Family Gone

They were here for a week, and now they are gone. It was a nice visit -- sort of.

It was great seeing my sibling and all my nieces and nephews. It was okay seeing my father and stepmother. It was less-great seeing my mother, though only for two days.

It seems that if there is a parade, my mother has to rain on it. This particular parade was rained on because my mother and sister are going through a spell of not getting along, and our mother will complain about it to anyone who listens.

But it was nice to see my sibling.

The food was good, too, though I've certainly done some damage in the diet department. At least it's not any worse than it's been. I've bumped up a few pounds after all the drama that's been going on in our lives.

I'm done being sick. I'm done visiting with family. I'm done working 60+ hours per week. Hopefully this means I'll be able to devote more energy to the weight loss department.

Oh yeah, and I found out we are getting married at the end of June. After 10 years of living together, I guess it's about time, isn't it?

Family Visit

At the moment, I am trying to post from my mobile phone. I have family visiting from out of town this week, which of course only means on thing -- FOOD.

Since The Kid, The SO and I live in a rather tiny and worn-looking house, all the visits have been held at my parents' house. Although the visits have been nice, the temptation to over-indulge has been hard to resist.

On the plus side, the relative who has been tasked with the bulk of the kitchen duties isn't a very good cook. Much of what has been on the menu are foods I simply won't eat (like pork) or dishes I love but won't eat when this particular relative prepares them (like over-cooked broccoli) so it has been easier to push away from the table.

What has really jumped out at me, aside from all the food trying to hurl itself into my mouth, is just how much more energy other family members seem to have. My sibling did a bunch of yardwork for my parents, and I was just amazed. I was exhausted just from watching.

I guess my get up and go has gone up and went.

I am a Frickin' Yo Yo

Part of it is because of my weight. It's up, it's down, it's up, it's down again... This morning it was up, yesterday down. It's all within 10 pounds of my lowest weight, so I'm not panicking, yet, but I am unhappy.

What's weird is it doesn't seem to matter what I eat. I can be good and put on five pounds. I can be terribly naughty and put on two, or lose three. It makes no sense.

Last night, we decided to go out to dinner. We are very broke right now, but decided to spend a very generous holiday gift certificate we'd received at a local Japanese restaurant. We had appetizers, sushi, tempura, sake, you name it. We made pigs of ourselves, and it only cost $1 above the limit of the gift certificate, plus what we left as a tip. My weight, of course, was up this morning.

It's hard to care right now, though, because I feel like I have several much bigger fish to fry.

Those fish involve:

• Ongoing problems with The Kid
• Ongoing problems with The Job
• Ongoing problems with The Spouse

And of course each of these problems creates its own set of sub-problems:

• Ongoing problems with The Kid
  
  • Hassling with social workers, lawyers and court officials
  • Having to miss lots of work to attend unnecessary meetings
  • Fights over every day stupid things like school, chores, and life, the universe and everything else
    
  • Stress, stress, and more stress


• Ongoing problems with The Job
  • Struggles with managing (and getting customers to agree to) a fair workload
  • Negotiating contracts
  • Worries about whether or not The Spouse will be employed
  • Stress, stress and more stress
    


• Ongoing problems with The Spouse
  • Squabbles about The Kid
  • Squabbles about The Job
  • Squabbles about money
  • Stress, stress and more stress
    

Seems like stress is a common theme, doesn't it?

I keep trying to be optimistic, and hoping things will soon be better, but much of the mess we've been slogging through with The Kid has been going on for months and there's no end in sight. And of course kid problems eventually spill over into the rest of our life, as evidenced by the job problems that are at least, in part, caused because of our inability to focus on (and sometimes attend) work.

Everything is connected, isn't it? You have problems with The Kid, and it starts to affect The Job, which in turn affects The Money, and pretty soon you are getting into fights with The Spouse, which in turn doesn't help the situation with The Kid, The Job or The Money.

And of course that in turn makes you really not feel like bothering with The Diet, because trying to figure out how many calories you have left after you are exhausted, broke, and bone tired just doesn't seem like much of a priority. And, since you are broke anyway, dinner is probably going to end up being macaroni and cheese instead of a plate of "delicious" steamed vegetables, when you can buy the generic macaroni several boxes to the dollar and those veggies you should eat cost four times as much.

So yeah, I am a frickin' yo-yo, and I almost don't care. Almost.