Day Eighteen, Gift Eighteen

Today was much better than the past two! It was was Martin Luther King, Jr. day so all the kids were home. Tim had asked me if I would mind him going motorcycle riding with his buddies on Monday morning and he'd be teaching a class until 10pm. I thought that wouldn't be a problem and I booked my respite provider to come at lunch and stay through bed time. I forgot, however, that all the kids would home all morning and I'd be by myself. It all worked out though...he left around 8am as we were all getting up. I felt so good waking up, clear headed and energized. I said to myself "Finally!!!"

I was able to get all the kids fed and at least partially dressed for the day. Dakota and I did a great lesson on Martin Luther King, Jr., and we plugged away at a math assignment. My respite provider came over and got the kids going with lunch and took over while I headed down to the doctors office. My natural doctor seemed quite pleased with my progress in the past couple weeks and we discussed test results, hormone levels, thyroid, etc...and of course, my 500 calorie per day diet. I'm in the first phase...I will be eating only 500 calories per day of chicken, spinach, apples, and melba toast for the next six weeks. I will be taking a hormone that will make it so that I am not too light headed, dizzy, hungry, etc. I've done this successfully in the past, but I did evaluate my past roadblocks and I'm trying to knock down those obstacles ahead of time.

First, I didn't always have my special food prepared, so this time, I am cooking all six weeks of food in one day and freezing it. I'm doing this tomorrow morning, so I've been collecting the things that I need to do this. My second road block was that I was still cooking for my family every night, which was very tempting, so with our cooking co-op, Tim has agreed he'll serve dinner while I work on my blog upstairs to avoid the temptation. Lastly, I found that it was difficult to stay on the diet and do everything while I was working around the clock and managing a high stress load. I am no longer working and making it my main objective to not stress so I'm in a better situation to completely and totally focus on the diet. I will be seeing my doctor every Monday morning to monitor my health and progress...I still need to do 90 mins of strength training (PT) a day, no aerobics, and my decompression every week, my massage every week, and my acupuncture...sigh...so it's a busy schedule.

After meeting with her, I rushed around doing errands and at this point, I'd been pretty much up and going all day long. Then about 5pm, it hit...I was dizzy, irritable, overwhelmed. I had called my mom and she asked me to give her a gift today and to promise to stop using my cell phone in the car. We have had this discussion many times before and while common sense tells me not to use a cell phone in the car, my life with five kids was crazy and work was crazy, etc, and that was the only time I was able to get my phone calls done. I very, very grouchily agreed that this would be my gift. I'm not thrilled about it because it will be such an inconvenience, but at the same time, I know in my heart she is right and therefore, I am committing here and now that I will not answer, dial, or talk on the phone while driving in the car.

By the time we got off the phone, I was beyond grouchy, just down right in a foul mood and by 6pm I decided I was going to bed. Well, my body pain got the best of me and I was still tossing and turning around midnight when Tim walked through the door. He could tell I'd been trying to sleep for some time. "What can I do?" he asked gently. While still in uniform he rubbed my arms and legs to try and minimize the pain until I cried myself to sleep.