Listening and Learning, Part 1

The long 4th of July weekend is drawing to a close, and I am in a bit of funk.  Don't get me wrong, I had a great time yesterday, and was grateful to have the long weekend, but today I was in a bit of a funk and it is ending up being kind of an off day for me.   I'll try to recap things without having a ridiculously long blog, but I make no promises!

I posted Friday so I'll skip that.  It was a productive enough day, still relatively on-track other than the dinner we had, which was mixed veggies with white rice for me, no idea what was in the sauce other than a mountain of sodium.  

Yesterday was July 4th and the weather was so perfect.  I took advantage of a relatively quiet and open morning and went for my 3.2 mile walk.  I was in such a good place walking, listening to the Bouncing Souls and feeling cool, wanting to sing along with the songs as I walked at a brisk pace.  By the time I hit the spot where I turn around, I was contemplating going further because I was feeling like it took such little effort to get there.  But I was sweaty and hot and decided to turn around anyway.  By the time I got home I was really hot and sweaty and I'd almost run out of the water I'd brought along.  I also had more blisters on the bottoms of my feet.  Can I tell you how annoying this is?  I have never had to contend with blisters  there before.  Must be the new shoes, which aren't that new anymore.  Maybe they are the culprit of the tailbone issue too??  

The kids and I went to my mother-in-law's house for a cookout, and my husband met us there after he finished work.  It was a great time, and I don't usually say that about the obligatory holiday celebrations.  My husband finally told his mother that we are moving to California in March.  Last time we moved away, she put him on a huge guilt trip, so he wasn't relishing the thought of telling her we were moving again.  She took it much better this time.  So seeing as how this was our last 4th of July all together (unless we happen to visit at this particular time of year) it felt a little more special.  I'm guessing all the holidays we celebrate with family for the remainder of our time here in the state will feel that way. 

We'd barely been home a half hour before we headed out to see fireworks.  I didn't want to go, it is not really my thing and I knew we'd be eaten alive by mosquitoes and I was right.  We parked in an obscure place and walked along the river path for what felt like forever, and finally found a clearing in a tiny park.  My younger son was whining about how bad the mosquitoes were and how miserable he was, and my older son was disappointed that we were too far away to get good video footage for his YouTube channel.  Then the long, itchy walk back through the dark wooded trail.  I was exhausted by the time we got back to the car, and happy to be home.  I took some time to unwind after all the festivities (the moon has been a hazy red due to the wildfires in Canada).  Just as I was about to get some rest for the night, a centipede-type bug crawled across my bedroom floor.  EWWWW!  I have heard their sting is extremely painful and I killed it thoroughly, but it was still on my mind.  As I went to dispose of it's remainder, I saw another bug in the corner, a cockroach-looking thing with wings.  I'm told we don't have real cockroaches in Wisconsin, and it was too small to be one, but it crunched when I squished it and I was just as disgusted as I was when I killed real cockroaches in Las Vegas.  All the bug stuff had me unsettled, and I ended up staying up later than I wanted, and getting less sleep than I prefer on the weekend.  I took some nighttime sinus medicine as I am going through another bout of vertigo, which strikes me a handful of times each year.  I slept deep, but when I woke up this morning I felt hung over and I hadn't been drinking.  I was exhausted, my head felt thick, my nose was stuffy, my eyes were watering non-stop and I had a dull, nagging headache.  I melted into a tub chair with a mug of coffee while my husband was trying to figure out what we should do for the day.  When he asked for my input I said, "I feel like do exactly this all day long.  Sitting in this chair with some sort of caffeine or another, and maybe playing games on my phone or watching a movie.  And I worked hard at doing that too!  I did have a few household chores to take care of, cleaning the hamster's habitat and a load of laundry, but I made good on the sitting in a chair and being on my phone most of the day.   I simultaneously beat myself up for not doing any exercise and excused myself because everyone needs a break from time to time.  I was at war with those thoughts for most of the day, even when I was taking a bag of trash to the dumpster across the complex.  My head started to pound and I knew that was my body telling me to take a day of rest, but my brain was fighting it, telling me the only way I was going to feel better was to get a little exercise in.  My metabolism was absolutely dead today and I ended up only eating brunch and then some snacks.  My first snack was about 1/4 bag of rice and bean chips, and my second snack was some lime flavored chips with salsa.  All the food in our house seemed boring and I couldn't be bothered to cook anything.  By late afternoon, my headache reached a point where it was irritating me enough to take an ibuprofen, which finally helped a little.  Then I decided to take a walk to see if it could refresh me a little.  When I first headed out, I wasn't so sure I should go, and doubted whether it was sound judgement to go the whole 3 miles due to how I'd felt all day, but as I walked a little, it made me feel a little better so I continued until I hit a point that was closer to the turn around spot than home, so I just continued.  The trip home felt more like a moderate cool-down pace, but I was OK with that.  I am not on any time limit or trying to impress anyone.  It didn't fix whatever is wrong with my head/energy level, but it made me stop feeling bummed out that I was eating garbage and not working out, and gave me a chance to think about things.  It's never bad thing to think things through on a deeper level.  Some of the things my husband and I talked about today were really inspirational and worth some deeper reflection on, but this post is already really long, so I am going to split it up into a second post for those who are interested.  In the end, moving is therapeutic and helpful.  I've already discovered that, but life is reminding me again and again.  I feel like this time I am finally listening.