Living with myself, in the present

I'm never here.  Oh, I look like I'm present; I've learned to smile and nod with the best of them.  But while the world passes me by I live an alternate reality inside my head.  I'm always thinking about what I should be doing, or what I could be doing, or what I'm going to do, but very VERY rarely am I focused on where I am.

I also spend a lot of time thinking on what I'll do WHEN.  When I loose the weight, when I have time to exercise, when my little girl is old enough to do whatever it is for me, and how I'll implement this project I have in mind to start 6 weeks from now (when I've already got 6 projects in various stages of incomplete).  And I live in various fantasy worlds, how I would live my life if my American Idol/America's Got Talent auditions had gone differently, or what if I got around to writing one or more of the books in my head and got it published, or what if I was an artist who actually made a living creating... ANYTHING!

I wonder if it's part and parcel of the ADD.  I've noticed this is particularly bad when I WANT to do something (usually want to make something, some project I've started) but I'm doing family things instead, and you know what?  It's causing me to miss out on what's REALLY important.  Ok, so potty training isn't glamorous, but if I let it be it can be plenty exiting!

When I can manage to focus on the present I realize, it's pretty good.  I have a fantastic husband, an amazing daughter, and a job that leaves me enough free time to occasionally create things on the side (and it's a pretty interesting job too).  Why can't I manage to be fully HERE more often?  When I do manage it I find I'm more satisfied with the way things go and my evenings move smoother, perhaps because I'm enjoying time with my wonderful husband and fantabulous daughter instead of getting frustrated at all the things I'm not doing.  But when I let my mind wander all I see is wasted time, wasted tasks, wasted effort.

I need to find a way to keep myself present, to keep from thinking that I'm wasting time at the very times I should be enjoying the most.  So in an effort to focus on the here and now I've made a few resolutions (I would call them New Year, but I've actually been working on these for several months now).

• I will medicate my ADD, not with sugar or with caffeine, but with actually ADD medications.  I will find a schedule for these medications that works for me, a way that doesn't interfere with my sleep schedule (to often, occasional insomnia comes with the territory), and will manage those awake hours in a way that makes good use of the time (not in reading the entire WOT wikia yet again).  If my current medication doesn't work for me then I will find a doctor who will work with me to find one that does.
• I will get up and move more.  I may make use of my treadmill desk, I may go for a walk, I may take up running, or I may do something drastic and try to catch up on the yard work that needs doing around here!  But I'll try to do something active starting maybe 2-3 times a week.
• I will no longer waste time shopping for stuff that doesn't make sense for me to buy.  They're very pretty, but I already know way more than I ever needed to know about diamonds.  There is no need for me to spend time browsing in stores that don't sell clothes in my size, so if you don't make an XXL or 16 you can expect me to cancel your store credit card, and just because I like your handbags doesn't mean I want to see all the cute outfits that I'll never fit in to so you can expect me to unsubscribe from your newsletter (I'll buy my handbags somewhere else, or better yet, make them).
• I've got to cut way back on sugar.  Oh, I know I can't cut it completely out (my husband's cookies and cakes and bread are WAY to good), but I can cut out the Skittles and the M&M's (even the dark chocolate peanut ones) and try to pair my sugar with whole grain flour whenever I have to bake.  I know I'm going to have some sugar, but I'd rather have one truffle from Godiva than a whole bag of Starbursts.  
• And while I'm at it, I'm gonna eat more green.  Not that I'm gonna eat a salad every day, but lately I've been so focused on making more room in the freezer that I've lost sight of what I should be eating.  Don't get me wrong, it's nice that I've cleaned out a couple of ice cream containers, but I KNOW I'm just going to go out and buy more ice cream.  It's satisfying to see more room for stews and meatballs and chili, but I've got to stop eating things just because they're there.
• And on that note, I've got to pay attention to what's just there.  I've always been bad about mindless eating, so I have to find ways to clear stuff out, put it aside, make it plain that the bad stuff is not for me.  Oh it'll still be in the house (I need the Skittles to bribe Talia), but it'll be somewhere that's designated for other people and NEVER in my office!  I need to clear out my office snack drawer of everything except healthy snacks, really only nuts.  I don't need chips or crackers or pretzels, and if I do need chocolate I need to make the effort to go get it from some other part of the house.  
• So I suppose I need to create a stash of high quality chocolate that's not in everybody else's way (boy, this to-do list is growing).

I need to be the wife I want my husband to be married to, and the mother I want my daughter to see.  That means more than my relationship to food by-the-way.  It also means I need to act like I care about myself.

• I need to wear REAL shoes when I go out, not just house slippers that I tell myself look almost like real shoes.  I should probably not even wear tennis shoes most days, but I'm still working on that.
• I need to wear makeup.  It makes me feel better about myself.  I may have the most pared down makeup routine on earth (OK, I know I don't, that honor belongs to my mother), but that routine needs to exist (it hasn't for a long time).  It needs to be something workable that I can maintain and do every day, or at least almost every day.  
• I need to wear clothes that are right for me.  Not that I'm going out and buying an entirely new wardrobe, but I need to stop falling in love with something just because it fits.  I need to learn what colors work for me (after years of wondering I think I've finally figured out that I'm a "soft summer" though I have yet to really figure out what that means I should wear), and yes that means no more black.  It doesn't matter that it's slimming, and worn by ninjas (can ninjas wear brown? purple?), and it's EVERYWHERE.  Black doesn't work with my skin.  I've known this for nearly 20 years (since prom dress shopping) and yet I still have black in my wardrobe.  It's gonna have to go.  
• So are the socks and underwear (and anything else) that have holes in them.  It's not like I don't have enough socks and underwear (if I ever get around to folding laundry so I can find it).  If it's holy and worn out and I can't mend it then it needs to go.
• And to top it all off, if I live in the present then instead of having my mind wandering, maybe I can use all that extra brain power to be more understanding of others.  Starting with my husband and daughter of course, but I look back over the years at conversations I've had (or only had in my head) and way to many of them were me spouting off about stuff I thought I knew.  I'm sure I've lost friends for it.  Maybe instead of trying to convince everyone (mainly myself) that I know everything, I should be more accepting of what other people know, or need.  Maybe I should recognize that I don't know it all, indeed as I get older I start to realize just how much I don't know, and maybe if I'm here, REALLY HERE, I'll start learning from other people what they know so much better than I do, about EVERYTHING.

Is that enough?  I don't normally make resolution lists, certainly not around New Years.  In the past I've laughed about New Years resolutions (even if I secretly made one or two to not keep on my own).  Maybe that's another thing I need to change, but this list is long enough already.  I tried not to put any absolutes in there.  I know I'll fail (there will be dark chocolate peanut M&M's) but if I don't cut things out completely, if I only do as I should part of the time, it will still be an improvement over what was before.  But then, I'm not thinking about what was before anymore.

Apparently bananas are tiring

Now I totally understand...

And I love her more than I ever thought possible.

My Traveling Red Dress Experience

The history of the dress

I bought this dress a little over seven years ago.  

It’s been worn exactly twice, and languishing in my closet the rest of the time.  It was bought for me to wear as a bridesmaid in a Christmas wedding, the wedding of two of my best friends who soon started trying to have a family.  After a two and a half year struggle with infertility they were finally able to conceive, and now they have two of the most beautiful twin girls I’ve ever seen (saw them just last week).

When my husband and I started our attempts to have a baby they, along with another close friend who has PCOS like me, were my inspiration.  From tests to treatments to disappointments they had been through it all before me, and held my hand (literally and figuratively) through it all.  Then four years in I started with a new group of fertility specialists and FINALLY got pregnant.

It was the last week in January 2011 that I wore this dress for a second time.  I’ve been deeply involved in music from very early on: sang before I could talk, piano lessons from age 3, music major in college, and through it all I’ve had debilitating stage fright.  I try over and over with mixed results to force myself to sing/play/speak in public.  That January, the same week I started new treatments for what was wrong inside me, I decided to work on the outside as well.  America’s Got Tallent auditions came to Atlanta, so inspired by theblogess and her red dress wearing encouragement I went to the auditions, red dress and all.  The good news is, I’m not bad enough to make it on TV.  The bad news is, I’m not good enough to make it on TV either.  But I made it through, and with that boost of confidence I didn’t embarrass myself to badly.

Only two weeks later I found out I was pregnant for the first time.  I was overjoyed, only to have a miscarriage three weeks in.  It was devastating.  I tried to see the good in all this.  I mean, at least this proved that I COULD get pregnant, something I hadn’t managed in four years of trying.  But to have our hopes raised and dashed in such short order, only to be followed by month after month of disappointment seemed more than I could take.  My self-image went to pot!  From January to September I had gained nearly 20 lbs.  Nothing seemed to matter, not how much I ate or exercised, I’m sure all the crazy hormones I was on didn’t help, so we decided to take the rest of the year off to focus on getting healthy and then decide how to face the new year.

In October I started having horrible lower back and stomach pain, similar to monthly cramps, but instead of a day or so and then my period they went on for nearly a week with no sign of change.  I finally realized that they were in the same location as pains I had had during my first pregnancy.  Turns out, I managed to conceive, no timing, no drugs, no idea how this happened after almost five years of trying everything under the sun.  I spent the next two months terrified to eat the wrong thing, exercise to hard, expose myself to any chemicals, anything at all.  I was so terrified of another miscarriage.  Add to that terrified to tell people I was pregnant again only to have it end in disappointment again.

The dress moves on

So when Jenny mentioned having a new red dress photo shoot a few days back, http://thebloggess.com/2012/01/the-traveling-red-dress-revisited/, I looked at my body and said, no way am I fitting into that dress.  But it got me to wondering, if I can’t wear the dress, who could?  I mean, it’s a beautiful dress, and it’s spent the majority of the last seven years crushed in my closet gathering dust.  So I offered it out.  This was the response I got:

I need this dress. My struggles are with infertility, and weight. I turned 30 back in June, and every day my hopes of becoming a mother just slip further away. My life is consumed by the tremendous booming of my biological clock. We can not get pregnant without IVF, but financially we are fish out of water. Asking us for $15,000.00 is like asking for a million. 

I wake up every single day, chocking back the tears and just feeling damn sorry for myself. I can’t seem to shake it. I don’t want to work, or be social, or even cook a meal for my husband. For the life of me, I’m trying to summon the will to do anything-absolutely anything. I haven’t allowed photos of myself to be taken in over 8 years, because I HATE what I see looking back at me. I’ve completely lost my own worth. And I need to find it again. I have to. I have to wear that dress.

I swear only God could have let this person see my little comment way down on theblogess’s website offering the dress.  To have this dress offer encouragement to someone else going through the same struggles I’ve been through means so much to me.  So as this dress is on its way to its new home in Idaho it goes with all the prayers and blessings and love I can send with it, for the next lady who will wear it, and the next, and the next.

Following the First Profession (no, it's not what you think)

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Genesis 1:26 (NIV)

I recently watched a video in which many people in places of leadership in many Christian organizations spoke out against what they called a great evil.  In this short three minute and eight second video "Radical Environmentalism" is credited as being the greatest spiritual battle we face today.  I sat in shock surprise and revulsion as I watched presidents and pastors and directors from organizations I normally respect.  These leaders, one from a denomination of which I am a member, spewed derogatory and judgemental names for people who's greatest crime is trying to take care of this earth that God has given us.  These associations, whose publications I read regularly and whose radio shows I listen to, used names like:
"tree hugger"
cult
"radical environmental agenda"
"own morbid, pessimistic fears"
"exaggeration, myths and outright lies"
"so-called global warming science"

They accused environmentalists of promoting humanism, and then went on to contradict their own statement by saying that environmentalists are "consigning the poorest people around the world to grinding poverty, to disease, to premature death."  Yet it is the humanist movement that works to raise the level of human condition.  Not only are these so-called Christians sitting in condemnation of some stereotypical environmental group, but they're contradicting themselves while they do it.

But my visceral reaction to this video didn't start when I read the article this morning.  This is something that I have spent the last several years studying and trying to understand.  How can so many Christians seem to have a complete and utter lack of compassion, and more personally what does God want me to do with my life. 

I have spent much time in my life wandering, looking for direction.  While my sister seemed to know exactly what she wanted to do from early high school, straight through he PhD, I took the eight year plan flitting through four majors before finally eking out a BS.  And even then I hadn't found my direction in life.  It was more a matter of wanting something to show for all the years I'd spent in college.  I often say I have the best liberal arts education you can receive from a technical school because that's just how convoluted my journey in life has been.  So I continue searching, and what better way to find the will of God than by reading the word he has given us. 

I'm holding it open right now, to the very beginning, day 6, the one where we're first mentioned.  Man, and the charge God first gave to us.  God said of man to "...let him rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”  I've gone back to the very begging.  I can't find anything that takes precedence over this charge, to take care of the earth that got has made and it's animals.  Does God charge us to take care of the poor and diseased people on the earth?  NO!  Possibly because they did not exist yet.  After all, this predates the fall of man.  We didn't know that we were poor and naked yet, and I assume no one had caught the common cold. 

God goes on to reinforce the idea that we should care for his creation only two verses later.  "'Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'

Then God said, 'I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.'" Genesis 1:28-29 (NIV)  Here we're told to take care of not just the animals and the fish, but we're supposed to value the plants as well.  While I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is a direct order to go around hugging trees, I also thinks this is a strong indication that we are charged to take care of ALL of God's creation.

I want you do notice here that we're still on the sixth day.  This wasn't on the seventh day where God was resting.  No, this is the job that God has laid on mankind.  The first 9-5 task that God has ever given to people.  I take this to heart.  I accept the charge that God has laid on me and I still think that this is the most important job that we can do.  To care for God's creation is to show our reverence for God. 

This is reinforced in the second chapter of Genesis, "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." Genesis 2:15.  Here we have the first name given to the first profession.  We are to be gardeners, not yet farmers, there's a difference.  Farmers toil in the soil and eat what they grow.  Gardeners tend the living plants.  This makes it clear to me that it is my job not to re-shape the earth to fit whatever idea I have of it, but to tend it the way God has given it to me.  I am to preserve it, not to strip-log it and build condominiums. 

The Bible continues to honor those people who take car of Gods creation rather than resorting to violence.  The people of the bible understood farming.  Cain and Able learned it from their parents, and Jesus knew that it still applied to the people he was talking to when he told the parables of the Sower (Matthew 13:3-8) and the Tares Matthew (13:24-30). 

The all important job of caring for God's creation, of being God's constant gardener if you will, resonated with the people of the Bible.  They understood that we are so closely tied with nature, and that if we hurt it we are ultimately hurting ourselves.  Why does this seem to be so lost on people today?  Is it because we are so insulated from nature?  Most of us in a post-industrial society spend all of our time indoors, or on pavement moving from one roof to another.  We go days without actually touching a plant other than our house plants.  We're more likely to kill an animal as we run over it with our vehicle than to take into account the source of all that nicely pre-packaged meat in the grocery store.  Most new neighborhoods that are built start with clear cutting the trees and leveling the earth to the point where it becomes unrecognizable. 

We are very disconnected from our environment, but I don't think this is the actual cause of our misunderstanding of God's greatest calling.  I think our disassociation stems from something much more insidious, something more evil than the love of money (though one may cause the other and vice verse). 

Lack of compassion. 

I believe that lack of compassion in many of the most influential and out spoken Christians is the biggest stumbling blocks to people today.  Compassion is what makes us realize that when we over exploit the earth we're destroying it for those who come after us.  Compassion is what makes us aware of needless destruction.  And those of us that have compassion notice these things and hurt.  I hurt when I see a squirrel dead in the middle of the road.  I hurt when I drive by a sign for new development, and stretching behind it a bare scar of red Georgia clay.  I hurt when I hear one more self entitled prig's needlessly inflammatory remarks.  They lump together a diverse group of people and play the blame game.  What makes it worse?  They accuse the others, whoever the others are at the moment, of fear mongering, yet that's exactly what I hear when I listen to them. 

Is this one of the cases where it takes one to know one?  I'm a Christian, a devout one, but one with diverse beliefs.  I don't fit the stereotypical conservative, and I'm not really liberal.  I find that what I abhor most of all is extremism in either direction.  Extremism doesn't lead to understanding.  It leads to opposing sides screaming at the top of their lungs loud enough to make anyone undecided deaf.  It doesn't lead people to see wisdom, it blinds them to the true need.  I won't say I'm all that in touch with nature, and I definitely don't want spiders in my house.  But I also want children, I want them to see the gifts that God has given us, to value them; and to see that the first profession, the most worthy profession, is the one that God gave us on the sixth day. 

I am not the best at this profession, but like any career path I get better at it as I gain practice and knowledge.  Sometimes I think the extreme right is afraid of knowledge, they see it as humanism.  But I would remind you that God gave you that brain, and he expects you to use it.  Use it to think of ways to internalize compassion, and use it to find ways to care for the plants, animals, and world that God has given us.

More wonderful things...

Ok, so I started this a month+ ago and I'm just getting around to finishing it.

I am a bad blogger.

BAD, BAD BLOGGER!

i'm sorry.
i'll try to do better next time.

So lately I've tried a variety of new products/beauty tips.  Some have been fantastically successful, others not so much.  Tip: Avocado in your hair does nothing but leave a green ring around the tub.

So let's get started.  I went blond this summer.  Not a fantastic blond, more of a do-it-yourself-from-the-grocery-store-discount-cart blond.  It was...interesting.  It also left my hair dry, brittle, and moderately fried.  I read somewhere about mashed up avocado in your hair, but that didn't seem to make any difference at all.  I tried a variety of conditioner and repair products without seeing any difference at all, then I wandered into Sally Beauty Supply. 

Now I've had mixed-bag results with Sally Beauty supply in the past.  There was the time where three customers and the clerk inside the store decided to close early and stared at me as I tried to open the locked door.  There was the time when the purple hair dye turned my hair temporarily hot pink.  But this time, I don't know what it was.  Maybe the sales clerk looked particularly empathetic, maybe it was the purple in her own hair, maybe it was the fact that she followed me around the store like she thought I was going to steal something.  I don't know what it was, but I unexpectedly turned and asked:

"I tried a blond and it kinda fried my hair a little, do you have anything you'd recommend to help?"

She got this surprised look on her face like she didn't often get to be very helpful, led me to the next isle over, pulled a bottle off the shelf and handed it to me. 

ion
Repair Solutions

"This works?"
"yes"
"Is this the shampoo?" I asked, pointing.
"yes"
"Should I get the shampoo too?"
"Up to you."

I got the shampoo.  It wasn't shampoo.  It was an even deeper conditioning treatment.  I went back the next day and got the shampoo.  I've been using them about a month now, but I noticed a difference after the first shampoo and condition.  My hair doesn't make near the crinkling sound that it used to.  Crinkling hair = NOT GOOD!  I would strongly recommend this to anyone who had dry crinkly hair no matter the cause.

Ah, almost done you thought.  Nope, not even close.  I'm also very cheap.  I'm so cheap that instead of buying new mascara to replace the old one every quarter, I buy sample sizes in bulk.  OK, maybe not in bulk, but I do buy it in batches.  For the last few years I've been working my way through a box I got from Sephora, one something like this.  I started a new one recently, Cargo Lash Activator.  It's fantastic! 

So let me explain how I wear mascara.  I generally don't except for special occasions.  I have long eyelashes anyway, so all I really need is something to darken them.  If it promises to make them longer and thicker looking I'll look like I'm wearing fake lashes.  I work in the tech industry.  Most guys (if they notice) will think you're a flighty bimbo if you wear to much makeup, so I rarely bother unless I'm trying to impress someone with my flighty bimbo-ness or I'm doing something outside of work. 

Generally I'm looking for something that'll just make my eyelashes dark and even looking, and something that won't smudge.  That's right, I don't know what it is about me but it's pretty common for me to come home after a day of wearing mascara and look in the mirror to find it looks like I have two black eyes.  Mascara runs down my face without me having to shed a tear, but this mascara is the exception.  I gave it a try one morning and was surprised, that's right, I looked in the mirror when I got home and was surprised at what I saw.  There was NO mascara under my eyes.  I wore it again, and again.  I had to wash my face or go swimming to get this mascara to budge.  There was next to no flaking, even after hot sweaty yard work.  I was so impressed that I googled it to find out what this stuff I was and found out it's supposed to be good for you!  Works great, good for you, I'm sold.

Lest you think I'm turning into a commercial I want to tell you about the latest beauty concoction I came up with in my own kitchen from stuff I already had.  I'd been noticing my nose was turning red from all of those pore strips that I use, and other parts of my face were dry and flaky.  I was trying to come up with a mask of some sort that would help to calm the redness and even things out, and if it did a bit of exfoliating all the better.  So I made a fantastic mask that works wonders for my skin.
Here's what to do (all measurements are approximate):

• Put one quarter cup of oatmeal in a coffee grinder (pulls oil out of your skin and exfoliates)
• Add one tablespoon of dried rosemary (has astringent properties)
• Grind until fine
• Combine in a small pot on the stove with one one half cup of water and cook on medium low until the oatmeal is cooked.  (I just followed the directions on the oatmeal packet here)
• Add one tablespoon of oil (I've done this once with grape seed oil and another time with vitamin E oil.  Just pick something you like that's a good moisturizer for your skin.)
• And One Tablespoon of honey (for calming)
• Stir, mixing thoroughly, and slowly add up to a quarter cup of water.  Stop when you have an even, sticky but spreadable consistency
• Test it to see if it's to hot for your skin (I did this like checking the temperature of baby milk on the inside of the wrist.) It may need to cool before applying it to your face.
• Apply an thin, even layer over face, neck, whatever areas are your problems (I did my elbows too) and let dry.

I'm sure every skin is different, but this worked fantastically for me.  The oatmeal exfoliated, honey calmed, and the oil moisturized so my skin was softer than it's been since elementary school.  I kept leftovers in the fridge for later use, but be careful about keeping it to long.  I went on vacation and came back to find it sprouting a good batch of mold, so you'll probably want to use it pretty quickly.