Torn

A little torn.

Erik and I were talking about marriage again last night. I have nasty depression, only made worse post-partum, and it's struck hard this week. One of those times was Thursday night. We ended up fighting and I ended up self-harming a little, just causing myself pain. It's an old habit from high school that I had pretty much overcome. It's not a big deal, no one freak out. It's not even the focus of this post.

I'm working on it. And Erik knows about it. What I'm trying to get to is the discussion we had last night. We started talking about marriage again, which we had discussed Wednesday when he got the first interview. I asked him if Thursday night's events had made him doubt at all if he wanted to get married, or wonder if we would make it on a forever basis, or if he could handle being with me (I've got issues, dude), or anything like that. He told me no, all couples fight. I pointed out that we never do (we seriously never do, but he actually raised his voice at me during our fight Thursday), and he pointed out all the stress we'd been under, which is more than simply being new parents. Then I asked the question again, asking specifically if my self-harming changed anything and he still said no, just that it scared him a little.

I didn't want to get into it too much last night, so I became more pleasant and up-beat and told him I wanted to call him fiancé. I want to have that. And he pointed out not having a ring. I'm not honestly sure how much that matters to me. I do want a wedding band, but I've never been big on diamonds. Blood diamonds and all. Maybe a pearl or a white sapphire. And while thinking about that, I remembered the claddagh ring I own. It didn't really fit while pregnant, of course, but it might now. So I hopped up and found it and put it on my left ring finger and showed him. He teased me and said, "Yeah, but that doesn't count. I didn't give it to you." And I told him it did count. But he kept saying, "It doesn't count." And I know that a) he's right and b) he was just teasing me, but it kind of hurt. I tried not to show it. I told him it didn't matter, I just wanted to be moving forward with him. He said bluntly, "It's going to be a long engagement."

That's where it really hurt. I don't think he knows how much that hurt. Instantly it ran through my head: Aren't we going to get married if he gets this job (and benefits)? I had told him, Wednesday, straight up that I don't care about having a ceremony. We could have a party in the backyard (it's a beautiful backyard) with our family and friends. I just want to go down to the courthouse and sign my name away. I just want to be married to him.

Plus, I need the insurance. I need mental health support and soon the Celexa will be coming out of our pocket - and the script expires in November anyway. He told me he didn't want to do it for that reason, that it cheapens it. Thing is, we need it. Plain and simple. And it wouldn't be us hurrying despite what I really wanted because of it - it'd be doing what I really wanted (hurrying) and using it as an excuse. I want this.

He said something else, though, something I honestly barely caught. He asked me, "Can't you let me be the man? Get the ring, take you somewhere romantic, surprise you?"

Can't I let him be the man...

Honestly, I hadn't thought about that. I didn't know he wanted that. I wanted a surprise proposal and a ring, but that doesn't really matter anymore. We have a kid. We have medical needs, too. It's important. So now I'm torn. I don't want to take away anything he wanted just like he doesn't want to take away anything I wanted. But doesn't the urgency justify it? If it can get me the help I need, isn't that what matters most?

So I'm torn. I want to give him what he wants, and I do want the ring and the surprise. I even want the wedding, but that's not important to me anymore. But isn't what we need to happen more important? How do I not rush him and take away what's important to him while still pulling off what's important? How do I balance all of this?

Pixel of Ink (Product Pimping)

Baby girl is asleep, though who knows how much longer. I know you're supposed to sleep when they sleep, but it's nearly noon, I have laundry to do, and I actually got a decent night's sleep since Erik took care of her when she was awake.

However, I wanted to share something. Eight of the fourteen books I've read so far in my "read a 1000 new books" bucket list goal were completely free! I got them on Amazon for my Kindle. They aren't free anymore (though they are very cheap), but plenty of others are. I found them thanks to the handy-dandy Pixel of Ink Facebook page. They have a website that each FB post links to and they post free or discounted Kindle and Nook books, sometimes quite a few posts in one day. The books only stay free or on sale for a day or two, so you want to snatch up anything you want quickly. It's totally the best site for readers I've found out there.

Anyway, now Ever's awake. I need to get dressed and get her breakfast. Maybe afterwards she'll let me get some laundry done and some food of my own? Yeah... Probably not...

Fingers Still Crossed (Update)

He had his interview yesterday. Apparently it went very, very well. He's moving on to a second interview with the big guy. Also, because of his prior experience working nights at FedEx for eight years, the guy said Erik is their first choice - for the full time position! I'm pretty sure that would guarantee benefits - and a shiny ring. :)

And as yesterday was Thursday, there's another update I'm supposed to give. I got WIC set up for Ever and her formula and they weighed me and I was 237. A gain of four pounds. No good. But not gonna beat myself up over it. No pictures this week. I don't think I'll do those weekly, but I will try to weigh myself every week.

The end!

Fingers Crossed

Excited!

So Erik is in school to become a strength and conditioning coach, if he gets it. It's one of those hit or miss jobs, but if he doesn't have success getting with a team or anything, he can still have a ton of success working for a gym as a personal trainer or even opening his own fitness center. At least, I guess that's what his major leads to. XD It really is confusing to me.

He's been working at Best Buy in inventory for a while now. It's not great, but it pays the bills. Some of them anyway lol. He's been bidding on an overnight desk job at the local Lifetime fitness to get his foot in the door with a gym. He's been trying for months, every time something opened up. (It emails him when something at Lifetime opens up.) No luck. Then today we were on our way to his mom's house - Ever and I are going to hang here until he's off work because he works late on Tuesdays and she's going through an awful growth spurt, plus my own mom isn't home to help this week - and he got a call out of the blue from them. They want to interview him Thursday!

We need this so bad I can't even express it. We're barely scraping by, living with my parents. Neither of us have insurance. I got Medicaid while pregnant, but it expires six weeks post-partum and I'm not sure if I can get it back. I don't work enough to qualify for the Community Health Center for the working poor. He doesn't have any insurance and he has minor health problems and bad vision. He needs new glasses and contacts. He also has a couple cavities and I haven't been able to go to the dentist in so long that I've lost two molars from very old cavities. Yes, disgusting, I know. And to top it off, the most pressing problem is that I have depression and it's only been worsened post-partum. I need to get counseling and I only have a prescription through November for my anti-depressants. I'll have to pay out of pocket once Medicaid ends, too, and I don't know if I can afford that.

Plus we have a new baby. Thank God she gets TenderCare through the state since neither of us has insurance.

I'm also looking at a job that will end up with benefits because it's at St. Jude's. (A hospital, the children's cancer research hospital in Memphis if you haven't heard of it.) But I'm not cleared yet for work yet and it's still not guaranteed. Erik's mom works there and can get me in to talk to the guy, but it depends on if there's even a position open. If Erik could get this job, there's a chance he'll have benefits. Still, it's not technically full time, so I'm not sure if it will.

We're not married yet. I wouldn't have qualified for Medicaid as a family. I might qualify without being pregnant, so we'd need to stay unmarried. But if he or I gets a job with benefits, we can finally do it. Well, I say finally. We've only been together a year and two months July 1st. But it feels like ages and we had a kid together now. We were talking about it in the truck after his phone call. We both ended up grinning, but by the end of the conversation my face actually hurt from smiling. If he gets this job, and it does provide benefits like he thinks it does, we can get married, and we'll probably do it soon, rather than later. We'll probably just go to a courthouse. That way I can get the mental health care I need right away.

Though, if I don't qualify for Medicaid alone, there's no point in not getting married anymore...

This post has ended up much longer than I intended... I think that happens a lot with me. But I'm just excited and hopeful and trying to be optimistic. Cross your fingers for us!

I end this with an etsy listing for a beautiful and inexpensive wedding band set. I love stuff like this.

Silver Wedding Bands Set Hammered Silver Distressed Squares

Fussy Baby

I want so bad to be asleep right now. Erik took Ever into the game room and let me have a quiet bedroom last night, but I still didn't sleep solidly. I've only slept solidly twice, when my mom took Ever downstairs and let me have a nap or took her all night so Erik and I could both just sleep. When Erik takes her, I still don't relax. I trust him, but he asks me questions a lot. "Should I do this? Should I do it this way? Should I put the swing on swing mode or vibrate mode?" And I'm as clueless as he is. But he's great when he has her on his own and I've slept better each time. Still, I have bad dreams when he's not in the bed with me, so I think that's a part of it.

Anyway, I got up and it was quarter til ten. He had to leave a little after eleven to be to work by twelve and he won't be home until eight. My mom and brother, my two main helpers (especially my mom, but Jon has been amazing these past few days in particular) when Erik's not home, left this morning for a week-long church camp. Ever started out great for a while, but a little after noon she woke up and about an hour and a half later the fussiness was driving me insane. She kept needing something and I didn't have a clue what it was.

Eventually, I went down because my dad's painting the front door and then installed some new porch lights. Since he's painting, there's a film over the door and he asked me to turn the lights on to test them. As I'm standing there in the foyer - the foyer with hardwood floors - Everleigh suddenly begins to vomit all over me. I have yet to figure out whether vomit or poop bothers me more, but at least the poop isn't usually on me. So the vomit gets all over the floor and I scream and begin swearing and my dad, who can't see in through the film, asks what's wrong. I exclaim that she's puking and it got on the floor. Then more puke comes up and I scream some more and run to basically wrap her in a giant beach towel from the laundry room. I'm covered in it, she's covered in it, the floor's covered in it... Thankfully, my dad came around through the garage and back into the house and cleaned up the floor without a word. I stripped her and cleaned her off, then managed to change. But the baby stayed fussy.

Now I finally got her to sleep in the swing, but she wakes up a lot, especially if its awful music times out and turns off. So I can't take advantage of it and nap because I have to keep turning the music back on for her...

And now she just woke up again...

Excavating My Real Self

This is me. Or it was last May when Erik and I first got together. On the right is actually our first date and the day we became an official couple. Please ignore my ridiculous bird impersonation.

I was cute (or at least I felt cute and Erik likes curvy girls). Maybe I would get a nose job if I won the lottery, but I really have come to terms over the years with my wide-bridged schnauz. When my weight is down (I was around 140 in these pictures), my face thins out and even my big Polish nose seems to get a little thinner. I look and feel much, much prettier. Then I find a good hairstylist, a good box of hair dye (I love the newish Jon Frieda foaming stuff you can do yourself - the colors last so well, even the reds!), and a new wardrobe off the Kohl's clearance racks. Ninety percent of looking good is feeling good and I felt amazing.

These are my inspiration pictures.

I want to get back to my happy weight. 140 for me is amazing. I have a muscular, curvy build. I could lose a little more at that point, do some toning especially, but really it was great. Fitting into size ten jeans was incredible. I finally wore a pair of shorts that weren't knee-skimming bermudas and I looked cute. I want to have the body I had when the man I love fell in love with me.

He's great, don't get me wrong. He's never made me feel bad about my weight gain (which honestly started before I got pregnant, after I moved back to Memphis [I had been living in Colorado for the previous ten months which is part of how I lost so much weight to begin with] and was less active because it was summer and horrible) and he'll tell me out of the blue, "You look really cute today in that shirt." He's still massively turned on by me, even with my empty belly overhang, horrid stretch marks, and c-section scar. We made it a whole twelve days before I sent him for condoms and lube and we did the deed again post-partum. It was supposed to be six weeks? Oops.

Still, I want to feel sexy again with my clothes off. I want to get back into my small tops, all packed away in my mom's attic in a bin. I miss my red tube top and cute sundresses. Simply put, I want to be me again, the real me I found out I can be. The real me I'd been covering up with chocolate and carbs because I never felt good about myself. The real me that I didn't know could exist until she ran away and broke out.

It took living with a hot-headed ex that bordered on abusive (definitely manipulative) to make me feel so bad I needed to stop eating, then leaving him and feeling so good I just didn't need to comfort eat and got out more. I was a fat girl all through school and then I managed to lose that. Now it's here again and I will not let Fat Jaclyn win. Fat Jaclyn is not a happy person, not a healthy person. She's not who I want my daughter to grow up with. This time it won't take a bad ex to get myself in shape. Now that I know I can do it, I have a much better inspiration: I want to be able to chase my little girl around, to be a hot mom (I'm only twenty-two for Christ's sake!) and not some frumpy thing who let herself go when she had kids.

So now that I've rambled again, let's get to the bottom line of this post. Every Thursday (since I had my daughter on a Thursday and therefore that marks another week post-partum) I will weigh myself and take pictures of my progress to post on here. I weighed myself yesterday, but fell a little behind and only took the pictures today. Oops. Here it is:

Two things before I continue: First off, my underwear looks so ridiculous because I'm still wearing granny panties after my c-section and I scrunched them down to get the pictures. Second, please refrain from mocking the stickers on my mirror. This was my room growing up and they were all added between ages 13 and 15. We're living with my parents right now.

So I was wrong on my weigh in of 233. It's 233.5. Oh well. I'm still pleased, even if it's 4.5 pounds lost and not five. I'm eating much less than I used to and much, much less than I was while pregnant, so I think it'll help me have a good weigh in next week, too. I actually was very naughty and went in the pool today and swam around, so I'm starting to get more exercise. I think I'm not actually supposed to do that until I'm six or eight weeks post-partum, but I'm healed up really well and I've actually stopped really bleeding, so I said fuck it and hopped in. Totally worth it. It felt so good. Memphis in the summer is hell.

One more thing to wrap this up. Each week, in addition to posting my weight and some pics, I will force myself to find something good to say about my body. So here it is. The dark line that hasn't left yet looks like a cool birthmark or tattoo. Some women don't ever lose theirs, and I think I could live with that.

Bucket List: 1000 New Books

I made a resolution in 2011 to read more that I'm continuing for this year. It caused me to put read a thousand new books (starting January 1st, 2011, on) on my bucket list. I don't know how I'll know if I managed it, though, unless I keep a list somewhere, so I'm doing that here.

1. The Red Queen (2010) by Philippa Gregory
2. My Lady of Cleves: A Novel of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves (1946) by Margaret Campbell Barnes
3. Are Women People?: A Book of Rhymes for Suffrage Times (1915) by Alice Duer Miller
4. Veiled (Veiled Series) (2011) by S.B. Niccum
5. City of Whispers (City of Whispers, #1) (2011) by Katherine Sorin
6. The Hunger Games (2008) by Suzanne Collins
7. Catching Fire (2009) by Suzanne Collins
8. Mockingjay (2010) by Suzanne Collins
9. The Mancode: Exposed (2011) by Rachel Thompson
10. Hollywood Confessions (Hollywood Headlines) (2011) by Gemma Halliday
11. Campaign Promises (2011) by Laurel Osterkamp
12. Always the Baker, Never the Bride: An Emma Rae Creation (2010) by Sandra D. Bricker
13. Sisterhood Everlasting (2011) by Ann Brashares
14. Flirting With Death (Assassins Anonymous Step One) (2011) by Heidi Hall
15. Containment (2010) by Christian Cantrell
16. 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover (2008) by Linda Wisdom
17. The Old City (City of Whispers, #2) (2012) by Katherine Sorin
18. American Dreamer (2011) by Theresa Weir
19. Annie Begins (2011) by Michelle Toth
20. Anon (2011) by Peter Giglio
21. Sundered (A Zombie-ish Apocalypse, Book 1) (2011) by Shannon Mayer
22. Bound (A Zombie-ish Apocalypse, Book 2) (2011) by Shannon Mayer
23. Dauntless (A Zombie-ish Apocalypse, Book 3) (2011) by Shannon Mayer
24. The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken (2011) by Mari Passananti

Rise From the Ashes

Hello, no one.

So I know no one's reading this, but I have delusions of grandeur so I'll try to be interesting. It's 1:48 a.m., so I'm officially three weeks post-partum after having my daughter. I had a c-section after a very strange and easy but unproductive twelve-hour labor. Her name is Everleigh Nicole and she was seven pounds, fourteen ounces, and twenty inches long. She got dark brown hair that has now turned medium darkish brown instead and we have no idea where she got it from because Erik and I are both natural blondes. He's got all sorts of strange colors in his beard, though, and my hair got much darker with age, so I guess if her hair doesn't change colors it's not too weird.

And here I am being weird and rambly.

You'll find I tend to do that a lot. Or you would if you existed. And if you existed I would tell you that I weighed myself today and I was 233 pounds. I was 258 when I went in to deliver her, so so far so good, but I've got a ways to go. My happiest weight was around 140 to 150 early last year before I got pregnant. On the bright side, I'm down five pounds just since last Thursday at my two week check up. I'd say that's something to smile about. And then reward myself with a donut for.

Okay, I'll be good. (And if I'm not, you'll never know because you don't exist, and even if you did you'd live in a computer so I could lie and you'd never know. Take that!)

I'm going to try to record my weight loss on here (if I manage any) with stories and numbers and pictures. Even if you don't exist and I'm talking to no one, maybe it'll be good to have a record. However, this won't just be some super boring diet and exercise journal. First off, I don't diet and I don't exercise. I limit the size fry I order at McDonald's (diet) and work retail (exercise). But I want to develop some healthier habits and keep track of them, so we'll see. Second off, that would be super boring, as already mentioned. I will also be sharing my obsession with super cool Pinterest crafts and what happens when/if I try any (I'm currently excited to find my mom's old stash of broken crayons and the canvases I got last year so I can try this) as well as any experiments and adventures in baking. I love baking, even if I'm just baking homemade dog cookies. (Pretty awesome shit according to my five dogs.) It may go against the whole weight loss thing, but I'm not sure I care that much. What's life without cookies?

So, no one, it's been good talking to you, getting this whole thing started. I'll see you in three weeks when I get lazy and stop posting because I forget I have a blog. Or not. Maybe I'll keep up with this one. I hope so. Delusions of grandeur, remember?

PS - I sign off with this image, found on Pinterest. I figured it fit.