You see, I promised I wasn’t going to plant a vegetable garden. After 3 years of mediocre results and uneaten salad greens, I was going to order some bulbs and roots from a fundraiser to start a perennial bed, and that was it.

I bought 2.5 yards of fresh garden mix and got the bed up to snuff:

For a few days, I was content. The plants were taking root, and the deer were visiting without eating.

Somewhere in the past two weeks…well…I forgot the last part of that promise.

And I developed a bit of a habit…

And then, it got worse…because someone got her cute nose where it didn’t belong!

So, I had to buy a new tomato plant (or three…). Also, I desperately needed mint…for mojitos…and I heard they had it HERE.

And they did!

But they also had all this:

Which became this:

Which turned into this:

And now I’m not allowed to go out by myself anymore…

Oops.

This week’s theme for health is More or Less. While I’m on the baby steps train, I am going to make mindful, general changes to my days as I work towards getting back into some semblance of fitness and overall health. So:

MORE:

• Sleep. A new puppy and two kids means that I need to go to sleep earlier, because someone really enjoys getting up at 6am to pee. And then staying up just long enough for my kids to wake up…
• Plants. Not just in my garden. In my diet. My veggie and fruit intake has dropped drastically. I was eating at least 3-4 servings of fruit and veggies each night I taught. Now I don’t even get that. I need to pump up my vegetation.
• Water. This is another issue now that the dance season is over. I would drink 2L of water just in the evenings. Now I’m lucky to drink a litre a day.
• Walking, and moving in general.
• Engaging my mind, be in writing, reading (an actual book, not twitter), or going outside to do something
• More outdoor time in general
• Awareness of what I’m eating, and whether it’s because I’m hungry, bored, or watching the clock for “mealtime”

LESS:

• Coffee. I’ve been pretty good about this one on most days, but it still sneaks up on me. 2 cups each morning, and one on Wednesdays before I teach. That’s my max for the next little bit.
• Peanut butter M&Ms. They are my weakness, and have been since they came out in the 90s. Leith even knows to pick them up when I’m having a bad day, and there were a few too many bad days in the past 6 weeks!
• Bread and cereal. I’ve been filling up on convenience food, and it’s left holes in my diet the size of a loaf of bread. Gluten-free or otherwise, it’s not meant to be 75% of what I eat.
• Wine. And beer. And drinks of all kinds. Oh summer, you cruel, thirsty mistress…I will not sit on the porch with a glass of wine just because the weather is nice!!
• Mindlessness. Including sitting, staring, surfing, napping, clicking, etc. Less iPhone-ing in general.
• Sitting. Period.
• Eating because I “should”: because everyone else it, or because I didn’t eat when I was supposed to, because I was out, or because I was teaching. Only eat when I am hungry. That’s it.

There you have it: a week of More or Less moving towards those healthy habits I lost somewhere in March (or was it January? or maybe November??). Time to start paying even closer attention!

And blogging. You know, productive stuff. Like lists!!

List #13: Things that make me cry

• TV shows
• Constipated kids
• Sad news
• Happy news
• Sappy movies
• TV commercials
• At weddings (but oddly, not at funerals…I feel like I should be stronger for the family)
• Songs on the radio
• Being tired
• Being overwhelmed
• Being stressed
• Being mad
• Being happy
• Watching my girls sleep
• Watching my girls dance
• When my students break through a barrier
• When my grandparents leave to go back home
• When friends band together to pick me up
• While reading books I’ve read a million times, yet hope that the pages somehow change the ending…

List #14: In my dream garden

• About 2.5 yards of new garden mix (hopefully next week!)
• No icky bugs or destructive bugs – just nice, helpful, pretty bugs
• Fairy houses and toadstools
• An absence of weeds, including encroaching wild rose bushes and poplar trees!
• Lush, green lawn with no anthills or dead patches
• A garden swing that doesn’t collect cobwebs
• Wattle fences around some of the beds
• An enclosed vegetable bed, with a fence high enough keep out the deer!
• Stepping stone pathways, and chickens running freely
• A bathouse or seven, to keep the mosquitoes away!
• A huge lilac bush and a weeping willow
• And NO ICKY BUGS!!

My goal for the weekend is to work up my raised bed and dig up the bed under my front window. I have a ton of bulbs and roots to plant that I bought from a school fundraiser, and they NEED to get in the ground! Hopefully I’ll have my new (live!) dirt on Monday if all goes according to my master plan.

What are you up to for this beautiful long weekend?

Oh. Don’t forget the stress. Oh, my! I am a stress-eater and a stress-sleeper. Stuff and hide is my motto!

My pants are all too tight. Last year’s shorts don’t button. Were it not for my yoga jeans, maxi skirts, and long, stretchy tank tops, I would be naked right now. As it is, my underwear is riding up my bum because it has quite frankly given up on the enormity of its task.

I don’t hate my body. My body and I have a fairly decent relationship. I love my curves, appreciate my strength, and relish that I will never be a stick-thin, angry waif at war with myself. What I do hate is my habits…or sometimes, lack thereof. I hate my lack of discipline, and the havoc it wreaks on my health when I don’t take care of my body.

When I fuel it with too much junk and too few vegetables.

When I water it with too much coffee and wine, and can’t remember theist time I hit 2 liters of water in a day.

When I step on the scale to weigh Ceilidh Foofer-Snerf (yes, she has a name now!), and find out that I’ve surpassed my heaviest personal non-pregnancy weight sans puppy.

I am not impressed.

But in the midst of all this health-destruction, I was also painfully aware of what I was doing to my body. What has eluded me is the desire to do anything about it. I fell into complete and total apathy, and it shows. It shows in my hair, my nails, my waist, my hips, my skin, my face, my eyes, my sleep, my energy. Everything is affected.

And even after yesterday’s hard, cold bathroom scale slap across my backside, I’m still lacking the drive to do anything. Thus, I am taking baby steps. I refuse to embark on an all-out fitness and health quest when I can barely convince myself to step away from the coffee pot and pour myself a glass of water.

I am taking weekly baby steps, and this week, I am being Mindful. I am watching what I eat (but not necessarily changing it). I am paying attention to how hungry and/or full I am. I am seeing how I feel after meals and snacks. I am deciding what is necessary, and what is just gluttony.

And I am drinking my 2 liters of water a day. Minimum. This is never a problem for me. It’s only a matter of doing it. I usually drink 3+ liters when I’m not being as lazy as I have been. One liter also has apple cider vinegar in it, because gluttony has left me wickedly bloated and I just feel gross.

I don’t know what next week’s baby step will be. Maybe I’ll start recording what I eat, or stopping when I’m 80% full. I’m not sure. But for this week, I will just pay attention and keep my mind full with my actions instead of my apathy.

***

To my mom, who has set an impeccably high standard of mothering for me to live up to. I’ll never be as wonderful as her if I live to be a hundred. She’s the best ever. Love you, Mom!

***

To the girls who made me a mom, and then made me the greatest, most bestest homemade gift I’ve ever received:

***

And to my husband, for not only helping me be a better mom every day, but for finally giving in to my puppy demands and letting this little 17lb, 8-week old brute wriggle into our home and hearts in time for Mother’s Day!

No name yet, but Gracie has started to warm up…a little…

Finally, my Keurig full-out exploded. Hot coffee grounds from floor to ceiling and all over me. No amount of drying and cleaning saved it, either. Believe me, I tried.

And with no coffee, I gave up all hope for the future.

Seriously:

It exploded.

The thin thread I’d been holding on by slowly disintegrated before my eyes. No coffee. No hope.

But there were forces at work in the universe. Well, in the twitterverse, to be specific. While I wallowed in despair, some amazing people starting to come together. And on Friday of that same desperate week, I met Natasha at the park.

And in her car, she had this:

From her. And Tom. And Sarah. And Dash. And Darci. And Raymie. And April. And I cried big fat tears.

I was speechless.

I was blown away.

I was unbroken. Pieced back together with love and kindness. Amazed by the hearts of the community I love so much. Some whom I know in real life and cherish dearly, others whose voices I’ve never heard speak.

And now I have the opportunity to give them thanks with every cup:

So, thank you, for helping me and supporting me in that very dark hour. Thank you for being the light in my world when I needed it the most. Thank you for being there.

Thank you for giving me strength, so that when we realized Petey probably wasn’t coming home, I was able to deal with it. Because in the last week, we lost Petey and the promise of our new puppy later this summer.

We’d priced out Mastiff pups, and had two breeders who were expecting June litters. Sadly, one’s pregnancy didn’t take and the other didn’t come into season in time for summer babies. So my 250lb furball dreams are put on hold.

Leith has been missing Petey a lot too, and so have the girls. Thus, we took a trip to the Parkland County Animal Shelter today and picked up this guy:

Meet Kitty Soft Paws. He’s embarrassed by his name, but he’ll get over it. Kit-kat had him named before we even got to the shelter. He’s 5 weeks of spunk and spitfire, and he has the chiweenie torn between mad love and heartbreak. I’m sure they’ll be cuddling in no time.

And the best part? He’s a polydactyl. He has 7 toes on each front paw, which apparently makes him very lucky.

I think that we can use all the luck we can get.

Kitties and Keurigs. Sometimes the simplest things in life have the greatest depth. It’s all up from here.

I can’t even sum up the past 369 days since Kristi called me up with this opportunity. There has not been a single moment that I have regretted. It has been the single most incredible year of my entire teaching career. I have been blessed beyond belief.

My students have become an extension of my heart, to the point where I miss them in between classes. I even care SO MUCH about the students that I don’t teach! I can’t explain it. It’s like motherhood: you can’t describe the wholeness of it. You can only feel it.

Of course there were difficult moments. There were issues to deal with and personalities to learn. There were very busy times, and very stressful times. There were days when my own girls foraged for food while I was locked in my office. There were days when I foraged for food because I hadn’t been grocery shopping!! But it was all worth it in more ways than I could ever write here.

Of course there were awards. There were medals and celebrations and cheers. But there were also ice cream parties and crazy chicken sleeping bags dances. There were surprise older dancer hugs, and constant 3-year old hugs. I’m actually surprised my 3-year olds danced at all with all the hugging they had to get in!!

There were cards. There were flowers. There were emails. There were moments when the outpouring of gratitude from my dance family knocked the breath out of me and left me tear-stained and in love.

My family grew by over 100 young hearts, and their families who supported them and me. I have cried more overwhelmed happy tears this year than any year before. I have felt fulfilled in a whirlwind of chaos.

I have felt grateful.

I have felt whole.

The overwhelming stress of the spring dance season is nothing compared to this: that mountain of fear was a cake walk compared to what I am feeling now.

Oh yes, it’s all related to that duplex of ours. I’ve never lost so much sleep over a situation. Empty since April 1st, with a mortgage looming and a real estate market that just doesn’t want our property. A loan wrapped up in that, lurking in the background, demanding payment that we just won’t have. Trying to find other financing options to pay it back. Throwing around words like “bankruptcy” and “foreclosure”.

Scraping pennies to buy paint and rent a carpet cleaner. Finally giving in and agreeing to choke down the cost of new windows. Giving up my entire savings for our dream to a bank, and knowing that I won’t recoup the cost for 5 years.

Adding up all the costs from the past month, past 4 years. Wondering if we should have never moved out here and just stayed in our duplex that didn’t sell back then. Wishing hindsight wasn’t 20/20. Crying about all our lost dreams, lost savings.

Trying to keep perspective: hot rental market, our health, the strength of our marriage. Trying to breathe when breath has been the only means of avoiding panic for 7 days now.

Trying to tell myself that we don’t need material things; that we can start from scratch again, feel the burden of needing two incomes to survive. Trying to tell myself that it doesn’t matter how much we make in a year, that it doesn’t matter that we will be busting our butts on a more-than-comfortable dual income and yet barely keep our heads above water for the next 5 years.

Trying to convince myself that it will all work out. That one family can only experience so much distress and instability. That this has to be as low as we can go, and that from tomorrow morning on, we will only be rebuilding. Not backtracking.

Please. Don’t let us backtrack anymore. Please.

List #10: In my dream home:

Truth be told, I love our house. I’d love it more with a few upgrades, and maybe some baseboards. But if I was going to go all-out, here’s what I’d be sure to add:

• First and foremost, a housekeeper. Someone to cook and clean, shop for groceries, do my laundry (and actually put it away), tidy up, file my paperwork…and rub my feet. They do that, right?
• A laundry chute. This was THE SELLING FEATURE at The Acreage, and I can’t imagine another house without one. Even if the laundry is on the same floor, I want a magic transportation tube for it.
• Central vac with the baseboard suction hole thingies for sweeping. Magic. Pure magic.
• A garbage disposal. I miss scraping plates into the sink.
• A master ensuite with a big bathtub and walk-in shower, and (more importantly) water that smells really nice.
• A bigger closet. Not a walk-in closet…just a bigger closet in every room with built-in shelves and drawers.
• Floor-to-ceiling windows in my living room. We already kind of have that…but I want MOAR!!!
• A walk-out patio from my master bedroom
• A new deck, with a hot tub that is sheltered but open. Like a pergola, but no spiders living in the corners.
• A slightly bigger kitchen with a gas range/big hood vent, and room for an island. If we could transpose my mom’s kitchen layout into my house, it would be perfect. I love my current kitchen style though.
• Equal-sized bedrooms for my girls.
• A finished basement that walks out to our fire pit, doesn’t smell like cat pee, and has a guest bedroom suite PLUS an office (rather than crammed into the same room…)
• A broom closet. A cleaning closet. Some kind of storage space on the main floor for the vacuum that isn’t just my hallway.
• A non-cave-like laundry room. Something with sunlight.

List #11: Best Blog Posts I’ve Written

This is really hard. I have to give up a little modesty and admit that some of my posts were pretty decent, whether from my own feelings, conversations generated, or traffic.

• The one about formula for moms. Oops.
• Bikram vs Moksha. Who knew I’d become a Google first-pager?
• Running…naked running…barefoot running!
• What not to do on the internet – LOL!
• Fighting with my birth control
• Finding my groove…and reigniting a dream
• Birthday letters to my girls

Surprisingly? Nothing about coconut oil. Hmm.

List #12: What I love about spring

I love spring. This year, it would appear we are skipping spring. So, this is more or less a list of what I can vaguely remember about this mythical “spring” season:

• Longer days!! Coming out of class at 9pm to daylight! Wheee!!
• Snow melting into puddles, splashing in those puddles
• Walking to the mailbox each day
• The first backyard fire of the year
• The smell of sunshine in my girls’ hair at bedtime
• Walking the chiweenie, without having to carry her because she’s cold
• Planning my garden, and turning up the soil once it’s thawed
• The dance season wrap-up, complete with dance festivals and fun days
• Opening up the windows, and sleeping with fresh air in the room!
• The first rain showers, and the first thunderstorms of the year!
• That first hint of green washing through the trees
• Pussy willows
• Running outside

Now, with that taken care of, it’s time for me to go and do my duplex-selling dance with C-boo so that we can get rid of all this stress! Wish us luck!!