since 1999. I'm not kidding.

I had moved those boxes from Houston to Bentonville, from Bentonville to a different Bentonville address and then from Bentonville, here to Tulsa. Twelve years.

I kept exactly two scrapbooks and a bag of pictures.

As I looked around the kitchen this morning with its absence of steamers, crock pots, popcorn makers, portable ovens, toasters, blenders, mini grills, food processors, beaters and such, I noticed that I preferred the minimalist decor. There is order in the nothingness. I can't say that I will be anxious to clutter all that clean, empty, space in my new environment. There is beauty in less.

Thus, while certainly filled with anxiety in regard to the mechanics of holding a garage sale, I am eager to give our house a colonic.

And the fistful of cash when it's all said and done is better than a kick in the pants.

Steve

“I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.” - Steve Jobs, August 24, 2011


Good bye, Steve.

Thank you.

Be well.

Postcard From Lip of My Sanity

Remember the construction zone next door? Well, I'm just a big ball of hate and discontent today.

My office looks out onto our driveway and street. While not the most scenic, this view does have its advantages. I'm able to catch our post lady and give her last minute mailings. I can watch Olivia as she pedals her bike with a ramrod straight spine and I am able to spot the Jehovah's before they see me which means I can gather the children, flee upstairs and pretend we aren't home.

Today, I saw something that made my head explode. I watched as a subcontractor parked, completely blocking my driveway with his truck and trailer. Then, he unloaded a small excavator, like this.


Then he DROVE OVER MY DRIVEWAY AND MY GRASS to get to the construction site. I went flying out the front door and yelled at him to stop, which he did.

"What's the problem?" he asked. Ignoramus.

I got a little crazy because between the guys eating their lunch on my driveway, plugging their power tools into my electrical ports, the roofers at 6:30am Saturday and Sunday morning, the port-o-potty, the garbage that flies everywhere, the displaced mice, ants and dogs and the pile of dirt and gravel that has collected at the bottom of our driveway, I had zero patience left for a torn up lawn and an ass.

"We fix it," he said. I silently cursed him and his shitty judgment. Shortly after that, a supervisor showed up to the site and sat in his truck. Coward.

Three hours later, my reasonable husband came home and I once again flew out of the house to tell him what happened. The guy was still working, the supervisor still idling and I wanted Dallas to handle the situation for me because my solution wasn't rational and involved blunt objects. Big surprise.

He did and nobody got hurt, however, the supervisor did admit that he'd been sitting in his truck for several hours, working up the nerve to knock on my front door. He'd been told that I was a little upset.

And a small, immature, petty, bitchy, side of me is secretly happy about that.

The End.

Mad Men Mania

Last Christmas, I downloaded the first season of Mad Men to watch on the plane as we made our way down to New Zealand. I liked it but since I'd read rave reviews, I expected to be blown away and wasn't. Sure, the clothing and sets were scrumptious and from what I've read, they have captured that time on Madison Avenue perfectly but at the end of thirteen odd episodes, I had a take it or leave it attitude.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to stream a few episodes from the second season to see how the cliffhangers had been resolved and oh dear God, I drank the purple Koolaid. I was hooked. In fourteen days, between 9pm and 7am, I devoured 50 episodes (4 seasons). I'm obsessed. It's great tv.



I've only got two shows left of the fourth season and then I'm out of luck. No fifth season.

Yet.

Apparently, after prolonged contract negotiations between the series creator and the network, they are back to work filming new episodes. Makes me tingle with anticipation.

I know. I'm not well.

Stress Monster

In career and in personal life, the greatest challenges are those things which are beyond one's control. I have found that no matter how carefully I plan or how meticulous I am with the details, there exists the possibility for something to shit the bed.

And that causes stress; giant, steaming, heaps of stress of the kind that interrupts sleep and makes eyes twitch.

For instance, as a new business, I had to cobble together my supply chain and once I got everything all sorted and allowed myself a moment to breath, BAM, the FDA rears their ugly, bloated, red tape enshrouded, head and decides to hold an urgent load. Murphy's Law. The more urgent the load, the slower bureaucracy moves. Period.

Frustrating.

Also, it seems that we have an issue every month at one of our rental houses. From roof leaks to air conditioner breakdowns, we've been shelling it out since the spring. I never imagined that life as a landlord would resemble that of a boat owner wherein the happiest memories are the day you buy and the day you sell. Unfortunately, we are among the millions of people in this country for whom houses have become albatrosses slung about the neck. We are just trying to hang in there until the market gets turned around. From what I can see, it looks like we could be waiting a LONG TIME.

Finally, there is the move. There are an incomprehensible number of things that need to be checked off the list before we depart in 7 weeks, give or take a few days. SEVEN WEEKS. What happens with something like this is that the best intentions get slaughtered in the face of easier routes. I was going to clean the house personally because a) I'm good at it and b) I'm cheap. Then, I took a look at what it would take to accomplish that and decided that a couple of hundred bucks is a small price to pay for my sanity. I'm going to hire people to do it instead.

Ah well. That's life, right?

I suppose but I can tell you that I am looking forward to being on the other side of it all, both mentally and geographically.

LAST DAY OF REBOOT

Total pounds lost: 11.2

Now that we have reached the last day of this healthy kickstart, Dallas and I are not quite ready to give it up. We like the results. The two of us seem to function so much better when we are on some sort of a regimented plan. I am still amazed that fruit and vegetables, consumed mostly raw, could have this big an impact on mood and energy level. And weight loss? It has exceeded my expectations.

When I think back to the last time in my life when I was sustainably thin (defined as any period longer than one year), it was the period immediately before I had my children. I was living in San Diego, very physically active and a vegetarian. I can't say I was all that healthy, though. I still ate white bread, drank like a sailor and smoked but even with those vices, I felt better as a thin person. It isn't about vanity although, of course, I care about how I look. It's about sleeping well at night and having the energy to fully engage in life. It's about viewing the glass half full and visiting the doctor less.

We're not quite sure how the rest of the week is going to look as far as what we're going to eat. We will probably reintroduce animal protein back into the mix but I think we've said good bye to dairy for the most part. I'm not saying that a piece of cheese will never be on the plate again but we've decided to stay on this course. We are finding it easy to adhere.

This weekend, we went out to dinner with friends to a Mexican place. We had sparkling water and shared vegetable fajitas. Would I have rather have had a cocktail or three? Absolutely but Sunday morning, I woke up without a hangover, down a pound on the scale and full of the kind of energy I remember having as a teenager. So, at the end of the day, for me, there really isn't that much of a decision to make.

If you are interested, check out Joe Cross's film, "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead". If you are interested in trying a fifteen day reboot of your own, go here for more information. You never know. It might be just what you've been looking for.

Day 11: HOLDING PATTERN

Total pounds lost: 9.3

I've been stuck at roughly the same weight for the past couple of days, which, with any other diet, would have given my weak brain permission to throw in the towel and get myself some dark chocolate. It won't go down that way this time because, damn, I feel great!

The only thing I'm having a hard time managing is keeping the fruit and vegetables fresh. It's hard to buy once a week like we always have because herbs and leafy greens like kale and chard, wilt pretty quickly. Thus, we are forced to shop about every three days. It also costs a freaking fortune to juice two or more times a day but for a fifteen day reboot, we can suck it up.

This weekend, we've got a couple of social engagements that involve restaurants and alcohol. I'm a bit concerned. I'm not worried about cheating because frankly, I feel too good to bung it up but I am wondering what in the hell we will find to eat. I know that it's not the end of the world and if I had to go without, I would be just fine but the social part of eating is problematic. I want to go, order, draw minimal attention and just participate. Whether we can find something to eat is secondary. However, I've learned with my whole gluten issue that food challenges make other people uncomfortable. They either don't believe that the problem is real or they want to solve it. Either way, it just leads to awkward moments and I'd kind of like to slide under the radar and get through the weekend without being known as the high maintenance, teetotaling, vegan, celiac.

Or wackado, for short.

DAY NINE

Pounds lost: 12.8 ounces (0.8)

Total pounds lost: 9

Dysplasic tumour: visibly smaller

The weight loss has slowed to just over half a pound a day, on average, which is a healthy rate of loss, I think and because I feel like a teenager, I've been doing a ton of research. It has made me realize how ignorant I am in regard to nutrition.

Over the past eight days, I've eaten yucca, kale, portobello mushroom caps, rainbow chard, red chard, jicama, collared greens, parsnips and arugula. They're delicious (except for the collared greens) and I am ashamed to admit that I avoided them like the plague for YEARS.

Why?

Well, mostly because they were never introduced into my childhood home and I never tasted them. I've always been pedestrian in my food preferences; sticking with those items, week after week, that were safe choices like carrots, peas and broccoli. Traveling the globe forced me to expand my palate somewhat but at the end of the day, I still bought the same things and served the same meals week after week.

That has changed forever.

I took a look in my pantry where massive containers of protein powders, vinegars laced with high fructose corn syrup, flour, refined sugar and processed coconut sat accusing me on the shelves. This weekend, I plan to purge my kitchen. I haven't gone off the deep end or anything. I will still drink wine. I will still indulge every now and again. I will still bake for holidays but I'm going to try my best to find healthier alternatives or fixes for our favourite recipes because I owe it to my children.

Used to be that I thought my cigarette habit was the worst thing I had ever done to myself for a prolonged period of time. As it turns out, smoking for 25 years doesn't hold a candle to the assault my body has suffered as a result of my eating and drinking habits. The good news is that it isn't too late. The body will heal itself.

"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food"
— Hippocrates

DAY EIGHT- FEELING GROOVY

Pounds lost over weekend: 2.2

Total Pounds Lost: 8.4

There is a magical moment in every woman's life that I experienced this weekend.

It wasn't watching my son clean his own toilet although that did bring me a certain amount of joy.

It wasn't having our air conditioner break AGAIN and have it fixed the same day after a really silly answering service girl asked me if this was "an emergency". Hmmm.... it's 105 degrees outside and has been for 25+ days. Let me think about that one for a minute. Yes, yes I do believe it was an emergency.

It wasn't getting out of Whole Foods for less than $300 with SIX huge bags of groceries, although I could have sworn that when I swiped my bank card, I could hear harps strumming.

My magical moment was realizing that my current diet is working. This latest juicing-veggie-eating-lifestyle IS WORKING. For real.

I feel ridiculously good. Crazy good. I have more energy than I've had in at least fifteen years. My mind is crystal clear. The peri-menopausal hot flashes are GONE. I am premenstrual right now and I have no chocolate cravings at all nor do I feel the urge to drive into the back of every crap driver on the road. It's a miracle. My nails are growing abnormally fast. My skin has changed in both clarity and in its ability to hold so much more moisture. I seem to require less sleep and when I wake up in the morning, I'm ready to start my day instead of feeling exhausted.

The weight loss is a bonus, albeit, a very, very desirable bonus.

I understand the choice to be vegan now. It used to be that I thought they were extremist, PETA-card-carrying, betacarotene-stained wackados. Shameful generalization, I know. But I get it now. If I can feel like this most days, it would be pretty hard to go back to my former lifestyle. I won't end up a vegan for several reasons but mainly because I think we need protein and fat from animal sources and I like meat. However, at the end of this fifteen days, I can say with absolute certainty that I will make plant based items the bulk of my diet.

You know, when we coughed up $150 for a juicer that will have to be sold in the next two months I felt indulgent and wasteful. Upon eight days of reflection, it is the single best purchase I've made in my life.

EVER.