I am Jack's Feeble Brain

I am the most unzen person that ever lived.

Yesterday was Sunday, and the fam and I prepared to go to church. Meaning I ran around and packed snacks, got water bottles, packed spare diapers, found tiny AND quiet toys, prepared dozens of Star Wars printouts and mazes, ironed shirts, and managed to get four people ready and out the door mostly on time. I swear, it's like getting ready for a week in the desert. I have no idea why my children cannot survive an hour without a snack or a drink, but there it is. The manfriend showered and got himself dressed.

Then I did a lot of praying. It went something like this:

Me: Dear Lord, please make these children shut up and sit still.

Me: Dear Lord, I swear if you can get the little one to stop screeching like a monkey I will give up Keeping up with the Kardashians for lent.

Me: Lord, I hate to bother you, but do you think you could turn the full water bottle that my daughter spilled on the pew into wine?

Me: Are you there God? It's me Poppysmocks. We're having a bit of a moment here, what with the baby trying to knock down the pew in front of us. Think you could strike the kids dumb just for a few minutes?

Me: Jesus Christ. Really? Really? You've got nothing you can help out with down here? Now I know why You were the only begotten son.

Me: God save the little children.
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In other news, I broke my 1980s treadmill. Sad face. But, an incredibly amazing person, who is also on a fitness journey, gave me her old 2005 treadmill. Upgrade! I got to test it out this morning at 5:30, and boy has it got pep. Love it.

I still haven't weighed in, which is about as close as I have come to meeting this month's goal. Any suggestions on how to calm the anxiety beast? Short of medications that is. I've nothing against medications, in fact, I would love a zanax. However, I don't want to go to the doctor. Partly because I've been going to my OB for the last six and a half years and wouldn't begin to know who to go to. Also partly because I'm lazy.

The un-weigh-in

Mmm hmm.

I don't like it. The not getting on the scale. Not being able to track my progress. The double hyphen in the title of this blog post...

It's making me sort of nervous to not know where I'm at, but at the same time I know that I'm doing good things for my body. I don't want the scale to make me feel that I'm not. So I'm just going to keep on keepin' on. I did measure this morning and I'm not down much. A half inch on my hips and maybe a quarter inch on my waist.

And, if it's possible, I'm feeling even less zen than before. It's possible that it correlates to my daughter's new ability to take her jammies off, or tax season, or some sort of hormonal imbalance, or that my abdominal muscles are in a near constant state of pain, but I think it's just that I'm thinking about it too much. So, maybe I need to be zen by not being zen? I don't know.

This week's step toward being more zen is to put a notepad on my nightstand so I can write down a To Do List of things that keep me awake at night (write out thank you cards, pay phone bill, follow up on some work business, etc...) and then tackle them at an appropriate time. Anytime after dawn would be fine.

I'm also going to give myself 10 minute a day to do nothing. I don't mean nothing like dicking around on facebook, but just nothing. Just sit on the couch or lie in bed and do nothing.

The yoga instructor at the super awesome yoga studio that I've been going to said that so often people ask, "What should I do to feel more relaxed, more zen?" Her answer is, "Nothing. Do nothing."

Le sigh. This is not up my alley. Even when I'm doing "nothing" like watching TV I enjoy doing several other nothing-like tasks like folding laundry, sewing, or facebooking. But, this week doing nothing is hitting my high priority list. It's sort of freeing. Maybe I should put that on my To Do List...

My husband's trying to kill me

...with kindness, I guess.

So, remember when I said that I'd given up the scale? Partially for zen and partially because my manfriend broke our scale? It's probably 60/40. Or maybe 50/50. Definitely not any lower than 20/80. Well, today manfriend comes home from Fleet Farm (his idea of heaven) with...a scale. And not just any scale ladies and gentleman (because I'm pretty sure I only have one loyal male reader. Shout out to you J-Tony. Isn't that odd that it's not my manfriend who's a loyal reader?). It's a scale that tells your body fat and your mother fucking water weight.

Breathe deep. I didn't weigh myself. Well, I did weigh myself but I CLOSED MY EYES and my manfriend looked at my weight and body fat and wouldn't TELL ME. Because that would be cheating. And I wouldn't cheat on you. Unless I get really desperate.

We did, however, weigh all the kids. The boys top out with a whopping 5% body fat a piece. Boo was not quite where I thought she'd be at around 15% body fat. Of course, the scale was assuming that they were all 10 year old midgets because we could only make the age go down as young as 10. I don't know why the scale manufacturers would have a problem with people checking out their prepubescent children's body fat percentages. That's not unhealthy or anything.

Anyway, I've been fighting the urge to weigh myself all day. Somehow I want to revert to all my bad habits, possibly weighing myself while drink a diet coke spiked with rum. Hell, I might as well smoke a cigarette while I'm at it. I'm thinking about putting a rubber band around my wrist and snapping it every time I get an urge to weigh myself, but I don't think that's very zen.

One day at a time. I might start weighing things in the produce section just to get my fix.

Oh, and some of you were wondering just precisely how he broke the scale. Funny story. I was all, "Do you think it's possible that the scale might need new batteries? It doesn't seem to be working properly."

Him: I don't know. Did you look at it?

Me: I did. I couldn't find anywhere to put a battery. Plus it was kind of yucky.

Him: Yucky? Did you try cleaning it?

Me: Well, I wiped it off. And it was still pretty yucky. And I still didn't see a battery keeper.

He picks up the scale and cleans it. Then takes it apart looking for a battery. He finds a battery and tests it.

Him: The battery is fine.

He puts the battery back in and puts the scale back together.

Him, standing on the scale: Huh. That's funny. Try this.

Me, standing on scale: Ooooh. I like that. Oh, wait that's not right. I don't weigh 99.5 pounds.

Him: Yeah. That's kind of what I figured.

Zen {without Zanax}

Isn't it curious to see the traits that you've inherited from your family? I've got my dad's curly hair and his keen eye for photography. From my mom I got my green eyes and my intense desire to hide behind corners and jump out and scare my children (don't worry they love it, right mom?). I've passed some of these traits down myself to my kids...red hair, green eyes, curly hair...and a bit of a fiery temper and more than a smidge of anxiety.

That's my rents. Aren't they suuuper cute? They were living in Canada, eh.

Which segues nicely to this month's Be Inspired topic...zen {without zanax}. Life with three kids is pretty crazy. Hell, life is probably crazy without three kids, but for me it's the three kids bit that's harshing up my zen. Top that off with a daily dose of not having enough money and constant worry about how to make more money makes for one anxiety-riddled little poppy. It means that I snap more than I should, that I sleep less than I should, and that, in general, I am a nervous nellie.

So, this month I am going to be inspired by my grandma Fran. My Franma.

That's her on the left with the red lipstick and nice rack.

I loved my little Franma so much that I named my son after her. Well, his middle name. I don't think that he'd forgive me if I made his first name be Francis.

Franma was always  calm. Intense psychotherapy may have helped that case, but I like to think that it was her nature. She did crossword puzzles, smoked a lot of cigarettes, and loved talk radio. She ate tofu before tofu was cool, and worked well into her 70s because she liked it.

Franma making her famous oven fried chicken...in pearls.

Now, I'm sure there were times that I wasn't around where Grandma wasn't completely cool, but as far as I know she was the epitome of cool and collected. I wish THAT was something that I could have inherited.

My dad apparently got that gene.

I remember talking with her when I was in high school and suffering through one of my many bouts of depression. She told me that when she was feeling down, or out of control, she pictured herself floating above the chaos and the sadness. Sort of on a cloud of well being. I thought that was beautiful. And sort of hippy dippy, but whatev. Still a nice thought.

A few action points on my plan for zenness (I can't get zen all willy nilly at once. Baby steps, remember?)

• Yoga. I've been an on again off again practicer of yoga, but this month I promise to try to actually concentrate on my breathing and the poses instead of mentally going through my grocery list.
• Exercise. Check that one off the list. I'm still going strong on my Kendra plan, but experts say that 30 minutes of exercise is enough to get you an endorphin boost to help fight anxiety and depression.
• Scale. I've been toying with this one for a few days now. I obviously have a bit of an unhealthy addiction to the scale. In order to "trust in the process" and accept that I am doing what I need to do to make my body healthy I am not going to get on the scale this month. This process has been made easier since my manfriend broke our scale yesterday. I'm pretty sure that's kismet, or maybe my grandma telling me to stop obsessing. In a month I'll buy a new scale, and will hopefully be in a better place with myself and the number the scale tells me.
• Yelling. None of it. This is going to be a doozie. I am a yeller, but this month, instead of yelling at my kids, I am going to sing at them. That's right. If I want to shout, "Put your boots on! You're going to be late!" I'm going to sing it to the tune of...well, whatever pops into my head at the time.
• Cloud. Floating cloud of well being. I'm going to try floating above my problems for the month. Not avoid them, but not allow myself to become bogged down by them.

Also, unrelated to achieving zen, but more on the getting a smoking hot body, I am also participating in the Fab Ab February plan shown below. My manfriend is playing along as well. Join us and on the leap year we shall bounce quarters off our abs.