Umm, Sometime Earlier this Week
Good morning. This is me again. We’re here, you are here, and we are all here. Ok, moving on ;)It’s about 4:45 am and we’ve been up for about 30-45 minutes. We’re set up to be writing, but there’s a Larry King repeat on about Oprah’s weight loss problems.
They have clips of her being interviewed or dressed slim or big, and then they have her physical trainer or spiritual therapist people talking to Larry about the problems Oprah is facing – in general – about being able to do what she’s doing. I don’t want to pay attention, but its hard … I think people that are overweight are always looking for clues rather than exercise and eat less. I think in general we beat ourselves up and then we look around and ask what happened.
They are talking about weight being a way of life. I don’t think this is new for anyone with weight issues; it’s just that there’s other thing’s weighing down on us that make it hard to quit the bad habits. I remember being conscious of weight much earlier – while playing soccer out with the guys on our block and them calling me the woman tank. I remember then in 7th grade being in a large health class. I was reviewing knowledge on well-health. I’m pretty sure that was happening all along, so I’ve known all along about well health, just I feel that for whatever demons my body and mind grapple with, that I quit over and over again. To be fair … most often I’d like to think of myself as getting up and dusting myself off, but then there is again a certain lack of faith in myself or my sense of self-worth.
Sometimes this happens when I’m doing my best.
Hmm, ok, this is now a bit later. It’s 7:15 am. We had been up, but then we got into the James Brown tribute on CNN so we lay down on the couch … and I’m pretty sure we fell asleep right away. *Sigh*
We just finished up some mashed potatoes, gravy and corn from dinner last night.
This seems a pretty terrible thing. We’d gone from being encouraged by weight talk to disregarding it all together. This is the sense of hopelessness we live with.
But, I’m not going to get into something heavy now. I think we just don’t think of the hard stuff when we’re making choices to indulge. Then later we feel guilt, but thinking that we’re always making excuses to include being able to indulge. Shoot, I don’t want to get into anything heavy now. Let’s just move on, ok?
Ok, where are we going to go now? Is there anything about yesterday? Wow! That’s way off the scope of thoughts. I don’t know where we left off. Ok, let’s take a deep breath. What is it that we remember about yesterday?
Hmm, some more time has gone by … its 9:45 am now. Rich and we watched the CBS morning show together. I don’t like to give up my writing time, but the stories are alluring. They have sometimes some silly things, but in general they are fun to watch. I feel the stories are long enough to learn something interesting. After the show fluffy bunny made some eggs and they were found to be very good. He’s going to be taking his shower soon and going out. He’ll be at his mother’s. He said that we should think of something to do this afternoon, but I can’t imagine what we would do. I’m going to try getting out to the gym after a bit here while he’s gone, AND THEN!!! We’re going to talk to Pat. We connected in the emails enough to exchange phone numbers and the thought we’ll meet-up with her by those later during the evening sometime. I’m very excited by that!
So, beside that – let’s thing for a moment what we are going to be doing with Rich? Yesterday we complained about watching TV with him for 6 hours, but then that’s about what happened. Well other stuff too like talking, but for the most part we were just in watching TV. We watched a few West Wings and there might have been some fishy shows. I don’t remember now.
I do remember there were some long conversations. I remember the part where we were massaging his back and just talking about stuff. Kind of a settling of hurt or estranged feelings and thoughts. I think Rich talked more about our plans as a couple being able to go out think next several seasons to fishy places. And, that would be like our deal together. I’d forgotten about all that during our conversations yesterday – how I was going to look forward to all of that. Part of it might have been giving up that first trip and maybe the second, and then hearing that he’d want to take out his kids and brother and Bud and other guys from the fishing group. I might go out with him, but it would be in between all these other times he’d be out with others. But, in this case I was just feeling sad and lonely because I knew there would be a lot of time he’ll be out without me and I have to be fine with that.
At some point, Rich told me something very important … I think I was commenting on lack of friends and he talked then about me being his only new friend other than the few childhood friends of Bob, Doug, and Jack. I thought about all those guys he fishes with and golf’s with and plays cards with, but he said they were more like acquaintances. He said some other nice things about our relationship like the way I’m nice to him and then we really felt bad because we were explaining that we were negative sometimes like the day before and I was afraid that I hurt him. I know in comparison to some of the others I’m not hurtful, but because we are so close it would seem that I being hurtful would be worse than if the others were. I’m pretty protective in general about not wanting bad things to happen to Rich.
I know that some of our negative thoughts like yesterday were just bad thoughts.
Rich doesn’t want bad things for me either and he does an awful lot physically to make this relationship – especially household work. I don’t understand the thoughts of wanting to be married or at least able to be a recognized partner or in owning a home. I know he does and says things to make it so we don’t have to worry about the future, like in accepting less. But, that got tied up to our view of being successful people, which has always for me included living slightly in a life of luxury. But, those are my ideals not Rich’s. He has said he likes the house … and if he wins the lotto then it’s the first thing he’ll buy me. But, that sounds pretty impractical to me.
And, then we get back into the thoughts that I should be doing something about my own future that I want. This is where we slip back into thoughts of the books. I wonder if other authors are like this with so much concern that their occupation covers the financial needs. It shouldn’t seem so strange, but somehow cheapens the thing. But, then I think somewhere there has to be some practicality.
I think I could see more last night too that Rich doesn’t do fishing to run away from me, though it is good in our relationship if there are some situations where we stand apart doing our own things. If he were to infringe more on my writing; I would feel very bad. I think this notion of us being at home in the quieter life has been bubbling along for quite a while. It seems sometimes though like we are closer to the wall and we are butting our head up against it. It seems there is something we should be fixing, but we don’t know the material we are working with.
I do know that when we are prejudging Rich as having negative effects on us, that usually it is us feeling sorry for ourselves. I remember reading something in social psychology where they stressed how men or boys pool together between them in competitive situations and this is generally how they “run.” I think women get together with other women too, but it’s more on a “let’s be cooperative” point of view. I think too we like to organize our lives and thoughts. Guys are more like of course I have thoughts, but then I get on with it! *Sigh*
I feel really bad though of not realizing when we were in the state we were that Rich and we WEREN’T doing stuff together. I think I’d been of late considering the fishing as his thing and not ours, so it really wasn’t our dream being shared together. We’ve just gone over his time with the fishing so won’t do it again, but there still is the part where I’m listening to what he wants and not what we want.
But, then like today when he asks us what we would like to do, we shoot him blanks.
I’ve been thinking of that for a bit. There is something I would like to do, but am not sure how that would be arranged. Basically, I would like to be outside and have some opportunities to be taking pictures again. We could make sure the batteries were charged up. I worry because I want to be taking pictures of something more natural, but I worry about the standing, walking and not having a place to sit down. Where could we go outside where I could be doing all that?
My first thought was that we go to a part, or walk along a lake, but then how do we arrange the sitting. I’m happy that we are at a point we can walk a half hour, but then that accounts for all the time, like when we slow down to take pictures. Maybe we’ll talk to him for a moment about it. He’s almost out of the shower now. I know though that it’s not a bad idea connecting me to being outdoors and being with the camera. Those are all thoughts that go along with my roles in the fishing world; he would like to take me. You know our ideas on trying to progress things.
Hmm, I’m thinking that if we could go outside somewhere that we would probably not go to the gym today. There are thoughts that we should try out the swimming again.
We would have to work our way through that though. I’m not up to that this morning. It’s about 10:15 am. Where can people walk outdoors where there would be chairs? Hmm, I wonder if we could go down to Lake Michigan. Maybe there would be benches down there? I’m thinking of along the beach front like off of Foster Beach where we used to live. That’s usually the images that come to our mind when we think of walking down there. It would give us a chance to get on Lake Shore Drive and see the city. I know Rich is downtown much more often so it’s not the romantic thing that it is to me, but maybe we’re at least somewhere toward the right path? I don’t think he’d be getting home from his mother’s until 2-3 pm – if at that. Would there be enough time? Would it get too cold?
Maybe we should go check that out.
Hmm, we’re back … it’s now 10:30 or so. Rich is gone and we have cold feet. We’d kissed him good-bye, but then before he pulled out – lucky he had to brush off snow – we discovered that he left his phone. We couldn’t get his attention through the back window because he was already in the car so we ran downstairs. He’d pulled out so had backed up toward the building, but he didn’t see me waving, so we moved out to where the car was and banged on the trunk as he pulled away. Fortunately, he saw us then, but we’d gone out in our bare feet and the snow was cold.
I think he called us silly or something, but he did mean thank you, so I felt good about that. We’ll have to consider socks, but they are already thawing out. I know that it would be a bad deal for Rich not to have a phone. Especially, because his kids call so much, or if something had happened to his mother. This was a good Ann.
While he was getting dressed we talked about our outing. He said we could do that, but he was worrying about the cold. He said we might want to go toward the zoo because there would be places to warm us. He also suggested we could go toward the Bass Shop. That seemed like an ok plan too. Just have to get back into the swing of HAVING a camera again and figuring out what kind of pictures to take.
Shoot. We’ve been roaming around the house and we can’t find the cord to plug in the charger. That’s a bad deal. We might need to order a replacement cord.
Shoot. That’s a bad deal. You gotta know it’s probably around here somewhere.
Just don’t know where. Hmm, we called Rich and he didn’t know either. He was trying to calm us down … he said we could get batteries to work the batter today in disposable batteries and then order something. Just makes me feel so cranky not to have it pulled together.
I can’t order anything … we just checked our account. We’ve got $20.52
Well, maybe that isn’t as big as it could be, but if you were on-line, you could click it and see all the money that went out. I must have paid about 21 bills the other day. I’m now behind on the car insurance, but I think I got all the others.
I would have tried to do that one too … just I lost it in the midst of paperwork. I guess I started from $2767 and I depleted the whole thing in just 2 days. YEEKS!
Umm, let’s close that screen now, please … it’s giving us a headache AND if nothing else definitely tells us we can’t order a new camera cord. In about a half tank of gas I’m going to need asking Rich for a little something, but we’re going to need waiting out the insurance bill until mid-week. I am hoping they’ll be patient this long. We’re trying to get all the bills back on automatic, but then that has it’s own scariness too. Maybe though we can pay up a few small bills soon. We’d like to take care of the Capella bill, the Dell bill, the dental surgeon bill, the Kohl’s bill, the Athletico bill and maybe one or two of the debt bills. That would save me about … well at least a couple hundred dollars of monthly payments. As soon as we get the paperwork for our tax forms and the school loans, then we’re going to get the taxes done. Hopefully that will come in during the next week or two.
Then we’ve got just a few things we want to cover. We’re going to want to pay off the stray amounts of some of these debts we just mentioned and we’re going to want to take a trip south to see Thom. I’m not sure if we could go down for his graduation in Florida, or if we should wait until he gets settled in New Orleans.
I’m hoping for a couple thousand dollars back from taxes. This is the only way I can do everything. But, this is what I want to happen with this money. I should probably think if there aren’t any other material needs that need to be met, but I’m thinking not. I’ve got the iPod and that’s the really big deal.
I should probably think of what I could do to help Joe or Maury too, but they will be getting their own income tax return. The only other thing I could do would be to give Alexis the money to go down or at least try to manage so that we could go down together. That would be ideal. I don’t know what time she could be taking off.
But, maybe this is something to consider.
Let’s see … $700 for hotel, $600 for 2 roundtrips, $300 rental for car, and then figure $400-500 for food? We’d be paying for Alexis and Thom. This would be for a 5 night trip. It just seemed if you were going down you should go down and plan a real vacation, but then there’d be the cost of things down there for activities. I think that most the time Alexis and Thom might wish I weren’t there so they could spend some time together. Maybe we could get rid of some of the cost in that if we were in New Orleans then Thom would have his car. It’s a Mustang though so I don’t know if there’s room for 3.
A really noble idea is if I gave Alexis money to go down. I figure then if we waited long enough Thom might have some kind of apartment, but then I’d want to give that to the Newlyweds. I can see some real problems here in that I would really feel like a third wheel.
Maybe if I thought less nobly I could figure on Rich coming down with us instead.
Maybe then I could pay like $13-1400 for two plane tickets and the rooms and then he could pay for car and food. Maybe we could shoot for an even amount of $1500. Rich might say though we can’t stay down there that long. He could say too that we drive down and save the plane money … then he could bring his boat and that would give us something nice to be doing and maybe he could take Thom out. Gas would be about $100-150. What did we figure it out to be the other day … and then we wouldn’t need to rent a car though we’d be paying for more gas. Ok, that’s right it was like 14 ½ hours.
Maybe you would leave early the first morning and travel from like 4-5 pm, and then wake up early the second day and be like only 4-5 more hours, so you would get into New Orleans in 4-5 hours, certainly by lunch time, and then you’d stay 3 nights wake up early that next morning … travel about 10 hours, and then finish the trip the last day. I wouldn’t want Rich to drive through it on his own and I don’t think he’s going to want me to drive his boat.
But, that would definitely be the way to go. I think I’ll have to impress the trip on Rich as … 6-7 days and I cover gas and hotel … so maybe I could give Rich $1200 and keep about $800 for bills. I’m thinking that the returns are going to be about $2000 … at least that’s been about the amount for the last several years. Maybe by then we’ll be used to the cheaper hotels so will save some money there. I’m thinking Rich is going to need gas money for the two trips plus boat … so $1200 sounds about right maybe a little extra that can go into eating. I know that I’m going to want to have dinner and walk around the French Quarter and we’d have to stay away from being down there during Mardi gras. I think that’s mid-to-late February.
We might do a little more touristy stuff like Rich really liked to hang around the waterfront for our eating places. But, besides finding time to be with Thom, we could plan on being out on the boat. Ok, that seems to be a good idea. So, then maybe sometime in the spring we could talk rich into a fishing trip down to New Orleans, he’d have a chance to do his boat some, I would still have vacation time, I’d get to see Thom’s place, get to see New Orleans, I’d be responsible for the majority of debt, I’d have a good time and still hopefully have money left for bills. We go through IL, TN, AR, and LA. I think that’s about it. OK, just now have to pray on getting $2000 so I can do both things. That be a good deal.
Course then there’s that idea of saving some money? Yeeks!
Ok, that’s enough of that …
Hmm, stopped to have lunch. I’ll give it about a half hour and then I figure I better get in and take a shower. Now that I got in mind that I’m getting money again and then being able to spend it on something very cool, then I’m all real happy.
posted by Ann Marie @ 1/14/2009 05:47:00 AM
Comments: 1
