Tag: #i’m a bitter old hag

Trying something different…

My normal resolution for the new year is usually something like “lose a lot of weight” or “exercise more” or “eat nothing but raw vegetables” and I mean. Sure. Yeah. Noble goals – that tend to go nowhere. Whether due to sucky life circumstances, depression, stress, being overwhelmed with the typical mental load most women my age have to deal with, that stuff never works, and I’m just left feeling like a big stupid failure.

This year, for the first time in my life, I’m going to try the exact opposite of that: I’m going to work towards feeling happy and healthy,  instead of trying to meet any concrete weight, exercise, or food goals.

I’ve already been eating more cleanly (less processed foods, more water, more produce, but no reduction in dairy, because that is a food group that majorly sparks joy) but going forward into this new year, I’m actively not going to think about my weight. I’m going to do things that make me feel good physically and mentally:

  • No more going to bed before 8pm
  • Eat lots of fruit (vegetables are great, but fruit. Omg. Apples. Mandarins. Bananas. Strawberries. Pineapple. fssssss….)
  • Walk with Ruby (hard right now, because we are entering the season of snow, ice, and (sometimes) frozen mud, but there is an effort on my part to at least chase her around the house for twenty minutes a day like a lunatic)
  • Eat a few salads a week
  • Read more books (my anti-depressants give me sanity, and I can once again sit down and focus on a book for a good hour)
  • Make time to quilt more (oh, the plans I have)
  • Continue going to therapy (I still have things to work through, and I’m probably in a good enough mental headspace to handle it on my own at this point, but I’m going to keep going because it’s nice to have a neutral third party validate my feelings and/or cheer me on when times are tough)
  • Cook two or three meals in my cast iron skillet every week (I have no words to describe how satisfying this is)

This should be doable, right?

Quilt samplers are not for me…

So I made it to block 30 on the Fusion Sampler quilt (though I have about 60 blocks done – I jumped around a bit because of color/lack of space to keep that many fat quarters flat and neat) before some major depression hit and I was unable to do much of anything until about a week ago.

It was the kind of depression that makes everything feel pointless and hopeless. Every single task was next to impossible. My hobbies felt like joyless, thankless work.  I think the reason I was able to get out of bed was because of my dog – because how can anyone say no to that little face? Not sure any one thing triggered it. Not sure any one thing is making me feel better at the moment. Just actively trying to reconnect with the things that used to/should make me happy and not stress about things out of my control.

Which was not the Fusion Sampler quilt.

I want to stress that this pattern is magnificent and beautiful and so wonderfully put together. I regret nothing, except the fact that I’m apparently not in the right headspace to be able to do something that intricate. (I’m also currently lacking dedicated sewing space, and setting up a table, gathering my tools, etc. takes up about half of the time I set aside to sew every day, which is a bummer.) Someday I’m going to pick it back up again and finish it.

For now, I’m forcing myself to do simple things. Currently working on a small quilt for Ruby (I’m currently hand-stitching the binding) and the Rail Fence poppy jelly roll quilt I started about a year ago.  I got frustrated after only four blocks and sat it aside.  I was not experienced enough to know that a) you don trim jelly rolls like that and b) as long as simple blocks like this are the same size, it doesn’t really matter that the size isn’t perfect. (This particular quilt has been pinned, and will be machine quilted over this long weekend over many a strawberry margarita.)

Here’s to getting something done and possibly enjoying it along the way.

Bad things happen on holidays

My grandfather died on Valentine’s Day in 2016. (He’d been diagnosed with cancer a year before, so we knew it was coming. But still.)

My uncle died on Easter in 2017. (This changed the entire dynamic of our family, and we have not celebrated a holiday as a family since. Four years later and this still breaks my heart.)

My father’s eyeball almost exploded about a week before Christmas in 2018. (Blood vessels behind his eye fused together, and his eye was getting too much blood at too much pressure, and it probably wouldn’t have really exploded, but when I asked a doctor they refused to say that was an impossible outcome. He’s fine now. But if he would have waited and gone to a hospital on Christmas Eve, he’d be dead. Because at this point I’m convinced that’s how it works.)

And not that my birthday is a holiday (no worries, I know I’m not that special), but my grandma died on my birthday in 2005. (I felt guilty for celebrating my birthday for years. My mom said I was crazy, but that doesn’t change the fact that my birthday is still remembered as “the day grandma died” for that side of the family. I have no hard feelings about it and the guilt is gone, but I still hate celebrating my birthday. It feels weird when anyone–with the exception of like, five people–acknowledges it at all.)

All this to say:

Today, my aunt experienced some complications from a procedure she had ten days ago. These complications included heavy bleeding, and she was pale and shaky and clammy, but she still had a five hour wait in the ER where the nurses were rude and dismissive. She’s actually still there, and part of me is getting more and more nervous.

Because nothing good happens on holidays. EVER.

Edit:

Aunt is going to be okay, but my original statement stands.