What I'm not doing right now

I'm not being a good mother. My daughter is on her father's computer, playing games at Noggin and Treehouse TV. She's been on for a couple of hours, which is way too long. But it's freed her father and me up for loafing. (And yes, the correct word is "me," there, and not "I.")

I'm not doing anything particularly constructive. Now that I have my computer back, I'm compelled to surf. I'm looking at retro decor sites. I keep fantasizing that one day I really will do something about that damned living room. I know. If you're reading this, you're sick of hearing about it. I'm sorry. I'm obsessing again. You might ask why we don't just get off our butts and do something. Well, our butts don't have the money to replace the gold shag carpet, or to paint the walls, or to reupholster the furniture.

So I daydream - okay, if I must have gold shag carpet, let's just play to it. Let's just decorate totally retro and fun. But by the time we spend all the money on retro shit, we might have spent that on new carpet.

So I avoid the house. Besides, I have it in my head that I have to finish my daughter's bedroom first. What's stopping me? I don't know. Time. Lack of energy.

Which leads me to the next thing I'm not doing: taking care of myself. I stopped stretching in the morning. I haven't gone for a walk in weeks. (Of course, it's 24 below zero here. Okay, that's Celcius. In Fahrenheit, it's 11 below zero. I'm not exaggerating. It's 11 degrees below zero today.)

I digress.

I went to a physician who specializes in alternative therapies awhile back. He put me on all kinds of things - B12 shots, taurine, L-carnitine, some other things. All bloody expensive. But I began to feel really good & energetic. Slowly, I've been running out of these things, and I've put off spending the money on refills. And now I'm starting to feel it. The L-carnitine made my chronic achiness practically disappear. The B12 shots gave me a boost of energy. There was some other supplement that the dr said would assist with motivation, and it seemed to work. Anyway, maybe it was all psychosomatic. But who cares - if it worked, it worked. I need to find time to get to the dr. and get those refills.

But I hate to take time away from work. Which brings me to another thing I'm not doing . . .

I'm not keeping up at work the way I want to right now. It's been incredibly busy, but our office is really popular for some reason and we get a lot of visitors. I should tell people to leave, but I enjoy the chatting and the cameraderie. I talked to my supervisor about this, and she said I just have to be more firm and tell people that I have work to do. She's right.

I think I have to go back to the beginning, to where I was in the spring. I wasn't blogging then, so I'll fill you in. *your eyes glaze over*

Over the past few years, I've been getting more tired and, well, more fat. I couldn't find the strength to exercise because I was just totally depleted. I couldn't manage to eat healthily because I literally couldn't find 30 seconds in my day to clean a vegetable or to peel a fruit. It seems it took every ounce of energy to do what was mandatory, like going to work, taking care of my daughter, throwing some clothes into the wash so I wouldn't go to work in dirty clothes, and so on.

So I visited this specialist that a coworker had gone to. He ran me through a bunch of tests and determined that I was deficient in a lot of things. Of course, he was happy to sell me supplements. I tried them and I really did begin to feel quite a bit better.

Now I feel like I'm sinking back to where I started.

Here's the thing. It all begins with energy. Without energy, it doesn't matter what I want to do or what I dream about doing or what I intend to do.

So this week I'm going to find time to get back to that dr and get my refills.

So there!