Neglect

Dear Lynn ( and dear neglected blog)

Not even a photo.  I do so love this space though, even empty.

So here I am.  My chin still sprouts ever more hair.  I still have heart burn.  I still have weight to lose.

I get so passionate about things I ought to do, and start off well.  And then it all goes to hell in a handbasket.  Or whatever that saying is.

All of my blogs are much neglected.  The people I love to write about do not see a lot of me.  Even my photography has been neglected other than for major occasions where I have been paid to do the work.

I guess I am living my life.  It is a very quiet life which is driven mostly by the needs of the kids.  J and I continue to work away at our marriage - in a very quiet kind of way.  Which is OK with me after all the drama of the past few years.  I was in such a hurry to get engaged/married and now I feel like we are slowly building a friendship with stronger foundations.  I heard a local comedian say recently that we should only get married after being together 20 years - that we have it all the wrong way round.  In our case we were only together four months before we got engaged and whilst it felt fantastic at the time I think we could have done with waiting to get married for 20 years.

And have I mentioned the cross roads thing.  I hope I have a good 30 or more years left in me.  Yet what shall I do with them.  I know my own mother went into a clinical depression over questions like these. Whilst I know that won't happen to me I am left wondering - what to do, what to do.

Give back is the answer I keep coming up with.

love to you

Mary

Sandwiched

Dear Mary,

I am feeling downright peanut butter-ish lately.  Or maybe a dollop of Nutella would be more like it.  In any case, I have become a card-carrying member of the Sandwich Generation, with my children being one slice of bread and my ailing parents the other.  And as much as I would like to ooze out from between both at the moment, it is not to be.

So I lower my parenting standards (I was always kind of curious about unschooling anyway, and maybe the old Scooby Doo episodes won't warp my five-year-old's brain too much).  I luxuriate in a little self-indulgence (I'm taking an online self-portrait course; if you promise not to laugh too much, here's my collection so far).  And you'd better believe that I'm getting pretty good at living in the moment (because it beats reliving a month of hospital visits and nursing home conversations, and anticipating crises to come).

Until next time...

xoxoxo
Lynn

Fat Fat the water rat

Dear Lynn

To say I was devastated when I got on the scales last week is an understatement.

One hundred and one kilos or 220 pounds.  Never ever ever did I expect to get to that weight.

Ever.

I want to live for another forty years.  Not fifty. Forty will do.  I want to kiss my children a billion more times. I want to continue to nurture the very gentle tentative new relationship I have with my husband.  I want to take better and better photographs.  Laugh with my friends for so much longer.

And so, yet again, I begin to monitor my food, my exercise and have booked to see a herbalist.

I have done this before.  This time though I am so angry with myself that there is a ferocity in my determination to achieve some weight loss.

Fuckity bugger.

Love to you 

Mary

Heartburn

Dear Lynn

Just wanted to let you know that I am still here - that my heart burns for you as you look after your mum

and that I am , in fact , literally suffering from heartburn, indigestion, reflux -  I believe that it is quite common at our age but it is utterly repulsive.

And that I am now 6 weeks off the fags ...

which I thought would help me with the heartburn.. but it has not..

I suspect a lot less sugar in my diet and a lot more exercise is probably the key.

Bugger it.

xxxx

Mary