But the fiance was kind enough to go out and get me the new Wii Fit so I guess I’ll forgive him for bugging me about blogging.  He came home with it last night and surprised me with it.  I was really excited about it and set it up right away.  When you start using the board for the first time, it creates a profile of your fitness to go with your Mii.  It asks questions about your age and height, calculates your BMI (it weighs you so you can’t lie) and then has you do a balance test.  After all of that, it comes up with your “Fitness Age”.  That’s about when I went from being excited to nearly in tears.  The Wii Fit board told me I was 56 years old in fitness age.  I just turned 41 so that was pretty disheartening to see.  My Mii on the screen was pretty upset too.

I realize I am out of shape and overweight but seeing the HUGE number 56 on the screen really hurt.  I used to play tennis 2-3 times a week, ride my bike for miles, go for a hike and fit into my size 8 pants.  Then as my hypothyroidism got worse I couldn’t do those activities without getting wiped out for a day or getting some injury.  Now that I’m taking the right medication and supplements, I feel better, but part of me is still afraid to try to push myself to do exercise for fear that I will end up on the couch or in bed recovering.

I am very motivated though to lose the weight I’ve gained over the last two years.  I would like to look good in my wedding pictures and not look back at them and cringe.  In spite of the grim evaluation the Wii Fit gave me, I did a few of the activities that are on the disc.  The yoga poses were pretty basic compared to what I usually do. I did some running in place holding the Wii remote – that was fun – the scenery is nice and you see all the other Mii’s in your game running along with your or standing on the side of the path so it looks like you’re are actually running – they should put that on treadmills.  The most fun was the hula toss.  You start out with a single hula hoop that you have to keep spinning around your hips.  Then two of your Mii friends stand on either side and toss additional hoops for you to catch and start spinning.  It’s so much fun you don’t realize you are working up a sweat.  

I’m not sure that I’ll be any more diligent about my blogging going forward.  I do have all those things on my plate right now and I’ve now added changing the We Not-So-Fit to We Fit!

I have a great friend who is smart, beautiful, funny and independent.  She’s never been married, no kids, no bad habits except for buying lots of shoes, but that is forgivable.   She’s trying online dating again with some level of frustration.  I have lots and lots of advice for men that are doing online dating but I’ll save that for another post.  In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about online dating and how it really is a lot like fishing.

My grandfather liked to hunt and fish and garden – a real outdoorsy kind of guy.  He had four daughters before he had a son who could go hunting with him.  Then he had seven granddaughters before his first grandson (we must have very dominant X chromosones in our family).  I think he got tired of waiting for a grandson and figured he’d make do with the pack of granddaughters he was given.  His doctor had a small pond on a piece of land.  He let my grandfather go fishing there anytime he wanted.  Every so often a bunch of us would be staying at their house while our parents were “out on the town”. 

He and my grandmother would pile all of us (sometimes all 7) into his sedan (a 1970′s Old Cutlass or some other gigantic car that was at least 20′ long) and we’d head out to the pond.  We’d have the windows rolled down and be bouncing around the back seat and he’d be in the front seat, cigarette in his left hand that was hanging out the window, his other hand on the wheel, completely oblivious to the chaos surrounding him. Once we’d get to the pond, he’d pull down a branch from a poplar tree, whittle it down, put a line, bobber and hook with a worm onto the end and send us out on the pier to fish.  My grandmother was on hand with a roll of toilet paper for us to use in the weeds should nature call.  We’d sit on that pier waiting for our red and white plastic bobber to jiggle and tell us we had a bite.  Every so often we’d catch a blue gill or some other little fish.  They’d get thrown back in, but I think we managed to convince him to take two home in a bucket one night.  Unfortunately, the poor fellows didn’t make it past morning.  The fishing was fun, but being out with my cousins and grandparents on a warm summer evening  doing something different was more fun than actually catching the fish.

How are online dating and fishing alike you ask?  Unless you are dependent on catching a fish for your next meal, there really shouldn’t be any pressure to catch one.  You should be there just to enjoy the process.  So, you throw your line in, hope for a bite and if you get one check to see if it’s a keeper.   Same goes for dating, you put your profile out there (your bait) wait for a bite (wink, correspondence) and then see if they are a keeper.  Most of the time you’ll get a nibble but they won’t bite on to the hook. 

In between the nibbles you may have a lot of time on your hands, the fish might be busy in another area of the pond or they haven’t realized that you have your bait out.  Don’t panic!  There are plenty of fish,  and some fish might be in the process of being thrown back into the pond by another fisher and they will be available again.    While you’re waiting, look around and enjoy the scenery, the weather, the other fishers. 

When you do get one to bite, you have to reel them in slowly so you don’t scare them.  This is a process, they might manage to get themselves off the hook in the process because they weren’t firmly on the hook to begin with.  That’s ok – you only want to bother with the ones firmly on the hook.

Once you’ve landed them, then you need to take some time to decide if they are worth keeping.   It’s exciting that you’ve caught your first fish but make sure it is the fish you want.  You don’t want to end up with a dead fish in a bucket the next morning.  

I managed to catch my fish and keep him.  It took a lot of fishing but it was well worth the wait.

What bothers me is that I don’t think that people in these positions consider the impact that their actions or lack of have on patients.  I’m not calling to find out about a haircut appointment.  I’m calling about MY HEALTH.  This is such a fundamental element to my overall quality of life and each day that goes by is one more day that my quality is lessened.  I feel like I’ve waited so long to feel better and I am at the end of my rope.

In the meantime, I had moved to a new office space last August.  The desk configuration and chairs were different than my previous office.  I tried to adjust my chair to all different heights but I continued to have shoulder issues from being hunched up to reach my keyboard.  I have such pain and headaches from sitting like this.  I submitted a request to my corporate workplace to have a keyboard tray that sits below the  deck and pulls out and adjusts.  I got a response that I need to approve the P.O. for it.  I approved it and sent it back.  4 weeks later, I still hadn’t heard anything so I emailed them back.  They said they misplaced the P.O. but now they had found it and would process it.  Another 3 weeks went by and I still hadn’t heard anything.  I emailed them AGAIN.  I finally got an email back and was told that the keyboard was going to be received in the warehouse on that Thursday and that on Friday or Monday I would hear from the coordinator to schedule the installation.  Two weeks went by and I hadn’t heard from anyone.  I sent an email asking for a status.  NO ANSWER this time.  Today I was in no mood for this crap anymore so I sent an email again.  I told them that I wanted a status on the installation of this keyboard tray and that it was impacting my health.  If they didn’t want to make this a priority after 2 and a half months that I would inform OSHA.  I guess OSHA is the secret password because I promptly got a voicemail from someone named Nicole  wanting to let me know that the keyboard was just delivered last week and that someone would be calling me to coordinate the installation.  I will be calling Nicole tomorrow to let her know what I think about the whole process and the fact that I had to get to the point of going to OSHA to get anything to happen.  Maybe in her mind a keyboard tray isn’t a big deal.  When I have to sit at the desk for up to 9 hours a day 5 days a week, it is a big deal to me. 

I was just given a raise at work.  I was surprised to get one since I’d just gotten one last July and typically we don’t get them in less than 12 months especially considering the economy right now.  My manager told me that I was doing a great job and deserved it.  I was shocked because I don’t think I’ve even done 75% of what I could possibly doing.  It is occuring to me now that my 75% is probably 100% better than what the average worker gives. 

That is my rant for today.  It might be a bit rambling, but I just needed to say it.

But anyway, back to the heart of this blog post… I saw this article on Huffington Post how more women have recently recognized that intellect is far more attractive than muscles.  These geeks are getting their own groupies too.   These guys have a deep intellectual curiousity and have accomplished some really extrordinary things using their brains.  I have my very own geek and he is incredibly smart and not the least bit boring.  Not only is he a very accomplished physicist, he also skydives, figure skates, writes and plays the guitar (both accoustic and electric).  Long after any muscles or brawn have disappeared with age, he’ll still have all of these things.

He’s smart and interesting but on top of that he’s great fun to hang out with.   I’m always baffled by the women who marry men that spend every weekend playing golf with their buddies and glued to the TV watching the <insert sport here> game.  These women don’t seem to mind this – they are out with their girlfriends shopping, getting their nails done, etc.  but barely spend significant alone time with their husbands.   I’m not saying you should give up all of your friends and spend every waking second with each other either.  My boyfriend and I LIKE to spend time with each other.  He still goes skydiving (weather permitting) on Saturdays and I run around and do those girly things while he’s there.  But for the rest of the weekend, we spend the all of our time together.  We go for bike rides or go shopping or recently I’ve started skating so we go to the rink for an hour or so.  I’ve gone on two week-long vacations with him and we haven’t ended the trip fighting and anxious to get away from each other like I hear so many other people complain.  If anything, I go through withdrawal when I have to spend time without him.

Valentine’s Day is tomorrow.  I realize this post is rather prescient now given that fact.  I hope he realizes how much I love and appreciate him and that he is the person I’d most like to spend my free time with.  Love you Sweetie!

Being a former interior designer, I like watching HGTV.  They show a lot of programs about fixing up your house to sell.  These are probably pretty popular given the housing market. I am constantly floored at the houses that are featured.  What amazes me is the state of disrepair and general dirtiness that other people live in.  For example, the most recent show I watched featured a family in a $600,000 house.  It had been on the market for 6 months and not had any offers.  The owners were just mystified that they hadn’t been able to sell it. When the cameras toured the house, it was obvious to me why it hadn’t.  The front yard had foot-high grass, a tree that had fallen down and bushes that were cut down and left sitting there.  Inside there was crayon on the walls from their children (brats) and the living room carpet was filthy.  They tried to hide the carpet under an area rug – gross.  And, the front window had a broken pain of glass.  These people were not struggling for cash as evidenced by the incredibly HUGE flat panel TV in the living room.  I think maybe they spent a little too much time sitting on their asses in front of it instead of watching their kids and cleaning up the house and mowing the yard.   The Realtor suggested they lower the asking price and they were incredulous.  What did they think? That people want to move into a place that needs lots of work?  Would they? I’m guessing “no” since they didn’t want to fix up the place they currently live in.  Sheesh!  People are dumb.

So, I gave up trying to exercise.  And part of my illness causes hypoglycemia when I am stressed – either physically or emotionally.  When I get that I just want to eat carbs.  It becomes a vicious cycle because then my blood sugar would shoot up and then drop down too low again and I’d have to eat carbs.  Since my insulin levels were all over the place, anything I ate would be immediately converted to fat stores.  Lovely. There would be some weeks if I was really stressed I would gain 3-5 pounds.  And once it was there, it wasn’t coming off. 

This summer, I stopped eating sugar and drinking wine for about 6 weeks.  I lost 4 pounds in the first two weeks and then stopped losing.  I started taking some new medication and after a month, I started having the hypoglycemia again and put the 4 pounds back on in a week. *Sigh*  Since then, I haven’t been able to have the willpower I had this summer to stop eating the carbs and the weight is creeping up.

As far as exercise, I started walking during lunch.  The first few times I walked, I felt like I was dragging my feet through quicksand.  I added some magnesium to my daily doses and cut back on the medication I was taking (increasing it seemed to make my symptoms worse) and was able to pick up the pace a bit.  But my legs are still incredible twitchy after just walking for 30 minutes.  I also have bursitis in my hip and that limits my activity until I get it under control.

I’m struggling with what I should do now.  I’ve changed my medication recently and am getting some more tests done in a couple of weeks, but I can’t afford either financially or emotionally to gain anymore weight.  I find myself avoiding anything that might tax me at all physically or mentally.  I consciously limit how much I do around my house – cleaning, straightening up, etc. so that I don’t get to the point of being tired.  I think about doing yoga or something more strenuous, but then I decide not to in case it exhausts me or causes some other type of “injury” like bursitis.  I brought home two bags of groceries last night and had to talk myself down from having a panic attack about putting them away because I was worried that I wouldn’t have room in my freezer for some things and that I would have to clean it out and I just didn’t have the energy to accomplish that.

It is really frustrating to be fighting with what I think I need to do and what I am brave enough to do.  I also struggle with a “why bother’ attitude since nothing I do is going to work anyway.  I know how some people gain so much weight now.  It really is a battle that you just eventually give up on.

I used to have more than enough energy.  I would work two jobs because I was bored or to make extra money.  For three years I went to graduate school part-time, worked full-time and bought and remodeled a condo.  I would go out with my girlfriends on a Friday night and then get up Saturday to play touch football. I was probably starting to fall apart back then, but didn’t realize it.  Sometimes I would come home from work on a Friday and fall asleep on the couch during the six o’clock news and not get up until 10 the next morning.

Once I moved to Charlotte and took on a new, very stressful job, I started to go downhill.  Things got really bad about two years ago.  I would go out on Saturday to do my errands and have to come home after two hours because I felt like I was going to collapse.  I would spend the rest of the day laying down and unable to do anything else.  I’d be achy and tired and physically exhausted.  Sometimes I would have to leave work because I was so tired.  Not that I was being very productive there.  Between the headaches I would be staring at the computer screen and not able to concentrate long enough to get anything done. 

It is really frustrating to go from being active to feeling like you are moving in slow motion.  I have gotten some relief from my symptoms over the last year – I’m not quite as exhausted as I was, but I have to be very careful not to push myself or I have a relapse.  Something as simple as not getting 8-10 hours of sleep will make leave me non-functioning the next day.  I also have to take my time getting up and leaving the house in the morning.  One morning my boss was in town and wanted to meet with me at 7:30 am.  I live 5 minutes from the office, so it wasn’t going to be a huge issue, but the stress of having to get out of bed and cut my usual 2 hour prep time to 1 left me exhausted.  Stress will also make me exhausted so I keep my levels to a minimum.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this post.  Maybe I just wanted to vent a little about how frustrating it is.  I find myself not sure of how far to push myself for fear of becoming exhausted.   And I get really irritated when I start a project and then don’t have the mental energy to finish it.  I started putting up my Christmas decorations last weekend and after about 3 hours had to stop because I was just moving stuff around and not making any progress.

I am also supposed to be eating a low-carb, no-sugar diet.  I did that back in August and lost 5 pounds (mostly water).  I was doing really well with that until my Dr. added a new medication and it increased my sugar cravings.  I haven’t been able to get them under control since then.  My no-sugar diet was also making depressed because I had to limit what I was eating and drinking when I went out and that was limiting my options when I would meet up with friends.  So I started not meeting them and just staying home.

Maybe there is some hope; I started taking new thyroid medication last week and I’m going to be tested for my adrenal glands soon to see if I need to supplement those.    The mental fog and depression makes it really difficult to make decisions about your treatment options.  I was in a state a couple of weekends ago.  My boyfriend, Dr. Skullstars took the time to do some research for me and help me figure out what direction I should go with my treatment.  He really is a great boyfriend – I rely on him a lot and I hope he knows how much I appreciate him.

Good ol’ Pat tells her that stretching is fine, but that some of the chants are prayers to *gasp* Hindu gods.  And that the yoga mantra of believing that god is all around us and that we can connect with him borders on pantheism.  What is so awful about connecting with god?

So Pat warns us not to participate in any of that mumbo jumbo yoga stuff cause we’ll end up in hell.  But keep sending him money to support his Christian beliefs that include killing President Chavez, supporting the endless mess in Iraq, hating gays and keeping women subservient to men.  Hallelujah! 

Update:  After I wrote this yesterday, I remembered seeing something about churches not allowing yoga classes to be taught on their property.  These churches decided that the Yum Yum Yoga class for kids was just too antichrist for them.   The Hindu Council UK (HCUK) then took offense to some of the comments by the churches that yoga is a “sham” and a “false philosophy” and that the churches’ ban may be contrary to the Equality Act of 2006.  Good for them. 

I do yoga and I have studied Buddhist and Hindu beliefs.  They are in no way “evil”.  If anything, they have offered me a new perspective on my life and how I treat people.  I am much more accepting and compassionate than I ever was as a “christian”.  If that is what they consider evil then I’ll take it.

When I was about 5, I went on my first plane ride to Florida.  My mom went out and bought my sister and I new outfits to wear for the plane.  I believe I had pink gauzy pants with a matching t-shirt.  We had nice big chairs and they served us a real breakfast – eggs, toast, fruit salad on a real plate - and this was coach!  The airlines have now reduced flying to the equivalant of riding in a train car with a bunch of hobos. The seats are too small and they are too close together (I’m a small person, so I can’t even imagine how awful it is for average to larger size people).  Food, if it is served, is usually in a cardboard box.  And forget about getting dressed up.  People show up in sweatpants and t-shirts and I’ve seen teen-age girls in their pajamas.  Blech – even if we aren’t flying first class, let’s have a little civility, folks.

In addition to the things on her list, I’d also like to add a few of my own.  Let’s bring back:

1.  Waiting until after Thanksgiving to start playing Christmas carols on the radio – really, what purpose does it serve to play them earlier other than to fuel holiday road rage?  I’m Dreaming of  a White Christmas by Bing Crosby is soulful and sweet until you hear him whistling the refrain for the billionth time at which point you want to either smash your radio or ram the car in front of you for sitting at the green light a second too long.

2.  Nylons for women – it seems that women under the age of 40 have decided that wearing nylons is too restrictive and that they prefer bare legs.  Even if you have a nice tan, it just doesn’t look polished.  If you buy the right size and style, they aren’t uncomfortable.  Or you can glam things up with a garter belt and thigh highs and make your man happy.

Those are two right off the top of my head.  Care to add anything?

I enjoyed going for the most part until I was in my mid-twenties.  I think I had always questioned some of the teachings of the Bible and was starting to realize that things aren’t always so black and white.  I also began to grow tired of the sermons that went on and on about how we were sinners and terrible people.  One sermon was about divorce and how getting divorce was a sin and that you’d better not get a divorce.  Well that is pretty helpful information there, isn’t it?  Along with feeling lonely and confused when you are in a bad relationship you get to add guilt to your self-loathing.   I wondered why the minister didn’t talk about how to value yourself and learn how to choose the right person to marry and how to work through difficult times together. 

Then I began dating a man who is Muslim.  Not a practicing Muslim, but still not a Christian.  As I sat in church one Sunday listening to the minister go on about how only the people who believe in Christianity are going to heaven and everyone is is going to hell, it dawned on me that I didn’t really believe that was true.  I knew my boyfriend was a good and kind person and didn’t deserve to “burn in hell” just because he was Muslim. 

There are far more grievous things that Christians do in the name of their religion that I haven’t mentioned, but they are in complete opposition to the teachings of love and compassion from Jesus.  I really don’t want to be associated with a group that continues to support discrimination, hatred and disdain of fellow human beings.

Case in point – recently the North Carolina Baptist State Convention voted to expel a Charlotte church because they *gasp* WELCOME gays and lesbians without trying to change them.   The NCBSC believes that these gays and lesbians are sinners and need to repent and change their lifestyle to “see the kingdom of heaven”.   Give me a f-ing break.  First of all, I do not believe that gays and lesbians are sinners.  These people did not choose to be gay and cannot change their preference anymore than you or I could change our skin color.   They are not any less deserving of having a loving relationship with another human being - male or female.  How they consummate their relationship isn’t anyone’s damn business.  There are plenty of heterosexuals out there doing far more deviant things that I’m sure would make a lot of the church folks’ hair stand on ends if they heard about it.

The church in Charlotte has received a lot of support from the community.  Six other Baptist churches have left the Convention as well as a show of solidarity with Myers Park Baptist.  Hopefully they won’t continue to be in the minority.