Warning: Rambling Ahead

A few weeks ago, I explained a bit about my new normal...the chaos that is life in the midst of separation and divorce.  With that, I probably should have included a warning...that posts would be few and far between, and likely...not always pretty.  Please consider yourself warned tonight, friends.  This one isn't going to be pretty.

So much of what happens in a divorce is just plain complicated.  There is no other accurate way to describe it.  Nothing you say about it or think about it is pretty.  It's all a mess.  Basically, things outside of God's will look disastrous.  I don't believe God intended for my marriage to fall dramatically to pieces.  I don't believe that He designed marriage to look like mine looks.  I believe that sin messes things up for us.  That's just the simple truth of it.  Period.

But I'm going to say this to all of you amazing people who don't have to go through what I'm going through and I hope you never do: people who are in the middle of a messy divorce?  We know how messy it is.  We know you feel awkward about it.  We feel awkward about it too.  See, right now, not only am I working through explaining this whole disaster to my children and my family...but the people who know feel like they need to protect me or step carefully around it...and the people who don't know (and there are just so many of those still) have no idea what to say when they find out.  Trust me.  I get your discomfort.  Completely.  I don't need you to say anything about it.  It's even ok to say, "Mindy. I don't even know what to say."  I'm going to respond with something like, "Neither do I.  It's totally ok.  We can absolutely change the subject."  Seriously.  Do it.  I'm not trying to protect you.  I'm not trying to be strong.  I don't want to hash out the details 400 times a day any more than you actually want to know them (and trust me. You don't.  Frankly, I don't either.).  I absolutely appreciate your concern.  I know you know about the situation, and that you've had conversations with other friends, because you never thought this would happen to me.  I'm fine with your conversations.  I don't feel weird about it...because you know what?  I've had those conversations regarding my friends who have been through this too.  And I never thought this would happen to me either.  So far from what I expected from my life.  So. Very.  Far.

To clear things up, yes.  I'm a mess.  Yes, my children are struggling through this transition.  Some days are definitely better than others.  Some are much, much worse.  If you as me if I'm ok right now...I might put on a smiley face and tell you, yes, things are fine.  It might or might not be a lie.  Please don't press me about it though, OK?  If I tear up and my voice shakes, and I tell you I'm fine...let it go.  I will talk to you when I need to.  If I tell you I don't need anything, or I don't accept your offer to take my kids or come to your house or go out to dinner...I'm not trying to shove you out of my life or be ungrateful...I'm doing the best that I can...and right then, I need to do what I'm doing.  If I lock myself up in my room writing blog entries I never post or watching movies to shut out the world or making lists and working out budgets and writing long-term goals and short term plans...it is what I can do right at that moment.  I'll say it again: when I need you, I will seek you out.  I promise. Right now...I might not be able to do that.  I know I'm not an island.  But this moment...I have to figure out how to do this.

I fully trust that God is with me.  I know that he will make all things work together for good in every circumstance.  I know that things will come together.  Today...I'm tired.  Things are not ok.  And I'd love to just sleep.  For a long time.

I'm going to go run on the treadmill for as long as I can.  And tomorrow I'm going to get up and maybe do it again.  Then eat animal crackers dredged through buttercream.

Fitness

Back on my spaces blog...I went through the first round of P90X very publicly last March, April and May...well, with all of you who were my readers then (so the five of you who follow my blog probably started there and followed me here...hehe), and I charted progress or how I felt with the program.  It's been a while since I posted anything about that journey.  It became routine and habit...and that could make it look like I fell off the wagon, or got bored with it...that is so far from what actually happened (and if you're a facebook friend too...hehe...then you know otherwise).  I started blogging about my fitness journey over on my teambeachbody.com account...so as not to bore all of you with the process here, and slammed through a second round of P90X, a round of Insanity, and a month of TurboFire.  And this afternoon, as I wrote my entry there...I realized how big of a deal the last nine months have been to me...and why.  I decided to include this post here today as well.  Please understand my heart in this entry...it is not about me bragging about where I am.  It's not about me trying to sell product.  It is simply about...where I am on the journey.  I'm so happy with where I'm at, and that seems like a really big deal, considering where I've been in the past.  There have been times where my weight and my nutrition and my fitness...were literally all I could think about.  It consumed me in a way that was unhealthy and frustrating and made me miserable daily.  That is so different now.  In this process there has been discouragement and soreness and way too much thinking about food intake and exercise and how it fit into my life...but I've fallen into a rhythm with it.  It took probably the first six months to get there.  But like any habit...it takes time to develop and relax into.  It feels good, friends.  It's worth the effort.  This is why:

"Three weeks of Insanity/TurboFire Hybrid under my belt, and I'm 3 days into a recovery week.  About two weeks ago, I talked to my coach about being constantly tired, always hungry, cold all the time...and we discussed the possibility that I may have been overtraining.  I cut the doubles workouts last week (adding a short cardio (running, eliptical) to my resistance days), and added a 200 calorie snack to the day.  Energy back, able to make it through a day...but...the craziness of my schedule forced me to miss a couple of workouts...and now I'm feeling a bit like a lug. The interesting thing about this happening is that this year...it's different.  It happens every year...I get to a point where things are just so nuts...I let go of the routine for a few days, never to return to it.  

Enter Beachbody. 

Know what I love about what I'm doing with my workouts right now?  Hmm.  Everything.  

My body is not dramatically changing at the moment.  I'm not working to change it.  I'm kind of on a maintenance schedule where it comes to what I want my body to LOOK like.  What I'm finding, however, is that my endurance is through the roof compared to what it was.  My overall fitness level is so much different.  I am toned.  Fit.  Healthy.  I don't get winded running from my car to the front of a store, and I park far away on purpose.  It doesn't phase me to carry four loads of laundry in a tote from the basement to my bedroom without stopping.  No cottage cheese on the backs of my thighs or my bottom.  When I clap...my arms don't jiggle.  The thought of a bikini (other than my ghostly skin tone) does not terrify me whatsoever.  And the thing is...I'm not being anywhere near as careful about my nutrition as I was during my first couple of rounds...and I know that if I kicked back into gear in that arena...I would lose the last stubborn layer of skin/fat that remains around my abs.  It's Christmas, folks.  Within reason, I am eating what I want.  When the candies and cookies and cakes aren't around, I won't be eating them.  And right now...I plan them in.  I know they're not going to help me sculpt abs, but frankly...I'm choosing to be ok with that for the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  And for the first time in maybe my entire adult life...I have not gained one ounce between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm exactly the same weight I've been for about 2 months, give or take a few ounces depending on the day.  I haven't even really thought about it.  I knew...I am working hard enough that I don't have to.  And I'm loving every workout.  And there is never a question as to whether I'm going to do it....I am.  Or if this is just a phase...it's not.  Or if I'm going to fall off the wagon this week or next month...I won't.  I feel...like a million bucks.

With this Hybrid...there is one thing I have added...I'm working through a push-up challenge.  Six weeks till I can do 100 push-ups in a row...all at once.  A whole training regiment.  I'm at Week 3, Day 1 as of today (hundredpushups.com) and I'm maxing out at 39.  :)  This makes me happy. My chest and shoulders and back HURT...and my legs hurt from yesterday's Cardio Core and Balance...but it's so worth it.  And TurboFire's Core 20/Stretch 40 felt awesome this morning. I am enjoying my recovery week this week before Christmas...pretty excellent how that worked out. :)

I love this part of my life.  I love the way being healthy feels.  I love that...I never worry about this anymore.  For the first time in my life, I don't sit in too-tight pants feeling guilty about the meal on which i just gorged myself (because I didn't gorge.  And because my jeans actually fit all the time).  I don't lay in bed at night regretting my food choices from that day.  I don't worry that I won't be able to find anything in my closet that fits.  I thought  of my weight and my food and my exercise as being just one more stressful thing to think about when I wasn't healthy...but...now that it's under control, I suddenly realize how huge it was.  And to not worry about that leaves room for focus on so many other important things..."

Friends...if you need somewhere to start with health and nutrition and fitness...it's the perfect time to do that.  I used to resolve every New Year that I was going to get into better shape.  Lose weight.  Eat right.  Feel better.  But this year...could be your year.  I hope you feel like I do already.  If you do...or if you've never worried about your weight or health...I am so glad for you.  But I'd love to talk to you about it...if you're more like I was.  I wouldn't trade how I feel right now for just about anything. And I know that life isn't all about being in shape or how you feel about your body...believe me, I know this...but I also know how feeling great has changed how I look at every single day.  It's a pretty fantastic place to start the morning.

Just Ridiculous

The most ridiculous things happen to me.

I know, I know, they happen to you too.  They happen to all of us.  But seriously...when I tell people the things that happen to me, they stare blankly.  Because they're ridiculous.  Utterly ridiculous.

I had a car accident about a week and a half ago, on 12/2.  The blame lies totally on me.  Bryson and I had ordered a pizza while the girls went to lunch with their youth pastor, and we went to pick it up.  I had lazily pulled into Mom and Dad's driveway the night before rather than spending the time backing it in so that I could quickly (and safely) pull out in the morning...mistake #1.  As I backed out of the driveway, I did my usual glance-over-my-shoulders-after-stopping-before-the-sidewalk-for-fear-of-backing-over-a-pedestrian-with-his-dog, then glanced over to make sure Bryson had his seatbelt on, and continued over that shoulder as well...and seeing nothing, backed into the eastbound lane...I heard something crash, looked in the rearview mirror, and all I could think was that I'd hit the garbage can at the end of the driveway, which made no sense...when I looked up, I realized we were no longer in the driveway, but were facing westbound in the eastbound lane, and I heard another crash.  Looking into my rearview mirror again, I noticed that my back window was gone, and there was an SUV on it's roof behind my van.  I jumped out of the car, absolutely shocked, and for a moment...stood there, with no understanding of what had actually happened.  Bryson jumped out of his seat, and ran into the house to get my dad to call 911--Dad had heard the crash and was already on the phone.  I couldn't make sense of the car on it's roof--which side was which--and could only see the deployed side air bags through the windows.  A passer-by with his wits about him helped the woman out of the vehicle, and she really seemed to be basically fine (though we wouldn't let her stand up until the ambulance got there)...you know, other than the fact that her vehicle had flipped from it's tires to it's top in a matter of 20 feet...

I never even saw her.  And I looked.  I hit her rear passenger side door--she drove a Nissan Pathfinder.  She didn't swerve, didn't slam on her brakes, didn't blow her horn...nothing.  I hit her, her car sort of swerved just barely over the double yellow, and it flipped over and slid on it's top.  When all was said and done, it smashed out my rear window, crushed the passenger side back corner, and crumpled my back bumper.  They life-flighted the other driver to Sayre, and she wound up with glass in her eyes and a headache.  I got a ticket for failure to yield in a roadway...the paper reported it as "unsafe driving" (of course, they also called me Melinda Frazer, and said I was driving a station wagon...but whatever...then they splashed a picture of it with the article on the front page of the Leader. Good grief.).  I stood watching everything get cleaned up and taken care of, talking to the policeman, watching them flip the car back over...in absolute disbelief.  I have no idea how it happened.  No idea what I could have done differently.  Looked longer?  Looked again?  Backed up more slowly to get across two lanes of road?  Left 2 minutes sooner?  Not ordered pizza?  The whole thing is surreal.  Crazy.  Ridiculous.

What I know isn't ridiculous?  That my girls were with Pastor Rachel, and not in the back seats.  That none of the airbags went off.  That the van wasn't totalled.  That I didn't pull out even 2 seconds sooner...when Bryson's side of the van would have received a direct hit...possibly killing him.  Those facts aren't ridiculous.  Our vehicles have high deductibles, but full coverage, which includes towing and rental cars. I hit her before I even really started moving, and she received minimal injuries, from what I understand.  It could have been so much worse.

Will I be so glad when 2010 ends, and this is all over?  Maybe.  Do I think it doesn't matter what year it is...ridiculous things just seem to happen to me?  *Snicker*  Yes.  But something else I know...I know that even amidst all of the crappiness of the past several months...I have so little about which to complain.  I am alive.  Loved.  Fortunate.  Blessed.  The ridiculous may surround me...but so does my Protector.  I may continually fall into places of despair...but not without the company of my Provider.  I might be confused and frustrated and beside myself...but not without the full knowledge and attention of the Peace-Giver.  More to come in 2011?  Bring it on.

Simple Woman's Daybook, Dec. 6, 2010

Outside my window...the sky is spitting snowflakes, and it's just covering the sidewalks and roadways...i keep waiting to hear we'll get measurable snowfall...it will come.

I am thinking...about how quickly my babies are becoming...not so much babies.

 
I am thankful for... hehe...the internet.

 
I am wearing...an amethyst, hooded, big-buttoned sweater, a slightly lighter purple, long-sleeved t-shirt, dark boot-cut jeans, warm socks.

  
I am remembering...how much i love Christmas music...but also that last year, i said i needed to find new Christmas music...and how...there really isn't new Christmas music.

I am creating...a Christmas wishlist. i am not good at wishlists.

I am going...to rent a car. 

I am reading...The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. still. has to be read by Friday!! 5 chapters to go.

 
I am hoping...for snow. lots of it.

 
On my mind...love. and whether or not i do it well.

From the learning rooms...lessons on the brain, the fall of the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity, a focus on times tables and general math facts, Christmas crafting.

Noticing that...decorating for Christmas totally sets the tone for the season for me. decorating my parents' house for Christmas...makes me long for my own place to decorate.

 
From the kitchen...absolutely nothing. recovering from a weekend of 2 extravagant cakes, 4 dozen elegant cupcakes, and 72 cheesecake truffles.

Around the house...it's beginning to look like Christmas.

One of my favorite things...being surrounded by family and people i love.

 
Praying for...peace. still.

A verse to share...So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son. John 1:14

A lyric or two... 

Love is not proud

Love does not boast

Love after all

Matters the most

Love does not run

Love does not hide

Love does not keep locked in side

Love is the river that flows through

Love never fails you

Love will sustain

Love will provide

Love will not cease at the end of time

Love will protect

Love always hopes

Love still believes when you don't

Love is the arms that are holding you

Love never fails you

When my heart won't make a sound

When i can't turn back around

When the sky is falling down

Nothing is greater than this

Greater than this

Love is right here

Love is alive

Love is the way, the truth, the life

Love is the river that flows through

Love is the arms that are holding you

Love is the place you will fly to

Love never fails you

Brandon Heath "Love Never Fails"

A few plans for the week....picking up our angel tree gift, going for ice cream with my friend, picking up my rental car, hoping the insurance figures itself out, starting Christmas shopping, hanging out with my sister-friends, without kids, for a night of our favorite high school movies, pizzas-the-kids-wouldn't-eat, and conversation...

Too much

I am grateful.  For a refrigerator with too much food.  For a house that's too big.  Couches that are too comfortable.  Dogs that are too excited to see us.  Kids that are too creative.  Family that's too close.   Too many dogs.  Too many pies.  Too many kids.  Too many leftovers.  Too many pillows and blankets all over the house.  Too many dress-up clothes, too many legos chewed up by the dogs, too many stage props for the annual Thanksgiving play, too much laundry to catch up on.  Too many options of things to get the kids for Christmas.  Too many choices when picking what we're going to have for lunch.  Too many restaurants to choose from for an evening out.

I am thankful for too much...and realize...that we have it.  Even in the midst of chaos and confusion and day-to-day annoyances.  What a blessing to have more than enough...and to have the privilege of taking it so for granted.  For one day...this day...I will not.