Does anyone know my password?

Sheesh. It's been so long since I've even logged into Spark that I had trouble remembering my password. Good grief!

So, where have I been & why am I back? Well, the why I'm back is much easier to answer so .... Weirdly, several of my Spark buddies got in touch with me today. Or maybe yesterday. I have to admit, I've been a slacker about checking my email lately. But what ever. I logged in this evening and had a surprising number of emails from Spark friends asking where I've been & if I'm ok. How sweet! And even more importantly, how motivational. Because lately, I've completely lost my spark. Couldn't have cared less about Spark or anything Spark related. Heck, I didn't even care about spinning the wheel and that is NOT like me! I started off responding to everyone individually and quickly got bored of typing the same thing over & over so I decided to blog instead. So here I am. That's they "why" I'm back.

Now, for the hard part. Where have I been?

Mainly, I've been hanging my head in shame while curled up in the corner of the couch with a big, gigantic tub of spinach dip and a box of crackers. Or hot dogs. Apparently, when I fall off the wagon, I fall hard and into the deepest, muddiest ruts I can find.

I honestly don't know what caused the fall. I think it was a combination of a million tiny little things. There was the 3 weeks of not being able to run which, frankly, was an extremely boring 3 weeks. Because of the various injuries, I wasn't able to do much of anything during the first 2 weeks and by the 3rd week, I'd gotten into the habit of doing nothing. And let me tell you - I do nothing extremely well.

So, I was allowed & capable of running again, but boy was I slow and out of shape. My 3 mile run was taking 9 whole minutes longer than it had before all the hoop-la. That was pretty depressing. I expected to be a lot slower, but 9 whole minutes? Good grief!

And just a few days later, it was my birthday. I turned 49 and I was pretty upset about it. I mean, at least if I was turning 50, I could have a big, gigantic party with all that black, depressing, Over The Hill stuff and I'd officially be a half a century old and I could move on into the latter part of my life. Besides, once you are "old" (and 50 qualifies) you get to act different. You don't have to worry so much about looking like you are 20, nor are you expected to run like you are 20. Not to mention, when you are old, you can act silly and not worry about what others are thinking about your behavior. But I wasn't turning 50. I was turning 49. 49 is just not a fun birthday.

So, I was a bit depressed about the birthday thing. And then.... wait for it.... are you sitting down? My husband forgot my birthday! Even though we had discussed it 3 or 4 times during the week and the day before he'd said we'd go out to eat... when the day rolled around, he forgot. Ok, granted, we aren't big birthday celebrators. We don't exchange gifts, but I do generally bake a cake and we go out to eat. This year, I don't know why, but I got a wild hair to make chicken salad on my birthday day. Yes, I have also fallen off the vegetarian wagon. That chicken salad was maybe not the exact start of that particular fall, but it was right there near the beginning.

Anyway.... I'd made chicken salad and homemade bread and it was a good thing too. Mike got home from work & went straight upstairs to get in the shower. An hour or so later, I went up to find out what was taking him so long and he was in bed, fast asleep. At 7 p.m.! So I ate more chicken salad and probably a whole bunch of other pity party type foods. Honestly, I don't remember. I do know that I didn't eat birthday cake because for once I hadn't made myself a cake. And unfortunately, I hadn't not made the cake because I was being healthy and low cal... , I'd skipped making the cake because I was holding out for a bakery cake. Besides chicken salad, I was craving bakery birthday cake.

The next morning, I was still pretty pissed off, but hadn't had my coffee yet, so I wasn't awake enough to be overly verbal about it. I was in the kitchen fixing the coffee & MIke strolls in an says, "So, when is your birthday?" My response was "Yesterday" and I walked off. Well, that got his attention! He apologized all over himself and I continued to be pretty pissy about it. Later in the day, I realized that it was actually a pretty good thing that he'd forgotten. Seeing as though we don't generally do all that much to celebrate birthdays anyway, but now he's feeling super guilty, I can actually get a LOT of mileage out of him forgetting. I have a whole year ahead of me where I can guilt him into doing stuff for me because he forgot my birthday. So, what all that rambling has been about is that I did right much pity party eating one night, not to mention all the chicken salad and home made bread and if I'm going to be honest, I did go buy myself a bakery birthday cake, which I proceeded to eat at least three quarters of.

And from that point on, it's been all down hill. And not down hill in a good way. More like down hill as in straight to Hell. There was the chicken salad that made me crave more meat and there was the cake that made me crave more sugar. And at some point, maybe while I was buying the cake, I really don't remember, but at some point, I bought Olive Oil & Black Pepper Triscuits and a big tub of spinach dip. OMG! What a combination. It's my favorite food in the whole world.

Then there were quite a few little mini dramas. So mini that I don't even remember half of them. I do remember that there was a bit of a financial crisis, and of course because we were extra broke, something went wrong with one of the vehicles and the freezer finally completely died. Sarah got the stomach flu, and the heat set in. OMG! May was one hot month! And of course, all those little tiny mini dramas were excuses to throw myself pity parties. Let's just say that if you own stock in either Triscuits or spinach dip, you can personally thank me for your new found wealth. I honestly don't think 2 days passed during the whole month of May where I didn't eat a tub of spinach dip. Good grief!

Then Memorial Day hit. First of all, Memorial Day is now the anniversary of Mike's dad's death so it's sort of a sad time around here. And did I mention the heat? Oh, and did I mention that the air conditioner in every single vehicle we own is now broken? What is it with us and car air conditioners? Sheesh. Then on Saturday, Sarah wakes up with the stomach flu. Again. Good grief! And on Monday, we wake up to not having any water. Actually, we had a little water, some of the time. But it was only a bare trickle and it stunk like raw sewage. Luckily, we don't drink our water (it's disgusting!) so we had plenty of jugs on hand. We weren't going to go thirsty, but.... I also wasn't going to get any laundry done, dishes washed and half the time, there wasn't even enough water to refill the toilets. And of course, when you call the water company to complain, you get a busy signal. But hey - at least that must mean that we aren't the only ones and plenty of others have called to complain.

Ok, can anyone explain to me why I receive 85 emails from the county warning me about thunder storms that are 100 miles away, I get emails warning me about escaped convicts, and I get emails warning me about some corn worm that may be invading the county, but do I get a single email telling me that I should be boiling my water? No. Not a single freaking email about that.

So of course, we've all been kinda sick. Some of us more so than others. Although we don't drink our water or even use it for cooking, we do rinse the coffee pot out with tap water. We wash our dishes in tap water, and we brush our teeth with tap water. And frankly, we don't worry about getting it in our mouths when we shower. But of course, we should have been worrying about those things. Worrying a lot as it turned out.

And during all the water hoop-la, I continued to eat spinach dip and crackers. And hot dogs. We had a whole bunch of hot dogs on hand for the Memorial Day cookout. And ever since the first family member's first sign of dysentery set in, I have been craving hot dogs. Craving them, and eating them. Good grief!

So, tomorrow is the big wedding. My cousin's daughter is getting married. I'd planned on being at goal weight by the wedding because I didn't want to show up fat at another family gathering, but also because my ex-husband will most likely be there. And am I anywhere close to being at goal weight? No. More like, Hell no! Frankly, at the moment, I'm closer to my beginning weight than my goal weight. Good grief! I went girdle/Spanx shopping today. What a joke that was! I must have tried on 25 different garments, or what ever you call those torture devices. It got to the point I was close to tears because each one I squeezed myself into fit worse than the one before it. It would take 15 minutes to tug the thing either over my head & shoulders or up over my hips and all it would do was move my natural bulges to other places without ever covering up the original bulge. I looked 85 times worse wearing the girdle(s) than I did without them. And just as I was about to burst into tears from frustration and anger at myself for eating all that dip and hot dogs, I started to laugh. I'm sort of surprised no one called security on me because I was in the dressing room just cackling to myself. I'd gotten stuck in one of the dam over-the-head ones and couldn't get it off. Nor could I force it back on. And the way it was wrapped around me squeezing the life out of my upper chest & shoulders, I not only couldn't get a deep breath, but I couldn't put my arms down either. All I could do was stand in front of the ^^$%$&I(& three way mirror, look at my fat and flab (which was now a glowing fluorescent red from all the tugging on & off of too-tight spandex) and have a mini panic attack at the thought of having to call for help to get unstuck. Eventually, I escaped the contraption, went straight home and fixed steamed broccoli & vegan chicken strips for dinner.

So that's where I've been. I hope all of you have been in a much better place than I've been. I also hope that those of you who did get in touch today realize how much it meant to me. I was right on the verge of saying "Screw it. I'll just be fat." But I think your kindness and encouragement may have pulled me back from the edge. Thank you for that!