I Inadvertently Messed Up My New Routine, With Negative Results

I have been avidly podcasting for almost a month, with good results. It's easy for me to listen at work, especially as something I can pick up and put down at will. However, I got derailed from the norm and missed a few days of listening, and now feel like Andy in Parks and Rec, as shown above.

Ironically I have been re-watching Parks and Rec. I'll just blame that for now.

Yesterday I was just so tired. I didn't sleep well Monday night and I'm embracing this detoured path, pouring support into my husband's new job position and attempting to keep up my house, all while trying not be the worst mom ever.

Monday night I felt so accomplished. I got the kiddo and myself fed for dinner, walked the dog, ran the dishwasher and vacuum, and even steam cleaned the living room, dining room and kitchen! All on a Monday night! Go me!

Last night I was fighting a migraine and it won. I put on a 90 minute movie for myself, inhaled a huge salad, let my daughter watch Barbie on Hulu and was in bed with my child at 8:30PM. We read a super short book and I accomplished nothing but an early bed time. Not my finest Tuesday.

I realized this morning that, yes I needed the rest, but tonight I have a bunch more stuff to do and dinner by Netflix isn't conducive, so I need to pull it together.

I haven't been reading as much as I need to. I need to snap that back into gear tonight too, as the results of that little nightly routine were so very helpful to my day to day. The negative results I see and feel from any form of laziness, just aren't worth it. 

So I'm getting over this hump day by planning to conquer it on all levels. My workout game hasn't been deterred much but I need to bring it all on the home front to combat just how crazy my husband's schedule will be for the next few weeks.

I'm grateful for a lot right now. I'm pushing myself to stay positive. The strides I have made, I've given myself a pat on the back for, and I'm not letting things get in my way. I'm still Pinterest-ing like a boss in my free time as well, which I find helpful when I need some good quotes and perspectives. 

I've realized that I spent so many years doing everything that now that I've delegated some things, and have to return to me doing everything, if only for a short period of time but still, it's overwhelming. Ironically there are some people I wish I could share the mania with, but I know wouldn't be a helpful supportive ear, but instead would let me go back to lame coping mechanisms instead of willing me to conquer. It's only now that I can admit that and am awake to it.

I find myself wishing happiness for others a lot more, especially those people who've fallen off my grid. I find myself thinking of others' struggles rather than my own as I'm getting used to more peace and less chaos.

My husband said something about the general attitude of things being more positive when you take away a negative ruling force, which we both have had quick changes on. You get used to staying in murky waters when it's all you feel you have to navigate within. It's funny how when you have your way cleared, you can see more, shine brighter and dare I say, even thrive. 

It's like the Mario cloud. I recently used this analogy with one of my best friends:

                   

We all remember that little dude, who throws things at you when you're just trying to level up? My goodness the metaphors! I might go on a tangent. You been warned!

How well could you do with that little cloud following you and thwarting you, right? You had to outrun and outsmart it, while getting as many points as you could in between. Then you had figure out how to get on top of him and squash him! He was not welcome! 

When you have a person, a place, or things that loom over you like the little Mario cloud dude, how well can you do? How much can you progress? This speaks on levels, pun intended.

Sometimes you don't even realize it either. The clouds just appear and you're not too upset about the gray, maybe you think it's not that bad or you can still stay positive. You gotta be fully in the sunshine before you realize the gray isn't what's good for ya!

We're coming up on 10 years of life in Florida and when I get a hard time from the family about moving away from the great state of Oregon I reiterate that I just wasn't made for that much gray and rain. I also have come to deeply loathe the cold. I was made for the sunshine state. Don't get me wrong, as a ginger I burn quickly in that gorgeous sunlight, but I thrive here!

I didn't realize how depressed I was and how seasonally and regularly in Oregon, until I lived here in the sunshine and was like "Wow, I'd really have to commit to being completely sad because even the storms pass in 20 minutes." It's too bright to be sad, in my opinion. In Eugene, it is gray like 9 months out of the year I swear. And that is some cold, cold rain. I love to visit Oregon in the summer, more than anything, but I'm good in Florida the rest of the time.

These realizations have been hitting me a lot lately. Wait, is that what the cool kids refer to as "Woke?" Damn, ANOTHER realization! What a wisdomous Wednesday. 

Anyway, I'm crazy grateful for being woke right now haha! That feels so weird and wrong to type. I don't think I can actually pull that off.

I'm just happy that I saw the negative throwing me off, and now am taking things back. It's not easy. It will take day to day determination, but here I come. I'm channeling some season 3 of The Office Pam vibes! Watch out world!

The Vomit Draft

I'm sitting here listening to Dax Shepard interview Mike Schur on my ArmChair Expert podcast, and for those of you who don't pay attention to sitcom writers, Mike Schur did a lot of work on the American adaptation of The Office, he did Parks and Recreation and now has brought us my new obsession, The Good Place. They are talking about all kinds of things but I was very attentive as they started to talk about writing.

As a serious fan of these shows, meaning, I can quote the Office like Friends, Parks and Rec is just becoming more and more my default binge-watch, and The Good Place is just so frigging awesome, it's pretty interesting to hear Mike Schur talk about the writing process and how he operates. Dax Shepard brought up something that totally just blew me away, saying that he allows himself to just write terribly from time to time, and to just know that sometimes things will come out horrible and be utter garbage. He accepts this and allows it.

Mike Schur called this "The Vomit Draft." It is named so as something that is just proverbially "puked out," with yuck results but is stuff that you need to get out of you to be able to better write the next draft and the next draft. It seriously got the wheels turning in Anxious Alison's mind.

Dax Shepard also mentioned that if you sit down and think you're going to just write Shakespearean on the first try, you'll probably fail miserably because that's not a realistic expectation or even fair goal. But to allow yourself to have some crap amidst the good is much better.

I'm not sure if I proclaim myself as a "writer" really, as more of a ridiculous blogging enthusiast with some followers. I'd love to be paid to be a writer. Especially if I can write cutting edge things about why the Office is awesome and Parks and Rec is epic as well. I'm not sure I can hob nob with the "writing" elite just yes.

I'd love to have the time and creative space to write a book but, I'm not so sure that's realistic, let alone to be anything like Shakespeare goals. I think that blogging daily is the closest I've gotten in years to getting my writing done in a productive way and I'm pretty sure that Haiku, which was barely a Haiku was a "vomit draft."

The whole thing was fascinating to me. We put these ideals on people and imagine that writing just pours out into liquid gold. We assume that all of the writers of the shows we love have it all figured out and everything is a perfect puzzle. We forget that, they too, have to wade through the crap, er uh, vomit if you will.

Some days I can write these raw, fun, amazing pieces of myself and people read and say "Yay!" Other days I struggle to find something that's not vomit. It's kind of comforting to know that the writers that I admire have the same kind of days.

I also kind of love that it is well known as "The Vomit Draft," apparently. To me this is hilarious. As a mom, you get used to gross things fast, like poop, pee and puke. Ironically my husband has a Vince Vaughn in Four Christmases-like approach,

 

and he just immediately heaves and needs to get himself away. For me, I'll be covered in puke and still comforting the kid. Moms, and I guess writers can handle the vomit. My husband is very much akin to Alec Baldwin in 30 Rock:

I think creativity is rough, regardless, and there will always be someone who can do it better. I once tried to make a wreath at a Halloween thing my crafty mom friend threw, it was better as a centerpiece and could easily be posted as a Pinterest fail. I got to play with a hot glue gun though, so that was fun, but my friend made the wreath perfectly, and 3 other wreaths perfectly so, yeah, she has that part down. There will always be someone who does it differently, and with better results.

I can probably write more easily than others, though, and definitely better than a few. Essays, reviews, summaries and such come so naturally to me. So, everyone has their thing and for me, it's much more writing than anything else, even amidst the "vomit drafts."

Mostly the writing discussion on the podcast made me feel even more affirmation in my Podcasting choices and obsession, but also in my writing. In recent discoveries and acknowledgement of my growth, it seems as though some of these routines have been super fruitful and helpful in different areas of life and I'm embracing that success. Win!

On this particular Tuesday, where I am tired and emotionally a little done, I feel triumphant in knowing I'm doing okay even when I "vomit draft" a haiku or weekend post that is lackluster. For those of you faithful readers that endure it, just know it is part of everyone's writing process; I'm letting you in on my musings, good and bad! 

Let's Get Serious And Talk About...Serving Sizes

This is a real discussion people...excuse my french but serving sizes these days, are BULLSHIT. No, seriously, we need to reevaluate our consumer lives I think.I have struggled with weight, I DO struggle with my weight, and I've had many a battle with food issues. But yesterday it sparked something blog-worthy.

Yesterday I started to feel off. I've been very conscious about what I'm eating and that I'm eating properly. Some may call me a food extremist because I can eat everything or nothing and still function, granted some ways of functioning are better than others. Nowadays, it's about paying attention to what I'm actually eating, how much of it and when I'm munching.

It's been easier than I thought, and productive. So I had a great breakfast and packed some apple sauce, some veggies and then some more fruit. My stomach started getting crampy, so of course I went for the banana to ease this early on. When water wouldn't help it to chill out, I broke out the apple sauce. By lunch it was still unhappy and I had to run to Publix anyway so I got myself a small to go pack of Cheez-Its:

The bag says, "Grab N Go." It's roughly the same size as a sandwich bag, maybe smaller. It was just $1.00, I hadn't had them in a long time and yay for salt! There was a 150 calorie count on the front under my thumb but what I looked at on the back was that they consider this "Grab N Go" bag to be 3 servings. THREE SERVINGS in this bag. Let me ask you, who is buying this bag to revisit once a day for 3 days? Because that person is an intensely specific, careful person!

So as you can see, the entire bag is 430 calories, which is roughly the same amount of calories as a breakfast bagel. This is just considered a snack. I got weirdly annoyed by this and it sparked this whole question of, how are we supposed to be "healthy" when Grab and Go snacks have the same calorie count as a small meal?

We live in a world with endless brands, choices and opportunities. There is gluten free, vegan, real cheese, processed cheese, fat free, low fat, no trans fat, reduced fat, etc, etc. It can be overwhelming, as life is already overwhelming. Trying to maintain the idea of "healthy" is ever-changing and really hard, in my opinion.

It's like in the 50's you had bacon, eggs, ham, toast and orange juice for just breakfast but everyone smoked cigarettes and looked trim! Now it's egg whites only or a super sized Big Mac meal with a Diet Coke and all the different sweeteners give you cancer. How can we keep up?

Full disclosure, I inhaled the entire Grab and Go pack, I mean, it was on the label to Grab and Go, I was just following directions. But also, my body needed something to calm it down. I used to do calorie and points count for weight watchers but I discovered that, for me, counting calories and points and getting on the scale so often created more unhealthy habits as a result. So I just found comfort with moderation. I can have a damned cupcake, I can't have 3. I can have a glass of wine, not a bottle.

But I stared at this package and thought, this is what's wrong with everyone being unhealthy; on the front it says 150 and in tiny tiny letters it discloses, "per serving" and then the back it shows you all the negative nutrition facts. It's like when you go to Starbucks and all of the calories are in huge numbers next to the price and name. You practically pay a penny a calorie for the latte anymore. This is why I switched to just black coffee. Less to obsess about, more caffeine.

I happen to have an extraordinarily horrible metabolism. It's the worst. I'm one bad test away from hyperthyroidism on the low end, but still. I work out hard, to be able to eat what I want...within reason. So I had some pangs of guilt with each Cheez-It but they were delicious and calmed my stomach so, win.

This calorie stuff bugged me. Sometimes I just don't want to know. I used to LOVE the caramel apple cider at Starbucks in the winter on a cold afternoon. When I was on weight watchers, I found out it was 8 points and like 800 calories. I could have 3 cans of soup and still not use that many calories. I will never drink one again. Sometimes I wish I never knew it was an evil yet delicious drink. 

There are many ways in which it's important to know what you're putting into your body, especially with chemicals and preservatives and all, but can't we just have some buffalo chicken egg rolls without punishment? I just want the chocolate mousse without the side of guilt. Food is so awesome, let's stop shaming, shall we?

At and old job, I was working super hard on losing weight, and I got a serious public eating phobia. I had to be seen by these guys as the healthy person, I couldn't inhale Chik-Fil-A along side them. I had to look like the healthy girl. So I starved myself during my shifts a lot or just ate granola bars and a smoothie. It was not fun.

We are in a body positive place now more than ever, and it makes my heart happy because I want everyone to eat what they want, but there are definitely consequences when you do, and you have to be able to accept them. I do think that all of the calorie stuff, nutrition facts and serving sizes are poorly explained and marketed. These days I feel like we need need a class just to break this down for people because it's all a little crazy.

If you think about it, one meal at McDonald's is an entire day's calorie count or more, but will still leave you hungry. Some drinks could qualify as a meal's worth of calories. Keeping track can feel defeating at times and often, unfair. Every once in awhile a milkshake is due! We can splurge, just not every night. And finding that balance is so hard.

This is why "Cheat" days are a thing and they don't work for me personally, because I can pack a lot away in a day. I'd rather just be mindful of what I'm actually eating and allow myself a dessert or two when it occurs than shove it all into one day and starve myself the rest of the week. "Oh man I can't have that bread because Saturday I ate a whole loaf and then a cake, better stick with just lemon water and broth;" that's how it goes in my mind!

I used to think I could eat what I want and lose weight. Not so much. I made some pretty intense changes to allow for the occasional cupcake and a few glasses of wine. As you get older, workouts get harder, and you need to change up routines. But 400 some calories in Cheez-Its from time to time is worth an extra lap or two, in my opinion. 

I'm not saying we need to individually package each serving and waste resources and plastic but I think it should be much easier to be healthy. From organic food being more expensive, to gym memberships being costly, to junk food seemingly being "always on sale" it's kind of a lot to expect us to adhere to serving sizes and put our money where our mouths are, so to speak. It takes a lot of effort to be conscientious. 

So while this may come out as a bitter whining diatribe about first world problems, for me it is kind of a cry out of, "Can we make living healthy lifestyles, no matter what your size or preference, EASIER, and less stressful please?" I'm sure not everyone sits there, sees the serving size and thinks..."so do I not eat the whole thing even though I'm starving and it won't be good later, or do I eat the whole thing and then drink a lot of water the rest of the day?," but for those of us who already have an entire realm of food-related issues, it shouldn't be such a mental wrestling match. LET US EAT CAKE! 

And while serving sizes are necessary, they feel pretty ridiculous lately. I mean two girl scout cookies are a serving size and like 200 calories, but don't lie to me and tell me you don't eat a whole ROW of them from the package. THEY ARE GIRL SCOUT COOKIES! Let's just be real people, and give us real servings, serving sizes and calorie counts, up front! Or we could make it funny, like "Eat the row and that's the same as bacon and eggs, just have a handful and you're good." I always opt for funny.

Parks and Rec's whole satire around Paunch Burger, the sugar and the sodas was so insanely funny, because it's entirely too true! In contrast, they had an episode where they had to make Kale and Chard, "sexy," and Leslie admitted how gross healthy food could be. We need to improve upon that but also allow ourselves to love and enjoy food. It is the spice of life, after all. Or is that something else.

So after this whole post, I bring us this, let's be conscious but not completely insane about serving sizes and allow everything in moderation. And now I ask that all of the food companies actually make serving sizes realistic because if you call it a grab and go bag that highly suggests a single serving. At least at McDonald's when you super size something, you know what you're getting. So Oreos, Snack Crackers and Junk Food alike, let's be real, just put the calorie counts of the whole bag on there so we know what we're up against. Even Starbucks tells you how many calories in a pumpkin spice latte, no matter how depressing. They don't expect you to condense 20oz into two servings. 

Down off the weird soapbox, or perhaps food crate, I go!

Why Netflix Is A Friend In Depressed And Anxious Times, In My Humble Opinion

I'm going to level with my readers today. My personal life is super rocky right now. I very much have to live one day at a time but today for my one day, which started around 1:30AM for me and continued to snowball into turmoil, has me feeling broken and inferior. Rather than use this as an outlet for complaints, I'm going to explore some of my coping mechanisms and make my plan of attack.

I once read something from HelloGiggles online about The Office being used as a tool for calming anxiety and depression. Something about revisiting those episodes and having them as a comfort zone allow viewers to self care in the form of binge-watching. I could totally relate. I often lose myself in a series instead of getting too caught up in my head.

I feel like Netflix has such an amazing variety that turning to some entertainment when I'm my most sad or hopeless feeling, can always make me feel better. I liken it to when you're young and you have "sick movies," being movies you ALWAYS watch when you're home sick from school. The Princess Bride, Hook and Father of the Bride were at the top of my list. 

When I'm just feeling overwhelmed and done, I watch The Office, Friends, Seinfeld, Parks and Rec, or Malcolm in the Middle. They are short, hilarious and never get old (or so I think). When I need a good cry I watch Parenthood, if I need some dark life stuff I go with Breaking Bad, Dexter, or maybe even Mad Men. And then there are endless movies for any mood.

I'm that person who rarely watches something when it's all the rage...rarely. As soon as it fades from popularity I'll discover it and be like "Oh, this is what everyone was talking about!" My current obsession? Stranger Things. Yes, it is amazing. And exactly what I need tonight when I'm drowning my sorrows in tea before bed.

For me, escaping into those shows where you feel like you know the characters, helps distract from the stress, misery, and weight of life at it's darkest times. So instead of obsessing about an argument or messing up at work, I start watching Pam and Jim fall in love on the Office or Monica and Chandler hide their relationship on Friends, or Ron Swanson teach April his tricks on Parks and Rec. Then those life moments that feel like a kick when you're already down, become relate-able and funny. 

Ross gets a work suspension for having a meltdown? Joey loses his insurance and gets a hernia? Jim transfers because being around Pam was too hard? These are all moments we can share in. I've wanted to scream at my boss the way Ross did and freak out about a sandwich when you feel your life falling apart. Not having insurance and needing something done made me want to stay in pain too! And we never want to work around people who hurt us!

I know many people can get all of this from books, but I've always been a TV kinda girl. I watched Friends with my dad every week. We had routines and bonding time over the TV and when my mom left, my dad decided we didn't need to eat at the dining room table anymore, we could watch the Simpsons together and have homemade sweet and spicy chicken together. These were the moments that got us away from the sad moments of it being "just us two," and let us laugh again.

I've read many things that actually support my theory that Netflix can be your greatest ally when you're feeling so very bad about life stuff or when you're overly anxious. This isn't to say to ignore everything, call in sick and watch 4 days worth of series, this is just saying that if you can find something to look forward to at the end of your day where you wind down and maybe check in with a friend about characters and silly plot lines, go do it!

After I get a good night's sleep I should be better put together and far more eloquent tomorrow but you know where I'll be tonight, just getting more into Stranger Things to beat the blues. Text me if you need a little pick me up!

"It's Not Even Worth It To Take Time For Myself" - Another Mom and Me Too

I literally was having an Instagram Messenger conversation with another mom and we were talking about a meme she posted about being too tired to do things and commiserating with one another. I've written about this subject on multiple occasions, but it bears further discussion in my opinion.

I usually feel like, not only is it frowned upon, but it's not even worth it to take time for myself. It has been my personal experience that whenever I indulge in some "Treat Yo Self" time, I come home to something worse than when I left. If I go get a massage, which happens once a year at best, I'll come home to some crazy mess. If I get a manicure or pedicure, hubby gets a migraine and I'm stressed about finishing the cleaning he couldn't. Sometimes I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I suck at relaxing in general. I could most likely easily be diagnosed with ADD but I just feel like there is always something I need to be getting done. And I always have a million little projects on the Pinterest board of my mind! So when I get "me time," I either immediately have some weird form of "buyers" remorse or feel like I pay for it in other ways later.

For me, "me time" usually involves a workout because that isn't selfish it's self care, right? But now we see all these other self care methods like, face masks, manicures, pedicures and of course the Parks and Recreation spearheaded movement of "Treat Yo Self" which is just an excuse to buy a bunch of stuff you want for yourself. Man, I wish I could pull that off without feeling so badly about it right after.

In the grander scheme I do genuinely feel like taking time for myself isn't worth it. I don't know what it's like to be bored anymore and any time for just me to indulge in any "me" ways could be much better spent cleaning something or making some kind of progress of some kind. I often fantasize about what I would do with a day off with no plans. My husband immediately taunts me that it could never happen for me so it's an impossible dream. I over-plan and schedule everything.

Sometimes I wonder if there were no alarms and no responsibilities or obligations for a whole weekend, just how long I could sleep. And I think as moms we are tired because we constantly fear it's not worth taking time for ourselves, so we just keep running and running. We stay up late to watch too much TV, to eat what sugar and treats our kids can't have, and to do things without interruption. We get up early to beat the kids to stuff so we can get a head start on productivity. And we constantly rearrange everything to make sure everyone and everything else comes before we do. 

It can feel insanely thankless at times. You think of all these things you do and then people ask, "How do you do it all?" And the answer is you don't. We are our worst critics and we always feel we fall short. For instance, I have a clean house, a good job, and we finally have affordable health, dental and vision insurance and aren't up to our ears in debt. But I'm not involved in Luna's school like at all, and also, her one extra-curricular activity is on Saturday mornings and that's it. 

So again, it's not even worth taking any more time for myself than the gym because we have so much else going on. We do socially childless things maybe twice a month and I even try to keep us home as much as possible for chill and reboot time. 

I will admit during a crappy personal time I went through a selfish phase and was out too much and just on my own agenda and everything in my home life suffered, and I did too. But still, it pains me that most mothers feel this way. They feel like taking time for themselves just makes everything else worse and if they do they really won't be able to keep up or make up for it. I think the worst part of those feelings is, they are partially true.

We will never gain the lost time back. If we take a night to binge-watch Netflix and miss a sporting tournament or activity, we never get it back and we miss kid moments. If we don't wake up at 5AM and workout, we never get that workout back. In some senses, the whole "there's always tomorrow" thing is a bunch of crap that we can't even afford to buy into because, tomorrow will open a whole new kind of busy!

There will be more chores tomorrow, more mess, more dishes and more stress when we could just do it today. My husband gives me such a hard time about not leaving things until the morning. I always say I can sleep better just knowing it's done, which is true. I hate dreading a chore or list of things to get done, when I could have made some progress or done what I could the night before. It's a "blurse," a blessing and a curse.

My thoughts are this: let's strive to find even 5 minutes to ourselves for anything. Five minutes alone with a cup of coffee, a book, a couple songs or a walk! We can build from there and maybe learn how to give ourselves a little more time, and then feel it's worth it! Moms feel plenty of "unworthyness" feelings from all over, but some time for ourselves is not only okay but, we DESERVE IT. 

I won't wax on about it being "necessary," but I will speak from experience that it is helpful. A few minutes that are my own can completely turn around my mood and in turn, my entire day. So figure out ways to "Treat Yo Self," for just you, and no one else. Mine is a cup of fancy coffee on my way to work from my favorite coffee shop and then walking the dog alone a couple times a week. Feel free to post yours and share your self care methods. I want to know you're taking time for yourself because you're worth it. It's worth it. We are all worth it! Make that your mantra!