Weeds, Ants, and Vodka. Without the Vodka

As a snippet of my "Independence Weekend of Late-April 2015," I engaged in another oft-forgotten task.  

Weeding.  Ughhhhhhhh.

We bought a new construction house that was built almost two years ago.  The builders sodded the yard and while we've had the boasting golf green of a lawn these past two years, the grass grows quickly.  

Like, if it even thinks of raining 100 miles from here, Jack has to mow.  

A side effect of this awesome lawn is that it frequently encroaches on the bricked-in flower and shrubbery beds I lovingly created last year.  Time to pull those bastardly grass roots from my landscaping.  

Whenever I complete this particular chore, I'm sore for approximately 5 days.  And 13 hours and about 20 minutes.  So I have to plan it accordingly, when I don't have to do a lot of squatting, standing, or stairs.  

It's probably a sign that one should exercise more when such weeding makes one afraid to have to sit on/get up from the toilet.  Eek.  Yes, I just said that.

So there I go this morning, weeding the flower beds.  Because everything has been neglected for a while (thank you school and wicked crazy job), the weeds were overgrown and the roots ran deep.  As I sorted through them, using my bare fingernails to isolate the weedy offenders, I got to thinking.  As much as I need to weed my flower beds, I need to weed my soul.  And my emotions.  And my physical presence.  

All of the stress of these last few years have taken their toll on me.  I'm about 10 pounds above my favored weight (okay, maybe 12.  15?).  I love my "new" body but I really cannot afford to purchase several suits in my volumptuous size.  Seriously...curves rock and I've never really felt sexy before this point in my life.  But my entire wardrobe is one size and I finally caved and purchased a few pairs of black dress pants in my "more lovely" larger size.  I really don't care...I have made it this far in my life and if people are going to judge me for my body, go ahead and judge away.  I have nothing to prove to anyone.  If I'm at home in my body, that's all I have to worry about.  

Pontificating aside, I want to feel better.  I want to be able to randomly run a mile or two without dying or thinking my limbs are going to turn to pure, white hot ash as I push my body into some oblivious state of crap bag.  So this "physical weeding" involves the uprooting of some not so healthy habits.  I love midnight nachos.  Midnight nachos have gotta go.  One of my BFF's, Nurse Starbucks, agreed to help keep me accountable.  No nachos.  Oh, and no Cadbury eggs that I *may* have stashed in case a rainy day presented itself.  More exercise.  Fewer carbs.  I'm here to *clap* wreck your foodie husband's gourmet meals [that sort of rival Paula Dean in the butter department.]

Emotional weeding is going to involve the uprooting of negative, self-doubting thoughts.  My self-talk has improved drastically over the last year but I still feel those awful twinges of workaholism, nipping at my heels, like a pretend demon chasing me up the stairs at night [we all think like that, right?].  That voice that sarcastically reminds me that, "you only have value if you're working and accomplishing something!"  It sucks.  I hate that voice and its sultry reminders that constant productivity will make me happy!  Fulfilled!  Yeah, right.  Please pass the blood pressure meds.  Part of my challenge with this new position has been to tell that stupid voice that it has no power over me.  Yet, it does.  It sneaks in, like an odor that you don't notice is there until your whole kitchen smells like rotten Chinese food and you're wondering who forgot to clean out the fridge.  I have to keep reminding myself that my job has changed (drastically).  I'm no longer scored by the number of tasks I complete, the number of construction projects I successfully wrap (on time and under budget, thank you), or people I fire.   I'm now judged on...well....I don't really know.  Being an ethical human and helping those in our healthcare ministry discern the course of our patients' lives or clinical circumstances.  

Yeah, no pressure.  But it makes it hard to establish measurable goals.  Hmmm....should my dashboard read "successfully avoided abortions" or "people we have counseled into allowing their parents to die with dignity and peace?"  Sure.  Why not?

I'm still trying to uproot the awful weed of workaholism.  I'm not well versed in other addictions but I do think workaholism drains one's very soul.  You have no value as a human being without having accomplished something for your company.  It's so sad...and yet I see myself strugging with that stupid temptation.  This is an area full of weeds...needing a lot of attention as I continue to heal from hospital ops and progress into my new life.  I read a "nouveau" book from one of my former radiologists called the "Four Agreements."  I don't agree with the theology in the book but it makes a few great points.  Most namely, that people wake up in the morning thinking about themselves.  Not you.  Or me.  So odds are, we have no need to worry about what others think about us because about 97.8% of the time, they're thinking about themselves.  If you consider this, it's true.  I am so hard on myself but no one usually appreciates the self-depreciating sentiments I give myself when re-hashing a conversation or thinking about a critical interaction with another.  They're worried about their own self-depreciating sentiments.  

I guess that's sort of a relief.  

The last big area, spiritual weeding, has a life of its own.  I don't mean to get religious but sin (or bad habits) remind me of when you find those tiny ants in your kitchen.  You see one small one, then two, then 14, then all of the sudden, you have a line of them going across your counter (where you forgot to clean up the maple syrup you spilled at brunch).  Each tiny choice throughout the day matters.  Each small decision about what to eat, what to think, what to feel, what will offend you, not offend you, etc. gets you to some larger destination.  I don't want to worry about having to flick ants off the counter.  I want to put some bug deterrent around the base of my house so bugs can't even get inside.  At the very least, I want to be able to recognize when an ant or two has somehow gotten into the kitchen so I can find the source and mend it there.  

It's a Sunday night and even despite attending the "last chance" mass at 6pm and finishing chores at 9 pm, I don't have a case of the Sunday's.  

I have a lot of gardening and weeding to do.  But I'm ready to start shaping the beautiful mess that I've become.

Unreal Kitchen

I've been dreaming of this day for the past few years...Drooling over the prospect of having a Saturday to do what I want without looming paper deadlines and theological books and papers I "ought" to be reading.  Despite meeting those deadlines, there was always more I could have read and never felt finished with schoolwork, to the point that it left my mind.  

Probably just part of my neuroses!

So how did I spend my first Saturday, truly off since about 2007?

[Please don't judge.]

I watched a certain (and will remain nameless) 90's movie featuring Alicia Silverstone.  Then Jack came downstairs and turned on the Cooking Channel.  I don't usually care about food, I don't enjoy cooking, and it's not something I consider a hobby.  But I felt entranced by Bobby Flay's brunch offerings.  I called one of my BFF's and as we hung up, I noticed that a new show had begun: "Real Girls' Kitchen."  The "star" on it was surprisingly inviting and charming.  Upon googling her, I found that I was shamelessly watching Haylie Duff.  There's something magnetic about her "real kitchen" in which she makes a "skinny salad" in her Malibu beachhouse.  

Um, okay.  Yeah, that's real, Haylie.  After I finish filming movies, I ALSO retreat to my oceanside beachhouse and eat microgreens before my personal boxing trainer comes to whip my butt into shape in my open-air Italian garden.  Yup.  It's like we're cut from the same cloth.  

But I can't help it.  I absolutely refuse to watch the Kardashian's but the Duff's are really cute.  In their "unreal" kitchen.  And hey, if I ever want to rent out an entire restaurant in Manhattan for my mom's birthday, I know how to do that now.  

I can't even articulate the feeling of peace I have today.  Not just because my degree is FINALLY done, but because work has also downshifted.  Instead of 500 emails a day and 10 hours of meetings (and then catching up on said emails during the evening hours), my days are now either crazy or dead.  I'm either having a 15 hour day with hundreds of miles of driving and life or death decisions or I'm hanging out at home, watching the morning news because I don't have a meeting until 9 or 10 a.m. and can easily monitor incoming emails from my lovely iPhone.

The treadmill is now a leisurely walk.  I can run if I want to, but I control the pace.  I lunched with a colleague on Thursday (another revolution...In my 6 years in hospital operations, I think I left campus for lunch MAYBE 10 times.  Most of the battle was that you lose your parking spot and would have to walk 15 minutes back to your office - all while being windblown and hurried.  Yeah, I'll stick to my trail mix that I throw back in my office.  My new life enables me to meet my awesome hubby for lunch iin downtown Indy.  In fact, this week, we are lunching at "Goose, the Market" on Friday. )  So anyway, my colleageue is still on the treadmill.  She confided that she sought out the help of a therapist and is debating a career change because things just keep moving faster and faster and she feels the treadmill is hurting her personhood.  

Her personhood?  The core of her being as a human?  Ouch.

When something hurts your personhood, I agree, it is time for a change.  But on the "other side" of the treadmill, things look far different.  Sure, I have to drive at least 500 miles a week and am pretty much on call 24/7, but I can sleep in.  My boss trusts me and does not micro-manage (whew...SUCH a welcome change).  I miss my staff but this position has already been so much more "me."  I've been healing these past two months and replenishing my energy.  I'm amazed at how depleted I let myself become. Despite the major life change that a new job entails and the grief in the loss of a parent, I cannot remember feeling this well in years.  

I also haven't touched my Ambien.  All of the sudden, I can sleep.  How novel.

So what if I'm spending today with Haylie Duff?  We hosted a dinner party last night and are joining in a neighborhood card party tonight.  A little Haylie won't hurt anything.  Just pass me the keys to her beach house.  And help me save my reputation!

I Should Mop the Floor

I'm usually not a procrastinator.  I'm usually one of those nervous types who does everything in the house, makes sure everything is perfect, then collapses in a heap to sleep.  "Do what you have to do so that you can do what you want to do" is my normal motto.  No playing until the work is complete.

However, my procrastination is rearing its awful head on this beautiful, 75-degree Saturday in Indianapolis.  It's my LAST Saturday of having to study and do schoolwork.  I have a four-hour moral theology exam on Wednesday night and I've been working on a 54 question study guide for the last several weeks.  I have 11 questions left and it might as well feel like I have to pen a Calculus textbook or some equally impossible academic task.  Plus, I have to study "Vertitatis Splendor" which is a mile-long papal encyclical.  

I've already cleaned the kitchen, started laundry, put a pork roast in the crock pot, and sprayed weeds in the lawn.  

[See?  I'm desperate.  I normally do not touch the lawn nor do I cook.]

But it keeps ringing in my head that joke about graduating doctors.  "What do you call the person who graduates last in medical school?"  

"Doctor."

"What do you call the person who graduates last in an ethics degree?"

"Ethicist."

I already have the job I have dreamed of since college when I figured out what "ethics" even is.  I only thought that distinguished PhD's and tenured professors could call themselves "ethicists."  And here I am, neither of those things and I just received my business card proof with my new title and additional degree after my name.  It felt surreal...I really don't feel smart and it caused a semi-identity crisis to see this person represented on a card.  

While my healthcare system has requested that I work towards a PhD in moral theology or ethics, I am definitely taking a year or two off.  I did the math the other day; with the exception of age 0-5 (when I started Kindergarten), I have been in school for all but five years of my life.  Part of that is because I had to take 1 or 2 classes at a time as I worked full-time (and in this ethics degree, could only take one class because of my insane work schedule and the heady subject matter that made me inwardly cringe and ratchet up the stomach acid).  

But man, I cannot wait to blare Alice Cooper's "School's Out" on Wednesday after I finish my exam.  Even though I have a comprehensive exam this summer, it does not involve the regurgitation of Aquinas' logic or biblical exegesis.  Thank the Lord.

With that, time to stop procrastinating and nail these last 11 questions. 

Hmm.  Maybe it's time to empty the trash and trim the shrubs in the front of the house!