Random thoughts and peanut butter cups

So... I'm thinking to myself a few minutes ago, after working 13 hours and coming home to crawl to the kitchen and fend for some dinner of sorts, that I sadly don't even have the energy to take care of my pets properly. Litter box scooping is required. Four footed creatures need food and likely a water bowl top-off.

The dogs haven't been walked in two weeks, and even then, it was only the second walk in SIX MONTHS.

So while I'm swallowing the mental list of what needs to be done for the pets, the house, and getting ready for the day tomorrow, the recurrent thought strikes again: How will I ever have children? Am I not meant to? The possibility can't be ignored.

In other news, there is an opened bag of miniature Reese's peanut butter cups in my pantry. You know, the smaller ones wrapped in foil?

I want one. Or sixteen. My God do I want some freakin chocolate. Peanut butter optional, but preferred.

I have not lost a single pound. Not one. And here it is day four. Almost done with day four. If I do this for another ten days and don't look any sexier? I will have serious wrath to cast somewhere. Maybe I'll find that Dr. Agatston guy and send him before and after pictures and ask for some explanation of how they look the SAME despite days filled with spinach and tomatoes and eggs and lean meat and string cheese and the various other substitutes for peanut butter cups. Dammit.

So has anyone seen the exchange between Ann Coulter and Elizabeth Edwards? Interesting. What I think of either is irrelevant. Ann Coulter really made an ass of herself.

I hope they find that little girl Madeleine they've been searching for. www.findmadeleine.com if anyone wants to keep up on it.

Speaking of looking for missing people, that Bobby Cutts character should get the death penalty if he's proven guilty. I'm just sayin.

Which leads me to another thing I've been thinking about since yesterday. I will avoid too long a rant, because I really don't have a whole lot of time to be on here tonight, but in my blog surfing travels yesterday, I came across a blog for "men's rights." Which, on its own, sounds perfectly acceptable. But then I read a little deeper into it. Good Christ. It was all about men not having to be "forced" into parenthood. (What what what?)

My response to that is simple. Men, unless you are FORCED into sexual intercourse and ejaculation, you aren't FORCED into parenthood. And something tells me that the folks authoring this and other websites of this purpose are not rape victims.

But seriously, wanting to be fair, I thought about this. First, let's take the gender roles and all things related out of the mix. What are potential results for having sex? And, are all of them revokeable or reverseable except resultant children? I went through the list: AIDS, herpes, various STD's, rug burns, guilt, jail time, a social figurative scarlet letter, etc.

Every single potential unwanted outcome of sex either has to be dealt with to reverse, or is permanent. And even what can be reversed cannot be erased from having existed.

Then I moved on to the gender issue. The list beyond children - did it apply to both genders equally? I found it did not quite exactly. Certain things, such as HPV, are extremely prevalent to the tune of an estimated 25% of women in some areas, and while men can contract it, they typically aren't at huge risk for cancer resulting from it. Women are.

Anything else? Oh - yeah. The whole guilt thing? And scarlet letter thing? Arguably a bigger female problem than a male problem. Based on societal norms and influences.

So... I'm thinkin, that if sex results in a child, the woman participant cannot truly erase from time, memory, and experience that she at least was pregnant at one point. She is thus forced into parenthood. It is a state of being. If I walk out in the rain and get rained on, I am wet. I have no time machine to go back and buy an umbrella. If I have sex and get impregnated, I am with child. There is no time machine to go back and buy protection or grow any lacking common sense. What's done is done. For at least a time, the woman participant is a parent. Whether she should be able to end that state of being prior to the birth is an argument for some other day. But she is a parent.

How is the male participant not a parent, for at least that time? I think he is. He can't simply escape it. A child was created with DNA that half is sourced from him.

I don't think the argument that a man is "forced" into parenthood has any credibility.

Now, to look at parenthood after the birth as a separate thought... This I found interesting to ponder and dissect.

If a baby is created and subsequently born, the mother cannot avoid the state of parenthood. Even in an extreme case where she is the only named parent on the birth certificate, she is a parent of a live human who will inhabit the earth. How then are we to expect that a man should somehow have this power?

Last, let's zone in on responsibility. The only forced responsibility, in some cases, is financial support for the child.

I'm thinkin that all the other potential outcomes stand to cost money too. Let's go back. Jail time? Between attorney fees, court fees, restitution, lost wages, etc. etc., it might just be cheaper to have ended up paying someone child support. Medical treatment for undesired outcomes? Same deal. Come to think of it, it all costs money in one way or another.

I'm just not seeing any logic to this claim to "men's rights" in the context given.

Here's where I see men's rights in this realm... They have the right to choose when, where, how, why, and with whom they will have sex provided the partner chooses the same. They have a right to choose whether or not protection is used, provided the partner agrees. (And don't even tell me men might be "lied to" about birth control. Men still have the right to choose whether to believe a woman who says she's on it and has taken it correctly for at least the minimum required time. More rights for men cropping up here all the time.)

And thus, they have a right to choose to avoid parenthood. All the way up to the moment they choose otherwise. And then? It's irreversable. Just like I have a choice to walk outside into the rain. But once I choose to? I've been rained on. And there are no time machines.

I still want a damn peanut butter cup.

Third Day on the Beach

Truthfully, it's not bullshit. I am not really hungry, and I don't desire muffins or bread or cake or anything. I just roasted some garbanzo beans and fresh brussel sprouts for dinner. Not too bad, believe it or not.

Beach Tomorrow

Another day of spastic activity and the feeling that I’m running in circles. Ugh.
Picked up a small gift for our next-door-neighbor, and I’ll be heading to the local pub to celebrate with her and some of her friends later this evening. The DH is going to a friend’s house to watch the UFC fights, which is possibly the only interest he has which I want no part of. He has the UFC fights, and I have pedicures. All other interests we share and stay connected for. And that works beautifully for us.

I also went grocery shopping to get ready for the big effort. Fifty bucks down. I’m still struggling to make this happen in part because we don’t have a regular refrigerator yet. That makes things difficult. There is only so much combined room in a wine fridge and plug-in cooler. But it’s better than having nothing at all.
I’m really looking forward to tomorrow!

Purpose

This blog will now take on a dual role. It will not only capture my published thoughts and feelings about the world as it’s happening around me, when I bother to actually finish writing a piece and then bother to actually publish it, but it will also chart my training efforts. Training efforts to run a half marathon properly, as opposed to the way I did it last time, which left me literally near death. We’ll go further into that some other time.

For now, life is taking new shape for me. I am learning to be a bit selfish. Sounds far more like a bad thing than a good thing, I know. But all things considered, it’s actually far more good than bad. That’s probably something else I’ll write far more about as time goes on. For now, I’ll just say that the past several years of my life have been spent in large proportion helping charities, strangers, and taking care of everything and anything other than my body, soul, heart, and personal relationships. And by relationships, I mean all of the above: with myself, my husband, my family, my friends, and even God.

In addition to learning to be a little bit selfish and prioritize things that benefit me, like exercise and sleep and time with friends once in awhile, I’m also learning to live my own life, and treasure living my own life. When I have time to call a friend, for example, it’s all about hearing what he or she is doing. In part because I don’t really have much to share, and in part because I feel obligated to focus on the other person since we haven’t spoken in awhile. I feel awkward talking about myself, as if I’m worried the person will get bored with it or something. When I’m online, I spend my time leaving messages for parents of sick children who I follow and leave encouragement for, and reading dozens of blogs to see what others are doing, and possibly even live vicariously through them. Because they do just that; they live. I’ve been far too busy working and coasting through life on fumes.

That describes normal life for me over the past several years. (Yes, years!) But the past seven months have been even more drastic. In short, I tried to take in a sixteen year old girl as a foster child. (Or, rather, “we” did. I’m not alone in this by any means, although I did do the brunt of all the work of any kind.) To make a long story short, she went from an all “A” student to a rebellious monster who got suspended several times and eventually expelled. She pulled away from us because she fell in love with a boy who left much to be desired, got pregnant, got unpregnant, ran away, learned her biological family really is a freaking mess on feet, lived on the streets of the ghetto for five days, and is currently in a mental facility, where she will stay for a few more weeks, and then transfer to a slightly higher-security facility than where she was living when we were trying to take her into our house.

I will always be there for her. But I don’t know that she’ll ever live here. It’s been a long seven months. And I’m drained. Not only drained, but seriously behind in life, exhausted, and majorly out of shape and overweight.

I’ve spent two weeks preparing mentally and spiritually to turn over a new leaf. I will spend just as much time journaling my own life as I will reading about others’. I will get healthy again. I will get in shape again. I will stop missing out on life in a stupor of drained exhaustion. Once again, I will stop missing out on life missing out on life in a stupor of drained exhaustion.

Tomorrow I start my own exercise plan, and I’m going to give the South Beach diet a try. I’m not a fan of fad diets. But it makes sense. I really like the part about re-establishing insulin sensitivity, and changing metabolism. Overall, I just want to do something effective that is not bad for my heart, leaves me with more energy, and eventually leads to some goal reaching.

So here we go. Today I kept in positive spirit, even purchasing a new pair of earrings, and went to the grocery store for everything I needed to eat healthy all week and not cheat or skimp. Tomorrow morning I’ll have a spinach and cheese and mushroom omelette. And I’m running for 30 minutes.

Nothing Fits

Not pants. Not skirts. And certainly not any shirts that have buttons. Not bras. Not suits. Not even some pajamas. And forget a bathing suit. I haven't worn one in years now.

I have about 7 outfits that I mix and match to form a Work Wardrobe.

I've been meaning to fix this. So I found a jogging partner. She called and wants to jog this evening. I agreed, and need to get ready and go meet her.

But none of my exercise clothes fit either.

A Window Of Opportunity

Hmm. A friend of ours may be purchasing a business. An established, lucrative business. And this friend whispered an inquiry to my husband with regard to the idea of coaxing me to quit my job and go run the business.

This may be the most ludicrous idea ever spoken aloud.

But yet, it may also be the mose brilliant opportunity ever afforded me.

Anyhow, it's a long way away, if it happens at all. We'll see.

Reality Check

Thursday night I "did bills." Meaning I painstakingly did the juggling act of figuring out how much to pay to each entity with a figurative hand held out that would look much like any individual's hand while standing in front of an ATM anticipating money to spit out the slot.

I was sad. Sad and frustrated. We have this beautiful house that needs so much work, and while we struggle to cover all the existing bills, there is absolutely nothing left over for home improvements unless we continue to go further into debt, which is not a good thing.

Some of the improvements aren't really "improvements." They are more like "requirements for the house to be livable." Like, for example, we have no refrigerator, no stove, no washer or dryer, a kitchen sink that would not sell for ten cents in a junkyard, and a countertop that is so abused there are multiple places where the formica is completely worn or chipped away and chipboard shows underneath. And let's not go without mentioning the carpeting, which while it's worn, filthy, smells of cat pee in certain areas, and has been found to function as a roof over mold spots, the worst part of all is that it's purple. While purple is a wonderful color for spots on butterfly wings and interesting drinks at 21-year-old birthday parties, it's not a great color for carpeting.

Yes, our new house needs much work. And Thursday I was very frustrated.

Last night I came to feel two inches tall for feeling that frustration. We were talking to some friends who were telling us about their situation. Their apartment lease is up in August, and they are moving into a parent's basement so they can get by. I'll leave it at that. But it was a reality check.

Shame on me.

Not only do we have the means to pay the bills I was staring at Thursday night, but we have hope. When the condo sells, we'll be fine to buy appliances and make the house clean and livable.

No matter how difficult things get, there are always others who are worse off and would give appendages to switch places with you. That's something we should all remember. I'll work on it.