Frustrated

On a night when I am so frustrated, I literally have tears streaming down my face as I write this, I find myself feeling as if I have this tremendous ball of tangled string in my lap and the more I pull and tug trying to sort it out, the bigger mess I make. Tonight is definitely a night when I just want to pull out a pair of scissors and start cutting out the knots. I’m tired of trying to tease them apart, trying to salvage the yarn or string because…what will I do with it once I have it straightened out? Better to just save myself the trouble, cut out the knots and tie the loose ends together. Sure, I’ll butcher the tangled mess and it won’t really be usable afterwards, but at least there will be some continuity.

What does this mean? I don’t know really. I feel completely weighed down by life and circumstances right now. I feel stuck on so many levels and I seem to keep making the same bad choices over and over and over and over. At what point do you just cut your losses and move on? Is it too much to want just ONE THING in your life to be effortless? Haven’t I paid my dues? Jesus Christ, I just want to be able to fucking EXHALE for once in my damn life and I just don’t think it is ever going to happen.

Forgive me, I’m just having a melancholy moment I’m sure I’ll be over in the morning. I’ve gotten my first period in about four months so I’m sure that has something to do with it, but I’m also dealing with incredible frustration where Erik is concerned, finances, other personal issues, etc and I’m to the point where I’m just so TIRED of the same crap coming up time and time and time again, that I just want to chuck the whole darn mess and start over somewhere new where I can re-create myself; where people don’t know *this* version of me; where I don’t have to explain the gay husband, the special needs son, my weird f’d up relationship with men and how I’ll probably never be able to have a real and genuine relationship with anyone man or woman because on some very real and fundamental level, I don’t think I’m worth it.

I’m tired of feeling broken, damaged, shattered and trying to keep the pieces together with prayers and promises. God, I hate even typing that because I know it is SO not true and about as f’ing pathetic as it can get. I’m not perfect, but geez I really do try and live my life the best I can. I have a hell of a lot to offer on so many levels, so WHY can’t I embrace that and live my life accordingly?

Why is my knee jerk reaction constantly trying to figure out what I did wrong or trying to determine what MORE I need to do when I’m already stretched to the breaking point? When will I ever feel comfortable holding other people accountable when appropriate and stop trying to make excuses for their behavior?

Sometimes I find myself wanting to wear a mask like Erik did for so many years. A mask that will allow me to live “as if” my life had gone as I had dreamed it might. As if it hadn’t taken the opposite turn at every possible fork in my life’s road leading me down paths of disappointment and disillusion.

Again, I know this is just another little pity party I’m throwing for myself. I hope you don’t mind letting me just get this out of my system though because I truly feel that if I don’t, something is going to give in a very big way..

On a more positive note…I was down to 301 this morning and I’ve been walking pretty regularly the past 2-3 weeks. Tonight, I went for a walk out at a local park because I knew it would relax me after the last few days (which included lots of Tanner drama, Erik drama, and our car getting stolen…yeah…not kidding). I’m finding that this is a good outlet for me. While I sound like a basket case at the moment, trust me…I’m just having a “moment.” For the most part, despite all the crap that has been going on the last few days, I am still trying to focus on the wonderful things that are different about my life now. I enjoy looking in the mirror because I finally feel like the outside is beginning to reflect what is inside. I know this pretty much negates everything I’ve said earlier in this post, but …ultimately, I am honestly feeling more confident and valued beyond what I have to offer physically. While this post may not sound like it, I know that I am making a slow, plodding progress. Sometimes it just feels like I’m treading water though and its frustrating.

Parties and hikes and everything in between

I had a great weekend. Greg and I were supposed to go hiking Friday night, but at the last minute we decided that we just wanted some quality time together lol. He sees his daughter every other weekend and he has been working a second job lately so our time together is pretty limited. We were both looking forward to the hike and have more planned for the future, but it had been quite some time since we’d really spent time together so we flaked out on the hike and had dinner at a deli and then went back to his place for a while.

He is Irish so St Patrick’s day I saw him briefly at lunch time when I surprised him with a traditional Irish meal of corned beef and cabbage/veggies that had been steeped in Guinness, some Irish cream brownies (don’t really know how traditional those are lol, but they were yummy if not a bit on the sweet side), and some Irish soda bread. What was funny is when I got there and asked him what they typically ate on St Patrick’s day (knowing he’s very proud of his heritage, etc) he said “umm, hamburgers, hot dogs?” He actually thought his mom might have made ham or something on St Patrick’s day because his dad didn’t like the corned beef. Anyway, I thought it was a pretty bland meal, but he was nice enough to act like it was edible.

Saturday night, we went to a Madhatter Wine and Cheese Party and had a lot of fun. I didn’t really know the person hosting it, but she was super nice and several people I knew from other meetup groups showed up. Greg mentioned he was a bit nervous about going since he didn’t know a soul, but all I had to do was introduce him and he could carry a conversation with anyone about anything…one thing I love about him :)

We got to sit out on her “deck” which was a 5 tiered monster that led down to her pool. The hostess mentioned that she had 2400 square feet of decking alone. Seriously a party house people! We sat out there with various others and just chatted, sampled various wines (I tried a chocolate red wine…tasted like alcoholic chocolate milk…yes, delicious) and had a great view of the super moon.

This past week has been alright. Frustrations with money predominate. Erik has missed a bunch of work and since he doesn’t have the second job, we are back in the same position with me picking up the financial slack. This means I now have to evaluate my budget (which honestly needed a bit of honing regardless) and stop doing certain things (getting my eyelashes done and possibly stop my nails and pedis) which kind of pisses me off because I haven’t done a heck of a lot for myself the last decade. We owe a huge tax bill next month and I still haven’t finished paying off our bikes. I pretty much announced to everyone that all I wanted for my birthday in April was money to put towards our bikes. The weather has been so beautiful, I’m a bit frustrated with myself that I’ve been spending money on clothes and beauty maintenance and not getting our bikes out of layaway. Oh, I also got word that I was getting a huge pay cut at my second job, so that isn’t helping things. We’ll be ok though. There are MANY areas where we can trim the budget; actually DOING it is the challenge.

I’ve also been getting out quite a bit more for walks/hikes with a friend of mine this week. Going to try to keep the momentum going. I’m tired of hovering at 305…I WANT to pass into the 200’s before the month is over. Stay tuned to see if I do it. Every time I complete a walk I have to admit that I sit in my car for a second and ponder the fact that this time last year, a 10 minute walk through CVS used to leave me so winded and red in the face that I had to take 5 minutes in my car to compose myself before I could even attempt the drive home. Now I'm doing at least a 30 minute hike, many times it is longer than this, and I feel ENERGIZED afterwards. No matter what else might be getting me down, life is still pretty.darn.good!

The tip of the iceberg

I am SO behind, I wonder if I can ever catch up! Weight-wise I’m still hovering around 305 Boo! I’ll gain a few, lose a few, but haven’t gotten below 305 yet. Last Sunday, Erik, Tanner and I went for a hike at a local park and had such a good time. The weather was beautiful and it was just really nice to get out and get some fresh air. I’ll be sharing some pics of that hike and another one later this week, but I know most of you are wanting to know what happened on that date!

Well, I had a wonderful time. The play we saw was all about relationships and it was funny…several moments where we kind of looked at each other and knew the other one was thinking “uh yeah…there YOU are!” lol. Afterwards, we spent some time together and at some point, I had another minor freakout. Because we were getting in so late, I had arranged to just stay at his place, but asked him to take me home at like 3 in the morning. I felt a bit like a kid who decided she didn’t want to stay at the slumber party after all. Poor Greg. He did absolutely NOTHING to upset me, but what I’ve realized is that the second I begin to feel myself giving in…just a little bit…to how I’m feeling about him, where I see this going, etc (and NO I’m not just speaking sexually here…actually, it is the emotional intimacy that is scaring me MUCH more than the sexual intimacy at this point) I just STOP. Something inside me literally feels as if a switch has been flipped and I can no longer feel, sense, interact normally with my environment…It’s just weird.

Up until that night, I figured this was my mind telling me that I wasn’t ready for this relationship or just wasn’t…into a relationship at all so I would call things off, take my toys and go home. He has had to cope with the possibility that I was putting a terminal halt to things several times. This last one felt the most final to him…and to me as well. Even though I felt heartbroken the next day, I was more afraid of continuing to hurt him. I mean, how much crazy can a man put up with honestly? We talked later that evening (Saturday) and things ended with both of us saying our goodbyes to each other for what truly felt like the last time.

And then, the next day…true to form, he sent me one last email; not to pressure me, but to just ask if we could leave the door open…not leave things so truly and utterly DONE. We went back and forth by email; by now I was beginning to see that I wasn’t really rejecting HIM or the relationship, I was just having a difficult time allowing myself to be vulnerable with someone else. All those years of fighting off advances from older men…thinking I was building a friendship with them only to have them pull the rug out from under me with some awkward and inappropriate advance. In my marriage, giving myself completely and totally to another human being and then finding out years later that I had been in love with a mirage to some extent…again, rug pulled out from under me. Is it any wonder that when I start to feel myself falling just a wee bit more for Greg, I have this WALL go up to protect myself… It’s as if my subconscious is saying, “Oh no, I’m not falling for THAT again! We know how this ends, so let’s just save ourselves some heartache and nip it in the bud while we’re ahead”

So, we have picked up where we left off and things seem to be good for now. I think our game plan for now is to handle these “freak out” moments by giving me a few days of space to process my feelings and really evaluate where they are coming from before we make any hard and fast decisions about whether we do or don’t proceed with our relationship.

I know it sounds like we are having to work incredibly hard at making this work, but honestly…so much of US just works like a charm. Our sense of humor, the things we enjoy doing both together and apart, our love of writing, photography…the fact that we can talk endlessly and never feel as if we are running out of things to talk about or just sit quietly with each other and not a word need to be said. Our parenting perspectives and philosophies being so in line with each other…The fact that he makes me feel beautiful and cherished for the first time in my life as well as the fact that he accepts my fawning over him without making me feel like a “silly girl.” SO MUCH works effortlessly so I guess this is why we keep trying to get through the periodic rough spots that really have nothing to do with him.

So why am I telling YOU all this? When have I ever really held back lol. This is part of my weight loss journey. I believe my serious issues with weight began all those years ago when men started showing way too much interest in a young girl whose body looked years older. I will blog more about this (I promise), but I’m realizing that I am just beginning to face needing to DEAL with these feelings without food for the first time in my life. I think that is why I’m so caught off guard and overwhelmed by them when they seem to come out of nowhere; because I am no longer numbing them with food. This is an important realization because I need to make sure that I don’t start trying to numb them with something else…alcohol, drugs, whatever. I realize that this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what I have to deal with and I am acutely aware that I am most definitely not immune to using other vices to cope now that food is no longer a real option.

I’ve mentioned that I had started drinking a glass of wine each night which is extremely out of character for the old Michelle. The new Michelle can easily see how I could start to replace food with wine…something I NEVER thought was possible. One glass became two a few nights a week and one night when I was home for the evening, I downed a bottle and started on a second and realized I was doing what I had always had a hard time accepting about Erik when he drank. Not all the time, but frequently I’ve seen him keep drinking and drinking and drinking until there was nothing left to drink and I never understood it. Why would you want to do that to yourself? Here I was, realizing that I was doing the same thing and the next day I really thought about WHY I was doing it.

I’ve cut myself back to one glass a night and made myself an appointment to see a counselor. Unfortunately, I discovered that I had a huge deductible to meet before insurance would kick in so I’m going to try to find something through the Archdiocese or some other sliding scale program, but I am seeking professional help to help me cope with the issue of transference and cope with the feelings I’ve been stuffing down with food all these years in a healthy way. Obviously, blogging here would be a good tool, if I sat down to do it, but of course, avoiding my blog is another way of avoiding coping with these feelings. Avoidance is avoidance.

So, here is me..trying to share some of the really vulnerable bits I’ve been struggling with in the last few months. I will try to get back in the habit of doing this more regularly because we all know how obviously therapeutic it is for me.

Yikers!! Out to the theater tonight :)

Hi guys, been overwhelmed with a multitude of things this week which is why I haven't blogged. Some of it I can't really talk about and the rest just required an almost marathon session of writing and I just haven't had the time. I am currently preparing for another date with my new guy; he's taking me to the theater to see a romantic comedy (this is a play, not a movie) and I'm so nervous!! I feel like I'm getting ready for the prom or something. I wanted to wear this new dress I got, but erik said I looked weird in a dress (he hasn't seen me in much more than tshirts and tshirt capri pants) so now I feel uncomfortable wearing the dress :( I will have to find an excuse to wear it though before I outgrow it. If you go to this link, I bought the black one, not the floral.

I decided to go with this top in blue and a pair of dress slacks with heels. I think I'll feel more comfortable and if there is extended walking, I think I won't be so worried about the dress flying up or something.

We are actually coming up on our 2nd month anniversary :S Sometimes it feels like so much longer and sometimes it feels like it was only yesterday. I'm much more comfortable with him and really enjoying the time we spend together. Just keep your fingers crossed for me that I ....I don't even know what to ask you to keep your fingers crossed for, but do me a favor and cross them anyway lol.

I have also scheduled an appt with a psychologist next week in hopes that I can begin to work on a ton of issues...tanner, erik, this new relationship, the weight loss (am I forgetting anything?). I hope to update tomorrow guys. Pray I don't kill myself in these heels!

Whenever I start to get too big for my britches (speaking completely figuratively of course) or begin to think “Who YOU lookin’ at” when I look in the mirror, I can always count on my pedicurist/manicurist to knock me down the obligatory peg or two. Lucky for me, I subject myself to this ritual at least once a month, twice if I’m working hard.

Some of my longtime readers might remember this story, this one, and this one. As much as I truly do enjoy the place I go to get my nails done…they certainly have a very different way of expressing their opinions on my weight loss journey. Lucky for them, I have a sense of humor.

Last Friday, I scheduled a day of beauty maintenance which included a stop at Ann’s to get my nails done. I don’t know why they call it “Ann’s” because I don’t think anyone that works there is named “Ann.” The two women that work there go by “Micky” and “Ruby” but I’m pretty sure those weren’t their given names, just the names I think they chose so we wouldn’t constantly stumble over the names they were born with. I like going to this particular salon because they actually do seem interested in getting to know their customers even with a language barrier and they are really nice people. We talk about our kids and when they start talking to each other in their native language, I never worry that they are talking about how horrible my feet are or how fat my fingers are.

I was actually having a lot of conflicted emotions while I was there going back and forth in my head about this new guy I was seeing and wondering if I was doing the right thing. I was trying to put on a brave face, as if I didn’t have a care in the world, but inside I was growing more and more uneasy. We had a day planned together the next day and I was just starting to feel all this anxiety and well, you know the rest of the story. I made it through getting my nails done talking to a childhood friend, Belinda who stopped by to get her nails done around the same time. About the time my nails were done, Belinda left and I went over to get my pedicure.

Micky apparently hadn’t done my pedicure since I’d lost all this weight. She had a baby around the time I started going back and Ruby took over doing my nails. I sat down in the chair, looking forward to relaxing and enjoying the chair massage. Micky came over and pulled a foot out to start taking off the polish and smiled up at me and said, “You lose lot of weight!” Smiling in that “Oh P’shaw!” way I said “Oh yeah, that” *rolls eyes* “I’ve lost some since I saw you last I think.” *BIG SMILE acting like Scarlet O’Hara saying “What? this old thing?”* She takes my calf in her hand and says “Yeah! I remembah’ you come in first time and” *puffing her cheeks out to emphasize this next bit* “your leg was MUCH BIGGAH!” Trying not to spit out the sip of water I’d just taken, I smile awkwardly and say “Thank you???” Taking that as her queue to bestow more back handed compliments upon me, Micky gives me a bigger smile and said “Oh Yeah! Your leg much smallah’ now! Used to be BIG, MUCH BIGGER! You look bettah’ now!” Again, I take a deep breath, sigh, smile and say “Thank you :)”

So, if anybody is worried that some day I might get a big head as my body continues to shrink; FEAR NOT…the faithful employees at Ann’s will keep me well grounded!

As usual, Michelle should learn to never say "Never"

I’ve sat down to write several times in the last week and have even gotten half way through a post several times only to leave it to come back to and just never got back. I think I’ve been struggling for a few reasons. First of all, whenever I say I’m NOT going to talk about something in my blog (most recently it’s been my love life), I find that it stifles the desire to write at all. Part of me feels as if it has been gagged and bound and thrown into the closet and the rest of me has to go on and act as if everything else is hunky dory and well, I’ve never been that great of a liar…ask anyone that knows me…my mom used to joke that she never had to pressure me to own up to a dishonesty because eventually, I’d just own up to it and spill my guts at her feet. My conscience has always been the size of Texas.

Anyway, I realize that there is nothing that says I have to share EVERYTHING here, but when I put these self-imposed stipulations on what I can and can’t talk about, it just seems to stifle the rest of me and anything I wind up writing sounds shallow, hollow and just dry as dirt. So, most of the writing I’ve done in the past week has found itself in the waste basket (of course they’ve actually found themselves in the Window’s recycle bin…I mean who actually rips paper out of a typewriter, crumples it up and pitches it in a waste basket anymore?)

So, I guess I’m just going to talk about whatever comes to mind and try not to edit myself too much for content and see where it gets me. Probably a novel of a post, but considering I seem to be posting once a week if I’m lucky, you guys are owed a nice long one. I’ll try to make it interesting :)

On the weight loss and exercise front, I am down to around 306-307 (YAY!), but have been pretty crappy about the exercise (BOO!). I’m super excited that I will be leaving the 300’s forever in hopefully a few weeks, but disappointed that I’ve been so lazy when it comes to the exercise. We just had some new neighbors move in next door and one of them is a young mom that seems super nice. Her kidlets are adorable as well and I was talking to her yesterday about maybe going walking with me. I may run over there later and see if she’d like to join Tanner and me.

I still want to get back on the P90 thing too. I was going fairly well (for a whole three days lol) and then got sidetracked, with work or some other convenient excuse I’m sure. I’m really starting to see my body change as the weight comes off and while I know NO amount of exercise is going to make this skin shrink up or give me the gorgeous ta-ta’s I want, it sure won’t hurt things and when I do get around to getting plastic surgery, at least I’ll have a nice firm shape to show off once everything is tightened back up. Here is one plastic surgeon.I’m evaluating. The link should take you to an article where she basically details the plastic surgery post-bariatric patients often opt for and even gives a time-line. Using her BMI calculator, I need to be around 185 lbs before we can talk about surgery. I’m going to see if I can get in to see her closer to 220 though because I have such a huge bone structure, she may want to revise when I’d be ready to start. Honestly, at 220 most people guessed me at 160. Maybe I just carry the weight well, but I also think I have the bone structure of a cro-magnon. I know I’m going to always be scarred for life, but I really don’t care at this point. I’m just looking forward to getting my body as close to what it should have been had I never put it through the yo-yo dieting of the last 35 years.

Now for the bits I’ve been avoiding…Yes, I am seeing someone at the moment. He is the writer/photographer/intellectual guy I met on one of the dating sites. You may remember that I had contacted him and one other man after closing my main account to see if they might be interested in being friends once I decided I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I heard back from both, but really only seemed to click with this particular man. We sent pages and pages of emails getting to know each other and discovering that we shared the same sense of humor, values, parenting ideology (he has a daughter about 9 days younger than Tanner), etc. We met several times as friends and the more I got to know him, the more I wanted to know. He is extremely sweet and thoughtful and unlike the few others I encountered in the online dating realm, completely respectful of my boundaries. This poor guy has had to deal with me slamming on the brakes time and time again in the last month or so as something would spook me, making me question whether I was doing the right thing in even pursuing a relationship period.

So far, it doesn’t take much to spook me apparently. I’ve already gotten the obvious questions about his sexuality out of the way and he took that like a champ assuring me that he is most definitely straight. Of course, having heard this before in my marriage and having countless other str8 spouses report the same from spouses in denial, I’m not as inclined to accept things at face value. However, I do believe him. Of course now I'm just waiting for him to admit a desire to dress up in my lingerie or perhaps as an adult baby with me playing the role as nanny. He's given me absolutely no reason to suspect something like this, but I guess I've been somewhat conditioned to expect the worst.

Despite all of this, I am finding that my hesitation and need to take things extremely slow probably have less to do with my experience in my marriage and more to do with my experiences as a young girl growing up in a body that looked years older than the girl inside.

Last night I was with him and all he did was kiss me and after a few minutes, I could feel the old need to bolt begin to build inside. I like him. I’m attracted to him (physically and otherwise) and I was enjoying the kiss; yet, all of a sudden…I just began to feel like I wanted to run and just keep running. He could sense this and just came out and asked me if I was ok. I was honest with him and explained how I was feeling and he immediately reassured me, sat back and just started talking to me. While sipping on some wine, we spent the next two or three hours just talking (about various things…not just my feelings or where we were headed, etc). Basically, we just enjoyed each other’s company, and he put no pressure on me for anything more than that. Our evening ended with a nice hug, a quick kiss and a final whispered reminder from him about how special he thought I was (yeah he’s that sweet). He seems ok with the snail’s pace our relationship seems to be moving so I’m going to try and just accept that maybe I actually found the elusive male who can control himself when he feels the outcome is worth the wait.

Who knows if this is the right time for me to be pursuing this? I am going to be looking more seriously into finalizing my divorce with Erik. Even though it is just a formality, I think it is a necessary formality; even if I wasn’t involved with someone and even though our living arrangement won’t change any time soon.

I have no idea where this is going with this other man and I’m honestly trying to not look too far into the future because that scares the hell out of me too. All I know is that I like this person for many reasons and while it may be the wrong time, I’d hate to pass on something promising because circumstances are less than ideal. Working through these issues is going to happen sooner or later and pausing things right now just means I’ll have to pick them up later; possibly with someone who won’t be as understanding or accommodating. And yes, I will be looking into finding a professional to talk to about all my “issues.” Not just in regards to my fears when it comes to men, but how that all relates to my weight issues because…duh! Doesn’t take a psychologist to see the connection there does it?

Half Way to Goal, Dropping Out and other changes

Hi guys, yes I have been very absent, but I have been very overwhelmed as well. I think I just decided to withdraw from school for the time being. I’m not so mad or disappointed about that, I just hate that it was an expensive lesson for me to learn. I’ve been so overwhelmed trying to work the same amount of hours (because Erik quit his day job) AND study AND be a mom AND …have a social life to some degree and it just isn’t working. Right now we don’t have a penny until Erik gets paid Friday and I know his check is going to be pretty paltry because he’s had to miss a few days when I had my lab along with some other days when Tanner was just having a bad day.

That’s the other issue…Tanner hasn’t adjusted all that well to all the change since we started school. All the days Erik has had to stay home, our evening routine disturbed because I’m always studying now. Both of us short of temper because we are both spread too thin (some of us more than others), etc. He’s had some outbursts at school that we haven’t seen in a while and his attitude at home has kind of started to suck as well. Yesterday though he cracked me up… I was on the phone with a friend and he was in his room playing his wii when his dad made his nightly phone call to touch base with him and say goodnight. Tanner missed the call, but was apparently VERY annoyed that Erik was calling. The next thing I know I hear Tanner saying:

“Dad! I was playing my game and you were CALLING and FREAKING DISTURBING ME! …ok I love you goodbye”

The first part was said in the snottiest voice I’ve ever heard him use and the final statement “ok I love you goodbye” as if the former hadn’t happened at all LOL. While I’m reaming Tanner a new one and insisting that he turn the game off and call his dad to apologize, I get the following text from Erik:

“Omg, I have to play Tans voicemail for you. Kid cracks me up!”

Apparently he thought Tanner was joking, but even when he found out he wasn’t, he still thought it was funny. Not to Tanner’s face of course, but behind his back, we played the voicemail a few times and got a good laugh out of it. Like I said in my facebook status: “Sometimes you have to laugh so they can make it to the ripe old age of 18.”

One thing that happened in the last week is that I hit my HALF WAY TO GOAL MARK!! I hit 312 last Friday and I’ve been hovering there ever since! I have been exercising more and stared P90, but that has been off and on as well, often taking a backseat to my studies. I definitely plan to get back with the program if I do decide to drop my classes (which has all pretty much been decided at this point). I can’t believe I have 12 more pounds to lose to get under 300 lbs for the first time since Tanner was born back in 1995. As a matter of fact, 312 was the weight I was at WHEN I entered the hospital to have Tanner, so this is a milestone in more ways than one really. I remembered when I was between 440 and 465 thinking it was ridiculous that I fantasized about weighing what I weighed when I was pregnant. I mean, who does that?

Other than being extremely stressed out, I’ve been feeling great. I’ve been getting out and actually had a lovely evening out for dinner Friday night ;) And that’s all I’m going to say about that!

Thanks for hanging in there with me even though I’ve been horrible about updating as of late. I would imagine that will change. I’ve been sorting through a LOT in my head the last week or so and I expect to do quite a bit of my typical “blogging it out” over the next week.