Frustration

I have heard so many wax poetic that the obesity epidemic in the world today is directly related to a lack of physical activity. Others claim the cause is poor nutrition and lack of self-control. If either, or both, are correct, what is wrong with me and those like me?

Let me paint a picture of my week:

• I do one hour of intense Zumba Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
• My husband and I take at least a 2-mile walk 5-7 days per week.
• I drink over 100 ounces of water daily.
• I drink a soy milk and green superfoods drink every morning.
• I eat a primarily vegan diet with the occasional chicken breast or hamburger added to the mix. 
• Our home is dairy-free and, mostly, gluten-free, thanks to Celiac Disease in my husband and second daughter.
• I spend Tuesdays and Thursdays on my feet 10:00 am until 4:00 pm, teaching college mathematics.
• In addition to teaching math, I also teach clarinet and flute lessons on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.
• When I teach all day, I drink a vegan meal-replacement shake and eat a Clif Bar for lunch.
• I have four daughters, a husband, an orange furbaby, and a home to tend.
• I play in a woodwind trio, woodwind quintet, and orchestra.
• I am planning a solo clarinet/chamber music recital.
• I practice one hour or more daily.

My point? I am far from lazy, I do not overeat, and I eat pretty healthy food.

Why, then, am I gaining weight instead of losing? I suspect a few culprits:

1. A healthy body requires at least eight hours of sleep per night, and I am averaging just under seven right now.
2. Weight training is missing from my routine.
3. My stress levels have soared this semester.
4. Although I eat heathy foods, and not too much of anything, I do still have a bit of a sweet tooth.
5. Hormonal fluctuations that are not being adequately subdued by my current medication.
6. Asthma that is not as under control as it used to be.

My plan is to start with the first item on my problem list and work my way through them until I discover what is stopping my weight loss. I have lost it all before, and I can again.

Mom's Free Laundry Service

We have six people in our family, so I always have tons of laundry to do. Every single day. What happens when I do not do any laundry for several days? This:

My children are ages 11, 9, nearly-7, and 5, so I believe they should be doing more to help with the laundry. When we moved into this house, I began to make them all put away their own laundry, which has been great. The problem is that they neither bring me the laundry on a regular basis nor appreciate all the work I do in order to get their cute jeans, favorite dresses, and goofy socks back into their drawers and closets. 

I have decided that it is time for some changes in our house. 

Over the past year or so, I have gotten softer on the girls and my husband about the laundry routine, and it is grinding my days off to a halt now. I work three days per week, volunteer at school on one of my off days, and have zero desire to spend my remaining day off on laundry. When the girls and my dear husband return home today, they will find a scene like this:

While this particular room is my own bedroom, I have placed these notices in each of our three bedrooms. What does it say, you ask? Let me show you the new rules for laundry in my house as of today, Tuesday, October 22, 2013:

I am quite hopeful that my days of rounding up piles of clothing from my daughters' bedroom floors, hallways, the entryway, the family room, and the bathrooms are over. There will be some growing pains, I am sure, but I also realize that I am doing a disservice to my offspring and myself by not encouraging them to be even more independent about their laundry. It is not enough to show them one time how to load the washer or fold clothes from the dryer. It is time the girls learned to follow through the entire process.

It may be several more months before I feel comfortable with the two big girls actually running the washing machine and dryer; that is a lot of responsibility. See, there I go babying them again. When each of the girls turns twelve, I will teach her how to do laundry from beginning to end. There. Now, I have to do it. 

Melancholy

I would like to think that I handle most things in stride. Being a mother of four necessitates such an ability, does it not? What I have come to realize about myself in the past fifteen years or so is that I do take most things in stride, but I have a truly difficult time dealing with bigger issues in a timely manner.

Given the amount of setbacks, disappointments, and family drama in my life before I ever left middle school, one would think that nothing could get to me very easily. When I ended my very intense, romantic, on-again-off-again relationship of three years back in 1999, I sank into a very deep pit of constant sadness. That same summer, when my biological parents that had promised to pay for my fifth year of undergrad changed their minds with less than one month until classes began, I panicked. Luckily for me, my husband (then brand new boyfriend) was there to pick me up and put me back together.

Moving from the east to the Midwest proved to be more than a challenging experience for me. I was enrolled in graduate school in a field that was not my passion, living in an extreme weather environment, living in sin with my husband (then fiancé), and I felt like I was in a foreign country in terms of the people. Sadly, that feeling never went away completely, even after eleven years. I had such a difficult time processing all that change at once that my guy suggested I see a counselor or he would ship me back to my folks. Yes, it was that bad. 

When my wedding dress came in in the wrong size, I worked it out with the seamstress pretty easily and without much stress. When I got pregnant nine days after we got married, I was excited, even though this was not our plan. When it came time to deliver my first child, I just did what had to be done with determination. When I got put on restricted activity with my second pregnancy, it was no big deal.

When the grandfather I grew up with as my next-door neighbor got cancer and died, I got sad and fat. I am an emotional eater. When I nearly lost my third child due to partial placental abruptions and preterm labor, I worried constantly and hid it by knitting. For a year or more after she was born, I cried just thinking about what almost was. When I found out I was pregnant for a fourth time, quite unexpectedly, I was angry and scared until two weeks before she was born. I still carry guilt over this. When my husband had to leave us behind for nine months while he moved to the east coast for a new job, I went into survival mode. I had mild PTSD for nearly one year after we were reunited.

Yes, I can roll with some punches, but others knock me to the ground.  I will manage through faith in Jesus Christ, that I know. In fact, I am more affected by the imminent passing of my grandma than anything else right now. And just like with Grandpa, I know I am eating emotionally and sleeping more and not interacting enough. 

At least I have valued the time I have had left with my dear Grandma, and my girls have grown to adore her just as much as the rest of us. We helped her pick produce in her garden last summer. We baked her zucchini bread from the zucchini we picked in her garden. The girls ate Freezey Pops all summer with her last year. We spent most of the summer in West Virginia, taking in all the time and memories we could with my parents and Grandma. We have visited her. We have called her. We have loved her.

And she has loved us.

We are blessed.