From Frustration to Fireflies

Ok, I'm back now and feeling a little more mellow. Before my dinner disaster I had a pretty good day. I went to my parents house and mowed the front and back yards of their house and their rental house next door. That was the first time I've mowed any grass in about 15 years. I'm not going to lie and say I enjoyed it, but it made me feel good to help my parents out, and I did have a feeling of accomplishment in the activity department when I finally got it finished.

I got home around 1-1:30p and had a half-hearted lunch of cheesesticks, hummus and crackers, mainly because I was too tired to stand in the kitchen and chop up veggies for a salad. I told you in my last post that I was wanting some restaurant food, so I was trying to use as few calories as possible during the day so I'd have a lot left at dinnertime in case I caved and did something stupid. I attempted to do the right thing and cook a healthy meal for my roommate and I, but we all know how that turned out. (Side note: After eating his turkey burger for dinner last night, Shane told me he now prefers turkey burger over ground beef. Just last week he told me he now prefers brown rice over white rice. We're making progress!)

I've been picking around, eating different stuff for dinner, trying to satisfy something that just isn't going to be satisfied tonight. I ate the asparagus and brown rice I fixed. I also cooked an egg and cheese sandwich and had that. Then I made some coffee and drank 2 cups of it, trying to make my stomach feel full so I'd stop eating.

I sent Dwayne a text and told him what happened to dinner and that I was having such a hard day. He sent a text back that said, "Don't cry over spilled milk." I can't tell you how bad that crawled under my skin. I swear, if he would of said, "Don't cry over spilled scallops" I would have crawled through that phone and beat him half to death. It's not treadmill day but I went down there anyway to burn off some frustration. I did a mile but this time I varied my speed between 3.4, 3.7 and 4.0. Yesterday I did my mile in 17:30, tonight I did it in 15:50. That felt good.

Goal Stats:

Calories 1750
Carbs 250
Fat 60
Protein 136

Today's Stats:

Calories 1539
Carbs 172
Fat 49
Protein 103

Here's my food intake for the day:

Turkey burger (whole wheat sandwich thin, lite mayo, ketchup)

2 lowfat mozzarella cheesesticks
Crackers & roasted pine nut hummus
1 can of Coke

1 c. brown rice
1/2 c. steamed asparagus
Egg & cheese sandwich (2 whole eggs, 1/4 c. red. fat ched. chz, 1 tbsp. lite mayo, sourdough)
2 c. coffee w/ sugar-free creamer

Lots of water
1 protein water

When I got back from my walk I went inside and made the coffee, fixed a cup, grabbed my puppy and went outside to sit on my porch. I was sitting there reflecting on the day, glad I came in under my calorie limit again, but wondering why some days have to be so hard. That's when I saw them. Fireflies. Or as we used to call them when we were kids....lightning bugs. :) Immediately I was transported back to my childhood.

My Maw Maw passed away a couple of months ago after a long struggle with Alzheimer's. Tonight was the first memory I've had of her since her death that I've smiled instead of cried. When I was a child we lived in Jacksonville, FL and would come up to Acworth, Ga. to visit my Maw Maw and Paw Paw. Sometimes the visits were during the summer months. I remember those hot summer nights. My grandparents didn't have air conditioning in their house so they would pull a string on the ceiling in the hallway and a loud attic fan would come on and send a breeze through the house. When it got dark out, my two sisters and I would go outside in their yard with our Mason jars, poke "air holes" in the lid, and capture lightning bugs. When we went to bed we'd sit them beside us on a little table, staring at them with child-like wonder. With the drone of the attic fan and the glow of the fireflies, we'd drift off into a peaceful slumber. To this day, that is still some of the best sleep I've ever had. 'Night all. :)

Quote For The Day:

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." -Helen Keller