You Say It's Your Birthday?

Happy Birthday to me!

I love birthdays! More than then New Year's Day, it's the time that I set my goals and experience a sense of renewal. I put the previous year, with all its achievements and mistakes, behind me and plan for the next year.

Today I turn 39. Which means that this is a big year for me with the goals. Next year is a "0" year so long-term goals already exist. For some reason I don't have my goals for 40 written down anywhere so I'll have to do my best to remember them. But not here. They're too personal to put out into the blogosphere.

So what did I do last year?

• I am stable on my anti-depressant medications. I feel like myself and like I have normal emotions. I'm not happy all the time, nor am I sad all the time. I feel pretty normal and that feels pretty great.
• My dog died a few months ago. She was an amazing creature who demonstrated sensitivity in all her interactions with people. I miss her deeply. I think I have never loved an animal like I loved her.
• Barack Obama was elected president! 'Nuff said.
• I'm glad to no longer be working at the clinic I recently left. I had been there for 3 years, including 2 years working part time. It's time to move on. April 29 was my last day. Maybe I'll write more about this later.
• I traveled extensively in the US, mainly with my daughter. I went to 8 states that I had previously not visited.
• I was initiated into PEO, a sisterhood that raises money to support education for women (and has a great time together in the process). I immediately gained a cadre of friends who will support me and love me through whatever life brings.
• I lost 20+ pounds. As a side-effect of my medication cocktail, I lost interest in eating and gained the ability to stop eating when I'm approaching full. I leave more food on my plate than I eat. Don't get me wrong, I'm eating plenty to sustain myself and am not losing weight at a dangerous pace. The weight loss has stabilized and I'm once again interested in food. Now I just stop when I'm full and hope that the weight doesn't creep back on.
• I am paying more attention to my body. I started taking Pilates and am finding other ways to take care of my body. I still need to do more to take care of myself but that goes under the "goals for next year" section.

So, what does the coming year hold for me?

• More travel. At least a little bit. L and I are setting out on another road trip the day school gets out for the summer. No new states this time, but anticipating a great time with my daughter and reaquainting with friends we will see while on our trip.
• Better saving and economic awareness. So far the economic downturn hasn't really affected our family. My husband's company's earnings are down a bit from last year but we're doing fine financially. However, when I reviewed our taxes last month, I realized that we don't save nearly enough money, nor do we given away nearly enough money. I want to be a better steward of our resources.
• It's time for me to get serious about getting going on the next step in my career. I have declared a long-term goal and if I'm going to achieve it I need to work toward it. So tomorrow the work begins with a phone call to the grad school I plan to apply to.
• I'm tired of living in clutter. I think I declare this every year but this year I have no excuse for not getting something done about it. I no longer have an external work schedule to use as an excuse for not downsizing and cleaning. Maybe it's time to make an internal work schedule to treat housekeeping like the job it should be.
• Continue taking care of my body. The weight loss and Pilates has been a good start but I need to go further in taking care of myself. I need to better monitor my chronic health conditions and take the steps to be working toward overall better health.
• Mother/Daughter time. Both with my own mother and with my daughter. My mom is aging and I tend to try to pretend she's not. I need to help her make good decisions about her health. My daughter is at an age when she is torn between seeking independence and wanting to stay my little girl. I need to be sensitive to her needs, let her know I'm a safe place for her to share, help her identify others who are safe harbors for the times she feels she can't confide in me, and help her find her learn to be independent while remaining safe. No small task, that.

I think that's plenty to put on my list of goals for now. Oh, yeah. I also want to develop the discipline of daily writing.

Now it's time to head off to my birthday dinner. Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Mother's Day!

I just returned from my Sunday morning Pilates class and have been ordered back to bed. Time to experience an official rite of motherhood: "Breakfast in Bed on Mother's Day." I'm not sure I grasp the appeal of eating in bed but I definitely appreciate the love behind the gesture. From my comfortable perch, propped up against pillows in my comfortable bed, I can hear the clanging of dishes and the smell of burning pancakes. L and her dad are working hard to prepare my special breakfast. I can hardly wait!

Review Session

An old friend has an admirable discipline of writing a blog entry daily. I want to do that. I get such clarity from writing (even if what I write isn't clear to anyone else!) that I think I need to make it into a daily discipline. I think the discipline part would be easier if I knew that others expect me to write, so I'm going to go a bit more public and be a bit more intentional in my writing.

In anticipation that people I know or admire might actually read what I've written, I reviewed all my past entries to see if anything needed to be taken down. I edited a few entries and removed a few--some were just too much of me on the page and I don't want to be that vulnerable.

In reviewing my past entries, a couple things struck me.

1. I started this blog almost a year ago. In that time, I've written occassionally with no particular focus. I started writing to try to work through some of my depression issues, which are mostly resolved now (via chemicals and good self-care).
2. There are many things I wrote about that I need to follow-up on. I wrote about voting day but not the amazing experience of being with my daughter and many of her friends and their moms on inauguration day. I wrote in anticipation of my dog dying but haven't been able to write about her death and how my family is dealing with it.
3. I want to write about random things that interest me, from healthcare reform to recipes. I don't know have a focus for this blog, which may be my undoing if I want readership. I just want to be able to look back on it in a year and see a chronicle of my life and what I was thinking.

So here I go. Am I really going to commit to writing daily for a year? I'm certainly going to try!

The Flu and Girl Scout Camp

The mom in me wants L to have a fun time at Girl Scout camp this weekend. The wife in me is looking forward to a weekend away without the kid. The nurse in me is terrified that I'm going to look back on this weekend as a bad idea: hundreds of kids with a tenuous grip on handwashing and basic sanitary care, together for a weekend at the beginning of what is potentially a pandemic flu.

Many of my friends and family seem to think that this is all a big media hype that has gotten out of control. I hope they're right. However, I don't think so. I trust the CDC and the WHO to look out for public health in a way that my mind can't begin to grasp. If the best epidimiologists in the world are one step away from declaring pandemic, I'm all for stopping it now by putting everyone into quarantine. I've already heard parents making jokes about the school year going long and having to make up "virus days" because of school closures. Close the schools if necessary. I'd rather send my daughter to school all summer than risk her or any of her friends dying for fear of making up a virus day in the summer!

Maybe everyone has a point: maybe it's all a big overreaction. After all, only about 200 people in THE WORLD have died from this so far. Thousands of people die from the flu every year, right? So what makes this different? The high hospitalization and fatality rate. Only about 200 people have died but only about 500 have been diagnosed. That's about a 40% fatality rate. Not a number I'm interested in gambling with. And the people that are dying aren't the ones who die from the flu: the victims were healthy and not in high-risk groups of elderly and infant and immune-compromised. So PLEASE! OVERREACT!!!

The thing is, if the public health officials order these measures before the country/world has had a chance to panic, they will be called fools and everyone will say how much they overreacted. There will be congressional inquiries and agency heads fired for the perceived overreaction. But what the public sees as overreaction will likely just mean that the measures worked; that the epidemic was stopped before it became a pandemic. Good public health policy is rarely applauded. Bad public health policy costs lives.

I don't want to fiddle while Rome burns. I hope our society doesn't turn a deaf ear to what the experts are telling us. If we listen and their prevention measures work and the flu doesn't develop, I hope society doesn't ridicule the leaders who are potentially saving us from global pandemic.

So, while I desperately want the romantic weekend with my husband, I would completely understand, and even applaud, a brave (though some may say rash) decision to close the camp for the weekend.

I changed my mind. The mom in me desperately hopes she's not making a mistake sending her daughter off to camp this weekend. Maybe the mom and the nurse are the same person, after all. Now if I could just do something to appease the wife part . . .

Pilates Update

I've been doing Pilates for over a month now and I'm settling into a routine. I'll admit that one of the things that still pulls me out bed in the early morning is the self-righteous feeling I get from being the kind of person who gets up for an exercise class that starts at 6 a.m. But another part of me just REALLY likes the way I feel. My body is getting stronger and I feel like I'm doing something good for my body when I go to Pilates class. When I miss a class, I'm disappointed for myself, not afraid that I'm letting down the instructor or that I'm not able to live up the new label of "exerciser" that I strive for.

The first intro series that I signed up for finishes at the end of this week. I'm trying to figure out how I can add in another class or two each week. I really DO like this stuff!

Pilates and Cupcakes, The Sequel

The Pilates Part
I pulled myself out of bed and made it to Pilates at 5:58 this morning. It was definitely the "I'm so self-righteous that there's no way I'm not going to class this morning" thing that got me out of bed. Saturday's class is at 10. I think I can manage that. The next real test will come Tuesday morning when it's up before the birds again.

(Did I mention that I can feel muscles I didn't know I had?)

The Cupcake Part
I took my mom to my favorite cupcake place today. I was busy photographing my cupcake so didn't notice her method. I looked up to see this:

Look familiar? I apparently learned my cupcake consuming method from my mother.

Pilates and Cupcakes

The Pilates Part
This morning I started a Pilates class. At 6 a.m.! I don’t usually do mornings. Particularly not for exercise. Yet, to my amazement and the amazement of all who know me, I pulled myself out of bed this morning at 5:15 and was out of the house by 5:30, dressed with my hair and teeth brushed.

It’s about 2 p.m. now. Throughout the day I’ve felt myself walking a bit taller and feeling a bit self-righteous. After all, I’m now the kind of person who gets up before the birds to exercise. I hope the push of self-righteousness lasts long enough for this to become a habit. The next test comes Thursday morning, a mere 39 hours from now.



The Cupcakes Part
Eating cupcakes takes the form of a ritual for me. I set the cupcake on the plate and pause to admire it. Often I whip out my camera and take a picture, even if I already have many similar photos of similar cupcakes. Next I carefully (so as not to smudge the icing) pick it up and remove the paper wrapper from the stump. I then remove the top from the stump and set it gently on the plate, still careful not to disturb the icing. Then I eat the stump, breaking off bite-size pieces, never taking a bite directly from the stump. When the stump is gone and my coffee is about half finished (I did mention that a cupcake should be accompanied by coffee, didn’t I?), I finally take a bite of the top. Carefully, so as to leave the icing as intact as possible until the last bit finds its way into my mouth.

I’m not sure if this excruciating method signifies my deep affection for cupcakes or just offers a glimpse into my disturbed obsessive-compulsive mind. Whatever the reason for my ritual, it’s a ritual I look forward to. I wonder if I would like cupcakes as much if I didn’t care how they are eaten?