Wal Mart mom

I am SO impatient lately. Part of it is that I've run out of meds (will get refill script on Sat.).

Part of it is that Max is teething big time -- I'm thinking molars or multiple teeth at minimum -- so he has a little diaper rash, is drooling and biting constantly, and is very very very very fussy.

And Emily is pretty hyper. That's just her personality, anyway, but I have not nearly enough tolerance for it lately. I think she needs a lot more physical activity -- free running around time, but maybe also something like gymnastics or something.

The main thing, I think, is that I REALLY am dropping the ball in terms of taking care of myself. I am eating total crap/caca/garbage, all day, every day. I am getting NO exercise. I spend way too much time on the computer, or at least the time I spend is reading/posting on that ridiculous local Meetup board I'm on instead of something like this, or working on graphics stuff, or reading things of some substance and interest.

I made a sort of rice-and-beans dish tonight and it was amazing how much better I felt, just eating real food instead of crap.

I always, always, always put myself on the back burner and it has to stop. Not necessarily in an altruistic self-sacrificing way, but in an instant-gratification quick & dirty kind of way -- I nickel-and-dime myself and my health, because I think that's all I can manage and I don't try to put just 10 minutes of effort into doing something better for myself -- making something decent to eat instead of hitting a drive-thru.

It's not like I'm trying to make a souffle and pheasant -- the rice and beans thing took MAYBE five, ten minutes to put together, from chopping the first onion to getting it simmering. Grated some cheese while it cooked, and voila. It's way better than anything I could get in any of the pathetic ratholes that pass for restaurants around here, and it is certainly faster and cheaper.

Maybe one thing that would help is leaning more towards a vegetarian, or at least a mostly no-red-meat approach to our food here. Emily really doesn't like meat that much anyway, it costs out the wazoo, and handling and keeping it is a pain in the butt. I don't think I can go entirely meatless -- I do like chicken and turkey, and I think a very occasional roast or curried ground meat dish is too good to forgo entirely.

I'm just over the whole weight-loss thing, too. It becomes such a numbers game and I start focusing on that instead of stepping back and looking at the big picture of how I eat as a whole, and how I live. I suspect that if I were to get my act together in terms of food and getting a little exercise, I'd end up the size I'm supposed to be. I know I'm not a skinny person, and even being quite overweight as I currently am, I'm reasonably well-proportioned -- I don't have a giant ass or a weird overall shape, but what's happened to my abdominals just doesn't bear thinking about. Having a baby in my 40's wasn't exactly the wisest choice health-wise either, but too late to worry about that now.

Found out today that in my psychotic playgroup, something I was blamed for (and in turn wrongly accused someone else of) was actually done by someone I considered a friend -- someone who really seemed like she was way beyond doing petty bullshit like that. Very disappointing.

So: Tomorrow is Thursday. Nothing major to do. How can I approach this rationally, in a way that is not actually destructive to my health?

I can: Eat breakfast. Even if it's just cheese toast or oatmeal, and a piece of fruit.

Have some tea, maybe, instead of instant coffee cack.

Do a lap of the mall -- just a quick walk around. Then stop at the playground and let Max do some crawling and playing.

Get a shower in.

Make something decent for dinner -- potato-cauliflower soup?

Try to just pick up a little around the house.

Call Intuit's customer service and try to get the Quicken clusterfuck unclustered and unfucked.

Stay tuned. Or as Tim Gunn would say, "Carry on".

The apple of my eye

Right now, it's my BRAND NEW MACBOOK.

Yes, after nearly a decade on the Dark Side, I have gone back. Once you go Mac, you won't go back. Or something.

I have to say, it's been great to finally have MY VERY OWN computer, but wow, a decade away can make it rather difficult to remember how to do stuff.

I got used to the PC interface, and Windows did evolve pretty nicely over the years, and so I seem to have it hard-wired into my brain.

But with the Mac, it's almost counter-intuitive (counter to how they market themselves). It is as though they think they have to do the work for you. I used iPhoto and discovered that somehow individual photos are not saved, so that I end up trying to use a "library" for an avatar. I suppose it doesn't help that I am ten years older and had a brain injury and three kids during that time.

Oh well, working my way up the learning curve should help stave off dementia, at least by another week or so.