06/21/18, Thursday

Oh man, have I been taking notes ! Here are some profound gems I am journaling on and sitting with from the last two days of wisdom and sharing:

Be here and now

PRIDE Progress Realized Through Daily Effort

Am I allowing the words of others to shape my life ? How can I reshape that process ?

How can Ben's Celebration of Life inspire me to celebrate life in some way, every day ?

Am I consistently trying to measure up ? To what ? Why ? Is it getting me where I want to be ?

We are all in a continual state of maintenance. How do my priorities change as I balance neutral data, wants, needs, and life as it happens ?

Happy first day of summer ! I'd like to add to Devon's quote yesterday, as I added the bolded sentence immediately:

"I do not feel fat or thin. I simply AM, and feel like me." I feel like I belong here !

So grateful for a place to belong, where people "get it" and walk the talk of continuous growth.

Every. Single. Sentence. The greatness!!

Happy first day of summer.

Perhaps this maintenance and even weightloss, much like life, isn't about the destination so much. I'm definitely beginning to see maintenance as a continuum, as I believe Devon said.

163.4 (down again!)

Yesterday I tried to go lower on my calories but still ended up near 1200

1161, 78 g. protein

B: 1/2 everything bagel, 1/2 Tbsp. cream cheese, poached egg, coffee w/ ff half and half

S: 7 strawberries

L: Salata with a friend: salad, tomatoes, red onion, black beans, corn, chipotle chicken

S: Met a friend at Sbux and had tall iced skinny vanilla latte and we split the egg white sous vide bites

D: TJ's pesto linguine with leftover grilled chicken

S: mini chocolate drumstick

Things went a little south around dinnertime. I had intended to spiralize zucchini to put into my dinner. But I had an overtired baby and in fact ate with her in my arms. Thankfully it was an easy dinner to make!! I also did not need as much pasta. The bag said 3 1-cup servings but I really thought there would be less (as there usually is) so just calculated calories based on half. In the future I'd do 1/3 of the bag and some veggies. (I normally don't hardly do pasta, but this was nice and summery change)

Yes, happy first day of summer. Weight 120.8...

I had a feeling last night and this morning that something was wrong. I awoke to a bunch of txt messages from DS and SIL about a fight last night between DS and his uncle (DH and SIL's brother). He is a reformed alcoholic and thinks all has been forgiven, but my son has been harboring some negative feelings. After eldest DD died, DS was really floundering and his uncle would make arrangements to take him to the movies or whatever and cancel last minute. Over and over and over again until DS has to acknowledge that his uncle wasn't trustworthy. Then uncle got very drunk one night and punched our then 20 year old daughter and ended up in jail. DS wasn't there but the fallout from that is part of what upsets him. According to SIL, her brother doesn't really understand what the fight was about because DS was so upset and crying. And to be honest, BIL thinks all should have gone away when he did the AA thing and asked forgiveness. Not so easy for some...

Anyway, we don't have to deal with it head-on until we get back on Saturday. BIL is supposed to pick us up...

I hope your days got well!

Goodness, Liz! I feel for everyone involved. It must be hard to not be able to erase the past, but it must be. Hoping some of it is smoothed over by the time you're back.

Good morning

Good words Ocean, Devon and actually from all of us.

So sorry for the upset Liz. Alcohol is not a friend.

We were up to 102F yesterday and the flowers were not the only ones wilting.

Have a great day.

One hundred and two degrees fahrenheit?! Where do you live -- Mexico City? ;)

I'm at my wit's end with my dogs!! I know we have doggie people here so maybe they can point me in the right direction. Idk if there's even an answer. And it may be that the answer is just too much for me to attempt right now.

I never had dogs growing up. My parents and I were cat people.

My husband never trained his pets. thought it was mean. I think it's mean to not at least attempt it.

But a little vent today: Yorkie has always been a potty problem. I think that's part of the nature of the breed. She's so sweet and cuddly, but she's trying to destroy my house. Everything I've done has gone awry. Of course I started out trying to encourage her to potty outdoors. But it became very obvious that it's not that she can't, it's that she won't. She's a princess who only goes indoors. I knew it was bad--and that's why I got rid of most of the carpet in my house. I cannot have my house smelling like urine!! But I didn't know the extent of it. Now that her potty spots are visible, I'm horrified that she may exclusively go in the house. I've also tried pet diapers to try to encourage her to only go when I let her outside--and she totally soiled that. Biggest mess ever. Then I tried the pee pads but she peed right next to it. I may need to give this a go with more consistency and longer time than I did. I don't really like the idea of pee pads, but I thought it's better than where we are. I want to be consistent, but it's very, very hard just managing the house and a baby alone every other week, much less trying ot make up for years of untrained yorkie!! So as it is now, every morning is a bit of an easter egg hunt to find out where the Yorkie has peed and/or pooped. Occasionally I get the joy of stepping in it in my groggy state. And it's especially fun when a guest finds a rogue piece of dried poop that Lily has obscured. Grrrr. I'm also worried she's starting to stain the grout in our marble floors.

I forget if I had mentioned about my lab. My lab is sweet but dumb. (isn't this breed supposed to be smart?) She's massive and it does make me a little anxious to have her around baby. She's never hurt a fly, but she doesn't realize her own strength. I did not realize labs shed...like CRAZY!! She's blowing her coat and now that we don't have much carpet, it's scattered about the floor and floating EVERYWHERE and really sets my horrible asthma off. But what can you do? That's not the big issue. The big issue is that she now poops her massive poops on the concrete by the pool and the Yorkie is starting to follow suit. And as if that isn't enough, I've been catching her peeing in the flower beds that we just planted...and thinking that may be why they are looking a bit ill!!!

This is a very small problem in the grand scheme of things. I know my pets are probably in need of more attention and a better routine but I honestly don't think I have it in me right now. I feel mad at them, but I should probably be mad at myself for being a bad dog mama. I guess I just need to give them (and me) some grace right now.

But if you have any recommendations...

Oh boy, this is a tough one. I hope Devon chimes in. I crate trained all my dogs and we only resorted to pee pads when they got too old to make it outside. And as long as I strategically place them for the most part that is where the dog goes. I wonder if you could try crate training the yorkie now? Our older chihuahua was originally only pad trained by DD, but then was trained to go outside at age 3 via crate training (but was used to the crate).

As far as the coat blowing, take your dog to a groomer and ask them to Furminate him. You can buy one yourself and do it, but it's messy as it combs out all that undercoat and seems to make it stick to you through static cling while you're doing it. What a mess (at least on my golden!) but it does a great job. I find it's worth it to pay someone else to do it!

I think if your husband thinks training is mean he may have the wrong idea about training. It can be done with all praise and positivity to get what you want from them rather than the old "rubbing their nose in it", punishment based way. To potty train Fergus, who is/was the most stubborn dog on the planet, I really focused on schedules (the second we got up, taking him out right after any play time or feeding, right before bed), and every half hour at first, then every hour as he got older during waking hours to the same spot I wanted him to use while on a leash always using the same words (go potty). Then I'd throw him a verbal praise party every time he went outside in his spot.

Anytime I saw him about to go in the house, I would scoop him up and take him outside to his spot and say go potty. Followed by his verbal party (lots of yays, good boys, and pets).

You can do it! Remember you're in charge.