Everyone has heard the phrase, "stressed is desserts spelled backwards". In my case, I see it as being one of the same these days. Especially when the proof is on my waistline.
Stress: the killer of tranquility and calm. For every person, what stresses one person does not necessarily equal a stressful event of another. While the basics - money and time - are the major culprits of one's stress level, in fact, it is the common thread every person deals with, but there are other factors that people rarely ever pay all that much attention to. In fact, there are plenty of people that have been "conditioned" to tolerate these less than common triggers for stress, but once the threshold has been achieved, the body reacts in a far different way than what people see as "common" or "customary". In hindsight of this personal finding in my life, I have also made a cross-reference to certain behaviors that are coping mechanisms to stressful situations. Here are the ones I believe are valid. at least to me....
I am by no means a skinny girl. I have always had curves. In a society that worships excessively thin women as seen in the fashion magazines, I never managed to measure up. Even when I was considered underweight according to the BMI chart in the doctor's office. Of course, I was only 16 years old at the time, but being at 5'7" and only 110 pounds, I was not happy even at that weight. My bone structure never matched the average cover model and regardless of that fact, I knew I could never truly be happy with myself. In fact, I would sell my soul to be back at that sickly looking weight now, but I do value my faith a little more these days, so selling is not an option anymore. That, and food has been my crutch for stress. Yep, I am another common statistic of being an emotional eater.... both mentally and physically.
Knowing my stress triggers is like listing the acceptable foods list of DH. If you have not heard, DH has a very limited palate... very limited. It is easier to list what he will eat because the list of foods he won't would take forever. He prefers the processed garbage that is dieting no-no after dieting no-no. Sausage, cheese, pizza, burgers, and pasta are his go-to foods. It has taken me almost 17 years of marriage to get him to eat a banana, eat un-breaded chicken or pork, and expand his vegetable choices beyond corn. peas, and carrots. I mean, he will eat celery or tomatoes once in a while, but it needs to have a load of salt on it. Lettuce is only a condiment for tacos and sub sandwiches. His favorite Saturday meal he would make for lunch was buttered noodles with a stick of butter to a 1 pound box of noodles and who knows how much salt. Believe me, his cholesterol was awful. But after a health scare, he is at least trying to be a little more reasonable, but not by much. The responsibility of making his go-to and accepted foods healthy has put plenty of stress on my shoulders. Look at that.... one stress inducing event mentioned here and lets say that this one thing has increased my weight by 10 pounds.
With time and money not even mentioned until now, lets point out the other stress inducing factors to my already tested nervous system, shall we?
With the current economy still in the toilet, this household is under a painfully tight budget and DH is holding the checkbook. With this chosen budget by DH, I have the added pressure to not only make foods he will eat in a healthy fashion (which is a challenge in itself), I now have a limit to how much is made and what a serving size is per person, all with having zero leftovers that may or may not be thrown away. Since DD and I are tired of eating the same stuff from week to week, we are not exactly ones to eat leftovers. DH usually took care of that situation, but after his last cholesterol check with the doctor, we (meaning me) needed to buckle down even more. Yep, being responsible to remain within a budget and ration out what we eat has yet again been placed solely on my shoulders. DH and DD don't cook. It is not like they are incapable of cooking, they just choose to not cook, period. In all honesty, their cooking abilities are really only limited to boiling water, using the microwave, and putting a frozen pizza in the oven. Anything going beyond three ingredients and two steps is completely out of their comfort zone. I have tried to make them participate in cooking since DH is a hawk at watching what lands in the shopping cart every week (yes, we all are required to shop for groceries weekly as a family, yet another stress inducing event I deal with). With a slide rule and limited ingredients, I am to create edible meals that the whole family will consume. Trust me, taking a package of ground sirloin that usually holds four servings, bulk it up to an amount to feed six, divide by two and with those two mounds, create two totally different meals from them. You try that and tell me that it is not stress inducing. Increase in weight.... another 20 pounds.
Besides the food and money situation, we have a time management issue at hand. Since returning to work, albeit part time, it is apparently still my responsibility to keep the house clean, the laundry caught up, and the errands done. Usually, I can handle this, but when my family has not exactly been step up worthy and even managed to step back even more.... I cannot keep up. When I was home full time, I could follow them around with an arsenal of cleaning supplies. The hunt to collect dirty clothes to be laundered is still going on. The desire for anyone to put things were they belong is obviously not there, and by the look of my floors..... neither is bending over to pick up crumbs, seeds, or wipe up spills. With the cooking situation still on my shoulders, I just don't have all that much time on my hands anymore. Especially, when I am gone almost every day for work and on those few days that I may not need to be there.... I am running all the other errands. Back in 2008, I knew my family would not step up to ease the load on my shoulders. In fact, I have even more. As overwhelming as it is to me, it is yet another stress inducing event that has created yet another 10 pound weight gain.
Now, with an estimated 40 pounds gained just by my situation at home, I am not even done with the stress weight add on. My relationship with DH is stressful on a personal level. I am the proverbial dart board of snide remarks, nit picking, and lack of interest in who I am as a person. Recent events highlighted that DH has zero interest in what I thought was funny happening over the weekend and managed to shoot down all communications because what I wanted to share with him was not interesting in his opinion. My request for some seriously needed home repairs have been ignored and my kitchen has suffered water damage with zero plans for fixing it any time soon. I probably have mold, but I guess that of it doesn't affect DH, it shouldn't affect anyone else in the house. Of course, that bounces back to the budget situation and since the water damage is not killing anyone at the moment... I guess it can wait? The roof of our home is damaged, but with DH's rerouting of a downspout from a gutter.... I guess everything is just honky-dory? DD is in her unpredictable moody stage and I just have no clue what to do with that. One minute, she is the kid I love dearly, the next, I am an embarrassment to her, then the next.... I am not exactly her biggest fan. Meaning, I love her all the time, but I don't like her as I should from time to time. I guess she feels the same about me. The relationship between her and her father is rocky, at best, and there are times I have to play peacemaker. Then, there is apparently my new responsibility to teach DD to drive since the one time her father took her.... it turned into an argument of epic proportions. With DD's slight tendency to being a lead-foot, I am doing my best to try to breathe through the panic and try to explain to her how to be a better driver without setting her off into a tirade. Hmmm.... that sounds like another 30 pounds of weight gain.
Let's see..... roughly 70 pounds of unwanted fat hanging off my not-so ideal bone structure and I am not even done yet. Lets add on another 20 for the stress from working in a commission based environment, surrounded by a bunch of tightly wound, stressed coworkers that expect everything and refuse to take responsibility for anything. The demands of hard to please clients, the unbearable traffic to and from work, and those long stretches of time I sit at my job, waiting for work to happen.
I guess I should just chalk this all up to being an overwhelmed and very under appreciated woman going through the starting stages of menopause. Menopause alone is a guaranteed weight gaining situation in itself. What I did not expect is the return of my panic attacks and my ulcer. I went to the doctor, complaining about my throat not feeling right. It feels swollen and it is hard to swallow at times. I have managed to choke while eating. If I am not drinking water with every bite of food, I will literally choke, in fact, I have thrown up a few times because I couldn't breathe from choking. Now, that should have me drop the weight like crazy, right? Nope. I have enough weight gaining cortisol flowing through my bloodstream that I am still gaining weight. Regardless of how active I can and have been. With the acid churning insides I have going on, my throat is irritated and slightly swollen.... slightly, my backside! I am in agony here!!!! Even drinking water is a crap-shoot lately. Because of the increased acids reaching the back of my throat, I am now required to take antacids on a daily basis with hopes things will settle down. Along with that, I am debating if I should go back on anti-anxiety medications, but with the stress I am dealing with.... it won't do much good if the stress is still there. Beads and books have been my outlet for stress and even those things are becoming unappealing to me, I fear I am one more aggravation from really losing it and needing a rubber room we cannot afford for my well being. Really, in the grand scheme of things, what is stressing me to the brink of insanity is not all that much for other people to handle, but why is it so hard for me to deal with? Is it because that the track record for those that are supposed to support me seem to always fall short? Is it that I lack the ability to process things individually and lump it all into one pile? Or is it just I am far to weak to deal with anything these days? I just don't know, but my prescription is ready to be picked up and I have to go.
Thanks for reading!
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Make... it.... STOP!!! Please!
Ringing of the telephone has never made me feel such dread and frustration. Robocalls left and right, scam artists trying to put the scare in people, and recorded ramblings found each time I answer the phone these days. The worst offender is the people with the strong Pakistani accent claiming their name is "Shawn" or "Dave", or "Mike", claiming to be from Microsoft technical support. Their spiel? Apparently, they can locate viruses in computers that no longer exist. Regardless of the notion that I got rid of my old computer after having it worked on by an actual tech expert that assured me that there is no viruses. My old computer was just that.... old. Too old to keep working, unless I replace a cooling fan again. I got a new computer because I was long overdue and even with my new computer, I was assured that by the Geek Squad at Best Buy where I bought this thing.... there are no viruses or issues. Especially when it is brand-spanking new.
While buying a new computer is considered frivolous, I took this from my vacation fund I was saving up for to finally take a trip to see my best friend that happened to move to Nevada. With the last actual vacation taken (alone or with my family), being in March of 2007, I can say that I am well overdue for a break. I even considered taking DD with me since her last vacation away from home was the same time I had a vacation. DH gets an annual break from us to go "fishing" with his buddies for a few days in the next state over. The operative word should be he is actually fishing, but every year, he comes home with a sunburn and a hangover with zero fish caught. Knowing that the need for a computer is more important than my apparent sanity, I made the investment in a new computer. I do like it. It works better than my old one. Sadly, I really don't utilize all the bells and whistles this thing has and probably never will.
Okay, back to the topic here....
With some broken or old things being slowly replaced, I am still harassed by these con-artists that want to hijack my computer. Just because I had a remotely nice moment and talked to one of these people - a mistake I now regret - these people just won't stop calling me. They have my first name and ask for me now. Hidden behind caller ID names of "unavailable", "name not found", a random city or state with a hodgepodge of numbers for a telephone number, and the most unsettling of the bunch.... pasting my husband's name with our home phone number as the caller ID. Creepy, as in seeing my home phone show a call from my home phone number on the caller ID. Makes me think of those horror flicks that result in finding out the creepy calls are coming from inside my house. Regardless, these people call and ask for me with their heavily accented English with their scare tactics of viruses on my computer. Of course, they now are claiming my I.P. address is infected. Yep, they have upped their game. I have checked with my I.T. person and this threat does not hold water.
Don't get me wrong, I really do not try to speak to these people. I have tried to kindly ask them to stop calling me and to remove me from their list. Obviously, that did not work. I have answered the call in another language (my limited Spanish is at least passable), but that results in them hanging up and calling again. I have answered the phone stating that they just called the county morgue and same result as the answering the phone in Spanish. DD took a call and answered in German and still no stopping them from calling again. I have hung up on them, too, but they have not given up. There are times I did not look at the caller ID and answered the phone. I have informed them that "Nancy no longer lives here", to "Nancy has died recently". Still, no stopping them. I have told them that I no longer have a computer and that has fallen on deaf ears. All I can say is that these people are persistent. In all honesty.... they have upped their calling to multiple calls a day. Over the past two days, I have received 35 calls, and 20 of them have been from these scam artists. It is really getting out of hand!
While I do say that I am a reasonable and patient person, I am really losing my cool with these people!! My answering machine is getting a workout and I am almost ready to rip the damn phone out of the wall. With no apparent stop in sight and the knowledge that with the upcoming presidential election just over the horizon, I am filled with dread about the constant ringing of my phone I have yet in store for me. Between the scam artists and their brand of harassment, I will be bombarded with robocalls (that computer generated call that gives a recorded message instead of an actual person), regarding the upcoming election. That is, in addition to the robocalls about saving on my electric bill, credit card interest savings, and whatever company that is trying to sell vent cleaning, lawn services, or whatnot.
I have signed up again for the "do not call" registry. I know, a waste of time, but a girl can dream, right? I have called my phone provider with requests for help regarding the harassment and the robocalls. They gave me what they could to deter the barrage of calls with call blocking unidentified or name not available calls. With my begs and pleading for these people to just LEAVE... ME... ALONE, I have been told to "fuck off" by the scammers. Fitting sentiment since I told them to do the same, but that only irked them enough to up their annoyances even more. With a second call to my phone provider, their security department is now looking into finding a solution for me without having to change my phone number. In all honesty, I would change my phone number to something unlisted, but these hacks will figure a way to call again. I just know it. Especially when robocalling is all the rage these days. A computer generated random number dialing machine will eventually find even the most secretive people out there. I just don't have the patience to call every doctor we have, the school, and every family member with the new number that I will most likely never memorize like I have with my current number. The hassle is enough to make me pause. I just fear that these annoyances are going to push me to do just that. I just have to inform DH when I do since he will have to remember the number change, too.
Next topic: the horrors of home ownership....
Paying a mortgage is something everyone does when they buy a residence. DH and I have a home that we are paying for, but as with items in the home..... the home will need repairs and updates from time to time. Something as simple as a fresh coat of paint can make a difference. Sadly, DH has not had any interest in fixing what is broken here that is beyond my scope of abilities. I am not a general contractor and I don't do ladders, but we have a leak in our roof that is now damaging my kitchen cabinets. Not all cabinets... just the corner one. Well, the leak has been fixed, but there is some water damage to the siding on the house that resulted in water seepage into my kitchen. Of course, we are well overdue for an upgrade of our circa 1970 kitchen. Laminate cabinets and laminate countertops, oh joy! We still have the same wallpaper since the sale of this house on the walls of that room. Sure, I can deal with the country kitchen look, but when the laminate is peeling off the cabinets and the counter is looking a little warped.... it is time to upgrade. Well, that and the fact that the oven is original to this house when it was built in 1956 and is so obsolete that replacement parts no longer exist and have been "engineered" by DH. I fear that my house will burn down one of these days, I swear. In all honesty, I am not a real fancy person. Bells and whistles don't excite me. As long as things work (or do their specific task), I am not one to run to the home improvement store to get the newest gadget. I think DH appreciates that about me, but when my house is crumbling around my ankles with water seepage, crumbling cabinets, and bug infestations.... I get a little cranky.... and a little impatient. If DH is lacking motivation much longer.... I will start to have very expensive tastes. I am having my doubts for a new kitchen, but when he returns from his "fishing" trip, he will get the nickle tour of what his lackadaisical ways is costing us. I really want to refuse to cook in my kitchen until it is fixed, but I don't have much choice. I do, though, have to prepare meals to be cooked in another room because of the new tenants that seem to like the waterlogged corner cabinet. Carpenter ants!!! Big Ones!!!! After completely emptying out the damaged cabinet (and its neighbor), I bleached the heck out of them and then sprayed bug killer in them. I have no interest in ever putting anything in those cabinets ever again. Especially, after the storm of dead ants landing on my counter top. Kind-of grosses me out and I have been a little high on bleach fumes since. Not a good combination. It does make me wonder.... am I being punished? Am I being punked? Or am I just so darn unlucky that I have this happening to me. Of course, I doubt that I am alone in these unfortunate events. DH and DD get to suffer with me.
Of course, I almost forgot.... Since DH left for his "fishing" trip this week.... I learned that not all generic medications have a generic price. A prescription for me did a $60 slap to my wallet, DD's drops for her recent bout with pink eye could have slapped my wallet for another $60, but her doctor gave us a coupon and it only slapped my wallet for $25. Gotta love medical insurance.... costs a fortune, but covers practically nothing. I will say that if we did not have prescription coverage (as minimal as it is). my prescription would have been $70 and DD's eye drops would be a whopping $190. Yep, definitely said bye bye to the vacation/craptastrophe fund over the course of a few days and the end is still not in sight.
I decided that it is better to laugh at these unfortunate events than cry. Kind of getting a little hard to keep laughing, so..... here is a message to God:
Dear God,
I am screaming "Uncle" here!!! I can't hold it all together anymore. It is time for you to take the wheel and take over. Please make this stop!! Needing a breather here. Can you do me a solid and take over? Thanks!!
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!
While buying a new computer is considered frivolous, I took this from my vacation fund I was saving up for to finally take a trip to see my best friend that happened to move to Nevada. With the last actual vacation taken (alone or with my family), being in March of 2007, I can say that I am well overdue for a break. I even considered taking DD with me since her last vacation away from home was the same time I had a vacation. DH gets an annual break from us to go "fishing" with his buddies for a few days in the next state over. The operative word should be he is actually fishing, but every year, he comes home with a sunburn and a hangover with zero fish caught. Knowing that the need for a computer is more important than my apparent sanity, I made the investment in a new computer. I do like it. It works better than my old one. Sadly, I really don't utilize all the bells and whistles this thing has and probably never will.
Okay, back to the topic here....
With some broken or old things being slowly replaced, I am still harassed by these con-artists that want to hijack my computer. Just because I had a remotely nice moment and talked to one of these people - a mistake I now regret - these people just won't stop calling me. They have my first name and ask for me now. Hidden behind caller ID names of "unavailable", "name not found", a random city or state with a hodgepodge of numbers for a telephone number, and the most unsettling of the bunch.... pasting my husband's name with our home phone number as the caller ID. Creepy, as in seeing my home phone show a call from my home phone number on the caller ID. Makes me think of those horror flicks that result in finding out the creepy calls are coming from inside my house. Regardless, these people call and ask for me with their heavily accented English with their scare tactics of viruses on my computer. Of course, they now are claiming my I.P. address is infected. Yep, they have upped their game. I have checked with my I.T. person and this threat does not hold water.
Don't get me wrong, I really do not try to speak to these people. I have tried to kindly ask them to stop calling me and to remove me from their list. Obviously, that did not work. I have answered the call in another language (my limited Spanish is at least passable), but that results in them hanging up and calling again. I have answered the phone stating that they just called the county morgue and same result as the answering the phone in Spanish. DD took a call and answered in German and still no stopping them from calling again. I have hung up on them, too, but they have not given up. There are times I did not look at the caller ID and answered the phone. I have informed them that "Nancy no longer lives here", to "Nancy has died recently". Still, no stopping them. I have told them that I no longer have a computer and that has fallen on deaf ears. All I can say is that these people are persistent. In all honesty.... they have upped their calling to multiple calls a day. Over the past two days, I have received 35 calls, and 20 of them have been from these scam artists. It is really getting out of hand!
While I do say that I am a reasonable and patient person, I am really losing my cool with these people!! My answering machine is getting a workout and I am almost ready to rip the damn phone out of the wall. With no apparent stop in sight and the knowledge that with the upcoming presidential election just over the horizon, I am filled with dread about the constant ringing of my phone I have yet in store for me. Between the scam artists and their brand of harassment, I will be bombarded with robocalls (that computer generated call that gives a recorded message instead of an actual person), regarding the upcoming election. That is, in addition to the robocalls about saving on my electric bill, credit card interest savings, and whatever company that is trying to sell vent cleaning, lawn services, or whatnot.
I have signed up again for the "do not call" registry. I know, a waste of time, but a girl can dream, right? I have called my phone provider with requests for help regarding the harassment and the robocalls. They gave me what they could to deter the barrage of calls with call blocking unidentified or name not available calls. With my begs and pleading for these people to just LEAVE... ME... ALONE, I have been told to "fuck off" by the scammers. Fitting sentiment since I told them to do the same, but that only irked them enough to up their annoyances even more. With a second call to my phone provider, their security department is now looking into finding a solution for me without having to change my phone number. In all honesty, I would change my phone number to something unlisted, but these hacks will figure a way to call again. I just know it. Especially when robocalling is all the rage these days. A computer generated random number dialing machine will eventually find even the most secretive people out there. I just don't have the patience to call every doctor we have, the school, and every family member with the new number that I will most likely never memorize like I have with my current number. The hassle is enough to make me pause. I just fear that these annoyances are going to push me to do just that. I just have to inform DH when I do since he will have to remember the number change, too.
Next topic: the horrors of home ownership....
Paying a mortgage is something everyone does when they buy a residence. DH and I have a home that we are paying for, but as with items in the home..... the home will need repairs and updates from time to time. Something as simple as a fresh coat of paint can make a difference. Sadly, DH has not had any interest in fixing what is broken here that is beyond my scope of abilities. I am not a general contractor and I don't do ladders, but we have a leak in our roof that is now damaging my kitchen cabinets. Not all cabinets... just the corner one. Well, the leak has been fixed, but there is some water damage to the siding on the house that resulted in water seepage into my kitchen. Of course, we are well overdue for an upgrade of our circa 1970 kitchen. Laminate cabinets and laminate countertops, oh joy! We still have the same wallpaper since the sale of this house on the walls of that room. Sure, I can deal with the country kitchen look, but when the laminate is peeling off the cabinets and the counter is looking a little warped.... it is time to upgrade. Well, that and the fact that the oven is original to this house when it was built in 1956 and is so obsolete that replacement parts no longer exist and have been "engineered" by DH. I fear that my house will burn down one of these days, I swear. In all honesty, I am not a real fancy person. Bells and whistles don't excite me. As long as things work (or do their specific task), I am not one to run to the home improvement store to get the newest gadget. I think DH appreciates that about me, but when my house is crumbling around my ankles with water seepage, crumbling cabinets, and bug infestations.... I get a little cranky.... and a little impatient. If DH is lacking motivation much longer.... I will start to have very expensive tastes. I am having my doubts for a new kitchen, but when he returns from his "fishing" trip, he will get the nickle tour of what his lackadaisical ways is costing us. I really want to refuse to cook in my kitchen until it is fixed, but I don't have much choice. I do, though, have to prepare meals to be cooked in another room because of the new tenants that seem to like the waterlogged corner cabinet. Carpenter ants!!! Big Ones!!!! After completely emptying out the damaged cabinet (and its neighbor), I bleached the heck out of them and then sprayed bug killer in them. I have no interest in ever putting anything in those cabinets ever again. Especially, after the storm of dead ants landing on my counter top. Kind-of grosses me out and I have been a little high on bleach fumes since. Not a good combination. It does make me wonder.... am I being punished? Am I being punked? Or am I just so darn unlucky that I have this happening to me. Of course, I doubt that I am alone in these unfortunate events. DH and DD get to suffer with me.
Of course, I almost forgot.... Since DH left for his "fishing" trip this week.... I learned that not all generic medications have a generic price. A prescription for me did a $60 slap to my wallet, DD's drops for her recent bout with pink eye could have slapped my wallet for another $60, but her doctor gave us a coupon and it only slapped my wallet for $25. Gotta love medical insurance.... costs a fortune, but covers practically nothing. I will say that if we did not have prescription coverage (as minimal as it is). my prescription would have been $70 and DD's eye drops would be a whopping $190. Yep, definitely said bye bye to the vacation/craptastrophe fund over the course of a few days and the end is still not in sight.
I decided that it is better to laugh at these unfortunate events than cry. Kind of getting a little hard to keep laughing, so..... here is a message to God:
Dear God,
I am screaming "Uncle" here!!! I can't hold it all together anymore. It is time for you to take the wheel and take over. Please make this stop!! Needing a breather here. Can you do me a solid and take over? Thanks!!
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!
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