I think before I can go any further I have to face my personal dragons. My eating addictions and thoughts about food.  I’m pretty sure that some one could make a fortune digging around in my head.  I know what I need to do and what I should eat but I keep sabotaging myself.  Why do I do that?  My birthday was last week. It is always a hard time for me.  I was born August 20th 1961 on my mothers 29th birthday. I have always felt closer to her because of that.  August 20th 1968 I turned 6 and Mom 35.  That was the last birthday we shared.  The next April she and my 15 yr old sister was killed in a car accident.  That day my childhood ended and my first dragon was born.  In those days Dads didn’t raise little girls alone. So I spent the next several years going from place to place. Some were good, others..not so much.  So you see, I know where some of my issues come from but I just can’t seem to get them resolved.

I keep seeing commercials and stuff advertising diet pills. They say that they will keep you from being hungry.  Are there people out there who only eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full?? I can’t even imagine such a thing. Most the time I eat it has absolutely nothing to do with being hungry.

We all have our own dragons. I don’t think any of us would be here if we didn’t.  So if someone out there knows how to tame them please let me know.  And good luck to the rest of you with your own.

I think i’ll name mine “Puff” I always loved that song. But it always makes me cry.

• Sometimes our days are darkest,
• When the sun shines all around.
• We seek the warmth, but cannot feel it.
• As if to us, the clouds are bound.

• We are sometimes at our loneliest,
• In the middle of a crowd.
• We scream, but no one hears us.
• A painful soul can make no sound.

• We can taste the saltiness of tears,
• We do not know that we have shed.
• Jumbled thoughts out of control.
• In a sea of chaos our minds must tread.

• We look for the comfort of contentment.
• But, with head and heart at war,
• We cannot find completeness.
• We must always search for more.

• The road will not be easy
• with detours, ruts and bends.
• But my sanity requires,
• That I believe I’ll find an end.

• It may not be today,
• but some day I will be free.
• I will be able to take control,
• of this person that is me.

I spent a good part of today thinking not nice things about perfect strangers.  That bothers me a lot. I thought, and still do, that I had a legit reason for being upset. Now that the day is done I am really bummed out that I let it get to me.

If you have been reading my blog you know that we have been having a battle with the Mississippi River. We lost. Our community is under a lot of water.

We live in a small town with more small towns around us. There is one main road that goes right down the middle of these towns. We live on that road.  It’s just a two lane highway but it is the life line of the area.  As soon as you pass our house the road is closed. Flooded. Now this, as you can imagine, is a real inconvenience to all of us.  On a normal non flooded day I can make a left out of my driveway and in a little less than a mile can be at our local gas station/mini store. Now, for you to go to the same gas station you have to make a right and drive a little more than 7 miles, if you don’t mind gravel roads. If you are like my husband and hate the flying rocks and dust, you can take a paved route of a little less than 13 miles.

The road has been closed for a couple of days. You have to drive around 3 different barricades to get to my house.  A lot of city people have been coming down to see the water. They ease around the barricades and slowly drive down to where the water is. They stop and take pictures.  Asking us if we are ok and tisk tisking the awful fate of the towns folk.  Now the locals are a different matter. They aint gonna let no puddle of water slow them down. They come barreling around the barricade and come flying down the road. I’m sure most of them think that they can just drive through it. Well when they get down here and see that the “puddle” is several feet deep and probably at least a 1/4 mile long they whip into my driveway and turn around. Now first let me say that I don’t usually mind people turning around in my drive. BUT here’s the problem. For one, there is, right next to me a business with a nice big parking lot and double drive that they could easily turn around in.  Then they would have to drive another 10 feet or so and I guess they figure why bother when I also have a nice big circle drive.  Some of them are even nice enough to slow down first. My real issue was the people who didn’t even bother with the drive way but just pulled right up into the yard and turned around in my grass!!! So for a couple of hours this afternoon I was not a happy camper. I just stood out side and glared at people who where driving like idiots and dared another one to drive in my grass. I wanted to park our cars out at the end on my drive and block off both sides so people couldn’t turn around in it at all but hubby wouldn’t let me.  My son the cop, and his friend happen to come by and I was ranting a raving about the people and what was going on. As my son walked outside we saw a truck had parked in my yard. The man was PEEING in my yard!! I was livid. My 10 yr old daughter had just gone into the house thank goodness.  My son walked over to the guy and told him he was on private property and had to leave. They guy said he was just turning around. (in my grass??) My son says “looks to me like you were peeing.” They guy says well I had to go. My son whips open his badge and says “would you like to do it again?” LOL It almost made the whole thing worth it. hehehehe the guy jumps into his truck appoligizing all over hisself. I’m leaving I’m leaving.  My son was grinning like an idiot when he turned back around to us.

So now that the day is done and i’m sitting here.  Calm. I do think that I got madder than I should have. So maybe i’m not as nice as I thought.  Or maybe I am. I didn’t put the nails in the drive way that I wanted to.

On the up side I feel justified now that we built our fort. We were starting to feel a little foolish for going to such extremes.

Some of you have been worried about us and seeing stuff on the news. Just wanted to let every one know that we are fine and not in any kind of danger.

On sunday my husband was trying to figure out if we should sandbag our house. We did not even know where to get sand or bags to do it. On sunday night a friend called and said “I’ve been worried about you and I have arranged for someone to bring you sand and here is where you go to get bags.”

On monday we were working our selfs to death trying to get everything out of our basement. All of a sudden there was Nate my sons friend. He jumped in and worked well into the night. Tuesday morning the sand man came and we were standing in the yard wondering how in the heck we were going to get 1500 bags filled and placed around our house fast enough. Here comes Nate with Brad. My sons Nick and Drew made a couple of calls and all of a sudden my yard was filled with young men. The young men listed above and some of the woman worked very hard here filling and placing sand bags around our house. All day long people came and went some worked until they had to leave for work others came as they got off of work. When they raised the prediction and we thought the main floor was going to get flooded my husbands nephew showed up with a 20ft. enclosed trailer from his work. A couple of the young men started moving all the furniture out of my house and into the trailer. The ladys were busy inside packing things in boxes. When we realized that we were going to have trouble getting the trailer moved from our house to my SILs my sons girlfriend made a call and walla! Here comes a man with a truck big enough to get the job done. At every turn I have been over whelmed with the people and support we have received.

Last night right down the road a levee broke and washed a couple of houses off their foundations and down the river. The Army Corps of Engineers have been working on “our” levee 24/7 trying to get it strong enough and tall enough to keep the water out.

As I sit here writing this Nate has just walked in the door. Ready to help again. He actually apologized because he didn’t come yesterday. This is a remarkable young man. He is married with two kids, he needs a better job. I wish I had some connections. I know how hard he worked here for free. I think he would be a great asset to anyone who gave him a chance.

My friend just called, they have lowered the prediction. It now looks like there is a chance we won’t get the water after all. I don’t know how to feel now. Relief for sure I mean we  don’t want our home to flood. Also feeling very foolish that we have done all of this and a great amount of guilt. A lot of people have gone to a lot of trouble for us this week. All of this might not have even been necessary.  A lot of things could still go wrong. The levee could break or they could get the rain that we missed last night. Not out of the woods yet. Now we wait.

I hate waiting.

Thanks to all who have sent well wishes and prayers. I will continue to update as I can.

My son…my little boy…the same one who use to hide behind my leg and fall asleep on my lap every afternoon. My second born child is no longer a child. He has been hired to start a new job next week. He is very excited. This has been the job he has wanted for as long as I can remember. He has gone to school for it, trained for it, and now here it is. He is as ready as he can be. “I” am not ready. I’m trying to be ready. I want to be ready. I thought that I had prepared myself. I knew it was coming. I even prayed for it to come. Now that its here, I don’t think I am ready. Now that I think about it I don’t think I will ever be ready. He is 23 yrs old. It no longer matters if I am ready. He is ready. So starting on Monday June 16th. My son will get dressed for his dream job. As he is sworn in he will be given a badge and a gun. He will never again leave the house with out strapping a gun to his belt. He is at a friends house now telling them all about the “goodies” he got today. But on his bed beside his shiny new duty belt with the holders for his gun, handcuffs, pepper spray, baton etc. there next to all those things looking very innocent is his new bullet proof vest. That, more than anything else causes my heart to pound and my eyes to blur.

My daughter had a dance competition today. She got a High Gold. Yeah Girlie!

So of course we ate out twice. Needles to say I had some not very diety foods.  I will repeat what I have said before. I am not on a diet. I am on a mission to change my life style, my eating habits my thoughts about food.  The only choice for lunch at the dance comp. was Arby’s so I had the roast beef.  By the time we were on our way home it was dinner time.  My son wanted to go to this buffet place he likes.  He had  spent all day bored to death at the comp. so we said ok.  I did go a little over board there.  I don’t really feel guilty about it though.  I do wish I hadn’t eaten so much bread but I LOVE bread and it was wonderful.  AND I guess I shouldn’t have eaten the carrot cake. I’m still a work in progress. To be honest I will sometimes eat those things.  I have done this sort of thing a couple of times since joining Buddy Slim.  I have made so much progress in my thinking that I can’t feel bad because I sometimes go out.  I just can’t even express how much free-er (how do you spell that??) I feel.  I can now go out and eat and then leave the resturant and be right back watching what I eat. Before, I would have given up as soon as my husband came back at lunch with the fries.  I would have eaten all the fries instead of just a few. Then since I had  already messed up I would have gone back and gotten a chocolate muffin. Who knows what I would have eaten at the buffet. And now I would be playing on the computer eating something terrible for me.  I would have had a lot of junk to pick from because we stopped by the grocery store on the way home.  I would have filled my cart with goodies.  Since I had already blown it why not get what I wanted.  Of course since I would have gotten several different things tomorrow would have been blown too. My “thinking” was worse than my “eating”.  I just can’t even express how different my thinking is now.  The fact that I was able to splurge but keep it just at dinner and not let it turn into a whole week-end makes me very happy. 

Doing it this way will take me a little longer to lose the weight I want to.  I think that it will be worth it in the long run.  Thru  the years I have tried every diet out there. Some of them even worked. The problem was that they didn’t fix my “thinking”.  It wouldn’t take to long before I was right back where I started.  I want to see what kind of fathers my boys become.  I want to watch my 10 yr old dancer walk down the isle. I want to have a 50th anniversary party. None of those will happen if I can’t change the way I think of food. 

I don’t mean to sound maudlin. I’m not at all.  Fact, my father died at 51 from a heart attack. Fact, I am already taking meds for high blood pressure, high cholesterol and a few other things. Fact, my chances of being here to hold my first grandchild depends on my “thinking”.

Didn’t mean for this to turn into a book. I really just wanted to say that I think I am finally on the right track.  My thought process is changing.

I can NOT get motivated to exercise.  I was able to get my walk in monday but not last night. It’s not looking good for tonight either but maybe the rain will stop at some point for a few minutes.  Walking seems to be the only thing I can do.  So when it rains I got nothin’.  I tried to do sit ups and jumping jacks last week.   Everytime I jumped and everytime I sat up I peep my pants! needless to say I didn’t do many of those. It would be funny if it weren’t so damned depressing.  I can’t do any kind of lunges or anything that envolves a lot of knee bending with out a lot of pain.   I need to find something but i’m not sure what. 

Today I really feel old.  I know to a lot of you reading this I am old.  But the funny thing is that when your in your twenties you think that some how you’ll feel different when you get in your forties.  Smarter or wiser or at least more confident or something.  Well i’m going to be 47 in August and I don’t feel any of those things.

My head hurts to much to go on with this pitty party.  I really started this blog to talk about my daughter. She was in a talent show at school last night.  It was for the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade kids.  She won 1st place. Yea Girlie!

This whole blog as gotten very disjointed so I think i’d better stop. : )