House woes

Well, today we rescinded our offer on the house. I have mixed emotions. Part of me is really upset and sad because we came so close. The other part of me is ok with it because we will save another year and be able to get something even better. 

It's hard when you can picture what you want but you can't afford it.

The house we chose didn't just have roof issues, but it had structural damage. We would have had to negotiate the seller pay for not only a new roof but the structural repairs (upwards of 30K) the fix to the basement drain, a new AC unit, water heater, and garage door.

I am actually not even sure how this lady managed to list this house before and am pretty confident she has been grassing people for the 6 years she has been trying to sell the house by not disclosing the issues. 

I'm sad. But next year at this time we will have a turn key brand new home in Tosa where we want to be and we won't settle. 

What do I title this blog post?

A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

I just turned 35 and it wasn't as scary as I thought. I had a blast with friends and realized I no longer can hold my liquor. 

We saw a house a few weeks ago and nothing we have seen since has measured up. I think we are going to place an offer. I am trying not to get my hopes up because there are a lot of eyes on this house, but it would be perfect for us and for entertaining.

I lovingly call it the giraffe house because inside the house, currently, is a floor to ceiling statue of a giraffe.

My mindset is set so that if we don't get the house, I know it wasn't meant to be. I really like the house though.

I've been off working out for about three weeks. My first outdoor run, my hamstring injury came back with a vengeance. I was planning on running the Ragnar Relay but I have had to back out due to it. I've noticed that my mindset gets really bad when I'm not working out so I have to get back in the groove. Some days I wonder if I will ever be happy with my weight or my body. I fluctuate about 5-7 lbs, but there is a number on the scale I just can't look past. Which, to an extent is good, because if I'm there I know I need to do what I'm supposed to be doing. 

I've decided to give up alcohol for the month of May and try to focus on my health. Booze is empty calories....but it tastes so good! I also have thought about getting a mini tummy tuck if I can get insurance to cover it. Sometimes they will if excess skin after your weight loss is causing medical problems. I know I've come a long way, but that part of my body will never go away and I don't know how to love myself in spite of it. I know I'll feel better and not hate it as much when I get back to working out, but even though those thoughts lessen at that point, they are still there. I have never proclaimed that I'd like to be a size 4. My body doesn't work that way. My ideal size in my head is an 8. I feel like skin removal should be a part of bariatric surgery after a certain time period. I'll keep my bat wings, no big deal, but I'd love to shrink this tummy. I tend to focus on it more when I'm not working out and I realize this. So I'll check back in a couple weeks and see if my mindset has improved! If someone ever figures out the magic cure on how to love your body no matter what please send it my way. 

I also have a new boss. I like her but having a boss who actually wants to make a difference in our department is sort of already exhausting. She is no nonsense which is good and bad at the same time. I've been pretty content with running things with no one to answer to for the past year and so now I have to put on my game face again. 

That's all for now. Keep your fingers crossed on the giraffe house! 

March Update

There's so much to talk about that I'm not sure where to start!
I guess I can start with the most recent and work my way to babbling about everything else.
This past weekend I did the American Lung Association Fight For Air Climb.

I climbed 47 flights of stairs to the top of the US Bank building in downtown Milwaukee. Since mom has been diagnosed with COPD, it was a personal event and fundraising campaign, but it was also something I never had done before. Stairs usually aren't my friend. I fall up them and down them. Luckily, there was none of that. I also happened to be the 19th top fundraiser out of the over 3000 people that participated, which is pretty cool. I won't say I'll never do it again, but I certainly have to figure out a better way to train for it. IT WAS HARD. And to think there was some girl who did it seven times in one hour, not only blows my mind, but reaffirms the fact that there ARE crazy people out there.

I did it!

The other major thing that is happening right now is we are seriously looking at buying a house. We just got life insurance.  Now we're looking at houses. Adulting this much is really freaking me out. I didn't think it would, but it is. I mostly think it's because I'm feeling very rushed by people right now and I don't like that. Our landlords are currently in Mexico, so we are awaiting an answer from them on what they are willing to do as far as our lease goes. It is up May 1st and I've asked them if they would consider a 3 or 6 month lease, to give us some time to look and really comfortably choose the right home. Not knowing that answer and being pushed is making me a bit irritated to the point where I sort of want to say let's just forget it for this spring and we'll try again next year. We'll get that answer probably tomorrow and we've been long time tenants so I expect they will work with us a bit.
As a first time home buyer, I plan to take my time. And I plan to find the RIGHT house. There are things I will compromise on cosmetically, but there are also things I am absolutely not compromising on and being told I should is not making me happy. If I'm spending money on investing in a house, it's going to be what I want. Otherwise I might as well continue to rent where I feel content.

In a few short weeks I will turn 35. I normally don't have an issue with birthdays. Actually, almost never. 27 was a hard birthday for me, which I realize is a weird number, but for whatever reason I really took it hard. Like I was supposed to have so much done by 27, is what I thought at the time. I think I'm feeling the same way about 35. I should have already bought a house by now. I should have already had a financial planner by now. Why did I JUST get life insurance? What else am I missing?
What else should I have done by now?
 

I'm feeling a little lost at work right now with a new boss and another new boss coming within the next quarter. I got a pretty significant raise this year. I had to fight and fight hard for it. I deserved it though. I regret nothing about fighting for my worth. Things are just so uncertain at work with where we are going. I just feel like I'm being pulled in so many directions, I can't do well at any one thing because I'm doing everything. Thinking about where my next career move is/should be...it's all just a lot happening. I sort of feel like I just want to hide under my covers and let the world happen around me. I'll just stay in this job and rent until I'm dead. That solves everything I think. Or I wish I had someone who would just do all these things for me and then let me know when everything is done.

Life man. Life.

Enough said.

It's been a while

Sometimes you feel like so much has happened in your life that you aren't sure where to start...and sometimes you think, well really nothing THAT exciting happened and so I let my blog slide. I should stop that though, because it's really for me to get my feelings out. 

I guess the biggest thing is we are going to buy a house. It scares the shit out of me. But not enough to stay where we are. I want to entertain and have a big kitchen and not feel cramped. 

I'm still scared to death. 

I got a raise at work--one I fought for and deserved. As with anything, my lovely new boss is mr micromanager and it's driving me insane. How can one person be running the US, Canada, and Latin America and still micromanage? It seems like the atoms would not fit with the neutrons or however that works.

I'm loving my friends lately. Spending time with some girls who get it and we have girls nights weekly and we just forget about everything and have fun. I love that I can do that and spend time away from my wonderful husband and then know the next day we get to snuggle up together. Couples who feel the need to spend every moment together not only worry me but are doomed I think. 

The friends that I've kept close to and the new ones in making are helping me see that friendship, for some people changes based on what they need. For me, my need is simple...someone loyal, who wants to be in my life and puts effort into our friendship. Simple right? 

In other news, I'm doing the stair climb on he 21st and I'm quite confident dying might be in the future. Good luck to me. But I raised almost $1000 and that's what is important. 

Good night for now! 

New Years Resolutions

I normally don't make resolutions. I don't know...it always seemed silly to me.

This year feels different. It's been an odd year and I'm looking forward to the promise Jan 1st brings. It's kind of like if you had a bad year you can pretend it never happened! 2014? Gone! 2015? Here!

After Christmas Day and the events that happened, I am more determined than ever to get rid of this year. I am still having a bit of internal turmoil over yesterday. I'm not sure how I'm feeling. Sad? Angry? Disappointed? Tired? A bit empty? Guilty? (I was told last night that my education and the way I use my words makes me sound nasty. Even though it's illogical I am now feeling guilty about my accomplishments). Full of emotion? A bit devoid of emotion? All of the above?

I had been thinking about resolutions before yesterday but today I've been thinking of them a bit more.

• Stay healthy--keep eating right, keep going to the gym, try to keep my stress level down
• Speaking of stress--not allowing work control my life or people stress me out
• Show my husband how much I love him on a daily basis
• Accept what is and what is not. 
• Be more self aware...of my actions, my emotions, and even the underlying emotions under the emotions on top of the emotions
• Be nicer. Even when people don't deserve it. 
• But also continue to not let people walk all over me

I think the one that is going to be hardest is being nice when people don't deserve it. Not because being nice is hard....but because it sort of feels like I'm giving up...or...I'm not sure how to say it...giving in? Allowing myself to be a door mat? Some people will say it's being the bigger person, right?

Although, I'm not sure any of that matters. The feeling I had when I cut my biological father out of my life was me reaching that lack of emotion place. I think "they" say that you're really kind of done when you just feel nothing. I guess I kind of am feeling that now. You go through so much and you come to an acceptance that things just aren't going to change no matter what you do or say. I sort of, in a weird way, think this is going to be more peaceful. Because nothing matters anymore. Making up doesn't matter, trying to get her to love me doesn't matter, and after today I just feel nothing. I have no reason to try and I have no reason to allow the lies, the things that have been done and said, to mean anything anymore. It's a weird sort of calm I am feeling.

I don't know. I guess in the end it's a self preservation thing, to quote "Love Actually."
And in the end, I'm ready for a new beginning. 

One of these things is not like the other

Was talking with a friend today about how things are "different" now. Neither of us could put a finger on what it was that made things feel different...

I received a text and it was put perfectly...."feeling around in the darkness...are you there?"

Twitter and Facebook used to be really fun places. Where you made friends, and you shared funny things, and you shared your life, and it was this community. An actual real live community. It's hard to explain to people who don't "get" Twitter...the sense of friendship and community that come along with it. You interact with these people so much that even if you have never met them you feel like you have. But then you DO meet them and it's like you've known each other forever.

I get that things change. Sometimes slowly and over time and before you know it you're left standing there wondering what happened. That's how I'm feeling today. Like I woke up and thought to myself "Where did my community go?"

I met some really great people through twitter. Some of them are still there and some of them have pulled away in real life. I'm having trouble with that too...the people who have pulled away in real life...people I thought I'd be friends with forever are not including me in their lives anymore and that hurts. 

That community sort of feels lonely now. Has social media just "jumped the shark?" I don't know. Maybe. That community now feels like a person who is trying too hard. That community used to be get togethers and getting through the day together and living vicariously through what others were doing and I could go on and on.

My hope is that this community isn't gone for good. My hope is that there is just an odd lull in the community and that someone turns the lights back on.

I'm not sure I like the darkness.

A defining number

I feel like I grow every day. I learn more about myself by the minute.

Yet...there's one thing that remains....my life is dominated by my weight and the scale. In fact, it is probably time that I see a therapist about it.
My weight and thinking about my weight dominates my existence. Every time I put something in my mouth, I wonder what it will do to the scale. I weigh myself in the morning and in the evening and daily and it's a cycle I can't break.
I know everyone says not to weigh yourself more than once a week and I'd love to be able to do that. I clearly have a brain disease (yeah, I know, more than one).

I am in constant fear of getting fat again. I know that no one sees that number but me but sometimes I feel like it's written on my forehead.
If I'm above a certain number it ruins my whole day. Or my whole night. Right now it' snowing outside and I'm working from home. But because I stepped on the scale when I got home, I have the urge to go out in the nasty ass weather, where the streets are slop and people are probably driving like idiots, and go to the gym. Actually, right now I'm praying for enough snow so that I can go out and shovel because anything is better than nothing.

In theory, that's not a bad thing. But when you take it to the extreme like I do, it becomes a problem.

I've started running again in the past couple months and I have definitely seen the change in my body again. My legs are getting stronger, my shoulders are getting slimmer, and my belly is too. And yet that number. That need to see that number is always there. That number takes away all my logic and it takes away the fact that my pants still fit and it steals my pride in how far I've come.

And yes, I've already set up an appointment to talk to a professional non crazy person about this.